title: Tank destroyer

text: The decision of German armoured vehicle designers to use a casemate-style superstructure for all tank destroyers had the advantage of a reduced silhouette, allowing the crew to more frequently fire from defilade ambush positions. Such designs were also easier and faster to manufacture and offered good crew protection from artillery fire and shell splinters. However, the lack of a rotating turret limited the gun's traverse to a few degrees. This meant that the driver normally had to turn the entire tank onto its target, a much slower process than simply rotating a powered turret. If the vehicle became immobilized due to engine failure or track damage, it could not rotate its gun to counter opposing tanks, making it highly vulnerable to counterfire. This vulnerability was later exploited by opposing tank forces. Even the largest and most powerful of German tank destroyers were found abandoned on the field after a battle, having been immobilized by one or more hits by high explosive (HE) or armour-piercing (AP) shells to the track or front drive sprocket.


title: Tank destroyer

text: The most famous Italian tank destroyer of the Second World War was a self-propelled gun. The Semovente da 75/18, based on the M13/40 frame, was developed to support front-line infantry, and therefore had fixed armament: a 75 mm gun in casemate. However, thanks to its low height (185 cm) and the caliber of its gun the 75/18 also had good results in anti-tank combat, fighting against British and American (but not Soviet) units. After the Armistice of 1943, the 75/18 remained in use by German forces.


title: Tank destroyer

text: Built on the same frame, the Semovente da 105/25 was equipped with a 105 mm gun and known as ""bassotto"" (Italian for dachshund) due to its lower height. As manufacturing began in 1943, the 105/25 was used by German forces. A further development was the Semovente da 75/46, which had a longer gun than the 75/18 and inclined armour 100 mm thick, making it similar to "Sturmgeschütz" III. Only 11 of these were manufactured. Before the Semovente da 75/18, the L40, built on an L6/40 light tank chassis, saw action in Africa and in Russia, but with disappointing results.


title: Tank destroyer

text: The Type 1 Ho-Ni I was the first self-propelled gun design of the Imperial Japanese Army. They were meant to be self-propelled artillery and tank destroyers for armoured divisions. The plan was for the Type 1 Ho-Ni I gun tank to form part of a fire support company in each of the tank regiments. The Type 1 Ho-Ni I was developed by using the existing Type 97 Chi-Ha medium tank chassis and engine, and replacing the gun turret with a Type 90 75 mm field gun mounted in an open casemate with frontal and side armour only. They entered service in 1942 and were first deployed in combat at the Battle of Luzon in the Philippines in 1945. Some were used in static entrenched positions.


title: Tank destroyer

text: A variant, known as the Type 1 Ho-Ni II mounted a Type 91 105 mm howitzer and had a slightly changed superstructure as far as the side armor with re-positioned observation visors. Production began in 1943, with only 54 completed.


title: Tank destroyer

text: The other variant produced was the Type 3 Ho-Ni III, which mounted a Type 3 75 mm tank gun in a completely enclosed armored casemate to address the issue of crew protection in close combat. The welded superstructure had sloped armour and the gun mount had additional stamped armour plate. The total number produced of all three types in the Ho-Ni series were 111 units. Most of the Ho-Ni units were retained within the Japanese home islands to form part of the defenses against the projected American invasion, and did not see combat before the surrender of Japan.


title: Tank destroyer

text: The Type 2 Ho-I Gun tank used the Type 1 Chi-He medium tank chassis. It was designed as a self-propelled howitzer, mounting a short barreled Type 99 75 mm gun to provide close-in fire support. For deployment, the gun tank was intended to be used in a fire support company for each of the tank regiments. No Type 2 Ho-I gun tanks are known to have engaged in combat prior to Japan's surrender. The prototype was built in 1942 and 31 units were produced in 1944.


title: Tank destroyer

text: The Type 4 Ho-Ro self-propelled artillery used a modified Type 97 chassis. On to this platform, a Type 38 150 mm howitzer was mounted. The main gun could fire Type 88 APHE rounds and HEAT rounds. Given its breech loader, the maximum rate of fire was only 5 rounds per minute. The gun's elevation was restricted to 30 degrees by the construction of the chassis. Other design issues included the fact that although the gun crew was protected by a gun shield with armour thickness of 25 mm at the front, the shield only extended a very short distance on the sides; leaving the rest of the sides and back exposed. They were rushed into service, deployed and saw combat during the Philippines Campaign in the last year of World War II. Remaining units were deployed to Okinawa in ones and twos for island defense during the Battle of Okinawa, but were severely outnumbered by American artillery.


title: Tank destroyer

text: As with the Germans of 1943, most of the Soviet designs mounted anti-tank guns, with limited traverse in casemate-style turretless hulls, in a general design format looking much like the Germans' own "Jagdpanzer" vehicles. The results were smaller, lighter, and simpler to build weapons that could carry larger guns than any contemporary tank, including the King Tiger. The Soviets produced high numbers of the SU-85 and SU-100 self-propelled guns based on the same chassis as the T-34 medium tank; the heavier-duty powertrain and hull of the IS-2 heavy tank were instead used to produce the heavier-hitting -armed ISU-122 and -armed ISU-152, both of which had impressive anti-tank capabilities earning each of them the Russian nickname "Zveroboy" ("beast killer") for their ability to destroy German Tigers, Panthers and Elefants. The predecessor of the ISU 152 was the SU-152, built on the KV-1s chassis and shared many similarities (including its gun) with the ISU-152. The ISU-152 built as a heavy assault gun, relied on the weight of the shell fired from its M-1937/43 howitzer to defeat tanks. In 1943, the Soviets also shifted all production of light tanks like the T-70 to much simpler and better-armed SU-76 self-propelled guns, which used the same drive train. The SU-76 was originally designed as an anti-tank vehicle, but was soon relegated to the infantry-support role.


title: Tank destroyer

text: U.S. Army and counterpart British designs were very different in conception. U.S. doctrine was based, in light of the fall of France, on the perceived need to defeat German blitzkrieg tactics, and U.S. units expected to face large numbers of German tanks, attacking on relatively narrow fronts. These were expected to break through a thin screen of anti-tank guns, hence the decision that the main anti-tank units—the Tank Destroyer (TD) battalions—should be concentrated and very mobile. In practice, such German attacks rarely happened. Throughout the war, only one battalion ever fought in an engagement like that originally envisaged (the 601st, at the Battle of El Guettar). The Tank Destroyer Command eventually numbered over 100,000 men and 80 battalions each equipped with 36 self-propelled tank destroyers or towed guns.


title: Tank destroyer

text: Only a few shots were expected to be fired from any firing position. Strong reconnaissance elements were provided so that TDs could use pre-arranged firing positions to best advantage. Flanking fire by TDs was emphasized, both to penetrate thinner enemy side armour, and to reduce the likelihood of accurate enemy return fire.


title: Tank destroyer

text: All American tank destroyers were officially known by exactly the same collective term used for American self-propelled artillery ordnance, "gun motor carriage". The designs were intended to be very mobile and heavily armed. Most of the tank-hull based designs used special open-topped turrets of a differing design from the original tank it was based on, which was meant to both save weight and to accommodate a larger gun. The earliest expedient design was an M3 Half-track mounting an 75 mm Field Gun M1897 on M2 Carriage in a limited-traverse mount, and called the 75 mm Gun Motor Carriage M3. Another, considerably less successful, early design mounted a 37-mm anti-tank gun in the bed of a Dodge 3/4-ton truck—the 37-mm GMC M6. By far the most common US design, and the first that was fully tracked and turreted (which became the American hallmark of World War II "tank destroyer" design) was the 3in Gun Motor Carriage M10, later supplemented by the 90 mm Gun Motor Carriage M36—both based on the M4 Sherman hull and powertrain—and the 76 mm Gun Motor Carriage M18 (Hellcat), based on a unique hull and powertrain design, with a slight visual resemblance to what was used for the later M24 Chaffee light tank. The M18 came closest to the US ideal; the vehicle was very fast, small, and mounted a gun in a roofless open turret. The M36 Jackson GMC possessed the only American-origin operational gun that could rival the vaunted 88 mm German anti-tank ordnance, the 90 mm M3 gun, and the M36 remained in service well after World War II. The only dedicated American-origin, casemate hull design fighting vehicle of any type built during the war, that resembled the German and Soviet tank destroyers in hull and general gun mounting design, was the experimental T28 Super Heavy Tank, which mounted a 105 mm T5E1 long-barrel cannon, which had a maximum firing range of 12 miles (20 km), and was originally designed as a self-propelled assault gun to breach Germany's Siegfried Line defenses.


title: Tank destroyer

text: Of these tank destroyers, only the gun of the M36 proved effective against the frontal armour of Germans' larger armored vehicles at long range. The open top and light armour made these tank destroyers vulnerable to anything greater than small-arms fire. As the number of German tanks encountered by American forces steadily decreased throughout the war, most battalions were split up and assigned to infantry units as supporting arms, fighting as assault guns or being used essentially as tanks. In this sense they were an alternative to the Independent tank battalions that were attached to various Infantry Divisions.


title: Tank destroyer

text: The expectation that German tanks would be engaged in mass formation was a failed assumption. In reality, German attacks effectively used combined arms on the ground, fighting cohesively. American tank destroyer battalions comprised three tank destroyer companies supported by nine security sections. The single-purpose tactics of the tank destroyer battalion failed to account for non-tank threats.


title: Tank destroyer

text: In the 1950s the goal of providing airborne forces with a parachute-capable self-propelled anti-tank weapon led to the deployment of the M56 Scorpion and M50 Ontos. The concept later led to the M551 Sheridan light tank of the mid-1960s.


title: Tank destroyer

text: British tanks in the early years of the war, both infantry tanks and cruiser tanks, were (with the exception of the pre-war Matilda I design) equipped with a gun capable of use against contemporary enemy tanks—the 40 mm Ordnance QF 2 pounder. This was replaced with the 57 mm Ordnance QF 6 pounder when that became available. There was extra impetus given to the development of anti-tank weaponry, which culminated in the 76mm Ordnance QF 17 pounder, widely considered one of the best anti-tank guns of the war.


title: Tank destroyer

text: Towed anti-tank guns were the domain of the Royal Artillery and vehicles adapted to mount artillery, including anti-tank self-propelled guns such as the Deacon (6pdr on an armoured wheeled truck chassis) and Archer (17pdr on tracked chassis) and US-supplied vehicles, were their preserve rather than the Royal Armoured Corps.


