title: Dinner

text: Dinner usually refers to what is in many Western cultures the largest and most formal meal of the day, which is eaten in the evening. Historically, the largest meal used to be eaten around midday, and called dinner. Especially among the elite, it gradually migrated to later in the day over the 16th to 19th centuries. The word has different meanings depending on culture, and may mean a meal of any size eaten at any time of day. In particular, it is still sometimes used for a meal at noon or in the early afternoon on special occasions, such as a Christmas dinner. In hot climates, the main meal is more likely to be eaten in the evening, after the temperature has fallen.


title: Dinner

text: The word is from the Old French () "disner", meaning "dine", from the stem of Gallo-Romance "desjunare" ("to break one's fast"), from Latin "dis-" (which indicates the opposite of an action) + Late Latin "ieiunare" ("to fast"), from Latin "ieiunus" ("fasting, hungry"). The Romanian word "dejun" and the French "déjeuner" retain this etymology and to some extent the meaning (whereas the Spanish word "desayuno" and Portuguese "desjejum" are related but are exclusively used for breakfast). Eventually, the term shifted to referring to the heavy main meal of the day, even if it had been preceded by a breakfast meal (or even both breakfast and lunch).


title: Dinner

text: Reflecting the typical custom of the 17th century, Louis XIV dined at noon, and had supper at 10:00 pm. But in Europe, dinner began to move later in the day during the 1700s, due to developments in work practices, lighting, financial status, and cultural changes. The fashionable hour for dinner continued to be incrementally postponed during the 18th century, to two and three in the afternoon, and, in 1765, King George III dined at 4:00 pm, though his infant sons had theirs with their governess at 2:00 pm, leaving time to visit the queen as she dressed for dinner with the king. But in France Marie Antoinette, when still Dauphine of France in 1770, wrote that when at the Château de Choisy the court still dined at 2:00 pm, with a supper after the theatre at around 10:00 pm, before bed at 1:00 or 1:30 am.


title: Dinner

text: At the time of the First French Empire an English traveler to Paris remarked upon the "abominable habit of dining as late as seven in the evening". By about 1850 English middle-class dinners were around 5:00 or 6:00 pm, allowing men to arrive back from work, but there was a continuing pressure for the hour to drift later, led by the elite who did not have to work set hours, and as commutes got longer as cities expanded. In the mid-19th century the issue was something of a social minefield, with a generational element. John Ruskin, once he married in 1848, dined at 6:00 pm, which his parents thought "unhealthy". Mrs Gaskell dined between 4:00 and 5:00 pm. The fictional Mr Pooter, a lower middle-class Londoner in 1888-89 and a diner at 5:00 pm, was invited by his son to dine at 8:00 pm, but "[he] said we did not pretend to be fashionable people, and would like the dinner earlier".


title: Dinner

text: The satirical novel "Living for Appearances" (1855) by Henry Mayhew and his brother Augustus begins with the views of the hero on the matter. He dines at 7:00 pm, and often complains of "the disgusting and tradesman-like custom of early dining", say at 2:00 pm. The "Royal hour" he regards as 8:00 pm, but he does not aspire to that. He tells people "Tell me when you dine, and I will tell you what you are".


title: Dinner

text: In many modern usages, the term "dinner" refers to the evening meal, which is now typically the largest meal of the day in most Western cultures. When this meaning is used, the preceding meals are usually referred to as breakfast, lunch and perhaps a tea. Supper is now often an alternative term for dinner; originally this was always a later secondary evening meal, after an early dinner.


title: Dinner

text: The divide between different meanings of "dinner" is not cut-and-dried based on either geography or socioeconomic class. The term for the midday meal is most commonly used by working-class people, especially in the English Midlands, North of England and the central belt of Scotland. Even in systems in which dinner is the meal usually eaten at the end of the day, an individual dinner may still refer to a main or more sophisticated meal at any time in the day, such as a banquet, feast, or a special meal eaten on a Sunday or holiday, such as Christmas dinner or Thanksgiving dinner. At such a dinner, the people who dine together may be formally dressed and consume food with an array of utensils. These dinners are often divided into three or more courses. Appetizers consisting of options such as soup or salad, precede the main course, which is followed by the dessert.


title: Dinner

text: A survey by Jacob's Creek, an Australian winemaker, found the average evening meal time in the U.K. to be 7:47pm.


title: Dinner

text: A dinner party is a social gathering at which people congregate to eat dinner. Dinners exist on a spectrum, from a basic meal, to a state dinner.


title: Dinner

text: During the times of Ancient Rome, a dinner party was referred to as a "convivium", and was a significant event for Roman emperors and senators to congregate and discuss their relations.


title: Dinner

text: In London (–), dinner parties were formal occasions that included printed invitations and formal RSVPs. The food served at these parties ranged from large, extravagant food displays and several meal courses to more simple fare and food service. Activities sometimes included singing and poetry reciting, among others.


title: Dinner

text: A formal dinner has several requirements. First, it requires the participants to wear an evening attire such as a tuxedo, with either a black or white tie; second, all food is served from the kitchen; third, "neither nor utensils are placed on the table. All service and table clearing is performed by butlers and other service staff;" fourth, multiple courses are served; and finally there is an order of service and seating protocols.


title: Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt

text: Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt (January 14, 1880 – September 4, 1925) was a member of the Vanderbilt family. He was the father of Gloria Vanderbilt and maternal grandfather of Anderson Cooper. An avid equestrian, Vanderbilt was the founder and president of many equestrian organizations. He gambled away most of his inheritance.


title: Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt

text: Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt was born on January 14, 1880, on Staten Island, New York. He was the youngest son of Cornelius Vanderbilt II (1843–1899) and Alice Claypoole Gwynne (1845–1934). Among his siblings was Gertrude Vanderbilt (1875–1942), who married Harry Payne Whitney, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt (1877–1915), and Gladys Moore Vanderbilt (1886–1965), who married Count László Széchenyi.


title: Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt

text: Reginald was a grandson of William Henry Vanderbilt (1821–1885), and great-grandson of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877).


title: Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt

text: He attended Yale University, but did not graduate. One elder brother, Cornelius Vanderbilt III (1873–1942), married Grace Wilson against his parents' wishes and was disinherited. Another elder brother, Alfred, inherited the bulk of the family fortune, though Reginald and several sisters also received some inheritance.


title: Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt

text: In 1903, Reginald married Cathleen Neilson (1885–1927) at Parker Cottage in Newport, Rhode Island. She was the daughter of Isabelle Gebhard Neilson, the niece of Frederick Gebhard (c. 1860–1910), and the great-granddaughter of Thomas E. Davis, a prominent New York real estate developer. Before their divorce in 1920, the couple had one daughter: Cathleen Vanderbilt (1904–1944), who married Henry Cooke Cushing III (1895–1960) in 1923. After their divorce in 1932, she married broadcasting executive Lawrence Wise Lowman (1900–1980) in 1932. They divorced that same year and in 1940, she married for the third and final time to Martin Arostegui, a publisher in Havana, Cuba.


title: Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt

text: On March 6, 1923, he married Gloria Mercedes Morgan (1904–1965). Together, they were the parents of his second daughter: Gloria Laura Vanderbilt (1924–2019), the fashion designer who married Pasquale DiCicco (1909–1978) in 1941. They divorced in 1945 and that same year she married Leopold Anthony Stokowski (1882–1977). They divorced in 1955 and a year later, in 1956, she married Sidney Arthur Lumet (1924–2011). In 1963, they also divorced and, that same year, she married Wyatt Emory Cooper (1927–1978).


title: Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt

text: Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt died from cirrhosis due to alcoholism on September 4, 1925, at his country home, Sandy Point Farm, in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. In his will, he left the vast majority of his estate to his daughters with a residue to his widow, which was not to exceed $1,125,000 and his New York townhouse, located at 12 East 77th Street, and Sandy Point Farm. He is buried in the Vanderbilt Family Cemetery and Mausoleum in Staten Island, New York.


title: Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt

text: Through his eldest daughter, Vanderbilt was the grandfather of Henry Cooke Cushing IV (1924–2000), who was married to Georgia Walters "Georgette Windsor" (b. 1924), Ruth Swift Dunbar (1932–2010), Rosalba Neri (b. 1939), and Laura Alvarez.


title: Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt

text: Through his daughter Gloria, Reginald is the maternal grandfather of Leopold Stanislaus Stokowski (b. 1950), who married Ivy Strick and Emily Goldstein (b 1964), Christopher Stokowski (b. 1952), Carter Vanderbilt Cooper (1965–1988), and Anderson Hays Cooper (b. 1967), the television news anchor.


title: Psilocin

text: Psilocin (also known as 4-HO-DMT, 4-hydroxy DMT, psilocine, psilocyn, or psilotsin) is a substituted tryptamine alkaloid and a serotonergic psychedelic substance. It is present in most psychedelic mushrooms together with its phosphorylated counterpart psilocybin. Psilocin is a Schedule I drug under the Convention on Psychotropic Substances. Acting on the 5-HT receptors, psilocin modulates the production and reuptake of serotonin. The mind-altering effects of psilocin are highly variable and subjective and resemble those of LSD and DMT.


title: Psilocin

text: Psilocin and its phosphorylated cousin, psilocybin, were first isolated and named in 1958 by Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann. Hofmann obtained the chemicals from laboratory-grown specimens of the entheogenic mushroom "Psilocybe mexicana". Hofmann also succeeded in finding synthetic routes to these chemicals.


title: Psilocin

text: Psilocin can be obtained by dephosphorylation of natural psilocybin under strongly acidic or under alkaline conditions (hydrolysis). Another synthetic route uses the Speeter–Anthony tryptamine synthesis procedure. 4-hydroxyindole is acylated with oxalyl chloride. The compound is further reacted with an amine, yielding indole-3-yl-glyoxalyamide. Finally, the product amide is reduced using lithium aluminum hydride yielding psilocin.


title: Psilocin

text: Psilocin is relatively unstable in solution due to its phenolic hydroxy (-OH) group. In the presence of oxygen, it readily forms bluish and dark black degradation products. Similar products are also formed under acidic conditions in the presence of oxygen and Fe ions (Keller's reagent).


