title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: After recovering (treatment involved frequent venesection), his next album ("Valentine") was released on Valentine's Day, 14 February 1974, and featured contributions from Jimmy Page. A concert to mark its release was held on the same day at London's Rainbow Theatre, with Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and John Bonham; David Bedford, Max Middleton, Ronnie Lane, and Keith Moon performing alongside Harper. His first live album "Flashes from the Archives of Oblivion", featuring two tracks recorded at that concert, soon followed.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: Pink Floyd's 1975 release "Wish You Were Here" saw Harper sing lead vocals on the song "Have a Cigar". Roger Waters intended to record the part himself, but had strained his voice while recording "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and David Gilmour declined to sing. Harper was recording his album "HQ" in Studio 2 of Abbey Road at the same time as Pink Floyd were working in Studio 3; learning of the band's dilemma, Harper offered to sing the lead. The song is one of only three songs by Pink Floyd not sung by one of their permanent members (the others being "The Great Gig in the Sky" and "Hey, Hey, Rise Up!"). David Gilmour returned the favour by appearing on "HQ", along with Harper's occasional backing band, 'Trigger' (Chris Spedding, Dave Cochran, Bill Bruford and John Paul Jones). The single "When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease", taken from "HQ", is one of Harper's best known songs. Harper also co-wrote the song "Short and Sweet" with Gilmour for Gilmour's first solo record, "David Gilmour" (released in 1978), and the song subsequently appeared on his own album "The Unknown Soldier" (released in 1980).


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: Controversy followed the release of 1977's "Bullinamingvase". The owners of Watford Gap service station objected to criticism of their food – ""Watford Gap, Watford Gap/A plate of grease and a load of crap..."" – in the lyrics of the song "Watford Gap", as did an EMI board member who was also a non-executive director of Blue Boar (the owners of the service station). Harper was forced to drop it from future UK copies of the album, though it remained on the US LP and reappeared on a later CD reissues. The album also featured the song "One of Those Days in England", with backing vocals by Paul McCartney and Linda; the single from the album went to number 42 in the UK charts. During this period, Harper's band were renamed 'Chips' and included Andy Roberts, Dave Lawson, Henry McCullough, John Halsey and Dave Cochran. In April 1978, Harper began writing lyrics for the next Led Zeppelin album with Jimmy Page, but the project was shelved when lead singer Robert Plant returned from a break after the death of his son, Karac Pendragon.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: Following the success of "Bullinamingvase", Harper was asked "to write another record quickly". Demo recordings with Harper's newly formed backing band 'Black Sheep' (Andy Roberts, Dave Lawson, Henry McCullough, John Halsey and Dave Cochran, a.k.a. Dave C. Drill) were made, but Harper felt them to be rushed. The record company, who "were in the first stages of a collapse in sales", were not interested in the recordings, nor were they prepared to provide studio time when requested, telling Harper to come back in six months. As a result, Harper withheld the publishing rights to that which had been recorded; an album provisionally entitled "Commercial Breaks (doesn't it?)" and was (in his own words) "outlawed" by the record company.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: From 1975 to 1980 Harper worked with English musician and 'Black Sheep' member Andy Roberts sometimes performing as a duo. During this period, Harper spent considerable time in the United States and signed with the US division of Chrysalis Records, who released "HQ" under a different title – "When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease" – and with alternative artwork. Chrysalis considered the original Hipgnosis-designed album cover of Harper walking on water to be too offensive for an American release. Harper disagreed, but was given no choice by the label. Chrysalis also changed the title of Harper's next album, "Bullinamingvase", to "One of Those Days in England". In 1978, US Chrysalis reissued Harper's first five Harvest albums, only one of which ("Flat, Baroque and Berserk") had been previously released in America.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: On 28 December 1979, BBC TV aired the "Kate Bush Christmas Special". As well as playing songs from her first two albums, Bush and her guest, Peter Gabriel, performed Harper's "Another Day". Their duet was discussed for release as a single, but never appeared.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: Harper returned to the studio a few years after his dispute with EMI to record and prepare his next album "The Unknown Soldier". At the time, Harper knew it would be his last release on the label and it was these demos that ""...were destined to gather dust on a shelf labelled 'Commercial Breaks'..."". (It was not until Harper's 1988 release "Loony on the Bus" that some of these songs became officially available, and another six years until the album was finally released as "Commercial Breaks (1994)).


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: In 1980 Harper released "The Unknown Soldier", which was indeed his final Harvest release. The album features David Gilmour both on guitar and as co-writer of half of its tracks. On one of those tracks, "You", Harper duets with Kate Bush. Harper later reciprocated by singing backing vocals on "Breathing" on Bush's album "Never For Ever"; Bush's first no. 1 album, the first ever album by a British female solo artist to top the UK album chart, and the first album by any female solo artist to enter the chart at no. 1. Bush thanked Harper on the album's cover for "holding onto the poet in his music". During a BBC Radio interview by Paul Gambaccini, Bush praised Harper, stating: Of Bush, Harper later said, A decade later, Harper and Bush would again collaborate on his 1990 release "Once".


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: Harper's 1982 album "Work of Heart" was released on Public Records, a newly formed record label Harper created with Mark Thompson (son of English historian, socialist and peace campaigner E.P. Thompson). During this period Harper toured with a band consisting of Tony Franklin on Bass, Bob Wilson of the Steve Gibbons Band, George Jackson on drums and Dave Morris on keyboards. The album was chosen by Derek Jewell of "The Sunday Times" as "Album of the Year" in 1982, but it did not sell well and the short-lived label went under.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: During this period Harper lost his home, a farm in the village of Marden, Herefordshire, to the bank. Of this period Harper stated:


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: The original demo version of "Work of Heart" was later released (in 1984) on a limited edition (830 copies) vinyl release entitled "Born in Captivity".


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: Throughout 1984, Harper toured the United Kingdom with Jimmy Page performing a predominantly acoustic set at folk festivals under various guises such as the MacGregors, and Themselves. In 1985, "Whatever Happened to Jugula?" was released. The album caused a resurgence of interest in Harper and his music. (Tony Franklin, bass player in Harper's group at this time, later joined Page in the Firm). In April 1984, Harper and Gilmour performed "Short and Sweet" (a song they co-wrote) during Gilmour's three-night run at the Hammersmith Odeon. This version later appeared on the "David Gilmour Live 1984" concert film. Harper also provided backing vocals on Gilmour's newly released album, "About Face".


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: On 20 June 1984 Harper performed at the last Stonehenge Free Festival, sharing the bill with Hawkwind and the Enid. The concert was videoed and released as Stonehenge 84.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: As a result of his continual touring and the popularity of "Whatever Happened to Jugula?", Harper re-signed to EMI and in 1986 released a live album, "In Between Every Line" (containing recordings from his performances at the Cambridge Folk Festival), and in 1988 the studio album, "Descendants of Smith". The renewed relationship between Harper and EMI did not last and from 1985 more of his earlier albums were becoming available on the newly formed Awareness Records label.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: 1988 also saw the release of "Loony on the Bus", a collection of tracks recorded a decade earlier and intended for release in 1977 as "Commercial Breaks" (with the sub-title, 'doesn't it?'). The original release having been held back because of disputes over funding and content between Harper and EMI. Sales of "Loony on the Bus" would fund Harper's 1990 release; "Once".


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: In 1993 Harper established his own record label Science Friction and obtained the rights to all his previously released albums. As a result, from 1994 much of Harper's back catalogue became available on CD once more.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: Harper was very productive during the decade, releasing five studio albums: "Once" (1990), "Death or Glory?" (1992), "Commercial Breaks" (1994), "The Dream Society" (1998), a collection of poetry and spoken word tracks "Poems, Speeches, Thoughts and Doodles" (1997); two live albums: "Unhinged" (1993) and "Live at Les Cousins" (1996; recorded in 1969) and six individual CDs of live concerts and sessions recorded by the BBC (1997). Two official C90 cassette tapes of concerts at the Red Lion in Birmingham (1984 & 1985) were made available from Harper's agency (Acorn Entertainments).


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: In addition, Harper released a live video, "Once" (1990), an EP "Burn the World" (1990), a 4-track CD single "Death or Glory?" (1992), a limited edition live cassette "Born in Captivity II" (1992) (featuring cricketer Graeme Fowler and a cricket poem written by Harper: "Three Hundred Words"), a compilation album "An Introduction to ..." (1994), and a reissue of "Descendants of Smith" (his 1988 release) renamed "Garden of Uranium" (1994).


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: Once again Harper collaborated with David Gilmour and Kate Bush on his 1990 release, "Once". The album also featured contributions from Nigel Mazlyn Jones, Mark Feltham and Tony Franklin. One of the album tracks, "The Black Cloud of Islam" a song written about Colonel Gaddafi, the Lockerbie bombing, and a despairing castigation of radical Islam, provoked criticism from some of Harper's fans at the time. Whilst religion, Harper's "first and only enemy" has always been a recurring theme in his music, he was 'red-carded by a lot of his 1990 following... who left in substantial numbers'.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: In 1992, his second marriage ended and Harper released "Death or Glory?" an album that (upon its original release) contained a number of songs and spoken word pieces referencing his loss and pain. "She ran off with someone else" said Harper, "a violin player (Nigel Kennedy) I’d been working on an adaptation of Brahms's Violin Concerto with. I was really traumatised by that. Anybody who's been suddenly left like that will know it's very, very traumatic. I managed to come out of it, but it took about five years. It was like a death, a loss, like being told your child's been killed in a war. There's no other way to describe it. When you go through that, it changes your life forever, there's no point in not admitting it. I withdrew, retreated, became an exile".