title: Tank destroyer

text: The self-propelled guns that were built in the "tank destroyer" mould came about through the desire to field the QF 17 pounder anti-tank gun and simultaneous lack of suitable standard tanks to carry it. As a result, they were of a somewhat extemporized nature. Mounting the gun on the Valentine tank chassis in a fixed superstructure gave the Archer, looking somewhat like the light-chassis German Marder III in appearance. The 17 pounder was also used to re-equip the US-supplied M10 Tank Destroyer, replacing the American 3-inch gun to produce the 17pdr SP Achilles.


title: Tank destroyer

text: In 1942 the General Staff agreed on investigating self-propelled mountings of the 6-pounder, 17-pounder, 3-inch 20cwt guns and the 25-pounder field gun/howitzer on the Matilda II, Valentine, Crusader and Cavalier (Cruiser Mark VII) tank chassis. In October 1942 it was decided to progress using the Valentine chassis with a 17-pdr (which would become Archer) and 25-pdr (which entered service as Bishop).


title: Tank destroyer

text: While there was a general move to a general purpose gun that was usable against both tanks and in supporting infantry, there was a need to put the 17 pdr into a tank for use against the enemy's heavy tanks. The Cruiser Mk VIII Challenger was a project to bring a 17 pdr tank into use to support the Cromwell cruiser tank. Delays led to it being outnumbered in use by the Sherman Firefly—but a derivative of Challenger was the more or less open-topped variant "Avenger", which was delayed until post war before entering service. A cut-down 17 pdr, the 77mmHV was used to equip the Comet tank in the last year of the war.


title: Tank destroyer

text: The closest the British came to developing an armoured tank destroyer in the vein of the German Jagdpanzers or Soviet ISU series was the Churchill 3-inch Gun Carrier—a Churchill tank chassis with a boxy superstructure in place of the turret and mounting a 3-inch anti-aircraft gun. Although a number were ordered and fifty delivered in 1942, they were not put into service as the immediate threat passed. The design was rejected in favor of developing a 17 pounder armed Cromwell tank variant, ultimately leading to the Comet tank. The Tortoise "heavy assault tank", intended for use in breaking through fixed defensive lines, was well armoured and had a very powerful 32-pounder (94 mm) gun, but did not reach service use.


title: Tank destroyer

text: By 1944, a number of the Shermans in British use were being converted to Sherman Fireflies by adding the QF 17 pounder gun. Initially this gave each troop (platoon) of Shermans one powerfully armed tank. By war's end—through the production of more Fireflies and the replacement of Shermans by British tanks—about 50% of Shermans in British service were Fireflies. The Sherman Firefly, however, is not considered a tank destroyer since it could still perform the other duties of the regular M4 Sherman, albeit the Firefly was less capable due to the late development of a HE round for the QF 17 pounder.


title: Tank destroyer

text: Until 1942, the Romanian tank force was equipped exclusively with obsolete R-1, R-2 and R35 tanks. Having faced big problems against Soviet T-34 and KV-1 tanks on the Eastern Front, the Romanian Army leadership sought for ways to improve its anti-tank capabilities. The initial plan was the creation of a tank comparable in characteristics to the T-34; instead, Romania went for a number of tank destroyers, since they were more adequate for its industry.


title: Tank destroyer

text: The Mareșal is probably the best known Romanian AFV from the war; historians Steven Zaloga and Mark Axworthy state that it inspired the design of the later German Hetzer. Standing at only around 1.5 m tall, which would have made it very difficult to hit for its enemies, the Mareșal was a lightly armored, but highly mobile vehicle. It was armed with the Romanian 75 mm Reșița M1943 anti-tank gun, which proved to be among the best of its class during World War II, according to Mark Axworthy. During tests, the Mareșal proved to be superior in many aspects to the StuG III G, against which it competed. Those facts suggest that the Mareșal would have been an effective tank destroyer, had it been deployed into combat. There were, however, also critics of the vehicle, especially among high-ranking Romanian officials. It never saw action because the invading Soviet army had stopped its production.


title: Tank destroyer

text: Other Romanian tank destroyers include the TACAM R-2 and TACAM T-60, which were converted from R-2 and T-60 light tanks respectively. Both of them saw action. One TACAM R-2 survives today and is displayed at the National Military Museum in Bucharest. Another conversion was the VDC R-35, Romania's only turreted tank destroyer. Two other proposed tank destroyers existed: the TACAM R-1 and TACAM T-38.


title: Tank destroyer

text: Variants of the Polish TKS and TK-3 tankettes up-armed with 20 mm gun (23–26 vehicles) were operationally deployed in the invasion of Poland. They were used as an anti-tank component of the reconnaissance units. There were also 37 mm armed TKS-D (2 experimental vehicles) and 47 mm armed TKD (4 experimental vehicles). It is not certain whether they were used operationally at all.


title: Tank destroyer

text: Due to the quick defeat of France, few French vehicles were built. The Laffly W15 TCC ("Chasseur de chars") was an attempt to quickly build a light tank destroyer by mounting a 47 mm SA37 anti-tank gun onto a lightly armoured Laffly W15T artillery tractor. Other French tank destroyers were being developed, including the SOMUA SAu-40, ARL V39 and various ad hoc conversions of the Lorraine 37L.


title: Tank destroyer

text: In the face of the Warsaw Pact, a general need for extra firepower was identified. In the late 1960s, West Germany developed the Kanonenjagdpanzer, essentially a modernized World War II Jagdpanzer mounting a gun. As Soviet designs became more heavily armoured, the gun became ineffective and the Kanonenjagdpanzers were retrofitted for different roles or retired. Some provisions were made for the fitting of a 105 mm cannon, and many of the vehicles were modified to fire HOT or TOW missiles in place of a main gun. These upgraded variants remained in service into the 1990s.


title: Tank destroyer

text: With the development of flexible anti-tank missiles, which were capable of installation on almost any vehicle in the 1960s, the concept of the tank destroyer has morphed into light vehicles with missiles. With the weight of main battle tanks growing to the forty to seventy-tonne range, airborne forces were unable to deploy reasonable anti-tank forces. The result was a number of attempts to make a light vehicle, including the conventional ASU-85, M56 Scorpion, the recoilless rifle-armed Ontos, and missile-armed Humber Hornet armoured truck and Sheridan light assault vehicle. The recent entries into that category are the 2S25 Sprut-SD, armed with a current-issue 125 mm tank gun that is also capable of launching missiles like the 9M119 Svir, and Israeli-modified Pandur IIs, which is to enter service with the Philippine Army by 2022 armed with an Elbit Turret and a 105mm gun.


title: Tank destroyer

text: Many forces' infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) carry anti-tank missiles in every infantry platoon, and attack helicopters have also added anti-tank capability to the modern battlefield. But there are still dedicated anti-tank vehicles with very heavy long-range missiles, and ones intended for airborne use.


title: Tank destroyer

text: There have also been dedicated anti-tank vehicles built on ordinary armoured personnel carrier or armored car chassis. Examples include the U.S. M901 ITV (Improved TOW Vehicle) and the Norwegian NM142, both on an M113 chassis, several Soviet ATGM launchers based on the BRDM reconnaissance car, the British FV438 Swingfire and FV102 Striker and the German Raketenjagdpanzer series built on the chassis of the HS 30 and Marder IFV.


title: Tank destroyer

text: A US Army combined arms battalion has two infantry companies with TOW missile-armed Bradley IFVs and can bring a large concentration of accurate and lethal fire to bear on an attacking enemy unit that uses AFVs. They can be complemented by mobile units of AH-64 Apache helicopters armed with Hellfire antitank missiles.


title: Tank destroyer

text: Missile carrying vehicles however are referred to as anti-tank missile carriers instead of tank destroyers.


title: Tank destroyer

text: Some gun-armed tank destroyers remain in use. China has developed the tracked PTZ89 and the wheeled PTL02 tank destroyers. The PTZ89 is armed with a smoothbore cannon while the PTL02, developed by NORINCO for the PLA's new light (rapid reaction) mechanized infantry divisions, carries a one (a version armed with a 105 mm rifled gun is available for export). The PTL02 is built on the 6×6 wheeled chassis of the WZ551 APC.


title: Tank destroyer

text: Russia, meanwhile, uses the Russian-built 2S25 Sprut-SD, operating as an amphibious light tank/tank destroyer armed with a 125mm cannon.


title: Tank destroyer

text: The Sabrah Pandur II is a Wheeled tank destroyer variant of the Sabrah Light Tank developed by the Elbit Systems of Israel for the Philippine Army's future combat systems.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: Whittier is a city at the head of the Passage Canal in the U.S. state of Alaska, about southeast of Anchorage. The city is within the Chugach Census Area, one of the two entities established in 2019 when the former Valdez–Cordova Census Area was dissolved. It is also a port for the Alaska Marine Highway. The population was 272 at the 2020 census, having increased from 220 in 2010. The city is notable for the fact that almost all of its residents live in the Begich Towers Condominium, earning it the nickname of a "town under one roof".


