title: The English Patient

text: A major symbol of the novel is the desert. It serves as a representation of the characters' war experiences and how they came to gather in the villa. A passage in the novel notes "The desert could not be claimed or owned." Carravaggio had stepped away from the war for a brief time when he drifted into the villa and encountered an old flame, Hana. Kip elects to stay in the villa, a straggler from his unit, to continue searching for explosives. He also finds there is a serene sense of acceptance in the villa and that the people need him. Hana is devoted to her patients, to the very last. Thus, she stays behind in the villa hospital when numerous others abandon it. Almásy himself is forced into the villa, essentially because the desert took him when his plane was shot down.


title: The English Patient

text: A psychoanalytic analysis of "The English Patient" helps us to understand the meaning of Michael Ondaatje's emphasis on his characters' differences and appearances. He may have been thinking about how melting pot civilisations begin by different cultures working together in spite of each other's background. Note how each central character living in the reconstructed villa is almost as opposite of each other in appearance as they could be. Hana was young, healthy, and capable of caring for more than one person at a time, but she mainly attended to the English patient. In contrast to Hana, the English patient was handicapped and on his death bed. But little did Hana know, in the English patient's past, he had worked with the Germans on other desert expeditions way before their paths had crossed. However, his amnesia could not allow him to remember such things at the moment. In other words, Hana was caring for someone who was partly responsible for her village's demise. The moral of this is that Hana, the English patient, Kip and Caravaggio had fewer physical resemblances to each other than they had had of humanistic desires. Thus, Michael Ondaatje may have wanted us to see that what's on the outside does not matter as much as what's on the inside when rebuilding a village, city or country.


title: The English Patient

text: The emotional heart of this novel is found at the core of the character's want and need to survive, which in turn is the eternal damnation they find by everything seeming so bleak. Within this, the desert is a large symbol. As the Villa San Girolamo is an abandoned, war ridden place, it is also a place that seems like a cage, with no chance at happiness in sight. The war may be over, but the characters feel trapped in a sense. The desert within the novel is a place of freedom, a place that cannot be claimed or owned by any one person. The desert is everlasting, and can never be wavered. This is unlike the war that these characters had become extremely traumatised from. It is a vast nothingness that will always remain nation-less. A place that these characters can seek out in their minds, when there is nowhere else to turn for hope.


title: The English Patient

text: The novel won the 1992 Booker Prize, the 1992 Governor General's Award and the 2018 Golden Man Booker award.


title: The English Patient

text: The novel was adapted into the 1996 film with the same title by Anthony Minghella, starring Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas, Willem Dafoe, Colin Firth, Naveen Andrews and Juliette Binoche. The film received nine Academy Awards—including Best Picture and Director—at the 69th Academy Awards.


title: The English Patient

text: A television adaptation of the book is in works at the BBC. The project will be written by Emily Ballou and co-producing between Miramax Television and Paramount Television Studios.


title: Bennett Cerf

text: Bennett Alfred Cerf (May 25, 1898 – August 27, 1971) was an American writer, publisher, and co-founder of the American publishing firm Random House. Cerf was also known for his own compilations of jokes and puns, for regular personal appearances lecturing across the United States, and for his weekly television appearances for over 17 years on the panel game show "What's My Line?"


title: Bennett Cerf

text: Cerf was born on May 25, 1898, in Manhattan, New York, to a Jewish family of Alsatian and German origin. Cerf's father Gustave Cerf was a lithographer; his mother, Frederika Wise, was heiress to a tobacco-distribution fortune. She died when Bennett was 15; shortly afterward, her brother Herbert moved into the Cerf household and became a strong literary and social influence on the teenager.


title: Bennett Cerf

text: Cerf graduated from Townsend Harris High School in 1916, the same public school as publisher Richard Simon, author Herman Wouk, and playwright Howard Dietz. He spent his teenage years at 790 Riverside Drive, an apartment building in Washington Heights, which was home to two of his friends who became prominent as adults: Howard Dietz and Hearst newspapers financial editor Merryle Rukeyser. Cerf received his Bachelor of Arts from Columbia College of Columbia University (1919) and his Litt.B. (1920) from its School of Journalism. After graduation, he briefly worked as a reporter for the "New York Herald Tribune" and for some time in a Wall Street brokerage. He then was named a vice-president of the publishing firm Boni & Liveright.


title: Bennett Cerf

text: In 1925, Cerf and Donald S. Klopfer formed a partnership to purchase the rights to the Modern Library from Boni & Liveright, and they went into business for themselves. They increased the popularity of the series, and in 1927, they began publishing general trade books that they had selected "at random". This began their publishing business, which in time they named Random House. It used as its logo a little house drawn by Cerf's friend and fellow Columbia alumnus Rockwell Kent.


title: Bennett Cerf

text: Cerf's talent in building and maintaining relationships brought contracts with such writers as William Faulkner, John O'Hara, Eugene O'Neill, James Michener, Truman Capote, Theodor Seuss Geisel, and others. He published "Atlas Shrugged," written by Ayn Rand, though he vehemently disagreed with her philosophy of Objectivism. He admired her "sincerity" and "brillian[ce]", and the two became lifelong friends.


title: Bennett Cerf

text: In 1933, Cerf won "United States v. One Book Called Ulysses," a landmark court case against government censorship, and thereafter he was the first in the United States to publish James Joyce's unabridged "Ulysses". (One chapter had been published in Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap's "The Little Review", a Chicago-based literary magazine, which had led to its being found "a work of obscenity".) In 1932, Random House had the rights to publish the book in the United States, and they arranged for a test case to challenge the implicit ban so as to publish the work without fear of prosecution. The publisher, therefore, made an arrangement to import the book and to have a copy seized by the United States Customs Service when it arrived. After seizure, the United States attorney


title: Bennett Cerf

text: took seven months before deciding whether to proceed further; although the assistant U.S. attorney assigned to assess the work's obscenity considered it a "literary masterpiece", he also felt it was obscene within the meaning of the law. The office then sued under the Tariff Act of 1930, which allowed a district attorney to bring an action against obscene literature. Cerf later presented the book in question to Columbia University.


title: Bennett Cerf

text: In 1944, Cerf published the first of his books of jokes and anecdotes, "Try and Stop Me", with illustrations drawn by Carl Rose. A second book, "Shake Well Before Using", was published in 1949. Then, he became a member of the Peabody Awards board of jurors, where he served from 1946–1967 and 1970–1971. He was chair juror of the Peabody Jurors Board from 1954 to the end of his first term in 1967, and published a weekly column, "The Cerf Board", in the Sunday supplement magazine "This Week". Cerf was also inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa in 1967 at Florida Southern College.


title: Bennett Cerf

text: In 1959, Maco Magazine Corporation published what became known as "The Cream of the Master's Crop", a compilation of Cerf's jokes, gags, stories, puns, and wit.


title: Bennett Cerf

text: Before 1951, Cerf was an occasional panelist on the NBC game show "Who Said That?", on which celebrities tried to identify the speakers of quotations taken from recent news reports. In 1951, he began appearing weekly on "What's My Line?", where he stayed for 16 years, until the show ended its run on CBS, in 1967. Until his death, Cerf continued to appear regularly on the CBS Films (now Viacom) syndicated version of "What's My Line?", along with Arlene Francis. Cerf was known as "Bennett Snerf" in a "Sesame Street" puppet parody of "What's My Line?" During his time on "What's My Line?", Cerf received an honorary degree from the University of Puget Sound, and an honorary doctorate of letters in November 1965 from William Jewell College, in Liberty, Missouri.


title: Bennett Cerf

text: Cerf was interviewed in 1967 and 1968 by Robin Hawkins, a freelancer working for the Oral History Research Office at Columbia University. Cerf claimed that of all the awards he had received in his life, he was "genuinely proud of" those bestowed on him by humor magazines "The Yale Record" and "The Harvard Lampoon". Cerf was the subject of Jessica Mitford's exposé, published in the July 1970 issue of "Atlantic Monthly," which denounced the business practices of the Famous Writers School, which Cerf had founded.


title: Bennett Cerf

text: S. J. Perelman's 1945 feuilleton "No Dearth of Mirth, Fill Out the Coupon", describes Perelman's fictionalized encounter with a jokebook publisher named Barnaby Chirp. Perelman's 1962 play "The Beauty Part" features the caricature Emmett Stagg of the book-publishing empire Charnel House, who was based on Cerf and played on Broadway by William LeMessena. He was similarly portrayed as publisher Bennett Blake on "The Patty Duke Show" in the 1964 episode "Auld Lang Syne". In 2006, Peter Bogdanovich portrayed Cerf in the film "Infamous".


title: Bennett Cerf

text: Cerf married actress Sylvia Sidney on October 1, 1935; they divorced six months later on April 9, 1936. He married Hollywood actress Phyllis Fraser, a cousin of Ginger Rogers's, on September 17, 1940. They had two sons, Christopher and Jonathan.


title: Bennett Cerf

text: In the early 1950s, while maintaining a Manhattan residence, Bennett and Phyllis Cerf bought an estate at Mount Kisco, New York, which became his country home for the rest of his life. A Mount Kisco street named Cerf Lane runs from Croton Avenue and is named after him.


title: Bennett Cerf

text: Cerf died of natural causes in Mount Kisco, on August 27, 1971, aged 73. He was survived by his wife and sons.


title: Bennett Cerf

text: Bennett Cerf Drive, just outside the City of Westminster in Carroll County, Maryland, is named after him. This is the location of the Random House Westminster Distribution Center and Offices, one of two Random House distribution facilities in the U.S., as well as the location of Bennett Cerf Park.


title: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

text: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (EM:HE; sometimes informally referred to as Extreme Home Makeover) is an American reality television series that aired from February 15, 2004 to January 13, 2012 on ABC. The series is a spin-off of "Extreme Makeover" that features a family that has faced some sort of recent or ongoing hardship having their home completely remodeled to better suit their exact needs.


