title: 26th of July Movement

text: During the struggle against Batista, the M-26-7 portrayed itself as a unifying movement for all Cubans that would bring about democracy and social justice after Batista's overthrow, particularly for women and the Afro-Cuban minority. Despite only making up 10% of the Cuban workforce, women disproportionately participated in the M-26-7 during the Revolution in a number of capacities that included the manufacturing of propaganda and demonstrations and picketing. In addition, the Mariana Grajales was established in September 1958 as an all-female military unit in the M-26-7. After the Revolution, the revolutionary government, controlled by the M-26-7, established the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) to integrate women into Cuban political, social, and economic life and to eradicate prostitution. Castro and the M-26-7 also emphasized racial integration as a key platform of the movement, and after Batista's overthrow, the M-26-7 quickly desegregated public spaces and implemented reforms, such as the redistribution of land and improved government education and medical services, that disproportionately benefited the Afro-Cuban population. However, the M-26-7's racial policies have been criticized for repressing black political organization and for emphasizing pre-Revolution rhetoric that devalues racial consciousness and asserts that racism in Cuba has been ended by the Revolution despite the lingering presence of prejudiced and discriminatory attitudes on the island.


title: 26th of July Movement

text: Since 1959, 26 July has been celebrated as a national holiday in Cuba. Celebrations involving community mobilizations and programs, reenactments, and recitations occur on the local and national level each year to honor the Moncada Barracks attack and the role of the M-26-7 in overthrowing the Batista regime. From 1967 to 1973, three museums were also opened in Santiago, Villa Blanca, and Moncada to commemorate the Moncada Barracks assault and the actions of the M-26-7.


title: 26th of July Movement

text: The flag of the 26th of July Movement is on the shoulder of the Cuban military uniform, and continues to be used as a symbol of the Cuban Revolution.


title: Jötunheimr

text: The terms Jötunheimr (in Old Norse orthography: Jǫtunheimr ; often anglicised as Jotunheim) or Jötunheimar refer to either a land or multiple lands in Nordic mythology inhabited by the jötnar. are typically, but not exclusively, presented in Eddic sources as prosperous lands located to the north and are commonly separated from the lands inhabited by gods and humans by barriers that cannot be traversed by usual means.


title: Jötunheimr

text: is a compound word formed from and , meaning a 'home' or 'world'. When attested in Eddic sources, the word is typically found in its plural form, ('-lands').


title: Jötunheimr

text: are mentioned in three poems of the Poetic Edda. In the beginning of Völuspá, the coming of three women out of marks the end of the Age of Gold for the gods. Towards the end of the poem, in the section describing the onset of Ragnarök, they are mentioned as follows:


title: Jötunheimr

text: In the prose prologue Skírnismál, while sitting on Hliðskjálf, Freyr sees Gerðr, the daughter of Gymir, in and falls in love with her. A further prose section then describes that he his servant Skírnir his horse and sends him to her home at Gymisgarðar in , which he reaches after travelling through wet mountains, a flickering flame and darkness. After his journey, Skírnir meets Gerðr and her family living in a hall and tending to animals in the daylight, protected by a fence and dogs. Upon his return, Freyr asks in a stanza of the tidings from , to which his servant replies that she will meet him in nine nights at Barri.


title: Jötunheimr

text: In Þrymskviða, Loki uses Freyja's fjaðrhamr to fly to Þrymr's home in to find Thor's hammer. The tells the god that he will only return the hammer in exchange for Freyja's hand in marriage. When she refuses to go to , Thor goes in her place, disguised in a wedding veil, with Loki as his handmaid. In this account, Þrymr's estate is presented as wealthy, with him holding dogs on golden leashes and telling that has cattle with golden horns in his stables and many jewels, with Freyja being the only thing he lacked.


title: Jötunheimr

text: are referenced throughout Gylfaginning such as when Gefjun takes four oxen, who were her sons with a , out of the to the north and uses them to plough land out of Sweden, forming Zealand. and are also described as living in such as the father of Night, Narfi and Angrboða, the mother of Fenrir. Beings may also come out from to interact with others, such as the wright who, with the help of his horse Svaðilfari, builds fortifications for the gods to protect them from .


title: Jötunheimr

text: Skáldskaparmál tells of how Loki was once coerced into helping the Þjazi abduct Iðunn who carried her northwards, back to his home in named Þrymheimr. Using Freyja's fjaðrhamr, Loki became a hawk and flew to Þjazi's home while the was away, having rowed out to sea. Upon reaching Iðunn, Loki turned her into a nut and flew away with her in his talons. Þjazi later finds out that Iðunn is gone and he chases after them as an eagle, but is killed as he reached Asgard when he flies into a fire that the gods made.


title: Jötunheimr

text: Later in Skáldskaparmál, Odin rides to on Sleipnir where he meets the made of stone Hrungnir and wagers that no horse there was as good as his. Angered, Hrungnir chases Odin back to Asgard on his horse Gullfaxi whereupon the gods invite him to drink with them. Becoming drunk, he boasts that he will perform a number of acts including carrying Valhall to and abduct both Sif and Freyja. When the gods tired of his bragging, they called for Thor. Hrungnir claimed that as he was unarmed, Thor would gain no honour from killing him and so challenged him to a fight in , at his home Grjótúnagarðar. Thor later meets him there and kills him with Mjölnir, which on its way to Hrungnir, hits the hone that the was fighting with, shattering it. One of the pieces flies into Thor's head, becoming stuck. To remove it, he went to the völva Gróa, who began a to loosen it. While she was singing, Thor told her that he had carried her husband Aurvandil as he travelled southwards out of and that he would soon be with her. In her excitement, she forgot the and the shard remained lodged in Thor's head.


title: Jötunheimr

text: , along with other lands such as Hel, constitute "the otherworld" in Eddic sources that is either journeyed to or from, often leading to a confrontation that forms the basis for the narrative. There is no single location that are found in Nordic cosmology however, instead being travelled to by a number of different directions and often separated from the lands of humans and gods by a barrier that is difficult to cross such as bodies of water, fells, fire or forests.


title: Jötunheimr

text: It has been proposed that rather than being conceived of as a physical land that can be located geographically relative to the regions of the world inhabited by humans, should be seen as connected to other realms by a number of passageways that cannot be traversed by ordinary means, and may seem contradictory from a naturalistic viewpoint in that a single location could be reached from a start point in a number of distinct directions. In this model, the would not be located in these opposing directions, only the passageways by which they are reached. It has been further noted that in Eddic sources, it seems that are located to some extent in all directions and that they can be reached if one travels sufficiently far away from the area inhabited by people. From this, it has been suggested that it may be an intrinsic quality of as the "other" that they cannot be restricted to a single location, however, it is to be noted that not all these lands inhabited by are explicitly described as being .


title: Ron Dennis

text: Ronald Dennis CBE (born 1 June 1947) is a British businessman and Official British Business Ambassador for the United Kingdom. He is best known for his former role as owner, CEO, chairman and founder of McLaren Group. Dennis was removed from his McLaren management roles in 2016 but remained a director of the company and a 25% shareholder until June 2017, when his 37-year association with the company ended.


title: Ron Dennis

text: Dennis started his career as a mechanic, before starting successful junior formulae teams Rondel Racing and then Project Four Racing, which took over the management of the McLaren team in 1980. Between 1981 and 2009, Dennis was the team principal of the McLaren Formula One team, and was instrumental in transforming the outfit into a regular world championship contender. Constructors' and drivers' world championships were won with Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Mika Häkkinen and Lewis Hamilton.


title: Ron Dennis

text: Dennis founded McLaren Automotive, producing supercars such as the McLaren F1, Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, McLaren P1, and McLaren Senna.


title: Ron Dennis

text: In May 2019, Dennis ranked 304th on the "Sunday Times Rich List" with an estimated wealth of £450 million.


title: Ron Dennis

text: Aside from McLaren Group, he is also one of six British business persons to be an official British Business Ambassador for advanced engineering and manufacturing. Dennis is also a main trustee for Tommy's, a miscarriage help charity. He is the Global Consultant for the state-owned China Minsheng Investment Group, the chairman for the UK Summit, and also former owner of Absolute Taste. With interests in foreign trade, Dennis also became Chairman of the British East Asian Council in 2014. Before the merger with LVMH, Dennis was a major shareholder in the luxury watch maker TAG Heuer, along with his business partner, Mansour Ojjeh.


title: Ron Dennis

text: Dennis was born and raised in Woking, England, and studied motor vehicle engineering at Guildford Technical College. He began working for the Cooper Formula One team in 1966 as a mechanic at the age of 18 where he worked alongside lead driver Jochen Rindt. In 1968 Rindt moved to Brabham and took Dennis with him. For the 1969 season Rindt moved to Team Lotus; however, Dennis stayed on, choosing instead to work for Sir Jack Brabham.


title: Ron Dennis

text: When Brabham chose retirement in 1971, Dennis and his colleague Neil Trundle decided to start their own team. In 1971, Rondel Racing was founded in Dennis's native Woking. Money was at a premium though and Dennis was trying to find sponsorship. Through Ron's then girlfriend, who was the daughter of John Phelps, director of Phelps Antique Furniture in Twickenham, one of its regular customers Tony Vlassopulos, a barrister son of a Greek shipowner, was asked to sponsor Rondel.


title: Ron Dennis

text: Vlassopulos asked his friend Ken Grob, chairman of Alexander Howden, insurance brokers in London if he was interested in joining in. Grob said yes on the proviso that his young son Ian Grob could be part of the team, which was agreed. From that moment forward, Vlassopulos became Dennis' first sponsor.


title: Ron Dennis

text: By the mid-1970s the team was enjoying considerable success in Formula Two. Rondel aspired to be more than a customer team, however, and Dennis soon managed to find an additional backer to Grob and Vlassopulos in Motul, to help fund a Rondel F1 car. For 1974, a Ray Jessop-designed F1 car was planned but the energy crisis affected Motul's backing. Ultimately Dennis was unable to obtain sufficient funds to support the F1 venture, so Trundle continued with the Jessop-designed car while Vlassopulos and Grob took over ownership of the team, renamed Token Racing.


