title: Marble Arch

text: "Still Water", a large bronze sculpture of a horse's head by Nic Fiddian-Green, was unveiled on the same traffic island a short distance from the arch in 2011.


title: Marble Arch

text: Having a tube station means that the arch gives rise to a colloquial, entirely modern London "area", with no parishes or established institutions bearing its name. This generally equates to parts in view of the arch of Mayfair, Marylebone and often all of St George's Fields, Marylebone (west of Edgware Road) all in the City of Westminster, London, W1H.


title: Marble Arch

text: The area around the arch forms a major road junction connecting Oxford Street to the east, Park Lane (A4202) to the south, Bayswater Road (A402) to the west, and Edgware Road (A5) to the north-west. The short road directly to the north of the arch is also known as Marble Arch.


title: Marble Arch

text: The former cinema Odeon Marble Arch was located directly adjacent to the junction. Before 1997 this had the largest cinema screen in London. The screen was originally over wide. The Odeon showcased 70 mm films in a large circle-and-stalls auditorium. It closed in 2016 and was demolished later that same year.


title: Marble Arch

text: The arch also stands close to the former site of the Tyburn gallows (sometimes called "Tyburn Tree"), a place of public execution from 1388 until 1793.


title: Empathogen–entactogen

text: Empathogens or entactogens are a class of psychoactive drugs that produce experiences of emotional communion, oneness, relatedness, emotional openness—that is, empathy or sympathy—as particularly observed and reported for experiences with 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). This class of drug is distinguished from the classes of hallucinogen or psychedelic, and amphetamine or stimulants. Major members of this class include MDMA, MDA, MDEA, MDOH, MBDB, 5-APB, 5-MAPB, 6-APB, 6-MAPB, methylone, mephedrone, GHB, αMT, and αET, MDAI among others. Most entactogens are phenethylamines and amphetamines, although several, such as αMT and αET, are tryptamines. When referring to MDMA and its counterparts, the term "MDxx" is often used (with the exception of MDPV). Entactogens are sometimes incorrectly referred to as hallucinogens or stimulants, although many entactogens such as ecstasy exhibit psychedelic or stimulant properties as well.


title: Empathogen–entactogen

text: The term "empathogen", meaning "generating a state of empathy", was coined in 1983–84 by Ralph Metzner as a term to denote a therapeutic class of drugs that includes MDMA and phenethylamine relatives. David E. Nichols later rejected this initial terminology and adopted, instead, the term "entactogen", meaning "producing a touching within", to denote this class of drugs, asserting a concern with the potential for improper association of the term "empathogen" with negative connotations related to the Greek root πάθος "páthos" ("suffering; passion"). Additionally, Nichols wanted to avoid any association with the term pathogenesis.


title: Empathogen–entactogen

text: Nichols also thought the original term was limiting, and did not cover other therapeutic uses for the drugs that go beyond instilling feelings of empathy. The hybrid word "entactogen" is derived from the roots "en" (), "tactus" () and "-gen" (). Entactogen is becoming dominant in usage, and, despite their difference in connotation, they are essentially interchangeable, as they refer to precisely the same chemicals.


title: Empathogen–entactogen

text: Both terms adopted and used in naming the class of therapeutic drugs for MDMA and related compounds were chosen with the intention of providing some reflection of the reported psychological effects associated with drugs in the classification and distinguishing these compounds from classical psychedelic drugs such as LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin and major stimulants, such as methamphetamine and amphetamine. Chemically, MDMA is classified as a substituted amphetamine (which includes stimulants like dextroamphetamine and psychedelics like 2,5-dimethoxy-4-methylamphetamine), which makes MDMA a substituted phenethylamine (which includes other stimulants like methylphenidate and other psychedelics like mescaline) by the definition of amphetamine. While chemically related both to psychedelics and stimulants, the psychological effects experienced with MDMA were reported to provide obvious and striking aspects of personal relatedness, feelings of connectedness, communion with others, and ability to feel what others feel—in short an empathic resonance is consistently evoked. While psychedelics like LSD may sometimes yield effects of empathic resonance, these effects tend to be momentary and likely passed over on the way to some other dimension or interest. In contrast, the main characteristic that distinguishes MDMA from LSD-type experiences is the consistency of the effects of emotional communion, relatedness, emotional openness—in short, empathy and sympathy.


title: Empathogen–entactogen

text: The chemicals below have a varying degree of entactogenic effects; some of them induce additional effects, including serenic effects, stimulant effects, antidepressant effects, anxiolytic effects, and psychedelic effects.


title: Empathogen–entactogen

text: Psychiatrists began using entactogens as psychotherapy tools in the 1970s despite the lack of clinical trials. In recent years, the scientific community has been revisiting the possible therapeutic uses of entactogens. Therapeutic models using MDMA have been studied because of its entactogenic properties. This type of therapy would be applicable for treating a patient who was experiencing psychological trauma such as PTSD. Traumatic memories can be linked to fear in the patients which makes engaging with these memories difficult. Administration of an entactogen such as MDMA allows the patient to disconnect from the fear associated with the traumatic memories and engage in therapy. MDMA acts by targeting the body's stress response in order to cause this therapeutic effect. In addition to reducing anxiety and a conditioned fear response, MDMA also reduces the avoidance of feelings. Patients are then able to trust themselves and their therapist and engage with traumatic memories under the influence of MDMA.


title: Empathogen–entactogen

text: Although the therapeutic effects of entactogens may be promising, drugs such as MDMA have the potential for negative effects that are counter productive in a therapy setting. For example, MDMA may make negative cognition worse. This means that a positive experience is not a guarantee and can be contingent on aspects like the setting and the patient's expectations. Additionally there is no clear model of the psychopharmacological means for a positive or negative experience. There is also a potential concern for the neurotoxic effects of MDMA on the fiber density of serotonin neurons in the neocortex. High doses of MDMA may cause potential depletion of serotonergic axons. The same effects may not be caused by lower doses of MDMA required for treatment, however.


title: Dexter Gordon

text: Dexter Gordon (February 27, 1923 – April 25, 1990) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and actor. He was among the most influential early bebop musicians, which included other greats such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell. Gordon's height was , so he was also known as "Long Tall Dexter" and "Sophisticated Giant". His studio and performance career spanned more than 40 years.


title: Dexter Gordon

text: Gordon's sound was commonly characterized as being "large" and spacious and he had a tendency to play behind the beat. He was known for inserting musical quotes into his solos, with sources as diverse as "Happy Birthday" and well known melodies from the operas of Wagner. This is not unusual in jazz improvization, but Gordon did it frequently enough to make it a hallmark of his style. One of his major influences was Lester Young. Gordon, in turn, was an early influence on John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. Rollins and Coltrane then influenced Gordon's playing as he explored hard bop and modal playing during the 1960s.


title: Dexter Gordon

text: Gordon was known for his genial and humorous stage presence. He was an advocate of playing to communicate with the audience, which was his musical approach as well. His improvization was remarkably engaging and intelligent, but never gratuitously complex or unusual. It was always a conversation simultaneously delightful and intellectual. One of his idiosyncratic rituals was to recite lyrics from each ballad before playing it.


title: Dexter Gordon

text: A photograph by Herman Leonard of Gordon taking a smoke break at the Royal Roost in 1948 is one of the iconic images in jazz photography. Cigarettes were a recurring theme on covers of Gordon's albums.


title: Dexter Gordon

text: Gordon was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance in the Bertrand Tavernier film "Round Midnight" (Warner Bros, 1986), and he won a Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist, for the soundtrack album "The Other Side of Round Midnight" (Blue Note Records, 1986). He also had a cameo role in the 1990 film "Awakenings". In 2018, Gordon's album "Go" (Blue Note, 1962) was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


title: Dexter Gordon

text: Dexter Keith Gordon was born on February 27, 1923, in Los Angeles, California. His father, Dr. Frank Gordon, one of the first African American doctors in Los Angeles, arrived in 1918 after graduating from Howard University Medical School in Washington, D.C. Among his patients were Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton. Dexter's mother, Gwendolyn Baker, was the daughter of Captain Edward Lee Baker, Jr. one of the five African American Medal of Honor recipients in the Spanish–American War.


title: Dexter Gordon

text: Gordon began his study of music with the clarinet at age 13, then switched to the alto saxophone at 15, and finally to the tenor saxophone at 17. He studied with multi-instrumentalist Lloyd Reese while attending Thomas Jefferson High School, and studied with the school’s band director, Sam Browne. While still at school, he played in bands with such contemporaries as Chico Hamilton and Buddy Collette.


title: Dexter Gordon

text: Between December 1940 and 1943, Gordon was a member of Lionel Hampton's band, playing in a saxophone section alongside Illinois Jacquet and Marshal Royal. During 1944 he was featured in the Fletcher Henderson band, followed by the Louis Armstrong band, before joining Billy Eckstine. The 1942–44 musicians' strike curtailed the recording of the Hampton, Henderson, and Armstrong bands; however, they were recorded on V-Discs produced by the Army for broadcast and distribution among overseas troops. In 1943 he was featured, alongside Harry "Sweets" Edison, in recordings under Nat Cole for a small label not affected by the strike.


title: Dexter Gordon

text: By late 1944, Gordon was resident in New York, a regular at bebop jam sessions, and a featured soloist in the Billy Eckstine big band ("If That's The Way You Feel", "I Want To Talk About You", "Blowin' the Blues Away", "Opus X", "I'll Wait And Pray", "The Real Thing Happened To Me", "Lonesome Lover Blues", "I Love the Rhythm in a Riff"). During early 1945 he was featured on recordings by Dizzy Gillespie ("Blue 'n' Boogie", Groovin' High) and Sir Charles Thompson ("Takin' Off, If I Had You, 20th Century Blues, The Street Beat"). In late 1945 he was recording under his own name for the Savoy label. His Savoy recordings during 1945-46 included "Blow Mr. Dexter", "Dexter's Deck", "Dexter's Minor Mad", "Long Tall Dexter", "Dexter Rides Again", "I Can't Escape From You,"and "Dexter Digs In". He returned to Los Angeles in late 1946 and in 1947 was leading sessions for Ross Russell's Dial label ("Mischievous Lady, Lullaby in Rhythm, The Chase, Iridescence, It's the Talk of the Town, Bikini, A Ghost of a Chance, Sweet and Lovely"). After his return to Los Angeles, he became known for his saxophone duels with fellow tenorman Wardell Gray, which were a popular concert attraction documented in recordings made between 1947 and 1952 ("The Hunt, Move, The Chase, The Steeplechase"). "The Hunt" gained literary fame from its mention in Jack Kerouac's "On The Road", which also contains descriptions of wild tenormen jamming in Los Angeles. "Cherokee, Byas a Drink, "and" Disorder at the Border" are other live recordings of the Gray/Gordon duo from the same concert (all issued on the album "The Hunt" in 1977). In December 1947, Gordon recorded again with the Savoy label ("Settin' the Pace, So Easy, Dexter's Riff, Dextrose, Dexter's Mood, Index, Dextivity, Wee Dot, Lion Roars"). Through the mid-to-late 1940s he continued to work as a sideman on sessions led by Russell Jacquet, Benny Carter, Ben Webster, Ralph Burns, Jimmy Rushing, Helen Humes, Gerry Mulligan, Wynonie Harris, Leo Parker, and Tadd Dameron.


