title: 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf

text: The attack was launched on 5 July 1943 with the II SS Panzer Corps attacking the southern flank of the salient as the spearhead for Generaloberst Hermann Hoth's 4th Panzer Army. The division covered the advance on the left flank of the II SS Panzer Corps, with the SS Division Leibstandarte forming the spearhead. With the advance slower than had been planned, Hausser ordered his II SS Panzer Corps to split in two, with the Totenkopf crossing the Psel River northwards and then continuing on towards the town of Prokhorovka. In the early morning of 9 July, 6th SS Motorised Regiment Theodor Eicke attacked northwards, crossing the Psel and attempted to seize the strategic Hill 226.6, but failed to do so until the afternoon. This meant that the northern advance slowed and the majority of the division was still south of the Psel, where elements of 5th SS Motorised Regiment 5 Thule continued to advance towards Prokhorovka and cover the flank of the Leibstandarte.


title: 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf

text: By 11 July, elements of the division crossed the Psel and secured Kliuchi. In the afternoon of 12 July, near the village of Andreyevka on the south bank of the Psel, the Soviet forces launched a major counterattack against Regiment Thule and the division's battalion of assault guns during the Battle of Prokhorovka. Elements of the division engaged lead units of the 5th Guards Tank Army, halting the Soviet advance and inflicting severe damage to the Soviet forces, but at the cost of the majority of the division's remaining operational tanks. While the II SS Panzer Corps had halted the Soviet counteroffensive, it had exhausted itself. Citadel was called off on 14 July.


title: 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf

text: Along with the SS Division Das Reich, the division was reassigned to General Karl-Adolf Hollidt's reformed 6th Army in southern Ukraine. The 6th Army was tasked with eliminating the Soviet bridgehead over the Mius River. The division was involved in heavy fighting over the next several weeks. During the July–August battles for Hill 213 and the town of Stepanovka, the division suffered heavy losses, and over the course of the campaign on the Mius-Front, it suffered more casualties than it had during Operation Citadel. By the time the Soviet bridgehead was eliminated, the division had lost 1,500 troops; the Panzer regiment was reduced to 20 tanks.


title: 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf

text: The division was then moved north, back to Kharkov. Along with Das Reich, Totenkopf took part in the battles to halt Operation Rumyantsev and to prevent the Soviet capture of the city. The city was abandoned on 23 August due to the threats on the German flanks. In October 1943, the division was reformed as a Panzer division. The Panzer battalion was officially upgraded to a regiment, and the two motorised regiments were given the titles "Theodor Eicke" and "Totenkopf". The division, along with other Axis formations, continued its retreat towards the Romanian border. By November, the division was engaged in fighting against Red Army's attacks over the vital town of Krivoi Rog to the west of the Dniepr.


title: 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf

text: In January 1944, Totenkopf was still engaged in heavy defensive fighting east of the Dniepr near Krivoi Rog. In February 1944, Totenkopf took part in the relief attempt of German troops encircled in the Korsun Pocket. In the second week of March, after a fierce battle near Kirovograd, the Totenkopf fell back behind the Bug River. Totenkopf took up new defensive positions. After two weeks of heavy fighting, again alongside the Panzer-Grenadier-Division Grossdeutschland, the Axis forces were retreated to the Dniestr on the Romanian border near Iaşi. In the first week of April, the division received replacements and new equipment, including Panther tanks. In the second week of April, Totenkopf took part in fighting against a heavy Soviet Army attacks towards Second Battle of Târgu Frumos. By 7 May, the front had quietened and the Totenkopf resumed its reorganizing.


title: 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf

text: In the Second Battle of Târgu Frumos, elements of the division, together with elements of the Großdeutschland, managed to halt an armoured assault by the Red Army. The assault, which in many aspects bore similarities to those of the later British Operation "Goodwood", was carried out by approximately 500 tanks. In early July, the division was ordered to the area near Grodno in Poland, where it formed a part of SS-Obergruppenführer Herbert Gille's IV SS Panzer Corps, covering the approaches to Warsaw near the Modlin Fortress.


title: 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf

text: After the Soviet Operation Bagration and the destruction of Army Group Centre the German lines had been pushed back over 480 kilometres, to the outskirts of the Polish capital. The division arrived at the Warsaw front in late July 1944. After the collapse of the German Army Group Centre, the IV SS Panzer Corps was one of the few functioning formations on the central section of the Eastern Front. On 1 August 1944, the Armia Krajowa (the Polish Home Army) launched the Warsaw Uprising. A column of Totenkopf Tiger tanks were caught up in the fighting, and several were lost. The Totenkopf itself was not involved in the suppression of the uprising, instead guarding the front lines, and fighting off several Red Army probe attacks into the city's eastern suburbs.


title: 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf

text: In several battles near the town of Modlin in mid-August, the Totenkopf, fighting alongside the SS Division Wiking and the Hermann Göring Division destroyed the Soviet 3rd Tank Corps. The terrain around Modlin is excellent for armour, and Totenkopf's panzers exploited this to their advantage, engaging Soviet tanks from a range where the superiority of the German optics and the 75 mm high-velocity gun gave the Panthers an edge over the T-34s.


title: 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf

text: The efforts of the Totenkopf, "Wiking" and "Hermann Göring" divisions allowed the Germans to hold the Vistula line and establish Army Group Vistula. In December 1944, the IX SS Mountain Corps (Alpine Corps-Croatia) was encircled in Budapest. Hitler ordered the IV SS Panzer Corps to redeploy south to relieve the 95,000 Germans and Hungarians trapped in the city. The corps arrived just before New Year's Eve. The relief attempts were to be codenamed Operation Konrad. The first attack was "Konrad I". The plan was for a joint attack by the Wiking and Totenkopf from the town of Tata attacking along the Bicske-Budapest line. The attack was launched on New Year's Day, 1945.


title: 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf

text: Despite initial gains, "Konrad I" ran into heavy Red Army opposition near Bicske and during the battle the 1st Battalion, 3rd SS Panzer Regiment's commander, SS-"Sturmbannführer" Erwin Meierdress was killed. After the failure of the first operation, Totenkopf and Wiking launched an assault aimed at reaching the city centre. Named Operation "Konrad II", the attack was launched on 7 January from just south of Esztergom. It reached as far as Budapest's northern suburbs, by 12 January motorised infantry of the Wiking division spotted the Hungarian capital's skyline. However, Gille's corps was overextended and vulnerable, so it was ordered to fall back.


title: 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf

text: Operation "Konrad III" got underway on 20 January 1945. Attacking from the south of Budapest, it aimed at encircling 10 Red Army divisions. However, the relief forces could not achieve their goal, despite making a 24-kilometre bulge in the Soviet forces line and destroying the 135th Rifle Corps. The encircled troops capitulated in mid-February. The division was pulled back to the west, executing a fighting withdrawal from Budapest to the area near Lake Balaton, where the 6th SS Panzer Army under SS-Oberstgruppenführer Josef Dietrich was massing for the upcoming Operation Spring Awakening.


title: 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf

text: Gille's corps was too depleted to take part in the assault, instead it provided flank support to assaulting divisions during the beginning of the operation. Totenkopf, together with Wiking, performed a holding action on the left flank of the offensive, in the area between Lake Velence-Székesfehérvár. Dietrich's army made "good progress" at first, but as they drew near the Danube, the combination of the muddy terrain and strong Soviet resistance ground them to a halt. As the offensive stalled, the Soviets forces counterattacked in strength on 16 March. The Germans were driven back to the positions they had held before Operation Spring Awakening began. Attacking the line between the Totenkopf and the Hungarian 2nd Armoured Division, contact was lost between the two formations. The 6th Army commander, "General der Panzertruppe" Hermann Balck, recommended moving the I SS Panzer Corps north to plug the gap and prevent the encirclement of the IV SS Panzer Corps, however, by the time the divisions finally began moving, it was too late.


title: 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf

text: On 22 March, the Red Army encirclement of the Totenkopf and Wiking was almost complete. The 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen held open a route which could be used to withdraw – the Berhida Corridor – and Gille's corps escaped the encirclement. The Red Army then launched the Vienna Offensive which destroyed any resemblance of an organised German line of defence. The remnants of the division retreated into Czechoslovakia where it surrendered to the American forces on 9 May.


title: 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf

text: With the invasion of Poland, Theodor Eicke – who was the commandant of the Dachau concentration camp, inspector of the camps, and murderer of Ernst Röhm – joined the fray with one cavalry and four infantry regiments. Three of his regiments, "Oberbayern", "Brandenburg" and "Thuringen", formed the basis of the first Einsatzgruppen; the Oberbayern and Thuringen (EG II and EG z. B.V) followed the Tenth Army in Upper Silesia; the Brandenburg (EG III) followed the Eight Army across Warthegau. His Totenkopfverbände troops were called on to carry out "police and security measures" in the rear areas. What these measures involved is demonstrated by the record of SS Totenkopf Standarte "Brandenburg". It arrived in Włocławek on 22 September 1939 and embarked on a four-day "Jewish action" that included the burning of synagogues and the execution en masse of the leaders of the Jewish community. On 29 September the Standarte travelled to Bydgoszcz to conduct an "intelligentsia action". The German "Intelligenzaktion" resulting in the mass murder of approximately 100,000 Poles, was a major step in the implementation of "Sonderaktion Tannenberg" (Operation Tannenberg a.k.a. "Unternehmen Tannenberg") of installing Nazi officials from SiPo, Kripo, Gestapo and SD to head an administrative machine in occupied Poland, leading to the "Generalplan Ost" colonization programme. In October 1939, these Totenkopfverbände troops formed the core of the 3 Totenkopf Division, of which Eicke became the commander. During the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising the training Battalion of the 3rd Panzer Division Totenkopf took part in the suppression of the uprising.


title: 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf

text: While the Totenkopf Division committed numerous massacres of French Arab and African troops, the most infamous remains the murders at Le Paradis. The Le Paradis massacre was a war crime committed by members of the 14th Company, SS Division Totenkopf, under the command of "Hauptsturmführer" Fritz Knöchlein. It took place on 27 May 1940, during the Battle of France, at a time when the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was attempting to retreat through the Pas-de-Calais region during the Battle of Dunkirk.


