title: History of Australia (1788–1850)

text: The instructions provided to the first five governors of New South Wales show that the initial plans for the colony were limited. The settlement was to be a self-sufficient penal colony based on subsistence agriculture. Trade, shipping and ship building were banned in order to keep the convicts isolated and so as not to interfere with the trade monopoly of the British East India Company. There was no plan for economic development apart from investigating the possibility of producing raw materials for Britain.


title: History of Australia (1788–1850)

text: After the departure of Phillip, the colony's military officers began acquiring land and importing consumer goods obtained from visiting ships. Former convicts also farmed land granted to them and engaged in trade. Farms spread to the more fertile lands surrounding Paramatta, Windsor and Camden, and by 1803 the colony was self-sufficient in grain. Boat building developed in order to make travel easier and exploit the marine resources of the coastal settlements. Sealing and whaling became important industries.


title: History of Australia (1788–1850)

text: Because of its nature as a forced settlement, the early colony's economy was heavily dependent on the state. For example, some of the earliest agricultural production was directly run by the government. The Commissariat also played a major role in the economy. In 1800, 72% of the population relied on government rations, but this was reduced to 32% by 1806. While some convicts were assigned to settlers as labourers, they were usually free to find part-time work for supplemental income, and were allowed to own property (in contravention to British law at the time). Some convicts had their skills taken to use by the colonial government, as with for example the architect Francis Greenway, who designed many early public buildings. Approximately 10-15% of the convicts worked on public projects building infrastructure, while most of the rest were assigned to private employers. Land grants were abandoned in 1831 in favour of selling crown lands, which covered all land deemed "unsettled".


title: History of Australia (1788–1850)

text: The colonies relied heavily on imports from England for survival. The official currency of the colonies was the British pound, but the unofficial currency and most readily accepted trade good was rum. The early economy relied on barter for exchange, an issue which Lachlan Macquarie (Governor from 1810 to 1821) tried to fix first by introducing Spanish dollars, and then by establishing the Bank of New South Wales with the authority to issue financial instruments. Barter continued, however, until shipments of sterling in the late 1820s enabled a move to a monetary economy.


title: History of Australia (1788–1850)

text: Macquarie also played a leading role in the economic development of New South Wales by employing a planner to design the street layout of Sydney and commissioning the construction of roads, wharves, churches, and public buildings. He sent explorers out from Sydney and, in 1815, a road across the Blue Mountains was completed, opening the way for large scale farming and grazing in the lightly-wooded pastures west of the Great Dividing Range.


title: History of Australia (1788–1850)

text: The colonists spent a large part of the early nineteenth century building infrastructure such as railways, bridges and schools, which allowed them to get on with economic development. During this period Australian businesspeople began to prosper. For example, the partnership of Berry and Wollstonecraft made enormous profits by means of land grants, convict labour, and exporting native cedar back to England. John Macarthur, after retiring from the New South Wales Corps, went on to start the wool industry in Australia.


title: History of Australia (1788–1850)

text: From the 1820s squatters increasingly established unauthorised cattle and sheep runs beyond the official limits of the settled colony. In 1836, a system of annual licences authorising grazing on Crown Land was introduced in an attempt to control the pastoral industry, but booming wool prices and the high cost of land in the settled areas encouraged further squatting. By 1844 wool accounted for half of the colony's exports and by 1850 most of the eastern third of New South Wales was controlled by fewer than 2,000 pastoralists.


title: History of Australia (1788–1850)

text: Since time immemorial in Australia, Indigenous people had performed the rites and rituals of the animist religion of the Dreamtime. The permanent presence of Christianity in Australia however, came with the arrival of the First Fleet of British convict ships at Sydney in 1788. As a British colony, the predominant Christian denomination was the Church of England, but one tenth of all the convicts who came to Australia on the First Fleet were Catholic, and at least half of them were born in Ireland.


title: History of Australia (1788–1850)

text: A small proportion of British marines were also Catholic. Some of the Irish convicts had been transported to Australia for political crimes or social rebellion in Ireland, so the authorities were suspicious of the minority religion for the first three decades of settlement. It was therefore the crew of the French explorer La Pérouse who conducted the first Catholic ceremony on Australian soil in 1788—the burial of Father Louis Receveur, a Franciscan friar, who died while the ships were at anchor at Botany Bay, while on a mission to explore the Pacific.


title: History of Australia (1788–1850)

text: In early colonial times, Church of England clergy worked closely with the governors. Richard Johnson, Anglican chaplain to the First Fleet, was charged by the governor, Arthur Phillip, with improving "public morality" in the colony, but he was also heavily involved in health and education. The Reverend Samuel Marsden (1765–1838) had magisterial duties, and so was equated with the authorities by the convicts. He became known as the "flogging parson" for the severity of his punishments.


title: History of Australia (1788–1850)

text: Catholic convicts were compelled to attend Church of England services and their children and orphans were raised by the authorities as Protestant. The first Catholic priest colonists arrived in Australia as convicts in 1800—James Harold, James Dixon, and Peter O'Neill, who had been convicted for "complicity" in the Irish 1798 Rebellion. Fr. Dixon was conditionally emancipated and permitted to celebrate Mass. On 15 May 1803, in vestments made from curtains and with a chalice made of tin he conducted the first Catholic Mass in New South Wales.


title: History of Australia (1788–1850)

text: The Irish led Castle Hill Rebellion of 1804 alarmed the British authorities and Dixon's permission to celebrate Mass was revoked. Fr. Jeremiah Flynn, an Irish Cistercian, was appointed as Prefect Apostolic of New Holland, and set out from Britain for the colony, uninvited. Watched by authorities, Flynn secretly performed priestly duties before being arrested and deported to London. Reaction to the affair in Britain led to two further priests being allowed to travel to the Colony in 1820: John Joseph Therry and Philip Connolly. The foundation stone for the first St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney was laid on 29 October 1821 by Governor Lachlan Macquarie.


title: History of Australia (1788–1850)

text: The absence of a Catholic mission in Australia before 1818 reflected the legal disabilities of Catholics in Britain and the difficult position of Ireland within the British Empire. The government therefore endorsed the English Benedictines to lead the early Church in the Colony. The Church of England lost its legal privileges in the Colony of New South Wales by the "Church Act of 1836". Drafted by the reformist attorney-general John Plunkett, the Act established legal equality for Anglicans, Catholics and Presbyterians and was later extended to Methodists. Catholic missionary William Ullathorne criticised the convict system, publishing a pamphlet, "The Horrors of Transportation Briefly Unfolded to the People", in Britain in 1837. Laywoman Caroline Chisolm did ecumenical work to alleviate the suffering of female migrants.


title: History of Australia (1788–1850)

text: Sydney's first Catholic Bishop, John Bede Polding requested a community of nuns be sent to the colony and five Irish Sisters of Charity arrived in 1838 to set about pastoral care of convict women and work in schools and hospitals before going on to found their own schools and hospitals. At Polding's request, the Christian Brothers arrived in Sydney in 1843 to assist in schools. Establishing themselves first at Sevenhill, in South Australia in 1848, the Jesuits were the first religious order of priests to enter and establish houses in South Australia, Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory, where they established schools and missions.


title: History of Australia (1788–1850)

text: Initially, education was informal, primarily occurring in the home. However, the administration of the colony, led by Governor Richard Bourke, had adopted the British liberal creed that education was critical for popular participation in politics. Francis Forbes had founded Sydney College in 1830. At the instigation of the then British Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, and with the patronage of King William IV, Australia's oldest surviving independent school, The King's School, Parramatta, was founded in 1831 as part of an effort to establish grammar schools in the colony. By 1833, there were around ten Catholic schools in the Australian colonies.


title: History of Australia (1788–1850)

text: More than a hundred men who practised medicine are known to have been transported to Australia as convicts in the 80 years between 1788 and 1868. Medical qualifications were not standardised at the time, and many would have been unqualified. Many were not criminals in the true sense, but had been transported to New South Wales as a result of youthful, impetuous statements or actions in the wrong quarters. Three practitioners were recognised for their medical abilities and as founders of several institutions that developed as the settlement evolved from a gaol to a colony. D'Arcy Wentworth was a medical student in London who lived beyond his means and after being acquitted of highway robbery was advised to leave Great Britain and serve as assistant surgeon on a convict ship. He arrived in Sydney in 1790. In 1809 he was appointed Principal Surgeon of the colony. An entrepreneur, he acquired much wealth, including as one of the contractors of the notorious Rum Hospital and as a founder of the Bank of New South Wales. William Redfern had taken part in a mutiny and been sentenced to death, but instead was transported in 1801. To prove his surgical skills, which impressed the Governor, he was examined before three doctors and so became Australia's first medical graduate. He laid the foundations of the colony's public health and has been called the "father of Australian medicine". William Bland joined the Royal Navy as a surgeon's mate in 1809. An impetuous man, he threw a glass of water over the ship's purser and reluctantly participated in a pistol duel with the man, whom he killed. He was sentenced to seven years' transportation, arriving in 1814; he was pardoned a year later. In 1818, however, he was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment after writing insulting satires criticising Governor Macquarie. He was a democrat, favouring radical democracy and land reform, and worked in support of the poor throughout his subsequent political career.


title: History of Australia (1788–1850)

text: Australian composers who published musical works in this period include Francis Hartwell Henslowe, Frederick Ellard, Charles Edward Horsley, Isaac Nathan, Stephen Hale Marsh (1805–1888), and Henry Marsh (1824–1885). Some Australian folksongs date to this period.


title: History of Australia (1788–1850)

text: Among the first true works of Australian literature produced over this period was the accounts of the settlement of Sydney by Watkin Tench, captain-lieutenant of the marines on the First Fleet to arrive in 1788. In 1819, poet, explorer, journalist and politician William Wentworth published the first book written by an Australian: "A Statistical, Historical, and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and Its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land, With a Particular Enumeration of the Advantages Which These Colonies Offer for Emigration and Their Superiority in Many Respects Over Those Possessed by the United States", in which he advocated an elected assembly for New South Wales, trial by jury and settlement of Australia by free emigrants rather than convicts. In 1838 "The Guardian: a tale" by Anna Maria Bunn was published in Sydney. It was the first Australian novel printed and published in mainland Australia and the first Australian novel written by a woman. It is a Gothic romance.


