title: Radiometric dating

text: Uranium–lead dating is often performed on the mineral zircon (ZrSiO), though it can be used on other materials, such as baddeleyite and monazite (see: monazite geochronology). Zircon and baddeleyite incorporate uranium atoms into their crystalline structure as substitutes for zirconium, but strongly reject lead. Zircon has a very high closure temperature, is resistant to mechanical weathering and is very chemically inert. Zircon also forms multiple crystal layers during metamorphic events, which each may record an isotopic age of the event. "In situ" micro-beam analysis can be achieved via laser ICP-MS or SIMS techniques.


title: Radiometric dating

text: One of its great advantages is that any sample provides two clocks, one based on uranium-235's decay to lead-207 with a half-life of about 700 million years, and one based on uranium-238's decay to lead-206 with a half-life of about 4.5 billion years, providing a built-in crosscheck that allows accurate determination of the age of the sample even if some of the lead has been lost. This can be seen in the concordia diagram, where the samples plot along an errorchron (straight line) which intersects the concordia curve at the age of the sample.


title: Radiometric dating

text: This involves the alpha decay of Sm to Nd with a half-life of 1.06 x 10 years. Accuracy levels of within twenty million years in ages of two-and-a-half billion years are achievable.


title: Radiometric dating

text: This involves electron capture or positron decay of potassium-40 to argon-40. Potassium-40 has a half-life of 1.3 billion years, so this method is applicable to the oldest rocks. Radioactive potassium-40 is common in micas, feldspars, and hornblendes, though the closure temperature is fairly low in these materials, about 350 °C (mica) to 500 °C (hornblende).


title: Radiometric dating

text: This is based on the beta decay of rubidium-87 to strontium-87, with a half-life of 50 billion years. This scheme is used to date old igneous and metamorphic rocks, and has also been used to date lunar samples. Closure temperatures are so high that they are not a concern. Rubidium-strontium dating is not as precise as the uranium-lead method, with errors of 30 to 50 million years for a 3-billion-year-old sample. Application of in situ analysis (Laser-Ablation ICP-MS) within single mineral grains in faults have shown that the Rb-Sr method can be used to decipher episodes of fault movement.


title: Radiometric dating

text: A relatively short-range dating technique is based on the decay of uranium-234 into thorium-230, a substance with a half-life of about 80,000 years. It is accompanied by a sister process, in which uranium-235 decays into protactinium-231, which has a half-life of 32,760 years.


title: Radiometric dating

text: While uranium is water-soluble, thorium and protactinium are not, and so they are selectively precipitated into ocean-floor sediments, from which their ratios are measured. The scheme has a range of several hundred thousand years. A related method is ionium–thorium dating, which measures the ratio of ionium (thorium-230) to thorium-232 in ocean sediment.


title: Radiometric dating

text: Radiocarbon dating is also simply called carbon-14 dating. Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope of carbon, with a half-life of 5,730 years (which is very short compared with the above isotopes), and decays into nitrogen. In other radiometric dating methods, the heavy parent isotopes were produced by nucleosynthesis in supernovas, meaning that any parent isotope with a short half-life should be extinct by now. Carbon-14, though, is continuously created through collisions of neutrons generated by cosmic rays with nitrogen in the upper atmosphere and thus remains at a near-constant level on Earth. The carbon-14 ends up as a trace component in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO).


title: Radiometric dating

text: A carbon-based life form acquires carbon during its lifetime. Plants acquire it through photosynthesis, and animals acquire it from consumption of plants and other animals. When an organism dies, it ceases to take in new carbon-14, and the existing isotope decays with a characteristic half-life (5730 years). The proportion of carbon-14 left when the remains of the organism are examined provides an indication of the time elapsed since its death. This makes carbon-14 an ideal dating method to date the age of bones or the remains of an organism. The carbon-14 dating limit lies around 58,000 to 62,000 years.


title: Radiometric dating

text: The rate of creation of carbon-14 appears to be roughly constant, as cross-checks of carbon-14 dating with other dating methods show it gives consistent results. However, local eruptions of volcanoes or other events that give off large amounts of carbon dioxide can reduce local concentrations of carbon-14 and give inaccurate dates. The releases of carbon dioxide into the biosphere as a consequence of industrialization have also depressed the proportion of carbon-14 by a few percent; conversely, the amount of carbon-14 was increased by above-ground nuclear bomb tests that were conducted into the early 1960s. Also, an increase in the solar wind or the Earth's magnetic field above the current value would depress the amount of carbon-14 created in the atmosphere.


title: Radiometric dating

text: This involves inspection of a polished slice of a material to determine the density of "track" markings left in it by the spontaneous fission of uranium-238 impurities. The uranium content of the sample has to be known, but that can be determined by placing a plastic film over the polished slice of the material, and bombarding it with slow neutrons. This causes induced fission of U, as opposed to the spontaneous fission of U. The fission tracks produced by this process are recorded in the plastic film. The uranium content of the material can then be calculated from the number of tracks and the neutron flux.


title: Radiometric dating

text: This scheme has application over a wide range of geologic dates. For dates up to a few million years micas, tektites (glass fragments from volcanic eruptions), and meteorites are best used. Older materials can be dated using zircon, apatite, titanite, epidote and garnet which have a variable amount of uranium content. Because the fission tracks are healed by temperatures over about 200 °C the technique has limitations as well as benefits. The technique has potential applications for detailing the thermal history of a deposit.


title: Radiometric dating

text: Large amounts of otherwise rare Cl (half-life ~300ky) were produced by irradiation of seawater during atmospheric detonations of nuclear weapons between 1952 and 1958. The residence time of Cl in the atmosphere is about 1 week. Thus, as an event marker of 1950s water in soil and ground water, Cl is also useful for dating waters less than 50 years before the present. Cl has seen use in other areas of the geological sciences, including dating ice and sediments.


title: Radiometric dating

text: Luminescence dating methods are not radiometric dating methods in that they do not rely on abundances of isotopes to calculate age. Instead, they are a consequence of background radiation on certain minerals. Over time, ionizing radiation is absorbed by mineral grains in sediments and archaeological materials such as quartz and potassium feldspar. The radiation causes charge to remain within the grains in structurally unstable "electron traps". Exposure to sunlight or heat releases these charges, effectively "bleaching" the sample and resetting the clock to zero. The trapped charge accumulates over time at a rate determined by the amount of background radiation at the location where the sample was buried. Stimulating these mineral grains using either light (optically stimulated luminescence or infrared stimulated luminescence dating) or heat (thermoluminescence dating) causes a luminescence signal to be emitted as the stored unstable electron energy is released, the intensity of which varies depending on the amount of radiation absorbed during burial and specific properties of the mineral.


title: Radiometric dating

text: These methods can be used to date the age of a sediment layer, as layers deposited on top would prevent the grains from being "bleached" and reset by sunlight. Pottery shards can be dated to the last time they experienced significant heat, generally when they were fired in a kiln.


title: Radiometric dating

text: Absolute radiometric dating requires a measurable fraction of parent nucleus to remain in the sample rock. For rocks dating back to the beginning of the solar system, this requires extremely long-lived parent isotopes, making measurement of such rocks' exact ages imprecise. To be able to distinguish the relative ages of rocks from such old material, and to get a better time resolution than that available from long-lived isotopes, short-lived isotopes that are no longer present in the rock can be used.


title: Radiometric dating

text: At the beginning of the solar system, there were several relatively short-lived radionuclides like Al, Fe, Mn, and I present within the solar nebula. These radionuclides—possibly produced by the explosion of a supernova—are extinct today, but their decay products can be detected in very old material, such as that which constitutes meteorites. By measuring the decay products of extinct radionuclides with a mass spectrometer and using isochronplots, it is possible to determine relative ages of different events in the early history of the solar system. Dating methods based on extinct radionuclides can also be calibrated with the U-Pb method to give absolute ages. Thus both the approximate age and a high time resolution can be obtained. Generally a shorter half-life leads to a higher time resolution at the expense of timescale.


title: Radiometric dating

text: beta-decays to with a half-life of 16 million years. The iodine-xenon chronometer is an isochron technique. Samples are exposed to neutrons in a nuclear reactor. This converts the only stable isotope of iodine () into via neutron capture followed by beta decay (of ). After irradiation, samples are heated in a series of steps and the xenon isotopic signature of the gas evolved in each step is analysed. When a consistent / ratio is observed across several consecutive temperature steps, it can be interpreted as corresponding to a time at which the sample stopped losing xenon.


title: Radiometric dating

text: Samples of a meteorite called Shallowater are usually included in the irradiation to monitor the conversion efficiency from to . The difference between the measured / ratios of the sample and Shallowater then corresponds to the different ratios of / when they each stopped losing xenon. This in turn corresponds to a difference in age of closure in the early solar system.


title: Radiometric dating

text: Another example of short-lived extinct radionuclide dating is the – chronometer, which can be used to estimate the relative ages of chondrules. decays to with a half-life of 720 000 years. The dating is simply a question of finding the deviation from the natural abundance of (the product of decay) in comparison with the ratio of the stable isotopes /.


title: Radiometric dating

text: The excess of (often designated *) is found by comparing the / ratio to that of other Solar System materials.


title: Radiometric dating

text: The – chronometer gives an estimate of the time period for formation of primitive meteorites of only a few million years (1.4 million years for Chondrule formation).


title: Radiometric dating

text: In a July 2022 paper in the journal "Applied Geochemistry", the authors proposed that the terms “parent isotope" and "daughter isotope” be avoided in favor of the more descriptive "precursor isotope" and "product isotope", analogous to “precursor ion” and “product ion” in mass spectrometry.


title: Alex Berenson

text: Alexander Norman Berenson (born January 6, 1973) is an American writer who was a reporter for "The New York Times", and has authored several thriller novels as well a book on corporate financial filings. His 2019 book "" sparked controversy, earning denunciations from many in the scientific and medical communities.


title: Alex Berenson

text: During the coronavirus pandemic, Berenson appeared frequently in American right-wing media, spreading false claims about COVID-19 and its vaccines. He spent much of the pandemic arguing that its seriousness was overblown; once COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out, he made false claims about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.


title: Alex Berenson

text: Berenson was born in New York, and grew up in Englewood, New Jersey. After attending the Horace Mann School, he graduated from Yale University in 1994 with bachelor's degrees in history and economics.