title: 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf

text: Soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, the Royal Norfolk Regiment, had become isolated from their regiment. They occupied and defended a farmhouse against an attack by Waffen-SS forces in the village of Le Paradis. After running out of ammunition, the defenders surrendered to the German troops. The Germans machine-gunned the men after they surrendered, with survivors killed with bayonets. Two men survived with injuries, and were hidden by locals until they were captured by German forces several days later. After the war, Knöchlein was tried for war crimes by a British military court. He was found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed in 1949.


title: 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf

text: Thereafter, the division worked together with Großdeutschland Division to carry out racially motivated murders of hundreds of captured black African members of the French Army. They murdered captured black soldiers on account of their race, which they believed to merit their separation and execution. For example, on 19 and 20 June 1940, Totenkopf and Großdeutschland together carried out a series of massacres of captured African soldiers in the Chasselay area, murdering about captured 100 Senegalese Tirailleurs. They are today buried in the Tata of Chasselay.


title: 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf

text: SS-Oberführer Max Simon was the "official" commander (on paper) of the 3rd SS-Panzer Division from 26 February 1943 to 22 October 1943, but in reality it was SS-Oberführer Hermann Priess who commanded the division in the field during those dates.


title: Matthew Hopkins

text: Matthew Hopkins ( 1620 – 12 August 1647) was an English witch-hunter whose career flourished during the English Civil War. He claimed to hold the office of Witchfinder General, although that title was never bestowed by Parliament, and was mainly active in East Anglia.


title: Matthew Hopkins

text: The son of a Puritan minister, Hopkins' career as a witch-finder began in March 1644 and lasted until his retirement in 1647. He and his associates were responsible for more people being hanged for witchcraft than in the previous 100 years, and were solely responsible for the increase in witch trials during those years. He is believed to have been responsible for the executions of over 100 alleged witches between the years 1644 and 1646. Hopkins and his colleague John Stearne sent more accused people to the gallows than all the other witch-hunters in England of the previous 160 years.


title: Matthew Hopkins

text: Little is known of Matthew Hopkins before 1644, and there are no surviving contemporary documents concerning him or his family. He was born in Great Wenham, Suffolk and was the fourth son of six children. His father, James Hopkins, was a Puritan clergyman and vicar of St John's of Great Wenham, in Suffolk. The family at one point held title "to lands and tenements in Framlingham 'at the castle. His father was popular with his parishioners, one of whom in 1619 left money to purchase Bibles for his then three children James, John and Thomas.


title: Matthew Hopkins

text: Thus Matthew Hopkins could not have been born before 1619, and could not have been older than 28 when he died, but he may have been as young as 25. Although James Hopkins had died in 1634, when the iconoclast William Dowsing, commissioned in 1643 by the Parliamentarian Earl of Manchester "for the destruction of monuments of idolatry and superstition", visited the parish in 1645 he observed that "there was nothing to reform". Hopkins' brother John became Minister of South Fambridge in 1645 but was removed from the post a year later for neglecting his work. Hopkins states in his book "The Discovery of Witches" (1647) that he "never travelled far ... to gain his experience".


title: Matthew Hopkins

text: In the early 1640s, Hopkins moved to Manningtree, Essex, a town on the River Stour, about from Wenham. According to tradition, Hopkins used his recently acquired inheritance of a hundred marks to establish himself as a gentleman and to buy the Thorn Inn in Mistley. From the way that he presented evidence in trials, Hopkins is commonly thought to have been trained as a lawyer, but there is scant evidence to suggest this was the case.


title: Matthew Hopkins

text: Following the Lancaster Witch Trials (1612–1634), William Harvey, physician to King Charles I of England, had been ordered to examine the four women accused, and from this there came a requirement to have material proof of being a witch. The work of Hopkins and John Stearne was not necessarily to prove any of the accused had committed acts of maleficium, but to prove that they had made a covenant with the Devil. Before this point, any malicious acts on the part of witches were treated identically to those of other criminals, until it was seen that, according to the then-current beliefs about the structure of witchcraft, they owed their powers to a deliberate act of their choosing.


title: Matthew Hopkins

text: Witches then became heretics to Christianity, which became the greatest of their crimes and sins. Within continental and Roman Law witchcraft was "crimen exceptum": a crime so foul that all normal legal procedures were superseded. Because the Devil was not going to "confess", it was necessary to gain a confession from the human involved.


title: Matthew Hopkins

text: The witch-hunts undertaken by Stearne and Hopkins mainly took place in East Anglia, in the counties of Suffolk, Essex, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, with a few in the counties of Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire. They extended throughout the area of strongest Puritan and Parliamentarian influences which formed the powerful and influential Eastern Association from 1644 to 1647, which was centred on Essex. Both Hopkins and Stearne would have required some form of letters of safe conduct to be able to travel throughout the counties.


title: Matthew Hopkins

text: According to his book "The Discovery of Witches", Hopkins began his career as a witch-finder after he overheard women discussing their meetings with the Devil in March 1644 in Manningtree. In fact, the first accusations were made by Stearne, and Hopkins was appointed as his assistant. Twenty-three women were accused of witchcraft and were tried at Chelmsford in 1645. As the English Civil War was in progress, the trial was conducted not by justices of assize, but by justices of the peace presided over by the Earl of Warwick. Four died in prison and nineteen were convicted and hanged. During this period, excepting Middlesex and chartered towns, no records show any person charged of witchcraft being sentenced to death other than by the judges of the assizes.


title: Matthew Hopkins

text: Hopkins and Stearne, accompanied by the women who performed the pricking, were soon travelling over eastern England, claiming to be officially commissioned by Parliament to uncover and prosecute witches. Together with their female assistants, they were well paid for their work, and it has been suggested that this was a motivation for his actions. Hopkins stated that "his fees were to maintain his company with three horses", and that he took "twenty shillings a town". The records at Stowmarket show their costs to the town to have been £23 () plus his travelling expenses.


title: Matthew Hopkins

text: The cost to the local community of Hopkins and his company were such that, in 1645, a special local tax rate had to be levied in Ipswich. Parliament was well aware of Hopkins and his team's activities, as shown by the concerned reports of the Bury St Edmunds witch trials of 1645. Before the trial, a report was carried to the Parliament"as if some busie men had made use of some ill Arts to extort such confession"that a special Commission of Oyer and Terminer was granted for the trial of these witches. After the trial and execution the "Moderate Intelligencer", a parliamentary paper published during the English Civil War, in an editorial of 4–11 September 1645 expressed unease with the affairs in Bury.


title: Matthew Hopkins

text: Methods of investigating witchcraft drew heavy inspiration from the "Daemonologie" of King James, which was directly cited in Hopkins' "The Discovery of Witches". Although torture was nominally unlawful in England, Hopkins often used techniques such as sleep deprivation to extract confessions from his victims. He would also cut the arm of the accused with a blunt knife, and if she did not bleed, she was said to be a witch. Another of his methods was the swimming test, based on the idea that as witches had renounced their baptism, water would reject them. Suspects were tied to a chair and thrown into water: all those who "swam" (floated) were considered to be witches. Hopkins was warned against the use of "swimming" without receiving the victim's permission first. This led to the legal abandonment of the test by the end of 1645.


title: Matthew Hopkins

text: Hopkins and his assistants also looked for the Devil's mark. This was a mark that all witches or sorcerers were thought to possess that was said to be dead to all feeling and would not bleed – although it was sometimes a mole, birthmark or an extra nipple or breast. If the suspected witch had no such visible marks invisible ones could be discovered by pricking. Therefore, "witch prickers" were employed, who pricked the accused with knives and special needles looking for such marks, normally after the suspect had been shaved of all body hair. It was believed that the witch's familiar, an animal such as a cat or dog, would drink the witch's blood from the mark, as a baby drinks milk from the nipple.


title: Matthew Hopkins

text: Hopkins and his company quickly ran into opposition after their work began, but one of his main antagonists was John Gaule, vicar of Great Staughton in Huntingdonshire. Gaule had attended a woman from St Neots who was held in gaol charged with witchcraft until such time as Hopkins could attend. Upon hearing that the woman had been interviewed, Hopkins wrote a letter to a contact asking whether he would be given a "good welcome". Gaule hearing of this letter wrote his publication "Select Cases of Conscience touching Witches and Witchcrafts"; London, (1646)dedicated to Colonel Walton of the House of Commonsand began a programme of Sunday sermons to suppress witch-hunting.


title: Matthew Hopkins

text: In Norfolk, both Hopkins and Stearne were questioned by justices of the assizes about the torturing and fees. Hopkins was asked if methods of investigation did not make the finders themselves witches, and if with all his knowledge did he not also have a secret, or had used "unlawful courses of torture". By the time this court session resumed in 1647, Stearne and Hopkins had retired, Hopkins to Manningtree and Stearne to Bury St Edmunds.


title: Matthew Hopkins

text: Hopkins' witch-hunting methods were outlined in his book "The Discovery of Witches," which was published in 1647. These practices were recommended in law books. During the year following the publication of Hopkins' book, trials and executions for witchcraft began in the New England colonies with the hanging of Alse Young of Windsor, Connecticut on May 26, 1647, followed by the conviction of Margaret Jones. As described in the journal of Governor John Winthrop, the evidence assembled against Margaret Jones was gathered by the use of Hopkins' techniques of "searching" and "watching".


title: Matthew Hopkins

text: Jones' execution was the first in a witch-hunt that lasted in New England from 1648 until 1663. About eighty people throughout New England were accused of practising witchcraft during that period, of whom fifteen women and two men were executed. Some of Hopkins' methods were employed during the Salem Witch Trials, which occurred primarily in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692–93. These trials resulted in 19 executions for witchcraft, one man, Giles Corey, pressed to death for refusing to plead, and 150 imprisonments.


title: Matthew Hopkins

text: Matthew Hopkins died at his home in Manningtree, Essex, on 12 August 1647, probably of pleural tuberculosis. He was buried a few hours after his death in the graveyard of the Church of St Mary at Mistley Heath. In the words of historian Malcolm Gaskill, Matthew Hopkins "lives on as an anti-hero and bogeyman – utterly ethereal, endlessly malleable". According to historian Rossell Hope Robbins, Hopkins "acquired an evil reputation which in later days made his name synonymous with fingerman or informer paid by authorities to commit perjury".


