title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: Pierre-Paul was born in Deerfield Beach, Florida to Haitian immigrants Jean and Marie, who arrived in the United States in 1983. At Deerfield Beach High School, Pierre-Paul lettered in basketball for four years. After a serious leg injury while playing basketball, he took up football his junior year.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: Pierre-Paul tallied 51 tackles and 19 tackles for a loss in his freshman year at College of the Canyons (California). He also had 14 sacks and earned First-team All-WSC and All-America honors. In 2008, Pierre-Paul played at Fort Scott Community College (Kansas), where his 70 tackles, 10.5 sacks, three forced fumbles, and two fumble recoveries earned him First-team Little All-American honors.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: Pierre-Paul transferred to the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. In 2009, he played thirteen games for the Bulls with seven starts and totaled 45 tackles (16.5 for losses), 6.5 sacks, one interception (returned 18 yards for a touchdown), broke up three passes, and forced two fumbles. He was named First-team All-America by "Pro Football Weekly" for his efforts, and was also first-team All Big East. He earned the nickname Haitian Sensation. In the fourth week of the season, he was named the Defensive Lineman Performer of the Week in the College Performance Awards. After his junior year, he decided to forgo his senior season and enter the 2010 NFL Draft.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: Pierre-Paul was drafted by the New York Giants in the first round with the 15th overall pick in the 2010 NFL Draft. On July 31, 2010, Pierre-Paul and the Giants agreed to a five-year, $20.05 million deal with $11.629 million guaranteed. He made his NFL debut on September 12, 2010, in the New York Giants' season opener, and recorded two tackles. He finished the season playing a total of 16 games, totaling 24 solo tackles and recording 4.5 sacks. He was named to 2010 All-NFL Draft Team by Pro Football Rosters.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: With injuries plaguing the Giants' starting defensive ends, Osi Umenyiora and Justin Tuck, Pierre-Paul received a significant amount of playing time, including 12 starts.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: Pierre-Paul recorded 65 tackles, 16.5 sacks, one safety, and two forced fumbles during the 2011 season. On December 11, 2011, after already compiling two sacks (one for a safety) and a forced fumble, Pierre-Paul blocked Dan Bailey's 47-yard field goal attempt in the final seconds of the Giants' game against the Dallas Cowboys, and the Giants won 37–34. Pierre-Paul became the first player in NFL history to record a sack, forced fumble, and blocked field goal in the same game. On December 13, 2011, he was named the NFC Defensive Player of the Week. Two games later, Pierre-Paul earned another NFC Defensive Player of the Week, which came for his game against the New York Jets. On December 27, 2011, it was announced that Pierre-Paul was voted to his first Pro Bowl, despite not being on the ballot.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: Pierre-Paul played a big role in the Giants' playoff run where they competed against the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI and won by a score of 21–17. He was ranked 24th by his fellow players on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2012.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: On October 28, 2012, against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 8, Pierre-Paul caught his first career interception and returned it for a touchdown. He finished the 2012 season with 6.5 sacks and 43 total tackles. He was named to the Pro Bowl. He was ranked 55th by his fellow players on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2013.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: On June 3, 2013, Pierre-Paul underwent back surgery to remove a herniated disc. He returned for Week 1 for the game against Dallas and recorded a solitary sack. Against the Packers, he intercepted a pass by Scott Tolzien, which he returned for a touchdown in the 27–13 victory. For his game against the Packers, Pierre-Paul earned NFC Defensive Player of the Week.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: Pierre-Paul finished the season with 12.5 sacks, 77 tackles, three forced fumbles, and six passes defended.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: On March 3, 2015, the New York Giants placed the franchise tag on Pierre-Paul. Reports indicated that the tag was non-exclusive, which meant that Pierre-Paul could negotiate with other teams, and the Giants had the right to match any offer or receive two first-round picks as compensation. On July 4, 2015, Pierre-Paul sustained a serious hand injury in a fireworks accident at his home after detonating a firework in his hand, blowing off a significant portion of his finger. Four days later he had his right index finger amputated. He signed a one-year deal with the team on October 27. He was placed on the Giants' active roster on November 7. Pierre-Paul lost substantial weight in the hospital following the injury and had to play the season with a "monstrous padded club" on his injured hand, both of which adversely affected his play.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: On March 8, 2016, Pierre-Paul turned down an offer from the Arizona Cardinals to remain with the New York Giants. Before the 2016 season, Pierre-Paul underwent further surgery on his hand which allowed him to wear a glove instead of the cumbersome club which he wore in 2015. In Week 12, he registered three sacks including a fumble that he returned 43 yards for his third career touchdown against the Browns in a 27–13 win. Pierre-Paul was named NFC Defensive Player of the Week for his performance in Week 12. On December 7, 2016, he underwent surgery for a sports hernia and was expected to be out six weeks but ended up missing the rest of the season due to the Giants losing in the Wild Card Round of the 2016–17 NFL playoffs to the Green Bay Packers. Without Pierre-Paul and injured cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, the Giants allowed a season-high 38 points en route to a 38–13 loss.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: On February 27, 2017, the Giants placed the franchise tag on Pierre-Paul for the second time. On March 17, 2017, Pierre-Paul signed a four-year, $62 million contract with the Giants with $40 million guaranteed. Overall, Pierre-Paul finished the 2017 season with 68 total tackles, 8.5 sacks, five passes defended and two forced fumbles.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: On March 22, 2018, the Giants traded Pierre-Paul to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for a third round pick (B. J. Hill) in the 2018 NFL Draft and a swap of fourth round picks. He started all 16 games, recording 58 combined tackles and a team-leading 12.5 sacks. He was ranked 65th by his fellow players on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2019.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: In May 2019, Pierre-Paul was involved in a single-car accident and experienced a neck fracture due to not wearing a seatbelt that put his season in jeopardy. However, he was cleared for football activities in late August and was placed on the reserve/non-football injury list to start the season. He was activated off NFI on October 26, 2019, prior to Week 8.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: In Week 12 against the Atlanta Falcons, Pierre-Paul recorded a strip sack on quarterback Matt Ryan which was returned by teammate Ndamukong Suh for an 11-yard touchdown in the 35–22 win. In Week 16 during a 23–20 loss to the Houston Texans, Pierre-Paul sacked quarterback Deshaun Watson three times.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: In Week 17 against the Atlanta Falcons, Pierre-Paul sacked Matt Ryan two times, one of which was a strip sack that was recovered by teammate Devin White who returned it for a 91-yard touchdown, during the 28–22 overtime loss. Overall, Pierre-Paul finished the 2019 season with 27 total tackles, 8.5 sacks, two passes defended, and two forced fumbles in ten games.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: On March 17, 2020, Pierre-Paul signed a two-year, $27 million contract extension with the Buccaneers.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: In Week 1 against the New Orleans Saints, Pierre-Paul recorded his first sack of the season on Drew Brees during the 34–23 loss.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: In the following week's game against the Carolina Panthers, Pierre-Paul sacked Teddy Bridgewater once and recovered a fumble forced by teammate Antoine Winfield Jr. on Bridgewater during the 31–17 win.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: In Week 6 against the Green Bay Packers, Pierre-Paul recorded 1.5 sacks and a forced fumble during the 38–10 win.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: In Week 10 against the Carolina Panthers, Pierre-Paul sacked Teddy Bridgewater once and intercepted a pass thrown by Bridgewater during the 46–23 win. This was Pierre-Paul's first interception since the 2013 season. In Week 11, during a 27–24 loss to the Los Angeles Rams, Pierre-Paul recorded six total tackles, two pass deflections, and an interception. In Week 15, during a 26–14 win against the Minnesota Vikings, Pierre-Paul record two total tackles as well as strip-sack on Kirk Cousins which Pierre-Paul recovered. On December 21, Pierre-Paul was selected to the Pro Bowl. This would mark Pierre-Paul's first Pro Bowl selection as a Buccaneer as well as his first selection since 2012.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: Pierre-Paul finished the 2020 regular season with 55 total tackles, a team-best 9.5 sacks, four forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries, six pass deflections, and two interceptions.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: In the against the Green Bay Packers, Pierre-Paul recorded two sacks on Aaron Rodgers during the 31–26 win. The Buccaneers would go on to defeat the Kansas City Chiefs 31–9 and win Super Bowl LV in their own stadium, Raymond James Stadium, avenging an earlier loss to the Chiefs in the regular season. Pierre-Paul earned his second Super Bowl title in the win. He was ranked 59th by his fellow players on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2021.


title: Jason Pierre-Paul

text: Pierre-Paul's production would drop considerably in 2021 as he dealt with a nagging torn rotator cuff injury for most of the season, which would require surgery after the season. He missed Weeks 3–4 and 16–18 during the season as well. He finished the regular season with only 2.5 sacks, 31 tackles, and one forced fumble.


title: Heaven Is for Real (film)

text: Heaven Is for Real is a 2014 American Christian drama film written and directed by Randall Wallace and co-written by Christopher Parker, based on Pastor Todd Burpo and Lynn Vincent's 2010 book of the same name. The film stars Greg Kinnear, Kelly Reilly, Connor Corum, Margo Martindale, and Thomas Haden Church. The film was released on April 16, 2014.


title: Heaven Is for Real (film)

text: The film has received mixed critical reviews, but nevertheless was a box office success, grossing $101 million against a $12 million budget, becoming the second-highest grossing Christian film of all time.


title: Heaven Is for Real (film)

text: Four-year-old Colton Burpo is the son of Todd Burpo, pastor of Crossroads Wesleyan Church in Imperial, Nebraska. Colton says he experienced Heaven during an emergency surgery after having acute appendicitis. He describes to his incredulous family about having seen the surgeon operating on his ruptured appendix, his mother calling people in the waiting room to pray, and his father in another room yelling at God to not let him die. He also speaks of incidents with people he never met or knew about: meeting a great-grandfather who had died long before he was born, an unborn sister he never knew about who had died in a miscarriage, and having met Jesus.


title: Heaven Is for Real (film)

text: Colton speaks about his experiences in Heaven, and Todd is faced with the dilemma of determining the legitimacy of his son's experience. Todd's wariness about discussing the situation erodes the confidence of the board members of his church, and he is contacted by several members of the media. When Todd is called by a radio station for an impromptu on-air interview, he invites them to attend his sermon the following Sunday. At church, he preaches about his son's experiences and reveals his support for him.


