title: MBB Bo 105

text: In 1976, the Bo 105CB, equipped with more powerful Allison 250-C20B engines, was introduced. The Bo 105C was further developed to become the Bo 105CBS, the primary change being a fuselage stretch of 10 inches to meet American demand for emergency medical service (EMS) operations; this version was often referred to as the Bo 105 Twin Jet in the United States. US aerospace firm Boeing-Vertol served as a partner in the type's production and further development, and marketed the BO 105 in the US. The Bo 105 CB and the Bo 105 CBS variants were also subject to license manufacturing agreements, leading to them being produced by the Philippine Aerospace Development Corporation in the Philippines, Indonesian Aerospace (IPTN) in Indonesia, and Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA (CASA) in Spain in addition to the main production line in Germany.


title: MBB Bo 105

text: In 1984, the Bo 105LS was developed with the enlarged fuselage of the Bo 105CBS combined with more powerful Allison 250-C28C engines to increase the maximum take-off weight as well as hot-and-high flight performance; the Bo 105 LS was manufactured under a cooperative arrangement with Eurocopter Canada. Improvements and modifications to the Bo 105 LS continued until 1995.


title: MBB Bo 105

text: Production of the Bo 105 by Eurocopter formally ended in 2001, principally due to the type having been superseded by the more modern Eurocopter EC135, itself a direct development from the Bo 105. By the end of production, 1,406 rotorcraft had been manufactured and delivered to operators in 55 nations worldwide.


title: MBB Bo 105

text: The Bo 105 has a reputation for having high levels of maneuverability; certain variants have been designed for aerobatic maneuvers and used for promotional purposes by operators, one such operator in this capacity being professional pilot Aaron Fitzgerald, flying for Red Bull. During the 1970s, the Bo 105 was known for having a great useful load capacity and higher cruise speed than the majority of its competitors. While not being considered a visually attractive helicopter by some pilots, the Bo 105 was known for possessing steady, responsive controls and a good flight attitude. Most models could perform steep dives, rolls, loops, turnovers, and various aerobatic maneuvers; according to MBB the Bo 105 is cleared for up to 3.5 positive G force and one negative. One benefit of the Bo 105's handling and control style is superior takeoff performance, including significant resistance to catastrophic dynamic rollover; a combination of light weight and the twin-engined configuration enables a rapid ascent in a performance takeoff.


title: MBB Bo 105

text: Perhaps the most significant feature of the Bo 105 is its rotor blades and rotor head. The rotor system is entirely hingeless, the rotor head consisting of a solid titanium block to which the four blades are bolted; the flexibility of the rotor blades works to absorb movements typically requiring hinges in most helicopter rotor designs. The rotor blades are made from reinforced-plastic glass-fiber composite material; the flexibility of the main rotor allows for active elements other than rotor pitch changes to be removed, greatly simplifying maintenance and extending blade lifespan. The reliability of the advanced rotor system is such that, in over six million operating hours across the fleet, there was a total of zero failures (as of 1991). The rigid rotor blade design adopted on the Bo 105 has been partially responsible for the type's agility and responsiveness; it remained an uncommon feature on competing helicopters throughout the Bo 105's production life.


title: MBB Bo 105

text: Military operators would commonly operate the type at a very low altitude to minimise visibility to enemies, the Bo 105 being well matched to such operations, as the helicopter's flight qualities effectively removed or greatly minimised several of the hazards such a flight profile could pose to pilots. When outfitted with optional auxiliary fuel tanks, a basic model Bo 105 had a flight endurance of roughly five hours under load. In the event of a single engine failure, the Bo 105 could typically continue its flight, albeit with a reduction in cruise speed and range. Besides the two pilots, the cabin can be configured to accommodate up to three passengers on a single rear bench, which can be removed to make room for cargo or a stretcher, which can be loaded and unloaded via the large clamshell doors located at the rear of the fuselage. In a maritime context, the BO 105 can be equipped with auxiliary fuel tanks, emergency flotation equipment, an inflatable life raft, folding rotor blades and high skid landing gear.


title: MBB Bo 105

text: In 1975, the German Army decided to procure a specialist anti-tank version armed with up to six Euromissile HOT missiles, designated as the Bo 105 PAH-1. A total of 212 Bo 105 PAH-1s were delivered between 1979 and 1984. German Army leaders saw the PAH-1 as a temporary measure only, having originally sought a more capable anti-tank helicopter; they were particularly dissatisfied with the PAH-1's inability to perform nighttime combat missions and its self-protection capabilities; ultimately, the Eurocopter Tiger was developed as a replacement. In 1977, the German Ministry of Defence selected the Bo 105C for its light observation helicopter (VBH) program, leading to the procurement of another 100 rotorcraft.


title: MBB Bo 105

text: During the 1970s, MBB issued a license to produce the Bo 105 to Indonesian Aerospace (IPTN) as part of a wider agreement to help develop Indonesia's aviation industry. Within ten years, manufacture of the Bo 105 had been entirely localised within IPTN's own facilities. The Bo 105 has been used by various branches of the Indonesian National Armed Forces; military-operated Bo 105s have been reportedly used during the 1999 East Timorese crisis and the Papua conflict. Indonesian Bo 105s have also participated in several large-scale joint exercises.


title: MBB Bo 105

text: The Mexican Navy operated a number of armed Bo 105s to perform maritime reconnaissance duties; during the early 1980s, Mexico procured a number of a Uribe-class patrol vessels which were equipped to handle the Bo 105 for off-shore operations. In 2005, work was completed on a series of upgrades to 11 of the Mexican Navy's Bo 105s, having received Forward looking infrared (FLIR) sensors, Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, search radars, new rotor blades, armament pylons, and other changes. In November 2014, Jet Rescue Air Ambulance inaugurated Mexico's first dedicated civil air ambulance rotorcraft using a Bo 105.


title: MBB Bo 105

text: During the late 1990s, the Republic of Korea Army aviation procured a number of Bo 105s as part of an ongoing drive to improve the force's reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities; these were manufactured under a co-production arrangement between Eurocopter and the newly formed Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI), receiving the designation "Korean Light Helicopter" (KLH), KAI also promoted the type to export customers.


title: MBB Bo 105

text: The Bo 105 gained widespread use by emergency medical service (EMS) / medevac operators; in 1998, Flying Magazine reported that between the Bo 105 and the MBB/Kawasaki BK 117 (a newer rotorcraft derived from the Bo 105), MBB held 35% of the EMS market share. The first EMS-orientated Bo 105 in Scotland entered service in 1989; in November 2015, the last Bo 105 air ambulance operated in Britain was retired, the type having typically been replaced by the newer Eurocopter EC135. In 2009, the last Bo 105 to be produced was purchased by Canadian EMS specialist Dam Helicopters.


title: MBB Bo 105

text: In May 2014, Airbus Helicopter reported that, worldwide, the Bo 105 had accumulated 8 million flight hours, and that approximately 700 Bo 105s remained in service.


title: MBB Bo 105

text: Since 1979, the German Army has received 312 B0 105s, comprising 212 PAH anti-tank versions and 100 M-versions as liaison and observation helicopters. The helicopter was retired from German Army service on 13 December 2016 with an 18-aircraft formation flyby from their base in Celle. The Bohicans, as their pilots were called, had clocked over 1.38 million flying hours.


title: MBB Bo 105

text: Since 2011 a Bo 105 in yellow rescue livery is part of an art installation by Alfred Gockel at the Kamener Kreuz (Motorway intersection of A1 and A2 in Germany).


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: Shuri is a fictional character portrayed primarily by Letitia Wright in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) media franchise based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, also inspired by the James Bond character Q. She is the courageous and tech-savvy younger sister of T'Challa, and the daughter of T'Chaka and Ramonda, all preceding monarchs of Wakanda. Highly intelligent and a master engineer, she is Wakanda's lead scientist and the princess of the country. Shuri assists her brother in reclaiming the Wakandan throne from their cousin N'Jadaka following their father's death, later assisting the Avengers in the battle against Thanos, attempting to use her technology to safely remove the Mind Stone from Vision's head. However, Corvus Glaive prevents this and Shuri falls victim to the Blip. She is restored five years later and joins the final battle against an alternate variant of Thanos before resuming her role in Wakanda. One year after her brother's death, and one week after her mother's death, she takes his place and becomes the new Black Panther, defeating Namor in combat and forming an alliance with Talokan against the rest of the world.


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: Alternate versions from within the MCU multiverse appear in the animated series "What If...?" (2021), voiced by Ozioma Akagha.


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: Created by the writer Reginald Hudlin and artist John Romita Jr., Shuri first appeared in "Black Panther" (Vol. 4) #2 (May 2005). The character, originally written as a princess of Wakanda and a supporting character, trains to and eventually succeeds her older brother T'Challa, becoming the Black Panther and ruler of Wakanda in her own right. In 2018, Marvel published her first vital solo series titled "SHURI", written by Nnedi Okorafor, a coming of age story which focused on Shuri dealing with her brother being absent from the throne while exploring her leadership and interests.


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: Actor Donald Glover and his brother Stephen made some minor contributions to an early draft of the script for Shuri's debut film feature "Black Panther", developing the sibling relationship between T'Challa and Shuri. The James Bond character Q was a key influence on the development of Shuri during the writing phase of "Black Panther", with director Ryan Coogler saying:


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: In "Black Panther", Shuri is portrayed as T'Challa's 16-year-old sister who designs new technology for her country of Wakanda. Letitia Wright described Shuri as innovative of spirit and mind, wanting to take Wakanda to "a new place", and felt she was a good role model for young black girls. The film's executive producer Nate Moore called Shuri the smartest person in the world, even more so than Tony Stark. The Russo Brothers, directors of "" and "", agreed with the interpretation of her as the smartest character.


