title: Ruslana Korshunova

text: Muhammad Naqib, a concierge who worked in Korshunova's building stated, "I was shocked when I saw her on the pavement. She was on the road, small and pitiful, in a puddle of blood, surrounded by a crowd. Her arms and neck were broken", the man said. Naqib was immediately suspicious. "Only next day I realized what was wrong. It was her hair! It was much shorter than when I last saw her that night, lively and happy. It seemed like it was cut in a hurry since the ends were uneven." Moscow mortician Sergey, who worked on her makeup in a Moscow morgue, stated "All I got is a polite 'thank you'. But nobody called me for an interview ... [t]he hair could fall out because of a strong impact, but it could not become shorter. When I was preparing the body for a funeral, I noticed that the hair was in a very poor condition. I even offered to find her a wig, but her relatives refused. The ends were uneven, as if someone had cut it with scissors." According to the testimony of many witnesses, no strangers or suspicious people were noticed on the day of Korshunova's death in her building on Water Street. The back exit in the yard is visible to the concierge, and nobody could pass by the reception unnoticed. During her last visit, Korshunova's mother stopped at the apartment. According to Korshunova's friends, Valentina spent several hours at the door of the apartment. She is still hoping to find the answer from the local police. On July 7, 2008, Korshunova was buried at Khovanskoye Cemetery in Moscow. Her mother stated to Russian newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda" that the Russian capital was one of her daughter's favorite cities, and that "[She] would want her beloved Moscow to be her last resting place."


title: Ruslana Korshunova

text: British TV producer and filmmaker Peter Pomerantsev has theorised that Korshunova's suicide was related to her involvement with Rose of the World, a controversial Moscow-based organisation which describes itself as "training for personality development". While researching for a documentary into Korshunova's death, Pomerantsev learned that the model spent three months attending training sessions at Rose of the World. These sessions—which encourage participants to share their worst experiences and recall repressed memories—are modelled after Lifespring, whose controversial methods were the subject of multiple lawsuits for mental damages in the US during the 1980s. Korshunova attended training sessions with a friend, Ukrainian model Anastasia Drozdova, who committed suicide under similar circumstances in 2009. Friends of the two women reported changes in behaviour after several months at the Rose. Korshunova became aggressive, while Drozdova experienced violent mood swings and grew reclusive; both lost weight. After three months of training, Korshunova returned to New York to look for work, where she wrote of feeling lost and doubting herself. Rick Ross, head of the Cult Education Forum, argues that organisations such as Rose of the World "work like drugs: giving you peak experiences, their adherents always coming back for more. The serious problems start when people leave. The trainings have become their lives—they come back to emptiness. The sensitive ones break." Only months after leaving the Rose, Korshunova was found dead.


title: Flag of Ghana

text: The national flag of Ghana consists of a horizontal triband of Red, Gold, and Green. It was designed in replacement of the Gold Coast colony's Blue Ensign.


title: Flag of Ghana

text: The flag was adopted upon the independence of the Dominion of Ghana on March 6, 1957. It was designed the same year by Theodosia Okoh, a renowned Ghanaian artist. The flag was flown until 1964 and it was then reinstated in 1966. It consists of the Ethiopian Pan-African colours of Red, Gold, and Green, in horizontal stripes, with a black five-pointed star in the centre of the gold stripe. The Ghanaian flag was the second African flag after the flag of the Ethiopian Empire to feature these colours, although the colours are inverted. The flag's design influenced that of the flag of Guinea-Bissau (1973).


title: Flag of Ghana

text: The Ghanaian flag was designed as a tricolour following in a sequence of red, gold and green. The colours are a representation of the country's struggle for independence and a symbol of its rich resources within the geographical location of the country among other African countries. The three colours used are quite memorable with a star of the sky designed in a black colour within the centre, taking the centre coverage of the gold colour.


title: Flag of Ghana

text: The red colour of the national flag of Ghana was used to represent the blood of forefathers who led the struggle of independence and shared their blood through death. The country's struggle for independence from the United Kingdom took the life of prominent Ghanaian leaders at the time. The names of the big six were Edward Akufo Addo, Dr. Ako Adjei, William Ofori Atta, Joseph Boakye Danquah, Emmanuel Obetsebi Lamptey, and later Osagyefor Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. The big six formed the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) an anti-colonialist political party formed to gain Ghanaian independence from British colonial rule. Red also stands for love which might have influenced our forefathers who led the struggles for Ghana's independence for the love of the nation.


title: Flag of Ghana

text: The gold colour takes the centre line of the three colours attraction and it represents the mineral resources mostly found in the Ashanti region of Ghana, helping to harness the wealth of the country. The gold is one of Ghana's mineral resources found mostly in Obuasi in Ashanti Region and Tarkwa in the Western Region. The enrichment of the gold resources of Ghana led to the initial name the Gold Coast which was later changed to Ghana of the struggle and success of the attainment of independence in 1957. Ghana's other mineral resources are diamond, bauxite, and manganese.


title: Flag of Ghana

text: The green symbolises Ghana's rich forests and natural wealth which provide the nation with oil, food, and cash crops such as cocoa, timber, sheabutter, and all kinds of food products for the country. The green colour till today is used as a symbol of the green vegetations of crop produce in Ghana. Ghana is noted for its cash crop of cocoa which was first brought to Ghana by Tetteh Quarshie from Fernando Po. Most of Ghana's cash crops are exported to overseas countries in exchange for physical cash which is used for the country's development of roads, schools, water, sanitation and industries for employment.


title: Flag of Ghana

text: The black star of the Ghanaian national flag is a symbol used to represent the emancipation of Africa and unity against colonialism. The black star was adopted from the flag of the Black Star Line, a shipping line incorporated by Marcus Garvey which operated from 1919 to 1922. and became also known as the Black Star of Africa. It is where the Ghana national football team derive their nickname, the "Black Stars".


title: Flag of Ghana

text: Ghana was one of the countries counted among the West African regions under colonial government rule from the 15th to 19th centuries on the Gold Coast. The history of Ghana can therefore be traced back to the 15th century when Europeans arrived in the region. The Portuguese navigators sailed their way down the West African coast and to the shores of the Gold Coast in 1471, where they build a castle for themselves at the Elmina in 1482. The Europeans brought a gold cargo to the shores of the Gold Coast where they traded in gold with the Akwamus and Denkyiras who controlled an extensive part of the coast and the forest belt in the 17th century.


title: Flag of Ghana

text: In the 18th century, the dominance of the Ashanti Empire of Kumasi took over the gold trade with the British, Dutch and Danes who were the main European traders at the Tano and Volta rivers. The most valuable commodity for exports at the time changed from gold to slavery. Slaves were traded for muskets besides other western commodities. The Ashantes by then were locally empowered to take control with the Asantehene enthroned on a golden stool as a tradition of the Ashantes. Between 1804 and 1814, the British, Dutch and Danes subsequently outlawed the slave trade, which proved to be a major blow to the Ashanti economy. The situation became warfare in 1820 and in 1824 and 1870, they were subsequently defeated by British forces who shortly thereafter occupied the region of Kumasi in 1874. The British gradually emerged on the coastal regions as the main European power.


title: Flag of Ghana

text: The colonial period started from 1902 to 1957. The Ashante Kingdom in 1902 was declared a British crown colony and became the protectorate of the northern territory of the Gold Coast. The colonial government ruled the colony without the involvement of the African populace in the political process. After World War II, the Gold Coast colony became prominent among the Sub-Saharan African countries. It was when Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah had returned to the Gold Coast in 1947 after twelve years of political study in the US and Great Britain. The return to the Gold Coast was an invitation for Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah to lead the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) as the General Secretary with the aim to lead the campaign for self government. The UGCC at the time had won the right of the African majority in the British legislative colony. With the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah, a widespread riot began in February 1948.


title: Flag of Ghana

text: Within the same year, the founding leaders of the UGCC arrested the Secretary General Dr. Kwame Nkrumah for an alert of thoughts against Nkrumah's leadership plans. The incident brought a split of the UGCC leadership with Kwame Nkrumah having to found his own Convention People's Party (CPP) in June 1949 for the aim of self-governance for the African people, dubbed "Self-government now". A non-violent campaign of protest and strikes were organised by Kwame Nkrumah in 1950 in achievement of his goal. But riot led to the second arrest of Kwame Nkrumah. The colony's general election brought a big win to the Convention People's Party in the absence of Kwame Nkrumah, leading to the release of Kwame Nkrumah from prison to join in governance of the country. Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah then became the Prime Minister of the Gold Coast in 1952. In a vote of the 1956 direct vote of all the electorate members, the British Togoland voted to join the Gold Coast in the campaign for preparations towards independence. The Togo and Gold Coast territories attained independence from colonial rule in 1957 under the supreme willpower of Kwame Nkrumah. The name for the country Ghana was then adopted.


title: Flag of Ghana

text: The years of independence of the Gold Coast started in 1957 with the new name of the country of Ghana emerged. Independence was granted and announced by the then Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah who led the struggle for independence. With Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah as the first President of Ghana, Ghana became a Republic within the Commonwealth of Nations on 1 July 1960.


title: Flag of Ghana

text: Theodosia Salome Abena Kumea Okoh was a renowned Ghanaian artist who has contested and showcased her artistic internationally. She joined the Ghana Hockey Association (GHA) and worked in the role of a chairperson. She was also a patron of the Sports Writer's Association of Ghana (SWAG).


title: Flag of Ghana

text: The purpose of the Ghanaian national flag was to have a symbol of jubilations during the post-independence era. There were many flags ensemble for Ghana's use. Notably is the Ghanaian national flag described which has been use for many purposes as in national and international celebrations, such as the Independence Day celebration, commemoration of Ghana's big six and past leaders of the nations. The flag is raised up flying in the sky to grace glorious occasions while it is usually lowered to fly half way to show some kind of misfortune that may have hit on the country.


title: Flag of Ghana

text: Under terms of section 183 of Ghana's Merchant Shipping Act of 1963, the civil ensign is a red flag with the national flag in a black-fimbriated canton. In 2003, a new merchant shipping act was enacted, however, and this simply provides that "the National Flag of Ghana" is the proper national colours for Ghanaian ships. No mention is made of other flags or other possible flags.


