title: Harrying of the North

text: The Harrying of the North was a series of campaigns waged by William the Conqueror in the winter of 1069–1070 to subjugate northern England, where the presence of the last Wessex claimant, Edgar Ætheling, had encouraged Anglo-Danish rebellions. William paid the Danes to go home, but the remaining rebels refused to meet him in battle, and he decided to starve them out by laying waste to the northern shires using scorched earth tactics, especially in the city of York, before relieving the English aristocracy of their positions, and installing Norman aristocrats throughout the region.


title: Harrying of the North

text: Contemporary chronicles vividly record the savagery of the campaign, the huge scale of the destruction and the widespread famine caused by looting, burning and slaughtering. Some present-day scholars have labelled the campaigns a genocide, although others doubt whether William could have assembled enough troops to inflict so much damage and have suggested that the records may have been exaggerated or misinterpreted. Records from the Domesday Book of 1086 suggest that as much as 75% of the population could have died or never returned.


title: Harrying of the North

text: At the time of the Norman Conquest "the North" consisted of what became Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland in the east and Lancashire with the southern parts of Cumberland and Westmorland in the west. The population of the north pre-conquest can be described as "Anglo-Scandinavian" carrying a cultural continuity from a mixing of Viking and Anglo-Saxon traditions. The dialect of English spoken in Yorkshire may well have been unintelligible to people from the south of England, and the aristocracy was primarily Danish in origin.


title: Harrying of the North

text: Further, communications between the north and south were difficult, partly due to the terrain but also because of the poor state of the roads. The more popular route between York and the south was by ship. In 962 Edgar the Peaceful had granted legal autonomy to the northern earls of the Danelaw in return for their loyalty; this had limited the powers of the Anglo-Saxon kings who succeeded him north of the Humber. The earldom of Northumbria stretched from the Tees to the Tweed.


title: Harrying of the North

text: After the defeat of the English army and death of Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, English resistance to the conquest was centred on Edgar Ætheling, the grandson of Edmund Ironside. Ironside was half-brother to Edward the Confessor. It is said the English conceded defeat, not at Hastings, but at Berkhamsted two months later when Edgar and his supporters submitted to William in December 1066. However, of all the men who submitted to William at Berkhamsted it was only Ealdred, Archbishop of York, who would remain loyal to the Norman king. William faced a series of rebellions and border skirmishes in Dover, Exeter, Hereford, Nottingham, Durham, York and Peterborough.


title: Harrying of the North

text: Copsi, a supporter of Tostig (a previous Anglo-Saxon earl of Northumbria who had been banished by Edward the Confessor), was a native of Northumbria and his family had a history of being rulers of Bernicia, and at times Northumbria. Copsi had fought in Harald Hardrada's army with Tostig, against Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. He had managed to escape after Harald's defeat. When Copsi offered homage to William at Barking in 1067, William rewarded him by making him earl of Northumbria. After just five weeks as earl, Copsi was murdered by Osulf, son of Earl Eadulf III of Bernicia. When, in turn, the usurping Osulf was also killed, his cousin, Cospatrick, bought the earldom from William. He was not long in power before he joined Edgar Ætheling in rebellion against William in 1068.


title: Harrying of the North

text: With two earls murdered and one changing sides, William decided to intervene personally in Northumbria. He marched north and arrived in York during the summer of 1068. The opposition melted away, with some of them – including Edgar – taking refuge at the court of the Scottish king Malcolm III.


title: Harrying of the North

text: Back in Northumbria, William changed tactics and appointed a Norman, Robert de Comines, as earl, rather than an Anglo-Saxon. Despite warnings from the bishop, Ethelwin, that a rebel army was mobilised against him, Robert rode into Durham with a party of men on 28 January 1069, where he and his men were surrounded and slaughtered. The rebels then turned their attention to York where they killed the guardian of the castle there plus a large number of his men. William's response was swift and brutal: he returned to York, where he fell on the besiegers, killing or putting them to flight.


title: Harrying of the North

text: Possibly emboldened by the fighting in the north, rebellions broke out in other parts of the country. William sent earls to deal with problems in Dorset, Shrewsbury and Devon, while he dealt with rebels in the Midlands and Stafford.


title: Harrying of the North

text: Edgar Ætheling had sought assistance from the king of Denmark, Sweyn II, a nephew of King Canute. Sweyn assembled a fleet of ships under the command of his sons. The fleet sailed up the east coast of England raiding as they went. The Danes with their English allies retook the city of York. Then, in the winter of 1069, William marched his army from Nottingham to York with the intention of engaging the rebel army. However, by the time William's army had reached York, the rebel army had fled, with Edgar returning to Scotland. As they had nowhere suitable on land to stay for the winter, the Danes decided to go back to their ships in the Humber Estuary. After negotiation with William, it was agreed that, if he made payment to them, then they would go home to Denmark without a fight. With the Danes having returned home, William then turned to the rebels. As they were not prepared to meet his army in pitched battle, he employed a strategy that would attack the rebel army's sources of support and their food supply.


title: Harrying of the North

text: William's strategy, implemented during the winter of 1069–70 (he spent Christmas 1069 in York), has been described by William E. Kapelle and some other modern scholars as an act of genocide. Contemporary biographers of William considered it to be his cruellest act and a "stain upon his soul". Writing about the Harrying of the North, over fifty years later, the Anglo-Norman chronicler Orderic Vitalis wrote (summarized):


title: Harrying of the North

text: The land was ravaged on either side of William's route north from the River Aire. His army destroyed crops and settlements and forced rebels into hiding. In the New Year of 1070 he split his army into smaller units and sent them out to burn, loot, and terrify. Florence of Worcester said that from the Humber to the Tees, William's men burnt whole villages and slaughtered the inhabitants. Food stores and livestock were destroyed so that anyone surviving the initial massacre would succumb to starvation over the winter. There are credible reports of survivors being reduced to cannibalism. Refugees from the harrying are mentioned as far away as Worcestershire in the Evesham Abbey chronicle. Other refugees fled to lowland Scotland.


title: Harrying of the North

text: In 1086, Yorkshire still had large areas of waste territory. The Domesday Book entries indicate "wasteas est" or "hoc est vast" ("it is wasted") for estate after estate; in all a total of 60% of all holdings were waste. It states that 66% of all villages contained wasted manors. Even the prosperous areas of the county had lost 60% of its value compared to 1066. Only 25% of the population and plough teams remained with a reported loss of 80,000 oxen and 150,000 people.


title: Harrying of the North

text: Independent archaeological evidence supports the massive destruction and displacement of people. The archaeologist Richard Ernest Muir wrote that there was evidence for the "violent disruption [that] took place in Yorkshire in 1069–71, in the form of hoards of coins which were buried by the inhabitants." B.K. Roberts in his book "The Making of the English Village", suggests the reason that large numbers of villages have been laid out in regular pattern in Durham and Yorkshire, was through a restructuring at a single point in time, as opposed to natural settlement growth. He goes on to say that it is highly unlikely that such plans could have resulted from piecemeal additions and must have been necessary after the Harrying of the North. The dating is thought to be secure as it is known that Norman lords used similar regular plans in founding new towns in the 'plantation' of rural settlements in other conquered parts of the British Isles.


title: Harrying of the North

text: However, although the Domesday Book records large numbers of manors in the north as waste, some historians have posited it was not possible for William's relatively small army to be responsible for such wide-scale devastation imputed to him, so perhaps raiding Danes or Scots may have contributed to some of the destruction. It has been variously argued that "waste" signified manorial re-organisation, some form of tax break, or merely a confession of ignorance by the Domesday commissioners when unable to determine details of population and other manorial resources.


title: Harrying of the North

text: According to Paul Dalton, it was questionable whether the Conqueror had the time, manpower or good weather necessary to reduce the north to a desert. It was evident, from the chroniclers, that William did harry the north but as the bulk of William's troops, Dalton suggests, were guarding castles in southern England and Wales, and as William was only in the north for a maximum of three months, the amount of damage he could do was limited.


title: Harrying of the North

text: Mark Hagger suggests that in the words of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", William's Harrying of the North was "stern beyond measure" but should not be described as genocide as William was acting by the rules of his own time, not the present. Vegetius, the Latin writer, wrote his treatise "De Re Militari" in the fourth century about Roman warfare, and Hagger posits that this still would have provided the basis for military thinking in the eleventh century. Vegetius said, "The main and principal point in war is to secure plenty of provisions and to destroy the enemy by famine", so Hagger's conclusion is that the Harrying of the North was no worse than other similar conflicts of the time.


title: Harrying of the North

text: Other historians have questioned the figures supplied by Orderic Vitalis, who was born in 1075 and would have been writing "Ecclesiastical History" around 55 years after the event. The figure of 100,000 deaths was perhaps used in a rhetorical sense, as the estimated population for the whole of England, based on the 1086 Domesday returns, was about 2.25 million; thus, a figure of 100,000 represented a large proportion of the entire population of the country at that time (~4.5%).


title: Harrying of the North

text: David Horspool concludes that despite the Harrying of the North, being regarded with some "shock" in Northern England for some centuries after the event, the destruction may have been exaggerated and the number of dead not as high as previously thought.


title: Harrying of the North

text: In 1076 William appointed another Earl of Northumbria. This time it was William Walcher, a Lotharingian, who had been appointed the first non-English Bishop of Durham in 1071.


title: Harrying of the North

text: Having effectively subdued the population, William carried out a complete replacement of Anglo-Saxon leaders with Norman ones in the North. The new aristocracy in England was predominantly of Norman extraction; however, one exception was that of Alan Rufus, a trusted Breton lord, who obtained in 1069–1071 a substantial fiefdom in North Yorkshire, which the Domesday Book calls "the Hundred of the Land of Count Alan", later known as Richmondshire. Here Alan governed, as it were, his own principality: the only location held by the King in this area was Ainderby Steeple on its eastern edge, while Robert of Mortain


title: Harrying of the North

text: held one village on its southern fringe; the other Norman lords were excluded, whereas Alan retained the surviving Anglo-Danish lords or their heirs. Alan also exercised patronage in York, where he founded St Mary's Abbey in 1088. By 1086 Alan was one of the richest and most powerful men in England.


title: Harrying of the North

text: In Scotland, Malcolm married the Ætheling's sister, Margaret, in 1071. Edgar sought Malcolm's assistance in his struggle against William. The marriage of Malcolm to Edgar's sister profoundly affected the history of both England and Scotland. The influence of Margaret and her sons brought about the Anglicisation of the Lowlands and provided the Scottish king with an excuse for forays into England, which he could claim were to redress the wrongs against his brother-in-law.