title: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

text: The series was produced by Endemol USA in association with Disney-ABC Television Group's Greengrass Television. The original ABC run was hosted by Ty Pennington; the HGTV season was hosted by actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson. The executive producers were Brady Connell and George Verschoor.


title: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

text: Despite the show's positive message, "EM:HE" has been a target of tabloid media and scrutinized for several issues, including the show's ethics, its authenticity, and leaving some families with an increase in mortgage payments and property taxes and worsening their circumstances.


title: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

text: Ethically speaking, the show has often been criticized by some viewers and the media for unnecessary contributions and glorifying excessive McMansion-like construction and lifestyles, such as in a "Mother Jones" article that questioned giving a 6-bedroom, 7-bath, 7-television house to a family of 4 in Kingston, Washington. However, ABC countered this criticism by explaining their approach towards building homes for each family was to do so in a manner which best suited their own individual needs, noting the sizes of many of the homes is due to the fact a considerable majority were built for either exceptionally large families, families of individuals with certain accessibility needs and families who ran various types of organizations or small businesses out of their homes, the latter of which was the case of the Kingston home. ABC responded to the "Mother Jones" article by noting they had failed to mention that particular home was also a functioning bed and breakfast.


title: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

text: Authentically speaking, one such claim was frequently made against the show's lead designers, particularly Ty Pennington. At several makeovers, they have been criticized for never doing any work at all, with anonymous contractors mostly doing the work and the designers only performing light work for the cameras. In 2007, during the makeover for the Carter Family in Billings, Montana, a local radio DJ accused Pennington of using a spray can of grease on his face to make it look like he was really working, only to be confronted over the air by Pennington himself, who called in from the construction site. The largest piece of evidence to prove the design team's contribution to the house and the family is a severe hand injury that Ed Sanders received during a 2006 makeover in Ohio for the family of Jason Thomas. While creating a wood carving of the American flag, Sanders removed part of the guard for a hand-held wood grinder, which led to him slicing one of his hands open. Sanders took a leave of absence for nearly an entire season to recover.


title: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

text: In an article entitled "ABC's 'Extreme Exploitation'", "The Smoking Gun" published an e-mail sent on March 10, 2006, from an ABC employee sent to the network's affiliate base, relaying a message from the program's casting agent detailing specific tragedies and rare illnesses sought by the show. Included were a "Muscular Dystrophy Child", a "Family who has multiple children w/ Down Syndrome (either adopted or biological)" and a child with a CIPA disorder. This last request included a parenthetical remark stating, "There are only 17 known cases in US - let me know if one is in your town!"


title: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

text: This e-mail has led some major media networks and blogs to accuse the show of opportunism in seeking out the most sensational stories in a push for higher ratings.


title: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

text: Another criticism aimed at the show surrounds financial issues that some of the families have had after receiving the home makeover, which following the onset of the Great Recession, received media attention. As of 2020, nine of the original show's recipient families have given up their homes due to financial issues, which included two foreclosures. While most cases were reported as resulting from instances such as unemployment, accumulations of medical bills or property tax rate increases, the most widely publicized cases featured families who had defaulted on home equity loans taken out on their homes since receiving them, one of which resulted in a foreclosure. In a 2018 interview with "The Wrap", Pennington explained the nature of these cases. “There’s a couple of stories that families lost their home. We left them with a financial adviser. However, if the family chooses to triple-mortgage their house to start a business that they’ve never done before just to see if they can get into it, that’s their own demise. That’s how you lose your home, is you’re like, ‘Oh, let’s use it as a lottery ticket and see what we can get out of it. And then you lose it because you can’t make the payment. But that’s what press does. They were like, ‘This is too good to be true, what is really happening?’ But with ‘Extreme’ it really was that good.”


title: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

text: The five children of the Higgins family, aged 14–21, filed a lawsuit against ABC after they were evicted by a family that had taken them in before the show came to renovate the family's house. The five kids "say that the producers took advantage of the family's hard-luck story and promised them new cars and other prizes to persuade them to participate in the program", according to the LA Times. On July 17, 2007, Judge Paul Gutman ruled against the siblings, stating that the plaintiffs failed to prove their case. The decision of the trial court was affirmed on appeal.


title: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

text: Questions arose when Theresa "Momi" Akana was picked for a Hawaii-set episode. The "Honolulu Advertiser" investigated their tax records and found out that she and her husband each made over $100,000 in salary. Denise Cramsey, the executive producer of the show, responded with "I think Momi certainly fits the bill." She defended the pick by stating that they look beyond the family's finances and consider other factors, including family plight and contributions to the community.


title: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

text: Another spinoff, "", aired for one season between November 1, 2004 and May 23, 2005 and featured extra behind-the-scenes footage of what had happened in that week's episode.


title: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

text: On December 15, 2011, ABC announced that "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" would end its run on January 13, 2012, but continue to air network specials.


title: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

text: On January 15, 2019, HGTV announced that they would be reviving the series; the revival premiered on February 16, 2020, running for 10 episodes until April 5, 2020.


title: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

text: This list includes both officially licensed versions and so-called "copies" of this show, mostly inspired by that, but not licensed by Endemol Shine Group, the current owner of format.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: Franz Josef Land, Frantz Iosef Land, Franz Joseph Land or Francis Joseph's Land (, ) is a Russian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. It is inhabited only by military personnel. It constitutes the northernmost part of Arkhangelsk Oblast and consists of 192 islands, which cover an area of , stretching from east to west and from north to south. The islands are categorized in three groups (western, central, and eastern) separated by the British Channel and the Austrian Strait. The central group is further divided into a northern and southern section by the Markham Sound. The largest island is Prince George Land, which measures , followed by Wilczek Land, Graham Bell Island and Alexandra Land.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: Eighty-five percent of the archipelago is glaciated, with large unglaciated areas on the largest islands and many of the smallest ones. The islands have a combined coastline of . Compared to other Arctic archipelagos, Franz Josef Land has a high dissection rate of 3.6 square kilometers per coastline kilometer. Cape Fligely on Rudolf Island is the northernmost point of the Eastern Hemisphere. The highest elevations are found in the eastern group, with the highest point located on Wiener Neustadt Land, above mean sea level.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: The archipelago was first spotted by the Norwegian sailors Nils Fredrik Rønnbeck and Johan Petter Aidijärvi in 1865, although they did not report their finding. The first reported finding was in the 1873 Austro-Hungarian North Pole expedition led by Julius von Payer and Karl Weyprecht, who named the area after Emperor Franz Joseph I.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: In 1926, the Soviet Union annexed the islands, which were known at the time as Fridtjof Nansen Land, and settled small outposts for research and military purposes. The Kingdom of Norway rejected the claim and several private expeditions were sent to the islands. With the Cold War, the islands became off limits for foreigners and two military airfields were built. The islands have been a nature sanctuary since 1994 and became part of the Russian Arctic National Park in 2012.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: There are two candidates for the discovery of Franz Josef Land. The first was the Norwegian sealing vessel "Spidsbergen", with captain Nils Fredrik Rønnbeck and harpooner Johan Petter Aidijärvi. They sailed northeast from Svalbard in 1865 searching for suitable sealing sites, and they found land that was most likely Franz Josef Land. The account is believed to be factual, but an announcement of the discovery was never made, and their sighting therefore remained unknown to subsequent explorers. This was at the time common to keep newly discovered areas secret, as their discovery was aimed at exploiting them for sealing and whaling, and exposure would cause competitors to flock to the site. Russian scientist N. G. Schilling proposed in 1865 that the ice conditions in the Barents Sea could only be explained if there was another land mass in the area, but he never received funding for an expedition.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: The Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition of 1872–74 was the first to announce the discovery of the islands. Led by Julius von Payer and Karl Weyprecht of Austria-Hungary on board the schooner "Tegetthoff", the expedition's primary goal was to find the Northeast Passage and its secondary goal to reach the North Pole. Starting in July 1872, the vessel drifted from Novaya Zemlya to a new landmass, which they named in honor of Franz Joseph I (1830–1916), Emperor of Austria. The expedition contributed significantly to the mapping and exploration of the islands. The next expedition to spot the archipelago was the Dutch Expedition for the Exploration of the Barents Sea, on board the schooner "Willem Barents". Constrained by the ice, they never reached land.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: Benjamin Leigh Smith's expedition in 1880, aboard the barque "Eira", followed a route from Spitsbergen to Franz Josef Land, landing on Bell Island in August. Leigh Smith explored the vicinity and set up a base at Eira Harbour, before exploring towards McClintock Island. He returned the following year in the same vessel, landing at Grey Bay on George Land. The explorers were stopped by ice at Cape Flora, and "Eira" sank on 21 August. They built a cottage and stayed the winter, to be rescued by the British vessels "Kara" and "Hope" the following summer. These early expeditions concentrated their explorations on the southern and central parts of the archipelago.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: Nansen's "Fram" expedition was an 1893–1896 attempt by the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen to reach the geographical North Pole by harnessing the natural east–west current of the Arctic Ocean. Departing in 1893, "Fram" drifted from the New Siberian Islands for one and a half years before Nansen became impatient and set out to reach the North Pole on skis with Hjalmar Johansen. Eventually, they gave up on reaching the pole and instead found their way to Franz Josef Land, the nearest land known to man. They were thus able to establish that there was no large landmass north of this archipelago. In the meantime the Jackson–Harmsworth Expedition set off in 1894, set up a base on Bell Island, and stayed for the winter. The following season they spent exploring. By pure chance, at Cape Flora in the spring of 1896, Nansen stumbled upon Frederick George Jackson, who was able to transport him back to Norway. Nansen and Jackson explored the northern, eastern, and western portions of the islands.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: Once the basic geography of Franz Josef Land had become apparent, expeditions shifted to using the archipelago as a basis to reach the North Pole. The first such attempt was conducted by the National Geographic Society-sponsored American journalist Walter Wellman in 1898. The two Norwegians, Paul Bjørvig and Bernt Bentsen, stayed the winter 1898–9 at Cape Heller on Wilczek Land, but insufficient fuel caused the latter to die. Wellman returned the following year, but the polar expedition itself was quickly abandoned when they lost most of their equipment. Italian nobleman Luigi Amedeo organized the next expedition in 1899, on the "Stella Polare". They stayed the winter, and in February and again in March 1900 set out towards the pole, but failed to get far.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: Evelyn Baldwin, sponsored by William Ziegler, organized the Ziegler Polar Expedition of 1901. Setting up a base on Alger Island, he stayed the winter exploring the area, but failed to press northwards. The expedition was largely regarded as an utter failure by the exploration and scientific community, which cited the lack of proper management. Unhappy with the outcome, Ziegler organized a new expedition, for which he appointed Anthony Fiala, second-in-command in the first expedition, as leader. It arrived in 1903 and spent the winter. Their ship, "America", was crushed beyond repair in December and disappeared in January. Still, they made two attempts towards the pole, both of which were quickly abandoned. They were forced to stay another year, making yet another unsuccessful attempt at the pole, before being evacuated in 1905 by the "Terra Nova".