title: Matthew Hopkins

text: What historian James Sharpe has characterised as a "pleasing legend" grew up around the circumstances of Hopkins' death, according to which he was subjected to his own swimming test and executed as a witch, but the parish registry at Mistley confirms his burial there.


title: Cutlery

text: Cutlery (also referred to as silverware, flatware, or tableware), includes any hand implement used in preparing, serving, and especially eating food in Western culture. A person who makes or sells cutlery is called a cutler. The city of Sheffield in England has been famous for the production of cutlery since the 17th century and a train – the "Master Cutler" – running from Sheffield to London was named after the industry. Bringing affordable cutlery to the masses, stainless steel was developed in Sheffield in the early 20th century.


title: Cutlery

text: The major items of cutlery in Western culture are the knife, fork and spoon. These three implements first appeared together on tables in Britain in the Georgian era. In recent times, hybrid versions of cutlery have been made combining the functionality of different eating implements, including the spork (spoon / fork), spife (spoon / knife), and knork (knife / fork). The sporf or splade combines all three.


title: Cutlery

text: The word cutler derives from the Middle English word 'cuteler' and this in turn derives from Old French 'coutelier' which comes from 'coutel'; meaning knife (modern French: couteau). The word's early origins can be seen in the Latin word 'culter' (knife).


title: Cutlery

text: Sterling silver is the traditional material from which good quality cutlery is made. Historically, silver had the advantage over other metals of being less chemically reactive. Chemical reactions between certain foods and the cutlery metal can lead to unpleasant tastes. Gold is even less reactive than silver, but the use of gold cutlery was confined to the exceptionally wealthy, such as monarchs.


title: Cutlery

text: Steel was always used for more utilitarian knives, and pewter was used for some cheaper items, especially spoons. From the nineteenth century, electroplated nickel silver (EPNS) was used as a cheaper substitute for sterling silver.


title: Cutlery

text: In 1913, the British metallurgist Harry Brearley discovered stainless steel by chance, bringing affordable cutlery to the masses. This metal has come to be the predominant one used in cutlery. An alternative is melchior, corrosion-resistant nickel and copper alloy, which can also sometimes contain manganese and nickel-iron.


title: Cutlery

text: Plastic cutlery is made for disposable use, and is frequently used outdoors for camping, excursions, and barbecues for instance. Plastic cutlery is also commonly used at fast-food or take-away outlets and provided with airline meals in economy class.


title: Cutlery

text: Plastic is also used for children's cutlery. It is often thicker and more durable than disposable plastic cutlery.


title: Cutlery

text: Wooden disposable cutlery is available as a popular biodegradable alternative. Bamboo (although not a wood) and maple are popular choices.


title: Cutlery

text: Edible cutlery is made from dried grains. These are made primarily with rice, millets or wheat. Since rice cultivation needs a lot of water, manufacturers market millet based products as more environment friendly. The batter is baked in moulds which hardens it. Some manufacturers offer an option of flavoured cutlery. Edible cutlery decomposes in about a week if disposed.


title: Cutlery

text: At Sheffield the trade of cutler became divided, with allied trades such as razormaker, awlbladesmith, shearsmith and forkmaker emerging and becoming distinct trades by the 18th century.


title: Cutlery

text: Before the mid 19th century when cheap mild steel became available due to new methods of steelmaking, knives (and other edged tools) were made by welding a strip of steel on to the piece of iron that was to be formed into a knife, or sandwiching a strip of steel between two pieces of iron. This was done because steel was then a much more expensive commodity than iron. Modern blades are sometimes laminated, but for a different reason. Since the hardest steel is brittle, a layer of hard steel may be laid between two layers of a milder, less brittle steel, for a blade that keeps a sharp edge well, and is less likely to break in service.


title: Cutlery

text: After fabrication, the knife had to be sharpened, originally on a grindstone, but from the late medieval period in a blade mill or (as they were known in the Sheffield region) a cutlers wheel.


title: Cutlery

text: Introduced for convenience purposes (lightweight, no cleanup after the meal required), disposable cutlery made of plastic has become a huge worldwide market. Along with other disposable tableware (paper plates, plastic table covers, disposable cups, paper napkins, etc.), these products have become essential for the fast food and catering industry. The products are emblematic of throw-away societies and the cause of millions of tons of non-biodegradable plastic waste. The European Union has banned such plastic products from 3 July 2021 as part of the European Plastics Strategy. Bans are also planned in the UK and Canada.


title: Cutlery

text: As an ecofriendly alternative to non-degradable plastic, wooden cutlery is gaining popularity. Some manufacturers coat their products in food-safe plant oils, waxes and lemon juice for a longer shelf life making these safe for human consumption. Cutlery is then cured for a few days before leaving the manufacturing plant.


title: Cutlery

text: Edible cutlery is gaining popularity as an eco-friendly alternative to non-decomposing plastic. Bakey's based in Hyderabad, India is a popular edible cutlery manufacturer established by a former scientist. At Bakey's millet based dough is poured into metallic moulds and baked at for about 28 minutes which hardens it.


title: Toyota R engine

text: The Toyota R family was a series of inline-four gasoline automobile engines. Designed for longitudinal placement in such vehicles as the Celica and Hilux and in production from 1953 through 1997, usage faded out as many of Toyota's mainstream models moved to front-wheel drive. Overhead cam (OHC) versions featured a chain-driven camshaft.


title: Toyota R engine

text: The R family was produced from 1953 through 1964, and was originally manufactured at the Toyota Honsha plant.


title: Toyota R engine

text: Bore and stroke was . In common with new engines of the time, it was made from cast iron (both the block and the head), water cooled, used a three bearing crank, 12V electrics and a side-mounted gear-driven camshaft controlling overhead valves via pushrods in a non-cross flow head (exhaust and inlet manifolds being on the same side of the engine). Induction was by a twin throat down-draft carburettor, the compression ratio was 8.0:1 and the total weight was . An LPG version, the R-LPG, was produced for the last two years.


title: Toyota R engine

text: The R engine was the Toyota engine used in the 1958 Toyota Crown, the first model to be exported to the United States. "Road & Track" was unimpressed with the engine on its introduction, noting that it idled quietly but was "not capable of very high revolutions per minute."


title: Toyota R engine

text: Again, an LPG version, the 2R-LPG, was produced alongside the gasoline version. Production had been gradually transferred from the original Honsha plant to the new Toyota Kamigo plant in 1968.


title: Toyota R engine

text: When introduced it had a 7.7:1 compression ratio. In 1960 the 3R was uprated to 8:1 and the 3R-B version was offered from 1960 through 1968 with the old 7.7:1 compression ratio. The 3R-C was introduced to comply with California emissions laws. The 3R-LPG variant was produced for the last five years.


title: Toyota R engine

text: The 5R family was produced from 1968 through 1986. An LPG version, the 5R-LPG, was produced from 1968 through 1983.


title: Toyota R engine

text: It is a 2-valve OHV engine. Cylinder bore and stroke are . Output was at 5200 rpm and at 3000 rpm. Trucks such as the Dyna received a version tuned for torque, with a maximum power of at 4600 rpm and torque of at 3000 rpm.


title: Toyota R engine

text: The 6R was produced from 1969 through 1974. Output is at 5,300 rpm. The 6R-B was produced those same years, while the natural gas powered 6R-LPG was produced from 1970 through 1973.


title: Toyota R engine

text: The 7R was similar in displacement and technology to the 4R except the wider bore and shorter stroke of the 7R gave different power characteristics.


title: Toyota R engine

text: It was a major departure for the R family. With a 2-valve SOHC head, it impressed contemporary reviewers – "Road & Track" praised its quietness and free-revving nature.


title: Toyota R engine

text: The 8R engine has a closed chamber head vs the open chamber of the 18R-C. The 8R-B has dual side draft SU-type Aisan carburettors with the float bowl under the body and vacuum activated power valves with strangle plates for chokes and liquid cooled intake with a balance tube.


title: Toyota R engine

text: Toyota upped the ante again with the DOHC (but still 2-valve) 8R-G, produced from 1969 through 1972. From 1969 to Feb 1971 it was known as the 10R, but along with a removal of the tensioner gear in the interest of quieter operation, it was renamed the 8R-G to reflect the decision that twin-cam engines were henceforth to be identified by a "-G" suffix. 4,931 twin cam engines were built, all installed in the Toyota Corona Mark II (RT72) 1900 GSS. The 10R/8R-G weighed in at and as such was both lighter and more compact than its less powerful predecessor the 9R


title: Toyota R engine

text: It was essentially a 4R with a DOHC head designed by Yamaha. The cam lobes activated the valves directly via a bucket over shim arrangement. This same arrangement was used on the 2M, 8R-G, 10R, 18R-G, 2T-G, 4A-GE and 3T-GTE engines (all designed by Yamaha).


title: Toyota R engine

text: Output was at 6,200 rpm and at 5,000 rpm. It was a 2-valve DOHC design with two Solex carburettors and weighed . A total of 2,229 9R engines were built.


title: Toyota R engine

text: The twin cam 10R was produced from 1967 through Feb 1971, when it was renamed the 8R-G. The later 8R-G version did not receive a timing chain tensioner in an effort to make it more silent.


title: Toyota R engine

text: The 12R was produced from 1969 through 1988. It was also built in the Philippines as the 12R-M, by Toyota's local affiliate Delta Motors Corporation.


title: Toyota R engine

text: The OHC 16R was produced from 1974 through 1980. Power output as mounted in a 1980 Mark II was at 5,600 rpm, while a twin carburetted version produced at 6,000 rpm. The 16R-B was produced for the first two years. There was also a 16R-J version for various commercial vehicle applications.


title: Toyota R engine

text: The 2-valve DOHC 18R-G and its variations were produced from 1973 to 1982, replacing the 8R-G and providing a performance engine which took advantage of the entire 2-litre limit of Japan's "small car" class. While most 18R-Gs had a head designed and made by Yamaha, a very few had Toyota heads. Yamaha's tuning-fork logo can be seen on the Yamaha heads. Except for the head and related timing components, most parts were shared or interchangeable with the SOHC 18R. Combustion chambers were hemispheric.