title: Harrying of the North

text: The formal link between the royal house of Scotland and Wessex was a threat to William, who marched up to Scotland in 1072 to confront the Scottish king. The two kings negotiated the Treaty of Abernethy (1072), through which, according to the "Anglo Saxon Chronicle", Malcolm became William's vassal; among the other provisions was the expulsion of Edgar Ætheling from the Scottish court. Edgar finally submitted to William in 1074. William's hold on the crown was then theoretically uncontested.


title: Harrying of the North

text: In 1080 Walcher, the Bishop of Durham, was murdered by the local Northumbrians. In response, William sent his half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux north with an army to harry the Northumbrian countryside. Odo destroyed much land north of the Tees, from York to Durham, and stole valuable items from Durham monastery. Many of the Northumbrian nobility were driven into exile.


title: Harrying of the North

text: As a result of the depopulation, Norman landowners sought settlers to work in the fields. Evidence suggests that such barons were willing to rent lands to any men not obviously disloyal. Unlike the Vikings in the centuries before, Normans did not settle wholesale in the shire, but only occupied the upper ranks of society. This allowed an Anglo-Scandinavian culture to survive beneath Norman rule. Evidence for continuity can be seen in the retention of many cultural traits:


title: Harrying of the North

text: Of the monasteries built, Fountains Abbey became one of the largest and richest. Along with the foundation of the northern monasteries, the Normans increased the number of motte-and-bailey castles they built there.


title: Harrying of the North

text: The Normans used the church as an agent of colonisation and, post-1070, founded several monasteries in the north. There had been no monasteries north of Burton upon Trent before the harrying.


title: Harrying of the North

text: From the Norman point of view, the Harrying of the North was a successful strategy, as large areas, including Cheshire, Shropshire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire were devastated, and the Domesday Book confirms this, although in those counties it was not as complete as in Yorkshire. The object of the harrying was to prevent further revolts in Mercia and Northumbria; however, it did not prevent rebellions elsewhere.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (; 29 July 18172 May 1900) was a Russian Romantic painter who is considered one of the greatest masters of marine art. Baptized as Hovhannes Aivazian, he was born into an Armenian family in the Black Sea port of Feodosia in Crimea and was mostly based there.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: Following his education at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg, Aivazovsky traveled to Europe and lived briefly in Italy in the early 1840s. He then returned to Russia and was appointed the main painter of the Russian Navy. Aivazovsky had close ties with the military and political elite of the Russian Empire and often attended military maneuvers. He was sponsored by the state and was well-regarded during his lifetime. The saying "worthy of Aivazovsky's brush", popularized by Anton Chekhov, was used in Russia for describing something lovely. He remains highly popular in Russia in the 21st century.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: One of the most prominent Russian artists of his time, Aivazovsky was also popular outside Russian Empire. He held numerous solo exhibitions in Europe and the United States. During his almost 60-year career, he created around 6,000 paintings, making him one of the most prolific artists of his time. The vast majority of his works are seascapes, but he often depicted battle scenes, Armenian themes, and portraiture. Most of Aivazovsky's works are kept in Russian, Ukrainian, Armenian, Turkish museums as well as private collections.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: Ivan Aivazovsky was born on 17 July (29 in New Style) 1817 in the city of Feodosia (Theodosia), Crimea, Russian Empire. In the baptismal records of the local St. Sargis Armenian Apostolic Church, Aivazovsky was listed as "Hovhannes, son of Gevorg Aivazian" (). During his study at the Imperial Academy of Arts, he was known in Russian as Ivan Gaivazovsky (Иванъ Гайвазовскій in the pre-1918 spelling). He became known as Aivazovsky since , while in Italy. He signed an 1844 letter with an Italianized rendition of his name: "Giovani Aivazovsky".


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: His father, Konstantin, (–1840), was an Armenian merchant from the Polish region of Galicia. His family had migrated to Europe from Western Armenia in the 18th century. After numerous familial conflicts, Konstantin left Galicia for Moldavia, later moving to Bukovina, before settling in Feodosia in the early 1800s. He was initially known as Gevorg Aivazian (Haivazian or Haivazi), but he changed his last name to Gaivazovsky by adding the Slavic suffix "-sky". Aivazovsky's mother, Ripsime, was a Feodosia Armenian. The couple had five children—three daughters and two sons. Aivazovsky's elder brother, Gabriel, was a prominent historian and an Armenian Apostolic archbishop.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: The young Aivazovsky received parochial education at Feodosia's St. Sargis Armenian Church. He was taught drawing by Jacob Koch, a local architect. Aivazovsky moved to Simferopol with Taurida Governor Alexander Kaznacheyev's family in 1830 and attended the city's Russian gymnasium. In 1833, Aivazovsky arrived in the Russian capital, Saint Petersburg, to study at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Maxim Vorobiev's landscape class. In 1835, he was awarded with a silver medal and appointed assistant to the French painter . In September 1836, Aivazovsky met Russia's national poet Alexander Pushkin during the latter's visit to the Academy. In 1837, Aivazovsky joined the battle-painting class of Alexander Sauerweid and participated in Baltic Fleet exercises in the Gulf of Finland. In October 1837, he graduated from the Imperial Academy of Arts with a gold medal, two years earlier than intended. Aivazovsky returned to Feodosia in 1838 and spent two years in his native Crimea. In 1839, he took part in military exercises in the shores of Crimea, where he met Russian admirals Mikhail Lazarev, Pavel Nakhimov and Vladimir Kornilov.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: In 1840, Aivazovsky was sent by the Imperial Academy of Arts to study in Europe. He first traveled to Venice via Berlin and Vienna and visited San Lazzaro degli Armeni, where an important Armenian Catholic congregation was located and his brother Gabriel lived at the time. Aivazovsky studied Armenian manuscripts and became familiar with Armenian art. He met Russian novelist Nikolai Gogol in Venice. He then headed to Florence, Amalfi and Sorrento. In Florence, he met painter Alexander Ivanov. He remained in Naples and Rome between 1840 and 1842. Aivazovsky was heavily influenced by Italian art and their museums became the "second academy" for him. According to Rogachevsky the news of successful exhibitions in Italy reached Russia. Pope Gregory XVI awarded him with a golden medal. He then visited Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands and Britain. In an international exhibition at the Louvre, he was the only representative from Russia. In France, he received a gold medal from the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. He then returned to Naples via Marseille and again visited Britain, Portugal, Spain, and Malta in 1843. Aivazovsky was admired throughout Europe. He returned to Russia via Paris and Amsterdam in 1844.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: Upon his return to Russia, Aivazovsky was made an academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts and was appointed the "official artist of the Russian Navy to paint seascapes, coastal scenes and naval battles." In 1845, Aivazovsky traveled to the Aegean Sea with Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich and visited the Ottoman capital, Constantinople, and the Greek islands of Patmos and Rhodes.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: In 1845, Aivazovsky settled in his hometown of Feodosia, where he built a house and studio. He isolated himself from the outside world, keeping a small circle of friends and relatives. Yet the solitude played a negative role in his art career. By the mid-nineteenth century, Russian art was moving from Romanticism towards a distinct Russian style of Realism, while Aivazovsky continued to paint Romantic seascapes and attracted heavy criticism.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: In 1845 and 1846, Aivazovsky attended the maneuvers of the Black Sea Fleet and the Baltic Fleet at Petergof, near the imperial palace. In 1847, he was given the title of professor of seascape painting by the Imperial Academy of Arts and elevated to the rank of nobility. In the same year, he was elected to the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: In 1848, Aivazovsky married Julia Graves, an English governess. They had four daughters: Elena (1849), Maria (1851), Alexandra (1852) and Joanne (1858). They separated in 1860 and divorced in 1877 with permission from the Armenian Church, since Graves was a Lutheran.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: In 1851, traveling with the Russian emperor Nicholas I, Aivazovsky sailed to Sevastopol to participate in military maneuvers. His archaeological excavations near Feodosia lead to his election as a full member of the Russian Geographical Society in 1853. In that year, the Crimean War erupted between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, and he was evacuated to Kharkiv. While safe, he returned to the besieged fortress of Sevastopol to paint battle scenes. His work was exhibited in Sevastopol while it was under Ottoman siege.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: Between 1856 and 1857, Aivazovsky worked in Paris and became the first Russian (and the first non-French) artist to receive the Legion of Honour. In 1857, Aivazovsky visited Constantinople and was awarded the Order of the Medjidie. In the same year, he was elected an honorary member of the Moscow Art Society. He was awarded the Greek Order of the Redeemer in 1859 and the Russian Order of St. Vladimir in 1865.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: Aivazovsky opened an art studio in Feodosia in 1865 and was awarded a salary by the Imperial Academy of Arts the same year.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: In the 1860s, the artist produced several paintings inspired by Greek nationalism and the Italian unification. In 1868, he once again visited Constantinople and produced a series of works about the Greek resistance to the Turks, during the Great Cretan Revolution. In 1868, Aivazovsky traveled in the Caucasus and visited the Russian part of Armenia for the first time. He painted several mountainous landscapes and in 1869 held an exhibition in Tiflis. Later in the year, he made a trip to Egypt and took part in the opening ceremony of the Suez Canal. He became the "first artist to paint the Suez Canal, thus marking an epoch-making event in the history of Europe, Africa and Asia."


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: In 1870, Aivazovsky was made an Actual Civil Councilor, the fourth highest civil rank in Russia. In 1871, he initiated the construction of the archaeological museum in Feodosia. In 1872, he traveled to Nice and Florence to exhibit his paintings. In 1874, the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze (Florence Academy of Fine Art) asked him for a self-portrait to be hung in the Uffizi Gallery. The same year, Aivazovsky was invited to Constantinople by Sultan Abdülaziz who subsequently bestowed upon him the Turkish Order of Osmanieh. In 1876, he was made a member of the Academy of Arts in Florence and became the second Russian artist (after Orest Kiprensky) to paint a self-portrait for the Palazzo Pitti.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: Aivazovsky was elected an honorary member of Stuttgart's Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1878. He made a trip to the Netherlands and France, staying briefly in Frankfurt until 1879. He then visited Munich and traveled to Genoa and Venice "to collect material on the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus."