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: Throughout the decade, Harper's musical influence began to be recognised by a younger generation of musicians, some of whom covered his songs or invited him to make guest appearances on their albums. In 1995 Harper contributed spoken words on the Tea Party's 1995 album "The Edges of Twilight", and appeared on stage for their New Year concert in Montreal. In 1996 Roy recited "Bad Speech" from his album "Whatever Happened to Jugula?" on Anathema's album "Eternity" (the album also contains a cover version of "Hope" from the same album). The track "Time" from The Tea Party's 1996 multimedia CD, "Alhambra", was sung and co-written by Harper.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: Harper contributed his version of Jethro Tull's song, "Up the 'Pool" (from "Living in the Past") for the 1996 tribute album, "To Cry You a Song – A Collection of Tull Tales", a version Anderson liked so much he began to perform the ""forgotten piece"" again in concert and later described it as his favourite Jethro Tull cover song.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: In 1998, Jethro Tull singer Ian Anderson contributed flute to the song, "These Fifty Years" on Harper's "The Dream Society", an album based on emotional, philosophical and actual events in Harper's life. Views of procreation, his mother's continued presence in him and something of his psychological impulses are punctuated by a couple of moments of satire, a love song and a lament, followed by the lengthy "These Fifty years", of which he has said, ""In some ways its (anti-organised religion) theme is similar to 'The Same Old Rock', but in many others I think it's stronger"". Reportedly, Anderson said that the only reason he originally left Blackpool was because Harper did. Other artists who covered Harper's songs (or songs on his albums) throughout the decade include Dean Carter, Ava Cherry & The Astronettes, Green Crown, The Kitchen Cynics, the Levellers, Roydan Styles and Pete Townshend. Harper also undertook a short tour of the US, where some performances were supported by Daevid Allen, former Soft Machine and Gong band member.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: In 2000, Harper released an almost entirely acoustic album, "The Green Man", accompanied by The Tea Party's Jeff Martin on guitar, hurdy-gurdy and numerous other instruments. The following year (2001) Harper celebrated his 60th birthday with a concert performance at London's Royal Festival Hall and was joined by numerous guest artists including; David Bedford, Nick Harper, Jeff Martin and John Renbourn. The concert was recorded and released shortly after as a double CD, "Royal Festival Hall Live – 10 June 2001".


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: In 2003, Harper published "The Passions of Great Fortune", a large format book containing all the lyrics to his albums (and singles) to date, it also contained a wealth of photographs and commentary on his songs.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: Harper released his second CD single in April 2005; "The Death of God". The 13-minute song, a critique of the war in Iraq, featured guest guitarist Matt Churchill (who also performed live with Harper during this period). A video of the track, intermixing animation with a live performance, is . 2003 also saw the release of "Counter Culture", a double compilation album featuring songs from Harper's 35-year songwriting period. "Counter Culture" received a five-star review from "Uncut" magazine. Harper also contributed a recital of "Jabberwocky" for "The Wildlife Album", an 18-track compilation CD to benefit the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Ulster Wildlife Trust.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: 2005 saw Harper release his first DVD, "Beyond the Door". Composed of live footage recorded in 2004 at Irish folk club "De Barra's" in Clonakilty, Cork and "The Death of God" video. The package also includes an additional 10-track audio CD and received a 4-star review from "Mojo", "Uncut", and "Classic Rock" magazine, who made it their "DVD of the month".


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: In September 2007, Harper supported Californian harpist Joanna Newsom at her Royal Albert Hall performance. Newsom, impressed by Harper's 1971 album "Stormcock" found it served as an inspiration for her similarly expansive second album, "Ys". During his Royal Albert Hall appearance with Newsom, Harper played "Stormcock" in its entirety. At the time, Harper made an announcement on his website that he was ""...taking a break from the live scene... retired from gigging..."" and just wanted ""...the time and space to write...""


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: During this period, Harper dedicated his time to collecting and compiling his life's work in various formats. One of the intended projects was to be the making of a documentary DVD to round off this process. However, as of 2016 this remains unreleased.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: In 2008, plans were announced for a Roy Harper tribute album. The album, "What You Need Is What You Have, The Songs of Roy Harper" was being compiled by Laurel Canyon folk singer, musician and producer Jonathan Wilson, and was to feature Chris Robinson (the Black Crowes), Gary Louris (the Jayhawks), Johnathan Rice, Eric D. Johnson (Fruit Bats, the Shins), Benji Hughes, Will Oldham, Andy Cabic, Dawes, Jenny O., Josh Tillman and others. At present, the collection remains unfinished, having been delayed beyond its planned 2009 release date. Six of the tracks can be heard on the project's Myspace page.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: Plans for Harper to star as Rodriguez El Toro in the film "Rebel City Rumble" were also announced. As of 2016 the project is still categorised as 'in development'.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: On 2 April 2011, Roy Harper played a concert for a small audience at Metropolis Studios as part of the ITV Legends series.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: The concert was recorded on video and released on DVD as "Classic Rock Legends: Roy Harper – Live in Concert at Metropolis Studios". The package also contains an audio CD of the concert. Through the summer of 2011, Harper made a number of appearances on broadcast media. On 24 July 2011, Harper appeared as the lunchtime guest on the British cricketing radio programme, Test Match Special. During the show Harper was interviewed and also performed "When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease". A televised interview followed on BBC Breakfast on 19 September 2011, and Harper was also interviewed by Robert Elms on his BBC London 94.9 show on 20 September 2011. During the show, Harper performed "Another Day" (a song from his 1970 album "Flat Baroque and Berserk") live in the studio. A further interview took place on Mike Harding's BBC Radio 2 show on 21 September 2011.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: On 23 September Harper was interviewed on Later... with Jools Holland. A segment of Harper performing "Commune" (from his 1974 album "Valentine") on "The Old Grey Whistle Test" in 1974 was shown. Harper performed "Another Day", an abbreviated version of "I Hate The White Man" (from his 1970 album "Flat Baroque and Berserk") and "The Green Man" (as part of a web exclusive performance).


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: The media appearances were to promote the release of a new compilation album, "Songs of Love and Loss", a compilation of Harper's love songs released as an introduction to the digital release of 19 of Harper's albums for the first time. The digital catalogue was to be released in batches of four over the forthcoming months. The album (and most of Harper's back catalogue) remain available to download on Harper's website in FLAC and MP3 formats.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: On 5 November 2011 Harper returned to London's Royal Festival Hall to celebrate his 70th birthday and perform once again with special guests Jonathan Wilson, Nick Harper, Joanna Newsom and Jimmy Page. The performance was described in "The Daily Telegraph" as "...an evening of devastating musical brilliance..." and by "The Guardian" as an "...historic concert".


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: In 2012, the Press Photographers Association of Ireland awarded third place in the Portraits section of their annual competition to a photographic portrait of Harper by photographer Alan Place.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: In December 2012 plans to release a new album, Harper's first studio release of newly recorded material for 13 years, were confirmed. The album, "Man and Myth", featured contributions from Pete Townshend and Jonathan Wilson, and was released 23 September 2013.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: Harper performed live through August 2013, playing at Debarras Folk Club in Clonakilty, West Cork, Ireland (11 August), at the Green Man Festival in Glanusk, Wales (17 August) and at Beautiful Days in Escot Park, Devon (18 August).


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: During this period Harper was interviewed by Laura Rawlings on her BBC Radio Bristol show on 15 August 2013, and also by Rob Hughes of the Telegraph Online who declared "Roy Harper has spent the past five decades crafting some of the most vivid, ravishingly beautiful music of our times...". Harper also performed at an in-store performance at Rough Trade East, London. A limited number of tickets were available to those who purchased the album in store that day, and the event was also streamed live to a limited number of fans who had pre-ordered the album.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: On 25 September Sky Arts broadcast "Roy Harper: Man & Myth – The Documentary". An exclusive documentary film, shot mainly at Harper's home in Ireland, it traced Harper's career and examined his output. Included were interviews with fellow musicians Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and Johnny Marr.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: In support of "Man and Myth's" release, Harper undertook a short, three-date, UK tour, performing at the Royal Festival Hall, London (22 October), the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester (25 October) and the Colston Hall, Bristol (27 October). At each performance he was accompanied by Jonathan Wilson and supported by a string and brass ensemble.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: In November 2013 Uncut placed "Man & Myth" at 6 in their top 50 Albums of 2013. "Mojo" also placed "Man and Myth" at 39 in their list of the top 50 Albums of 2013.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: In April 2016, to celebrate his 75th Birthday, Harper announced four concerts in September with string and brass ensemble, in Birmingham, Manchester, London and Edinburgh. He kicked off the tour at De Barra's pub in Clonakilty, Co. Cork, Ireland.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: In March 2019 Roy toured the UK again, with concerts in Birmingham, Bexhill-on-Sea, London (The London Palladium), Liverpool, Gateshead, Leeds and Edinburgh. He kicked off the tour at De Barra's pub in Clonakilty, Co. Cork, Ireland.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: "HQ" was awarded Record of the Year in Portugal in 1975. That year Harper also received a similar award in Finland for the same record.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: Harper was given the MOJO Hero Award by the staff of "Mojo" magazine on 16 June 2005 at the Porchester Hall, London. The award itself was presented by longtime collaborator and friend, Jimmy Page and now hangs upon the wall at De Barras Folk Club in Clonakilty, Ireland.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: On 30 January 2013, Harper was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: One of Harper's sons, Nick Harper, is a singer-songwriter. He has occasionally toured and recorded with his father and appeared as a guitarist on a number of his albums since 1985. Another son, Ben Harper (by English actress Verna Harvey), lives in the US.


title: Roy Harper (singer)

text: Following police interviews in February 2013, Harper was charged in November 2013 with ten counts of alleged historic child sexual abuse over a period of several years with two under-age females. After a two-week trial in early 2015, he was unanimously acquitted by a jury of two of the charges with no verdicts on the remaining five, then in November 2015, following a review by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, the remaining charges were dropped.


title: Jim Howick

text: James "Jim" Howick (born 14 May 1979) is an English actor and writer, known for his appearances in television series such as "Peep Show", "Horrible Histories", "Stag", "Ghosts" and "Here We Go".


title: Jim Howick

text: Howick was born in Chichester, West Sussex on 14 May 1979. He was educated at The Regis School. He graduated with First Class Honours from Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in 2000.