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: The region occupied by Whittier was once part of the portage route of the Chugach people native to Prince William Sound. Later, the passage was used by Russian and American explorers, and by prospecting miners during the Klondike Gold Rush. The nearby Whittier Glacier was named for American poet John Greenleaf Whittier in 1915, and the town eventually took the name as well.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: During World War II, the United States Army constructed a military facility, complete with port and railroad, near Whittier Glacier and named the facility Camp Sullivan. The spur of the Alaska Railroad to Camp Sullivan was completed in 1943, and the port became the entrance for United States soldiers into Alaska.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: The two buildings that dominate the town were built after World War II. The 14-story Hodge Building (renamed Begich Towers) was completed in 1957 and contains 150 two-and-three-bedroom apartments plus bachelor efficiency units. Dependent families and Civil Service employees were moved into this high-rise. The Whittier School was connected by a tunnel at the base of the west tower so students could safely access school on days with bad weather. The building was named in honor of Colonel Walter William Hodge, who was a civil engineer and the commanding officer of 93rd Engineer Regiment on the Alcan Highway.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: The other main structure in town, the Buckner Building, was completed in 1953, and was called the "city under one roof". The Buckner Building was eventually abandoned. Buckner and Begich Towers were at one time the largest buildings in Alaska. The Begich Towers building became a condominium, and along with the two-story private residence known as Whittier Manor, houses a majority of the town's residents.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: The port at Whittier was an active Army facility until 1960. In 1962, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed a petroleum products terminal, a pumping station and a , pipeline to Anchorage in Whittier.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: On March 28, 1964, Whittier suffered over $10 million worth of damage in what became known as the Good Friday earthquake. As of 2022, the earthquake remains the largest U.S. earthquake, measuring 9.2 on the moment magnitude scale, and having caused tsunamis along the West Coast of the U.S. The tsunami that hit Whittier reached a height of 13 m (43 ft) and killed 13 people.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: Whittier was incorporated in 1969 and eventually became a port of call for cruise ships. It is utilized by local operations and about 100-passenger mid-sized cruise ships. When the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel opened to public access in 2000, it became the first highway to connect Whittier to Anchorage and inner Alaska—previously, the only ways to reach the town had been rail, boat and plane.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: After the tunnel expanded access to Whittier, it began to be visited by larger cruise lines. It is the embarkation/debarkation point of one-way cruises from Anchorage to Vancouver by Princess Tours. Whittier is also popular with tourists, photographers, outdoor enthusiasts, paddlers, hikers, sport fishermen, and hunters because of its abundance of wildlife and natural beauty. Whittier is located within the Chugach National Forest, the second-largest national forest in the U.S.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: Whittier is in the Chugach School District and has one school serving approximately 48 students from preschool through high school, according to the 2019–2020 enrollment numbers.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: The only land access is through the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, a mixed-use road and rail tunnel. The town is on the northeast shore of the Kenai Peninsula, at the head of Passage Canal, on the west side of Prince William Sound. It is southeast of Anchorage.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which, of it is land and of it (36.36%) is water.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: Whittier has a subpolar oceanic climate ("Cfc") using the −3 °C isotherm and a subarctic climate ("Dfc") using the 0 °C isotherm under the Köppen climate classification, and has an annual precipitation of . It is the wettest city in Alaska and the United States, receiving significantly more annual precipitation than Yakutat and Ketchikan which are the second- and third-wettest cities in Alaska, respectively. Whittier is located at the northern tip of the world's northernmost temperate rainforest, the Tongass.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: Whittier first appeared on the 1950 U.S. Census as an unincorporated village. It formally incorporated in 1969.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: As of 2018, there were 205 people living in the city, with 313 available housing units. Almost the entirety of this population lives within the 14-story Begich Towers. The racial makeup of the city was 68.3% White, 10.6% Asian, 6.9% Hispanic, 5.7% Native American.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: There are 124 households in the town and the average household size is roughly 1.79 people, according to 2014 statistics. Of these households, 56 are families and 68 are non-families. 40.30% of the population is married, and 32.34% are divorced. 51.78% of the population has children.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: The age distribution within the city shows that 13.96 percent of the population is under the age of 18, 3.15 percent is between the ages of 18 and 24, 23.87 percent is between the ages of 25 to 44, 52.25 percent is between the ages of 45 and 64, and 6.76 percent of the population is above the age of 65.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: The median income for a household in the city was $45,000 in 2019. The per capita income for the city was $29,106. Unemployment in Whittier was at a rate of 8.0 percent.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: Whittier Police Department is the main police force in the community. The department was founded in 1974 by Chief of Police Gordon Whittier and two officers, and retains the same level of permanent staff today, although in summer, temporary officers are hired when the town has many tourists. The office is in a one-room unit located on the first floor of the Begich Towers. The station has no place to hold or interrogate people.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: Whittier Fire Department is a volunteer fire and rescue service with mutual aid from neighboring departments.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: Whittier Airport (PAWR) is an airfield with one aircraft runway designated 4/22 (formerly 3/21) with a gravel surface measuring . There are no other facilities, and the runway is not maintained in winter. For the 12-month period ending December 31, 2005, the airport had 700 aircraft operations, an average of 58 per month: 97 percent general aviation and 3 percent air taxi. At that time there were two single-engine aircraft based at this airport. The runway was longer but was damaged by the 1964 Good Friday earthquake.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: Known by locals as the Whittier tunnel or the Portage tunnel, the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel is a tunnel through Maynard Mountain. It links the Seward Highway south of Anchorage with Whittier and is the only land access to the town. It is part of the Portage Glacier Highway and at , is the second-longest highway tunnel, and longest combined rail and highway tunnel in North America.


title: Whittier, Alaska

text: Whittier is Alaska Rail ARRC's connection to the rail systems in Canada and the lower 48 states (by way of rail barge).


title: Veryovkina Cave

text: Veryovkina Cave (also spelled Verëvkina Cave, , ) is a cave in Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia. At 2,212 meters (7,257 ft) deep, it is the deepest-known cave on Earth. Its entrance is 2,285 metres (7,497 ft) above sea level. The entrance of the cave has a cross section of 3 m × 4 m (9.8 ft × 13.1 ft), and is located in the Arabika Massif in the Gagra Mountain Range of the Western Caucasus, on the pass between the Krepost and Zont mountains, closer to the slopes of Mount Krepost. The depth of the entrance shaft is 32 metres (105 ft).


title: Veryovkina Cave

text: In 1968, the cave was assigned the name S-115, which was later replaced by P1-7, and in 1986 it was renamed after caver and cave diver Alexander Verëvkin. Verëvkin died in 1983 while exploring a siphon in the cave Su-Akan, located in the Sary-Tala massif, now Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia.


title: Hum Do Hamare Do

text: Hum Do Hamare Do () is a 2021 Indian Hindi-language comedy-drama film directed by Abhishek Jain and produced by Dinesh Vijan. The film stars Rajkummar Rao and Kriti Sanon as leads, while Paresh Rawal, Ratna Pathak Shah, Aparshakti Khurana and Saanand Verma play supporting roles.


title: Hum Do Hamare Do

text: The film was officially announced in February 2020 with Rao, Sanon, Rawal and Dimple Kapadia in lead roles. Later after the production was put on hold due to COVID-19 pandemic, Kapadia quit the film and was replaced by Pathak Shah. After being postponed for over six months due to the pandemic, the Principal photography finally begun on 30 October 2020 in Chandigarh.


title: Hum Do Hamare Do

text: Initially slated for theatrical release, the decision was later dropped due to the second wave of the pandemic. Then it was directly released online on Disney+ Hotstar on 29 October 2021.


title: Hum Do Hamare Do

text: Dhruv Shikhar is an orphan who used to work in the "Purshottam's Dhaba". After some years, he became an entrepreneur who falls in love with Aanya Mehra whom he first met on his Virtual reality app launch event. They soon become friends and meet a certain number of times. He learns that she would like to marry a guy with a sweet family and an adopted dog. He also finds that her parents, Anand Mehra and Yamini Mehra, died in a theatre fire when she was seven years old and she lives with her aunt, Roopa Mehra and uncle, Dr. Sanjeev Mehra.


title: Hum Do Hamare Do

text: With the help of his bestfriend Shunty and Shaadiram, he unsuccessfully attempted to find fake parents to make a perfect family for Anya. He then recalled about Purshottam who had gone to live in an old age home in some other city and went to find him. The attempt of making Purshottam as his fake father failed but somebody told him about his first and the last love of his life, Deepti Kashyap, whom because of his lack of confidence he failed to elope with. After a few attempts of persuading her to accept the offer, she finally agreed to act as his fake mother after Shunty reminded her of the small boy who she met in a dhaba. Purshottam also agreed to act as his father because of Deepti.


title: Hum Do Hamare Do

text: Soon they meet Aanya's parents and with few lies in attempting to make it look like a true family, their marriage is fixed. Unfortunately because of an accidental reveal of Dhruv being an orphan and his fake family, Aanya's family cancels the marriage on the sangeet day. After the failed attempt of marriage Aanya's parents fix her wedding with somebody else, on the other hand because of living together for so long Purshottam, Deepti and Dhruv start living as a real family. Seeing Dhruv's sorrow, his parents - Purshottam and Deepti went to apologize to Mehra family and find out about her wedding. But Dr. Sanjeev Mehra humiliates both of them. Dhruv learns of this, and tells his parents to forget about Aanya. In the end, it is because of Aanya's younger sister Kanika, that she understands that Dhruv is the right match for her, as he took the trouble of creating a whole family, simply for her. She goes to him, proposes, he finally agrees and they marry.


title: Hum Do Hamare Do

text: The film received mixed to negative reviews. Saibal Chatterjee of "NDTV" gave the film 1.5 stars out of 5 and wrote, "Rajkummar Rao is saddled with the task of salvaging a poorly written protagonist whose impulses, compulsions and decisions border on the inexplicable." Shubham Kulkarni, Author at Koimoi gave 2.5 stars out of 5 and wrote, "It's a reminder of why we need to bring back the veterans and give them characters they can blow." Prathyush Parasuraman of Firstpost gave a rating of 3/5 and wrote," "Hum Do Hamare Do" holds weak foundations with lazy character detailing but is saved by a better second-half." Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave 1.5 stars and wrote, "The only ones who occasionally make feeble attempts to rise above this muddle are Ratna Pathak Shah and Paresh Rawal, and should have been given more to do." Stutee Ghosh from "The Quint" gave 2.5 stars and said, "For a film that couldn't make the man do the obvious thing and speak up, the makers manage to regurgitate every other trope to make the story move along." Hiren Kotwani of "The Times of India" gave 3 stars out of 5 and wrote, ""Hum Do Hamare Do" is a decent watch… but if only the second half had been more engaging with a few dollops more of humour." Sukanya Verma from Rediff.com gave 2 stars and said, ""Hum Do Hamare Do" is the kind of rush job rom-com that cuts to the chase after so much dillydallying and in such a dull manner, it completely misses the point." Nayandeep Rakshit from Bollywood Bubble gave 3.5 stars out of 5 and wrote, "The movie has the perfect blend of the navras – you smile, you laugh, you enjoy and you cry, all along with them. The songs are beautifully positioned although they aren’t the highlight of the film." Himesh Mankad of Pinkvilla gave the film 2.5 stars out of 5 and wrote, ""Hum Do Hamare Do" is made with the right intent, however, the premise had the potential of more humour through the narrative and required a rather nuanced approach in terms of emotions in the last 25 minutes." Bollywood Hungama gave 2.5 stars and stated,""Hum Do Hamare Do" rests on a great plot and fine performances but the average script and weak climax diminishes the impact."


title: Katja Herbers

text: Katja Mira Herbers (born 19 October 1980) is a Dutch actress. She is best known for portraying Dr. Helen Prins on the WGN America drama series "Manhattan" (2014–2015), Emily Grace in the HBO science fiction drama series "Westworld" (2018–2020), and Dr. Kristen Bouchard in the CBS/Paramount+ supernatural drama series "Evil" (2019–present).


title: Katja Herbers

text: Herbers also played recurring roles in the FX spy thriller series "The Americans" (2015), the HBO mystery drama series "The Leftovers" (2017), and the Discovery Channel drama series "Manhunt: Unabomber" (2017).