title: Dexter Gordon

text: During the 1950s, Gordon's recorded output and live appearances declined as heroin addiction and legal troubles took their toll. Gordon made a concert appearance with Wardell Gray in February 1952 ("The Chase, The Steeplechase, Take the A Train, Robbins Nest, Stardust") and appeared as a sideman in a session led by Gray in June 1952 ("The Rubiyat, Jungle Jungle Jump, Citizen's Bop, My Kinda Love"). After an incarceration at Chino Prison from 1953 to 1955, he recorded the albums "Daddy Plays the Horn" and "Dexter Blows Hot and Cool" in 1955 and played as a sideman on the Stan Levey album, "This Time the Drum's on Me". The latter part of the decade saw him in and out of prison until his final release from Folsom Prison in 1959. He was one of the initial sax players for the Onzy Matthews big band in 1959, along with Curtis Amy. Gordon continued to champion Matthews' band after he left Los Angeles for New York, but left for Europe before getting a chance to record with that band. He recorded "The Resurgence of Dexter Gordon" in 1960. His recordings from the mid-1950s onward document a meander into a smooth West Coast style that lacked the impact of his bebop era recordings or his subsequent Blue Note recordings.


title: Dexter Gordon

text: The decade saw Gordon's first entry into the world of drama. He appeared as a member (uncredited) of Art Hazzard's band in the film "Young Man with a Horn" (1950). He appeared in an uncredited and overdubbed role as a member of a prison band in the movie "Unchained", filmed inside Chino. Gordon was a saxophonist performing Freddie Redd's music for the Los Angeles production of Jack Gelber's play "The Connection" in 1960, replacing Jackie McLean. He contributed two compositions, "Ernie's Tune" and "I Want More" to the score and later recorded them for his album "Dexter Calling...".


title: Dexter Gordon

text: Gordon signed to Blue Note in 1961. He initially commuted from Los Angeles to New York to record, but took up residence when he regained the cabaret card that allowed him to perform where alcohol was served. The Jazz Gallery hosted his first New York performance in twelve years. The Blue Note association was to produce a steady flow of albums for several years, some of which gained iconic status. His New York renaissance was marked by "Doin' Allright", "Dexter Calling...", "Go!", and "A Swingin' Affair". The first two were recorded over three days in May 1961 with Freddie Hubbard, Horace Parlan, Kenny Drew, Paul Chambers, George Tucker, Al Harewood, and Philly Joe Jones. The last two were recorded in August 1962, with a rhythm section that featured Blue Note regulars Sonny Clark, Butch Warren and Billy Higgins. Of the two "Go!" was an expressed favorite. The albums showed his assimilation of the hard bop and modal styles that had developed during his years on the west coast, and the influence of John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins, whom he had influenced before. The stay in New York turned out to be short lived, as Gordon got offers for engagements in England, then Europe, that resulted in a fourteen-year stay. Soon after recording "A Swingin' Affair", he left the United States.


title: Dexter Gordon

text: Over the next 14 years in Europe, living mainly in Paris and Copenhagen, Gordon played regularly with fellow expatriates or visiting players, such as Bud Powell, Ben Webster, Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Hutcherson, Kenny Drew, Horace Parlan and Billy Higgins. Blue Note's Francis Wolff supervised Gordon's later sessions for the label on his visits to Europe. The pairing of Gordon with Drew turned out to be one of the classic matchups between a horn player and a pianist, much like Miles Davis with Red Garland or John Coltrane with McCoy Tyner.


title: Dexter Gordon

text: From this period come "Our Man in Paris", "One Flight Up", "Gettin' Around", and "Clubhouse". "Our Man in Paris" was a Blue Note session recorded in Paris in 1963 with backup consisting of pianist Powell, drummer Kenny Clarke, and French bassist Pierre Michelot. "One Flight Up", recorded in Paris in 1964 with trumpeter Donald Byrd, pianist Kenny Drew, drummer Art Taylor, and Danish bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, features an extended solo by Gordon on the track "Tanya".


title: Dexter Gordon

text: Gordon also visited the US occasionally for further recording dates. "Gettin' Around" was recorded for Blue Note during a visit in May 1965, as was the album "Clubhouse" which remained unreleased until 1979.


title: Dexter Gordon

text: Gordon found Europe in the 1960s a much easier place to live, saying that he experienced less racism and greater respect for jazz musicians. He also stated that on his visits to the US in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he found the political and social strife disturbing. While in Copenhagen, Gordon and Drew's trio appeared onscreen in Ole Ege's theatrically released hardcore pornographic film "Pornografi – en musical" (1971), for which they composed and performed the score.


title: Dexter Gordon

text: He switched from Blue Note to Prestige Records (1965–73). For the label, he recorded bop albums like "The Tower of Power!" and "More Power!" (1969) with James Moody, Barry Harris, Buster Williams, and Albert "Tootie" Heath; "The Panther!" (1970) with Tommy Flanagan, Larry Ridley, and Alan Dawson; "The Jumpin' Blues" (1970) with Wynton Kelly, Sam Jones, and Roy Brooks; "The Chase!" (1970) with Gene Ammons, Jodie Christian, John Young, Cleveland Eaton, Rufus Reid, Wilbur Campbell, Steve McCall, and Vi Redd; and "Tangerine" (1972) with Thad Jones, Freddie Hubbard, and Hank Jones. Some of the Prestige albums were recorded during visits back to North America while he was still living in Europe; others were made in Europe, including live sets from the Montreux Jazz Festival.


title: Dexter Gordon

text: In addition to the recordings Gordon did under his American label contracts, live recordings by European labels and live video from his European period have been released. In 1975 Dexter Gordon signed an exclusive recording contract with Danish label SteepleChase and recorded some of his most iNspired sessions like The Apartment (1974), More Than You Know (1975), Stabloe mates, Swiss Nights vol. 1, 2 and 3, Something Different, lullaby For A Monster, and not least Biting The Apple, recorded during his homecoming trip to New York, featuring Barry Harris, Sam Jones and Al Foster. The album received the Graqnd Pris De Jazz in Montreux Switzerland 1977. SteepleChase released live dates from his mid-1960s tenure at the Jazzhus Montmartre in Copenhagen. The video was released under the "Jazz Icons" series. The albums he recorded during the 1970s for SteepleChase include


title: Dexter Gordon

text: Gordon finally returned to the United States for good in 1976. He recorded "Biting The Apple" for SteepleChase during his homecoming, an album featuring pianist Barry Harris, bassist Sam Jones, and drummer Al Foster. In 1977 the album received the Grand Prix de Disques at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. He appeared with Woody Shaw, Ronnie Mathews, Stafford James, and Louis Hayes, for a gig at the Village Vanguard in New York that was dubbed his "homecoming." It was recorded and released by Columbia Records under that title. He observed: "There was "so" much love and elation; sometimes it was a little "eerie" at the Vanguard. After the last set they'd turn on the lights and "nobody" would move." In addition to the "Homecoming" album, a series of live albums was released by Blue Note from his stands at Keystone Korner in San Francisco during 1978 and 1979. They featured Gordon, George Cables, Rufus Reid, and Eddie Gladden. He recorded the studio albums "Sophisticated Giant" with an eleven piece big band in 1977 and "Manhattan Symphonie" with the "Live at Keystone Corner" crew in 1978. The sensation of Gordon's return, and the continued efforts of Art Blakey through 1970s and early 1980s, have been credited with reviving interest in swinging, melodic, acoustically-based classic jazz sounds after the Fusion jazz era that saw an emphasis on electronic sounds and contemporary pop influences.


title: Dexter Gordon

text: In 1978 and 1980, Gordon was the "DownBeat" Musician of the Year and in 1980 he was inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame. The US Government honored him with a Congressional Commendation, a Dexter Gordon Day in Washington DC, and a National Endowment for the Arts award for Lifetime Achievement. In 1986, he was named a member and officer of the French Order of Arts and Letters by the Ministry of Culture in France.


title: Dexter Gordon

text: During the 1980s, Gordon, a life-long smoker, was weakened by emphysema. He remained a popular attraction at concerts and festivals, although his live appearances and recording dates would soon become infrequent.


title: Dexter Gordon

text: Gordon's most memorable works from the decade were not in music but in film. He starred in the 1986 movie "Round Midnight" as "Dale Turner", an expatriate jazz musician in Paris during the late 1950s based loosely on Lester Young and Bud Powell. That portrayal earned him a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actor. In addition, he had a non-speaking role as a piano-playing hospital inmate in the 1990 film "Awakenings", which was posthumously released. Before that last film was released he made a guest appearance on the Michael Mann series "Crime Story".


title: Dexter Gordon

text: Soundtrack performances from Round Midnight were released as the albums "Round Midnight" and "The Other Side of Round Midnight", featuring original music by Herbie Hancock as well as playing by Gordon. The latter was the last recording released under Gordon's name. He was a sideman on Tony Bennett's 1987 album, "Berlin".


title: Dexter Gordon

text: Gordon died of kidney failure and smoking related cancer of the larynx in Philadelphia, on April 25, 1990, at the age of 67.


title: Dexter Gordon

text: Gordon's maternal grandfather was Captain Edward L. Baker, who received the Medal of Honor during the Spanish–American War, while serving with the 10th Cavalry Regiment (also known as the Buffalo Soldiers).


title: Dexter Gordon

text: Gordon's father, Dr. Frank Gordon, M.D., was one of the first prominent African-American physicians and a graduate of Howard University.