title: Ron Dennis

text: Dennis regrouped, forming a Marlboro-backed F2 team for two talented and well-sponsored drivers from Ecuador. In 1975 Dennis founded the Project Three team, and his cars once again became race winners. In 1976 Dennis founded Project Four Racing. This team went on to great success in Formula 2 and Formula 3, winning championships in 1979 and 1980 with Philip Morris (Marlboro) backing. Project Four also participated in the build programme for Procar BMW M1 racing cars. As his business interests became increasingly successful and lucrative, Dennis aspired to return to Formula One, hiring talented designer John Barnard to spearhead the design and development of an innovative new F1 car.


title: Ron Dennis

text: Dennis's return to Formula One was well-timed. The recent poor performance of the former world championship-winning McLaren team had prompted Philip Morris executive John Hogan to initiate a takeover of the outfit by Dennis' Project Four. Effectively a reverse takeover, the team was rebranded as McLaren International with Dennis in control. In addition to hiring Barnard to begin work on the team's revolutionary new carbon fibre composite chassis, the MP4/1, Dennis also successfully recruited the Porsche automobile firm to build the cars' engines from 1984-87.


title: Ron Dennis

text: The 'MP4' designation originally stood for Marlboro Project Four (the MP4/1 design was complete before the merger). After the change of title sponsor in 1997, the same abbreviation was retained, with the 'M' now standing for McLaren. The numbering system was retained until 2017 when it was replaced with 'MCL' following Dennis' departure.


title: Ron Dennis

text: Prior to Dennis's arrival at McLaren in September 1980, the team was going through a particularly uncompetitive stint. The team had last won a grand prix with then defending World Champion James Hunt in and had finished a lowly ninth in the constructors' championship with John Watson and Alain Prost. Even in those early days Dennis recognised the young Frenchman's potential but was unable to prevent him moving to the Renault team for , a season that saw McLaren once again winning races. The year also saw many other teams struggling to duplicate Barnard's revolutionary carbon-fibre chassis.


title: Ron Dennis

text: In 1981 Dennis and his business partners bought out the other McLaren shareholders, Teddy Mayer and Tyler Alexander. In 1983 Dennis persuaded then-Williams backer Mansour Ojjeh to become a partner in McLaren International. Ojjeh invested in Porsche-built turbocharged engines which carried the name of his company, Techniques d'Avant Garde (TAG).


title: Ron Dennis

text: Dennis then persuaded the retired Niki Lauda to return to Formula One for the season and at the season opening South African Grand Prix the double World Champion lined up alongside Watson at the start of the season (only after an F1 drivers strike was averted). By the end of the year both drivers had secured two victories and began with more success with Watson's win in Long Beach. No more victories followed that year but Lauda debuted the Porsche-powered MP4-1E interim chassis at that season's Dutch Grand Prix. By the following race, the Italian Grand Prix, both cars were powered by turbocharged engines: McLaren-Ford had become McLaren-TAG. Convinced by his initial investment, Ojjeh became the major investor in McLaren, taking 60 percent of the shares. By the end of the year, Alain Prost, who had finished second in the 1983 Drivers' Championship with Renault but was fired after publicly criticising the team following the loss of both the Drivers' and Constructors Championships, had been signed to replace Watson. With the experienced Lauda at his side, everything was set for a title challenge in .


title: Ron Dennis

text: In just four years Dennis had turned McLaren from an also-ran team into a front-runner and in 1984, with Barnard's revolutionary MP4/2 car his work was rewarded with 12 wins from 16 races and both drivers' and constructors' titles. Lauda took the drivers' crown by a half-point from his McLaren teammate Prost, with both drivers scoring more than double the tally of the third-placed Elio de Angelis. While neither Lauda nor Prost were the fastest combination of the year, that title going to reigning World Champion Nelson Piquet in his BMW powered Brabham BT53 who claimed 9 pole positions, the McLaren-TAG's reliability was unmatched. As said by Clive James in commentary on the official video review of the Formula One season produced by FOCA: "Anything as fast as the McLarens fell apart, anything as reliable finished later." The following year the situation was reversed and Prost won his first World Championship while Lauda suffered multiple failures and only won one race. At his home race in Austria Lauda announced his permanent retirement from Formula One at the end of the season. McLaren finished eight points ahead of second placed Ferrari that year but the pack was closing and in , McLaren lost out to Williams, although the consistent Prost won the drivers' title. Lauda's replacement was the 1982 World Champion Keke Rosberg, who also retired from Formula One at the end of the 1986 season.


title: Ron Dennis

text: Dennis signed Stefan Johansson from Ferrari for the season to partner Prost, but it was clear that the TAG engine was no longer competitive in the face of increased manufacturer involvement, and so Dennis approached Honda, who were at the time supplying rivals Williams and Lotus. Williams' unwillingness to accept a Japanese driver (Satoru Nakajima) in place of Nigel Mansell, as well as their displeasure with Williams team management for losing the 1986 drivers' title, led Honda to transfer their engine supply to the McLaren team. Dennis made no secret that Johansson's seat was only temporary as his intention had been to sign the Brazilian Ayrton Senna (who had developed a close relationship with Honda while at Lotus in 1987) to partner double champion Prost. Senna was under contract with Lotus for 1987 but Dennis got his man and midway through the year it was announced that Senna would be joining the team, along with Honda, for three years from .


title: Ron Dennis

text: In 1988 McLaren was dominant, winning 15 of the 16 races and taking 15 of the 16 pole positions, and both the drivers' and constructors' titles with no real opposition. The team won the Constructors Championship with a then-record 199 points, 134 in front of second-placed Ferrari while Senna won his first World Championship by three points from Prost (Senna won 8 races to Prost's 7). Dennis had to manage the tension between his drivers. On the second lap of the Portuguese Grand Prix, Senna almost forced Prost into the pit wall at high speed as the Frenchman passed him and took control of the race, Prost going on to win while Senna could only finish sixth. The two had words about the incident after the race.


title: Ron Dennis

text: By mid- it was becoming impossible to pacify the two warring drivers. Following a fall out in the aftermath of a broken promise between them at San Marino where Prost and Senna agreed before the race that whoever got to the first corner in front would not be challenged into that turn. After the restart following Gerhard Berger's crash, Senna outbraked Prost going into the Tosa turn and broke the agreement, something which angered Prost. Senna later denied making the agreement but Prost was backed up by Marlboro's John Hogan who had been with the drivers when the agreement was made. The result was that the two barely talked for the rest of the season. Prost angered Dennis when not only did he announce that he would be joining Ferrari for , thus ending a highly successful six-year stint with McLaren, but also with his public comments about the team and Honda allegedly favoring Senna at the Italian Grand Prix. Dennis then showed his anger in public after Prost, who won the race following an engine failure for Senna, dropped his winners trophy from the podium to the "Tifosi" showing how unhappy he was despite the win. Dennis flung the Constructors winners trophy at Prost's feet and walked off the podium. The "cold war" between the drivers came to a head at the Japanese Grand Prix when, at Honda's home track, Prost and Senna had their infamous collision while fighting for the lead late in the race which took Prost out and led to Senna's disqualification and gave Prost his third World Championship.


title: Ron Dennis

text: It was Prost's actions with the winners trophy in Italy in 1989 that broke Dennis's rule that McLaren had ownership of all trophies won by the team and its drivers, with the drivers free to have replicas made of their race-winning trophies for their own collections if they so desired.


title: Ron Dennis

text: At the start of the 1990s, McLaren continued to dominate the sport with Ayrton Senna taking back-to-back titles in 1990 and 1991. McLaren signed the promising newcomer Mika Häkkinen as a test driver at the end of 1992, but by 1992 Williams was once more in the ascendancy. McLaren was not to win another title for seven years. With the loss of Honda power in 1993, Dennis was left haggling with Ford and Ford's works team Benetton for a supply of competitive engines. A disappointing partnership with Peugeot in 1994 failed to yield the expected results and left Dennis searching to find a fourth engine partner in as many years. In October 1994 he agreed terms with Mercedes-Benz to supply engines from 1995 onwards, an association that continued until 2014.


title: Ron Dennis

text: The first couple of seasons the McLaren-Mercedes relationship was difficult, teething troubles with the engine, chassis challenges, and the driver for 1995 was the ageing Nigel Mansell who did not even fit into the car so Mark Blundell deputised. When a revised chassis was produced Mansell's performances were not successful. Mika Häkkinen gradually assumed leadership of the team but suffered severe head injuries in a crash at the end of the 1995 season, from which he eventually made a complete recovery.


title: Ron Dennis

text: By the mid-1990s Dennis was once more guiding his team towards domination of the sport, and in 1996 he approached Williams's star designer Adrian Newey to become technical director of McLaren. Newey agreed, and in 1998 McLaren took both the drivers' and the constructors' titles with Mika Häkkinen. A second drivers' title followed in 1999, but Ferrari took the constructors' title.


title: Ron Dennis

text: In 2001 Jaguar boss Bobby Rahal attempted to lure Newey from McLaren. Details of how Dennis convinced Newey to stay have remained vague but rumours in the specialist motor racing press suggested a deal allowing the designer to work on racing yachts. In the same year, team leader Mika Häkkinen announced that he was to leave the sport. As a result, Dennis signed Kimi Räikkönen.


title: Ron Dennis

text: In 2005 McLaren remained at the top of the sport following a poor year in 2004. Despite producing their strongest performance for several years and winning more grands prix than any of their rivals, McLaren were narrowly beaten in both championships by the Renault F1 team. A further blow was the announcement that Adrian Newey was to join Red Bull Racing from the start of 2006. In December 2005, McLaren announced a title sponsorship deal with Vodafone estimated to be worth £500 million and the signing of World Champion Fernando Alonso, both to begin in 2007. In the interim, McLaren had a difficult 2006 season, failing to win a race for the first time since the 1996 season. Halfway through the 2006 season, McLaren gave up on perfecting their current car and the team focused on the 2007 MP4-22 car.