title: Flag of Ghana

text: The Ghana Air Force has its own ensign that incorporates the flag of Ghana. Civil aviation in Ghana is represented by the national civil air ensign. It is a standard light-blue field with the Ghanaian flag in the canton. It is charged in the fly with either a red, yellow and green roundel (in the case of the military ensign) or black five-pointed star (in the case of the civil ensign). Both have been used since Independence in 1957, and the subsequent founding of the Ghana Air Force in 1959.


title: Flag of Ghana

text: The Ghanaian government flag, adopted in 1957, was flown until 1962. Similarly, when the country formed the Union of African States, the flag of the Union was modeled on Bolivia's flag, but with two black stars, representing the nations. In May 1959, a third star was added.


title: Flag of Ghana

text: Following the January 1964 constitutional referendum, Ghana adopted a variant of the 1957 tricolour with white in the place of yellow, after the colours of Kwame Nkrumah's ruling and then-sole legal party Convention People's Party, making it similar to the flag of Hungary. The original 1957 flag was reinstated in February 1966 following Nkrumah's overthrow in the February 1966 "coup d'état".


title: Flag of Ghana

text: When the flag was changed in 1964, popular public demand upon the remembrance of Ghana's rich history agitated for the nation to revert to its use of the original Ghanaian national flag with the red, gold and green colour. The original Ghana national flag which was used in 1957 upon Ghana's independence was reinstated for use in 1966. Ghana was then one of the first countries to adopt the Pan African colours originally used in the Ethiopian flag.


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Ephraim (, "ʾEp̄rayīm," in pausa: אֶפְרָיִם, "ʾEp̄rāyīm") was one of the tribes of Israel. The Tribe of Manasseh together with Ephraim formed the "House of Joseph". It is one of the ten lost tribes. The etymology of the name is disputed.


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: According to the Bible, the Tribe of Ephraim is descended from a man named Ephraim, who is recorded as the son of Joseph, the son of Jacob, and Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera. The descendants of Joseph formed two of the tribes of Israel, whereas the other sons of Jacob were the founders of one tribe each.


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: The Bible records that the Tribe of Ephraim entered the land of Canaan during its conquest by Joshua, a descendant of Ephraim himself. However, many archeologists have abandoned the idea that Joshua carried out a conquest of Canaan similar to that described in the Book of Joshua, seeing Jews instead as indigenous Canaanites who developed a monotheistic religion over time.


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: From Joshua to the formation of the first Kingdom of Israel, the Tribe of Ephraim was a part of a loose confederation of Israelite tribes. No central government existed, and in times of crisis the people were led by ad hoc leaders known as Judges (see the Book of Judges).


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: With the growth of the threat from Philistine incursions, the Israelite tribes decided to form a strong centralised monarchy to meet the challenge. The Tribe of Ephraim joined the new kingdom with Saul as the first king. The widely accepted date for Saul's reign is approximately 1025–1005 BCE. Some scholars dispute this date range and place Saul later, perhaps as late as "the second half of the tenth century B.C.E."


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: After the death of Saul, the Bible records all the tribes other than Judah remained loyal to the House of Saul. After the death of Ishbosheth, Saul's son and successor to the throne of Israel, the Tribe of Ephraim joined the other northern Israelite tribes in making David, who was then the king of Judah, the king of a reunited Kingdom of Israel. According to archaeologist Israel Finkelstein, there is doubt about whether the biblical ordering for the reigns of the early monarchs is reliable, and that the sequence preserved in the Bible, in which David follows Saul as king of Israel, may not be historically accurate.


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: However, on the accession of Rehoboam, David's grandson, in c. 930 BCE the northern tribes split from the House of David to form the northern Kingdom of Israel. The first king of the northern kingdom was an Ephraimite, Jeroboam, who likely ruled in 931–909 BCE.


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: The accents of the tribes were distinctive enough even at the time of the confederacy so that when the Israelites of Gilead, under the leadership of Jephthah, fought the Tribe of Ephraim, their pronunciation of "shibboleth" as "sibboleth" was considered sufficient evidence to single out individuals from Ephraim, so that they could be subjected to immediate death by the Israelites of Gilead.


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: Ephraim was a member of the Northern Kingdom until the kingdom was conquered by Assyria in c. 723 BCE and the population deported. From that time, the Tribe of Ephraim has been counted as one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: Ephraim is often seen as the tribe that embodies the entire Northern Kingdom and the royal house resided in the tribe's territory (just as Judah is the tribe that embodies the Kingdom of Judah and provided its royal family).


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: In the biblical account, following the completion of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite Joshua allocated the land among the twelve tribes. Kenneth Kitchen, a well-known conservative biblical scholar, dates this event to slightly after 1200 BC. However, the consensus view of modern scholars is that the conquest of Joshua as described in the Book of Joshua never occurred.


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: As recorded in the Book of Joshua, the territory allocated to the Tribe of Ephraim was at the center of Canaan, west of the Jordan, south of the territory of Manasseh, and north of the Tribe of Benjamin. The region later named Samaria (as distinguished from Judea or Galilee) consisted mostly of Ephraim's territory. The area was mountainous, giving it protection, and also highly fertile, giving prosperity,


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: The territory of Ephraim contained the early centers of Israelite religion - Shechem and Shiloh. These factors contributed to making Ephraim the most dominant of the tribes in the Kingdom of Israel, and led to "Ephraim" becoming a synonym for the entire kingdom.


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: Joshua 16:1-4 outlines the borders of the lands allocated to the "children of Joseph", i.e. Ephraim and Manasseh combined, and Joshua 16:5-8 defines the borders of the land allocated to the tribe of Ephraim in more detail.


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: Bethel was allocated by Joshua to the Tribe of Benjamin. However, even by the time of the prophetess Deborah, Bethel is described as being in the land of the Tribe of Ephraim. Some twenty years after the breakup of the United Monarchy, Abijah, the second king of Kingdom of Judah, defeated Jeroboam of Israel and took back the towns of Bethel, Jeshanah and Ephron, with their surrounding villages. Ephron is believed to be the Ophrah that was also allocated to the Tribe of Benjamin by Joshua.


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: The riverine gulch, "naḥal Ḳanah" , divided Ephraim's territory to the south, and Manasseh's territory to the north. The modern Israeli town of Karnei Shomron is built near this gulch, which runs in an easterly-westerly direction.


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: The border of Ephraim extended from the Jordan River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, and incorporated within it the cities of Bethel (now Beitin), ʻAtarot, Beth-Ḥoron the Nether (now Bayt ʻUr), extending as far as Gezer (now Abu Shûsheh, formerly known as "Tell el Jezer") and the Mediterranean Sea. Gezer was said to have been inhabited by Canaanites long after Joshua had either killed or expelled the other Canaanites. According to French archaeologist, Charles Clermont-Ganneau, who identified the site in 1871 and later carried out excavations there, Gezer marked the extreme western point of the territory of Ephraim, and was "situated at the actual intersection of the boundaries of Ephraim, Dan and Judah." This view, however, does not seem to be supported by the Scriptures themselves which place the extent of Ephraim's border at the sea.


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: Spanish-Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela wrote that the southernmost bounds of the territory of Ephraim extended in a south-westerly direction as far as the town of Ibelin or Jabney.


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: According to the Torah, the tribe consisted of descendants of Ephraim a son of Joseph, from whom it took its name; however some critical Biblical scholars view this also as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation. In the Biblical account, Joseph is one of the two children of Rachel and Jacob, a brother to Benjamin, and father to both Ephraim, and his first son, Manasseh; although Manasseh was the eldest, Jacob foresaw that Ephraim's descendants would be greater than his brother's.


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: Though the biblical descriptions of the geographic boundary of the House of Joseph are fairly consistent, the descriptions of the boundaries between Manasseh and Ephraim are not, and each is portrayed as having exclaves within the territory of the other. Furthermore, in the Blessing of Jacob, and elsewhere ascribed by textual scholars to a similar or earlier time period, Ephraim and Manasseh are treated as a single tribe, with "Joseph" appearing in their place. From this it is regarded as obvious that originally Ephraim and Manasseh were considered one tribe — that of "Joseph". According to several biblical scholars, Benjamin was also originally part of the "House of Joseph", but the biblical account of this became lost; Benjamin being differentiated by being that part of Ephraim (House of Joseph) which joined the Kingdom of Judah rather than that of Israel.


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: A number of biblical scholars suspect that the "Joseph tribes" (including Benjamin) represent a second migration of Israelites to Israel, later than the main tribes, specifically that it was only the "Joseph tribes" which went to Egypt and returned, while the main Israelite tribes simply emerged as a subculture from the Canaanites and had remained in Canaan throughout; in the narrative in the Book of Joshua, which concerns the arrival in (and conquest of) Canaan by the Israelites from Egypt, the leader is Joshua, who was a member of the Ephraim tribe. According to this view, the story of Jacob's visit to Laban to obtain a wife began as a metaphor for the second migration, with Jacob's new family, possessions, and livestock, obtained from Laban, being representations of the new wave of migrants;


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: In the account of the deuteronomic history, Ephraim is portrayed as domineering, haughty, discontented, and jealous, but in classical rabbinical literature, the biblical founder of the tribe is described as being modest and not selfish. These rabbinical sources allege that it was on account of modesty and selflessness, and a prophetic vision of Joshua, that Jacob gave Ephraim precedence over Manasseh, the elder of the two; in these sources, Jacob is regarded as sufficiently just that God upholds the blessing in his honour, and makes Ephraim the leading tribe. Nevertheless, other classical rabbinical texts mock the tribe for the character it has in the deuteronomic history, claiming that Ephraim, being headstrong, left Egypt 30 years prior to the Exodus, and on arrival in Canaan was subjected to a disastrous battle with the Philistines; in the Midrashic Jasher this is portrayed as a rebellion of Ephraim against God, resulting in the slaying of all but 10, and the bleached bones of the slaughtered being strewn across the roads, so much so that the circuitous route of the Exodus was simply an attempt by God to prevent the Israelites from having to suffer the sight of the remains.