title: Katja Herbers

text: Katja Mira Herbers was born on 19 October 1980, and is the daughter of violinist Vera Beths and oboist and conductor Werner Herbers. Growing up she spent time in the US, accompanying her mother on tour with the group L'Archibudelli. Her mother remarried to cellist Anner Bylsma, and her father remarried to costume designer Leonie Polak, who introduced her to the theater. She had a Canadian au pair and learned to speak Dutch, German, and English growing up.


title: Katja Herbers

text: Herbers went to the Ignatius Gymnasium in Amsterdam. She studied psychology at the University of Amsterdam (1999–2000), during which time she also attended the local theatre school De Trap. She moved to New York and attended HB Studio. She then got accepted to the Academy of Theatre and Dance, which was previously named de Theater school, in Amsterdam (2001–2005).


title: Katja Herbers

text: During her studies, she starred in the films "Peter Bell" (2002) and "Brush with Fate" (2003). After her graduation, Herbers became a member of Johan Simons's Theater Company NTGent in Ghent. She then joined the renowned Munich Kammerspiele in Germany. She worked with directors such as Alex van Warmerdam, Ivo van Hove and Theu Boermans under whose direction she performed many Schnitzler plays, including his monologue "Fräulein Else", for which she received rave reviews. In 2013, she won the Guido de Moor Award for young talent, for her portrayal of Irina in Chekhov's "Three Sisters". She played a lead role in The Boermans' "De Uitverkorene" (2006), which won an International Emmy and the prestigious Prix D'Europe.


title: Katja Herbers

text: She performed the piece "Im wunderschönen Monat Mai, 21 songs after Schubert and Schumann", with pianist, conductor and composer Reinbert de Leeuw in 2013.


title: Katja Herbers

text: In February 2014, she won the role of physicist Helen Prins in WGN America's drama series "Manhattan". Herbers played a recurring role in the third season of FX's "The Americans".


title: Katja Herbers

text: In 2018, she joined the cast of the HBO science fiction drama series "Westworld", starring as Emily Grace.


title: Katja Herbers

text: In fall 2019, Herbers began starring as Dr. Kristen Bouchard in the CBS supernatural drama series "Evil".


title: Systemd

text: systemd is a software suite that provides an array of system components for Linux operating systems. Its main aim is to unify service configuration and behavior across Linux distributions; Its primary component is a "system and service manager"—an init system used to bootstrap user space and manage user processes. It also provides replacements for various daemons and utilities, including device management, login management, network connection management, and event logging. The name "systemd" adheres to the Unix convention of naming daemons by appending the letter "d". It also plays on the term "System D", which refers to a person's ability to adapt quickly and improvise to solve problems.


title: Systemd

text: Since 2015, the majority of Linux distributions have adopted systemd, having replaced other init systems such as SysV init. It has been praised by developers and users of distributions that adopted it for providing a stable, fast out-of-the-box solution for issues that had existed in the Linux space for years. At the time of adoption of systemd on most Linux distributions, it was the only software suite that offered reliable parallelism during boot as well as centralized management of processes, daemons, services and mount points.


title: Systemd

text: Critics of systemd contend that it suffers from mission creep and bloat; the latter affecting other software (such as the GNOME desktop), adding dependencies on systemd, reducing its compatibility with other Unix-like operating systems and making it difficult for sysadmins to integrate alternate solutions. Concerns have also been raised about Red Hat and its parent company IBM controlling the scene of init systems on Linux. Critics also contend that the complexity of systemd results in a larger attack surface, reducing the overall security of the platform.


title: Systemd

text: Lennart Poettering and Kay Sievers, the software engineers working for Red Hat who initially developed systemd, started a project to replace Linux's conventional System V init in 2010. An April 2010 blog post from Poettering, titled "Rethinking PID 1", introduced an experimental version of what would later become systemd. They sought to surpass the efficiency of the init daemon in several ways. They wanted to improve the software framework for expressing dependencies, to allow more processing to be done concurrently or in parallel during system booting, and to reduce the computational overhead of the shell.


title: Systemd

text: In May 2011 Fedora Linux became the first major Linux distribution to enable systemd by default, replacing Upstart. The reasoning at the time was that systemd provided extensive parallelization during startup, better management of processes and overall a saner, dependency-based approach to control of the system.


title: Systemd

text: In October 2012, Arch Linux made systemd the default, switching from SysVinit. Developers had debated since August 2012 and came to the conclusion that it was faster and had more features than SysVinit, and that maintaining the latter was not worth the effort in patches. Some of them thought that the criticism towards the implementation of systemd was not based on actual shortcomings of the software, rather the disliking of Lennart from a part of the Linux community and the general hesitation for change. Specifically, some of the complaints regarding systemd not being programmed in bash, it being bigger and more extensive than SysVinit, the use of D-bus, and the optional on-disk format of the journal were regarded as advantages by programmers.


title: Systemd

text: Between October 2013 and February 2014, a long debate among the Debian Technical Committee occurred on the Debian mailing list, discussing which init system to use as the default in Debian 8 "jessie", and culminating in a decision in favor of systemd. The debate was widely publicized and in the wake of the decision the debate continues on the Debian mailing list. In February 2014, after Debian's decision was made, Mark Shuttleworth announced on his blog that Ubuntu would follow in implementing systemd, discarding its own Upstart.


title: Systemd

text: In November 2014 Debian Developer Joey Hess, Debian Technical Committee members Russ Allbery and Ian Jackson, and systemd package-maintainer Tollef Fog Heen resigned from their positions. All four justified their decision on the public Debian mailing list and in personal blogs with their exposure to extraordinary stress-levels related to ongoing disputes on systemd integration within the Debian and FOSS community that rendered regular maintenance virtually impossible.


title: Systemd

text: In September 2016, a security bug was discovered that allowed any unprivileged user to perform a denial-of-service attack against systemd. Rich Felker, developer of musl, stated that this bug reveals a major "system development design flaw". In 2017 another security bug was discovered in systemd, , which "allows disruption of service" by a "malicious DNS server". Later in 2017, the Pwnie Awards gave author Lennart Poettering a "lamest vendor response" award due to his handling of the vulnerabilities.


title: Systemd

text: Poettering describes systemd development as "never finished, never complete, but tracking progress of technology". In May 2014, Poettering further described systemd as unifying "pointless differences between distributions", by providing the following three general functions:


title: Systemd

text: Systemd includes features like on-demand starting of daemons, snapshot support, process tracking and Inhibitor Locks. It is not just the name of the init daemon but also refers to the entire software bundle around it, which, in addition to the init daemon, includes the daemons , and , and many other low-level components. In January 2013, Poettering described systemd not as one program, but rather a large software suite that includes 69 individual binaries. As an integrated software suite, systemd replaces the startup sequences and runlevels controlled by the traditional init daemon, along with the shell scripts executed under its control. systemd also integrates many other services that are common on Linux systems by handling user logins, the system console, device hotplugging (see udev), scheduled execution (replacing cron), logging, hostnames and locales.


title: Systemd

text: Like the init daemon, is a daemon that manages other daemons, which, including itself, are background processes. is the first daemon to start during booting and the last daemon to terminate during shutdown. The daemon serves as the root of the user space's process tree; the first process (PID 1) has a special role on Unix systems, as it replaces the parent of a process when the original parent terminates. Therefore, the first process is particularly well suited for the purpose of monitoring daemons.


title: Systemd

text: Following its integrated approach, systemd also provides replacements for various daemons and utilities, including the startup shell scripts, pm-utils, inetd, , syslog, watchdog, cron and . systemd's core components include the following:


title: Systemd

text: tracks processes using the Linux kernel's cgroups subsystem instead of using process identifiers (PIDs); thus, daemons cannot "escape" , not even by double-forking. not only uses cgroups, but also augments them with and , two utility programs that facilitate the creation and management of Linux containers. Since version 205, systemd also offers ControlGroupInterface, which is an API to the Linux kernel cgroups. The Linux kernel cgroups are adapted to support kernfs, and are being modified to support a unified hierarchy.


title: Systemd

text: Beside its primary purpose of providing a Linux init system, the systemd suite can provide additional functionality, including the following components:


title: Systemd

text: While many distributions boot systemd by default, some allow other init systems to be used; in this case switching the init system is possible by installing the appropriate packages. A fork of Debian called Devuan was developed to avoid systemd and has reached version 4.0 for stable usage. In December 2019, the Debian project voted in favour of retaining systemd as the default init system for the distribution, but with support for "exploring alternatives".


title: Systemd

text: In the interest of enhancing the interoperability between systemd and the GNOME desktop environment, systemd coauthor Lennart Poettering asked the GNOME Project to consider making systemd an external dependency of GNOME 3.2.


title: Systemd

text: In November 2012, the GNOME Project concluded that basic GNOME functionality should not rely on systemd. However, GNOME 3.8 introduced a compile-time choice between the and ConsoleKit API, the former being provided at the time only by systemd. Ubuntu provided a separate binary but systemd became a "de facto" dependency of GNOME for most Linux distributions, in particular since ConsoleKit is no longer actively maintained and upstream recommends the use of instead. The developers of Gentoo Linux also attempted to adapt these changes in OpenRC, but the implementation contained too many bugs, causing the distribution to mark systemd as a dependency of GNOME.


title: Systemd

text: The design of systemd has ignited controversy within the free-software community. Critics regard systemd as overly complex and suffering from continued feature creep, arguing that its architecture violates the Unix philosophy. There is also concern that it forms a system of interlocked dependencies, thereby giving distribution maintainers little choice but to adopt systemd as more user-space software comes to depend on its components, which is similar to the problems created by PulseAudio, another project which was also developed by Lennart Poettering.


title: Systemd

text: In a 2012 interview, Slackware's lead Patrick Volkerding expressed reservations about the systemd architecture, stating his belief that its design was contrary to the Unix philosophy of interconnected utilities with narrowly defined functionalities. , Slackware does not support or use systemd, but Volkerding has not ruled out the possibility of switching to it.


title: Systemd

text: In January 2013, Lennart Poettering attempted to address concerns about systemd in a blog post called "The Biggest Myths".


title: Systemd

text: In February 2014, musl's Rich Felker opined that PID 1 is too special to be saddled with additional responsibilities. PID 1 should only be responsible for starting the rest of the init system and reaping zombie processes. The additional functionality added by systemd can be provided elsewhere and unnecessarily increases the complexity and attack surface of PID 1.


title: Systemd

text: In March 2014 Eric S. Raymond opined that systemd's design goals were prone to mission creep and software bloat. In April 2014, Linus Torvalds expressed reservations about the attitude of Kay Sievers, a key systemd developer, toward users and bug reports in regard to modifications to the Linux kernel submitted by Sievers. In late April 2014 a campaign to boycott systemd was launched, with a website listing various reasons against its adoption.


