title: Moxifloxacin

text: "In the event of acute overdose, the stomach should be emptied and adequate hydration maintained. ECG monitoring is recommended due to the possibility of QT interval prolongation. The patient should be carefully observed and given supportive treatment. The administration of activated charcoal as soon as possible after oral overdose may prevent excessive increase of systemic moxifloxacin exposure. About 3% and 9% of the dose of moxifloxacin, as well as about 2% and 4.5% of its glucuronide metabolite are removed by continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis and hemodialysis, respectively." (Quoting from 29 December 2008 package insert for Avelox)


title: Moxifloxacin

text: Moxifloxacin is a broad-spectrum antibiotic that is active against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. It functions by inhibiting DNA gyrase, a type II topoisomerase, and topoisomerase IV, enzymes necessary to separate bacterial DNA, thereby inhibiting cell replication.


title: Moxifloxacin

text: About 52% of an oral or intravenous dose of moxifloxacin is metabolized via glucuronide and sulfate conjugation. The cytochrome P450 system is not involved in moxifloxacin metabolism, and is not affected by moxifloxacin. The sulfate conjugate (M1) accounts for around 38% of the dose, and is eliminated primarily in the feces. Approximately 14% of an oral or intravenous dose is converted to a glucuronide conjugate (M2), which is excreted exclusively in the urine. Peak plasma concentrations of M2 are about 40% those of the parent drug, while plasma concentrations of M1 are, in general, less than 10% those of moxifloxacin.


title: Moxifloxacin

text: "In vitro" studies with cytochrome (CYP) P450 enzymes indicate that moxifloxacin does not inhibit 80 CYP3A4, CYP2D6, CYP2C9, CYP2C19, or CYP1A2, suggesting that moxifloxacin is unlikely to alter the pharmacokinetics of drugs metabolized by these enzymes.


title: Moxifloxacin

text: The elimination half-life of moxifloxacin is 11.5 to 15.6 hours (single-dose, oral). About 45% of an oral or intravenous dose of moxifloxacin is excreted as unchanged drug (about 20% in urine and 25% in feces). A total of 96 ± 4% of an oral dose is excreted as either unchanged drug or known metabolites. The mean (± SD) apparent total body clearance and renal clearance are 12 ± 2 L/h and 2.6 ± 0.5 L/h, respectively. The CSF penetration of moxifloxacin is 70% to 80% in patients with meningitis.


title: Moxifloxacin

text: Moxifloxacin monohydrochloride is a slightly yellow to yellow crystalline substance. It is synthesized in several steps, the first involving the preparation of racemic 2,8-diazabicyclo[4.3.0]nonane which is then resolved using tartaric acid. A suitably derivatised quinolinecarboxylic acid is then introduced, in the presence of DABCO, followed by acidification to form moxifloxacin hydrochloride.


title: Moxifloxacin

text: Moxifloxacin was first patented (United States patent) in 1991 by Bayer A.G., and again in 1997.<ref name="Inventors/Applicants"></ref> Avelox was subsequently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in the United States in 1999 to treat specific bacterial infections. Ranking 140th within the top 200 prescribed drugs in the United States for 2007, Avelox generated sales of $697.3 million worldwide.


title: Moxifloxacin

text: A United States patent application was made on 30 June 1989, for Avelox, Bayer A.G. being the assignee, which was subsequently approved on 5 February 1991. This patent was scheduled to expire on 30 June 2009. However, this patent was extended for an additional two and one half years on 16 September 2004, and as such was not expected to expire until 2012.


title: Moxifloxacin

text: Moxifloxacin was subsequently (ten years later) approved by the FDA for use in the United States in 1999. At least four additional United States patents have been filed regarding moxifloxacin hydrochloride since the 1989 United States application, as well as patents outside of the US.


title: Moxifloxacin

text: Regulatory agencies have taken actions to address certain rare but serious adverse events associated with moxifloxacin therapy.


title: Moxifloxacin

text: Based on its investigation into reports of rare but severe cases of liver toxicity and skin reactions, the European Medicines Agency recommended in 2008 that the use of the oral (but not the IV) form of moxifloxacin be restricted to infections in which other antibacterial agents cannot be used or have failed. Similarly, the Canadian label includes a warning of the risk of liver injury.


title: Moxifloxacin

text: The U.S. label does not contain restrictions similar to the European label, but a carries a "black box" warning of the risk of tendon damage and/or rupture and warnings regarding the risk of irreversible peripheral neuropathy.


title: Moxifloxacin

text: In 2007, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware held that two Bayer patents on Avelox are valid and enforceable, and infringed by Dr. Reddy's ANDA for a generic version of Avelox. The district court sided with Bayer, citing the Federal Circuit's prior decision in "Takeda v. Alphapharm" as "affirming the district court's finding that defendant failed to prove a prima facie case of obviousness where the prior art disclosed a broad selection of compounds, any one of which could have been selected as a lead compound for further investigation, and defendant did not prove that the prior art would have led to the selection of the particular compound singled out by defendant." According to Bayer's press release announcing the court's decision, it was noted that Teva had also challenged the validity of the same Bayer patents at issue in the Dr. Reddy's case. Within Bayer's first-quarter 2008 stockholder's newsletter Bayer stated that they had reached an agreement with Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc., the adverse party, to settle their patent litigation with regard to the two Bayer patents. Under the settlement terms agreed upon, Teva would obtain a license to sell its generic moxifloxacin tablet product in the U.S. shortly before the second of the two Bayer patents expires in March 2014. In Bangladesh, it is available with brand name of Optimox.


title: EXL Service

text: EXL Service is a global analytics and digital solutions company serving industries including insurance, healthcare, banking and financial services, media, retail, and others. The company is headquartered in New York and has more than 37,000 professionals in locations throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, Latin America, Australia and South Africa.


title: EXL Service

text: After formation in 1999, Vikram Talwar served as chief executive officer (CEO) and vice-chairman. Currently, Rohit Kapoor is serving as the company's CEO and vice-chairman. Previously, Kapoor had held the position of president in the company.


title: EXL Service

text: In August 2001, Conseco acquired EXL and operated it as a wholly owned subsidiary. In 2002, Oak Hill Capital Partners and FTVentures acquired the company from Conseco. The company's stock started trading on the NASDAQ exchange on October 20, 2006, under the symbol EXLS.


title: EXL Service

text: Shortly before EXL's debut on NASDAQ, it started down the path of growth through acquisitions with the purchase of the peer company Inductis. This acquisition was aimed at diversifying the revenue stream for EXL; prior to acquisition, 90% of EXL's revenues were from business process outsourcing (BPO), while after, BPO accounted for 70% with the balance in research and analytics and advisory services.


title: EXL Service

text: In 2011, EXL expanded their delivery footprint in Eastern Europe and South East Asia through acquisition of OPI.


title: EXL Service

text: In 2013, in reaction to the establishment of the Affordable Care Act and its mandate that all Americans acquire health insurance, EXL was reported to have planned a major run of acquisitions in the United States healthcare industry. At the time of this report in 2013, EXL drew roughly 10% of its revenues from the healthcare industry.


title: EXL Service

text: In 2014, EXL expanded into Latin America through a strategic joint venture with CT&S through which EXL's technology experience would be combined with CT&S's local knowledge and brand image. This joint venture also supported the growing customer base of EXL for Spanish-language services.


title: EXL Service

text: EXL acquired Clairvoyant, a global data, AI, and cloud services firm, on December 20, 2021. Clairvoyant specializes in data engineering and cloud ennoblement, further supporting EXL's clients in insurance, healthcare, banking and financial services, and retail.


title: EXL Service

text: EXL acquired SCIOInspire Holdings, a leading healthcare analytics solution and services company on July 2, 2018. The company, known as SCIO Health Analytics, specializes in healthcare data and analytics, with a focus on payment integrity and fraud, waste, and abuse.


title: EXL Service

text: EXL acquired RPM Direct LLC and RPM Data Solutions, LLC (collectively, "RPM") on 23 March 2015. RPM specializes in analyzing large consumer-data sets to segment populations, predict response rates, forecast customer lifetime value, design and execute targeted, multi-channel marketing campaigns, especially in areas of healthcare and insurance. The purchase was made in $47 million cash plus contingent cash consideration of up to $23 million and about 122,131 shares of restricted stock.


title: EXL Service

text: In July, EXL purchased the business process consultancy Blue Slate Solutions, which specialized in "optimizing business processes in the Healthcare industry".


title: EXL Service

text: In August, EXL acquired a majority stake (51%) in the business process outsourcing unit of Carvajal Technologia y Servicios (CT&S), thereby establishing a joint-venture between the two companies which would directly provide services to clients in Latin America as well as oversee global delivery of EXL's Spanish-language services.


title: EXL Service

text: In May, EXL had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Outsource Partners International for US$90 million, one of the last standing pure play Finance & Accounting Outsourcing (FAO) service providers. Despite the reduction in pure play FAO service providers, at the time there were over 20 companies providing FAO services as part of their portfolio.


title: EXL Service

text: In July 2006, EXL acquired Inductis for $20 million. Inductis and EXL both had expertise and services in the same areas, were similarly structured, and were headquartered in the United States with services delivered primarily out of India.


title: EXL Service

text: EXL has offices US, UK (London), India, Philippines, Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Colombia, Australia and South Africa.


title: EXL Service

text: , EXL was one of the three companies offering business process outsourcing services and listed on stock exchanges in the United States, the other two being Genpact and WNS Global Services. WNS started trading in the United States in July 2006, three months before EXL joined the NASDAQ exchange.


title: Flesh and Blood (1985 film)

text: Flesh and Blood (stylized as Flesh+Blood) is a 1985 romantic historical adventure film directed by Paul Verhoeven, and starring Rutger Hauer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Burlinson, Susan Tyrrell, Ronald Lacey, Bruno Kirby and Jack Thompson. The script was written by Verhoeven and Gerard Soeteman. The story is set in the year 1501 in Italy, during the early modern period, and follows two warring groups of mercenaries and their longstanding quarrel.