title: Heaven Is for Real (film)

text: Following the events at the church, Todd is doing research on the Internet and finds a story about a Lithuanian girl who had a similar experience. Her recall of Jesus was identical to that of Colton. Todd tries to speak to Colton further about the experience but he is interrupted by his wife revealing that she is pregnant with their third child. Photos of Colton and his family are shown in the present day.


title: Heaven Is for Real (film)

text: In May 2011, Sony Pictures acquired the film rights of the book "Heaven Is for Real". It was announced that Joe Roth would be producing the film with T. D. Jakes for the TriStar Pictures division of Sony Pictures. On August 23, 2012 "Braveheart" writer and "Secretariat" director Randall Wallace signed on to direct.


title: Heaven Is for Real (film)

text: On March 19, 2013, it was announced that Greg Kinnear was in talks to star, and he later joined the cast. On April 15, 2013, actress Kelly Reilly joined the film.


title: Heaven Is for Real (film)

text: On July 17, it was reported that composer Nick Glennie-Smith would score the film, and behind the scenes, the director of photography was Dean Semler.


title: Heaven Is for Real (film)

text: At the end of box office run, "Heaven Is for Real" earned a gross of $91,443,253 in North America and $9,026,536 in other territories for a worldwide total of $100,469,789 against a budget of $12 million.


title: Heaven Is for Real (film)

text: The film grossed $3.7 million on its opening day. It went on to gross a total of $22.5 million in its opening weekend, playing in 2,417 theaters for a $9,318 per-theatre average finishing in second behind "".


title: Heaven Is for Real (film)

text: The biggest markets in other territories were Mexico, Poland, and Colombia where the film grossed $1.9 million, $1.4 million, and $1.2 million, respectively.


title: Heaven Is for Real (film)

text: "Heaven Is for Real" received mixed reviews. The film holds a 51% rating on the film aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 89 reviews, with an average score of 5.6/10. The site's consensus states, ""Heaven Is for Real" boasts a well-written screenplay and a talented cast, but overextends itself with heavy-handed sequences depicting concepts it could have trusted the audience to take on faith." On another website, Metacritic, it has a 47/100 score (indicating "mixed or average"), based on reviews from 27 critics.


title: Heaven Is for Real (film)

text: In CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend, cinema audiences gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Heaven Is for Real (film)

text: Jeb Lund, a columnist for "The Guardian", expressed skepticism about the depiction of the story in the film. The red markers which Colton Burpo claims Jesus had on his hands and feet are well known. The boy could have easily guessed that his minister father would have been praying, or nursing staff could have told him.


title: Hourglass

text: An hourglass (or sandglass, sand timer, sand clock or egg timer) is a device used to measure the passage of time. It comprises two glass bulbs connected vertically by a narrow neck that allows a regulated flow of a substance (historically sand) from the upper bulb to the lower one. Typically, the upper and lower bulbs are symmetric so that the hourglass will measure the same duration regardless of orientation. The specific duration of time a given hourglass measures is determined by factors including the quantity and coarseness of the particulate matter, the bulb size, and the neck width.


title: Hourglass

text: Depictions of an hourglass as a symbol of the passage of time are found in art, especially on tombstones or other monuments, from antiquity to the present day. The form of a winged hourglass has been used as a literal depiction of the well-known idiom "time flies".


title: Hourglass

text: The origin of the hourglass is unclear. Its predecessor the clepsydra, or water clock, is known to have existed in Babylon and Egypt as early as the 16th century BC.


title: Hourglass

text: There are no records of the hourglass existing in Europe prior to the Early Middle Ages; the first documented example dates from the 8th century AD, crafted by a Frankish monk named Liutprand who served at the cathedral in Chartres, France. But it was not until the 14th century that the hourglass was seen commonly, the earliest firm evidence being a depiction in the 1338 fresco "Allegory of Good Government" by Ambrogio Lorenzetti.


title: Hourglass

text: Use of the marine sandglass has been recorded since the 14th century. The written records about it were mostly from logbooks of European ships. In the same period it appears in other records and lists of ships stores. The earliest recorded reference that can be said with certainty to refer to a marine sandglass dates from c. 1345, in a receipt of Thomas de Stetesham, clerk of the King's ship "La George", in the reign of Edward III of England; translated from the Latin, the receipt says: in 1345:


title: Hourglass

text: "The same Thomas accounts to have paid at Lescluse, in Flanders, for twelve glass horologes (" pro xii. orlogiis vitreis "), price of each 4½ gross', in sterling 9"s." Item, For four horologes of the same sort (" de eadem secta "), bought there, price of each five gross', making in sterling 3"s." 4"d.""


title: Hourglass

text: Marine sandglasses were very popular on board ships, as they were the most dependable measurement of time while at sea. Unlike the clepsydra, the motion of the ship while sailing did not affect the hourglass. The fact that the hourglass also used granular materials instead of liquids gave it more accurate measurements, as the clepsydra was prone to get condensation inside it during temperature changes. Seamen found that the hourglass was able to help them determine a ship's speed. They would tie a knot every 40-50 feet in a line, tie it to a log, toss the log into the water, then count how many knots slipped through their fingers in the interval measured by the glass. An accurate clock would also have enabled a seaman to determine longitude, distance east or west from a certain point, but an error of four minutes would correspond to one degree of longitude, or some 70 statute miles, so it's doubtful whether an hourglass ever made this practical.


title: Hourglass

text: The hourglass also found popularity on land. As the use of mechanical clocks to indicate the times of events like church services became more common, creating a "need to keep track of time", the demand for time-measuring devices increased. Hourglasses were essentially inexpensive, as they required no rare technology to make and their contents were not hard to come by, and as the manufacturing of these instruments became more common, their uses became more practical.


title: Hourglass

text: Hourglasses were commonly seen in use in churches, homes, and work places to measure sermons, cooking time, and time spent on breaks from labor. Because they were being used for more everyday tasks, the model of the hourglass began to shrink. The smaller models were more practical and very popular as they made timing more discreet.


title: Hourglass

text: After 1500, the hourglass was not as widespread as it had been. This was due to the development of the mechanical clock, which became more accurate, smaller and cheaper, and made keeping time easier. The hourglass, however, did not disappear entirely. Although they became relatively less useful as clock technology advanced, hourglasses remained desirable in their design. The oldest known surviving hourglass resides in the British Museum in London.


title: Hourglass

text: Not until the 18th century did John Harrison come up with a marine chronometer that significantly improved on the stability of the hourglass at sea. Taking elements from the design logic behind the hourglass, he made a marine chronometer in 1761 that was able to accurately measure the journey from England to Jamaica accurate within five seconds.


title: Hourglass

text: Little written evidence exists to explain why its external form is the shape that it is. The glass bulbs used, however, have changed in style and design over time. While the main designs have always been ampoule in shape, the bulbs were not always connected. The first hourglasses were two separate bulbs with a cord wrapped at their union that was then coated in wax to hold the piece together and let sand flow in between. It was not until 1760 that both bulbs were blown together to keep moisture out of the bulbs and regulate the pressure within the bulb that varied the flow.


title: Hourglass

text: While some early hourglasses actually did use silica sand as the granular material to measure time, many did not use sand at all. The material used in most bulbs was "powdered marble, tin/lead oxides, [or] pulverized, burnt eggshell". Over time, different textures of granule matter were tested to see which gave the most constant flow within the bulbs. It was later discovered that for the perfect flow to be achieved the ratio of granule bead to the width of the bulb neck needed to be 1/12 or more but not greater than 1/2 the neck of the bulb.


title: Hourglass

text: Hourglasses were an early dependable and accurate measure of time. The rate of flow of the sand is independent of the depth in the upper reservoir, and the instrument will not freeze in cold weather. From the 15th century onwards, hourglasses were being used in a range of applications at sea, in the church, in industry, and in cookery.


title: Hourglass

text: During the voyage of Ferdinand Magellan around the globe, 18 hourglasses from Barcelona were in the ship's inventory, after the trip had been authorized by King Charles I of Spain. It was the job of a ship's page to turn the hourglasses and thus provide the times for the ship's log. Noon was the reference time for navigation, which did not depend on the glass, as the sun would be at its zenith. A number of sandglasses could be fixed in a common frame, each with a different operating time, e.g. as in a four-way Italian sandglass likely from the 17th century, in the collections of the Science Museum, in South Kensington, London, which could measure intervals of quarter, half, three-quarters, and one hour (and which were also used in churches, for priests and ministers to measure lengths of sermons).


title: Hourglass

text: While they are no longer widely used for keeping time, some institutions do maintain them. Both houses of the Australian Parliament use three hourglasses to time certain procedures, such as divisions.


title: Hourglass

text: The sandglass is still widely used as the kitchen egg timer; for cooking eggs, a three-minute timer is typical, hence the name "egg timer" for three-minute hourglasses. Egg timers are sold widely as souvenirs.


title: Hourglass

text: Sand timers are also sometimes used in games such as Pictionary and Boggle to implement a time constraint on rounds of play.


title: Hourglass

text: Unlike most other methods of measuring time, the hourglass concretely represents the present as being between the past and the future, and this has made it an enduring symbol of time itself.


title: Hourglass

text: The hourglass, sometimes with the addition of metaphorical wings, is often depicted as a symbol that human existence is fleeting, and that the "sands of time" will run out for every human life. It was used thus on pirate flags, to strike fear into the hearts of the pirates' victims. In England, hourglasses were sometimes placed in coffins, and they have graced gravestones for centuries. The hourglass was also used in alchemy as a symbol for hour.


title: Hourglass

text: The former Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich in London used an hourglass on its coat of arms, symbolising Greenwich's role as the origin of GMT. The district's successor, the Royal Borough of Greenwich, uses two hourglasses on its coat of arms.


title: Hourglass

text: Recognition of the hourglass as a symbol of time has survived its obsolescence as a timekeeper. For example, the American television soap opera "Days of Our Lives", since its first broadcast in 1965, has displayed an hourglass in its opening credits, with the narration, "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives," spoken by Macdonald Carey.


title: Hourglass

text: Various computer graphical user interfaces may change the pointer to an hourglass during a period when the program is in the middle of a task, and may not accept user input. During that period other programs, for example in different windows, may work normally. When such an hourglass does not disappear, it suggests a program is in an infinite loop and needs to be terminated, or is waiting for some external event (such as the user inserting a CD). Unicode has an symbol at codice_1 (⌛).