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: In 1880, Aivazovsky opened an art gallery in his Feodosia house; it became the third museum in the Russian Empire, after the Hermitage Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery. Aivazovsky held an 1881 exhibition at London's Pall Mall, attended by English painter John Everett Millais and Edward VII, Prince of Wales.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: Aivazovsky's second wife, Anna Burnazian, was a young Armenian widow 40 years his junior. Aivazovsky said that by marrying her in 1882, he "became closer to [his] nation", referring to the Armenian people. In 1882, Aivazovsky visited Moscow and St Petersburg and then toured the countryside of Russia by traveling along the Volga River in 1884.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: In 1885, he was promoted to the rank of Privy Councilor. The next year, the 50th anniversary of his creative labors, was celebrated with an exhibition in St Petersburg, and an honorary membership in the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: In 1887, as part of a jubilee celebration of his career, Aivazovsky hosted a dinner for 150 friends. Each guest received a miniature painting by Aivazovsky set into a studio photograph of the artist at work.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: After meeting Aivazovsky in person, Anton Chekhov wrote a letter to his wife on 22 July 1888 describing him as follows:


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: After traveling to Paris with his wife, in 1892 he made a trip to the United States, visiting Niagara Falls in New York and Washington D.C. In 1896, at 79, Aivazovsky was promoted to the rank of full privy councillor.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: Aivazovsky was deeply affected by the Hamidian massacres that took place in the Armenian-inhabited areas of the Ottoman Empire between 1894 and 1896. He painted a number of works on the subject such as "The Expulsion of the Turkish Ship", and "The Armenian Massacres at Trebizond" (1895). He threw the medals given to him by the Ottoman Sultan into the sea and told the Turkish consul in Feodosia: "Tell your bloodthirsty master that I've thrown away all the medals given to me, here are their ribbons, send it to him and if he wants, he can throw them into the seas painted by me." He created several other paintings capturing the events, such as "Lonely Ship" and "Night. Tragedy in the Sea of Marmara" (1897).


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: He spent his final years in Feodosia. In the 1890s, thanks to his efforts a commercial port () was established in Feodosia and linked to the railway network of the Russian Empire. The railway station, opened in 1892, is now called and is one of the two stations within the city of Feodosia. Aivazovsky also supplied Feodosia with drinking water.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: Aivazovsky died on 19 April (2 May in New Style) 1900 in Feodosia. In accordance with his wishes, he was buried at the courtyard of St. Sargis Armenian Church. A white marble sarcophagus was made by Italian sculptor L. Biogiolli in 1901. A quote from Movses Khorenatsi's "History of Armenia" in Classical Armenian is engraved on his tombstone: (), which translates: "He was born a mortal, left an immortal legacy" or "Born as a mortal, left the immortal memory of himself". The inscription beneath reads: "Professor Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky 1817–1900" ().


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: After his death, his wife Anna led a generally secluded life, living in several rooms she had retained after nationalization, until 1941. She died on 25 July 1944 and was buried next to Aivazovsky. Two of his daughters (Maria and Alexandra) left Russia following the Revolution of 1917, while the other two died shortly thereafter: Yelena in 1918 and Zhanna in 1922.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: During his 60-year career, Aivazovsky produced around 6,000 paintings of, what one online art magazine describes, "very different value ... there are masterpieces and there are very timid works". However, according to one count as many as 20,000 paintings are attributed to him. The vast majority of Aivazovsky's works depict the sea. He rarely drew dry-landscapes and created only a handful of portraits. According to Rosa Newmarch Aivazovsky "never painted his pictures from nature, always from memory, and far away from the seaboard." Rogachevsky wrote that "His artistic memory was legendary. He was able to reproduce what he had seen only for a very short time, without even drawing preliminary sketches." Bolton praised "his ability to convey the effect of moving water and of reflected sun and moonlight."


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: He held 55 solo exhibitions (an unprecedented number) over the course of his career. Among the most notable were held in Rome, Naples and Venice (1841–42), Paris (1843, 1890), Amsterdam (1844), Moscow (1848, 1851, 1886), Sevastopol (1854), Tiflis (1868), Florence (1874), St. Petersburg (1875, 1877, 1886, 1891), Frankfurt (1879), Stuttgart (1879), London (1881), Berlin (1885, 1890), Warsaw (1885), Constantinople (1888), New York (1893), Chicago (1893), San Francisco (1893).


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: He also "contributed to the exhibitions of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1836–1900), Paris Salon (1843, 1879), Society of Exhibitions of Works of Art (1876–83), Moscow Society of Lovers of the Arts (1880), Pan-Russian Exhibitions in Moscow (1882) and Nizhny Novgorod (1896), World Exhibitions in Paris (1855, 1867, 1878), London (1863), Munich (1879) and Chicago (1893) and the international exhibitions in Philadelphia (1876), Munich (1879) and Berlin (1896)."


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: A primarily Romantic painter, Aivazovsky used some Realistic elements. Leek argued that Aivazovsky remained faithful to Romanticism throughout his life, "even though he oriented his work toward the Realist genre." His early works are influenced by his Academy of Arts teachers Maxim Vorobiev and Sylvester Shchedrin. Classic painters like Salvator Rosa, Jacob Isaacksz van Ruisdael and Claude Lorrain contributed to Aivazovsky's individual process and style. Karl Bryullov, best known for his "The Last Day of Pompeii", "played an important part in stimulating Aivazovsky's own creative development," according to Bolton. Aivazovsky's best paintings in the 1840s–1850s used a variety of colors and were both epic and romantic in theme. Newmarch suggested that by the mid-19th century the romantic features in Aivazovsky's work became "increasingly pronounced." She, like most scholars, considered his "Ninth Wave" his best piece of art and argued that it "seems to mark the transition between fantastic color of his earlier works, and the more truthful vision of the later years." By the 1870s, his paintings were dominated by delicate colors; and in the last two decades of his life, Aivazovsky created a series of silver-toned seascapes.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: The distinct transition in Russian art from Romanticism to Realism in the mid-nineteenth century left Aivazovsky, who would always retain a Romantic style, open to criticism. Proposed reasons for his unwillingness or inability to change began with his location; Feodosia was a remote town in the huge Russian empire, far from Moscow and Saint Petersburg. His mindset and worldview were similarly considered old-fashioned and did not correspond to the developments in Russian art and culture. Vladimir Stasov only accepted his early works, while Alexandre Benois wrote in his "The History of Russian Painting in the 19th Century" that despite being Vorobiev's student, Aivazovsky stood apart from the general development of the Russian landscape school.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: Aivazovsky's later work contained dramatic scenes and was usually done on a larger scale. He depicted "the romantic struggle between man and the elements in the form of the sea ("The Rainbow", 1873), and so-called "blue marines" ("The Bay of Naples in Early Morning", 1897, "Disaster", 1898) and urban landscapes ("Moonlit Night on the Bosphorus", 1894)."


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: Aivazovsky's early works incorporated Armenian themes. The artist's longstanding wish to visit his ancestral homeland was fulfilled in 1868. During his visit to Russian (Eastern) Armenia (roughly corresponding to the modern Armenia, as opposed to Western Armenia under Ottoman rule), Aivazovsky created paintings of Mount Ararat, the Ararat plain, and Lake Sevan. Although Mt. Ararat has been depicted in paintings of many non-native artists (mostly European travelers), Aivazovsky became the first Armenian artist to illustrate the two-peaked biblical mountain.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: He resumed the creation of Armenian-related paintings in the 1880s: "Valley of Mount Ararat" (1882), "Ararat" (1887), "Descent of Noah from Ararat" (1889). The unique "Valley of Mount Ararat" contains Aivazovksy's signature in Armenian: "Aivazian" (). In a panorama of Venice expressed by "Byron's Visit to the Mekhitarists on St Lazarus Island in Venice" (1898); the foreground of the picture contains members of the Armenian Congregation giving an enthusiastic welcome to the poet.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: His other themed works from this period include rare portraits of notable Armenians, such as his brother Archbishop Gabriel Aivazovsky (), Count Mikhail Loris-Melikov (), Catholicos Mkrtich Khrimian (), Nakhichevan-on-Don Mayor Аrutyun Khalabyan and others.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: "The Baptism of Armenians" and "Oath Before the Battle of Avarayr" (both 1892) depict the two single most memorable events of ancient Armenia: the Christianization of Armenia via baptism of King Tiridates III (early 4th century), and the Battle of Avarayr of 451.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: Aivazovsky took an interest in archaeology since the 1850s. He employed farmers to conduct archaeological excavations in the Feodosia area. In 1853 some 22 burial mounds were excavated on Mount Tepe-Oba, which mostly contained broken amphorae and bones, but also golden necklaces, earrings, a female head, a chain with a sphinx, a sphinx with woman's head, the head of an ox, slabs; silver bracelets; clay statuettes, medallions, various vessels, a sarcophagus; silver and bronze coins. The site has been dated to the 5th to 3rd centuries BC when there was an ancient Greek settlement of Theodosia. The best finds were sent by Aivazovsky to the Imperial Hermitage in Petersburg. In 1871 he founded the construction of a new Museum of Antiquities on Mount Mitridat modeled after a typical Ancient Greek temple of the Doric order. It was destroyed during World War II.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: Aivazovsky was a major landowner with numerous estates in eastern Crimea, mostly in the vicinity of Feodosia. These estates delivered him significant income; more than the sale of his paintings. His earliest major estate, bestowed by the Emperor in 1848 along with a personal noble title, was the one at Shakh-Mamai (now called ). Located some from Feodosia, it initially covered an area of 2,500 diasiatins (around ). The estate had an Eastern-style house, and one of its most prominent visitors, Anton Chekhov, wrote that "It is an extravagant, fairy-tale estate of the kind you must probably find in Persia." By the end of his life, the estate had grown to include some 6,000 diasiatins of land, a dairy farm, and a steam-powered mill.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: The second major estate, located in Subash (now ), contained some 2,500 diasiatins of land. The site contained several natural springs, which Aivazovsky acquired in 1852 from the Lansky family. The latter also sold Aivazovsky 2,362 diasiatins of land. Later, Aivazovsky supplied Feodosia with water from Subash. In both estates, vegetables were grown. He had small estates in Romash-Eli (now Romanovka), with 338 diasiatins of land covered with orchards, and the Sudak Valley, with 12 diasiatins of vineyard, along with a dacha (summer house).