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: Letitia Wright described Shuri's intelligence as "really cool", explaining: "Because, you know, we sometimes — when we see people who are 'super intelligent' and 'super smart', they don't really look like me." She further added, "[for] Marvel to be behind it and to be brave enough to say, 'She is the smartest girl in the universe – in the Marvel Universe' and 'Yes, she's younger than everyone'… Her and Peter Parker are pretty much the smartest kids on the block.'" In another interview, addressing Shuri as an inspiration for young people, she explained that "Tony and Banner are great, not only as actors but in the films themselves. They're amazing, iconic characters, so to be able to be on par with them… and that's not even something I said! I didn't say that, the head of Marvel said that, and it kind of created a chain reaction. And Nate Moore said those things, so talk to those guys! They felt really strongly that Shuri was the smartest person in the universe, and I'm not going to downplay that. Young people are the future, so it's only right to allow that to be the thing that's being said online."


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: "Black Panther" costume designer Ruth E. Carter included an Adinkra symbol representing purpose on one of Shuri's shirts, similar to a Waawa motif, explaining that Shuri "certainly has a purpose in Wakanda". Shuri's artificial intelligence 'Griot' was voiced by Trevor Noah, with the name 'Griot' being a West African term for a historian or storyteller.


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: In 2016, with Shuri's father T'Chaka having died, her brother T'Challa assumes the Wakandan throne. She attends his coronation ceremony with her mother Ramonda. At the ceremony, the Jabari Tribe's leader M'Baku challenges T'Challa for the crown in ritual combat, and mocks him for his use of Shuri's technology. Although M'Baku initially has the upper hand, T'Challa defeats M'Baku and persuades him to yield rather than die. After Ulysses Klaue and his accomplice Erik "Killmonger" Stevens steal a Wakandan artifact from a London museum, T'Challa, Okoye, and Nakia travel to Busan, South Korea, with Shuri providing T'Challa with a new vibration-absorbent Black Panther suit. Shuri partakes in the ensuing car chase via hologram. After Everett K. Ross is gravely injured protecting Nakia, T'Challa takes Ross to Wakanda, where Shuri heals Ross using vibranium technology.


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: Nakia, Shuri, Ramonda, and Ross later flee to the Jabari Tribe for aid after Erik Stevens, revealed to be T'Challa and Shuri's cousin N'Jadaka, seizes the Wakandan throne and hurls T'Challa off a waterfall, presumably to his death. They find a comatose T'Challa, rescued by the Jabari in repayment for sparing M'Baku's life. Healed by a heart-shaped herb that Nakia stole, T'Challa returns to fight N'Jadaka and defeats him after Shuri initiates a maglev train, de-powering N'Jadaka's Black Panther suit. After killing N'Jadaka, T'Challa establishes an outreach center at the building where N'Jadaka's father N'Jobu died, to be run by Nakia and Shuri. Shuri also helps Bucky Barnes with his recovery from Hydra brainwashing, dubbing him the 'White Wolf'.


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: In 2018, Thanos and his children come to Earth to retrieve the Infinity Stones. Shuri is tasked by T'Challa, Steve Rogers, and other members of the Avengers to safely remove the Mind Stone from Vision, as they go fight the incoming alien army. Wanda Maximoff is tasked to stand guard and protect Shuri as she works. However, as the battle proceeds on the fields, Maximoff leaves her post, which inadvertently allows Corvus Glaive to infiltrate the facility, preventing her from finishing her work. Vision follows to assist, but this allows Thanos to take the Mind Stone. Moments later, the Blip happens and Shuri disintegrates.


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: In 2023, Shuri is restored to life and is brought via portal by the Masters of the Mystic Arts to the destroyed Avengers Compound to join the battle against an alternate Thanos and his army. Afterwards, she returns home and reunites with her mother. A week later, she attends Tony Stark’s funeral with her brother and Okoye.


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: Shortly after, T'Challa dies of a disease that Shuri believes could have been cured by the heart-shaped herb. Shuri has been attempting to synthetically recreate the herb after it was destroyed by Killmonger but is unsuccessful.


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: One year after T'Challa's death, Ramonda takes Shuri to burn the outfits they wore to the funeral, signifying the end of the period of mourning. Shuri refuses to burn the outfit, as she is still grieving. The two then encounter Namor, a mutant with wings on his ankles, who has bypassed Wakanda's advanced security systems. He reveals that the CIA has used a Vibranium detecting machine to locate Vibranium underwater. Namor holds Wakanda responsible for the Vibranium race and offers them an ultimatum: find the scientist who made the machine and bring them to him, or he will wage war on Wakanda. Shuri and Okoye travel to Boston to meet the creator of the machine, MIT student Riri Williams. Williams is initially reluctant to go with them but eventually agrees. The group is chased by the FBI and ambushed by Namor's warriors, who take Shuri and Williams to meet Namor.


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: Namor shows Shuri around the undersea kingdom of Talokan, which he has guarded for centuries and is rich in Vibranium. Bitter at the surface world that once rejected him, Namor offers an alliance with Wakanda against the rest of the world but promises to destroy Wakanda first if they refuse. Nakia infiltrates Talokan to rescue Shuri and Williams, and Namor retaliates with an attack against the capital of Wakanda, flooding the city. During the attack, Ramonda drowns after saving Williams from the water. Namor vows to return in a week, and the citizens of Wakanda evacuate to the Jabari Land.


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: Shuri, using a remnant of the herb that gave Namor's people their underwater abilities, synthetically reconstructs the heart-shaped herb. After ingesting the herb, she is transported to the ancestral plane, where she sees Killmonger, who urges her to kill Namor as revenge for her mother's death. Upon waking up, Shuri discovers she has gained the powers of the Black Panther, and travels to the Jabari Land to meet with the tribes of Wakanda, who accept her as their new protector. M’Baku tries to persuade Shuri to seek a peaceful resolution to the conflict, but she does not listen and orders an immediate counter-attack on Namor.


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: The Wakandans, on their Sea Leopard vessel, set a trap for Namor, luring him and his warriors to the surface, and a battle ensues. Shuri separates Namor from the rest of his people, intending to dry him out and weaken him. The pair crash on a desert beach and fight. Shuri eventually gains the upper hand, but decides to spare Namor's life, offering him a peaceful alliance. Namor accepts and his warriors retreat.


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: Shuri visits Nakia in Haiti and burns her funeral clothes. She then learns that Nakia and T'Challa have a son, , who Nakia has been raising in secret far from the pressure of living in Wakanda, and Toussaint reveals that his Wakandan name is T'Challa.


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: Several alternate versions of Shuri appear in the animated series "What If...?", in which she is voiced by Ozioma Akagha.


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: In an alternate 2008, Shuri is present when her long-lost older brother, Star-Lord T'Challa, returns to Wakanda from outer space with the Ravagers.


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: In an alternate 2010, Killmonger murders T'Challa and engineers an American invasion of Wakanda using "Stark Liberator" drone, which Killmonger then defeats, manipulating king T'Chaka into making him the next Black Panther. Shuri is able to see through this deception and brings evidence of it to Pepper Potts before attempting to arrest Killmonger with Potts and the Dora Milaje. However, Killmonger is then recruited by the Watcher to the Guardians of the Multiverse, leaving the group perplexed when they find him missing (Killmonger is left trapped in a pocket dimension when he tries to take the Infinity Stones for himself).


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: Reviews initially were positive of the character and the character's potential for the future, being described as a "fan-favorite".


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: Jacob Stolworthy of British publication "The Independent" praised the character, describing her as "one of "Black Panther"'s biggest revelations". Manhola Dargis of the "New York Times", meanwhile, when reviewing "Black Panther", praised Shuri as part of "a phalanx of women... who cushion [T'Challa] in maternal, military, sisterly and scientific support", describing Wright's performance as "vivacious" and likening Shuri to "Bond's gadget guy [Q]". Dave Trumbore of "Collider" and Caroline Framke of "Vox" also likened her relationship with T'Challa to what Q is to James Bond. Her mocking of Everett K. Ross as a "broken white boy" was particularly positively received in media commentary. Shuri's delivery of the line "What are those?" in the film, a usage of a popular 2015 Internet meme, was also positively received, although the meme's creator Brian 'Brusco' Moore commented negatively on the renewed attention to the meme. Caroline Framke of "Vox", meanwhile, praised the depiction of Shuri as "the best part" of "Black Panther", noting her "elastic, game-for-anything energy" and citing her as "the feisty Disney princess we need and deserve".


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: The author of "Dear Martin" and chosen author for Scholastic Corporation's novel adaption of Shuri in the young adult fiction novel "Shuri: A Black Panther Novel", Nic Stone, praised the film version of the character claiming "I fell hard for the witty STEM genius girl who totally stole the whole show". Having been labeled as the MCU's smartest character, it is often debated in media whether she or Tony Stark is smarter.