title: Toyota R engine

text: In 1975, air injection was added to the Japan-market 18R-GR for improved emissions. This used Solex carburettors. A fuel injected and catalyzed Japan-market version, the 18R-GEU, was produced from 1978 through 1982. There was also a catalyzed carburetted version, the 18R-GU.


title: Toyota R engine

text: Competition versions of the 18R-G and -GE include those used in rally Celicas of the period, one of which finished second in the 1977 RAC Rally. These had 4-valve heads and were called 152E, they were of bore and stroke and (depending on the source). The Group 4 rally version of the 152E had two twin-choke carburettors, and developed at 9000 rpm. Higher tuned engines developed as much as at 9,200 rpm. German racing team Schnitzer also developed a turbocharged silhouette racing version of the Celica, to take on the Porsche 935. With a KKK turbocharger, the Group 5 Celica developed but reliability was less than satisfactory.


title: Toyota R engine

text: The 2-valve SOHC 19R was produced from 1974 through 1977. Cylinder bore and stroke was . Its dimensions are the same as of the 18R, but it featured TTC-V, Toyota's licensed version of Honda's CVCC stratified charge combustion system. Output is . The 19R was a short-lived experiment by Toyota, and was only offered in Japanese market cars.


title: Toyota R engine

text: The 2-valve SOHC 20R was produced from 1975 through 1980. Cylinder bore and stroke was . Aluminum alloy heads were used.


title: Toyota R engine

text: Initial output was at 4800 rpm ( in California) and at 2,800 rpm. Power was down slightly from 1978 through 1979 at at 4800 rpm and at 2400 rpm. The final version, from 1979 through 1980, was down again at at 4800 rpm (still at in Canada) and at 2400 rpm.


title: Toyota R engine

text: The 20R and subsequent models featured important design changes relative to the earlier SOHC R-series engines. The head was changed from a reverse-flow to a cross-flow type with hemispherical combustion chambers and shorter valve rockers. The timing chain was strengthened. The lower block bearings were strengthened against wear, safeguarding oil pressure, and the stroke was lengthened. The changes increased torque substantially and shifted peak power and torque towards the lower speed range. The later R series engines did much to establish Toyota's reputation for reliability, which had previously been indifferent at best.


title: Toyota R engine

text: Output for export markets, largely unconstrained by emissions, was DIN at 5,000 rpm and at 4,000 rpm. Air injection and federally compliant emissions equipment for the 21R-C (1982–1985) dropped power down to SAE net at 5,000 rpm. The air-injected Japanese version, the 21R-U, produces JIS at 5,200 rpm and at 3,600 rpm but dropped to at 5,400 rpm and at 4,000 rpm in 1986.


title: Toyota R engine

text: Initial output was at 4,800 rpm and at 2,800 rpm. By 1990 the 22R was producing at 5,000 rpm and at 3,400 rpm.


title: Toyota R engine

text: The first fuel injected 22R-E engines appeared in August 1982. Output of these engines is commonly rated at at 4,800 rpm and at 2,800 rpm.


title: Toyota R engine

text: In 1985, the engine was significantly reworked, output was up to at 4,800 rpm and at 3,600 rpm. Many parts from the newer 22R/R-E are not compatible with those from the older pre-1985 engine. Non-compatible parts include the cylinder head, block, pistons and many of the associated parts such as the timing chain and cover, and water and oil pumps (although the oil pump internals are the same).


title: Toyota R engine

text: These changes also affected the 22R, therefore one can consider the 85–95 22R-E as a fuel injected version of the 85–90 22R with only minor differences, if any.


title: Toyota R engine

text: Toyota swapped the dual-row timing chain used in older engines for a single-row chain with plastic guides in 1983. The new system reduced drag on the engine but introduced a new maintenance problem. After about of operation, the chain may stretch to the point that the hydraulic-operated chain tensioner cannot take up any more slack. The timing chain then impacts the plastic driver's side chain guide, breaking it within a short period of time and creating a noticeable chattering sound in the front of the engine, especially when cold. If the engine continues to be operated without the guide restraint, the chain will vibrate excessively on the driver's side and stretch rapidly. The result is any of several failure modes.


title: Toyota R engine

text: First, the loose chain will reduce ignition timing accuracy, which usually results in noticeably rough running. Second, it may jump a tooth on the drive sprocket or break entirely, which almost always results in major damage to an interference engine. Third, the stretched chain can slap against the side of the timing cover and wear through the metal into the coolant passage behind the water pump, resulting in major damage to both the oil and cooling systems (sometimes mis-diagnosed as a head gasket failure). The damaged aluminum timing cover is difficult to repair effectively and is typically replaced after such an event. Aftermarket timing-chain kits for the 22R/R-E typically include steel-backed guides that do not readily break even after the initial chain stretching has occurred, permitting the chain to run beyond the point without further incident. However, some Toyota mechanics will recommend the plastic guides as they will break when the timing chain is stretched; When the guides break a noticeable chatter is heard from the timing chain slapping on the cover, warning the operator of a worn timing chain.


title: Toyota R engine

text: These engines are extremely well known for their durability, decent fuel efficiency and good low to mid range torque.


title: Toyota R engine

text: However, its weakness is high-end power. The 22R has a large displacement and a strong block, but its comparatively long stroke and restrictive head limit its use in high revving applications. Thus, the Toyota 18R-G, 2T-G, 4A-GE and 3S-GE 4-cylinder engines are better suited for performance applications.


title: Toyota R engine

text: A popular modification to the early 22R is to use a 20R head. Unlike popular lore, the 20R head does not have smaller combustion chambers. The misunderstanding originated when the 22R came out and an advantage was its higher compression ratio, so swapping a 20R block with a 22R, there was a compression increase. The 20R head has straight ports, so can flow better than the 22R head, improving high RPM power. The 20R head is a simple bolt-on modification for the pre-1985 block, but also requires the use of the 20R intake manifold, making it almost impossible (there's a lot of matching necessary) to use with the 22R-E EFI system. For blocks 1985 and onwards, further modifications are required.


"The lady doth protest too much, methinks" is a line from the play "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare. It is spoken by Queen Gertrude in response to the insincere overacting of a character in the play within a play created by Prince Hamlet to prove his uncle's guilt in the murder of his father, the King of Denmark.


title: The lady doth protest too much, methinks

text: The phrase is used in everyday speech to indicate doubt of someone's sincerity, especially regarding the truth of a strong denial. A common misquotation places "methinks" first, as in "methinks the lady doth protest too much".


text: The line, like most of Shakespeare's works, is in iambic pentameter. It is found in Act III, Scene II of "Hamlet", where it is spoken by Queen Gertrude, Hamlet's mother. Hamlet believes that his father, the king, was murdered by his uncle Claudius (who then married Gertrude). Hamlet decides to stage a play, the "Murder of Gonzago", that follows a similar sequence of events, in order to test whether viewing it will trigger a guilty conscience on the part of Claudius.


text: As Hamlet, Gertrude, Claudius and others watch the play-within-the-play, the Player Queen, representing Gertrude, declares in flowery language that she will never remarry if her husband dies. Hamlet then turns to his mother and asks her, "Madam, how like you this play?", to which she replies, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks", meaning that the Player Queen's protestations of love and fidelity are too excessive to be believed.


text: The quotation comes from the Second Quarto edition of the play. Later versions contain the simpler line, "The lady protests too much, methinks".


text: The line's allusion to Gertrude's (lack of) fidelity to her husband has become a cliché of sexually fickle womanhood and a shorthand expression conveying doubt in a person's truthfulness, even when the subject is male. It is commonly used to imply that someone who denies something very strongly is hiding the truth; however, in the play, "protest" has the older meaning of "insist (that something is true), vow," not "deny." It is often shortened to "[X] protest[s] too much".


title: African penguin

text: The African penguin (Spheniscus demersus), also known as Cape penguin or South African penguin, is a species of penguin confined to southern African waters. Like all extant penguins, it is flightless, with a streamlined body and wings stiffened and flattened into flippers for a marine habitat. Adults weigh an average of and are tall. The species has distinctive pink patches of skin above the eyes and a black facial mask. The body's upper parts are black and sharply delineated from the white underparts, which are spotted and marked with a black band.


title: African penguin

text: The African penguin is a pursuit diver and feeds primarily on fish and squid. Once extremely numerous, the African penguin is declining rapidly due to a combination of several threats and is classified as endangered. It is a charismatic species and is popular with tourists. Other vernacular names of the species include black-footed penguin and jackass penguin, due to the species' loud, donkey-like noise, although several related species of South Jackass penguins produce the same sound. They can be found along the coast of South Africa and Namibia.


title: African penguin

text: In 1747 the English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a description of the African penguin in the second volume of his "A Natural History of Uncommon Birds". He used the English name "The Black-Footed Penguins". Edwards based his hand-coloured etching on two preserved specimens that had been brought to London. He suspected that they had been collected near the Cape of Good Hope. When in 1758 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his "Systema Naturae" for the tenth edition, he placed the African penguin with the wandering albatross in the genus "Diomedea". Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name "Diomedea demersa" and cited Edwards' work. The African penguin is now placed with the banded penguins in the genus "Spheniscus" that was introduced in 1760 by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson. The genus name "Spheniscus" is from Ancient Greek word σφήν ("sphēn") meaning "wedge" and is a reference to the animal's thin, wedge-shaped flippers. The specific epithet "demersus" is Latin meaning "plunging" (from "demergere" meaning "to sink").


title: African penguin

text: Banded penguins are found mainly in the Southern Hemisphere with the Humboldt penguin and Magellanic penguins found in southern South America and the Galápagos penguin found in the Pacific Ocean near the equator. All are similar in shape, colour and behaviour.


title: African penguin

text: African penguins grow to tall and weigh between . The beak length of the African penguin varies, usually growing between 20–30 cm (8-11 in). They have a black stripe and black spots on the chest, the pattern of which is unique to each penguin, like human fingerprints. The sweat glands above the eyes cool the birds' blood and as the temperature rises, increased blood flow causes the glands to get pinker. This species exhibits slight sexual dimorphism; the males are slightly larger than the females and have longer beaks. Juveniles do not possess the bold, delineated markings of the adult, but instead have dark upperparts that vary from greyish-blue to brown; the pale underparts lack both spots and the band. The beak is more pointed than that of the Humboldt penguin. The African penguin's colouring is a form of protective colouration known as countershading. The white undersides of the birds are difficult to spot by predators under the water and the penguins' black backs blend in with the water when viewed from above.