title: Hourglass

text: Because of its symmetry, graphic signs resembling an hourglass are seen in the art of cultures which never encountered such objects. Vertical pairs of triangles joined at the apex are common in Native American art; both in North America, where it can represent, for example, the body of the Thunderbird or (in more elongated form) an enemy scalp, and in South America, where it is believed to represent a Chuncho jungle dweller. In Zulu textiles they symbolise a married man, as opposed to a pair of triangles joined at the base, which symbolise a married woman. Neolithic examples can be seen among Spanish cave paintings. Observers have even given the name "hourglass motif" to shapes which have more complex symmetry, such as a repeating circle and cross pattern from the Solomon Islands. Both the members of Project Tic Toc, from television series the Time Tunnel and the Challengers of the Unknown use symbols of the hourglass representing either time travel or time running out.


title: OTO Melara 76 mm

text: The OTO Melara 76 mm gun is a naval gun built and designed by the Italian defence company OTO Melara. It is based on the OTO Melara 76/62C and evolved toward 76/62 SR and 76/62 Strales.<ref name="urlItaly 76 mm/62 (3) Compact, SR - NavWeaps"></ref>


title: OTO Melara 76 mm

text: The system is compact enough to be installed on relatively small warships. Its high rate of fire and the availability of several types of ammunition make it capable of short-range anti-missile point defence, anti-aircraft, anti-surface, and ground support. Ammunition includes armour-piercing, incendiary, directed fragmentation effects, and a guided round marketed as capable of destroying manoeuvring anti-ship missiles. It can be installed in a stealth cupola.


title: OTO Melara 76 mm

text: The OTO Melara 76 mm has been widely exported, and is in use by sixty navies. It was favoured over the French 100mm naval gun for the joint French/Italian project and FREMM frigate.


title: OTO Melara 76 mm

text: On 27 September 2006 Iran announced it had started mass production of a naval gun named the Fajr-27, which is a reverse-engineered OTO Melara 76 mm gun.


title: OTO Melara 76 mm

text: The Super Rapid or ""Super Rapido"" variant, with a higher rate of fire of 120 rounds per minute, was developed in the early 1980s and remained current . The Super Rapid's higher rate of fire was achieved by designing a faster feed system.


title: OTO Melara 76 mm

text: The Italian navy preferred the improved "Super Rapido" with Strales System and DART ammunition to the Fast Forty 40 mm CIWS in the anti-missile defence role as it is capable of countering several subsonic missiles up to 8,000 meters away. It is a medium caliber gun with relatively long range, and can also be used against surface targets.


title: OTO Melara 76 mm

text: The 76/62 "Sovraponte" ("over deck") is a new compact lightweight mount for the 76/62 gun. The system is around 30-40% lighter than the standard Super Rapid and its installation requires no penetration of the deck below; the mount houses 76 ready-to-fire rounds and is available for sale both with or without the Strales system. The "Sovraponte" mount was installed for the first time on the Thaon di Revel-class patrol vessel of the Italian Navy, positioned above the roof of the helicopter hangar.


title: OTO Melara 76 mm

text: To provide multiple roles for the gun, OTO provides the user with wide ranges of specialised ammunition:


title: OTO Melara 76 mm

text: There were evolutions in the gun's fire control systems as well. The early versions (Compatto) utilised radars such the RTN-10X Orion (made by Selenia, now Selex);


title: OTO Melara 76 mm

text: From the early 1980s the gun was equipped with a more powerful and flexible system, the RTN-30X (used with the Dardo-E CIWS system and known within the Italian Navy as SPG-73), that was capable to manage both guns (40, 76, and 127 mm calibres) and missiles (Sea Sparrow-Aspide). This system came into service with the Italian Navy on the cruiser "Garibaldi" (C551: the RTN-30X entered service first on the s; the Dardo 40 mm turret was slaved to the smaller and older RTN-20X radars), but still with the twin 40 mm Dardo's turrets. The first ship equipped with Dardo E and 76 mm Super Rapido was the upgraded s, later followed by the "Durand de la Penne" class. The 76/62 has also been used with many other fire control systems when not in Italian service.


title: OTO Melara 76 mm

text: There have been many developments in the fuses, essential to shoot down low-flying missiles. The best fuze developed for the 76/62 guns is arguably the 3A-Plus programmable multi-role fuse, manufactured by Oto Melara and Simmel Difesa, introduced in the early 2000s. This fuse requires the installation of a fuse programmer in the mount.


title: OTO Melara 76 mm

text: The programmable multi-role fuse features several modes including a time mode for air burst and a number of proximity modes: gated proximity, anti-missile proximity, conventional air defence proximity and anti-surface proximity.


title: OTO Melara 76 mm

text: The fuzing includes a DSP which rejects ground/sea clutter and so is capable of detecting a missile flying as low as two meters above sea level. It has the capability to recognise a target at a 10-meter stand-off. In all, the fuze greatly increases the effectiveness of the gun when engaging anti-ship missiles.


title: OTO Melara 76 mm

text: Since the 1980s efforts were made for development of guided 76 mm ammunition, but this was not achieved until recently. The first such ammunition was the CCS (Course Corrected Shell), also known as 'CORRETTO'; a joint program of OTO and British Aerospace. Work started in 1985. The projectile had several small rockets in order to deviate the trajectory. Radio commands were sent from the ship FCS. The FCS did not know the exact position of the projectile, only that of the target. This system was too complex and unreliable, so OTO studied another development in order to obtain a real 'guided ammunition'.


title: OTO Melara 76 mm

text: The result of this development is a system which was called DAVIDE just for the Italian market and STRALES for export purposes while the fired guided ammunition is called DART (Driven Ammunition Reduced Time of flight).


title: OTO Melara 76 mm

text: The DART projectile is similar in many aspects to other hyper-velocity systems, for example the Starstreak SAM missile's multi-dart warhead, but is a guided gun projectile with radio controls and a proximity fuze for low level engagement (up to 2 meters over the sea). DART is fired at , can reach 5 km range in only 5 seconds, and can perform up to 40G manoeuvre. The DART projectile is made of two parts: the forward is free to rotate and has two small canard wings for flight control. The aft part has the 2.5 kg warhead (with tungsten cubes and the 3A millimetric wave new fuze), six fixed wings and the radio receivers.


title: OTO Melara 76 mm

text: The guidance system is Command Line of Sight (CLOS). It uses a TX antenna installed on gun. The radio-command for them is provided on a broadcast data-link (Ka Band).


title: OTO Melara 76 mm

text: The first lot of DART 76mm guided ammunition, produced by OTO Melara, was successfully tested at the end of March, 2014. The firing trials were conducted on board one of the Italian Navy's ships equipped with Strales 76mm SR and Selex NA25 fire control system. The first firing trials of the DART ammunition bought by Colombia in 2012 were successfully conducted in the Caribbean Sea on 29 August from the 76/62 Strales inner-layer defence system fitted to its modernised FS 1500 Padilla-class frigates.


title: OTO Melara 76 mm

text: The more recent development is the VULCANO 76 ammunition system. Basically, it is a scaled-down version of the 127–155 mm Vulcano family of extended-range projectiles developed by OTO Melara; guided by Inertial Navigation System and Global Positioning Systems, it is capable of hitting targets twice the distance of normal 76 mm gun ammunition. GPS-IMU guidance and IR or SALT Terminal sensor.


title: OTO Melara 76 mm

text: The Vulcano 76 GLR ammunition is expected to complete the development, test and qualification process by late 2022 with the delivery of production rounds to customers from 2023–24 onwards.


title: OTO Melara 76 mm

text: Most of the basic ammunition types offered for the OTO Melara 76mm can also be fired from the South African Rooikat armoured car with slight modification to change from electric to percussion primers. This is the only land-based vehicle system capable of deploying the same ammunition as its naval counterpart.


title: Power of a test

text: In statistics, the power of a binary hypothesis test is the probability that the test correctly rejects the null hypothesis (formula_1) when a specific alternative hypothesis (formula_2) is true. It is commonly denoted by formula_3, and represents the chances of a true positive detection conditional on the actual existence of an effect to detect. Statistical power ranges from 0 to 1, and as the power of a test increases, the probability formula_4 of making a type II error by wrongly failing to reject the null hypothesis decreases.


title: Power of a test

text: For a type II error probability of , the corresponding statistical power is 1 − . For example, if experiment E has a statistical power of 0.7, and experiment F has a statistical power of 0.95, then there is a stronger probability that experiment E had a type II error than experiment F. This reduces experiment E's sensitivity to detect significant effects. However, experiment E is consequently more reliable than experiment F due to its lower probability of a type I error. It can be equivalently thought of as the probability of accepting the alternative hypothesis (formula_2) when it is true – that is, the ability of a test to detect a specific effect, if that specific effect actually exists. Thus,


title: Power of a test

text: If formula_2 is not an equality but rather simply the negation of formula_1 (so for example with formula_9 for some unobserved population parameter formula_10 we have simply formula_11) then power cannot be calculated unless probabilities are known for all possible values of the parameter that violate the null hypothesis. Thus one generally refers to a test's power "against a specific alternative hypothesis".


title: Power of a test

text: As the power increases, there is a decreasing probability of a type II error, also called the "false negative rate" () since the power is equal to 1 − . A similar concept is the type I error probability, also referred to as the "false positive rate" or the level of a test under the null hypothesis.


title: Power of a test

text: In the context of binary classification, the power of a test is called its "statistical sensitivity", its "true positive rate", or its "probability of detection".


title: Power of a test

text: A related concept is "power analysis". Power analysis can be used to calculate the minimum sample size required so that one can be reasonably likely to detect an effect of a given size. For example: "How many times do I need to toss a coin to conclude it is rigged by a certain amount?" Power analysis can also be used to calculate the minimum effect size that is likely to be detected in a study using a given sample size. In addition, the concept of power is used to make comparisons between different statistical testing procedures: for example, between a parametric test and a nonparametric test of the same hypothesis.


title: Power of a test

text: Lehr's (rough) rule of thumb says that the sample size formula_12 (each group) for a two-sided Two-sample t-test with power 80% (formula_13) and significance level formula_14 should be:


title: Power of a test

text: where formula_16 is an estimate of the population variance and formula_17 the to-be-detected difference in the mean values of both samples.