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: Letitia Wright received various accolades and nominations for her portrayal of Shuri in "Black Panther".


title: Shuri (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

text: The book "Wakanda Files: A Technological Exploration of the Avengers and Beyond" focuses on the Avengers from Shuri's perspective, referencing the events of the films and the television series "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.".


title: Tavern

text: A tavern is a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food such as different types of roast meats and cheese, and (mostly historically) where travelers would receive lodging. An inn is a tavern that has a license to put up guests as lodgers. The word derives from the Latin "taberna" whose original meaning was a shed, workshop, stall, or pub.


title: Tavern

text: Over time, the words "tavern" and "inn" became interchangeable and synonymous. In England, inns started to be referred to as public houses or pubs and the term became standard for all drinking houses.


title: Tavern

text: From at least the 14th century, taverns, along with inns and later cabarets, were the main places to dine out. Typically, a tavern offered various roast meats, as well as simple foods like bread, cheese, herring and bacon. Some offered a richer variety of foods, though it would be cabarets and later "traiteurs" which offered the finest meals before the restaurant appeared in the 18th century. Their stated purpose, however, was to serve wine (not beer or cider, which had other outlets) and they were so disreputable that women of any standing avoided them.


title: Tavern

text: After 1500, taxes on wine and other alcoholic beverages grew increasingly more burdensome, not only because of the continual increase in the level of taxation, but also because of the bewildering variety and multiplicity of the taxes. This chaotic system was enforced by an army of tax collectors. The resultant opposition took many forms. Wine growers and tavern keepers concealed wine and falsified their methods of selling it to take advantage of lower tax rates. The retailers also refilled their casks secretly from hidden stocks. Wine merchants stealthily circumvented inspection stations to avoid local import duties. When apprehended, some defrauders reacted with passive resignation, while others resorted to violence. Situated at the heart of the country town or village, the tavern was one of the traditional centers of social and political life before 1789, a meeting place for both the local population and travelers passing through, and a refuge for rogues and scoundrels. Taverns symbolized opposition to the regime and to religion.


title: Tavern

text: Taverns sometimes served as restaurants. In 1765, in Paris was founded the first restaurant in the modern sense of the term. However, the first Parisian restaurant worthy of the name was the one founded by Beauvilliers in 1782 in the Rue de Richelieu, called the "Grande Taverne de Londres".


title: Tavern

text: Émile Zola's novel "L'Assommoir" ("The tavern") (1877) depicted the social conditions typical of alcoholism in Paris among the working classes. The drunk destroyed not only his own body, but also his employment, his family, and other interpersonal relationships. The characters Gervaise Macquart and her husband Coupeau exemplified with great realism the physical and moral degradation of alcoholics. Zola's correspondence with physicians reveals that he used authentic medical sources for his realistic depictions in the novel.


title: Tavern

text: A common German name for German taverns or pubs is "Kneipe". Drinking practices in 16th-century Augsburg, Germany, suggest that the use of alcohol in early modern Germany followed carefully structured cultural norms. Drinking was not a sign of insecurity and disorder. It helped define and enhance men's social status and was therefore tolerated among men as long as they lived up to both the rules and norms of tavern society and the demands of their role as householder. Tavern doors were closed to respectable women unaccompanied by their husbands, and society condemned drunkenness among women, but when alcohol abuse interfered with the household, women could deploy public power to impose limits on men's drinking behavior.


title: Tavern

text: Taverns were popular places used for business as well as for eating and drinking – the London Tavern was a notable meeting place in the 18th and 19th centuries, for example. However, the word tavern is no longer in popular use in the UK as there is no distinction between a tavern and an inn. Both establishments serve wine and beer/ale. The term 'pub' (an abbreviation of 'public house') is now used to describe these houses. The legacy of taverns and inns is now only found in the pub names, e.g. Fitzroy Tavern, Silver Cross Tavern, Spaniards Inn, etc. The word also survives in songs such as "There is a Tavern in the Town".


title: Tavern

text: The range and quality of pubs varies wildly throughout the UK as does the range of beers, wines, spirits and foods available. Most quality pubs will still serve cask ales and food. In recent years there has been a move towards "gastro" pubs where the menu is more ambitious. Originally, taverns served as rest stops about every fifteen miles and their main focus was to provide shelter to anyone who was traveling. Such taverns would be divided into two major parts – the sleeping quarters and the bar. There is generally a sign with some type of symbol, often related to the name of the premises, to draw in customers. The purpose of this is to indicate that the establishment sells alcohol and to set it apart from the competition.


title: Tavern

text: Scandinavia had very high drinking rates, which led to the formation of a powerful prohibition movement in the 19th century. Magnusson (1986) explains why consumption of spirits was so high in a typical preindustrial village (Eskilstuna) in Sweden, 1820–50. An economic feature of this town of blacksmiths was the "Verlag", or outwork production system, with its complex network of credit relationships. The tavern played a crucial role in cultural and business life and was also the place where work and leisure were fused. Heavy drinking facilitated the creation of community relationships in which artisans and workers sought security. Buying drinks rather than saving money was a rational strategy when, before adjustment to a cash economy, it was essential to raise one's esteem with fellow craftsmen to whom one could turn for favors in preference to the Verlag capitalist.


title: Tavern

text: A restaurant in Greece is commonly known as a taverna. Their history begins in Classical times, with the earliest evidence of a taverna discovered at the Ancient Agora of Athens; the style remains the same to this day. Greek tavernes (plural of taverna) are the most common restaurants in Greece. A typical menu includes portion dishes, or small dishes of meat and fish, as well as salads and appetizers. "Mageirefta" is the menu section that includes a variety of different casserole cooked dishes every day. The other choices are mainly prepared roasted ("tis oras)" or fried. "Orektika" (appetizers) include small dishes of Greek sauces, "alifes", usually eaten on bites of bread. Tavernes offer different kinds of wines and "retsina" in barrels or in bottles, "ouzo" or "tsipouro", with beer and refreshments being a recent addition. In Byzantine times, tavernes were the place for a social gathering, to enjoy a meal, live music and friendly talk with a drink accompanied by small variety dishes ("mezes").


title: Tavern

text: The most frequent translation of tavern or pub is "hospoda". It comes out from "hospodar" (landlord) and is also close to "hostitel" (host), "host" (guest) and "hostina" (dinner, banquet). And also to Russian "gospodin" (master, lord, sir) and, not to forget, to "hospitality".


title: Tavern

text: "Hospoda" could be with meals served or without, typically with tapped beer. (This term is not used for wine bars.) As drinking beer is an important part of the Czech culture, inviting to "hospoda" generally means: "let's go and have a drink together, let's meet, chat, and socialize...".