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: In Feodosia, Aivazovsky possessed a house and a vineyard. He also owned houses elsewhere in Crimea, such as Stary Krym and Yalta. The estates inherited by his heirs were lost in the early Soviet period when they were nationalized.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: Aivazovsky was the most influential seascape painter in nineteenth-century Russian art. According to the Russian Museum, "he was the first and for a long time the only representative of seascape painting" and "all other artists who painted seascapes were either his own students or influenced by him."


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: Arkhip Kuindzhi (1842–1910) is sometimes cited as having been influenced by Aivazovsky. In 1855, at age 13–14, Kuindzhi visited Feodosia to study with Aivazovsky, however, he was engaged merely to mix paints and instead studied with Adolf Fessler, Aivazovsky's student. A 1903 encyclopedic article stated: "Although Kuindzhi cannot be called a student of Aivazovsky, the latter had without doubt some influence on him in the first period of his activity; from whom he borrowed much in the manner of painting." English art historian John E. Bowlt wrote that "the elemental sense of light and form associated with Aivazovsky's sunsets, storms, and surging oceans permanently influenced the young Kuindzhi."


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: Vartan Makhokhian, an Trabzon-born Armenian painter, who was later based in France, met Aivazovsky in Crimea in 1894. The latter had a major influence on his work. Aivazovsky also influenced Russian painters Lev Lagorio, , and (the latter two were his grandsons).


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: Ivan Aivazovsky is one of the few Russian artists to achieve wide recognition during his lifetime. He is considered one of the most prominent marine artists of the 19th century, and, overall, one of the greatest marine artists in Russia and the world. Aivazovsky was also one of the few Russian artists to become famous outside Russia. In 1898, "Munsey's Magazine" wrote that Aivazovsky is "better known to the world at large than any other artist of his nationality, with the exception of the sensational Verestchagin". However, Aivazovsky has not been incorporated into the mainstream Western history of art and he remains relatively unknown in the West. Souren Melikian described Aivazovsky as "highly academic."


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: In 1890 the "Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary" described him as the "best Russian marine painter". He was praised by contemporary artists Ivan Kramskoi, Alexandre Benois, and the novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky. In nineteenth-century Russia, his name became a synonym for art and beauty. The phrase "worthy of Aivazovsky's brush" was the standard way of describing something ineffably lovely. It was first used by Anton Chekhov in his 1897 play "Uncle Vanya". In response to Marina Timofeevna's (the old nurse) query about the fight between Ivan Voynitsky ("Uncle Vanya") and Aleksandr Serebryakov, Ilya Telegin says that it was "A sight worthy of Aivazovsky's brush."


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: A street in Moscow was named after Aivazovsky in 1978. His first and only statue in Russia was erected in 2007 in Kronstadt, near Saint Petersburg. The Simferopol International Airport in Crimea, after Russian annexation, was voted to be named after Aivazovsky in 2018. It was officially renamed according to a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin on 31 May 2019, and ceremonially renamed on Russia Day (12 June).


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: In a July 2017 poll conducted by the VTsIOM Aivazovsky ranked first as the most favorite artist of Russians, with 27% of respondents naming him as their favorite, ahead of Ivan Shishkin (26%) and Ilya Repin (16%). Overall, 93% of respondents said they were familiar with his name (26% knew him well, 67% have heard his name) and 63% of those who know him said they liked his works, including 80% of those 60 or older and 35% of 18 to 24 year olds.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: In Armenia, Aivazovsky has been considered an Armenian painter and exclusievly referred to by his Armenian name, Hovhannes. He has been described as the "most remarkable" Armenian painter of the 19th century and the first-ever Armenian marine painter. He signed some of his paintings and letters in Armenian.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: He was born outside Armenia, and like his contemporary Armenian painters, Aivazovsky drew primary influences from European and Russian schools of art. According to Sureniants, he sought to create a union which would have brought together all Armenian artists around the world. The prominent Armenian poet Hovhannes Tumanyan wrote a short poem titled "In Front of an Aiazovsky painting" in 1893, inspired by a seascape. It was translated into English in 1917 by Alice Stone Blackwell.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: As early as 1876, a sea painting by Aivazovsky was hanging at the residence of the Catholicos at the monastery of Etchmiadzin, the center of the Armenian Church. The National Gallery of Armenia in Yerevan holds around 100 works of Aivazovsky, including 65 paintings. Several paintings from the National Gallery now hang in the Presidential Palace in Yerevan. A bust of Aivazovsky was erected in Stepanakert, the center of Nagorno-Karabakh, in December 2021.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: Aivazovsky's paintings were popular in the Ottoman imperial court during the 19th century. According to "Hürriyet Daily News", as of 2014, 30 paintings of Aivazovsky are on display in museums in Turkey. According to , an organizer of an Aivazovsky exhibition in Istanbul, there are 60 Aivazovsky paintings in Turkey, including 41 in Turkish public institutions: 21 in former Ottoman palaces, 10 in various marine and military museums, 10 at the presidential residence, and 10 in private collections in Istanbul. In 2007, when Abdullah Gül became president of Turkey, he brought paintings by Aivazovsky up from the basement to hang in his office during redecoration of the presidential palace, the Çankaya Mansion in Ankara. Pictures of official meetings of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the new Presidential Complex in Ankara show that the walls of the rooms at the presidential residence are decorated with Aivazovsky's artwork.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: In Ukraine, he is sometimes considered a Ukrainian painter. He was included in a 2001 book titled "100 Greatest Ukrainians". In a 2012 poll in Ukraine, Aivazovsky placed 67 in the list of greatest Ukrainians of all time, receiving the same points as Olha Kobylianska, Ani Lorak, Marko Vovchok, Yevhen Konovalets (they were named by 0.3% of respondents as one of the three greatest Ukrainians). An alley in Kyiv ("") was named after him in 1939. In 1999 a of Aivazovsky and his brother Gabriel was erected in Simferopol, Crimea's administrative center. In June 2017 Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko claimed that Aivazovsky is "part of Ukrainian heritage." Russian media accused him of appropriation of Aivazovsky. Works by Aivazovsky, among others, were presumably destroyed when an airstrike hit the Kuindzhi Art Museum in Mariupol during the Russian invasion of Ukraine in March 2022.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: Aivazovsky's house in Feodosia, where he had founded an art museum in 1880, is open to this day as the Aivazovsky National Art Gallery. It remains a central attraction in the city and holds the world's largest collections (417) of Aivazovsky paintings. A statue of the artist, by , was erected in front of the museum in 1930.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: The Soviet Union (), Romania (1971), Armenia (first in 1992), Russia (first in 1995), Ukraine (1999), and other countries have issued postage stamps depicting Aivazovsky or his works. The minor planet 3787 Aivazovskij, named after Aivazovsky, was discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Chernykh in 1977.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: In 2016 and 2017 the 200th anniversary of Aivazovsky was celebrated with major exhibitions in Russia, Ukraine, and Armenia. An exhibition featuring 120 paintings and 55 etchings of Aivazovsky was held at the Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val in Moscow from 29 July to 20 November 2016 dedicated to his 200th anniversary of birth. In the first 2 weeks, the exhibition had around 55,000 visitors, a record number. 38 of the works were moved from the Aivazovsky Art Gallery in Feodosia, which prompted Ukraine to call for an international boycott of the Tretyakov Gallery as it considers Crimea an occupied territory. Exhibitions were also held at the National Art Museum of Ukraine in Kiev, and the National Gallery of Armenia in Yerevan.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: Aivazovsky's paintings began appearing in auctions (mostly in London) in the early 2000s. Many of his works are being bought by Russian oligarchs. His works have risen steadily in auction value. In 2004, his "Saint Isaac's Cathedral On A Frosty Day", a rare cityscape, sold for around £1 million ($2.1 million). In 2006 "The Varangians on the Dnieper" sold for $3.2 million at Sotheby's. In 2007 his painting "American Shipping off the Rock of Gibraltar" auctioned at £2.71 million, "more than four times its top estimate". In April 2012, his 1856 work "" was sold at Sotheby's for a record $5.2 million (£3.2 million), a tenfold increase since it was last at an auction in 1995. In 2020 his 1878 painting "The Bay of Naples" sold for $2.8 million, a record for a painting at an online-only auction.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: In January 2011 a number of paintings, including those of Aivazovsky, were stolen from the country house of Aleksandr Tarantsev, an owner of a chain of jewelry stores in Russia, outside Moscow. In 2017 it was reported that a fake of one of the paintings stolen from Tarantsev's house was presented to Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan by the Pyunik foundation.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: In February 2011 an 1875 Aivazovsky painting "A Storm on Rocky Shores" was discovered at a Moscow auction after having been stolen from Armenia in 1990. It was returned to Armenia's National Gallery by the Armenian-born Russian Senator (Hovhannes Ohanyan), its last owner.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: In June 2015 Sotheby's withdrew from auction an 1870 Aivazovsky painting "Evening in Cairo", which was estimated at £1.5–2 million ($2–$3 million), after the Russian Interior Ministry claimed that it was stolen in 1997 from a private collection in Moscow. In 2017 "View on Revel" (1845), stolen from the in 1976, was found at the in Zürich, Switzerland.


title: Ivan Aivazovsky

text: According to the Ukrainian authorities, some original works by Aivazovsky were taken by Russia from Mariupol museums to Russian-controlled Donetsk during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.


title: Gun barrel

text: A gun barrel is a crucial part of gun-type weapons such as small firearms, artillery pieces, and air guns. It is the straight shooting tube, usually made of rigid high-strength metal, through which a contained rapid expansion of high-pressure gas(es) is used to propel a projectile out of the front end (muzzle) at a high velocity. The hollow interior of the barrel is called the bore, and the diameter of the bore is called its caliber, usually measured in inches or millimetres.


title: Gun barrel

text: The first firearms were made at a time when metallurgy was not advanced enough to cast tubes capable of withstanding the explosive forces of early cannons, so the pipe (often built from staves of metal) needed to be braced periodically along its length for structural reinforcement, producing an appearance somewhat reminiscent of storage barrels being stacked together, hence the English name.


title: Gun barrel

text: Gun barrels are usually metal. However, the early Chinese, the inventors of gunpowder, used bamboo, which has a strong, naturally tubular stalk and is cheaper to obtain and process, as the first barrels in gunpowder projectile weapons such as the fire lances. The Chinese were also the first to master cast-iron cannon barrels, and used the technology to make the earliest infantry firearms — the hand cannons. Early European guns were made of wrought iron, usually with several strengthening bands of the metal wrapped around circular wrought iron rings and then welded into a hollow cylinder. Bronze and brass were favoured by gunsmiths, largely because of their ease of casting and their resistance to the corrosive effects of the combustion of gunpowder or salt water when used on naval vessels.