title: Power of a test

text: The advantage of the rule of thumb is that it can be memorized easily and that it can be rearranged for formula_18. For strict analysis always a full power analysis shall be performed.


title: Power of a test

text: Statistical tests use data from samples to assess, or make inferences about, a statistical population. In the concrete setting of a two-sample comparison, the goal is to assess whether the mean values of some attribute obtained for individuals in two sub-populations differ. For example, to test the null hypothesis that the mean scores of men and women on a test do not differ, samples of men and women are drawn, the test is administered to them, and the mean score of one group is compared to that of the other group using a statistical test such as the two-sample "z"-test. The power of the test is the probability that the test will find a statistically significant difference between men and women, as a function of the size of the true difference between those two populations.


title: Power of a test

text: Statistical power may depend on a number of factors. Some factors may be particular to a specific testing situation, but at a minimum, power nearly always depends on the following three factors:


title: Power of a test

text: A significance criterion is a statement of how unlikely a positive result must be, if the null hypothesis of no effect is true, for the null hypothesis to be rejected. The most commonly used criteria are probabilities of 0.05 (5%, 1 in 20), 0.01 (1%, 1 in 100), and 0.001 (0.1%, 1 in 1000). If the criterion is 0.05, the probability of the data implying an effect at least as large as the observed effect when the null hypothesis is true must be less than 0.05, for the null hypothesis of no effect to be rejected. One easy way to increase the power of a test is to carry out a less conservative test by using a larger significance criterion, for example 0.10 instead of 0.05. This increases the chance of rejecting the null hypothesis (obtaining a statistically significant result) when the null hypothesis is false; that is, it reduces the risk of a type II error (false negative regarding whether an effect exists). But it also increases the risk of obtaining a statistically significant result (rejecting the null hypothesis) when the null hypothesis is not false; that is, it increases the risk of a type I error (false positive).


title: Power of a test

text: The magnitude of the effect of interest in the population can be quantified in terms of an effect size, where there is greater power to detect larger effects. An effect size can be a direct value of the quantity of interest, or it can be a standardized measure that also accounts for the variability in the population. For example, in an analysis comparing outcomes in a treated and control population, the difference of outcome means formula_19 would be a direct estimate of the effect size, whereas formula_20 would be an estimated standardized effect size, where formula_21 is the common standard deviation of the outcomes in the treated and control groups. If constructed appropriately, a standardized effect size, along with the sample size, will completely determine the power. An unstandardized (direct) effect size is rarely sufficient to determine the power, as it does not contain information about the variability in the measurements.


title: Power of a test

text: The sample size determines the amount of sampling error inherent in a test result. Other things being equal, effects are harder to detect in smaller samples. Increasing sample size is often the easiest way to boost the statistical power of a test. How increased sample size translates to higher power is a measure of the efficiency of the test – for example, the sample size required for a given power.


title: Power of a test

text: The precision with which the data are measured also influences statistical power. Consequently, power can often be improved by reducing the measurement error in the data. A related concept is to improve the "reliability" of the measure being assessed (as in psychometric reliability).


title: Power of a test

text: The design of an experiment or observational study often influences the power. For example, in a two-sample testing situation with a given total sample size , it is optimal to have equal numbers of observations from the two populations being compared (as long as the variances in the two populations are the same). In regression analysis and analysis of variance, there are extensive theories and practical strategies for improving the power based on optimally setting the values of the independent variables in the model.


title: Power of a test

text: Although there are no formal standards for power (sometimes referred to as ), most researchers assess the power of their tests using  = 0.80 as a standard for adequacy. This convention implies a four-to-one trade off between -risk and -risk. ( is the probability of a type II error, and α is the probability of a type I error; 0.2 and 0.05 are conventional values for and ). However, there will be times when this 4-to-1 weighting is inappropriate. In medicine, for example, tests are often designed in such a way that no false negatives (type II errors) will be produced. But this inevitably raises the risk of obtaining a false positive (a type I error). The rationale is that it is better to tell a healthy patient "we may have found something—let's test further," than to tell a diseased patient "all is well."


title: Power of a test

text: Power analysis is appropriate when the concern is with the correct rejection of a false null hypothesis. In many contexts, the issue is less about determining if there is or is not a difference but rather with getting a more refined estimate of the population effect size. For example, if we were expecting a population correlation between intelligence and job performance of around 0.50, a sample size of 20 will give us approximately 80% power ( = 0.05, two-tail) to reject the null hypothesis of zero correlation. However, in doing this study we are probably more interested in knowing whether the correlation is 0.30 or 0.60 or 0.50. In this context we would need a much larger sample size in order to reduce the confidence interval of our estimate to a range that is acceptable for our purposes. Techniques similar to those employed in a traditional power analysis can be used to determine the sample size required for the width of a confidence interval to be less than a given value.


title: Power of a test

text: Many statistical analyses involve the estimation of several unknown quantities. In simple cases, all but one of these quantities are nuisance parameters. In this setting, the only relevant power pertains to the single quantity that will undergo formal statistical inference. In some settings, particularly if the goals are more "exploratory", there may be a number of quantities of interest in the analysis. For example, in a multiple regression analysis we may include several covariates of potential interest. In situations such as this where several hypotheses are under consideration, it is common that the powers associated with the different hypotheses differ. For instance, in multiple regression analysis, the power for detecting an effect of a given size is related to the variance of the covariate. Since different covariates will have different variances, their powers will differ as well.


title: Power of a test

text: Any statistical analysis involving multiple hypotheses is subject to inflation of the type I error rate if appropriate measures are not taken. Such measures typically involve applying a higher threshold of stringency to reject a hypothesis in order to compensate for the multiple comparisons being made ("e.g." as in the Bonferroni method). In this situation, the power analysis should reflect the multiple testing approach to be used. Thus, for example, a given study may be well powered to detect a certain effect size when only one test is to be made, but the same effect size may have much lower power if several tests are to be performed.


title: Power of a test

text: It is also important to consider the statistical power of a hypothesis test when interpreting its results. A test's power is the probability of correctly rejecting the null hypothesis when it is false; a test's power is influenced by the choice of significance level for the test, the size of the effect being measured, and the amount of data available. A hypothesis test may fail to reject the null, for example, if a true difference exists between two populations being compared by a t-test but the effect is small and the sample size is too small to distinguish the effect from random chance. Many clinical trials, for instance, have low statistical power to detect differences in adverse effects of treatments, since such effects may be rare and the number of affected patients small.


title: Power of a test

text: Power analysis can either be done before ("a priori" or prospective power analysis) or after ("post hoc" or retrospective power analysis) data are collected. "A priori" power analysis is conducted prior to the research study, and is typically used in estimating sufficient sample sizes to achieve adequate power. "Post-hoc" analysis of "observed power" is conducted after a study has been completed, and uses the obtained sample size and effect size to determine what the power was in the study, assuming the effect size in the sample is equal to the effect size in the population. Whereas the utility of prospective power analysis in experimental design is universally accepted, post hoc power analysis is fundamentally flawed. Falling for the temptation to use the statistical analysis of the collected data to estimate the power will result in uninformative and misleading values. In particular, it has been shown that "post-hoc" "observed power" is a one-to-one function of the "p"-value attained. This has been extended to show that all "post-hoc" power analyses suffer from what is called the "power approach paradox" (PAP), in which a study with a null result is thought to show "more" evidence that the null hypothesis is actually true when the "p"-value is smaller, since the apparent power to detect an actual effect would be higher. In fact, a smaller "p"-value is properly understood to make the null hypothesis "relatively" less likely to be true.


title: Power of a test

text: Funding agencies, ethics boards and research review panels frequently request that a researcher perform a power analysis, for example to determine the minimum number of animal test subjects needed for an experiment to be informative. In frequentist statistics, an underpowered study is unlikely to allow one to choose between hypotheses at the desired significance level. In Bayesian statistics, hypothesis testing of the type used in classical power analysis is not done. In the Bayesian framework, one updates his or her prior beliefs using the data obtained in a given study. In principle, a study that would be deemed underpowered from the perspective of hypothesis testing could still be used in such an updating process. However, power remains a useful measure of how much a given experiment size can be expected to refine one's beliefs. A study with low power is unlikely to lead to a large change in beliefs.


title: Power of a test

text: The following is an example that shows how to compute power for a randomized experiment: Suppose the goal of an experiment is to study the effect of a treatment on some quantity, and compare research subjects by measuring the quantity before and after the treatment, analyzing the data using a paired t-test. Let formula_22 and formula_23 denote the pre-treatment and post-treatment measures on subject formula_24, respectively. The possible effect of the treatment should be visible in the differences formula_25 which are assumed to be independently distributed, all with the same expected mean value and variance.


title: Power of a test

text: The effect of the treatment can be analyzed using a one-sided t-test. The null hypothesis of no effect will be that the mean difference will be zero, i.e. formula_26 In this case, the alternative hypothesis states a positive effect, corresponding to formula_27 The test statistic is:


title: Power of a test

text: For large , formula_37 approximately follows a standard normal distribution when the alternative hypothesis is true, the approximate power can be calculated as


title: Power of a test

text: According to this formula, the power increases with the values of the parameter formula_39 For a specific value of formula_40 a higher power may be obtained by increasing the sample size .


title: Power of a test

text: It is not possible to guarantee a sufficient large power for all values of formula_41 as formula_40 may be very close to 0. The minimum (infimum) value of the power is equal to the confidence level of the test, formula_43 in this example 0.05. However, it is of no importance to distinguish between formula_44 and small positive values. If it is desirable to have enough power, say at least 0.90, to detect values of formula_45 the required sample size can be calculated approximately:


title: Power of a test

text: where formula_49 is a standard normal quantile; refer to the Probit article for an explanation of the relationship between formula_50 and z-values.


title: Power of a test

text: In the frequentist setting, parameters are assumed to have a specific value which is unlikely to be true. This issue can be addressed by assuming the parameter has a distribution. The resulting power is sometimes referred to as Bayesian power which is commonly used in clinical trial design.


title: Power of a test

text: Both frequentist power and Bayesian power use statistical significance as the success criterion. However, statistical significance is often not enough to define success. To address this issue, the power concept can be extended to the concept of predictive probability of success (PPOS). The success criterion for PPOS is not restricted to statistical significance and is commonly used in clinical trial designs.