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Elbridge Gerry (; July 17, 1744 – November 23, 1814) was an American Founding Father, merchant, politician, and diplomat who served as the fifth vice president of the United States under President James Madison from 1813 until his death in 1814. The political practice of gerrymandering is named after him. He was the second vice president to die in office.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Born into a wealthy merchant family, Gerry vocally opposed British colonial policy in the 1760s and was active in the early stages of organizing the resistance in the American Revolutionary War. Elected to the Second Continental Congress, Gerry signed both the Declaration of Independence and Articles of Confederation. He was one of three men who attended the Constitutional Convention in 1787 who refused to sign the United States Constitution because it did not include a Bill of Rights at the time it was signed. After its ratification, he was elected to the inaugural United States Congress, where he was actively involved in the drafting and passage of the Bill of Rights as an advocate of individual and state liberties.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Gerry was at first opposed to the idea of political parties and cultivated enduring friendships on both sides of the political divide between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. He was a member of a diplomatic delegation to France that was treated poorly in the XYZ Affair, in which Federalists held him responsible for a breakdown in negotiations. Gerry thereafter became a Democratic-Republican, running unsuccessfully for Governor of Massachusetts several times before winning the office in 1810. During his second term, the legislature approved new state senate districts that led to the coining of the word "gerrymander"; he lost the next election, although the state senate remained Democratic-Republican. Gerry was nominated by the Democratic-Republican party and elected as vice president in the 1812 election. Advanced in age and in poor health, Gerry served 21 months of his term before dying in office. He is the only signatory of the Declaration of Independence buried in Washington, D.C.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Gerry was born on July 17, 1744, in the North Shore town of Marblehead, Massachusetts. His father, Thomas Gerry, was a merchant operating ships out of Marblehead, and his mother, Elizabeth (Greenleaf) Gerry, was the daughter of a successful Boston merchant. Gerry's first name came from John Elbridge, one of his mother's ancestors. Gerry's parents had 11 children in all, although only five survived to adulthood. Of these, Elbridge was the third. He was first educated by private tutors and entered Harvard College shortly before turning 14. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in 1762 and a Master of Arts in 1765, he entered his father's merchant business. By the 1770s, the Gerrys numbered among the wealthiest Massachusetts merchants, with trading connections in Spain, the West Indies, and along the North American coast. Gerry's father, who had emigrated from England in 1730, was active in local politics and had a leading role in the local militia.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Gerry was from an early time a vocal opponent of Parliamentary efforts to tax the colonies after the French and Indian War ended in 1763. In 1770, he sat on a Marblehead committee that sought to enforce importation bans on taxed British goods. He frequently communicated with other Massachusetts opponents of British policy, including Samuel Adams, John Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, and others.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: In May 1772, he won election to the Great and General Court of the Province of Massachusetts Bay (its legislative assembly). There he worked closely with Samuel Adams to advance colonial opposition to Parliamentary colonial policies. He was responsible for establishing Marblehead's committee of correspondence, one of the first to be set up after that of Boston. However, an incident of mob action prompted him to resign from the committee the next year. Gerry and other prominent Marbleheaders had established a hospital for performing smallpox inoculations on Cat Island; because the means of transmission of the disease were not known at the time, fears amongst the local population led to protests which escalated into violence that wrecked the facilities and threatened the proprietors' other properties.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Gerry reentered politics after the Boston Port Act closed that city's port in 1774, and Marblehead became an alternative port to which relief supplies from other colonies could be delivered. As one of the town's leading merchants and Patriots, Gerry played a major role in ensuring the storage and delivery of supplies from Marblehead to Boston, interrupting those activities only to care for his dying father. He was elected as a representative to the First Continental Congress in September 1774, but declined, still grieving the loss of his father.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Gerry was elected to the provincial assembly, which reconstituted itself as the Massachusetts Provincial Congress after British Governor Thomas Gage dissolved the body in October 1774. He was assigned to its committee of safety, responsible for ensuring that the province's limited supplies of weapons and gunpowder remained out of British Army hands. His actions were partly responsible for the storage of weapons and ammunition in Concord; these stores were the target of the British raiding expedition that sparked the start of the American Revolutionary War with the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775. (Gerry was staying at an inn at Menotomy, now Arlington, when the British marched through on the night of April 18.) During the Siege of Boston that followed, Gerry continued to take a leading role in supplying the nascent Continental Army, something he would continue to do as the war progressed. He leveraged business contacts in France and Spain to acquire not just munitions, but supplies of all types, and was involved in the transfer of financial subsidies from Spain to Congress. He sent ships to ports all along the American coast and dabbled in financing privateering operations against British shipping.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Unlike some other merchants, there is no evidence that Gerry profiteered directly from the hostilities (he spoke out against price gouging and in favor of price controls), although his war-related merchant activities notably increased the family's wealth. His gains were tempered to some extent by the precipitous decline in the value of paper currencies, which he held in large quantities and speculated in.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Gerry served in the Second Continental Congress from February 1776 to 1780, when matters of the ongoing war occupied the body's attention. He was influential in convincing several delegates to support passage of the Declaration of Independence in the debates held during the summer of 1776; John Adams wrote of him, "If every Man here was a Gerry, the Liberties of America would be safe against the Gates of Earth and Hell." He was implicated as a member of the so-called "Conway Cabal", a group of Congressmen and military officers who were dissatisfied with the performance of General George Washington during the 1777 military campaign. However, Gerry took Pennsylvania leader Thomas Mifflin, one of Washington's critics, to task early in the episode and specifically denied knowledge of any sort of conspiracy against Washington in February 1778.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Gerry's political philosophy was one of limited central government, and he regularly advocated for the maintenance of civilian control of the military. He held these positions fairly consistently throughout his political career (wavering principally on the need for stronger central government in the wake of the 1786–87 Shays' Rebellion) and was well known for his personal integrity. In later years he opposed the idea of political parties, remaining somewhat distant from both the developing Federalist and Democratic-Republican parties until later in his career. It was not until 1800 that he formally associated with the Democratic-Republicans in opposition to what he saw as attempts by the Federalists to centralize too much power in the national government.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: In 1780, he resigned from the Continental Congress over the issue and refused offers from the state legislature to return to the Congress. He also refused appointment to the state senate, claiming he would be more effective in the state's lower chamber, and also refused appointment as a county judge, comparing the offer by Governor John Hancock to those made by royally-appointed governors to benefit their political allies. He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1781.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Gerry was convinced to rejoin the Confederation Congress in 1783, when the state legislature agreed to support his call for needed reforms. He served in that body until September 1785, during which time it met in New York City. The following year he married Ann Thompson, the daughter of a wealthy New York merchant who was twenty years his junior; his best man was his good friend James Monroe. The couple had ten children between 1787 and 1801, straining Ann's health.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: The war made Gerry sufficiently wealthy that when it ended he sold off his merchant interests and began investing in land. In 1787, he purchased the Cambridge, Massachusetts, estate of the last royal lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Oliver, which had been confiscated by the state. This property, known as Elmwood, became the family home for the rest of Gerry's life. He continued to own property in Marblehead and bought several properties in other Massachusetts communities. He also owned shares in the Ohio Company, prompting some political opponents to characterize him as an owner of vast tracts of western lands.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Gerry played a major role in the Constitutional Convention, held in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787. In its deliberations, he consistently advocated for a strong delineation between state and federal government powers, with state legislatures shaping the membership of federal government positions. Gerry's opposition to popular election of representatives was rooted in part by the events of Shays' Rebellion in western Massachusetts in the year preceding the convention. Despite that position, he also sought to maintain individual liberties by providing checks on government power that might abuse or limit those freedoms.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: He supported the idea that the Senate composition should not be determined by population; the view that it should instead be composed of equal numbers of members for each state prevailed in the Connecticut Compromise. The compromise was adopted on a narrow vote in which the Massachusetts delegation was divided, Gerry and Caleb Strong voting in favor. Gerry further proposed that senators of a state, rather than casting a single vote on behalf of the state, vote instead as individuals. Gerry was also vocal in opposing the Three-fifths Compromise, which counted slaves as three-fifths of a free person for the purposes of apportionment in the House of Representatives, whereas counting each slave individually would have given southern slave states a decided advantage. Gerry opposed slavery and said the constitution should have "nothing to do" with slavery so as "not to sanction it."


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Because of his fear of demagoguery and belief the people of the United States could be easily misled, Gerry also advocated indirect elections. Although he was unsuccessful in obtaining them for the lower house of Congress, Gerry did obtain such indirect elections for the Senate, whose members were to be selected by the state legislatures. Gerry also advanced numerous proposals for indirect elections of the President of the United States, most of them involving limiting the right to vote to the state governors and electors.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Gerry was unhappy about the lack of enumeration of any specific individual liberties in the proposed constitution and generally opposed proposals that strengthened the central government. He was one of only three delegates who voted against the proposed constitution in the convention (the others were George Mason and Edmund Randolph), citing a concern about the convention's lack of authority to enact such major changes to the nation's system of government and to the constitution's lack of "federal features." Ultimately, Gerry refused to sign because of concerns over the rights of private citizens and the power of the legislature to raise armies and revenue.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: During the ratification debates that took place in the states following the convention, Gerry continued his opposition, publishing a widely circulated letter documenting his objections to the proposed constitution. In the document, he cites the lack of a Bill of Rights as his primary objection but also expresses qualified approval of the Constitution, indicating that he would accept it with some amendment. Strong pro-Constitution forces attacked him in the press, comparing him unfavorably to the Shaysites. Henry Jackson was particularly vicious: "[Gerry has] done more injury to this country by that infamous Letter than he will be able to make atonement in his whole life", and Oliver Ellsworth, a convention delegate from Connecticut, charged him with deliberately courting the Shays faction.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: One consequence of the furor over his letter was that he was not selected as a delegate to the Massachusetts ratifying convention although he was later invited to attend by the convention's leadership. The convention leadership was dominated by Federalists, and Gerry was not given any formal opportunity to speak. He left the convention after a shouting match with convention chair Francis Dana. Massachusetts ratified the constitution by a vote of 187 to 168. The debate had the result of estranging Gerry from several previously-friendly politicians, including chairman Dana and Rufus King.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Anti-Federalist forces nominated Gerry for governor in 1788, but he was predictably defeated by the popular incumbent John Hancock. Following its ratification, Gerry recanted his opposition to the Constitution, noting that other state ratifying conventions had called for amendments that he supported. He was nominated by friends (over his own opposition to the idea) for a seat in the inaugural House of Representatives, where he served two terms.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: In June 1789, Gerry proposed that Congress consider all of the proposed constitutional amendments that various state ratifying conventions had called for (notably those of Rhode Island and North Carolina, which had at the time still not ratified the Constitution). In the debate that followed, he led opposition to some of the proposals, arguing that they did not go far enough in ensuring individual liberties. He successfully lobbied for inclusion of freedom of assembly in the First Amendment and was a leading architect of the Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure. He sought unsuccessfully to insert the word "expressly" into the Tenth Amendment, which might have more significantly limited the federal government's power.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: He was successful in efforts to severely limit the federal government's ability to control state militias. In tandem with this protection, he had once argued against the idea of the federal government controlling a large standing army, saying, "A standing army is like a standing member. It's an excellent assurance of domestic tranquility, but a dangerous temptation to foreign adventure."


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Gerry vigorously supported Alexander Hamilton's reports on public credit, including the assumption at full value of state debts, and supported Hamilton's Bank of the United States, positions consistent with earlier calls he had made for economic centralization. Although he had speculated in depreciated Continental bills of credit (the IOUs at issue), there is no evidence he participated in large-scale speculation that attended the debate when it took place in 1790, and he became a major investor in the new bank. He used the floor of the House to speak out against aristocratic and monarchical tendencies he saw as threats to republican ideals, and generally opposed laws and their provisions that he perceived as limiting individual and state liberties. He opposed any attempt to give officers of the executive significant powers, specifically opposing establishment of the Treasury Department because its head might gain more power than the president. He opposed measures that strengthened the presidency (such as the ability to fire Cabinet officers), seeking instead to give the legislature more power over appointments.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Gerry did not stand for re-election in 1792, returning home to raise his children and care for his sickly wife. He agreed to serve as a presidential elector for John Adams in the 1796 election. During Adams' term in office, Gerry maintained good relations with both Adams and Vice President Thomas Jefferson, hoping that the divided executive might lead to less friction. His hopes were not realized: the split between Federalists (Adams) and Democratic-Republicans (Jefferson) widened.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: President Adams appointed Gerry to be a member of a special diplomatic commission sent to Republican France in 1797. Tensions had risen between the two nations after the 1796 ratification of the Jay Treaty, made between the United States and Great Britain. It was seen by French leaders as signs of an Anglo-American alliance, and France had consequently stepped up seizures of American ships. Adams chose Gerry, over his cabinet's opposition (on political grounds that Gerry was insufficiently Federalist), because of their long-standing relationship; Adams described Gerry as one of the "two most impartial men in America" (Adams himself being the other).