title: Flesh and Blood (1985 film)

text: The script is partly based on unused material for the Dutch TV series "Floris", which was the debut for Verhoeven, Soeteman and Hauer. The film, originally titled "God's Own Butchers", was also known as The Rose and the Sword on early VHS releases. It was Verhoeven's first English-language film.


title: Flesh and Blood (1985 film)

text: The film was a huge box office flop, only managing to make back 100,000 out of its estimated 6.5 million budget.


title: Flesh and Blood (1985 film)

text: In 1501, a city in Italy has been taken by a coup d'état while its rightful ruler, Arnolfini (Fernando Hilbeck), is away. Arnolfini promises some mercenaries 24 hours of looting if they succeed in retaking the city, and they do so well, raping and killing those who stand in their way. But in their revelry, Arnolfini decides that he wants them gone. Hawkwood (Jack Thompson), the commander of the troops, is caring for a young nun he mistakenly attacked during the siege. Arnolfini promises to get medical attention for her and Hawkwood leads Arnolfini's cavalry, betraying his former lieutenant, Martin (Rutger Hauer). The cavalry ejects the mercenaries from the city without their loot. Soon after, Martin's son is stillborn. Burying the infant unearths a wooden statue of Saint Martin of Tours—a saint with a sword. The mercenaries' cardinal views this as a sign from God to follow Martin as their new leader.


title: Flesh and Blood (1985 film)

text: Arnolfini's son, Steven (Tom Burlinson), is betrothed to Agnes (Jennifer Jason Leigh). They meet for the first time and eat from a mandrake to magically fall in love, then the entourage is attacked and robbed by Martin's band. Arnolfini is seriously injured; Kathleen, Agnes's lady-in-waiting, is stabbed in the chest and dies; and Agnes is hauled away, concealed among her valuable dowry. Martin discovers Agnes later that evening as they strip the caravan of valuables. The men desire to gang rape her but Martin decides to take her himself. He rapes Agnes while she at first taunts him and then begins to flirt with him, hoping to gain Martin's protection.


title: Flesh and Blood (1985 film)

text: The mercenaries come upon a castle where, unknown to them, the inhabitants are infected with the plague. They capture the castle easily with the help of Agnes. She induces Martin to fall in love with her and works on the other mercenaries to accept her. She appears to have given up on her former life. Meanwhile, Steven is determined to rescue her and turns to Hawkwood. Hawkwood only wants to live a quiet life, married to the former nun he had injured. Steven, becoming as ruthless as his father, seizes the nun to force Hawkwood to help his pursuit of Martin. They locate Martin and the mercenaries. They do not have sufficient force to take the castle and lay siege to it. In the castle, Martin asks Agnes where her true loyalty lies; she is noncommittal, hinting that the winner takes all. Outside, the plague spreads among Steven's forces and infects Hawkwood.


title: Flesh and Blood (1985 film)

text: Steven builds a siege tower to storm the castle, and Martin destroys it with something Steven had tried earlier: gunpowder. Steven's soldiers are killed as Steven scales the tower's ladders, and he falls into the castle grounds. The mercenaries capture Steven and shackle him in the courtyard. Agnes pretends to join in the abuse of the captive Steven and even makes love to Martin in his presence. Using a new medical technique Steven had learned (cutting the buboes on the infected body), Hawkwood cures his plague. He cannot continue the siege alone but, before leaving for additional troops, he catapults pieces of an infected dog into the castle. One chunk lands near the chained Steven, who flings it into the castle's water well. Agnes sees this and Steven tells her that she can decide whether to tell the mercenaries.


title: Flesh and Blood (1985 film)

text: The mercenaries wish to leave the castle, fearing the plague, but Martin persuades them to stay. At the next meal, Agnes watches as they drink infected water. As Martin begins to drink, she slaps the cup from his hand. Many mercenaries soon show signs of the plague sickness and hurl Martin into the well. As she did after Steven's capture, Agnes pretends to join in the abuse of Martin. Hawkwood and Arnolfini have recovered from their wounds and return with an army. Inside the castle, Steven needs Martin's key to escape from the shackles, and Martin needs Steven to get out of the well. The two cooperate, but upon seeing the besieging army, Martin flees to the belfry. Steven frees himself and, as the battle rages, races to find Agnes. During the fighting, the belfry catches fire. Before long, all the mercenaries but Martin, Polly, Anna, and Little John are dead.


title: Flesh and Blood (1985 film)

text: Martin confronts Agnes. She claims that she loves him, but he prepares to murder her rather than allow her to return to Steven. As Martin is strangling Agnes, Steven attacks. Martin, a cunning and hardened mercenary, overpowers Steven. He almost drowns him, but Agnes strikes Martin on the head, and she and Steven flee the blazing castle and reunite with Hawkwood. As Agnes and Steven embrace, Agnes sees Martin over Steven's shoulder, escaping from the castle, a sack of loot on his shoulder. She says nothing.


title: Flesh and Blood (1985 film)

text: After tiring of attempting to have his controversial Dutch films subsidized by the government, Verhoeven looked elsewhere for funding for "Flesh and Blood", eventually securing most of the budget from Hollywood studio Orion Pictures. However, Orion soon requested changes, feeling that the film needed a love interest; thus, instead of focusing on the relationship between Hawkwood and Martin, Agnes was introduced and attention turned to her romantic entanglement with both Martin and Steven. Verhoeven later said: "The triangular relationship [of] Martin–Agnes–Steven is now the main story line, but in retrospect I think we should have stuck with Hawkwood and Martin. The failure of "Flesh and Blood" was a lesson for me: never again compromise on the main story line of a script."


title: Flesh and Blood (1985 film)

text: In addition to a cast featuring American, Australian, British and Dutch actors, attempting to handle an international co-production funded by multiple sources who all wanted to take the film in different directions overwhelmed Verhoeven, who had also not storyboarded the film in a bid to achieve a "looser visual approach". There were a number of delays and disagreements because of the subsequent improvisational style of filming; many members of the cast and crew also arrived and left when they pleased to party on a local beach. One of the most notable disagreements was between Verhoeven and Hauer, who wanted to cultivate a reputation for playing heroic characters rather than villains, as he did in Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" (1982). This was at odds with Verhoeven's intent to portray the moral ambiguity of its characters and the Middle Ages as a "stinking time in which to live" to distance it from typical medieval fantasy depictions of the period. This caused a bitter rift to develop between the two, who did not work together again.


title: Flesh and Blood (1985 film)

text: Some of the film was censored, including the rape sequence. This upset Jennifer Jason Leigh, who was opposed to censorship. "It's a hard scene to watch," she said. "Brutal and ugly as rape is, I know it's going to upset a lot of people. But the film is extraordinary. Paul Verhoeven is so gifted."


title: Flesh and Blood (1985 film)

text: "Flesh and Blood"s musical score was composed by Basil Poledouris, conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. La-La Land Records released an extended CD of the score in 2013 with almost twice as much music as the original 1985 LP/CD release by Varèse Sarabande.


title: Flesh and Blood (1985 film)

text: Though the film received worldwide release in the summer of 1985, in the United States, Orion Pictures gave the film a limited theatrical release on August 16, 1985, in Los Angeles and New York City. Thus, the film did not gross a large amount in the country, and by most accounts, performed poorly. By 1986, the film was showing in the U.S. on HBO, a business partner of Orion Pictures.


title: Flesh and Blood (1985 film)

text: Verhoeven has hypothesized on the reasons for the film's failure at the American box office in the years since its release, including statements that it was "too cynical and downbeat" to be a hit. Professor of film and literature at California Polytechnic State University Douglas Keesey suggested that the film had "no hero to root for and no happy fantasy element to lighten its unpleasantly realistic depiction of the Middle Ages".


title: Flesh and Blood (1985 film)

text: The film's financial failure caused Verhoeven to move to the United States in September 1985 in order to better understand American culture and what films would be suited to its audience. In addition to this, his previous films, notably "Spetters" (1980), had been protested by members of the Dutch public and it had become difficult to gain financing to shoot productions in his home country.


title: Flesh and Blood (1985 film)

text: Although unsuccessful at the box office upon release, the film has become a critical and cult favorite. It maintains an 86% approval rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 21 reviews, with a weighted average of 6.1/10.


title: Flesh and Blood (1985 film)

text: Noel Murray of "The A.V. Club" wrote in his review: "From the start of his career, Dutch director Paul Verhoeven has mostly focused on making violent, sexy genre pieces—often punishing, often absurd, and always placed in the context of a moralistic pessimism. Verhoeven’s 1985 English-language film debut "Flesh and Blood" wallows in mud and misery, with Rutger Hauer playing an early-16th-century mercenary who leads a troupe of undesirables in a revolt against a deadbeat lord, and Jennifer Jason Leigh playing a virginal lady who’s kidnapped by the rebels and becomes Hauer’s (mostly) willing mate."


title: Flesh and Blood (1985 film)

text: The movie inspired "Berserk" creator Kentaro Miura, who said in a 2003 interview when he won the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize's Award for Excellence (2002) that he based the design of "Berserk" protagonist Guts on the character Martin as portrayed by actor Rutger Hauer.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: The Kingdom of the Isles consisted of the Isle of Man, the Hebrides and the islands of the Firth of Clyde from the 9th to the 13th centuries AD. The islands were known to the Norse as the , or "Southern Isles" as distinct from the or Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland. In Scottish Gaelic, the kingdom is known as . The historical record is incomplete, and the kingdom was not a continuous entity throughout the entire period. The islands concerned are sometimes referred to as the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles, although only some of the later rulers claimed that title. At times the rulers were independent of external control, although for much of the period they had overlords in Norway, Ireland, England, Scotland or Orkney. At times there also appear to have been competing claims for all or parts of the territory. The islands involved have a total land area of over and extend for more than from north to south.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: Viking influence in the area commenced in the late 8th century, and whilst there is no doubt that the dynasty played a prominent role in this early period, the records for the dates and details of the rulers are speculative until the mid-10th century. Hostility between the Kings of the Isles and the rulers of Ireland, and intervention by the crown of Norway (either directly or through their vassal the Earl of Orkney) were recurring themes.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: The contains mention of several persons who are said to have come to Iceland from Sodor, which appears to be these , before or around the middle of the 10th century.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: An invasion by Magnus Barefoot in the late 11th century resulted in a brief period of direct Norwegian rule over the kingdom, but soon the descendants of Godred Crovan re-asserted a further period of largely independent overlordship. This came to an end with the emergence of Somerled, on whose death in 1164 the kingdom was split in two. Just over a century later the islands became part of the Kingdom of Scotland, following the 1266 Treaty of Perth.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: Orkney is some east-northeast of the Outer Hebrides, Shetland is a further further northeast and Norway some due east of Shetland. The total distance from the southern tip of the Isle of Man to the Butt of Lewis, the northern extremity of the Outer Hebrides, is approximately .