title: Power of a test

text: Numerous free and/or open source programs are available for performing power and sample size calculations. These include


title: Lucky Luke

text: Lucky Luke is a Western "bande dessinée" series created by Belgian cartoonist Morris in 1946. Morris wrote and drew the series single-handedly until 1955, after which he started collaborating with French writer René Goscinny. Their partnership lasted until Goscinny's death in 1977. Afterwards, Morris used several other writers until his own death in 2001. Since Morris's death, French artist Achdé has drawn the series, scripted by several successive writers.


title: Lucky Luke

text: The series takes place in the American Old West of the United States. It stars the titular Lucky Luke, a street-smart gunslinger known as the "man who shoots faster than his shadow", and his intelligent horse Jolly Jumper. Lucky Luke is pitted against various villains, either fictional or inspired by American history or folklore. The most famous of these are the Dalton Brothers, loosely based on the Dalton Gang of the early 1890s and claimed to be their cousins. The stories are filled with humorous elements parodying the Western genre.


title: Lucky Luke

text: "Lucky Luke" is one of the best-known and best-selling comics series in Europe. It has been translated into 23 languages. 82 albums have appeared in the series as of 2022, and 3 special editions/homages, at first published by Dupuis. From 1968 to 1998 they were published by Dargaud and then by Lucky Productions. Since 2000 they have been published by Lucky Comics. Each story was first serialized in a magazine: in "Spirou" from 1946 to 1967, in "Pilote" from 1968 to 1973, in "Lucky Luke" in 1974–75, in the French edition of "Tintin" in 1975–76, and in various other magazines since.


title: Lucky Luke

text: The series has also had adaptations in other media, such as animated films and television series, live-action films, video games, toys, and board games. As of 2022, all 82 books in the series' regular albums will be available in English translation.


title: Lucky Luke

text: Simultaneously a tribute to the mythic Old West and an affectionate parody, the comics were created by Belgian artist Morris, who drew "Lucky Luke" from 1946 until his death in 2001. The first "Lucky Luke" adventure, "Arizona 1880", appeared in the French version of the Franco-Belgian comics magazine "Spirou" in December 1946. It later appeared in the "Almanach" issue of "Spirou" on 7 December 1946.


title: Lucky Luke

text: After several years of writing the strip himself, Morris began a collaboration with René Goscinny. He was the series writer during what is considered its golden age, starting with the story , published on 25 August 1955 in "Spirou", until his death in 1977 (with the exception of ). Ending a long run of serial publications in "Spirou", the series was shifted to Goscinny's "Pilote" magazine in 1967 with the story . Later it was taken to Dargaud publisher.


title: Lucky Luke

text: After the death of Goscinny in 1977, several writers succeeded him: including Raymond "Vicq" Antoine, Bob de Groot, Jean Léturgie and Lo Hartog van Banda. At the 1993 Angoulême International Comics Festival, "Lucky Luke" was given an honorary exhibition.


title: Lucky Luke

text: After Morris' death in 2001, French artist Achdé continued drawing new "Lucky Luke" stories in collaboration with writers Laurent Gerra, Daniel Pennac and Tonino Benacquista. Since 2016, new albums are scripted by writer Jul.


title: Lucky Luke

text: Lucky Luke comics have been translated into: Afrikaans, Arabic, Bengali, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Serbian, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Turkish, Vietnamese and Welsh.


title: Lucky Luke

text: Although always described as a cowboy, Luke generally acts as a righter of wrongs or bodyguard of some sort, where he excels thanks to his on-hand resourcefulness and incredible gun prowess. A recurring task is that of capturing the bumbling but menacing gangsters the Dalton brothers, Joe, William, Jack and Averell. He rides Jolly Jumper, "the smartest horse in the world" and is often accompanied by prison guard dog Rantanplan, "the stupidest dog in the universe", a spoof of Rin Tin Tin.


title: Lucky Luke

text: Luke meets many historical Western figures such as Calamity Jane, Billy the Kid, Judge Roy Bean and Jesse James's gang, and takes part in events such as the guarding of Wells Fargo stagecoaches, the Pony Express, the building of the First Transcontinental Telegraph, the Rush into the Unassigned Lands of Oklahoma, and a tour by French actress Sarah Bernhardt. Some of the books feature a one-page article on the background to the events featured. Goscinny once said that he and Morris tried to base the Lucky Luke adventures on real events whenever possible, but that they would not let the facts get in the way of a funny story.


title: Lucky Luke

text: The chronology of the albums is deliberately murky, and in most albums no particular year is given. The villains and incidental characters based on real persons lived over most of the mid-to-late-19th century. For example, in the album "Daily Star", Lucky Luke meets a young Horace Greeley, prior to his moving to New York in 1831. Judge Roy Bean, who was appointed judge in 1882, appears in another album, and in another album yet, Lucky Luke takes part in the 1892 Coffeyville shootout against the Dalton gang. Lucky Luke himself appears unchanged in all stories.


title: Lucky Luke

text: Except in the first few stories, where he shoots and kills Mad Jim and the old Dalton brothers gang in Coffeyville, Luke is never seen to kill anyone, preferring to disarm people by simply shooting weapons out of their hands.


title: Lucky Luke

text: Phil Defer was killed in the first publication in "Le Moustique", but in the later album collection, this was changed into a debilitating shoulder wound.


title: Lucky Luke

text: In the final panel of each story, except the earliest, Lucky Luke rides off alone on Jolly Jumper into the sunset, singing (in English) "I'm a poor lonesome cowboy, and a long way from home...".


title: Lucky Luke

text: Morris, who had been criticized over Lucky Luke's cigarette for a long time, answered his critics: "the cigarette is part of the character's profile, just like the pipe of Popeye or Maigret". It is claimed that Morris was forced to remove cigarettes Lucky Luke smokes from his strip and Lucky Luke who "used to be a heavy smoker", had to give up smoking for "commercial reasons", apparently to "gain access to the American market".


title: Lucky Luke

text: Morris received an award from the World Health Organization in 1988 for replacing Luke's omnipresent cigarette with a wisp of straw in the story "Fingers" (1983).


title: Lucky Luke

text: In the 2007 animated film "Tous à l'Ouest: Une aventure de Lucky Luke", Lucky Luke is seen using what appears to be a nicotine patch and mentions that before that he had to "chew on a piece of straw for a while" right after he quit smoking. In the 1994 story "Le Pont sur le Mississippi" ("The Bridge Over the Mississippi"), he is seen rolling a cigarette again, although he claims it was just to hide his boredom. And in "Sarah Bernhardt" (1982), when Bernhardt's cook lights a fire to make a cake, despite Luke's strict orders not to, Luke is seen rolling a cigarette in an irate mood. He then strikes a match, only for it to be blown out by Jolly Jumper, who reminds him of his own "no fire" orders.


title: Lucky Luke

text: A spin-off series called "Rantanplan" starring Luke's dimwitted canine sidekick began in 1987. It has been written over the years by several successive teams of writers and artists. The character also got a 76-episode animated television series in 2006.


title: Lucky Luke

text: A second spin-off series called "Kid Lucky" was designed in 1995, aimed at attracting a younger readership. This starred Luke as a little boy, a format that had been very popular with Spirou. Two albums starring this version of the character were released as part of the main series: "Kid Lucky" and "Oklahoma Jim". These were credited to veteran writer Jean Léturgie and unknown artist Pearce, who was later revealed to be a joint pen name for Yann Lepennetier and Didier Conrad. The series was scrapped due to poor sales and the two albums removed from the official list of Lucky Luke albums. The series was however re-launched in 2011 as "Les aventures de Kid Lucky d'après Morris", with Achdé now solely in charge of it. To date, Achdé has written four Kid Lucky albums, "L'apprenti Cow-boy", "Lasso périlleux", "Statue Squaw" and "Suivez la flèche", released in 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017, respectively. In June 2020, It was announced "Kid Lucky" will be adapted into an animated series.


title: Lucky Luke

text: Between "Le Fil qui chante" and "La Corde du pendu" is "La Ballade des Dalton", 1978 ("The Daltons' Ballad or The Ballad of the Daltons"), an adaptation from the animated film.


title: Lucky Luke

text: Apart from the collections mentioned below, Lucky Luke comics were published in British comic book magazines such as "Film Fun Comic" or "Giggle" (in 1967). The "Giggle" version had Luke's name changed to "Buck Bingo".


title: Lucky Luke

text: Brockhampton Press Ltd, Leicester, began publishing the books in hardcover and softcover, with six titles from 1972 to 1974, translated by Frederick W Nolan. Brockhampton became part of Hodder & Stoughton Ltd in 1976, and under their children's imprint, Knight Books, Hodder published mini-sized paperback editions of the first six books, in 1976 to 1977. In 1980 and 1982, Hodder & Stoughton published three new titles as Hodder Dargaud, as well as reprints of the previous six.


title: Lucky Luke

text: Cinebook Ltd have been publishing English language translations of Lucky Luke in softcover album format since 2006. One new volume is released every two months. In India only, Euro Books, a division of Euro Kids International Ltd. published English versions of 24 Lucky Luke titles in 2009.


title: Lucky Luke

text: In 2019 Cinebook began releasing a hardcover collection of "Lucky Luke", published in chronological order featuring three to four original albums per volume together with a vast amount of extras included, titled "Lucky Luke – The Complete Collection."


title: Lucky Luke

text: Cinebook also published translations of the two Matthieu Bonhomme homages: "Wanted Lucky Luke" (2016) and "The Man Who Shot Lucky Luke" (2021).


title: Lucky Luke

text: In 1983, Hanna-Barbera Productions, France 3, Gaumont Film Company, Extrafilm Berlin and Morris collaborated to release the animated TV series "Lucky Luke" which ran for 26 episodes, based on original album stories. The series' main voice actors were William Callaway as Lucky Luke, Robert Ridgely as Jolly Jumper, Paul Reubens as Bushwack, Frank Welker as Joe Dalton, Rick Dees as Jack Dalton, Fred Travalena as William Dalton, Bob Holt as Averell Dalton, and Mitzi McCall as Ma Dalton. Additional voices were provided by Peter Cullen, Pat Fraley, Barbara Goodson, and Mona Marshall. Notably, an episode of H-B's "The Huckleberry Hound Show" featured Huck as an Old West Sheriff attempting to capture a separate Dalton family (named Dirty, Dangerous, Detestable, Desperate, Despicable, Dastardly and Dinky)


title: Lucky Luke

text: In 1990, a new animated series of 26 episodes was produced by IDDH, with the collaboration of Morris, based on album stories not adapted in the prior series.