title: History of Australia (1788–1850)

text: European traditions of Australian theatre also came with the First Fleet, with the first production being performed in 1789 by convicts: "The Recruiting Officer" by George Farquhar. The Theatre Royal, Hobart, opened in 1837 and it remains the oldest theatre in Australia. The Melbourne Athenaeum is one of the oldest public institutions in Australia, founded in 1839 and it served as library, school of arts and dance hall (and later became Australia's first cinema, screening "The Story of the Kelly Gang", the world's first feature film in 1906). The Queen's Theatre, Adelaide opened with Shakespeare in 1841 and is today the oldest theatre on the mainland.


title: Katie Nolan

text: Katherine Beth Nolan is an American sports television host known as Katie Nolan, most recently serving as a commentator for Apple TV+'s "Friday Night Baseball" and recently created short-form content at NBC Sports. She formerly hosted a weekly ESPN podcast called "Sports? With Katie Nolan", "Always Late with Katie Nolan" on ESPN2, and "Garbage Time with Katie Nolan" on Fox Sports. She won a Sports Emmy Award in 2016 for "Garbage Time" and was nominated for another in 2019 and 2020 for "Always Late".


title: Katie Nolan

text: Nolan was raised in Framingham, Massachusetts. In 1997, at age 10, Nolan won the gold medal in rhythmic gymnastics at the Junior Olympics. She graduated from Framingham High School in 2005, and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Public Relations with a minor in Dance from Hofstra University in 2009.


title: Katie Nolan

text: In 2011, while bartending in Boston at the White Horse Tavern, Nolan started a blog called "Bitches Can't Hang", which focused on pop culture and news. At that time, Nolan also began working with "Guyism", part of the Fox Sports Yardbarker network, where she produced and hosted the YouTube series "Guyism Speed Round". In her videos, she delivered a monologue of comedic and sarcastic one-liners in the style of "Saturday Night Live"s "Weekend Update". In an interview with GQ in 2018, Nolan expressed regret for how "Bitches Can't Hang" and her "being mean about women" jump-started her career.


title: Katie Nolan

text: In August 2013, Nolan joined Fox Sports 1 as a digital correspondent for "Crowd Goes Wild", a sports/entertainment talk show hosted by Regis Philbin.


title: Katie Nolan

text: Nolan also hosted the FoxSports.com web series "No Filter with Katie Nolan". A September 2014 video featuring commentary on the Ray Rice domestic violence incident was picked up by "The New York Times" and received praise in multiple media outlets. Nolan appeared as a panelist on a January 2015 episode of "The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore".


title: Katie Nolan

text: Nolan was formerly the host of the weekly Fox Sports 1 show "Garbage Time with Katie Nolan", which premiered on March 15, 2015. "Deadspin" praised Nolan's April 12, 2015, piece, criticizing the blog posting called "How to land a husband at the Masters", which appeared on a fellow Fox reporter's blog. "Garbage Time" won a Sports Emmy for 'Outstanding Social TV Experience' on May 10, 2016.


title: Katie Nolan

text: In September 2016, Nolan began hosting "NFL Films Presents", airing on Fox Sports 1. NFL and Fox Sports 1 made a joint decision to choose Nolan as the new host.


title: Katie Nolan

text: On February 23, 2017, it was announced that "Garbage Time" would either be retooled from its current format, or Fox Sports would find a new hosting vehicle for Nolan. After seven months without a show, Nolan left Fox Sports in September 2017.


title: Katie Nolan

text: On October 4, 2017, ESPN announced the hiring of Nolan, who will appear across ESPN studio programming and have a digital presence. She made her debut as a guest panelist on ESPN's "Highly Questionable" on October 19, 2017; she has since guest-hosted that show several times, and appeared on the sister radio show "The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz". She has said she likes going on "Highly Questionable".


title: Katie Nolan

text: In early November 2017, it was announced that Nolan would be doing a podcast with ESPN beginning in January in addition to a digital show later. In November, she began as one of the hosts of "SportsCenter" on Snapchat.


title: Katie Nolan

text: In 2018, Nolan began hosting a weekly ESPN podcast, "Sports? with Katie Nolan" and in 2020 was shifted into a biweekly show. In September 2018, her ESPN+ series "Always Late with Katie Nolan" launched; a 'best of the year' episode aired on the main ABC network on December 30, 2018. In 2019, the show moved to ESPN2 and the ESPN app, with Nolan citing that she and her staff could post more show clips to social media, as being confined to ESPN+ restricted the amount of the program which could be posted to free venues.


title: Katie Nolan

text: In December 2015, Nolan teamed up with United Airlines for a new web-based series of videos titled "Big Metal Bird", which explains some of the inner workings of various facets of United Airlines. The premiere episode debuted on December 15, 2015 and explained how United's baggage handling system operates. Future episodes are intended to address customer feedback that United has received.


title: Katie Nolan

text: Nolan has appeared in three episodes of the Comedy Central program "Drunk History". On October 18, 2016, she narrated the story of Theodore Roosevelt's campaign for rule changes in football due to the violence of the game in the early 1900s. On February 13, 2018, she narrated the story of feminist icon Gloria Steinem. On January 30, 2019, she talked about the Black Sox Scandal involving the fixing of the 1919 World Series.


title: Katie Nolan

text: Nolan is also the former Guinness World Record holder for most donuts stacked in a tower while blindfolded (seven), doing so on the November 7, 2018 episode of "Always Late".


title: Katie Nolan

text: Nolan joined the broadcast team for Apple TV's "Friday Night Baseball" starting in April 2022 in a one season experiment.


title: Dhahran

text: Dhahran (, "Al-Dhahran") is a city located in the Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia. With a total population of 240,742 as of 2021, it is a major administrative center for the Saudi oil industry. Together with the nearby cities of Dammam and Khobar, Dhahran forms part of the Dammam Metropolitan Area, which is commonly known as greater Dammam and has an estimated population of 4,140,000 as of 2012.


title: Dhahran

text: Large oil reserves were first identified in the Dhahran area in 1931, and in 1935, American company Standard Oil drilled the first commercially viable oil well. Standard Oil later established a subsidiary in Saudi Arabia called the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO), now owned by the Saudi government and known as Saudi Aramco. Dhahran has been the home of Saudi Aramco's headquarters for 80 years and is its first and largest gated compound with more than 50,000 residents. Employees and dependents of Aramco, known as Aramcons, have a tendency to use Dhahran to solely refer to the Aramco camp while using Khobar and/or Dammam to refer to the area outside the camp.


title: Dhahran

text: Dhahran is unusual in that a large portion of it is made up of gated areas including Saudi Aramco's headquarters and residential camp, the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (built by Aramco) and the King Abdulaziz Air Base. Dhahran is also home to the Mall of Dhahran, one of the biggest shopping complexes in the Eastern Province.


title: Dhahran

text: Dhahran is a short distance west of downtown Khobar. It is about south of Dammam. Both are older Saudi port cities on the coast of the Persian Gulf. Looking farther afield, Dhahran is northeast of Abqaiq, and southeast of Qatif and, further north, Ras Tanura, a major oil port. The Kingdom of Bahrain is also within easy driving distance to the east (about 32 km [20 mi]), across the King Fahd Causeway, from Khobar.


title: Dhahran

text: There are several notable landmarks in Dhahran City including KFUPM clock tower as well as Saudi Aramco's Al-Midra Tower and King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture. However, the tallest building in Dhahran is Al-AbdelKareem Tower, where the neighboring Al-Othman twin towers come as second tallest, all located at Al-Qashlah district in the north east of the city facing Al-Khobar.


title: Dhahran

text: The patch of desert on which the city is built is hilly and rocky, and most of the earliest productive oil wells in Saudi Arabia were drilled in the area, such as Dammam Well  7: "Prosperity Well", the first commercially viable oil well in Saudi Arabia in the 1930s. This well was still in production 70 years later. This later led to the selection of two barren nearby hills as the place for Aramco to construct its headquarters.


title: Dhahran

text: The Dhahran-Dammam area is one of two regions, the other being Jeddah, that were selected as potential sites to build the first Saudi nuclear reactor.


title: Dhahran

text: Dhahran has a hot desert climate (Köppen: "BWh"), featuring summers among the hottest and most humid in the world, and virtually frost-free winters. Temperatures can rise to more than in the summer, coupled with high humidity, given the city's proximity to the Persian Gulf. The highest recorded temperature in Dhahran is . In winter, the temperature rarely falls below , with the lowest ever recorded being in January 1964. Rain falls almost exclusively between the months of November and May. The Shamal winds usually blow across the city in the early months of the summer, bringing dust storms that can reduce visibility to a few metres. These winds can last for up to six months.


title: Dhahran

text: It has been reported that on July 8, 2003, the dew point was while the temperature was , which would indicate a heat index of , one of the highest heat indexes ever reported.


title: Dhahran

text: Dhahran was settled after 1938, the year oil was discovered in the vicinity. ARAMCO (then the Arabian American Oil Company, today's Saudi Aramco) built various residential areas, known as camps, to house the company's oil workers (and in some cases their families) in what was then a remote part of the desert.


title: Dhahran

text: During World War II on 19 October 1940 Dhahran was struck by Italian Royal Air Force (Regia Aeronautica) as a part of Bombing of Bahrain, causing minimal damage.


title: Dhahran

text: In 1944, the United States was authorized to build an air base in Dhahran (officially referred to as Dhahran Airfield). Construction began in 1945 and was completed in 1946. The base was turned over to the Saudis when its lease expired in the early 1960s. Dhahran is historically significant in the development of US-Saudi relations, starting with the discovery of oil that led to the creation of ARAMCO (the Arabian American Oil Company, today's Saudi Aramco), which in turn led to the US building the Dhahran Airfield (built adjacent to Aramco's residential camp) and the construction of the US consulate (also adjacent to the Aramco camp).


title: Dhahran

text: During the Gulf War, the city was the scene of the largest loss of life among coalition forces. On February 25, 1991, an Iraqi Al-Hussein missile hit a U.S. Army barracks in the city, killing 28 American reservists from Pennsylvania.