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: The presence of the monastery on Iona led to this part of Scotland being relatively well documented from the mid-6th to the mid-9th centuries. However, from 849 on, when Columba's relics were removed in the face of Viking incursions, written evidence from local sources all but vanishes for three hundred years. The sources for information about the Hebrides and indeed much of northern Scotland from the 8th to the 11th century are thus almost exclusively Irish, English or Norse. The main Norse text is the , which should be treated with care as it was based on oral traditions and not written down by an Icelandic scribe until the early 13th century. The English and Irish sources are more contemporary, but may have "led to a southern bias in the story", especially as much of the Hebridean archipelago became Norse-speaking during the period under consideration. The archaeological record for this period is relatively scant, particularly in comparison to the numerous Neolithic and Iron Age finds in the area.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: Scholarly interpretations of the period "have led to widely divergent reconstructions of Viking Age Scotland" and Barrett (2008) has identified four competing theories, none of which he regards as proven.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: It is clear that the word "king", as used by and of the rulers of Norwegian descent in the isles, was not intended to convey sovereign rule (that is, that of a High King). This is different from the way the word was used in the emerging Kingdom of Scotland at the time. It should also be borne in mind that different kings may have ruled over very different areas and that few of them can be seen as exerting any kind of close control over this "far-flung sea kingdom". Precise dates are sometimes a matter of debate amongst historians.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: Prior to the Viking incursions the southern Hebrides formed part of the Gaelic kingdom of (or Dalriada). North of , the Inner and Outer Hebrides were nominally under Pictish control although the historical record is sparse. According to Ó Corráin (1998) "when and how the Vikings conquered and occupied the Isles is unknown, perhaps unknowable", although from 793 onwards repeated raids by Vikings on the British Isles are recorded. "All the islands of Britain" were devastated in 794 with Iona being sacked in 802 and 806. Various named Viking leaders, who were probably based in Scotland, appear in the Irish annals: in 837, in 845 and in 847. Another early reference to the Norse presence in the Irish records is that there was a king of "Viking Scotland" whose heir, , took an army to Ireland in 848.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: In the 9th century, the first references to the ("i.e.", "foreign Gaels") appear. This term was variously used in succeeding centuries to refer to individuals of mixed Scandinavian–Celtic descent and/or culture who became dominant in southwest Scotland, parts of northern England and the isles.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: According to the , in about 872 Harald Fairhair became king of a united Norway and many of his opponents fled to the islands of Scotland including the Hebrides of the west coast, and the Northern Isles. Harald pursued his enemies and incorporated the Northern Isles into his kingdom in 875 and then, perhaps a little over a decade later, the Hebrides as well. The following year the local Viking chieftains of the Hebrides rebelled. Harald then sent Ketill Flatnose to subdue them, which he did quickly, but then he declared himself an independent "King of the Isles", a title he retained for the rest of his life. is also sometimes equated with , a reported leader of the fighting in Ireland in 857, although this connection is far from definite. left no successors and there is little record of the succeeding four decades. However, Woolf (2007) suggests that his appearance in the sagas "looks very much like a story created in later days to legitimise Norwegian claims to sovereignty in the region".


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: There are similar problems with the provenance of , the supposed 9th-century ruler of the Hebrides and ancestor of Clan Donald. It has been suggested that his appearance looks "very much like the product of fourteenth-century propagandists from Clann Donald".


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: In 870 Dumbarton was besieged by and , "the two kings of the Northmen", who "returned to Dublin from Britain" the following year with numerous captives. It is therefore likely that Scandinavian hegemony was already significant on the western coasts of Scotland by then. is described as the "son of the king of " in the "Fragmentary Annals of Ireland" and Ó Corráin (1998) argues that "is Viking Scotland and probably includes Man" at this time suggesting an early date for an organised Kingdom of the Isles. In the same source is also recorded as having gone to the aid of his father , who was under assault from Vikings in in about 872. died in 873 and may have been succeeded briefly by who also died that year. probably died in 874. A lament for , a Pictish king who died in 878, suggests Kintyre may have been lost to his kingdom at that time. The Norse may have taken the Isle of Man in 877 and they certainly held it by 900. In 902 the Vikings were expelled from Dublin for up to a dozen years, and a year later , the "grandson of " was killed in battle with the forces of Constantine II in mainland Scotland. However these events were setbacks for the Norse rather than a definitive moment. Internecine fighting is recorded in the Annals of Ulster of 914, which describe 's defeat of in a naval battle off the Isle of Man.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: The first four decades of the 10th century are an obscure period so far as the Hebrides are concerned. It is possible that , who probably ruled Mann during this period may have had some influence. However, is the next King of the Isles on record. After the death of in 941, became King of Northumbria and probably succeeded his cousin as King of Mann. The former is recorded as being the , suggesting he may have been the first King of both Mann and the Western Isles of Scotland.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: , who died some four decades later in 980 or 981 whilst in "religious retirement" on Iona, was succeeded by , who was probably his nephew. 's brother then succeeded him. During their lifetimes these two "sons of Harald" are known to have launched at least two major expeditions against Ireland, and the latter is recorded as having won "the battle of Man" in 987. Iona was sacked twice, in 986 and 987, 's later piety notwithstanding. This battle of Man, recorded by the "Annals of Ulster", is said to have been won by and "the Danes" – possibly forces directly from Scandinavia under the command of Olaf Tryggvason. The "Annals of Ulster" record Gofraid's death in Dalriada in 989, describing him as "king of " although it is not clear if this was a completely new term or had originally been used earlier, perhaps to refer to 's island kingdom. The complex geography of western Scotland and the lack of written records makes certainty about the extent and nature of these kingdoms hard to fathom. For example, the "Chronicle of the Kings of Alba" indicates that almost all these kings who reigned from the mid-10th to the late 11th century were buried on Iona. This may mean that Iona and Mull lay either within or close to the emerging Kingdom of Scotland. Furthermore, two records in the "Annals of Innisfallen" hint that the Western Isles may not have been "organised into a kingdom or earldom" at this time but rather that they were "ruled by assemblies of freeholders who regularly elected lawmen to preside over their public affairs".


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: At this point the once again becomes the main source of information about the north. In 990 Sigurd the Stout, Earl of Orkney took control of the Hebrides, and placed a called in charge. By 1004 the isles' independence had been re-asserted under 's son , who died in that year. It is possible their rule overlapped, with 's zone of influence to the north and Ragnal's to the south. On Ragnal's death re-asserted control, which he held until his death at the Battle of Clontarf after which the islands may have been held by . According to the Welsh text is recorded as having been king of a wide variety of places on his death in 1034. These included the Isle of Man, "many of the other islands of Denmark", Galloway, the Rhinns, and Anglesey. Olaf was an dynast and it is difficult to reconcile his rule with that of the Norwegians who apparently came before and after him according to the sagas. There is also an obscure reference in "The Prophecy of Berchán" hinting that King of Scotland may have been active in Islay and Arran at about this time, emphasising the potentially fluid nature of Scandinavian, Norse-Gael and Scots influence during this period.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: The next recorded ruler is Sigurd the Stout's son Thorfinn the Mighty, who took control circa 1035 until his own death some two decades later. The continuing close alliance of the Isles with Norway is suggested by a record from the Annals of Tigernach for the year 1058: "A fleet was led by the son of the king of Norway, with the of Orkney, the Hebrides and Dublin, to seize the kingdom of England, but God consented not to this". This monarch of Norway was Magnus Haraldsson, who may have used the death of Thorfinn as an excuse to exert direct rule of Orkney and the Hebrides.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: However, in the mid-11th century the dynast is said to be the ruler of Mann. He was also King of Dublin from 1036–1038 and 1046–1052 as well as possibly being the King of the Rhinns in Galloway, suggesting that the overlordship of the Isle of Man and the Hebrides were once again sundered (although it is possible he ruled over part or all of the Hebrides as well).


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: "Crovan" probably means "white hand" although the reason is unknown and his origins are also uncertain. Godred may have been a son or nephew of , King of Dublin and by extension a descendant of . He was a survivor of Harald Hardraade's defeat at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 and fled from there to Man. Little is then heard of him until he succeeded in taking the island from Fingal in 1079, possibly with the help of troops from the Western Isles. The ancestor of many of the succeeding rulers of Mann and the Isles, he also became King of Dublin, but no contemporary source refers either to him or any of his predecessors as "King of Mann and the Isles" as such. He was eventually ousted from Dublin by and fled to Islay, where he died in the plague of 1095. It is not clear the extent to which dominance was now asserted in the islands north of Man, but growing Irish influence in these seas brought a rapid and decisive response from Norway. A high level of political instability is suggested by the battle fought on the Isle of Man at Santwat in 1098. This was internal strife between the men of the north of the island under , and the southerners led by a man named MacManus or Macmaras.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: Perhaps as a result of general disorder in the islands, and to counter Irish influence there, Magnus Barefoot had re-established direct Norwegian overlordship by 1098. He first took Orkney, the northern Scottish mainland and the Hebrides, where he "dyed his sword red in blood" in the Uists. According to the , Magnus had his longship dragged across the isthmus north of Kintyre in 1093 as part of his campaign. By taking command of his ship's tiller and "sailing" across the isthmus he was able to claim the entire peninsula was an island, and it remained under Norwegian rule for more than a dozen years as a result.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: In 1098, Edgar of Scotland signed a treaty with Magnus that settled much of the boundary between the Scots and Norwegian claims in the islands. Edgar formally acknowledged the existing situation by giving up his claims to the Hebrides and Kintyre.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: A second expedition in 1102 saw incursions into Ireland; the saga reports that he obtained 's daughter in marriage to his young son, Sigurd, whom he then left in nominal charge of the isles. This arrangement did not last long. On 23 August 1103 Magnus was killed fighting in Ulster and the 14-year-old Sigurd returned to Norway without his bride. The next king was Lagmann Godredsson, Godred Crovan's son, who was apparently appointed with Sigurd's consent. He successfully fought off a rebellion by his brother Harald and after reigning for seven years he abdicated "repenting that he had put out his brother's eyes" and went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he died.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: Lagmann abdicated during his surviving son Olave's minority, and either by force or the invitation of the nobility of the Isles (Domnall MacTade O'Brien), a grandson of Echmarcach mac Ragnaill, became overlord of the isles in 1111. Whatever his route to accession, he proved to be an unpopular tyrant and was expelled by the Islesmen after two years, fleeing to Ireland.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: Two years later Sigurd attempted to appoint Ingemund (whose background is unknown) to take possession of the kingdom of the Isles. However, when Ingemund arrived on Lewis he sent messengers to all the chiefs of the Isles to summon them to assemble and declare him king. In the meantime he and his followers spent the time in "plundering and revelling. They violated girls and matrons, and gave themselves up to every species of pleasure amid sensual gratification. When the news reached the chiefs of the Isles, who had already assembled to appoint him king, they were inflamed with great rage, hastened against him, and coming upon him in the night, set fire to the house in which he was, and destroyed, partly by the sword and partly by the flames, Ingemund and all his followers."