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Gerry joined co-commissioners Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and John Marshall in France in October 1797 and met briefly with Foreign Minister Talleyrand. Some days after that meeting, the delegation was approached by three French agents (at first identified as "X", "Y", and "Z" in published papers, leading the controversy to be called the "XYZ Affair") who demanded substantial bribes from the commissioners before negotiations could continue. The commissioners refused and sought unsuccessfully to engage Talleyrand in formal negotiations. Believing Gerry to be the most approachable of the commissioners, Talleyrand successively froze first Pinckney and then Marshall out of the informal negotiations, and they left France in April 1798. Gerry, who sought to leave with them, stayed behind because Talleyrand threatened war if he left. Gerry refused to make any significant negotiations afterward and left Paris in August.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: By then, dispatches describing the commission's reception had been published in the United States, raising calls for war. The undeclared naval Quasi-War (1798–1800) followed. Federalists, notably Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, accused Gerry of supporting the French and abetting the breakdown of the talks, while Adams and Republicans such as Thomas Jefferson supported him. The negative press damaged Gerry's reputation, and he was burned in effigy by protestors in front of his home. He was only later vindicated, when his correspondence with Talleyrand was published in 1799. In response to the Federalist attacks on him, and because of his perception that the Federalist-led military buildup threatened republican values, Gerry formally joined the Democratic-Republican Party in early 1800, standing for election as Governor of Massachusetts.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: For years, Gerry unsuccessfully sought the governorship of Massachusetts. His opponent in these races, Caleb Strong, was a popular moderate Federalist, whose party dominated the state's politics despite a national shift toward the Republicans. In 1803, Republicans in the state were divided, and Gerry only had regional support of the party. He decided not to run in 1804, returning to semi-retirement and to deal with a personal financial crisis. His brother Samuel Russell had mismanaged his own business affairs, and Gerry had propped him up by guaranteeing a loan that was due. The matter ultimately ruined Gerry's finances for his remaining years.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Republican James Sullivan won the governor's seat from Strong in 1807, but his successor was unable to hold the seat in the 1809 election, which went to Federalist Christopher Gore. Gerry stood for election again in 1810 against Gore and won a narrow victory. Republicans cast Gore as an ostentatious British-loving Tory who wanted to restore the monarchy (his parents were Loyalists during the Revolution), and Gerry as a patriotic American, while Federalists described Gerry as a "French partizan" and Gore as an honest man devoted to ridding the government of foreign influence. A temporary lessening in the threat of war with Britain aided Gerry. The two battled again in 1811, with Gerry once again victorious in a highly acrimonious campaign.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Gerry's first year as governor was less controversial than his second, because the Federalists controlled the state senate. He preached moderation in the political discourse, noting that it was important that the nation present a unified front in its dealings with foreign powers. In his second term, with full Republican control of the legislature, he became notably more partisan, purging much of the state government of Federalist appointees. The legislature also enacted "reforms" of the court system that resulted in an increase in the number of judicial appointments, which Gerry filled with Republican partisans. However, infighting within the party and a shortage of qualified candidates played against Gerry, and the Federalists scored points by complaining vocally about the partisan nature of the reforms.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Other legislation passed during Gerry's second year included a bill broadening the membership of Harvard's Board of Overseers to diversify its religious membership, and another that liberalized religious taxes. The Harvard bill had significant political slant because the recent split between orthodox Congregationalists and Unitarians also divided the state to some extent along party lines, and Federalist Unitarians had recently gained control over the Harvard board.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: In 1812, the state adopted new constitutionally mandated electoral district boundaries. The Republican-controlled legislature had created district boundaries designed to enhance their party's control over state and national offices, leading to some oddly shaped legislative districts. Although Gerry was unhappy about the highly partisan districting (according to his son-in-law, he thought it "highly disagreeable"), he signed the legislation. The shape of one of the state senate districts in Essex County was compared to a salamander by a local Federalist newspaper in a political cartoon, calling it a "Gerry-mander". Ever since, the creation of such districts has been called gerrymandering.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Gerry also engaged in partisan investigations of potential libel against him by elements of the Federalist press, further damaging his popularity with moderates. The redistricting controversy, along with the libel investigation and the impending War of 1812, contributed to Gerry's defeat in 1812 (once again at the hands of Caleb Strong, whom the Federalists had brought out of retirement). The gerrymandering of the state Senate was a notable success in the 1812 election: the body was thoroughly dominated by Republicans, even though the house and the governor's seat went to Federalists by substantial margins.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Gerry's financial difficulties prompted him to ask President James Madison for a federal position after his loss in the 1812 election (which was held early in the year). He was chosen by the party Congressional nominating caucus to be Madison's vice presidential running mate in the 1812 presidential election, although the nomination was first offered to John Langdon. He was viewed as a relatively safe choice who would attract Northern votes but not pose a threat to James Monroe, who was thought likely to succeed Madison. Madison narrowly won re-election, and Gerry took the oath of office at Elmwood in March 1813. At that time the office of vice president was largely a sinecure; Gerry's duties included advancing the administration's agenda in Congress and dispensing patronage positions in New England. Gerry's actions in support of the War of 1812 had a partisan edge: he expressed concerns over a possible Federalist seizure of Fort Adams (as Boston's Fort Independence was then known) as a prelude to Anglo-Federalist cooperation and sought the arrest of printers of Federalist newspapers.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: On November 23, 1814, Gerry fell seriously ill while visiting Joseph Nourse of the Treasury Department, and he died not long after returning to his home in the Seven Buildings. He is buried in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., with a memorial by John Frazee. He is the only signer of the Declaration of Independence who was buried in the nation's capital city. The estate he left his wife and children was rich in land and poor in cash, but he had managed to repay his brother's debts with his pay as vice president. Aged 68 at the start of his vice presidency, he was the oldest person to become vice president until Charles Curtis in 1929.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Gerry is generally remembered for the use of his name in the word "gerrymander", for his refusal to sign the United States Constitution, and for his role in the XYZ Affair. His path through the politics of the age has been difficult to characterize. Early biographers, including his son-in-law James T. Austin and Samuel Eliot Morison, struggled to explain his apparent changes in position. Biographer George Athan Billias posits that Gerry was a consistent advocate and practitioner of republicanism as it was originally envisioned, and that his role in the Constitutional Convention had a significant impact on the document it eventually produced.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Gerry's grandson Elbridge Thomas Gerry became a distinguished lawyer and philanthropist in New York. His great-grandson, Peter G. Gerry, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and later a U.S. Senator from Rhode Island.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Gerry is depicted in two of John Trumbull's paintings, the "Declaration of Independence" and "General George Washington Resigning His Commission". Both are on view in the rotunda of the United States Capitol.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: The upstate New York town of Elbridge is believed to have been named in his honor, as is the western New York town of Gerry. The town of Phillipston, Massachusetts was originally incorporated in 1786 under the name Gerry in his honor but was changed to its present name after the town submitted a petition in 1812, citing Democratic-Republican support for the War of 1812.


title: Elbridge Gerry

text: Gerry's Landing Road in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is located near the Eliot Bridge not far from Elmwood. During the 19th century, the area was known as Gerry's Landing (formerly known as Sir Richard's Landing) and was used by a Gerry relative for a short time as a landing and storehouse. The supposed house of his birth, the Elbridge Gerry House (it is uncertain whether he was born in the house currently standing on the site or an earlier structure) stands in Marblehead, and Marblehead's Elbridge Gerry School is named in his honor.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: AFP has regional headquarters in Nicosia, Montevideo, Hong Kong and Washington, D.C., and news bureaus in 151 countries in 201 locations. AFP transmits stories, videos, photos and graphics in French, English, Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish, and German.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: Agence France-Presse has its origins in the Agence Havas, founded in 1835 in Paris by Charles-Louis Havas, making it the world's oldest news service. The agency pioneered the collection and dissemination of news as a commodity, and had established itself as a fully global concern by the late 19th century. Two Havas employees, Paul Julius Reuter and Bernhard Wolff, set up their own news agencies in London and Berlin respectively.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: In 1940, when German forces occupied France during World War II, the news agency was taken over by the authorities and renamed "Office français d'information" (French Information Office); only the private advertising company retained the name Havas. On 20 August 1944, as Allied forces moved on Paris, a group of journalists in the French Resistance seized the offices of the FIO and issued the first news dispatch from the liberated city under the name of Agence France-Presse.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: Established as a state enterprise, AFP devoted the post-war years to developing its network of international correspondents. One of them was the first Western journalist to report the death of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin on 6 March 1953.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: AFP was keen to shake off its semi-official status, and on 10 January 1957, the French Parliament passed a law establishing its independence. Since that date, the proportion of the agency's revenues generated by subscriptions from government departments has steadily declined. Such subscriptions represented 115 million euros in 2011.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: In 1982, the agency began to decentralize its editorial decision-making by setting up the first of its five autonomous regional centres, in Hong Kong, then a British dependent territory. Each region has its own budget, administrative director and chief editor. In September 2007, the AFP Foundation was launched to promote higher standards of journalism worldwide.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: The Mitrokhin Archive identified six agents and two confidential KGB contacts inside Agence France-Presse who were used in Soviet operations in France.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: In 1991, AFP set up a joint venture with Extel to create a financial news service, AFX News. It was sold in 2006 to Thomson Financial.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: In October 2008, the Government of France announced moves to change AFP's status, including the involvement of outside investors. On 27 November of that year, the main trade unions represented in the company's home base of France – the CGT, Force Ouvrière, Syndicat national des journalistes, Union syndicale des journalistes CFDT and