title: Systemd

text: In an August 2014 article published in "InfoWorld", Paul Venezia wrote about the systemd controversy and attributed the controversy to violation of the Unix philosophy, and to "enormous egos who firmly believe they can do no wrong". The article also characterizes the architecture of systemd as similar to that of svchost.exe, a critical system component in Microsoft Windows with a broad functional scope.


title: Systemd

text: In a September 2014 ZDNet interview, prominent Linux kernel developer Theodore Ts'o expressed his opinion that the dispute over systemd's centralized design philosophy, more than technical concerns, indicates a dangerous general trend toward uniformizing the Linux ecosystem, alienating and marginalizing parts of the open-source community, and leaving little room for alternative projects. He cited similarities with the attitude he found in the GNOME project toward non-standard configurations. On social media, Ts'o also later compared the attitudes of Sievers and his co-developer, Lennart Poettering, to that of GNOME's developers.


title: Systemd

text: Forks of systemd are closely tied to critiques of it outlined in the above section. Forks generally try to improve on at least one of portability (to other libcs and Unix-like systems), modularity, or size. A few forks have collaborated under the FreeInit banner.


title: Systemd

text: In 2012, the Gentoo Linux project created a fork of udev in order to avoid dependency on the systemd architecture. The resulting fork is called "eudev" and it makes udev functionality available without systemd. A stated goal of the project is to keep eudev independent of any Linux distribution or init system. In 2021, Gentoo announced that support of eudev would cease at the beginning of 2022. An independent group of maintainers have since taken up eudev.


title: Systemd

text: Elogind is the systemd project's "logind", extracted out to be a standalone daemon. It integrates with PAM to know the set of users that are logged into a system and whether they are logged in graphically, on the console, or remotely. Elogind exposes this information via the standard org.freedesktop.login1 D-Bus interface, as well as through the file system using systemd's standard layout. Elogind also provides "libelogind", which is a subset of the facilities offered by "libsystemd". There is a "libelogind.pc" pkg-config file as well.


title: Systemd

text: ConsoleKit was forked in October 2014 by Xfce developers wanting its features to still be maintained and available on operating systems other than Linux. While not ruling out the possibility of reviving the original repository in the long term, the main developer considers ConsoleKit2 a temporary necessity until systembsd matures. Development ceased in December 2017 and the project may be defunct.


title: Systemd

text: LoginKit was an attempt to implement a logind (systemd-logind) shim, which would allow packages that depend on systemd-logind to work without dependency on a specific init system. The project has been defunct since February 2015.


title: Systemd

text: In 2014, a Google Summer of Code project named "systembsd" was started in order to provide alternative implementations of these APIs for OpenBSD. The original project developer began it in order to ease his transition from Linux to OpenBSD. Project development finished in July 2016.


title: Systemd

text: The systembsd project did not provide an init replacement, but aimed to provide OpenBSD with compatible daemons for , , , and . The project did not create new systemd-like functionality, and was only meant to act as a wrapper over the native OpenBSD system. The developer aimed for systembsd to be installable as part of the ports collection, not as part of a base system, stating that "systemd and *BSD differ fundamentally in terms of philosophy and development practices."


title: Systemd

text: Notsystemd intends to implement all systemd's features working on any init system. It was forked by the Parabola GNU/Linux-libre developers to build packages with their development tools without the necessity of having systemd installed to run systemd-nspawn.


title: Systemd

text: In 2014, "uselessd" was created as a lightweight fork of systemd. The project sought to remove features and programs deemed unnecessary for an init system, as well as address other perceived faults. Project development halted in January 2015.


title: Systemd

text: uselessd supported the musl and µClibc libraries, so it may have been used on embedded systems, whereas systemd only supports glibc. The uselessd project had planned further improvements on cross-platform compatibility, as well as architectural overhauls and refactoring for the Linux build in the future.


title: Systemd

text: InitWare is a modular refactor of systemd, porting the system to BSD platforms without glibc or Linux-specific system calls. It is known to work on DragonFly BSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and GNU/Linux. Components considered unnecessary are dropped.


title: William II of the Netherlands

text: William II (, anglicized as William Frederick George Louis; 6 December 1792 – 17 March 1849) was King of the Netherlands, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, and Duke of Limburg.


title: William II of the Netherlands

text: William II was the son of William I and Wilhelmine of Prussia. When his father, who up to that time ruled as sovereign prince, proclaimed himself king in 1815, he became Prince of Orange as heir apparent of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. With the abdication of his father on 7 October 1840, William II became king. During his reign, the Netherlands became a parliamentary democracy with the new constitution of 1848.


title: William II of the Netherlands

text: William II was married to Anna Pavlovna of Russia. They had four sons and one daughter. William II died on 17 March 1849 and was succeeded by his son William III.


title: William II of the Netherlands

text: Willem Frederik George Lodewijk was born on 6 December 1792 in The Hague. He was the eldest son of King William I of the Netherlands and Wilhelmine of Prussia. His maternal grandparents were King Frederick William II of Prussia and his second wife Frederika Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt.


title: William II of the Netherlands

text: When William was two, he and his family fled to England after allied British-Hanoverian troops left the Republic and entering French troops defeated the army of the United Provinces, claiming liberation by joining the anti-Orangist Patriots. William spent his youth in Berlin at the Prussian court, where he followed a military education and served in the Prussian Army. After this, he studied civil law at Christ Church, University of Oxford.


title: William II of the Netherlands

text: He entered the British Army, and in 1811, as a 19-year-old aide-de-camp in the headquarters of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, was allowed to observe several of Wellington's campaigns of the Peninsular War. Though not yet 20, the young prince, according to the customs of the time, was made lieutenant colonel on 11 June 1811 and colonel on 21 October that year. On 8 September 1812 he was made an aide-de-camp to the Prince Regent and on 14 December 1813 promoted to major-general. His courage and good nature made him very popular with the British, who nicknamed him "Slender Billy". He returned to the Netherlands in 1813 when his father became sovereign prince, and in May 1814 succeeded Sir Thomas Graham as the highest-ranking officer of the British forces stationed there.


title: William II of the Netherlands

text: On 8 July 1814, he was promoted to lieutenant-general in the British Army, and on 25 July to general. As such, he was senior officer of the Allied army in the Low Countries when Napoleon I of France escaped from Elba in 1815. He relinquished command on the arrival of the Duke of Wellington, and, though this was his first real battle, served as commander of the I Allied Corps, first at the Battle of Quatre Bras (16 June 1815) and then at the Battle of Waterloo (18 June 1815), where he was wounded in his left shoulder by a musket ball. He was aged 22. As a sign of gratitude for what the Dutch throne styled "his" victory at Waterloo, William was offered Soestdijk Palace by the Dutch people.


title: William II of the Netherlands

text: Military historian William Siborne blamed many casualties suffered by Coalition forces during the Waterloo Campaign to William's inexperience. In response, Siborne was accused by Lieutenant-General Willem Jan Knoop of misrepresenting William's actions at Waterloo. An inspection into the archives of Siborne by Dutch officer Francois de Bas in 1897 claimed to discover the "selective use of sources" and "numerous miscounts and untruths".


title: William II of the Netherlands

text: In 1814, William was briefly engaged to Princess Charlotte of Wales, only child of the Prince Regent (later George IV of the United Kingdom) and his estranged wife, Caroline of Brunswick. The engagement was arranged by the Prince Regent, but it was broken off because Charlotte's mother was against the marriage and because Charlotte did not want to move to the Netherlands. On 21 February 1816 at the Chapel of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, William married Grand Duchess Anna Pavlovna of Russia, youngest sister to Czar Alexander I of Russia, who arranged the marriage to seal the good relations between Imperial Russia and the Netherlands. On 17 February 1817 in Brussels, his first son, Willem Alexander, the future King William III, was born.


title: William II of the Netherlands

text: Already in 1819, he was blackmailed over what Minister of Justice Van Maanen termed in a letter his "shameful and unnatural lusts": presumably bisexuality. Separately, his signing the constitutional reform of 1848, enabling a parliamentary democracy, may have been partly influenced by blackmail. He may also have had a relationship with a dandy by the name of Pereira.


title: William II of the Netherlands

text: William II enjoyed considerable popularity in what is now Belgium (then the Southern Netherlands), as well as in parts of the rest of the Netherlands for his affability and moderation, and in 1830, on the outbreak of the Belgian revolution, he did his utmost in Brussels as a peace broker, to bring about a settlement based on administrative autonomy for the southern provinces, under the House of Orange-Nassau. His father then rejected the terms of accommodation that the son had proposed without further consultation; afterwards, relations with his father were once again tense.


title: William II of the Netherlands

text: In April 1831, William II was sent by his father to be the military leader during the Ten Days' Campaign in order to recover what would become Belgium. Although initially successful, the Dutch withdrew after French intervention on the side of the rebels. European mediation established Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (widower of William's former fiancée, Charlotte) on the throne of a new monarchy. Peace was finally established in 1839 when Belgium was recognized by the Netherlands.


title: William II of the Netherlands

text: On 7 October 1840, on his father's abdication, he acceded to the throne as William II. Although he shared his father's conservative inclinations, he did not intervene in governmental affairs nearly as much as his father had. There was increased agitation for broad constitutional reform and a wider electoral franchise. Although William was certainly no democrat, he acted with sense and moderation.


title: William II of the Netherlands

text: The Revolutions of 1848 broke out all over Europe. In Paris the Bourbon-Orléans monarchy that had stolen "his" southern provinces fell. Warned that the revolution might spread to the Netherlands next, William decided to institute a more liberal regime, believing it was better to grant reforms instead of having them imposed on him on less favourable terms later. As he later put it, "I changed from conservative to liberal in one night". He chose a committee headed by the prominent liberal Johan Rudolf Thorbecke to create a new constitution.


title: William II of the Netherlands

text: The new document provided that the "Eerste Kamer" (Senate), previously appointed by the King, would be elected indirectly by the Provincial States. The "Tweede Kamer" (House of Representatives), previously elected by the Provincial States, would be elected directly via census suffrage in electoral districts, with the franchise limited to those who paid a certain amount in taxes. Ministers were now fully responsible to the Tweede Kamer. For all intents and purposes, the real power passed to the Tweede Kamer, and the king was now a servant of government rather than its master. That constitution of 1848, amended numerous times (most notably by the replacement of census suffrage by universal manhood suffrage and districts with nationwide party-list proportional representation, both in 1917) is still in effect today.


title: William II of the Netherlands

text: He swore in his first and only cabinet under the terms of the new constitution a few months before his sudden death in Tilburg, North Brabant (1849).