title: Lucky Luke

text: The 1992 live-action Italian television series, "Lucky Luke", also known as "The Adventures of Lucky Luke", was based on the films of the previous year, and again starred Terence Hill.


title: Lucky Luke

text: In 2001, Xilam produced the 52-episode animated series ("The New Adventures of Lucky Luke"). It was made available on an eight-disc DVD set with French and English audio tracks. This series also featured Colonel Custer who in this incarnation is an Indian-hater and a dwarf. Unlike the two earlier animated series, this series featured original stories.


title: Lucky Luke

text: Over the years, several "Lucky Luke" video games have been released for many platforms, most of them by Infogrames, and only released in Europe (the only ones released for the North American market were the Game Boy Color and PlayStation versions).


title: Lucky Luke

text: A Lucky Luke game was also developed for mobile phones by The Mighty Troglodytes. "Lucky Luke: Go West" was released in Europe for the PC, Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS in the end of 2007.


title: Lucky Luke

text: In 2013, French publishers Dupuis and Anuman Interactive announced the development of a new Time Management game: "Lucky Luke: Transcontinental Railroad" (set in the 1860s) on PC, Mac, iOS and Android.


title: Lucky Luke

text: In the Belgian Comic Strip Center in Brussels the permanent exhibition brings homage to the pioneers of Belgian comics, among them Morris. In the room dedicated to his work the entry has saloon doors and Luke's shadow can be seen on the floor and on the wall.


title: Lucky Luke

text: In 1992, as part of Brussels' Comic Book Route, a wall in the Rue de la Buandrie/ Washuisstraat in Brussels was dedicated to Lucky Luke. It was designed by D. Vandegeerde and G. Oreopoulos.


title: Lucky Luke

text: Since 2007 the Rue des Pierres/ Steenstraat in Brussels has a commemorative plaque with the name / placed under the actual street sign.


title: Lucky Luke

text: In Charleroi, Belgium, a statue of Lucky Luke can be seen in Astrid Park. The nearby Charleroi Metro station Parc is also decorated with scenes of Lucky Luke.


title: Lucky Luke

text: In 2000, statues of Lucky Luke, Ratanplan and Joe Dalton were erected in the , Middelkerke, Belgium. They were designed by Luc Madou.


title: Lucky Luke

text: In the 2010 Obsidian Entertainment developed and Bethesda Softworks published "". Posters appear in the game, as well as in some loading screens, stating "There's a new sheriff in town and he's looking for deputies ... Become a part of the human dignity bloc". Accompanying this text is an image of a frontier-era sheriff doing a finger gun motion with both hands. Aside from the star-shaped sheriff badge he wears, the sheriff is dressed identically to Lucky Luke, sporting his trademark white hat, yellow shirt, black vest, and red bandana tied around his neck.


title: Lucky Luke

text: In 2015, Danish reggaeton band Camilo & Grande released a single titled "Lucky Luke", in which they liken their lives to that of Lucky Luke.


title: Lucky Luke

text: In 2022, the Belgian government included a tribute to Lucky Luke in the visa pages of its newly redesigned passport. It features a blank silhouette of Luke and Jolly Jumper in Monument Valley, with the full detail of the characters being revealed under UV light.


title: Situation, task, action, result

text: The situation, task, action, result (STAR) format is a technique used by interviewers to gather all the relevant information about a specific capability that the job requires.


title: Situation, task, action, result

text: The STAR technique is similar to the SOARA technique (Situation, Objective, Action, Result, Aftermath).


title: Situation, task, action, result

text: The STAR technique is also often complemented with an additional R on the end STARR or STAR(R) with the last R resembling reflection. This R aims to gather insight and interviewee's ability to learn and iterate. Whereas the STAR reveals how and what kind of result on an objective was achieved, the STARR with the additional R helps the interviewer to understand what the interviewee learned from the experience and how they would assimilate experiences. The interviewee can define what they would do (differently, the same, or better) next time being posed with a situation.


title: Greco-Italian War

text: The Greco-Italian War (Greek: Ελληνοϊταλικός Πόλεμος, "Ellinoïtalikós Pólemos"), also called the Italo-Greek War, Italian Campaign in Greece, and the War of '40 in Greece, took place between the kingdoms of Italy and Greece from 28 October 1940 to 23 April 1941. This local war began the Balkans Campaign of World War II between the Axis powers and the Allies and eventually turned into the Battle of Greece with British and German involvement. On 10 June 1940, Italy declared war on France and the United Kingdom. By September 1940, the Italians had invaded France, British Somaliland and Egypt. This was followed by a hostile press campaign in Italy against Greece, accused of being a British ally. A number of provocations culminated in the sinking of the Greek light cruiser "Elli" by the Italians on 15 August. On 28 October, Mussolini issued an ultimatum to Greece demanding the cession of Greek territory, which the Prime Minister of Greece, Ioannis Metaxas, rejected.


title: Greco-Italian War

text: Italy's invasion of Greece, launched with the divisions of the Royal Army based in Italian-controlled Albania, was a fiasco marked by low morale and poor planning: the Italians encountered unexpectedly tenacious resistance by the Hellenic Army and had to contend with the mountainous and muddy terrain on the Albanian–Greek border. By mid-November, the Greeks had stopped the Italian invasion just inside Greek territory. As the British bombers and fighter aircraft struck Italy's forces and bases, the Greeks completed their mobilization and counter-attacked with the bulk of their army to push the Italians back into Albania – an advance which culminated in the Capture of Klisura Pass in January 1941, a few dozen kilometers inside the Albanian border. The defeat of the Italian invasion and the Greek counter-offensive of 1940 have been called the "first Axis setback of the entire war" by Mark Mazower, the Greeks "surprising everyone with the tenacity of their resistance".


title: Greco-Italian War

text: The front stabilized in February 1941, by which time the Italians had reinforced the Albanian front to 28 divisions against the Greeks' 14 divisions (though Greek divisions were larger). In March, the Italians conducted the unsuccessful Spring Offensive. At this point, losses were mutually costly, but the Greeks had far less ability than the Italians to replenish their losses in both men and materiel, and they were dangerously low on ammunition and other supplies. They also lacked the ability to rotate out their men and equipment, unlike the Italians. Requests by the Greeks to the British for material aid only partly alleviated the situation, and by April 1941 the Greek Army only possessed one more month's worth of heavy artillery ammunition and was unable to properly equip and mobilize the bulk of its 200,000–300,000 strong reserves.


title: Greco-Italian War

text: Adolf Hitler decided that the increased British intervention in the conflict represented a threat to Germany's rear, while German build-up in the Balkans accelerated after Bulgaria joined the Axis on 1 March 1941. British ground forces began arriving in Greece the next day. This caused Hitler to come to the aid of his Axis ally. On 6 April, the Germans invaded northern Greece ("Operation Marita"). The Greeks had deployed the vast majority of their men into a mutually costly stalemate with the Italians on the Albanian front, leaving the fortified Metaxas Line with only a third of its authorized strength. Greek and British forces in northern Greece were overwhelmed and the Germans advanced rapidly west and south. In Albania, the Greek army made a belated withdrawal to avoid being cut off by the Germans but was followed up slowly by the Italians. Greece surrendered to German troops on 20 April 1941 and to the Italians on 23 April 1941. Greece was subsequently occupied by Bulgarian, German and Italian troops. The Italian army suffered 102,064 combat casualties (with 13,700 dead and 3,900 missing) and fifty thousand wounded; the Greeks suffered over 90,000 combat casualties (including 14,000 killed and 5,000 missing) and an unknown number of wounded.


title: Greco-Italian War

text: In the late 1920s, Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini said that Fascist Italy needed "Spazio vitale", an outlet for its surplus population and that it would be in the best interests of other countries to aid in the expansion of Imperial Italy. The regime wanted hegemony in the Mediterranean–Danubian–Balkan region and Mussolini imagined the conquest "of an empire stretching from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Strait of Hormuz".


title: Greco-Italian War

text: There were designs for a protectorate over the Albanian Kingdom and for the annexation of Dalmatia and economic and military control of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Kingdom of Greece. The fascist regime also sought to establish protectorates over the First Austrian Republic, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Kingdom of Romania and the Kingdom of Bulgaria, which lay on the periphery of an Italian European sphere of influence.


title: Greco-Italian War

text: In 1935, Italy began the Second Italo-Ethiopian War to expand the empire; a more aggressive Italian foreign policy which "exposed [the] vulnerabilities" of the British and French and created an opportunity the Fascist regime needed to realize its imperial goals. In 1936, the Spanish Civil War began and Italy made a military contribution so vast that it played a decisive role in the victory of the rebel forces of Francisco Franco. "A full-scale external war" was fought for Spanish subservience to the Italian Empire, to place Italy on a war footing, and to create "a warrior culture".


title: Greco-Italian War

text: In September 1938, the Italian army had made plans to invade Albania, which began on 7 April 1939, and in three days had occupied most of the country. Albania was a territory that Italy could acquire for ""living space" to ease its overpopulation" as well as a foothold for expansion in the Balkans. Italy invaded France in June 1940, followed by their invasion of Egypt in September. A plan to invade Yugoslavia was drawn up, but postponed due to opposition from Nazi Germany and a lack of Italian army transport.


title: Greco-Italian War

text: Italy had captured the predominantly Greek-inhabited Dodecanese Islands in the Aegean Sea from the Ottoman Empire in the Italo-Turkish War of 1912. It had occupied them since, after reneging on the 1919 Venizelos–Tittoni agreement to cede them to Greece. When the Italians found that Greece had been promised land in Anatolia at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, for aid in the defeat of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, the Italian delegation withdrew from the conference for several months. Italy occupied parts of Anatolia which threatened the Greek occupation zone and the city of Smyrna. Greek troops were landed and the Greco-Turkish War (1919–22) began with Greek troops advanced into Anatolia. Turkish forces eventually defeated the Greeks and with Italian aid, recovered the lost territory, including Smyrna. In 1923, Mussolini used the murder of an Italian general on the Greco-Albanian border as a pretext to bombard and temporarily occupy Corfu, the most important of the Ionian Islands.