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: Though from the point of view of an increasing majority of archaeologists, there were always two distinct cultures in Canaan, a strong and prosperous northern kingdom and a weaker and poorer southern one, in the Biblical account the Israelite tribes were initially united in a single kingdom, and only later fractured into the northern and southern kingdoms; this fracture is blamed by the Bible on the jealousy of Ephraim over the growing power of Judah. In the Book of Chronicles, Ephraim's act of splintering from Judah is denounced as forsaking God, and Ephraim is portrayed as becoming highly irreligious, particularly in their resistance to the reforms enacted by Hezekiah and Josiah.


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: It was not until the close of the first period of Jewish history that God 'refused the tabernacle of Joseph (Hebrew Bible), and chose not the tribe of Ephraim, but chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion which he loved'. When the Ark was removed from Shiloh to Zion the power of Ephraim was sequestered.


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: As part of the Kingdom of Israel, the territory of Ephraim was conquered by the Assyrians, and the tribe exiled; the manner of their exile led to their further history being lost. However, several modern day groups claim descent, with varying levels of academic and rabbinical support. The Samaritans claim that some of their adherents are descended from this tribe, and many Persian Jews claim to be descendants of Ephraim. Further afield, in India the Telugu Jews claim descent from Ephraim, and call themselves "Bene Ephraim", relating similar traditions to those of the Mizo Jews, whom the modern state of Israel regards as descendants of Manasseh.


title: Tribe of Ephraim

text: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that a significant portion of its members are descended from or adopted into the tribe of Ephraim, believing that they are charged with restoring the lost tribes in the latter days, as prophesied by Isaiah. Along with members of the tribe of Judah, members of the tribe of Ephraim are believed to be playing an important leadership roles for covenant Israel in the last days. They also believe that the main groups of the Book of Mormon (Nephites and Lamanites) were parts of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, as part fulfilment of the blessing of Jacob: "Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall", interpreting the "wall" as the ocean).


title: 2022–23 EFL Cup

text: The 2022–23 EFL Cup is the 63rd season of the EFL Cup (known as the Carabao Cup for sponsorship reasons). The competition is open to all clubs participating in the Premier League and the English Football League.


title: 2022–23 EFL Cup

text: The winner of the competition qualifies for the play-off round of the 2023–24 UEFA Europa Conference League.


title: 2022–23 EFL Cup

text: Liverpool are the defending champions, having beaten Chelsea on penalties to secure a record 9th title in the previous season's final.


title: 2022–23 EFL Cup

text: All 92 clubs in the Premier League and English Football League entered the season's EFL Cup. Access is distributed across the top 4 leagues of the English football league system.


title: 2022–23 EFL Cup

text: The following round, the two remaining Championship clubs, who finished 18th and 19th in the 2021–22 Premier League season (Burnley and Watford), and the Premier League clubs not involved in either the Champions League, Europa League, or Europa Conference League will enter.


title: 2022–23 EFL Cup

text: A total of 70 clubs played in the first round: 24 from League Two (tier 4), 24 from League One (tier 3), and 22 from the Championship (tier 2). The draw for this round was split on a geographical basis into "northern" and "southern" sections. Teams were drawn against a team from the same section.


title: 2022–23 EFL Cup

text: A total of 50 clubs played in the second round: the 35 winners from the first round, the 2 clubs from the Championship (tier 2) who did not enter in the first round, plus the 13 Premier League clubs who were not in European competition. The draw for this round was split on a geographical basis into "northern" and "southern" sections. Teams were drawn against a team from the same section.


title: 2022–23 EFL Cup

text: A total of 32 teams played in the third round. Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, and West Ham United entered in this round due to their participation in either the 2022–23 UEFA Champions League, the 2022–23 UEFA Europa League, and the 2022–23 UEFA Europa Conference League. The draw was made on 24 August 2022. The third round consisted of 19 clubs from the Premier League, three from the Championship, six from League One and four from League Two. Ties were scheduled to be played in the week commencing 7 November 2022"."


title: 2022–23 EFL Cup

text: A total of 16 teams will play in the fourth round. League Two side Gillingham was the lowest-ranked team in the draw, which was made on 10 November 2022.


title: Leila de Lima

text: Leila Norma Eulalia Josefa Magistrado de Lima (born August 27, 1959) is a Filipina politician, lawyer, human rights activist and law professor who previously served as a Senator of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022. She was the chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights from 2008 to 2010, before serving in President Benigno Aquino III's cabinet as the Secretary of Justice from 2010 to 2015.


title: Leila de Lima

text: Known as a vocal critic of the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, she was arrested in 2017 under charges linked to the New Bilibid Prison drug trafficking scandal during her term as the Justice Secretary. Later that year, she was awarded the Prize for Freedom by the Liberal International.


title: Leila de Lima

text: De Lima is the eldest daughter of former Philippine Commission on Elections commissioner Vicente de Lima and Norma Magistrado. She was born and raised in Iriga, Camarines Sur in Bicol.


title: Leila de Lima

text: She graduated in 1980 from the De La Salle University with an AB History degree. She finished her Bachelor of Laws (Salutatorian) degree at the San Beda College of Law in 1985. She placed 8th in the 1985 Philippine Bar Examinations with an 86.26% bar rating.


title: Leila de Lima

text: De Lima began her career as a staff member of Supreme Court Associate Justice Isagani Cruz from 1986 to 1989.


title: Leila de Lima

text: Leila de Lima was appointed as the Chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights under the Arroyo administration. She served this position from 2008 to 2010. Her two-year term was marked by high-profile cases such as the Davao death squads, human rights cases against Jovito Palparan, and the Maguindanao massacre in 2009.


title: Leila de Lima

text: In 2010, Benigno Aquino III offered her the position of Justice secretary, for which she accepted. Her first high-profile case was the Manila hostage crisis, where 8 Hong Kong nationals were killed.


title: Leila de Lima

text: In 2015, during the leadership controversy in Iglesia Ni Cristo and its subsequent protests, de Lima was criticized for meddling in the internal affairs of the denomination.


title: Leila de Lima

text: Leila de Lima ran as a senatorial candidate for the 2016 general elections under the Koalisyon ng Daang Matuwid () of the Liberal Party. She finished 12th, after amassing more than 14 million votes.


title: Leila de Lima

text: De Lima condemned the Philippine Drug War and urged the Philippine Congress to investigate. She called for an end to vigilante killings of drug suspects. On her privilege speech at Senate on August 2, she noted that "we cannot wage the war against drugs with blood..." De Lima lamented the indifference of the new government to extrajudicial killings and warns that more innocent people will suffer if the killings fail to stop.


title: Leila de Lima

text: In 2022, De Lima ran for reelection as a senator under the Liberal Party but accepted defeat after she placed 23rd in the partial unofficial canvassing results which covered 98.04% of transmitted election returns.


title: Leila de Lima

text: On August 17, 2016, the Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte alleged that De Lima had been having an affair with her driver, Ronnie Dayan, who Duterte also alleged functioned as De Lima's collector for drug protection money when she was the Justice secretary. Duterte also alleged that De Lima's driver had been using drugs.


title: Leila de Lima

text: Duterte later claimed that he had in his possession wiretaps and ATM records which confirmed his allegations. He explained that he had received them from an unnamed foreign country. In September 2016, De Lima was removed from her position chairing a Senate Justice and Human Rights committee investigating extrajudicial killings. De Lima, later, admitted that she had a relationship with Dayan many years ago. Justice secretary Vitaliano Aguirre called on convicted drug lords, former prison officials and police officers as prime witnesses against De Lima in the Congressional probe on illegal drug trafficking in the New Bilibid Prison. Dayan went into hiding after being advised by De Lima to not attend the House probe, but he was captured days later.


title: Leila de Lima

text: Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa had corroborated allegations that the former Justice Secretary and now Senator Leila De Lima benefited from the illegal drug activities of his son Kerwin Espinosa in Eastern Visayas. Included in the Mayor's affidavit is a picture of De Lima with Kerwin Espinosa in Baguio City. Kerwin Espinosa later testified that he gave her a total of P8 million to help finance her senatorial campaign during the May 2016 elections.


title: Leila de Lima

text: On July 19, 2019, the PNP–Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) filed charges against De Lima and other members of the opposition for "sedition, cyber libel, libel, "estafa", harboring a criminal, and obstruction of justice". On February 10, 2020, she was cleared of all charges.


title: Leila de Lima

text: In late April 2022, Kerwin Espinosa, one of those who accused senator Leila de Lima of being involved in the illegal drug trade in the New Bilibid Prison, recanted his statements on the case, and said that he was coerced by the police after his father Rolando Espinosa Sr. was killed in jail. The Department of Justice downplayed Kerwin Espinosa's recantation, saying it did not affect their case against de Lima, who is currently detained, as he was not a witness.


title: Leila de Lima

text: In early May 2022, Rafael Ragos, former Bureau of Corrections director general and another witness in the de Lima drug case recanted his testimony. Ragos previously testified that de Lima accepted 5 million pesos from him via drug lord Peter Co, while she was Secretary of Justice, and that it was later used to fund her senatorial campaign in 2016.


title: Leila de Lima

text: On February 17, 2017, a local court pressed drug-related charges against de Lima. On February 23, a Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court issued an arrest warrant against de Lima for allegedly violating the drug trafficking law. De Lima faces drug related cases for allegedly using her position as Secretary of Justice to acquire money from drug pushers to make their drug business operational even though they are imprisoned. De Lima turned herself in the following morning of February 24, 2017. She has also been referred to as a 'prisoner of conscience' by numerous international human rights organizations.


title: Leila de Lima

text: On October 8, 2022 de Lima survived an attempted hostage taking inside Camp Crame. Perpetrators are said to have ties with the Abu Sayyaf and attacked the cop on duty. The police reported that De Lima was safe and that the stabbed cop was rushed to a hospital.