title: Ron Dennis

text: The start of the 2007 season saw McLaren a strong challenger for the world championships, with both Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton in contention for the drivers' championship. However, throughout the season the team suffered from the in-fighting between Alonso and Hamilton; Dennis always advocated treating his two drivers equally, however after the Chinese Grand Prix, he said "We weren't racing Kimi, we were basically racing Fernando." "The Times" said his comments "made a nonsense of his claims to be treating his drivers equitably in the World Championship run-in" but the team's insistence on parity until the very final race in Brazil underlined Dennis's core philosophy even if it ultimately lost the team the world championship. The season was also notable for the 2007 Formula One espionage controversy, where the team was judged to have been complicit in the theft and use of Ferrari intellectual property, fined a record $100 million by the FIA, and stripped of all constructor championship points for the season.


title: Ron Dennis

text: Ron Dennis initially owned all of McLaren after buying out the original shareholders after Bruce McLaren's death. In 1983 he offered Mansour Ojjeh the chance to purchase 50% of the team, with McLaren becoming a joint venture with Ojjeh's TAG Group. In 2000, after supplying engines to the team through its Mercedes subsidiary for five years, DaimlerChrysler AG (now Daimler AG) exercised an option to buy 40% of the TAG McLaren Group. Dennis and Ojjeh each retained a 30% share.


title: Ron Dennis

text: In August 2006 it was reported that Daimler was considering acquiring the remaining 60% of the McLaren Group. However, it was announced in January 2007 that the Mumtalakat Holding Company (the sovereign wealth fund of the Kingdom of Bahrain) had purchased 15% each from both Dennis and Ojjeh. In November 2009, Mercedes bought Brawn GP (renaming it Mercedes GP) and announced that McLaren would buy back Daimler's 40% share of the group over a period of two years. The shares were divided evenly between the remaining shareholders, with the Mumtalakat Holding Company owning 50% and Dennis and Ojjeh each owning 25%.


title: Ron Dennis

text: Dennis had stepped down as CEO of McLaren in 2009, handing over the reigns to Martin Whitmarsh, but returned to his post in 2014 under the condition that he would seek investment to take a controlling interest in the company. His attempts to do so ultimately failed. BBC Sport reports that Dennis' relationship with Ojjeh became difficult as early as 2013, culminating in a meeting in October 2016 where Ojjeh discussed Dennis' exit from McLaren. In November 2016 Dennis lost a court case against his fellow shareholders that saw him suspended from his position as chairman. Dennis' contract with McLaren expired in January 2017, and in June 2017 it was announced that he had agreed to sell his remaining shares in both the McLaren Technology Group and McLaren Automotive.


title: Ron Dennis

text: Dennis has held shares and founded numerous companies other than his major commitment, McLaren Technology Group. In 1997, Lyndy Redding handed Dennis a three-page business plan to start their own catering company. In 1998 they formally founded Absolute Taste. Absolute Taste was acquired by One Event Management in December 2016.


title: Ron Dennis

text: Until 2019, Dennis was a business ambassador for the UK Government, working for The Department of International Trade. Dennis also holds the role as Global Adviser for Chinese investment group, Minsheng Investment.


title: Ron Dennis

text: Mansour Ojjeh and TAG Group purchased luxury watchmaker, Heuer, forming the present TAG Heuer. Ojjeh sold a significant stake in the business to Dennis, and both business partners sold the watchmaker in 1999 to LVMH.


title: Ron Dennis

text: In 2007, Dennis founded a charity, "Dreamchasing", which aims to "help young people achieve their aspirations and, through their successes, to become inspirational role models for others". His charity's first operation was a sponsorship programme for families in Ethiopia, which, supporting the Fida International charity, has assisted over 40 families out of poverty, additionally paying education costs to some.


title: Ron Dennis

text: "Ronspeak" is the term coined for the style of speech used by Dennis, and has become a well-used phrase in the F1 paddock to describe sentences of unneeded complexity; Dennis is renowned for his verbose, evasive and cautious answers to questions from Formula One journalists.


title: Ron Dennis

text: While acknowledging that the term has been used to criticise Dennis, the former editor-in-chief of "F1 Racing", Matt Bishop, argues that "Ronspeak" is not a vice; rather, it is informative and accurate. Dennis, in describing Fernando Alonso's contribution to the McLaren team's development, said his experience and ability "[prevented] an F1 team from going down [time wasting] technical cul-de-sacs – and as a result, car-developmental progress becomes more linear." Bishop described this as a prime example of Ronspeak, hailing it as "logical, informative and insightful. [But also] careful ... in that what it doesn't do is compare Alonso's exceptional all-round ability with that of his predecessors."


title: Ron Dennis

text: On 15 February 2008 Dennis announced his separation and later divorce from his wife of 22 years, Lisa, with whom he has three children.


title: Ron Dennis

text: He is a Conservative Party donor. In the period between 22 April 2005 and 16 June 2011 the Conservative Party accepted £126,200 in donations from Ron Dennis. During the 2015 United Kingdom general election campaign, Dennis was a signatory to a letter to "The Daily Telegraph" which praised the party's economic policies and claimed that "a change in course will threaten jobs and deter investment".


title: Coffee Meets Bagel

text: Coffee Meets Bagel was created by three sisters: Arum, Dawoon, and Soo Kang. Arum first had the idea for the app in 2011, and the sisters launched the app in New York City on April 17, 2012. Coffee Meets Bagel then launched in Boston on May 10, 2012 and in San Francisco on October 24, 2012.


title: Coffee Meets Bagel

text: In September 2012, the company announced that it had raised seed funding of $600,000 led by Lightbank, with Match.com co-founder Peng T. Ong also investing.


title: Coffee Meets Bagel

text: In January 2015, Coffee Meets Bagel was featured on "Shark Tank," where the sisters sought a $500,000 investment in exchange for 5% of the company. They turned down Mark Cuban's hypothetical about if they would accept a $30 million buy-out and did not reach an agreement with anyone.


title: Coffee Meets Bagel

text: In February 2015, the company announced a $7.8 million Series A financing round led by existing investor DCM Ventures.


title: Coffee Meets Bagel

text: In February 2019, Coffee Meets Bagel acknowledged that an attacker had stolen "a partial list of user details, specifically names and email addresses", between late 2017 and mid-2018. Outside reporting indicated that as many as 6,174,513 accounts may have been affected, and that other details including age and gender may have been taken as well.


title: Coffee Meets Bagel

text: Features of the Coffee Meets Bagel app include limiting the number of profiles users can interact with each day and offering ice-breaker information for matches. In 2020, Coffee Meets Bagel added video virtual speed dating in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Longship

text: Longships were a type of specialised Scandinavian warships that have a long history in Scandinavia, with their existence being archaeologically proven and documented from at least the fourth century BC. Originally invented and used by the Norsemen (commonly known as the Vikings) for commerce, exploration, and warfare during the Viking Age, many of the longship's characteristics were adopted by other cultures, like Anglo-Saxons, and continued to influence shipbuilding for centuries.


title: Longship

text: The longship's design evolved over many centuries, and continuing up until the sixth century with clinker-built ships like Nydam. The longship appeared in its complete form between the ninth and 13th centuries. The character and appearance of these ships have been reflected in Scandinavian boatbuilding traditions to the present day. The particular skills and methods employed in making longships are still used worldwide, often with modern adaptations. They were all made out of wood, with cloth sails (woven wool) and had several details and carvings on the hull.


title: Longship

text: The longships were characterized as graceful, long, narrow and light, with a shallow-draft hull designed for speed. The ship's shallow draft allowed navigation in waters only one meter deep and permitted arbitrary beach landings, while its light weight enabled it to be carried over portages or used bottom-up for shelter in camps. Longships were also double-ended, the symmetrical bow and stern allowing the ship to reverse direction quickly without a turn around; this trait proved particularly useful at northern latitudes, where icebergs and sea ice posed hazards to navigation. Longships were fitted with oars along almost the entire length of the boat itself. Later versions had a rectangular sail on a single mast, which was used to replace or augment the effort of the rowers, particularly during long journeys. The average speed of Viking ships varied from ship to ship, but lay in the range of and the maximum speed of a longship under favourable conditions was around . One longship in particular can be seen in Oslo, Norway in The Viking Ship museum.


title: Longship

text: The Viking longships were powerful naval weapons in their time and were highly valued possessions. Archaeological finds show that the Viking ships were not standardized. Ships varied from designer to designer and place to place, and often had regional characteristics. For example, the choice of material was mostly dictated by the regional forests, such as pine from Norway and Sweden, and oak from Denmark. Moreover, each Viking longship had particular features adjusted to the natural conditions under which it was sailed.


title: Longship

text: They were often communally owned by coastal farmers or commissioned by kings in times of conflict, in order to quickly assemble a large and powerful naval force. While longships were used by the Norse in warfare, they were mostly used as troop transports, not warships. In the tenth century, longships would sometimes be tied together in offshore battles to form a steady platform for infantry warfare. During the ninth century peak of the Viking expansion, large fleets set out to attack the degrading Frankish empire by attacking up navigable rivers such as the Seine. Rouen was sacked in 841, the year after the death of Louis the Pious, a son of Charlemagne. Quentovic, near modern Étaples, was attacked in 842 and 600 Danish ships attacked Hamburg in 845. In the same year, 129 ships returned to attack up the Seine. They were called "dragonships" by enemies such as the English because they had a dragon-shaped bow. The Norse had a strong sense of naval architecture, and during the early medieval period they were advanced for their time.


title: Longship

text: Longships can be classified into a number of different types, depending on size, construction details, and prestige. The most common way to classify longships is by the number of rowing positions on board.


title: Longship

text: The Karvi (or "karve") is the smallest vessel that is considered a longship. According to the tenth-century Gulating Law, a ship with 13 rowing benches is the smallest ship suitable for military use. A ship with 6 to 16 benches would be classified as a Karvi. These ships were considered to be "general purpose" ships, mainly used for fishing and trade, but occasionally commissioned for military use. While most longships held a length to width ratio of 7:1, the Karvi ships were closer to 9:2.


title: Longship

text: The Gokstad Ship is a famous Karvi ship, built around the end of the ninth century, excavated in 1880 by Nicolay Nicolaysen. It was approximately long with 16 rowing positions.


title: Longship

text: The "" (or "snekke") was typically the smallest longship used in warfare and was classified as a ship with at least 20 rowing benches. A typical snekkja might have a length of , a width of , and a draught of only . It would carry a crew of around 41 men (40 oarsmen and one cox).


