title: John II Komnenos

text: John II succeeded his father as ruling "basileus" in 1118, but had already been crowned co-emperor by Alexios I between 1 September and early November, 1092. Despite this coronation, the accession of John was contested. That Alexios I favoured John to succeed him is made obvious by the elevation of his son to the position of co-emperor. However, Alexios' influential wife, Irene, favoured the "Caesar" Nikephoros Bryennios, the husband of her eldest child Anna Komnene. Anna, who in infancy had been betrothed to her father's first co-emperor Constantine Doukas, herself harboured obvious aspirations to power and the throne. During Alexios' final illness both wife and daughter exploited his physical weakness to apply pressure on him in support of their agenda for the succession. Alexios endured these constant demands without formally changing his intended successor. As Alexios lay dying in the monastery of the Mangana on 15 August 1118, John, relying on trusted relatives, especially his brother Isaac Komnenos, gained entry into the monastery and obtained the imperial signet ring from his father. He then assembled his armed followers and rode to the Great Palace, gathering the support of the citizenry on the way. The palace guard at first refused to admit John without clear proof of his father's wishes, however, the mob surrounding the new emperor simply forced an entry. In the palace John was acclaimed emperor. Irene, taken by surprise, was unable either to persuade her son to step down, or to induce Nikephoros to contend for the throne. However, this account of events, in particular the involvement of John's sister, in any palace coup attempt during the days around Alexios' death, has been disputed in a recent biography of Anna.


title: John II Komnenos

text: Alexios died the night following his son's decisive move to take power. John refused to attend his father's funeral, despite the pleas of his mother, because he feared a counter-coup. However, in the space of a few days, his position seemed secure. Within a year of his accession, however, John II uncovered a conspiracy to overthrow him which implicated his mother and sister. Anna's husband Nikephoros had little sympathy with her ambitions, and it was his lack of support which doomed the conspiracy. Anna was stripped of her property, which was offered to the emperor's friend John Axouch. Axouch wisely declined and his influence ensured that Anna's property was eventually returned to her and that John II and his sister became reconciled, at least to a degree. Irene retired to a monastery and Anna seems to have been effectively removed from public life, taking up the less active occupation of historian. However, Nikephoros remained on good terms with his brother-in-law. One of the very few records of John's own words concerns the plot against him; he says that after ascending the throne, God "destroyed the cunning plots of my visible and invisible enemies and rescued me from every trap subjecting all my enemies under my feet". To safeguard his own succession, John crowned his young son Alexios as co-emperor around September 1119.


title: John II Komnenos

text: The family intrigues that challenged his succession to the throne probably contributed to John's approach to rulership, which was to appoint men from outside the imperial family to high office. This was a radical departure from the methods of his father, who had used the imperial family and its many connections to fill almost all senior administrative and military posts.


title: John II Komnenos

text: John Axouch was John II's closest adviser and was his only intimate friend. Axouch was a Turk captured as a child at the Siege of Nicaea, who had been given as a gift to John's father. Emperor Alexios had thought him a good companion for his son, and so he had been brought up alongside the prince in the imperial household. Axouch was immediately appointed Grand Domestic (in Greek: μέγας δομέστικος, "megas domestikos"), upon the accession of John II. The Grand Domestic was the commander in chief of the Byzantine armies. It has been suggested that references to Axouch's possession of the imperial seal early in the reign of John's successor Manuel I meant that he was, in addition to his military duties, the head of the civil administration of the Empire. This was an unofficial position known at the time as the "mesazon", and equivalent to a vizier or 'prime-minister.' Such an appointment was remarkable, and a radical departure from the nepotism that had characterised the reign of Alexios I. The imperial family harboured some degree of resentment at this decision, which was reinforced by the fact that they were required to make obeisance to John Axouch whenever they met him.