title: Agence France-Presse

text: On 10 December 2009, the French Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterrand announced that he was setting up a Committee of Experts under former AFP CEO Henri Pigeat to study plans for the agency's future status. On February 24, 2010, Pierre Louette unexpectedly announced his intention to resign as CEO by the end of March, and move to a job with France Télécom.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: In November 2013, AFP and Getty Images were ordered to pay $1.2 million compensation to freelance photojournalist Daniel Morel for using his images posted on Twitter related to the 2010 Haiti earthquake without his permission, in violation of copyright and Twitter's terms of service.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: AFP's statute was changed in 2015 to bring it into line with European legislation through Law No. 2015-433 of 17 April 2015. The State's financing of AFP was thus modified and was structured into two components: <br>


title: Agence France-Presse

text: In 1983, the Albert Londres Prize was awarded to Patrick Meney, who wrote a series of articles about 600 French people forcibly detained in the Gulag after World War II. In 1984, his book "Les Mains coupées de la Taïga" was published.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: In 1988, Sammy Ketz received the next Albert Londres Prize. Together with his colleague from the liberation movement, Serge Chalandon, he covered the events of the Libyan Civil War for 6 years.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: On October 17, 2014, AFP international director Michèle Léridon received the Investigation and Reporting Award at the International Congress of Journalism and Information. Michèle Léridon sat the author of the article "Covering ISIS", which was posted on the agency's blog.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: In December 2014, Bülent Kiliç was named "Time" magazine Photojournalist of the Year for his coverage of events in the Middle East and Europe. The photographer received the same acknowledgement from "The Guardian" newspaper.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: In 1988, the agency has its own department of infographics - AFP Graphics, which today creates about 70 graphics per day. According to the information provided by the agency's website, thematically infographics have the following distribution: 31% - politics, 27% - economics, 18% - sports, 12% - society, 10% - general news, 2% - culture and media. Infographics are available in 6 languages: French, English, Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish and German.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: In 2014, AFP launches a content platform that is available on all electronic media: computers, tablets and mobile phones. AFP Forum is divided into several sections, including homepage, text materials, photos, videos and graphics. News can be filtered by headings (news, business, sports, science), hashtags and by geographical regions (Africa, North America, Europe, etc.). All information is available in 6 languages: French, English, Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Traditional and Simplified Chinese. In total, there are about 1250 illustrated materials per day, available in XML, HTML, TXT, NewsML or WML formats.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: In July 2001, the agency announced the launch of AFP Video services, a video graphics division. Already in 2007, the agency launches AFPTV - a project in which all news from 2011 appear in HD video format. As of 2015, 200 videos in 7 different languages appear on the site every day.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: In 2008, Mobile services appeared - a separate digital platform for mobile phones. News in Mobile services is available in 6 languages (French, English, Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish, German) and is divided into 22 thematic blocks: world news, world sports, football, top pages, Middle East, US news, Asia and Pacific news region, photos, videos, UK news, Africa, business, sports in the US, South African news, science, cricket, US politics, culture, Canada, lifestyle, technology and media, more. In addition to the section by headings, the news is divided into 100 categories (crime, energy, military conflicts, human rights, etc.), 43 countries, 70 cities and 100 hashtags. There is also a general search.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: AFP operates under a 1957 law as a commercial business independent of the French government. AFP is administered by a CEO and a board comprising 15 members:


title: Agence France-Presse

text: The board elects the CEO for a renewable term of three years. AFP also has a council charged with ensuring that the agency operates according to its statutes, which mandate absolute independence and neutrality. Editorially, AFP is governed by a network of senior journalists.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: The primary client of AFP is the French government, which purchases subscriptions for its various services. In practice, those subscriptions are an indirect subsidy to AFP. The statutes of the agency prohibit direct government subsidies.


title: Agence France-Presse

text: Based in Paris, AFP covers 151 countries, with 201 offices, 50 local correspondents and five regional centres:


title: Agence France-Presse

text: AFP says it employs 2,400 people of 100 different nationalities, including 1,700 journalists. It provides information in six languages (French, English, Spanish, German, Portuguese and Arabic), twenty-four hours a day.


The 2003 California gubernatorial recall election was a special election permitted under California state law. It resulted in voters replacing incumbent Democratic Governor Gray Davis with Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. The recall effort spanned the latter half of 2003. Seven of the nine previous governors, including Davis, had faced unsuccessful recall attempts.


title: 2003 California gubernatorial recall election

text: After several legal and procedural efforts failed to stop it, California's first-ever gubernatorial recall election was held on October 7, and the results were certified on November 14, 2003, making Davis the first governor recalled in the history of California, and just the second in U.S. history (the first was North Dakota's 1921 recall of Lynn Frazier). California is one of 19 states that allow recalls. Nearly 18 years after the 2003 election, California held a second recall election in 2021; however, this recall was unsuccessful, failing to oust Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom.


text: The California recall process became law in 1911 as the result of Progressive Era reforms that spread across the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The ability to recall elected officials came along with the initiative and referendum processes. The movement in California was spearheaded by Republican Governor Hiram Johnson, a reformist, who called the recall process a "precautionary measure by which a recalcitrant official can be removed." No illegality has to be committed by politicians in order for them to be recalled. If an elected official commits a crime while in office, the state legislature can hold impeachment trials. For a recall, only the will of the people is necessary to remove an official. Nineteen U.S. states, along with the District of Columbia, allow the recall of state officials.


text: Before the successful recall of Gray Davis, no California statewide official had ever been recalled, though there had been 117 previous attempts. Only seven of those even made it onto the ballot, all for state legislators. Every governor since Ronald Reagan in 1968 has been subject to a recall effort. Gray Davis was the first governor of California whose opponents gathered the necessary signatures to qualify for a special election. Davis also faced a recall petition in 1999, but that effort failed to gain enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. Davis's recall at the time was only the second gubernatorial recall election in U.S. history. The first governor recall occurred in 1921, when North Dakota's Lynn J. Frazier was recalled over a dispute about state-owned industries, and was replaced by Ragnvald A. Nestos. A third gubernatorial recall election occurred in Wisconsin in 2012 which, unlike the previous two, failed.


text: The 2003 recall was prompted by some actions taken by Davis and his predecessor, Governor Wilson. Many people were upset with the governor's decision to block the enactment of Proposition 187, which had been found unconstitutional by a Federal District Court. Davis, who had opposed the measure, decided not to appeal the case to the US Supreme Court, effectively killing the ballot measure. He also signed two new restrictive gun-control laws. Also, many people were very angry about the ongoing California electricity crisis. The crisis was brought on by a series of deregulatory moves, including a bill signed into law by the previous Governor. As Davis's recall transpired before he had served half of his term as governor, he remained eligible to serve another term, should he win a future election for the California governor post.


text: Under California law, any elected official may be the target of a recall campaign. To trigger a recall election, proponents of the recall must gather a certain number of signatures from registered voters within a certain time period. The number of signatures statewide must equal 12% of the number of votes cast in the previous election for that office. For the 2003 recall election, that meant a minimum of 897,156 signatures, based on the November 2002 statewide elections.


text: The effort to recall Gray Davis began with Republicans Ted Costa, Mark Abernathy, and Howard Kaloogian, who filed their petition with the California Secretary of State and started gathering signatures. The effort was not taken seriously until Rep. Darrell Issa, who hoped to run as a replacement candidate for governor, donated $2 million to a new committee, Rescue California, which then led the effort. Eventually, proponents gathered about 1.6 million signatures, of which 1,356,408 were certified as valid.


text: Under most circumstances in which a recall campaign against a statewide elected official has gathered the required number of signatures, the governor is required to schedule a special election for the recall vote. If the recall campaign qualified less than 180 days prior to the next regularly scheduled election, then the recall becomes part of that regularly scheduled election. In the case of a recall against the governor, the responsibility for scheduling a special election falls on the lieutenant governor, who in 2003 was Cruz Bustamante.


text: The political climate was largely shaped by the California electricity crisis of the early 2000s, during which many people experienced a tripling in the cost of their energy consumption as rolling blackouts happened throughout the state. The public held Davis partly responsible, although the causes included Federal deregulation and California's Electric Utility Industry Restructuring Act, signed into law by Governor Wilson. Driving the outcome of the recall was the perception that Davis had mismanaged the events leading up to the energy crisis. It was claimed that he had not fought vigorously for Californians against the energy fraud, and that he had not pushed for legislative or emergency executive action against the fraudulent companies soon enough. He was said to have signed deals agreeing to pay energy companies fixed yet inflated prices for years to come based on those paid during the crisis. Opponents felt that a corporate-friendly Republican governor could shield California politically from further corporate fraud. Others speculated that the corporations involved sought not only profit, but were acting in concert with Republican political allies to cause political damage to the nationally influential Democratic governor. Still others, such as Arianna Huffington, argued that Davis's fundraising and campaign contributions from various companies, including energy companies, rendered him unable to confront his contributors.