title: Jim Howick

text: Along with the five other members of the "Horrible Histories" starring cast, which includes Ben Willbond, Martha Howe-Douglas, Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby and Laurence Rickard, Howick is also the co-creator, -writer and -star of "Yonderland", an eight-part family fantasy comedy series that premiered on SkyOne on 10 November 2013. He co-starred with the same troupe in "Bill", a BBC-produced comedy film based loosely around the early life of William Shakespeare. Other prominent television roles include Gerard in "Peep Show", Gerry in Danny Boyle's "Babylon" and Anthony in the revival of "Reggie Perrin". In addition he has been a regular guest star in various sketch comedies, including "The Armstrong and Miller Show" and "The Kevin Bishop Show". In 2017 he played Aaron Mayford in the ITV thriller "Broadchurch". Since 2019, Howick has starred in the Netflix original series "Sex Education" as Mr Hendricks, a science teacher at Moordale Secondary School who also conducts the Swing Band. Howick is the co-creator, co-writer and co-star of the BBC One sitcom "Ghosts", - Howick plays numerous characters, but is mostly known for his role as Patrick Butcher, a 1980s Scout Master who was killed in an archery accident - the show was first broadcast in 2019. More recently, Howick was cast in the 2022 BBC comedy series “Here We Go" in which he plays Paul Jessop.


title: Jim Howick

text: In 2010, Howick won a Children's BAFTA for his performance in the second series of the CBBC television series "Horrible Histories".


title: The Room (2019 film)

text: The Room is a 2019 thriller film directed by Christian Volckman and starring Olga Kurylenko, Kevin Janssens, Joshua Wilson, John Flanders and Francis Chapman. The film follows a young couple who discover a way to fulfill all of their material desires, but then go too far by using it to create a child. It premiered on 15 April 2019 at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival.


title: The Room (2019 film)

text: Matt and Kate, a young couple, move to Upstate New York, having purchased a home. While renovating, they discover a large hidden room and that a murder occurred on the property decades before.


title: The Room (2019 film)

text: That evening, Matt learns that the killer is a "John Doe" and that he is still alive and in a psychiatric hospital. He also inadvertently discovers that the Room can grant any wish. He tells Kate and both quit their jobs with the Room providing everything they desire.


title: The Room (2019 film)

text: Kate falls into depression when she realizes that nothing they wish for has any real value. To cheer her up, Matt tells her he wants to try for a child, but she becomes angry, reminding him of two previous miscarriages. She exclaims that she can't put herself through that pain again and storms out of the room, but ends up using the Room to create a baby, Shane. Matt wants her to use the Room to uncreate the baby, but neither she nor Matt are actually able to bring themselves to do so. Later, Matt goes to visit "John Doe."


title: The Room (2019 film)

text: At the hospital, Matt speaks with the "John Doe," who warns that he and his wife should leave the house and forget the Room. Matt finds out that Room-created items age to dust when crossing over the threshold of the house. Kate tells Matt she is taking the baby out for some fresh air; he tries to dissuade her but ultimately does not stop her. Once the baby is outdoors, he ages to a young child in seconds; Kate screams for Matt, who runs outside and brings Shane back inside the house.


title: The Room (2019 film)

text: The couple's marriage deteriorates as Kate attempts to parent Shane, while Matt ignores him. Shane grows impatient and bored since Kate will not allow him to leave the house, telling him that he is sick and that there are germs outside. Soon Shane discovers the Room and makes an outside area inside it, causing an argument between the parents. "John Doe" calls the home and reveals to Matt that he was a child wish granted by the Room and he is alive because his parents died, which allowed him to become part of the real world. He tells Matt that if Kate dies, Shane will be able to live outside the house. Kate overhears the conversation and attempts to crash her car but cannot bring herself to do so. When she returns, the couple reunites and have sex, unknowingly watched by Shane.


title: The Room (2019 film)

text: The next morning, they discover that Shane has gone outside and aged himself into a man, though he still has the mind of a child and is angry with Kate for lying to him about the germs. This causes an altercation, and Kate and Matt are knocked out. Shane uses the Room to enlarge the outdoor area even further and duplicate the house inside it. He shapeshifts into Matt and kidnaps Kate to the cloned home.


title: The Room (2019 film)

text: Matt awakens a short time later and searches for Kate. He discovers the cloned house and breaks in as Shane rapes Kate. Kate and Matt knock out Shane and try to escape, but they realize Shane used the Room to make a labyrinth in the cloned home. Shane finds them in the house and stabs and kills Matt, but realizes that Matt and Kate have used the Room to replicate themselves, and that the real Matt and Kate have escaped. Ultimately, they trick Shane into going outside, where he rapidly ages into a duplicate of "John Doe" and dies, deteriorating into a pile of dust.


title: The Room (2019 film)

text: A month later the couple has abandoned the home and are living in a motel. Kate stares in horror at a positive pregnancy test, unsure if the child belongs to Matt or Shane and whether they are in fact still in the Room.


title: The Room (2019 film)

text: In 2019, the film was officially selected for Hof International Film Festival (Germany), Sitges International Film Festival of Catalonia (Spain), and Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (South Korea), European Fantastic Film Festival (France), Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival (Belgium), Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (Switzerland), Ostend Film Festival (Belgium).


title: The Room (2019 film)

text: "The Room" received mixed to positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of .


title: Sushruta

text: Sushruta, or "Suśruta" (Sanskrit: सुश्रुत, IAST: , ) was an ancient Indian physician. The "Sushruta Samhita" ("Sushruta's Compendium"), a treatise ascribed to him, is one of the most important surviving ancient treatises on medicine and is considered a foundational text of Ayurveda. The treatise addresses all aspects of general medicine, but the impressive chapters on surgery have led to the false impression that this is its main topic. The translator G. D. Singhal dubbed Suśruta "the father of surgery" on account of these detailed accounts of surgery.


title: Sushruta

text: The early scholar Rudolf Hoernle proposed that some concepts from the "Suśruta-saṃhitā" could be found in the "Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa", which he dates to the 600 BCE, and this dating is still often repeated. However, during the last century, scholarship on the history of Indian medical literature has advanced substantially, and firm evidence has accumulated that the "Suśruta-saṃhitā" is a work of several historical layers. Its composition may have begun in the last centuries BCE and it was completed in its present form by another author who redacted its first five chapters and added the long, final chapter, the "Uttaratantra". It is likely that the "Suśruta-saṃhitā" was known to the scholar (fl. 300–500 CE), which gives the latest date for the version of the work that has come down to us today. It has also become clear through historical research that there are several ancient authors called "Suśruta" who might be conflated.


title: Sushruta

text: According to Bhishagratna, an influential translator who published in 1907, the "Mahabharata", an ancient Indian epic text, represents a Suśrut as one of the sons of the ancient sage Vishvamitra. Bhisagratna also asserted that Sushruta was the name of the clan to which Vishvamitra belonged. In the century since Bhishagratna, our knowledge of Suśruta and the "Suśrutasaṃhitā" has been transformed by newer discoveries and scholarship, most of which has been surveyed in volume IA of Meulenbeld's "History of Indian Medical Literature" (5 vols, 1999–2002).


title: Sushruta

text: The name Suśruta appears in later literature in the treatise on medicinal garlic that is included in the "Bower Manuscripts" (sixth century CE), where Suśruta is listed as one of the ten sages residing in the Himalayas.


title: Sushruta

text: Sushruta attracted a number of disciples who were known as "Saushrutas" and were required to study for six years before they even began hands-on training in surgery. Before starting their training, they had to take a solemn oath to devote themselves to healing and to do no harm to others, which can be compared to Hippocratic Oath. After the students had been accepted by Sushruta, he would instruct them in surgical procedures by having them practice cutting on vegetables or dead animals to perfect the length and depth of an incision. Once students had proven themselves capable with vegetation, animal corpses, or with soft or rotting wood – and had carefully observed actual procedures on patients – they were then allowed to perform their own surgeries. These students were trained by their master in every aspect of the medical arts, including anatomy.


title: Sushruta

text: Sushruta wrote the "Sushruta Samhita" as an instruction manual for physicians to treat their patients holistically. Disease, he claimed (following the precepts of Charaka), was caused by imbalance in the body, and it was the physician's duty to help others maintain balance or to restore it if it had been lost. To this end, anyone who was engaged in the practice of medicine had to be balanced themselves. Sushruta describes the ideal medical practitioner, focusing on a nurse, in this way:That person alone is fit to nurse, or to attend the bedside of a patient, who is cool-headed and pleasant in his demeanor, does not speak ill of anyone, is strong and attentive to the requirements of the sick, and strictly and indefatigably follows the instructions of the physician. (I.34)


title: Sushruta

text: The highlight of Sushruta's surgical magnificence was the surgery of nasal reconstruction or rhinoplasty (repairing the disfigured nose with a flap of skin from the forehead) that he used to reconstruct noses that were amputated as a punishment for crime. The technique is practised almost unchanged to this day, the pedicled forehead flap being named the Indian flap. This knowledge of plastic surgery existed in India up to the late 18th century as can be seen from reports in the Gentleman's Magazine, London, October 1794.


title: Rhodes piano

text: The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, the hammers strike thin metal tines, which vibrate next to an electromagnetic pickup. The signal is then sent through a cable to an external keyboard amplifier and speaker.


title: Rhodes piano

text: The instrument evolved from Rhodes's attempt to manufacture pianos while teaching recovering soldiers during World War II. Development continued after the war and into the following decade. In 1959, Fender began marketing the Piano Bass, a cut-down version; the full-size instrument did not appear until after Fender's sale to CBS in 1965. CBS oversaw mass production of the Rhodes piano in the 1970s, and it was used extensively through the decade, particularly in jazz, pop, and soul music. It was less used in the 1980s because of competition with polyphonic and digital synthesizers such as the Yamaha DX7 and an inconsistent quality control caused by cost-cutting.


title: Rhodes piano

text: In 1987, the company was sold to Roland, which manufactured digital versions of the instrument without authorization from Harold Rhodes. In the 1990s, the instrument experienced a resurgence in popularity, resulting in Rhodes re-obtaining the rights to the piano in 1997. Although Harold Rhodes died in 2000, the Rhodes piano has since been reissued, and his teaching methods are still in use.


title: Rhodes piano

text: The Rhodes piano's keyboard is laid out like a traditional acoustic piano, but some models contain 73 keys instead of 88. The 73-key model weighs around . The keyboard's touch and action is designed to be like an acoustic piano. Pressing a key results in a hammer striking a thin metal rod called a tine connected to a larger "tone bar". The tone generator assembly acts as a tuning fork as the tone bar reinforces and extends the tine's vibrations. A pickup sits opposite the tine, inducing an electric current from the vibrations like an electric guitar. Simply hitting tines does not need an external power supply, and a Rhodes will make sound even when not plugged into an amplifier, though like an unplugged electric guitar, the volume level and tone will be diminished.