title: Longship

text: Snekkjas were one of the most common types of ship. According to Viking lore, Canute the Great used 1,200 in Norway in 1028.


title: Longship

text: The Norwegian snekkjas, designed for deep fjords and Atlantic weather, typically had more draught than the Danish ships designed for low coasts and beaches. Snekkjas were so light that they had no need of portsthey could simply be beached, and even carried across a portage.


title: Longship

text: The snekkjas continued to evolve after the end of the Viking age, with later Norwegian examples becoming larger and heavier than Viking age ships. A modern version is still being used in Scandinavia, and is now called "" in Swedish and "" in Norwegian.


title: Longship

text: "Skeid" ("skeið"), meaning 'slider' (referring to a sley, a weavers reed, or to a sheath that a knife slides into) and probably connoting 'speeder' (referring to a running race) (Zoega, Old Icelandic Dictionary). These ships were larger warships, consisting of more than 30 rowing benches. Ships of this classification are some of the largest (see Busse) longships ever discovered. A group of these ships were discovered by Danish archaeologists in Roskilde during development in the harbour-area in 1962 and 1996–97. The ship discovered in 1962, "Skuldelev 2" is an oak-built Skeid longship. It is believed to have been built in the Dublin area around 1042. "Skuldelev 2" could carry a crew of some 70–80 and measures just less than in length. They had around 30 rowing chairs. In 1996–97 archaeologists discovered the remains of another ship in the harbour. This ship, called the "Roskilde 6", at is the longest Viking ship ever discovered and has been dated to around 1025. "Skuldelev 2" was replicated as "Seastallion from Glendalough" at the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde and launched in 2004. In 2012, a long skeid longship named "Draken Harald Hårfagre" was launched in Norway. It was built from scratch by experts, using original Viking and experimental archaeological methods.


title: Longship

text: "Drakkar", or "dreki" 'dragon', are the type of ship, of thirty rowing benches and upwards that are only known from historical sources, such as the 13th-century "Göngu-Hrólfs saga". Here, the ships are described as most unusual, elegant, ornately decorated, and used by those who went raiding and plundering. These ships were likely skeids that differed only in the carvings of menacing beasts, such as dragons and snakes, carried on the prow of the ship.


title: Longship

text: The earliest mentioned drakkar was the ship of unstated size owned by Harald Fairhair in the tenth century. The first drakkar ship whose size was mentioned in the source was Olav Tryggvason's thirty-room Tranin, built at Nidaros circa 995. By far the most famous in this period was his later ship the Ormrinn Langi ('Long Serpent') of thirty-four rooms, built over the winter of 999 to 1000. No true dragon ship, as described in the sagas, has been found by archaeological excavation.


title: Longship

text: The city seal of Bergen, Norway, created in 1299, depicts a ship with a dragon's head at either end, which might be intended to represent a drakkar ship.


title: Longship

text: The first longships can trace their origin back to between 500 and 300 BC, when the Danish Hjortspring boat was built. It was fastened with cord, not nailed, and paddled, not rowed. It had rounded cross sections and although long was only wide. The rounded sections gave maximum displacement for the lowest wetted surface area, similar to a modern narrow rowing skiff, so were very fast but had little carrying capacity. The shape suggests mainly river use. Unlike later boats, it had a low bow and stern. A distinctive feature is the two-prong cutaway bow section.


title: Longship

text: The earliest rowed true longship that has been found is the Nydam ship, built in Denmark around 350 AD. It also had very rounded underwater sections but had more pronounced flare in the topsides, giving it more stability as well as keeping more water out of the boat at speed or in waves. It had no sail. It was of lapstrake construction fastened with iron nails. The bow and stern had slight elevation. The keel was a flattened plank about twice as thick as a normal strake plank but still not strong enough to withstand the downwards thrust of a mast.


title: Longship

text: The Sutton Hoo longship, sometimes referred to as the ghost ship of the Wulflings, is about maximum beam and built about 625 AD. It is associated with the Saxons. The ship was crushed by the weight of soil when buried but most details have been reconstructed. The ship was similar in hull section to the Nydam ship with flared topsides. Compared to later longships, the oak planks are wide—about including laps, with less taper at bow and stern. Planks were thick. The 26 heavy frames are spaced at in the centre. Each frame tapers from the turn of the bilge to the inwale. This suggests that knees were used to brace the upper two or three topside planks but have rotted away. The hull had a distinctive leaf shape with the bow sections much narrower than the stern quarters. There were nine wide planks per side. The ship had a light keel plank but pronounced stem and stern deadwood. The reconstruction suggests the stern was much lower than the bow. It had a steering oar to starboard braced by an extra frame. The raised prow extended about above the keel and the hull was estimated to draw when lightly laden. Between each futtock the planks were lapped in normal clinker style and fastened with six iron rivets per plank. There is no evidence of a mast, sail, or strengthening of the keel amidships but a half-sized replica, the Soe Wylfing, sailed very well with a modest sail area.


title: Longship

text: Sails started to be used from possibly the eighth century. The earliest had either plaited or chequered pattern, with narrow strips sewn together.


title: Longship

text: In the late eighth century, the Kvalsund ship was built. It is the first with a true keel. Its cross sectional shape was flatter on the bottom with less flare to the topsides. This shape is far more stable and able to handle rougher seas. It had the high prow of the later longships. After several centuries of evolution, the fully developed longship emerged some time in the middle of the ninth century. Its long, graceful, menacing head figure carved in the stern, such as the Oseburg ship, echoed the designs of its predecessors. The mast was now square in section and located toward the middle of the ship, and could be lowered and raised. The hull's sides were fastened together to allow it to flex with the waves, combining lightness and ease of handling on land. The ships were large enough to carry cargo and passengers on long ocean voyages, but still maintained speed and agility, making the longship a versatile warship and cargo carrier.


title: Longship

text: The Viking shipbuilders had no written diagrams or standard written design plan. The shipbuilder pictured the longship before its construction, based on previous builds, and the ship was then built from the keel up. The keel and stems were made first. The shape of the stem was based on segments of circles of varying sizes. The keel was an inverted T shape to accept the garboard planks. In the longships the keel was made up of several sections spliced together and fastened with treenails. The next step was building the strakes—the lines of planks joined endwise from stem to stern. Nearly all longships were clinker (also known as lapstrake) built, meaning that each hull plank overlapped the next. Each plank was hewn from an oak tree so that the finished plank was about thick and tapered along each edge to a thickness of about . The planks were radially hewn so that the grain is approximately at right angles to the surface of the plank. This provides maximum strength, an even bend and an even rate of expansion and contraction in water. This is called in modern terms quartersawn timber, and has the least natural shrinkage of any cut section of wood. The plank above the turn of the bilge, the "meginhufr", was about thick on very long ships, but narrower to take the strain of the crossbeams. This was also the area subject to collisions. The planks overlapped by about and were joined by iron rivets. Each overlap was stuffed with wool or animal hair or sometimes hemp soaked in pine tar to ensure water tightness. Amidships, where the planks are straight, the rivets are about apart, but they were closer together as the planks sweep up to the curved bow and stern. There is considerable twist and bend in the end planks. This was achieved by use of both thinner (by 50%) and narrower planks. In more sophisticated builds, forward planks were cut from natural curved trees called reaction wood. Planks were installed unseasoned or wet. Partly worked stems and sterns have been located in bogs. It has been suggested that they were stored there over winter to stop the wood from drying and cracking. The moisture in wet planks allowed the builder to force the planks into a more acute bend, if need be; once dry it would stay in the forced position. At the bow and the stern builders were able to create hollow sections, or compound bends, at the waterline, making the entry point very fine. In less sophisticated ships short and nearly straight planks were used at the bow and stern. Where long timber was not available or the ship was very long, the planks were butt-joined, although overlapping scarf joints fixed with nails were also used.


title: Longship

text: As the planks reached the desired height, the interior frame (futtocks) and cross beams were added. Frames were placed close together, which is an enduring feature of thin planked ships, still used today on some lightweight wooden racing craft such as those designed by Bruce Farr. Viking boat builders used a spacing of about . Part of the reason for this spacing was to achieve the correct distance between rowing stations and to create space for the chests used by Norse sailors as thwarts (seats). The bottom futtocks next to the keel were made from natural L-shaped crooks. The upper futtocks were usually not attached to the lower futtocks to allow some hull twist. The parts were held together with iron rivets, hammered in from the outside of the hull and fastened from the inside with a rove (washers). The surplus rivet was then cut off. A ship normally used about of iron nails in a long ship. In some ships the gap between the lower uneven futtock and the lapstrake planks was filled with a spacer block about long. In later ships spruce stringers were fastened lengthwise to the futtocks roughly parallel to the keel. Longships had about five rivets for each yard () of plank. In many early ships treenails (trenails, trunnels) were used to fasten large timbers. First, a hole about wide hole was drilled through two adjoining timbers, a wooden pegs inserted which was split and a thin wedge inserted to expand the peg. Some treenails have been found with traces of linseed oil suggesting that treenails were soaked before the pegs were inserted. When dried the oil would act as a semi-waterproof weak filler/glue.


title: Longship

text: The longship's narrow deep keel provided strength beneath the waterline. A typical size keel of a longer ship was amidships, tapering in width at the bow and stern. Sometimes there was a false outer keel to take the wear while being dragged up a beach. These large timbers were shaped with both adze and broadaxe. At the bow the cut water was especially strong, as longboats sailed in ice strewn water in spring. Hulls up to wide gave stability, making the longship less likely to tip when sailed. The greater beam provided more moment of leverage by placing the crew or any other mobile weight on the windward side. Oceangoing longships had higher topsides about a high to keep out water. Higher topsides were supported with knees with the long axis fastened to the top of the crossbeams. The hull was waterproofed with animal hair, wool, hemp or moss drenched in pine tar. The ships would be tarred in the autumn and then left in a boathouse over the winter to allow time for the tar to dry. Evidence of small scale domestic tar production dates from between 100 AD and 400 AD. Larger industrial scale tar pits, estimated to be capable of producing up to 300 litres of tar in a single firing have been dated to between 680 AD and 900 AD. A drain plug hole about was drilled in the garboard plank on one side to allow rain water drainage.