title: Alex Berenson

text: Berenson joined "The Denver Post" in June 1994 as a business reporter. In August 1996, he left the "Post" to join TheStreet, a financial news website founded by Jim Cramer. In December 1999, Berenson joined "The New York Times" as a business investigative reporter.


title: Alex Berenson

text: In the fall of 2003 and the summer of 2004, Berenson covered the occupation of Iraq for the "Times". He then covered the pharmaceutical and health care industries, specializing in issues concerning dangerous drugs. Beginning in December 2008, Berenson reported on the Bernard Madoff $50 billion Ponzi scheme scandal.


title: Alex Berenson

text: In 2010, Berenson left the "Times" to become a full-time novelist. He lives in Garrison, New York, with his wife Jacqueline, a forensic psychiatrist.


title: Alex Berenson

text: He has written 12 spy novels, all featuring the same protagonist, CIA agent John Wells. His first novel, "The Faithful Spy", was released in April 2006 and won an Edgar Award for best debut by an American novelist. "The Faithful Spy" was ranked #1 on "The New York Times Bestseller List" for paperbacks.


title: Alex Berenson

text: In 2008, Berenson released his second thriller, "The Ghost War." His third novel, "The Silent Man," followed in 2009. His fourth, "The Midnight House," was released in 2010 and debuted at #9 on "The New York Times" bestseller list. The fifth, "The Secret Soldier," was released in 2011 and debuted at #6 on the bestseller list. The sixth, "The Shadow Patrol," was released in 2012, and debuted at #8. In July 2012, "The Shadow Patrol" was named a finalist for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award, given by Britain's Crime Writers' Association.


title: Alex Berenson

text: In 2019, Berenson authored the book "Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness and Violence", which argues that marijuana use contributes to psychotic disorders and violent crime. The book has been denounced as alarmist and inaccurate in the scientific and medical communities because of his claims that cannabis psychosis and violence; many scientists state that he is drawing inappropriate conclusions from the research, primarily by inferring causation from correlation,


title: Alex Berenson

text: Early in the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Berenson vocally argued that people and the media were overestimating the risk of the new virus, that it posed little risk to young Americans, and that it was being used as a cover for government overreach. Many public health experts have rejected his claims.


title: Alex Berenson

text: In May 2020, Fox News announced that Berenson would host a TV show called "COVID Contrarian" on its online streaming platform Fox Nation. However, by July 2020, amid surges in coronavirus cases across parts of the United States, Fox News appeared to have backtracked and removed the announcement of his show from its website.


title: Alex Berenson

text: In 2021, Berenson tweeted that COVID-19 vaccinations had led to 50 times more adverse effects than flu vaccine. PolitiFact rated the claim "mostly false". "The Atlantic" called him "The pandemic's wrongest man", owing to his false claims of the vaccine's ineffectiveness.


title: Alex Berenson

text: On January 25, 2022, Berenson appeared on the Fox News show "Tucker Carlson Tonight" declaring that existing mRNA vaccines are "dangerous and ineffective" against COVID-19, and further demanding that they be withdrawn from the market immediately. "The Washington Post"s Philip Bump denounced Carlson for "inviting Berenson on, despite his proven track record of misinformation and cherry-picking" and observed that "Berenson's claims went unchallenged."


title: Alex Berenson

text: On August 28, 2021, Twitter permanently suspended Berenson for repeated violations of its policy on COVID-19 misinformation, but after Berenson filed suit in December 2021 demanding reinstatement, Twitter reinstated Berenson's account in early summer 2022, in a "mutually acceptable resolution". This reinstatement was referred as "significant" by The Atlantic, given that most social-media-banned people fail to win their court cases.


title: Alex Berenson

text: Berenson did not regain Twitter access because of a First-Amendment free speech claim, which was rejected by the judge. Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, theorizes that Twitter settled because of documentation of promises made to Berenson by a high-level Twitter employee concerning the nature of his tweets. Goldman stated that Internet company executives have always been advised by their attorneys not to make promises to, nor even to speak to anyone about their individual accounts “for reasons that should now be obvious.”


title: John Stonehouse

text: John Thomson Stonehouse (28 July 192514 April 1988) was a British Labour and Co-operative Party politician and cabinet minister under Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Stonehouse is remembered for his unsuccessful attempt at faking his own death in 1974.


title: John Stonehouse

text: Stonehouse was born in Southampton, had a trade unionist upbringing and joined the Labour Party at the age of sixteen. His mother, Rosina Stonehouse, a former scullery maid, was the sixth female mayor of Southampton and a councillor on Southampton City Council from 1936 to 1970.


title: John Stonehouse

text: Stonehouse was educated at Tauntons School (now Taunton's College), Southampton, and the London School of Economics (LSE), where he read for a BSc(Econ.) degree after the war. During his time at the LSE he was chairman of both the chess club and the Labour society. The political scientist Bernard Crick, who was a student contemporary of Stonehouse, recalls that his then nickname was 'Lord John' and that "his conversation was openly and restlessly about how best to get a parliamentary seat."


title: John Stonehouse

text: An economist, he became involved in co-operative enterprise and was a manager of African co-operative societies in Uganda (1952–54). He served as a director (1956–62) and President (1962–64) of the London Co-operative Society.


title: John Stonehouse

text: Stonehouse stood unsuccessfully in Norwood at the 1949 London County Council election. He was first elected as Labour Co-operative Member of Parliament (MP) for Wednesbury in Staffordshire in a 1957 by-election, having contested Twickenham in 1950 and Burton in 1951.


title: John Stonehouse

text: In February 1959, Stonehouse travelled to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland on a fact-finding tour in which he condemned the White minority government of Southern Rhodesia. Speaking to the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress, he encouraged Blacks to stand up for their rights and said they had the support of the British Labour Party. He was promptly deported from Southern Rhodesia and banned from returning a year later.


title: John Stonehouse

text: Stonehouse allegedly began spying for Czechoslovakia in 1962. He served as a junior minister of aviation, where he was involved in BOAC's order of Boeing 707 aircraft from the United States, against his own recommendation that they should buy a British aircraft, the Super Vickers VC10. This led to his making accusations against colleagues about the reasons for the decision. In March 1968, he negotiated an agreement providing a framework for the long-term development of technological co-operation between Britain and Czechoslovakia. It provided for the exchange of specialists and information, facilities for study and research in technology, and such other forms of industrial co-operation which might be agreed.


title: John Stonehouse

text: While in the Colonial Office, Stonehouse's rise continued, and in 1967 he became Minister of State for Technology under Tony Benn and later Postmaster General until the position was abolished by the Post Office Act 1969. As Postmaster General, Stonehouse oversaw the introduction of first and second-class stamps.


title: John Stonehouse

text: As Minister of Posts and Telecommunications in 1970, he oversaw the controversial jamming of the offshore radio station Radio North Sea International. When Labour was defeated at the 1970 general election, he was not appointed to the Shadow Cabinet.


title: John Stonehouse

text: When the Wednesbury constituency was abolished in 1974, he stood for and was elected to the nearby Walsall North constituency.


title: John Stonehouse

text: In 1969, Stonehouse was subjected to the assertion that he was a Czechoslovak secret service agent. He successfully defended himself, but the allegation was substantiated in the official history of MI5, "The Defence of the Realm" (2009) by Cambridge historian Christopher Andrew. In December 2010, it was revealed that, in 1980, then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had agreed to cover up revelations that Stonehouse had been a Czechoslovak spy since the 1960s as there was insufficient evidence to bring him to trial. Until Ray Mawby, briefly a member of a Conservative government, was exposed in June 2012, Stonehouse was the only Minister known to have been an agent for the former Eastern bloc.


title: John Stonehouse

text: After 1970, Stonehouse set up various companies in an attempt to secure a regular income. By 1974, most of these were in financial trouble, and he had resorted to deceptive creative accounting. Aware that the Department of Trade and Industry was looking at his affairs, he decided that his best choice would be to flee. Secret British government documents, declassified in 2005, indicate that Stonehouse spent months rehearsing his new identity, that of Joseph Markham—the deceased husband of a constituent.


title: John Stonehouse

text: Stonehouse maintained the pretence of normality until he faked his death on 20 November 1974, leaving a pile of clothes on a beach in Miami Beach to make it appear that he had gone swimming and had drowned, or possibly had been killed by a shark. He was presumed dead, and obituaries were published despite the fact that no corpse had been found. In reality, he was "en route" to Australia, hoping to set up a new life with his mistress and secretary, Sheila Buckley.


title: John Stonehouse

text: Using false identities, Stonehouse set about transferring large sums of money between banks as a further means of covering his tracks. Under the name of Clive Mildoon, he deposited A$21,500 in cash at the Bank of New Zealand. The teller who handled the money later spotted "Mildoon" at the Bank of New South Wales. Inquiries led the teller to learn that the money was in the name of Joe Markham and he informed the local police. Stonehouse spent a while in Copenhagen with Sheila Buckley, but later returned to Australia, unaware that he was now under surveillance. The police initially suspected him of being Lord Lucan, who had disappeared a fortnight before Stonehouse, following the murder of his children's nanny, Sandra Rivett. Investigators noted that the suspect was reading British newspapers that also included stories attacking the "recently deceased" John Stonehouse. They contacted Scotland Yard, requesting pictures of both Lord Lucan and Stonehouse. On his arrest, the police instructed him to pull down his trousers so they could be sure whether or not he was Lord Lucan, who had a six-inch scar on the inside of his right thigh.


title: John Stonehouse

text: Stonehouse was arrested in Melbourne on 24 December 1974. He applied for the position of Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds while still in Australia (one of the ways for an MP to resign), but decided not to sign the papers. Six months after he was arrested, he was deported to the UK; he had tried to obtain offers of asylum from Sweden or Mauritius. He was remanded in Brixton Prison until August 1975 when he was released on bail. He continued to serve as an MP. Although unhappy with the situation, the Labour Party did not expel him. Their Parliamentary majority was very narrow.


title: John Stonehouse

text: Stonehouse conducted his own defence on 21 charges of fraud, theft, forgery, conspiracy to defraud, causing a false police investigation and wasting police time. His trial lasted 68 days. On 6 August 1976, he was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison for fraud.