text: Davis had accepted $2 million from the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, and used his political connections to pass an estimated $5 billion raise for them over the coming years. That led many people throughout California to believe Davis was guilty of corruption, even if he did not meet the standard necessary for prosecution.


text: Backers of the recall effort cited Davis's alleged lack of leadership, combined with California's weakened and hurt economy. According to the circulated petition:


text: The entire United States and many of its economic trading partners had been in economic recession. California was hit harder than other states at the end of the speculative bubble known as the "dot-com bubble"—from 1996 to 2000—when Silicon Valley was the center of the internet economy. California state expenditures soared when the government was flush with revenues. Some Californians blamed Davis and the state legislature for continuing to spend heavily while revenues dried up, ultimately leading to record deficits.


text: Also, the California electricity crisis of 2000–2001 caused great financial damage to the state of California. The legal issues still were not resolved in time to alleviate California's dire need for electricity, and the state instituted "rolling blackouts" and in some cases instituted penalties for excess energy use. In the recall campaign, Republicans and others opposed to Davis's governance sometimes charged that Davis did not "respond properly" to the crisis. In fact most economists disagreed, believing that Davis could do little else—and anyone in the governor's office would have had to capitulate as Davis did, in the absence of federal help. The Bush administration rejected requests for federal intervention, responding that it was California's problem to solve. Still, subsequent revelations of corporate accounting scandals and market manipulation by some Texas-based energy companies, mainly Enron, did little to quiet the criticism of Davis's handling of the crisis.


text: Davis swept into the governor's office in 1998 in a landslide victory and a 60% approval rating as California's economy roared to new heights during the dot-com boom. Davis took his mandate from the voters and sought out a centrist political position, refusing some demands from labor unions and teachers' organizations on the left. The Democratic Davis, already opposed by Republicans, began losing favor among members of his own party. Nevertheless, Davis's approval ratings remained above 50%.


text: When the California electricity crisis slammed the state in 2001, Davis was blasted for his slow and ineffective response. His approval rating dropped into the 30s and never recovered. When the energy crisis settled down, Davis's administration was hit with a fund-raising scandal. California had a $95 million contract with Oracle Corporation that was found to be unnecessary and overpriced by the state auditor. Three of Davis's aides were fired or resigned after it was revealed that the governor's technology adviser accepted a $25,000 campaign contribution shortly after the contract was signed. The money was returned, but the scandal fueled close scrutiny of Davis's fundraising for his 2002 re-election bid.


text: In the 2002 primary election, Davis ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination. He spent his campaign funds on attack ads against California Secretary of State Bill Jones and Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan, the two well known moderates in the Republican primary. The result was that his opponent in the general election was conservative Republican and political newcomer Bill Simon, who was popular within his own party but unknown by the majority of the state population. The attacks from both sides turned off voters and suppressed turnout; Davis ultimately won with 47% of the vote. The suppressed turnout had the effect of lowering the threshold for the 2003 recall petition to qualify.


text: On December 18, 2002, just over a month after being reelected, Davis announced that California would face a record budget deficit possibly as high as $35 billion, a forecast $13.7 billion higher than one a month earlier. The number was finally estimated to be $38.2 billion, more than all 49 other states' deficits combined. Already suffering from low approval ratings, Davis's numbers hit historic lows in April 2003 with 24% approval and 65% disapproval, according to a California Field Poll. Davis was almost universally disliked by both Republicans and Democrats in the state and a recall push was high.


text: A hot-button issue that seemed to galvanize the public was the vehicle license fee increase Davis implemented under provisions of legislation passed by his predecessor which originally reduced the fees. On June 20, 2003, the Davis administration re-instituted the full vehicle license fee, and the action withstood legal challenge. The action was a key step in the plan to close the $38 billion shortfall in the 2003–2004 budget. The increase tripled the vehicle license fee for the average car owner, and began appearing in renewal notices starting August 1. The California state budget passed in late July 2003 included the projected $4 billion in increased vehicle license fee revenue.


text: Proponents of the Governor's recall characterized the increase as a tax hike and used it as an issue in the recall campaign. In mid-August 2003, Davis floated a plan to reverse the increase, making up the revenue with taxes on high income earners, cigarettes, and alcoholic beverages.


text: When Gray Davis was recalled and Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor in October 2003, Schwarzenegger vowed that his first act as governor would be to revoke the vehicle license fee increase. On November 17, just after his inauguration, Gov. Schwarzenegger signed Executive Order S-1-03, rescinding the vehicle license fee retroactive to October 1, 2003, when the fee increase went into effect. Analysts predicted that this would add more than $4 billion to the state deficit. Schwarzenegger did not indicate how cities and counties would be reimbursed for the lost revenue they received from the license fee to support public safety and other local government activities.


text: On February 5, 2003, anti-tax activist Ted Costa announced a plan to start a petition drive to recall Davis. Several committees were formed to collect signatures, but Costa's Davis Recall Committee was the only one authorized by the state to submit signatures. One committee "Recall Gray Davis Committee", organized by Republican political consultant Sal Russo and former Republican assemblyman Howard Kaloogian played a smaller role in drumming up support. Kaloogian served as chairman, Russo as chief strategist of the committee. After the recall both Kaloogian and Russo went on to found Move America Forward.


text: By law, the committee had to collect signatures from registered California voters amounting to 12% of the number of Californians who voted in the previous gubernatorial election (November 2002) for the special recall vote to take place. The organization was given the go-ahead to collect signatures on March 25, 2003. Organizers had 160 days to collect signatures. Specifically, they had to collect at least 897,158 valid signatures from registered voters by September 2, 2003.


text: The recall movement began slowly, largely relying on talk radio, a website, cooperative e-mail, word-of-mouth, and grassroots campaigning to drive the signature gathering. Davis derided the effort as "partisan mischief" by "a handful of right-wing politicians" and called the proponents losers. Nevertheless, by mid-May recall proponents said they had gathered 300,000 signatures. They sought to gather the necessary signatures by July in order to get the special election in the fall of 2003 instead of March 2004 during the Democratic presidential primary election, when Democratic Party turnout would presumably be higher. The effort continued to gather signatures, but the recall was far from a sure thing and the proponents were short on cash to promote their cause.


text: The movement took off when wealthy U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican representing San Diego, California, announced on May 6 that he would use his personal money to push the effort. All told, he contributed $1.7 million of his own money to finance advertisements and professional signature-gatherers. With the movement accelerated, the recall effort began to make national news and soon appeared to be almost a sure thing. The only question was whether signatures would be collected quickly enough to force the special election to take place in late 2003 rather than in March 2004.


text: The Issa recall committee's e-mail claimed that California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, belonging to the same party as the Governor, resisted certification of the recall signatures as long as possible. By mid-May, the recall organization was calling for funds to begin a lawsuit against Shelley, and publicly considered a separate recall effort for the Secretary of State (also an elected official in California).


text: However, by July 23, 2003, recall advocates turned in over 110% of the required signatures, and on that date, the Secretary of State announced that the signatures had been certified and a recall election would take place. Proponents had set a goal of 1.2 million to provide a buffer in case of invalid signatures. In the end, there were 1,363,411 valid signatures out of 1,660,245 collected (897,156 required).


text: On July 24, Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante announced that Davis would face a recall election on October 7. This was to be the second gubernatorial recall election in United States history and the first in the history of California.


text: California's Constitution required that a recall election be held within 80 days of the date the recall petition was certified, or within 180 days if a regularly scheduled statewide election came within that time. Had the petition been certified at the deadline of September 2, the election would have been held in March 2004, the next scheduled statewide election. Instead, Bustamante had to select a date. He chose Tuesday, October 7, 2003, which was 76 days after the date of certification.


text: In total, 135 candidates qualified for the ballot for the October 7 recall election. Several of the candidates were prominent celebrities. In the election, only four candidates received at least 1% of the vote:


text: The ballot consisted of two questions; voters could vote on one or the other, or on both. The first question asked whether Gray Davis should be recalled. It was a simple yes/no question, and if a majority voted no, then the second question would become irrelevant and Gray Davis would remain California governor. If a majority voted yes, then Davis would be removed from office once the vote was certified, and the second question would determine his successor.


text: Voters had to choose one candidate from a long list of 135 candidates. Voters who voted against recalling Gray Davis could still vote for a candidate to replace him in case the recall vote succeeded. The candidate receiving the most votes (a plurality) would then become the next governor of California. Certification by the Secretary of State of California would require completion within 39 days of the election, and history indicated that it could require that entire time frame to certify the statewide election results. Once the results were certified, a newly elected governor would have to be sworn into office within 10 days.


text: Those Californians wishing to run for governor were given until August 9 to file. The requirements to run were relatively low and attracted a number of interesting and strange candidates. A California citizen needed only to gather 65 signatures from their own party and pay a nonrefundable $3,500 fee to become a candidate, or in lieu of the fee collect up to 10,000 signatures from any party, the fee being prorated by the fraction of 10,000 valid signatures the candidate filed. No candidate in fact collected more than a handful of signatures-in-lieu, so that all paid almost the entire fee. In addition, however, candidates from recognized third parties were allowed on the ballot with "no" fee if they could collect 150 signatures from their own party.


text: The low requirements attracted many "average joes" with no political experience to file as well as several celebrity candidates. Many prominent potential candidates chose not to run. These included Democratic U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, widely regarded as the most popular statewide office-holding Democrat in California, who cited her own experience with a recall drive while she was mayor of San Francisco.