title: Leila de Lima

text: On March 16, 2017, the European Parliament condemned the wave of killings in the Philippines and called for De Lima's release. It expressed "serious concerns that the offences Senator De Lima has been charged with are almost entirely fabricated". Amnesty International regards De Lima as a "prisoner of conscience". Despite her imprisonment, de Lima continued to oppose the policies of Duterte and remained a member of the Philippine Senate and the Liberal Party. She was part of the debate regarding martial law. On May 29, imprisoned Senator De Lima wrote her 94th letter while in prison, stating "People choose to be passive, perhaps because they feel responsible for voting for him—but no. You are not responsible for what he does after you vote for him. You are, however, responsible for letting him get away with things like this with your silence. By electing him, he has not bought your souls and conscience—on the contrary, he now owes you his accountability." In late July 2017, de Lima was visited by members of the European Parliament and the Liberal International. She was unable to vote against the martial law extension because of her detention. She petitioned her release but the Supreme Court rejected her request, and later slapped her with the affirmation of the release of numerous prisoners guilty of graft or corruption during the previous administrations. In September, the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD) demanded the immediate release of de Lima and the restoration of human rights in the Philippines. In the same month, De Lima's ally in the Senate, Risa Hontiveros, caught justice secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II drafting fabricated charges against her through text messages during a hearing on the deaths of minors caused by the Philippine Drug War. The same tactic was used by the same secretary against De Lima, which led to her arrest.


title: Leila de Lima

text: On June 5, 2020, the Amnesty International called on Philippine authorities demanding for an unconditional release of Senator de Lima. The organization also called for the authorities to end unreasonable restrictions imposed on her; permit communication with her family, lawyers, staff and doctors; and allow her to undertake her role as an elected legislator and a human rights defender.


title: Leila de Lima

text: By October 2017, de Lima released numerous statements while in prison condemning the death toll of the Philippine Drug War which has increased to 14,000 Filipino deaths, where a huge number were children, infants, and teenagers. In November 2017, de Lima was awarded the Prize for Freedom by Liberal International, becoming the second Filipino to receive the prestigious award after Corazon Aquino. On December 5, 2017, she was again bestowed with the Leading Global Thinker award by Foreign Policy for the second consecutive year. In the same month, de Lima criticized Duterte for his pivot to China, citing what happened in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Malaysia, and Cambodia, where those countries were put by China in a debt trap after accepting Chinese loans, leading to China's economic control on those countries. In January 2018, de Lima hit Duterte when it was revealed that the debt of the country ballooned to 6.6 trillion and the debt-to-GDP ratio expanded into 36.4%. She also criticized the government for 'bowing down' to China amidst the South China Sea dispute and Chinese exploration in the Benham Rise.


title: Leila de Lima

text: On February 1, 2018, Senator de Lima topped Asian Correspondent's list of five prominent Southeast Asian leaders and human rights defenders who are facing charges for defying the norm. On February 3, de Lima was dubbed as the ""conscience of our time"" by an independent news agency. On February 5, the Ombudsman of the Philippines cleared de Lima from all charges of financial terrorism and violation of the anti-graft law. On February 20, during the World Day of Social Justice, all ethics complaints filed against de Lima were junked by the Philippine Senate. A day later, the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) called for the immediate and unconditional release of Senator de Lima and cited her 'heroism' against corruption and autocracy. It was followed by the Senate minority bloc, liberal members of the House of Representatives, and Amnesty International pushing anew for the release of de Lima. On February 23, de Lima's supporters launched an e-book in the Quezon office of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights, entitled, ""Dispatches from Crame I"", which contained almost half of all the letters and statements written by de Lima during her first year of incarceration.


title: Leila de Lima

text: On March 3, 2018, de Lima sought the approval of the court to let her attend the looming impeachment trial against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno. She also sought Senate inquiries regarding the terms of loans of the government's infrastructure program, which has indebted the country vigorously in just a few months, and the anti-money laundering law compliance after the Ombudsman dropped all money laundering cases against Duterte due to the incumbent administration's threats. On March 10, a court approved de Lima's medical furlough due to problems in her liver. On March 13, the "self-confessed" drug lords were freed by the government due to 'lack of evidences'. On March 29, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) called for the release of de Lima due to the insufficiency of evidence filed against her. On April 4, de Lima filed a dismissal for the ouster petition filed against Chief Justice Sereno. On April 5, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, who initiated the imprisonment of de Lima, resigned from his post after evidences on corruption surfaced to media attention, along with his acquittal of self-confessed drug lords. On April 20, de Lima was named by Fortune Magazine as one of the 'World's 50 Greatest Leaders' for 2018. On May 13, de Lima joined liberal senators in condemning the ouster of Supreme Court Chief Justice Sereno through a quo warranto, which de Lima said was an unconstitutional way to oust an impeachable officer.


title: Leila de Lima

text: On May 28, the Muntinlupa court denied de Lima's plea to attend the law graduation of her youngest son, Vincent. The court stated that de Lima 'cannot be given a different treatment as that of other prisoners'. On May 29, Amnesty International conferred to de Lima the first ever "“Most Distinguished Human Rights Defender”" award during the Ignite Awards for Human Rights. She was also declared one of the world's “Women Human Rights Defenders Under Threat”. On May 30, de Lima filed a motion to reconsider her plea to attend her son's graduation, citing convicted plunderer and ex-senator Jinggoy Estrada, who was allowed by the Sandinganbayan to attend his son's graduation in 2015. On June 1, de Lima filed a resolution seeking to probe the blacklisted Chinese firms that were banned by the World Bank due to corrupt practices, but still were accepted by the Duterte administration in the rehabilitation of Marawi. Hours before her son's graduation on June 3, Presiding Judge Amelia Fabros-Corpuz of the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court Branch 205 rejected de Lima's motion for reconsideration in attending to her son's law graduation. On June 3, de Lima filed a resolution seeking to probe the state-sponsored immigration of Chinese citizens into the Philippines which has caused the unemployment of Filipinos. On June 5, de Lima called solicitor-general Jose Calida as a 'role model in government corruption' after Calida's multi-million corruption scandal surfaced. Calida was one of the personalities that spearheaded de Lima's arrest. On June 6, the Supreme Court of the Philippines, without the ousted Chief Justice, upheld the 'constitutionality' of de Lima's arrest based on drug charges filed by Aguirre, blasting calls from international human rights organizations. The Supreme Court added that 'no further pleadings will be entertained', effectively blocking all remedies for release.


title: Leila de Lima

text: On July 25, de Lima wrote a letter expressing her dismay on the ascension of Duterte ally and former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, as the country's new House Speaker. De Lima, however, added that Arroyo's rise to power via unconstitutional means has led to the rise of the country's 'true minority'. On July 28, de Lima formally accepted the Prize for Freedom "in absentia". On July 31, de Lima called on Congress to pass a bill seeking to prohibit premature campaigning in elections. On the same day, she also pushed for a bill that seeks to increase the pension of qualified indigent senior citizens.


title: Leila de Lima

text: On August 1, de Lima welcomed the indictment against porkbarrel mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles. On August 3, Ronnie Dayan, one of the persons used by the Department of Justice to imprison de Lima, formally refused to testify against the senator's alleged 'disobedience case'. On August 4, de Lima and other senators spearheaded the need to probe the conditions of displaced persons in war-torn areas of Mindanao, notably Marawi. On August 6, the Supreme Court of the Philippines denied de Lima's plea to allow her to join the Senate debates regarding Duterte's initiative to withdraw the Philippines from the International Criminal Court. On August 7, de Lima pushed for the passage of the calamity leave bill, which would provide 5 days of calamity leave for workers. On August 10, eighteen months after her imprisonment, de Lima was finally arraigned in the drug cases established by the Department of Justice. She also sought the passage of the Pedestrian Safety Act. On August 11, de Lima filed a bill on incentivizing the use of solar energy in households. On the same day, she joined other senators in calling for a ban on single-occupancy vehicles on EDSA.


title: Leila de Lima

text: On August 18, senator de Lima expressed the need to probe the Bureau of Immigration's P869-M loss from express lane fees.


title: Leila de Lima

text: On August 24, minority senators called on the Supreme Court to allow de Lima to be present during the ICC withdrawal case through video conference. On August 25, de Lima called for a Senate probe into delays in the free irrigation law's mandated IRR. On August 27, on the birthday of senator de Lima, she released her second book, entitled, ""Fight for Freedom and Other Writings"", which collects her speeches, letters, and notes, as well as letters of support from prominent personalities such as Vice President Leni Robredo, former Hong Kong Legislative Council Member Emily Lau, and Liberal International President Juli Minoves. On the same day, Amnesty International called for the dropping of charges again, adding that de Lima is a 'prisoner of conscience'. Opposition lawmakers also called for the release of de Lima. On August 30, 2018, de Lima filed a bill that would raise the statutory age of rape to 18.


title: Leila de Lima

text: On February 22, 2018, senator Leila de Lima announced that she would launch an e-book, entitled, ""Dispatches from Crame I"" on February 23, a day before the anniversary of her incarceration. On February 23, the e-book was officially launched in the Quezon city office of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights. The e-book contained all the statements and letters written by de Lima since she was detained on February 24, 2017. It also contained statements from her supporters from various local and international organizations and personalities.


title: Leila de Lima

text: On June 1, 2018, the book of de Lima's spiritual adviser, Fr. Robert Reyes, entitled, ""Prisoner of Conscience Prisoner of Hope"", was launched. The book contained various accounts from different personalities giving their views of and conversations with de Lima during her incarceration.


title: Leila de Lima

text: On August 27, 2018, on the birthday of senator de Lima, she released her second book, entitled, ""Fight for Freedom and Other Writings"", which collects her speeches, letters, and notes, as well as letters of support from prominent personalities such as Vice President Leni Robredo, former Hong Kong Legislative Council Member Emily Lau, and Liberal International President Juli Minoves.


title: Leila de Lima

text: De Lima was married for more than thirty years to lawyer Pláridel Bohol. From this marriage, she has two adult children.


title: Leila de Lima

text: De Lima's aunt, Julie de Lima, married Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison, making him Leila de Lima's uncle by marriage. Another aunt of hers, Lilia de Lima, served as the head of the Philippine Economic Zone Authority and is a Ramon Magsaysay Awardee.