title: John II Komnenos

text: John's unwillingness to allow his family to influence his government to any great extent was to remain constant for the rest of his reign. John appointed a number of his father's personal retainers to senior administrative posts, men such as Eustathios Kamytzes, Michaelitzes Styppeiotes and George Dekanos. These were men who had been politically eclipsed during the ascendancy exercised by John's mother in the later years of the reign of Alexios I. A number of 'new men' were raised to prominence by John II, these included Gregory Taronites who was appointed protovestiarios, Manuel Anemas and Theodore Vatatzes, the latter two also became his sons-in-law. John's marriage policy, of bringing new families into the imperial orbit, may have been directed towards lessening the influence of certain prominent aristocratic clans, such as the Doukas, Diogenes and Melissenos families, some of which had produced emperors themselves in the past.


title: John II Komnenos

text: Despite his move away from close reliance on the imperial family and its connections, John's court and government had many similarities to that of his father, not least in its serious tone and piety. Indeed, an extant collection of political advice couched in poetic form, called the "Mousai", are attributed to Alexios I. The "Mousai" are addressed directly to John II and exhort him, amongst other things, to maintain justice during his reign and a full treasury. Alexios' advice on rulership therefore continued to be available to his son, even after the old emperor's death.


title: John II Komnenos

text: The increase in military security and economic stability within Byzantine western Anatolia created by John II's campaigns allowed him to begin the establishment of a formal provincial system in these regions. The theme (province) of Thrakesion was re-established, with its administrative centre at Philadelphia. A new theme, named Mylasa and Melanoudion, was created to the south of Thrakesion.


title: John II Komnenos

text: The younger brother of John II, Isaac, had been of essential support during the accession crisis. However, despite being given the highest of court titles, that of "sebastokrator", Isaac later became estranged from his brother and became an active conspirator. With trusted advisors of his own choosing, such as John Axouch, and later the support of his son and co-emperor, Alexios, John II offered no meaningful role to Isaac in the governance of the empire. In the reign of Alexios I "sebastokratores" had wielded considerable power and Isaac would have had an expectation of a similar level of authority being devolved on himself. This thwarted ambition is probably what disillusioned Isaac with his brother's rule. Isaac aimed at replacing his brother as emperor. In 1130 John became aware of a plot involving Isaac and other magnates as he was leaving to campaign against the Turks. When John tried to seize Isaac, the latter escaped and fled to the Danishmend emir Ghazi, who received him, and later sent him to the breakaway Byzantine regime of the Gabrades in Trebizond. Isaac then became the guest of Masoud, the Seljuk Sultan of Rum, and subsequently of Leo, the Prince of Cilician Armenia. That Isaac was seeking aid from these princes in a bid to take the Byzantine throne by force is highly likely. Such a coalition did not materialise, but Isaac seems to have retained strong support in Constantinople. In 1132 John had to return from campaign in haste, when news reached him that conspirators in Constantinople had made an appeal to Isaac to become their ruler. The triumph that John celebrated following his capture of Kastamuni in 1133 can be seen as being a public affirmation of John's legitimacy as emperor embodied in the celebration of the defeat of external foes. The brothers were briefly reconciled in 1138, and Isaac returned to Constantinople; however, a year later Isaac was exiled to Heraclea Pontica, where he remained for the rest of John's life. In the extensive artwork that Isaac commissioned, he made much of his porphyrogenete status and his relationship with his imperial father, Alexios I, but he made little or no reference to his relationship to his brother John, or to the title of "sebastokrator" that he had received from him.


title: John II Komnenos

text: The central tenet of the foreign policy of John II in the West was to maintain an alliance with the German emperors (Holy Roman Empire). This was necessary to limit the threat posed by the Normans of southern Italy to Byzantine territory in the Balkans. This threat became especially acute after Roger II of Sicily made himself supreme in southern Italy and assumed the title of king. Emperor Lothair III had Byzantine backing, including a large financial subsidy, for his invasion of Norman territory in 1136, which reached as far south as Bari. Pope Innocent II, with the Church's possessions in Italy under threat by Roger II, who supported Antipope Anacletus II, was also party to the alliance of Lothair and John II. However, this alliance proved unable to resist Roger, who extracted by force a recognition of his royal title from the Pope in 1139 (Treaty of Mignano). Lothair's successor Conrad III was approached in 1140 for a royal German bride for John's youngest son Manuel. Bertha of Sulzbach, Conrad's sister-in-law, was chosen and despatched to Byzantium. At much the same time Roger II applied to John II for an imperial bride for his son, but was unsuccessful.