title: Psilocin

text: Sulfur analogs are known with a benzothienyl replacement as well as 4-SH-DMT. 1-Methylpsilocin is a functionally 5-HT receptor preferring agonist. 4-Fluoro-"N","N"-dimethyltryptamine is known. "O"-Acetylpsilocin (4-AcO-DMT) is an acetylated analog of psilocin. Additionally, replacement of a methyl group at the dimethylated nitrogen with an isopropyl or ethyl group yields 4-HO-MIPT (4-hydroxy-"N"-methyl-"N"-isopropyltryptamine) and 4-HO-MET (4-hydroxy-"N"-methyl-"N"-ethyltryptamine), respectively. 4-Acetoxy-MET (4-Acetoxy-N-methyl-N-ethyltryptamine), also known as 4-AcO-MET, is the acetate ester of 4-HO-MET, and a homologue of 4-AcO-DMT.


title: Psilocin

text: Psilocin is the pharmacologically active agent in the body after ingestion of psilocybin or some species of psychedelic mushrooms.


title: Psilocin

text: Psilocybin is rapidly dephosphorylated in the body to psilocin which acts as a 5-HT, 5-HT and 5-HT agonist or partial agonist. Psilocin exhibits functional selectivity in that it activates phospholipase A2 instead of activating phospholipase C as the endogenous ligand serotonin does. Psilocin is structurally similar to serotonin (5-HT), differing only by the hydroxyl group being on the 4-position rather than the 5 and the dimethyl groups on the nitrogen. Its effects are thought to come from its agonist activity at 5-HT serotonin receptors in the prefrontal cortex.


title: Psilocin

text: Psilocin has no significant effect on dopamine receptors (unlike LSD) and only affects the noradrenergic system at very high dosages.


title: Psilocin

text: Its physiological effects are similar to a sympathetic arousal state. Specific effects observed after ingestion can include but are not limited to tachycardia, dilated pupils, restlessness or arousal, euphoria, open and closed eye visuals (common at medium to high doses), synesthesia (e.g. hearing colours and seeing sounds), increased body temperature, headache, sweating and chills, and nausea. Psilocin acts as a 5-HT2A, 5-HT2C, and 5-HT1A receptor agonist or partial agonist. Such receptors are claimed to significantly regulate visuals, decision making, mood, decreased blood pressure, and heart rate.


title: Psilocin

text: There is virtually no direct lethality associated with psilocin. There is virtually no withdrawal syndrome when chronic use of this drug is ceased. There is cross tolerance among psilocin, mescaline, LSD, and other 5-HT, 5-HT, and 5-HT agonists due to down-regulation of these receptors.


title: Psilocin

text: The United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances (adopted in 1971) requires its members to prohibit psilocybin, and parties to the treaty are required to restrict the use of the drug to medical and scientific research under strictly controlled conditions.


title: Psilocin

text: Psilocin is considered a Schedule 9 prohibited substance in Australia under the Poisons Standard (October 2015). A Schedule 9 substance is a substance which may be abused or misused, the manufacture, possession, sale or use of which should be prohibited by law except when required for medical or scientific research, or for analytical, teaching or training purposes with approval of Commonwealth and/or State or Territory Health Authorities.


title: Psilocin

text: Psilocin and psilocybin are banned in Russia as narcotic drugs with a criminal penalty for possession of at least 50 mg.


title: Rudi Völler

text: Rudolf "Rudi" Völler (; born 13 April 1960), nicknamed ""Tante Käthe"" ("Aunt Käthe"), is a German former professional football player and manager who serves as the sporting director for Bayer Leverkusen.


title: Rudi Völler

text: A forward, Völler won the FIFA World Cup in 1990 as a player. He also scored an equalizing goal to make it 2–2 in the 81st minute of the 1986 FIFA World Cup Final vs Argentina, but it ended up with a 3–2 victory for Argentina. Along with Mário Zagallo, Franz Beckenbauer and Didier Deschamps, Völler has the distinction of reaching a World Cup final as both a player (1986 and 1990) and as a manager (2002).


title: Rudi Völler

text: Völler started his career with 1860 Hanau, then played for second division sides Kickers Offenbach and TSV 1860 Munich, before joining Bundesliga club Werder Bremen in 1982, winning his first cap for West Germany that same year. Following a successful season in which he was the Bundesliga's top scorer, foreign clubs became interested in the striker, and in 1987 he was transferred to Roma, where he became a mainstay of the team and earned the nickname ""er tedesco"" ("the German") and also ""il tedesco volante"" ("the flying German"). He won the Coppa Italia in 1991 and was the club's top scorer on several occasions.


title: Rudi Völler

text: In 1992, Roma decided to sell Völler to Marseille, where he was intended as replacement for superstar striker Jean-Pierre Papin. That also allowed Roma to add Claudio Caniggia as its third foreigner to the squad, so both parties were happy to let the deal go through. There he won his biggest club honour in a very successful first season, thanks to the UEFA Champions League won with Olympique de Marseille against AC Milan coached by Fabio Capello, in 1993 (1–0, goal scored by Basile Boli). Völler started the match, playing 78 minutes. Marseille was then caught in a bribery scandal, however, and was stripped of its 1993 league title, and were relegated despite a second-place finish in 1994. Völler scored 24 league goals for the club but departed after its relegation. Returning to Germany, he joined Bayer Leverkusen in 1994, where he ended his career as a player in 1996 and started a career in the management of the club.


title: Rudi Völler

text: Völler was capped 90 times for the Germany national team, scoring 47 goals, including eight in World Cup final rounds.


title: Rudi Völler

text: Völler also played at three UEFA European Championships, starting with Euro 1984, where he scored twice in a group match against Romania which the Germans won 2–1. A 90th minute defeat against Spain in their next match, however, saw West Germany eliminated when all they needed was a draw.


title: Rudi Völler

text: At the 1986 FIFA World Cup, Völler scored the West Germans' equalizer in a 2–1 win over Scotland in the group stage. He bagged a last minute goal against France in the semi-final to seal a 2–0 win and in the final itself his 80th-minute goal made it 2–2 against Argentina. Germany had recovered from 2–0 down but eventually lost the match 3–2. Völler became the third player to score as a substitute in the World Cup final, after Dick Nanninga in 1978 and Alessandro Altobelli achieved this feat in 1982.


title: Rudi Völler

text: West Germany hosted the Euro 1988, and Völler scored twice in a 2–0 win over Spain but the hosts lost to eventual winners the Netherlands in the semi-final.


title: Rudi Völler

text: Völler was a member of the team that won the 1990 World Cup in Italy. He scored three times in the tournament, including one goal in a 4–1 win over Yugoslavia, and then found the net twice against the United Arab Emirates in a 5–1 win. During the second-round match against the Netherlands, Völler and Dutch player Frank Rijkaard were sent off the field after the Dutchman spat on Völler twice. In the semi-final against England Völler limped off injured in the first half and was replaced by Karl-Heinz Riedle. However Völler recovered to start the final against Argentina, which Germany won 1–0 to claim their 3rd World Cup title


title: Rudi Völler

text: The unsavoury incident that took place during the second-round match with the Netherlands started when Rijkaard was booked for a bad tackle on Völler. As Rijkaard took up position for the free kick, he spat in Völler's hair. Völler complained to the referee and was booked as well. From the resulting free kick, a furious Völler then jumped up and punched the ball with his hand (although it looked like he had used his head) and then dived to avoid a collision with Dutch goalkeeper Hans van Breukelen, although it also looked as if he had dived for a penalty. Van Breukelen was angry at this, but Rijkaard again confronted Völler by twisting his ear and stamping on his foot. The temperamental and tough Argentine referee Juan Carlos Loustau finally had enough of Völler's and Rijkaard's antics and he sent both players off. Rijkaard then again spat in Völler's hair as they left the pitch and was rumoured to have repeated this on the touchline. Rijkaard later stated that it was his fault: "That day I was wrong. There was no insult. I always had much respect for Rudi Völler. But I went berserk when I saw that red card. I talked to him after the match and I apologized. I'm very happy that he accepted. I have no bad feeling about him now. We even posed for a very funny advert together, years after." (Rijkaard had family problems in this time).


title: Rudi Völler

text: Völler was again selected for the Euro 1992 but was sent home when he suffered an injury in the opening game with CIS.


title: Rudi Völler

text: At the 1994 World Cup, Völler was kept out of the starting line up for all three group games by Jürgen Klinsmann and Karl-Heinz Riedle who scored five between them. He made just one sub appearance in the group stages. He did start the second round tie with Belgium and scored twice in a 3–2 win.


title: Rudi Völler

text: After a disappointing Euro 2000 for Germany under manager Erich Ribbeck, the German Football Association (DFB) appointed Völler as new manager, accepting his lack of coaching qualifications at the time. Initially, he only planned to take interimistic responsibility for one year, following the decision by Bayer 04 Leverkusen and Völler himself (as sporting director of the club) not to make Christoph Daum step down from the national team before 2001. However, Völler extended his contract due to good results, after Daum became involved in a controversial drug scandal. Despite losing to England 5–1 at home and two disappointing draws against Finland during qualification he managed to lead the team to a surprising appearance in the final of the 2002 World Cup against Brazil.


title: Rudi Völler

text: Following his resignation from the German national job, Völler briefly made a comeback at Roma in 2004 as manager. Hired in late August as a last-minute appointment after the shock resignation of Cesare Prandelli, he left the club only one month later after a series of poor results and high-profile disagreements with players, notably Antonio Cassano. He only signed a one-year contract to allow a return of Prandelli the next year, but presided over only one draw and two defeats in the league.


title: Rudi Völler

text: Moving back to the support ranks at Bayer Leverkusen, Völler was named caretaker manager of Leverkusen on 16 September 2005 after the club sacked coach Klaus Augenthaler. Völler served in that role until Michael Skibbe was named as the club's new permanent coach that October. After the arrival of Skibbe, Völler was promoted to become for the second time sports director at Leverkusen.


title: Rudi Völler

text: Völler was (and still is) very popular in Germany. Even when the national squad achieved only modest results, Völler never lost his popularity as the German public knew he was achieving as much as possible with a relatively limited squad. His predecessor Berti Vogts, by contrast, was widely criticised, even during periods of success with a far more talented German squad. The public even forgave Völler when – during a TV interview after a 0–0 draw against Iceland in September 2003 – he lost his temper and yelled at the presenter Waldemar Hartmann in order to defend his team against, what he thought was, unfair press statements.


title: Rudi Völler

text: He had two children from a former relationship with a German woman; one of them was Marco, a professional basketball player. Later on in 1995, he married a local woman from Rome during his stay in Italy, adopting her daughter from a previous relationship and having one more son with her.


title: Dick Scobee

text: Francis Richard Scobee (May 19, 1939 – January 28, 1986) was an American pilot, engineer, and astronaut. He was killed while he was commanding the Space Shuttle "Challenger" in 1986, which suffered catastrophic booster failure during launch of the STS-51-L mission.