title: Broken Bells

text: Broken Bells is an American indie rock band composed of artist-producer Brian Burton (better known as Danger Mouse) and James Mercer, the lead vocalist and guitarist for the indie rock band The Shins. Broken Bells compose and create as a duo, but are joined by Dan Elkan and Jon Sortland when performing live. The previous live band included Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band sidemen Nate Walcott and Nik Freitas, and Jonathan Hischke and Dan Elkan, both ex-members of Hella. Following their 2010 self-titled debut album, the duo released an EP, "Meyrin Fields", in 2011 and their second studio album, "After the Disco", in 2014.


title: Broken Bells

text: Brian Burton and James Mercer decided to work together after meeting at the Roskilde Festival in 2004 and finding they were fans of each other's work. By March 2008, Mercer and Burton had finally begun recording together in secret at Burton's Los Angeles-based studio. The project was first announced on September 29, 2009. The two described their material as "melodic, but experimental, too."


title: Broken Bells

text: Prior to the formation of Broken Bells, Mercer and Burton both worked together on the track "Insane Lullaby" on the album "Dark Night of the Soul" by Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse. Broken Bells have since performed the song several times, often as a tribute to the late Mark Linkous, the Sparklehorse frontman who died in early 2010.


title: Broken Bells

text: Broken Bells' self-titled debut album was released in the United States and Canada on March 9, 2010 through Columbia Records, and has sold over 400,000 copies domestically, peaking at number 7 on the "Billboard" 200 chart. The album has received positive reviews. "Rolling Stone" magazine gave it a four-star review and stated that it was "the year’s coolest left field pop disc." Besides their album being among the year’s highest charting debut albums, the band had sold-out shows on their first-ever tour.


title: Broken Bells

text: On February 14, 2012, in an interview with KINK.FM (a Portland, Oregon radio station), James Mercer stated that he was currently working on Broken Bells' second album. On October 8, 2013, the band announced the release of its second album, "After the Disco". Broken Bells released their lead single from the album, titled "Holding on for Life", on November 4, 2013. "After the Disco" was released on February 4, 2014. That same day they covered "And I Love Her" alongside footage of Ringo Starr on an old television as part of the "Late Show With David Letterman" "Beatles Week" to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the band's debut appearance on "Ed Sullivan". The band performed "Holding on for Life" on the March 7, 2014 episode of "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon". On December 7, 2018, they released "Shelter", their first single in 3 years. A follow up single, "Good Luck", was issued on September 27, 2019.


title: Broken Bells

text: The first single from their third album, "Into the Blue", "We're Not in Orbit Yet...", was released on June 29, 2022, after an eight-year hiatus.They issued a new single, "Saturdays", on August 10, 2022. On September 21, they released a new single titled “Love On The Run”.


title: MOLLE

text: MOLLE (pronounced , homophonic with the name Molly) is an acronym for Modular Lightweight Load-carrying Equipment. It is used to define the current generation of load-bearing equipment and backpacks used by a number of NATO armed forces, especially the British Army and the United States Army.


title: MOLLE

text: The system's modularity is derived from the use of Pouch Attachment Ladder System (PALS) webbing equipment as rows of heavy-duty nylon stitched onto the vest to allow for the attachment of various compatible pouches and accessories. This method of attachment has become a "de facto" standard for modular tactical gear, replacing the All-purpose Lightweight Individual Carrying Equipment (ALICE) system used in the earliest modular vest systems (which is still in use with many police forces).


title: MOLLE

text: The Tactical Assault Panel (TAP) replaces the fighting load carrier (FLC). It is a bib-like chest rig that can be used alone or mounted on the Improved Outer Tactical Vest or Soldier Plate Carrier System. The TAP is covered with PALS webbing and storage for up to eight rifle magazines (six 5.56 magazines + two 7.62 NATO magazines or eight 5.56 magazines).


title: MOLLE

text: The Medium Rucksack is an external frame rucksack with 3000 cubic inches (50L) of storage space. It is designed to be worn over body armor and supports loads up to 60 lbs. It features a large main compartment with internal dividers for items like the hydration system, 60mm mortar rounds, along with a harness for ASIP radios. Two smaller compartments are located outside the main compartment. The pack is adorned in PALS webbing.


title: MOLLE

text: The Large Rucksack is an external frame rucksack with 4000 cubic inches (65L) of storage space. It features a large main compartment with an internal divider between the upper and lower half for organizing loads. It is covered with PALS webbing, and ALICE webbing on the side to support legacy items such as the 2 quart canteen pouch. It is highly adjustable for comfort and load distribution.


title: MOLLE

text: Pouches of various utility that can be attached wherever PALS webbing exists. One type is a "sustainment pouch", which holds three MREs. The various MOLLE pouches are commonly used to carry ammunition, gas masks, batons, flares, grenades, handcuffs and pepper spray, and custom pouches include PALS-compatible pistol holders, hydration pouches and utility pouches. These pouches are normally secured through the use of straps, alice clips or speedclips.


title: MOLLE

text: The term MOLLE is technically only used to describe the specific system manufactured by Specialty Defense Systems, but is also casually used interchangeably to describe generically all load bearing systems and subsystems that utilize the woven PALS (Pouch Attachment Ladder System) webbing for modular pouch attachment (though PALS is proprietary to Natick Labs, most use MOLLE and PALS interchangeably). Derivatives based on the MOLLE attachment method (such as the Tactical Tailor MALICE clip system) have also been developed. Any system that utilizes modular attachment methods and is usable with U.S. general issue MOLLE components is often considered "MOLLE-compatible" or is called a "MOLLE" system. Increasingly, non-military manufacturers are incorporating PALS onto outdoor equipment.


title: MOLLE

text: There are three general modes of attachment in the MOLLE arena; the "Natick Snap", which uses a polyethylene reinforced webbing strap with the 'pushthedot' snap fastener for security; the polymer "Malice" clip, developed by Tactical Tailor as an alternative to the Natick Snap concept, which interweaves like the Natick Snap but terminates in a semi-permanent closure that requires a screwdriver or other flat-tipped object to disengage; and a variety of attachments that fall into the "Weave & Tuck" category, in which the end of an interwoven strap is tucked into an item's backing after attachment to a vest or pack (Paraclete's SofStrap and Spec Ops Brand's hybrid attachment).


title: MOLLE

text: The PALS grid consists of horizontal rows of webbing, spaced 25 mm apart, and attached to the backing at intervals. Although the specification is for the stitchings to be spaced apart, stitching in the range is considered acceptable in practice.


title: MOLLE

text: The MOLLE system was introduced in 1997. However, it did not see widespread issue until after the September 11, 2001 attacks and was used by U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Early criticisms of the MOLLE system emerged, particularly from the Army. Many of these criticisms have centered on the sustainment-load pack and frame, due to the external plastic frame being too fragile and subject to breaking in the field (since mitigated), that the zippers have a tendency to burst when stuffed full and that the pack's straps lack sufficient length to be used with bulky body armor. The first generation of this system used a ball and socket joint between the frame and rucksack belt (which in itself formed the waistbelt of the MOLLE vest). This method led to numerous lower back injuries due to the ball (mounted on the frame) missing the socket on the waistbelt and hurting the user's body. Subsequent redesign of the SDS MOLLE led to the deletion of this feature and thus the vest (FLC) and ruck/frame were separate non-integral items.


title: Florence and the Machine discography

text: English indie rock band Florence and the Machine have released five studio albums, three live albums, six extended plays, 24 singles, four promotional singles and 29 music videos.


title: Florence and the Machine discography

text: Florence and the Machine released their first extended play, "A Lot of Love. A Lot of Blood", in March 2009. Their debut studio album, "Lungs", was released in July 2009 through Island Records, reaching number one on the UK Albums Chart in January 2010. The album was subsequently certified sextuple platinum in the United Kingdom, quadruple platinum in Ireland and triple platinum in Australia. The album's lead single "Kiss with a Fist" peaked at number 51 on the UK Singles Chart. This was succeeded by the single "Dog Days Are Over", which reached number 23 in the UK and number 21 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in the United States, and was certified quadruple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Third single "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)" reached number 12 in the UK and number 41 in Ireland. "Drumming Song" was released as the fourth single, charting at number 54 in the UK. "You've Got the Love", a cover of The Source's song of the same name, peaked at number five in the UK and number nine in Australia. A performance at the 2010 Brit Awards on 17 February 2010 saw the Dizzee Rascal-assisted mash-up "You Got the Dirtee Love" debut at number two in the UK. The album's sixth and final single, "Cosmic Love", peaked at number 51 in the UK and number three in Ireland.


title: Florence and the Machine discography

text: The band's second studio album, "Ceremonials", was released in October 2011, debuting atop the charts in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. The album's release was preceded by the promotional single "What the Water Gave Me", which peaked at number 24 in the UK, number 13 in Ireland and number 15 in New Zealand. Lead single "Shake It Out" became the band's fifth top-40 hit in the UK, peaking at number 12 upon release in September 2011. The track also attained international chart success, reaching number 72 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and becoming the band's highest-peaking single in Ireland, where it reached number two. The album also saw the release of singles "No Light, No Light" and "Never Let Me Go", which peaked at numbers 50 and 82 on the UK chart, respectively. Their next release "Spectrum (Say My Name)" peaked at number one in the UK, becoming their first UK number-one single.


title: Florence and the Machine discography

text: In June 2015, Florence and the Machine released their third studio album, "How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful", which debuted at number one in eight countries including the UK and the US and reached the top 10 of 20 countries. The album had sold over a million copies worldwide by the end of 2015 and has been certified platinum in the UK, Australia and Poland, and gold in New Zealand. It was promoted by the singles "What Kind of Man" and "Ship to Wreck", which both reached the top 40 in the UK, Ireland and New Zealand, as well as "Queen of Peace" and "Delilah".


title: Florence and the Machine discography

text: In January and February 2022, Florence and the Machine released three compilation albums to streaming services – each a selection of eleven songs from previous albums. The first, "Water to Drink Not Write About", features songs themed around water. The second, "My Favourite Ghosts", is a selection of songs with supernatural themes. The third, "Harder Than Hell", is a selection of love songs. All three compilations feature hand-drawn artwork by Welch.