title: Rhodes piano

text: The Suitcase model Rhodes includes a built-in power amplifier and a tremolo feature that bounces the output signal from the piano across two speakers. This feature is inaccurately labeled "vibrato" (which is a variation in pitch) on some models to be consistent with the labelling on Fender amplifiers.


title: Rhodes piano

text: Although the Rhodes functions mechanically like a piano, its sound is very different. Vibrating tines produce a mellower timbre, and the sound changes with the tine's relative position to the pickup. Putting the two close together gives a characteristic "bell" sound. The instrument has been compared with the Wurlitzer electronic piano, which uses a similar technology, but with the hammers striking metal reeds. The Rhodes has a better sustain, while the Wurlitzer produces significant harmonics when the keys are played hard, giving it a "bite". According to Benjamin Love of Retro Rentals, an EQ spectrum analysis of the instrument will have a gap where the frequency of a lead vocal can be. This means the instrument can easily support a voice performance without overpowering it.


title: Rhodes piano

text: Harold Rhodes started teaching piano when he was 19. He dropped out of the University of Southern California in 1929 to support his family through the Great Depression by full-time teaching. He designed a method that combined classical and jazz music, which became popular across the United States, and led to an hour-long nationally syndicated radio show. Rhodes continued to teach piano throughout his lifetime, and his piano method continues to be taught today. He continually refined and updated the design of the instrument up to 1984.


title: Rhodes piano

text: By 1942, Rhodes was in the Army Air Corps, where he created a piano teaching method to provide therapy for soldiers recovering from combat in hospital. From scrapped airplanes, he developed miniature pianos that could be played in bed. Rhodes won a service award for his therapy achievements and put an electric model, the Pre-Piano, into production for home use during the late 1940s.


title: Rhodes piano

text: In 1959, Rhodes entered a joint venture with Leo Fender to manufacture instruments. Fender disliked the higher tones of the Pre-Piano, and decided to manufacture a keyboard bass using the bottom 32 notes (E-B), known as the Piano Bass. The instrument introduced the design that would become common to subsequent Rhodes pianos, with the same tolex body as Fender amplifiers and a fiberglass top. The tops came from a boat manufacturer who supplied whatever color happened to be available; consequently a number of different colored piano basses were produced.


title: Rhodes piano

text: Fender was bought by CBS in 1965. Rhodes stayed with the company, and released the first Fender Rhodes piano, a 73-note model. The instrument comprised parts — the piano, and a separate enclosure underneath containing the power amplifier and loudspeaker. Like the piano bass, it was finished in black tolex, and had a fiberglass top. During the late 1960s, two models of the Fender Rhodes Celeste also became available, which used the top three or four octaves, respectively, of the Fender Rhodes piano. The Celeste did not sell well and is now hard to find. In 1969, the fiberglass lid was replaced with vacuum-molded plastic; the earlier models became known retrospectively as "silvertops".


title: Rhodes piano

text: The Student and Instructor models were introduced in 1965. They were designed to teach the piano in the classroom. By connecting the output of a network of student models, the teacher could listen to each student in isolation on the instructor model, and send an audio backing track to them. This allowed the teacher to monitor individual students' progress. Production of educational models ceased in 1974.


title: Rhodes piano

text: In 1970, the 73-note Stage Piano was introduced as a lighter () and more portable alternative to the existing two-piece style, featuring four detachable legs (used in Fender steel pedal guitars), a sustain pedal derived from a Rogers hi-hat stand and a single output jack. Although the Stage could be used with any amplifier, catalogs suggested the use of the Fender Twin Reverb. The older style piano continued to be sold alongside the Stage and was renamed the Suitcase Piano. An 88-note model was introduced in 1971.


title: Rhodes piano

text: The Rhodes became increasingly popular during the 1970s. In 1976, the company posted an advertisement claiming that of the top 100 "Billboard" albums featuring electric pianos, 82% of them used a Rhodes.


title: Rhodes piano

text: During the 1970s various changes were made to the Rhodes mechanics. In 1971 the hammer tips were changed to neoprene rubber instead of felt, to avoid the excessive need for regular maintenance, while in 1975 harp supports were changed from wood to aluminum. Although this made production cheaper, it changed the resonance of the instrument slightly. In 1977 the power amplifier design was changed from an 80 to a 100-watt model. The Mk II model was introduced in late 1979, which was simply a set of cosmetic changes over the most recent Mk I models. A 54-note model was added to the range.


title: Rhodes piano

text: The Rhodes Mk III EK-10 was a combination electric piano and synthesizer, introduced in 1980 before CBS bought ARP Instruments in 1981. It used analog oscillators and filters alongside the existing electromechanical elements. The overall effect was that of a Rhodes piano and a synthesizer being played simultaneously. The instrument was unreliable with a problematic production, particularly when a shipment of 150 units to Japan caused interference with local television reception. Compared to the new polyphonic synthesizers being marketed at the same time, it was limited in scope and sound, and very few units were sold.


title: Rhodes piano

text: The final Rhodes produced by the original company was the Mk V in 1984. Among other improvements, it had a lighter plastic body and an improved action that varied the dynamics with each note. The Mark V is the easiest of the original Rhodes pianos for touring musicians to transport. Rhodes pianos produced under the original run had an inconsistent quality as the company wanted to mass-produce the instrument.


title: Rhodes piano

text: During the late 1970s and 1980s, Chuck Monte manufactured an after-market modification to the Rhodes, known as Dyno My Piano. It included a lever that moved the relative position of the tines to the pickups, modifying the sound, and fed the output signal through additional electronics. This sound was emulated by the Yamaha DX7 with a patch known as the DX7 Rhodes that was popular during the 1980s, and caused several players to abandon the Rhodes in favor of the DX7.


title: Rhodes piano

text: In 1983, Rhodes was sold to CBS boss William Schultz, who closed the main factory in 1985 and sold the business to the Japanese corporation Roland in 1987. Roland manufactured digital pianos under the Rhodes name, but Harold Rhodes disapproved of the instruments, which were made without his consultation.


title: Rhodes piano

text: Rhodes re-acquired the rights to the Rhodes piano in 1997. By then, he was in ill health and died in December 2000. In 2007, his former business partner Joe Brandstetter acquired the rights to the name and re-formed Rhodes Music Corporation. The company introduced a reproduction of the original electric piano, the Rhodes Mark 7, housed in a molded plastic enclosure.


title: Rhodes piano

text: In 2021, a new company, Rhodes Music Group Ltd, was formed by the audio company Loopmasters who bought the rights from Brandstetter. They announced a new model, the MK8, in development. The MK8 was made available for pre-order in November with 500 units planned for production in 2022. The MK8's case was designed by Axel Hartmann and its electronics were designed by former Moog Music technician Cyril Lance. At , it is significantly lighter than earlier models.


title: Rhodes piano

text: Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek began using Rhodes instruments when the group formed in 1965. He played basslines on a Piano Bass with his left hand, while playing organ with his right. He also played a full-sized Rhodes in the studio, such as a Mark I Stage 73 on "Riders on the Storm". According to Manzarek, "If Mr. Rhodes hadn't created the keyboard bass, the Doors would never have existed."


title: Rhodes piano

text: The Rhodes piano became a popular instrument in jazz in the late 1960s, particularly for several sidemen who played with Miles Davis. Herbie Hancock first encountered the Rhodes in 1968 while booked for a session with Davis. He immediately became an enthusiast, noting that the amplification made him much more audible in groups when compared to the piano. Hancock continued to experiment with the Rhodes over the following years, including playing it through a wah-wah. Other former Davis sidemen, Chick Corea and Joe Zawinul, started using the Rhodes prominently during the 1970s. Beginning with "In a Silent Way" (1969), the Rhodes became the most prominent keyboard on Davis's recordings until the mid-1970s. Vince Guaraldi started using a Rhodes in 1968, and toured with both a piano and a Rhodes. He achieved particular prominence with his soundtrack music for "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and other "Peanuts" / "Charlie Brown" films.


title: Rhodes piano

text: Billy Preston was described as the "Ruler of the Rhodes" by "Music Radar;" he played Rhodes during the Beatles' rooftop concert in 1969, and on the Beatles' hit single "Get Back". Many of Stevie Wonder's recordings from the 1970s, such as "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" feature him playing the Rhodes. He often used one alongside the Hohner Clavinet. Donny Hathaway regularly used the Rhodes; his hit single, "This Christmas", which receives seasonal radio play on African American stations, makes a prominent use of the instrument. Although better known for playing the Wurlitzer, Ray Charles played a Rhodes on his performance of "Shake a Tailfeather" in the film "The Blues Brothers".


title: Rhodes piano

text: Donald Fagen of Steely Dan has regularly used the Rhodes. He has also used the Rhodes in all his solo albums and has played it at every one of his touring performances since 1994. The Rhodes features in "Angela", the 1978 instrumental theme from the sitcom "Taxi" by Bob James. The French band Air make regular use of the Rhodes piano in their recordings. German pianist and composer Nils Frahm uses a Rhodes piano extensively in his studio and live performances.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: Sir Francis Walsingham ( – 6 April 1590) was principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth I of England from 20 December 1573 until his death and is popularly remembered as her "spymaster".