title: John Stonehouse

text: On 4 April 1976 Stonehouse had attended a St George's Day festival hosted by the English National Party and confirmed he had joined the party, making Labour a minority government. He agreed to resign as a Privy Counsellor on 17 August 1976, becoming one of only three people to resign from the Imperial Privy Council in the 20th century. Stonehouse tendered his resignation from the House of Commons on 27 August 1976. The subsequent by-election was won by Robin Hodgson, a Conservative. In October 1976, Stonehouse was declared bankrupt.


title: John Stonehouse

text: Stonehouse was imprisoned in HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs. On 30 June 1977, the House of Lords refused his appeal against five of the charges of which he was convicted. While he was in prison, he complained that the prison workshop where he worked played pop music on the radio station. When his health deteriorated, he was moved to HM Prison Blundeston in Suffolk.


title: John Stonehouse

text: On 14 August 1979, he was released early from prison because of good behaviour and because he had suffered three heart attacks; he had the first on 18 April 1977, a second one four days later, and a massive heart attack on 13 August 1978. On 6 September 1978 Stonehouse suffered a coronary ischemia attack which required him to spend three days in hospital. He underwent open heart surgery on 7 November 1978 which lasted for six hours.


title: John Stonehouse

text: From January 1980, Stonehouse was a volunteer fundraiser for the East London-based charity, Community Links. He joined the SDP, which later amalgamated with the Liberal Party to become the Liberal Democrats. In June 1980, he was discharged from bankruptcy. Stonehouse wrote three novels, and made TV appearances and radio broadcasts during the rest of his life, mostly in connection with discussing his disappearance. In June 1986 he appeared on TVS's "Regrets" programme and in December that year on the BBC Radio 4 interview programme "In The Psychiatrist's Chair" with Anthony Clare.


title: John Stonehouse

text: Stonehouse married Barbara Joan Smith in 1948, and they had two daughters, Jane and Julia, and a son, Mathew. After their divorce in 1978, Stonehouse married his mistress, Sheila Elizabeth Buckley, in Hampshire on 31 January 1981. In December 1982 their son James William John was born.


title: John Stonehouse

text: Stonehouse's daughter Julia Stonehouse published an account of her father's life in 2021 entitled "John Stonehouse, My Father: The True Story of the Runaway MP"; it was released almost simultaneously with a book called "Stonehouse: Cabinet Minister, Fraudster, Spy", by criminal defence solicitor Julian Hayes, who is Stonehouse's great nephew through the author's father, Michael Hayes, who was the MP's nephew and his lawyer.


title: John Stonehouse

text: On 25 March 1988, Stonehouse abruptly collapsed on set during an edition of "Central Weekend" in Birmingham during the filming of a programme about missing people. He was given emergency medical treatment at the studio and an ambulance was called. He was diagnosed as having suffered a minor heart attack and kept in the city's general hospital overnight. Just under three weeks later, early on 14 April, he suffered a massive heart attack at his house at Dales Way in Totton, Hampshire, where he had moved six months earlier, having lived in London since his release from prison, his last address there having been at 20 Shirland Mews. This time Stonehouse could not be saved, and he died in hospital at 2.30am. He was cremated in Bassett Green, Southampton, on 22 April 1988. The former MP Bruce Douglas-Mann paid tribute. In 1989, his fourth novel was published posthumously. He left under £70,000 according to his will published on 17 August 1988.


title: Self-Made Man (book)

text: Self-Made Man: My Year Disguised as a Man is a 2006 book by journalist Norah Vincent, recounting an 18-month experiment in which she disguised herself as a man—"Ned"—and then integrated into traditionally male-only venues, such as a bowling league and a monastery. She described this as "a human project" about learning. She states at the beginning that she is a lesbian but not transgender.


title: Self-Made Man (book)

text: In the book, she describes her experiences as a man in strip clubs, on dates, and as part of a men's support group.


title: Self-Made Man (book)

text: In order to effectively pose as a man, Vincent acquired a buzz cut and flattened her chest using a small sports bra. She also hired a makeup artist to fake a five o'clock shadow and trained for months to imitate a deeper male voice. She changed her diet and exercise regime to "bulk up" with more upper-body muscle.


title: Self-Made Man (book)

text: Vincent joined a men's bowling team, where she says "[the men] just took me in ... no questions asked." She eventually became friends with them, even coming along to strip clubs and dating women who had no idea of her true sex. She later revealed that she was actually female to the men, who "took it well."


title: Self-Made Man (book)

text: Vincent wrote about how the only time she had ever been considered excessively feminine was during her stint as a man: her alter ego, Ned, was assumed to be gay on several occasions. Features of herself that had before been seen as "butch" were seen as oddly effeminate. Vincent stated that, after the experiment, she gained more sympathy for the male condition: "Men are suffering. They have different problems than women have, but they don't have it better. They need our sympathy, they need our love, and they need each other more than anything else. They need to be together."


title: Old Man of the Mountain

text: The Old Man of the Mountain, also called the Great Stone Face and the Profile, was a series of five granite cliff ledges on Cannon Mountain in Franconia, New Hampshire, United States, that appeared to be the jagged profile of a human face when viewed from the north. The rock formation, above Profile Lake, was tall and wide.


title: Old Man of the Mountain

text: The Old Man of the Mountain is called "Stone Face" by the Abenaki and is a symbol within their culture. It is also a symbol to the Mohawk people. The first written mention of the Old Man was in 1805. It became a landmark and a cultural icon for the state of New Hampshire. It collapsed on May 3, 2003. After its collapse, residents considered replacing it with a replica, but the idea was ultimately rejected. It remains a visual icon on the state's license plates and in other places.


title: Old Man of the Mountain

text: Franconia Notch is a U-shaped valley in the White Mountains that was shaped by glaciers. The Old Man formation was likely formed from freezing and thawing of water in cracks of the granite bedrock sometime after the retreat of glaciers 12,000 years ago. The formation was first noted in the records of a Franconia surveying team around 1805. Francis Whitcomb and Luke Brooks, part of the surveying team, were the first two to record observing the Old Man. The official state history says several groups of surveyors were working in the Franconia Notch area at the time and claimed credit for the discovery.


title: Old Man of the Mountain

text: According to Abenaki legend, a human named Nis Kizos was born during an eclipse. He became a good leader and provider for his community. Nis Kizos was successful enough to attend Kchi Mahadan, a great gathering of other communities to trade. Tarlo, a beautiful Iroquois woman, returned with him. They fell in love. Tarlo had to return to her birth village because its people had been struck by a sickness. Nis Kizos promised he would live at the top of the mountain. By day he would look out for her, and at night he would light a fire to guide her back. With winter fast approaching, the elders sent Nis Kizos's brother Gezosa to bring him back. He was unsuccessful because Nis Kizo maintained his promise. Tarlo died in her birth village of sickness. After the winter Gezosa went back up the mountain to bring the news of Tarlo and retrieve Nis Kizos. He found no signs of the existence of Nis Kizos and was stricken with sadness. On his way back down the mountain he looked back and found Nis Kizos had become part of the mountain as a stone face to look after the land.


title: Old Man of the Mountain

text: A modern addition to the Abenaki legend is that when Stone Face fell in 2003, he finally was re-united with Tarlo. The Great Circle was rejoined.


title: Old Man of the Mountain

text: Denise Ortakales published a children's book in 2005 called "The Legend of the Old Man of the Mountain", which relates the Mohawk legend of the stone face. In the tale, Chief Pemigewassat loved a maiden named Minerwa of the Mohawk people, which brought peace between their tribes for a long time. When Minerwa went back home to visit her dying father, Chief Pemigewassat promised he would stay and wait for her to return. However, the Great Spirit claimed him during the winter, and his people buried him facing towards Minerwa to watch for her return. His face was immortalized in the stone as the stone face, forever waiting and watching.


title: Old Man of the Mountain

text: The Old Man became famous across the United States largely because of statesman Daniel Webster, a New Hampshire native, who once wrote: "Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoemakers hang out a gigantic shoe; jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but up in the Mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men."


title: Old Man of the Mountain

text: The writer Nathaniel Hawthorne used the Old Man as inspiration for his short story "The Great Stone Face", published in 1850, in which he described the formation as "a work of Nature in her mood of majestic playfulness".


title: Old Man of the Mountain

text: The profile has been New Hampshire's state emblem since 1945. It was put on the state's license plate, state route signs, and on the back of New Hampshire's statehood quarter, which is popularly promoted as the only US coin with a profile on both sides. Before the collapse, it could be seen from special viewing areas along Interstate 93 in Franconia Notch State Park, approximately north of the state's capital, Concord.


title: Old Man of the Mountain

text: Freezing and thawing opened fissures in the Old Man's "forehead". By the 1920s, the crack was wide enough to be mended with chains, and in 1957 the state legislature passed a $25,000 appropriation for a more elaborate weatherproofing, using 20 tons of fast-drying cement, plastic covering and steel rods and turnbuckles, plus a concrete gutter to divert runoff from above. A team from the state highway and park divisions maintained the patchwork each summer.


title: Old Man of the Mountain

text: Nevertheless, the formation collapsed to the ground between midnight and 2 a.m., May 3, 2003. Dismay over the collapse was so great that people visited to pay tribute, with some leaving flowers.


title: Old Man of the Mountain

text: Early after the collapse, many New Hampshire residents considered replacement with a replica. That idea was rejected by an official task force in 2003 headed by former Governor Steve Merrill.


title: Old Man of the Mountain

text: In 2004, the state legislature considered, but did not accept, a proposal to change New Hampshire's state flag to include the profile.


title: Old Man of the Mountain

text: On the first anniversary of the collapse in May 2004, the Old Man of the Mountain Legacy Fund (OMMLF) began operating coin-operated viewfinders near the base of the cliff. When looking through them up at the cliff of Cannon Mountain one can see a "before" and "after" of how the Old Man of the Mountain used to appear.


title: Old Man of the Mountain

text: Seven years after the collapse, on June 24, 2010, the OMMLF, now the Friends of the Old Man of the Mountain, broke ground for the first phase of the state-sanctioned "Old Man of the Mountain Memorial" on a walkway along Profile Lake below Cannon Cliff. It consists of a viewing platform with "Steel Profilers", which, when aligned with the Cannon Cliff above, create what the profile looked like up on the cliff overlooking the Franconia Notch. The project was overseen by Friends of the Old Man of the Mountain/Franconia Notch, a committee that succeeded the Old Man of the Mountain Revitalization Task Force. The Legacy Fund is a private 501(c)(3) corporation with representatives from various state agencies and several private nonprofits.