title: Greco-Italian War

text: The Greek defeat in Anatolia and the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) ended the expansionist "Megali Idea". Henceforth Greek foreign policy was largely aimed at preserving the "status quo". Territorial claims to Northern Epirus (southern Albania), the Italian-ruled Dodecanese, and British-ruled Cyprus remained open but inactive in view of the country's weakness and isolation. The main threat Greece faced was from Bulgaria, which claimed Greece's northern territories. The years after 1923 were marked by almost complete diplomatic isolation and unresolved disputes with practically every neighbouring country. The dictatorship of Theodoros Pangalos in 1925–26 sought to revise the Treaty of Lausanne by a war with Turkey. To this end, Pangalos sought Italian diplomatic support, as Italy still had ambitions in Anatolia, but in the event, nothing came of his overtures to Mussolini. After the fall of Pangalos and the restoration of relative political stability in 1926, efforts were undertaken to normalize relations with Turkey, Yugoslavia, Albania and Romania, without much success at first. The same period saw Greece draw closer to Britain and away from France, exacerbated by a dispute over the two sides' financial claims from World War I.


title: Greco-Italian War

text: The Greek government put renewed emphasis on improving relations with Italy and in November 1926, a trade agreement was signed between the two states. Initiated and energetically pursued by Andreas Michalakopoulos, the Italian–Greek rapprochement had a positive impact on Greek relations with Romania and Turkey and after 1928 was continued by the new government of Eleftherios Venizelos. This policy culminated with the signing of a treaty of friendship on 23 September 1928. Mussolini exploited this treaty, as it aided in his efforts to diplomatically isolate Yugoslavia from potential Balkan allies. An offer of alliance between the two countries was rebuffed by Venizelos but during the talks Mussolini personally offered "to guarantee Greek sovereignty" on Macedonia and assured Venizelos that in case of an external attack on Thessaloniki by Yugoslavia, Italy would join Greece.


title: Greco-Italian War

text: During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Mussolini sought diplomatically to create "an Italian-dominated Balkan bloc that would link Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, and Hungary". Venizelos countered the policy with diplomatic agreements among Greek neighbours and established an "annual Balkan conference ... to study questions of common interest, particularly of an economic nature, with the ultimate aim of establishing some kind of regional union". This increased diplomatic relations and by 1934 was resistant to "all forms of territorial revisionism". Venizelos adroitly maintained a principle of "open diplomacy" and was careful not to alienate traditional Greek patrons in Britain and France. The Greco-Italian friendship agreement ended Greek diplomatic isolation and led to a series of bilateral agreements, most notably the Greco-Turkish Friendship Convention in 1930. This process culminated in the signature of the Balkan Pact between Greece, Yugoslavia, Turkey and Romania, which was a counter to Bulgarian revisionism.


title: Greco-Italian War

text: The Second Italo-Ethiopian War marked a renewal of Italian expansionism, and began a period where Greece increasingly sought a firm British commitment for its security. Although Britain offered guarantees to Greece (as well as Turkey and Yugoslavia) for the duration of the Ethiopian crisis, it was unwilling to commit itself further so as to avoid limiting its freedom of manoeuvre vis-à-vis Italy. Furthermore, with the (British-backed) restoration of the Greek monarchy in 1935 in the person of the anglophile King George II, Britain had secured its dominant influence in the country. This did not change after the establishment of the dictatorial 4th of August Regime of Ioannis Metaxas in 1936. Although imitating the Fascist regime in Italy in its ideology and outward appearance, the regime lacked a mass popular base, and its main pillar was the King, who commanded the allegiance of the army. Greek foreign policy thus remained aligned with that of Britain, despite the parallel ever-growing economic penetration of the country by Nazi Germany. Metaxas himself, although an ardent Germanophile in World War I, followed this line, and after the Munich Conference in October 1938 suggested a British–Greek alliance to the British ambassador, arguing that Greece "should prepare for the eventuality of a war between Great Britain and Italy, which sooner or later Greece would find itself drawn into". Loath to be embroiled in a possible Greek–Bulgarian war, dismissive of Greece's military ability, and disliking the regime, the British rebuffed the offer.


title: Greco-Italian War

text: On 4 February 1939, Mussolini addressed the Fascist Grand Council on foreign policy. The speech outlined Mussolini's belief that Italy was being imprisoned by France and the United Kingdom and what territory would be needed to break free. During this speech, Mussolini declared Greece to be a "vital [enemy] of Italy and its expansion." On 18 March, as signs for an imminent Italian invasion of Albania as well as a possible attack on Corfu mounted, Metaxas wrote in his diary of his determination to resist any Italian attack.


title: Greco-Italian War

text: Following the Italian annexation of Albania in April, relations between Italy and Greece deteriorated rapidly. The Greeks began making defensive preparations for an Italian attack, while the Italians began improving infrastructure in Albania to facilitate troop movements. The new Italian ambassador, Emanuele Grazzi, arrived in Athens later in April. During his tenure, Grazzi worked earnestly for the improvement of Italian–Greek relations, something that Metaxas too desired—despite his anglophile stance, Grazzi considered him "the only real friend Italy could claim in Greece"—but he was in the awkward position of being ignorant of his country's actual policy towards Greece: he had arrived with no instructions whatsoever, and was constantly left out of the loop thereafter, frequently receiving no replies to his dispatches. Tensions mounted as a result of a continued anti-Greek campaign in the Italian press, combined with provocative Italian actions. Thus during Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano's visit to Albania, posters supporting Albanian irredentism in Chameria were publicly displayed; the governor of the Italian Dodecanese, Cesare Maria De Vecchi, closed the remaining Greek communal schools in the province, and Italian troops were heard singing ""Andremo nell'Egeo, prenderemo pure il Pireo. E, se tutto va bene, prenderemo anche Aténe."" ("We go to the Aegean, and will take even Piraeus. And if all goes well, we will take Athens too."). Four of the five Italian divisions in Albania moved towards the Greek border, and on 16 August the Italian Chief of the General Staff, Marshal Pietro Badoglio, received orders to begin planning for an attack on Greece. On 4 August, Metaxas had ordered Greek forces to a state of readiness and a partial mobilization.


title: Greco-Italian War

text: Although both Britain and France publicly guaranteed the independence of Greece and Romania on 13 April 1939, the British still refused to be drawn into concrete undertakings towards Greece, as they hoped to entice Mussolini to remain neutral in the coming conflict with Germany, and saw in a potential Greek alliance only a drain on their own resources. With British encouragement, Metaxas made diplomatic overtures to Italy in August, and on 12 September, Mussolini wrote to Metaxas, assuring him that if he entered the war, Italy would respect Greek neutrality, and that Italian troops based in Albania would be pulled back about from the Greek border. The Italian dictator even instructed Grazzi, to express his trust towards Metaxas and offer to sell Greece aircraft. On 20 September, the Italians offered to formalize relations by renewing the 1928 treaty. Metaxas rejected this, as the British Foreign Office was opposed to a formal commitment by Greece to Italy, and made only a public declaration of friendship and good-will. Greek–Italian relations entered a friendly phase that lasted until spring 1940.


title: Greco-Italian War

text: In May 1940, as Italian entry into the war became imminent, the Italian press began an anti-Greek propaganda campaign, accusing the country of being a foreign puppet and tolerating British warships in its waters. Following the defeat of France, Greek–Italian relations deteriorated further. From 18 June, De Vecchi sent a series of protests to Rome, reporting on the presence of British warships in Crete and other Greek islands and claimed that a British base had been established at Milos. The allegations were overblown but not entirely unjustified: in January 1940, bowing to British pressure, Greece concluded a trade agreement with Britain, limiting its exports to Germany and allowing Britain to use the large Greek merchant fleet for its war effort, marking Greece a tacit member of the anti-Axis camp, despite its official neutrality. British warships did sail deep into the Aegean, leading the British ambassador in Athens to recommend, on 17 August, that the government put a stop to them. Mussolini saw his war as a "guerra paralllela" ("parallel war") under which Italy would finally conquer its "spazio vitale" allied to Germany, but without the help of Germany as until early 1941 he remained vehemently opposed to the Wehrmacht operating in the Mediterranean. As such, he wanted Italy to occupy all the territory that he saw as part of Italy's "spazio vitale", including in the Balkans, before Germany won the expected victory over Britain. The consistent German opposition to any Italian move into the Balkans was a major irritant to Mussolini as he saw it as a German attempt to block Italy from getting its fair share of the spoils before the war was won. In July 1940, Mussolini was forced under German pressure to cancel a planned invasion of Yugoslavia (an important source of raw materials for the "Reich"), which was frustrating to him as he long had designs on Yugoslav territory.


title: Greco-Italian War

text: Italian military forces harassed Greek forces with air attacks on Greek naval vessels at sea. On 12 July, while attacking a British petrol carrier off Crete, Italian aircraft based in the Dodecanese went on to bombard Greek warships in harbour at Kissamos. On 31 July Italian bombers attacked two Greek destroyers in the Gulf of Corinth and two submarines in Nafpaktos; two days later a coastguard vessel was attacked at Aegina, off Athens. Ciano's diary confirms that over the summer of 1940, Mussolini turned his attention to the Balkans: on 6 August, Mussolini was planning an attack on Yugoslavia, while on 10–12 August he railed against the Greeks, promising to rectify the "unfinished business" of 1923. Count Ciano was the Italian official who had pushed most strongly for the conquest of Albania in 1939 and afterwards Albania was ruled very much as his own "personal fiefdom" as the viceroy Francesco Jacomoni was a lackey of Ciano's. As a way of improving his prestige within the regime, Ciano was the Italian official who pressed the hardest for the invasion of Greece as he saw conquering Greece (an invasion that would have to be launched from Albania) as a way of showing off just how well run Albania was under his rule. On 10 August 1940, Ciano met Mussolini to tell him the story of the Albanian bandit Daut Hoxha, whom Ciano presented to Mussolini as a pro-Italian Albanian patriot murdered by the Greeks. In reality, Hoxha was a cattle-thief with a "long history of extreme violence and criminality" who had been beheaded by a rival gang of Albanian bandits. As intended, Ciano's story worked Mussolini into a state of rage against the Greeks, with Ciano writing in his diary: "The Duce is considering an 'act of force because since 1923 [the Corfu incident] he has some accounts to settle and the Greeks deceive themselves if they think he has forgotten'".