title: Gun barrel

text: Early firearms were muzzle-loading, with the gunpowder and then the shot loaded from the front end (muzzle) of the barrel, and were capable of only a low rate of fire due to the cumbersome loading process. The later-invented breech-loading designs provided a higher rate of fire, but early breechloaders lacked an effective way of sealing the escaping gases that leaked from the back end (breech) of the barrel, reducing the available muzzle velocity. During the 19th century, effective breechblocks were invented that sealed a breechloader against the escape of propellant gases.


title: Gun barrel

text: Early cannon barrels were very thick for their caliber. This was because manufacturing defects such as air bubbles trapped in the metal were common at that time, and played key factors in many gun explosions; these defects made the barrel too weak to withstand the pressures of firing, causing it to fail and fragment explosively.


title: Gun barrel

text: A gun barrel must be able to hold in the expanding gas produced by the propellants to ensure that optimum muzzle velocity is attained by the projectile as it is being pushed out. If the barrel material cannot cope with the pressure within the bore, the barrel itself might suffer catastrophic failure and explode, which will not only destroy the gun but also present a life-threatening danger to people nearby. Modern small arms barrels are made of carbon steel or stainless steel materials known and tested to withstand the pressures involved. Artillery pieces are made by various techniques providing reliably sufficient strength.


title: Gun barrel

text: Fluting is the removal of material from a cylindrical surface, usually creating rounded grooves, for the purpose of reducing weight. This is most often done to the exterior surface of a rifle barrel, though it may also be applied to the cylinder of a revolver or the bolt of a bolt-action rifle. Most flutings on rifle barrels and revolver cylinders are straight, though helical flutings can be seen on rifle bolts and occasionally also rifle barrels.


title: Gun barrel

text: While the main purpose of fluting is just to reduce weight and improve portability, when adequately done it can retain the structural strength and rigidity and increase the overall specific strength. Fluting will also increase the surface-to-volume ratio and make the barrel more efficient to cool after firing, though the reduced material mass also means the barrel will heat up easily during firing.


title: Gun barrel

text: A composite barrel is a firearm barrel that has been shaved down to be thinner and an exterior sleeve slipped over and fused to it that improves rigidity, weight and cooling. Most common form of composite barrel are those with carbon fiber sleeves, but there are proprietary examples such as the Teludyne Tech Straitjacket. They are seldom used outside sports and competition shooting.


title: Gun barrel

text: The chamber is the cavity at the back end of a breech-loading gun's barrel where the cartridge is inserted in position ready to be fired. In most firearms (rifles, shotguns, machine guns and pistols), the chamber is an integral part of the barrel, often made by simply reaming the rear bore of a barrel blank, with a single chamber within a single barrel. In revolvers, the chamber is a component of the gun's cylinder and completely separate from the barrel, with a single cylinder having multiple chambers that are rotated in turns into alignment with the barrel in anticipation of being fired.


title: Gun barrel

text: Structurally, the chamber consists of the body, shoulder and neck, the contour of which closely correspond to the casing shape of the cartridge it is designed to hold. The rear opening of the chamber is the breech of the whole barrel, which is sealed tight from behind by the bolt, making the front direction the path of least resistance during firing. When the cartridge's primer is struck by the firing pin, the propellant is ignited and deflagrates, generating high-pressure gas expansion within the cartridge case. However, the chamber (closed from behind by the bolt) restrains the cartridge case (or shell for shotguns) from moving, allowing the bullet (or shot/slug in shotguns) to separate cleanly from the casing and be propelled forward along the barrel to exit out of the front (muzzle) end as a flying projectile.


title: Gun barrel

text: Chambering a gun is the process of loading a cartridge into the gun's chamber, either manually as in single loading, or via operating the weapon's own action as in pump action, lever action, bolt action or self-loading actions. In the case of an air gun, a pellet (or slug) itself has no casing to be retained and will be entirely inserted into the chamber (often called "seating" or "loading" the pellet, rather than "chambering" it) before a mechanically pressurized gas is released behind the pellet and propels it forward, meaning that an air gun's chamber is functionally equivalent to the freebore portion of a firearm barrel.


title: Gun barrel

text: In the context of firearms design, manufacturing and modification, the word "chambering" has a different meaning, and refers to fitting a weapon's chamber specifically to fire a particular caliber or model of cartridge.


title: Gun barrel

text: The bore is the hollow internal lumen of the barrel, and takes up a vast majority portion of the barrel length. It is the part of the barrel where the projectile (bullet, shot, or slug) is located prior to firing and where it gains speed and kinetic energy during the firing process. The projectile's status of motion while travelling down the bore is referred to as its internal ballistics.


title: Gun barrel

text: Most modern firearms (except muskets, shotguns, most tank guns, and some artillery pieces) and air guns (except some BB guns) have helical grooves called "riflings" machined into the bore wall. When shooting, a rifled bore imparts spin to the projectile about its longitudinal axis, which gyroscopically stabilizes the projectile's flight attitude and trajectory after its exit from the barrel (i.e. the external ballistics). Any gun without riflings in the bore is called a "smoothbore" gun.


title: Gun barrel

text: When a firearm cartridge is chambered, its casing occupies the chamber but its bullet actually protrudes beyond the chamber into the posterior end of the bore. Even in a rifled bore, this short rear section is without rifling, and allows the bullet an initial "run-up" to build up momentum before encountering riflings during shooting. The most posterior part of this unrifled section is called a "freebore", and is usually cylindrical. The portion of the unrifled bore immediately front of the freebore, called the "leade", starts to taper slightly and guides the bullet towards the area where the riflingless bore transitions into fully rifled bore. Together they form the throat region, where the riflings impactfully "bite" into the moving bullet during shooting. The throat is subjected to the greatest thermomechanical stress and therefore suffers wear the fastest. Throat erosion is often the main determining factor of a gun's barrel life.


title: Gun barrel

text: The muzzle is the front end of a barrel from which the projectile will exit. Precise machining of the muzzle is crucial to accuracy, because it is the last point of contact between the barrel and the projectile. If inconsistent gaps exist between the muzzle and the projectile, escaping propellant gases may spread unevenly and deflect the projectile from its intended path (see transitional ballistics). The muzzle can also be threaded on the outside to allow the attachment of different accessory devices.


title: Gun barrel

text: In rifled barrels, the contour of a muzzle is designed to keep the rifling safe from damage by intruding foreign objects, so the front ends of the rifling grooves are commonly protected behind a recessed crown, which also serves to modulate the even expansion of the propellant gases. The crown itself is often recessed from the outside rim of the muzzle to avoid accidental damage from collision with the surrounding environment.


title: Gun barrel

text: In smooth bore barrels firing multiple sub-projectiles (such as shotgun shot), the bore at the muzzle end might have a tapered constriction called "choke" to shape the scatter pattern for better range and accuracy. Chokes are implemented as either interchangeable screw-in chokes for particular applications, or as fixed permanent chokes integral to the barrel.


title: Gun barrel

text: During firing, a bright flash of light known as a "muzzle flash" is often seen at the muzzle. This flash is produced by both superheated propellant gases radiating energy during expansion (primary flash), and the incompletely combusted propellant residues reacting vigorously with the fresh supply of ambient air upon escaping the barrel (secondary flash). The size of the flash depends on factors such as barrel length (shorter barrels have less time for complete combustion, hence more unburnt powder), the type (fast- vs. slow-burning) and amount of propellant (higher total amount means likely more unburnt residues) loaded in the cartridge. Flash suppressors or muzzle shrouds can be attached to the muzzle of the weapon to either diminish or conceal the flash.


title: Gun barrel

text: The rapid expansion of propellant gases at the muzzle during firing also produce a powerful shockwave known as a "muzzle blast". The audible component of this blast, also known as a "muzzle report", is the loud "bang" sound of gunfire that can easily exceed 140 decibels and cause permanent hearing loss to the shooter and bystanders. The non-audible component of the blast is an infrasonic overpressure wave that can cause damage to nearby fragile objects. Accessory devices such as muzzle brakes and muzzle boosters can be used to redirect muzzle blast in order to counter the recoil-induced muzzle rise or to assist the gas operation of the gun, and suppressors (and even muzzle shrouds) can be used to reduce the blast noise intensity felt by nearby personnel.


title: Kix Brooks

text: Leon Eric Brooks III, better known by his stage name Kix Brooks (born May 12, 1955), is an American country music artist, actor, and film producer best known for being one half of the duo Brooks & Dunn and host of radio's "American Country Countdown". Prior to the duo's foundation, he was a singer and songwriter, charting twice on Hot Country Songs and releasing an album for Capitol Records. Brooks and Ronnie Dunn comprised Brooks & Dunn for twenty years, then both members began solo careers. Brooks's solo career after Brooks & Dunn includes the album "New to This Town".


title: Kix Brooks

text: Brooks grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana. He has a sister, a half-sister, and a half-brother; his father also adopted a son of his third wife. After graduating from the former Sewanee Military Academy, an Episcopal school in Sewanee, Tennessee, Brooks attended Louisiana Tech University in Ruston as a theatre arts major. He moved to Alaska to work with his father on an oil pipeline for one summer, then returned to Louisiana Tech to finish his education. After graduating, he moved to Maine to write advertising for a company owned by his sister and brother-in-law.


title: Kix Brooks

text: Brooks' father urged him to pursue his desire to become a musician, and he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in the early 1980s. His then-girlfriend (now wife Barbara, with whom he has a son and daughter) followed shortly thereafter. He worked for Tree Publishing as a staff songwriter. He recorded his first solo single, "Baby, When Your Heart Breaks Down", for Avion in 1983, but returned to songwriting after it only reached number 73 on the Hot Country Songs chart. Brooks and Dan Tyler co-wrote "Modern Day Romance", released by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in June 1985; it became the band's second No. 1 hit on the country chart.


title: Kix Brooks

text: Brooks released an album, "Kix Brooks", in 1989 on Capitol Records. This album also featured the song "Sacred Ground" which became a No. 2 country hit for McBride & the Ride in 1992.