title: Francis Walsingham

text: Born to a well-connected family of gentry, Walsingham attended Cambridge University and travelled in continental Europe before embarking on a career in law at the age of twenty. A committed Protestant, during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary I of England he joined other expatriates in exile in Switzerland and northern Italy until Mary's death and the accession of her Protestant half-sister, Elizabeth.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: Walsingham rose from relative obscurity to become one of the small coterie who directed the Elizabethan state, overseeing foreign, domestic and religious policy. He served as English ambassador to France in the early 1570s and witnessed the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. As principal secretary, he supported exploration, colonization, the use of England's maritime strength and the plantation of Ireland. He worked to bring Scotland and England together. Overall, his foreign policy demonstrated a new understanding of the role of England as a maritime Protestant power with intercontinental trading ties. He oversaw operations that penetrated Spanish military preparation, gathered intelligence from across Europe, disrupted a range of plots against Elizabeth and secured the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: Francis Walsingham was born around 1532, probably at Foots Cray, near Chislehurst in Kent, the only son of William Walsingham (died 1534), a successful and well-connected London lawyer who served as a member of the commission appointed to investigate the estates of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in 1530. William's elder brother was Sir Edmund Walsingham, Lieutenant of the Tower of London.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: Francis's mother was Joyce Denny, a daughter of the courtier Sir Edmund Denny of Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, and a sister of the courtier Sir Anthony Denny, the principal Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to King Henry VIII. After the death of her first husband she married the courtier Sir John Carey in 1538. Carey's brother William was the husband of Mary Boleyn, the elder sister of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: Of Francis's five sisters, Mary married Sir Walter Mildmay, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer for over 20 years, and Elizabeth married the parliamentarian Peter Wentworth.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: Francis Walsingham matriculated at King's College, Cambridge, in 1548 with many other Protestants but as an undergraduate of high social status did not sit for a degree. From 1550 or 1551, he travelled in continental Europe, returning to England by 1552 to enrol at Gray's Inn, one of the qualifying bodies for English lawyers.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: Upon the death in 1553 of Henry VIII's successor, Edward VI, Edward's Catholic half-sister Mary became queen. Many wealthy Protestants, such as John Foxe and John Cheke, fled England, and Walsingham was among them. He continued his studies in law at the universities of Basel and Padua, where he was elected to the governing body by his fellow students in 1555.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: Mary I died in May 1558 and was succeeded by her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth. Walsingham returned to England and through the support of one of his fellow former exiles, Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, he was elected to Elizabeth's first parliament as the member for Bossiney, Cornwall, in 1559. At the subsequent election in 1563, he was returned for both Lyme Regis, Dorset, another constituency under Bedford's influence, and Banbury, Oxfordshire. He chose to sit for Lyme Regis. In January 1562 he married Anne, daughter of Sir George Barne, Lord Mayor of London in 1552–3, and widow of wine merchant Alexander Carleill. Anne died two years later leaving her son Christopher Carleill in Walsingham's care. In 1566, Walsingham married Ursula St. Barbe, widow of Sir Richard Worsley, and Walsingham acquired her estates of Appuldurcombe and Carisbrooke Priory on the Isle of Wight. The following year, she bore him a daughter, Frances. Walsingham's other two stepsons, Ursula's sons John and George, were killed in a gunpowder accident at Appuldurcombe in 1567.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: In the following years, Walsingham became active in soliciting support for the Huguenots in France and developed a friendly and close working relationship with Nicholas Throckmorton, his predecessor as MP for Lyme Regis and a former ambassador to France. By 1569, Walsingham was working with William Cecil to counteract plots against Elizabeth. He was instrumental in the collapse of the Ridolfi plot, which hoped to replace Elizabeth with the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots. He is credited with writing propaganda decrying a conspiratorial marriage between Mary and Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, and Roberto di Ridolfi, after whom the plot was named, was interrogated at Walsingham's house.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: In 1570, the Queen chose Walsingham to support the Huguenots in their negotiations with Charles IX of France. Later that year, he succeeded Sir Henry Norris as English ambassador in Paris. One of his duties was to continue negotiations for a marriage between Elizabeth and Charles IX's younger brother Henry, Duke of Anjou. The marriage plan was eventually dropped on the grounds of Henry's Catholicism. A substitute match with the youngest brother, Francis, Duke of Alençon, was proposed but Walsingham considered him ugly and "void of a good humour". Elizabeth was 20 years older than Alençon, and was concerned that the age difference would be seen as absurd. Walsingham believed that it would serve England better to seek a military alliance with France against Spanish interests. The defensive Treaty of Blois was concluded between France and England in 1572, but the treaty made no provision for a royal marriage and left the question of Elizabeth's successor open.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: The Huguenots and other European Protestant interests supported the nascent revolt in the Spanish Netherlands, which were provinces of Habsburg Spain. When Catholic opposition to this course in France resulted in the death of Huguenot leader Gaspard de Coligny and the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, Walsingham's house in Paris became a temporary sanctuary for Protestant refugees, including Philip Sidney. Ursula, who was pregnant, escaped to England with their four-year-old daughter. She gave birth to a second girl, Mary, in January 1573 while Walsingham was still in France. He returned to England in April 1573, having established himself as a competent official whom the Queen and Cecil could trust. He cultivated contacts throughout Europe, and a century later his dispatches would be published as "The Complete Ambassador".


title: Francis Walsingham

text: In the December following his return, Walsingham was appointed to the Privy Council of England and was made joint principal secretary (the position which later became "Secretary of State") with Sir Thomas Smith. Smith retired in 1576, leaving Walsingham in effective control of the privy seal, though he was not formally invested as Lord Privy Seal. Walsingham acquired a Surrey county seat in Parliament from 1572 that he retained until his death, but he was not a major parliamentarian. He was knighted on 1 December 1577, and held the sinecure posts of Recorder of Colchester, "custos rotulorum" of Hampshire, and High Steward of Salisbury, Ipswich and Winchester. He was appointed Chancellor of the Order of the Garter from 22 April 1578 until succeeded by Sir Amias Paulet in June 1587, when he became Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in addition to principal secretary.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: The duties of the principal secretary were not defined formally, but as he handled all royal correspondence and determined the agenda of council meetings, he could wield great influence in all matters of policy and in every field of government, both foreign and domestic. During his term of office, Walsingham supported the use of England's maritime power to open new trade routes and explore the New World, and was at the heart of international affairs. He was involved directly with English policy towards Spain, the Netherlands, Scotland, Ireland and France, and embarked on several diplomatic missions to neighbouring European states.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: Closely linked to the mercantile community, he actively supported trade promotion schemes and invested in the Muscovy Company and the Levant Company. He supported the attempts of John Davis and Martin Frobisher to discover the Northwest Passage and exploit the mineral resources of Labrador, and encouraged Humphrey Gilbert's exploration of Newfoundland. Gilbert's voyage was largely financed by recusant Catholics and Walsingham favoured the scheme as a potential means of removing Catholics from England by encouraging emigration to the New World. Walsingham was among the promoters of Francis Drake's profitable 1578–1581 circumnavigation of the world, correctly judging that Spanish possessions in the Pacific were vulnerable to attack. The venture was calculated to promote the Protestant interest by embarrassing and weakening the Spanish, as well as to seize Spanish treasure. The first edition of Richard Hakluyt's "Principal Navigation, Voyages and Discoveries of the English Nation" was dedicated to Walsingham.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: Walsingham advocated direct intervention in the Netherlands in support of the Protestant revolt against Spain, on the grounds that although wars of conquest were unjust, wars in defence of religious liberty and freedom were not. Cecil was more circumspect and advised a policy of mediation, a policy that Elizabeth endorsed. Walsingham was sent on a special embassy to the Netherlands in 1578, to sound out a potential peace deal and gather military intelligence.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: Charles IX died in 1574 and the Duke of Anjou inherited the French throne as Henry III. Between 1578 and 1581 the Queen resurrected attempts to negotiate a marriage with Henry III's youngest brother, the Duke of Alençon, who had put himself forward as a protector of the Huguenots and a potential leader of the Dutch. Walsingham was sent to France in mid-1581 to discuss an Anglo-French alliance, but the French wanted the marriage agreed first and Walsingham was under instruction to obtain a treaty before committing to the marriage. He returned to England without an agreement. Personally, Walsingham opposed the marriage, perhaps to the point of encouraging public opposition. Alençon was a Catholic and as his elder brother, Henry III, was childless, he was heir presumptive to the French throne. Elizabeth was past the age of childbearing and had no clear successor. If she died while married to him, her realms could fall under French control. By comparing the match of Elizabeth and Alençon with the match of the Protestant Henry of Navarre and the Catholic Margaret of Valois, which occurred in the week before the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, the "most horrible spectacle" he had ever witnessed, Walsingham raised the spectre of religious riots in England in the event of the marriage proceeding. Elizabeth put up with his blunt, often unwelcome, advice, and acknowledged his strong beliefs in a letter, in which she called him "her Moor [who] cannot change his colour".