title: Dexter Gordon

text: Dexter Gordon had a total of six children, from the oldest to the youngest: Robin Gordon (Los Angeles), California, Deidre (Dee Dee) Gordon (Los Angeles), Mikael Gordon-Solfors (Stockholm), Morten Gordon (Copenhagen) and Benjamin Dexter Gordon (Copenhagen), and seven grandchildren, Raina Moore Trider (Brooklyn), Jared Johnson (Los Angeles), and Matthew Johnson (Los Angeles), Maya Canales (San Francisco) and Jared Canales (San Francisco), Dexter Gordon Bogs (Copenhagen), Dexter Minou Flipper Gordon-Marberger (Stockholm).


title: Dexter Gordon

text: When he lived in Denmark, Gordon became friends with the family of the future Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, and subsequently became Lars's godfather.


title: Dexter Gordon

text: The earliest photographs of Gordon as a player show him with a Conn 30M "Connqueror" and an Otto Link mouthpiece. In a 1962 interview with the British journalist Les Tomkins, he did not refer to the specific model of mouthpiece but stated that it was made for him personally. He stated that it was stolen around 1952. In the Tomkins interview he referred to his mouthpiece as a small-chambered piece with a 5* (.085" under the Otto Link system) tip opening. He bought a Selmer Mark VI from Ben Webster after he lost his 10M during the trip to Paris. In a "DownBeat" magazine interview from 1977, he referred to his current mouthpiece as an Otto Link model with a #8 (.110" under the Otto Link system) tip opening.


title: Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands

text: The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) was a United Nations trust territory in Micronesia administered by the United States from 1947 to 1994.


title: Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands

text: Spain initially claimed the islands that later composed the territory of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI). Subsequently, Germany established competing claims over the islands. The competing claims were eventually resolved in favor of Germany when Spain, following its loss of several possessions to the United States during the Spanish–American War, ceded its claims over the islands to Germany pursuant to the German–Spanish Treaty (1899). Germany, in turn, continued to retain possession until the islands were captured by Japan during World War I. The League of Nations formally placed the islands in the former South Seas Mandate, a mandate that authorized Japanese administration of the islands. The islands then remained under Japanese control until captured by the United States in 1944 during World War II.


title: Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands

text: The TTPI entered UN trusteeship pursuant to Security Council Resolution 21 on July 18, 1947, and was designated a "strategic area" in its 1947 trusteeship agreement. Article 83 of the UN Charter provided that, as such, its formal status as a UN trust territory could be terminated only by the Security Council, and not by the General Assembly as with other trust territories. The United States Navy controlled the TTPI from a headquarters in Guam until 1951, when the United States Department of the Interior took over control, administering the territory from a base in Saipan.


title: Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands

text: The Territory contained 100,000 people scattered over a water area the size of continental United States. It was subdivided into six districts, and represented a variety of cultures, with nine spoken languages. The Pohnpeians and Kosraeans, Marshallese and Palauans, Chuukese, Yapese and Chamorros had little in common, except they were in the same general area of the Pacific Ocean.


title: Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands

text: The large distances between people, lack of an economy, language and cultural barriers, all worked against the union. The six district centers became upscale slums, containing deteriorated Japanese-built roads, with electricity, modern music and distractions, which led to alienated youth and elders. The remainder of the islands maintained their traditional way of life and infrastructure.


title: Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands

text: In the late 1960s, the U.S. opposed the idea of eventual independence. Instead, they aimed for some form of association, perhaps with Hawaii. They estimated that perhaps 10-25% of the population were at that point in favor of independence.


title: Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands

text: A Congress of Micronesia first levied an income tax in 1971. It affected mainly foreigners working at military bases in the region.


title: Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands

text: On October 21, 1986, the U.S. ended its administration of the Marshall Islands District. The termination of U.S. administration of the Chuuk, Yap, Kosrae, Pohnpei, and the Mariana Islands districts of the TTPI soon followed on November 3, 1986. The Security Council formally ended the trusteeship for the Chuuk, Yap, Kosrae, Pohnpei, Mariana Islands, and Marshall Islands districts on December 22, 1990, pursuant to Security Council Resolution 683. On May 25, 1994, the Council ended the trusteeship for the Palau District pursuant to Security Council Resolution 956, after which the U.S. and Palau agreed to establish the latter's independence on October 1.


title: Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands

text: In 1969, the 100 occupied islands comprised over an area of of sea. The latter area was comparable in size to the continental United States. The water area is about 5% of the Pacific Ocean.


title: Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands

text: The population of the islands was 200,000 in the latter part of the 19th century. The population decreased to 100,000 by 1969 due to emigration, war, and disease. At that time, the population inhabited less than 100 out of 2,141 of the Marshall, Mariana, and Caroline Islands.


title: Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands

text: In 1947 the Mariana Islands' Teacher Training School (MITTS), a normal school serving all areas of the Trust Territory, opened in Guam. It moved to Chuuk in 1948, to be more central in the Trust Territory, and was renamed Pacific Islands' Teacher Training School (PITTS). It transitioned from being a normal school to a comprehensive secondary school, so it was renamed the Pacific Islands Central School (PICS). The school moved to Pohnpei in 1959. At the time it was a three-year institution housing students who graduated from intermediate schools. The school, later known as Pohnpei Island Central School (PICS), is now Bailey Olter High School.


title: Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands

text: Palau Intermediate School, established in 1946, became Palau High School in 1962 as it added senior high grades. From the late 1960s to the middle of the 1970s, several public high schools were built or received additions in the Trust Territory. They included Jaluit High School, Kosrae High School, Marshall Islands High School in Majuro, Palau High, PICS, and Truk High School (now Chuuk High School). The Micronesian Occupational College in Koror, Palau was also built. It later merged with the Kolonia-based Community College of Micronesia, which began operations in 1969, into the College of Micronesia-FSM in 1976.


title: Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands

text: Following the termination of the trusteeship, the territory of the former TTPI became four separate jurisdictions:


title: Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands

text: The following sovereign states have become freely associated with the United States under the Compact of Free Association (COFA).


The 2018 United States Senate election in West Virginia took place on November 6, 2018, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of West Virginia, concurrently with other elections to the United States Senate, elections to the United States House of Representatives, and various state and local elections.


title: 2018 United States Senate election in West Virginia

text: On May 8, 2018, the Republican primary voters of the state nominated West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey as the Republican candidate. In the general election, incumbent Democratic Senator Joe Manchin defeated Morrisey and was elected to a second full term, albeit by a margin much narrower than that of his victory in the 2012 election. As of 2022, this is the most recent time a Democrat has been elected statewide.


text: West Virginia was once a Democratic stronghold at the state and federal level, but has been rapidly shifting towards the Republican Party since 2000. In 2008, John McCain defeated Barack Obama by a margin of 55–42%.


text: In the 2012 presidential election, Mitt Romney defeated Obama 62–35% and swept every single county in the state. Despite this, Manchin was reelected in his own landslide over perennial candidate John Raese, receiving more than 60% of the vote and carrying all but three counties.


text: In 2016, Donald Trump won the state by a greater than 40-point margin over Hillary Clinton (68–26%), with Clinton's performance being the worst for either party in the state's history. Trump also won every county in the state.


text: Concurrent with Trump's landslide victory in the West Virginia, Democratic businessman Jim Justice won the gubernatorial election with 49% of the vote but changed his party affiliation back to Republican within a year (Justice had previously been a Republican prior to running as a Democrat for governor). Democrats lost almost every statewide office in the state in 2016, with State Treasurer John Perdue being the only statewide Democrat reelected. Perdue lost reelection in 2020, making Manchin the only Democratic statewide officeholder in the state.


text: Because of the heavy Republican lean of his state, Manchin was ranked by many outlets as one of the most vulnerable incumbents up for reelection. President Trump headlined three rallies in the state on behalf of Manchin's opponent, Patrick Morrisey. Manchin's vote to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh in his highly contentious confirmation hearing, making him the only Democrat to do so, garnered national attention and backlash from members of his own party just weeks before the midterm elections.


title: Singh Is Kinng

text: Singh Is Kinng is a 2008 Indian Hindi-language action comedy film directed by Anees Bazmee from a screenplay by Bazmee and Suresh Nair. The film stars Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Om Puri, Ranvir Shorey, Neha Dhupia, Javed Jaffrey, Sonu Sood, and Sudhanshu Pandey. In the film, Happy Singh (Kumar) is sent to Australia to reunite Lakhan Singh (Sood), a crime boss, with his ill father but finds himself facing love and trouble instead. The film also featured a song and a music video with American rapper Snoop Dogg. A major part of the film was shot in Australia. The film marked the fourth collaboration of Kumar and Kaif after "Humko Deewana Kar Gaye" (2006), "Namastey London" (2007) and "Welcome" (2007). The spelling of the word "king" in the film's title with an additional letter "n" was based on advice provided by a numerologist.


title: Singh Is Kinng

text: "Singh Is Kinng" released on 8 August 2008, and received mixed to positive reviews from critics upon release and proved to be a big commercial success, earning ₹136 crore worldwide, thus becoming the third-highest grossing Hindi film of 2008.


title: Singh Is Kinng

text: At the 3rd Asian Film Awards, "Singh Is Kinng" received 1 nomination – Best Actor (Kumar). Moreover, at the 54th Filmfare Awards, the film won Best Female Playback Singer (Shreya Ghoshal for "Teri Ore"), in addition to a nomination for Best Actor (Kumar).


title: Singh Is Kinng

text: Although often misinterpreted as a prequel, it is unrelated to the 2015 film "Singh Is Bliing" also starring Kumar in the lead role, hence qualifying the latter as a quasi-sequel.


title: Singh Is Kinng

text: Lakhan “Lucky” Singh (Sonu Sood), is the king of the Australian underworld. He is accompanied by his Sikh mafia associates, Julie (Neha Dhupia), Mika (Jaaved Jaffrey), Pankaj Udaas (Yashpal Sharma), Raftaar (Sudhanshu Pandey), Dilbagh Singh (Manoj Pahwa) and Guruji Gurbaksh Singh (Kamal Chopra). In a small village in Punjab, the birthplace of Lucky, there lives another Sikh, Happy Singh (Akshay Kumar). Happy, though good at heart, has unintentionally caused many problems in the village, and the villagers are fed up with him. They decide to send Happy on a long trip to Australia with his friend Rangeela (Om Puri) to bring Lucky back to Punjab, which will keep Happy out of the village for some time and bring peace to the village.