title: Dhahran

text: Dhahran has the headquarters of Saudi Aramco. The company is the largest oil company in the world with the largest oil reserves in the world, and it produces about 10 million barrels of oil per day. Most of the oil is exported, since local Saudi needs require about 12% of the total production. (See: Saudi Aramco)


title: Dhahran

text: Nearly a century after its foundation in 1933, Dhahran is still Saudi Aramco's worldwide headquarters and the center of the company's finance, exploration, engineering, drilling services, medical services, materials supply and other company organisations.


title: Dhahran

text: The population of Dhahran is mainly Saudi, but also includes many expatriates from Asian countries, such as Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan and the Philippines, as well as countries such as the United States, Canada, European countries, Turkey, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. There are also many non-Saudi Arab nationals living in Dhahran, such as Egyptians, Jordanians, Lebanese, Palestinians, Sudanese, and Syrians. The 1993 population of the city was 73,691. According to a 2004 census the total population of the Dhahran municipality is 97,446.


title: Dhahran

text: Many companies that employ relatively large numbers of expatriates have built fenced-in compounds where only expatriates live; however, the largest compound, the Saudi Aramco Residential Camp in Dhahran provides accommodation to many different nationalities. Although built originally to house only expatriate oil company employees (mainly Americans) to provide a degree of Western comfort and separation from the restrictions of Saudi and Islamic laws, the community today has shifted somewhat in line with the reduction of western residents into a multi-ethnic mosaic of Saudis, other Arab nationalities (e.g., Egyptian and Jordanian), Asians, Europeans, South Americans, Africans and Australians. While only employees of Saudi Aramco live on the camp, their nationalities reflect those of the company as a whole. There are also several neighborhoods, or suburbs just outside the main Saudi Aramco Camp, such as Doha District (حي الدوحه) Dana District (حي الدانة) and Aljamiah District (حي الجامعة), where Saudi Aramco gives home loans to Saudi employees to build their own homes.


title: Dhahran

text: Dhahran is unique in a way that majority of the population live inside gated communities, whether built by Saudi Aramco, KFUPM or military.


title: Dhahran

text: Dhahran is part of the Eastern Province, the largest province in Saudi Arabia. The province is governed by Prince Saud bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. Just like the rest of the country, the law of Shari’a, or Islamic law is adhered to. Following the Saudi Arabian municipal elections in 2005, members of the municipal councils were elected.


title: Dhahran

text: Dhahran is guarded as it is a high visibility city. The Saudi Special Emergency Forces' Eastern Province headquarters are located in Dhahran near the Saudi Aramco residential camp. There are many security checkpoints throughout the city that have been almost permanently in place since the Riyadh Compound Bombings.


title: Dhahran

text: As the centre of the nation's oil industry, Dhahran enjoys good transport resources both nationally and internationally, especially after the extensive modernisation of the nations highway infrastructure in the 1970s and 1980s.


title: Dhahran

text: The extensive highway network in the Dhahran, Khobar, Dammam area serves the strategically important national oil industry, led by Saudi Aramco, as well as the local population. However, car ownership in the Kingdom has soared which often leaves non-highway roads congested at peak times.


title: Dhahran

text: Formerly one of Saudi Arabia's three major international airports, Dhahran Airport (DHA), which opened in 1946 as Dhahran Airfield, is now a Royal Saudi Air Force airbase. Today, King Fahd International Airport (DMM), which replaced Dhahran International for commercial, private and cargo, serves the entire Metropolitan Area of Dhahran, Dammam, and Khobar, the distance to the airport terminal is about 40 km (25 mi) from Dhahran. Saudi Aramco Aviation operates the general aviation terminal at King Fahd International Airport exclusively as its own terminal, where all Saudi Aramco flights originate.


title: Dhahran

text: Although rail service in Saudi Arabia plays a much more minor role today than 50 years ago, an industrial railroad with a station adjacent to Dhahran still exists, linking it to the capital Riyadh.


title: Dhahran

text: Public transport buses are only available in a very limited manner, with taxi services, at reasonable prices and widely available, proving more popular. Large companies such as Saudi Aramco run their own bus transport operations, connecting residential and industrial camps of the company with Dhahran, Dammam, and Khobar. Many smaller residential compounds also operate their own bus services which are typically used for transport to places of work or shopping trips by residents.


title: Dhahran

text: Mobile telephone communications are provided mainly by STC, Mobily and Zain, which have launched 3G, 4G and 5G services to their customers.


title: Dhahran

text: STC also provides landlines through its Al-Hatif services, as well as providing internet services through Saudi Data.


title: Dhahran

text: There are several internet service providers such as Al-Alamiah, ArabNet, Nesma and others. Both DSL and FTTH services are available.


title: Dhahran

text: There are several popular radio stations, such as Radio Sawa, Studio One 91.4 FM, broadcast from Aramco, and Bahrain Radio 96.5 FM.


title: Dhahran

text: Satellite television is predominant in the market, with Orbit Showtime being the most popular, as well as the widespread variety of satellite channel operators including Eutelsat, AsiaSat, Palapa, Arabsat and Nilesat.


title: Dhahran

text: Schools in Dhahran come under two sections: public (government-run) and private. Public schools (K-12), open to almost everyone, strictly adhere to teaching the curriculum exactly as provided by the Ministry of Education. Public schools also come under two sections: Saudi Aramco-built and government-built. The Saudi Aramco built schools are usually better in design and last longer due to their being built to higher standards; however, they are not operated by the company. Private schools also teach the ministry's curriculum, but they have more flexibility often enhancing certain aspects, such as exceeding the ministry's curriculum when teaching the English language and computer applications. University Schools, located within King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, and Dhahran Ahliyyah Schools are examples of top private schools across Saudi Arabia are based in Dhahran.


title: Dhahran

text: There are several schools that teach the curriculum of their native countries, such as the Multinational School Dhahran (MNS Dhahran Multinational School Dhahran (MNS Dhahran), Dhahran British Grammar School, Dhahran Elementary Middle School, and Dhahran High School.


title: Dhahran

text: Dhahran High School (formerly Dhahran Academy High School) is a part of International Schools Group and is primarily composed of expatriates including American, British, Lebanese, Filipino, and Indian students. There have been Saudi students as well, though this is relatively rare. Advanced Placement courses have been available since Dhahran High School's first graduating class in 2001.


title: Dhahran

text: The Dhahran School and the Dhahran Hills School are Saudi Aramco-run American curriculum schools within the Saudi Aramco Residential Camp. These schools are strictly only for the children of expatriate Saudi Aramco employees but are provided completely free of charge to them. They are fully accredited and are part of the larger Saudi Aramco Schools district, encompassing all Saudi Aramco-operated schools within Aramco residential compounds.


title: Dhahran

text: Dhahran is also home to the world-renowned King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), and the Aramco Training Center (ATC), where many new employees of Saudi Aramco learn useful skills, such as English, business mathematics, physics, and computer skills. Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University and Prince Mohammad bin Fahd University are also located near and within the city respectively.


title: Martha Mitchell effect

text: The Martha Mitchell effect occurs when a medical professional labels a patient's accurate perception of real events as delusional, resulting in misdiagnosis.


title: Doge's Palace

text: The Doge's Palace (; ) is a palace built in Venetian Gothic style, and one of the main landmarks of the city of Venice in northern Italy. The palace was the residence of the Doge of Venice, the supreme authority of the former Republic of Venice. It was built in 1340 and extended and modified in the following centuries. It became a museum in 1923 and is one of the 11 museums run by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia.


title: Doge's Palace

text: In 810, Doge Agnello Participazio moved the seat of government from the island of Malamocco to the area of the present-day Rialto, when it was decided a "palatium duci" (Latin for "ducal palace") should be built. However, no trace remains of that 9th-century building as the palace was partially destroyed in the 10th century by a fire. The following reconstruction works were undertaken at the behest of Doge Sebastiano Ziani (1172–1178). A great reformer, he would drastically change the entire layout of the St. Mark's Square. The new palace was built out of fortresses, one façade to the Piazzetta, the other overlooking the St. Mark's Basin. Although only few traces remain of that palace, some Byzantine-Venetian architecture characteristics can still be seen at the ground floor, with the wall base in Istrian stone and some herring-bone pattern brick paving.


title: Doge's Palace

text: Political changes in the mid-13th century led to the need to re-think the palace's structure due to the considerable increase in the number of the Great Council's members. The new Gothic palace's constructions started around 1340, focusing mostly on the side of the building facing the lagoon. Only in 1424 did Doge Francesco Foscari decide to extend the rebuilding works to the wing overlooking the Piazzetta, serving as law-courts, and with a ground floor arcade on the outside, open first-floor loggias running along the façade, and the internal courtyard side of the wing, completed with the construction of the Porta della Carta (1442).


title: Doge's Palace

text: In 1483, a violent fire broke out in the side of the palace overlooking the canal, where the Doge's Apartments were. Once again, an important reconstruction became necessary and was commissioned from Antonio Rizzo, who would introduce the new Renaissance language to the building's architecture. An entire new structure was raised alongside the canal, stretching from the ponte della Canonica to the Ponte della Paglia, with the official rooms of the government decorated with works commissioned from Vittore Carpaccio, Giorgione, Alvise Vivarini and Giovanni Bellini.


title: Doge's Palace

text: Another huge fire in 1547 destroyed some of the rooms on the second floor, but fortunately without undermining the structure as a whole. Refurbishment works were being held at the palace when in 1577 a third fire destroyed the Scrutinio Room and the Great Council Chamber, together with works by Gentile da Fabriano, Pisanello, Alvise Vivarini, Vittore Carpaccio, Giovanni Bellini, Pordenone, and Titian. In the subsequent rebuilding work it was decided to respect the original Gothic style, despite the submission of neo-classical alternative designs by the influential Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. However, there are some classical features – for example, since the 16th century, the palace has been linked to the prison by the Bridge of Sighs.


title: Doge's Palace

text: As well as being the ducal residence, the palace housed political institutions of the Republic of Venice until the Napoleonic occupation of the city in 1797, when its role inevitably changed. Venice was subjected first to French rule, then to Austrian, and finally in 1866 it became part of Italy. Over this period, the palace was occupied by various administrative offices as well as housing the Biblioteca Marciana and other important cultural institutions within the city.


title: Doge's Palace

text: By the end of the 19th century, the structure was showing clear signs of decay, and the Italian government set aside significant funds for its restoration and all public offices were moved elsewhere, with the exception of the State Office for the protection of historical Monuments, which is still housed at the palace's loggia floor. In 1923, the Italian State, owner of the building, entrusted the management to the Venetian municipality to be run as a museum. Since 1996, the Doge's Palace has been part of the Venetian museums network, which has been under the management of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia since 2008.