title: Longship

text: The oars did not use rowlocks or thole pins but holes cut below the gunwale line. To keep seawater out, these oar holes were sealed with wooden disks from the inside, when the oars were not in use. The holes were also used for belaying mooring lines and sail sheets. At the bow the forward upper futtock protruded about above the sheerline and was carved to retain anchor or mooring lines.


title: Longship

text: Analysis of timber samples from Viking long boats shows that a variety of timbers were used, but there was strong preference for oak, a tree associated with Thor in Viking mythology. Oak is a heavy, durable timber that can be easily worked by adze and axe when green (wet/unseasoned). Generally large and prestigious ships were made from oak. Other timber used were ash, elm, pine, spruce and larch. Spruce is light and seems to have been more common in later designs for internal hull battens (stringers). Although it is used for spars in modern times there is as yet no evidence the Vikings used spruce for masts. All timber was used unseasoned. The bark was removed by a bark spade. This consisted of a wooden handle with a T crossbar at the upper end, fitted with a broad chisel-like cutting edge of iron. The cutting edge was wide and long with a neck where the handle was inserted. It appears that in cold winters wood work stopped and partly completed timber work was buried in mud to prevent it drying out. Timber was worked with iron adzes and axes. Most of the smoothing was done with a side axe. Other tools used in woodwork were hammers, wedges, drawknives, planes and saws. Iron saws were probably very rare. The Domesday Book in England (1086 AD) records only 13 saws. Possibly these were pit saws and it is uncertain if they were used in longship construction.


title: Longship

text: Even though no longship sail has been found, accounts and depictions verify that longships had square sails. Sails measured perhaps across, and were made of rough wool cloth. Unlike in knarrs, a longship sail was not stitched.


title: Longship

text: The sail was held in place by the mast which was up to tall. Its base was about . The mast was supported by a large wooden maststep called a "kerling" ("old woman" in Old Norse) that was semicircular in shape. (Trent) The kerling was made of oak, and about wide and up to long in the larger ships. It usually heavily tapered into a joint with the internal keelson, although keelsons were by no means universal. The kerling lay across two strong frames that ran width-wise above the keel in the centre of the boat. The kerling also had a companion: the "mast fish," a wooden timber above the kerling just below deck height that provided extra help in keeping the mast erect. It was a large wooden baulk of timber about long with a slot, facing aft to accommodate the mast as it was raised. This acted as a mechanism to catch and secure the mast before the stays were secured. It was an early form of mast partner but was aligned fore and aft. In later longships there is no mast fish-the mast partner is an athwartwise beam similar to more modern construction. Most masts were about half the length of the ship so that it did not project beyond the hull when unstepped. When lowered the mast foot was kept in the base of the mast step and the top of the mast secured in a natural wooden crook about high, on the port side, so that it did not interfere with steering on the starboard side.


title: Longship

text: There is a suggestion that the rig was sometimes used in a lateen style with the top cross spar dipped at an angle to aid sailing to windward i.e. the spar became the luff. There is little or no evidence to support this theory. No explanation is offered as to how this could be accomplished with a square sail as the lower reefed portion of the sail would be very bulky and would prevent even an approximation of the laminar flow necessary for windward sailing. There is no evidence of any triangular sails in use. Masts were held erect by side stays and possibly fore and aft stays. Each side stay was fitted at it lower end with a toggle. There were no chain plates. The lower part of the side stay consisted of ropes looped under the end of a knee of upper futtock which had a hole underneath. The lower part of the stay was about long and attached to a combined flat wooden turnblock and multi V jamb cleat called an angel (maiden, virgin). About four turns of rope went between the angel and the toggle to give the mechanical advantage to tighten the side stays. At each turn the v-shape at the bottom of the angels "wings" jambed the stay preventing slippage and movement.


title: Longship

text: Early long boats used some form of steering oar but by the tenth century the side rudder (called a steerboard, the source for the etymology for the word starboard itself) was well established. It consisted of a length of timber about long. The upper section was rounded to a diameter of about . The lower blade was about . The steerboard on the Gokstad ship in the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, Norway, is about wide, completely flat inboard and with about a maximum width at the center of the foil. The head of the rudder shaft had two square holes about apart. When the rudder was in its normal position the tiller was inserted in the upper hole so that the tiller faced athwartwise. The shaft was attached to the gunwale by a U shaped joint. Near the stern, about halfway down the starboard topsides, was a rounded wooden block about in diameter and high, with a central hole for a rope. This corresponded to a hole in the midsection of the rudder blade. From the outside the rope ran through the blade, through the round block and topsides and was fastened inside the hull. The flexibility of the hemp rope allowed the blade to pivot. When beached or in shallow water the tiller was moved to the lower hole, the blade rope was slackened and the rudder head pulled up so the rudder could operate in shallow waters. Modern facsimiles are reported to steer quite well but require a very large amount of physical effort compared to the modern fore and aft tiller.


title: Longship

text: Longships for the most part used two different kinds of anchors. The most common was a natural wood yoke formed from a tree branch. The weight was supplied by a stone passing laterally through the U of the yoke. The top of the yoke was closed by either a length of hardwood or a curved iron head, which kept the stone in place. One side of the head stuck out so it could dig into mud or sand. In the Ladby ship burial in Denmark, a unique iron anchor has been found, resembling the modern fisherman's anchor but without the crossbar. The cross bar may have rusted away. This anchor—made of Norwegian iron—has a long iron chain to which the hemp warp was attached. This construction has several advantages when anchored in deep waters or in rough seas.


title: Longship

text: At the height of Viking expansion into Dublin and Jorvik 875–954 AD the longship reached a peak of development such as the Gokstad ship 890. Archaeological discoveries from this period at Coppergate, in York, show the shipwright had a large range of sophisticated woodwork tools. As well as the heavy adze, broad axe, wooden mallets and wedges, the craftsman had steel tools such as anvils, files, snips, awls, augers, gouges, draw knife, knives, including folding knives, chisels and small long bow saws with antler handles. Edged tools were kept sharp with sharpening stones from Norway. One of the most sophisticated tools was a diameter twist drill bit, perfect for drilling holes for treenails. Simple mechanical pole wood lathes were used to make cups and bowls.


title: Longship

text: Since the discovery of the original longships in the 1800s, many boat builders have built Viking ship replicas. However, most have not been able to resist the temptation to use more modern techniques and tools in the construction process. In 1892–93, a full-size near-replica of the Gokstad ship, the Viking, was built by the Norwegian Magnus Andersen in Bergen. It was used to sail the Atlantic. It had a deeper keel with a draught to stiffen the hull, a range of non-authentic triangular sails to help performance, and big fenders on each gunwale filled with reindeer hair to give extra buoyancy in case of swamping. The skipper recorded that the keel bowed upwards as much as and the gunwale flexed inwards as much as in heavy seas. A half-size replica of the Sutton Hoo longship has been equipped with a substantial sail, despite the original having oar power only. They took a year to make.


title: Longship

text: During the Viking Age (900–1200 AD) Vikings were the dominant seafarers of the North Atlantic. One of the keys to their success was the ability to navigate skillfully across the open waters. The Vikings were experts in judging speed and wind direction, and in knowing the current and when to expect high and low tides. Viking navigational techniques are not well understood, but historians postulate that the Vikings probably had some sort of primitive astrolabe and used the stars to plot their course.


title: Longship

text: During an excavation of a Viking Age farm in southern Greenland part of a circular disk with carvings was recovered. The discovery of the so-called Viking Sundial suggested a hypothesis that it was used as a compass. Archaeologists found a piece of stone and a fragment of wooden disk both featuring straight and hyperbolic carvings. It turned out that the two items had been parts of sundials used by the Vikings as a compass during their sea-crossings along latitude 61 degrees North.


title: Longship

text: Archaeologists have found two devices which they interpret as navigation instruments. Both appear to be sundials with gnomon curves etched on a flat surface. The devices are small enough to be held flat in the hand at diameter. A wooden version dated to about 1000 AD was found in Greenland. A stone version was also found at Vatnahverfi, Greenland. By looking at the place where the shadow from the rod falls on a carved curve, a navigator is able to sail along a line of latitude. Both gnomon curve devices show the curve for 61° north very prominently. This was the approximate latitude that the Vikings would have sailed along to get to Greenland from Scandinavia. The wooden device also has north marked and had 32 arrow heads around the edge that may be the points of a compass. Other lines are interpreted as the solstice and equinox curves. The device was tested successfully, as a sun compass, during a 1984 reenactment when a longship sailed across the North Atlantic. It was accurate to within ± 5°.


title: Longship

text: The Danish archaeologist Thorkild Ramskou suggested in 1967 that the "sun-stones" referred to in some sagas might have been natural crystals capable of polarizing skylight. The mineral cordierite occurring in Norway has the local name "Viking's Compass." Its changes in colour would allow determining the sun's position (azimuth) even through an overcast or foggy horizon. The sunstones are doubly refracting, meaning that objects viewed through them can be seen as double because of positively charged calcium ions and negatively charged carbonate ions. When looking at the sun the stone, it will project two overlapping shadows on the crystal. The opacities of these shadows will vary depending on the sunstone's direction to the sun. When the two projected shapes have exactly the same opacity, it means the stone's long side is facing directly toward the sun. Since the stone uses light polarization, it works the best when the sun is at lower altitudes, or closer to the horizon. It makes sense that Norsemen were able to make use of sunstones, since much of the area they travelled and explored was near polar, where the sun is very close to the horizon for a good amount of the year. For example, in the Vinland sagas we see long voyages to North America, the majority sailed at over 61 degrees north.


title: Longship

text: An ingenious navigation method is detailed in "Viking Navigation Using the Sunstone, Polarized Light and the Horizon Board" by Leif K. Karlsen. To derive a course to steer relative to the sun direction, he uses a sun-stone (solarsteinn) made of Iceland spar (optical calcite or silfurberg), and a "horizon-board." The author constructed the latter from an Icelandic saga source, and describes an experiment performed to determine its accuracy. Karlsen also discusses why on North Atlantic trips the Vikings might have preferred to navigate by the sun rather than by stars, as at high latitudes in summer the days are long and the nights short.