title: Dick Scobee

text: He held a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering, graduating from the University of Arizona in 1965. He was a reciprocating engine mechanic for the United States Air Force and served as a combat aviator in the Vietnam War.


title: Dick Scobee

text: Selected for NASA Astronaut Corps in January 1978, Scobee completed his training in August 1979. While awaiting his first orbital spaceflight mission, he served as an instructor pilot for the Shuttle's 747 carrier aircraft. In April 1984, he piloted "Challenger" mission STS-41-C, which successfully deployed one satellite and repaired another.


title: Dick Scobee

text: Scobee was born May 19, 1939, in Cle Elum, Washington, to Francis William Scobee and Edlynn (Miller) Scobee, he attended Washington Elementary School, Cascade Jr. High School, and Auburn Senior High School, from which he graduated in 1957.


title: Dick Scobee

text: Scobee enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1957, where he served as a reciprocating engine mechanic at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. While off duty, he attended San Antonio College, and eventually received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Arizona in 1965. He was a member of Tau Beta Pi. In 1965, he was awarded an officer's commission. Afterward, he attended flight school and earned his pilot wings in 1966, serving as a combat aviator in the Vietnam War. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal, and other decorations.


title: Dick Scobee

text: After his tour of duty, Scobee attended the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School (Class 71B) at Edwards Air Force Base, 100 miles north of Los Angeles, California. Upon graduation in 1972, he became an Air Force test pilot, logging thousands of hours of flight time in dozens of aircraft, including the Boeing 747, the experimental X-24B lifting body, the F-111 Aardvark, and the gigantic C-5 Galaxy.


title: Dick Scobee

text: Scobee was assigned commander for the ill-fated STS-51-L mission, after having previously flown "Challenger" in STS-41-C as a pilot. The mission, designed to deploy a satellite to study the approaching Halley's Comet and to inaugurate the Teacher in Space Project, was delayed numerous times due to bad weather and technical glitches. When the mission finally did lift off the pad, a solid rocket booster O-ring seal failure destroyed the shuttle 73 seconds into the flight, killing Scobee and the other six crew members; the disaster, viewed live on national television, prompted several days of national mourning, as well as a major shakeup at NASA. He died a lieutenant colonel. At T+68 into the mission, the CAPCOM Richard Covey informed the crew that they were "go at throttle up", and Scobee confirmed the call—his last recorded words were his response, "Roger, go at throttle up." The shuttle broke up at an altitude of 48,000 feet (14.6 km).


title: Dick Scobee

text: Some experts, including one of NASA's lead investigators, Robert Overmyer, who was closest to Scobee, believed most if not all of the crew were alive and possibly conscious during the entire descent until impact with the ocean. After the investigation, Overmyer stated, "I not only flew with Dick Scobee, we owned a plane together, and I know Scob did everything he could to save his crew. Scob fought for any and every edge to survive. He flew that ship without wings all the way down."


title: Dick Scobee

text: His parents were Francis and Edlynn Scobee; he married Virginia June Kent (now June Scobee Rodgers; born 1942); he had two children, Kathie R. Scobee Fulgham and Lieutenant General Richard W. Scobee. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. June remarried in 1989 to retired Army LTG Don Rodgers. Richard graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy, has flown F-16s for the USAF, and has commanded the 506th Air Expeditionary Group, 944th Fighter Wing, the 301st Fighter Wing, the 10th Air Force and U.S. Air Force Reserve Command. He led the military flyover during the pregame of Super Bowl XXX, which was played on the 10th anniversary of the disaster in 1996.


title: Dick Scobee

text: On July 9, 1994, the San Antonio College Planetarium was rededicated The Scobee Planetarium. In 2004, Scobee was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame. After the "Challenger" disaster, a number of schools, streets, and municipal facilities in the U.S. were renamed in his honor. North Auburn Elementary School in Auburn, WA was renamed Dick Scobee Elementary, and Auburn Municipal Airport became Dick Scobee Field.Dick Scobee Memorial Airfield is a radio-controlled and model aircraft facility located at George Bush Park in western Harris County, Texas. Multiple flying fields in his honor Control line, remote control, Glider, free flight and more


title: Dick Scobee

text: Scobee Road in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, along with Ronald McNair Boulevard and Christa McAuliffe Street, commemorate Scobee and his fellow "Challenger" crew members. In Houston, Texas' George Bush Park, there is a R/C (Remote Controlled) Flying Field named in his honor. He was portrayed by Barry Bostwick in the 1990 TV film "Challenger". He also made an appearance in the 1985 IMAX documentary "The Dream is Alive", shot during the STS-41C mission. In April 1986, Dick Scobee Elementary School was dedicated in a ceremony attended by his spouse, June.


title: Wigan

text: Wigan ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, on the River Douglas. The town is midway between the two cities of Manchester, to the south-east, and Liverpool, to the south-west. Bolton lies to the north-east and Warrington to the south. It is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its administrative centre. The town has a population of 107,732 and the wider borough of 330,713. Wigan was formerly within the historic county of Lancashire.


title: Wigan

text: Wigan was in the territory of the Brigantes, an ancient Celtic tribe that ruled much of what is now northern England. The Brigantes were subjugated in the Roman conquest of Britain and the Roman settlement of "Coccium" was established where Wigan lies.


title: Wigan

text: Wigan was incorporated as a borough in 1246, following the issue of a charter by King Henry III of England. At the end of the Middle Ages, it was one of four boroughs in Lancashire established by Royal charter.


title: Wigan

text: The Industrial Revolution saw a dramatic economic expansion and rapid rise in population. Wigan became a major mill town and coal mining district; at its peak, there were 1,000 pit shafts within of the town centre. Coal mining ceased in the later 20th century.


title: Wigan

text: Wigan Pier, a wharf on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, was made famous by the writer George Orwell. In his book "The Road to Wigan Pier", Orwell highlighted the poor working and living conditions of inhabitants in the 1930s. Following the decline of heavy industry, Wigan Pier's warehouses and wharves became a local heritage centre and cultural quarter. The DW Stadium is home to Wigan Athletic Football Club and Wigan Warriors Rugby League Football Club.


title: Wigan

text: The name Wigan has been dated to at least the 7th century, and probably originally meant a "village" or "settlement". It has also been suggested that the name is Celtic, named after a person called Wigan, a name corresponding to Gaulish "Vicanus", Old Welsh "Uuicant" or Old Breton "Uuicon". This may have been linked with "Tre" (meaning homestead) to give an original name of "Trewigan". Derivation from Brittonic "*wig", 'dwelling', plus the nominal suffix "-an" has also been suggested (c.f. numerous places in France named Le Vigan). The name of the town has been recorded variously as Wigan in 1199, Wygayn in 1240, and Wygan in numerous historical documents.


title: Wigan

text: There is very little evidence of prehistoric activity in the area, especially pre-Iron Age; however, Celtic names in the area around Wigan—such as Bryn, Makerfield and Ince—indicate that the Celtic people of Britain were active in the area in the Iron Age.


title: Wigan

text: In the 1st century, the area was conquered by the Romans. The late 2nd-century Antonine Itinerary mentions a Roman settlement called "Coccium" from the Roman fort at Manchester (Mamucium) and from the fort at Ribchester (Bremetennacum). Although the distances are slightly out, it has been assumed that Coccium is Roman Wigan. Possible derivations of Coccium include from the Latin "coccum", meaning "scarlet in colour, scarlet cloth", or from "cocus", meaning "cook". Over the years chance finds (coins and pottery) provided clear indications that a Roman settlement existed at Wigan, although its size and status remained unknown. In 2005 investigations ahead of the Grand Arcade development, and in 2008 at the Joint Service Centre development, have proven that Wigan was a significant Roman site in the late first and second centuries AD. The excavated remains of ditches at Ship Yard off Millgate were consistent with use by the Roman military and possibly formed part of the defences for a fort or a temporary camp. More remains were excavated to the south, in the area of McEwen's Yard (opposite the baths), where foundations of a large and important building were discovered, together with many other Roman features. The building is in size with stone walls and a tiled roof. It contained around nine or ten rooms including three with hypocausts. It had a colonnaded portico on the northern side, which presumably formed the main entrance. The structure's ground-plan and the presence of the hypocausts show it may have been a bath-house. A timber building excavated at the Joint Service Centre (top of the Wiend) has been interpreted as a barrack block. This suggests a Roman fort occupied the crest of the hill, taking advantage of the strategic position overlooking the River Douglas. The evidence gained from these excavations shows that Wigan was an important Roman settlement, and was almost certainly the place referred to as Coccium in the Antonine Itinerary.


title: Wigan

text: In the Anglo-Saxon period, the area was probably under the control of the Northumbrians and later the Mercians. In the early 10th century there was an influx of Scandinavians expelled from Ireland. This can be seen in place names such as Scholes—now a part of Wigan—which derives from the Scandinavian "skali" meaning "hut". Further evidence comes from some street names in Wigan which have Scandinavian origins.


title: Wigan

text: Wigan is not mentioned in the Domesday Book, possibly because it was included in the Neweton barony (now Newton-le-Willows). It is wrongly claimed that the mention of a church in the manor of Neweton, which actually refers to the church of St.Oswald (Winwick), is Wigan Parish Church. The rectors of the parish church were lords of the manor of Wigan, a sub-manor of Neweton, until the 19th century. Wigan was incorporated as a borough in 1246 following the issue of a charter by King Henry III to John Maunsell, the local church rector and lord of the manor. The borough was later granted another charter in 1257–1258, allowing the lord of the manor to hold a market every Monday and two annual fairs. The town is recorded on the earliest-surviving map of Britain, the Gough Map made around 1360, which highlights its position on the main western north–south highway with distance markers to Preston and Warrington.


title: Wigan

text: Edward II visited Wigan in 1323 in an effort to stabilise the region which had been the source of the Banastre Rebellion in 1315. Edward stayed in nearby Upholland Priory and held court in the town over a period of several days. During the medieval period Wigan expanded and prospered and in 1536, antiquarian John Leland described the town, saying "Wigan paved; as big as Warrington and better builded. There is one parish church amid the town. Some merchants, some artificers, some farmers".