title: Old Man of the Mountain

text: In 2013, the board called a halt to further fundraising. They announced their intention to spend what was left on minor improvements and dissolve the board.


title: Education in France

text: Education in France is organized in a highly centralized manner, with many subdivisions. It is divided into the three stages of primary education ("enseignement primaire"), secondary education ("enseignement secondaire"), and higher education ("enseignement supérieur"). The main age that a child starts school in France is age 2. Two year olds do not start primary school, they start preschool. Then, by the age of six, a child in France starts primary school and soon moves onto higher and higher grade levels until they graduate.


title: Education in France

text: In French higher education, the following degrees are recognized by the Bologna Process (EU recognition): "Licence" and "Licence Professionnelle" (bachelor's degrees), and the comparably named "Master" and "Doctorat" degrees.


title: Education in France

text: The Programme for International Student Assessment coordinated by the OECD in 2018 ranked the overall knowledge and skills of French 15-year-olds as 26th in the world in reading literacy, mathematics, and science, below the OECD average of 493. The average OECD performance of French 15-year-olds in science and mathematics has declined, with the share of low performers in reading, mathematics and science developing a sharp upward trend. France's share of top performers in mathematics and science has also declined.


title: Education in France

text: France's performance in mathematics and science at the middle school level was ranked 23 in the 1995 Trends in International Math and Science Study. In 2019, France ranked 21 in the TIMSS Science general ranking.


title: Education in France

text: Napoleon began the French university and secondary educational systems. Guizot started the elementary system. Intense battles took place over whether the Catholic Church should play a dominant role. The modern era of French education begins at the end of the 19th century. Jules Ferry, a Minister of Public Instruction in 1841, is widely credited for creating the modern school ("l'école républicaine") by requiring all children between the ages of 6 and 12, both boys and girls, to attend. He also made public instruction mandatory, free of charge, and secular ("laïque"). With those laws, known as French Lubbers, Jules Ferry laws, and several others, the Third Republic repealed most of the Falloux Laws of 1850–1851, which gave an important role to the clergy.


title: Education in France

text: The French curriculum predominantly emphasized the works of French writers of European descent. Ferry and others considered literature the glue of French identity. The ethnic and cultural demographics of the student body did not factor in to the quest to transmit a "common culture" to the students.


title: Education in France

text: Like literature, history education is seen as critical to shaping the identity of young people and the integration of immigrants to French identity. Ferry's views continue to exert influence today. Ministry reports have confirmed that the rule of schools in promoting "common culture" is only made more critical by the rising levels of student diversity. According to the ministry, history education in France has, over the course of one century made possible "the integration of children of Italians, Poles, Africans and Portuguese".


title: Education in France

text: All educational programmes in France are regulated by the Ministry of National Education (officially called "Ministère de l'Éducation nationale, de la Jeunesse et de la Vie associative"). The head of the ministry is the Minister of National Education.


title: Education in France

text: All teachers in public primary and secondary schools are state civil servants, making the "ministère" the largest employer in the country. Professors and researchers in France's universities are also employed by the state.


title: Education in France

text: At the primary and secondary levels, the curriculum is the same for all French students in any given grade, which includes public, semi-public and subsidised institutions. However, there exist specialised sections and a variety of options that students can choose. The reference for all French educators is the "Bulletin officiel de l'éducation nationale, de l'enseignement supérieur et de la recherche (B.O.)", which lists all current programmes and teaching directives. It is amended many times every year.


title: Education in France

text: Schooling in France is not mandatory (although instruction is). Since French law mandates only "education", and not necessarily attendance at a school, families may provide teaching themselves, provided that they comply with the educational standards laid down in law and monitored by the State.


title: Education in France

text: In Metropolitan France, the school year runs from early September to early July. The school calendar is standardized throughout the country and is the sole domain of the ministry.


title: Education in France

text: In May, schools need time to organize exams (for example, the baccalauréat). Outside Metropolitan France, the school calendar is set by the local "recteur".


title: Education in France

text: Most parents start sending their children to preschool ("maternelle") when they turn 3. Some even start earlier at age 2 in "toute petite section" (""TPS""). The first two years of preschool (TPS and "petite section" ""PS"") are introductions to community living; children learn how to become students and are introduced to their first notions of arithmetic, begin to recognize letters, develop oral language, etc. The last two years of preschool, "moyenne section" and "grande section," are more school-like; pupils are introduced to reading, writing and more mathematics.


title: Education in France

text: A preschool can have its own school zone (mostly true in towns) or be affiliated to an elementary school (mostly in villages). As in other educational systems, French primary school students usually have a single teacher (or two) who teaches the complete curriculum.


title: Education in France

text: After kindergarten, the young students move on to the "école élémentaire" (elementary school). In the first 3 years of elementary school, they learn to write, develop their reading skills and get some basics in subjects such as French, mathematics, science and the arts, to name a few. Note that the French word for a teacher at the primary school level is "professeur" or "professeure des écoles" (previously called "instituteur", or its feminine form "institutrice").


title: Education in France

text: Children stay in elementary school for 5 years until they are 10–11 years-old. The grades are named: CP ("cours préparatoire"), CE1 ("cours élémentaire 1"), CE2 ("cours élémentaire 2"), CM1 ("cours moyen 1") and CM2 ("cours moyen 2").


title: Education in France

text: The compulsory middle and high school subjects cover French Language and Literature, History and Geography, Foreign Language, Arts and Crafts, Musical Education, Civics, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Technology, and PE. The curriculum is set by the Ministry of National Education and applies to most collèges in France and also for AEFE-dependent institutions. Académies and individual schools have little freedom in the state curriculum.


title: Education in France

text: As of January 2015, the International Schools Consultancy (ISC) listed France as having 105 international schools. ISC defines an 'international school' in the following terms: "ISC includes an international school if the school delivers a curriculum to any combination of pre-school, primary or secondary students, wholly or partly in English outside an English-speaking country, or if a school in a country where English is one of the official languages, offers an English-medium curriculum other than the country’s national curriculum and is international in its orientation." That definition is used by publications including The Economist.


title: Education in France

text: France has its own international school regulator, the AEFE (Agence pour l'enseignement français à l'étranger).


title: Education in France

text: Higher education in France is organized in three levels, which correspond to those of other European countries, facilitating international mobility: the "Licence" and "Licence Professionnelle" (bachelor's degrees), and the Master's and Doctorat degrees. The Licence and the Master are organized in semesters: 6 for the Licence and 4 for the Master. Those levels of study include various "parcours" or paths based on UE (Unités d'enseignement or Modules), each worth a defined number of European credits (ECTS). A student accumulates those credits, which are generally transferable between paths. A licence is awarded once 180 ECTS have been obtained; a master is awarded once 120 additional credits have been obtained.


title: Education in France

text: Licence and master's degrees are offered within specific "domaines" and carry a specific "mention". "Spécialités", which are either research-oriented or professionally oriented during the second year of the Master. There are also professional licences whose objective is immediate job integration. It is possible to return to school later by continuing education or to validate professional experience (through VAE, Validation des Acquis de l’Expérience).


title: Education in France

text: Higher education in France is divided between grandes écoles and public universities. The grandes écoles admit the graduates of the level Baccalauréat + 2 years of validated study (or sometimes directly after the Baccalauréat) whereas universities admit all graduates of the Baccalauréat.


title: Education in France

text: Higher education in France was reshaped by the student revolts of May 1968. During the 1960s, French public universities responded to a massive explosion in the number of students (280,000 in 1962-63 to 500,000 in 1967-68) by stuffing approximately one-third of their students into hastily developed campus annexes (roughly equivalent to American satellite campuses) which lacked decent amenities, resident professors, academic traditions, or the dignity of university status. With so many students ripe for radicalization after being forced to study in such miserable conditions, change was necessary and inevitable. Rather than expand already-overwhelmed parent campuses, it was decided to split off the annexes as new universities.


title: Education in France

text: This is why a striking trait of French higher education, compared with other countries, is the small size and multiplicity of establishments, each specialised in a more-or-less broad spectrum of areas. A middle-sized French city, such as Grenoble or Nancy, may have 2 or 3 universities (focused on science, sociological studies, engineering, etc.) as well as a number of other establishments specialised in higher education. In Paris and its suburbs, there are currently 11 universities (there were 13 from 1970 to 2017), none of which is specialised in one area or another, plus many smaller institutions that are highly specialised. It is not uncommon for graduate teaching programmes (master's degrees, the course part of doctorate programmes etc.) to be operated in common by several institutions, allowing the institutions to present a larger variety of courses.


title: Education in France

text: In engineering schools and the professional degrees of universities, a large share of the teaching staff is often made up of non-permanent professors; instead, part-time professors are hired to teach one specific subject. Part-time professors are generally hired from neighbouring universities, research institutes or industries.


title: Education in France

text: Another original feature of the French higher education system is that a large share of the scientific research is carried out by research establishments such as CNRS or INSERM, which are not formally part of the universities. However, in most cases, the research units of those establishments are located inside universities (or other higher education establishments) and jointly operated by the research establishment and the university.


title: Education in France

text: In 2021, 1.65 million students are enrolled in French higher education institutions (61% in licence, 35% in master, 4% in doctorat).


title: Education in France

text: Higher education is mostly funded by the State which leads to very low tuition fees. For citizens of the EU, EEA, Switzerland or Quebec, the annual fees range from 170 to 380 euros per year depending on the level ("licence, master, doctorat"). One can therefore get a master's degree (in 5 years) for about €750–3,500. For other international students, these fees range from 2,770 to 3,770 euros. Students from low-income families can apply for scholarships, paying nominal sums for tuition or textbooks, and can receive a monthly stipend of up to €450 per month.


title: Education in France

text: The tuition in public engineering schools is comparable to universities but a little higher (around €700). However, it can reach €7,000 a year for private engineering schools. Private business schools typically charge up to €12,000 a year for Bachelor programmes and up to €24,000 for Master programmes, while some elite institutions may charge €40,000 and more.


title: Education in France

text: Health insurance for students is free until the age of 20 and so only the costs of living and books must be added. After the age of 20, health insurance for students costs €200 a year and covers most of the medical expenses.