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: The next recorded king was Godred Crovan's son Olave Godredsson, also known as "the Red" to the Highlanders and "" to the Norwegians, the latter apparently on account of his small size. He had spent time at the court of Henry I of England, who may have encouraged his ambitions in an attempt to minimise dominance over the Irish Sea and environs. Olave reigned for forty years, managing to maintain a degree of peace and stability throughout. Nevertheless, the era was not without incident. During his time , one of the Hebridean nobles, took Dublin by force and held it for six years before his assassination in 1148. Oitir's son Thorfinn was described as the most powerful of the Hebridean lords in 1150. In 1152 Olave's nephews in Dublin rose against him and attacked Man, killing him in the process.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: Olave's son Godred the Black succeeded him and had his father's killers executed. Shortly thereafter the warring Mac Lochlainn clan in Ireland along with "the fleet of Galloway, Arran, Kintyre, Man, and the territories of Scotland" are recorded fighting a naval battle off Inishowen against the dynasty. During his reign the citizens of Dublin offered Godred the rule of the city, which he accepted. Then, according to the "Manx Chronicle", he inflicted a heavy defeat on his erstwhile Mac Lochlainn allies, following which he and his chieftains returned to the islands, leaving the city to the invading forces of Diarmait Mac Murchada.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: Godred's dictatorial style appears to have made him very unpopular with the Islesmen, and the ensuing conflicts were the beginning of the end for Mann and the Isles as a coherent territory under the rule of a single magnate. The powerful barons of the isles began plotting with an emerging and forceful figure – Somerled, Lord of Argyll. Somerled's parental origins are obscure, but it is known that he had married , daughter of Olave the Red and Godred's half-sister. It is possible that Somerled first found favour with Olave by helping him wrest control of the northern Hebrides from the Earls of Orkney, whose influence had once more spread into the Sudreys. Somerled's popularity led to his son with , , being heralded throughout the Isles (save Man itself) as a future King of the Isles by "Thorfinn, son of Ottar". When Godred heard of this he engaged Somerled's forces in the naval Battle of Epiphany in 1156. There was no clear victor, but it was subsequently agreed that Godred would remain the ruler of Man, the northern Inner Hebrides and the Outer Hebrides, whilst Somerled's young sons would nominally control the southern Inner Hebrides, Kintyre and the islands of the Clyde under their father's supervision. Two years later Somerled's invasion of the Isle of Man caused Godred to flee to Norway, leaving the former as undisputed ruler of the entire realm.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: The Hebrides had been difficult to control from a distance since the days of Ketill Flatnose, and even in the time of Magnus Barelegs it is likely that "de facto" control was that of local rulers rather than nominal governance from over the seas. Somerled took this to its ultimate conclusion, declaring himself an independent ruler of the isles from his power base in the southern Hebrides and Kintyre and he had, in effect, recreated Dalriada. There has been some debate about the source of legitimacy Somerled used. It has been suggested that claims of his descent from are "preserved in Gaelic tradition and accepted as broadly authentic by modern scholars". However, Woolf (2005) asserts that "contrary to the image, projected by recent clan-historians, of as Gaelic nationalists liberating the Isles from Scandinavians, it is quite explicit in our two extended narrative accounts from the thirteenth century, and "The Chronicle of the Kings of Man and the Isles", that the early leaders of saw themselves as competitors for the kingship of the Isles on the basis of their descent through their mother Ragnhilt" and that their claim "to royal status was based on its position as a segment of ". This prince of Argyll is one of the best known historical figures from the of Scotland, and is known in Gaelic as , although his Norse name, , has the literal meaning of "summer traveller", a common name for a Viking.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: Somerled met his death in 1164, possibly assassinated in his tent as he camped near Renfrew during an invasion of the Scottish mainland. At this point Godred re-took possession of his pre-1158 territories and the southern isles were distributed amongst Somerled's sons as previously agreed: received Mull, Coll, Tiree and Jura; Islay and Kintyre went to ; Bute to , with Arran possibly divided between him and Reginald. and at least were styled "Kings of the Isles". However, their descendants do not seem to have held this title and "The Chronicle of Man and the Sudreys" lamented that Somerled's marriage to "was the cause of the ruin of the whole kingdom of the Isles".


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: Somerled's descendants eventually became known as the Lords of the Isles, with Dubgall giving rise to Clan MacDougall, and Raghnall to Clan Donald and Clan Macruari. Aonghas and his three sons were killed on Skye in 1210. In theory Somerled and his descendants' island territories were subject to Norway and his mainland ones to the Kingdom of Alba, whilst the Kings of Mann and the North Isles were vassals of the Kings of Norway.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: However, both during and after Somerled's life the Scottish monarchs sought to take control of the islands he and his descendants held. Diplomacy having failed to achieve much, in 1249 Alexander II took personal command of a large fleet that sailed from the Firth of Clyde and anchored off the island of Kerrera. Alexander became ill and died there, but the action was continued by his successor Alexander III. This strategy eventually led to an invasion by Haakon Haakonarson, King of Norway. After the stalemate of the Battle of Largs, Haakon retreated to Orkney, where he died in December 1263, entertained on his death bed by recitations of the sagas. Following this ill-fated expedition, the Hebrides and Mann and all rights that the Norwegian crown "had of old therein" were yielded to the Kingdom of Scotland as a result of the 1266 Treaty of Perth.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: In Man, having overcome his usurper brother Ragnald who reigned for a brief time in 1164, Godred the Black resumed his kingship of Mann and the North Isles. On his death in 1187, the kingship passed to his eldest son, Raghnall mac Gofraidh, rather than his chosen successor, Olaf the Black (Raghnall's half-brother), who instead became overlord of Lewis. In 1228, Olaf battled Raghnall at Tynwald and the latter was slain. On 21 May 1237, Olaf died on St Patrick's Isle, and was succeeded by his three sons who all ruled the kingdom in turn: Harald (reigned 1237–1248), Ragnvald (1249), and Magnus (1252–1265). Magnus Olafsson was the last of the Norse kings to rule Mann, which was absorbed into the Kingdom of Scotland on his death.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: As with written records, the archaeological evidence for this period is not extensive, and knowledge of the daily lives of the population is lacking. It is known that the Hebrides were taxed using the Ounceland system and evidence from Bornais suggests that settlers there may have been more prosperous than families of a similar status in the Northern Isles, possibly owing to a more relaxed political regime. Latterly, the Hebrides sent eight representatives from Lewis, Harris and Skye and another eight from the southern Hebrides to the Tynwald parliament on Man.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: Colonsay and Oronsay have produced important pagan Norse burial grounds. An 11th-century cross slab decorated with Irish and Ringerike Viking art found on Islay was found in 1838. , today an uninhabited peninsula to the south of the Cuillin hills on Skye, contains the small , which is connected to the sea by a short artificial canal. This loch was an important site for maritime activity for many centuries, spanning the Viking and later periods of Scottish clan rule. There is a stone-built quay and a system to maintain constant water levels. Boat timbers discovered there have been dated to the 12th century. Only three rune stones are known from the west coast of Scotland, on Christian memorials found on Barra, Inchmarnock and Iona.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: Gaelic continued to exist as a spoken language in the southern Hebrides throughout the Norse settlement period, but place-name evidence suggests it had a lowly status. The obliteration of pre-Norse names is almost total. There is little continuity of style between Pictish pottery in the north and that of the early Viking period. The similarities that do exist suggests the later pots may have been made by Norse who had settled in Ireland, or by Irish slaves. In the Firth of Clyde, Norse burials have been found on Arran, although not on Bute, and place-name evidence suggests a settlement pattern that was much less well-developed than in the Hebrides. There are numerous Manx Runestones and place names of Norse origin on the Isle of Man.


title: Kingdom of the Isles

text: Initially a pagan culture, detailed information about the return of the Christian religion to the islands during the Norse-era is elusive, although the modern-day Diocese of Sodor and Man retains the centuries-old name.


title: Zong massacre

text: The "Zong" massacre was a mass killing of more than 130 African enslaved people by the crew of the British slaver ship "Zong" on and in the days following 29 November 1781. The William Gregson slave-trading syndicate, based in Liverpool, owned the ship as part of the Atlantic slave trade. As was common business practice, they had taken out insurance on the lives of the enslaved Africans as cargo. According to the crew, when the ship ran low on drinking water following navigational mistakes, the crew threw enslaved Africans overboard.