title: Wigan

text: In the English Civil War, most people in the town were Royalists and James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby, a prominent and influential Royalist in the civil war, made Wigan his headquarters. His forces successfully captured Preston but failed in assaults on Manchester and Lancaster and two attempts to capture Bolton. Abandoning attempts to secure Lancashire, he took his forces to the Isle of Man to secure his holdings there. The Earl of Derby was absent when Wigan fell, despite fortifications built around the town, Wigan was captured by Parliamentarian forces on 1 April 1643, the takeover was complete in two hours and the town was pillaged before the defences were broken down and the Parliamentarians retreated. In 1648, Royalist forces under James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Hamilton, occupied Wigan after they had been defeated by Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Preston. The soldiers looted the town as they retreated to Warrington, and afterwards, it experienced pestilence. Cromwell himself described Wigan as "a great and poor town, and very malignant".


title: Wigan

text: The Battle of Wigan Lane was fought on 25 August 1651 during the Third English Civil War, between 1,500 Royalists under the command of the James Stanley, Earl of Derby marching to join the King at Worcester and 3,000 of the New Model Army under the command of Colonel Robert Lilburne hunting them. Lilburne arrived at Wigan to find the Royalists leaving to march towards Manchester but with his force consisting mostly of cavalry recognised it would be dangerous to engage in the narrow lanes around the town and decided to wait for his foot soldiers to arrive and flank the town. The Royalists seeing an opportunity to engage the divided force turned around to engage but Lilburne decided to hold his ground deploying cavalry on Wigan Lane and infantry in the hedgerows to the sides, The Royalists made several charges but after two hours were unable to break the Parliamentarian line and were forced to flee after being overwhelmed by superior numbers. Although Stanley was injured he managed to find refuge in the town. David Craine states, "those who did not fall in the fighting [were] hunted to their death through the countryside". A monument on Wigan Lane marks the place where Sir Thomas Tyldesley a Major General commanding the Royalist troops fell, it was erected 28 years after the battle in 1679 by Alexander Rigby, Tyldesley's standard bearer.


title: Wigan

text: Wigan was described by Celia Fiennes, a traveller, in 1698 as "a pretty market town built of stone and brick". In 1720, the moot hall was rebuilt, funded by the members of the borough. It was used as the town hall and the earliest reference to it dates from the 15th century. Prior to its final destruction in 1869, the hall was rebuilt in 1829. Wigan's status as a centre for coal production, engineering and textiles in the 18th century led to the Douglas Navigation in the 1740s, the canalisation of part of the River Douglas and later the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The canal from Liverpool to Leeds was originally to serve Wigan on a spur, transporting cloth and food grown on the West Lancashire Plain to the Port of Liverpool. When construction restarted in the 1790s, after decades pause, as coal was rising in importance due to the progress of the Industrial Revolution. The route was altered at the request of mill owners, with the spur becoming the primary route and Wigan a hub for transport of coal from the Lancashire coal pits to Liverpool and Leeds.


title: Wigan

text: As a mill town, Wigan was an important centre of textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution, but it was not until the 1800s that cotton factories began to spread into the town. This was due to a dearth of fast-flowing streams and rivers in the area, but by 1818 there were eight cotton mills in the Wallgate part of Wigan. In 1818 William Woods introduced the first power looms to the Wigan cotton mills. These mills swiftly became infamous for their dangerous and unbearable conditions, low pay and use of child labour. As well as being a mill town, Wigan was also an important centre for coal production. It was recorded that in 1854 there were 54 collieries in and around the town, about a sixth of all collieries in Lancashire.


title: Wigan

text: In the 1830s Wigan became one of the first towns in Britain to be served by a railway; the line had connections to Preston and the Manchester and Liverpool Railway. This was the first in a network of public and industrial railways which served the town during the period, much of which has since closed. Wigan began to dominate as a cotton town in the late 19th century, and this lasted until the mid-20th century.


title: Wigan

text: In 1911 the town was described as an "industrial town ... occupying the greater part of the township, whilst its collieries, factories ... fill the atmosphere with smoke". After the Second World War there was a boom followed by a slump from which Wigan's textile industry did not recover. While the town's cotton and coal industries declined in the 20th century, the engineering industry did not go into recession. The last working cotton mill, May Mill, closed in 1980.


title: Wigan

text: In 1937, Wigan was prominently featured in George Orwell's "The Road to Wigan Pier" which dealt, in large part, with the living conditions of England's working poor. Some have embraced the Orwellian link, as it has provided the area with a modest tourist base over the years. Others regard this connection as disappointing, considering it an insinuation that Wigan is no better now than it was at the time of Orwell's writing.


title: Wigan

text: Since 2004, the town of Wigan has been divided between five of the twenty-five wards of the metropolitan borough, each returning three councillors to the 75-member borough council. The five wards are: Douglas, Pemberton, Wigan Central, Wigan West and Worsley Mesnes. The metropolitan council provides the local services.


title: Wigan

text: At the Norman Conquest, the settlement of Wigan was part of the larger parish of Wigan, the majority of which was within the hundred of Newton. On 26 August 1246, Wigan was granted a Royal Charter, making the town a free borough. This happened after Salford was granted its Charter in 1230 and before Manchester in 1301. As a borough, Wigan was represented in the Model Parliament from 1295 to 1306 by two burgesses – freemen of the borough. The Charter allowed taxes to be made on transactions made in the borough by tradesmen and permitted the local burgesses to establish a guild that would regulate trade in the borough. Non-members of the guild were not allowed to do business in the borough without permission from the burgesses. It is thought that when the Charter was reconfirmation in 1350 it was changed, allowing the election of a mayor of Wigan for the first time. Three burgesses were elected to be presented to the lord of the manor who would choose one man to be mayor for a year.


title: Wigan

text: There was a rivalry between the lords of the manor and borough. The lord of the manor complained in 1328 that the burgesses were holding private markets, from which he gained no revenue. The rivalry continued in the 16th century, with Bishop Stanley unsuccessfully challenging the right of the burgesses to hold markets, believing it should be the right of the lord of the manor. In 1583 the corporation of the borough attempted to usurp the lord of the manor by laying claim to the lordship. They did so because they felt they were fulfilling the duties of the lord: to improve waste and common land and allowing construction on this land, running courts, and mining coal. A compromise was reached, dividing some power between the two parties.


title: Wigan

text: Under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, the town was reformed and was given a commission of the peace. The borough was divided into five wards with a town council of forty members: two aldermen and six councillors representing each ward. Rectors from the local parish church were the lords of the manor since records began until 2 September 1861. On this date, the borough corporation bought the rights associated with the lordship. The Local Government Act 1888 constituted all municipal boroughs with a population of 50,000 or more as "county boroughs", exercising both borough and county powers. Wigan accordingly became a county borough on 1 April 1889, giving it independence from Lancashire County Council. Ward boundaries were altered, and the county borough was divided into ten wards, each electing one alderman and three councillors. The former area of Pemberton Urban District was annexed to the County Borough of Wigan in 1904, adding four extra wards to the borough. In 1974 the County Borough of Wigan was abolished and its former area became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan. The current Wigan Town Hall was opened by the Princess of Wales in November 1991. In April 2011, the borough along with the entirety of the county of Greater Manchester became one of 10 constituent councils of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.


title: Wigan

text: Wigan is in the Wigan Parliamentary constituency, which was recreated in 1547 after having covered the borough in the late 13th century. From 1640 until the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, the constituency returned two Members of Parliament (MPs); from then on it had only one. Since 1918, the constituency has been represented by the Labour Party. Lisa Nandy is the incumbent Member of Parliament for Wigan, having first been elected in the 2010 general election.


title: Wigan

text: At (53.5448, −2.6318), Wigan lies respectively to the west and north of Hindley and Ashton-in-Makerfield, and is about west of Manchester city centre and north of Warrington.


title: Wigan

text: The historic town of Wigan forms a tightly integrated conurbation along with the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan districts of Orrell and Ince-in-Makerfield; this is connected by ribbon development to Standish and Abram. These areas, together with the West Lancashire town of Skelmersdale, are defined by the Office for National Statistics as the "Wigan Urban Area", with a total population of 166,840. The town is part of the Manchester Larger Urban Zone.


title: Wigan

text: According to the Office for National Statistics, at the time of the United Kingdom Census 2001, Wigan had a population of 81,203. The 2001 population density was , with a 100 to 95.7 female-to-male ratio. Of those over 16 years old, 28.9% were single (never married) and 45.0% married. Wigan's 34,069 households included 29.7% one-person, 38.9% married couples living together, 8.5% were co-habiting couples, and 10.8% single parents with their children. Of those aged 16–74, 38.5% had no academic qualifications, a figure significantly higher than the average for the borough as a whole and England.


title: Wigan

text: In 1931, 9.4% of Wigan's population was middle class compared with 14% in England and Wales, and by 1971, this had increased to 12.4% compared with 24% nationally. Parallel to this slight increase in the middle classes of Wigan was the decline of the working class population. In 1931, 38.7% were working class compared with 36% in England and Wales; by 1971, this had decreased to 33.5% in Wigan and 26% nationwide. The rest of the population was made up of clerical workers and skilled manual workers or other miscellaneous. The slow decrease in the working class goes against the trend for a steeper national decline, reinforcing the perception of Wigan as a working-class town.


title: Wigan

text: At the 2001 UK census, 87.7% of Wigan's residents reported themselves as being Christian, 0.3% Muslim, 0.2% Hindu, and 0.1% Buddhist. The census recorded 6.2% as having no religion, 0.1% had an alternative religion and 5.4% did not state their religion. The town is part of the Anglican Diocese of Liverpool and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Liverpool.


title: Wigan

text: The Grand Arcade shopping centre was opened on 22 March 2007. Construction, which cost £120 million, started in 2005 on the site of Wigan Casino and The Ritz. The area around the pier is planned to be redeveloped, in a multimillion-pound project rebranding the area as the "Wigan Pier Quarter". Plans for the redevelopment of the area have been in place since 2006. Trencherfield Mill, at the centre of the pier development, has been refurbished and used for apartments and office space.


title: Wigan

text: The "Wigan Life Centre" south building opened on 19 September 2011, housing office accommodation for Wigan Council, Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust and NHS Ashton, Leigh and Wigan and a swimming pool and fitness suite. Plans for the 18-storey "Tower Grand", which would have been the tallest building in Wigan, were scrapped after the Financial crisis of 2007–2008. The Galleries Shopping Centre, which houses shops as well as an indoor market, was bought for £8 million by the council in 2018 as part of a regeneration plan due to long-term decline.


title: Wigan

text: The former Westwood power station site was redeveloped in 2006 into the "Westwood Park business park" and features a large amount of Wigan MBC office space. However, plans for a £125 million textiles centre on the site with of manufacturing and research space, in co-operation with the Chinese state-owned trading company Chinamex, fell through.