title: Doge's Palace

text: The oldest part of the palace is the wing overlooking the lagoon, the corners of which are decorated with 14th-century sculptures, thought to be by Filippo Calendario and various Lombard artists such as Matteo Raverti and Antonio Bregno. The ground floor arcade and the loggia above are decorated with 14th- and 15th-century capitals, some of which were replaced with copies during the 19th century.


title: Doge's Palace

text: In 1438–1442, Giovanni Bon and Bartolomeo Bon built and adorned the Porta della Carta, which served as the ceremonial entrance to the building. The name of the gateway probably derives either from the fact that this was the area where public scribes set up their desks, or from the nearby location of the "cartabum", the archives of state documents. Flanked by Gothic pinnacles, with two figures of the "Cardinal Virtues" per side, the gateway is crowned by a bust of Mark the Evangelist over which rises a statue of "Justice" with her traditional symbols of sword and scales. In the space above the cornice, there is a sculptural portrait of the Doge Francesco Foscari kneeling before the Lion of Saint Mark. This is, however, a 19th-century work by Luigi Ferrari, created to replace the original destroyed in 1797.


title: Doge's Palace

text: Today, the public entrance to the Doge's Palace is via the Porta del Frumento, on the waterfront side of the building.


title: Doge's Palace

text: The north side of the courtyard is closed by the junction between the palace and St Mark's Basilica, which used to be the Doge's chapel. At the centre of the courtyard stand two well-heads dating from the mid-16th century.


title: Doge's Palace

text: In 1485, the Great Council decided that a ceremonial staircase should be built within the courtyard. The design envisaged a straight axis with the rounded Foscari Arch, with alternate bands of Istrian stone and red Verona marble, linking the staircase to the Porta della Carta, and thus producing one single monumental approach from the Piazza into the heart of the building. Since 1567, the Giants’ Staircase is guarded by Sansovino's two colossal statues of "Mars" and "Neptune", which represents Venice's power by land and by sea, and therefore the reason for its name. Members of the Senate gathered before government meetings in the Senator's Courtyard, to the right of the Giants’ Staircase.


title: Doge's Palace

text: Over the centuries, the Doge's Palace has been restructured and restored countless times. Due to fires, structural failures, and infiltrations, and new organizational requirements and modifications or complete overhaulings of the ornamental trappings there was hardly a moment in which some kind of works have not been underway at the building. From the Middle Ages, the activities of maintenance and conservation were in the hands of a “technical office”, which was in charge of all such operations and oversaw the workers and their sites: the "Opera", or "fabbriceria" or "procuratoria". After the mid-19th century, the palace seemed to be in such a state of decay that its very survival was in question; thus, in 1876 a major restoration plan was launched. The work involved the two facades and the capitals belonging to the ground-floor arcade and the upper loggia: 42 of these, which appeared to be in an especially dilapidated state, were removed and replaced by copies. The originals, some of which were masterpieces of Venetian sculpture of the 14th and 15th centuries, were placed, together with other sculptures from the facades, in an area specifically set aside for this purpose: the Museo dell’Opera. After undergoing thorough and careful restoration works, they are now exhibited, on their original columns, in these six rooms of the museum, which are traversed by an ancient wall in great blocks of stone, a remnant of an earlier version of the palace. The rooms also contain fragments of statues and important architectural and decorative works in stone from the facades of the palace.


title: Doge's Palace

text: The rooms in which the Doge lived were always located in this area of the palace, between the Rio della Canonica – the water entrance to the building – the present-day Golden Staircase and the apse of St. Mark's Basilica. The disastrous fire in this part of the building in 1483 made important reconstruction work necessary, with the Doge's apartments being completed by 1510. The core of these apartments forms a prestigious, though not particularly large, residence, given that the rooms nearest the Golden Staircase had a mixed private and public function. In the private apartments, the Doge could set aside the trappings of office to retire at the end of the day and dine with members of his family amidst furnishings that he had brought from his own house (and which, at his death, would be promptly removed to make way for the property of the new elected Doge).


title: Doge's Palace

text: Prior to the 12th century, there were holding cells within the Doge's Palace but during the 13th and fourteenth centuries more prison spaces were created to occupy the entire ground floor of the southern wing.


title: Doge's Palace

text: Again these layouts changed in c.1540 when a compound of the ground floor of the eastern wing was built. Due to their dark, damp and isolated qualities they came to be known as the Pozzi (the Wells).


title: Doge's Palace

text: In 1591 yet more cells were built in the upper eastern wing. Due to their position, directly under the lead roof, they were known as Piombi. Among the famous inmates of the prison were Silvio Pellico and Giacomo Casanova. The latter in his biography describes escaping through the roof, re-entering the palace, and exiting through the Porta della Carta.


title: Doge's Palace

text: A corridor leads over the Bridge of Sighs, built in 1614 to link the Doge's Palace to the structure intended to house the New Prisons. Enclosed and covered on all sides, the bridge contains two separate corridors that run next to each other. That which visitors use today linked the Prisons to the chambers of the Magistrato alle Leggi and the Quarantia Criminal; the other linked the prisons to the State Advocacy rooms and the Parlatorio. Both corridors are linked to the service staircase that leads from the ground floor cells of the Pozzi to the roof cells of the Piombi.


title: Doge's Palace

text: The famous name of the bridge dates from the Romantic period and was supposed to refer to the sighs of prisoners who, passing from the courtroom to the cell in which they would serve their sentence, took a last look at freedom as they glimpsed the lagoon and San Giorgio through the small windows. In the mid-16th century, it was decided to build a new structure on the other side of the canal to the side of the palace which would house prisons and the chambers of the magistrates known as the Notte al Criminal. Ultimately linked to the palace by the Bridge of Sighs, the building was intended to improve the conditions for prisoners with larger and more light-filled and airy cells. However, certain sections of the new prisons fall short of this aim, particularly those laid out with passageways on all sides and those cells which give onto the inner courtyard of the building. In keeping with previous traditions, each cell was lined with overlapping planks of larch that were nailed in place.


title: Doge's Palace

text: The only art theft from the Doge's Palace was executed on 9 October 1991 by Vincenzo Pipino, who hid in one of the cells in the New Prisons after lagging behind a tour group, then crossed the Bridge of Sighs in the middle of the night to the Sala di Censori. In that room was the "Madonna col bambino", a work symbolic of "the power of the Venetian state" painted in the early 1500s by a member of the Vivarini school. By the next morning, it was in the possession of the Mala del Brenta organized crime group. The painting was recovered by the police on 7 November 1991.


title: Doge's Palace

text: The Ismailiyya building in Baku, which at present serves as the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan, was styled after the Doge's Palace.


title: Doge's Palace

text: The Central rail station, in Iași, built in 1870, had as a model the architecture of the Doge's Palace. On the central part, there is a "loggia" with five arcades and pillars made of curved stone, having at the top three ogives.


title: Doge's Palace

text: There are a number of 19th-century imitations of the palace's architecture in the United Kingdom, for example:


title: Doge's Palace

text: These revivals of Venetian Gothic were influenced by the theories of John Ruskin, author of the three-volume "The Stones of Venice", which appeared in the 1850s.


title: Doge's Palace

text: The Montauk Club in Park Slope, Brooklyn (1889) imitates elements of the palace's architecture, although the architect is usually said to have been inspired by another Venetian Gothic palace, the Ca' d'Oro.


title: Doge's Palace

text: The elaborate arched facade of the 1895 building of Congregation Ohabai Shalome in San Francisco is a copy in painted redwood of the Doge's Palace.


title: Doge's Palace

text: The ornate gothic style of the Doge's Palace (and other similar palaces throughout Italy) is replicated in the Hall of Doges at the Davenport Hotel in Spokane, Washington by architect Kirtland Cutter.


title: Doge's Palace

text: The facade of the building is replicated at the Italy Pavilion in Epcot at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida.


title: Doge's Palace

text: Along with other Venetian landmarks, the palace is imitated in The Venetian, Las Vegas and its sister resort The Venetian Macao.


title: Doge's Palace

text: The Doge's Palace was recreated and is playable in the 2009 video game, "Assassin's Creed II". In the game, one of the objectives is to get protagonist Ezio Auditore da Firenze to fly a hang-glider built for him by Leonardo da Vinci into the Palazzo Ducale in order to prevent a Templar plot to kill the current Doge, Giovanni Mocenigo. Though he arrives too late to prevent the Doge from being poisoned, he does manage to kill the assassin, Carlo Grimaldi, who was a member of the Council of Ten.


title: Poverty porn

text: Poverty porn, also known as pornography of poverty, development porn, famine porn, or stereotype porn, has been defined as "any type of media, be it written, photographed or filmed, which exploits the poor's condition in order to generate the necessary sympathy for selling newspapers, increasing charitable donations, or support for a given cause". It also suggests that the viewer of the exploited protagonists is motivated by gratification of base instincts. It is also a term of criticism applied to films that objectify people in poverty for the sake of entertaining a privileged audience.


title: Poverty porn

text: The concept of poverty porn was first introduced in the 1980s, known as the "golden age of charity campaigns". Charity campaigns during this period made use of hard-hitting images such as pictures of malnourished children with flies in their eyes. This quickly became a trend and there were several notable campaigns such as Live Aid. Though some of these campaigns were successful in raising money for charity (over $150 million to help combat famine), some observers criticised the approach, claiming it oversimplified chronic poverty; this apparent sensationalism was dubbed by critics as "poverty porn."


title: Poverty porn

text: In the 1980s the media used what some believed to be inappropriate use of children in poverty. However, towards the end of this era more positive images emerged to tell their stories, although, in recent years it has been noticed that the disturbing images are being highlighted once more.


title: Poverty porn

text: The term "poverty porn" itself was introduced years later. One of the earliest examples was the review of the film "Angela's Ashes" (1999) published in the January 2000 edition of the e-newsletter "Need to Know". In this review, the term was not defined but was used to describe the film's depiction of poverty as a "ponderous vomit-packed poverty porn".


title: Poverty porn

text: The practice is controversial, as some believe it to be exploitative, whilst others praise the way it can allow organisations to reach their objectives. It has been common for charity organisations such as UNICEF and Oxfam to portray famine, poverty, and children in order to attract sympathy and increase donations.