title: Singh Is Kinng

text: But at the airport, Happy's and Rangeela's tickets to Australia are accidentally exchanged with those of Puneet (Ranvir Shorey), who was to fly to Egypt. In Egypt, Happy meets Sonia (Katrina Kaif) and falls deeply in love with her. But he does not express his love to her. Leaving her behind, he heads to Australia to meet Lucky. Lucky refuses to return to his hometown and throws Happy and Rangeela out of his house. Penniless, Happy finds warmth and affection in an elderly lady (Kirron Kher) who provides him with food in spite of being a stranger.


title: Singh Is Kinng

text: Lucky winds up in a hospital, paralyzed, after a series of violent incidents that Happy has caused. (In one of these incidents, his head is bumped severely, and the trauma from the resultant concussion is what paralyzes him.) Unexpectedly, it is Happy who is given the position of the "Kinng." The lady who helped Happy is obviously worried and depressed, as her daughter is returning from Egypt with her wealthy boyfriend, Puneet. The daughter does not know that after the death of her father years ago, her mother had become poverty-stricken and been reduced to work as a flower seller. Happy gives her Lucky's spacious house and makes all his mafia associates work for her.


title: Singh Is Kinng

text: The lady's daughter arrives; to Happy's horror, she is none other than Sonia. Heartbroken, Happy is forced to make a show of happiness to Sonia. Puneet says that he too would have had a good time with Happy and Sonia in Egypt had his ticket to Egypt not been exchanged in the airport, because of which he had ended up in Australia. Puneet had always been jealous of Sonia being with Happy; however, he doubts something is going on between them.


title: Singh Is Kinng

text: Meanwhile, Lucky's gang members spend enough time with the kindhearted Kinng for most of them to be reformed and give up lawless lives in favour of law-abiding ones.


title: Singh Is Kinng

text: In spite of herself, Sonia falls in love with Happy and the truth becomes difficult to hide. Puneet sets his heart to marry Sonia. Sonia gets trapped in an emotional tug-of-war between Puneet, who loves her, and Happy, whom she loves.


title: Singh Is Kinng

text: In the confusion, Happy's associates reveal to Puneet who they are, and that Happy is the Kinng of the Australian underworld, not a manager as Puneet had believed him to Puneet, in turn, reveals this to Sonia, who has become aware of her own poverty.


title: Singh Is Kinng

text: Soon Puneet meets Mika, Lucky's other brother, who agrees to kill Happy. Puneet's motives to kill Happy, however, differ from Mika's: Puneet wants to kill Happy to keep Sonia away from him, whereas Mika wants to kill Happy to make himself Kinng.


title: Singh Is Kinng

text: On the day of Puneet and Sonia's marriage, they are sitting in Mandap and they are set all to marry but gunshots firing are heard and all the gangster also come in Mandap. Puneet leaves Mandap in order to save himself from gunshot. Happy takes Puneet's place in order to save Sonia unaware that he is marrying Sonia, both run around the fire seven times, essentially getting married. After Happy and Sonia married then punnet seeks forgiveness from them and then Puneet's father take him. During all this, Mika attempts to kill Lucky, whose head is bumped, and the trauma-induced paralysis he had suffered from is relieved. However, he is heartbroken on realizing that Mika tried to kill him. Suddenly, Mika turns up on the spot, ready to kill Happy, armed with a gang and his new special glasses and hearing aid. As he is about to shoot, Lucky steps up and stops him. Then a dialogue ensues between Mika, Happy, Lucky, and the associates of the Kinng. Then Happy tells him that being the "kinng" is not as great as it may seem and explains to him the characteristics of a true Sikh. Lucky confesses that he had always found being Kinng a source of misery, because a true kinng fights for others, not for himself. Overcome with remorse, Mika drops his gun. The movie ends with Happy's and Sonia's marriage and the returns of Lucky and his gang members to their homes in the village.


title: Singh Is Kinng

text: The music of the film was composed by Pritam and the lyrics were written by Mayur Puri. The title song was composed by the British band RDB. The soundtrack was launched officially at the IIFA Awards in Bangkok on 8 June 2008.


title: Singh Is Kinng

text: Shreya Ghoshal, who sang the song "Teri Ore," won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer and the IIFA Award for Best Female Playback Singer. Mayur Puri was nominated for the Star Screen Awards, in the "Best Lyrics" category, for the same song. According to the Indian trade website Box Office India, with around units sold, this film's soundtrack album was the year's third highest-selling.


title: Singh Is Kinng

text: Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, and stated ""Singh Is Kinng" lives up to the hype and hoopla. At the box-office, the film will fetch a hurricane-like start and will be record-shattering. Notwithstanding the new oppositions in the weeks to come, it will rule the hearts of the "aam junta". Blockbuster Hit!" Times of India gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, and stated "The film has an entertaining first half. The second half does get cluttered, clumsy and loose with loads of wasted talent in the likes of Ranvir Shorey, Javed Jaffrey and a side-lined Om Puri." Shruti Basin of Planet Bollywood gave the film 3.5 stars out of 5, and stated ""Singh is Kinng" is a great watch. Enjoy the happy atmosphere while cheering on the new King of Bollywood, Akshay Kumar." Gaurav Malani of Economic Times stated, "This king doesn't quite rule your heart unconditionally." Rajeev Masand gave the film 2 out of 5 stars, and stated ""Singh is Kinng" celebrates the spirit of being a Sikh, and yet it completely disregards the most basic detail of Sikh identity – how can your Sikh characters sport turbans but not full beards?" Aseem Chhabra of Rediff.com gave the film 2.5 stars out of 5, and stated "Akshay is the "Kinng"". Lisa Tsering of Hollywood Reporter stated, ""Singh Is Kinng" is a rollicking late-night party you don't want to end - with a friendly, funny and generous host; gorgeous women; pumped-up bhangra music and an extravagant, booze-soaked scuffle or two." Indicine gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, and stated, ""Singh is King" is a typical Akshay Kumar mindless entertainer which has a great first half, beautifully picturised songs and a gorgeous Katrina Kaif. But what makes it more worthwhile is Akshay Kumar, who holds the movie together, well supported by Om Puri." Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express stated, "Whatever else it notches up, "'Singh Is Kinng"' will always and forever be known as the first Hindi film in Punjabi : everyone talks as if sarson da saag is coming out of their mouths."


title: Singh Is Kinng

text: Amodini of Friday Nirvana gave the film 0 out of 5 stars, and stated that it was a "dumbed-down masala". Janak of Cinema Online Malaysia gave the film 5 out of 5 stars, and stated ""Singh Is Kinng" is a fantastic five-star movie with wonderful casts and beautiful songs. You may find all the elements of Hindi cinema in this film, from action to comedy, and drama to romance. This is a movie not to be missed, especially if you are a Punjabi and a Bollywood fan. I'm still buzzing from the soundtrack!" Wietske Uneken of Cinemagazine gave the film 3 stars out of 5 and stated, "Thanks to its humorous approach, "'Singh is Kinng"' is an entertaining film." Sri of Frames N Pages stated, "The film lacks logic, but still a great entertainer." R. Paul Dhillon of Georgia Straight stated, "The filmmakers seem interested only in manipulating the audience, with absolutely no regard for plot, characters, or believability." Molodezhnaja gave the film 2.5 stars out of 5. Rachel Saltz of New York Times stated, ""“"Singh Is Kinng” isn’t a great movie. But the immensely likable Akshay Kumar shines as a Capraesque hero who spreads bedrock Indian values." Sonia Chopra of Sify gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, and stated "And there it is: yet another critic-proof film that the audience has pre-decided to like, such that you imagine them displaying the relevant finger to those who disagree."""


title: Singh Is Kinng

text: Some members of the Sikh community had expressed their dissatisfaction over the portrayal of Sikhs in the movie. On 1 August 2008, the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) wrote a letter to Sheila Dikshit, the then Chief Minister of Delhi, asking her to ban the movie, as the trailer showed Akshay Kumar's character sporting a trimmed beard. According to their religious guidelines, male Sikhs should not trim their beards, and the DSGMC found this offensive. After negotiations with the DSGMC authorities, the film was given clearance on 7 August 2008.


title: Made in Italy (2020 film)

text: Made in Italy is a 2020 comedy-drama film written and directed by James D'Arcy (in his feature directorial debut). It stars Liam Neeson, his son, Micheál Richardson, Valeria Bilello, and Lindsay Duncan, and follows an artist who must restore a villa with his estranged son after his wife dies in a car crash.


title: Made in Italy (2020 film)

text: The film was released in the United States in theatres and through video on demand platforms on 7 August 2020 by IFC Films.


title: Made in Italy (2020 film)

text: Jack Foster is getting divorced from his wife Ruth. Her family is selling the art gallery where he works as a manager, which devastates him. He decides to buy the gallery by selling the old Italian home he owns with his estranged father Robert, a famous artist. The house belonged to Jack's mother and Robert's wife, an Italian woman who died in a car accident when he was small.


title: Made in Italy (2020 film)

text: Jack takes Robert with him to Italy and tells him he needs the money to buy the gallery from Ruth's parents. When they arrive, they find it is completely rundown. Kate, an estate agent, comes to survey the home. She tells them the house is in a bad condition, but if they fix the house, it could be worth more. Jack tries to clean but then decides to sell the house as is.


title: Made in Italy (2020 film)

text: Jack meets Natalia at her restaurant. Robert looks at photos of his deceased wife and the whole house reminds him of her. He decides to help Jack restore the home. They hire locals to help renovate it. Robert and Jack befriend some of the locals including Natalia and invite them to a party at the house. She tells Jack that she has an eight-year-old daughter and is divorced. As her husband lied about her, she only gets partial custody.


title: Made in Italy (2020 film)

text: A buyer comes to look at the house but is not satisfied. Kate tells Robert that the house needs more work, so he asks Natalia to help. After Natalia and her daughter help with the renovations. Robert tells her that after his wife died, he sent Jack away to boarding school to keep him away from all the reminders of his mother. Ever since she died, he could not drive or paint.


title: Made in Italy (2020 film)

text: Kate comes over and sees the house almost fully done. A couple arrives to look at the house, and decide they want to buy it. Meanwhile, Jack tells Natalia about his impending divorce and how Ruth has taken everything from him, which she can relate to. He tells her how he could not paint like his father but thought he could make the gallery a success, but his father never supported him.