title: Bullshit

text: Bullshit (also bullshite or bullcrap) is a common English expletive which may be shortened to the euphemism bull or the initialism B.S. In British English, "bollocks" is a comparable expletive. It is mostly a slang term and a profanity which means "nonsense", especially as a rebuke in response to communication or actions viewed as deceptive, misleading, disingenuous, unfair or false. As with many expletives, the term can be used as an interjection, or as many other parts of speech, and can carry a wide variety of meanings. A person who excels at communicating nonsense on a given subject is sometimes referred to as a "bullshit artist" instead of a "liar."


title: Bullshit

text: In philosophy and psychology of cognition the term "bullshit" is sometimes used to specifically refer to statements produced without particular concern of truth, to distinguish from a deliberate, manipulative lie intended to subvert the truth. In business and management, guidance for comprehending, recognizing, acting on and preventing bullshit, are proposed for stifling the production and spread of this form of misrepresentation in the workplace, media and society. Within organizations bullshitting is considered to be a social practice that people engage with to become part of a speech community, to get things done in that community, and to reinforce their identity. Research has also produced the Organizational Bullshit Perception Scale (OBPS) that reveals three factors of organizational bullshit (regard for truth, the boss, and bullshit language) that can be used to gauge perceptions of the extent of organizational bullshit that exists in a workplace.


title: Bullshit

text: The word is generally used in a depreciatory sense, but it may imply a measure of respect for language skills or frivolity, among various other benign usages. In philosophy, Harry Frankfurt, among others, analyzed the concept of "bullshit" as related to, but distinct from, lying; the liar tells untruth, the bullshitter aims to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true—it may be.


title: Bullshit

text: As an exclamation, "Bullshit!" conveys a measure of dissatisfaction with something or someone, but this usage need not be a comment on the truth of the matter.


title: Bullshit

text: "Bull", meaning nonsense, dates from the 17th century, while the term "bullshit" has been used as early as 1915 in British and American slang, and came into popular usage only during World War II. The word "bull" itself may have derived from the Old French "bole" meaning "fraud, deceit". The term "horseshit" is a near synonym. An occasionally used South African English equivalent, though more common in Australian slang, is "bull dust".


title: Bullshit

text: Although there is no confirmed etymological connection, these older meanings are synonymous with the modern expression "bull", generally considered and used as a contraction of "bullshit".


title: Bullshit

text: Another proposal, according to the lexicographer Eric Partridge, is that the term was popularized by the Australian and New Zealand troops from about 1916 arriving at the front during World War I. Partridge claims that the British commanding officers placed emphasis on "bull"; that is, attention to appearances, even when it was a hindrance to waging war. The Diggers allegedly ridiculed the British by calling it bullshit.


title: Bullshit

text: "Bullshit" is commonly used to describe statements made by people concerned with the response of the audience rather than with truth and accuracy. On one prominent occasion, the word itself was part of a controversial advertisement. During the 1980 U.S. presidential campaign, the Citizens Party candidate Barry Commoner ran a radio advertisement that began with an actor exclaiming: "Bullshit! Carter, Reagan and Anderson, it's all bullshit!" NBC refused to run the advertisement because of its use of the expletive, but Commoner's campaign successfully appealed to the Federal Communications Commission to allow the advertisement to run unedited.


title: Bullshit

text: In his essay "On Bullshit" (originally written in 1986, and published as a monograph in 2005), philosopher Harry Frankfurt of Princeton University characterizes bullshit as a form of falsehood distinct from lying. The liar, Frankfurt holds, knows and cares about the truth, but deliberately sets out to mislead instead of telling the truth. The "bullshitter", on the other hand, does not care about the truth and is only seeking to impress:


title: Bullshit

text: Frankfurt connects this analysis of bullshit with Ludwig Wittgenstein's disdain of "non-sense" talk, and with the popular concept of a "bull session" in which speakers may try out unusual views without commitment. He fixes the blame for the prevalence of "bullshit" in modern society upon anti-realism and upon the growing frequency of situations in which people are expected to speak or have opinions without appropriate knowledge of the subject matter.


title: Bullshit

text: Several political commentators have seen that Frankfurt's concept of bullshit provides insights into political campaigns. Gerald Cohen, in "Deeper into Bullshit", contrasted the kind of "bullshit" Frankfurt describes with a different sort: nonsense discourse presented as sense. Cohen points out that this sort of bullshit can be produced either accidentally or deliberately. While some writers do deliberately produce bullshit, a person can also aim at sense and produce nonsense by mistake; or a person deceived by a piece of bullshit can repeat it innocently, without intent to deceive others.


title: Bullshit

text: Cohen gives the example of Alan Sokal's "Transgressing the Boundaries" as a piece of "deliberate" bullshit. Sokal's aim in creating it, however, was to show that the "postmodernist" editors who accepted his paper for publication could not distinguish nonsense from sense, and thereby by implication that their field was "bullshit".


title: Bullshit

text: Anthropologist David Graeber's book Bullshit Jobs: A Theory argues the existence and societal harm of meaningless jobs. He contends that over half of societal work is pointless, which becomes psychologically destructive.


title: Bullshit

text: Brandolini's law, also known as the “bullshit asymmetry principle,” holds that “the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than what’s needed to produce it.” This truism highlights that while the battle against misinformation more generally must be fought “face to face,” the larger war against belief in misinformation won’t be won without prevention. Once people are set in their ways, beliefs are notoriously hard to change. Building immunity against false beliefs in the first place is the more effective long-term strategy.


title: Bullshit

text: Almost 20 years before Dr. Frankfurt, NYU professor Neil Postman gave a talk entitled, “Bullshit and the Art of Crap Detection” at the 1969 National Convention for Teachers of English in Washington DC. He started by telling his audience that “helping kids to activate their crap-detectors should take precedence over any other legitimate educational aim."


title: Bullshit

text: University of Washington biologist Carl Bergstrom and professor Jevin West started teaching “data reasoning in a digital world” within a college course they called “Calling Bullshit.” They then launched the Calling Bullshit website and published a book with the same title.


title: Bullshit

text: While Dr. Frankfurt sparked the academic study of bullshit and bullshitting, few have advanced our knowledge of “bullshittees”, those who consume bullshit, more than University of Regina psychology professor Dr. Gordon Pennycook. He and his colleagues won the 2016 Ig Nobel Prize (for Peace) for developing a questionnaire designed to quantify receptiveness to a particular kind of bullshit that they called “pseudoprofound bullshit."


title: Bullshit

text: Wake Forest University psychologists found evidence to support that beyond the Dunning-Kruger effect (unwarranted high self-confidence), bullshitting tends to happen when there’s social pressure to provide an opinion and a social “pass” that will allow someone to get away with it. Psychology research from Yale University demonstrated that the Dunning-Kruger effect is amplified by access to the internet: we tend to conflate the ability to look up information on the internet with actual personal knowledge. Social media also offers an environment that combines the social pressure to bullshit with an anonymity that provides the social “pass.” In 2018, education experts from Queen’s University in Belfast summed it up this way: “…along with a pervasive and balkanized social media ecosystem and high internet immersion, public life provides abundant opportunities to bullshit and lie on a scale we could have scarcely credited 30 years ago.”


title: Bullshit

text: Psychologists at Vanderbilt University, Duke University and University of North Carolina researched the Illusory truth effect, or the tendency to believe false information to be correct after repeated exposure. The listener is likely to let it override their prior knowledge on the subject and believe it.


title: Bullshit

text: Research by psychologists at the University of Waterloo tested the familiar adage that “you can’t bullshit a bullshitter.” To do so, they explored correlations between a scale that measures “bullshitting” (the Bullshitting Frequency Scale or BFS) and a scale that measures “bullshit receptivity” (the Bullshit Receptivity Scale or BRS) and found that higher scores on the former were correlated with higher scores on the latter. In other words, those who are most likely to bullshit are in turn more likely to believe bullshit, suggesting that you can indeed bullshit a bullshitter after all.


title: Bullshit

text: Outside of the academic world, among natural speakers of North American English, as an interjection or adjective, "bullshit" conveys general displeasure, an objection to, or points to unfairness within, some state of affairs. This colloquial usage of "bullshit", which began in the 20th century, "bullshit" does not give a truth score to another's discourse. It simply labels something that the speaker does not like & feels he is unable to change.


title: Bullshit

text: In the colloquial English of the Boston, Massachusetts area, "bullshit" can be used as an adjective to communicate that one is angry or upset, for example, "I was wicked bullshit after someone parked in my spot".


title: This machine kills fascists

text: "This machine kills fascists" is a message that Woody Guthrie placed on his guitar in the mid 1940s, starting in 1943.


title: This machine kills fascists

text: Circa 1943, in the midst of World War II, Guthrie wrote the war song "Talking Hitler's Head Off Blues". This was printed in the "Daily Worker", a newspaper published by the Communist Party USA. Then, according to biographer Anne E. Neimark, "In a fit of patriotism and faith in the impact of the song, he painted on his guitar THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS."


title: This machine kills fascists

text: In Guthrie's opposition to fascism, he conceptualized the ideology "as a form of economic exploitation similar to slavery", straightforwardly denouncing the fascists – particularly their leaders – as a group of gangsters who set out to "rob the world". This recalled a protest strategy he had used "during the Great Depression, when social, political, and economic inequality had been engendered by a small rich elite". During that era, Guthrie had "romanticized the deeds of outlaws such as Jesse James, Pretty Boy Floyd, Calamity Jane or the Dalton Gang both as legitimate acts of social responsibility and as 'the ultimate expression of protest', thus transforming the outlaw into an archetypal partisan in a fight against those who were held responsible for the worsening social and economic conditions".


title: This machine kills fascists

text: In this, Guthrie cast those opposing fascism not as mere outlaws in a fascist state, but as heroes rising "in times of economic turmoil and social disintegration" to fight "a highly illegitimate criminal endeavor intended to exploit the common people". Guthrie portrayed these characters as something larger than merely "dumb gangsters", while his lyricism also "externalized the inhuman element of fascism by describing its representatives as animals that were usually held in very low esteem and were associated with a range of bad character traits". For example, he talked about the "Nazi Snake" that has to be countered in his song "Talking Hitler's Head Off Blues". Guthrie would declare "[a]nything human is anti Hitler" and in his song "You Better Get Ready" he has the figure of Satan declare that "Old Hell just ain't the same/Compared to Hitler, hell, I'm tame!" Guthrie saw the battle against fascism as the ultimate battle of good versus evil. In a letter to "Railroad Pete" he stated "fascism and freedom are the only two sides battling ... [this was the war] the world has been waiting on for twenty five million years ... [which would] settle the score once and for all".