title: Wigan

text: The Tote chain of bookmakers has its headquarters in Wigan, providing about 300 jobs in the town. H. J. Heinz is amongst the largest food manufacturers in Europe. Their food manufacturing facility in Wigan is the largest food processing facility in Europe. JJB Sports, a former nationwide sports clothing retailer, was founded in Wigan as a sports shop by John Jarvis Broughton (later JJ Bradburn) and was bought and expanded by businessman Dave Whelan. DW Sports Fitness another nationwide sports retailer and fitness business owned by Dave Whelan is headquartered in the town. The bakery chain Galloways Bakers, and William Santus & Co. Ltd, the confectioner and producer of Uncle Joe's Mint Balls, are both based in Wigan.


title: Wigan

text: According to the 2001 UK census, the industry of employment of residents aged 16–74 was 22.4% retail and wholesale, 18.8% manufacturing, 10.2% health and social work, 8.6% construction, 8.0% property and business services, 7.4% transport and communications, 6.5% education, 5.2% public administration, 4.1% hotels and restaurants, 2.7% finance, 0.7% energy and water supply, 0.4% agriculture, 0.1% mining, and 4.8% other. Compared to national figures, Wigan had high rates of employment in retail and wholesale (16.9% in England) and manufacturing (14.8% in England), and relatively low levels of employment in agriculture (1.5%). The census recorded the economic activity of residents aged 16–74, 1.9% students were with jobs, 2.9% students without jobs, 5.9% looking after home or family, 10.2% permanently sick or disabled, and 3.2% economically inactive for other reasons.


title: Wigan

text: There are 125 listed buildings in Wigan out of the 216 listed buildings in the wider borough with nine at Grade II* in the town. As well as being a Grade II* listed structure, Mab's Cross is the only Scheduled Monument in Wigan itself, out of the 12 in Wigan Borough. It is a medieval stone cross that probably dates from the 13th century. There is a legend surrounding the cross that Lady Mabel Bradshaigh, wife of Sir William Bradshaigh, did penance by walking from her home, Haigh Hall, to the cross once a week barefoot for committing bigamy. There is no evidence the legend is true, as there is no record that Lady Mabel was married to anyone other than Sir William Bradshaigh, and several facets of the story are incorrect. Haigh Hall was built in 1827–1840 on the site of a medieval manor house of the same name, which was demolished in 1820. The hall is surrounded by a country park, featuring areas of woodland and parkland. The former town hall was a Grade II listed building.


title: Wigan

text: Designed by John McClean, Mesnes Park was opened in 1878; McClean was chosen to design the park through a competition. There is a pavilion in the centre and a lake. The Heritage Lottery Fund has donated £1.8 million to regenerate the park and Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council added £1.6 million to that figure. The pavilion and grandstand will be restored. The Mesnes Park is north-west of Wigan town centre. It receives two million visitors a year and used to host the Wigan One World Festival.


title: Wigan

text: Wigan's war memorial was unveiled in 1925. Designed by Giles Gilbert Scott and funded through public donations, the monument is now a Grade II* listed building and commemorates the fallen soldiers from the town in the First World War and other conflicts. In 2006, the plaques bearing the names of the dead were stolen; a year later they were replaced through council funding. There is also a memorial on Wigan Lane which marks the site where Sir Thomas Tyldesley died in 1651 at the Battle of Wigan Lane.


title: Wigan

text: The Museum of Wigan Life (formerly Wigan Central Library) opened in 1878. A one-year restoration programme began in 2009 costing £1.9 million. George Orwell used it to research "The Road to Wigan Pier". , the Wigan Pier Quarter is at the heart of a regeneration programme that began in 2006 to revitalise the area. Part of Wigan's industrial heritage, Trencherfield Mill was built in 1907 and is a Grade II listed building. It houses a steam engine over 100 years old which was restored with help from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The quarter is also home to the Wigan Pier Theatre Company, which was founded in 1986. The Face of Wigan, located in the town centre since 2008, is a stainless steel sculpture of a face. Created by sculptor Rick Kirby, The Face stands at and cost £80,000.


title: Wigan

text: The 25,138-capacity DW Stadium, originally called the JJB Stadium, is located in the Newtown area of Wigan and is shared by professional association football club Wigan Athletic with professional rugby league football club Wigan Warriors. The Latics moved into the stadium upon its completion in 1999 from their former home, Springfield Park. The Warriors also moved into the stadium in 1999 from their previous home, Central Park.


title: Wigan

text: Rugby football has been played in the town since 1872. Wigan Warriors, originally called Wigan FC, were formed out of the Wigan Cricket Club to provide a sport to play during the winter months. During the rugby football schism of 1895, Wigan FC, along with the other leading northern clubs at the time, split from the Rugby Football Union to form the Northern Union. Wigan have been a rugby league club ever since and added the Warriors suffix to their name in 1997, shortly after rugby league had switched to a summer sport in 1996. The club are the most successful English club in the sport, winning 22 league championships and 20 challenge cup titles, as well as being crowned world club champions on four occasions. The club currently play in the Super League.


title: Wigan

text: Liverpool Stanley were a professional rugby league club formed in the Highfield area of Wigan in 1902 as Wigan Highfield. The club didn't stay long in Wigan, however, relocating around England several times.


title: Wigan

text: Blackpool Borough briefly played in Wigan at Wigan Athletic's Springfield Park from 1987 to 1988 under the name Springfield Borough. The club is now defunct.


title: Wigan

text: Amateur rugby league is popular in the town, with Wigan St Patricks, Wigan St Judes and Ince Rose Bridge all playing in the National Conference League, the amateur game's top level.


title: Wigan

text: Association football initially struggled to take hold in Wigan with non-league clubs Wigan County (1897–1900) and Wigan Town (1905–1908) both folding within a few years of their creation. Wigan Borough, emerged from the amateur side Wigan United (1896–1914), in 1920 and became the town's first club to play in the Football League when in 1921 they became founder members of the Football League Third Division North. The club left the Football League and folded in 1931. They were replaced a year later by Wigan Athletic, the town's current professional football club.


title: Wigan

text: Wigan Athletic was elected to the Football League in 1978, and the club were promoted to the Premier League, the top division of English football, in 2005. The club were relegated to the Championship in 2013, the same season they won the 2013 FA Cup, defeating Manchester City 1–0 in the final. In 2020, the club went into administration but was later taken over by new owners. After several periods in League One, the club currently play in the Championship.


title: Wigan

text: American Football club Wigan Warhawks compete in the BAFA flag league in the MEC Central division. In 2016, the Warhawks made the playoffs in their rookie season and in 2017 lifted their first silverware, winning the Coventry Cougars Charity Tournament.


title: Wigan

text: Wigan's international-standard swimming pool was demolished in 2008. A new pool opened in September 2011 in the Wigan Life Centre development. The original pool was built in 1966 at a cost of £692,000 (£ as of 2022), Wigan BEST, named Wigan Wasps until 2004, is the town's swimming club. It has produced Olympic standard swimmers, including medal winner June Croft.


title: Wigan

text: Wigan has staged motorcycle speedway and greyhound racing at two venues. The Poolstock Stadium was the home of Wigan Speedway in 1947. The team moved to Fleetwood in 1948, although they raced at Poolstock in 1960. The Woodhouse Lane Stadium was used briefly in the early 1950s when the team was known as the Panthers.


title: Wigan

text: Wigan Sailing Club operates from the Scotman's Flash in Poolstock less than a mile from the centre of the town.


title: Wigan

text: Wigan is also home of the Snake Pit, one of the world's oldest and most important Catch Wrestling schools, founded by professional wrestler Billy Riley.


title: Wigan

text: Wigan & District Motor Club, formed in 1973 by motorsports enthusiasts, runs stage rallies at Three Sisters Race Circuit.


title: Wigan

text: Wigan and Leigh College, a further education college with over 8,000 total students, has three campuses in Wigan: Parsons Walk Centre, Wigan School for the Arts and the Engineering & Construction Centre of Excellence (Pagefield Centre). There is also Wigan UTC, a university technical college, in the town centre. In the wider borough, there are two sixth form colleges, St John Rigby College and Winstanley College. High schools in the town are the Deanery High School, St. John Fisher Catholic High School, St. Peter's Catholic High School and Rose Bridge Academy (in Ince) with more throughout the borough.


title: Wigan

text: Wigan has been well known for its popular music since the days of George Formby Sr and George Formby Jr. It was the birthplace of The Eight Lancashire Lads, a dancing troupe who gave the young Charlie Chaplin his professional debut. One member of the troupe was John Willie Jackson, the "John Willie" to whom George Formby would often refer in his songs. Local bands that gained wider repute include The Verve, The Railway Children, Witness, The Tansads, Limahl of Kajagoogoo and Starsailor. The Verve were one of the most important British rock groups of the 1990s, finding success in the UK and abroad; they toured on the USA's famous Lollapalooza alternative rock festival. The band was formed when the members met at Winstanley College in 1989. In 2021, The Lathums continued the town's popular music tradition by scoring a UK number one with their debut album "How Beautiful Life Can Be".


title: Wigan

text: From 1973 to 1981, Wigan Casino was the location for Wigan's weekly Northern Soul all-nighters. The venue began as a dance hall called Empress Ballroom. Wigan Casino rose to prominence in the 1970s and, in 1978, it was named the "best disco in the world" by "Billboard", an American music magazine. The building was gutted by fire in 1982 and was demolished the following year. This was the inspiration for the 1989 dance record "Wigan" by Baby Ford.


title: Wigan

text: Since 1986, Wigan has hosted an international jazz festival. Wigan remains a centre of popular music for young people, with a number of alternative pubs and clubs in the town centre. The town also had a music collective which existed to promote the scene and help out local musicians and bands; they host activities such as recording sessions and gig advice for young musicians. Throughout the early 1990s, "The Den" was a popular venue for bands with acts such as Green Day heading over to play. A local tradition since the 1980s is Boxing Day fancy dress which, in recent years, has received national media coverage.


title: Wigan

text: From 2002, the annual Haigh Music Festival was held at Haigh Hall, Wigan, which attracted around 7,000 guests each year. In 2011, "Haigh Fest" ended due to funding issues. Since 2012, the free "Wigan Live Festival", held in the town centre, has taken its place.