title: Made in Italy (2020 film)

text: Later, he enters his father's workspace and sees painting after painting of his mother, and of himself. When Robert finds him, Jack wants to know why he locked away all his memories and his childhood. Robert says he thought it was the fastest way to get him out of pain, and Jack screams at him that he never let him in and never talked to him. He begins wrecking the space, and Robert holds him as they collapse onto the floor. Later, they talk about her for the first time, sharing memories of her, and Robert begins crying, recounting what happened the day she died. He was so wrapped up in painting that he let a young Jack walk to school. He blames himself for her death as he kept on painting. Jack hugs and comforts him, and tells him about his divorce from Ruth.


title: Made in Italy (2020 film)

text: The next day, at the house, the couple who decide to buy the house disrespect it and in response Robert tells them that he will not sell the house to them, which angers Jack. Robert admits he cannot give the house up and Jack accuses him of never having any intention to sell, and returns to England.


title: Made in Italy (2020 film)

text: Robert comes to see Jack, telling him he sold his London home and has enough to buy Jack out of his share of the Tuscany villa. He urges him to buy the gallery back. Jack asks him why he never came, and Robert says Ruth told him Jack did not want him to, that it was too much pressure. Robert is going to live at the Italy home and host painting holidays. Jack goes to the gallery, and when Ruth says she will not accept any offer for the gallery, he instead presents her with the signed divorce papers.


title: Made in Italy (2020 film)

text: In Italy, Robert leads a painting class where Kate is a student. Jack arrives and tells Robert it was never about the money, and all he wants is his father. He then meets with Natalia, who wants to know why he did not say goodbye. He tells her that he saw her with Marzio, and she explains as he is the father of her child she has to maintain some relationship with him. They make up and decide to start over.


title: Made in Italy (2020 film)

text: In October 2018, it was announced Liam Neeson and Micheál Richardson had joined the cast of the film, with James D'Arcy directing from a screenplay he wrote. Pippa Cross, Sam Tipper-Hale, and Nicola Serra will serve as producers on the film under their CrossDay Productions and Indiana Productions banners, respectively. HanWay Films and Ingenious Media will also produce the film. In May 2019, Lindsay Duncan and Valeria Bilello joined the cast of the film.


title: Made in Italy (2020 film)

text: The house in the film was Villa Fontanelle, a private villa near Montalcino, Italy. Parts of the interior were "deconstructed" (made to appear old and shabby). Some other scenes were filmed in the village of Monticchiello; the scenes in a restaurant were filmed there, at Ristorante Il Bronzino. The filming in Italy was completed on 19 June 2019.


title: Made in Italy (2020 film)

text: In February 2020, IFC Films acquired US distribution rights to the film. It was released on video on demand as well as in limited theaters in the United States on 7 August 2020.


title: Made in Italy (2020 film)

text: In its debut weekend, "Made in Italy" grossed $34,400 from 111 theatres, and was also the second-most rented film on Apple TV and the iTunes Store. In its second weekend the film finished third on Apple TV's chart and fourth on Spectrum's.


title: Made in Italy (2020 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 44 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Made in Italy (2020 film)

text: Most critics' gripes centered around the story and screenplay; Ryan Lattanzio of IndieWire wrote that the "treacly slog" of the script betrayed the "storied talent" of Neeson and the "promising gifts" of Richardson, and Peter Travers of Rolling Stone referred to it as a "mawkish tale" of grief and healing.


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is a poem written by the English Romantic poet John Keats in May 1819, first published anonymously in "Annals of the Fine Arts for 1819" (see 1820 in poetry)"."


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: The poem is one of the "Great Odes of 1819", which also include "Ode on Indolence", "Ode on Melancholy", "Ode to a Nightingale", and "Ode to Psyche". Keats found existing forms in poetry unsatisfactory for his purpose, and in this collection he presented a new development of the ode form. He was inspired to write the poem after reading two articles by English artist and writer Benjamin Haydon. Through his awareness of other writings in this field and his first-hand acquaintance with the Elgin Marbles, Keats perceived the idealism and representation of Greek virtues in classical Greek art, and his poem draws upon these insights.


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: In five stanzas of ten lines each, the poet addresses an ancient Greek urn, describing and discoursing upon the images depicted on it. In particular he reflects upon two scenes, one in which a lover pursues his beloved, and another where villagers and a priest gather to perform a sacrifice. The poet concludes that the urn will say to future generations of mankind: Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.' – that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know". Critics have debated whether these lines adequately perfect the conception of the poem. Critics have also focused on the role of the speaker, the power of material objects to inspire, and the paradoxical interrelation between the worldly and the ideal reality in the poem.


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: "Ode on a Grecian Urn" was not well received by contemporary critics. It was only by the mid-19th century that it began to be praised, and it is now considered to be one of the greatest odes in the English language. A long debate over the poem's final statement divided 20th-century critics, but most agreed on the beauty of the work, despite certain perceived inadequacies.


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: By the spring of 1819, Keats had left his job as assistant house surgeon (where he dressed wounds), at Guy's Hospital, Southwark, London, to devote himself entirely to the composition of poetry. Living with his friend Charles Brown, the 23-year-old was burdened with money problems and despaired when his brother George sought his financial assistance. These real-world difficulties may have given Keats pause for thought about a career in poetry, yet he did manage to complete five odes, including "Ode to a Nightingale", "Ode to Psyche", "Ode on Melancholy", "Ode on Indolence", and "Ode on a Grecian Urn". The poems were transcribed by Brown, who later provided copies to the publisher Richard Woodhouse. Their exact date of composition is unknown; Keats simply dated "Ode on a Grecian Urn" May 1819, as he did its companion odes. While the five poems display a unity in stanza forms and themes, the unity fails to provide clear evidence of the order in which they were composed.


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: In the odes of 1819 Keats explores his contemplations about relationships between the soul, eternity, nature, and art. His idea of using classical Greek art as a metaphor originated in his reading of Haydon's "Examiner" articles of 2 May and 9 May 1819. In the first article, Haydon described Greek sacrifice and worship, and in the second article, he contrasted the artistic styles of Raphael and Michelangelo in conjunction with a discussion of medieval sculptures. Keats also had access to prints of Greek urns at Haydon's office, and he traced an engraving of the "Sosibios Vase", a Neo-Attic marble volute krater, signed by Sosibios, in The Louvre, which he found in Henry Moses's "A Collection of Antique Vases, Altars, Paterae".


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: Keats's inspiration for the topic was not limited to Haydon, but embraced many contemporary sources. He may have recalled his experience with the Elgin Marbles and their influence on his sonnet "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles". Keats was also exposed to the Townley, Borghese, and Holland House vases and to the classical treatment of subjects in Robert Burton's "The Anatomy of Melancholy". Many contemporary essays and articles on these works shared Keats's view that classical Greek art was both idealistic and captured Greek virtues. Although he was influenced by examples of existing Greek vases, in the poem he attempted to describe an ideal artistic type, rather than a specific original vase.


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: Although "Ode on a Grecian Urn" was completed in May 1819, its first printing came in January 1820 when it was published with "Ode to a Nightingale" in the "Annals of Fine Art", an art magazine that promoted views on art similar to those Keats held. Following the initial publication, the "Examiner" published Keats's ode together with Haydon's two previously published articles. Keats also included the poem in his 1820 collection "Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes, and Other Poems".


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: In 1819, Keats had attempted to write sonnets, but found that the form did not satisfy his purpose because the pattern of rhyme worked against the tone that he wished to achieve. When he turned to the ode form, he found that the standard Pindaric form used by poets such as John Dryden was inadequate for properly discussing philosophy. Keats developed his own type of ode in "Ode to Psyche", which preceded "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and other odes he wrote in 1819. Keats's creation established a new poetic tone that accorded with his aesthetic ideas about poetry. He further altered this new form in "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by adding a secondary voice within the ode, creating a dialogue between two subjects. The technique of the poem is ekphrasis, the poetic representation of a painting or sculpture in words. Keats broke from the traditional use of ekphrasis found in Theocritus's "Idyll", a classical poem that describes a design on the sides of a cup. While Theocritus describes both motion found in a stationary artwork and underlying motives of characters, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" replaces actions with a series of questions and focuses only on external attributes of the characters.


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is organized into ten-line stanzas, beginning with an ABAB rhyme scheme and ending with a Miltonic sestet (1st and 5th stanzas CDEDCE, 2nd stanza CDECED, and 3rd and 4th stanzas CDECDE). The same overall pattern is used in "Ode on Indolence", "Ode on Melancholy", and "Ode to a Nightingale" (though their sestet rhyme schemes vary), which makes the poems unified in structure as well as theme. The word "ode" itself is of Greek origin, meaning "sung". While ode-writers from antiquity adhered to rigid patterns of strophe, antistrophe, and epode, the form by Keats's time had undergone enough transformation that it represented a manner rather than a set method for writing a certain type of lyric poetry. Keats's odes seek to find a "classical balance" between two extremes, and in the structure of "Ode on a Grecian Urn", these extremes are the symmetrical structure of classical literature and the asymmetry of Romantic poetry. The use of the ABAB structure in the beginning lines of each stanza represents a clear example of structure found in classical literature, and the remaining six lines appear to break free of the traditional poetic styles of Greek and Roman odes.


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: Keats's metre reflects a conscious development in his poetic style. The poem contains only a single instance of medial inversion (the reversal of an iamb in the middle of a line), which was common in his earlier works. However, Keats incorporates spondees in 37 of the 250 metrical feet. Caesurae are never placed before the fourth syllable in a line. The word choice represents a shift from Keats's early reliance on Latinate polysyllabic words to shorter, Germanic words. In the second stanza, "Ode on a Grecian Urn", which emphasizes words containing the letters "p", "b", and "v", uses syzygy, the repetition of a consonantal sound. The poem incorporates a complex reliance on assonance, which is found in very few English poems. Within "Ode on a Grecian Urn", an example of this pattern can be found in line 13 ("Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd") where the "e" of "sensual" connects with the "e" of "endear'd" and the "ea" of "ear" connects with the "ea" of "endear'd".