title: Domenica Cameron-Scorsese

text: She was born in California and is the daughter of Julia Cameron and Martin Scorsese. She is a graduate of Wesleyan University.


title: Domenica Cameron-Scorsese

text: Scorsese is known for acting in "Cape Fear" (1991), "The Age of Innocence" (1993), and "Bullfighter" (2000).


title: Domenica Cameron-Scorsese

text: In 2017, her feature-length directorial debut "Almost Paris" was screened at the 2017 Golden Door International Film Festival. "Almost Paris" tells of a former Wall Street banker who has to return home after the mortgage lending crisis.


title: Nigel Olsson

text: Nigel Olsson (born 10 February 1949) is an English rock drummer and singer best known for his long-time affiliation with Elton John. A dynamic drummer and backing vocalist, Olsson helped establish the Elton John sound as a member of the Elton John Band alongside bassist Dee Murray.


title: Nigel Olsson

text: When not working with John, Olsson has taken up the role of a session musician. He has also composed, recorded, and produced albums for his own solo career.


title: Nigel Olsson

text: Olsson was born to John and Elsa Olsson in Wallasey, Cheshire, England, the second of five boys. He began his musical career playing the guitar in small bands, and took up the drums at a gig where the drummer did not show up at the last minute. His first appearance on a record album was in the band Plastic Penny, which released "Two Sides of a Penny" on Page One Records in 1968. Olsson was spotlighted on one song on that album, "I Want You," performing both lead vocals and a drum solo. In 1969 he played drums on the "flower power" pop single "Mr. Boyd" b/w "Imagine" by Argosy, a one-off group which also included Reginald Dwight (later known as Elton John), Caleb Quaye, and Roger Hodgson. Olsson also had a brief stint with the English hard rock band Uriah Heep, playing drums on two songs on their 1970 debut LP, "Very 'eavy... Very 'umble". Subsequently, he played drums on one track on Elton John's debut album, "Empty Sky", and then replaced Dave Hynes in The Spencer Davis Group, joining forces with bassist Dee Murray. The pair joined John on the road as his touring band in April 1970, and played with John during his debut tour in the United States at the Troubadour Club on 25 August 1970. Only permitted at first to play on one track of each of John's early studio albums, Olsson and Murray, along with guitarist Davey Johnstone, became Elton's studio band with the recording of "Honky Chateau" in January 1972.


title: Nigel Olsson

text: With Johnstone, Olsson, and Murray on board, John enjoyed a string of critically acclaimed albums and hit singles. The albums include "Honky Chateau", "Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player", "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", and "Caribou". Shortly before the "Caribou" studio sessions, famed session percussionist Ray Cooper joined permanently, having previously been a sideman, what was billed as The Elton John Band. Olsson played during all of John's tours, and confesses that he still gets nervous before going on stage.


title: Nigel Olsson

text: In 1971, Olsson produced and released his debut solo album "Nigel Olsson's Drum Orchestra and Chorus" on Uni Records, featuring Murray, Cochise (band) guitarist Mick Grabham, and Hookfoot guitarist Caleb Quaye, who had played on John's early albums. Olsson also teamed up with the Liverpool trio, The Big Three, for their reunion album "Resurrection" (1973).


title: Nigel Olsson

text: In May 1975, Olsson and Murray were dismissed from John's band following the release of "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy," which, upon release, entered the charts at No. 1. Olsson's second solo album, "Nigel Olsson", appeared later that year on John's own record label, The Rocket Record Company, and featured a cover of the Bee Gees'-penned "Only One Woman", which had been recorded with John and his band in August 1974 during the sessions for "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy," and was produced by Gus Dudgeon. The album was produced by Robert Appére.


title: Nigel Olsson

text: Olsson continued working as a studio musician, releasing another self-titled album produced by Paul Davis on Columbia in 1978, while managed by Martin Pichinson. Although that album brought no Top 40 recognition, in 1979 he released the album "Nigel" and enjoyed some mild success as a solo artist, scoring a pair of Top 40 hits on the U.S. pop chart with "A Little Bit of Soap" and "Dancin' Shoes", the latter of which cracked the Top 20 at No. 18. "Dancin' Shoes" was written by Carl Storie, and first recorded by his Faith Band.


title: Nigel Olsson

text: In August 1980, he released the album "Changing Tides" on CBS's Bang Records, but the album failed to achieve chart success. That same year, Olsson returned to Elton John's band for what was to be a four-year tenure, appearing on John's albums "21 at 33" and "The Fox". He rejoined former bandmates Murray and Johnstone for the tour behind John's 1982 album "Jump Up!", and stayed with the reformed band through the next two albums and tours for "Too Low for Zero" (1983) and "Breaking Hearts" (1984). Following another line-up change, they would rejoin only one more time in 1988 for backing vocals on "Reg Strikes Back" prior to Murray's untimely death on 15 January 1992.


title: Nigel Olsson

text: In 1991 Olsson reunited with Johnstone in the band Warpipes, releasing "Holes in the Heavens". Although the album was critically successful, it failed commercially when their label, Artful Balance, went bankrupt, and the band was unable to tour to support the record.


title: Nigel Olsson

text: On 31 March 2000, Olsson sang backing vocals alongside Billy Trudel and Ken Stacey when John appeared on "The Today Show" to promote the soundtrack to the film "The Road to El Dorado". On 3 April, Olsson played drums on three songs at the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS benefit saluting John at the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York City. By the time of John's "" concerts in New York City on 20 and 21 October, Olsson was alternating with and playing drums alongside Curt Bisquera. In January 2001, Olsson took over the full-time drumming chores when Bisquera left to pursue other projects.


title: Nigel Olsson

text: In 2001 Olsson released another solo album entitled "Move The Universe" on 81 Records. Davey Johnstone and Guy Babylon produced the record and played on all of the tracks, along with Bob Birch on bass, Elton John alumnus Fred Mandel on piano, John Mahon on percussion, and Billy Trudel on backing vocals. Kiki Dee sang lead vocals on Roachford's "Naked Without You", and Olsson's brother Kai sang lead vocals on McGuinness Flint's "When I'm Dead an' Gone." The track "Building A Bird" had been written by Elton John & Bernie Taupin in 1994 during the sessions for Elton's album "Made in England," but never recorded. Olsson dedicated the album to the late Dee Murray.


title: Nigel Olsson

text: In the studio, he played and sang backing vocals on several tracks on John's "Songs from the West Coast" (2001). He then played all the drums on "Peachtree Road" (2004) and "The Captain & the Kid" (2006), as well as continuing in the touring band, along with Johnstone, Bob Birch (bass), Kim Bullard (keyboards) and John Mahon (percussion). With bassist Matt Bissonette replacing the late Bob Birch in 2012, this band recorded "Wonderful Crazy Night" in 2015 for release in February 2016.


title: Nigel Olsson

text: On 9 November 2014, Olsson played his 2000th concert with Elton John at the Ice Hall Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia.


title: Nigel Olsson

text: On his 68th birthday, 10 February 2017, Olsson played his 2,267th concert with Elton John at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, Nevada.


title: Nigel Olsson

text: Olsson has two children: Justin, who lives with his wife Angela in the United States, and Annette, who lives with her husband Barry and children Ashley and Katie in England. He has been married to Schanda Butler since 25 June 1989, and resides in Los Angeles.


title: Nigel Olsson

text: Olsson is a longtime car and racing fanatic, and has been associated with the Vintage Auto Racing Association and the Historic Motor Sports Association in the United States as both a racing car driver and a pace car driver.


title: Battle of Wagram

text: The Battle of Wagram (; 5–6 July 1809) was a military engagement of the Napoleonic Wars that ended in a costly but decisive victory for Emperor Napoleon's French and allied army against the Austrian army under the command of Archduke Charles of Austria-Teschen. The battle led to the breakup of the Fifth Coalition, the Austrian and British-led alliance against France. Wagram was the largest battle in European history up to its time.


title: Battle of Wagram

text: In 1809, the French military presence in the Confederation of the Rhine was diminished as Napoleon transferred a number of soldiers to fight in the Peninsular War. As a result, the Austrian Empire saw its chance to recover some of its former sphere of influence and invaded the Kingdom of Bavaria, a French ally. Recovering from his initial surprise, Napoleon beat the Austrian forces and occupied Vienna at the beginning of May 1809. Despite the string of sharp defeats and the loss of the empire's capital, Archduke Charles salvaged an army, with which he retreated north of the Danube. This allowed the Austrians to continue the war. Towards the end of May, Napoleon resumed the offensive, suffering a surprise defeat at the Battle of Aspern-Essling.


title: Battle of Wagram

text: It took Napoleon six weeks to prepare his next offensive, for which he amassed a 172,000-man French, German and Italian army in the vicinity of Vienna. The Battle of Wagram began after Napoleon crossed the Danube with the bulk of these forces during the night of 4 July and attacked the 136,000-man strong Austrian army. Having successfully crossed the river, Napoleon attempted an early breakthrough and launched a series of evening attacks against the Austrian army. The Austrians were thinly spread in a wide semicircle, but held a naturally strong position. After the attackers enjoyed some initial success, the defenders regained the upper hand and the attacks failed. Bolstered by his success, the next day at dawn Archduke Charles launched a series of attacks along the entire battle line, seeking to take the opposing army in a double envelopment. The offensive failed against the French right but nearly broke Napoleon's left. However, the Emperor countered by launching a cavalry charge, which temporarily halted the Austrian advance. He then redeployed IV Corps to stabilise his left, while setting up a grand battery, which pounded the Austrian right and centre. The tide of battle turned and the Emperor launched an offensive along the entire line, while "Maréchal" Louis-Nicolas Davout drove an offensive, which turned the Austrian left, and rendered Charles's position untenable. Towards mid-afternoon on 6 July, Charles admitted defeat and led a retreat, frustrating enemy attempts to pursue. After the battle, Charles remained in command of a cohesive force and decided to retreat to Bohemia. However, the Grande Armée eventually caught up with him and scored a victory at the Battle of Znaim. With the battle still raging, Charles decided to ask for an armistice, effectively ending the war.