title: Kix Brooks

text: He was one half of country music duo Brooks & Dunn. Their 1991 debut album, "Brand New Man", generated four number-one hit singles on the country charts. Brooks usually provided backing vocals on their songs and singles. The singles featuring Brooks on lead vocals include, "You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone", rising to No. 1, "Lost and Found", "Rock My World (Little Country Girl)", "Mama Don't Get Dressed Up for Nothing", "South of Santa Fe", and "Why Would I Say Goodbye".


title: Kix Brooks

text: On August 10, 2009, Brooks & Dunn announced to their fans, via their website they intended to disband after twenty years of touring. According to the short statement released on their web site, Brooks & Dunn intended to release a greatest hits album, tour during the rest of 2009, and have a farewell tour in 2010.


title: Kix Brooks

text: Brooks resumed his solo career in 2012, releasing a new 12-track album on September 11, 2012. "New to This Town" features nine songs co-written by Brooks, including the album's first single, the title track. He followed his second album with the soundtrack to the western film "Ambush at Dark Canyon" in 2014. Brooks composed the majority of the musical score as well as starring in the film.


title: Kix Brooks

text: On December 3, 2014, Brooks & Dunn reunited, and along with Reba McEntire, performed a series of concerts in Las Vegas, Nevada, throughout the summer and fall of 2015.


title: Kix Brooks

text: In 2005, Brooks, along with timber industrialist Roy O. Martin Jr., and the Louisiana State University sports legends Paul Dietzel, and Sue Gunter were among those named a "Louisiana Legend" by Louisiana Public Broadcasting.


title: Kix Brooks

text: Since January 2006, Brooks has hosted "American Country Countdown", a syndicated radio countdown show based on Mediabase (originally was BILLBOARD, from 2006 to August 2009), country charts. Brooks succeeded the show's former host, Bob Kingsley. Brooks is also co-owner of Arrington Vineyards, a Nashville winery with winemaker Kip Summers and businessmen John Russell.


title: Kix Brooks

text: In 2013, Kix launched the film company Team Two Entertainment along with Eric Brooks. The company makes independent films Kix produces, and Kix occasionally appears as an actor.


title: Kix Brooks

text: In 2015, Brooks contracted with Cooking Channel to host "Steak Out with Kix Brooks", in which he travels around America in search of the best steakhouses.


title: Santali language

text: Santali (, Ol Chiki: ), Bengali: , Odia: , Devanagari: , also known as Santal, is the most widely spoken language of the Munda subfamily of the Austroasiatic languages, related to Ho and Mundari, spoken mainly in the Indian states of Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Mizoram, Odisha, Tripura and West Bengal. It is a recognised regional language of India per the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution. It is spoken by around 7.0 million people in India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal, making it the third most-spoken Austroasiatic language after Vietnamese and Khmer.


title: Santali language

text: Santali was a mainly oral language until the development of Ol Chiki by Pandit Raghunath Murmu in 1925. Ol Chiki is alphabetic, sharing none of the syllabic properties of the other Indic scripts, and is now widely used to write Santali in India.


title: Santali language

text: According to linguist Paul Sidwell, Munda languages probably arrived on the coast of Odisha from Indochina about 4000–3500 years ago,and spread after the Indo-Aryan migration to Odisha.


title: Santali language

text: Until the nineteenth century, Santali had no written language and all shared knowledge was transmitted by word of mouth from generation to generation. European interest in the study of the languages of India led to the first efforts at documenting the Santali language. Bengali, Odia and Roman scripts were first used to write Santali before the 1860s by European anthropologists, folklorists and missionaries including A. R. Campbell, Lars Skrefsrud and Paul Bodding. Their efforts resulted in Santali dictionaries, versions of folk tales, and the study of the morphology, syntax and phonetic structure of the language.


title: Santali language

text: The Ol Chiki script was created for Santali by Mayurbhanj poet Raghunath Murmu in 1925 and first publicised in 1939.


title: Santali language

text: Ol Chiki as a Santali script is widely accepted among Santal communities. Presently in West Bengal, Odisha, and Jharkhand, Ol Chiki is the official script for Santali literature & language. However, users from Bangladesh use Bengali script instead.


title: Santali language

text: Santali was honoured in December 2013 when the University Grants Commission of India decided to introduce the language in the National Eligibility Test to allow lecturers to use the language in colleges and universities.


title: Santali language

text: The highest concentrations of Santali language speakers are in Santhal Pargana division, as well as East Singhbhum and Seraikela Kharsawan districts of Jharkhand, the Jangalmahals region of West Bengal (Jhargram, Bankura and Purulia districts) and Mayurbhanj district of Odisha.


title: Santali language

text: Smaller pockets of Santali language speakers are found in the northern Chota Nagpur plateau (Hazaribagh, Giridih, Ramgarh, Bokaro and Dhanbad districts), Balesore and Kendujhar districts of Odisha, and throughout western and northern West Bengal (Birbhum, Paschim Medinipur, Hooghly, Paschim Bardhaman, Purba Bardhaman, Malda, Dakshin Dinajpur, Uttar Dinajpur, Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling districts), Banka district and Purnia division of Bihar (Araria, Katihar, Purnia and Kishanganj districts), and tea-garden regions of Assam (Kokrajhar, Sonitpur, Chirang and Udalguri districts). Outside India, the language is spoken in pockets of Rangpur and Rajshahi divisions of northern Bangladesh as well as the Morang and Jhapa districts in the Terai of Province No. 1 in Nepal.


title: Santali language

text: Santali is spoken by over seven million people across India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal. According to 2011 census, India has a total of 7,368,192 Santali speakers (including 3,58,579 Karmali, 26,399 Mahli). State wise distribution is Jharkhand (2.75 million), West Bengal (2.43 million), Odisha (0.86 million), Bihar (0.46 million), Assam (0.21 million) and a few thousand in each of Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura.


title: Santali language

text: Santali is one of India's 22 scheduled languages. It is also recognised as the additional official language of the states of Jharkhand and West Bengal.


title: Santali language

text: Dialects of Santali include Kamari-Santali, Karmali (Khole), Lohari-Santali, Mahali, Manjhi, Paharia.


title: Santali language

text: Santali has 21 consonants, not counting the 10 aspirated stops which occur primarily, but not exclusively, in Indo-Aryan loanwords and are given in parentheses in the table below.


title: Santali language

text: In native words, the opposition between voiceless and voiced stops is neutralised in word-final position. A typical Munda feature is that word-final stops are "checked", i. e. glottalised and unreleased.


title: Santali language

text: Santali has eight oral and six nasal vowel phonemes. With the exception of /e o/, all oral vowels have a nasalized counterpart.


title: Santali language

text: Santali has possessive suffixes which are only used with kinship terms: 1st person "-ɲ", 2nd person "-m", 3rd person "-t". The suffixes do not distinguish possessor number.


title: Santali language

text: The personal pronouns in Santali distinguish inclusive and exclusive first person and anaphoric and demonstrative third person.


title: Santali language

text: The interrogative pronouns have different forms for animate ('who?') and inanimate ('what?'), and referential ('which?') vs. non-referential.


title: Santali language

text: The demonstratives distinguish three degrees of deixis (proximate, distal, remote) and simple ('this', 'that', etc.) and particular ('just this', 'just that') forms.


title: Santali language

text: The numerals are used with numeral classifiers. Distributive numerals are formed by reduplicating the first consonant and vowel, e.g. "babar" 'two each'.


title: Santali language

text: Numbers basically follow a base-10 pattern. Numbers from 11 to 19 are formed by addition, "gel" ('10') followed by the single-digit number (1 through 9). Multiples of ten are formed by multiplication: the single-digit number (2 through 9) is followed by "gel" ('10'). Some numbers are part of a base-20 number system. 20 can be "bar gel" or "isi".


title: Santali language

text: Verbs in Santali inflect for tense, aspect and mood, voice and the person and number of the subject and sometimes of the object.


title: Santali language

text: Borrowing between Santali and other Indian languages has not yet been studied fully. In modern Indian languages like Western Hindi the steps of evolution from Midland Prakrit Sauraseni could be traced clearly. In the case of Bengali such steps of evolution are not always clear and distinct, and one has to look at other influences that moulded Bengali's essential characteristics.


title: Santali language

text: A notable work in this field was initiated by linguist Byomkes Chakrabarti in the 1960s. Chakrabarti investigated the complex process of assimilation of Austroasiatic family, particularly Santali elements, into Bengali. He showed the overwhelming influence of Bengali on Santali. His formulations are based on the detailed study of two-way influences on all aspects of both languages and tried to bring out the unique features of the languages. More research is awaited in this area.


title: Santali language

text: Notable linguist Khudiram Das authored the "'Santali Bangla Samashabda Abhidhan'" (), a book focusing on the influence of the Santali language on Bengali and providing a basis for further research on this subject. 'Bangla Santali Bhasha Samparka () is a collection of essays in E-book format authored by him and dedicated to linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji on the relationship between the Bengali and Santali languages.


title: Fantine

text: Fantine ( ) is a fictional character in Victor Hugo's 1862 novel "Les Misérables". She is a young "grisette" in Paris who becomes pregnant by a rich student. After he abandons her, she is forced to look after their child, Cosette, on her own. Originally a beautiful and naive girl, Fantine is eventually forced by circumstances to become a prostitute, selling her hair and front teeth, losing her beauty and health. The money she earns is sent to support her daughter.


title: Fantine

text: She was first played in the musical by Rose Laurens in France, and when the musical came to England, Patti LuPone played Fantine in the West End. Fantine has since been played by numerous actresses.


title: Fantine

text: Fantine became an archetype of self-abnegation and devoted motherhood. She has been portrayed by many actresses in stage and screen versions of the story and has been depicted in works of art.


title: Fantine

text: Hugo introduces Fantine as one of four fair girls attached to young, wealthy students. "She was called Fantine because she had never been known by any other name..." She is described as having, "gold and pearls for her dowry; but the gold was on her head and the pearls in her mouth." Hugo elaborates: "Fantine was fair, without being too conscious of it. She was fair in the two ways—style and rhythm. Style is the form of the ideal, rhythm is its movement."


title: Fantine

text: Fantine is passionately in love with Félix Tholomyès, one of a quartet of students. One day, the four men invite their four lovers on an outing. They finish the day at a restaurant, only for the women to be abandoned by the men with a goodbye note. While the other three girls take it in good humor and laugh it off, Fantine later feels heartbroken. Tholomyès had fathered their illegitimate daughter Cosette, and Fantine is left to care for her alone.