title: Education in France

text: Some public schools have other ways of gaining money. Some do not receive funds for class trips and other extra activities and so those schools may ask for a small entrance fee for new students.


title: Education in France

text: The public universities in France are named after the major cities near which they are located, followed by a numeral if there are several. Paris, for example, has 13 universities, labelled Paris I to XIII. Some of them are in Paris itself, some in the suburbs. In addition, most of the universities have taken a more informal name that is usually that of a famous person or a particular place. Sometimes, it is also a way to honor a famous alumnus, for example the science university in Strasbourg is known as "Université Louis-Pasteur" while its official name is "Université Strasbourg I" (however, since 2009, the three universities of Strasbourg have been merged).


title: Education in France

text: The French system has undergone a reform, the Bologna process, which aims at creating European standards for university studies, most notably a similar time-frame everywhere, with three years devoted to the bachelor's degree ("licence" in French), two for the Master's, and three for the doctorate. French universities have also adopted the ECTS credit system (for example, a licence is worth 180 credits). The traditional curriculum based on end of semester examinations tends to remain in place in some universities. That double standard has added complexity to a system. It is difficult to change a major during undergraduate studies without losing a semester or even a whole year. Students usually also have few course selection options once they enroll in a particular diploma.


title: Education in France

text: France also hosts rare catholic universities recognized by the State, the largest one being Lille Catholic University, as well branch colleges of foreign universities. They include Baruch College, the University of London Institute in Paris, Parsons Paris School of Art and Design and the American University of Paris.


title: Education in France

text: There are about 4 000 Master programmes offered in the French university system (listed at trouvermonmaster.gouv.fr), and 17 000 undergraduate programmes (offered by Parcoursup).


title: Education in France

text: The "grandes écoles" of France are elite higher-education establishments. They are generally focused on a single subject area (e.g., engineering or business), have a small size (typically between 100 and 300 graduates per year), and are highly selective. They are widely regarded as prestigious, and most of France's scientists and executives have graduated from a "grande école".


title: Education in France

text: National rankings are published every year by various magazines. While the rankings slightly vary from year to year, the top "grandes écoles" have been very stable for decades:


title: Education in France

text: The Preparatory classes (in French ""classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles"" or CPGE), widely known as "prépas", is a prep course with the main goal of training students for enrollment in a "grande école". Admission to CPGEs is based on performance during the last two years of high school, called "Première" and "Terminale". Only 5% of a generation is admitted to a "prépa". CPGEs are usually located within high schools but pertain to tertiary education, which means that each student must have successfully passed their "Baccalauréat" (or equivalent) to be admitted to a CPGE. Each CPGE receives applications from hundreds of applicants worldwide every year in April and May, and selects students based on its own criteria. A few CPGEs, mainly the private ones, which account for 10% of CPGEs, also have an interview process or look at a student's involvement in the community.


title: Education in France

text: The ratio of CPGE students who fail to enter any "grande école" is lower in scientific and business CPGEs than in humanities CPGEs.


title: Education in France

text: Some preparatory classes are widely considered "elite", being extremely selective, and recruiting only the best students from each high school, if not the best student from each high school. These schools practically guarantee their students a place in one of the top "grandes écoles". Among them are the Lycée Louis-Le-Grand, the Lycée Henri-IV, the Lycée Stanislas and the Lycée privé Sainte-Geneviève.


title: Education in France

text: The oldest CPGEs are the scientific ones, which can be accessed only by scientific Bacheliers. Scientific CPGE are called TSI ("Technology and Engineering Science"), MPSI ("Mathematics, Physics and Engineering Science"), PCSI ("Physics, Chemistry, and Engineering Science") or PTSI ("Physics, Technology, and Engineering Science") in the first year, MP ("Mathematics and Physics"), PSI ("Physics and Engineering Science"), PC ("Physics and Chemistry") or PT ("Physics and Technology") in the second year and BCPST ("Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Life and Earth Sciences").


title: Education in France

text: First year CPGE students are called the "Math Sup", or "Hypotaupe", (Sup for "Classe de Mathématiques Supérieures", superior in French, meaning post-high school), and second years "Math Spé", or "Taupe", (Spés standing for "Classe de Mathématiques Spéciales", special in French). The students of those classes are called "Taupins". Both the first and second year programmes include as much as twelve hours of mathematics teaching per week, ten hours of physics, two hours of philosophy, two to four hours of (one or two) foreign languages teaching and four to six hours of options: chemistry, "SI" (Engineering Industrial Science) or "Theoretical Computer Science" (including some programming using the Pascal or CaML programming languages, as a practical work). There are also several hours of homework, which can rise as much as the official hours of class. A known joke among those students is that they are becoming moles for two years, sometimes three. That is actually the origin of the nicknames "taupe" and "taupin" ("taupe" being the French word for a mole).


title: Education in France

text: There are also CPGEs that are focused on economics (who prepare the admission in ). They are known as "prépa EC" (short for "Economiques et Commerciales") and are divided into two parts: "prépa ECS", which focuses more on mathematics, generally for those who graduated the scientific baccalauréat, and "prépa ECE", which focuses more on economics, for those who were in the economics section in high school.


title: Education in France

text: The literary and humanities CPGEs have also their own nicknames, "Hypokhâgne" for the first year and "Khâgne" for the second year. The students are called the "khâgneux". Those classes prepare for schools such as the three Écoles normales supérieures, the École des Chartes, and sometimes Sciences Po.


title: Education in France

text: There are two kinds of "Khâgnes". The "Khâgne de Lettres" is the most common, and focuses on philosophy, French literature, history and languages. The "Khâgne de Lettres et Sciences Sociales" (Literature and Social Sciences), otherwise called Khâgne B/L, also includes mathematics and socio-economic sciences in addition to those literary subjects.


title: Education in France

text: The students of Hypokhâgne and Khâgne (the humanities CPGE) are simultaneously enrolled in universities, and can go back to university in case of failure or if they feel unable to pass the highly competitive entrance examinations for the "Écoles normales supérieures".


title: Education in France

text: The amount of work required of the students is exceptionally high. In addition to class time and homework, students spend several hours each week completing oral exams called "colles" (sometimes written 'khôlles' to look like a Greek word, that way of writing being initially a "khâgneuxs" joke since "khâgneux" study Ancient Greek). The "colles" are unique to French academic education in CPGEs.


title: Education in France

text: In scientific and business CPGEs, "colles" consist of oral examinations twice a week, in French, foreign languages (usually English, German, or Spanish), maths, physics, philosophy, or geopolitics—depending on the type of CPGE. Students, usually in groups of three or four, spend an hour facing a professor alone in a room, answering questions and solving problems.


title: Education in France

text: In humanities CPGEs, "colles" are usually taken every quarter in every subject. Students have one hour to prepare a short presentation that takes the form of a French-style "dissertation" (a methodologically codified essay, typically structured in 3 parts: thesis, counter-thesis, and synthesis) in history, philosophy, etc. on a given topic, or the form of a "commentaire composé" (a methodologically codified commentary) in literature and foreign languages. In Ancient Greek or Latin, they involve a translation and a commentary. The student then has 20 minutes to present his/her work to the teacher, who finally asks some questions on the presentation and on the corresponding topic.


title: Education in France

text: "Colles" are regarded as very stressful, particularly due to the high standards expected by the teachers, and the subsequent harshness that may be directed at students who do not perform adequately. But they are important insofar as they prepare the students, from the very first year, for the oral part of the highly competitive examinations, which are reserved for the happy few who pass the written part.


title: Education in France

text: Decades ago, primary school teachers were educated in Écoles normales and secondary teachers recruited through the "Agrégation" examination. The situation has been diversified by the introduction in the 1950s of the CAPES examination for secondary teachers and in the 1990s by the institution of "Instituts universitaires de formation des maitres" (IUFM), which have been renamed Écoles supérieures du professorat et de l’éducation (ESPE) in 2013 and then Instituts Nationaux supérieurs du professorat et de l’éducation (INSPE) in 2019.


title: Education in France

text: Religious instruction is not given by public schools (except for 6- to 18-year-old students in Alsace-Moselle under the Concordat of 1801). Laïcité (secularism) is one of the main precepts of the French Republic.


title: Education in France

text: In a March 2004 ruling, the French government banned all "conspicuous religious symbols" from schools and other public institutions with the intent of preventing proselytisation and to foster a sense of tolerance among ethnic groups. Some religious groups showed their opposition, saying the law hindered the freedom of religion as protected by the French constitution.


title: Education in France

text: The French Republic has 67 million inhabitants, living in the 13 regions of metropolitan France and four overseas departments (2.7 million). Despite the fact that the population is growing (up 0.4% a year), the proportion of young people under 25 is falling. There are now fewer than 19 million young people in Metropolitan France, or 32% of the total population, compared with 40% in the 1970s and 35% at the time of the 1990 census. France is seeing a slow aging of the population, however, that is less marked than in other neighbouring countries (such as Germany and Italy), especially as the annual number of births is currently increasing slightly.


title: Education in France

text: Eighteen million pupils and students, a quarter of the population, are in the education system, over 2.9 million of whom are in higher education. In 2000, the French Education Minister reported that only 39 out of 75,000 state schools were "seriously violent" and some 300 were "somewhat violent".


title: Shahaji

text: Shahaji Bhonsale (Pronunciation: ]; c. 1594 – 1664) was a military leader of India in the 17th century, who served the Ahmadnagar Sultanate, the Bijapur Sultanate, and the Mughal Empire at various points in his career. As a member of the Bhonsle clan, Shahaji inherited the Pune and Supe jagirs (fiefs) from his father Maloji, who served Ahmadnagar. During the Mughal invasion of Deccan, he joined the Mughal forces and served under Emperor Shah Jahan for a short period. After being deprived of his jagirs, he defected to the Bijapur Sultanate in 1632 and regained control over Pune and Supe. In 1638, he received the jagir of Bangalore after Bijapur's invasion of Kempe Gowda III's territories. He became the chief general of Bijapur and oversaw its expansion.


title: Shahaji

text: He brought the house of Bhosale into prominence. He was the father of Shivaji, the founder of the Maratha Empire. The princely states of Tanjore, Kolhapur, and Satara were ruled by Shahaji's descendants.


