title: 2015 European migrant crisis

text: The 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum took place on 23 June 2016, around nine months after peak of the refugee crisis. The UK was never a member of the Schengen Area and so experienced very few direct effects of the influx of migrants. Nevertheless, Leave.EU, one of the two main groups campaigning in favour of Brexit, made the refugee crisis its defining issue (the other main pro-Leave group, Vote Leave, primarily focused on economic arguments). The campaign portrayed the European Union as inept and unable to control its borders, and conflated the refugee crisis with unease over Turkey's application to join the EU (although very few of the 2015 refugees were from Turkey).


title: 2015 European migrant crisis

text: Theresa May, then Home Secretary (and later prime minister), though critical of the European Union's immigration policy, opposed Brexit and argued that the UK was already well-isolated from immigration crises occurring in the wider EU:


title: 2015 European migrant crisis

text: The Brexit vote resulted in a narrow decision to leave the EU (51.9% to 48.1%). According to exit polls, one third of Leave voters believed leaving the EU would allow Britain to better control immigration and its own borders.


title: 2015 European migrant crisis

text: Around November 2015, some European countries restricted family reunions for refugees, and started campaigns to dissuade people worldwide to migrate to Europe. EU leaders also quietly encouraged Balkan governments to only allow nationals from the most war-torn countries (Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq) to pass into the EU.


title: 2015 European migrant crisis

text: In 2016 Sweden began issuing three-year residence permits to recognized refugees. Refugees had previously received permanent residency automatically.


title: 2015 European migrant crisis

text: In January 2016, Denmark passed a law permitting police to confiscate valuables like jewelry and cash from refugees. As of early 2019, the police had only enforced the cash-seizing provision.


title: 2015 European migrant crisis

text: While figures specifically for refugees are often not available, they tend to be disproportionately unemployed compared to the local population, especially in the years immediately following their resettlement. OECD data comparing employment rates of local-born compared to foreign-born residents demonstrated large differences between countries. According to a 2016 article, it took foreign-born an average of 20 years to fully "catch up" with locals. In all countries (except Italy and Portugal) immigrants had lower rates of employment compared to the local population, but considerable differences exist with respect to both host countries and countries of origin. In the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Germany, for instance, the gap was larger than in the UK, Italy and Portugal.


title: 2015 European migrant crisis

text: People whose asylum applications are rejected are generally required to return to their home countries. Some do so voluntarily; others are deported. However, deportation is often difficult in practice; a common reason is lacking travel documents or the person's country of origin refusing to accept returnees. The annual rate of return has generally averaged around one-third. In some countries that took in large numbers of asylum seekers, this has resulted in tens of thousands of people not having legal residency rights, raising worries of institutionalised poverty and the creation of parallel societies. The years following the 2015 refugee crisis saw some European countries enact legislation to speed up deportations. The EU began threatening to withhold development aid from or impose visa restrictions on countries refusing to take in their own citizens.


title: 2015 European migrant crisis

text: For a variety of reasons, some rejected asylum seekers also ended up being permitted to stay. Some countries, such as Germany and Sweden, allow rejected asylum seekers to apply for certain other visas (e.g., to pursue vocational training if they have secured an apprenticeship).


title: 2015 European migrant crisis

text: Refugees, who have often fled violence their home countries and experienced further violence during their journey, have high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In 2016 in Sweden, 30% of Syrian refugees were estimated to suffer from PTSD, depression, and anxiety. In 2020, a study of physically healthy young refugees in Germany identified 40% as having risk factors for PTSD. Long asylum claim processing times, during which refugees cannot work or travel and contemplate being sent back to their home country, often compound poor mental health. Although asylum applications are in principle supposed to be processed within six months on average, many countries that took in significantly more refugees than in previous years took considerably longer - in many cases over year and sometimes up to two.


title: 2015 European migrant crisis

text: In Germany, refugees do not have access to non-acute medical care, including therapy mental health treatments, until they have lived in the country for at least 15 months. Language barriers also often make therapy particularly difficult.


title: 2015 European migrant crisis

text: The Cardiff School of Journalism, in a report on behalf of UNHCR, analysed several thousand media reports on the refugee crisis in Spain, Italy, United Kingdom, Germany and Sweden. In all countries, conservative tabloids and newspapers, such as the British "Daily Mail", the Spanish "ABC" and the German "Welt", were found to be more likely to emphasize perceived risks of extremists among arriving refugees, while centre-left publications were more likely to mention humanitarian aspects. A similar split was apparent in the reasons for people fleeing their home countries: right-wing newspapers were more likely to mention economic reasons than left-of-centre ones.


title: 2015 European migrant crisis

text: The study also found significant differences between countries, noting that right-wing media in the United Kingdom had conducted a "uniquely aggressive campaign" against refugees and migrants in 2015. Threats to welfare systems and cultural threats were most prevalent in Italy, Spain, and Britain while humanitarian themes were more frequent in Italian coverage. More subtle differences in were found in the terminology used: German and Swedish media overwhelmingly used the terms "refugee" or "asylum seeker" while Italy and UK were more likely to use the term "migrant". In Spain, the dominant term was "immigrant". Overall the Swedish press was most positive towards the arrivals.


title: 2015 European migrant crisis

text: Journalist Will Hutton for the British newspaper "The Guardian" praised Angela Merkel's leadership during the refugee crisis: "Angela Merkel's humane stance on migration is a lesson to us all… The German leader has stood up to be counted. Europe should rally to her side… She wants to keep Germany and Europe open, to welcome legitimate asylum seekers in common humanity, while doing her very best to stop abuse and keep the movement to manageable proportions. Which demands a European-wide response (…)".


title: 2015 European migrant crisis

text: Analyst Naina Bajekal for the United States' magazine "Time" in September 2015 suggested that the German decision to allow Syrian refugees to apply for asylum in Germany even if they had reached Germany through other EU member states in August 2015, led to increased numbers of refugees from Syria and other regions – Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Ukraine, Congo, South Sudan etc. – endeavouring to reach (Western) Europe.


title: 2015 European migrant crisis

text: In March 2016, the UK's "Daily Telegraph" said that Merkel's 2015 decisions concerning migration represented an "open door policy", which it claimed was "encouraging migration into Europe that her own country is unwilling to absorb" and as damaging the EU, "perhaps terminally".


title: Lucian

text: Lucian of Samosata ( 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer who is best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with which he frequently ridiculed superstition, religious practices, and belief in the paranormal. Although his native language was probably Syriac, all of his extant works are written entirely in ancient Greek (mostly in the Attic Greek dialect popular during the Second Sophistic period).


title: Lucian

text: Everything that is known about Lucian's life comes from his own writings, which are often difficult to interpret because of his extensive use of sarcasm. According to his oration "The Dream", he was the son of a lower middle class family from the city of Samosata along the banks of the Euphrates in the remote Roman province of Syria. As a young man, he was apprenticed to his uncle to become a sculptor, but, after a failed attempt at sculpting, he ran away to pursue an education in Ionia. He may have become a travelling lecturer and visited universities throughout the Roman Empire. After acquiring fame and wealth through his teaching, Lucian finally settled down in Athens for a decade, during which he wrote most of his extant works. In his fifties, he may have been appointed as a highly paid government official in Egypt, after which point he disappears from the historical record.


title: Lucian

text: Lucian's works were wildly popular in antiquity, and more than eighty writings attributed to him have survived to the present day, a considerably higher quantity than for most other classical writers. His most famous work is "A True Story", a tongue-in-cheek satire against authors who tell incredible tales, which is regarded by some as the earliest known work of science fiction. Lucian invented the genre of the comic dialogue, a parody of the traditional Socratic dialogue. His dialogue "Lover of Lies" makes fun of people who believe in the supernatural and contains the oldest known version of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". Lucian wrote numerous satires making fun of traditional stories about the gods including "The Dialogues of the Gods", "Icaromenippus", "Zeus Rants", "Zeus Catechized", and "The Parliament of the Gods". His "Dialogues of the Dead" focuses on the Cynic philosophers Diogenes and Menippus. "Philosophies for Sale" and "The Carousal, or The Lapiths" make fun of various philosophical schools, and "The Fisherman or the Dead Come to Life" is a defense of this mockery.


title: Lucian

text: Lucian often ridiculed public figures, such as the Cynic philosopher Peregrinus Proteus in his letter "The Passing of Peregrinus" and the fraudulent oracle Alexander of Abonoteichus in his treatise "Alexander the False Prophet". Lucian's treatise "On the Syrian Goddess" satirizes cultural distinctions between Greeks and Syrians and is the main source of information about the cult of Atargatis.


title: Lucian

text: Lucian had an enormous, wide-ranging impact on Western literature. Works inspired by his writings include Thomas More's "Utopia", the works of François Rabelais, William Shakespeare's "Timon of Athens" and Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels".


title: Lucian

text: Lucian is not mentioned in any contemporary texts or inscriptions written by others and he is not included in Philostratus's "Lives of the Sophists". As a result of this, everything that is known about Lucian comes exclusively from his own writings. A variety of characters with names very similar to Lucian, including "Lukinos," "Lukianos," "Lucius," and "The Syrian" appear throughout Lucian's writings. These have been frequently interpreted by scholars and biographers as "masks", "alter-egos", or "mouthpieces" of the author. Daniel S. Richter criticizes the frequent tendency to interpret such "Lucian-like figures" as self-inserts by the author and argues that they are, in fact, merely fictional characters Lucian uses to "think with" when satirizing conventional distinctions between Greeks and Syrians. He suggests that they are primarily a literary trope used by Lucian to deflect accusations that he as the Syrian author "has somehow outraged the purity of Greek idiom or genre" through his invention of the comic dialogue. British classicist Donald Russell states, "A good deal of what Lucian says about himself is no more to be trusted than the voyage to the moon that he recounts so persuasively in the first person in "True Stories"" and warns that "it is foolish to treat [the information he gives about himself in his writings] as autobiography."