title: Poverty porn

text: Although poverty porn can be seen as a tool to generate further donations, many believe it deforms reality as it portrays the image of an impotent society, entirely dependent on other western societies to survive, as well as being overly voyeuristic.


title: Poverty porn

text: It is a common debate to have as to whether it is justifiable or not to portray stereotypes and to use sensationalism in order to generate empathy. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian writer, notes that "The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story."


title: Poverty porn

text: Throughout fundraising campaigns, charities attempt to interview those who they are trying to help, in order to get the word across to the general public. However, it is common for them to encounter ongoing refusal from those in desolated situations to take pictures or to publicly share their traumatic story. This further emphasizes the concept that being in an uneasy, not to say miserable, situation is a shameful one, and poverty porn in media exposes those who do not necessarily have the desire to be exposed.


title: Poverty porn

text: In one case, this "need" for voices to justify this style of fundraising resulted in an organization creating fictional "needy children", and sending out emotional letters, "written by" these nonexistent individuals. CNN exposed a school in South Dakota that raised millions of dollars by using "the worst of poverty porn," saying that "a school run by non-Indians is raising a fortune off of racial stereotypes."


title: Poverty porn

text: Poverty porn is used in media through visually miserable and disturbing images, that aim to trigger some sort of emotion amongst its audience. It is commonly thought however, that to expose one's misery publicly through images, interviews and other means, is an impermissible invasion of privacy.


title: Poverty porn

text: The use of one photo to label an entire country as destitute makes the audience falsely assume that the entire country share the same story.


title: Poverty porn

text: Alli Heller, a Nigerian writer and anthropologist says: "Imagine for a minute that you were chronically incontinent. Now imagine that you didn't have access to adult diapers or sanitary napkins ... Imagine how the acidity of the unremitting flow of urine burned away at your thighs, cracking your skin and leaving you vulnerable to painful infections. Imagine the shame you'd feel – a grown adult incapable of avoiding the small pool of urine you'd leave behind on a friend's chair after a visit ... Why must we highlight the extreme cases when the norm is bad enough?"


title: Poverty porn

text: In the West, "poverty porn" also found prominent usage in the political sphere. It is referenced by the left as an expression for deliberately misleading impressions of the lives of the poor in the process of victimizing them while the right deploys the term as part of its indictment of the welfare state.


title: Poverty porn

text: Poverty porn is highly exposed in today's pop culture, as the concept has become pervasive in films and TV shows.


title: Poverty porn

text: The British television program "The Hardest Grafter" illustrates this as it portrays 25 of Britain's "poorest workers," all having the shared ultimate objective of winning £15,000 through the completion of various tasks. In this case, the contestants' poverty attracts a television audience which was, before the show even started, contested as various petitions were made in order to stop what was believed to be a "perverted audience and profit making operation." It is considered to not only be perverted, but also discriminatory as the contestants can only be poor.


title: Poverty porn

text: BBC Two replied to these accusations by affirming that it would be a "serious social experiment to show just how hard those part of the low-wage economy work" as well as "tackling some of the most pressing issues of our time: why is British productivity low?"


title: Poverty porn

text: A spokesman from the show's production company, Twenty Twenty, stated that: "the show will challenge and shatter all sorts of myths surrounding the low-paid and unemployed sector."


title: Poverty porn

text: Broome, a reality TV show creator, states that it exposes the hardship of some families and their ability to keep on going through values, love and communication. He assures that he would much prefer create these shows rather than those like Jersey Shore which depicts "a group of strangers from New Jersey as they party throughout six seasons."


title: Noi Bai International Airport

text: Nội Bài International Airport () in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, is the second largest and busiest airport for passenger traffic, after Tan Son Nhat International Airport. It is currently the main airport serving Hanoi, replacing the role of Gia Lam Airport. The airport consists of two passenger terminals. Terminal 1 serves domestic flights, and the newly built Terminal 2 (inaugurated on 4 January 2015) serves all international flights to and from Hanoi. The airport is currently the main hub of the flag carrier Vietnam Airlines, and budget carriers Bamboo Airways, Pacific Airlines and Vietjet Air.


title: Noi Bai International Airport

text: The airport is located in Phu Minh Commune in Sóc Sơn District, about 35 kilometres (21 miles) northeast of downtown Hanoi, via the new Nhật Tân Bridge (also inaugurated on 4 January 2015). It can also be reached by National Road 3, which connects it with the eastern suburbs of Hanoi. The airport is also close to some satellite cities of Hanoi such as Vĩnh Yên, Bắc Ninh and Thái Nguyên.


title: Noi Bai International Airport

text: The airport served a total of 13 million passengers in 2013, despite having a capacity of only 9 million at the time. The new international terminal, which had its first commercial flight on 25 December 2014 and went into full operation on 31 December 2014, has boosted the airport's total capacity to 20 million passengers per year. In 2018, the airport served 28 million passengers.


title: Noi Bai International Airport

text: Of the routes the airport offers, the Hanoi – Ho Chi Minh City route is the busiest in Southeast Asia and the sixth busiest in the world, serving 6,867,114 customers in 2018.


title: Noi Bai International Airport

text: The airport was developed immediately south of the Phúc Yên Air Base and opened on 2 January 1978. The terminal 1 building was completed and became operational in 2001.


title: Noi Bai International Airport

text: In 2005, Tiger Airways started thrice-weekly flights between Hanoi and Singapore after launching direct flights between Hồ Chí Minh City and Singapore becoming the first budget airline to operate in Vietnam. It was later joined by low-cost carrier AirAsia when they launched direct flights between Hanoi and Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur.


title: Noi Bai International Airport

text: The second runway (1B – 11R/29L) opened in 2006 and the following year the airport hosted an Airbus A380 for the first time, although no scheduled A380 services are operated from the airport. 2013 saw the first arrival of a Cargolux Boeing 747-8F. In 2014 the airport received its first scheduled service with the newest generation of commercial aircraft when All Nippon Airways started using a Boeing 787-8 on services between to Tokyo–Haneda and later the same year the airport received its first visit of Airbus A350 XWB operated by Airbus on World Tour trip. In 2015, Vietnam Airlines started to operate the Airbus A350 XWB for commercial domestic flights.


title: Noi Bai International Airport

text: The airport has been a SkyTeam hub since mid-2010, after Vietnam Airlines joined the network that year.


title: Noi Bai International Airport

text: At 650 hectares, Noi Bai is the second-largest airport in Vietnam, behind the 800 hectare Tan Son Nhat International Airport. Terminal 1, completed in 2001, had one main section for international flights with a new terminal extension (denoted Lobby E) for domestic flights, which was completed in late 2013. Together with the extension, terminal 1 is capable of handling 9 million passengers per annum. Following the inauguration of Terminal 2 in January 2015, Terminal 1 is solely used for domestic flights. The terminal is currently being upgraded to handle 15 million passengers annually upon completion in March 2018.


title: Noi Bai International Airport

text: The construction of the new terminal (Terminal 2) next to the existing one with a designed capacity of 10 million passengers per annum started in March 2012. The 996 m long new terminal building, funded by a Japan International Cooperation Agency ODA loan was designed by Japan Airport Consultants and was built by Taisei Corporation. The total investment for the project was ¥75.5 billion (US$645.35 million). Japan's official development assistance accounted for ¥59 billion ($504.27 million) of the investment, while the remaining amount was covered by local funds. The new international terminal was inaugurated on 4 January 2015 together with a new freeway connecting the airport to downtown Hanoi via the Nhật Tân Bridge.


title: Noi Bai International Airport

text: The airport has a 3,800-meter paved runway (CAT II – 11R/29L) which opened in August 2006 and an older 3,200-meter paved runway (CAT I – 11L/29R). The older runway was closed for upgrades for 4 months from August to December 2014. The distance between the two runways is only 250 metres, so the airport currently restricts the maximum passenger capacity in accordance with International Civil Aviation Organization safety regulations.


title: Noi Bai International Airport

text: The AMAN/DMAN system was implemented at the airport in October 2021 to manage and arrange the shortest flight trajectory of each flight, allowing to increased passenger capacity and airspace operations.


title: Noi Bai International Airport

text: Following the inauguration of the new international terminal, the Noi Bai International Airport received the World's Most Improved Airport Award from Skytrax.


title: Noi Bai International Airport

text: The construction project of the new Noi Bai international terminal also received the JICA President Award for 2015.


title: Noi Bai International Airport

text: One can generally do an international transit through the airport without a visa as long as one does not need to leave the security area. There is the ability to pick up board passes within the security area including for some low cost airlines like VietJet.


title: Dark Side of the Rainbow

text: Dark Side of the Rainbow – also known as Dark Side of Oz or The Wizard of Floyd – is the pairing of the 1973 Pink Floyd album "The Dark Side of the Moon" with the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz." This produces moments of apparent synchronicity where the film and the album appear to correspond. Members of Pink Floyd have denied any intent to connect the album to the film.


title: Dark Side of the Rainbow

text: In August 1995, the "Fort Wayne Journal Gazette" published an article by Charles Savage suggesting that readers watch the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz" while listening to the 1973 Pink Floyd album "The Dark Side of the Moon". Savage said the idea was first shared on an online Pink Floyd newsgroup. According to Savage, "The result is astonishing. It's as if the movie were one long art-film music video for the album. Song lyrics and titles match the action and plot. The music swells and falls with character's movements ... expect to see enough firm coincidences to make you wonder whether the whole thing was planned."


title: Dark Side of the Rainbow

text: Fans created websites about the experience and catalogued moments of synchronicity. In April 1997, the DJ George Taylor Morris discussed "Dark Side of the Rainbow" on Boston radio. In July 2000, Turner Classic Movies aired "The Wizard of Oz" with the option of synchronising the broadcast to the album using the SAP audio channel.


title: Dark Side of the Rainbow

text: Members of Pink Floyd have denied any connection between the album and the film. Guitarist David Gilmour dismissed it as the product of "some guy with too much time on his hands". Drummer Nick Mason told MTV in 1997, "It's absolute nonsense. It has nothing to do with "The Wizard of Oz". It was all based on "The Sound of Music"." The "Dark Side of the Moon" audio engineer Alan Parsons also denied any connection, saying the band had no means of playing video tapes in the studio at the time of recording. He said in 2003:


title: Dark Side of the Rainbow

text: Asked about the connection in 2022, the bassist, Roger Waters, said it was "bullshit" and that had "nothing to do" with anyone who worked on the album.