title: Zong massacre

text: After the slaver ship reached port at Black River, Jamaica, "Zong"s owners made a claim to their insurers for the loss of the enslaved Africans. When the insurers refused to pay, the resulting court cases ("Gregson v Gilbert" (1783) 3 Doug. KB 232) held that in some circumstances, the murder of enslaved Africans was legal and that insurers could be required to pay for those who had died. The jury found for the slavers but at a subsequent appeal hearing the judges, led by Lord Chief Justice, the Earl of Mansfield, ruled against the slave-trading syndicate owners, due to new evidence that suggested the captain and crew were at fault.


title: Zong massacre

text: Following the first trial, Olaudah Equiano, a freedman, brought news of the massacre to the attention of the anti-slavery campaigner Granville Sharp, who worked unsuccessfully to have the ship's crew prosecuted for murder. Because of the legal dispute, reports of the massacre received increased publicity, stimulating the abolitionist movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; the "Zong" events were increasingly cited as a powerful symbol of the horrors of the Middle Passage, the transoceanic route by which enslaved Africans were brought to the New World.


title: Zong massacre

text: The non-denominational Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade was founded in 1787. The next year, Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act 1788, its first law regulating the slave trade, to limit the number of slaves per ship. Then, in 1791, Parliament prohibited insurance companies from reimbursing ship owners when enslaved Africans were murdered by being thrown overboard. The massacre has also inspired works of art and literature. It was remembered in London in 2007, among events to mark the bicentenary of the British Slave Trade Act 1807, which abolished British participation in the African slave trade (though stopped short of outlawing slavery). A monument to the murdered enslaved Africans on "Zong" was installed at Black River, Jamaica.


title: Zong massacre

text: "Zong" was originally named "Zorg" (meaning "Care" in Dutch) by its owners, the Middelburgsche Commercie Compagnie. It operated as a slave ship based in Middelburg, Netherlands, and made a voyage in 1777, delivering kidnapped Africans to the Dutch colony of Surinam in South America. "Zong" was a "square stern ship" of 110 tons burthen. The British 16-gun brig captured her (as part of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War) on 10 February 1781. On 26 February, "Alert" and "Zong" arrived at Cape Coast Castle, in what is now Ghana. Cape Coast Castle was maintained and staffed, along with other forts and castles, by the Royal African Company (RAC), which used the Castle as its regional headquarters.


title: Zong massacre

text: In early March 1781, the master of "William" purchased "Zong" on behalf of a syndicate of Liverpool merchants, which included Edward Wilson, George Case, James Aspinall and William, James and John Gregson. William Gregson had an interest in 50 slaving voyages between 1747 and 1780; he also served as mayor of Liverpool in 1762. By the end of his life, vessels in which Gregson had a financial stake had carried 58,000 Africans to slavery in the Americas.


title: Zong massacre

text: "Zong" was paid for with bills of exchange and the 244 slaves already on board were part of the transaction. The ship was not insured until after it started its voyage. The insurers, another syndicate from Liverpool, underwrote the ship and its slaves for up to £8,000, approximately half the slaves's potential market value. The remaining risk was borne by the owners.


title: Zong massacre

text: "Zong" was the first command of Luke Collingwood, formerly the surgeon on the "William". While Collingwood lacked experience in navigation and command, ship's surgeons were typically involved in selecting captured Africans for purchase, so their medical expertise supported the determination of "commodity value" for a captive. If the surgeon rejected a captive, that individual suffered "commercial death", being of no value and was liable to be killed by the African traders. Sometimes these killings happened in the presence of the surgeon. It is therefore likely that Collingwood had already witnessed the mass killing of slaves. Historian Jeremy Krikler commented that this may have prepared him psychologically to condone the massacre that later took place on the "Zong". "Zong" first mate was James Kelsall, who had also served on the "William".


title: Zong massacre

text: The vessel's only passenger, Robert Stubbs, was a former captain of slave ships. In early 1780 he was appointed by the African Committee of the Royal African Company as the governor of Anomabu, a British fortification near Cape Coast Castle in Ghana. This position made him also vice-president of the RAC Council of the Castle. Due to his ineptitude and enmity incurred with John Roberts, governor of the Castle, Stubbs was forced out of the governorship of Anomabu by the RAC Council after nine months. Witness statements gathered by the African Committee of the RAC accused him of being a semi-literate drunkard who mismanaged the slave-trading activities of the fort. Stubbs was aboard to return to Britain; Collingwood may have thought his earlier experience on slave ships would be useful.


title: Zong massacre

text: "Zong" had a 17-man crew when it left Africa, which was far too small to maintain adequate sanitary conditions on the ship. Mariners willing to risk disease and rebellions on slave ships were difficult to recruit within Britain and were harder to find for a vessel captured from the Dutch off the coast of Africa. "Zong" was manned with remnants of the previous Dutch crew, the crew of "William" and with unemployed sailors hired from settlements along the African coast.


title: Zong massacre

text: When "Zong" sailed from Accra with 442 enslaved people on 18 August 1781, it had taken on more than twice the number of people that it could safely transport. In the 1780s, British-built ships typically carried 1.75 slaves per ton of the ship's capacity; on the "Zong", the ratio was 4.0 per ton. A British slave ship of the period would carry around 193 enslaved people and it was extremely unusual for a ship of "Zong" relatively small size to carry so many. After taking on drinking water at São Tomé, "Zong" began its voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to Jamaica on 6 September 1781. On 18 or 19 November, the ship neared Tobago in the Caribbean but failed to stop there to replenish its water supplies.


title: Zong massacre

text: It is unclear who, if anyone, was in charge of the ship at this point, as Luke Collingwood had been gravely ill for some time. The man who would normally have replaced him, first mate James Kelsall, had been suspended from duty following an argument on 14 November. Robert Stubbs had captained a slave ship several decades earlier and he temporarily commanded "Zong" during Collingwood's incapacitation but he was not a registered member of the vessel's crew. According to the historian James Walvin, the breakdown of the command structure on the ship might explain the subsequent navigational errors and the absence of checks on supplies of drinking water.


title: Zong massacre

text: On 27 or 28 November, the crew sighted Jamaica at a distance of but misidentified it as the French colony of Saint-Domingue on the island of Hispaniola. "Zong" continued on its westward course, leaving Jamaica behind. This mistake was recognised only after the ship was leeward of the island. Overcrowding, malnutrition, accidents and disease had already killed several mariners and approximately 62 Africans. James Kelsall later claimed that there was only four days' water remaining on the ship when the navigational error was discovered and Jamaica was still 10 to 13 sailing days away.


title: Zong massacre

text: If the enslaved people died onshore, the Liverpool ship-owners would have had no redress from their insurers. Similarly, if they died a "natural death" (as the contemporary term put it) at sea, then insurance could not be claimed. If some enslaved people were thrown overboard to save the rest of the "cargo" or the ship, then a claim could be made under "general average". (This principle holds that a captain who jettisons part of his cargo to save the rest can claim for the loss from his insurers.) The ship's insurance covered the loss of slaves at £30 per person.


title: Zong massacre

text: On 29 November, the crew assembled to consider the proposal that some of the enslaved people should be thrown overboard. James Kelsall later claimed that he had disagreed with the plan at first but it was soon unanimously agreed. On 29 November, 54 women and children were thrown through cabin windows into the sea. On 1 December, 42 male slaves were thrown overboard and 36 more followed in the next few days. Another 10, in a display of defiance at the inhumanity of the slavers, chose to commit suicide by jumping into the sea. Having heard the shrieks of the victims as they were thrown into the water, one of the captives requested that the remaining Africans be denied all food and drink rather than being thrown into the sea; the crew ignored this request. In total, 142 Africans were killed by the time the ship reached Jamaica. The account of the King's Bench trial reports that one slave managed to climb back onto the ship after being thrown into the water.


title: Zong massacre

text: The crew claimed that the Africans had been jettisoned because the ship did not have enough water to keep them all alive for the rest of the voyage. This claim was later disputed, as the ship had of water left when it finally arrived in Jamaica on 22 December. An affidavit later made by Kelsall stated that on 1 December, when 42 enslaved people were killed, it rained heavily for more than a day, allowing six casks of water (sufficient for 11 days) to be collected.


title: Zong massacre

text: On 22 December 1781, "Zong" arrived at Black River, Jamaica, with 208 slaves on board, less than half the number taken from Africa. The survivors were sold into slavery in January 1782. These people were sold for an average price of £36 per person. The Jamaican Vice-Admiralty court upheld the legality of the British capture of "Zong" from the Dutch and the syndicate renamed the ship "Richard of Jamaica". Luke Collingwood died three days after "Zong" reached Jamaica, two years before the 1783 court proceedings about the case.


title: Zong massacre

text: When news of the "Zong" massacre reached Great Britain, the ship's owners claimed compensation from their insurers for the loss of the slaves. The insurers refused to honour the claim and the owners took them to court. "Zong"s logbook went missing after the ship reached Jamaica, two years before the hearings started. As such, the legal proceedings provide almost all the documentary evidence about the massacre, though there is no formal record of the first trial other than what is referred to in the subsequent appeals hearing. The ship's insurers claimed that the log had been deliberately destroyed, which the Gregson syndicate denied.


title: Zong massacre

text: Almost all the surviving source material is of questionable reliability. The two witnesses who gave evidence, Robert Stubbs and James Kelsall, were strongly motivated to exonerate themselves from blame. It is possible that the figures concerning the number of people killed, the amount of water that remained on the ship and the distance beyond Jamaica that "Zong" had mistakenly sailed are inaccurate.


title: Zong massacre

text: Legal proceedings began when the insurers refused to compensate the owners of "Zong". The dispute was initially tried at the Guildhall in London on 6 March 1783, with the Lord Chief Justice, the Earl of Mansfield, overseeing the trial before a jury. Mansfield was previously the judge in Somersett's Case in 1772, which concerned the legality of enslaving people in Britain. He had ruled that slavery had never been established by statute in Britain and was not supported by common law.


title: Zong massacre

text: Robert Stubbs was the only witness in the first "Zong" trial and the jury found in favour of the owners, under an established protocol in maritime insurance that considered slaves as cargo. On 19 March 1783, Olaudah Equiano, a former slave, told the anti-slave-trade activist Granville Sharp of the events aboard "Zong" and a newspaper soon carried a lengthy account, reporting that the captain had ordered the slaves killed in three batches. Sharp sought legal advice the next day, about the possibility of prosecuting the crew for murder.