title: Wigan

text: The town currently has a host of venues putting on gigs for upcoming local bands, including Indiependence, The Boulevard, The Old Courts and The Swinley. NXNW has hosted the annual Wigan Festival of Art, Music and Literature known as North By North Western Festival. The collective is a voluntary non-profit making organisation and the festival takes place at various venues across the town.


title: Wigan

text: Since 2010, the "Wigan Diggers Festival" has taken place on the second Saturday of September. The festival brings together a significant number of socialist organisations and sympathetic musicians to celebrate the life, ideas and influence of the Wigan-born, Gerrard Winstanley, founder of the Diggers (True Levellers) Movement. Recent headliners have included significant Wigan bands "The Railway Children" and "Merry Hell".


title: Wigan

text: Wigan is home to the annual World Pie Eating Championship, usually held at "Harry's Bar" on Wallgate. The competition has been held since 1992 and, in 2006, a vegetarian option was added. Wiganers are sometimes referred to as "pie-eaters"; the name is said to date from the 1926 General Strike when Wigan coal miners were starved back to work before their counterparts in surrounding towns and so were forced to metaphorically eat "humble pie". A local dish is the Pie Barm, also known as a Wigan Kebab, consisting of a buttered bread roll sandwiching a meat and potato pie inside. Wigan is also the home town of the local confectionary Uncle Joe's Mint Balls.


title: Wigan

text: In the television series "Wallace and Gromit", the title characters live at the fictional 62 West Wallaby Street in Wigan.


title: Wigan

text: Wigan lies on the meeting point of two primary A roads, the A49 and A577, which link to the M6, M61 and M58 motorways. Increased traffic in recent years, encouraged by retail development, has resulted in very congested main roads for most of the day. This situation is linked to the town's geography, with river valleys and railway lines impeding road improvement.


title: Wigan

text: There are two railway stations in Wigan town centre: Wigan North Western and Wigan Wallgate. North Western is on the north–south electrified West Coast Main Line. Avanti West Coast provides express trains to London Euston, Birmingham, Lancaster, Carlisle, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Northern operates trains to Preston and Blackpool North and a regular local service along the line to St Helens and Liverpool Lime Street.


title: Wigan

text: Wigan Wallgate serves lines running east and west from Wigan. Northern operate trains to Southport and Kirkby, with connections to Liverpool Central and the Merseyrail system. Frequent local services also operate, in co-operation with TfGM, to Bolton and Manchester, with most trains from Wigan continuing through to other destinations such as Manchester Airport, Stockport and Rochdale. Pemberton station serves the Pemberton area of the town.


title: Wigan

text: A horse tramway was built in 1880 by the "Wigan Corporation" and leased to a succession of private companies to operate services to Pemberton, Aspull and towards Standish. Steam tram operation was introduced quickly, but the network always struggled to pay its way and just after the start of the 20th century Wigan Corporation gradually bought the operating leases and converted the network to electric tramcar operation. However, the network was saddled with a mix of standard gauge and narrow gauge lines, reducing efficiency and increasing costs; the last of the Wigan Corporation Tramways were closed in 1931 to be replaced by buses, which had begun as 'feeder' services to the trams but which had shown themselves to be faster and more flexible. Trolleybuses were operated on a single route from Wigan to Martland Mill from 1925 to 1931.


title: Wigan

text: The town's tram, trolleybus and bus fleet was always painted in crimson and off-white colours, with ornate gold lining out until the outbreak of World War II. The buses were notable in that they never carried exterior advertisements, with the town's crest occupying the space between decks where other bus operators placed adverts; they carried two green lights on the front, to enable the town's ratepayers to see at night which was one of the town's own buses and not one of those of a competitor. At local government reorganisation in April 1974, the Wigan Corporation Transport Department became part of Greater Manchester Transport. The former Corporation tram/bus garage in Melverley Street is still in use by First Greater Manchester.


title: Wigan

text: The current network of local buses, coordinated by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) and departs from the Wigan bus station in the town centre. The bus station reopened in late 2018 after a £15.7 million, two-year redevelopment. Local buses serve Wigan and district with National Express long-distance coach services. Bus companies operating in the area include Stagecoach Manchester, Arriva North West, Diamond Bus North West, Maytree Travel, Wigan Buses and Stagecoach Merseyside & South Lancashire.


title: Wigan

text: Wigan is on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal and is epitomised by Wigan Pier. There is also a branch of the canal from Wigan to Leigh, with a connection to the Bridgewater Canal linking Wigan to Manchester.


title: Outside the Wire

text: Outside the Wire is a 2021 American science fiction action film directed by Mikael Håfström. It stars Anthony Mackie (who also produced) as an android officer who works with a drone pilot (Damson Idris) to stop a global catastrophe. Emily Beecham, Michael Kelly, and Pilou Asbæk also star. The film was released by Netflix on January 15, 2021, and received mixed reviews from critics.


title: Outside the Wire

text: In 2036, a civil war between pro-Russian insurgents and a resistance movement in Ukraine leads the US to deploy peacekeeping forces. During an operation, a team of US Marines and robotic soldiers, called "G.U.M.P."s, are ambushed. Disobeying an order, drone pilot Lt. Harp deploys a Hellfire missile in a drone strike against a suspected enemy launcher, killing two Marines caught in the killzone but saving the lead Lieutenant and remaining 38 Marines who would have been killed by the launcher. As punishment, Harp is redeployed to combat duty at Camp Nathaniel, the US base of operations in Ukraine. Harp is assigned to Capt. Leo, a highly advanced and experimental android super-soldier masquerading as a human officer, a secret known only by Harp and camp commander Col. Eckhart.


title: Outside the Wire

text: Harp and Leo, under the cover of delivering vaccines to a refugee camp, set out on a mission to prevent terrorist Victor Koval from gaining control of a network of Cold War–era nuclear missile silos. On the way, they respond to a reported attack on a friendly aid truck, resulting in a stand-off between the Marines and armed locals. After a G.U.M.P. shoots a local who threw a rock, Leo negotiates a peaceful solution by giving the locals the contents of the aid truck. However, pro-Russian insurgents ambush the locals and Marines, leading to a firefight. This forces Leo and Harp to travel to the refugee camp on foot, while the Marines remain behind to engage the insurgents.


title: Outside the Wire

text: At the refugee compound, Leo and Harp are shot at by an insurgent, who kills some civilians. Leo tortures the insurgent for information, before leaving him to be killed by the gathered mob. Leo and Harp meet their contact Sofiya, a resistance leader. Sofiya leads them to an arms dealer who knows the location of a bank vault containing nuclear launch codes that Koval is looking for. Harp and Leo travel to the bank and are met by Koval's forces, which include several Russian built G.U.M.P.s. Harp rescues a few of the civilians caught in a crossfire between US and Russian G.U.M.P.s, while Leo retrieves the codes but cannot find Koval. A drone strike called in by Eckhart destroys the bank and several buildings, leading the military command to believe Koval dead and Leo destroyed.


title: Outside the Wire

text: Leo reunites with Harp, and tells him that he has his own plans for the codes, and has been manipulating Harp into helping him evade the eye of military command. He knocks out Harp and leaves him on the side of the road where he is picked up by Sofiya's men. Leo meets with Koval to give him the codes but kills him when Koval refuses to give Leo access to a nuclear missile silo. Harp informs Sofiya and Eckhart of Leo's actions, and they realize that Leo is planning to launch the nuclear missiles to strike the United States, in order to prevent them from fighting more wars in the future. Harp volunteers to infiltrate the silo and finds Leo has taken over. He disables Leo but not before Leo initiates the launch of a missile, explaining that his goal was for the android super-soldier program to end in failure. Harp escapes as the silo is destroyed by a drone strike before the missile can launch; destroying Leo in the process and saving the states. With his field work now over with, Harp returns to Camp Nathaniel and receives praise from Eckhart, who informs him that he will be returning to his Stateside drone pilot duties.


title: Outside the Wire

text: The film was announced in June 2019, with Anthony Mackie set to star and produce, and Mikael Håfström to direct. Damson Idris and Emily Beecham joined the cast the following month. Michael Kelly and Pilou Asbæk signed on later. Filming began around Budapest in August 2019, lasting eight weeks.


title: Outside the Wire

text: "Outside the Wire" was released by Netflix digitally on January 15, 2021. The film was the most-watched on the platform over its debut weekend. On April 20, 2021, Netflix reported that the film was watched by 66 million households during its first quarter.


title: Outside the Wire

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 37% based on 90 reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads, "A serviceable sci-fi diversion, "Outside the Wire" packs enough action to keep viewers watching – even if they aren't likely to remember much later." According to Metacritic, which calculated a weighted average score of 45 out of 100 based on 15 critics, the film received "mixed or average reviews".


title: Outside the Wire

text: David Ehrlich of IndieWire gave the film a grade of C and wrote that "...the result of [the screenwriters'] efforts is a high-concept slab of 'Netflix movie of the week' sci-fi that wrestles with some big questions about the future of modern warfare via a conceit that borders dangerously close to "Chappie"."


title: Worms (series)

text: Worms is a series of artillery tactical video games developed by British company Team17. In these games, small platoons of anthropomorphic worms battle each other across a deformable landscape with the objective being to become the sole surviving team. The games are noted for their cartoony animation and extensive use of surrealism and slapstick humour.


title: Worms (series)

text: The game, whose concept was devised by Andy Davidson, was described by the Amiga gaming press as a cross between "Cannon Fodder" and "Lemmings". It is part of a wider genre of turn-based artillery games involving projectile weapons; similar games include "Scorched Earth" (1991), "Gorillas" (1991) and "Artillery Duel" (1983).


title: Worms (series)

text: "Worms" games are turn-based artillery games presented in 2D or 3D environment. Each player controls a team of several worms. During the course of the game, players take turns selecting one of their worms. They use whatever tools and weapons are available to attack and kill the opponents' worms, thereby winning the game. Worms may move around the terrain in a variety of ways, normally by walking and jumping but also by using particular tools such as the "Bungee" and "Ninja Rope", to move to otherwise inaccessible areas. Each turn is time-limited to ensure that players do not hold up the game with excessive thinking or moving. The time limit can be modified in some of the games.


title: Worms (series)

text: Over fifty weapons and tools may be available each time a game is played, and differing selections of weapons and tools can be saved into a "scheme" for easy selection in future games. Other scheme settings allow options such as deployment of reinforcement crates, from which additional weapons can be obtained, and sudden death where the game is rushed to a conclusion after a time limit expires. Some settings provide for the inclusion of objects such as land mines and explosive barrels.