title: Lucian

text: Lucian was born in the town of Samosata on the banks of the Euphrates on the far eastern outskirts of the Roman Empire. Samosata had been the capital of the Kingdom of Commagene until 72 AD when it was annexed by Vespasian and became part of the Roman province of Syria. The population of the town was mostly Syrian and Lucian's native tongue was probably Syriac, a form of Middle Aramaic.


title: Lucian

text: During the time when Lucian lived, traditional Greco-Roman religion was in decline and its role in society had become largely ceremonial. As a substitute for traditional religion, many people in the Hellenistic world joined mystery cults, such as the Mysteries of Isis, Mithraism, the cult of Cybele, and the Eleusinian Mysteries. Superstition had always been common throughout ancient society, but it was especially prevalent during the second century. Most educated people of Lucian's time adhered to one of the various Hellenistic philosophies, of which the major ones were Stoicism, Platonism, Peripateticism, Pyrrhonism, and Epicureanism. Every major town had its own university and these universities often employed professional travelling lecturers, who were frequently paid high sums of money to lecture about various philosophical teachings. The most prestigious center of learning was the city of Athens in Greece, which had a long intellectual history.


title: Lucian

text: According to Lucian's oration "The Dream", which classical scholar Lionel Casson states he probably delivered as an address upon returning to Samosata at the age of thirty-five or forty after establishing his reputation as a great orator, Lucian's parents were lower middle class and his uncles owned a local statue-making shop. Lucian's parents could not afford to give him a higher education, so, after he completed his elementary schooling, Lucian's uncle took him on as an apprentice and began teaching him how to sculpt. Lucian, however, soon proved to be poor at sculpting and ruined the statue he had been working on. His uncle beat him, causing him to run off. Lucian fell asleep and experienced a dream in which he was being fought over by the personifications of Statuary and of Culture. He decided to listen to Culture and thus sought out an education.


title: Lucian

text: Although "The Dream" has long been treated by scholars as a truthful autobiography of Lucian, its historical accuracy is questionable at best. Classicist Simon Swain calls it "a fine but rather apocryphal version of Lucian's education" and Karin Schlapbach calls it "ironical". Richter argues that it is not autobiographical at all, but rather a "prolalia" [], or playful literary work, and a "complicated meditation on a young man's acquisition of "paideia"" [i.e. education]. Russell dismisses "The Dream" as entirely fictional, noting, "We recall that Socrates too started as sculptor, and Ovid's vision of Elegy and Tragedy ("Amores" 3.1) is all too similar to Lucian's."


title: Lucian

text: In Lucian's "Double Indictment", the personification of Rhetoric delivers a speech in which she describes the unnamed defendant, who is described as a "Syrian" author of transgressive dialogues, at the time she found him, as a young man wandering in Ionia in Anatolia "with no idea what he ought to do with himself". She describes "the Syrian" at this stage in his career as "still speaking in a barbarous manner and all but wearing a caftan ["kandys"] in the Assyrian fashion". Rhetoric states that she "took him in hand and... gave him "paideia"".


title: Lucian

text: Scholars have long interpreted the "Syrian" in this work as Lucian himself and taken this speech to mean that Lucian ran away to Ionia, where he pursued his education. Richter, however, argues that the "Syrian" is not Lucian himself, but rather a literary device Lucian uses to subvert literary and ethnic norms.


title: Lucian

text: Ionia was the center of rhetorical learning at the time. The most prestigious universities of rhetoric were in Ephesus and Smyrna, but it is unlikely that Lucian could have afforded to pay the tuition at either of these schools. It is not known how Lucian obtained his education, but somehow he managed to acquire an extensive knowledge of rhetoric as well as classical literature and philosophy.


title: Lucian

text: Lucian mentions in his dialogue "The Fisherman" that he had initially attempted to apply his knowledge of rhetoric and become a lawyer, but that he had become disillusioned by the deceitfulness of the trade and resolved to become a philosopher instead. Lucian travelled across the Empire, lecturing throughout Greece, Italy, and Gaul. In Gaul, Lucian may have held a position as a highly paid government professor.


title: Lucian

text: In around 160, Lucian returned to Ionia as a wealthy celebrity. He visited Samosata and stayed in the east for several years. He is recorded as having been in Antioch in either 162 or 163. In around 165, he bought a house in Athens and invited his parents to come live with him in the city. Lucian must have married at some point during his travels, because in one of his writings he mentions having a son at this point.


title: Lucian

text: Lucian lived in Athens for around a decade, during which time he gave up lecturing and instead devoted his attention to writing. It was during this decade that Lucian composed nearly all his most famous works. Lucian wrote exclusively in Greek, mainly in the Attic Greek popular during the Second Sophistic, but "On the Syrian Goddess", which is attributed to Lucian, is written in a highly successful imitation of Herodotus' Ionic Greek, leading some scholars to believe that Lucian may not be the real author.


title: Lucian

text: For unknown reasons, Lucian stopped writing around 175 and began travelling and lecturing again. During the reign of Emperor Commodus (180–92), the aging Lucian may have been appointed to a lucrative government position in Egypt. After this point, he disappears from the historical record entirely, and nothing is known about his death.


title: Lucian

text: Lucian's philosophical views are difficult to categorize due to his persistent use of irony and sarcasm. In "The Fisherman", Lucian describes himself as a champion of philosophy and throughout his other writings he characterizes philosophy as a morally constructive discipline, but he is critical of pseudo-philosophers, whom he portrays as greedy, bad-tempered, sexually immoral hypocrites. Lucian was not known to be a member of any of the major philosophical schools. In his "Philosophies for Sale", he makes fun of members of every school. Lucian was critical of Stoicism and Platonism, because he regarded them as encouraging superstition. His "Nigrinus" superficially appears to be a "eulogy of Platonism", but may in fact be satirical, or merely an excuse to ridicule Roman society.


title: Lucian

text: Nonetheless, at other times, Lucian writes approvingly of individual philosophies. According to Turner, although Lucian makes fun of Skeptic philosophers, he displays a temperamental inclination towards that philosophy. Edwyn Bevan identifies Lucian as a Skeptic, and in his "Hermotimus", Lucian rejects all philosophical systems as contradictory and concludes that life is too short to determine which of them comes nearest to the truth, so the best solution is to rely on common sense, which was what the Pyrrhonian Skeptics advocated. The maxim that "Eyes are better witnesses than ears" is echoed repeatedly throughout several of Lucian's dialogues.


title: Lucian

text: Lucian was skeptical of oracles, though he was by no means the only person of his time to voice such skepticism. Lucian rejected belief in the paranormal, regarding it as superstition. In his dialogue "The Lover of Lies", he probably voices some of his own opinions through his character Tychiades, perhaps including the declaration by Tychiades that he does not believe in "daemones", phantoms, or ghosts because he has never seen such things. Tychiades, however, still professes belief in the gods' existence:


title: Lucian

text: According to Everett Ferguson, Lucian was strongly influenced by the Cynics. "The Dream or the Cock", "Timon the Misanthrope", "Charon or Inspectors", and "The Downward Journey or the Tyrant" all display Cynic themes. Lucian was particularly indebted to Menippus, a Cynic philosopher and satirist of the third century BC. Lucian wrote an admiring biography of the philosopher Demonax, who was a philosophical eclectic, but whose ideology most closely resembled Cynicism. Demonax's main divergence from the Cynics was that he did not disapprove of ordinary life. Paul Turner observes that Lucian's "Cynicus" reads as a straightforward defense of Cynicism, but also remarks that Lucian savagely ridicules the Cynic philosopher Peregrinus in his "Passing of Peregrinus".


title: Lucian

text: Lucian also greatly admired Epicurus, whom he describes in "Alexander the False Prophet" as "truly holy and prophetic". Later, in the same dialogue, he praises a book written by Epicurus:


title: Lucian

text: What blessings that book creates for its readers and what peace, tranquillity, and freedom it engenders in them, liberating them as it does from terrors and apparitions and portents, from vain hopes and extravagant cravings, developing in them intelligence and truth, and truly purifying their understanding, not with torches and squills [i. e. sea onions] and that sort of foolery, but with straight thinking, truthfulness and frankness.


title: Lucian

text: Lucian had a generally negative opinion of Herodotus and his historiography, which he viewed as faulty.


title: Lucian

text: Over eighty works attributed to Lucian have survived. These works belong to a diverse variety of styles and genres, and include comic dialogues, rhetorical essays, and prose fiction. Lucian's writings were targeted towards a highly educated, upper-class Greek audience and make almost constant allusions to Greek cultural history, leading the classical scholar R. Bracht Branham to label Lucian's highly sophisticated style "the comedy of tradition". By the time Lucian's writings were rediscovered during the Renaissance, most of the works of literature referenced in them had been lost or forgotten, making it difficult for readers of later periods to understand his works.


title: Lucian

text: Lucian was one of the earliest novelists in Western civilization. In "A True Story" (), a fictional narrative work written in prose, he parodies some of the fantastic tales told by Homer in the "Odyssey" and also the not-so-fantastic tales from the historian Thucydides. He anticipated modern science fiction themes including voyages to the moon and Venus, extraterrestrial life, interplanetary warfare, and artificial life, nearly two millennia before Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. The novel is often regarded as the earliest known work of science fiction.


title: Lucian

text: The novel begins with an explanation that the story is not at all "true" and that everything in it is, in fact, a complete and utter lie. The narrative begins with Lucian and his fellow travelers journeying out past the Pillars of Heracles. Blown off course by a storm, they come to an island with a river of wine filled with fish and bears, a marker indicating that Heracles and Dionysus have traveled to this point, and trees that look like women. Shortly after leaving the island, they are caught up by a whirlwind and taken to the Moon, where they find themselves embroiled in a full-scale war between the king of the Moon and the king of the Sun over colonization of the Morning Star. Both armies include bizarre hybrid lifeforms. The armies of the Sun win the war by clouding over the Moon and blocking out the Sun's light. Both parties then come to a peace agreement. Lucian then describes life on the Moon and how it is different from life on Earth.