title: Francis Walsingham

text: These were years of tension in policy towards France, with Walsingham sceptical of the unpredictable Henry III and distrustful of the English ambassador in Paris, Edward Stafford. Stafford, who was compromised by his gambling debts, was in the pay of the Spanish and passed vital information to Spain. Walsingham may have been aware of Stafford's duplicity, as he fed the ambassador false information, presumably in the hope of fooling or confusing the Spanish.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: The pro-English Regent of Scotland James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton, whom Walsingham had supported, was overthrown in 1578. After the collapse of the Raid of Ruthven, another initiative to secure a pro-English government in Scotland, Walsingham reluctantly visited the Scottish court in August 1583, knowing that his diplomatic mission was unlikely to succeed. James VI dismissed Walsingham's advice on domestic policy saying he was an "absolute King" in Scotland. Walsingham replied with a discourse on the topic that "young princes were many times carried into great errors upon an opinion of the absoluteness of their royal authority and do not consider, that when they transgress the bounds and limits of the law, they leave to be kings and become tyrants." According to James Melville of Halhill, James VI intended to give Walsingham a valuable diamond ring as a parting gift, but James Stewart, Earl of Arran, who Walsingham had ignored, substituted a ring of crystal. A mutual defence pact was eventually agreed in the Treaty of Berwick of 1586.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: Walsingham's cousin Edward Denny fought in Ireland during the rebellion of the Earl of Desmond and was one of the English settlers granted land in Munster confiscated from Desmond. Walsingham's stepson Christopher Carleill commanded the garrisons at Coleraine and Carrickfergus. Walsingham thought Irish farmland was underdeveloped and hoped that plantation would improve the productivity of estates. Tensions between the native Irish and the English settlers had lasting effects on the history of Ireland.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: Walsingham's younger daughter Mary died aged seven in July 1580; his elder daughter, Frances, married Sir Philip Sidney on 21 September 1583, despite the Queen's initial objections to the match (for unknown reasons) earlier in the year. As part of the marriage agreement, Walsingham agreed to pay £1,500 of Sidney's debts and gave his daughter and son-in-law the use of his manor at Barn Elms in Surrey. A granddaughter born in November 1585 was named Elizabeth after the Queen, who was one of two godparents along with Sidney's uncle, Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester. The following year, Sidney was killed fighting the Spanish in the Netherlands and Walsingham was faced with paying off more of Sidney's extensive debts. His widowed daughter gave birth, in a difficult delivery, to a second child shortly afterward, but the baby, a girl, was stillborn.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: Walsingham was driven by Protestant zeal to counter Catholicism, and sanctioned the use of torture against Catholic priests and suspected conspirators. Edmund Campion was among those tortured and found guilty on the basis of extracted evidence; he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn in 1581. Walsingham could never forget the atrocities against Protestants he had witnessed in France during the Bartholomew's Day massacre and believed a similar slaughter would occur in England in the event of a Catholic resurgence. Walsingham's brother-in-law Robert Beale, who was in Paris with Walsingham at the time of the massacre, encapsulated Walsingham's view: "I think it time and more than time for us to awake out of our dead sleep, and take heed lest like mischief as has already overwhelmed the brethren and neighbours in France and Flanders embrace us which be left in such sort as we shall not be able to escape." Walsingham tracked down Catholic priests in England and supposed conspirators by employing informers, and intercepting correspondence. Walsingham's staff in England included the cryptographer Thomas Phelippes, who was an expert in forgery and deciphering letters, and Arthur Gregory, who was skilled at breaking and repairing seals without detection.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: In May 1582, letters from the Spanish ambassador in England, Bernardino de Mendoza, to contacts in Scotland were found on a messenger by Sir John Forster, who forwarded them to Walsingham. The letters indicated a conspiracy among the Catholic powers to invade England and displace Elizabeth with Mary, Queen of Scots. By April 1583, Walsingham had a spy, identified as Giordano Bruno by historian John Bossy, deployed in the French embassy in London. Walsingham's contact reported that Francis Throckmorton, a nephew of Walsingham's old friend Nicholas Throckmorton, had visited the ambassador, Michel de Castelnau. In November 1583, after six months of surveillance, Walsingham had Throckmorton arrested and then tortured to secure a confession—an admission of guilt that clearly implicated Mendoza. The Throckmorton plot called for an invasion of England along with a domestic uprising to liberate Mary, Queen of Scots, and depose Elizabeth. Throckmorton was executed in 1584 and Mendoza was expelled from England.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: After the assassination in mid-1584 of William the Silent, the leader of the Dutch revolt against Spain, English military intervention in the Low Countries was agreed in the Treaties of Nonsuch of 1585. The murder of William the Silent also reinforced fears for Queen Elizabeth's safety. Walsingham helped create the Bond of Association, the signatories of which promised to hunt down and kill anyone who conspired against Elizabeth. The Act for the Surety of the Queen's Person, passed by Parliament in March 1585, set up a legal process for trying any claimant to the throne implicated in plots against the Queen. The following month Mary, Queen of Scots, was placed in the strict custody of Sir Amias Paulet, a friend of Walsingham. At Christmas, she was moved to a moated manor house at Chartley. Walsingham instructed Paulet to open, read and pass to Mary unsealed any letters that she received, and to block any potential route for clandestine correspondence. In a successful attempt to entrap her, Walsingham arranged a single exception: a covert means for Mary's letters to be smuggled in and out of Chartley in a beer keg. Mary was misled into thinking these secret letters were secure, while in reality they were deciphered and read by Walsingham's agents. In July 1586, Anthony Babington wrote to Mary about an impending plot to free her and kill Elizabeth. Mary's reply was clearly encouraging and sanctioned Babington's plans. Walsingham had Babington and his associates rounded up; fourteen were executed in September 1586. In October, Mary was put on trial under the Act for the Surety of the Queen's Person in front of 36 commissioners, including Walsingham.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: During the presentation of evidence against her, Mary broke down and pointed accusingly at Walsingham saying, "all of this is the work of Monsieur de Walsingham for my destruction", to which he replied, "God is my witness that as a private person I have done nothing unworthy of an honest man, and as Secretary of State, nothing unbefitting my duty." Mary was found guilty and the warrant for her execution was drafted, but Elizabeth hesitated to sign it, despite pressure from Walsingham. Walsingham wrote to Paulet urging him to find "some way to shorten the life" of Mary to relieve Elizabeth of the burden, to which Paulet replied indignantly, "God forbid that I should make so foul a shipwreck of my conscience, or leave so great a blot to my poor posterity, to shed blood without law or warrant." Walsingham made arrangements for Mary's execution; Elizabeth signed the warrant on 1 February 1587 and entrusted it to William Davison, who had been appointed as junior Secretary of State in late September 1586. Davison passed the warrant to Cecil and a privy council convened by Cecil without Elizabeth's knowledge agreed to carry out the sentence as soon as was practical. Within a week, Mary was beheaded. On hearing of the execution, Elizabeth claimed not to have sanctioned the action and that she had not meant Davison to part with the warrant. Davison was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Walsingham's share of Elizabeth's displeasure was small because he was absent from court, at home ill, in the weeks just before and after the execution. Davison was eventually released in October 1588, on the orders of Cecil and Walsingham.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: From 1586, Walsingham received many dispatches from his agents in mercantile communities and foreign courts detailing Spanish preparations for an invasion of England. Walsingham's recruitment of Anthony Standen, a friend of the Tuscan ambassador to Madrid, was an exceptional intelligence triumph and Standen's dispatches were deeply revealing. Walsingham worked to prepare England for a potential war with Spain, in particular by supervising the substantial rebuilding of Dover Harbour, and encouraging a more aggressive strategy. On Walsingham's instructions, the English ambassador in Turkey, William Harborne, attempted unsuccessfully to persuade the Ottoman Sultan to attack Spanish possessions in the Mediterranean in the hope of distracting Spanish forces. Walsingham supported Francis Drake's raid of Cadiz in 1587, which wrought havoc with Spanish logistics. The Spanish Armada sailed for England in July 1588. Walsingham received regular dispatches from the English naval forces, and raised his own troop of 260 men as part of the land defences. On 18 August 1588, after the dispersal of the armada, naval commander Lord Henry Seymour wrote to Walsingham, "you have fought more with your pen than many have in our English navy fought with their enemies".


title: Francis Walsingham

text: In foreign intelligence, Walsingham's extensive network of "intelligencers", who passed on general news as well as secrets, spanned Europe and the Mediterranean. While foreign intelligence was a normal part of the principal secretary's activities, Walsingham brought to it flair and ambition, and large sums of his own money. He cast his net more widely than others had done previously: expanding and exploiting links across the continent as well as in Constantinople and Algiers, and building and inserting contacts among Catholic exiles. Among his spies may have been the playwright Christopher Marlowe; Marlowe was in France in the mid-1580s and was acquainted with Walsingham's kinsman Thomas Walsingham.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: From 1571 onwards, Walsingham complained of ill health and often retired to his country estate for periods of recuperation. He complained of "sundry carnosities", pains in his head, stomach and back, and difficulty in passing urine. Suggested diagnoses include cancer, kidney stones, urinary infection, and diabetes. He died on 6 April 1590, at his house in Seething Lane. Historian William Camden wrote that Walsingham died from "a carnosity growing "intra testium tunicas" [testicular cancer]". He was buried privately in a simple ceremony at 10 pm on the following day, beside his son-in-law, in Old St Paul's Cathedral. The grave and monument were destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. His name appears on a modern monument in the crypt listing the important graves lost.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: In his will, dated 12 December 1589, Walsingham complained of "the greatness of my debts and the mean state [I] shall leave my wife and heirs in", but the true state of his finances is unclear. He received grants of land from the Queen, grants for the export of cloth and leases of customs in the northern and western ports. His primary residences, apart from the court, were in Seething Lane by the Tower of London (now the site of a Victorian office building called Walsingham House), at Barn Elms in Surrey and at Odiham in Hampshire. Nothing remains of any of his houses. He spent much of his own money on espionage in the service of the Queen and the Protestant cause. In 1586, he funded a lectureship in theology at Oxford University for the Puritan John Rainolds. He had underwritten the debts of his son-in-law, Sir Philip Sidney, had pursued the Sidney estate for recompense unsuccessfully and had carried out major land transactions in his later years. After his death, his friends reflected that poor bookkeeping had left him further in the Crown's debt than was fair. In 1611, the Crown's debts to him were calculated at over £48,000, but his debts to the Crown were calculated at over £43,000 and a judge, Sir Julius Caesar, ordered both sets of debts cancelled "quid pro quo". Walsingham's surviving daughter Frances received a £300 annuity, and married the Earl of Essex. Ursula, Lady Walsingham, continued to live at Barn Elms with a staff of servants until her death in 1602.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: Protestants lauded Walsingham as "a sound pillar of our commonwealth and chief patron of virtue, learning and chivalry". He was part of a Protestant intelligentsia that included Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser and John Dee: men who promoted an expansionist and nationalist English Renaissance. Spenser included a dedicatory sonnet to Walsingham in the "Faerie Queene", likening him to Maecenas who introduced Virgil to the Emperor Augustus. After Walsingham's death, Sir John Davies composed an acrostic poem in his memory and Watson wrote an elegy, "Meliboeus", in Latin. On the other hand, Jesuit Robert Persons thought Walsingham "cruel and inhumane" in his persecution of Catholics. Catholic sources portray a ruthless, devious man driven by religious intolerance and an excessive love for intrigue. Walsingham attracts controversy still. Although he was ruthless, his opponents on the Catholic side were no less so; the treatment of prisoners and suspects by Tudor authorities was typical of European governments of the time. Walsingham's personal, as opposed to his public, character is elusive; his public papers were seized by the government while many of his private papers, which might have revealed much, were lost. The fragments that do survive demonstrate his personal interest in gardening and falconry.


title: Francis Walsingham

text: Fictional portrayals of Walsingham tend to follow Catholic interpretations, depicting him as sinister and Machiavellian. He features in conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Christopher Marlowe, whom he predeceased. Charles Nicholl examined (and rejected) such theories in "The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe" (1992), which was used as a source by Anthony Burgess for his novel "A Dead Man in Deptford" (1993).


title: Francis Walsingham

text: The 1998 film "Elizabeth" gives considerable, although sometimes historically inaccurate, prominence to Walsingham (portrayed by Geoffrey Rush). It fictionalizes him as irreligious and sexually ambiguous, merges chronologically distant events, and inaccurately suggests that he murdered Mary of Guise. Rush reprised the role in the 2007 sequel, "". Both Stephen Murray in the 1971 BBC series "Elizabeth R" and Patrick Malahide in the 2005 Channel Four miniseries "Elizabeth I" play him as a dour official.