title: African penguin

text: African penguins resemble and are thought to be related to the Humboldt, Magellanic and Galápagos penguins. African penguins have a very recognisable appearance, with a thick band of black that is in the shape of an upside-down horseshoe. They have black feet and black spots that vary in size and shape between individuals. Magellanic penguins share a similar bar marking that often confuses the two; the Magellanic has a double bar on the throat and chest, whereas the African has a single bar. These penguins have the nickname "jackass penguin", which comes from the loud penguin noises they make.


title: African penguin

text: The African penguin is only found on the south-western coast of Africa, living in colonies on 24 islands between Namibia and Algoa Bay, near Port Elizabeth, South Africa. It is the only penguin species that breeds in Africa and its presence gave name to the Penguin Islands.


title: African penguin

text: Two colonies were established by penguins in the 1980s on the mainland near Cape Town, namely Boulders Beach near Simon's Town and Stony Point in Betty's Bay. Mainland colonies likely became possible only in recent times due to the reduction of predator numbers, although the Betty's Bay colony has been attacked by leopards. The only other mainland colony is in Namibia, but it is not known when it was established.


title: African penguin

text: Boulders Beach is a tourist attraction due to the beach, swimming and the penguins. The penguins will allow people to approach them as close as a meter.


title: African penguin

text: Breeding populations of African penguins are being kept in numerous zoos worldwide. No colonies are known outside the southwestern coast of Africa, although vagrants (mostly juveniles) may occasionally be sighted beyond the normal range.


title: African penguin

text: Roughly 4 million African penguins existed at the beginning of the 19th century. Of the 1.5 million African penguins estimated in 1910, only some 10% remained at the end of the 20th century. African penguin populations, which breed in Namibia and South Africa, have declined by 95% since pre-industrial times.


title: African penguin

text: Today, their breeding is largely restricted to 24 islands from Namibia to Algoa Bay, South Africa, with the Boulders Beach colony being an exception to this rule.


title: African penguin

text: The total population fell to approximately 150,000–180,000 in 2000. Of those, 56,000 belonged to the Dassen Island colony and 14,000 to the Robben Island colony. The colony at Dyer Island in South Africa fell from 46,000 in the early 1970s to 3,000 in 2008.


title: African penguin

text: In 2010, the total African penguin population was estimated at 55,000. At the rate of decline seen from 2000 to 2010, the African penguin is expected to be extinct in the wild by 2026.


title: African penguin

text: In 2012, about 18,700 breeding pairs were estimated to live in South Africa, with the majority on St. Croix Island in Algoa Bay.


title: African penguin

text: The total breeding population across both South Africa and Namibia fell to a historic low of about 20,850 pairs in 2019.


title: African penguin

text: African penguins forage in the open sea, where they feed on pelagic fish such as sardines and anchovies (specifically the Southern African anchovy) and marine invertebrates such as squids and small crustaceans, primarily krills and shrimps. Penguins normally swim within of the shore. A penguin may consume up to of prey every day, but this may increase to over when raising older chicks.


title: African penguin

text: Due to the marked decline of sardines in the waters near its habitat, African penguins' diet has shifted towards anchovies to some extent, although available sardine biomass is still a notable determinant of penguin population development and breeding success. While a diet of anchovies appears to be generally sufficient for the penguins, it is not ideal due to anchovies' lower concentrations of fat and protein. The Penguin's diet changes throughout the year; as in many seabirds, it is believed that the interaction of diet choice and breeding success helps the penguins maintain their population size. Although parent penguins are protective of their chicks, they will not incur nutritional deficits themselves if food is scarce and hunting requires a greater time or energy commitment. This may lead to higher rates of brood loss under poor food conditions.


title: African penguin

text: When foraging, African penguins carry out dives that reach an average depth of and last for 69 seconds, although a maximum depth of and duration of 275 seconds has been recorded.


title: African penguin

text: The African penguin is monogamous; it breeds in colonies and pairs return to the same site each year. It has an extended breeding season, with nesting usually peaking from March to May in South Africa and November to December in Namibia. A clutch of two eggs are laid either in burrows burrowed in guano or nests in the sand under boulders or bushes. Incubation is undertaken equally by both parents for around 40 days. At least one parent guards the chicks for about one month, whereafter the chicks join a crèche with other chicks and both parents spend most of the day foraging in the sea.


title: African penguin

text: Chicks fledge at 60 to 130 days, the timing depending on environmental factors such as the quality and availability of food. The fledged chicks then go to sea on their own, where they spend the next one to nearly two years. They then return to their natal colony to moult into adult plumage.


title: African penguin

text: When penguins moult, they are unable to forage in the sea as their new feathers are not yet waterproof; therefore, they fast over the entire moulting period. African penguins typically take around three weeks to molt and lose about half of their body weight by burning up their fat reserves in the process.


title: African penguin

text: African penguins spend most of their lives at sea until it comes time for them to lay their eggs. Females remain fertile for about 10 years. Due to high predation on the mainland, African penguins will seek protection on offshore islands, where they are safer from larger mammals and natural challenges. These penguins usually breed during the winter when temperatures are cooler. African penguins often will abandon their eggs if they become overheated in the hot sun and abandoned eggs never survive the heat. The eggs are three to four times bigger than chicken eggs. Ideally, the eggs are incubated in a burrow dug into the guano layer (which provides suitable temperature regulation), but the widespread human removal of guano deposits has rendered this type of nest unfeasible in many colonies. To compensate, penguins burrow holes in the sand, nest under rocks or bushes or make use of nest boxes if they are provided. The penguins spend three weeks on land caring for their offspring, after which chicks may be left alone during the day while the parents forage. The chicks are frequently killed by predators or succumb to the hot sun. Parents usually feed hatchlings during dusk or dawn.


title: African penguin

text: In 2015, when foraging conditions were favourable, more male than female African penguin chicks were produced in the colony on Bird Island. Male chicks also had higher growth rates and fledging mass and therefore may have higher post-fledging survival than females. This, coupled with higher adult female mortality in this species, may result in a male-biased adult sex ratio and may indicate that conservation strategies focused on benefiting female African penguins may be necessary.


title: African penguin

text: The average lifespan of an African penguin is 10 to around 25 years in the wild and up to 30 in captivity.


title: African penguin

text: The primary predators of African penguins at sea include sharks and fur seals. While nesting: kelp gulls, Cape genets, mongooses, caracals and domestic cats and dogs may prey on the penguins and their chicks. Mortality from terrestrial predators is higher if penguins are forced to breed in the open in the absence of suitable burrows or nest boxes.


title: African penguin

text: African penguin eggs were considered a delicacy and were still being eaten and collected for sale as recently as the 1970s. In the 1950s, they were being collected from Dassen Island and sold in nearby towns. In 1953, 12,000 eggs were collected. In the late 1950s, some French chefs expressed interest in recipes including African penguin eggs collected from the islands off the west coast of South Africa and placed annual orders for small quantities. In the mid 1960s, eggs were collected in the thousands and sold by the dozen, with each customer limited to two dozen eggs in total.


title: African penguin

text: The practice of collecting African penguin eggs involved smashing those found a few days before a collecting effort to ensure that only freshly laid eggs were sold. This added to the drastic decline of the African penguin population around the Cape coast, a decline which was hastened by the removal of guano from islands for use as fertiliser, eliminating the burrowing material used by penguins.


title: African penguin

text: Penguins remain susceptible to pollution of their habitat by petrochemicals from spills, shipwrecks and cleaning of tankers while at sea. Accounts of Africa penguins impacted by oil date back to the 1930s. African penguins' exposure to oil spills is both chronic (higher frequency small discharges of oil at sea) and acute (rare maritime disasters where large volumes of oil are released in a single event). Penguins of many species have been impacted by oil spills across the southern hemisphere.


title: African penguin

text: In 1948, the tanker "Esso Wheeling" sank, subsequently oiling and killing thousands of penguins of the Dyer Island colony. In 1953, dead penguins were among a range of dead birds, fish and other marine life that washed ashore after the tanker "Sliedrecht" was holed and spilled oil near Table Bay. In 1971, the SS "Wafra" oil spill impacted the African penguin colony of Dyer Island. In 1972, oil spilt following the "Oswego-Guardian" and "Texanita" collision oiled roughly 500 penguins. In 1975, newspapers reported that oil pollution from shipwrecks and the pumping of bilges at sea had killed tens of thousands of African penguins. At the time, the Dassen Island colony was being passed by 650 oil tankers each month because the Suez Canal had become blocked with wrecked vessels, thus increasing maritime traffic past the Cape of Good Hope.


title: African penguin

text: In 1979, an oil spill prompted the collection and treatment of 150 African penguins from St. Croix Island near Port Elizabeth. The animals were later released at Robben Island and four of them promptly swam back to St. Croix Island, surprising scientists.


title: African penguin

text: In 1983, the exposure of penguins of Dassen Island to the oil slick from the Castillo de Bellver was also a topic of concern given the penguins' conservation status at the time, but owing to the prevailing wind and current, only gannets were oiled.


title: African penguin

text: African penguin casualties were significant following the sinking of the MV "Apollo Sea" and a subsequent oil slick in 1994. 10,000 penguins were collected and cleaned, of which less than half survived.


title: African penguin

text: Disaster struck on 23 June 2000, when the iron ore tanker MV "Treasure" sank between Robben Island and Dassen Island, South Africa. It released of fuel oil, causing an unprecedented coastal bird crisis and oiling 19,000 adult penguins at the height of the best breeding season on record for this vulnerable species. The oiled birds were brought to an abandoned train repair warehouse in Cape Town to be cared for. An additional 19,500 un-oiled penguins were removed from Dassen Island and other areas before they became oiled and were released about 800 kilometres east of Cape Town. This gave workers enough time to clean up the oiled waters and shores before the birds could complete their long swim home (which took the penguins between one and three weeks). Some of the penguins were named and radio-tracked as they swam back to their breeding grounds. Tens of thousands of volunteers helped with the rescue and rehabilitation process, which was overseen by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and the South African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) and took more than three months to complete. This was the largest animal rescue event in history; more than 91% of the penguins were successfully rehabilitated and released – an amazing feat that could not have been accomplished without such a tremendous international response.