title: Zong massacre

text: The insurers applied to the Earl of Mansfield to have the previous verdict set aside and for the case to be tried again. A hearing was held at the Court of King's Bench in Westminster Hall on 21–22 May 1783, before Mansfield and two other King's Bench judges, Mr Justice Buller and Mr Justice Willes. The Solicitor General, John Lee, appeared on behalf of the "Zong" owners, as he had done previously in the Guildhall trial. Granville Sharp was also in attendance, together with a secretary he had hired to take a written record of the proceedings.


title: Zong massacre

text: had no doubt (though it shocks one very much) that the Case of Slaves was the same as if Horses had been thrown over board ... The Question was, whether there was not an Absolute Necessity for throwing them over board to save the rest? The Jury were of opinion there was ...


title: Zong massacre

text: Collingwood had died in 1781 and the only witness of the massacre to appear at Westminster Hall was again Robert Stubbs, although a written affidavit by first mate James Kelsall was made available to the lawyers. Stubbs claimed that there was "an absolute Necessity for throwing over the Negroes", because the crew feared all the slaves would die if they did not throw some into the sea. The insurers argued that Collingwood had made "a Blunder and Mistake" in sailing beyond Jamaica and that slaves had been killed so their owners could claim compensation. They alleged that Collingwood did this because he did not want his first voyage as a slave ship captain to be unprofitable.


title: Zong massacre

text: John Lee responded by saying that the slaves "perished just as a Cargo of Goods perished" and were jettisoned for the greater good of the ship. The insurers' legal team replied that Lee's argument could never justify the killing of innocent people; each of the three addressed issues of humanity in the treatment of the slaves and said that the actions of "Zong" crew were nothing less than murder. The historian James Walvin has argued that it is possible that Granville Sharp directly influenced the strategy of the insurers' legal team.


title: Zong massacre

text: At the hearing, new evidence was heard, that heavy rain had fallen on the ship on the second day of the killings but still a third batch of slaves was killed. This led Mansfield to order another trial, because the rainfall meant that the killing of those people, after the water shortage had been eased, could not be justified in terms of the greater necessity of saving the ship and the rest of the slaves aboard. One of the justices in attendance also said that this evidence invalidated the findings of the jury in the first trial, as the jury had heard testimony that the water shortage resulted from the poor condition of the ship, brought on by unforeseen maritime conditions, rather than from errors committed by its captain. Mansfield concluded that the insurers were not liable for losses resulting from errors committed by "Zong" crew.


title: Zong massacre

text: There is no evidence that another trial was held on this issue. Despite Granville Sharp's efforts, no member of the crew was prosecuted for murder. Even so, the "Zong" case did eventually gain both national and international attention. A summary of the appeal on the "Zong" case was eventually published in the nominate reports prepared from the contemporaneous manuscript notes of Sylvester Douglas, Baron Glenbervie and others. It was published in 1831 as "Gregson v Gilbert" (1783) 3 Doug. KB 232.


title: Zong massacre

text: Jeremy Krikler has argued that Mansfield wanted to ensure that commercial law remained as helpful to Britain's overseas trade as possible and as a consequence was keen to uphold the principle of "general average", even in relation to the killing of humans. For Mansfield to have found in favour of the insurers would have greatly undermined this idea. The revelation that rain had fallen during the period of the killings enabled Mansfield to order a retrial, while leaving the notion of "general average" intact. He emphasised that the massacre would have been legally justified and the owners' insurance claim would have been valid if the water shortage had not arisen from mistakes made by the captain. A hundred and thirty-two slaves were murdered on the order of the ship's captain after the ship steered off course and supplies were running out, Collingwood jettisoned the sickly slaves who were consuming more water and "threatening" the welfare of their fellows. Compensation for these jettisoned "goods" under the "salvage clause" of the Zong's marine insurance policy resulted in a "conceptualization of justice as exchange" where Collingwood "had produced something of value in each of those moments in which a slave's body hit the surface of the head that each such mini-apocalypse was not only an apocalypse of death but an apocalypse of money." The insurance battle required the ship's owners to establish that the massacre was necessary and that under the operating laws of property, had conferred, each of the slaves' bodies was a measurable and recoverable quantity of value. Capital, death and money were synthesized as equal and thus it was capital that dictated that "justice is done and value produced when one thing is exchanged for another".


title: Zong massacre

text: Krikler comments that Mansfield's conclusions ignored the ruling precedent of his predecessor, Matthew Hale, that the killing of innocents in the name of self-preservation was unlawful. This ruling was to prove important a century later in "R v Dudley and Stephens", which also concerned the justifiability of acts of murder at sea. Mansfield also failed to acknowledge another important legal principle—that no insurance claim can be legal if it arose from an illegal act.


title: Zong massacre

text: Granville Sharp campaigned to raise awareness of the massacre, writing letters to newspapers, the Lords Commissioners of Admiralty and the Prime Minister (the Duke of Portland). Neither Portland nor the Admiralty sent him a reply. Only one London newspaper reported the first "Zong" trial in March 1783 but it provided details of events. The newspaper article in March 1783 was the first public report of the massacre and it was published nearly 18 months after the event. Little else about the massacre appeared in print before 1787.


title: Zong massacre

text: Despite these setbacks, Sharp's efforts did have some success. In April 1783, he sent an account of the massacre to William Dillwyn, a Quaker, who had asked to see evidence that was critical of the slave trade. The London Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends decided shortly after to begin campaigning against slavery and a petition signed by 273 Quakers was submitted to parliament in July 1783. Sharp also sent letters to Anglican bishops and clergy and to those already sympathetic to the abolitionist cause.


title: Zong massacre

text: The immediate effect of the "Zong" massacre on public opinion was limited, demonstrating—as the historian of abolitionism Seymour Drescher has noted—the challenge that the early abolitionists faced. Following Sharp's efforts, the "Zong" massacre became an important topic in abolitionist literature and the massacre was discussed in works by Thomas Clarkson, Ottobah Cugoano, James Ramsay and John Newton. These accounts often omitted the names of the ship and its captain, thereby creating, in the words of Srividhya Swaminathan, "a portrait of abuse that could be mapped onto any ship in the Middle Passage". The "Zong" killings offered a powerful example of the horrors of the slave trade, stimulating the development of the abolitionist movement in Britain, which dramatically expanded in size and influence in the late 1780s. In 1787, the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was founded.


title: Zong massacre

text: Parliament received numerous petitions against the slave trade and examined the issue in 1788. With strong support by Sir William Dolben, who had toured a slave ship, it passed the Slave Trade Act 1788 (Dolben's Act), which was its first legislation to regulate the slave trade. It restricted the number of slaves that could be transported, to reduce problems of overcrowding and poor sanitation. Its renewal in 1794 included an amendment that limited the scope of insurance policies concerning slaves, rendering illegal such generalised phrases that promised to insure against "all other Perils, Losses, and Misfortunes". (The "Zong" owners' representatives had highlighted such a phrase in seeking their claim at the King's Bench hearing.) The act had to be renewed annually and Dolben led these efforts, speaking frequently to parliament in opposition to slavery. The Slave Trade Act of 1799 was passed to make these provisions permanent.


title: Zong massacre

text: Abolitionists, notably William Wilberforce, continued their effort to end the slave trade. Britain passed the Slave Trade Act 1807, which prohibited the Atlantic slave trade and the Royal Navy enforced the Blockade of Africa. The United States also prohibited the Atlantic slave trade in 1808 and helped intercept illegal slave ships at sea, predominately after 1842.


title: Zong massacre

text: In 1823, the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions (known as the first Anti-Slavery Society) was founded in Britain, dedicated to abolishing slavery throughout the British Empire; the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 represented the achievement of their goal. The "Zong" massacre was frequently cited in abolitionist literature in the 19th century; in 1839, Thomas Clarkson published his "History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade", which included an account of killings.


title: Zong massacre

text: Clarkson's book had an important influence on the artist J. M. W. Turner, who displayed a painting at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1840 entitled "The Slave Ship". The painting depicts a vessel from which a number of manacled slaves have been thrown into the sea, to be devoured by sharks. Some of the details in the painting, such as the shackles worn by the slaves, appear to have been influenced by the illustrations in Clarkson's book. The painting was shown at an important time in the movement to abolish slavery in the world, as the Royal Academy exhibition opened one month before the first World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. The painting was admired by its owner, John Ruskin. It has been described by the 20th-century critic Marcus Wood as one of the few truly great depictions in Western art of the Atlantic slave trade.


title: Zong massacre

text: The "Zong" massacre has inspired several works of literature. Fred D'Aguiar's novel "Feeding the Ghosts" (1997) tells the story of an African who survives being thrown overboard from the "Zong". In the novel, the journal of the slave—Mintah—is lost, unlike that of Granville Sharp. According to the cultural historian Anita Rupprecht, this signifies the silencing of African voices about the massacre.


title: Zong massacre

text: Margaret Busby's play "An African Cargo", staged in 2007 by Nitro theatre company at Greenwich Theatre and directed by Felix Cross, dealt with the massacre and the 1783 trials, making use of the original legal transcripts.


title: Zong massacre

text: M. NourbeSe Philip's 2008 book of poems "Zong!" is based on the events surrounding the massacre and uses the account of the King's Bench hearing as its primary material. Philip's text physically deconstructs the account as a method for undermining the document's authority.


title: Zong massacre

text: An episode of the television programme "Garrow's Law" (2010) is loosely based on the legal events arising from the massacre. The historical William Garrow did not take part in the case, and because the "Zong" captain died shortly after arriving in Jamaica, his appearance in court for fraud is also fictional.


title: Zong massacre

text: A play developed by Giles Terera, titled "The Meaning of Zong", also deals with the massacre and the 1783 trials. Jointly commissioned by the Royal National Theatre and presented and developed with partner theatres in Liverpool, Glasgow and London, this play had a number of workshop performances and discussions staged in Autumn 2018, ahead of being fully staged in 2019.


title: Zong massacre

text: "The Ship They Called The Zong" is a short film that accompanies a 2020 poem of that name by Liam Doyle and features a number of paintings, photographs and wood cuttings representing various aspects of the Transatlantic slave trade. Some of them, such as the Turner painting and the wood cutting, depict the actual massacre itself.


title: Zong massacre

text: The "Zong" legal case is the main theme of the 2013 British period drama film "Belle", directed by Amma Asante.


title: Zong massacre

text: In 2007, a memorial stone was erected at Black River, Jamaica, near where "Zong" would have landed. A sailing ship representing "Zong" was sailed to Tower Bridge in London in March 2007 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, at a cost of £300,000. The vessel housed depictions of the "Zong" massacre and the slave trade. It was accompanied by , on board which was an exhibition commemorating the role of the Royal Navy after 1807 in the suppression of the slave trade.