title: Lucian

text: After returning to Earth, the adventurers are swallowed by a 200-mile-long whale, in whose belly they discover a variety of fish people, whom they wage war against and triumph over. They kill the whale by starting a bonfire and escape by propping its mouth open. Next, they encounter a sea of milk, an island of cheese, and the Island of the Blessed. There, Lucian meets the heroes of the Trojan War, other mythical men and animals, as well as Homer and Pythagoras. They find sinners being punished, the worst of them being the ones who had written books with lies and fantasies, including Herodotus and Ctesias. After leaving the Island of the Blessed, they deliver a letter to Calypso given to them by Odysseus explaining that he wishes he had stayed with her so he could have lived eternally. They then discover a chasm in the Ocean, but eventually sail around it, discover a far-off continent and decide to explore it. The book ends abruptly with Lucian stating that their future adventures will be described in the upcoming sequels, a promise which a disappointed "scholiast" described as "the biggest lie of all".


title: Lucian

text: In his "Double Indictment", Lucian declares that his proudest literary achievement is the invention of the "satirical dialogue", which was modeled on the earlier Platonic dialogue, but was comedic in tone rather than philosophical. The "prolaliai" to his "Dialogues of the Courtesans" suggests that Lucian acted out his dialogues himself as part of a comedic routine. Lucian's "Dialogues of the Dead" () is a satirical work centering around the Cynic philosophers Diogenes and his pupil Menippus, who lived modestly while they were alive and are now living comfortably in the abysmal conditions of the Underworld, while those who had lived lives of luxury are in torment when faced by the same conditions. The dialogue draws on earlier literary precursors, including the "nekyia" in Book XI of Homer's "Odyssey", but also adds new elements not found in them. Homer's "nekyia" describes transgressors against the gods being punished for their sins, but Lucian embellished this idea by having cruel and greedy persons also be punished.


title: Lucian

text: In his dialogue "The Lover of Lies" (), Lucian satirizes belief in the supernatural and paranormal through a framing story in which the main narrator, a skeptic named Tychiades, goes to visit an elderly friend named Eukrates. At Eukrates's house, he encounters a large group of guests who have recently gathered together due to Eukrates suddenly falling ill. The other guests offer Eukrates a variety of folk remedies to help him recover. When Tychiades objects that such remedies do not work, the others all laugh at him and try to persuade him to believe in the supernatural by telling him stories, which grow increasingly ridiculous as the conversation progresses. One of the last stories they tell is "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", which the German playwright Goethe later adapted into a famous ballad.


title: Lucian

text: Lucian frequently made fun of philosophers and no school was spared from his mockery. In the dialogue "Philosophies for Sale", Lucian creates an imaginary slave market in which Zeus puts famous philosophers up for sale, including Pythagoras, Diogenes, Heraclitus, Socrates, Chrysippus, and Pyrrho, each of whom attempts to persuade the customers to buy his philosophy. In "The Banquet, or Lapiths", Lucian points out the hypocrisies of representatives from all the major philosophical schools. In "The Fisherman, or the Dead Come to Life", Lucian defends his other dialogues by comparing the venerable philosophers of ancient times with their unworthy contemporary followers. Lucian was often particularly critical of people who pretended to be philosophers when they really were not and his dialogue "The Runaways" portrays an imposter Cynic as the antithesis of true philosophy. His "Symposium" is a parody of Plato's "Symposium" in which, instead of discussing the nature of love, the philosophers get drunk, tell smutty tales, argue relentlessly over whose school is the best, and eventually break out into a full-scale brawl. In "Icaromenippus", the Cynic philosopher Menippus fashions a set of wings for himself in imitation of the mythical Icarus and flies to Heaven, where he receives a guided tour from Zeus himself. The dialogue ends with Zeus announcing his decision to destroy all philosophers, since all they do is bicker, though he agrees to grant them a temporary reprieve until spring. "Nektyomanteia" is a dialogue written in parallel to "Icaromenippus" in which, rather than flying to Heaven, Menippus descends to the underworld to consult the prophet Tiresias.


title: Lucian

text: Lucian wrote numerous dialogues making fun of traditional Greek stories about the gods. His "Dialogues of the Gods" () consists of numerous short vignettes parodying a variety of the scenes from Greek mythology. The dialogues portray the gods as comically weak and prone to all the foibles of human emotion. Zeus in particular is shown to be a "feckless ruler" and a serial adulterer. Lucian also wrote several other works in a similar vein, including "Zeus Catechized", "Zeus Rants", and "The Parliament of the Gods". Throughout all his dialogues, Lucian displays a particular fascination with Hermes, the messenger of the gods, who frequently appears as a major character in the role of an intermediary who travels between worlds. "The Dialogues of the Courtesans" is a collection of short dialogues involving various courtesans. This collection is unique as one of the only surviving works of Greek literature to mention female homosexuality. It is also unusual for mixing Lucian's characters from other dialogues with stock characters from New Comedy; over half of the men mentioned in "Dialogues of the Courtesans" are also mentioned in Lucian's other dialogues, but almost all of the courtesans themselves are characters borrowed from the plays of Menander and other comedic playwrights.


title: Lucian

text: Lucian's treatise "Alexander the False Prophet" describes the rise of Alexander of Abonoteichus, a charlatan who claimed to be the prophet of the serpent-god Glycon. Though the account is satirical in tone, it seems to be a largely accurate report of the Glycon cult and many of Lucian's statements about the cult have been confirmed through archaeological evidence, including coins, statues, and inscriptions. Lucian describes his own meeting with Alexander in which he posed as a friendly philosopher, but, when Alexander invited him to kiss his hand, Lucian bit it instead. Lucian reports that, aside from himself, the only others who dared challenge Alexander's reputation as a true prophet were the Epicureans (whom he lauds as heroes) and the Christians.


title: Lucian

text: Lucian's treatise "On the Syrian Goddess" is a detailed description of the cult of the Syrian goddess Atargatis at Hierapolis (now Manbij). It is written in a faux-Ionic Greek and imitates the ethnographic methodology of the Greek historian Herodotus, which Lucian elsewhere derides as faulty. For generations, many scholars doubted the authenticity of "On the Syrian Goddess" because it seemed too genuinely reverent to have really been written by Lucian. More recently, scholars have come to recognize the book as satirical and have restored its Lucianic authorship.


title: Lucian

text: In the treatise, Lucian satirizes the arbitrary cultural distinctions between "Greeks" and "Assyrians" by emphasizing the manner in which Syrians have adopted Greek customs and thereby effectively become "Greeks" themselves. The anonymous narrator of the treatise initially seems to be a Greek Sophist, but, as the treatise progresses, he reveals himself to actually be a native Syrian. Scholars dispute whether the treatise is an accurate description of Syrian cultural practices because very little is known about Hierapolis other than what is recorded in "On the Syrian Goddess" itself. Coins minted in the late fourth century BC, municipal decrees from Seleucid rulers, and a late Hellenistic relief carving have confirmed Lucian's statement that the city's original name was "Manbog" and that the city was closely associated with the cults of Atargatis and Hadad. A Jewish rabbi later listed the temple at Hierapolis as one of the five most important pagan temples in the Near East.


title: Lucian

text: "Macrobii" ("Long-Livers") is an essay about famous philosophers who lived for many years. It describes how long each of them lived, and gives an account of each of their deaths. In his treatises "Teacher of Rhetoric" and "On Salaried Posts", Lucian criticizes the teachings of master rhetoricians. His treatise "On Dancing" is a major source of information about Greco-Roman dance. In it, he describes dance as an act of "mimesis" ("imitation") and rationalizes the myth of Proteus as being nothing more than an account of a highly skilled Egyptian dancer. He also wrote about visual arts in "Portraits" and "On Behalf of Portraits". Lucian's biography of the philosopher Demonax eulogizes him as a great philosopher and portrays him as a hero of "parrhesia" ("boldness of speech"). In his treatise, "How to Write History", Lucian criticizes the historical methodology used by writers such as Herodotus and Ctesias, who wrote vivid and self-indulgent descriptions of events they had never actually seen. Instead, Lucian argues that the historian never embellish his stories and should place his commitment to accuracy above his desire to entertain his audience. He also argues the historian should remain absolutely impartial and tell the events as they really happened, even if they are likely to cause disapproval. Lucian names Thucydides as a specific example of a historian who models these virtues.


title: Lucian

text: In his satirical letter "Passing of Peregrinus" (), Lucian describes the death of the controversial Cynic philosopher Peregrinus Proteus, who had publicly immolated himself on a pyre at the Olympic Games of AD 165. The letter is historically significant because it preserves one of the earliest pagan evaluations of Christianity. In the letter, one of Lucian's characters delivers a speech ridiculing Christians for their perceived credulity and ignorance, but he also affords them some level of respect on account of their morality.


title: Lucian

text: In the letter "Against the Ignorant Book Collector", Lucian ridicules the common practice whereby Near Easterners collect massive libraries of Greek texts for the sake of appearing "cultured", but without actually reading any of them.


title: Lucian

text: Some of the writings attributed to Lucian, such as the "Amores" and the "Ass", are usually not considered genuine works of Lucian and are normally cited under the name of "Pseudo-Lucian". The "Ass" () is probably a summarized version of a story by Lucian, and contains largely the same basic plot elements as "The Golden Ass" (or "Metamorphoses") of Apuleius, but with fewer inset tales and a different ending. "Amores" is usually dated to the third or fourth centuries based on stylistic grounds.


title: Lucian

text: Lucian's writings were mostly forgotten during the Middle Ages. The "Suda", a tenth-century Byzantine encyclopedia, concludes that Lucian's soul is burning in Hell for his negative remarks about Christians in the "Passing of Peregrinus". Lucian's writings were rediscovered during the Renaissance and almost immediately became popular with the Renaissance humanists. By 1400, there were just as many Latin translations of the works of Lucian as there were for the writings of Plato and Plutarch. By ridiculing plutocracy as absurd, Lucian helped facilitate one of Renaissance humanism's most basic themes. His "Dialogues of the Dead" were especially popular and were widely used for moral instruction. As a result of this popularity, Lucian's writings had a profound influence on writers from the Renaissance and the Early Modern period.