title: Dark Side of the Rainbow

text: Detractors argue that the phenomenon is the result of the mind's tendency to find patterns by discarding data that does not fit. The film critic Richard Roeper published his assessment of the phenomenon, which he referred to as "Dark Side of Oz". Roeper concluded that while Pink Floyd may have had the resources and technical abilities to produce an alternative film soundtrack, undergoing such an endeavour would have been impractical. Roeper also noted that "The Dark Side of the Moon" is approximately an hour shorter than "The Wizard of Oz".


title: Dark Side of the Rainbow

text: The fame of Dark Side of the Rainbow has prompted some to search for synchronicities among other albums by other bands and films by other directors. The lengthy Pink Floyd song "Echoes" from the 1971 album "Meddle" has been paired with "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite", the fourth act in the 1968 film "." Both the track and the sequence are approximately 23 minutes. Comedian Matt Herzau claims that the Pixar film "WALL-E" syncs up with Pink Floyd's rock opera "The Wall", which he has called "Another Brick in the WALL-E", after the album's three-part song "Another Brick in the Wall". Podcast host Griffin McElroy has praised the synchronicity between Dark Side of the Moon and "" in the podcast "'Til Death Do Us Blart".


title: Porus (TV series)

text: Porus is a historical drama television series based on the Battle of the Hydaspes, visualizing the lives of Indian warrior and ruler Porus, King of the Paurava Kingdom and Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia. It aired from 27 November 2017 till 13 November 2018 on Sony Entertainment Television. Another historical drama "Chandragupta Maurya" replaced it.


title: Porus (TV series)

text: The show was created by Siddharth Kumar Tewary of Swastik Productions. It is the most expensive show on Indian television, having a budget of about INR 500 crores (roughly USD 70 million).


title: Porus (TV series)

text: Two rival Indian kingdoms, the Pauravas (of the Puru tribe) and Takshashila (of the Bharat tribe) decide to end their enmity with a political marriage of the king of the Paurava Kingdom, Bamni and Anusuya, the younger sister of Ambhiraj, the king of Takshashila. Unlike her brother Ambhiraj, who cares only for his kingdom, Anusuya dreams of a united India. However, a Persian trader, Darius conspires with Ambhiraj and Bamni's elder brother and prime minister, Shiv Dutt, breaking the peace between the two kingdoms and forcing the pregnant Anusuya to flee. During her escape, she gives birth to a son, Porus (native name Purushottam, nicknamed Puru). Shiv Dutt tries to kill Anusuya and Porus by throwing them in River Jhelum. However, the Commander-in-Chief of the Paurava Kingdom, Ripudaman saves Porus and raises him in the Dasyu Kingdom, made up of pirates. Meanwhile, Darius (who later becomes the emperor of Persia) manipulates Bamni into becoming his trade partner with the intention of gradually stealing India's wealth, leaving a heavy Persian influence on the Paurava Kingdom. On Shiv Dutt's suggestion, Bamni marries Kadika, sister of Shiv Dutt's right-hand man and Paurava general. Samar Singh. and has a son, Kanishk. Years later, after a series of events resulting in Ripudaman's death, Porus is reunited with his parents and eventually drives Darius out of India. Shiv Dutt, who detests Takshashila and does not want the half-Takshashilan Porus to succeed Bamni, overthrows Bamni and installs Kanishk as king. However, Porus soon retakes the Paurava kingdom, resulting in Shiv Dutt's death and Kanishk's imprisonment. Considering Porus more worthy than himself, Bamni willingly renounces the throne and Porus becomes king of the Paurava Kingdom.


title: Porus (TV series)

text: In Macedonia, Queen Olympias insults King Philip, resulting in the latter raping her. To avenge this insult, Olympias proclaims their son, Alexander, as the son of Zeus (King of the Greek Gods). Alexander grows up to be an ambitious, as well as respectful prince, and proves his skills in a battle. His half-brother Arrhideaus is made a mad person by Olympia. Philip marries Cleopatra Eurydice of Macedon, and denies Alexander the throne, saying that his and Cleopatra's son will be his successor. This leaves Alexander heartbroken and wants revenge. Cleopatra Eurydice gives birth to a daughter, and also Philip decides to wed his daughter Cleopatra of Macedon to Alexander I of Epirus. They wed, however Philip is soon assassinated by Pausanias on Alexander's command, making Alexander the new king. Olympias and Alexander also murder Cleopatra of Eurydice, her two infant children, Arrihdeaus' mother Philinna and Cleopatra's father Attalus. Arrhideaus is spared by Alexander due to his insanity. Alexander soon becomes a ruthless ruler, conquering many kingdoms, including Persia, resulting in the death of Darius.


title: Porus (TV series)

text: Alexander arrives in India, vassalising Ambhiraj and thus capturing Takshashila. Kanishk escapes imprisonment and allies with Alexander, though he later redefects to the Pauravas and is killed by Alexander. Alexander attacks the Pauravas resulting in a war lasting months. Both sides have heavy losses during the war, with Porus losing his parents though he kills Ambhiraj. Eventually, Alexander is victorious in the Battle of the Hydaspes in 326 BCE and captures Porus, but impressed by Porus's bravery, he returns his kingdom to him. Afraid of the army of the Nanda Emperor Dhana Nanda, which is far bigger than Porus', Alexander's army refuses to advance further, forcing him to retreat. Porus has a son, Malayketu. On his way to Macedonia, Alexander dies under mysterious circumstances in Babylon in 323 BCE. The same year, Porus and Laachi are assassinated in a group attack by Ambhiraj's vengeful son Ambhikumar and Alexander's former general Seleucus, though Malayketu survives. In his final moments, Porus entrusts the future of India to his prime minister and advisor, the Brahmin scholar Chanakya.


title: Porus (TV series)

text: Porus, being a finite series went off-air on 13 November 2018. Even before the end of the series, production house Swastik Pictures decided to tell the story of Chandragupta Maurya through a new show on Sony TV which replaced Porus and aired on the same time slot. Many key characters of Porus like Chanakya, Dhananand, Seleucus Nicator, Amatya Rakshas reprised their roles in the new show with the same actors portraying them. The new show Chandragupt Maurya was in seamless continuity with the ending of Porus. It went on-air on 14 November 2018 and off-air on 30 August 2019 after completing its story. Sourabh Raj Jain, who portrayed the character of Dhana Nanda in Porus reprised the role, whereas Tarun Khanna reprised his role of Chanakya and Nimai Bali as Amatya Rakshas.


title: UFC 266

text: UFC 266: Volkanovski vs. Ortega was a mixed martial arts event produced by the Ultimate Fighting Championship that took place on September 25, 2021 at the T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada, part of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Area, United States.


title: UFC 266

text: After a one-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the promotion announced the return of 'International Fight Week', which took place in Las Vegas during the days leading up to and surrounding the event.


title: UFC 266

text: A UFC Light Heavyweight Championship bout between current champion Jan Błachowicz (also former KSW Light Heavyweight Champion) and former title challenger Glover Teixeira was scheduled take place at the event. However, the bout was postponed in late June and moved to UFC 267.


title: UFC 266

text: A UFC Featherweight Championship bout between current champion Alexander Volkanovski and former title challenger Brian Ortega headlined the event. The pairing was previously scheduled to take place at UFC 260, but it was cancelled a week before taking place as Volkanovski tested positive for COVID-19. The pairing was then postponed a few months as both fighters were named head coaches for .


title: UFC 266

text: A UFC Women's Flyweight Championship bout between current champion Valentina Shevchenko and former Invicta FC Bantamweight Champion Lauren Murphy served as the co-headliner.


title: UFC 266

text: A middleweight bout between former UFC Welterweight Champion Robbie Lawler and former WEC and Strikeforce Welterweight Champion Nick Diaz (also former welterweight title challenger) took place at this event, marking the second time a non-main event and non-title bout had been scheduled for five rounds. They previously met 17 years ago at UFC 47, with Diaz winning by knockout. The bout was originally expected to take place at welterweight, but was moved up a weight class days before the event.


title: UFC 266

text: A heavyweight bout between Shamil Abdurakhimov and Chris Daukaus took place at the event. The pairing was initially scheduled to meet on July 24, 2021 at , but the matchup was removed from that card on July 19 due to COVID-19 protocols within Abdurakhimov's camp. The matchup remained intact and was rescheduled for the following week at , but it was postponed again due to undisclosed reasons.


title: UFC 266

text: A women's flyweight bout between strawweight winner Tatiana Suarez and former title challenger Roxanne Modafferi was scheduled for the event. However, Suarez pulled out due to a knee injury that would require surgery. She was replaced by Taila Santos. The pairing was previously scheduled for in May, but Modafferi pulled out due to a meniscus tear a month before that event and the bout was scrapped.


title: UFC 266

text: A bantamweight bout between Timur Valiev and Ricky Simón was originally linked to this event. However, the bout was never officially announced by the promotion and Valiev was instead scheduled to face Daniel Santos at .


title: UFC 266

text: A women's flyweight bout between Manon Fiorot and Mayra Bueno Silva was expected to take place at the event. However, the bout was postponed to UFC Fight Night: Ladd vs. Dumont due to COVID-19 protocols.


title: UFC 266

text: A middleweight bout between Karl Roberson and Nick Maximov was scheduled for this event. However, Roberson was forced to withdraw from the event due to medical issues and was replaced by promotional newcomer Cody Brundage.


title: Cloud chamber

text: A cloud chamber, also known as a Wilson cloud chamber, is a particle detector used for visualizing the passage of ionizing radiation.


title: Cloud chamber

text: A cloud chamber consists of a sealed environment containing a supersaturated vapour of water or alcohol. An energetic charged particle (for example, an alpha or beta particle) interacts with the gaseous mixture by knocking electrons off gas molecules via electrostatic forces during collisions, resulting in a trail of ionized gas particles. The resulting ions act as condensation centers around which a mist-like trail of small droplets form if the gas mixture is at the point of condensation. These droplets are visible as a "cloud" track that persists for several seconds while the droplets fall through the vapor. These tracks have characteristic shapes. For example, an alpha particle track is thick and straight, while a beta particle track is wispy and shows more evidence of deflections by collisions.