title: William II of the Netherlands

text: He is a recurring character in the historical novels of Georgette Heyer, most notably in "An Infamous Army".


title: William II of the Netherlands

text: William appears as a character in the historical fiction novel "Sharpe's Waterloo" by Bernard Cornwell, and its television adaptation, in which he is portrayed by Paul Bettany.


title: William II of the Netherlands

text: William II had a string of relationships with both men and women which led him to be blackmailed. The homosexual relationships that William II had as crown prince and as king were reported by journalist . The king surrounded himself with male servants whom he could not dismiss because of his 'abominable motive' for hiring them in the first place. One of his closest friends was the Wallonian aristocrat Albéric du Chastel. William II was blackmailed for the first time for his intimacies with men in 1818. After the Dutch secret polices captured the blackmailers they were sent to the Dutch colonies across the sea.


title: Chris Bauer

text: Mark Christopher Bauer (born October 28, 1966) is an American actor. He is best known for his television work in "The Wire", "Third Watch", "True Blood", "Survivor's Remorse," "The Deuce and" the Apple TV+ original science fiction space drama series "For All Mankind". He has also appeared on Broadway, in "A Streetcar Named Desire", and has originated roles in plays by David Mamet, John Patrick Shanley and Jez Butterworth.


title: Chris Bauer

text: Bauer was born in Los Angeles, California, and is of German and Irish descent. He attended Miramonte High School in Orinda, California and played on the Miramonte football team in his senior year, 1984, the year the team won the state championship. Later, he attended the University of San Diego and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and graduated from the Yale School of Drama.


title: Chris Bauer

text: Bauer has starred in numerous television series including "The Wire", as port-union boss Frank Sobotka. He initially auditioned for the role of Jimmy McNulty. He also starred in Billy Crystal's 2001 film "61*", as New York Yankees player Bob Cerv. His roles on network television include a regular role as Fred Yokas, husband of Officer Faith Yokas, on the NBC series "Third Watch", lead FBI Agent Dodd on the short-lived CBS series "Smith", a priest on ABC's "Life on Mars", and as Detective Lou Destefano in the original Sci-Fi channel miniseries "The Lost Room". In 2004, he played Lee Nickel on the ESPN series "Tilt". He appeared in the episode "The No-Brainer" of the television series "Fringe" as Brian Dempsey, and appeared in multiple episodes of "Numb3rs" as Dr. Raymond "Ray" Galuski and in "Criminal Minds", in season one, as the antagonist.


title: Chris Bauer

text: Chris Bauer played Det. (later Sheriff) Andy Bellefleur on the TV-series "True Blood". He also played Dennis Halsey, a guard on "Unforgettable" in the fourth episode of the first season, "Up In Flames", and appeared as a rival salesman from the Syracuse branch of Dunder Mifflin in Season 8 of "The Office" (US). In 2014, Bauer guest starred in an episode of NBC's "Parks and Recreation".


title: Chris Bauer

text: In October 2014 Bauer started a recurring role on the Starz comedy "Survivor's Remorse". He played Jimmy Flaherty, the owner of a fictitious Atlanta professional basketball team. The show was written by Mike O'Malley, who also served as an executive producer along with NBA star LeBron James, and star Jessie T. Usher. "Survivor's Remorse" ran 4 seasons and concluded in 2017.


title: Chris Bauer

text: Bauer played Det. Tom Lange in the FX limited series "American Crime Story". Bauer appeared as Tim Rutten in the NBC mini-series "Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Brothers", and from 2017 co-stars as Bobby Dwyer in the HBO series "The Deuce".


title: Chris Bauer

text: In 2018, Bauer starred as the negotiator Dennis Cole in "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" Series 5 Episode 13 "The Negotiator".


title: Chris Bauer

text: In 2019, Bauer portrayed NASA astronaut and Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton in the first season of the Apple TV+ original science fiction space drama series "For All Mankind".


title: Chris Bauer

text: Bauer's first film appearance was in "Snow White: A Tale of Terror", with Sigourney Weaver, Sam Neill, and Monica Keena. Soon after, Bauer played schoolteacher/pedophile Lloyd Gettys in the 1997 film "The Devil's Advocate". He played prisoner NB9674932-65 Ivan Dubov in the 1997 action film "Face/Off", where he met Nicolas Cage. He then appeared as the masked character 'Machine' in the 1999 film "8mm" also starring Cage. He starred as fetish photographer Irving Klaw in the 2005 Bettie Page biopic "The Notorious Bettie Page", and as famous author Ken Kesey in a 2007 Neal Cassady biopic. Bauer played a small role in the 2005 Jim Jarmusch film, "Broken Flowers". He was featured in the movie "The Conspirator", as a fellow officer following Abraham Lincoln's assassination, and played a minor role in "Flags of Our Fathers". In 2015, Bauer played the role of 'Pa' in Disney's "Tomorrowland". He also appeared in "Money Monster" as Lt. Nelson, and played Larry Rooney in "Sully".


title: Snowdon

text: Snowdon () or (), is the highest mountain in Wales, at an elevation of above sea level, and the highest point in the British Isles outside the Scottish Highlands. It is located in Snowdonia National Park ("") in Gwynedd (historic county of Caernarfonshire). On 17 November 2022, the Snowdonia National Park Authority announced they are to use the Welsh name "Yr Wyddfa" for "Snowdon" and "Eryri" for "Snowdonia" in all circumstances and capacities, in English and Welsh.


title: Snowdon

text: It is the busiest mountain in the United Kingdom and the third most visited attraction in Wales; in 2019 it was visited by 590,984 walkers, with an additional 140,000 people taking the train. It is designated as a national nature reserve for its rare flora and fauna.


title: Snowdon

text: The rocks that form Snowdon were produced by volcanoes in the Ordovician period, and the massif has been extensively sculpted by glaciation, forming the pyramidal peak of Snowdon and the arêtes of Crib Goch and Y Lliwedd. The cliff faces on Snowdon, including Clogwyn Du'r Arddu, are significant for rock climbing, and the mountain was used by Edmund Hillary in training for the 1953 ascent of Mount Everest.


title: Snowdon

text: The summit can be reached by a number of paths (there are six main paths) and by the Snowdon Mountain Railway, a rack railway opened in 1896 which carries passengers the from Llanberis to the Summit station. The summit building, called "", houses a cafe and is open only when the railway is operating; it opened in 2009 to replace one built in the 1930s. The railway generally operates from March to the end of October, with trains running to the summit station from May. The daily running schedule depends on weather and customer demand.


title: Snowdon

text: The Welsh name of the mountain, "Yr Wyddfa" is a shortened form of the original full name, "Gwyddfa Rhita" (Rhita's cairn), after the giant Rhita. According to one legend, the giant Rhita was defeated and buried on the mountain by Arthur whilst another legend suggests that Rhita was killed by the giant Idris who lived on the mountain Cadair Idris. The mountain is also linked to other figures from Arthurian legend, the mountain is linked to a legendary " (water monster) and the (fairies).


title: Snowdon

text: In April 2021 a motion was put forward by Gwynedd Councillor John Pughe Roberts for Snowdon to be called by its Welsh name "Yr Wyddfa" in all official use, and for Snowdonia to similarly be known only as "Eryri". The motion, however, was rejected as the National Park already had a task group looking at the use and retention of Welsh names. An earlier petition calling for the National Park Authority to do this had been rejected by the Senedd the previous year after it was found to be the responsibility of the park itself, rather than the Welsh Government.


title: Snowdon

text: In May 2021, following the dismissal of the motion, YouGov conducted a poll on Snowdon's name. 60% of Welsh adults supported the English name "Snowdon", compared to 30% wanting the Welsh name . Separating by language, 59% of Welsh speakers preferred the Welsh name, while 37% wanted "Snowdon" to not be scrapped entirely. 69% of non-Welsh speakers firmly supported "Snowdon" as the mountain's name.


title: Snowdon

text: In November 2022, Snowdonia National Park Authority voted to use "Yr Wyddfa" and "Eryri" (rather than Snowdon and Snowdonia) in its usage, though in statutory documents both Welsh and English will still be required by law.


title: Snowdon

text: Mistakenly, many frequently refer to the mountain as Mount Snowdon, this is in fact a mountain in British Columbia, Canada, and the Welsh mountain is just called Snowdon.


title: Snowdon

text: A 1682 survey estimated that the summit of Snowdon was at an elevation of ; in 1773, Thomas Pennant quoted a later estimate of above sea level at Caernarfon. It was long believed to be the tallest mountain on the island of Great Britain until measurements taken in the eighteenth century confirmed that Ben Nevis, along with several other Scottish peaks, were taller. Recent surveys give the height of the summit as , making Snowdon the highest mountain in Wales, and the highest point in the British Isles outside Scotland.


title: Snowdon

text: The rocks which today make up Snowdon and its neighbouring mountains were formed in the Ordovician Period. At that time, most of modern-day Wales was near the edge of Avalonia, submerged beneath the ancient Iapetus Ocean. In the Soudleyan (former British regional) stage () of the Caradoc (British regional) epoch, a volcanic caldera formed, and produced ash flows of rhyolitic tuff, which formed deposits up to thick. The current summit is near the northern edge of the ancient caldera; the caldera's full extent is unclear, but it extended as far as the summit of Moel Hebog in the south-west.


title: Snowdon

text: Snowdon and its surrounding peaks have been described as "true examples of Alpine topography". The summits of Snowdon and Garnedd Ugain are surrounded by cwms, rounded valleys scooped out by glaciation. Erosion by glaciers in adjacent cwms caused the characteristic arêtes of Crib Goch, Crib y Ddysgl and Y Lliwedd, and the pyramidal peak of Snowdon itself. Other glacial landforms that can be seen around Snowdon include roches moutonnées, glacial erratics and moraines.


title: Snowdon

text: In winter, Snowdon often has a covering of snow (giving rise to its English name). Although the amount of snow on Snowdon in winter varies significantly, 55% less snow fell in 2004 than in 1994. The slopes of Snowdon have one of the wettest climates in Great Britain, receiving an annual average of more than of precipitation.


title: Snowdon

text: The environment of Snowdon, particularly its rare plants, has led to the designation of much of the eastern part of the massif as a national nature reserve. In addition to plants that are widespread in Snowdonia, Snowdon is home to some plants rarely found elsewhere in Britain. These include the "Snowdon lily", "Gagea serotina", which is also found in the Alps and in North America; it was first discovered in Wales by Edward Lhuyd, and the genus "Lloydia" (now included in "Gagea") was later named in his honour by Richard Anthony Salisbury. Snowdon lies in the northern part of Snowdonia National Park, which has also provided some legal protection since the park's establishment in 1951.