title: Battle of Wagram

text: With 74,000 casualties, the two-day battle of Wagram was particularly bloody, mainly due to the use of 1,000 artillery pieces and the expenditure of 200,000 rounds of artillery ammunition on a flat battlefield packed with some 300,000 men. Although Napoleon was the uncontested winner, he failed to secure an overwhelming victory and the Austrian casualties were only slightly greater than those of the French and allies. Nonetheless, the defeat was serious enough to shatter the morale of the Austrians, who could no longer find the will to continue the struggle. The resulting Treaty of Schönbrunn meant the loss of one sixth of the Austrian Empire's subjects, along with some territories, rendering it landlocked until the German Campaign of 1813.


title: Battle of Wagram

text: After the battle, Emperor Napoleon bestowed to Louis-Alexandre Berthier, who was his Marshal, Chief of Staff, Minister of War and Vice-Constable of the Empire, the victory title of 1st Prince of Wagram, making him an official member of the French nobility. Berthier had previously been granted the title of Sovereign Prince of Neuchâtel and the Prince of Valangin in 1806. This allowed his descendants to carry the titles of Prince and Princess of Wagram.


title: Battle of Wagram

text: In 1809, the First French Empire held a dominant position on the European continent. Resounding victories during the 1805 to 1807 wars against the Third and Fourth coalitions had ensured almost undisputed continental hegemony, to such an extent that no other European power could challenge the might of Napoleon's empire. However, despite having defeated Austria, forced Russia into an uneasy alliance and reduced Prussia to the rank of a second-rate power, Napoleon did not manage to force the United Kingdom to make peace. With the British in complete control of the seas, Napoleon thus opted for an economic war, imposing the Continental System against the British Isles, in a bid to dry up vital British commercial relations with the continent. To ensure the effectiveness of the Continental System, he sought to force Portugal, a traditional British trading partner, to observe it; when diplomatic means failed in 1808, Napoleon had the country occupied, forcing the ruling dynasty of Braganza to flee the country and seek refuge in its main colony, Brazil. In a move that would prove to be both uninspired and ill-handled, Napoleon also opted to change the ruling dynasty of Spain, replacing King Charles IV with his own brother, Joseph, who became King José I of Spain. The new king was, however, not well received by the population and much of the country's ruling elite, which triggered a bloody guerrilla war throughout the country. The French position in the peninsula was rendered untenable after the Battle of Bailen, a rare and resounding defeat for the French forces and an event that greatly encouraged the Austrian war party. With Napoleon forced to intervene personally and commit increasingly significant forces to the Spanish, the French military position in central Europe was severely weakened. In addition, Franco-Russian relations had deteriorated and, although the two countries remained allies on paper, it was unlikely that Russia would commit itself seriously to fighting France's enemies on the continent.


title: Battle of Wagram

text: France's main adversary in central Europe was the Austrian Empire. Defeated at Ulm and Austerlitz in 1805 and forced to conclude the humiliating Peace of Pressburg, Austria still possessed a formidable army which, in the years following Austerlitz, had undergone major reforms. By 1809, the state was almost bankrupt and acutely aware that it could not retain its status as a great power if it did not manage to regain some of its former influence in Germany and Italy. Encouraged by Napoleon's peninsular imbroglio, British subsidies and the promise of a military intervention in northern Europe, the Austrians decided that the European political context of 1808 and 1809 offered their best chance to retake lost provinces. In order to win the war against the French, Vienna was counting on massive nationalist, anti-French uprisings throughout Germany and hoping that an early success might convince Prussia to join the new coalition, while calculating that Russia would most likely not interfere in support of the French. Austrian military preparations were accelerated in 1808 and early 1809, with operations set to occur in several war theatres, including the main one in Bavaria and sideshows in Italy, Dalmatia, Westphalia, Tyrol and Poland. In stark contrast to 1805, by 1809 Austria had managed to reform its military and build a relatively modern and overall redoubtable army, placed in the hands of their best commander, Archduke Charles of Austria, brother of Emperor Francis I of Austria.


title: Battle of Wagram

text: By March 1809, war between Austria and France was imminent and the Habsburg army, 200,000 men strong, massed in the northwestern province of Bohemia, near the frontier with the Confederation of the Rhine, the French-dominated confederacy of German states. Austria hoped that Prussia would join the war and, by massing its main army in Bohemia, it signalled its intent to join up with the Prussians. However, by early April 1809, it became obvious that Prussia was not ready to commit, and the Austrians were forced to move their main army southwards, in a bid to launch their westward offensive along the Danube. Strategically, the decision was sound, since an offensive along the river valley allowed better protection for the Austrian capital. Nevertheless, the time-consuming manoeuvres to Bohemia and back cost the Austrians an entire month.


title: Battle of Wagram

text: On 9 April 1809, without any declaration of war, the main Austrian army crossed the Inn River into Bavaria, one of France's main allies, while secondary Austrian armies launched offensives of their own. Meanwhile, Napoleon was in Paris, conscious that the war was imminent but unaware that the Austrians were prepared for immediate offensive. Command of the French and allied army, styled "Armée d'Allemagne", was in the hands of "Maréchal" Berthier, a formidable officer when working as Napoleon's chief of staff, but completely out of his depth as a commander by proxy. Furthermore, in order to remain in close contact with Paris by military telegraph and to avoid provoking the Austrians, Berthier was initially ordered to set up his headquarters near Strasbourg, hundreds of kilometres away from the front line, before moving to Germany as war broke out. As a result, Berthier's response to Charles's invasion was timid and, after misinterpreting Napoleon's orders, he left two entire army corps in isolated positions. Consequently, during the first week of the campaign, Charles was able to advance virtually unmolested and take advantage of the poor French deployment. All changed from 17 April, when Napoleon arrived in person and began concentrating his available troops to meet the Austrian onslaught. Before Napoleon could concentrate his corps, Charles attacked Davout's isolated corps at Teugen-Hausen but the dogged French marshal repulsed the attackers. The tide of the campaign had turned but Napoleon misjudged the strategic situation, thinking that the force that had fought Davout was only a flank guard and that the main force lay before him; in reality it was the opposite. As the French took the offensive several actions ensued : Landshut, Abensberg, Eckmühl and Ratisbon, with the Austrians coming off worse each time and having their left wing cut off from the bulk of the army. In the end, however, Charles succeeded in avoiding a decisive defeat, preserving a combat-ready army which he directed north of the Danube, where he awaited Napoleon's next move.


title: Battle of Wagram

text: Charles's retreat left Napoleon with two options: pursue the defeated Austrian army north of the Danube or occupy Vienna, which was now covered by a secondary enemy force and could not hope to hold out. Uncharacteristically, Napoleon, who had stated on a number of occasions that the purpose of any campaign is to destroy the main army of the enemy, opted for the latter course of action and entered the enemy capital on 12 May, only to find the city's strategic bridges over the Danube blown up. With the emperor poised for an immediate continuation of the offensive north of the river, this was a considerable setback. Meanwhile, Charles brought the bulk of his remaining force on the northern bank of the river, close to Vienna, which lured Napoleon into attacking them right away. Napoleon's rushed crossing of the river was made on fragile, hastily built pontoon bridges, over an increasingly swollen river. The French crossing resulted in the Battle of Aspern-Essling, beginning on 21 May; the more numerous Austrian army faced only a fraction of the "Grande Armée", as Napoleon was unable to bring through the bulk of his forces in time. Still, Charles's attempt to drive the outnumbered enemy back resulted in total failure, as the French led a skillful combined-arms defense, with their cavalry playing a vital role in keeping the Austrians at bay. Fighting resumed early on 22 May, when Napoleon began receiving some reinforcements and decided to attack. The French offensive was quite successful but Napoleon soon received alarming news that the main bridge had broken and consequently, no further reinforcements and ammunition could be brought from the southern bank, making a protracted battle impossible. This prompted the emperor to immediately stop his attack and order a phased retreat onto the large Danube island of Lobau. Given that the Austrians, with their superior numbers and overwhelming artillery firepower, were now intent upon seizing the opportunity to launch a counterattack of their own, retreat was most difficult. It took all the experience of the French commanders and the determination and self-sacrifice of the troops, including the Guard, to fend off the ferocious Austrian onslaught but, by nightfall, the remains of the French forces were safely across the arm of the Danube, on the island of Lobau. Napoleon had suffered the first significant defeat of his career.


title: Battle of Wagram

text: The Battle of Aspern-Essling was extremely costly for both sides, resulting in some 53,000 casualties, almost equally divided between the two armies. For the Austrians, Aspern-Essling was a costly victory. Crucially, it improved the overall morale of the troops as it proved that, despite their early string of defeats, the army could fight extremely well. However, in the weeks following the battle, Archduke Charles became increasingly skeptical about his chances of winning the war. His analysis of the battle revealed that he had been unable to capitalise on his overwhelming numerical superiority and had thus failed to achieve more than a tactical victory. Also of great significance, despite Austrian attempts to trumpet their victory against Napoleon, its political consequences remained limited: there were no signs of a general uprising in Germany, Prussia was still unwilling to enter the war and Great Britain was not ready to launch its promised land expedition in northern Europe, while Russia, France's ally since 1807, was becoming increasingly aggressive against the Austrian forces in Galicia. Thus, Charles's skepticism stemmed from the realisation that none of the strategic prerequisites for an Austrian victory in this war had materialised. He came to believe that his country's best option was to open negotiations with Napoleon but, despite his warning that "the first battle lost is a death sentence for the monarchy", his brother, Emperor Francis repeatedly refused to consider the option.


title: Battle of Wagram

text: Although a generalissimus, with supreme authority over the entire Austrian army, Charles's position was constantly undermined by his imperial brother and the war party at the court, who were corresponding directly on military matters with his chief of staff, "General Major" Wimpffen and some of the corps commanders. The constant flow of information from the front maintained a bellicose atmosphere in the high political circles and an erroneously optimistic opinion about Austria's military situation, which hindered Charles's best attempts to get his brother to sue for peace.