title: Greco-Italian War

text: On 11 August, orchestrated by Ciano and the Italian viceroy in Albania, Francesco Jacomoni, the Italian and Albanian press began a campaign against Greece, on the pretext of the murder of the bandit Daut Hoxha in June. Hoxha was presented as a patriot fighting for the liberty of Chameria and his murder the work of Greek agents. Ciano wrote approvingly in his diary that Mussolini wanted more information on Ciamuria (the Italian term for Epirus) and had ordered both Jacomoni and General Count Sebastiano Visconti Prasca Guzzoni to Rome. Visconti Prasca, the aristocratic commander of the "Regio Esercito" forces in Albania was a bodybuilder excessively proud of his "manly physique" who neglected his military duties in favor of physical exercises, and promptly told Mussolini that his forces were more than capable of conquering Greece. Although Greek "expansionism" was denounced and claims for the surrender of Chameria made, Ciano and well-informed German sources regarded the press campaign as a means to intimidate Greece, rather than a prelude to war.


title: Greco-Italian War

text: On 15 August 1940 (the Dormition of the Theotokos, a Greek national religious holiday), the Greek light cruiser "Elli" was sunk by the Italian submarine "Delfino" in Tinos harbour. The sinking was a result of orders by Mussolini and Navy chief Domenico Cavagnari allowing submarine attacks on neutral shipping. This was taken up by De Vecchi, who ordered the "Delfino"s commander to "sink everything in sight in the vicinity of Tinos and Syros", giving the impression that war was imminent. On the same day, another Greek steamship was bombarded by Italian planes in Crete. Despite evidence of Italian responsibility, the Greek government announced that the attack had been carried out by a submarine of unknown nationality. No-one was fooled and the sinking of "Elli" outraged the Greek people. Ambassador Grazzi wrote in his memoirs that the attack united a people "deeply riven by unbridgeable political differences and old and deep-running political hatreds" and imbued them with a firm resolve to resist. Grazzi's position was particularly problematic: a firm believer in Italian–Greek friendship, and unaware of Ciano's shift towards war, he tried his best to smooth over problems and avoid a conflict. As a result, Metaxas, who believed Grazzi to be a "faithful executor of Rome's orders", was left unsure of Italy's true intentions, wavering between optimism and "crises of prudent rationalism", in the words of Tsirpanlis. Neither Metaxas nor Grazzi realized that the latter was being kept in his post "deliberately in order to allay the suspicions of the Greek government and so that the aggressive plans against Greece might remain concealed".


title: Greco-Italian War

text: German intervention, urging Italy to avoid Balkan complications and concentrate on Britain, along with the start of the Italian invasion of Egypt, led to the postponement of Italian ambitions in Greece and Yugoslavia: on 22 August, Mussolini postponed the attack on Greece for the end of September, and for 20 October on Yugoslavia. On 7 October, German troops entered Romania, to guard the Ploiești oil fields and prepare for Operation Barbarossa. Mussolini, who had not been informed in advance, regarded it as an encroachment on Italy's sphere of influence in the Balkans, and advanced plans for an invasion of Greece. The fact that Hitler never told Mussolini of any foreign policy moves in advance had long been considered humiliating by the latter and he was to determined to strike Greece without informing Hitler as a way of asserting Italian equality with Germany. On 13 October, Mussolini told Marshal Badoglio that Italy was going to war with Greece, with Badoglio making no objections. The next day, Badoglio first learned that Mussolini planned to occupy all of Greece instead of just Epirus as he had been led to understand, which led Badoglio to say that the "Regio Esercito" would require 20 divisions in Albania, which in turn would require 3 months, but he did not press this point. The one man in Italy who could have stopped the war, King Victor Emmanuel III, chose to bless it instead. The king told Mussolini at a meeting that he had his support as he expected the Greeks to "crumble". Victor Emmanuel was looking forward to having a fourth crown to wear (Mussolini had already given Victor Emmanuel the titles Emperor of Ethiopia and King of the Albanians).


title: Greco-Italian War

text: The Italian war aim was to establish a Greek puppet state, which would permit the Italian annexation of the Ionian Islands and the Sporades and the Cyclades islands in the Aegean Sea, to be administered as a part of the Italian Aegean Islands. The islands were claimed on the basis that they had once belonged to the Venetian Republic and the Venetian client state of Naxos. The Epirus and Acarnania regions were to be separated from the rest of the Greek territory and the Italian-controlled Kingdom of Albania was to annex territory between the Greek north-western frontier and a line from Florina to Pindus, Arta and Preveza. The Italians intended to partly compensate Greece for its extensive territorial losses by allowing it to annex the British Crown Colony of Cyprus after the war.


title: Greco-Italian War

text: On 13 October, Mussolini finalized the decision for war when he informed Marshal Badoglio to start preparing an attack for 26 October. Badoglio then issued the order for the Italian military to begin preparations for executing the existing war plan, "Contingency G[reece]", which envisioned the capture of Epirus as far as Arta but left the further pursuit of the campaign open. On the next day, Badoglio and acting Army Chief of Staff Mario Roatta met with Mussolini, who announced that his objective was the capture of the entire country and that he would contact Bulgaria for a joint operation. Roatta advised that an extension of the invasion beyond Epirus would require an additional ten divisions, which would take three months to arrive and suggested limiting the extent of the Italian demobilization. Both generals urged Mussolini to replace the local commander, Lieutenant-General Sebastiano Visconti Prasca, with someone of greater seniority and experience. Mussolini seemingly agreed but also insisted on the attack going ahead at the determined date, provisionally under Prasca's command. Badoglio and Roatta seemed unconvinced that the operation would take place, as with similar projects against Greece and Yugoslavia.


title: Greco-Italian War

text: The following day Mussolini called another conference, with Badoglio, Roatta, Visconti Prasca, Ciano, and Jacomoni. Neither Admiral Domenico Cavagnari of the "Regia Marina" nor Francesco Pricolo of the "Regia Aeronautica" were asked to attend while Roatta arrived late as he was invited by Mussolini's secretary to the meeting just before it started. Mussolini reiterated his objectives; stated he believed that neither of Greece's allies in the Balkan Pact, Yugoslavia or Turkey would act; expressed his determination that the attack take place on 26 October and asked for the opinion of the assembled. Jacomoni agreed that the Albanians were enthusiastic but that the Greeks would fight, likely with British help, while Ciano suggested that the Greek people were apathetic and would not support the "plutocratic" ruling class. Prasca offered assurances that the operation was as perfectly planned as "humanly possible", and promised to finish off the Greek forces in Epirus (which he estimated at 30,000 men) and capture the port of Preveza in ten to fifteen days. Prasca regarded the campaign as an opportunity to win fame and achieve the coveted rank of Marshal of Italy by conquering Athens. He was relatively junior in his rank and knew that if he demanded more troops for the Albanian front, it was likely that a more senior officer would be sent to command the operation, earning the accolades and promotions instead.


title: Greco-Italian War

text: During the discussion only Badoglio voiced objections, pointing out that stopping after seizing Epirus—which he conceded would present little difficulty—would be an error, and that a force of at least twenty divisions would be necessary to conquer the whole country, including Crete, through he did not criticize Prasca's plans. Badoglio also stated he believed it was very unlikely that Britain would send forces to Greece and wanted an Italian offensive into Egypt to be timed with the invasion of Greece. Roatta suggested that the schedule of moving troops to Albania would have to be accelerated and called for two divisions to be sent against Thessaloniki as a diversion. Prasca pointed out the inadequacy of Albanian harbours for the rapid transfer of Italian divisions, the mountainous terrain, and the poor state of the Greek transport network, but remained confident that Athens could be captured after the fall of Epirus, with "five or six divisions". The meeting ended with an outline plan, summed up by Mussolini as "offensive in Epirus; observation and pressure on Salonika, and, in a second phase, march on Athens". The British historian Ian Kershaw called the meeting at the Palazzo Venezia on 15 October 1940 "one of the most superficial and dilettantish discussions of high-risk military strategy ever recorded". The Greek historian Aristotle Kallis wrote Mussolini in October 1940 "was overpowered by hubris", a supremely overconfident man whose vainglorious pursuit of power led him to believe that under his leadership Italy was about to win as he put it "the glory she has sought in vain for three centuries".


title: Greco-Italian War

text: The staging of incidents at the border to provide a suitable pretext (analogous to the Gleiwitz incident) was agreed for 24 October. Mussolini suggested that the expected advance of the 10th Army (Marshal Rodolfo Graziani) on Mersa Matruh, in Egypt, be brought forward to prevent the British from aiding Greece. Over the next couple of days Badoglio failed to elicit objections to the attack from the other service chiefs or to achieve its cancellation on technical grounds. Mussolini, enraged by the Marshal's obstructionism, threatened to accept his resignation if offered. Badoglio backed down, managing only to secure a postponement of the attack until 28 October.


title: Greco-Italian War

text: The front was roughly wide in mountain terrain with very few roads. The Pindus mountains divided it into two theatres of operations, Epirus and western Macedonia. The Italian forces in Albania were organised accordingly: the XXV "Ciamuria" Corps (Lieutenant-General Carlo Rossi) in the west was charged with the conquest of Epirus, while the XXVI "Corizza" Corps (Lieutenant-General Gabriele Nasci) in the east, around Korçë, would initially remain passive in the direction of western Macedonia.


title: Greco-Italian War

text: On 18 October Mussolini sent a letter to Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria inviting him to take part in the coming action against Greece, but Boris refused, citing his country's unreadiness and its encirclement by hostile neighbours. This was not regarded as a major setback, as the Italian leadership considered that the threat of Bulgarian intervention alone would compel the Greek High Command to commit most of its army in eastern Macedonia and Thrace. It was not until 24 October that Badoglio realized that not only were the Greeks already mobilizing, but that they were prepared to divert most of their forces to Epirus, leaving only six divisions against Bulgaria. Prasca would still have numerical superiority at the start of the campaign (some 150,000 men against 120,000) but concerns grew over the vulnerability of the left flank. The 29th Infantry Division "Piemonte" was diverted from the attack in Epirus to bolster XXVI Corps in the Korçë area, while the 19th Infantry Division "Venezia" was ordered south from its position along the Yugoslav border.