title: Snowdon

text: Otters, polecats, and goats have been seen near or on the mountain, although pine martens have not been seen for many years. Birds that can be seen include the raven, red-billed chough, peregrine, osprey, merlin, red kite and moorland birds.


title: Snowdon

text: Other lakes include: Llyn Du'r Arddu below Clogwyn Du'r Arddu, at a height of , ; Llyn Teyrn near Pen-y-pass, at a height of , ; and several smaller pools.


title: Snowdon

text: Snowdon has been described as "the busiest mountain in Britain", with some 590,984 people having walked up the mountain in 2019. There are six main walking paths, which can be combined in various ways. In addition, the circular walk starting and ending at and using the route and the route over , both of which involve scrambling, is called the Snowdon Horseshoe, and is considered "one of the finest ridge walks in Britain". The routes are arranged here anticlockwise, starting with the path leading from Llanberis. In winter conditions, all these routes become significantly more dangerous and the Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team state that "additional skills, equipment and knowledge are required". Many inexperienced walkers have been killed over the years attempting to climb the mountain via the main paths.


title: Snowdon

text: Snowdon offers some of the most extensive views in the British Isles; on exceptionally clear days, Ireland, (the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland), Scotland, England, and the Isle of Man (as well as Wales) are all visible, as well as 24 counties, 29 lakes and 17 islands. From here, it is also possible to see the mountains of the Peak District and South Pennines that surround Manchester. The view between Snowdon and Merrick (southern Scotland) is the longest theoretical line of sight in the British Isles at . In practice, atmospheric conditions make such sightings extremely rare, but a report from 2015 demonstrates the observation. The mountain itself may also be viewed on takeoff and approach to both Manchester Airport and Liverpool John Lennon Airport on very clear days, and even from Howth Head in Dublin, Ireland.


title: Snowdon

text: On 26 June 2018, Sam Laming became the first ever Wingsuit pilot to perform a 'Proximity Flight' over a UK mountain, by flying approximately 30 metres over Snowdon's summit, after jumping from a helicopter with fellow wingsuit camera pilot, Mike Hitchcock.


title: Snowdon

text: In 2021, John Harold, the director of the Snowdonia Society, reported that the number of visitors ascending Snowdon was exceeding capacity. At popular times walkers queue for upwards of 45 minutes for an opportunity to take a photo at the summit pillar.


title: Snowdon

text: The Snowdon Massif includes a number of cliffs, and holds an important place in the history of rock climbing in the United Kingdom. Clogwyn Du'r Arddu is often colloquially known as 'Cloggy' among climbers, and was the site of the first recorded climb in Britain, in 1798. It was carried out by Peter Bailey Williams and William Bingley, while searching for rare plants. It is now considered to be one of the best cliffs in Britain for rock climbing.


title: Snowdon

text: Y Lliwedd was also explored by early climbers, and was the subject of a 1909 climbing guide, "The Climbs on Lliwedd" by J. M. A. Thompson and A. W. Andrews, one of the first in Britain. Snowdon was used by Edmund Hillary and his group during preparations for their successful 1953 expedition to climb Mount Everest.


title: Snowdon

text: The first recorded ascent of Snowdon was by the botanist Thomas Johnson in 1639. However, the 18th-century Welsh historian Thomas Pennant mentions a "triumphal fair upon this our chief of mountains" following Edward I's conquest of Wales in 1284, which could indicate the possibility of earlier ascents.


title: Snowdon

text: The six main paths were mapped by the Google Trekker in 2015. The elevations and gradients given here are for the start point on a public road, based on Ordnance Survey mapping. Other definitions are possible so alternative figures can be found (e.g.).


title: Snowdon

text: The Llanberis Path is the longest route to the summit. It follows close to the line of the railway, and being the easiest ascent, it is the route used by the annual Snowdon Race, which has a record time of less than 40 minutes recorded from the start to the summit.


title: Snowdon

text: The section of the Llanberis Path above Clogwyn station has long been called the "Killer Convex"; in icy conditions, this convex slope can send unwary walkers over the cliffs of Clogwyn Du'r Arddu. Four people died there in February 2009.


title: Snowdon

text: The Snowdon Ranger Path () begins at the youth hostel beside Llyn Cwellyn, to the west of the mountain, served by the A4085 and Snowdon Ranger railway station. This was formerly the Saracen's Head Inn, but was renamed under the ownership of the mountain guide John Morton. It is thought to be the oldest path to the summit.


title: Snowdon

text: The route begins with zigzags through turf, before reaching a flatter boggy area in front of Llyn Ffynnon-y-gwas. The path then climbs to Bwlch Cwm Brwynog, and then snakes along the ridge above Clogwyn Du'r Arddu towards the summit. This path meets the railway, the Llanberis Path, the Crib Goch path, and the combined Pyg Track and Miners' Track all within a short distance, just below the summit.


title: Snowdon

text: The Rhyd Ddu path, formerly called the Beddgelert Path, leads from the village of Rhyd Ddu, west of Snowdon, gently up on to Llechog, a broad ridge dropping west from the summit. It is considered one of the easier routes to the summit, with the advantage that the summit is visible from the start, but is one of the least used routes. It climbs at a shallow gradient to Bwlch Main, shortly southwest of the summit, from where it climbs more steeply, meeting up with the Watkin Path at a site marked with a large standing stone a few hundred metres from the summit. An alternative start begins at Pitt's Head on the A4085 road.


title: Snowdon

text: The Watkin Path is "the most demanding route direct to the summit of Snowdon", since it starts at the lowest elevation of any of the main routes and has the steepest overall gradient. It was first conceived by Sir Edward Watkin, a railway owner who had attempted to build a railway tunnel under the English Channel, and had a summer home in Nant Gwynant near the start of the path. It was originally designed as a donkey track and opened in 1892.


title: Snowdon

text: The start of the Watkin Path has been described as "the prettiest beginning" of the routes up Snowdon. It begins at Bethania on the A498 and climbs initially through old broadleaved woodland. After leaving the woods, the path climbs past the waterfalls of the Afon Llan to the glacial cirque of Cwm Llan, crossing a disused incline from an abandoned slate quarry. It then reaches Plas Cwmllan, formerly the home of the quarry manager for the South Snowdon Slate Works beyond, and later used for target practice by commandos during the Second World War. Near Plas Cwmllan is the large boulder known as Gladstone Rock, which bears a plaque commemorating a speech given in 1892 by William Ewart Gladstone, the then 82-year-old Prime Minister, on the subject of "Justice for Wales". The slate workings in Cwm Llan were opened in 1840, but closed in 1882 due to the expense of transporting the slate to the sea at Porthmadog. Various buildings, including barracks and dressing sheds, remain.


title: Snowdon

text: From the slate quarries, the Watkin Path veers to the north-east to reach Bwlch Ciliau, the col between Snowdon and Y Lliwedd, which is marked by a large orange-brown cairn. From here, it heads west to meet the Rhyd Ddu Path at a standing stone shortly below the summit of Snowdon.


title: Snowdon

text: The route over Y Lliwedd is more frequently used for descent than ascent, and forms the second half of the Snowdon Horseshoe walk, the ascent being over Crib Goch. It is reached from the summit by following the Watkin Path down to Bwlch y Saethau, and then continuing along the ridge to the twin summits of Y Lliwedd. The path then drops down to Cwm Dyli to join the Miners' Track towards Pen-y-Pass.


title: Snowdon

text: The Miners' Track () begins at the car park at Pen-y-Pass, at an elevation of around , and has the shallowest overall gradient. It begins by skirting Llyn Teyrn before climbing slightly to cross the causeway over Llyn Llydaw. It follows the lake's shoreline before climbing to Glaslyn, from where it ascends steeply towards Bwlch Glas. It is joined for most of this zigzag ascent by the Pyg Track, and on reaching the summit ridge, is united with the Llanberis Path and Snowdon Ranger Path. Derelict mine buildings are encountered along several parts of the path.


title: Snowdon

text: The "Pyg Track" (), or "Pig Track" (both spellings may be encountered), also leads from Pen-y-Pass. The track climbs over Bwlch y Moch on the eastern flanks of Crib Goch, before traversing that ridge's lower slopes. Above Glaslyn, it is joined by the Miners' Track for the zigzag climb to Bwlch Glas between Snowdon and Garnedd Ugain, where it joins the combined Llanberis and Snowdon Ranger paths.


title: Snowdon

text: The traverse of has been described as "one of the finest ridge walks in Britain", and forms part of the Snowdon Horseshoe, a circuit of the peaks surrounding Cwm Dyli. The path follows the Pyg Track before separating off from it at and leading up the East ridge of Crib Goch. After the Crib Goch ridge, it descends slightly to Bwlch Coch, then ascends to the peak of Garnedd Ugain (), before dropping to join the Llanberis path. All routes which tackle Crib Goch are considered mountaineering routes or scrambles.


title: Snowdon

text: The Snowdon Mountain Railway (SMR) () is a narrow gauge rack and pinion mountain railway that travels for from Llanberis to the Summit station of Snowdon. It is the only public rack and pinion railway in the United Kingdom, and after more than 100 years of operation it remains a popular tourist attraction, carrying more than 130,000 passengers annually. Single carriage trains are pushed up the mountain by either steam locomotives or diesel locomotives. It has also previously used diesel railcars as multiple units. The railway was constructed between December 1894, when the first sod was cut by Enid Assheton-Smith (after whom locomotive No.2 was named), and February 1896, at a total cost of £63,800 (equivalent to £ as of ).


title: Snowdon

text: The first building to be erected at the Snowdon summit was in 1838 to sell refreshments, and a licence to sell intoxicating liquor was granted in 1845. Very basic accommodation was also provided for visitors. When the Snowdon Mountain Railway was opened in 1896, the company strove to get an alcohol licence for its own proposed new hotel, but being unable to, took over both summit huts by 1898.


title: Snowdon

text: During the 1930s, many complaints were received about the state of the facilities at the summit and in 1934/5 a new station building was erected in two phases; the upstairs accommodation was completed in 1937. It was designed by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis and included rooms for visitors and a cafe. The other operators were bought out and the ramshackle collection of buildings on the summit was cleared. The flat roof was intended to be used as a viewing platform and some photographs show it being used in this way. However, other photographs taken of the cafe show that the roof leaked, which probably explains why the practice was stopped. The Summit was taken over by government agencies during the war and the accommodation was restricted to staff use afterwards. Having become increasingly dilapidated in post-war decades, this building was described by Prince Charles as "the highest slum in Wales". Its state led to a campaign to replace the building. In April 2006, Snowdonia National Park Authority, with the support of the Snowdonia Society, agreed a deal to start work on a new cafe and visitor centre complex. By mid-October 2006 the old building had been largely demolished.