title: African penguin

text: Due to the positive outcome of African penguins being raised in captivity after tragedies such as the "Treasure" oil spill, the species is considered a good "candidate for a captive-breeding programme which aims to release offspring into the wild"; however, worry about the spread of new strains of avian malaria is a major concern in the situation.


title: African penguin

text: Bringing the birds inland led to the exposure of penguins to parasites and disease vector such as mosquitoes carrying avian malaria, which has caused 27% of the rehabilitated penguin deaths annually.


title: African penguin

text: Small scale oil spills (of less than ) have occurred at the Port of Ngqura since bunkering activities started there in 2016. Bunkering is a ship refuelling process that can result in oil spills and oil slicks entering the water. Hundreds of African penguins have been harmed following these spills due to the port's close proximity to penguin rookeries on St. Croix Island and seabird habitat on neighbouring Jahleel and Brenton Islands.


title: African penguin

text: Commercial fisheries of sardines and anchovy, the two main prey species of the penguins, have forced these penguins to search for prey farther offshore, as well as having to switch to eating less nutritious prey. Restricting commercial fishing near colony sites such as Robben Island for short periods (3 years) was shown to markedly improve penguin breeding success. Longer closure periods and closures near other colonies are being evaluated.


title: African penguin

text: The African penguin is one of the species to which the African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement (AEWA) applies. In September 2010, it was listed as endangered under the US Endangered Species Act. As of 2018, the African penguin is listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List. Its population is approximately 50,000 birds and declining.


title: African penguin

text: Many organisations such as: SANCCOB, Dyer Island Conservation Trust, SAMREC and Raggy Charters with the Penguin Research Fund in Port Elizabeth are working to halt the decline of the African penguin. Measures include: monitoring population trends, hand-rearing and releasing abandoned chicks, establishing artificial nests and proclaiming marine reserves in which fishing is prohibited. Some colonies (such as on Dyer Island) are suspected to be under heavy pressure from predation by Cape fur seals and may benefit from the culling of individual problem animals, which has been found effective (although requiring a large amount of management effort) in trials.


title: African penguin

text: Established in 1968, SANCCOB is currently the only organisation mandated by the South African government to respond to crises involving seabirds along South Africa's coastline and is internationally recognised for the role it played during the MV "Treasure" oil spill. A modelling exercise conducted in 2003 by the University of Cape Town's FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology found that rehabilitating oiled African penguins has resulted in the current population being 19% larger than it would have been in the absence of SANCCOB's rehabilitation efforts.


title: African penguin

text: In February 2015, the Dyer Island Conservation Trust opened the African Penguin and Seabird Sanctuary (APSS) in Gansbaai, South Africa. The centre was opened by then-Department of Tourism minister Derek Hanekom and will serve as a hub for seabird research carried out by the Dyer Island Conservation Trust. The centre will also run local education projects, host international marine volunteers and seek to improve seabird handling techniques and rehabilitation protocols.


title: African penguin

text: African penguins are a commonly seen species in zoos across the world. Because they do not require particularly low temperatures, they are often kept in outside enclosures. They adapt fairly well to this captive environment and are rather easy to breed compared to other species of the family. In Europe, the breeding programme EAZA is regulated by Artis Royal Zoo in the Netherlands, whilst in the United States the SSP programme is cooperatively managed by the AZA. The idea is to create a backup captive population, as well as to aid in the conservation of the population in its natural habitat. Between 2010 and 2013, American zoos spent $300,000 on "in situ" (wild population) conservation.


title: Phil Scott

text: Philip Brian Scott (born August 4, 1958) is an American politician, businessman and stock car racer who has served as the 82nd governor of Vermont since 2017. A member of the Republican Party, he was elected governor in the 2016 general election with 53% of the vote. He was reelected in 2018 with 55.2% and in 2020 with 68.5% of the vote and a margin of 41%, the largest of any Vermont gubernatorial election since 1996, and the largest for a Republican since 1950. He was overwhelmingly reelected again in 2022, increasing his vote share and margin of victory, this time taking 71.3% of the vote and a margin of victory of 47%. Scott was the 81st lieutenant governor of Vermont from 2011 to 2017 and a state senator representing the Washington County district from 2001 to 2011.


title: Phil Scott

text: Regarded as one of the nation's most popular governors, Scott is considered a moderate and is the only Republican elected to a statewide office in Vermont as of 2022.


title: Phil Scott

text: Scott was born on August 4, 1958, in Barre, Vermont, the son of Marian (Beckley) and Howard Scott. He graduated from Barre's Spaulding High School in 1976, and is a 1980 graduate of the University of Vermont, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial education.


title: Phil Scott

text: After graduating from high school, Scott began working at DuBois Construction, a Middlesex business founded by his uncle. Scott became a co-owner in 1986. He is a past president of the Associated General Contractors of Vermont. On January 6, 2012, a fire at DuBois Construction caused substantial damage, but the owners rebuilt and continued operations.


title: Phil Scott

text: After being elected governor, Scott sold his share of the company to avoid possible conflicts of interest, since DuBois Construction does business with the State of Vermont. He sold his 50% share for $2.5 million plus 3% interest, payable over 15 years. Scott indicated that he opted to finance the sale himself rather than having the company borrow the money to pay him in full in order to preserve the company's bonding capacity. Critics suggested that Scott's sale of his share in the company does not eliminate possible conflicts of interest, but Scott and the attorney who negotiated the sale on his behalf disagreed.


title: Phil Scott

text: A Republican, Scott was elected to the Vermont Senate in 2000, one of three at-large senators representing the Washington County Senate district. He was reelected four times, and served from 2001 to 2011. During his Senate career, he was vice chair of the Transportation Committee and chaired the Institutions Committee. He also served as a member of the Natural Resources and Energy Committee. As chair of the Institutions Committee, Scott redesigned the Statehouse cafeteria to increase efficiency.


title: Phil Scott

text: During his time in the Senate, Scott served on several special committees, including the Judicial Nominating Board, the Legislative Advisory Committee on the State House, the Joint Oversight Corrections Committee, and the Legislative Council Committee.


title: Phil Scott

text: On November 2, 2010, Scott was elected the 81st lieutenant governor of Vermont, defeating Steve Howard. He took office on January 6, 2011. He was reelected in 2012, defeating Cassandra Gekas, and in 2014, defeating Dean Corren.


title: Phil Scott

text: As lieutenant governor, Scott presided over the Vermont Senate when it was in session. In addition, he served as a member of the committee on committees, the three-member panel that determines Senate committee assignments and appoints committee chairs and vice chairs. In the event of a tie vote, Scott was tasked with casting a tie-breaking vote. He also served as acting governor when the governor was out of state.


title: Phil Scott

text: As a state senator and lieutenant governor, Scott was active with a number of community service projects. In 2005, he founded the Wheels for Warmth program, which buys used car tires and resells safe ones, with the profits going to heating fuel assistance programs in Vermont.


title: Phil Scott

text: In September 2015, Scott maintained high name recognition and favorability among Vermont residents. The Castleton University Polling Institute found that more than three-quarters of Vermonters knew who he was, and that of those who were able to identify him, 70% viewed him favorably. Despite his being a Republican, the same poll found that 59% of self-identified Democrats held a favorable view of Scott, while only 15% held an unfavorable view of him.


title: Phil Scott

text: Scott was an active member of the National Lieutenant Governors Association (NLGA), and served on the NLGA Executive Committee and the NLGA Finance Committee. As a member of the NLGA, he joined fellow lieutenant governors across the country in two bipartisan letters opposing proposed cuts to the Army National Guard in 2014 and 2015. Scott was a lead sponsor of an NLGA resolution to develop a long-term vision for surface transportation in the U.S. He also co-sponsored resolutions to recognize the importance of arts and culture in tourism to the U.S. economy, to support Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education, to support designating a National Arts in Education Week, and to support a comprehensive system to end homelessness among U.S. veterans.


title: Phil Scott

text: An early 2016 poll commissioned by Vermont Public Radio and conducted by the Castleton University Polling Institute found that of the two candidates for the Republican nomination for governor, Scott was preferred by 42% of respondents compared to4% for Bruce Lisman. A poll commissioned by Energy Independent Vermont in late June 2016 indicated that Scott had the support of 68% of Republicans to Lisman's 23%.


title: Phil Scott

text: On May 8, 2016, Scott was endorsed by nearly all of Vermont's Republican legislators. He did not support Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign.


title: Phil Scott

text: On August 9, Scott defeated Lisman in the primary election by 21 percentage points. He defeated Sue Minter, the Democratic nominee, in the November general election by 8.7 percentage points.


title: Phil Scott

text: On April 13, 2017, Scott announced a $150 million settlement in the ongoing case of alleged fraud relating to the Jay Peak and Burke Mountain EB-5 developments.


title: Phil Scott

text: According to an October 2017 Morning Consult poll, Scott's approval rating stood at 60%, making him the 7th most popular governor in the country. The poll was conducted between July 1 and September 30, 2017, and had a margin of error of 4%. In April 2018, another Morning Consult poll found that Scott's approval rating had risen to 65%, making him the 4th most popular governor in the country. His favorability ratings fell to 52% by May 2018, and to 47% by July, marking the largest decrease in popularity for any governor in the nation. By April 2019, Scott's approval rating had recovered to 59%, with a 28% disapproval rating, making him the 5th most popular governor in the country, with a net approval of 31%.


title: Phil Scott

text: Scott is a liberal Republican. As a candidate and governor, he is known to "embrace moderate and sometimes even liberal policies"; his views can be described as "fiscally conservative but socially liberal". Of his views, Scott has said: "I am very much a fiscal conservative. But not unlike most Republicans in the Northeast, I'm probably more on the left of center from a social standpoint... I am a pro-choice Republican." Scott supported the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump that began in September 2019. In the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Scott announced that he had voted for Democratic nominee Joe Biden. After the 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol building, he called for Trump to "resign or be removed from office".