title: Longship

text: A Viking named Stjerner Oddi compiled a chart showing the direction of sunrise and sunset, which enabled navigators to sail longships from place to place with ease. Almgren, an earlier Viking, told of another method: "All the measurements of angles were made with what was called a 'half wheel' (a kind of half sun-diameter which corresponds to about sixteen minutes of arc). This was something that was known to every skipper at that time, or to the long-voyage pilot or "kendtmand" ('man who knows the way') who sometimes went along on voyages ... When the sun was in the sky, it was not, therefore, difficult to find the four points of the compass, and determining latitude did not cause any problems either." (Almgrem)


title: Longship

text: Birds provided a helpful guide to finding land. A Viking legend states that Vikings used to take caged crows aboard ships and let them loose if they got lost. The crows would instinctively head for land, giving the sailors a course to steer.


title: Longship

text: The longships had two methods of propulsion: oars and sail. At sea, the sail enabled longships to travel faster than by oar and to cover long distances overseas with far less manual effort. Sails could be raised or lowered quickly. In a modern facsimile the mast can be lowered in 90 seconds. Oars were used when near the coast or in a river, to gain speed quickly, and when there was an adverse (or insufficient) wind. In combat, the variability of wind power made rowing the chief means of propulsion. The ship was steered by a vertical flat blade with a short round handle, at right angles, mounted over the starboard side of the aft gunwale.


title: Longship

text: Longships were not fitted with benches. When rowing, the crew sat on sea chests (chests containing their personal possessions) that would otherwise take up space. The chests were made the same size and were the perfect height for a Viking to sit on and row. Longships had hooks for oars to fit into, but smaller oars were also used, with crooks or bends to be used as oarlocks. If there were no holes then a loop of rope kept the oars in place.


title: Longship

text: An innovation that improved the sail's performance was the beitass, or stretching pole—a wooden spar stiffening the sail. The windward performance of the ship was poor by modern standards as there was no centreboard, deep keel or leeboard. To assist in tacking the beitass kept the luff taut. Bracing lines were attached to the luff and led through holes on the forward gunwale. Such holes were often reinforced with short sections of timber about long on the outside of the hull.


title: Longship

text: The Vikings were major contributors to the shipbuilding technology of their day. Their shipbuilding methods spread through extensive contact with other cultures, and ships from the 11th and 12th centuries are known to borrow many of the longships' design features, despite the passing of many centuries. The Lancha Poveira, a boat from Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal is one of the last remnants from the longship, keeping all the longboat features but without a long stern and bow, and with a lateen sail. It was used until the 1950s. Today there is just one boat: "Fé em Deus".


title: Longship

text: Many historians, archaeologists and adventurers have reconstructed longships in an attempt to understand how they worked. These re-creators have been able to identify many of the advances that the Vikings implemented in order to make the longship a superior vessel.


title: Longship

text: The longship was a master of all trades. It was wide and stable, yet light, fast, and nimble. With all these qualities combined in one ship, the longship was unrivalled for centuries, until the arrival of the great cog.


title: Longship

text: In Scandinavia, the longship was the usual vessel for war even with the introduction of cogs in the 12th–13th centuries. Leidang fleet-levy laws remained in place for most of the Middle Ages, demanding that the freemen should build, man and furnish ships for war if demanded by the king—ships with at least 20 or 25 oar-pairs (40–50+ rowers). However, by the late 14th century, these low-boarded vessels were at a disadvantage against newer, taller vessels—when the Victual Brothers, in the employ of the Hansa, attacked Bergen in the autumn of 1393, the "great ships" of the pirates could not be boarded by the Norwegian levy ships called out by Margaret I of Denmark, and the raiders were able to sack the town with impunity. While earlier times had seen larger and taller longships in service, by this time the authorities had also gone over to other types of ships for warfare. The last Viking longship was defeated in 1429.


title: Longship

text: Several of the original longships built in the Viking Age have been excavated by archaeologists. A selection of vessels that has been particularly important to our understanding of the longships design and construction, comprise the following:


title: Longship

text: There are many replicas of Viking ships – including longships – in existence. Some are just inspired by the longship design in general, while others are intricate works of experimental archaeology, trying to replicate the originals as accurately as possible. Replicas important to our understanding of the original longships design and construction include:


title: Last stand

text: A last stand is a military situation in which a body of troops holds a defensive position in the face of overwhelming and virtually insurmountable odds. Troops may make a last stand due to a sense of duty; because they are defending a tactically crucial point; to buy time to enable a trapped army, person, or group of people to escape; due to fear of execution if captured; or to protect their ruler or leader. Last stands loom large in history, as the heroism and sacrifice of the defenders exert a large pull on the public's imagination. Some last stands have become a celebrated part of a fighting force's or a country's history, especially if the defenders accomplished their goals (or in rare cases, defeated their attackers).


title: Last stand

text: A "last stand" is a last resort tactic, and is chosen because the defending force realizes or believes the benefits of fighting outweigh the benefits of retreat or surrender. This usually arises from strategic or moral considerations, such as staying and fighting to buy time for wounded soldiers or civilians to get to a safe place, leading defenders to conclude that their sacrifice is essential to the greater success of their campaign or cause, as happened at the end of the Battle of Saragarhi. The situation can arise in several ways. One situation is that retreat by the defending force would lead to immediate defeat, usually due to the surrounding geography or shortage of supplies or support, as happened to the Royalist infantry on Wadborough Hill after the Battle of Naseby.


title: Last stand

text: Some military thinkers have cautioned against putting an opposing force into a last stand situation, recognising that trapped men will fight harder. Sun Tzu wrote: . Similarly, they have sometimes suggested deliberately putting their own forces in such a situation, for example by burning boats or bridges that could tempt them to retreat.


title: Last stand

text: The historian Bryan Perrett suggests that although the majority of last stands throughout history have seen the defending force overwhelmed, on rare occasions the outnumbered defenders succeed in their desperate endeavours and live to fight another day, and he lists the Battle of Agincourt and the Battle of Rorke's Drift as such engagements.


title: Last stand

text: In Custer's last stand, at the end of the battle, the extent of the soldiers' resistance to the Lakota and Cheyenne warriors indicated they had few doubts about their prospects for survival if they surrendered. In the end, the hilltop where George Armstrong Custer's remaining troops made their last stand made it impossible for Custer's men to secure a defensive position. Nevertheless, the soldiers put up their most dogged defence, and died fighting.


title: Last stand

text: During the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, by the end of 1942, the Jews trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto learned that the deportations were part of an extermination process, as the deportees were sent to death camps. Many of the remaining Jews decided to revolt. The first armed resistance in the ghetto occurred in January 1943. On 19 April 1943, Passover eve, the Nazis entered the ghetto. The remaining Jews knew that the Nazis would murder them all and they decided to resist the Nazis to the last, rather than surrender.


title: Last stand

text: Another example of a famous last stand was during the First Battle of Mogadishu, where two US 1st SFOD-D snipers, MSG Gary Gordon and SFC Randy Shughart, protected the crash site of helicopter 'Super 6-4' and injured pilot Mike Durant, whom they feared would be executed by a crowd of deadly rioters. The two snipers killed 25 and wounded dozens more before they ran out of ammunition and were killed. Their defense, however, allowed Mike Durant to survive long enough for one of the local warlords to take him prisoner. The US was ultimately able to arrange for his release and he was returned home. For their actions, MSG Gordon and SFC Shughart were awarded the Medal of Honor.


title: Last stand

text: In the Battle of Hastings in 1066, King Harold II battled the Norman William the Conqueror, who invaded with 7,000 men. After most of the English were killed in the battle, "Harold and his housecarl bodyguard...fought on until an arrow struck the king in the eye." After Harold died, the housecarl bodyguard made a last stand and "...fought to the death around the body of their dead king."


title: Last stand

text: When Rome was attacked in 1527 by the army of the Holy Roman Empire under Emperor Charles V, over 20,000 troops stormed the city. The 189 Swiss Guards made a last stand against the massive army by forming a square around St. Peter's Basilica to give Pope Clement VII time to escape through secret tunnels, and held the doors until Clement could escape.


title: Last stand

text: At the 1795 battle of Krtsanisi, where the Persian army led by Agha Muhammad Khan defeated the Georgians, the Three Hundred Aragvians – a detachment of the highlanders from the Aragvi valley – loyally fought and died in order to enable the escape of King Heraclius II, for which they are remembered as national heroes and were canonized by the Georgian Church.


title: Last stand

text: The Battle of Pavan Khind involved a rearguard last stand. It took place on July 13, 1660 at a mountain pass in the vicinity of fort Vishalgad, near the city of Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India between the Maratha warrior Baji Prabhu Deshpande and Siddi Masud of Adil Shahi dynasty. 300 Marathas in a rearguard action, held off an attacking force of 10,000 Bijapuris, allowing their king Shivaji to escape to a nearby fort. Ultimately the battle ended with the destruction of the rearguard Maratha forces, and a tactical victory for the Adil Shahi Sultanate, but failed to achieve its strategic objective of capturing the Maratha king Shivaji.


title: Last stand

text: The Battle of Chamkaur occurred in 1704 when the tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, and a small force of 40 Sikhs, was attacked by a much larger force of Mughal soldiers at his fort for his refusal to convert to Islam. The forty Sikhs fought to their death, allowing enough time for the Guru to escape the fort and live another day.


title: Last stand

text: During the second Persian invasion of Greece the Greeks hoped to use the narrow pass of Thermopylae to prevent the vastly large army of the Persians from outflanking them. A Greek force of 7,000 men marched north to block the pass in the middle of 480 BC. The Persian army, ranging between about 100,000 and 150,000, arrived at the pass in late August or early September. During the Battle of Thermopylae, the vastly outnumbered Greeks held off the Persians for seven days (including three of battle) before the rear-guard was annihilated in one of history's most famous last stands. During two full days of battle, the small force led by Leonidas blocked the only road by which the massive Persian army could pass. When Leonidas became aware that his force was being outflanked, he dismissed the bulk of the Greek army and remained to guard their retreat with 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians, 400 Thebans, fighting to the death. Although the Greeks lost the battle, it did check the advance of the Persian army and the delay helped the Greeks prepare a successful defence and ultimately win the war.