title: Lucian

text: Many early modern European writers adopted Lucian's lighthearted tone, his technique of relating a fantastic voyage through a familiar dialogue, and his trick of constructing proper names with deliberately humorous etymological meanings. During the Protestant Reformation, Lucian provided literary precedent for writers making fun of Catholic clergy. Desiderius Erasmus's "Encomium Moriae" (1509) displays Lucianic influences. Perhaps the most notable example of Lucian's impact was on the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was on the French writer François Rabelais, particularly in his set of five novels, "Gargantua and Pantagruel", which was first published in 1532. Rabelais also is thought to be responsible for a primary introduction of Lucian to the French Renaissance and beyond through his translations of Lucian's works.


title: Lucian

text: Lucian's "True Story" inspired both Sir Thomas More's "Utopia" (1516) and Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" (1726). Sandro Botticelli's paintings "The Calumny of Apelles" and "Pallas and the Centaur" are both based on descriptions of paintings found in Lucian's works. Lucian's prose narrative "Timon the Misanthrope" was the inspiration for William Shakespeare's tragedy "Timon of Athens" and the scene from "Hamlet" with the gravediggers echoes several scenes from "Dialogues of the Dead". Christopher Marlowe's famous verse "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships/And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?" is a paraphrase of a quote from Lucian. Francis Bacon called Lucian a "contemplative atheist".


title: Lucian

text: Henry Fielding, the author of "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling" (1749), owned a complete set of Lucian's writings in nine volumes. He deliberately imitated Lucian in his "Journey from This World and into the Next" and, in "The Life and Death of Jonathan Wild, the Great" (1743), he describes Lucian as "almost... like the true father of humour" and lists him alongside Miguel de Cervantes and Jonathan Swift as a true master of satire. In "The Convent Garden Journal", Fielding directly states in regard to Lucian that he had modeled his style "upon that very author". Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, François Fénelon, Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, and Voltaire all wrote adaptations of Lucian's "Dialogues of the Dead". According to Turner, Voltaire's "Candide" (1759) displays the characteristically Lucianic theme of "refuting philosophical theory by reality". Voltaire also wrote "The Conversation between Lucian, Erasmus and Rabelais in the Elysian Fields", a dialogue in which he treats Lucian as "one of his masters in the strategy of intellectual revolution".


title: Lucian

text: Denis Diderot drew inspiration from the writings of Lucian in his "Socrates Gone Mad; or, the Dialogues of Diogenes of Sinope" (1770) and his "Conversations in Elysium" (1780). Lucian appears as one of two speakers in Diderot's dialogue "Peregrinus Proteus" (1791), which was based on "The Passing of Peregrinus". Lucian's "True Story" inspired Cyrano de Bergerac, whose writings later served as inspiration for Jules Verne. The German satirist Christoph Martin Wieland was the first person to translate the complete works of Lucian into German and he spent his entire career adapting the ideas behind Lucian's writings for a contemporary German audience. David Hume admired Lucian as a "very moral writer" and quoted him with reverence when discussing ethics or religion. Hume read Lucian's "Kataplous" or "Downward Journey" when he was on his deathbed. Herman Melville references Lucian in Chapter 5 of "The Confidence-Man", Book 26 of , and Chapter 13 of "Israel Potter".


title: Lucian

text: Thomas Carlyle's epithet "Phallus-Worship", which he used to describe the contemporary literature of French writers such as Honoré de Balzac and George Sand, was inspired by his reading of Lucian. "Kataplous, or Downward Journey" also served as the source for Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of the "Übermensch" or "Overman". Nietzsche declaration of a "new and super-human way of laughing – at the expense of everything serious!" echoes the exact wording of Tiresias's final advice to the eponymous hero of Lucian's dialogue "Menippus": "Laugh a great deal and take nothing seriously." Professional philosophical writers since then have generally ignored Lucian, but Turner comments that "perhaps his spirit is still alive in those who, like Bertrand Russell, are prepared to flavor philosophy with wit."


title: Lucian

text: Many 19th century and early 20th century classicists viewed Lucian's works negatively. The German classicist Eduard Norden admitted that he had, as a foolish youth, wasted time reading the works of Lucian, but, as an adult, had come to realize that Lucian was nothing more than an "Oriental without depth or character... who has no soul and degrades the most soulful language". Rudolf Helm, one of the leading scholars on Lucian in the early twentieth century, labelled Lucian as a "thoughtless Syrian" who "possesses none of the soul of a tragedian" and compared him to the poet Heinrich Heine, who was known as the "mockingbird in the German poetry forest". In his 1906 publication "Lukian und Menipp" ("Lucian and Menippus"), Helm argued that Lucian's claims of generic originality, especially his claim of having invented the comic dialogue, were actually lies intended to cover up his almost complete dependence on Menippus, whom he argued was the true inventor of the genre.


title: Lucian

text: Lucian's Syrian identity received renewed attention in the early twenty-first century as Lucian became seen as what Richter calls "a sort of Second Sophistic answer to early twenty-first-century questions about cultural and ethnic hybridity". Richter states that Postcolonial critics have come to embrace Lucian as "an early imperial paradigm of the 'ethno-cultural hybrid.'"


title: Iridescence

text: Iridescence (also known as goniochromism) is the phenomenon of certain surfaces that appear to gradually change color as the angle of view or the angle of illumination changes. Examples of iridescence include soap bubbles, feathers, butterfly wings and seashell nacre, and minerals such as opal. It is a kind of structural coloration that is due to wave interference of light in microstructures or thin films.


title: Iridescence

text: Pearlescence is a related effect where some or most of the reflected light is white. The term pearlescent is used to describe certain paint finishes, usually in the automotive industry, which actually produce iridescent effects.


title: Iridescence

text: The word "iridescence" is derived in part from the Greek word ἶρις "îris" (gen. ἴριδος "íridos"), meaning "rainbow", and is combined with the Latin suffix "-escent", meaning "having a tendency toward". Iris in turn derives from the goddess Iris of Greek mythology, who is the personification of the rainbow and acted as a messenger of the gods. "Goniochromism" is derived from the Greek words "gonia", meaning "angle", and "chroma", meaning "colour".


title: Iridescence

text: Iridescence is an optical phenomenon of surfaces in which hue changes with the angle of observation and the angle of illumination. It is often caused by multiple reflections from two or more semi-transparent surfaces in which phase shift and interference of the reflections modulates the incidental light (by amplifying or attenuating some frequencies more than others). The thickness of the layers of the material determines the interference pattern. Iridescence can for example be due to thin-film interference, the functional analogue of selective wavelength attenuation as seen with the Fabry–Pérot interferometer, and can be seen in oil films on water and soap bubbles. Iridescence is also found in plants, animals and many other items. The range of colours of natural iridescent objects can be narrow, for example shifting between two or three colours as the viewing angle changes,


title: Iridescence

text: Iridescence can also be created by diffraction. This is found in items like CDs, DVDs, some types of prisms, or cloud iridescence. In the case of diffraction, the entire rainbow of colours will typically be observed as the viewing angle changes. In biology, this type of iridescence results from the formation of diffraction gratings on the surface, such as the long rows of cells in striated muscle, or the specialized abdominal scales of peacock spider "Maratus robinsoni" and "M. chrysomelas". Some types of flower petals can also generate a diffraction grating, but the iridescence is not visible to humans and flower-visiting insects as the diffraction signal is masked by the coloration due to plant pigments.


title: Iridescence

text: In biological (and biomimetic) uses, colours produced other than with pigments or dyes are called structural coloration. Microstructures, often multilayered, are used to produce bright but sometimes non-iridescent colours: quite elaborate arrangements are needed to avoid reflecting different colours in different directions. Structural coloration has been understood in general terms since Robert Hooke's 1665 book "Micrographia", where Hooke correctly noted that since the iridescence of a peacock's feather was lost when it was plunged into water, but reappeared when it was returned to the air, pigments could not be responsible. It was later found that iridescence in the peacock is due to a complex photonic crystal.


title: Iridescence

text: Pearlescence is an effect related to iridescence and has a similar cause. Structures within a surface cause light to be reflected back, but in the case of pearlescence some or most of the light is white, giving the object a pearl-like luster. Artificial pigments and paints showing an iridescent effect are often described as pearlescent, for example when used for car paints.


title: Iridescence

text: The feathers of birds such as kingfishers, birds-of-paradise, hummingbirds, parrots, starlings, grackles, ducks, and peacocks are iridescent. The lateral line on the neon tetra is also iridescent. A single iridescent species of gecko, "Cnemaspis kolhapurensis", was identified in India in 2009. The tapetum lucidum, present in the eyes of many vertebrates, is also iridescent. Iridescence is known to be present among non-avian dinosaurs such as dromaeosaurids, enantiornithes, and lithornithids.


title: Iridescence

text: Many groups of plants have developed iridescence as an adaptation to use more light in dark environments such as the lower levels of tropical forests. The leaves of Southeast Asia's "Begonia pavonina", or peacock begonia, appear iridescent azure to human observers due to each leaf's thinly layered photosynthetic structures called iridoplasts that absorb and bend light much like a film of oil over water. Iridescences based on multiple layers of cells are also found in the lycophyte "Selaginella" and several species of ferns.


title: Iridescence

text: Nanocellulose is sometimes iridescent, as are thin films of gasoline and some other hydrocarbons and alcohols when floating on water.