title: Franz Josef Land

text: The first Russian expedition was carried out in 1901, when the icebreaker "Yermak" traveled to the islands. The next expedition, led by hydrologist Georgy Sedov, embarked in 1912 but did not reach the archipelago until the following year because of ice. Among its scientific contributions were the first snow measurements of the archipelago, and the determination that changes of the magnetic field occur in cycles of fifteen years. It also conducted topographical surveys of the surrounding area. Scurvy set in during the second winter, killing a machinist. Despite lacking prior experience or sufficient provisions, Sedov insisted on pressing forward with a march to the pole. His condition deteriorated and he died on 6 March.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: "Hertha" was sent to explore the area, and its captain, I. I. Islyamov hoisted a Russian iron flag at Cape Flora and proclaimed Russian sovereignty over the archipelago. The act was motivated by the ongoing First World War and Russian fears of the Central Powers establishing themselves there. The world's first Arctic flight took place in August 1914, when Polish aviator (one of the first pilots of the Russian Navy) Jan Nagórski overflew Franz Josef Land in search of Sedov's group. "Andromeda" set out for the same purpose; while failing to locate them, the crew were able to finally determine the non-existence of Peterman Land and King Oscar Land, suspected lands north of the islands.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: Soviet expeditions were sent almost yearly from 1923. Franz Josef Land had been considered "terra nullius" – land belonging to no one – but on 15 April 1926 the Soviet Union declared its annexation of the archipelago. Emulating Canada's declaration of the sector principle, they pronounced all land between the Soviet mainland and the North Pole to be Soviet territory. This principle has never been internationally recognized. Both Italy and Norway protested. Norway was first and foremost concerned about its economic interests in the area, in a period when Norwegian hunters and whalers were also being barred from the White Sea, Novaya Zemlya and Greenland; the Soviet government, however, largely remained passive, and did not evict Norwegian hunting ships during the following years. Nor did the Soviets interfere when, in 1926, several foreign ships entered the waters in search of the vanished airship "Italia".


title: Franz Josef Land

text: Norway attempted both a diplomatic solution and a Lars Christensen-financed expedition to establish a weather station to gain economic control over the islands, but both failed in 1929. Instead the Soviet icebreaker "Sedov" set out, led by Otto Schmidt, landed in Tikhaya Bay, and began construction of a permanent base. The Soviet government proposed renaming the archipelago Fridtjof Nansen Land in 1930, but the name never came into use. In 1930 the Norwegian Bratvaag Expedition visited the archipelago, but was asked by Soviet authorities to respect Soviet territorial water in the future. Other expeditions that year were the Norwegian-Swedish balloon expedition led by Hans Wilhelmsson Ahlmann on "Quest" and the German airship "Graf Zeppelin". Except for a German weather station emplaced during the Second World War, these were the last Western expeditions to Franz Josef Land until 1990.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: Soviet activities grew rapidly following the International Polar Year in 1932. The archipelago was circumnavigated, people landed on Victoria Island, and a topographical map was completed. In 1934–35 geological and glaciological expeditions were carried out, cartographic flights were flown, and up to sixty people stayed the winters between 1934 and 1936, which also saw the first birth. The first drifting ice station was set up out of Rudolf Island in 1936. An airstrip was then constructed on a glacier on the island, and by 1937 the winter population hit 300.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: Activity dwindled during the Second World War and only a small group of men were kept at Rudolf Island, remaining unsupplied throughout the war. They never discovered Nazi Germany's establishment of a weather station, named Schatzgräber, on Alexandra Land as part of the North Atlantic weather war. The German station was evacuated in 1944 after the men were struck by trichinosis from eating polar bear meat. Apparent physical evidence of the base was discovered in 2016.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: The Cold War produced renewed Soviet interest in the islands because of their strategic military significance. The islands were regarded as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier". The site of the former German weather station was selected as the location of a Soviet aerodrome and military base, Nagurskoye. With the advent of intercontinental ballistic missiles, the Soviet Union changed its military strategy in 1956, abolishing the strategic need for an airbase on the archipelago. The International Geophysical Year of 1957 and 1958 gave a new rise to the scientific interest in the archipelago and an airstrip was built on Heiss Island in 1956. The following year the geophysical Ernst Krenkel Observatory was established there. Activity at Tikhaya Bay was closed in 1959.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: Because of the islands' military significance, the Soviet Union closed off the area to foreign researchers, although Soviet researchers carried out various expeditions, including in geophysics, studies of the ionosphere, marine biology, botany, ornithology, and glaciology. The Soviet Union opened up the archipelago for international activities from 1990, with foreigners having fairly straightforward access.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: As part of the opening up of Franz Josef Land, the Institute of Geography in Moscow, Stockholm university and Umeå university (Sweden) conducted expeditions to Alexandra Land in August 1990 and August 1991, studying climate- and glacial history by radiocarbon dating raised beaches and antlers from extinct caribou. The work was conducted from a small research base southwest of Nagurskoye, built in 1989. Also in 1990, a collaboration between the Academy of Sciences, the Norwegian Polar Institute and the Polish Academy of Sciences resulted in the first of several archaeological expeditions organized by the Institute of Culture in Moscow. The military base on Graham Bell Island was abandoned in the early 1990s. The military presence at Nagurskoye was reduced to that of a border post, and the number of people stationed at Krenkel Observatory was reduced from 70 to 12. The archipelago and the surrounding waters were declared a nature reserve in April 1994. The opening of the archipelago also saw the introduction of tourism, most of which takes place on Russian-operated icebreakers. In 2011, in a move to better accommodate tourism in the archipelago, the Russian Arctic National Park was expanded to include Franz Josef Land. However, in August 2019, Russia abruptly withdrew its approval for a Norwegian cruise ship to visit the islands.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: In 2012, the Russian Air Force decided to reopen the Graham Bell Airfield as part of a series of reopenings of air bases in the Arctic. A major new base, named the "Arctic Trefoil" for its three lobed structure, was constructed at Nagurskoye. It can maintain 150 soldiers for 18 months and has an area of 14,000 square meters.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: In August 2019, a geographic expedition by Russian Northern Fleet discovered several new islands in the archipelago. They were previously buried under Vylki Glacier until part of it melted.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: In April 2020, the archipelago was used by the Russian Airborne Forces to perform the world's first high-altitude military parachuting (HALO) paradrop from the lower border of the Arctic stratosphere. The crews of Il-76 aircraft practiced at the northernmost airfield of the country on the island of Franz Josef Land. Not only did the paratroopers endure the partial oxygen of the stratosphere common under the HALO technique; they encountered deep freeze conditions mitigated by military tested oxygen tanks and uniforms. Challenges to the Arctic mission included undirected terrain, in the absence of ground navigation systems. During the end of the mission, the paratroopers spent a day during which they conducted classes on survival in Arctic conditions and built shelters from snow.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: The archipelago constitutes the northernmost part of Russia's Arkhangelsk Oblast, located between 79°46′ and 81°52′ north and 44°52′ and 62°25′ east. It is situated north of Novaya Zemlya and east of the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. Located within the Arctic Ocean, Franz Josef Land constitutes the northeastern border of the Barents Sea and the northwestern border of the Kara Sea. The islands are from the North Pole and from the Yamal Peninsula, the closest point of the Eurasian mainland. The archipelago falls within varying definitions of the Asia–Europe border, and is therefore variously defined as part of Asia or of Europe. Cape Flighely, situated at 81°50′ north, is the northernmost point in Eurasia and the Eastern Hemisphere, and of either Europe or Asia, depending on the continental definition. It is the third-closest landmass to the North Pole.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: The archipelago comprises 191 uninhabited islands with a combined area of . These stretch from east to west and from north to south. One can categorize the islands into three groups, a western, central and eastern, separated by the British Channel and the Austrian Strait. The central group is further divided into a northern and southern section by the Markham Strait. Graham Bell Island is separated from the eastern group by the Severo–Vostochnyi Strait. There are two named island clusters: Zichy Land north of Markham Sound; and Belaya Zemlya to the extreme northeast. The straits are narrow, between several hundred meters to wide. They reach depths of , below the shelf of the Barents Sea.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: The largest island is Prince George Land, which measures . Three additional islands exceed in size: Wilczek Land, Graham Bell Island and Alexandra Land. Five more islands exceed : Hall Island, Salisbury Island, McClintock Island, Jackson Island and Hooker Island. The smallest 135 islands constitute 0.4 percent of the archipelago's area. The highest elevation is a peak on Wilczek Land, which rises above mean sea level. Victoria Island, located to the west of Alexandra Land, is administratively part of the archipelago, but the island is not geographically part of the island group and is closer to Svalbard, located from Kvitøya.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: Geologically the archipelago is located on the northern edge of the Barents Sea Platform, within an area where Mesozoic sedimentary rocks are exposed. The area has four units separated by regional erosion surfaces. The Upper Paleozoic unit is poorly exposed and was created by folding during the Caledonian period. The Lower Mesozoic unit, consisting of coastal and marine sediments from the Upper Triassic period, is present on most islands and on the bottom of the straits and consists of limestones, shales, sandstones and conglomerate.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: The Upper Mesozoic unit dominates in the southern and western parts, consisting of massive effusive rocks made up of basaltic sheets separated by volcanic ashes and tuffs, mixed with terrigenous rocks with layers of coal. The Mesozoic-Tertiary unit remains mostly on the sea floor and consist of marine quartz sandstones and shales. Plate tectonics of the Arctic Ocean created basalt lavas and dolerite sheets and dykes in the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous periods. The land is rising by per year, due to the melting of the Barents Sea Ice Sheet c. 10,000 years ago.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: Franz Josef Land is dominated by glaciation, which covers an area of , or 85 percent of the archipelago. The glaciers have an average thickness of , which would convert to . This would alone give a eustatic rise in sea level should it melt. Large ice-free areas are only found on the largest islands, such as the Armitage Peninsula of George Land, the Kholmistyi Peninsula of Graham Bell Island, the Central'naya Susha of Alexandra Land, the Ganza Point of Wilczek Land and the Heyes Island. Most of the smaller islands are unglaciated.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: Streams only form during the runoff period from May through early September. Permafrost causes most of the runoff to take place on the surface, with streams only forming on the largest islands. The longest river is long and forms on George Land, while there are several streams on Alexandra Land, the longest being . There are about one thousand lakes in the archipelago, the majority of which are located on Alexandra Land and George Land. Most lakes are located in depressions caused by glacial erosion, in addition to a smaller number of lagoon lakes. Their sizes vary from to . Most are only deep, with the deepest measured at .