title: Last stand

text: Sometimes, rather than face annihilation at the hands of a pursuing victorious army, a rearguard will be tasked by the commander of the defeated army with hindering the advance of the victorious army. Even if the rearguard is destroyed in a last stand, its sacrifice may buy their commander time to disengage without losing the majority of his army as happened during the Battle of Roncevaux Pass (778), Battle of Tirad Pass (1899), the Dunkirk evacuation (1940, in World War II), the Battle of Taejon (1950), which was crucial to establish the Pusan Perimeter, the Battle of the Imjin River (1951), and the Battle of Badgam (1947) which proved to be critical to preventing the fall of Srinagar to tribal lashkars.


title: Last stand

text: A last stand may also be the last pitched battle of a war where the position of the defending force is hopeless but the defending force considers it their duty not to surrender until forced to do so, as happened to the last Royalist field army of the First English Civil War at the Battle of Stow-on-the-Wold in 1646.


title: Last stand

text: At the Battle of Saragarhi in 1897, the British Indian contingent consisting of 21 Sikh soldiers of the 36th Sikhs, when faced with insurmountable opposition of 10,000 Afghans, decided to make a last stand in accordance with their traditional and religious belief that duty is above all convictions. All 21 Sikhs were killed, together with approximately 600 Afghans.


title: Last stand

text: During the Battle of Okinawa the Imperial Japanese Navy battleship Yamato sailed from the Japanese home islands to join the fight, in which she would have been hopelessly outgunned. As a last ditch effort she would have beached herself on the shore, her crew joining the troops on the island and using her as a stationary gun battery. Yamato was sunk on her approach with the loss of some 3,055 crew of her compliment of 3,332 after coming under attack from a large strike force of carrier borne aircraft. Given the tactical situation, one battleship accompanied by several smaller vessels with no air support against a fleet of aircraft carriers, the outcome must have been predictable to military leaders.


title: Last stand

text: Before the 20th century, "no quarter was given" if a besieged garrison had refused any offered terms of surrender prior to the attackers breaching the defences, so a last stand was part of the end of many sieges, such as the Battle of the Alamo.


title: Last stand

text: However, since the 1907 IV Hague Convention it is unlawful for an attacking force to kill a garrison if they attempt to surrender, even if it is during the final assault on a fortified position. It is also forbidden to declare that "no quarter will be given".


title: Last stand

text: Last stands loom large in history due to the pull on popular imagination. Historian Nathaniel Philbrick argues:


title: Last stand

text: During World War I, the expression to fight "with one's back to the wall" became a widely-known way to refer to making a last stand. The London "Times" reported on April 13, 1918 that General Douglas Haig ordered British troops that "Every position must be held to the last man...With our backs to the wall...each one of us must fight on to the end".


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: The Oregon Ducks football program is a college football team for the University of Oregon, located in the U.S. state of Oregon. The team competes at the NCAA Division I level in the FBS and is a member of the Pac-12 Conference (Pac-12). Although now known as the Ducks, the team was commonly called the Webfoots until the mid-1960s. The program first fielded a football team in 1894. Oregon plays its home games at the 54,000 seat Autzen Stadium in Eugene. Its main rivals are the Oregon State Beavers and the Washington Huskies. The Ducks and Beavers historically end each regular season with their rivalry game in late November. The program has been one of the most successful programs since the 2010s. Oregon football has been known in recent years for its unique uniform style.


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: The football program began in 1894 and played its first game on March 24, 1894, defeating Albany College 44–3 under head coach Cal Young. Cal Young left after that first game and J.A. Church took over the coaching position in the fall for the rest of the season. Oregon finished the season with two additional losses and a tie, but went undefeated the following season, winning all four of its games under head coach Percy Benson. In 1899, the football team left the state for the first time, playing the California Golden Bears in Berkeley, California. Oregon's largest margin of victory came in 1910 when they defeated the University of Puget Sound 115–0.


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: Oregon changed coaches frequently during the early 20th century, going through sixteen different head coaches in nineteen seasons, until Hugo Bezdek, who had coached the Webfeet to a 5–0–1 record in 1906, returned to Oregon from the University of Arkansas in 1913. Bezdek, Oregon's first truly professional coach, led the team from 1913 through 1917. A versatile motivator of athletes, during his tenure Bezdek was also the West Coast scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates. In the 1916 season, Oregon went undefeated with seven wins and one tie under Bezdek, shutting out all but two opponents. They opened the season against Willamette University, defeating them 97–0. The game against Washington ended in a scoreless tie. Oregon used ineligible players in two games and the Pacific Coast Conference title went to Washington, but Oregon was given the invitation to the 1917 Rose Bowl, then known as the Tournament East-West Football Game at Tournament Park due to the cost of a train ticket to Los Angeles being significantly less from Eugene than from Seattle. The Oregon football team defeated the heavily favored University of Pennsylvania Quakers 14–0, securing their first Rose Bowl victory. In 1918 Bezdek quit Oregon to become general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was succeeded by Shy Huntington, one of the heroes of the 1917 Rose Bowl.


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: Led by Charles A. Huntington and playing at newly constructed Hayward Field, which would be their home stadium in Eugene until 1967, the Webfeet again tied Washington for the Pacific Coast Conference title in 1919, winning the tiebreaker based on their 24–13 victory over the Huskies in Seattle. Oregon lost the 1920 Rose Bowl to Harvard University, 7–6. This would be the team's last bowl appearance until the 1948 Cotton Bowl. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Oregon made the first attempts to establish a nationally prominent football program by luring established Eastern coaches west, first John "Cap" McEwan in 1926 from Army, then Clarence "Doc" Spears from Minnesota in 1930. Both coaches achieved moderate success, but neither outlasted his contracted term: McEwan resigned amid a contract dispute, and Spears, hired under a five-year contract, left Oregon after two seasons to return to the Western Conference at Wisconsin. Prince G. "Prink" Callison, Oregon native, alumnus, former player and coach of the freshman team, took over from Spears in 1932. Behind standout back Mike Mikulak and a smothering defense (50 points allowed, five shutouts), Callison led the 1933 Webfeet to a 9–1 mark and Pacific Coast Conference co-championship, with the only loss to USC. This record would stand as the best in school history until 2001. After the homegrown Callison retired in 1937, Oregon again hired a working head coach, pulling Gerald "Tex" Oliver from Arizona. Oliver coached until World War II, when he took a leave of absence to serve as a naval officer; Oregon basketball coach John Warren served as interim head football coach in 1942, posting a 2–6 record, after which the school shut down the football program for the duration of the war. Oliver returned as head coach after the war, eventually posting a mediocre 23–28–3 cumulative record. His 71–7 loss at Texas in 1941 on the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor stands as the most points allowed by any Oregon team, and the second largest margin of defeat. Oliver, in 1945, is the only coach to see his team lose twice to Oregon State in the same season. In October 1946, Oliver abruptly resigned as Oregon's head coach, expressing dissatisfaction with the level of support shown by the administration for the football program.


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: Oliver was replaced by another working head coach, Jim Aiken of Nevada. Aiken had immediate success with the team he inherited, which like many post-war squads, was peppered with war veterans including Brad Ecklund, Jake Leicht and Norm Van Brocklin, and transfers George Bell, Woodley Lewis and John McKay. Oregon's 1948 team went 9–1 in the regular season and tied with California for the PCC championship; the teams did not meet on the field that season and in a secret ballot by the conference presidents, Cal was awarded the 1949 Rose Bowl bid. In a bid to soothe hurt feelings, the conference broke tradition and allowed the Webfeet to play in a post-season contest other than the Rose Bowl. Oregon's Cotton Bowl game that season (a 21–13 loss to SMU with Doak Walker) was the team's only bowl appearance between the 1920 and 1958 Rose Bowls. Aiken couldn't maintain his success with younger players. By his fourth season, the Ducks were one of the nation's worst major college teams, posting a 1–9 record in 1950, still the lowest winning percentage in school history as of 2011. Aiken resigned amid allegations of recruiting and practice violations in early 1951.


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: Once again, Oregon found a working major college coach to take over its program, hiring Len Casanova from the University of Pittsburgh after Aiken's resignation. Casanova gradually rebuilt the program, and eventually led the Ducks to a winning record in 1954. The Ducks played in the earliest nationally televised college football game in 1953, against Nebraska in Lincoln, winning 20–12.


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: In the 1957 season Oregon tied Oregon State for the conference title, but earned the Rose Bowl bid because of the conference no-repeat rule. The Webfeet lost 10–7 to the heavily favored and number one ranked Ohio State University in the 1958 Rose Bowl. Braven Dyer of the Los Angeles Times, who had picked Ohio State to win by a 48–14 score, said:


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: "The score of 10–7 was a complete moral victory for the underdog Ducks from Eugene who had been doped to lose by three touchdowns. They lost, but at day's end there weren’t many fans who were willing to concede that the better team had won." " Vincent X. Flaherty, writing in the San Francisco Examiner, said: "Len Casanova undoubtedly performed the greatest coaching feat of the season for the Rose Bowl classic...there couldn’t have been a bowl team anywhere in America


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: Casanova led the Ducks to two more bowl appearances, in the Liberty Bowl (1960 vs Penn State) and the Sun Bowl (1963 vs Southern Methodist), before becoming the UO's second full-time athletic director in January 1967, replacing Leo Harris. Future Pro Football Hall of Fame members Mel Renfro and Dave Wilcox were players under his tutelage. Many of his assistant coaches such as George Seifert, John McKay, and John Robinson went on to have their own successful head coaching careers. His career record of 82–73–8 marked the highest number of wins recorded by a head coach at the university at that time. The Len Casanova Center, Oregon's athletic department headquarters near Autzen Stadium, is named in his honor.