title: Cloud chamber

text: Cloud chambers were invented in the early 1900s by the Scottish physicist Charles Thomson Rees Wilson. They played a prominent role in experimental particle physics from the 1920s to the 1950s, until the advent of the bubble chamber. In particular, the discoveries of the positron in 1932 (see Fig. 1) and the muon in 1936, both by Carl Anderson (awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1936), used cloud chambers. Discovery of the kaon by George Rochester and Clifford Charles Butler in 1947, also was made using a cloud chamber as the detector. In each of these cases, cosmic rays were the source of ionizing radiation. Yet they were also used with artificial sources of particles, for example in radiography applications as part of the Manhattan Project.


title: Cloud chamber

text: Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (1869–1959), a Scottish physicist, is credited with inventing the cloud chamber. Inspired by sightings of the Brocken spectre while working on the summit of Ben Nevis in 1894, he began to develop expansion chambers for studying cloud formation and optical phenomena in moist air. Very rapidly he discovered that ions could act as centers for water droplet formation in such chambers. He pursued the application of this discovery and perfected the first cloud chamber in 1911. In Wilson's original chamber (See Fig. 2) the air inside the sealed device was saturated with water vapor, then a diaphragm was used to expand the air inside the chamber (adiabatic expansion), cooling the air and starting to condense water vapor. Hence the name expansion cloud chamber is used. When an ionizing particle passes through the chamber, water vapor condenses on the resulting ions and the trail of the particle is visible in the vapor cloud. Wilson received half the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927 for his work on the cloud chamber (the same year as Arthur Compton received half the prize for the Compton Effect). This kind of chamber is also called a pulsed chamber because the conditions for operation are not continuously maintained. Further developments were made by Patrick Blackett who utilised a stiff spring to expand and compress the chamber very rapidly, making the chamber sensitive to particles several times a second. A cine film was used to record the images.


title: Cloud chamber

text: The diffusion cloud chamber was developed in 1936 by Alexander Langsdorf. This chamber differs from the expansion cloud chamber in that it is continuously sensitized to radiation, and in that the bottom must be cooled to a rather low temperature, generally colder than . Instead of water vapor, alcohol is used because of its lower freezing point. Cloud chambers cooled by dry ice or Peltier effect thermoelectric cooling are common demonstration and hobbyist devices; the alcohol used in them is commonly isopropyl alcohol or methylated spirit.


title: Cloud chamber

text: Diffusion-type cloud chambers will be discussed here. A simple cloud chamber consists of the sealed environment, a warm top plate and a cold bottom plate (See Fig. 3). It requires a source of liquid alcohol at the warm side of the chamber where the liquid evaporates, forming a vapor that cools as it falls through the gas and condenses on the cold bottom plate. Some sort of ionizing radiation is needed.


title: Cloud chamber

text: Isopropanol, methanol, or other alcohol vapor saturates the chamber. The alcohol falls as it cools down and the cold condenser provides a steep temperature gradient. The result is a supersaturated environment. As energetic charged particles pass through the gas they leave ionization trails. The alcohol vapor condenses around gaseous ion trails left behind by the ionizing particles. This occurs because alcohol and water molecules are polar, resulting in a net attractive force toward a nearby free charge (See Fig. 4). The result is a misty cloud-like formation, seen by the presence of droplets falling down to the condenser. When the tracks are emitted from a source, their point of origin can easily be determined. Fig. 5 shows an example of an alpha particle from a Pb-210 pin-type source undergoing Rutherford scattering.


title: Cloud chamber

text: Just above the cold condenser plate there is a volume of the chamber which is sensitive to ionization tracks. The ion trail left by the radioactive particles provides an optimal trigger for condensation and cloud formation. This sensitive volume is increased in height by employing a steep temperature gradient, and stable conditions. A strong electric field is often used to draw cloud tracks down to the sensitive region of the chamber and increase the sensitivity of the chamber. The electric field can also serve to prevent large amounts of background "rain" from obscuring the sensitive region of the chamber, caused by condensation forming above the sensitive volume of the chamber, thereby obscuring tracks by constant precipitation. A black background makes it easier to observe cloud tracks, and typically a tangential light source is needed to illuminate the white droplets against the black background. Often the tracks are not apparent until a shallow pool of alcohol is formed at the condenser plate.


title: Cloud chamber

text: If a magnetic field is applied across the cloud chamber, positively and negatively charged particles will curve in opposite directions, according to the Lorentz force law; strong-enough fields are difficult to achieve, however, with small hobbyist setups.


title: Cloud chamber

text: The bubble chamber was invented by Donald A. Glaser of the United States in 1952, and for this, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1960. The bubble chamber similarly reveals the tracks of subatomic particles, but as trails of bubbles in a superheated liquid, usually liquid hydrogen. Bubble chambers can be made physically larger than cloud chambers, and since they are filled with much-denser liquid material, they reveal the tracks of much more energetic particles. These factors rapidly made the bubble chamber the predominant particle detector for a number of decades, so that cloud chambers were effectively superseded in fundamental research by the start of the 1960s.


title: Cloud chamber

text: A spark chamber is an electrical device that uses a grid of uninsulated electric wires in a chamber, with high voltages applied between the wires. Energetic charged particles cause ionization of the gas along the path of the particle in the same way as in the Wilson cloud chamber, but in this case the ambient electric fields are high enough to precipitate full-scale gas breakdown in the form of sparks at the position of the initial ionization. The presence and location of these sparks is then registered electrically, and the information is stored for later analysis, such as by a digital computer.


title: Cloud chamber

text: Similar condensation effects can be observed as Wilson clouds, also called condensation clouds, at large explosions in humid air and other Prandtl–Glauert singularity effects.


title: Newman's Own

text: Newman's Own is an American food company headquartered in Connecticut. Founded in 1982 by actor Paul Newman and author A. E. Hotchner, the company donates all of its after-tax profits to charity through the Newman's Own Foundation, a private nonprofit foundation which in turn supports various educational and charitable organizations.


title: Newman's Own

text: The brand started in 1982 with a homemade salad dressing that Paul Newman and A. E. Hotchner prepared themselves and gave to friends as gifts. The successful reception of the salad dressing led Newman and Hotchner to commercialize it for sale, financing it with $20,000 each as seed money. Afterward, they also produced pasta sauce, frozen pizza, lemonade, fruit cocktail juices, popcorn, salsa, grape juice, and other products. Newman's Own Lemonade was introduced in 2004 and Newman's Own premium wines in 2008. Each label features a picture of Newman, dressed in a different costume to represent the product. The company incorporated humor into its label packaging, as in the label for its first salad dressing in 1982, "Fine Foods Since February". Many of the stories on the food labels were made up.


title: Newman's Own

text: In 1993, Newman's daughter Nell Newman founded Newman's Own Organics as a division of the company, later to become a separate company in late 2001. It produces organic foods, including chocolate, cookies, pretzels and pet food. Her father posed with her for the photographs on the labels. In 2014, Nell's license with Newman's Own was not renewed, and Newman's Own Organics was transferred back to Newman's Own.


title: Newman's Own

text: Newman and Hotchner co-wrote a memoir about their company and the Hole in the Wall Gang Camps, "Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good" (), published in 2003. Newman and CEO Robert Forrester arranged for the continuation of the distribution of Newman's Own profits to charity after Newman's death through the establishment of the Newman's Own Foundation.


title: Newman's Own

text: Following Newman's death in 2008, control of the company and foundation passed to CEO Robert Forrester. Since taking over, Forrester expanded and diversified the company. Newman's daughter, Susan, has alleged that Forrester had taken her family "hostage" and pushed them off the board of the Newman's Own Foundation, the body set up to distribute company profits to charitable causes. Forrester said that the company and foundation are continuing to be operated in accordance with the late Paul Newman's expressed wishes. Forrester's salary increased from $185,000 to $295,000 from 2010 to 2013. Forrester was fired in 2019 as a result of an internal review following allegations of inappropriate behavior, and the board appointed Jennifer Smith Turner as interim president and CEO. In January 2020, Dr. Miriam Nelson took over those roles, and the board finalized the positions in January 2021.


title: Newman's Own

text: According to the Newman's Own Foundation website, over $550 million has been generated for charity since 1982. In 2016 the company donated profits of $30 million after gross sales of $600 million. The company co-sponsored the PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award, which was presented annually to a United States resident who had fought courageously, despite adversity, to safeguard the First Amendment right to freedom of expression as it applied to the written word.


title: Newman's Own

text: A sampling of grantees is available at the Newman's Own Foundation website along with a description of funding areas. One beneficiary of this charity is the SeriousFun Children's Network (previously the Association of Hole in the Wall Camps), residential summer camps for seriously ill children, which Newman co-founded in 1988. Today, there are camps, programs, and initiatives operating in 50 countries across 5 continents. Over 384,700 children have attended a SeriousFun program free of charge. While proceeds from Newman's Own financed the startup of the camp, it now receives funding from many other sources. Additionally, the Newman's Own Foundation also provided a grant to The MINDS Foundation to fund US operations of the non-profit that works in rural India. Other beneficiaries of the profits from Newman's Own have included The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund (from 1983 onwards), Shining Hope for Communities, Safe Water Network, Edible Schoolyard NYC, Fisher House Foundation, the WILD Young Women Programme (New Zealand), and Pilgrims Hospices (UK).


title: Blue Division

text: The Blue Division (, ) was a unit of volunteers from Francoist Spain within the German Army ("Wehrmacht") on the Eastern Front during World War II. It was officially designated the Spanish Volunteer Division ("División Española de Voluntarios") by the Spanish Army and 250th Infantry Division ("250. Infanterie-Division") by the Germans.


title: Blue Division

text: Spain was ruled by an authoritarian regime under Francisco Franco, who had secured power after the Nationalist victory in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), during which they received support from Nazi Germany. Franco chose to remain neutral in World War II but sympathised with the Axis powers. After lobbying by the Foreign Minister Ramón Serrano Suñer and senior figures within the Spanish Army, Franco agreed that Spanish people would be permitted to enlist privately in the German Army and agreed to provide tacit support. An infantry division was raised from Falangist and Army cadres and was sent for training in Germany. The unit fought on the Eastern Front and notably participated in the siege of Leningrad, but was withdrawn from the Front after Allied pressure in October 1943 and was returned to Spain soon afterwards. Several thousand non-returners were incorporated into the 121st Infantry Division, the short-lived Blue Legion, and eventually into the Waffen-SS.