title: Franz Josef Land

text: The sea currents surrounding the archipelago touch eastern Svalbard and northern Novaya Zemlya. The cold Makarov Current flows from the north and the Arctic Current flows from the northwest, while the warmer Novaya Zemlya Current flows from the south. The latter has temperatures over , while the bottom water lies below . The southern coastal regions of the archipelago experience currents from east to west. Average velocity is between per second. The tidal component in coastal areas is per second. Pack ice occurs throughout the year around the entire island group, with the lowest levels being during August and September. One-year winter ice starts forming in October and reaches a thickness of . Icebergs are common year-round.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: Franz Josef Land is in a transition zone between an ice cap climate (EF) and a tundra climate (ET), technically falling into the latter because July and August average above freezing, nevertheless, low temperatures remain below freezing year round. The main forces influencing the climate are the glaciation and sea ice. At 81° north the archipelago experiences 141 annual days of midnight sun, from 12 April to 30 August. During the winter it experiences 128 days of polar night from 19 October to 23 February. Abundant cloud cover further cools the climate. The sea starts to freeze in late September and reaches its annual maximum in March, at which time ninety-five percent of the sea is ice-covered. The ice coverage starts to decrease in May and experiences major melting in June, with the minimum occurring in August or early September.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: During winter, high-pressure weather and clear skies cause radiation loss from the ground, sending temperatures down to . During shifts the temperatures can change by within hours. Coastal stations experience mean January temperatures of between and , varying heavily from year to year depending on the degree of cycles in weather patterns. During summer the temperatures are a lot more even and average at between and at Hayes Island. Fog is most common during the summer. Average annual precipitation at the coastal stations is between , with the wettest months being from July through September. Elevated areas can experience considerably higher precipitation. Franz Josef Land is significantly colder than Spitsbergen, which experiences warmer winter averages, but is warmer than the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: The climate and permafrost limits soil development in the archipelago. Large areas are devoid of soil, with permafrost polygons being the most common site for soil to occur. The soil typically has incomplete soil profiles and polygonal form with rich content of iron and either neutral or slightly acidic. The brown upper humus layers have three percent organic matter, increasing to eight percent in the southernmost islands. Arctic desert soils occur on the eastern group islands, while the areas near the edge of the glaciers have bog-like arctic soil.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: The flora varies between islands, based on the natural conditions. On some islands, vegetation is limited to lichen growing on stones. Vegetation typically covers five to ten percent of the ground surface, with notable exceptions under bird colonies where it can reach one hundred percent. Vegetation varies with the altitude: up to there is a belt of grass-moss arctic desert, then moss-lichen arctic desert to , then lichen arctic desert up to and above lifeless snow desert, with occasional lichens on nunataks and snow algae on glacier surfaces.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: Trees, shrubs and tall plants cannot survive. About 150 species of bryophytes dominate the grassy turf, of which two-thirds are mosses and a third liverworts. The most common species are "Aulacomnium", "Ditrichum", "Drepanocladus", "Orthothecium" and "Tomenthypnum". More than 100 species of lichen are found on the island, the most common being "Caloplaca", "Lecanora", "Lecidea", "Ochrolechia" and "Rinodina". There are sixteen species of grass and about 100 species of algae, most commonly Cyanophyta and Diatomea. Fifty-seven species of vascular plants have been reported. The most common are Arctic poppy and saxifraga, which grow everywhere, independent of habitat, with the latter's nine species being found on all islands. Common plants in wet areas are "Alopecurus magellanicus" (alpine meadow-foxtail grass), buttercups and polar willow. "Alopecurus magellanicus" and "Papaver dahlianum" are the tallest plants, able to reach heights of .


title: Franz Josef Land

text: More than one hundred taxa of single-cell pelagic algae have been identified around the archipelago, the most common being "Thalassiosira antarctica" and "Chaetoceros decipiens". The bloom takes place between May and August. Of the roughly fifty species of zooplankton, calanoids dominate, with "Calanus glacialis" and "Calanus hyperboreus" constituting the greater portion of the biomass. On the sea bottom there are 34 species of macroalgae and at least 500 species of macrofauna. Most common are crustaceans such as amphipods and shrimps, polychaetes and echinoderms, such as sea bristles. The ice scouring causes there to be little life in the littoral zone, but the sublittoral zone () is dominated by laminaria, most commonly "Laminaria sachcharina", and red algae, such as "Phycodrys rubens".


title: Franz Josef Land

text: There are 33 species of fish in the waters, none of which are abundant or commercially exploitable. The most common are polar cod, which reach lengths of , and liparidae. There are no endemic species within the archipelago. Forty-one species of birds have been documented in the archipelago, of which fourteen breed. These are dominated by seabirds such as fulmar, kittiwake, Brünnich's guillemot, black guillemot and little auk are common throughout the archipelago, while seven other species prefer nesting on flat tundra: common eider, purple sandpiper, Arctic skua, glaucous gull, ivory gull, Arctic tern and snow bunting. Some ivory gulls, little auks and Brünnich's guillemots opt to spend the winter on the islands.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: The polar bear population of Franz Josef Land lies within the Barents Sea subpopulation, which also includes polar bears inhabiting Svalbard and the western coast of Novaya Zemlya. In 2004, the Barents Sea subpopulation was estimated at 2,650. There is also a population of Arctic fox, which typically have their territories near seabird habitats.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: There are no caribou living on Franz Josef Land today. However, radiocarbon dating of shed antlers found on Alexandra Land in 1990 has shown that there was a population of caribou living on the island around 4000 to 2000 years ago. It is likely that the population died out when the climate became colder.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: As a declared marine mammal sanctuary, the area around the islands has a rich biodiversity of rare marine mammals.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: Three species of seals habit the archipelago. Harp seal is the most common, although it breeds in the White Sea. Slightly less common is the bearded seal. Walruses were previously hunted, dramatically reducing the formerly abundant species. They have been internationally protected since 1952 and their numbers have since been on the rise, with between one and three thousand walruses living in the archipelago. The population is common with Svalbard and northern Novaya Zemlya.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: Minke whales, humpback whale, and beluga whales are commonly seen around the island, and less commonly orcas and narwhales, with the archipelago being located on the northern edge of their summer range. Fin whales were recently confirmed to migrate into the waters.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: Occasionally there are sightings of bowhead whale. The Russian Arctic stock of this species, ranging from Cape Farewell in Greenland and Svalbard/Spitsbergen areas to East Siberian Sea is considered to be the most endangered of all bowhead populations in the world. The waters around Franz Josef Land appear to be the most important place for this stock.


title: Franz Josef Land

text: Tourism travel to the archipelago is severely limited. There is no infrastructure to support tourists and the only way to reach the islands is by icebreaker, typically operating out of Murmansk. In 2012 there were only eight successful landings on the islands. A contributing factor to the low utilization is the difficulty of obtaining permissions and frequent closing of the Kola Bay to accommodate military exercises. The most frequent service is a three-week North Pole tour with Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker "50 Let Pobedy", which stops by the islands en route. The most popular destinations are areas with bird cliffs and walrus colonies, such as Cape Flora on Northbrook Island and Cape Rubini on Hooker Island, as well as historical remains such as Nansen's hut on Jackson Island. Tourists are commonly landed by helicopter. For purposes of amateur radio awards the islands count as a separate international "entity". Activity by radio operators has become less frequent, though it does occasionally occur. Nagurskoye Air Base is located on the Northern part of Alexandra Land. It was extensively upgraded in the mid-2010s to support a greater military presence.


title: Seven Days in May

text: Seven Days in May is a 1964 American political thriller film about a military-political cabal's planned takeover of the United States government in reaction to the president's negotiation of a disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union. The film, starring Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Fredric March, and Ava Gardner, was directed by John Frankenheimer from a screenplay written by Rod Serling and based on the novel of the same name by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II, published in September 1962.


title: Seven Days in May

text: The book was written in late 1961 and into early 1962 during the first year of the Kennedy administration, reflecting some of the events of that era. In November 1961, President John F. Kennedy accepted the resignation of vociferously anti-communist general Edwin Walker, who had been indoctrinating the troops under his command with radical right-wing ideas and personal political opinions, including describing Harry S. Truman, Dean Acheson, Eleanor Roosevelt and other active public figures as communist sympathizers. Although no longer in uniform, Walker continued to make headlines as he ran for governor of Texas and made speeches promoting strongly right-wing views. In the film version of "Seven Days in May", Fredric March, portraying the narrative's fictional president Jordan Lyman, mentions General Walker as one of the "false prophets" who were offering themselves to the public as leaders.