title: Fantine

text: By the time Cosette is approximately three, Fantine arrives at Montfermeil and meets the Thénardiers who are owners of an inn. She asks them to care for Cosette when she sees their daughters Éponine and Azelma playing outside. They agree to do so as long as she sends them money to provide for her. Fantine's only will to live is keeping Cosette alive. She becomes a worker in Mayor Madeleine's (a.k.a. Jean Valjean's) factory in her hometown of Montreuil-sur-Mer, and has a public letter-writer compose her letters to the Thénardiers for her because she is illiterate. However, she is unaware that the Thénardiers severely abuse Cosette and have forced her to be a slave for their inn. She is also unaware that the letters they send to her requesting financial help for Cosette are their own fraudulent way to extort money from her for themselves.


title: Fantine

text: Fantine is fired by a meddlesome supervisor, Madame Victurnien, without the knowledge of the mayor, when she finds out that Fantine is an unwed mother. Fantine begins to work at home, earning twelve "sous" a day while Cosette's lodging costs ten. Her overworking causes her to become sick with a cough and fever. She also rarely goes out, fearing the disgrace she would face from the townspeople.


title: Fantine

text: The Thénardiers then send a letter stating they need ten francs so they can "buy" a woolen skirt for Cosette. To buy the skirt herself, Fantine has her hair cut off and sold. She then says to herself "My child is no longer cold, I have clothed her with my hair." However, she soon begins to despise the mayor for her misfortunes. She later takes on a lover, only for him to beat her and then abandon her. The Thénardiers send another letter saying they need forty francs to buy medicine for Cosette who has become "ill." Desperate for the money, Fantine has her two front teeth removed and sells them.


title: Fantine

text: Meanwhile, Fantine's health and her own lodging debts worsen while the Thénardiers' letters continue to grow and their financial demands become more costly. In order to continue to earn money for Cosette, Fantine becomes a prostitute. During a January evening, a dandy called Bamatabois heckles her and shoves snow down the back of her dress when she ignores him. Fantine ferociously attacks him. Javert, the town's police inspector, immediately arrests her while Bamatabois sneaks away. She begs to be let go, but Javert sentences her to six months in prison. Valjean arrives to help Fantine, but upon seeing him she spits in his face. Dismissing the act, Valjean orders Javert to free Fantine, which he reluctantly does. Valjean comes to find out the reasons Fantine became a prostitute and why she attacked Bamatabois. He feels sorry for the innocent Fantine and Cosette, and tells her that he will retrieve Cosette for her. He sends Fantine to the hospital, as she is suffering from tuberculosis.


title: Fantine

text: After Valjean reveals his true identity at Champmathieu's trial, he goes back to see Fantine at the hospital. She asks about Cosette, and the doctor lies to her saying that Cosette is at the hospital but cannot see Fantine until her health improves. She is appeased by this, and even mistakenly thinks that she hears Cosette laughing and singing. Suddenly, she and Valjean see Javert at the door. Valjean tries to privately ask Javert for three days to obtain Cosette, but he loudly refuses. Fantine realizes that Cosette was never retrieved and frantically asks where she is. Javert impatiently yells at Fantine to be silent, and additionally, tells her Valjean's true identity. Shocked by these revelations, she suffers a severe fit of trembling, falls back on her bed and dies. Valjean then walks to Fantine, whispers to her and kisses her hand. After Valjean is taken into custody, Fantine's body is unceremoniously thrown into a public grave. Later on, after escaping imprisonment, Valjean rescues Cosette and raises her on Fantine's behalf.


title: Fantine

text: Fantine has been interpreted as a holy prostitute figure who becomes a quintessential mother by sacrificing her own body and dignity for the purpose of securing the life of her child. She is an example of what has been called "the cliché of the saved and saintly prostitute that pervades nineteenth-century fiction", which is also found in the writings of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy and Charles Dickens. Oscar Wilde presented her as a figure whose suffering makes her lovable, writing of the scene after she has her teeth removed, that "We run to kiss the bleeding mouth of Fantine". Kathryn M. Grossman says she moves into a form of "maternal sainthood" and that "When Madeleine (Valjean's pseudonym as mayor) affirms that she has remained virtuous and holy before God, Fantine can finally release her hatred and love others again. Or rather, it is because he perceives the reality beyond her appearance that she finds the mayor worthy of renewed devotion. For Valjean, the bedraggled prostitute verges on 'sanctity' through 'martyrdom' (640; sainteté . . . martyr)."


title: Fantine

text: John Andrew Frey argues that the character has a political significance. Fantine is "an example of how women of the proletariat were brutalized in nineteenth-century France...Fantine represents Hugo's deep compassion for human suffering, especially for women born into low estate". Mario Vargas Llosa takes a less positive view, arguing that Hugo in effect punishes Fantine for her sexual transgression by making her suffer so horribly. "What disasters follow from a sin of the flesh! On the matter of sex, the morality of "Les Misérables" melds perfectly with the most intolerant and puritanical interpretation of Catholic morality."


title: Fantine

text: Fantine's image as a saint-like symbol of female victimhood appears in the writings of the union leader Eugene V. Debs, founder of the Industrial Workers of the World. In 1916 he wrote the essay "Fantine in our Day", in which he compared the sufferings of Fantine to abandoned women of his own day:


title: Fantine

text: Since the original publication of "Les Misérables" in 1862, the character of Fantine has been in a large number of adaptations in numerous types of media based on the novel, including books, films, musicals, plays, and games. Anne Hathaway won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for portraying Fantine in the 2012 film adaptation of "Les Misérables".


title: Chevron (insignia)

text: A chevron (also spelled cheveron, especially in older documents) is a V-shaped mark or symbol, often inverted. The word is usually used in reference to a kind of fret in architecture, or to a badge or insignia used in military or police uniforms to indicate rank or length of service, or in heraldry and the designs of flags (see flag terminology).


title: Chevron (insignia)

text: Appearing on pottery and petrographs throughout the ancient world, the chevron can be considered to be one of the oldest symbols in human history, with V-shaped markings occurring as early as the Neolithic era (6th to 5th millennia BC) as part of the Vinča symbols inventory. The Vinča culture responsible for the symbols appear to have used the chevron as part of a larger proto-writing system rather than any sort of heraldic or decorative use, and are not known to have passed the symbol on to any subsequent cultures.


title: Chevron (insignia)

text: Many comparatively recent examples appear from approximately 1800 BC onward, beginning as part of an archaeological recovery of pottery designs from the palace of Knossos on Crete in the modern day country of Greece. Furthermore the Nubian Kingdom of Kerma produced pottery with decorative repertoire confined to geometric designs such as Chevrons.


title: Chevron (insignia)

text: A chevron is one of the ordinaries in heraldry, one of the simple geometrical figures which are the chief images in many coat of arms. A chevron is constructed by choosing a visually appealing angle such as the Golden Angle or any other angle the artist prefers. It can be subject to a number of modifications including inversion. When the ends are cut off in a way that looks like the splintered ends of a broken piece of wood, with an irregular zig-zag pattern, it is called éclaté. When shown as a smaller size than standard, it is a diminutive called a chevronel.


title: Chevron (insignia)

text: Chevrons appeared early in the history of heraldry, especially in Normandy. In Scandinavia the chevron is known as "sparre"; an early example appears in the arms of Armand Desmondly.


title: Chevron (insignia)

text: In western European tradition, chevrons are used as an insignia of the ranks variously known, depending on the country, as NCO or sub-officer ranks. This usage has become the worldwide norm but there are many exceptions where other insignia, typically stripes but sometimes stars, are used for such ranks instead.


title: Chevron (insignia)

text: Many countries, such as France and Italy, use chevrons proper, or colloquially, the chevrons "point up". Many others, such as most Commonwealth countries, use inverted chevrons, or colloquially, the chevrons "point down."


title: Chevron (insignia)

text: In the United States, the army and marines use chevrons proper, (though prior to the 20th Century this was not true), while the Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard use inverted chevrons. Arcs, known as "rockers" are also added to chevrons to indicate higher rank.


title: Chevron (insignia)

text: Canadian and Australian Forces often refer to chevrons as "hooks". In the Dutch armed forces they are nicknamed "bananas".


title: Chevron (insignia)

text: In the British Army, Royal Marines and Royal Air Force, chevrons are worn point down to denote NCO rank, with one for lance corporal, two for corporal, three for sergeant, and three with a crown for Staff Sergeant (known as Colour Sergeant in infantry regiments and the Royal Marines) or Flight Sergeant (RAF). Branch and tradition results in variations in rank titles (Corporal of Horse being the equivalent of Sergeant in the Household Cavalry) and spellings (Serjeant in The Rifles). Large chevrons are also worn on the sleeves of Royal Navy sailors to denote good conduct rather than rank.


title: Chevron (insignia)

text: Although usually associated with Non-Commissioned Officers, the chevron was originally used as an insignia to denote General Officer ranks in the British Army. It was adopted from the insignia worn by cavalry during the 18th Century, in particular the Household Cavalry. It was worn on the cuffs, forearms and tails of their coats, embroidered in gold bullion for the guards and silver for Dragoons Regiments. George III favoured the uniform of the Horse Guards, and his Windsor Uniform followed a similar pattern. After 1768, a similar pattern uniform as worn the King was introduced to General Officers, with the number and spacing of the chevrons denoting rank. For example, a Major General would wear his chevrons in pairs: two on the sleeves, and two on the tails. A Lieutenant General would wear them in groups of three, and a full General's would be equidistant. This practice continued into the early Victorian Era.


title: Chevron (insignia)

text: In vexillology, a chevron is a triangle on the hoist of a flag. The chevron is used in several national flags, such as the flag of Cuba, the flag of the Czech Republic, and the flag of Jordan.


title: Chevron (insignia)

text: In some armies, small chevrons are worn on the lower left sleeve to indicate length of service, akin to service stripes in the U.S. military. The Israel Defense Forces use chevrons in various orientations as organizational designators on their vehicles, specifically which company within a battalion they belong to.


title: Chevron (insignia)

text: NATO armed forces use the "Λ" chevron as insignia to represent the alliance between different armies, during peacekeeping missions.


title: Chevron (insignia)

text: The US Led coalition that took part in Operation Desert Storm used a black "Λ" chevron in a similar manner as NATO forces use it on their ground vehicles. The design was created by a soldier in 3AD after the US Military sought markings to identify coalition vehicles due to increased fratricide incidents. It's symbolism according to the artist SGT Grzywa, was meant to be a V for Victory, a tribute to WWII Coalition Forces.