title: Shahaji

text: Shahaji was the son of Maloji Bhosale, a soldier who was eventually awarded the jagirs of Pune and Supe districts in the court of Nizam Shah of Ahmednagar. According to "Shivabharata", composed by Shivaji's court poet Paramananda, Maloji's wife Umabai prayed to the Sufi Pir Shah Sharif of Ahmadnagar to bless her with a son. She gave birth to two sons, who were named Shahaji and Sharifji after the Pir.


title: Shahaji

text: Shahaji married Jijabai, the daughter of Lakhuji Jadhav, another Maratha general in the service of Nizam Shah of Ahmednagar when both of them were children.


title: Shahaji

text: Like his father Maloji, Shahaji served in the army of Malik Ambar, the prime minister of Ahmadnagar Sultanate. At the time of Maloji's death in 1622, 26-year old Shahaji was a minor commander in Malik Ambar's army. By 1625, he held the high military position of "Sar Lashkar", as suggested by a letter sent from Pune on 28 July.


title: Shahaji

text: Ahmadnagar was involved in conflicts against the northern Mughal Empire and other Deccan Sultanates, and Shahaji kept shifting his loyalty between these states. For example, sometime before the Battle of Bhatvadi (1624), Shahaji and some other Maratha leaders defected to the Mughals, but shortly before the battle they returned to Ahmadnagar. Malik Ambar's army defeated a combined Mughal-Bijapur army in the battle. Subsequently, a quarrel arose between Shahaji and his cousin Kheloji Bhonsle, and in 1625 Shahaji shifted his allegiance to Bijapur, probably because he was dissatisfied with Ahmadnagar rewarding his relatives more than him. He retained his jagir in the Pune region, which was disputed between Ahmadnagar and Bijapur. A letter dated 10 January 1626 indicates that he still held the position of "Sar Lashkar".


title: Shahaji

text: Shahaji's patron in Bijapur - Ibrahim Adil Shah II - died in September 1627. Ibrahim Adil Shah II, a Muslim, was tolerant towards Hindus like Shahaji and saw Ahmadnagar as a buffer state between his kingdom and the Mughal Empire. After his death, an orthodox Muslim faction that advocated an alliance with the Mughals against Ahmadnagar grew stronger in Bijapur. Amid these circumstances, Shahaji returned to Ahmadnagar in early 1628, under the patronage of Malik Ambar's son Fatah Khan. The power of Ahmadnagar had been declining after Malik Ambar's death in 1626, but Shahaji held a higher position there than the one he held in Bijapur. Meanwhile, the newly-crowned Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan launched a fresh campaign against Ahmadnagar. In 1629, Shahaji led a 6,000-strong cavalry against the Mughals in the Khandesh region but was defeated.


title: Shahaji

text: In 1630, Shahaji's in-laws and patrons were murdered as a result of factional politics in the Ahmadnagar court. Therefore, Shahaji defected to the Mughals, with a 2,000-man cavalry. The Mughals sent him to occupy Junnar and Sangamner and gave these districts to him as jagir.


title: Shahaji

text: In 1632, Malik Ambar's son Fatah Khan placed a puppet ruler on the Ahmadnagar throne and allied with the Mughals. As a reward, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan granted him the "jagir" that had been earlier allotted to Shahaji. Shahaji then left the Mughal service and started plundering the region around Pune. When the Mughals sent an army against him, he took shelter with the governor of Junnar, and subsequently returned to Bijapur service.


title: Shahaji

text: From 1630 to 1632, northern Maharashtra suffered from a severe famine, called the Mahadurga famine. Bijapur sent an army to assist Ahmadnagar against the Mughals, who had besieged the Daulatabad fort. The Mughals emerged victorious and captured Daultabad, the capital of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate. Shahaji retreated and took control of an area in the southern part of the Ahmadngar Sultanate. This area included lands in the triangle formed by the Nashik, Pune, and Ahmadnagar cities. Unlike southern Maharashtra, which was directly administered by the Bijapur government, this region was politically unstable because of constant warfare between Ahmadnagar, Bijapur, and the Mughals. The political control of this region had changed at least ten times from 1600 to 1635 with the government infrastructure in the area largely destroyed. Shahaji's control over this area was very weak, but he maintained an army of 2,000-10,000 men and provided service to the Ahmadnagar troops fleeing their state after the Mughal conquest.


title: Shahaji

text: Meanwhile, in Daulatabad, the Mughals imprisoned the nominal king of Ahamadnagar. Shahaji installed 10-year old Murtaza of the Ahamadnagar royal family as the titular puppet ruler and appointed himself chief minister. Within a year, Shahaji's army captured Junnar and a large part of the northern Konkan region. Shahaji resided in Junnar and raised an army, which at its height included 12,000 soldiers. The strength of his army kept changing because of the changing loyalty of the various subordinate chiefs, including Ghatge, Kate, Gaikwad, Kank, Chavan, Mohite, Mahadik, Pandhre, Wagh, and Ghorpade. He set up his capital at Shahabad and gained control of several large forts. A contemporary Brahmin newsletter of Bijapur states that the area controlled by him, not including his jagir of Pune and Indapur, yielded 7.5 million rupees in revenue. This estimate was based on the "potential" rather than the "actual" revenue: the area had been devastated by war and famine, and the actual revenue collected was probably far smaller. The warring armies had destroyed several villages in the area to deny their enemies revenue, and most of the remaining villages yielded revenue only when forced to do so. According to the newsletter, his forces included a 3,000-man cavalry, plus an additional 2,000-man contingent from Bijapur.


title: Shahaji

text: By 1634, Shahaji had started raiding the area near the Mughal-controlled Daultabad, prompting the Mughals to initiate a major campaign against him. In the ensuing battle of Parenda (1634), in which Maratha soldiers fought on both sides, the Mughals defeated the Bijapur army led by Shahaji. In early 1635, the Mughal army forced Shahaji to retreat from the Daulatabad area, capturing his supply train and 3,000 of his soldiers. Subsequently, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan personally arrived in Deccan with a large army, compelling Shahaji to leave northern Maharashtra. Shahaji lost control of several cities, including Junar and Nashik, and retreated to Konkan.


title: Shahaji

text: Bijapur had two political factions: the first, including Shahaji, favoured resisting Mughal influence in Deccan. The second favoured establishing peace with the Mughals by recognizing their control over parts of the former Ahmadnagar territory. In 1636, the second faction emerged more powerful, and a peace treaty was signed between Bijapur and the Mughal Empire. As part of this treaty, Bijapur agreed to help the Mughals subjugate Shahaji, or depute him away from the Mughal frontier if he chose to serve Bijapur. The Mughals then besieged the Mahuli fort where Shahaji and Murtaza, the pretender to the Ahmadnagar throne, were residing. In October 1636, Shahaji surrendered Mahuli and Junnar to the Mughals and returned to the Bijapur service. As a result, the Mughals now controlled a major part of present-day Maharashtra, including Pune and Indapur.


title: Shahaji

text: Shahaji was allowed to retain his jagir in the Pune region but was barred from living in that area as part of the Mughal-Bijapur treaty. Therefore, the jagir was placed under the nominal administration of his son Shivaji, with his subordinate Dadoji Kondadev as its manager. Shahaji was transferred to the southern part of the Bijapur Sultanate. Shahaji spent the last 20 years of his life in the south, where the Bijapur and the Golconda Sultanates were trying to capture territories from the declining Vijayanagara Empire.


title: Shahaji

text: Having established peace with the Mughals in the north, the Bijapur government directed its military to its southern frontier. An army led by the general "Rustam-i-Zaman" Ranadulla Khan invaded Mysore, and Shahaji served as a subordinate commander in this army. Each campaigning season during 1637–1640, the Bijapur forces crossed the Krishna and the Tungabhadra rivers, and entered Mysore. The Bijapuri forces defeated several Nayakas, the local chiefs who had administered the area after the decline of the Vijayanagara Empire. In December 1638, the Bijapur forces seized Bangalore, which was assigned to Shahaji. Shahaji was also given the charge of Kolar, Hoskote, Doddaballapura, and Sira areas by Ranadulla Khan, in consultation with the Bijapur ruler Muhammad Adil Shah. Shahaji chose Bangalore as his headquarters because of its secure fortress and good climate. Shahaji was unable to retain control of this entire territory after the departure of the main Bijapur army. However, each year, Bijapur army's expeditions brought more territories under Shahaji's control.


title: Shahaji

text: The Bijapur ruler exercised little control over the Bangalore region, and Shahaji ruled the area almost independently. The ruler of Bijapur trusted him and called him the pillar of the state in a letter. However, in 1639, Shahaji appears to have been involved in a conflict against the Bijapur government. Records show that the Bijapur ruler Muhammad Adil Shah ordered the "Deshmukh" of Lakshmeshwara to support commander Sidi Mooflah in arresting the "relations, dependents, servants and horses" of Shahaji. However, no further details are available about this episode.


title: Shahaji

text: Shahaji's relations with the Bijapur ruler improved in the subsequent years, and in 1641, he supported the Bijapur government in suppressing a revolt by the Hindu chiefs. He was part of an army led by the Bijapur general Afzal Khan that captured the fort of Basavapatna from Keng Nayak. The Bijapur army captured several other forts, including Vellore, during this campaign. A letter from Bijapur, dated 30 January 1642, expressed appreciation for Shahaji's services in the Karnataka region.


title: Shahaji

text: Not much is known about Shahaji's activities during 1642-1645: he probably mainly stayed at his jagir in Bangalore or may have been involved in Bijapur's recapture of the Ikkeri fort in 1644. Sometime between 1642 and 1644, Shahaji's wife Jijabai and his son Shivaji, visited him in Bangalore. During this period, Shahaji arranged Shivaji's marriage to Saibai of the Nimbalkar family and held a grand wedding ceremony in Bangalore. He also presented his entire family, including his two sons by his second wife, at the Bijapur court. Jijabai and Shivaji returned to Pune shortly after. Shahaji's elder son Shambuji (also called Sambhaji) and another son Venkoji from his other wife Tukabai, stayed with him in Bangalore.


title: Shahaji

text: Shahaji beautified Bangalore by commissioning several gardens and also built a palace called Gowri Mahal, which according to popular tradition, was located in the present-day Basavanagudi extension. Besides, he also stayed at Kolar and Doddaballapura and spent summers at Nandi.