title: Iridescence

text: To create jewelry with crystal glass that lets light refract in a rainbow spectrum, Swarovski coats some of its products with special metallic chemical coatings. For example, its "Aurora Borealis" gives the surface a rainbow appearance. Optically variable ink uses finely powdered iridescent glitter.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a U.S. national memorial in Washington, D.C., honoring service members of the U.S. armed forces who served in the Vietnam War. The site is dominated by two black granite walls engraved with the names of those service members who died or remain missing as a result of their service in Vietnam and South East Asia during the war. The Wall, completed in 1982, has since been supplemented with the statue "The Three Soldiers" in 1984 and the Vietnam Women's Memorial in 1993.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: The memorial is in Constitution Gardens, adjacent to the National Mall and just northeast of the Lincoln Memorial. It is maintained by the National Park Service and receives around three million visitors each year. The Memorial Wall was designed by American architect Maya Lin. In 2007, it was ranked tenth on the "List of America's Favorite Architecture" by the American Institute of Architects. As a national memorial, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: Each wall of the Memorial is long and composed of 72 black granite panels, 70 of which are inscribed, polished to a high finish, with the names of the men and women being honored Vietnam Veterans Memorial (U.S. National Park Service) The walls are sunken into the ground, with the earth behind them. At their highest point (the apex where they meet), they are tall, and they taper to a height of at their extremities. Symbolically, this is described as a "wound that is closed and healing" and exemplifies the Land art movement of the 1960s which produced sculptures that sought to reconnect with the natural environment. The stone for the 144 panels was quarried in Bangalore, India.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: One wall points to the Washington Monument, the other to the Lincoln Memorial, meeting at an angle of 125° 12′. Each wall has 72 panels, 70 listing names (numbered 1E through 70E and 70W through 1W), and two very small blank panels at the extremities. A pathway for visitors extends along the base of the Wall.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: The names on the Wall, originally numbering 57,939 when it was dedicated in 1982, are listed in the chronological order of the dates of casualty. Additional names have been added throughout the years since: there are 58,320 names. The number of names on the wall differs from other counts of U.S. Vietnam War deaths. Directories of the names and their locations are located on nearby podiums at both ends of the Memorial.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: The memorial has had some unforeseen maintenance issues. In 1984, cracks were detected in the granite and, as a result, two of the panels were temporarily removed in 1986 for study. More cracks were later discovered in 2010. There are a number of hypotheses about the cause of the cracks, the most common being due to thermal cycling. In 1990, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund purchased several blank panels to use in case any were ever damaged; these were placed into storage at Quantico Marine Base. Two of the blank panels were shattered by the 2011 Virginia earthquake.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: Inscribed on the Memorial are the names of service members who were classified as dead, missing, or prisoner. The list includes names of individuals who died due to circumstances other than "killed in action", including murder, vehicle accidents, drowning, heart attack, animal attack, snake bites and others. The names are inscribed in Optima typeface, designed by Hermann Zapf. Information about rank, unit, or decorations is not provided on the Wall itself.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: Those who were confirmed as dead are denoted by a diamond shape next to the name, and those who are status unknown are denoted with a "cross" sign. When the death of one who was previously missing is confirmed, a diamond is superimposed over the cross. If a missing man were to return alive, which has never occurred to date, the cross is to be circumscribed by a circle.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: The earliest date of eligibility for a name to be included on the Memorial is November 1, 1955, which corresponds to when President Eisenhower deployed the Military Assistance Advisory Group to train the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. The last date of eligibility is May 15, 1975, which corresponds to the final day of the " Mayaguez" incident. The names are listed in chronological order, starting at the apex on panel 1E on July 8, 1959, moving day by day to the end of the eastern wall at panel 70E, which ended on May 25, 1968, starting again at panel 70W at the end of the western wall, completing the list for May 25, 1968, and returning to the apex at panel 1W in 1975. There are some deaths that predate July 8, 1959, including the death of Richard B. Fitzgibbon Jr. in 1956.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: There are circumstances that allow for a name to be added to the Memorial, but the death must be directly attributed to a wound received within the combat zone while on active duty. The determination of addition is made by the Department of Defense. In these cases, the name is added according to the date of injury—not the date of death.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: The names of 32 men were erroneously included in the memorial, and while those names remain on the wall, they have been removed from the databases and printed directories. The extra names resulted from a deliberate decision to err on the side of inclusiveness, with 38 questionable names being included. One person, whose name was added as late as 1992, had gone AWOL immediately upon his return to the United States after his second completed tour of duty. His survival only came to the attention of government authorities in 1996.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: There are eight women’s names included in the memorial - Eleanor Grace Alexander, Pamela Dorothy Donovan, Carol Ann Drazba, Annie Ruth Graham, Elizabeth Ann Jones, Mary Therese Klinker, Sharon Ann Lane, and Hedwig Diane Orlowski. All were nurses.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: A component of the Memorial, located a short distance from the Wall, is a bronze statue named "The Three Servicemen" (sometimes called "The Three Soldiers"). The work depicts three soldiers. Two are purposefully identifiable as European American and African American, while the third is intended to represent all other ethnic groups in America. In their final arrangement, the statue and the Wall appear to interact with one another, with the soldiers looking on in solemn tribute at the names of their fallen comrades. The distance between the two allows them to interact without affecting the design of the other.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: The Vietnam Women's Memorial is a memorial dedicated to the women of the United States who served in the Vietnam War, most of whom were nurses. It serves as a reminder of the importance of women in the conflict. It depicts three uniformed women with a wounded soldier. It is located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., a short distance south of The Wall, north of the Reflecting Pool. It was authorized by separate legislation from that of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: A memorial plaque, authorized by an Act of Congress (), was dedicated on November 10, 2004, at the northeast corner of the plaza surrounding the Three Soldiers statue to honor veterans who died after the war as a result of injuries suffered in Vietnam, but who fall outside Department of Defense guidelines. The plaque is a carved block of black granite, , inscribed "In memory of the men and women who served in the Vietnam War and later died as a result of their service. We honor and remember their sacrifice."


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: Ruth Coder Fitzgerald, the founder of The Vietnam War In Memory Memorial Plaque Project, worked for years to have the In Memory Memorial Plaque completed. The organization has been dissolved, but its web site is maintained by the Vietnam War Project at Texas Tech University.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: Visitors to the memorial may take a piece of paper and place it over a name on the Wall and rub a wax crayon or graphite pencil over it as a memento of their loved ones. This is called rubbing.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: Visitors to the memorial began leaving sentimental items at the memorial at its opening. They continue leaving objects forty years after the dedication of the memorial. One story claims this practice began during construction when a Vietnam veteran threw the Purple Heart his brother received posthumously into the concrete of the memorial's foundation. Several thousand items are left at the memorial each year. The largest item left at the memorial was a sliding glass storm door with a full-size replica "tiger cage". The door was painted with a scene from Vietnam and the names of U.S. POWs and MIAs from the conflict.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: On April 27, 1979, four years after the fall of Saigon, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Inc. (VVMF) was incorporated as a non-profit organization to establish a memorial to honor the veterans of the Vietnam War. The impetus for the founding of VVMF fund came from a wounded Vietnam War veteran, Jan Scruggs, who was inspired by the film "The Deer Hunter". VVMF was joined by a volunteer cadre of Vietnam veterans, primarily former junior officers and enlisted men, among whom two emerged as principal leaders with Scruggs: West Point graduate John P. Wheeler III and Robert W. Doubek, a former Air Force intelligence officer. In recognition of their leadership, Scruggs, Wheeler, and Doubek were nominated for the Congressional Gold Medal in 1986. Eventually, $8.4 million was raised through private donations.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: On July 1, 1980, a site consisting of two acres next to the Lincoln Memorial was chosen and authorized by Congress. The World War I Munitions Building previously occupied that area. VVMF decided to choose a design for the Memorial through a national design competition, with a first prize of $20,000. The competition was open to any American over 18 years of age, and by the end of the year 1980, 2,573 individuals and teams had registered for the competition, and by the deadline of March 30, 1981, 1,421 designs were submitted. The designs were displayed at an airport hangar at Andrews Air Force Base for the selection jury, in rows covering more than of floor space. Each entry was identified by number only. All entries were examined by each juror; the entries were narrowed down to 232, then to 39. Finally, the jury selected entry number 1026, which had been designed by Maya Lin.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: The selected design was controversial, in particular due to its black color, its lack of ornamentation, and its configuration below ground level. Among other attacks, it was called "a black gash of shame and sorrow." Two prominent early supporters of the project, H. Ross Perot and James Webb, withdrew their support once they saw the design. Said Webb, "I never in my wildest dreams imagined such a nihilistic slab of stone." James Watt, secretary of the interior under President Ronald Reagan, delayed issuing a building permit for the Memorial due to the political opposition.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: Since its early years, criticism of the Memorial's design faded. In the words of Scruggs, "It has become something of a shrine."