text: Darrell Issa, who bankrolled the recall effort and had said he would run for governor, abruptly dropped out of the race on August 7 among accusations that he had bankrolled the recall effort solely to get himself into office. Issa claimed that Schwarzenegger's decision to run did not affect his decision and he dropped out because he was assured that there were several strong candidates running in the recall. The "San Francisco Chronicle" claimed that Davis's attacks on Issa's "checkered past" and polls showing strong Republican support for Schwarzenegger caused Issa to withdraw.


text: Former Mayor of Los Angeles Richard Riordan and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger (a fellow Republican) agreed that only one of them would run; when Schwarzenegger announced on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" that he would be a candidate, Riordan dropped out of the race. Riordan was surprised and those close to him say angered when he learned Schwarzenegger was running. Riordan did end up endorsing Schwarzenegger, but his endorsement was described as terse and matter-of-fact in contrast to his usually effusive way.


text: Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante himself entered the race and quickly became the Democratic frontrunner, although he continued to oppose the recall and urged Californians to vote against it. State Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi (a Democrat) announced on August 7 that he would be a candidate for governor. However, just two days later and only hours before the deadline to file, he announced "I will not engage in this election as a candidate", adding, "this recall election has become a circus." Garamendi had been under tremendous pressure to drop out from fellow Democrats who feared a split of the Democratic vote between him and Bustamante, should the recall succeed.


text: On September 3, five top candidates—independent Arianna Huffington, Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, Green Party candidate Peter Camejo, Republican State Senator Tom McClintock, and former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth—participated in a live television debate. Noticeably absent was Arnold Schwarzenegger who opponents charged was not adequately prepared. Schwarzenegger had repeatedly stated that he would not participate in such events until later in the election cycle. Prior to this first debate, Gov. Davis spent 30 minutes answering questions from a panel of journalists and voters.


text: Due to the media attention focused on some candidates, GSN held a game show debate entitled "Who Wants to Be Governor of California? – The Debating Game", a political game show featuring six candidates unlikely to win the election, including former child star Gary Coleman and porn star Mary Carey.


text: Several candidates who would still be listed on the ballot dropped out of the campaign before the October 7 election. On August 23, Republican Bill Simon (the 2002 party nominee) announced he was dropping out. He said, "There are too many Republicans in this race and the people of our state simply cannot risk a continuation of the Gray Davis legacy." Simon did not endorse any candidates at the time, but several weeks later he endorsed front-runner Arnold Schwarzenegger, as did Darrell Issa, who had not filed for the race. On September 9, former MLB commissioner and Los Angeles Olympic Committee President Peter Ueberroth withdrew his candidacy in the recall election.


text: On September 24, the remaining top five candidates (Schwarzenegger, Bustamante, Huffington, McClintock, and Camejo) gathered in the University Ballroom at California State University, Sacramento, for a live televised debate that resembled the red-carpet premiere of a movie in Hollywood. Schwarzenegger's marquee name attracted large crowds, a carnival atmosphere, and an army of hundreds of credentialed media from around the world. While the candidate and his staff rode on buses named "Running Man" and "Total Recall", the reporters' buses were named after "Predator".


text: The aftermath of the debate was swift. On September 30, author Arianna Huffington withdrew her candidacy on the "Larry King Live" television program and announced that she was opposing the recall entirely in light of Arnold Schwarzenegger's surge in the polls. Apparently in response to her withdrawal, Cruz Bustamante endorsed her plan for public financing of election campaigns, an intended anti-corruption measure.


text: On July 29, 2003, federal judge Barry Moskowitz ruled section 11382 of the California election code unconstitutional. The provision required that only those voters who had voted in favor of the recall could cast a vote for a candidate for governor. The judge ruled that a voter could vote for or against the recall election and still vote for a replacement candidate. Secretary of State Kevin Shelley did not contest the ruling, thereby setting a legal precedent.


text: In August, a federal judge in San Jose announced that he was considering issuing an order postponing the recall election. Activists in Monterey County had filed suit, claiming that Monterey County, and other counties of California affected by the Voting Rights Act were violating the act by announcing that, because of budgetary constraints, they were planning on hiring fewer Spanish-speaking poll watchers, and were going to cut back by almost half the number of polling places. On September 5, a three-member panel of federal judges ruled that the county's election plans did not constitute a violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.


text: A lawsuit filed in Los Angeles by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) claimed that the use of the "hanging chad" style punch-card ballots still in use in six California counties (Los Angeles, Mendocino, Sacramento, San Diego, Santa Clara, and Solano) were in violation of fair election laws. U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson in Los Angeles ruled on August 20, 2003, that the election would not be delayed because of the punch-card ballot problems. There was an estimate that up 40,000 voters in those heavily minority districts might be disenfranchised, if the election were not postponed to remedy the difficulty. His ruling was appealed, and heard by three judges in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. On September 15, the judges issued a unanimous ruling postponing the recall election until March 2004, on the grounds that the existence of allegedly obsolete voting equipment in those six counties violated the equal protection constitutional guarantee, thus overruling the lower district court which had rejected this argument.


text: Recall proponents questioned why punch-card ballots were adequate enough to elect Governor Davis, but were not good enough to recall him. Proponents planned to appeal the postponement to the U.S. Supreme Court. However, an 11-judge "en banc" panel, also from the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and quickly and carefully canvassed by Judge Alex Kozinski, gathered to rehear the controversial case. On the morning of September 23, the panel reversed the three-judge ruling in a unanimous decision, arguing that the concerns about the punch-card ballots were outweighed by the harm that would be done by postponing the election.


text: Further legal appeals were discussed but did not occur. The ACLU announced it would not make an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Davis was widely quoted in the press as saying "Let's just get it over with." Thus the election proceeded as planned on October 7.


text: Public opinion was divided on the recall, with many passionately-held positions on both sides of the recall election. Californians were fairly united in their disapproval of Governor Davis's handling of the state, with his approval numbers in the mid-20s. On the question of whether he should be recalled, Californians were more divided, but polls in the weeks leading up to the election consistently showed that a majority would vote to remove him.


text: Polls also showed that the two leading candidates, Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante, a Democrat, and Hollywood actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, were neck and neck with about 25–35% of the vote each, and Bustamante with a slight lead in most polls. Republican State Senator Tom McClintock also polled in the double-digits. Remaining candidates polled in the low single digits. Polls in the final week leading up to the election showed support for Davis slipping and support for Schwarzenegger growing.


text: Many observers outside California, and some members of the press, consistently called the recall chaos and madness as well as a media circus and nightmare. With the candidacies of a few celebrities and many regular Californians, the entire affair became a joke to some (there were tongue-in-cheek references to Schwarzenegger's role in the science fiction film "Total Recall") as well as an "only-in-California" event. Nevertheless, most Californians took the recall seriously, with the future of the governor's office at stake. In the months before the election, 380,000 Californians registered to vote, for a total of 15.3 million—more registered voters than there had been in the three previous presidential elections.


text: The first question was whether Davis, the sitting governor, should be recalled; those voting on it were 55.4% in favor of recall and 44.6% opposed.


text: The second question was who would replace the governor in the event that a majority voted to recall him. Among those voting on the potential replacement, Schwarzenegger received a plurality of 48.6%, surpassing Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante's 31.5% – about a 3-to-2 ratio. Republican Tom McClintock received 13.4% of the vote – less than half the share of the candidate he trailed. Green Party candidate Peter Camejo polled 2.8%, trailing the third-place candidate by almost four-to-one. Each remaining candidate polled 0.6% or less.


text: Schwarzenegger's votes exceeded those for the next five candidates combined, despite the presumed division of Republican voters between him and McClintock. There were also more votes for Schwarzenegger (4,206,284) than votes against recalling Davis (4,007,783), avoiding the theoretical scenario of the replacement having less support than the recalled governor.


text: At 10 p.m. local time, Davis conceded that he had lost to Schwarzenegger, saying, "We've had a lot of good nights over the last 20 years, but tonight the people did decide that it's time for someone else to serve, and I accept their judgment." About 40 minutes later, in his acceptance speech, Schwarzenegger said, "Today California has given me the greatest gift of all: You've given me your trust by voting for me. I will do everything I can to live up to that trust. I will not fail you."


text: Following the election, all 58 of California's counties had 28 days (until November 4, 2003) each to conduct a countywide canvass of their votes. Counties used this time to count any absentee ballots or provisional ballots not yet counted, to reconcile the number of signatures on the roster of registered voters with the number of ballots recorded on the ballot statement, to count any valid write-in votes, to reproduce any damaged ballots, if necessary, and to conduct a hand count of the ballots cast in 1% of the precincts, chosen at random by the elections official. Counties then had seven days from the conclusion of canvassing (November 11, 2003, 35 days after the election) to submit their final vote totals to the California Secretary of State's office. The Secretary of State had to certify the final statewide vote by 39 days (until November 15) after the election.


text: The vote was officially certified on November 14, 2003. Once the vote was certified, governor-elect Schwarzenegger had to be sworn into office within ten days. His inauguration took place on November 17, 2003.


title: Ottoman–Habsburg wars

text: The Ottoman–Habsburg wars were fought from the 16th through the 18th centuries between the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy, which was at times supported by the Kingdom of Hungary, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and Habsburg Spain. The wars were dominated by land campaigns in Hungary, including Transylvania (today in Romania) and Vojvodina (today in Serbia), Croatia, and central Serbia.