title: Shahaji

text: Shahaji appointed several Brahmins from the Pune region to the Bangalore administration. Meanwhile, Dadoji Kondadev revived the revenue system in Pune, and remitted surplus revenue to Shahaji's treasury in Bangalore.


title: Shahaji

text: Amid the rise of Muslim orthodoxy in Bijapur, the relationship of Shahaji - a Hindu - with the Bijapur government kept changing. In 1644, the Bijapur government labelled him a rebel and sent a force to subjugate his agent Dadoji Kondadev. An August 1644 letter from the government asks Kanoji Nayak Jedhe, the "Deshmukh" of Bhor near Pune, to assist the government representatives in defeating Dadoji Kondadev, who was campaigning in the Kondana area. The government also instructed another "Deshmukh" - Khopde - to seize Shahaji's estates, but these orders were apparently withdrawn before implementation. A similar situation arose in 1646.


title: Shahaji

text: In 1648, during a Bijapur campaign to support the rebellion of Nayakas against the Vijayanagara king Sriranga III, Shahaji was arrested for acting against the interests of Bijapur. The forces of Bijapur and Golconda had besieged the Jinjee fort. Shahaji started acting independently of the Bijapur commander Mustafa Khan and started negotiating with the Nayakas of Jinjee, Madurai, and Tiruchirapalli. He even sought service with the Golconda government. Shahaji was brought to the capital Bijapur in chains and forced to surrender the forts of Kondana and Bangalore. According to the texts written under the Maratha patronage - such as "Shiva-Bharat", Shahaji was arrested because of a rebellion by his son Shivaji, but the Bijapur records do not support this claim. Whatever the case, Shahaji was pardoned within a year.


title: Shahaji

text: Little information is available about Shahaji's life from 1648 to 1660. He appears to have moved out of Bangalore, where his son Ekoji was stationed. Shahaji himself was stationed at Kanakagiri, and his son Sambhaji was killed during a revolt by the chief ("Rajah") of Kanakagiri in 1654. During this period, Shahaji participated in Bijapur's war against Golconda.


title: Shahaji

text: Meanwhile, Shahaji's son Shivaji, who administered his jagir in the Pune region, started acting independently of the Bijapur government and started capturing territories of Bijapur vassals around Pune. Shivaji claimed to be a servant of the Bijapur government, and justified his actions, arguing that he was governing these territories better than the deposed rulers did. However, the ruler of Bijapur doubted his loyalty, and Shahaji distanced himself from his son's actions. A letter from Bijapur, dated 26 May 1658, gives back Shahaji the control of his former jagir of Bangalore and assures him that he will not be punished for the rebellion of his son. Some writers have speculated that Shahaji and Shivaji collaborated to establish an independent kingdom, but no contemporary sources support this theory. The majority of historians believe that Shahaji did not support his son's rebellion. In 1659, the Bijapur government sent a 12,000-strong army led by Afzal Khan against Shivaji, but Shivaji emerged victorious in the conflict. Between the years 1659 and 1662, Shahaji travelled to Pune as a mediator between Shivaji and Bijapur, meeting his son for the first time in 12 years. This was also Shahaji's last meeting with Shivaji, as Shahaji died in early 1664, in a hunting accident.


title: Shahaji

text: At his court in Bangalore, Shahaji patronized several scholars, including Jayarama Pindye, who composed "Radha-Madhava-Vilasa Champu" and "Parnala-Parvata-Grahan-Akhyana". Jayarama had heard about Shahaji's generosity to poets from traveling "bhats" (poets) who were returning to their homes in the north. He traveled from Nashik to Bangalore, and was introduced to Shahaji's court by a man named Shivaraya Gosvamin. Jayarama presented 12 coconuts before Shahaji, signifying his knowledge of 12 languages. Under Shahaji's patronage, Jayarama composed "Radha-Madhava-Vilasa Champu" (c. 1660 or earlier), a multi-lingual collection of poems. The work names and cites poets in 35 languages, including Sanskrit, Prakrit, Persian, Kannada, Hindi, and Urdu. Jayarama compares Shahaji to Partha in heroism, Vikramarka in generosity, and Bhoja in learning. He makes grandiloquent claims, such as that "hundreds and thousands" of scholars and poets from all over the world came to Shahaji's court to seek his patronage. In a Dingal-language poem, he describes a scene in which the king of Amber learns of Shahaji's greatness from poets, and announces his intention to present gifts to Shahaji, if he ever visited Amber; this is a purely imaginary scene. According to a Sanskrit poem in the collection, when Jayarama requested leave from Shahaji's court to go on a pilgrimage to Kashi and other places, Shahaji told him to take whatever wealth he desired before leaving. Jayarama credits Shahaji with reviving Sanskrit language, and states Shahaji himself composed a part of a stanza in Sanskrit; his sons Sambhaji and Ekoji also composed lines to test Jayarama's poetic skills.


title: Shahaji

text: Poets cited in the "Radha-Madhava-Vilasa Champu" include Sbuddhi-Rav, a native of Ghatampur, who compares Shahaji to Krishna holding up the Govardhan Hill to protect the people. Other prominent personalities in Shahaji's court included Prabhakarabhatta (the "purohit"); Naropant Hanumanthe; and his sons Janardana-pant and Raghunath-pant.


title: Hyūga-class helicopter destroyer

text: The is a class of helicopter carrier built for the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF). Two - "Hyūga" and "Ise" - were built; upon completion the class were the largest ships built for the Japanese navy since the Second World War. "Hyūga" was described in a PBS documentary as the "first Japanese aircraft carrier built since WWII".


title: Hyūga-class helicopter destroyer

text: The "Hyūga"s were followed by the larger , the first being commissioned in March 2015. The "Izumo"s will replace the helicopter destroyers; the "Hyūga"s were originally meant to replace the "Shirane"s.


title: Hyūga-class helicopter destroyer

text: The specifications of the "Hyūga" class are comparable to light aircraft carriers, such as the Italian and Spanish . Under the JMSDF's naming conventions, the ships are called "goei-kan" (護衛艦, lit. "escort ship") in Japanese and destroyer in English, as same as all the other combatant ships of JMSDF.


title: Hyūga-class helicopter destroyer

text: During development, "Hyūga" and "Ise" were provisionally named "16DDH" and "18DDH" respectively. The numbers derived from the Japanese calendar, specifically the 16th year and 18th year of the Heisei reign (2004 and 2006), when the provisional name were given.


title: Hyūga-class helicopter destroyer

text: The "Hyūga"s are primarily anti-submarine warfare carriers operating SH-60K anti-submarine helicopters. They also have enhanced command-and-control capabilities to serve as flagships. During peacetime, "Hyūga"s and ships could operate together to conduct military operations other than war, peacekeeping and relief operations.


title: Hyūga-class helicopter destroyer

text: The ships are armed with a 16-cell VLS carrying the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile surface-to-air missile, and Phalanx close in weapon system for self-defense. They are also equipped with the ATECS command system and FCS-3 fire control with active electronically scanned array radar system.


title: Hyūga-class helicopter destroyer

text: Globalsecurity.org suggests a maximum capacity of 18-24 H-60 class helicopters, or a smaller number of larger helicopters, even though the official complement was reported as three Mitsubishi H-60 and one AgustaWestland AW101 helicopters, or three Mitsubishi H-60 and one Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters. The ships have also operated JGSDF Fuji AH-64D Apache attack helicopters during joint amphibious exercises with the United States. It is speculated that future modifications may allow the operation of VTOL/STOVL fixed-wing aircraft, such as Harriers or F-35 Lightning II.


title: Hyūga-class helicopter destroyer

text: In 2016, MV-22 Ospreys operated off "Hyūga" in the participation of relief efforts following the Kumamoto earthquake.


title: Hyūga-class helicopter destroyer

text: Construction of the first ship, JS "Hyūga", was started in 2006 and it was launched on 23 August 2007. The second was launched and named JS "Ise" on 21 August 2009.


title: Hyūga-class helicopter destroyer

text: "Hyūga" was named after (present-day Miyazaki Prefecture) on the east coast of Kyūshū, and "Ise" after (present-day Mie Prefecture). They inherited the names of the battleships and of the Imperial Japanese Navy. These two ships had been built during World War I and served in World War II. Following the Battle of Midway, "Hyūga" and "Ise" were converted into a hybrid battleship/aircraft carriers in 1943 with the replacement of the aft gun turrets and barbettes by a small aircraft handling deck and hangar deck with which they could launch a squadron of Yokosuka D4Y dive-bombers and Aichi E16A seaplanes.


title: Hyūga-class helicopter destroyer

text: In November 2009, "Hyūga" participated in "Annualex 21G" joint naval exercise with the US aircraft carrier and other USN and JMSDF ships to maintain the interoperability between the two navies.


title: Hyūga-class helicopter destroyer

text: On 11 March 2011, the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami struck the northeast part of Japan. "Hyūga" immediately moved to off the coast of Miyagi prefecture and started search and rescue operations. "Ise", which went into service on 16 March, also will join aid delivery operation for refuge shelters.


title: Hyūga-class helicopter destroyer

text: On 8 November 2013, Super-Typhoon "Haiyan" crossed the Visayas, Philippines. "Ise" joined the relief operation, using its helicopters to provide relief supplies to remote areas cut off by the storm.


title: Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Henry VI (German: "Heinrich VI."; November 1165 – 28 September 1197), a member of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, was King of Germany (King of the Romans) from 1169 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1191 until his death. From 1194 he was also King of Sicily.


title: Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

text: He was the second son of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and his consort Beatrix of Burgundy. Well educated in the Latin language, as well as Roman and canon law, Henry was also a patron of poets and a skilled poet himself. In 1186 he was married to Constance of Sicily, the posthumous daughter of the Norman king Roger II of Sicily. Henry, stuck in the Hohenstaufen conflict with the House of Welf until 1194, had to enforce the inheritance claims by his wife against her nephew Count Tancred of Lecce. Henry's attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Sicily failed at the siege of Naples in 1191 due to an epidemic, with Empress Constance captured. Based on an enormous ransom for the release and submission of King Richard I of England, he conquered Sicily in 1194; however, the intended unification with the Holy Roman Empire ultimately failed due to the opposition of the Papacy.