title: Seven Days in May

text: As Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II, primarily political journalists and columnists, collaborated on the novel, they also conducted interviews with another highly controversial military commander, the newly appointed Air Force chief of staff General Curtis LeMay, who was angry with Kennedy for refusing to provide air support for the Cuban rebels in the Bay of Pigs Invasion. The character of General James Mattoon Scott was believed to have been inspired by both LeMay and Walker.


title: Seven Days in May

text: President Kennedy had read the novel "Seven Days in May" shortly after its publication and believed that the scenario could actually occur in the United States. According to director John Frankenheimer, the project received encouragement and assistance from Kennedy through White House press secretary Pierre Salinger, who conveyed to Frankenheimer Kennedy's wish that the film be produced. In spite of Defense Department opposition, Kennedy arranged to visit the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port for a weekend when the film needed to shoot outside the White House.


title: Seven Days in May

text: In the 1970s, the Cold War remained a major security and political problem. U.S. President Jordan Lyman recently signs a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union, and the subsequent ratification by the U.S. Senate has produced a wave of dissatisfaction, especially among Lyman's political opposition and the military, who believe that the Russians cannot be trusted. His popularity has reached an all-time low of 29%, there is rioting about the treaty right outside the White House and he is warned of a dangerous cardiac condition by the presidential physician, which he blithely disregards, too busy and beleaguered to take a prescribed two-week vacation.


title: Seven Days in May

text: United States Marine Corps colonel "Jiggs" Casey is the director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He serves its chairman, four-star United States Air Force general James Mattoon Scott, a former air ace who earned six Purple Hearts, two Distinguished Service Crosses and the Medal of Honor.


title: Seven Days in May

text: Casey stumbles upon evidence that Scott is leading the Joint Chiefs to stage a "coup d'etat" to remove Lyman in seven days. Under the plan, disguised as a training exercise, a secret army unit known as ECOMCON, training at a secret Texas base, will take control of the country's telephone, radio and television networks while the president, participating in a staged "alert," is seized. Scott, who is busy advancing his charismatic public persona through nationally televised anti-treaty rallies, is planned to head a military junta. Although personally opposed to Lyman's policies, Casey is appalled by the plot and alerts Lyman.


title: Seven Days in May

text: Still somewhat skeptical, Lyman gathers a circle of trusted advisors to investigate: Secret Service White House detail chief Art Corwin, Treasury Secretary Christopher Todd, longtime advisor Paul Girard and Raymond Clark, the senior U.S. senator from Georgia and a close friend of 21 years.


title: Seven Days in May

text: Casey has deduced that the heads of all branches of the U.S. military but the Navy support Scott's coup scheme, with Vice Admiral Barnswell, then aboard an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean, apparently the only invited officer to decline. Lyman cancels a previous commitment to participate in Scott's alert, offering the ruse that he will be away for a fishing weekend. He then dispatches Girard to Gibraltar to obtain Barnswell's confession, sends the alcoholic Clark to Texas to locate the secret base and tasks Casey to gather dirt on the general's private life. Meanwhile, the Secret Service surreptitiously films evidence of an attempt to kidnap the president during the phony fishing trip, removing all doubts about the existence of a plot.


title: Seven Days in May

text: Girard successfully secures Barnswell's confession in writing, but it disappears during a plane crash in Spain. Clark is taken captive when he reaches the secret base and held incommunicado for a day and a half before the Sunday coup. Exploiting Casey's longtime friendship with the base's deputy commander Colonel Henderson, Clark convinces Henderson of the actual intent of the impending "alert." Henderson frees Clark and leads an escape back to Washington but is abducted and confined in a military stockade there. In a radiophone conference call with the president, Barnswell denies knowledge of any conspiracy.


title: Seven Days in May

text: Knowing that he cannot prove Scott's guilt, Lyman nevertheless calls Scott to the White House to demand that he and the other conspirators resign. Scott refuses and denies the existence of any plot. Lyman argues that a coup would prompt the Soviets to launch a preemptive nuclear strike. Scott maintains that the American people are behind him. Lyman challenges him to resign and run for office in order to seek power legitimately, but Scott is unmoved. Lyman restrains himself from confronting Scott with the damning letters that Casey had obtained.


title: Seven Days in May

text: Scott meets the other three Joint Chiefs and reasserts his intention to execute the coup. He plans a nighttime network broadcast, but Lyman holds an afternoon press conference to announce that he has fired the four men. As he is speaking, Barnswell's confession, recovered from the plane crash, is handed to him and he delays the conference. In the interim, copies of the confession are delivered to Scott and the other plotters. As the press conference resumes, Scott abandons the plan when Lyman announces that the other three conspirators have resigned.


title: Seven Days in May

text: Lyman delivers a speech on the state of the nation and its values, declaring that the nation gains strength through peace rather than by conflict.


title: Seven Days in May

text: Kirk Douglas and director John Frankenheimer were the moving forces behind the filming of "Seven Days in May"; the film was produced by Edward Lewis through Douglas's company Joel Productions and Seven Arts Productions. Frankenheimer recruited screenwriter Rod Serling. Douglas intended to star in the film along with his frequent costar Burt Lancaster. Douglas offered Lancaster the General Scott role, while Douglas agreed to play Scott's assistant. Frankenheimer commissioned Nedrick Young to rewrite the scene in which Casey visits Holbrook at her apartment.


title: Seven Days in May

text: Lancaster's involvement nearly caused Frankenheimer to withdraw from the project, as the two men had conflicted during the production of "Birdman of Alcatraz" two years earlier. Only Douglas's assurances that Lancaster would behave kept Frankenheimer on the project. Lancaster and Frankenheimer were at peace during the filming, but Douglas and Frankenheimer sparred with one another. Frankenheimer was very happy with Lancaster's performance, especially the long scene toward the end between Lancaster and March, saying that Lancaster was "perfect" in his delivery. Frankenheimer stated decades later that he considered "Seven Days in May" among his most satisfying work. He saw the film as putting "a nail in the coffin of McCarthy."


title: Seven Days in May

text: The filming took 51 days and, according to the director the production, it was a happy affair, with all of the actors and crew displaying great reverence for Fredric March. Many of Lancaster's scenes were shot at a later time as he was recovering from hepatitis. Ava Gardner, whose scenes were shot in just six days, thought that Frankenheimer favored the other actors over her. Frankenheimer remarked that she was sometimes "difficult." Martin Balsam objected to Frankenheimer's habit of shooting pistols behind him during important scenes. Frankenheimer had been briefly stationed in the mailroom at the Pentagon early in his Korean war service, and stated that the sets were totally authentic, praising the production designer. Further providing authenticity, many of the scenes in the film were loosely based on real-life events of the Cold War.


title: Seven Days in May

text: Frankenheimer recruited well-known producer and friend John Houseman to play Vice Admiral Farley C. Barnswell in his uncredited acting debut. Houseman agreed in return for a fine bottle of wine (seen during the telephone scene). Several scenes, including one with standins for nuns, were shot inside the recently built Washington Dulles International Airport, and the production team was the first to ever film there. The alley and car-park scene was shot in Hollywood, and other footage was shot in the Californian desert in 110-degree heat. The secret base and airstrip were specially built in the desert near Indio, California, and an aircraft tail was used in one shot to create the illusion of a whole plane off screen. The original script had Lancaster dying in a car crash at the end after hitting a bus, but this was dropped in favor of a scene showing him leaving for home in his limousine, a scene that was shot in Paris during production of "The Train" (1964).


title: Seven Days in May

text: Presidential press secretary Pierre Salinger conveyed to Frankenheimer that President Kennedy had read the book and hoped that the film would be produced. Kennedy arranged a visit to the family compound in Hyannis Port one weekend so that the riot scene could be filmed outside the White House.


title: Seven Days in May

text: Frankenheimer considered the scene in which Douglas's character visits the president to be a masterful bit of acting which would have been very difficult for most actors to sustain. He had done similar scenes on many television shows, and not only the acting but every camera angle and shot was extensively planned and rehearsed. Frankenheimer paid particular attention to ensuring that all three actors in the scene were in focus for dramatic impact. Many of Frankenheimer's signature techniques were used in scenes such as this throughout the film, including his "depth of focus" shot with one or two people near the camera and another or others in the distance and the "low angle, wide-angle lens" (set at f/11) which he considered to give "tremendous impact" on a scene.


title: Seven Days in May

text: The film is set in 1970, several years in the future from the time of its release. The most obvious efforts are the appearance of the year itself, including on a Pentagon display and the registration sticker on the rear license plate of Senator Prentiss' Bentley sedan. Other nods include a situation room which was designed to seem futuristic, as well as the utilization of then-futuristic technology of video teleconferencing and the recently issued and exotic-looking M16 rifle. Additionally, the concept of a nuclear treaty between Cold War powers anticipated the actual existence of one.


title: Seven Days in May

text: David Amram, who had previously scored Frankenheimer's "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962), originally provided music for the film, but Lewis was unsatisfied with his work. Jerry Goldsmith, who had worked with the producer and Douglas on "Lonely Are the Brave" (also 1962) and "The List of Adrian Messenger" (1963), was signed to rescore the project. Goldsmith composed a very brief score (lasting around 15 minutes) using only pianos and percussion; he later scored "Seconds" (1966) and "The Challenge" (1982) for Frankenheimer. In 2013, Intrada Records released Goldsmith's music for the film on a limited-edition CD (paired with Maurice Jarre's score for "The Mackintosh Man"although that film was produced by Warner Bros. while "Seven Days in May" was theatrically released by Paramount. The entire Seven Arts Productions library had been acquired by Warner Bros. back in 1967.