title: Snickerdoodle

text: A snickerdoodle is a type of cookie made with flour, fat, sugar, and salt, and rolled in cinnamon sugar. Eggs may also sometimes be used as an ingredient, with cream of tartar and baking soda added to leaven the dough. Snickerdoodles are characterized by a cracked surface and can be either crisp or soft depending on the ingredients used.


title: Snickerdoodle

text: Snickerdoodles are often referred to as "sugar cookies". However, traditional sugar cookies are often rolled in white sugar whereas snickerdoodles are rolled in a mixture of white sugar and cinnamon.


title: Snickerdoodle

text: "The Joy of Cooking" claims that snickerdoodles are probably German in origin, and that the name is a corruption of the German word "Schneckennudel", a Palatine variety of "schnecken". It is also possible that the name is simply a nonsense word with no particular meaning, originating from a New England tradition of whimsical cookie names. The "Oxford English Dictionary" claims the word's origin is "uncertain", and possibly a portmanteau of the word "snicker", an "imitative" English word with Scottish roots that indicates a "smothered laugh", and "doodle", a Germanic loanword into English meaning a "simple or foolish fellow", originally derived from the Germanic "dudeltopf", meaning "simpleton, noodle, night-cap". The earliest use of the word recorded by the "Oxford English Dictionary" is from 1889.


title: Snickerdoodle

text: Snickerdoodles have traditionally been made with a blend of shortening and butter. Some updated modern recipes have replaced shortening (a hydrogenated fat) with different types of oil. The cookies are rolled in cinnamon sugar which varies in the intensity of cinnamon flavor with some recipes using a 1:1 ratio of cinnamon to sugar. The process of making it is similar to many other cookies; first the fat and sugar are creamed together until pale and fluffy, then the egg is whisked in, and the flour is added last.


title: Snickerdoodle

text: The cookie is common to Mennonite and Amish communities and was a favorite treat of the Indiana poet, James Whitcomb Riley.


title: Snickerdoodle

text: In more recent times, the snickerdoodle cookie has transformed into a popular flavor of desserts, sweets, drinks, etc. Big brands have taken the simple dessert and turned them into their own original products. For example, General Mills created a snickerdoodle flavored Chex Mix Muddy Buddies to their snack line. During the 2014 holiday season, Dunkin' Donuts unveiled a snickerdoodle cookie latte on their holiday menu. In addition to a snickerdoodle latte, Nestlé Coffee-Mate introduced their take on the cookie in the form of a coffee creamer. Brands such as Braum's Ice Cream and Prairie Farms have dedicated an ice cream flavor to the popular cookie.


title: Ibanez

text: The Hoshino Gakki company began in 1908 as the musical instrument sales division of the "Hoshino Shoten", a bookstore chain. Hoshino Gakki decided in 1935 to make Spanish-style acoustic guitars, at first using the "Ibanez Salvador" brand name in honor of Spanish luthier Salvador Ibáñez, and later simply "Ibanez". Accordingly, the brand originally was spelled in Japan, reflecting the Spanish pronunciation, before changing its spelling in 1986 to the current name, which represents an English pronunciation of Ibanez.


title: Ibanez

text: The modern era of Ibanez guitars began in 1957. The late 1950s and 1960s Ibanez catalogues show guitars with some wild-looking designs, manufactured by Kiso Suzuki Violin, Guyatone, and their own Tama factory established in 1962. After the Tama factory stopped manufacturing guitars in 1966, Hoshino Gakki used the Teisco and FujiGen Gakki guitar factories to make Ibanez guitars, and after the Teisco String Instrument factory closed in 1969/1970, Hoshino Gakki used the FujiGen Gakki guitar factory to make Ibanez guitars.


title: Ibanez

text: In the 1960s, Japanese guitar makers mainly copied American guitar designs, and Ibanez-branded copies of Gibson, Fender, and Rickenbacker models appear. This resulted in the so-called lawsuit period.


title: Ibanez

text: Hoshino Gakki introduced Ibanez models that were definitely not copies of the Gibson or Fender designs, such as the Iceman and the Roadstar series. The company has produced its own guitar designs ever since. The late 1980s and early 1990s were an important period for the Ibanez brand. Hoshino Gakki's relationship with guitarist Steve Vai resulted in the introduction of the Ibanez JEM and the Ibanez Universe models; after the earlier successes of the Roadstar and Iceman models in the late 1970s – early 1980s, Hoshino Gakki entered the superstrat market with the RG series, a lower-priced version of their JEM series.


title: Ibanez

text: Hoshino Gakki also had semi-acoustic, nylon- and steel-stringed acoustic guitars manufactured under the Ibanez name. Most Ibanez guitars were made by the FujiGen guitar factory in Japan up until the mid- to late 1980s, and from then on Ibanez guitars have also been made in other Asian countries such as Korea, China, and Indonesia. During the early 1980s, the FujiGen guitar factory also produced most of the Roland guitar synthesizers, including the Stratocaster-style Roland G-505, the twin-humbucker Roland G-202 (endorsed by Adrian Belew, Eric Clapton, Dean Brown, Jeff Baxter, Yannis Spathas, Christoforos Krokidis, Steve Howe, Mike Rutherford, Andy Summers, Neal Schon and Steve Hackett) and the Ibanez X-ING IMG-2010.


title: Ibanez

text: Cimar and Starfield were guitar and bass brands owned by Hoshino Gakki. In the 1970s, Hoshino Gakki and Kanda Shokai shared some guitar designs, and so some Ibanez and Greco guitars have the same features. The Greco versions were sold in Japan and the Ibanez versions were sold outside Japan. From 1982, Ibanez guitars have also been sold in Japan as well.


title: Ibanez

text: Guitar brands such as Antoria and Mann shared some Ibanez guitar designs. The Antoria guitar brand was managed by JT Coppock Leeds Ltd England. CSL was a brand name managed by Charles Summerfield Ltd England. Maurice Summerfield of the Charles Summerfield Ltd company contributed some design ideas to Hoshino Gakki and also imported Ibanez and CSL guitars into the UK from 1964 to 1987. The Maxxas brand name came about because Hoshino Gakki thought that the guitar did not fit in with the Ibanez model range and was therefore named Maxxas by Rich Lasner from Hoshino USA.


title: Ibanez

text: Harry Rosenbloom, founder of the (now-closed) Medley Music of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, was manufacturing handmade guitars under the name "Elger". By 1965, Rosenbloom had decided to stop manufacturing guitars and chose to become the exclusive North American distributor for Ibanez guitars. In September 1972, Hoshino began a partnership with Elger Guitars to import guitars from Japan. In September 1981, Elger was renamed "Hoshino U.S.A.", retaining the company headquarters in Bensalem, Pennsylvania as a distribution and quality-control center.


title: Ibanez

text: On June 28, 1977, in the Philadelphia Federal District Court, a lawsuit was filed by the Norlin Corporation, the parent company of Gibson Guitars, against Elger/Hoshino U.S.A.'s use of the Gibson headstock design and logo. Hoshino settled out of court in early 1978 and the case was officially closed on February 2, 1978.


title: Ibanez

text: After the lawsuit, Hoshino Gakki abandoned the strategy of copying "classic" electric guitar designs, having already introduced a plethora of original designs. Hoshino was producing their original Artist models from 1974, introducing a set-neck model in 1975. In 1977, they upgraded and extended their Artist range and introduced a number of other top-quality original designs made to match or surpass famous American brands: the Performer and short-lived Concert ranges, which competed with the Les Paul; through-neck Musicians; Studios in fixed- and through-neck construction; the radically shaped Iceman; and the Roadster which morphed into the Roadstar range, precursor to the popular superstrat era in the mid-1980s. The newer Ibanez models began incorporating more modern elements into their design such as radical body shapes, slimmer necks, 2-octave fingerboards, slim pointed headstocks, higher-output electronics, humbucker/single-coil/humbucker (H/S/H) pickup configurations, locking tremolo bridges and different finishes.


title: Ibanez

text: In the 1970s, the Nisshin Onpa company who owned the Maxon brand name, developed and began selling a series of effect pedals in Japan. Hoshino Gakki licensed these for sale using the name Ibanez outside Japan. These two companies eventually began doing less and less business together until Nisshin Onpa ceased manufacturing the TS-9 reissue for Hoshino Gakki in 2002.


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: Tripoli (/ALA-LC: "Ṭarābulus", Lebanese Arabic: "Ṭrablus") is the largest city in northern Lebanon and the second-largest city in the country. Situated north of the capital Beirut, it is the capital of the North Governorate and the Tripoli District. Tripoli overlooks the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and it is the northernmost seaport in Lebanon. It holds a string of four small islands offshore. The Palm Islands were declared a protected area because of their status of haven for endangered loggerhead turtles ("Chelona mydas"), rare monk seals and migratory birds. Tripoli borders the city of El Mina, the port of the Tripoli District, which it is geographically conjoined with to form the greater Tripoli conurbation.


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: The history of Tripoli dates back at least to the 14th century BCE. The city is well known for containing the Mansouri Great Mosque and the largest Crusader fortress in Lebanon, the Citadel of Raymond de Saint-Gilles. It has the second highest concentration of Mamluk architecture after Cairo.


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: In the Arab World, Tripoli is sometimes known as Ṭarābulus al-Sham (), or Levantine Tripoli, to distinguish it from its Libyan counterpart, known as Tripoli-of-the-West (; Ṭarābulus al-Gharb).


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: With the formation of Lebanon and the 1948 breakup of the Syrian–Lebanese customs union, Tripoli, once on par in economic and commercial importance to Beirut, was cut off from its traditional trade relations with the Syrian hinterland and therefore declined in relative prosperity.


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: According to classical writers Diodorus Siculus, Pliny the Elder, and Strabo, the city was founded by combining colonies from three different Phoenician cities - Tyre, Sidon and Arwad. These colonies were each a stadion (c.150-200m) apart from each other, and the combined city became known as "Triple City", or "Tripolis" in Greek.


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: Tripoli had a number of different names as far back as the Phoenician age. In the Amarna letters the name "Derbly", possibly a Semitic cognate of the city's modern Arabic name "Ṭarābulus", was mentioned, and in other places "Ahlia" or "Wahlia" are mentioned (14th century BCE). In an engraving concerning the invasion of Tripoli by the Assyrian King Ashurnasirpal II (888–859 BCE), it is called "Mahallata" or "Mahlata", "Mayza", and "Kayza".