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: The poem begins with the narrator's silencing the urn by describing it as the "bride of quietness", which allows him to speak for it using his own impressions. The narrator addresses the urn by saying:


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: The urn is a "foster-child of silence and slow time" because it was created from stone and made by the hand of an artist who did not communicate through words. As stone, time has little effect on it and ageing is such a slow process that it can be seen as an eternal piece of artwork. The urn is an external object capable of producing a story outside the time of its creation, and because of this ability the poet labels it a "sylvan historian" that tells its story through its beauty:


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: The questions presented in these lines are too ambiguous to allow the reader to understand what is taking place in the images on the urn, but elements of it are revealed: there is a pursuit with a strong sexual component. The melody accompanying the pursuit is intensified in the second stanza:


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: There is a hint of a paradox in that indulgence causes someone to be filled with desire and that music without a sound is desired by the soul. There is a stasis that prohibits the characters on the urn from ever being fulfilled:


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: In the third stanza, the narrator begins by speaking to a tree, which will ever hold its leaves and will not "bid the Spring adieu". The paradox of life versus lifelessness extends beyond the lover and the fair lady and takes a more temporal shape as three of the ten lines begin with the words "for ever". The unheard song never ages and the pipes are able to play forever, which leads the lovers, nature, and all involved to be:


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: A new paradox arises in these lines because these immortal lovers are experiencing a living death. To overcome this paradox of merged life and death, the poem shifts to a new scene with a new perspective. The fourth stanza opens with the sacrifice of a virgin cow, an image that appeared in the Elgin Marbles, Claude Lorrain's "Sacrifice to Apollo", and Raphael's "The Sacrifice at Lystra"


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: All that exists in the scene is a procession of individuals, and the narrator conjectures on the rest. The altar and town exist as part of a world outside art, and the poem challenges the limitations of art through describing their possible existence. The questions are unanswered because there is no one who can ever know the true answers, as the locations are not real. The final stanza begins with a reminder that the urn is a piece of eternal artwork:


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: The audience is limited in its ability to comprehend the eternal scene, but the silent urn is still able to speak to them. The story it tells is both cold and passionate, and it is able to help mankind. The poem concludes with the urn's message:


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: Like many of Keats's odes, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" discusses art and art's audience. He relied on depictions of natural music in earlier poems, and works such as "Ode to a Nightingale" appeal to auditory sensations while ignoring the visual. Keats reverses this when describing an urn within "Ode on a Grecian Urn" to focus on representational art. He previously used the image of an urn in "Ode on Indolence", depicting one with three figures representing Love, Ambition and Poesy. Of these three, Love and Poesy are integrated into "Ode on a Grecian Urn" with an emphasis on how the urn, as a human artistic construct, is capable of relating to the idea of "Truth". The images of the urn described within the poem are intended as obvious depictions of common activities: an attempt at courtship, the making of music, and a religious rite. The figures are supposed to be beautiful, and the urn itself is supposed to be realistic. Although the poem does not include the subjective involvement of the narrator, the description of the urn within the poem implies a human observer that draws out these images. The narrator interacts with the urn in a manner similar to how a critic would respond to the poem, which creates ambiguity in the poem's final lines: "'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' – that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." The lack of a definite voice of the urn causes the reader to question who is really speaking these words, to whom they are speaking, and what is meant by the words, which encourages the reader to interact with the poem in an interrogative manner like the narrator.


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: As a symbol, an urn cannot completely represent poetry, but it does serve as one component in describing the relationship between art and humanity. The nightingale of "Ode to a Nightingale" is separated from humanity and does not have human concerns. In contrast, being a piece of art, the urn requires an audience and is in an incomplete state on its own. This allows the urn to interact with humanity, to put forth a narrative, and allows for the imagination to operate. The images on the urn provoke the narrator to ask questions, and the silence of the urn reinforces the imagination's ability to operate. This interaction and use of the imagination is part of a greater tradition called "ut pictura poesis" – the contemplation of art by a poet – which serves as a meditation upon art itself. In this meditation, the narrator dwells on the aesthetic and mimetic features of art. The beginning of the poem posits that the role of art is to describe a specific story about those with whom the audience is unfamiliar, and the narrator wishes to know the identity of the figures in a manner similar to "Ode on Indolence" and "Ode to Psyche". The figures on the urn within "Ode on a Grecian Urn" lack identities, but the first section ends with the narrator believing that if he knew the story, he would know their names. The second section of the poem, describing the piper and the lovers, meditates on the possibility that the role of art is not to describe specifics but universal characters, which falls under the term "Truth". The three figures would represent how Love, Beauty, and Art are unified together in an idealised world where art represents the feelings of the audience. The audience is not supposed to question the events but instead to rejoice in the happy aspects of the scene in a manner that reverses the claims about art in "Ode to a Nightingale". Similarly, the response of the narrator to the sacrifice is not compatible with the response of the narrator to the lovers.


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: The two contradictory responses found in the first and second scenes of "Ode on a Grecian Urn" are inadequate for completely describing art, because Keats believed that art should not provide history or ideals. Instead, both are replaced with a philosophical tone that dominates the meditation on art. The sensual aspects are replaced with an emphasis on the spiritual aspects, and the last scene describes a world contained unto itself. The relationship between the audience with the world is for benefiting or educating, but merely to emphatically connect to the scene. In the scene, the narrator contemplates where the boundaries of art lie and how much an artist can represent on an urn. The questions the narrator asks reveal a yearning to understand the scene, but the urn is too limited to allow such answers. Furthermore, the narrator is able to visualise more than what actually exists on the urn. This conclusion on art is both satisfying, in that it allows the audience to actually connect with the art, and alienating, as it does not provide the audience the benefit of instruction or narcissistic fulfilment. Besides the contradictions between the various desires within the poem, there are other paradoxes that emerge as the narrator compares his world with that of the figures on the urn. In the opening line, he refers to the urn as a "bride of quietness", which serves to contrast the urn with the structure of the ode, a type of poem originally intended to be sung. Another paradox arises when the narrator describes immortals on the side of an urn meant to carry the ashes of the dead.


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: In terms of the actual figures upon the urn, the image of the lovers depicts the relationship of passion and beauty with art. In "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode on Melancholy", Keats describes how beauty is temporary. However, the figures of the urn are able to always enjoy their beauty and passion because of their artistic permanence. The urn's description as a bride invokes a possibility of consummation, which is symbolic of the urn's need for an audience. Charles Patterson, in a 1954 essay, explains that "It is erroneous to assume that here Keats is merely disparaging the bride of flesh wed to man and glorifying the bride of marble wed to quietness. He could have achieved that simple effect more deftly with some other image than the richly ambivalent "unravished bride", which conveys ... a hint of disparagement: It is natural for brides to be possessed physically ... it is unnatural for them not to be." John Jones, in his 1969 analysis, emphasises this sexual dimension within the poem by comparing the relationship between "the Eve Adam dreamed of and who was there when he woke up" and the "bridal urn" of "Ode on a Grecian Urn". Helen Vendler expands on the idea, in her 1983 analysis of Keats's odes, when she claimed "the complex mind writing the "Urn" connects stillness and quietness to ravishment and a bride". In the second stanza, Keats "voices the generating motive of the poem – the necessary self-exhaustion and self-perpetuation of sexual appetite." To Vendler, desire and longing could be the source of artistic creativity, but the urn contains two contradicting expressions of sexuality: a lover chasing after a beloved and a lover with his beloved. This contradiction reveals Keats's belief that such love in general was unattainable and that "The true opponent to the urn-experience of love is not satisfaction but extinction."


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: The first response to the poem came in an anonymous review in the July 1820 "Monthly Review", which claimed, "Mr Keats displays no great nicety in his selection of images. According to the tenets of that school of poetry to which he belongs, he thinks that any thing or object in nature is a fit material on which the poet may work ... Can there be a more pointed "concetto" than this address to the Piping Shepherds on a Grecian Urn?" Another anonymous review followed in the 29 July 1820 "Literary Chronicle and Weekly Review" that quoted the poem with a note that said that "Among the minor poems, many of which possess considerable merit, the following appears to be the best". Josiah Conder, in a September 1820 "Eclectic Review", argues that:


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: Mr Keats, seemingly, can think or write of scarcely any thing else than the 'happy pieties' of Paganism. A Grecian Urn throws him into an ecstasy: its 'silent form,' he says, 'doth tease us out of thought as doth Eternity,'—a very happy description of the bewildering effect which such subjects have at least had upon his own mind; and his fancy having thus got the better of his reason, we are the less surprised at the oracle which the Urn is made to utter:


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: That is, all that Mr Keats knows or cares to know.—But till he knows much more than this, he will never write verses fit to live.


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: George Gilfillan, in an 1845 essay on Keats, placed the poem among "The finest of Keats' smaller pieces" and suggested that "In originality, Keats has seldom been surpassed. His works 'rise like an exhalation.' His language has been formed on a false system; but, ere he died, was clarifying itself from its more glaring faults, and becoming copious clear, and select. He seems to have been averse to all speculative thought, and his only creed, we fear, was expressed in the words— Beauty is truth,—truth beauty". The 1857 "Encyclopædia Britannica" contained an article on Keats by Alexander Smith, which stated: "Perhaps the most exquisite specimen of Keats' poetry is the 'Ode to the Grecian Urn'; it breathes the very spirit of antiquity,—eternal beauty and eternal repose." During the mid-19th century, Matthew Arnold claimed that the passage describing the little town "is Greek, as Greek as a thing from Homer or Theocritus; it is composed with the eye on the object, a radiancy and light clearness being added."


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: The 20th century marked the beginning of a critical dispute over the final lines of the poem and their relationship to the beauty of the whole work. Poet laureate Robert Bridges sparked the debate when he argued:


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: The thought as enounced in the first stanza is the supremacy of ideal art over Nature, because of its unchanging expression of perfect; and this is true and beautiful; but its amplification in the poem is unprogressive, monotonous, and scattered ... which gives an effect of poverty in spite of the beauty. The last stanza enters stumbling upon a pun, but its concluding lines are very fine, and make a sort of recovery with their forcible directness.


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: Bridges believed that the final lines redeemed an otherwise bad poem. Arthur Quiller-Couch responded with a contrary view and claimed that the lines were "a vague observation – to anyone whom life has taught to face facts and define his terms, actually an "uneducated" conclusion, albeit most pardonable in one so young and ardent." The debate expanded when I. A. Richards, an English literary critic who analysed Keats's poems in 1929, relied on the final lines of the "Ode on a Grecian Urn" to discuss "pseudo-statements" in poetry:


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: On the one hand there are very many people who, if they read any poetry at all, try to take all its statements seriously – and find them silly ... This may seem an absurd mistake but, alas! it is none the less common. On the other hand there are those who succeed too well, who swallow 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty ...,' as the quintessence of an aesthetic philosophy, not as the expression of a certain blend of feelings, and proceed into a complete stalemate of muddle-mindedness as a result of their linguistic naivety.