title: Blue Division

text: Francisco Franco took power at the head of a coalition of fascist, monarchist, and conservative political factions in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) against the left-leaning Spanish government supported by communist and anarchist factions. More than 300,000 people were killed, and lasting damage was done to the country's economy.


title: Blue Division

text: Franco had been supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy during the Civil War and Franco sympathised with many aspects of Nazi ideology, especially its anti-communism.


title: Blue Division

text: Franco ensured that Spain was neutral at the start of World War II but seriously contemplated joining the conflict as a German ally in the aftermath of the Fall of France in 1940. He met Adolf Hitler on 23–24 October 1940 at Hendaye but was unable to gain promises that Spain would gain colonial territories from France in North Africa. Hitler feared delegitimizing the new Vichy regime in France. Ultimately, Spain remained neutral.


title: Blue Division

text: The German invasion of the Soviet Union led to renewed interest in participating in what Spanish officials saw as an "anti-communist crusade". Within hours of the invasion on 22 June 1941, Foreign Minister Ramón Serrano Suñer first proposed to Franco the idea of a Spanish contribution, publicly declaring the Soviet Union guilty of the Spanish Civil War. Senior officers of the Spanish Army supported the proposal. Franco soon agreed to the proposal, directing that the Spanish Army should unofficially co-ordinate the formation of the unit. Although disappointed that Spain had not declared war on the Soviet Union, the German regime accepted the Spanish offer on 24 June 1941. Franco struggled to balance the demands of Spanish Army and Falangist factions, both of which attempted to influence the new unit, himself siding with the former.


title: Blue Division

text: Recruitment began on 27 June 1941 and 18,373 men had volunteered by 2 July 1941 from within the Spanish Army and Falangist movement. Fifty per cent of officers and NCOs were professional soldiers given leave from the Spanish Army, including many veterans of the Spanish Civil War. The division was made up mainly of Falangist volunteers and almost a fifth of early volunteers were students. General Agustín Muñoz Grandes was assigned to lead the volunteers. Because the soldiers could not use official Spanish Army uniforms, they adopted a symbolic uniform comprising the red berets of the Carlists, the khaki trousers of the Spanish Legion, and the blue shirts of the Falangists—hence the nickname "Blue Division." This uniform was used only while on leave in Spain; in the field, soldiers wore the German Army field grey uniform () with a shield on the upper right sleeve bearing the word "" and the Nationalist Spanish national colours.


title: Blue Division

text: On 13 July 1941 the first train left Madrid for Grafenwöhr, Bavaria for a further five weeks of training. There they became the German Army's 250th Infantry Division and were initially divided into four infantry regiments, as in a standard Spanish division. To aid their integration into the German supply system, they soon adopted the standard German model of three regiments. One of the original regiments was dispersed amongst the others, which were then named after three of the Spanish cities that volunteers largely originated from—Madrid, Valencia and Seville. Each regiment had three battalions (of four companies each) and two weapons companies, supported by an artillery regiment of four battalions (of three batteries each). There were enough men left over to create an assault battalion, mainly submachine gun-armed. Later, due to casualties, this was disbanded. Aviator volunteers formed a Blue Squadron ("Escuadrillas Azules") which, using Messerschmitt Bf 109s and Focke-Wulf Fw 190s, claimed to have shot down 156 Soviet aircraft.


title: Blue Division

text: On 31 July, after taking the Hitler Oath, the Blue Division was formally incorporated into the German Wehrmacht as the 250th Division. It was initially assigned to Army Group Center, the force advancing towards Moscow. The division was transported by train to Suwałki, Poland (August 28), from where it had to continue by foot on a march. It was scheduled to travel through Grodno (Belarus), Lida (Belarus), Vilnius (Lithuania), Maladzyechna (Belarus), Minsk (Belarus), and Orsha (Belarus) to Smolensk, and from there to the Moscow front. While marching towards the Smolensk front on September 26, the Spanish volunteers were rerouted from Vitebsk and reassigned to Army Group North (the force closing on Leningrad), becoming part of the German 16th Army. The Blue Division was first deployed on the Volkhov River front, with its headquarters in , on the outskirts of Novgorod. It was in charge of a section of the front north and south of Novgorod, along the banks of the Volkhov River and Lake Ilmen.


title: Blue Division

text: The division's soldiers used the iconostasis of the Church of Saint Theodore Stratelates on the Brook for firewood. The iconostases of the Cathedral of St. Sophia, Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Kozhevniki, and the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the Antoniev Monastery were taken to Germany at the end of 1943. According to the museum curator in the Church of the Transfiguration on Ilyina Street, the division used the high cupola as a machine-gun nest. As a result, much of the building was seriously damaged, including many of the medieval icons by Theophanes the Greek.


title: Blue Division

text: In August 1942, the Blue Division was transferred north to the southeastern flank of the siege of Leningrad, just south of the Neva River near Pushkin, Kolpino and Krasny Bor in the Izhora River area. After the collapse of the German southern front following the Battle of Stalingrad, more German troops were deployed southwards. By this time, General Emilio Esteban Infantes had taken command. The Blue Division faced a major Soviet attempt to break the siege of Leningrad in February 1943, when the Soviet 55th Army, reinvigorated after the victory at Stalingrad, attacked the Spanish positions at the Battle of Krasny Bor, near the main Moscow-Leningrad road. Despite very heavy casualties, the Spaniards were able to hold their ground against a Soviet force seven times larger and supported by tanks. The assault was contained and the siege of Leningrad was maintained for a further year. The division remained on the Leningrad front where it continued to suffer heavy casualties due to weather and to enemy action.


title: Blue Division

text: Eventually, the Allies and conservative Spaniards (including many officials of the Catholic Church) began to press Franco for the withdrawal of troops from the quasi alliance with Germany. Franco initiated negotiations in the spring of 1943 and gave an order of withdrawal on October 10. Some Spanish volunteers refused to return. On 3 November 1943 the Spanish government ordered all troops to return to Spain. In the end, the total of "non-returners" was close to 3,000 men, mostly Falangists. Spaniards also joined other German units, mainly the Waffen-SS, and fresh volunteers slipped across the Spanish border near Lourdes in occupied France. The new pro-German Spanish units were collectively called the "Legión Azul" ("Blue Legion").


title: Blue Division

text: Spaniards initially remained part of the 121st Infantry Division, but even this meagre force was ordered to return home in March 1944, and was transported back to Spain on March 21. The rest of the volunteers were absorbed into German units. Platoons of Spaniards served in the 3rd Mountain Division and the 357th Infantry Division. One unit was sent to Latvia. Two companies joined the Brandenburger Regiment and German 121st Division in Nazi security warfare in Yugoslavia. The 101st Company ("Spanische-Freiwilligen Kompanie der SS 101", "Spanish Volunteer Company of the SS Number 101") of 140 men, made up of four rifle platoons and one staff platoon, was attached to 28th SS Volunteer Grenadier Division Wallonien.


title: Blue Division

text: The Blue Division was the only component of the German Army to be awarded a medal of their own, commissioned by Hitler in January 1944 after the Division had demonstrated its effectiveness in impeding the advance of the Red Army. Hitler referred to the division as "equal to the best German ones". During his table talks, he said: "...the Spaniards have never yielded an inch of ground. One can't imagine more fearless fellows. They scarcely take cover. They flout death. I know, in any case, that our men are always glad to have Spaniards as neighbours in their sector".


title: Blue Division

text: Through rotation, as many as 47,000 Spanish soldiers served on the Eastern Front. The casualties of the Blue Division and its successors included 4,954 men killed and 8,700 wounded. Another 372 members of the Blue Division, the Blue Legion, or volunteers of the "Spanische-Freiwilligen Kompanie der SS 101" were taken prisoner by the Red Army; 286 of these men remained in captivity until 2 April 1954, when they returned to Spain aboard the ship "Semiramis", supplied by the International Red Cross. In action against the Blue Division, the Red Army suffered 49,300 casualties.


title: Blue Division

text: While most prisoners from other nations would be repatriated after the war, Francoist Spain and the Soviet Union did not have diplomatic relations. Soviet camps held together staunch anti-Communist prisoners, those who collaborated with the Soviets either by their previous hidden ideology or after captivity and even those Republican sailors whose Spanish ships had been requisitioned after the fall of the Republic. In 1954, after the death of Stalin, the French Red Cross arranged the ship to bring those prisoners who desired repatriation to Barcelona.


title: Blue Division

text: Like Spain, Portugal under the Salazar regime remained neutral during World War II in agreement with the United Kingdom in accordance to the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1373 and more openly sympathized with the Western Allies. There was, however, some popular anti-communist sentiment, and 150 Portuguese volunteers served unofficially in the Blue Division. However, most had roots in Spain or had already fought on the Francoist side in the Viriatos division during the Spanish Civil War. The Portuguese served in Spanish units and had no separate national presence.


title: History of Iraq

text: Iraq is a country in Western Asia that largely corresponds with the territory of ancient Mesopotamia. The history of Mesopotamia extends from the Lower Paleolithic period until the establishment of the Caliphate in the late 7th century AD, after which the region came to be known as Iraq. Encompassed within Iraqi territory is the ancient land of Sumer, which came into being between 6,000 and 5,000 BC during the Neolithic Ubaid period of Mesopotamian history, and is widely considered the oldest civilization in recorded history. It is also the historic center of the Akkadian, Neo-Sumerian, Babylonian, Neo-Assyrian, and Neo-Babylonian empires, a succession of local ruling dynasties that reigned over Mesopotamia and various other regions of the Ancient Near East during the Bronze and Iron Ages.


title: History of Iraq

text: Iraq during antiquity witnessed some of the world's earliest writing, literature, sciences, mathematics, laws and philosophies; hence its common epithet, the Cradle of Civilization.


title: History of Iraq

text: This era of self-rule lasted until 539 BC, when the Neo-Babylonian Empire was conquered by the neighbouring Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great, who proclaimed himself "King of Babylon". The ancient city of the same name, which had been the titular center of both Babylonian civilizations, became the most important of the four Achaemenid capitals.