title: Worms (series)

text: When most weapons are used, they cause explosions that deform the terrain, creating circular cavities. The types of playable terrains include "island" (terrain floating on a body of water), or "cave" (cave with water at the bottom and terrain at both top and bottom of the screen that certain weapons such as "Air Strike" cannot go through; this type is not available in 3D versions due to camera restrictions). If a worm is hit with a weapon, the amount of damage dealt to the worm will be removed from the worm's initial amount of health. The damage dealt to the attacked worm or worms after any player's turn is shown when all movement on the battlefield has ceased.


title: Worms (series)

text: The "Worms" series is notable for its extensive variety of weapons. With each new game that is released, weapons are added, though many were removed in the 3D versions for gameplay reasons. As a result, the 2D series has accumulated 60 weapons, and the 3D series 40 weapons.


title: Worms (series)

text: The weapons available in the game range from a standard timed grenade and homing missiles to exploding sheep and the highly destructive Banana Bomb, both of which have appeared in every "Worms" game so far. The "Worms" series has seen weapons such as the iconic Holy Hand Grenade, the Priceless Ming Vase and the Inflatable Scouser.


title: Worms (series)

text: Some of the bizarre weapons in a particular game are based on topical subjects at the time of the game's release. The Mail Strike, for example, which consists of a flying postbox dropping explosive envelopes, is a reference to the postal strikes of the time, while the Mad Cow refers to the BSE epidemic of the 1990s. The French Nuclear Test, introduced in "Worms 2", was updated to the Indian Nuclear Test in "Worms Armageddon" to keep with the times.


title: Worms (series)

text: Other weapons are inside jokes. The MB Bomb, for example, which floats down from the sky and explodes on impact, is a cartoon caricature of Martyn Brown, Team17's studio director. Other such weapons include the "Concrete Donkey", one of the most powerful weapons in the game, which is based on a garden ornament in Andy Davidson's home garden, and an airstrike known in the game as Mike's Carpet Bomb was actually inspired by a store near the Team17 headquarters called "Mike's Carpets".


title: Worms (series)

text: Since "Worms Armageddon", weapons that were intended to aid as utilities rather than damage-dealers were classified as tools. This classification mainly differs in the fact that they do not fall in ordinary weapon crates, and instead appear in toolboxes. Many tools were left in the wrong class for the sake of keyboard-shortcut conveniences. This was resolved in "Worms 3D".


title: Worms (series)

text: Some weapons were inspired from popular films and TV programs, including the Holy Hand Grenade (from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail") and Ninja Rope (named the Bat Rope in early demos of the original game).


title: Worms (series)

text: Andy Davidson is the creator of the original "Worms" video game by Team17. The game "Worms" is based on the 2D classic "Artillery", and originally did not feature worms, but the "Lemmings" from the popular game of the same name.


title: Worms (series)

text: Davidson was working on a program called "Jack the Ripper" for the Amiga personal computer, which allowed him to trawl the residual contents of RAM after applications had been run and quit. In this way, he "ripped" the graphics from Lemmings, and used them while developing his version of "Artillery". The original name of the game was "Lemartillery", and it was created purely as a bit of fun for him and his school friends in 1993. The positive reaction he witnessed encouraged him to develop it further. Knowing he could never commercially release the "Lemmings" characters, he changed them to worms and changed the name of the game to "Total Wormage".


title: Worms (series)

text: Created as an entry for a Blitz BASIC programming competition run by the "Amiga Format" magazine, a cut-down version of the programming language having been covermounted previously. The game at this stage was called "Total Wormage" (possibly in reference to "Total Carnage") and it did not win the competition. Davidson sent the game to several publishers with no success. He took the game to the European Computer Trade Show in London in September 1994, where Team17 had a stand. Team17 made an offer on-the-spot to develop and publish the game. It subsequently evolved into a full commercial game, renamed "Worms", available initially for the Commodore Amiga. As the game was popular, it was regularly released for other platforms.


title: Worms (series)

text: During the development of "Worms 2", Davidson wrote "", a special edition produced for the Amiga. "The Director's Cut" would be the last "Worms" game released for the Amiga.


title: Worms (series)

text: For "Worms 2", the engine was redesigned using Microsoft's DirectX. The game would overhaul the series' visuals, dropping the darker tones of its predecessor and adopting a more cartoonish look. "Worms 2" would be the first game in the series to introduce internet play. The following release, "Worms Armageddon", featured the series' first campaign mode and was initially intended to be released as an expansion pack for "Worms 2". "Armageddon" marked the introduction of "WormNET", an online services which required registration and provided leagues and ranks. A variety of "schemes" have been developed by the WormNET community that are often played instead of the official schemes created by Team17. Some schemes have "rules" agreed to by the players but not enforced by the game itself.


title: Worms (series)

text: "Worms 3D", released in 2003, was the first installment of the series with three-dimensional gameplay. The game features a 'poxel' engine, described as a hybrid of polygons and voxels (the 3D analogues of pixels), which allows for pseudo-realistic terrain deformation similar in style to the 2D games, in which the terrain was represented by a bitmap. The game was followed in 2004 by a spin-off, "", and the fourth-numbered sequel, "", in 2005. In the same year as "Worms 3"'s release, Team17 would announce the cancellation of "Worms Battle Rally", a karting game that would allow players to frag their opponents.


title: Worms (series)

text: "", a handheld game was released in March 2006, returned to the original 2D gameplay and was considered to be a remake of the first "Worms" game. In addition to , a console port of "Open Warfare" would be first released on Xbox Live Arcade in 2007. In turn, the port would be followed by 2009's "", which was directly inspired by "Worms Armageddon", and tries to mimic the game's physics and several other aspects. "Worms 2: Armageddon" would itself be ported to home computers as "Worms Reloaded" in 2010.


title: Worms (series)

text: In an attempt to revamp the series' gameplay, "Worms Revolution" was released in 2012. "Revolution" was a 2.5D game that features a class-based mechanic, with each class having their own advantages and disadvantages. "Worms W.M.D", released in 2016, introduced vehicles to the series.


title: Worms (series)

text: While initial installments were generally praised, later games in the series have been criticized for the lack of meaningful additions. In 2001, Metacritic quoted "Worms World Party" reviews with comments such as "it's virtually nothing more than an expansion pack for "Worms Armageddon"" and, as ActionTrip's Dejan Grbavcic put it: "And I thought that only Eidos was impertinent enough to keep selling the same game with a slightly different name...". In 2007, "IGN" included the "Worms" series in its list of game franchises that have jumped the shark.


title: Worms (series)

text: The "Worms" series is commercially successful. Its combined sales by January 2002 had reached 6 million copies. By May 2014, 60 million copies of the games in the "Worms" franchise had been sold since launching in 1995. By December 2015, the 25th anniversary of Team17, the franchise has sold over 70 million game units. By March 2020, the 25th anniversary of Worms series, the franchise has sold over 75 million game units.


title: Italian Libya

text: Libya (; ) was a colony of the Fascist Italy located in North Africa, in what is now modern Libya, between 1934 and 1943. It was formed from the unification of the colonies of Italian Cyrenaica and Italian Tripolitania, which had been Italian possessions since 1911.


title: Italian Libya

text: From 1911 until the establishment of a unified colony in 1934, the territory of the two colonies was sometimes referred to as "Italian Libya" or Italian North Africa ("Africa Settentrionale Italiana", or ASI). Both names were also used after the unification, with Italian Libya becoming the official name of the newly combined colony. It had a population of around 150,000 Italians.


title: Italian Libya

text: The Italian colonies of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were taken by Italy from the Ottoman Empire during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912, and run by Italian governors. In 1923, indigenous rebels associated with the Senussi Order organized the Libyan resistance movement against Italian settlement in Libya, mainly in Cyrenaica. The rebellion was put down by Italian forces in 1932, after the so-called "pacification campaign", which resulted in the deaths of a quarter of Cyrenaica's population. In 1934, the colonies were unified by governor Italo Balbo, with Tripoli as the capital.


title: Italian Libya

text: During World War II, Italian Libya became the setting for the North African Campaign. Although the Italians were defeated there by the Allies in 1943, many of the Italian settlers still remained in Libya. Libya was administered by the United Kingdom and France until its independence in 1951, though Italy did not officially relinquish its claim until the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty.


title: Italian Libya

text: Italian efforts to colonize Libya began in 1911, and were characterized initially by major struggles with Muslim native Libyans that lasted until 1931. During this period, the Italian government controlled only the coastal areas. Between 1911 and 1912, over 1,000 Somalis from Mogadishu, the then capital of Italian Somaliland, served in combat units along with Eritrean and Italian soldiers in the Italo-Turkish War. Most of the Somali troops remained in Libya until they were transferred back to Italian Somaliland in preparation for the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935.


title: Italian Libya

text: After the Italian Empire's conquest of Ottoman Tripolitania (Ottoman Libya), in the 1911–12 Italo-Turkish War, much of the early colonial period had Italy waging a war of subjugation against Libya's population. Ottoman Turkey surrendered its control of Libya in the 1912 Treaty of Lausanne, but fierce resistance to the Italians continued from the Senussi political-religious order, a strongly nationalistic group of Sunni Muslims. This group, first under the leadership of Omar Al Mukhtar and centered in the Jebel Akhdar Mountains of Cyrenaica, led the Libyan resistance movement against Italian settlement in Libya. Italian forces under Generals Pietro Badoglio and Rodolfo Graziani waged punitive pacification campaigns using chemical weapons, mass executions of soldiers and civilians and concentration camps. One-quarter of Cyrenaica's population of 225,000 people died during the conflict. After nearly two decades of suppression campaigns the Italian colonial forces claimed victory.


title: Italian Libya

text: In the 1930s, the policy of Italian Fascism toward Libya began to change, and both Italian Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, along with Fezzan, were merged into Italian Libya in 1934.


title: Italian Libya

text: In 1923, indigenous rebels associated with the Senussi Order organized the Libyan resistance movement against Italian settlement in Libya. The rebellion was put down by Italian forces in 1932, after the so-called "pacification campaign", which resulted in the deaths of a quarter of Cyrenaica's population of 225,000. Italy committed major war crimes during the conflict, including the use of illegal chemical weapons, episodes of refusing to take prisoners of war and instead executing surrendering combatants, and mass executions of civilians. Italian authorities committed ethnic cleansing by forcibly expelling 100,000 Bedouin Cyrenaicans, almost half the population of Cyrenaica, from their settlements, slated to be given to Italian settlers.