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: Negative reactions to Maya Lin's design created a controversy; a compromise was reached by VVMF's agreement to add a flagstaff and a realist statue at the site. Consequently Frederick Hart (who designed the sculpture that was part of the third-place winner in the original design competition) was commissioned to produce a bronze figurative sculpture. Opponents of Lin's design wanted to place this sculpture of three soldiers at the apex of the two walls, to make the soldiers the focal point of the memorial and the Wall a mere backdrop. In the end, the sculpture was placed in an entry plaza. On October 13, 1982, the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts approved the addition of the flagstaff and the Hart sculptures.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: On March 11, 1982, the revised design was formally approved, and on March 26, 1982, ground was formally broken. Stone from Bangalore, India, was chosen because of its reflective quality; Cutting and fabrication of the panels were done in Barre, Vermont. The panels were then shipped to Memphis, Tennessee, where the names were inscribed. The inscriptions were done with a photoemulsion and sandblasting process. Typesetting of the original 57,939 names on the wall was performed by Datalantic in Atlanta, Georgia. The negatives used in the process are in storage at the Smithsonian Institution.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: The memorial was dedicated on November 13, 1982, as part of a five-day ceremony that began on November 10, 1982, called the "National Salute to Vietnam Veterans," which included a reading of names at the National Cathedral, unit reunions, an entertainers' show, a parade, the Memorial's dedication, and a service at the Cathedral. The Three Soldiers statue was dedicated in 1984, with the participation of President Ronald Reagan.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: Since 1982, over 400 names have been added to the memorial, but not necessarily in chronological order. Some were men who died in Vietnam but were left off the list due to clerical errors. Others died after 1982, and their deaths were determined by the Department of Defense to be the direct result of their Vietnam War service. For those who died during the war, their name is placed in a position that relates to their date of death. For those who died after the war, their name is placed in a position that relates to the date of their injury. Because space is usually not available in the exact right place, names are placed as close to their correct chronological position as possible, but usually not in the exact spot. The order could be corrected as panels are replaced.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: Furthermore, over 100 names have been identified as misspelled. In some cases, the correction could be done in place. In others, the name had to be chiseled again elsewhere, moving them out of chronological order. Others have remained in place, with the misspelling, at the request of their family.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: The Women's Memorial was designed by Glenna Goodacre for the women of the United States who served in the Vietnam War. Before Goodacre's design was selected, two design entries had been awarded as co-finalists – one a statue and the other a setting – however, the two designs were unable to be reconciled. Glenna Goodacre's entry received an honorable mention in the contest and she was asked to submit a modified maquette (design model). Goodacre's original design for the Women's Memorial statue included a standing figure of a nurse holding a Vietnamese baby, which although not intended as such, was deemed a political statement, and it was asked that this be removed. She replaced them with a figure of a kneeling woman holding an empty helmet. On November 11, 1993, the Vietnam Women's Memorial was dedicated. There is a smaller replica of that memorial at Vietnam Veterans Memorial State Park in Angel Fire, New Mexico.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: On November 10, 2000, a memorial plaque, authorized by , honoring veterans who died after the war as a direct result of injuries suffered in Vietnam, but who fall outside Department of Defense guidelines was dedicated. Ruth Coder Fitzgerald, the founder of The Vietnam War In Memory Memorial Plaque Project, worked for years and struggled against opposition to have the In Memory Memorial Plaque completed. The organization was disbanded, but their website is maintained by the Vietnam War Project at Texas Tech University.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: In 2003, after some years of lobbying, the National Park Service and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund won permission from Congress to build The Education Center at The Wall. A two-story museum, located below ground just west of the Maya Lin-designed memorial, was proposed to display the history of the Vietnam War and the multiple design competitions and artworks which make up the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Vietnam Women's Memorial, and the Memorial Plaque. The center would have also provided biographical details on and photographs of many of the 58,000 names listed on the Wall as well as the more than 6,600 servicemembers killed since 2001 fighting the War on Terror. The $115-million museum would be jointly operated by the Park Service and the Fund. A ceremonial groundbreaking for the project occurred in November 2012, but insufficient fundraising led the Fund to cancel construction of the center in September 2018 and instead focus on digital education and outreach.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: Items left at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial are collected by National Park Service employees and transferred to the NPS Museum Resource Center, which catalogs and stores all items except perishable organic matter (such as fresh flowers) and unaltered U.S. flags. The flags are redistributed through various channels.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: From 1992 to 2003, selected items from the collection were placed on exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History as "Personal Legacy: The Healing of a Nation" including the Medal of Honor of Charles Liteky, who renounced it in 1986 by placing the medal at the memorial in an envelope addressed to then-president Ronald Reagan.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: There are several transportable replicas of the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial created so those who are not able to travel to Washington, D.C., would be able to simulate an experience of visiting the Wall.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: Located at 200 S. 9th Ave in Pensacola, Florida, the first permanent replica of the National Vietnam Veterans Memorial was unveiled on October 24, 1992. Now known as "Wall South," the half-size replica bears the names of all Americans killed or missing in Southeast Asia and is updated each Mother's Day. It is the centerpiece of Veterans Memorial Park Pensacola, a -acre site overlooking Pensacola Bay, which also includes a World War I Memorial, a World War II Memorial, a Korean War Memorial, a Revolutionary War Memorial and a running series of plaques to honor local casualties from the Global War on Terror. There is also a Purple Heart Memorial, a Marine Corps Aviation Bell Tower and a monument to the submarine lifeguards who rescued Navy pilots in World War II. A Global War on Terror Memorial is planned to be completed in 2017 and will include an artifact from the World Trade Center as a component of the sculpture.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: Located in Fox Park in Wildwood, New Jersey, The Wildwoods Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall was unveiled and dedicated on May 29, 2010. The memorial wall is an almost half-size granite replica of the National Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the only permanent memorial north of the nation's capital.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: Plans for the Vietnam War Memorial located 401 East Ninth Street in Winfield, Kansas began in 1987 when friends who had gathered for a class reunion wanted to find a way to honor their fallen classmates. The project quickly grew from honoring only Cowley County servicemen to representing all 777 servicemen and nurses from Kansas who lost their lives or are missing in action from the Vietnam War.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: Located at Freedom Park in South Sioux City, Nebraska exists a half-scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall that duplicates the original design. Dedicated in 2014, the 250-foot wall is constructed with black granite mined from the same quarry in India as the original.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: Located in Layton, Utah, the Layton Vietnam Memorial Wall at 437 N Wasatch Dr, 84041, contains the names of all 58,000 Americans who died in the war. According to Utah Vietnam Veterans of America, the wall is 80 percent of the original size of the memorial in Washington, D.C., and it is the only replica of its size west of the Mississippi. The memorial was officially opened and dedicated on July 14, 2018.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: Located in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, opened in 2018. This Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Wall is 360-feet long, an 80 percent scale of the one in Washington D.C.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: Located in Augusta, Georgia, opened in 2019, the Augusta-CSRA Vietnam War Veterans Memorial is not a replica but follows the principles set forth by the national monument of honoring those fallen in Vietnam with inscriptions of the names, 169 total, who made the supreme sacrifice in Vietnam.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: The first US memorial to an ongoing war, the Northwood Gratitude and Honor Memorial in Irvine, California, is modeled on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in that it includes a chronological list of the dead engraved in dark granite. As the memorialized wars (in Iraq and Afghanistan) have not concluded, the Northwood Gratitude and Honor Memorial will be updated yearly. It has space for about 8000 names, of which 5,714 were engraved as of the Dedication of the Memorial on November 14, 2010.


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: The Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Wall inspired over 60 songs, identified by the Vietnam War Song Project, showing how the war has been represented in subsequent decades, performed by professional musicians and Vietnam veterans. The songs present patriotic tributes to the names on the Wall, the perspective of families and friends, as well as recriminations and anti-war sentiment. One of the first songs released on record was "The Wall" by Britt Small & Festival, who performed the song at the memorial in November 1982, and subsequently released as a 7" single. This was followed by "Who are the names on the Wall?", by Vietnam veterans Michael J. Martin and Tim Holiday, also released in 1982. In 1983, contemporary folk artist Michael Jerling released "Long Black Wall" on the "CooP Fast Folk Musical Magazine (Vol. 2, No. 4) - Political Song", published by Fast Folk. Commercially successful songs include: "More Than a Name on the Wall" (1989) by The Statler Brothers, which peaked at #6 on the "Billboard" Hot Country Singles chart; "The Big Parade" (1989) by 10,000 Maniacs on the album Blind Man's Zoo, which reached #13 in the US "Billboard" chart; Guns N' Roses song "Civil War" (1991), which referenced the memorial, and reaching #4 in the US "Billboard" rock charts. Other well-known songs include "The Wall" (2014) by Bruce Springsteen on his album "High Hopes" and "Xmas in February" (1989) by Lou Reed, released on the album "New York".


title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

text: There have been hundreds of incidents of vandalism at the memorial wall. Some of the most notable cases are:


title: Kam Chancellor

text: Kameron Darnel Chancellor (born April 3, 1988), nicknamed "Bam Bam", is an American former football strong safety who played for the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Virginia Tech prior to being drafted by the Seahawks in the fifth round of the 2010 NFL Draft. A four-time Pro Bowler, he was one of the key members of their Legion of Boom secondary. He also helped lead the Seahawks to victory in Super Bowl XLVIII. Chancellor retired following complications from a neck injury he suffered in 2017.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: Chancellor was born in Norfolk, Virginia, on April 3, 1988. He attended Matthew Fontaine Maury High School where he played basketball and football as a quarterback and safety for the Commodores athletic teams. As a senior in 2005, he recorded more than 2,000 passing yards and 500 rushing yards and led his team to a 10–2 record and an appearance in the Group AAA Division 5 playoffs. Chancellor was named the team's most valuable player, and he was also placed on the All-Eastern District first-team as well as "The Virginian-Pilot" All-Tidewater second-team. Rivals.com assessed him as the 27th-ranked pro-style quarterback prospect in the nation and the 20th-ranked player in the state of Virginia. SuperPrep and "The Roanoke Times" rated him the 21st-ranked player in the state. The 247Sports recruiting site assessed Chancellor as a three-star recruit and he accepted a scholarship offer from Virginia Tech.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: Chancellor enrolled at Virginia Tech in 2006 to study human development. He worked out as a quarterback before eventually being moved to the cornerback position prior to the start of the season. He saw action that year as a true freshman in all 13 games, and recorded nine tackles, two broken up passes, and one interception.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: In 2007, he was moved to the rover position as the starter and also played on special teams. He started in all 14 games and recorded 79 tackles, seven broken-up passes, three quarterback hurries, and one interception as a sophomore.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: Before the 2008 season, Chancellor was moved to the free safety position, his third position change in three of four years at Virginia Tech. Chancellor started in all 14 games and recorded 52 tackles, of which 27 were solo, two interceptions, five broken-up passes, seven pass deflections, one forced fumble, and two fumble recoveries.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: After the season, he considered entering the 2009 NFL Draft a year early, but decided to remain at Virginia Tech for his senior season.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: Before his senior season in 2009, Hokies' defensive backs coach, Torrian Gray said that Chancellor could be "the greatest safety in Virginia Tech history. In his senior season, Chancellor recorded two interceptions, one fumble return, 68 total tackles, three tackles-for-loss, and four broken-up passes. Chancellor has said that he attempts to emulate the late Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor, and said, "[He was a] big safety, the prototype guy for the position. I'm a big safety, too, and I've just always wanted to be just like him. I don't necessarily say I can be Sean Taylor before it's over, but I think I can be just as good." Also, before games and when he needs motivation, Chancellor says he watched the highlights of Sean Taylor on YouTube. He says it motivated him to do better, strive for greater things, and took him to a darker place which makes him play better. The CBS Sports-affiliated NFL Draft Scout considered Chancellor the third-ranked of the 126 free safeties available for the 2010 NFL Draft and projected him as a third-round selection.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: The Seattle Seahawks selected Chancellor in the fifth round with the 133rd overall pick in the 2010 NFL Draft. He was the second safety the Seahawks drafted in 2010, behind first round pick Earl Thomas, and was the ninth safety selected overall.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: On June 2, 2010, the Seattle Seahawks signed Chancellor to a four-year, $2 million contract that includes a signing bonus of $213,000.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: Throughout training camp, he competed for a job at strong safety against Lawyer Milloy, Kevin Ellison, and Jordan Babineaux. Head coach Pete Carroll named Chancellor the third strong safety on the depth chart to start the regular season, behind veterans Lawyer Milloy and Jordan Babineaux.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: He made his professional regular season debut in the Seattle Seahawks' season-opening 31–6 victory against the San Francisco 49ers. On September 26, 2010, Chancellor recorded his first career tackle on Darren Sproles after Sproles returned a kickoff for 22 yards. Chancellor forced a fumble that was recovered by Dexter Davis. He finished their 27–20 victory with two solo tackles and one forced fumble. On October 31, 2010, Chancellor recorded two solo tackles and sacked quarterback Jason Campbell in the Seahawks' 33–3 loss at the Oakland Raiders. The following week, he collected a season-high seven combined tackles (five solo) in a 41–7 loss to the New York Giants. He finished his rookie season with 23 combined tackles (17 solo), a pass deflection, a sack, and a forced fumble in 16 games and no starts.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: Chancellor entered training camp slated as the starting strong safety after the Seahawks opted to not re-sign Lawyer Milloy. Defensive coordinator Gus Bradley officially named him the starting strong safety, alongside free safety Earl Thomas.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: He started the Seattle Seahawks' season-opener at the San Francisco 49ers and recorded a season-high ten solo tackles in their 33–17 loss. On September 25, 2011, Chancellor collected five combined tackles, two pass deflections, and made his first career interception off a pass attempt by quarterback Kevin Kolb during their 13–10 victory against the Arizona Cardinals. He missed the following game (Week 4), after sustaining a quadriceps injury. On December 24, 2011, Chancellor tied his season-high of ten solo tackles during a 19–17 loss to the San Francisco 49ers. He finished his first season as a starter with 97 combined tackles (75 solo), a career-high 13 pass deflections, four interceptions, and a sack in 15 games and 15 starts. Chancellor ranked second for the Seahawks in both tackles and interceptions. On January 25, 2012, it was announced that Chancellor was added to the 2012 Pro Bowl roster as a replacement for Dashon Goldson of the San Francisco 49ers.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: Defensive coordinator Gus Bradley retained Chancellor and Thomas as the starting safeties to start the 2012 regular season. On October 14, 2012, he recorded a season-high 11 combined tackles (seven solo) during a 24–23 victory against the New England Patriots. In Week 11, Chancellor tied his season-high with 11 combined tackles (eight solo) in the Seahawks' 28–24 loss at the Detroit Lions. He finished his third season with a career-high 101 combined tackles (75 solo) and four pass deflections in 16 games and 16 starts.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: On April 22, 2013, the Seattle Seahawks signed Chancellor to a four-year, $28 million contract that included $17 million guaranteed and a $5 million signing bonus.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: New defensive coordinator Dan Quinn retained Chancellor and Thomas as the starting safeties to begin the regular season. In Week 2, Chancellor recorded five combined tackles, broke up a pass, and intercepted a pass by Colin Kaepernick during the Seahawks' 29–3 victory against the San Francisco 49ers. On December 22, 2013, he collected a season-high 11 combined tackles (six solo), two pass deflections, and an interception as they lost 17–10 to the Arizona Cardinals. He finished the season with 99 combined tackles (65 solo), six pass, and three interceptions in 16 games and 16 starts. He was named to his second Pro Bowl.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: The Seattle Seahawks finished the season atop the NFC West with a 13–3 record and clinched a playoff berth and a first round bye. On January 11, 2014, Chancellor started his first career playoff game and recorded 14 combined tackles (four solo) and two pass deflections during the Seahawks' 23–15 victory against the New Orleans Saints in the NFC . The Seahawks defeated the San Francisco 49ers 23–17 in the and went on to Super Bowl XLVIII. On February 2, 2014, Chancellor made ten combined tackles (six solo), deflected two passes, and intercepted a pass by quarterback Peyton Manning as the Seahawks won Super Bowl XLVIII 43–8 against the Denver Broncos. He was ranked 65th by his fellow players on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2014.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: Chancellor began the season being selected as a team captain by his teammates, along with Russell Wilson, Jon Ryan, and Steven Hauschka. He started the Seattle Seahawks' season-opener against the Green Bay Packers and recorded a season-high 11 combined tackles (eight solo) during a 36–16 victory. On September 21, 2014, in a Super Bowl XLVIII rematch with the Denver Broncos, Chancellor recorded nine tackles, an interception, a forced fumble, and two passes defended in a 26–20 victory, winning the NFC Defensive Player of the Week Award. Chancellor earned another NFC Defensive Player of the Week nomination for his Week 12 game against the Arizona Cardinals. At the end of the regular season he was selected for the third Pro Bowl of his career and voted in the Second-team All-Pro by the Associated Press.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: In the Seahawks' game against the Carolina Panthers, Chancellor had a career game in which he recorded nine solo tackles, two assists, and an interception, which was returned 87 yards for a touchdown. It was his third straight postseason game with an interception. Chancellor also vaulted the Panthers' offensive line twice in attempt to block a field goal at the end of the half, though neither attempt counted due to penalties. In the against the Green Bay Packers, Chancellor had four tackles in the 28–22 overtime victory. In Super Bowl XLIX, Chancellor recorded 10 tackles as the Seahawks failed to repeat as Super Bowl champions. They fell to the New England Patriots 28–24. He was ranked 41st by his fellow players on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2015.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: One year into his five-year extension, Chancellor requested a new contract. As of September 14, 2015, there had been no new contract talks between Chancellor and the Seahawks. Chancellor missed the first two games of the 2015 NFL season, a 31–34 overtime loss to the St. Louis Rams and a 17–27 loss to the Green Bay Packers. Chancellor returned to the 0-2 Seahawks in Week 3. The Seahawks went 10-4 since Chancellor's return. For his play in the 2015 season, he earned a trip to the 2016 Pro Bowl. He was ranked 32nd by his fellow players on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2016.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: In the of the postseason for the 2015 season, Chancellor would force a fourth quarter fumble of running back Adrian Peterson in a game against the Minnesota Vikings. The Seahawks would recover, and ultimately kick a field goal on the subsequent drive, giving the Seahawks a 10–9 lead, which would end up being the final score of the game after Blair Walsh missed a potential game-winning field goal in the final seconds. The Seahawks went on to lose in the to the eventual NFC Champion Carolina Panthers by a score of 31–24.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: Starting the 2016 season, Chancellor was named defensive team captain for the second time in his career, joining Russell Wilson, Jon Ryan, and cornerback DeShawn Shead as the four Seahawk captains. Chancellor earned NFC Defensive Player of the Week for his performance against the New England Patriots.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: In the 2016 season, Chancellor had 47 tackles and two interceptions. The Seahawks would return to the playoffs. In the victory against the Detroit Lions, Chancellor had six tackles. In the loss to the Atlanta Falcons, Chancellor had six tackles for the second consecutive playoff game. After the season, he was ranked 34th by his fellow players on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2017.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: On August 1, 2017, Chancellor signed a three-year, $36 million contract extension with $25 million guaranteed with the Seahawks. On November 18, it was revealed that Chancellor would miss the rest of the season after suffering a neck injury in Week 10. He was officially placed on injured reserve on December 16, 2017. Despite missing the final six games of the season due to that injury, Chancellor was named a Pro Bowl alternate at safety. Had he been able to play in the game he would have received the honor. Despite only playing in nine games, he was still ranked 75th by his peers on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2018.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: In a series of tweets on July 1, 2018, Chancellor said that the neck injury he had suffered in 2017 had not healed enough to allow him to return for the 2018 season. Although he never used the word "retirement," he strongly hinted that it was unlikely he would ever be medically cleared to play again. "To walk away from the game by choice is one thing," he tweeted. "To walk away from the game because of the risk of paralysis is another." Even before then, Carroll had said that Chancellor would have difficulty playing football again due to the severity of the injury. He was placed on the team's physically unable to perform list on July 26, 2018.


title: Kam Chancellor

text: Chancellor remained on the Seahawks roster as his contract called for him to get $6.8 million of guaranteed money in 2018 and a $5.2 million injury guarantee in 2019; he could have potentially forfeited the money had he formally retired. Chancellor had the honor of raising the 12th Man flag for the Seahawks 2018 home opener and later revealed that he had spinal stenosis and bone spurs in his neck. On May 9, 2019, the Seahawks terminated Chancellor's contract after he had failed a physical.


title: PTRS-41

text: The PTRS-41 or Simonov anti-tank rifle () is a World War II-era semi-automatic anti-tank rifle firing the 14.5×114mm cartridge.


title: PTRS-41

text: The PTRS-41 was produced and used by the Soviet Union during World War II. In the years between the World Wars, the Soviet Union began experimenting with different types of armour-piercing anti-tank cartridges. Finding the 12.7×108mm insufficient, they began development of what became the 14.5×114mm armour-piercing round. Rukavishnikov developed to use this cartridge, but it was not successful because of some manufacturing issues, a sufficient number of more effective anti-tank guns in the Red Army, and high expectations about new German tank armour.


title: PTRS-41

text: In 1941, the loss of huge amounts of anti-tank artillery created a need for a stop-gap anti-tank weapon, so famous USSR weapons designers such as Vasily Degtyaryov and Sergei Gavrilovich Simonov were tasked to design anti-tank rifles. Both were considered simpler and more suitable to wartime production than an updated Rukavishnikov rifle. Simonov used elements of a family of his 7.62x54R self-loading rifles and carbines which he continued to develop after his 1938 design lost to SVT-38 to create a scaled-up self-loading rifle.