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: Casanova's move to the administration began a two-decade downturn in Oregon's fortunes. Longtime offensive line coach Jerry Frei succeeded him as head coach in 1967, when Oregon moved into the new Autzen Stadium. His teams were never selected for a bowl game and never won more than six games in a season. (Until the 1975 season, the Pac-8 (and Big Ten) had only one bowl team, for the Rose Bowl.) Although his Oregon career ended with a losing record, he coached several players who went on to NFL stardom, including Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Fouts and All-Pro wide receiver Ahmad Rashad, known as halfback Bobby Moore as a Duck. In 1970, he coached the Ducks to an improbable comeback at UCLA, scoring twenty points in the final four minutes to win by a point, 41–40. However, Frei was unable to defeat arch-rival Oregon State (under Dee Andros) in the Civil War game, and after the 1971 loss, some influential boosters reportedly demanded that Frei make significant changes to his coaching staff. On January 18, 1972, Frei resigned as head coach, citing disagreements with university boosters and athletic director Norv Ritchey. Following his resignation, the student body president at the time, as well as others, numerous published letters to the editor of "The Register-Guard" voiced their support of Frei.


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: After an exhaustive search that included interviews with several established head coaches, Frei's offensive line coach, Dick Enright, was elevated to head coach for the 1972 season. Enright was the least experienced candidate for the position, having been a high school coach until 1970, and he struggled to maintain team discipline and consistent play. Enright famously tried to make an option quarterback out of Dan Fouts, who was not a runner. Although his 1972 team did beat Oregon State for the first time in nine seasons, Enright's teams only won six games in two seasons. After complaining to the media about what he considered sub-standard conditions of football facilities, he was fired after the 1973 season.


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: Enright was replaced by Don Read, his quarterback coach. Read was unable to field a competitive team in his first job as a major college head coach. Oregon's longest losing streak – 14 games – was set during Read's three-year term, which also saw the team's worst loss in history (66–0 at Washington in 1974). After the Ducks’ home opener in 1975, a 5–0 loss to San Jose State, UO president William Boyd told a reporter he'd "rather be whipped in a public square than sit through a game like that." Read was fired, with one year left on his contract, after the 1976 season ended. His teams had gone 3–18 in conference play, were shut out seven times in three seasons, and owned just one win over a team with a winning record (17–3 over Colorado State in 1976).


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: In announcing Read's termination, Oregon Athletic Director John Caine said it had been a financial decision; Read hadn't shown enough progress to generate interest in season ticket sales, boosters were not making donations, and Read couldn't be sent out recruiting without a contract extension, for which there was no support. Breaking recent—and unsuccessful—tradition, Caine also said "the successor will not come from the current staff ... There is a need for a different approach than we've had here for a number of years ... I'm looking for a multi-talented individual, one with perhaps a different personality and a different background." It had become clear that drastic action was needed to correct a suffering program. Caine had informed an alumni group that the Oregon football team had lost money the last three seasons. Normally, it is a university's football program that provides funding for other non-revenue sports, but at Oregon, football was siphoning money from the successful basketball program and cutting into the budgets for wrestling, baseball and track.


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: Caine could not afford to pay top dollar for a college coach; he told reporters he wouldn't top $35,000 annually for his new head coach, but that he would sweeten the pot with a $100,000 recruiting budget, the second highest in the conference. The coaching search took two weeks. After being rebuffed by Bill Walsh, who took the Stanford job, and Jim Mora, who withdrew his name from consideration because he considered the job a dead end, Caine appointed UCLA assistant coach and Oregon State graduate Rich Brooks as Oregon's 29th head football coach, over finalists Monte Kiffin and Ray Greene.


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: Brooks got off to a shaky start, with four two-win seasons in his first six years at Oregon. In 1980, a pay-for-credit scandal, disclosure of an illegal travel fund, misuse of phone cards and criminal sexual abuse charges against Oregon football players led Brooks to tender his resignation to President Boyd; Boyd refused to accept the resignation. Oregon was placed on probation by the Pac-10 (1980) and NCAA (1982). After several mediocre seasons, including 1983 and an infamous scoreless tie with Oregon State known as the "Toilet Bowl" the Ducks posted an 8–4 season in 1989, going to the Independence Bowl – Oregon's first postseason appearance in 26 seasons. Brooks would achieve two more bowl games before his final season in 1994.


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: The pinnacle of Brooks' Oregon career came in his final season, when his team became the Pacific-10 Conference Champions with a 9–3 regular season record and a Rose Bowl appearance (their conference championship was also their first ever outright conference championship as all the previous ones were shared). The defining moment of the season came in a game against the 9th-ranked (AP) Washington Huskies, and is widely remembered by Duck fans as "The Pick". Prior to that game, the Ducks had won only three games against the Huskies in 20 seasons, including many heartbreakers in the heated rivalry. Late in the game, with the Ducks nursing a 24–20 lead, Washington was in position to score and take the lead when the Huskies' quarterback Damon Huard threw an interception to Kenny Wheaton, who returned the interception for a 97-yard touchdown, sealing the win for the Ducks. The Pick is replayed on the big screen at Autzen Stadium before each football game. Following the Washington game, the Ducks finished the rest of the regular season without a loss, but lost to Penn State in the 1995 Rose Bowl, 38–20.


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: After the 1994 season, Rich Brooks announced that he would leave Oregon to become the new head coach of the St. Louis Rams. Although Brooks had a poorer winning percentage, with 91 victories he surpassed Len Casanova to become the winningest coach in school history. The field at Autzen Stadium was dedicated as Rich Brooks Field, in honor of his tenure and accomplishments. Although he left the Ducks with a losing record due to his first seven teams winning a combined 22 games, he is credited with reviving Oregon's football program. His 91 wins were the most in school history at the time, while his 109 losses are still the most in school history.


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: Offensive coordinator Mike Bellotti was elevated into the head coaching position after Rich Brooks vacated the position in 1995. During his head coaching career, Bellotti elevated the expectations of the Ducks football program. Season records that in the past would have been deemed acceptable or even laudable became considered mediocre and disappointing. Bellotti was immediately successful, leading the team to a 9–3 record his first year and an appearance in the Cotton Bowl Classic. In his 14 seasons, Bellotti's teams were selected for 12 bowl games, and only once (2004, 5–6) did the Ducks post a losing record during his tenure.


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: Bellotti coached the team to the Pac-10 Championship in the 2000 season, shared with Washington and OSU. With a Rose Bowl bid on the line, the Ducks lost the 2000 Civil War at Corvallis, dropping the Ducks to the Holiday Bowl The Ducks defeated Texas 35–30 in the Holiday, for the first 10-win season in program history.


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: In the 2001 season, senior quarterback Joey Harrington, a Heisman Trophy finalist, led the Ducks to its first 11-win season in program history and an outright Pac-10 championship. The season was riddled with close games, 6 of which ended with a spread of one score or less, coining the nickname "Captain Comeback" for Harrington. The only loss of the season came at home to the Stanford Cardinal.


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: The Ducks ended the 2001 regular season ranked No. 2 in both the AP and Coaches polls, but the BCS computer formula ranked Oregon No. 4, behind No. 2 Nebraska – which had lost to Colorado in its final regular season game – and No. 3 Colorado; this kept Oregon out of the national championship game. The discrepancy caused the BCS committee to alter the ranking system for subsequent years to a formula which, if applied in 2001, would have placed Oregon in the national championship game. The 2001 Ducks instead played at the Fiesta Bowl against Colorado. Oregon's run defense stifled Colorado's running game, holding them to just 49 yards on 31 carries. Harrington passed for 350 yards and led the Ducks to a 38–16 win. Oregon settled for a final 2nd-place ranking in both the AP and Coaches polls. After the 2001 season, offensive coordinator Jeff Tedford left for the head coaching job at California, replaced by Andy Ludwig. The 2003 season was highlighted by a big win against the 5th ranked Michigan Wolverines, ruining Michigan's aspirations of a big season during a trip to a west coast game for the third time in four years.


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: Ludwig resigned as offensive coordinator after a dismal 2004 campaign, the only losing season (5–6) for a Mike Bellotti-coached Oregon team. Recently fired BYU head coach Gary Crowton took the offensive reins; the 2005 season saw a dramatic improvement from 2004, going 10–1 in the regular season, with the only loss to top-ranked USC. In the eighth game of the season against the Arizona Wildcats, the senior starting quarterback for the Ducks, Kellen Clemens, suffered a spiral fracture in his ankle, ending his season and his collegiate career. Despite losing Clemens, the Ducks won the game as well as the rest of their regular season games but lost the Holiday Bowl to the Oklahoma Sooners. In 2006 the team started off well, winning four games to open the season, including a controversial victory against then-ranked No. 11 Oklahoma. But the Oklahoma victory proved to be the high point of the 2006 season; the team eventually fell apart, going 3–5 for the remainder of the regular season, and were pounded by BYU in the Las Vegas Bowl, losing 8–38 in a dismal performance.


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: Gary Crowton left Oregon for the offensive coordinator position at Louisiana State University after the 2006 season; Chip Kelly was hired to replace him in February 2007. Kelly's impact was felt immediately, with the 2007 Ducks going 8–1 behind QB Dennis Dixon and ranked as high as No. 2, before being decimated by injuries at quarterback. Finishing the regular season with three straight losses, the Ducks were relegated to the Sun Bowl, where they defeated South Florida 56–21. Geoff Schwartz started from 2005 to 2007 at right tackle, as part of an offense that led the conference in rushing for the first time since 1955 in 2006 and then again in 2007, and was a second-team 2007 All-Pac-10 selection.


title: Oregon Ducks football

text: The 2008 season saw the emergence of quarterback Jeremiah Masoli as the leader of Chip Kelly's spread offense. Masoli, a transfer from City College of San Francisco, stepped in against Washington in the season opener, when starter Justin Roper was injured, and led the Ducks to a 44–10 victory. Despite injuries, Masoli cemented himself as the starter by mid-season. In the 2008 Civil War, the Ducks defeated the Oregon State Beavers in Corvallis, 65–38, knocking the Beavers out of the Rose Bowl. The Ducks went to the Holiday Bowl. In a clash of two teams with high powered offenses, Oregon beat the Oklahoma State Cowboys in the 2008 Holiday Bowl and finished the season ranked in the top 10. In March 2009, Bellotti announced his resignation; Kelly would take over as the head coach, and Bellotti was named athletic director, replacing Pat Kilkenny. Bellotti left the program as the winningest coach in Oregon history, with 116 wins and a 67.8 winning percentage.