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: Associazione Calcio ChievoVerona, commonly referred to as ChievoVerona or simply Chievo , is a former professional Italian football club named after and based in Chievo, a suburb of 4,500 inhabitants in Verona, Veneto, and owned by Paluani, a bakery product company and the inspiration for their original name, Paluani Chievo. During its years as a professional club, Chievo shared the 38,402 seater Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi stadium with its cross-town rivals Hellas Verona.


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: Following the club's exclusion from professional football in 2021, Chievo is solely running as a youth team for the current 2021–22 season.


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: The team was founded in 1929 by a small number of football fans from Chievo, a Verona . Initially the club was not officially affiliated to the Italian Football Federation (FIGC), but nonetheless played several amateur tournament and friendly matches under the denomination O.N.D. Chievo, a title imposed by the fascist regime. The club's formal debut in an official league was on 8 November 1931. The team colours at the time were blue and white. Chievo disbanded in 1936, however, due to economic woes but returned to play in 1948 after World War II, being registered in the regional league of (Second Division). In 1957, the team moved to the field "Carlantonio Bottagisio", where they played until 1986. In 1959, after the restructuring of the football leagues, Chievo was admitted to play the Seconda Categoria (Second Category), a regional league placed next-to-last in the Italian football pyramid. That year, Chievo changed its name to Cardi Chievo, after a new sponsor, and was quickly promoted to the Prima Categoria, from which it experienced its first-ever relegation in 1962.


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: In 1964, Luigi Campedelli, a businessman and owner of the Paluani company, was named new Chievo chairman. Under Campedelli's presidency, Chievo climbed through the entire Italian football pyramid, reaching the Serie D after the 1974–75 season. Under the name "Paluani Chievo", the team was promoted to Serie C2 in 1986. As a consequence of promotion, Chievo was forced to move to the Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi, the main venue in Verona; another promotion, to Serie C1, followed in 1989. In 1990, the team changed its name to its current one, "A.C. ChievoVerona."


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: In 1992, President Luigi Campedelli, who had returned at the helm of the club two years before, died of a heart attack, and his son Luca Campedelli, aged just 23, became the new and youngest chairman of an Italian professional football club. Campedelli promoted Giovanni Sartori to director of football and named Alberto Malesani as the new head coach. Under Malesani, the team astonishingly won the Serie C1 and was promoted to Serie B, where city rival Hellas Verona was playing at the time. In 1997, after Malesani signed for Fiorentina, Silvio Baldini was appointed the new head coach. The following season, with Domenico Caso as the coach, saw the first dismissal of a coach during the presidency of Luca Campedelli, with Caso being fired and replaced with Lorenzo Balestro. It was during these years that the nickname ""mussi volanti"" ("flying donkeys") was born. It originated from supporters of their crosstown rivals Hellas, who would mock long-suffering Chievo supporters that Chievo will only be promoted if "donkeys could fly" (equivalent of the English language falsism "if pigs could fly", denoting an impossible dream).


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: In 2000–01, Luigi Delneri was signed as coach and led Chievo, by virtue of its third-place finish in Serie B, to promotion to Serie A, the first time in team history that it had reached the top tier of Italian football.


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: In 2001–02, Chievo's Serie A debut season, the team was most critics' choice for an instant return to Serie B. However, they became the surprise team in the league, playing often spectacular and entertaining football and even leading the league for six consecutive weeks. The club finally ended the season with a highly respectable fifth-place finish, qualifying the team to play in the UEFA Cup. Chievo's impressive performance inspired a 2002 book about soccer economics titled "Fenomeno Chievo. Economia, costume, società" by Marco Vitale.


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: In 2002–03, Chievo debuted at the European level but were eliminated in the first round by Red Star Belgrade. The team finished the Serie A season in seventh place, again proving itself one of the better Serie A teams. The 2003–04 season, the last with Delneri at the helm, saw Chievo finish ninth.


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: The 2004–05 season is remembered as one of the toughest ever in Chievo's history. Mario Beretta, a Serie A novice from Ternana, was named coach, but after a strong start that brought Chievo to third behind Juventus and Milan, the team slowly lost position in the league table. With three matches remaining in the season, Chievo was third-from-last, a position which would see it relegated to Serie B. As a last resort, Beretta was fired and Maurizio D'Angelo, a former Chievo player, was appointed temporarily to replace him as coach. Morale improved, and two wins and a draw from the final three matches proved just enough to keep Chievo in Serie A.


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: In 2005–06, Giuseppe Pillon of Treviso FBC was appointed as new coach. The team experienced a return to the successful Delneri era, both in style of play and results, which resulted in Chievo ending the season in seventh and gaining a berth in the UEFA Cup. However, because of the football scandal involving several top-class teams, all of which finished higher than Chievo in the 2005–06 season, the Flying Donkeys were awarded a place in the next Champions League preliminary phase.


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: On 14 July 2006, the verdict in the scandal was made public. Juventus, Milan and Fiorentina, who had all originally qualified for the 2006–07 Champions League, and Lazio, who had originally qualified for the 2006–07 UEFA Cup, were all banned from UEFA competition for the 2006–07 season, although Milan were allowed to enter the Champions League after their appeal to the FIGC. Chievo took up a place in the third qualifying stage of the competition along with Milan and faced Bulgarian side Levski Sofia. Chievo lost the first leg 2–0 in Sofia and managed a 2–2 home draw on the second leg and were eliminated by a 4–2 aggregate score with Levski advancing to the Champions League group stage. As a Champions League third round qualifying loser, Chievo was given a place in the UEFA Cup final qualifying round. On 25 August 2006, they were drawn to face Portuguese side Braga. The first leg, played on 14 September in Braga, ended in a 2–0 win for the Portuguese. The return match, played on 28 September in Verona, although won by Chievo 2–1, resulted in a 3–2 aggregate loss and the club's elimination from the competition.


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: On 16 October 2006, following a 1–0 defeat against Torino, head coach Giuseppe Pillon was fired, and replaced by Luigi Delneri, one of the original symbols of the "miracle Chievo", who had led the club to the Serie A in 2002.


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: On 27 May 2007, the last match day of the 2006–07 Serie A season, Chievo was one of five teams in danger of falling into the last undecided relegation spot. Needing only a draw against Catania, a direct competitor in the relegation battle, Chievo lost 2–0 playing on a neutral field in Bologna. Wins by Parma, Siena and Reggina condemned Chievo to Serie B for the 2007–08 season after six seasons in the top flight.


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: Even as a relatively-successful Serie A team the club, which averages only 9,000 to 10,000 fans and is kept afloat mainly by money from television rights, does not have the same number of fan supporters as Hellas, the oldest team in Verona. The difference between the clubs' supporters' number was highlighted during local derby games played in season 2001–02 at the clubs' shared stadium when, for Chievo's "home" fixtures, the Chievo fans were located in the "away" end of the stadium (the area of the stadium Chievo's supporters for years claimed as "theirs", in fact the main supporters faction's name is "North Side", the side of the stadium usually assigned to away teams' supporters), while most of the rest of the stadium seats were assigned to Hellas supporters.


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: Chievo bounced back quickly from the disappointment of their relegation on the last matchday of 2006–07, going in search of an immediate promotion back to the top flight. After the expected departure of several top-quality players including Franco Semioli, Salvatore Lanna, Matteo Brighi, Paolo Sammarco and Erjon Bogdani, the manager Delneri also parted ways with the club. Giuseppe Iachini replaced him and the captain, Lorenzo D'Anna, gave way to Sergio Pellissier at the end of the transfer window. A new squad was constructed, most notably including the arrivals of midfielders Maurizio Ciaramitaro and Simone Bentivoglio, defender César and forward Antimo Iunco. This new incarnation of the "gialloblu" were crowned winter champions (along with Bologna), en route to a 41st matchday promotion after a 1–1 draw at Grosseto left them four points clear of third-place Lecce with one match remaining. In addition to winning promotion, they were conferred with the Ali della Vittoria trophy on the final matchday of the season, their first league title of any kind in 14 years.


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: In their first season back to the top flight, Chievo immediately struggled in the league resulting in the dismissal of Iachini in November and his replacement with former Parma boss Domenico Di Carlo. After Di Carlo's appointment, Chievo managed a remarkable resurgence that led the "gialloblu" out of the relegation zone after having collected just nine points from their first 17 matches. Highlight matches included a 3–0 defeat of Lazio (who then won the 2008–09 Coppa Italia title) at the Stadio Olimpico, and a thrilling 3–3 draw away to Juventus in which captain and longtime Chievo striker Sergio Pellissier scored a late equaliser to complete his first career hat-trick. A series of hard-fought draws against top clubs Roma, Internazionale and Genoa in the final stretch of the season solidified "Ceo"'s position outside the drop zone and Serie A status was finally confirmed on matchday 37 with a home draw against Bologna. A largely unchanged line-up earned safety the following season with four matchdays to spare, and Chievo is therefore a part of the inaugural Lega Calcio Serie A in 2010–11, their third consecutive season (and ninth season in the last ten years) in the top flight of Italian football.


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: Lorenzo D'Anna remained as coach of the club for the 2018–19 season after replacing Rolando Maran during the 2017–18 season. On 13 September, Chievo were deducted 3 points after being found guilty of false accounting on exchanging players with Cesena. President Luca Campedelli was banned for three months as a result of the scheme. Chievo were officially relegated on 14 April 2019 after a 3–1 home loss to Napoli.