title: Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Henry threatened to invade the Byzantine Empire after 1194 and succeeded in extracting a ransom, the Alamanikon, from Emperor Alexios III Angelos in return for cancelling the invasion. He made the Kingdom of Cyprus and the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia formal subjects of the empire and compelled Tunis and Tripolitania to pay tribute to him. In 1195 and 1196, he attempted to turn the Holy Roman Empire from an elective to a hereditary monarchy, the so-called "Erbreichsplan", but met strong resistance from the prince-electors and abandoned the plan. Henry pledged to go on crusade in 1195 and began preparations. A revolt in Sicily was crushed in 1197. The Crusaders set sail for the Holy Land that same year but Henry died of illness at Messina on 28 September 1197 before he could join them. His death plunged the Empire into the chaos of the German throne dispute for the next 17 years.


title: Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Henry was born in autumn 1165 at the "Valkhof" pfalz of Nijmegen to Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and Beatrix of Burgundy. At the age of four his father had him elected King of the Romans during a "Hoftag" in Bamberg at Pentecost 1169. Henry was crowned on 15 August at Aachen Cathedral.


title: Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

text: He accompanied his father on his Italian campaign of 1174–76 against the Lombard League, whereby he was educated by Godfrey of Viterbo and associated with minnesingers like Friedrich von Hausen, Bligger von Steinach and Bernger von Horheim. Henry was fluent in Latin and, according to the chronicler Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, was "distinguished by gifts of knowledge, wreathed in flowers of eloquence, and learned in canon and Roman law". He was a patron of poets and poetry, and he almost certainly composed the song "Kaiser Heinrich", now among the Weingarten Song Manuscripts. According to his rank and with Imperial Eagle ("Reichsadler"), regalia, and a scroll, he is the first and foremost to be portrayed in the famous "Codex Manesse", a 14th-century songbook manuscript featuring 140 reputed poets; at least three poems are attributed to a young and romantically minded Henry VI. In one of those he describes a romance that makes him forget all his earthly power, and neither riches nor royal dignity can outweigh his yearning for that lady ( – before I give her up, I'd rather give up the crown).


title: Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Having returned to Germany in 1178, Henry supported his father against insurgent duke Henry the Lion. He and his younger brother Frederick received the knightly accolade at the Diet of Pentecost Mainz in 1184. The emperor had already entered into negotiations with King William II of Sicily to betroth his son and heir with William's aunt Constance by 1184. Constance, almost 30 years old at that time, was said to have been confined in Santissimo Salvatore, Palermo as a nun since childhood to keep celibacy due to a prediction that "her marriage would destroy Sicily" despite having become the sole legitimate heir to William as the marriage of the latter had remained childless; and, after the latter's death in November 1189, Henry had the opportunity of adding the Sicilian crown to the imperial one. He and Constance were married on 27 January 1186 in Milan.


title: Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

text: In the Hohenstaufen conflict with Pope Urban III, Henry moved to the March of Tuscany, and with the aid of his deputy Markward von Annweiler devastated the adjacent territory of the Papal States. Back in Germany, he became sovereign ruler of the Empire, as his father had died while on the Third Crusade in 1190. Henry tried to secure his rule in the Low Countries by elevating Count Baldwin V of Hainaut to a margrave of Namur, and at the same time he tried to reach a settlement with rivalling Duke Henry of Brabant. Further difficulties arose when the exiled Welf duke Henry the Lion returned from England and began to subdue large estates in his former Duchy of Saxony. A Hohenstaufen campaign to Saxony had to be abandoned when King Henry received the message of the death of King William II of Sicily on 18 November 1189. The Sicilian vice-chancellor Matthew of Ajello pursued the succession of Count Tancred of Lecce and gained the support of the Roman Curia.


title: Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

text: To assert his own rights in the inheritance dispute, Henry initially supported Tancred's rival Count Roger of Andria and made arrangements for a campaign to Italy. The next year he concluded a peace agreement with Henry the Lion at Fulda and moved farther southwards to Augsburg, where he learned that his father had died on crusade attempting to cross the Saleph River near Seleucia in the Kingdom of Cilicia (now part of Turkey) on 10 June 1190.


title: Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

text: While he sent an Imperial army to Italy, Henry initially stayed in Germany to settle the succession of Louis III, Landgrave of Thuringia, who had also died on the Third Crusade. He had planned to seize the Thuringian landgraviate as a reverted fief, but Louis' brother Hermann was able to reach his enfeoffment. The next year, the king followed his army across the Alps. In Lodi he negotiated with Eleanor of Aquitaine, widow of King Henry II of England, to break the engagement of her son King Richard with Alys, a daughter of late King Louis VII of France. He hoped to deteriorate English-French relations and to isolate Richard, who had offended him by backing Count Tancred in Sicily. Eleanor acted cleverly; she reached Henry's assurance that he would not interfere in her son's conflict with King Philip II of France, and she would also prevent the marriage of Henry's younger brother Conrad with Berengaria of Castile to confine the Hohenstaufen claims to power.


title: Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Henry entered into further negotiations with the Lombard League cities and with Pope Celestine III on his Imperial coronation, and ceded Tusculum to the Pope. At Easter Monday on 15 April 1191, in Rome, Henry and his consort Constance were crowned Emperor and Empress by Celestine. The crown of Sicily, however, was harder to gain, as the Sicilian nobility had chosen Count Tancred of Lecce as their king. Henry began his work campaigning in Apulia and besieging Naples, but he encountered resistance when Tancred's vassal Margaritus of Brindisi came to the city's defence, harassed Henry's Pisan navy, and nearly destroyed the later arriving Genoese contingent. Moreover, the Imperial army had been heavily hit by an epidemic, and Henry ultimately had to abandon the siege. Upon his retreat, those cities that had surrendered to Henry resubmitted to Tancred. As a result, Constance, who was left in the palace of Salerno as a sign that Henry would soon return, was betrayed and handed over to Tancred.


title: Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Henry had to return to Germany when he learned that Henry the Lion had again incited a conflict with the Saxon House of Ascania and the Counts of Schauenburg. His son Henry of Brunswick deserted from the Imperial army in Italy and was ostracized by the emperor at the "Hoftag" in Worms at Pentecost 1192. However, Henry VI had to realise that his powers were limited: after his closest ally in Saxony, Archbishop Wichmann of Magdeburg died, he concluded another armistice with inflammatory Henry the Lion.


title: Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Meanwhile, despite the fact that his wife had been captured by Sicilians, Henry refused Celestine III's offers to make peace with Tancred. While Tancred would not permit Constance to be ransomed unless Henry recognized him, Henry complained of her capture to Celestine. In June 1192 Constance was released on the intervention of Pope Celestine III, who in return recognized Tancred as King of Sicily. Constance was to be sent to Rome for Celestine III to put pressure on Henry, but German soldiers managed to set up an ambush on the border of Papal States and freed Constance.


title: Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

text: On the other hand, the emperor was able to strengthen his power base in the Duchy of Swabia, when he inherited the possessions of Henry the Lion's cousin Welf VI. During the election of a new Bishop of Lüttich in September 1191, he favored Albert de Rethel for Albert was a maternal-uncle of Empress Constance, whom both he and Constance had planned to be the next bishop of Liege, but at the time of election Empress Constance had been imprisoned by Sicilians, and the other candidate Albert of Louvain the brother of Duke Henry of Brabant gained more support. In January 1192 Henry claimed the election was under dispute and appointed his newly made imperial chancellor Lothar of Hochstaden, provost of the church of St Cassius in Bonn and brother of Count Dietrich of Hochstaden instead, and in September 1192 he proceeded to Lüttich (Liège) to enforce the succession. The majority of the electors of Liège accepted the imperial decision because of the emperor's threat, and Albert de Rethel also relinquished and indignantly refused a financial settlement offered by the emperor. Albert of Louvain had to yield and sought support from the pope in Rome and from the Archbishop of Reims. In Reims, he took the holy orders with papal consent, but he was killed soon after by hired assassins. His brother Duke Henry chose to conclude a peace agreement with the emperor but remained a bitter enemy.


title: Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Emperor Henry already was concerned with the deposition of the Welf supporter Archbishop Hartwig II of Bremen. He further had to arbitrate in a conflict in the Margraviate of Meissen on the eastern border of the Empire, where the Wettin margrave Albert I had to fend off the claims raised by his brother Theoderic and Landgrave Hermann of Thuringia. Meanwhile, the opposition in the west took on a dramatic scale, when the dukes of Brabant and Limburg joined forces with Archbishop Bruno III of Cologne. A massive confederacy against the emperor loomed ahead, including Archbishop Conrad of Mainz, Archchancellor of Germany, and Duke Ottokar I of Bohemia, as well Henry's old rival Henry the Lion, the Swabian House of Zähringen, the English Crown, and the pope, irritated by the killing of Albert of Louvain.


title: Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

text: At this stage, Henry had a stroke of good fortune when the Babenberg duke Leopold V of Austria gave him his prominent prisoner, Richard the Lionheart, King of England, whom he had captured on his way back from the Third Crusade and held at Dürnstein Castle. On 28 March 1193, Richard was handed over to the emperor in Speyer and imprisoned at Trifels Castle, taking revenge for Richard's alliance with Tancred of Lecce. Ignoring his near excommunication by Pope Celestine III for imprisoning a former crusader, he held the English King for a ransom of 150,000 silver marks and officially declared a dowry of Richard's niece Eleanor, who was to marry Duke Leopold's son Frederick. The opposition princes had to face the defeat of their mighty ally and to refrain from their plans to overthrow the Hohenstaufen dynasty.


title: Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Backed by his mother Eleanor of Aquitaine, who successfully defended his interests against his rival brother John, Count of Mortain and his ally King Philip of France, King Richard procured his release in exchange for the huge ransom, a further interest payment, and his oath of allegiance to Henry. In turn the emperor under threat of military violence demanded the restitution of the French lands, which John had seized upon approval by Philip during Richard's absence. Henry not only gained another vassal and ally, he could also assume the role of a mediator between England and France. He and Richard ceremoniously reconciled at the "Hoftag" in Speyer during Holy Week 1194: the English king publicly regretted any hostilities, genuflected, and cast himself on the emperor's mercy. He was released and returned to England.


title: Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

text: At the same time, Henry settled the longstanding conflict with the Welf dynasty when he secured the marriage of Agnes of Hohenstaufen, daughter of his half-uncle Count Palatine Conrad, to Henry the Lion's son Henry of Brunswick, followed by a peace agreement in March 1194.