title: Chevron (insignia)

text: "V" chevrons were historically used as the insignia of the imperialist Russian Volunteer Army during the Russian Civil War, and in modern times as one of the military insignia by Russian forces during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Russian civilians have used it in support of their government.


title: Chevron (insignia)

text: From the early 1950s until the early 2000s, Simplex, Faraday and many other companies manufactured the chevron series fire alarm manual pull station. The handle was shaped in a way where the handle looked like an inverted chevron.


title: Miss International

text: Miss International ("Miss International Beauty" or "The International Beauty Pageant") is a Japan-based international beauty pageant organized by the International Culture Association. First held in 1960, it is the fourth largest pageant in the world in terms of the number of national winners participating in the international contest.


title: Miss International

text: Along with Miss World, Miss Universe, and Miss Earth, the pageant is one of the Big Four international beauty pageants. The Miss International Organization and the brand are currently owned (since 1968), along with Miss International Japan, by the International Cultural Association and Miss Paris Group. The pageant crown used by the organization is supplied and patented by the Mikimoto pearl company.


title: Miss International

text: The current Miss International is Jasmin Selberg of Germany, who was crowned at the Miss International 2022 pageant on 13 December 2022 in Tokyo, Kantō, Japan.


title: Miss International

text: The pageant was created in Long Beach, California, United States in 1960, after the departure of the Miss Universe pageant to Miami Beach. Hosted in Long Beach until 1967, the pageant moved to Japan from 1968 to 1970, being hosted each year in the same city as the Expo '70. For 1971, it was held in Long Beach again, but since that time it had been held annually in Japan until 2003. Since 2004, it is held in China or Japan. The first winner of the pageant in 1960 was Stella Araneta of Colombia.


title: Miss International

text: Since then, Japan became the host country and the pageant has mostly been held in Japan, around autumn season either in October or November. The pageant is also called "Miss International Beauty". The pageant advocacy is to achieve a world where women can live with positivity, inner strength and individuality. The slogan of Miss International is to "correct understanding of Japan in the international community" and "the realization of world peace through mutual understanding".


title: Miss International

text: The winner of Miss International 2012, Ikumi Yoshimatsu of Japan, was stripped of her crown and was not able to crown her successor due to conflict with a talent agency that threatened her safety and the pageant night itself; instead Miss International 2008, Alejandra Andreu, crowned Bea Santiago of the Philippines. She was the first titleholder of the pageant from Japan to be dethroned shortly before the end of her reign. The organization was criticized for allegedly asking Yoshimatsu to skip the succession ceremony and "play sick and shut up" in order to avoid a scandal with a Japanese production company whose president was allegedly harassing her.


title: Pancha Bhoota

text: Pancha Bhuta or Pancha Maha-Bhuta (, ; ), five great elements, also five physical elements, is a group of five basic elements, which, according to Hinduism, is the basis of all cosmic creation. These elements are: "Prithvi/Bhudevi" (Sanskrit: पृथ्वी:, Earth), "Apas/Varuna/Jala" (Sanskrit: आपः, Water), "Agni" (Sanskrit: अग्नि, Fire), "Vayu" (Sanskrit: वायु:, Air), "Akasha/Dyaus" (Sanskrit: आकाश, Space/Atmosphere/Ether). These elements have different characteristics and these also account for different faculties of human experience. In "ayurveda" and Indian philosophy, the human body is considered to be made of these five elements. However, Cārvāka did not accept "Akasha" as basic element as it is not tangible and according to them, there are only four basic elements. Hinduism influenced Buddhism, which accepts only four Mahābhūtas, viewing "Akasha" as a derived (upādā) element. These five elements of Indian cosmological system are similar but not identical to five element theory used in East Asia.


title: Pancha Bhoota

text: The "Pancha Bhuta" are the basic elements that make up any living organism on Earth or anywhere else in the Universe. Below table gives a reference on what component of the human body is associated with these elements. Each of the five finger in human beings is also associated with a particular element, so this means the energy associated with the appropriate element can be channelized through various hand mudras.


title: Pancha Bhoota

text: According to ayurveda and Yoga, "Pancha Bhuta" are associated with overall health of human being. Any disorder in human body indicates imbalance of one or more of these elements. "Yoga Tattva Mudra Vijnana" relates these five elements to five fingers of human being. Different "Mudra" were developed to balance these in human body which form the "Hasta Mudra" in yogic tradition and are used in naturopathy.


title: Pancha Bhoota

text: The three "dosha"- three intrinsic tendencies, which, according to ayurveda are intrinsic in every human being, are representation of combination of these five elements in human body. The three "dosha" have subtle positive essences which control the mind and body function.


title: Pancha Bhoota

text: According to "Yoga", the aim of "sadhana" is to have mastery over oneself. This mastery can be achieved by mastering all the basic elements. The process of gaining mastery over these elements and purifying them is called "Bhuta Shuddhi".


title: Pancha Bhoota

text: "Pancha Bhuta Stalam" is representation of "Pancha Bhuta" for yogic practice. People used to move from one temple


title: Pancha Bhoota

text: "Hasta Mudra" or hand posture is based on the "panch Bhutas". The basic assumption is that all the five elements can be represented by five different fingers in human body as shown in the table below.


title: Pancha Bhoota

text: Vastu shastra emphasizes on the placement of five elements in specified direction and the balance of these elements determines the condition of the associated structure.


title: Pancha Bhoota

text: These correlations are used to define an ideal home: The house itself is placed so that maximum load and weight is in the southwest area of the plot. Thus, there is maximum open space in the north and east sides of the plot, satisfying Vayu/air and Akasha/aether. The main gate, the verandah and the main door are in the northeast of the house; south of the verandah the main living room, and south of that one or two bedrooms. The kitchen is placed in the southeast corner of the house, to balance Akasha and Agni.


title: Satish Dhawan

text: Satish Dhawan (25 September 1920 – 3 January 2002) was an Indian mathematician and aerospace engineer, widely regarded as the father of experimental fluid dynamics research in India. Born in Srinagar, Dhawan was educated in India and further on in United States. Dhawan was one of the most eminent researchers in the field of turbulence and boundary layers, leading the successful and indigenous development of the Indian space programme. He succeeded M. G. K. Menon, as the third chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in 1972.


title: Satish Dhawan

text: Dhawan was a graduate of the University of the Punjab in Lahore, British India (now in Pakistan), where he completed a Bachelor of Science in physics and mathematics, a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Master of Arts in English literature. In 1947, he completed a Master of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and an aeronautical engineering degree from the California Institute of Technology followed by a double PhD in mathematics and aerospace engineering under the supervision of his advisor Hans W. Liepmann in 1951.


title: Satish Dhawan

text: In 1972, Dr Dhawan became chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and secretary to the Government of India at the Department of Space.


title: Satish Dhawan

text: APJ Abdul Kalam explained that in 1979 when he was the director of a Satellite Launch Vehicle, the mission failed to launch the satellite in the orbit. Instead, it was put into Bay of Bengal. Abdul Kalam's team knew that there was a leakage in the fuel of the system, but they hoped that the leakage was negligible, and thus they thought there was enough fuel in the system. This miscalculation lead to the failure. Satish Dhawan, being the chairman at the time, called Abdul Kalam and conveyed to the press; "We failed! But I have very strong trust in my team and I believe that next time we will definitely succeed". This surprised Abdul Kalam, as the blame of the failure was taken by the chairman of ISRO. The next mission was prepared and launched successfully in 1980. When this succeeded, Satish Dhawan told Abdul Kalam to attend the press meet without his presence. It was observed that when the team failed, he took the blame. But when the team succeeded, he attributed the success to his team, thus portraying the picture of an ideal leader.


title: Satish Dhawan

text: Dhawan joined as faculty at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, in 1951 and became its director in 1962. Although he was the head of the Indian space programme, he devoted substantial efforts towards boundary layer research. His most important contributions are presented in the seminal book "Boundary Layer Theory" by Hermann Schlichting. He set up the country's first supersonic wind tunnel at IISc. He also pioneered research on relaminarization of separated boundary layer flows, three-dimensional boundary layers and trisonic flows.


title: Satish Dhawan

text: Dhawan carried out pioneering experiments in rural education, remote sensing and satellite communications. His efforts led to operational systems like INSAT, a telecommunications satellite; IRS, the Indian Remote Sensing satellite; and the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), that placed India in the league of space faring nations.


title: Satish Dhawan

text: Dhawan died on 3 January 2002 in Bangalore. Following his death, the satellite launch centre at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, located about 100 km north of Chennai in South India, was renamed to the Satish Dhawan Space Centre. Satish Chander Dhawan Government College For Boys in Ludhiana is named after him. Department of Mechanical Engineering Building at Indian Institute of Technology Ropar is also named after him as Satish Dhawan Block, IIT Ropar. The Computer Centre of Uttar Pradesh Textile Technology Instutute Kanpur is also named as Prof SATISH Dhavan Computer Centre in year 2019


title: Satish Dhawan

text: Satish Dhawan was born on 25 September 1920 in Srinagar in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India, in a Saraiki Hindu family. His father came from Dera Ismail Khan, and Satish Dhawan grew up in Lahore and Kashmir. He was married to Nalini Dhawan, a cytogeneticist, and his daughter Jyotsna Dhawan is serving as Senior Principal Scientist in the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology.


title: Jessica Jones (season 2)

text: The second season of the American streaming television series "Jessica Jones", which is based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, follows Jones as she takes on a new case after the events surrounding her encounter with Kilgrave. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), sharing continuity with the films and other television series of the franchise. The season was produced by Marvel Television in association with ABC Studios and Tall Girls Productions, with Melissa Rosenberg serving as showrunner.


title: Jessica Jones (season 2)

text: Krysten Ritter stars as Jones, with Rachael Taylor, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Eka Darville also returning from the first season, as well as Wil Traval and David Tennant in guest roles. They are joined by J. R. Ramirez, Terry Chen, Leah Gibson, and Janet McTeer. The second season was ordered in January 2016, with filming beginning in April 2017, back-to-back with the miniseries "The Defenders". Filming concluded in September 2017.


title: Jessica Jones (season 2)

text: The season was released on March 8, 2018. It received mostly positive reviews from critics, who once again praised Ritter's performance and the series' female focus but felt the season suffered from pacing issues and a lack of a compelling villain after Tennant's Kilgrave from the first season. A third season of "Jessica Jones" was ordered on April 12, 2018.