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: In July 2021, Chievo was expelled from Serie B for the 2021–22 season for being unable to prove its financial viability due to outstanding tax payments. The club argued that there was an agreement in place during the COVID-19 pandemic that allowed them to spread the payments out over a longer period. However, after three unsuccessful appeals, the decision to bar Chievo Verona from registering to Serie B was upheld, with Cosenza taking their place in Serie B.


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: Over the next month, former captain Sergio Pellissier led the search for a new ownership group to allow a phoenix club to compete in Serie D under the Chievo name. However, on 21 August, Pellissier announced in an Instagram post that no owners were found in time for the Serie D registration deadline. The original Chievo club has in the meantime appealed to the Council of State against its exclusion and is currently registered in no division, albeit still with the right to apply for a spot in an amateur league of Veneto in the following weeks. Campedelli eventually opted to keep the club alive as a youth team for the 2021–22 season, while Pellissier decided instead


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: to found a new club himself, which was admitted to Terza Categoria at the very bottom of the Italian football league system; the club, originally named FC Chievo 2021, was then renamed to FC Clivense following a legal warning from AC ChievoVerona.


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: FC Clivense eventually won Group B of the Terza Categoria Verona 2021–22, ending up promoted in Seconda Categoria.


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: On 13 July, FC Clivense registered for the 2022/23 season of Eccellenza, the 5th tier of Italian football.


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: The club's original colours were blue and white and not the current blue and yellow. The club's historic nickname is "Gialloblu" (from the club colours of yellow and blue), although throughout Italian football, the Verona's team recognised in the past by most fans as "Gialloblu" are Hellas Verona, Chievo's main rivals. Local supporters often call the club simply "Ceo", which is Venetian for Chievo. The club is now sometimes referred to as the "I Mussi Volanti" ("The Flying Donkeys" in the Verona dialect of Venetian). "The Flying Donkeys" nickname was originally used by fans from crosstown rivals Hellas to mock Chievo. The two clubs first met in Serie B in the mid-1990s, with Hellas chanting "Quando i mussi volara, il Ceo in Serie A" – "Donkeys will fly before Chievo are in Serie A." However, once Chievo earned promotion to Serie A at the end of the 2000–01 Serie B season, Chievo fans started to call themselves "The Flying Donkeys".


title: A.C. ChievoVerona

text: Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi is a stadium in Verona, Italy. It is also the home of Chievo Verona city rival Hellas.


title: Ackermann steering geometry

text: The Ackermann steering geometry is a geometric arrangement of linkages in the steering of a car or other vehicle designed to solve the problem of wheels on the inside and outside of a turn needing to trace out circles of different radii.


title: Ackermann steering geometry

text: It was invented by the German carriage builder Georg Lankensperger in Munich in 1817, then patented by his agent in England, Rudolph Ackermann (1764–1834) in 1818 for horse-drawn carriages. Erasmus Darwin may have a prior claim as the inventor dating from 1758. He devised his steering system because he was injured when a carriage tipped over.


title: Ackermann steering geometry

text: The intention of Ackermann geometry is to avoid the need for tires to slip sideways when following the path around a curve. The geometrical solution to this is for all wheels to have their axles arranged as radii of circles with a common centre point. As the rear wheels are fixed, this centre point must be on a line extended from the rear axle. Intersecting the axes of the front wheels on this line as well requires that the inside front wheel be turned, when steering, through a greater angle than the outside wheel.


title: Ackermann steering geometry

text: Rather than the preceding "turntable" steering, where both front wheels turned around a common pivot, each wheel gained its own pivot, close to its own hub. While more complex, this arrangement enhances controllability by avoiding large inputs from road surface variations being applied to the end of a long lever arm, as well as greatly reducing the fore-and-aft travel of the steered wheels. A linkage between these hubs pivots the two wheels together, and by careful arrangement of the linkage dimensions the Ackermann geometry could be approximated. This was achieved by making the linkage "not" a simple parallelogram, but by making the length of the track rod (the moving link between the hubs) shorter than that of the axle, so that the steering arms of the hubs appeared to "toe out". As the steering moved, the wheels turned according to Ackermann, with the inner wheel turning further. If the track rod is placed ahead of the axle, it should instead be longer in comparison, thus preserving this same "toe out".


title: Ackermann steering geometry

text: A simple approximation to perfect Ackermann steering geometry may be generated by moving the steering pivot points inward so as to lie on a line drawn between the steering kingpins and the centre of the rear axle. The steering pivot points are joined by a rigid bar called the tie rod, which can also be part of the steering mechanism, in the form of a rack and pinion for instance. With perfect Ackermann, at any angle of steering, the centre point of all of the circles traced by all wheels will lie at a common point. Note that this may be difficult to arrange in practice with simple linkages, and designers are advised to draw or analyse their steering systems over the full range of steering angles.


title: Ackermann steering geometry

text: Modern cars do not use "pure" Ackermann steering, partly because it ignores important dynamic and compliant effects, but the principle is sound for low-speed maneuvers. Some racing cars use "reverse" Ackermann geometry to compensate for the large difference in slip angle between the inner and outer front tires while cornering at high speed. The use of such geometry helps reduce tire temperatures during high-speed cornering but compromises performance in low-speed maneuvers.


title: Ackermann steering geometry

text: The Ackermann condition of vehicle train is fulfilled when both the vehicle wheel and the trailer wheel axes are pointing to the theoretical turning center (momentan centrum).


title: Ackermann steering geometry

text: Unlike single vehicles, having the steering wheels turned, the vehicle combinations have to travel a certain distance to have this condition formed.


title: South Caucasus

text: The South Caucasus, also known as Transcaucasia or the Transcaucasus, is a geographical region on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, straddling the southern Caucasus Mountains. The South Caucasus roughly corresponds to modern Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, which are sometimes collectively known as the Caucasian States. The total area of these countries measures about . The South Caucasus and the North Caucasus together comprise the larger Caucasus geographical region that divides Eurasia.


title: South Caucasus

text: The South Caucasus spans the southern portion of the Caucasus Mountains and their lowlands, straddling the border between the continents of Europe and Asia, and extending southwards from the southern part of the Main Caucasian Range of southwestern Russia to the Turkish and Armenian borders, and from the Black Sea in the west to the Caspian Sea coast of Iran in the east. The area includes the southern part of the Greater Caucasus mountain range, the entire Lesser Caucasus mountain range, the Colchis Lowlands, the Kura-Aras Lowlands, Qaradagh, the Talysh Mountains, the Lankaran Lowland, Javakheti and the eastern portion of the Armenian Highland.


title: South Caucasus

text: All of present-day Armenia is in the South Caucasus; the majority of present-day Georgia and Azerbaijan, including the exclave of Nakhchivan, also fall within the region. Parts of Iran and Turkey are also included within the region of the South Caucasus. Goods produced in the region include oil, manganese ore, tea, citrus fruits, and wine. It remains one of the most politically tense regions in the post-Soviet area, and contains three heavily disputed areas: Abkhazia, Artsakh, and South Ossetia. Between 1878 and 1917, the Russian-controlled province of Kars Oblast was also incorporated into the South Caucasus.


title: South Caucasus

text: Nowadays, the region is referred to as the "South Caucasus" or "Southern Caucasia" (, , "Ҹәнуби Гафгаз"; ; ). The former name of the region, "Transcaucasia," is a Latin rendering of the Russian-language word "Zakavkazye" (), meaning "[the area] beyond the Caucasus". This implies a Russian vantage point, and is analogous to similar terms such as Transnistria and Transleithania. Other, rarer forms of this word include "Trans-Caucasus" and "Transcaucasus" ().


title: South Caucasus

text: Herodotus, a Greek historian who is known as 'the Father of History' and Strabo, a Greek geographer, philosopher, and historian, spoke about autochthonous peoples of the Caucasus in their books. In the Middle Ages, various people, including Scythians, Alani, Armenians, Huns, Khazars, Arabs, Seljuq Turks, and Mongols settled in Caucasia. These invasions influenced on the culture of the peoples of the South Caucasus. In parallel Middle Eastern influence disseminated the Iranian languages and Islamic religion in Caucasus.


title: South Caucasus

text: Located on the peripheries of Iran, Russia and Turkey, the region has been an arena for political, military, religious, and cultural rivalries and expansionism for centuries. Throughout its history, the region has come under control of various empires, including the Achaemenid, Neo-Assyrian Empire, Parthian, Roman, Sassanian, Byzantine, Mongol, Ottoman, successive Iranian (Safavid, Afsharid, Qajar), and Russian Empires, all of which introduced their faiths and cultures. Throughout history, most of the South Caucasus was usually under the direct rule of the various in-Iran based empires and part of the Iranian world. In the course of the 19th century, Qajar Iran had to irrevocably cede the region (alongside its territories in Dagestan, North Caucasus) as a result of the two Russo-Persian Wars of that century to Imperial Russia.


title: South Caucasus

text: Ancient kingdoms of the region included Colchis, Urartu, Iberia, Armenia and Albania, among others. These kingdoms were later incorporated into various Iranian empires, including the Achaemenid Empire, the Parthian Empire, and the Sassanid Empire, during which Zoroastrianism became the dominant religion in the region. However, after the rise of Christianity and conversion of Caucasian kingdoms to the new religion, Zoroastrianism lost its prevalence and only survived because of Persian power and influence still lingering in the region. Thus, the South Caucasus became the area of not only military, but also religious convergence, which often led to bitter conflicts with successive Persian empires (and later Muslim-ruled empires) on the one side and the Roman Empire (and later the Byzantine Empire) on the other side.


title: South Caucasus

text: The Iranian Parthians established and installed several eponymous branches in the South Caucasus, namely the Arsacid dynasty of Armenia, the Arsacid dynasty of Iberia, and the Arsacid Dynasty of Caucasian Albania.


title: South Caucasus

text: In the middle of the 8th century, with the capture of Derbend by the Umayyad armies during the Arab–Khazar wars, most of the South Caucasus became part of the Caliphate and Islam spread throughout the region. Later, the Orthodox Christian Kingdom of Georgia dominated most of the South Caucasus. The region was then conquered by the Seljuk, Mongol, Turkic, Safavid, Ottoman, Afsharid and Qajar dynasties.