title: Phil Scott

text: Scott pledged to veto any budget that grows faster than the growth rate of the underlying economy or wages in the previous year, or that increases statewide property taxes. Conflicts over raising property tax rates, which the state legislature supported and Scott opposed, led to a strained relationship between him and the legislature in 2018 for the FY19 budget, despite high revenues overall.


title: Phil Scott

text: Scott has made addressing Vermont's long-term unfunded liabilities a priority, and has worked with State Treasurer Beth Pearce to pay down Vermont's pension debt.


title: Phil Scott

text: The FY18 budget Scott signed into law did not include any new or increased taxes or fees. He has said that he opposes any new taxes. He also refused to sign a bill that would have raised property taxes. Scott vetoed the FY19 budget twice before allowing it to go into law without his signature, as the threat of a government shutdown approached.


title: Phil Scott

text: In early 2018, Scott called for eliminating the tax on Social Security benefits. House legislators incorporated a modified form of this proposal into the final FY19 budget, eliminating the tax for low- and middle-income retirees. The tax reform Scott planned (which was ultimately implemented) also lowered state income tax rates by 0.2% for all brackets; tied Vermont's tax system to Adjusted Gross Income (AGI); created Vermont-defined income deductions and personal exemptions similar to the federal tax code; increased the state earned income tax credit by three percentage points; and added a new 5% charitable contribution tax credit. Scott's administration has reduced both Workers' Compensation and Unemployment Insurance tax rates. He has twice proposed to phase out the tax on military retirement income, which the legislature did not advance.


title: Phil Scott

text: Scott has set a goal to boost the state's economy by increasing the state's population to 700,000 in 10 years by encouraging young people who come to study in the state to remain after graduation. University of Vermont economics professor Arthur Woolf Scott suggested that retention of older Vermonters, with larger incomes and tax revenues, would be a better focus, but Scott pointed to the lower average healthcare costs associated with a younger population.


title: Phil Scott

text: Scott's economic development plan has largely focused on workforce development and economic incentives. He has advocated and achieved increasing tax credits for development, new support for small business, additional initiatives for rural economic growth, tax increment financing, permitting reform, and tax exemptions in key industries. Scott has made expanding the labor force a priority of his administration, and has proposed and achieved initiatives that invest in workforce recruitment, retention, and relocation.


title: Phil Scott

text: Scott signed a bill requiring Vermonters to have health insurance, making Vermont among a few states to implement such a policy after the federal repeal of the individual mandate provision of the Affordable Care Act. But in part due to his opposition to a financial penalty for an individual mandate, the legislature passed and Scott signed a bill that would simply require attestation of health insurance.


title: Phil Scott

text: Scott has advocated moving away from a fee-for-service-based health care system, and has suggested focusing more on the quality of care and services rendered. This model has been implemented on a pilot basis with an accountable care organization.


title: Phil Scott

text: In April 2021, Scott was criticized for implementing a race-based COVID-19 vaccination schedule. In response, he released a statement condemning what he called a "racist response" to the plan.


title: Phil Scott

text: Scott has called for modifying Act 46 to improve cost containment measures, incorporate property tax reduction, preserve local control and school choice, and allow communities to keep the funds they save through school district mergers. He has expressed support for flexible learning plans and new technologies to improve educational outcomes.


title: Phil Scott

text: Scott's FY18 budget made investments in education, including a $3 million increase in the base appropriation to the Vermont State Colleges to stabilize tuition and a new position in the Agency of Education focused on career and technical education. The budget also expanded a base appropriation for child care financial assistance by $2.5 million. The FY20 budget Scott signed into law built on these investments, with an additional $7.4 million for child care and $3 million more for higher education. The next year, Scott worked with the legislature to eliminate tuition for members of the Vermont National Guard.


title: Phil Scott

text: As a state senator, Scott voted for legislation to reduce education property tax rates. Scott's FY18 budget froze property tax rates, and the FY19 budget froze residential property tax rates.


title: Phil Scott

text: Scott passed legislation that banned bump stock devices, expanded background checks for gun purchases, raised the age to purchase firearms to 21 (with certain exemptions), limited the purchase of certain high-capacity magazines, strengthened laws to keep guns out of the hands of alleged domestic abusers, and created risk protection orders. He created a Violence Prevention Task Force, ordered a security assessment of all Vermont schools, and signed legislation appropriating $5 million for school security grants.


title: Phil Scott

text: Scott supports limiting Vermont's annual legislative session to 90 days. According to him, the session's unpredictable length discourages everyday Vermonters from running for office. A 90-day session, according to Scott, would encourage more people to run for elected office by setting clear parameters. Furthermore, he argues that a 90-day session would force the legislature to focus on key fiscal and operational issues.


title: Phil Scott

text: As governor, Scott created a Government Modernization and Efficiency Team to implement efficiency audits, strengthen IT planning, implement a digital government strategy, and identify opportunities to eliminate inefficiencies, establish clear metrics and streamline services. He also created the Program to Improve Vermont Outcomes Together (PIVOT) initiative, which asks frontline state employees for ways to make state government systems more efficient and easier to use. Scott consolidated IT functions in state government with the creation of the Agency of Digital Services, saving $2.19 million. He also merged the Department of Liquor Control and the Lottery Department into the Department of Liquor and Lottery to achieve savings. Scott's administration has worked to achieve internal improvements through lean training and permit process improvements. He also successfully sought to eliminate and merge redundant boards, commissions, studies and reports.


title: Phil Scott

text: In July 2016, Scott outlined the transportation priorities he would implement as governor. He said he would strengthen the link between economic growth and Vermont's infrastructure; oppose additional transportation taxes, including a carbon tax; oppose accumulating additional state debt for transportation; encourage innovation in transportation by implementing a Research and Development (R&D) tax credit and an Angel Investor tax credit (a 60% credit toward cash equity investments in Vermont businesses, specifically targeted toward transportation, energy and manufacturing firms); protect the state's transportation fund to ensure it is used for transportation purposes only; advocate federal reforms and flexibility in transportation policy; and update the Agency of Transportation's long-range plan for transportation.


title: Phil Scott

text: Scott supports same-sex marriage. He signed into a law a gender-neutral bathroom bill intended to recognize the rights of transgender people. Of the new law, he said, "Vermont has a well-earned reputation for embracing equality and being inclusive". Scott also signed gun control legislation that "limits some aspects of gun possession and empowers authorities to remove guns from people who may be dangerous".


title: Phil Scott

text: On May 24, 2017, Scott vetoed a bill that would have legalized marijuana recreationally in Vermont. In October 2020, he announced he would not veto another bill to legalize recreational marijuana use, allowing the bill to become a law without his signature.


title: Phil Scott

text: As governor, Scott created an Opioid Coordination Council, appointed a director of drug policy and prevention, and convened a statewide summit on growing the workforce to support opioid and substance abuse treatment. To further treatment options, he worked with the Secretary of State's Office of Professional Regulation to streamline the licensing process for treatment professionals. Scott boosted efforts to reduce the drug supply through the Vermont Drug Task Force, Drug Take Back days, and expanding prescription drug disposal sites.


title: Phil Scott

text: Scott opposed the Trump administration's immigration policies. In 2017, he signed a bill to limit the involvement of Vermont police with the federal government in regard to immigration, and the Department of Justice notified Vermont that it had been preliminarily found to be a sanctuary jurisdiction on November 15, 2017. Scott opposed the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy and the separation of families at the border.


title: Phil Scott

text: Scott approved $48 million for clean water funding in 2017. He signed an executive order creating the Vermont Climate Action Commission. Scott announced a settlement with Saint-Gobain to address water quality issues and PFOA contamination in Bennington County. His FY18 budget proposal called for a tax holiday on energy efficient products and vehicles. On June 2, 2017, Scott led Vermont to join the United States Climate Alliance, after President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. Scott committed to achieving 90% renewable energy by 2050. In 2019, he signed several pieces of legislation related to water quality, including creating a long-term funding mechanism for cleaning up the state's waterways, testing for lead in schools and child care centers, and regulating perfluorooctanoic acid and related PFAS chemicals in drinking water. On September 15, 2020, Scott vetoed the Global Warming Solutions Act, which mandated reductions to Vermont's carbon emissions. Ten days later, his veto was overridden.


title: Phil Scott

text: Scott is a champion stock car racer. He won the 1996 and 1998 Thunder Road Late Model Series (LMS) championships and the 1997 and 1999 Thunder Road Milk Bowls. (The Milk Bowl is Thunder Road's annual season finale.)


title: Phil Scott

text: In 2002, he became a three-time champion, winning both the Thunder Road and Airborne Late Model Series track championships and the American Canadian Tour championship. (Airborne Park Speedway is a stock car track in the town of Plattsburgh, New York). He also competed in the 2005 British Stock Car Association (BriSCA) Formula One Championship of the World, but did not finish.


title: Phil Scott

text: On July 6, 2017, Scott won the Thunder Road Late Model Series feature race; he started from the pole, and the victory was his first since 2013. Scott participated in a limited number of Thunder Road events in 2019, and won the June 27, 2019, LMS feature race. As of July 2019, Scott has 31 career wins, which places him third all time in Thunder Road's LMS division.


title: Phil Scott

text: Scott lives in Berlin, Vermont, with his wife, Diana McTeague Scott, and their two dogs. He has two adult daughters.


title: 2017–18 Manchester City F.C. season

text: The 2017–18 season was Manchester City's 116th season of competitive football, 89th season in the top flight of English football and 21st season in the Premier League. In addition to the league, the club also competed in the FA Cup, EFL Cup and UEFA Champions League.


title: 2017–18 Manchester City F.C. season

text: City won their third Premier League title on 15 April 2018, following West Bromwich Albion's 1–0 away win over second-placed Manchester United, and the EFL Cup on 25 February 2018 with a 3–0 win over Arsenal, the latter being Pep Guardiola's first trophy at City.


title: 2017–18 Manchester City F.C. season

text: The team set a number of Premier League records during the season, including: most points (100), most away points (50), most points ahead of second (19), most wins (32), most away wins (16), most goals (106), best goal difference (+79) and most consecutive victories (18). The team also equalled the record for the earliest Premier League title win (5 games to spare), beating every other team in the league throughout the season, and recording the most consecutive away wins (11). As a result of City setting an English top flight record for most points in a single season (100), the team received the nickname "Centurions", and have been acclaimed by pundits and football journalists as being one of the greatest teams in Premier League history.