title: Seven Days in May

text: "Seven Days in May" premiered on February 12, 1964 in Washington, D.C., to good critical notices and audience response.


title: Seven Days in May

text: The film was nominated for two 1965 Academy Awards, for Edmond O'Brien for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration/Black-and-White for Cary Odell and Edward G. Boyle. In that year's Golden Globe Awards, O'Brien won for Best Supporting Actor, and Fredric March, John Frankenheimer and composer Jerry Goldsmith received nominations.


title: Seven Days in May

text: Frankenheimer won a Danish Bodil Award for directing the Best Non-European Film, and Rod Serling was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written American Drama.


title: Seven Days in May

text: "Steven H. Scheuer's Movies on TV" (1972–73 edition) gives "Seven Days in May" its highest rating of 4 stars, recommending it as "an exciting suspense drama concerned with politics and the problems of sanity and survival in a nuclear age", with the concluding sentences stating, "benefits from taut screenplay by Rod Serling and the direction of John Frankenheimer, which artfully builds interest leading to the finale. March is a standout in a uniformly fine cast. So many American-made films dealing with political subjects are so naive and simple-minded that the thoughtful and, in this case, the optimistic statement of the film is a welcome surprise." By the 1986–87 edition, Scheuer's rating was lowered to 3½ and the conclusion shortened to, "which artfully builds to the finale", with the final sentences deleted. "Leonard Maltin's TV Movies & Video Guide" (1989 edition) gives it a still lower 3 stars (out of 4), originally describing it as an "absorbing story of military scheme to overthrow the government", with later editions (including 2014) adding one word, "absorbing, "believable" story..."


title: Seven Days in May

text: "Videohound's Golden Movie Retriever" follows Scheuer's later example, with 3½ bones (out of 4), calling it a "topical but still gripping Cold War nuclear-peril thriller" and, in the end, "highly suspenseful, with a breathtaking climax." "Mick Martin's & Marsha Porter's DVD & Video Guide" also puts its rating high, at 4 stars (out of 5) finding it, as "Videohound" did, "a highly suspenseful account of an attempted military takeover..." and indicating that "the movie's tension snowballs toward a thrilling conclusion. This is one of those rare films that treat their audiences with respect." Assigning the equally high rating of 4 stars (out of 5), "The Motion Picture Guide" begins its description with "a taut, gripping, and suspenseful political thriller which sports superb performances from the entire cast", goes to state, in the middle, that "proceeding to unravel its complicated plot at a rapid clip, "SEVEN DAYS IN MAY" is a surprisingly exciting film that also packs a grim warning", and ends with "Lancaster underplays the part of the slightly crazed general and makes him seem quite rational and persuasive. It is a frightening performance. Douglas is also quite good as the loyal aide who uncovers the fantastic plot that could destroy the entire country. March, Balsam, O'Brien, Bissell, and Houseman all turn in topnotch performances and it is through their conviction that the viewer becomes engrossed in this outlandish tale."


title: Seven Days in May

text: British references also show high regard for the film, with "TimeOut Film Guide"s founding editor Tom Milne indicating that "conspiracy movies may have become more darkly complex in these post-Watergate days of Pakula and paranoia, but Frankenheimer's fascination with gadgetry (in his compositions, the ubiquitous helicopters, TV screens, hidden cameras and electronic devices literally edge the human characters into insignificance) is used to create a striking visual metaphor for control by the military machine. Highly enjoyable." In his "Film Guide", Leslie Halliwell provided 3 stars (out of 4), describing it as an "absorbing political mystery drama marred only by the unnecessary introduction of a female character. Stimulating entertainment." David Shipman in his 1984 "The Good Film and Video Guide" gives 2 (out of 4) stars, noting that it is "a tense political thriller whose plot is plotting".


title: Seven Days in May

text: The film was remade in 1994 by HBO as "The Enemy Within" with Sam Waterston as President William Foster, Jason Robards as General R. Pendleton Lloyd, and Forest Whitaker as Colonel MacKenzie 'Mac' Casey. This version followed many parts of the original plot closely, while updating it for the post–Cold War world, omitting certain incidents and changing the ending.


title: Linda Larkin

text: Linda Larkin (born March 20, 1970) is an American actress, best known for her role as the speaking voice of Princess Jasmine in Disney's 1992 animated feature film "Aladdin".


title: Linda Larkin

text: She became the voice of Princess Jasmine in the 1992 Disney film "Aladdin". In order for her to voice Princess Jasmine, Disney required her to lower her voice as it was otherwise too high for the role.


title: Linda Larkin

text: Larkin has reprised the role as Jasmine in the sequels and various other media, including "The Return of Jafar" and "Aladdin and the King of Thieves", as well as in the television series, "House of Mouse", "Sofia the First", and the "Kingdom Hearts" and "Disney Infinity" video game series.


title: Body cavity

text: A body cavity is any space or compartment, or potential space, in an animal body. Cavities accommodate organs and other structures; cavities as potential spaces contain fluid.


title: Body cavity

text: The two largest human body cavities are the ventral body cavity, and the dorsal body cavity. In the dorsal body cavity the brain and spinal cord are located.


title: Body cavity

text: The membranes that surround the central nervous system organs (the brain and the spinal cord, in the cranial and spinal cavities) are the three meninges. The differently lined spaces contain different types of fluid. In the meninges for example the fluid is cerebrospinal fluid; in the abdominal cavity the fluid contained in the peritoneum is a serous fluid.


title: Body cavity

text: Mammalian embryos develop two body cavities: the intraembryonic coelom and the extraembryonic coelom (or chorionic cavity). The intraembryonic coelom is lined by somatic and splanchnic lateral plate mesoderm, while the extraembryonic coelom is lined by extraembryonic mesoderm. The intraembryonic coelom is the only cavity that persists in the mammal at term, which is why its name is often contracted to simply "coelomic cavity". Subdividing the coelomic cavity into compartments, for example, the pericardial cavity / pericardium, where the heart develops, simplifies discussion of the anatomies of complex animals.


title: Body cavity

text: Cavitation in the early embryo is the process of forming the blastocoel, the fluid-filled cavity defining the blastula stage in non-mammals, or the blastocyst in mammals.


title: Body cavity

text: The dorsal body cavity includes the cranial cavity, enclosed by the skull and contains the brain, and the spinal cavity, enclosed by the spine, and contains the spinal cord.


title: Body cavity

text: The ventral body cavity includes the thoracic cavity, enclosed by the ribcage and contains the lungs and heart; and the abdominopelvic cavity. The abdominopelvic cavity can be divided into the abdominal cavity, enclosed by the ribcage and pelvis and contains the kidneys, ureters, stomach, intestines, liver, gallbladder, and pancreas; and the pelvic cavity, enclosed by the pelvis and contains bladder, anus and reproductive system.


title: Body cavity

text: The ventral cavity has two main subdivisions: the thoracic cavity and the abdominopelvic cavity. The thoracic cavity is the more superior subdivision of the ventral cavity, and is enclosed by the rib cage. The thoracic cavity contains the lungs surrounded by the pleural cavity, and the heart surrounded by the pericardial cavity, located in the mediastinum. The diaphragm forms the floor of the thoracic cavity and separates it from the more inferior abdominopelvic cavity.


title: Body cavity

text: The abdominopelvic cavity is the largest cavity in the body occupying the entire lower half of the trunk. Although no membrane physically divides the abdominopelvic cavity, it can be useful to distinguish between the abdominal cavity, and the pelvic cavity. The abdominal cavity occupies the entire lower half of the trunk, anterior to the spine, and houses the organs of digestion.Just under the abdominal cavity, anterior to the buttocks, is the pelvic cavity. The pelvic cavity is funnel shaped, and is located inferior and anterior to the abdominal cavity, and houses the organs of reproduction.


title: Body cavity

text: The cranial cavity is a large, bean-shaped cavity filling most of the upper skull where the brain is located. The spinal cavity is the very narrow, thread-like cavity running from the cranial cavity down the entire length of the spinal cord.


title: Body cavity

text: In the dorsal cavity, the cranial cavity houses the brain, and the spinal cavity encloses the spinal cord. Just as the brain and spinal cord make up a continuous, uninterrupted structure, the cranial and spinal cavities that house them are also continuous. The brain and spinal cord are protected by the bones of the skull and vertebral column and by cerebrospinal fluid, a colorless fluid produced by the brain, which cushions the brain and spinal cord within the dorsal body cavity.


title: Body cavity

text: At the end of the third week, the neural tube, which is a fold of one of the layers of the trilaminar germ disc, called the ectoderm, appears. This layer elevates and closes dorsally, while the gut tube rolls up and closes ventrally to create a “tube on top of a tube.” The mesoderm, which is another layer of the trilaminar germ disc, holds the tubes together and the lateral plate mesoderm, the middle layer of the germ disc, splits to form a visceral layer associated with the gut and a parietal layer, which along with the overlying ectoderm, forms the lateral body wall. The space between the visceral and parietal layers of lateral plate mesoderm is the primitive body cavity. When the lateral body wall folds, it moves ventrally and fuses at the midline. The body cavity closes, except in the region of the connecting stalk. Here, the gut tube maintains an attachment to the yolk sac. The yolk sac is a membranous sac attached to the embryo, which provides nutrients and functions as the circulatory system of the very early embryo.