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: I am at first inclined to agree ... But on re-reading the whole Ode, this line strikes me as a serious blemish on a beautiful poem, and the reason must be either that I fail to understand it, or that it is a statement which is untrue. And I suppose that Keats meant something by it, however remote his truth and his beauty may have been from these words in ordinary use. And I am sure that he would have repudiated any explanation of the line which called it a pseudo-statement ... The statement of Keats seems to me meaningless: or perhaps the fact that it is grammatically meaningless conceals another meaning from me.


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: In 1930, John Middleton Murry gave a history of these responses "to show the astonishing variety of opinion which exists at this day concerning the culmination of a poem whose beauty has been acknowledged for many years. Whether such another cause, and such another example, of critical diversity exists, I cannot say; if it does, it is unknown to me. My own opinion concerning the value of those two lines "in the context of the poem itself" is not very different from Mr. Eliot's."


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: We shall not feel that the generalization, unqualified and to be taken literally, is meant to march out of its context to compete with the scientific and philosophical generalizations which dominate our world. 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty' has precisely the same status, and the same justification as Shakespeare's 'Ripeness is all.' It is a speech 'in character' and supported by a dramatic context. To conclude thus may seem to weight the principle of dramatic propriety with more than it can bear. This would not be fair to the complexity of the problem of truth in art nor fair to Keats's little parable. Granted; and yet the principle of dramatic propriety may take us further than would first appear. Respect for it may at least insure our dealing with the problem of truth at the level on which it is really relevant to literature.


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: I entirely agree, then, with Professor Brooks in his explication of the "Ode", that 'Beauty is truth' ... is to be considered as a speech 'in character' and 'dramatically appropriate' to the Urn. I am uneasy, however, about his final reference to 'the world-view ...' For the poem as a whole is equally an utterance by a dramatically presented speaker, and none of its statements is proffered for our endorsement as a philosophical generalization of unlimited scope. They are all, therefore, to be apprehended as histrionic elements which are 'in character' and 'dramatically appropriate,' for their inherent interest as stages in the evolution of an artistically ordered ... experience of a credible human being.


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: Earl Wasserman, in 1953, continued the discussion over the final lines and claimed, "the more we tug at the final lines of the ode, the more the noose of their meaning strangles our comprehension of the poem ... The aphorism is all the more beguiling because it appears near the end of the poem, for its apparently climactic position has generally led to the assumption that it is the abstract summation of the poem ... But the ode is not an abstract statement or an excursion into philosophy. It is a poem about things".


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: Walter Evert, discussing the debate in 1965, justified the final lines of the poem to declare "The poem, then, accepts the urn for the immediate meditative imaginative pleasure that it can give, but it firmly defines the limits of artistic truth. In this it is wholly consistent with all the great poetry of Keats's last creative period." Hugh Kenner, in 1971, explained that Keats "interrogates an urn, and answers for it, and its last answer, about Beauty and Truth, may seem almost intolerably enigmatic". To Kenner, the problem with Keats's Beauty and Truth statement arises out of the reader's inability to distinguish between the poet, his reflections on the urn, and any possible statement made by the urn. He concluded that Keats fails to provide his narrator with enough characterization to be able to speak for the urn. Charles Rzepka, in 1986, offered his view on the matter: "The truth-beauty equation at the end of the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' offers solace but is finally no more convincing than the experience it describes is durable." Rick Rylance picked up the debate again in 1990 and explained that the true meaning of the final lines cannot be discerned merely by studying the language. This posed a problem for the New Critics, who were prone to closely reading a poem's text.


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: Not every 20th-century critic opined primarily on the quality of the final lines when discussing the success or failure of the poem; Sidney Colvin, in 1920, explained that "while imagery drawn from the sculptures on Greek vases was still floating through his mind, he was able to rouse himself to a stronger effort and produce a true masterpiece in his famous "Ode on a Grecian Urn"." In his 1926 analysis, H. W. Garrod felt that the end of the poem did not match with the rest of the poem: "Perhaps the fourth stanza is more beautiful than any of the others—and more true. The trouble is that it is a little too true. Truth to his main theme has taken Keats rather farther than he meant to go ... This pure cold art makes, in fact, a less appeal to Keats than the Ode as a whole would pretend; and when, in the lines that follow these lines, he indulges the jarring apostrophe 'Cold Pastoral' [...] he has said more than he meant—or wished to mean." In 1933, M. R. Ridley described the poem as a "tense ethereal beauty" with a "touch of didacticism that weakens the urgency" of the statements. Douglas Bush, following in 1937, emphasized the Greek aspects of the poem and stated, "as in the "Ode to Maia", the concrete details are suffused with a rich nostalgia. The hard edges of classical Greek writing are softened by the enveloping emotion and suggestion. In his classical moments Keats is a sculptor whose marble becomes flesh."


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: In 1954, Charles Patterson defended the poem and claimed, "The meaningfulness and range of the poem, along with its controlled execution and powerfully suggestive imagery, entitle it to a high place among Keats's great odes. It lacks the even finish and extreme perfection of "To Autumn" but is much superior in these qualities to the "Ode to a Nightingale" despite the magic passages in the latter and the similarities of over-all structure. In fact, the "Ode on a Grecian Urn" may deserve to rank first in the group if viewed in something approaching its true complexity and human wisdom." Walter Jackson Bate argued in 1962 that "the "Grecian Urn" possesses a quiet and constrained composure hardly equaled by the other odes of this month and perhaps even unsurpassed by the ode "To Autumn" of the following September ... there is a severe repose about the "Ode on a Grecian Urn"; it is both 'interwoven' and 'complete'; and within its tensely braced stanzas is a potential energy momentarily stilled and imprisoned." In 1964, literary critic David Perkins claimed in his essay "The Ode on a Nightingale" that the symbol of the urn "may possibly not satisfy as the principal concern of poetry ... but is rather an element in the poetry and drama of human reactions".


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: F. W. Bateson emphasized in 1966 the poem's ability to capture truth: "The "Ode to a Nightingale" had ended with the explicit admission that the 'fancy' is a 'cheat,' and the "Grecian Urn" concludes with a similar repudiation. But this time it is a positive instead of a negative conclusion. There "is" no escape from the 'woe' that 'shall this generation waste,' but the action of time can be confronted and seen in its proper proportions. To enable its readers to do this is the special function of poetry." Ronald Sharp followed in 1979 with a claim that the theme of "the relationship between life and art ... receives its most famous, and its most enigmatic and controversial, treatment" within the poem. In 1983, Vendler praised many of the passages within the poem but argued that the poem was unable to fully represent what Keats wanted: "The simple movement of entrance and exit, even in its triple repetition in the "Urn", is simply not structurally complex enough to be adequate, as a representational form, to what we know of aesthetic experience – or indeed to human experience generally." Later in 1989, Daniel Watkins claimed the poem as "one of [Keats's] most beautiful and problematic works."


title: Ode on a Grecian Urn

text: Andrew Bennett, in 1994, discussed the poem's effectiveness: "What is important and compelling in this poem is not so much what happens on the urn or in the poem, but the way that a response to an artwork both figures and prefigures its own critical response". In 1999, Andrew Motion claimed that the poem "tells a story that cannot be developed. Celebrating the transcendent powers of art, it creates a sense of imminence, but also registers a feeling of frustration." Ayumi Mizukoshi, in 2001, argued that early audiences did not support "Ode to Psyche" because it "turned out to be too reflexive and internalised to be enjoyed as a mythological picture. For the same reason, the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' drew neither attention nor admiration. Although the poet is gazing round the surface of the urn in each stanza, the poem cannot readily be consumed as a series of 'idylls'."


title: Canton of Bern

text: The canton of Bern or Berne (; ; ; ) is one of the 26 cantons forming the Swiss Confederation. Its capital city, Bern, is also the "de facto" capital of Switzerland. The bear is the heraldic symbol of the canton, displayed on a red-yellow background.


title: Canton of Bern

text: Comprising ten districts, Bern is the second-largest canton by both surface area and population. Located in west-central Switzerland, it is surrounded by eleven cantons. It borders the canton of Jura and the canton of Solothurn to the north. To the west lie the canton of Neuchâtel, the canton of Fribourg and canton of Vaud. To the south lies the canton of Valais. East of the canton of Bern lie the cantons of Uri, Nidwalden, Obwalden, Lucerne and Aargau. The geography of the canton includes a large share of all three natural regions of Switzerland: the Jura Mountains (the Bernese Jura), the Swiss Plateau (the Bernese Mittelland) and the Alps (the Bernese Oberland).


title: Canton of Bern

text: The canton of Bern is bilingual, officially German- and French-speaking, and has a population (as of ) of . The largest city, Bern, is also the seat of the federal government of Switzerland. Other major cities are Thun and Biel/Bienne. The canton is also renowned for its numerous Alpine resort towns, notably Interlaken and Gstaad.


title: Canton of Bern

text: Formerly part of the Holy Roman Empire, the canton of Bern entered an alliance with the Swiss Forest Cantons in 1323 and joined the Old Swiss Confederacy in 1353.


title: Canton of Bern

text: Bern joined the Old Swiss Confederation in 1353. Between 1803 and 1814 it was one of the six "directorial cantons" of the Napoleonic Swiss Confederation.


title: Canton of Bern

text: The earliest traces of a human presence in the area of the modern Canton is found in three caves in the Simmental region; Schnurenloch near Oberwil, Ranggiloch above Boltigen and Chilchlihöhle above Erlenbach. These caves were used at various times during the last ice age. The first open-air settlement in the area is an upper paleolithic settlement at Moosbühl in Moosseedorf. During the warmer climate of the mesolithic period, increasing forest cover restricted the movement of hunters, fishers and gatherers. Their temporary settlements were built along lake and marsh edges, which remained free of trees due to fluctuations in water level. Important mesolithic sites in the Canton are at Pieterlenmoos and Burgäschisee lake along with alpine valleys at Diemtig and Simmental. During the neolithic period, there were a number of settlements on the shores of Lake Biel, the Toteisbecken (Lobsigensee, Moossee, Burgäschisee and Inkwilersee) and along rivers (Aare, Zihl). Several of these sites are part of the Prehistoric Pile dwellings around the Alps, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


title: Canton of Bern

text: One of the best explored neolithic sites is at Twann (now Twann-Tüscherz). In the Twannbach delta there were about 25 Cortaillod culture and Horgen culture villages that existed between 3800 and 2950 BC. One of the oldest examples of bread from Switzerland, a sourdough from 3560 to 3530 BC, came from one of these villages.