title: PTRS-41

text: The five-round magazine is loaded into the receiver and held under pressure by a swing magazine underneath. On firing the last round, the bolt is held open, and the magazine release catch can be operated only when the bolt is locked back. The gas-operated PTRS has a tendency to jam when dirty, and the 14.5 mm cartridge produces significant residue, blocking the gas port. The 14.5 mm armour-piercing bullet has a muzzle velocity of 1013 m/s and devastating ballistics. It can penetrate an armour plate up to 40 mm thick at a distance of 100 meters.


title: PTRS-41

text: In 1943 Simonov used a scaled-down PTRS-41 design for the SKS, that would accommodate the new 1943-designed 7.62×39mm cartridge.


title: PTRS-41

text: Along with his partner Vasily Degtyaryov, Sergei Gavrilovich Simonov helped the Soviet Union develop new weapons between the First and Second World War. During this time, Degtyaryov went on to create the PTRD-41 while Simonov created and designed its cousin rifle, the PTRS-41 in 1938. As one of Simonov's creations, the PTRS-41 was sometimes known as simply the "Simonov" on the battlefield. Although more advanced, the PTRS was harder to use and less reliable than the cheaper PTRD while yielding similar performance, so the PTRD was used more often.


title: PTRS-41

text: The semi-automatic anti-tank rifle was used extensively on the Eastern Front in World War II. It was used successfully by Hero of the Soviet Union Sergeant Yakov Pavlov during the Battle of Stalingrad when the NCO led the defence of Pavlov's House in the city after he mounted rifles on the building's roof. Because the rifles were effective against thin armour at close range, they were able to destroy numerous German Panzers that came into range because they could shoot through the thin armour on their turret-roofs. Guns captured by the Germans were given the designation 14.5 mm PzB 784(r).


title: PTRS-41

text: PTRS-41 rifles are still in use by Donbas militiamen in Ukraine, during the Russo-Ukrainian War, due to their ability to penetrate APC armour. The ammunition used is actual World War II vintage.


title: Dimples of Venus

text: The dimples of Venus (also known as back dimples, Duffy Dimples, butt dimples or Veneral dimples) are sagittally symmetrical indentations sometimes visible on the human lower back, just superior to the gluteal cleft. They are directly superficial to the two sacroiliac joints, the sites where the sacrum attaches to the ilium of the pelvis.


title: Dimples of Venus

text: An imaginary line joining both dimples of Venus passes over the spinous process of the second sacral vertebra.


title: Dimples of Venus

text: The term "dimples of Venus", while informal, is a historically accepted name within the medical profession for the superficial topography of the sacroiliac joints. The Latin name is "fossae lumbales laterales" ("lateral lumbar indentations"). These indentations are created by a short ligament stretching between the posterior superior iliac spine and the skin.


title: Dimples of Venus

text: Named after Venus, the Roman goddess of beauty, they are sometimes believed to be a mark of beauty. The features may be seen on both female and male backs, but seem to be more common and more prominent in women. When seen in men, they are called "dimples of Apollo", named after the Greco-Roman god of male beauty.


title: Dimples of Venus

text: Another use of the term "dimples of Venus" in surgical anatomy refers to two symmetrical indentations on the posterior aspect of the sacrum, which also contain a venous channel. They are used as a landmark for finding the superior articular facets of the sacrum as a guide to place sacral pedicle screws in spine surgery.


title: Utility pole

text: A utility pole is a column or post typically made out of wood used to support overhead power lines and various other public utilities, such as electrical cable, fiber optic cable, and related equipment such as transformers and street lights. It can be referred to as a transmission pole, telephone pole, telecommunication pole, power pole, hydro pole, telegraph pole, or telegraph post, depending on its application. A Stobie pole is a multi-purpose pole made of two steel joists held apart by a slab of concrete in the middle, generally found in South Australia.


title: Utility pole

text: Electrical wires and cables are routed overhead on utility poles as an inexpensive way to keep them insulated from the ground and out of the way of people and vehicles. Utility poles can be made of wood, metal, concrete, or composites like fiberglass. They are used for two different types of power lines: "sub transmission lines", which carry higher voltage power between substations, and "distribution lines", which distribute lower voltage power to customers.


title: Utility pole

text: The first poles were used in 1843 by telegraph pioneer William Fothergill Cooke, who used them on a line along the Great Western Railway. Utility poles were first used in the mid-19th century in America with telegraph systems, starting with Samuel Morse, who attempted to bury a line between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., but moved it above ground when this system proved faulty. Today, underground distribution lines are increasingly used as an alternative to utility poles in residential neighborhoods, due to poles' perceived ugliness, as well as safety concerns in areas with large amounts of snow or ice build up.


title: Utility pole

text: Utility poles are commonly used to carry two types of electric power lines: "distribution lines" (or "feeders") and "sub transmission lines". Distribution lines carry power from local substations to customers. They generally carry voltages from 4.6 to 33 kilovolts (kV) for distances up to 30 miles, and include transformers to step the voltage down from the primary voltage to the lower secondary voltage used by the customer. A service drop carries this lower voltage to the customer's premises.


title: Utility pole

text: Subtransmission lines carry higher voltage power from regional substations to local substations. They usually carry 46 kV, 69 kV, or 115 kV for distances up to 60 miles. 230 kV lines are often supported on H-shaped towers made with two or three poles. Transmission lines carrying voltages of above 230 kV are usually not supported by poles, but by metal pylons (known as transmission towers in the US).


title: Utility pole

text: For economic or practical reasons, such as to save space in urban areas, a distribution line is often carried on the same poles as a sub transmission line but mounted under the higher voltage lines; a practice called "underbuild". Telecommunication cables are usually carried on the same poles that support power lines; poles shared in this fashion are known as joint-use poles, but may have their own dedicated poles.


title: Utility pole

text: The standard utility pole in the United States is about long and is buried about in the ground. However, poles can reach heights of or more to satisfy clearance requirements. They are typically spaced about apart in urban areas, or about in rural areas, but distances vary widely based on terrain. Joint-use poles are usually owned by one utility, which leases space on it for other cables. In the United States, the National Electrical Safety Code, published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) (not to be confused with the National Electrical Code published by the National Fire Protection Association [NFPA]), sets the standards for construction and maintenance of utility poles and their equipment.


title: Utility pole

text: Most utility poles are made of wood, pressure-treated with some type of preservative for protection against rot, fungi and insects. Southern yellow pine is the most widely used species in the United States; however, many species of long straight trees are used to make utility poles, including Douglas fir, jack pine, lodgepole pine, western red cedar, and Pacific silver fir.


title: Utility pole

text: Traditionally, the preservative used was creosote, but due to environmental concerns, alternatives such as pentachlorophenol, copper naphthenate and borates are becoming widespread in the United States. In the United States, standards for wood preservative materials and wood preservation processes, along with test criteria, are set by ANSI, ASTM, and American Wood Protection Association (AWPA) specifications. Despite the preservatives, wood poles decay and have a life of approximately 25 to 50 years depending on climate and soil conditions, therefore requiring regular inspection and remedial preservative treatments. Woodpecker damage to wood poles is the most significant cause of pole deterioration in the U.S.


title: Utility pole

text: Other common utility pole materials are steel and concrete, with composites (such as fiberglass) also becoming more prevalent. One particular patented utility pole variant used in Australia is the Stobie pole, made up of two vertical steel posts with a slab of concrete between them.


title: Utility pole

text: In southern Switzerland along various lakes, telephone poles are made of granite. Starting in the early 1900s, these 18-foot (5 m) poles were originally used for telegraph wires and later for telephone wires. Because they are made of granite, the poles last indefinitely.


title: Utility pole

text: On poles carrying both electrical and communications wiring, the electric power distribution lines and associated equipment are mounted at the top of the pole above the communication cables, for safety. The vertical space on the pole reserved for this equipment is called the "supply space". The wires themselves are usually uninsulated, and supported by insulators, commonly mounted on a horizontal crossarm. Power is transmitted using the three-phase system, with three wires, or phases, labeled "A", "B", and "C".


title: Utility pole

text: Sub transmission lines comprise only these 3 wires, plus sometimes an overhead ground wire (OGW), also called a "static line" or a "neutral", suspended above them. The OGW acts like a lightning rod, providing a low resistance path to ground thus protecting the phase conductors from lightning.


title: Utility pole

text: Distribution lines use two systems, either grounded-wye ("Y" on electrical schematics) or delta (Greek letter "Δ" on electrical schematics). A delta system requires only a conductor for each of the three phases. A grounded-wye system requires a fourth conductor, the neutral, whose source is the center of the "Y" and is grounded. However, "spur lines" branching off the main line to provide power to side streets often carry only one or two phase wires, plus the neutral. A wide range of standard distribution voltages are used, from 2,400 V to 34,500 V. On poles near a service drop, there is a pole-mounted step-down distribution transformer to transform the high distribution voltage to the lower secondary voltage provided to the customer. In North America, service drops provide 240/120 V split-phase power for residential and light commercial service, using cylindrical single-phase transformers. In Europe and most other countries, 230 V three phase (230Y400) service drops are used. The transformer's primary is connected to the distribution line through protective devices called fuse cutouts. In the event of an overload, the fuse melts and the device pivots open to provide a visual indication of the problem. They can also be opened manually by linemen using a long insulated rod called a hot stick to disconnect the transformer from the line.


title: Utility pole

text: The pole may be grounded with a heavy bare copper or copper-clad steel wire running down the pole, attached to the metal pin supporting each insulator, and at the bottom connected to a metal rod driven into the ground. Some countries ground every pole while others only ground every fifth pole and any pole with a transformer on it. This provides a path for leakage currents across the surface of the insulators to get to ground, preventing the current from flowing through the wooden pole which could cause a fire or shock hazard. It provides similar protection in case of flashovers and lightning strikes. A surge arrester (also called a lightning arrester) may also be installed between the line (ahead of the cutout) and the ground wire for lightning protection. The purpose of the device is to conduct extremely high voltages present on the line directly to ground.