title: Body cavity

text: The lateral body wall folds, pulling the amnion in with it so that the amnion surrounds the embryo and extends over the connecting stalk, which becomes the umbilical cord, which connects the fetus with the placenta. If the ventral body wall fails to close, ventral body wall defects can result, such as ectopia cordis, a congenital malformation in which the heart is abnormally located outside the thorax. Another defect is gastroschisis, a congenital defect in the anterior abdominal wall through which the abdominal contents freely protrude. Another possibility is bladder exstrophy, in which part of the urinary bladder is present outside the body. In normal circumstances, the parietal mesoderm will form the parietal layer of serous membranes lining the outside (walls) of the peritoneal, pleural, and pericardial cavities. The visceral layer will form the visceral layer of the serous membranes covering the lungs, heart, and abdominal organs. These layers are continuous at the root of each organ as the organs lie in their respective cavities. The peritoneum, a serum membrane that forms the lining of the abdominal cavity, forms in the gut layers and in places mesenteries extend from the gut as double layers of peritoneum. Mesenteries provide a pathway for vessels, nerves, and lymphatics to the organs. Initially, the gut tube from the caudal end of the foregut to the end of the hindgut is suspended from the dorsal body wall by dorsal mesentery. Ventral mesentery, derived from the septum transversum, exists only in the region of the terminal part of the esophagus, the stomach, and the upper portion of the duodenum.


title: Body cavity

text: These cavities contain and protect delicate internal organs, and the ventral cavity allows for significant changes in the size and shape of the organs as they perform their functions.


title: Body cavity

text: Anatomical structures are often described in terms of the cavity in which they reside. The body maintains its internal organization by means of membranes, sheaths, and other structures that separate compartments.


title: Body cavity

text: The lungs, heart, stomach, and intestines, for example, can expand and contract without distorting other tissues or disrupting the activity of nearby organs. The ventral cavity includes the thoracic and abdominopelvic cavities and their subdivisions. The dorsal cavity includes the cranial and spinal cavities.


title: Body cavity

text: Organisms can be also classified according to the type of body cavity they possess, such as pseudocoelomates and protostome coelomates.


title: Body cavity

text: In amniotes and some invertebrates the coelom is the large cavity lined by mesothelium, an epithelium derived from mesoderm. Organs formed inside the coelom can freely move, grow, and develop independently of the body wall while fluid in the peritoneum cushions and protects them from shocks.


title: Body cavity

text: Arthropods and most molluscs have a reduced (but still true) coelom, the hemocoel (of an open circulatory system) and the smaller gonocoel (a cavity that contains the gonads). Their hemocoel" is often derived from the blastocoel.


title: Body cavity

text: "This Wikipedia entry incorporates text from the freely licensed Connexions edition of Anatomy & Physiology text-book by OpenStax College"


title: Johnny Pemberton

text: John deJarnette Pemberton III (born June 1, 1981) is an American actor, comedian, podcast host and streamer from Rochester, Minnesota. He is best known for his role as the titular "Son of Zorn" in the short-lived Fox sitcom, and has also appeared as the recurring character Bo Thompson in the NBC sitcom "Superstore".


title: Johnny Pemberton

text: Pemberton hosts an experimental audio podcast (with eccentric vocal effects and eclectic music selections; especially reggae, prank phone calls, and guest interviews) called "Live to Tape" (previously known as "Twisting the Wind") on Starburns Audio (formerly the Feral Audio Network).


title: Johnny Pemberton

text: Pemberton started streaming on Twitch in 2020. His weekly variety shows consist of DJing, "just chatting", interviews, gardening and playing video games.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: Heo Hwang-ok, also known as Suriratna (or Sembavalam), is a legendary queen mentioned in "Samguk Yusa", a 13th-century Korean chronicle. According to "Samguk Yusa", she became the wife of King Suro of Geumgwan Gaya at the age of 16, after having arrived by boat from a distant kingdom called "Ayuta". More than six million present day Koreans, especially from Gimhae Kim, Heo and Lee clans, trace their lineage to the legendary queen as the direct descendants of her 12 children with King Suro. Her native kingdom is believed to be located in India or less likely, Thailand. There is a tomb in Gimhae, South Korea, that is believed to be hers, and a memorial in Ayodhya, India built in 2020.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: The legend of Heo is found in "Garakguk-gi" (the Record of Garak Kingdom) which is currently lost, but referenced within the "Samguk Yusa". According to the legend, Heo was a princess of the "Ayuta Kingdom". The extant records do not identify Ayuta except as a distant country. Written sources and popular culture often associate Ayuta with India but there are no records of the legend in India itself. Kim Byung-mo, an anthropologist from Hanyang University, identified Ayuta with Ayodhya in India based on phonetic similarity. Grafton K. Mintz and Ha Tae-hung implied that the Korean reference was actually to the Ayutthaya Kingdom of Thailand. However, according to George Cœdès, the Thai city was not founded until the year 1350, after the composition of "Samguk Yusa". Others theorize that the "Ayuta Kingdom" (Hangul: 아유타국, Hanja: 阿踰陁國) is a misinterpretation of "Ay Kingdom", a vassal to the Pandyan Empire of ancient Tamilakam as some sources allude to her coming from Southern part of India. Despite numerous theories and claims, Queen Heo's true origin is yet to be discovered.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: After their marriage, Heo told King Suro that she was 16 years old. She stated her given name as "Hwang-ok" ("Yellow Jade", 황옥, 黃玉) and her family name as "Heo" (허, or "Hurh" 許). She described how she came to Gaya as follows: the Heavenly Lord ("Sange Je") appeared in her parents' dreams. He told them to send Heo to Suro, who had been chosen as the king of Gaya. The dream showed that the king had not yet found a queen. Heo's father then told her to go to Suro. After two months of a sea journey, she found "Beondo", a peach which fruited only every 3.000 years.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: According to the legend, the courtiers of King Suro had requested him to select a wife from among the maidens they would bring to the court. However, Suro stated that his selection of a wife will be commanded by the Heavens. He commanded Yuch'ŏn-gan to take a horse and a boat to Mangsan-do, an island to the south of the capital. At Mangsan, Yuch'ŏn saw a vessel with a red sail and a red flag. He sailed to the vessel, and escorted it to the shores of Kaya (or Gaya, present-day Gimhae). Another officer, Sin'gwigan went to the palace, and informed the King of the vessel's arrival. The King sent nine clan chiefs, asking them to escort the ship's passengers to the royal palace.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: Princess Heo stated that she wouldn't accompany the strangers. Accordingly, the King ordered a tent to be pitched on the slopes of a hill near the palace. The princess then arrived at the tent with her courtiers and slaves. The courtiers included Sin Po (or Sin Bo, 신보, 申輔) and Cho Kuang (or Jo Gwang, 조광, 趙匡). Their wives were Mojong (모정, 慕貞) and Moryang (모량, 慕良) respectively. The twenty slaves carried gold, silver, jewels, silk brocade, and tableware and gems. Before marrying the king, the princess took off her silk trousers (mentioned as a skirt in a different section of "Samguk Yusa") and offered them to the mountain spirit. King Suro tells her that he also knew about Heo's arrival in advance, and therefore, did not marry the maidens recommended by his courtiers.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: When some of the Queen's escorts decided to return home, King Suro gave each of them thirty rolls of hempen cloth (one roll was of 40 yards). He also gave each person ten bags of rice for the return voyage. A part of the Queen's original convoy, including the two courtiers and their wives, stayed back with her. The queen was given a residence in the inner palace, while the two courtiers and their wives were given separate residences. The rest of her convoy were given a guest house of twenty rooms.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: She requested Suro to let two of the children bear her maiden surname. Legendary genealogical records trace the origins of the Gimhae Heo to these two children. The Gimhae Kims trace their origin to the other eight sons, and so does the Yi clan of Incheon.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: According to the Jilburam, the remaining sons are said to have followed in their maternal uncle Po-ok's footsteps and devoted themselves to Buddhist meditation. They were named Hyejin, Gakcho, Jigam, Deonggyeon, Dumu, Jeongheong and Gyejang. Overall, more than six million Koreans trace their lineage to Queen Heo.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: The remaining two children were daughters who were married respectively to a son of Talhae and a noble from Silla.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: Kim Yoon-ok, wife of former South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, traces her ancestry to the royal family.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: The tombs believed to be that of Heo Hwang-ok and Suro are located in Gimhae, South Korea. A pagoda traditionally held to have been brought to Korea on her ship is located near her grave. The "Samguk Yusa" reports that the pagoda was erected on her ship in order to calm the god of the ocean and allow the ship to pass. The unusual and rough form of this pagoda, unlike any other in Korea, may lend some credence to the account.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: A passage in the "Samguk Yusa" indicates that King Jilji built a Buddhist temple for the ancestral Queen Heo on the spot where she and King Suro were married. He called the temple Wanghusa ("the Queen's temple") and provided it with ten "gyeol" of stipend land. A gyeol or kyŏl (결 or 結), varied in size from 2.2 acres to 9 acres (8,903–36,422 m2) depending upon the fertility of the land. The "Samguk Yusa" also records that the temple was built in 452. Since there is no other record of Buddhism having been adopted in 5th-century Gaya, modern scholars have interpreted this as an ancestral shrine rather than a Buddhist temple.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: In 2001, a Memorial of Heo Hwang-ok was inaugurated by a Korean delegation, which included over a hundred historians and government representatives. In 2016, a Korean delegation proposed to develop the memorial. The proposal was accepted by then-Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav. On November 6, 2018, on the eve of Diwali celebration, South Korea's First Lady Kim Jung-sook, laid the foundation stone for the expansion and beautification of the existing memorial. She offered tribute at the "Queen Heo Memorial", attended a ceremony for the upgrade and beautification of the memorial and attended an elaborate Diwali celebration at Ayodhya along with the present Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, that included cultural shows and lighting of 300,000+ lights on the banks of Sarayu River.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: Reportedly, hundreds of South Koreans visit Ayodhya every year to pay homage to their legendary Queen Heo Hwang-ok.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: Despite her connections to the two countries, there are no historical texts or official records in India that indicate an Indian princess traveling to Korea at the time including the country under the name "Ayuta", her supposed country of birth. This ultimately makes her entire existence become solely dependent on the accounts made in Korea.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: However, many Indian historians emphasize on Heo Hwang-ok's legacy that links India to Korea today rather than validating her actual existence in history.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: Heo Hwang-ok's rather unique background had been a subject of much discussion in South Korea among many historians. Despite her legendary status, many historians reject the idea that Queen Heo truly existed and have debunked her travel routes several times throughout history.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: The first criticism stems from the fact that her existence is solely based on the accounts made in "Samguk Yusa", a book that is widely regarded to be mostly fictional. Other older and more credible sources such as "Samguk Sagi" lack mentions about an Indian princess arriving in Gaya and marrying the king. It is believed that the writer of "Samguk Yusa", Il-yeon exaggerated much of the claims to create a sense of familiarity towards Buddhism being a Buddhist monk himself. Others also pointed out that due to the lack of technology to properly reach the Korean peninsula from ancient India at the time, her arrival would have been nearly impossible or at least, extremely difficult.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: Others have also pointed out the reason behind her supposed journey to the Korean kingdom being too vague. Many historians agree that the influence of India and Buddhism was profound for ancient Korean kingdoms at the time as many of them treated artifacts originating from India to be sacred. However, historians have also pointed out that the agency of an Indian princess coming to Korea across the sea on a boat was very peculiar as ancient Korea was less known to India than countries such as ancient China. Professor Lee Ki-Hwan suggested that the story of Heo Hwang-ok was dramatized to elevate Gaya's stature of the Buddhist scene among the Korean kingdoms and to associate the sacred artifacts they possessed to something closer to that of the Indian culture.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: One of the biggest criticism stems from the book "Garakguk-gi" itself. Being written during the Goryeo Dynasty (the same period of "Samguk Yusa"'s publication), the book claims multiple accounts that revolves around events that happened almost a millennium before the foundation of the Goryeo kingdom. Many historians state that since "Samguk Yusa" and "Garakguk-gi" are both second hand accounts written in the same time period, the cross referencing needs to be carefully examined and researchers must remain skeptical.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: The consensus is that the existence of an Indian princess was very unlikely and that much of the stories found in "Samguk Yusa" were fabricated for political and religious reasons in Gaya at the time. The same book claims that King Suro lived up to 157 years old and transformed into an eagle and a hawk to fight off his rivals according to the supposed "Garakguk-gi", making her story even less credible stemming from the same source material.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: However, in recent times, some have claimed that Queen Heo truly existed not as a foreign Indian, but as a native Korean. This claim suggests that "Garakgukgi" (and in turn "Samguk Yusa") alludes to the deification of King Suro by exaggerating much of his accomplishments to that of the supernatural. According to the theory, King Suro's alleged age of death, his ability to transform into animals, his marriage to an Indian royalty and having 12 children are all based on probable facts that were greatly exaggerated to create a sense of superiority over the rulers of Gaya confederacy and the other Korean kingdoms. Many believe his age of 157 years emphasizes on his longevity, his ability to transform into animals on his prowess, marriage to an Indian royalty on his religious affinity and the number of offspring (all happened to be sons) on his fertility, factors that were important to a reigning monarch at the time. For further context, the only King to be officially recognized as the longest reigning monarch of Korea was King Jangsu (literal translation of "Long Life King") who lived up to the age of 97, making King Suro's supposed age of death (and his other claims) even more questionable. Following this theory, it can be deduced that Queen Heo's Korean ethnicity was elevated to that of the Indian heritage to create a sense of uniqueness since marrying a royal princess from India, the birthplace of Buddha and Buddhism would be considered as a major accomplishment for the king of a Buddhist nation.