title: Canton of Bern

text: Simple copper objects were already in use in the 4th millennium BC, including a copper pin from Lattrigen from 3170 BC and a knife blade from Twann. Shortly before 2000 BC bronze production entered the area and brought about a surge in development. Settlements began to spread into the pre-Alpine and Alpine areas. The area between Lake Thun and the Niedersimmental were densely settled. Archeological finds include scattered items along mountain passes, a fortified hilltop settlements at Spiezberg, Cholis Grind by Saanen and at Pintel by Wimmis, along with cemeteries at Thun-Allmendingen, Einigen and Hilterfingen. Late Bronze Age (ca. 1000–800 BC) settlements along Lake Biel (Mörigen, Vinelz) have yielded up a wealth of items.


title: Canton of Bern

text: During the Early Iron Age changes in climate forced the Hallstatt culture (800–450 BCE) to abandon settlements along many waterways and in the valley floors and move to the plateaus and hills. With increased trade contacts across the Alps, the cultural influence of the Mediterranean region grew in the area. Evidence of this trade include a hydria which was discovered in Grächwil. Burial rituals and social classes became more developed during this time. The so-called "princely graves" became more common, many of the burial mounds were over in diameter and high and richly outfitted with grave goods. In a grave mound in Bützberg the first burial in the mound was followed by several later burials. Often, several grave mounds combined to become a necropolis, such as at Grossaffoltern, Ins, Bannwil, Langenthal and Bützberg. Most of the knowledge about the Hallstatt culture in the Canton comes from graves. The only discovered settlement is around Blanche Church in La Neuveville.


title: Canton of Bern

text: The grave goods show that iron was forged into swords, daggers, spearheads, knives and wagon accessories. Gold, which was probably collected from river sand, was made into diadems, rings and pendants. Thin bronze arm, leg and neck plates with geometric designs were often buried, especially in the graves at Allenlüften in Mühleberg, at Ins and at Bützberg. The jewelry that was buried included bracelets and rings which were also made of jet and lignite coal. At Münchringen, the grave pottery was both shaped by hand or thrown on a potter's wheel, and was painted with multi-colored ornamentation.


title: Canton of Bern

text: The transition to the Late Iron Age of the La Tène culture (450−1st century BCE) is indicated by a sudden change of style in the metalworking and ceramic industries. Numerous graves (from unknown settlements), along with the two "oppida" at Bern-Engehalbinsel and Jensberg by Studen, mark the population centers during the late Iron Age. Gold coins (from Melchnau) along with silver and bronze coins first start to appear during this era. A sword with Greek characters that said "Korisios" was found at the Port site. At the oppidum at Bern-Engehalbinsel, there were studios for glass and ceramic production, and iron working achieved a high level of skill, along with craftsmen who worked in wood, leather and goldsmithing. There was a nearby place of worship in the Bremgarten wood, and cemeteries at Münsingen and Bern-Engehalbinsel.


title: Canton of Bern

text: After the Roman era victory at Battle of Bibracte in 58 BCE, the Helvetii were forced to return to their homes as foederati of the Romans. Under increasing Roman influence, the local economy and trade flourished. The main settlements lay at the foot of the Jura Mountains and on the Central Plateau.


title: Canton of Bern

text: The existing roads were expanded, especially the Aventicum-Vindonissa and the Petinesca-Augusta Raurica roads. A fourth alpine pass, the Rawil pass, was added to the traditional three; the Grimsel, Brünig and Susten passes. In the Bernese Jura the Mont Raimeux and Pierre Pertuis passes opened.


title: Canton of Bern

text: Under the Romans, many of the old fortified places were expanded and refortified. The old Helvetii oppidum at the Engehalbinsel became a Roman vicus, which was probably known as Brenodor or Brenodurum. At the foot of the Jens mountain, the fort Petinesca was built to guard the roads over the Jura Mountains. This was reinforced in the late-Roman era (368–369 CE) by a fortified bridge over the Thielle/Zihl river between Aegerten and Brügg.


title: Canton of Bern

text: A number of Roman villas were built around the Canton. At Oberwichtrach both the main building ("pars urbana") and the industrial section ("pars rustica") of a Roman villa have been discovered. The villas at Münsingen, Toffen and Herzogenbuchsee have richly detailed Roman mosaics that are still partly visible.


title: Canton of Bern

text: The religious practices of the local population merged with Roman beliefs and the Canton of Bern is home to a number of unique cult centers. They include the larger than life statues of gods (including enthroned Jupiter) at Petinesca, Engehalbinsel, and Thun-Allmendingen; and a number of stone inscriptions. At the beginning of the 5th century CE, Rome withdrew its troops from the Rhine garrisons, but allowed the Burgundians to settle on Helvetii lands in 443 CE.


title: Canton of Bern

text: East of the Aare, the transition from the Gallo-Roman dominated population to a Germanic population in the Early Middle Ages happened relatively peacefully. One exception was the Battle of Wangen in 610, but elsewhere it generally was a slow process of cultural infiltration. By the 7th century, the Alamannic settlers had already taken most of the good locations southeast of the Aare and they began moving up the Aare to the regions of Lake Thun and Lake Brienz. All areas west of the Aare belonged to the romanised Burgundian kingdom, which became part of the Merovingian Frankish kingdom in the 534. During the Carolingian era, the political structure of the Franks had spread into parts of what became Switzerland. In 762/778 the County of Aargau was founded, followed in 861 by the County of Oberaargau and in 965 the County of Bargen. The Treaty of Verdun in 843 put the border between Central and Eastern Frankish Empires at the Aare, and divided the Aare region in half. The population west of the Aare generally spoke a Romance language, while those to the east spoke a Germanic language. The region between the rivers Saane and Aare became the language border.


title: Canton of Bern

text: Christianity spread slowly into the Aare valley. The dioceses of Lausanne, Basel, Sion, Chur and Constance were all established before the new faith made inroads into the valley. The Aare valley was bordered by three dioceses; Lausanne, Constance and Basel. However, the first Christian missionaries came into the valley from Alsace and other western areas. In 630 the Abbey of Luxeuil established the Abbey of Moutier-Grandval along the old transit route through the Pierre Pertuis Pass. By the 9th or 10th Century, this Abbey had property and influence all the way to Lake Biel and into the Balsthal valley. The first monastic cells of what would become the Abbey of Saint-Imier was also founded in 600. In the Seeland and Aare valleys, wooden churches were first built during the Merovingian period. The current churches in Kirchlindach, Oberwil bei Buren and Bleibach were all built above the ruins of these early churches. About 30 churches in the Bern and Solothurn portions of the Aare valley were created over ruins of Roman villas and subsequent burial grounds in the 7th Century (including Meikirch and Oberbipp). In Mett, the church was built over a 5th-century mausoleum, which was built over a 4th-century tomb. In 700, six sarcophagi were buried on St. Peter's Island next to a Roman temple complex. A wooden monastery was built over the complex in the 8th–9th century.


title: Canton of Bern

text: During the 10th century, the Aare valley came fully under the Second Kingdom of Burgundy. Under King Rudolph I and his son Rudolph II Burgundy's influence reached across most of modern Switzerland. They established royal courts at Bümpliz, Münsingen, Uetendorf, Wimmis, Kirchberg and Utzenstorf to allow them to govern the Aare valley. Later, the Aare valley moved toward closer ties with the Holy Roman Empire during the Ottonian and Salian dynasties.


title: Canton of Bern

text: The succession dispute following the death of Rudolph III in 1032 allowed the Salian kings to acquire the Kingdom of Upper Burgundy and with it the Aare valley. As a part of the Holy Roman Empire, the valley was involved when the Investiture Controversy broke out in 1056. In 1077, the Regent of Burgundy, Count Rudolf of Rheinfelden, declared himself as an anti-king against King Henry IV. The Bishops of Basel and Lausanne remained loyal to King Henry IV, and took the Rheinfelden lands in Oberaargau and the upper Aare valley. After Rudolf's death in 1090, his lands went to his son, Berchtold II of Zähringen. He and his son, Berchtold III, tried to use these lands to expand their power. In 1127 the Zähringer were appointed Rector or delegate of the king in Burgundy. Their hopes for a new, independent Burgundy were dashed in 1156, and the last Zähringen count, Berchtold V, embarked on a program of city founding. The cities of Burgdorf, Murten, Thun and Bern were all founded by Berchtold V. When he died without an heir, the Zähringen lands went to the House of Kyburg, while the offices and fiefs reverted to the empire.


title: Canton of Bern

text: During the High Middle Ages both the Aare valley and the Bernese Oberland were divided into a number of small counties, each with their own baron. Nobles from the Holy Roman Empire began to marry into the local noble families and a number of the Zähringen Ministerialis families (unfree knights in the service of a feudal overlord) moved into the Oberland. The nobles also began to found monasteries to spread their power into the Oberland. During the period between 1070 and 1150, at least ten large monasteries were founded by local nobles. These include; the Cluniac Priory of Rüeggisberg (Lords of Rümligen in 1072), Münchenwiler (Wiler family in 1080), St. Peter's Island (Count of Hochburgund-Mâcon in the late 11th century), Hettiswil (1107), Röthenbach im Emmental (Lords of Rümligen or Signau), the Benedictine monastery at St. Johannsen in Erlach (Fenis family in 1100), Trub (Lords of Lützelflüh before 1130) and Rüegsau (possibly also the Lords of Lützelflüh in first half of the 12th century), the Augustinian Collegiate church in Interlaken (Oberhofen family in 1130) and the Cistercian Frienisberg Abbey (Count Saugern around 1130). However, in 1191 the Oberland barons revolted against Berchtold V of Zähringen and many of the Oberland barons were killed in the battle of Grindelwald.


title: Canton of Bern

text: During the 13th Century a number of the cities near Bern were granted the city right and appointed mayors and city councils. Bern became an imperial city. During the mid-13th century, the Empire's presence weakened in the Aare valley, forcing the local nobles to find allies to protect themselves. Bern entered into a number of treaties with its neighbors in the 13th century. In 1274, the Emperor Rudolph I of Habsburg, confirmed Bern's imperial immediacy. However, in 1285 he imposed an imperial tax which drove the city to support Rudolph's enemies. Although it withstood two sieges by the Emperor in 1288, after the defeat at Schosshalde in 1289 it had to pay taxes and a penalty.