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: Under the Phoenicians, the name "Athar" was used to refer to Tripoli. When the Ancient Greeks settled in the city they called it Τρίπολις ("Tripolis"), meaning "three cities," influenced by the earlier phonetically similar but etymologically unrelated name "Derbly". The Arabs called it "Ṭarābulus" and "Ṭarābulus al-Šām" (referring to "bilād al-Šām", to distinguish it from the Libyan city with the same name).


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: Today, Tripoli is also known as "al-fayḥā′" (الفيحاء), which is a term derived from the Arabic verb "faha" which is used to indicate the diffusion of a scent or smell. Tripoli was once known for its vast orange orchards. During the season of blooming, the pollen of orange flowers was said to be carried on the air, creating a splendid perfume which filled the city and suburbs.


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: Evidence of settlement in Tripoli dates back as early as 1400 BCE. In the 9th century, the Phoenicians established a trading station in Tripoli and later, under Persian rule, the city became the center of a confederation of the Phoenician city-states of Sidon, Tyre, and Arados Island. Under Hellenistic rule, Tripoli was used as a naval shipyard and the city enjoyed a period of autonomy. It came under Roman rule around 64 BCE. The 551 Beirut earthquake and tsunami destroyed the Byzantine city of Tripoli along with other Mediterranean coastal cities.


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: During Umayyad rule, Tripoli became a commercial and shipbuilding center. It achieved semi-independence under Fatimid rule, when it developed into a center of learning. The Crusaders laid siege to the city at the beginning of the 12th century and were able finally to enter it in 1109. This caused extensive destruction, including the burning of Tripoli's famous library, Dar al-'Ilm (House of Knowledge), with its thousands of volumes. During the Crusaders' rule the city became the capital of the County of Tripoli. In 1289, it fell to the Mamluks and the old port part of the city was destroyed. A new inland city was then built near the old castle. During Ottoman rule from 1516 to 1918, it retained its prosperity and commercial importance. Tripoli and all of Lebanon was under French mandate from 1920 until 1943 when Lebanon achieved independence.


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: Many historians reject the presence of any Phoenician civilization in Tripoli before the 8th (or sometimes 4th) century BCE. Others argue that the north–south gradient of Phoenician port establishments on the Lebanese coast indicates an earlier age for the Phoenician Tripoli.


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: Tripoli has not been extensively excavated because the ancient site lies buried beneath the modern city of El Mina. However, a few accidental finds are now in museums. Excavations in El Mina revealed skeletal remains of ancient wolves, eels, and gazelles, part of the ancient southern port quay, grinding mills, different types of columns, wheels, Bows, and a necropolis from the end of the Hellenistic period. A sounding made in the Crusader castle uncovered Late Bronze Age, Iron Age, in addition to Roman, Byzantine, and Fatimid remains. At the Abou Halka area (at the southern entrance of Tripoli) refuges dating to the early (30,000 years old) and middle Stone Age were uncovered.


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: Tripoli became a financial center and main port of northern Phoenicia with sea trade (East Mediterranean and the West), and caravan trade (North Syria and hinterland).


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: Under the Seleucids, Tripoli gained the right to mint its own coins (112 BCE); it was granted autonomy between 104 and 105, which it retained until 64 BCE. At the time, Tripoli was a center of shipbuilding and cedar timber trade (like other Phoenician cities).


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: During the Roman and Byzantine period, Tripoli witnessed the construction of important public buildings including municipal stadium or gymnasium due to strategic position of the city midway on the imperial coastal highway leading from Antioch to Ptolemais. In addition, Tripoli retained the same configuration of three distinct and administratively independent quarters (Aradians, Sidonians, and Tyrians). The territory outside the city was divided between the three quarters.


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: Tripoli gained in importance as a trading centre for the whole Mediterranean after it was inhabited by the Arabs. Tripoli was the port city of Damascus; the second military port of the Arab Navy, following Alexandria; a prosperous commercial and shipbuilding center; a wealthy principality under the Kutama Ismaili Shia Banu Ammar emirs. Legally, Tripoli was part of the jurisdiction of the military province of Damascus (Jund Dimashq).


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: During a visit by the traveler Nasir-i-Khusrau in 1047, he estimated the size of the population in Tripoli to be around 20,000 and the whole population were Shia Muslims. And according to Nasir Khusraw, the Fatimid Sultan raised a mighty army from Tripoli to defend it against Byzantine, Frankish, Andalusian and Moroccan invasions and raids.


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: The city became the chief town of the County of Tripoli (Latin Crusader state of the Levant) extending from Byblos to Latakia and including the plain of Akkar with the famous Krak des Chevaliers. Tripoli was also the seat of a bishopric. Tripoli was home to a busy port and was a major center of silk weaving, with as many as 4,000 looms. Important products of the time included lemons, oranges, and sugar cane. For 180 years, during the Frankish rule, Occitan was among the languages spoken in Tripoli and neighboring villages. At that time, Tripoli had a heterogeneous population including Western Europeans, Greeks, Armenians, Maronites, Nestorians, Jews, and Muslims. During the Crusade period, Tripoli witnessed the growth of the inland settlement surrounding the "Pilgrim's Mountain" (the citadel) into a built-up suburb including the main religious monuments of the city such as: The "Church of the Holy Sepulchre of Pilgrim's Mountain" (incorporating the Shiite shrine), the Church of Saint Mary's of the Tower, and the Carmelite Church. The state was a major base of operations for the military order of the Knights Hospitaller, who occupied the famous castle Krak Des Chevaliers (today a UNESCO world heritage site). The state ceased to exist in 1289, when it was captured by the Egyptian Mamluk sultan Qalawun.


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: Tripoli was captured by Sultan al-Mansur Qalawun from the Crusaders in 1289. The Mamluks destroyed the old city and built a new city 4 km inland from it. About 35 monuments from the Mamluk city have survived to the present day, including mosques, madrasas, khanqahs, hammams (bathhouses), and caravanserais, many of them built by local Mamluk amirs (princes). The Mamluks did not fortify the city with walls but restored and reused the Crusader Citadel of Raymond de Saint-Gilles on site.


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: During the Mamluk period, Tripoli became a central city and provincial capital of the six kingdoms in Mamluk Syria. Tripoli ranked third after Aleppo and Damascus. The kingdom was subdivided into six "wilayahs" or provinces and extended from Byblos and Aqra mountains south, to Latakia and al Alawiyyin mountains north. It also included Hermel, the plain of Akkar, and "Hosn al-Akrad" (Krak des Chevaliers).


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: Tripoli became a major trading port of Syria supplying Europe with candy, loaf and powdered sugar (especially during the latter part of the 14th century). The main products from agriculture and small industry included citrus fruits, olive oil, soap, and textiles (cotton and silk, especially velvet).


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: The Mamluks formed the ruling class holding main political, military and administrative functions. Arabs formed the population base (religious, industrial, and commercial functions) and the general population included the original inhabitants of the city, immigrants from different parts of Syria, North Africans who accompanied Qalawun's army during the liberation of Tripoli, Eastern Orthodox Christians, some Western families, and a minority of Jews. The population size of Mamluk Tripoli is estimated at 20,000–40,000; against 100,000 in each of Damascus and Aleppo.


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: Mamluk Tripoli witnessed a high rate of urban growth and a fast city development (according to traveler's accounts). It also had poles of growth including the fortress, the Great Mosque, and the river banks. The city had seven guard towers on the harbor site to defend the inland city, including what still stands today as the Lion Tower. During the period the castle of Saint Gilles was expanded as the Citadel of Mamluk Tripoli. The "Aqueduct of the Prince" was reused to bring water from the Rash'in spring. Several bridges were constructed and the surrounding orchards expanded through marsh drainage. Fresh water was supplied to houses from their roofs.


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: The urban form of Mamluk Tripoli was dictated mainly by climate, site configuration, defense, and urban aesthetics. The layout of major thoroughfares was set according to prevailing winds and topography. The city had no fortifications, but heavy building construction characterized by compact urban forms, narrow and winding streets for difficult city penetration. Residential areas were bridged over streets at strategic points for surveillance and defense. The city also included many loopholes and narrow slits at street junctions.


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: The religious and secular buildings of Mamluk Tripoli comprise a fine example of the architecture of that time. The oldest among them were built with stones taken from 12th and 13th-century churches; the characteristics of the architecture of the period are best seen in the mosques and madrassas, the Islamic schools. It is the madrassas which most attract attention, for they include highly original structures as well as decoration: here a honeycombed ceiling, there a curiously shaped corniche, doorway or moulded window frame. Among the finest is the madrassa al-Burtasiyah, with an elegant façade picked out in black and white stones and a highly decorated lintel over the main door.


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: Public buildings in Mamluk Tripoli were emphasized through sitting, façade treatment, and street alignment. Well-cut and well-dressed stones (local sandstone) were used as media of construction and for decorative effects on elevations and around openings (the ablaq technique of alternating light and dark stone courses). Bearing walls were used as vertical supports. Cross vaults covered most spaces from prayer halls to closed rectangular rooms, to galleries around courtyards. Domes were constructed over conspicuous and important spaces like tomb chambers, mihrab, and covered courtyards. Typical construction details in Mamluk Tripoli included cross vaults with concave grooves meeting in octagonal openings or concave rosettes as well as simple cupolas or ribbed domes. The use of double drums and corner squinches was commonly used to make the transition from square rooms to round domes.


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: Decorations in Mamluk buildings concentrated on the most conspicuous areas of buildings: minarets, portals, windows, on the outside, and mihrab, qiblah wall, and floor on the inside. Decorations at the time may be subdivided into structural decoration (found outside the buildings and incorporate the medium of construction itself such as ablaq walls, plain or zigzag moldings, fish scale motifs, joggled lintels or voussoirs, inscriptions, and muqarnas) and applied decoration (found inside the buildings and include the use of marble marquetry, stucco, and glass mosaic).


title: Tripoli, Lebanon

text: Mosques evenly spread with major concentration of madrasas around the Mansouri Great Mosque. All khans were located in the northern part of the city for easy accessibility from roads to Syria. Hammams (public baths) were carefully located to serve major population concentrations: one next to the Grand Mosque, the other in the center of the commercial district, and the third in the right-bank settlement.