title: Heo Hwang-ok

text: Despite the historic inaccuracies surrounding her existence, many Korean historians stated that her iconic image as a legendary figure should persist as a means for the two countries to remain on good terms.


title: Sacrament of Penance

text: The Sacrament of Penance (also commonly called the Sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession) is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church (known in Eastern Christianity as sacred mysteries), in which the faithful are absolved from sins committed after baptism and reconciled with the Christian community. During reconciliation mortal sins must be confessed and venial sins may be confessed for devotional reasons. According to the dogma and unchanging practice of the church, only those ordained as priests may grant absolution.


title: Sacrament of Penance

text: In the New Testament, Christians are admonished to "confess your sins to one another and pray for one another" at their gatherings, and to be forgiving people. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says to the Apostles, after being raised from the dead, "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained". The early Church Fathers understood that the power of forgiving and retaining sins was communicated to the Apostles and to their lawful successors, the bishops and priests, for the reconciling of the faithful who have fallen after baptism.


title: Sacrament of Penance

text: In the middle of the 2nd century, the idea of one reconciliation/penance after baptism for the serious sins of apostasy, murder, and adultery is suggested in the book of visions, The Shepherd of Hermas. The (bishop) was the main liturgical leader in a local community. He declared that God had forgiven the sins when it was clear that there was repentance, evidenced by the performance of some penance, and the penitent was readmitted to the community. Since reconciliation with the church could be granted only once after baptism, baptism was often postponed until late in life and reconciliation to one's deathbed.


title: Sacrament of Penance

text: The need to confess to a priest is traced to Basil the Great. It was seen that God granted forgiveness through the priest. Before the fourth century confession and penitential discipline were a public affair "since all sin is sin not only against God but against our neighbor, against the community." By the time of Cyprian of Carthage, confession itself was no longer public, although the practice of public penance for serious sin remained.


title: Sacrament of Penance

text: Lifelong penance was required at times, but from the early fifth century for most serious sins, public penance came to be seen as a sign of repentance. At Maundy Thursday sinners were readmitted to the community along with catechumens. Confusion entered in from deathbed reconciliation with the church, which required no penance as a sign of repentance, and the ritual would begin to grow apart from the reality.


title: Sacrament of Penance

text: Beginning in the 4th century, with the Roman Empire becoming Christian, bishops became judges, and sin was seen as breaking of the law rather than as fracturing one's relationship with God. A new, more legalistic understanding of penance emerged at episcopal courts, where it became payment to satisfy the demands of divine justice. According to Joseph Martos, this was facilitated by a misreading of and Matthew 18:18 by Augustine of Hippo and Pope Leo I, who thought it was the "disciple" and not God who did the forgiving, though only after true repentance. The acts of councils from the fourth to the sixth century show that no one who belonged to the order of penitents had access to Eucharistic communion until the bishop reconciled him with the community of the church. Canon 29 of the Council of Epaone (517) in Gaul says that from among penitents only apostates had to leave Sunday assembly together with catechumens before the Eucharistic part commenced. Other penitents were present until the end but were denied communion at the altar of the Lord.


title: Sacrament of Penance

text: A new approach to the practice of penance first became evident in the 7th century in the acts of the Council of Chalon-sur-Saône (644–655). Bishops gathered in that council were convinced that it was useful for the salvation of the faithful when the diocesan bishop prescribed penance to a sinner as many times as they would fall into sin (canon 8).


title: Sacrament of Penance

text: When Western Christianity was overrun by peoples from the North and East in the Early Middle Ages, a Celtic version of Christian practice was developed in the monasteries of Ireland. From there Christian beliefs were carried back to Europe by missionaries from Ireland.


title: Sacrament of Penance

text: Because of its isolation, the Celtic Church for centuries remained fixed with its forms of worship and penitential discipline which differed from the rest of the Christian Church. It drew from Eastern monastic traditions and had no knowledge of the institution of a public penance in the community of the church which could not be repeated, and which involved canonical obligations. Celtic penitential practices consisted of confession, acceptance of satisfaction fixed by the priest, and finally reconciliation. They date back to 6th century.


title: Sacrament of Penance

text: Penitential books native to the islands provided precisely determined penances for all offences, small and great (an approach reminiscent of early Celtic civil and criminal law). Walter J. Woods holds that "[o]ver time the penitential books helped suppress homicide, personal violence, theft, and other offenses that damaged the community and made the offender a target for revenge." The practice of so-called "tariff penance" was brought to continental Europe from Ireland, Scotland and England by Hiberno-Scottish and Anglo-Saxon monks.


title: Sacrament of Penance

text: The Celtic practice led to new theories about the nature of God's justice, about temporal punishment God imposes on sin, about a treasury of merits in heaven to pay the debt of this punishment, and finally about indulgences to offset that debt.


title: Sacrament of Penance

text: The church's teaching on indulgences as reflected in Canon Law (992) reads: "An indulgence is the remission in the sight of God of the temporal punishment due for sins, the guilt of which has already been forgiven. A member of Christ's faithful who is properly disposed and who fulfills certain specific conditions, may gain an indulgence by the help of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, authoritatively dispenses and applies the treasury of the merits of Christ and the Saints."


title: Sacrament of Penance

text: In his work on the history of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, Bernhard Poschmann writes that "in its origins an indulgence is a combination of the early Medieval absolution, which had the efficacy of a prayer, and an act of jurisdiction remitting ecclesiastical penance." And so, he concludes: ""


title: Sacrament of Penance

text: Celtic penitential practice had accepted the late patristic idea that it was the disciple and not God who did the forgiving, and it also employed the principle of Celtic law that a fine could be substituted for any punishment. This obscured the importance of repentance and amendment. From the 6th century Irish monks produced "penitentials" which assigned a punishment for every sin, which penitents could pay others to do for them. The practice of seeking counsel from wise persons for the reform of one's life, which developed around monasteries, led to the custom of reconciliation in private with a priest. While private penance was first found in the penitential books of the eighth century, the beginnings of the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the form of individual confession as we know it now, i.e. bringing together confession of sins and reconciliation with the church, can be traced back to 11th century. By the 9th century the practice of deathbed absolution, without performance of a penance, had led priests to pronounce absolution more widely before the performance of the penance, further separating repentance from forgiveness. In the early church absolution had applied to the punishment rather than to the sins themselves. This punishment was controlled by the bishops. The later understanding of absolution as applying to the sins themselves altered the notion of only God forgiving sins. By the twelfth century the formula that the priest used after hearing the confession had changed, from "May God have mercy on you and forgive you your sins" to "I absolve you from your sins." Thomas Aquinas, with little knowledge of the early centuries of the church, mistakenly asserted that the latter was an ancient formula, and this has led to its widespread use ever since his time.