title: Snowdon

text: The new RIBA Award-winning £8.4 million visitor centre, ', designed by Ray Hole Architects in conjunction with Arup and built by Carillion, was officially opened on 12 June 2009 by First Minister Rhodri Morgan. The Welsh National Poet, Gwyn Thomas, composed a new couplet for the new building, displayed at its entrance and on the windows, which reads "" / The summit of Snowdon: You are, here, nearer to Heaven"". The name "Hafod Eryri" was chosen from several hundred put forward after a competition was held by the BBC. ' is Welsh for an upland summer residence, while "" is the Welsh name for Snowdonia.


title: Snowdon

text: The summit pillar was built in 2001, the brass toposcope carrying the date 2000. This plate details exactly 100 locations - mostly other peaks - which can be seen, given ideal visibility. Of the locations mentioned, Mount Leinster (in the Blackstairs Mountains in Ireland) is the furthest, at 188 miles away, with the Wicklow Mountains (also in Ireland) being 100 miles away. Slieve Donard, in Northern Ireland, is 108 miles away. The Lake District is 100 miles away, Penmaen Dewi (St David's Head in Pembrokeshire) is 96 miles away, Kinder Scout (in the Peak District) is 94 miles away, and the Isle of Man is 84 miles away.


title: Snowdon

text: Originally Snowdon and its summit were owned by three agricultural estates, Vaynol, Hafod y Llan and the Baron Hill Estate. Today the Vaynol land at the summit is owned by the Snowdonia National Park Authority, Hafod y Llan by the National Trust and the Baron Hill Estate retains its holding. The Baron Hill Estate land consists of the farm of Gwastadannas, which includes the Snowdon Horseshoe, Glaslyn, Llyn Llydaw and the northern end of Nant Gwynant.


title: Snowdon

text: In Welsh folklore, the summit of Snowdon is said to be the tomb of Rhitta Gawr, a giant. This is claimed to be the reason for the Welsh name "Yr Wyddfa", literally meaning "the tumulus". Rhitta Gawr wore a cloak made of men's beards, and was slain by King Arthur after claiming Arthur's beard. Other sites with Arthurian connections include Bwlch y Saethau, on the ridge between Snowdon and Y Lliwedd, where Arthur himself is said to have died. A cairn, "Carnedd Arthur", was erected at the site and was still standing as late as 1850, but no longer exists. According to the folklore, Arthur had Bedivere throw his sword "Excalibur" into Glaslyn, where Arthur's body was later placed in a boat to be carried away to Afallon. Arthur's men then retreated to a cave on the slopes of Y Lliwedd, where they are said to sleep until such time as they are needed. Merlin is supposed to have hidden the golden throne of Britain among the cliffs north of Crib y Ddysgl when the Saxons invaded.


title: Snowdon

text: Glaslyn was also the final resting place of a water monster, known as an "" (also the Welsh word for beaver), which had plagued the people of the Conwy valley. They tempted the monster out of the water with a young girl, before securing it with chains and dragging it to Glaslyn. A large stone known as Maen Du'r Arddu, below Clogwyn Du'r Arddu, is supposed to have magical powers. Like several other sites in Wales, it is said that if two people spend the night there, one will become a great poet while the other will become insane. Llyn Coch in Cwm Clogwyn has been associated with the Tylwyth Teg (fairies), including a version of the fairy bride legend.


title: Snowdon

text: In 1968, scenes representing the Khyber Pass were filmed for "Carry On... Up the Khyber" on the lower part of the Watkin Path. In 2005, Angela Douglas, one of the stars of the film, unveiled a plaque at the precise location where filming took place to commemorate the location filming. It now forms part of the North Wales Film and Television Trail run by the Wales Screen Commission.


title: Snowdon

text: In January and February 2009 on Snowdon there were 4 people who died and 3 of these four deaths were related to people falling. In 2021 there were 4 people who died on Snowdon.


title: Snowdon

text: In 2021 two people were injured and taken to hospital after being struck by lightning on top of Snowdon.


title: Lang Lang

text: Lang Lang (; born 14 June 1982) is a Chinese pianist who has performed with leading orchestras in China, North America, Europe, and elsewhere. Active since the 1990s, he was the first Chinese pianist to be engaged by the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic and some top American orchestras. A "Chicago Tribune" music critic called him "the biggest, most exciting young keyboard talent I have encountered in many a year of attending piano recitals". Lang is considered by many as one of the most accomplished classical musicians of modern time.


title: Lang Lang

text: Lang Lang was born in Shenyang, Liaoning, in 1982 to a family of the Manchu Niohuru clan. His father Lang Guoren is a musician, playing the erhu.


title: Lang Lang

text: The "Tom and Jerry" episode "The Cat Concerto", which features Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2., motivated two-year-old Lang to learn the piano. He started lessons with Zhu Ya-Fen at age three, and won first place at the Shenyang Piano Competition and performed his first public recital when he was five.


title: Lang Lang

text: When Lang was nine, he was expelled from his piano tutor's studio for "lack of talent". Another music teacher at his state school noticed Lang's sadness, and asked him to play the second movement of Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 10, which reminded Lang of his love for the instrument. Lang later studied under Zhao Ping-Guo at Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music.


title: Lang Lang

text: Lang won the Xinghai National Piano Competition in Beijing in 1993 and first prize for outstanding artistic performance at the International Competition for Young Pianists in Ettlingen, Germany, in 1994. In 1995, Lang played the Chopin études at the Beijing Concert Hall, won the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in Japan, and soloed with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. Fourteen-year-old Lang was a featured soloist for the China National Symphony's inaugural concert.


title: Lang Lang

text: Lang and his father moved to the United States in 1997, so Lang could study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.


title: Lang Lang

text: Lang has been noted by musicians and critics around the world—the conductor Jahja Ling remarked: "Lang Lang is special because of his total mastery of the piano... He has the flair and great communicative power." National Public Radio's Morning Edition remarked: "Lang Lang has conquered the classical world with dazzling technique and charisma." It is often noted that Lang successfully straddles two worlds—classical prodigy and rock-like "superstar", a phenomenon summed up by "The Times" (London) journalist Emma Pomfret, who wrote, "I can think of no other classical artist who has achieved Lang Lang's broad appeal without dumbing down."


title: Lang Lang

text: Lang's performance style was controversial when he stormed into the classical music scene in 1999. At that time, pianist Earl Wild called him "the J. Lo of the piano." Others have described him as immature, but admitted that his ability to "conquer crowds with youthful bravado" is phenomenal among classical musicians. His maturity in subsequent years was reported by "The New Yorker": "The ebullient Lang Lang is maturing as an artist." In April 2009, when "Time" magazine included Lang in its list of the 100 most influential people, Herbie Hancock described his playing as "so sensitive and so deeply human", commenting: "You hear him play, and he never ceases to touch your heart."


title: Lang Lang

text: In 2001, after a sold-out Carnegie Hall debut with Yuri Temirkanov, he traveled to Beijing with the Philadelphia Orchestra on a tour celebrating its 100th anniversary, during which he performed to an audience of 8,000 at the Great Hall of the People. The same year, he made his BBC Proms debut, prompting a music critic of the British newspaper "The Times" to write, "Lang Lang took a sold-out Royal Albert Hall by storm... This could well be history in the making". In 2003, he returned to the BBC Proms for the First Night concert with Leonard Slatkin. After his recital debut with the Berlin Philharmonic, the "Berliner Zeitung" wrote: "Lang Lang is a superb musical performer whose artistic touch is always in service of the music". However, recent reviews have been mixed. Lately, a plethora of music critics have protested against too much showmanship; not enough care; not enough sensitivity. But audiences continue to adore him. Lang has become one of those artists whose career prospers outside the boundaries of critical approval. The pianist is bemused by the backlash: "You get many good reviews from the beginning," he says, "and then the critics start criticising you. It's strange. The things they liked you for first—unique, fresh—they say is great. And then later they say you're too fresh, too unique. But they're the same thing!"


title: Lang Lang

text: Lang was the featured soloist on the Golden Globe winning score of "The Painted Veil" and can be heard on the soundtrack of "The Banquet". He has recorded for the Deutsche Grammophon and Telarc labels. His album of the first and fourth Beethoven piano concertos with the Orchestre de Paris and Christoph Eschenbach debuted at No. 1 on the Traditional Classical Billboard Chart. In 2008, he was the pianist on Mike Oldfield's 2008 album "Music of the Spheres". In 2010, he signed with Sony for a reported $3 million. Metallica performed the song One alongside Lang at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in 2014.


title: Lang Lang

text: Lang has also recorded piano works for the video game "Gran Turismo 5"s soundtrack, mostly under the "Classical" subgenre. This included versions of Danny Boy, "Scott Joplin's The Entertainer", Beethoven's 8th Piano Sonata, and one of the game's intro pieces, the third movement from Prokofiev's 7th Piano Sonata.


title: Lang Lang

text: Lang has played for Kofi Annan, President Barack Obama, Queen Elizabeth II, President Hu Jintao, President Horst Köhler, Prince Charles (now Charles III), Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, President Nicolas Sarkozy, and Polish President Lech Kaczynski.


title: Lang Lang

text: At the White House state dinner in honour of President of China Hu Jintao on 19 January 2011, one of the tunes Lang played was the song "My Motherland" from the movie "Battle on Shangganling Mountain", an anti-imperialist film on the Korean War. The song's lyrics include the line "We deal with wolves with guns", which in the film referred indirectly to the United States Army. Although the tune is popular and has lost much of its political and historical significance in China, the performance was said to be interpreted by some as insulting the US.


title: Lang Lang

text: In response to the controversy, Lang denied that he intended to insult the United States. He later released a statement stating that he "selected this song because it has been a favorite of mine since I was a child. It was selected for no other reason but for the beauty of its melody." White House spokesperson Tommy Vietor also responded by saying "My Motherland" is "widely known and popular in China for its melody. Lang played the song without lyrics or reference to any political theme... any suggestion that this was an insult to the United States is just flat wrong."


title: Lang Lang

text: Lang has performed at various open-air venues, including Central Park New York, Hollywood Bowl Los Angeles, the Ravinia Festival Chicago, Theaterplatz in Dresden, and Derby Park Hamburg.


title: Lang Lang

text: In July 2007, he played at a concert from the Teatro del Silenzio, Lajatico, Italy, hosted by Andrea Bocelli. He performed "Io ci sarò" with Bocelli, and Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody". The performance is available on a DVD entitled "Vivere Live in Tuscany".