title: Italian Libya

text: The Italian occupation also reduced livestock numbers, killing, confiscating or driving the animals from their pastoral land to inhospitable land near the concentration camps. The number of sheep fell from 810,000 in 1926 to 98,000 in 1933, goats from 70,000 to 25,000 and camels from 75,000 to 2,000.


title: Italian Libya

text: From 1930 to 1931, 12,000 Cyrenaicans were executed and all the nomadic peoples of northern Cyrenaica were forcibly removed from the region and relocated to huge concentration camps in the Cyrenaican lowlands. Fascist regime propaganda proclaimed the camps as hygienic and efficiently run oases of modern civilization. However in reality the camps had poor sanitary conditions and an average of about 20,000 Beduoins, together with their camels and other animals, crowded into an area of one square kilometre. The camps held only rudimentary medical services, with the camps of Soluch and Sisi Ahmed el Magrun with an estimated 33,000 internees having only one doctor between them. Typhus and other diseases spread rapidly in the camps as the people were physically weakened by meagre food rations and forced labour. By the time the camps closed in September 1933, 40,000 of the 100,000 total internees had died in the camps.


title: Italian Libya

text: The colony expanded after concessions from the British colony of Sudan and a territorial agreement with Egypt. The Kufra district was nominally attached to British-occupied Egypt until 1925, but in fact, remained a headquarters for the Senussi resistance until conquered by the Italians in 1931. The Kingdom of Italy at the 1919 Paris "Conference of Peace" received nothing from German colonies, but as a compensation Great Britain gave it the Oltre Giuba and France agreed to give some Saharan territories to Italian Libya.


title: Italian Libya

text: After prolonged discussions through the 1920s, in 1935 under the Mussolini-Laval agreement Italy received the Aouzou strip, which was added to Libya. However, this agreement was not ratified later by France.


title: Italian Libya

text: In 1931, the towns of El Tag and Al Jawf were taken over by Italy. British Egypt had ceded Kufra and Jarabub to Italian Libya on December 6, 1925, but it was not until the early 1930s that Italy was in full control of the place. In 1931, during the campaign of Cyrenaica, General Rodolfo Graziani easily conquered Kufra District, considered a strategic region, leading about 3,000 soldiers from infantry and artillery, supported by about twenty bombers. Ma'tan as-Sarra was turned over to Italy in 1934 as part of the Sarra Triangle to colonial Italy by the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium, who considered the area worthless and so an act of cheap appeasement to Benito Mussolini's attempts at an empire. During this time, the Italian colonial forces built a World War I–style fort in El Tag in the mid-1930s.


title: Italian Libya

text: After the enlargement of Italian Libya with the Aouzou Strip, Fascist Italy aimed at further extension to the south. Indeed Italian plans, in the case of a war against France and Great Britain, projected the extension of Libya as far south as Lake Chad and the establishment of a broad land bridge between Libya and Italian East Africa. During World War II, there was strong support for Italy from many Muslim Libyans, who enrolled in the Italian Army. Other Libyan troops (the Savari [cavalry regiments] and the Spahi or mounted police) had been fighting for the Kingdom of Italy since the 1920s. A number of major battles took place in Libya during the North African Campaign of World War II. In September 1940, the Italian invasion of Egypt was launched from Libya.


title: Italian Libya

text: Starting in December of the same year, the British Eighth Army launched a counterattack called Operation Compass and the Italian forces were pushed back into Libya. After losing all of Cyrenaica and almost all of its Tenth Army, Italy asked for German assistance to aid the failing campaign


title: Italian Libya

text: With German support, the lost Libyan territory was regained during Operation Sonnenblume and by the conclusion of Operation Brevity, German and Italian forces were entering Egypt. The first Siege of Tobruk in April 1941 marked the first failure of Rommel's Blitzkrieg tactics. In 1942 there was the Battle of Gazala when the Axis troops finally conquered Tobruk and pushed the defeated British troops inside Egypt again. Defeat during the Second Battle of El Alamein in Egypt spelled doom for the Axis forces in Libya and meant the end of the Western Desert Campaign.


title: Italian Libya

text: In February 1943, retreating German and Italian forces were forced to abandon Libya as they were pushed out of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, thus ending Italian jurisdiction and control over Libya.


title: Italian Libya

text: The Fezzan was occupied by the Free French in 1943. At the close of World War II, the British and French collaborated with the small new resistance. France and the United Kingdom decided to make King Idris the Emir of an independent Libya in 1951.


title: Italian Libya

text: From 1943 to 1951, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were under British military administration, while the French controlled Fezzan. Under the terms of the 1947 peace treaty with the Allies, Italy relinquished all claims to Libya. There were discussions to maintain the province of Tripolitania as the last Italian colony, but these were not successful.


title: Italian Libya

text: Although Britain and France had intended to dividing the nation between their empires, on November 21, 1949, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution stating that Libya should become independent before January 1, 1952. On December 24, 1951, Libya declared its independence as the United Kingdom of Libya, a constitutional and hereditary monarchy.


title: Italian Libya

text: In 1934, Italy adopted the name "Libya" (used by the Greeks for all of North Africa, except Egypt) as the official name of the colony made up of the three provinces of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan). The colony was subdivided into four provincial governatores ("Commissariato Generale Provinciale") and a southern military territory ("Territorio Militare del Sud" or "Territorio del Sahara Libico"):


title: Italian Libya

text: The general provincial commissionerships were further divided into wards ("circondari"). On 9 January 1939, a decree law transformed the commissariats into provinces within the metropolitan territory of the Kingdom of Italy. Libya was thus formally annexed to Italy and the coastal area was nicknamed the "Fourth Shore" ("Quarta Sponda"). Key towns and wards of the colony became Italian municipalities ("comune") governed by a "podestà".


title: Italian Libya

text: Many Italians were encouraged to settle in Libya during the Fascist period, notably in the coastal areas. The annexation of Libya's coastal provinces in 1939 brought them to be an integral part of metropolitan Italy and the focus of Italian settlement.


title: Italian Libya

text: The population of Italian settlers in Libya increased rapidly after the Great Depression: in 1927, there were just about 26,000, by 1931 44,600, 66,525 in 1936 and eventually, in 1939, they numbered 119,139, or 13% of the total population.


title: Italian Libya

text: They were concentrated on the Mediterranean coast, especially in the main urban centres and in the farmlands around Tripoli, where they constituted 41% of the city's population, and in Benghazi 35%. Settlers found jobs in the construction boom fuelled by Fascist interventionist policies.


title: Italian Libya

text: In 1938, Governor Italo Balbo brought 20,000 Italian farmers to settle in Libya, and 27 new villages were founded, mainly in Cyrenaica.


title: Italian Libya

text: After the campaign of reprisals known as the "pacification campaign", the Italian government changed policy toward the local population: in December 1934, individual freedom, inviolability of home and property, the right to join the military or civil administrations, and the right to freely pursue a career or employment were promised to the Libyans.


title: Italian Libya

text: In a trip by Mussolini to Libya in 1937, a propaganda event was created where Mussolini met with Muslim Arab dignitaries, who gave him an honorary sword (that had actually been made in Florence) which was to symbolize Mussolini as a protector of the Muslim Arab peoples there.


title: Italian Libya

text: In January 1939, Italy annexed territories in Libya that it considered Italy's Fourth Shore with Libya's four coastal provinces of Tripoli, Misurata, Bengazi, and Derna becoming an integral part of metropolitan Italy. At the same time indigenous Libyans were granted "Special Italian Citizenship" which required such people to be literate and confined this type of citizenship to be valid in Libya only.


title: Italian Libya

text: In 1939, laws were passed that allowed Muslims to be permitted to join the National Fascist Party and in particular the Muslim Association of the Lictor ("Associazione Musulmana del Littorio"). This allowed the creation of Libyan military units within the Italian army. In March 1940, two divisions of Libyan colonial troops (for a total of 30,090 native Muslim soldiers) were created and in summer 1940 the first and second Divisions of "Fanteria Libica" (Libyan infantry) participated in the Italian offensive against the British Empire's Egypt: 1st Libyan Division and 2nd Libyan Division.


title: Italian Libya

text: In 1936, the main sectors of economic activity in Italian Libya (by number of employees) were industry (30.4%), public administration (29.8%), agriculture and fishing (16.7%), commerce (10.7%), transports (5.8%), domestic work (3.8%), legal profession and private teaching (1.3%), banking and insurance (1.1%).


title: Italian Libya

text: Italians greatly developed the two main cities of Libya, Tripoli and Benghazi, with new ports and airports, new hospitals and schools and many new roads & buildings.


title: Italian Libya

text: The Fascist regime, especially during Depression years, emphasized infrastructure improvements and public works. In particular, Governor Italo Balbo greatly expanded Libyan railway and road networks from 1934 to 1940, building hundreds of kilometers of new roads and railways and encouraging the establishment of new industries and a dozen new agricultural villages. The massive Italian investment did little to improve Libyan quality of life, since the purpose was to develop the economy for the benefit of Italy and Italian settlers.


title: Italian Libya

text: The Italian aim was to drive the local population to the marginal land in the interior and to resettle the Italian population in the most fertile lands of Libya.


title: Italian Libya

text: The Italians did provide the Libyans with some initial education but minimally improved native administration. The Italian population (about 10% of the total population) had 81 elementary schools in 1939–1940, while the Libyans (more than 85% of total population) had 97.


title: Italian Libya

text: The Libyan economy substantially grew in the late 1930s, mainly in the agricultural sector. Even some manufacturing activities were developed, mostly related to the food industry. Building construction increased immensely. Furthermore, the Italians made modern medical care available for the first time in Libya and improved sanitary conditions in the towns.


title: Italian Libya

text: By 1939, the Italians had built of new railroads and of new roads. The most important and largest highway project was the Via Balbia, an east-west coastal route connecting Tripoli in western Italian Tripolitania to Tobruk in eastern Italian Cyrenaica. The last railway development in Libya done by the Italians was the Tripoli-Benghazi line that was started in 1941 and was never completed because of the Italian defeat during World War II.


title: Italian Libya

text: Classical archaeology was used by the Italian authorities as a propaganda tool to justify their presence in the region. Before 1911, no archeological research was done in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. By the late 1920s the Italian government had started funding excavations in the main Roman cities of Leptis Magna and Sabratha (Cyrenaica was left for later excavations because of the ongoing colonial war against Muslim rebels in that province). A result of the Fascist takeover was that all foreign archaeological expeditions were forced out of Libya, and all archeological work was consolidated under a centralised Italian excavation policy, which exclusively benefitted Italian museums and journals.