title: 2017–18 Manchester City F.C. season

text: On 1 November, Sergio Agüero scored his 178th City goal in a 4–2 Champions League away victory over Napoli to become the club's all-time leading goalscorer, surpassing the former highest total set by Eric Brook.


title: 2017–18 Manchester City F.C. season

text: On 25 February, City won their first silverware of the Guardiola era, defeating Arsenal 3–0 at Wembley Stadium to win the 2017–18 EFL Cup.


title: 2017–18 Manchester City F.C. season

text: On 15 April, City were confirmed as Premier League champions following Manchester United's 0–1 home defeat to West Bromwich Albion. This was the club's third Premier League title and fifth English top flight title and also completed their second league and League Cup double in four years.


title: 2017–18 Manchester City F.C. season

text: The 2017–18 season was an undoubted success for the Blues domestically, but their European campaign was quite underwhelming. The team confidently won five games at the group stage and qualified for the knockout stage, where it defeated FC Basel. The Cityzens were drawn with fellow Premier League side Liverpool in the quarter-finals. The outcome of those games was a disappointing result as Manchester City were beaten 5–1 on aggregate and eliminated amid the controversy with refereeing mistakes favourable to Liverpool.


title: 2017–18 Manchester City F.C. season

text: An Amazon Original docuseries of the season titled "" was released on Amazon Video on 17 August 2018.


title: 2017–18 Manchester City F.C. season

text: On 16 May 2017, Manchester City announced they would face Manchester United as part of the 2017 International Champions Cup. Matches against Tottenham Hotspur and Real Madrid were also confirmed as part of the same tournament. A standalone pre-season friendly against West Ham United then took place in Iceland. A friendly was also scheduled against partner club Girona to take place after the first match of the Premier League season.


title: 2017–18 Manchester City F.C. season

text: Manchester City entered the competition in the third round and were drawn at home to Burnley. They were handed an away tie against Cardiff City in the fourth round proper. In the fifth round, City were drawn away to Wigan Athletic.


title: 2017–18 Manchester City F.C. season

text: Manchester City entered the competition in the third round and were drawn away to West Bromwich Albion. A home tie against Wolverhampton Wanderers was confirmed for the fourth round. The Blues were handed an away tie against Leicester City in the quarter-finals. In the two-legged semi-finals, they were drawn against Bristol City as the home team, thus hosting the first leg and playing the second one on the road at Bristol.


title: 2017–18 Manchester City F.C. season

text: On 24 August 2017, Manchester City were drawn into Group F alongside Shakhtar Donetsk, Napoli and Feyenoord. The Blues topped their group and were then paired with Basel from the Swiss Super League in round of 16 two-legged tie.


title: 2017–18 Manchester City F.C. season

text: In December 2017, Pep Guardiola became the first manager in Premier League history to be awarded four consecutive "Manager of the Month" awards.


title: 2017–18 Manchester City F.C. season

text: Won the Golden Ball as the best player at the FIFA U-17 World Cup, helping England win the tournament.


title: Polish cuisine

text: Polish cuisine () is a style of cooking and food preparation originating in or widely popular in Poland. Due to Poland's history, Polish cuisine has evolved over the centuries to be very eclectic, and it shares many similarities with other regional cuisines. Polish-styled cooking in other cultures is often referred to as à la polonaise.


title: Polish cuisine

text: Polish cuisine is rich in meat, especially pork, chicken and game, in addition to a wide range of vegetables, spices, mushrooms, and herbs. It is also characteristic in its use of various kinds of noodles, cereals, and grains. In general, Polish cuisine is hearty and heavy in its use of butter, cream, eggs, and extensive seasoning. The traditional dishes are often demanding in preparation. Many Poles allow themselves a generous amount of time to serve and enjoy their festive meals, especially Christmas Eve supper () on December 24, or Easter breakfast, both of which could take a number of days to prepare in their entirety.


title: Polish cuisine

text: Among the well-known Polish national dishes are , , , (pork loin breaded cutlet), (cabbage roll), (roulade), (sour cucumber soup), (mushroom soup), (tomato soup), (meat broth), (sour rye soup), (tripe soup), and red beetroot .


title: Polish cuisine

text: A traditional Polish dinner is composed of three courses, beginning with a soup like the popular broth and tomato soup. At restaurants, the soups are followed by an appetizer such as herring (prepared in either cream, oil, or in aspic), or other cured meats and vegetable salads. The main course usually includes a serving of meat, such as roast, breaded pork cutlet, or chicken, with a coleslaw-like (), shredded root vegetables with lemon and sugar (carrot, celeriac, seared beetroot), sauerkraut, or salad. The side dishes are usually boiled potatoes, , or less commonly, rice. Meals often conclude with a dessert including , a poppy seed pastry, cream pie, or (cheesecake).


title: Polish cuisine

text: Internationally, if a Polish culinary tradition is used in other cuisines, it is referred to as "à la polonaise", from French meaning 'Polish-style.' In French cooking, this term is used for techniques like using butter instead of cooking oil; frying vegetables with buttered breadcrumbs; using minced parsley and boiled eggs (Polonaise garnish); and adding horseradish, lemon juice, or sour cream to sauces like velouté.


title: Polish cuisine

text: Polish cuisine in the Middle Ages was based on dishes made of agricultural produce and cereal crops (millet, rye, wheat), meats of wild and farm animals, fruits, forest berries and game, honey, herbs, and local spices. It was known above all for abundant use of salt from Wieliczka and permanent presence of groats (). A high calorific value of dishes and drinking beer or mead as a basic drink was typical of Middle Ages Polish cuisine.


title: Polish cuisine

text: During the Middle Ages the cuisine of Poland was heavy and spicy. Two main ingredients were meat (both game and beef) and cereal. The latter consisted initially of proso millet, but later in the Middle Ages other types of cereal became widely used. Most commoners did not eat bread and instead consumed cereals in the forms of or various types of flatbread, some of which (for instance ) are considered traditional recipes even in the 21st century. Apart from cereals, a large portion of the daily diet of mediaeval Poles consisted of beans, mostly broad beans and peas. As the territory of Poland was densely forested, usage of mushrooms, forest berries, nuts, and wild honey was also widespread. Among the delicacies of the Polish nobility were honey-braised bear paws served with horseradish-flavoured salad, smoked bear tongue, and bear bacon (bears are now protected in Poland).


title: Polish cuisine

text: Thanks to close trade relations with Turkey and the countries in the Caucasus, the price of spices (such as black pepper and nutmeg) was much lower in Poland than the rest of Europe, hence spicy sauces became popular. The usage of two basic sauces, the and (meaning "red" and "gray blood" in Old Polish), remained widespread at least until the 18th century.


title: Polish cuisine

text: The daily beverages included milk, whey, buttermilk, and various herb infusions. The most popular alcoholic beverages were beer and mead; however, in the 16th century, upper classes began to import Hungarian and Silesian wines. Mead was so widespread that in the 13th century Prince Leszek I the White explained to the Pope that Polish knights could not participate in a crusade as there was no mead in the Holy Land. Also, vodka became popular, possibly among the lower classes first. There is written evidence suggesting that vodka originated in Poland. The word "vodka" was recorded for the first time ever in 1405 in , the court documents from the Palatinate of Sandomierz in Poland. At that time, the word (vodka) referred to chemical compounds such as medicines and cosmetic cleansers, while the popular beverage was called (from the Old Polish ).


title: Polish cuisine

text: Along with the Italian queen Bona Sforza (second wife of Sigismund I of Poland), many Italian cooks came to Poland after 1518. Although native vegetable foods were an ancient and intrinsic part of Polish cuisine, this began a period in which vegetables like lettuce, leeks, celeriac, and cabbage were more widely used. Even today, some of those vegetables are referred to in Polish as , a word derived from , the Polish name of Italy. During this period, the use of spices—which arrived in Poland via Western Asian trade routes—was common among those who could afford them, and dishes considered elegant could be very spicy. However, the idea that Queen Bona was the first to introduce vegetables to Poland is false. While her southern cooks may have helped elevate and expand the role of various vegetables in royal Polish cuisine, records show that the court of king Jogaila (, who died in 1434, over 80 years before her reign) enjoyed a variety of vegetables including lettuce, beets, cabbage, turnip, carrots, peas, and cauliflower.


title: Polish cuisine

text: Polish-style pickled cucumber () is a variety developed in the northern part of Central Europe. It has been exported worldwide and is found in the cuisines of many countries. It is usually preserved in wooden barrels. A cucumber only pickled for a few days is different in taste (less sour) than one pickled for a longer time and is called (). Another kind of pickled cucumber popular in Poland is (), which is preserved with vinegar rather than pickled and uses different spices creating a sweet and sour taste.


title: Polish cuisine

text: The only indisputable fact is that the court of Queen Bona was fed in an Italian fashion, because she exclusively employed Italian cooks, some of whom were originally hired to prepare parties for aristocratic families but who were soon serving typical Italian dishes as part of the court's daily menus. Court records show that Queen Bona imported large volumes of southern European, American, and Western Asian fruits (oranges, lemons, pomegranates, olives, figs, tomatoes), vegetables (potatoes and corn), nuts (chestnuts, raisins, and almonds, including marzipan), along with grains (such as rice), cane sugar, and Italian olive oil. The court also imported various herbs and spices including black pepper, fennel, saffron, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon.


title: Polish cuisine

text: Until the Partitions perpetrated by the neighboring empires, Poland was one of the largest countries in the world, and encompassed many regions with its own, distinctive culinary traditions. Two consecutive Polish kings, Władysław IV and John II Casimir () married the same French Duchess, Marie Louise Gonzaga (), daughter of Charles I, Duke of Mantua; she was persecuted by King Louis XIII of France for her affiance to his opponent Gaston, Duke of Orléans. Marie Louise arrived in Warsaw in 1646, was widowed, and married again in 1649. Ludwika brought along with her a court full of Frenchmen including courtiers, secretaries, army officers, physicians, merchants, craftsmen, as well as many cooks.