title: John II Komnenos

text: John's penchant for interfering with his wife's family, the rulers of Hungary, was problematic. The welcome accorded to ousted claimants of the Hungarian throne in Constantinople was seen by the Byzantines as a useful insurance policy and source of political leverage. However, the Hungarians treated this interference as a fighting matter. A Hungarian alliance with the Serbs produced serious consequences for continued Byzantine dominance in the western Balkans.


title: John II Komnenos

text: In the East John attempted, like his father, to exploit the differences between the Seljuq Sultan of Iconium and the Danishmendid dynasty controlling the northeastern, inland, parts of Anatolia. In 1134 the Seljuq sultan Masoud provided troops for John's attack on the Danishmend-held city of Kastamuni (reoccupied immediately after the Byzantine conquest of 1133), however, the alliance proved unreliable as the Seljuq troops abandoned the expedition, decamping during the night.


title: John II Komnenos

text: In the Crusader states of the Levant it was generally admitted that the Byzantine claims over Antioch were legally valid, though it was pragmatically viewed that only when the Byzantine emperor was in a position to enforce them militarily were they likely to be recognised in practice. The high point of John's diplomacy in the Levant was in 1137 when he extracted formal homage from the rulers of the Principality of Antioch, County of Edessa and the County of Tripoli. The Byzantine desire to be seen as holding a level of suzerainty over all of the Crusader states was taken seriously, as evidenced by the alarm shown in the Kingdom of Jerusalem when John informed King Fulk of his plan for an armed pilgrimage to the Holy City (1142).


title: John II Komnenos

text: The reign of John II was taken up with almost constant warfare and, unlike his father who delighted in active participation in theological and doctrinal disputes, John appears to have been content to leave ecclesiastical matters to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and the church hierarchy. Only when religion impinged directly on imperial policy, as in relations with the papacy and the possible union of the Greek and Latin churches, did John take an active part. He organised a number of disputations between Greek and Latin theologians.


title: John II Komnenos

text: John, alongside his wife who shared in his religious and charitable works, is known to have undertaken church building on a considerable scale, including construction of the Monastery of Christ Pantokrator (Zeyrek Mosque) in Constantinople. This monastery, with its three churches, has been described as one of the most important and influential architectural constructions of Middle Byzantine Constantinople. Attached to the monastery was a hospital, of 5 wards, open to people of all social classes. The hospital was staffed by trained layman doctors rather than monks. The central of the three churches was the Komnenian funerary chapel, dedicated to St. Michael. It had twin domes, and is described in the "typikon" of the monastery as being in the form of a "heroon"; this emulates the older mausolea of Constantine and Justinian in the Church of the Holy Apostles.


title: John II Komnenos

text: Very active persecution of the followers of the Paulician and Bogomil heresies characterised the last few years of the reign of Alexios I. No records from the reign of John mention such persecution, though countermeasures against heresy by the Byzantine Church remained in force. A permanent synod in Constantinople investigated the writings of a deceased monk named Constantine Chrysomallos which had been circulating in certain monasteries. These works were ordered to be burnt by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Leo Styppes, in May 1140, on the grounds that they incorporated elements of Bogomil belief and practices.


title: John II Komnenos

text: One of the few members of the imperial family to be placed in an important position by John was his cousin, Adrian Komnenos (son of John's uncle the "sebastokrator" Isaac). Adrian had become a monk, adopting the monastic name John, and had accompanied the emperor on his campaigns of 1138. Soon afterwards, Adrian was appointed Archbishop of Bulgaria as John IV of Ohrid. Bulgaria was an autocephalous see and required a prestigious man as archbishop.


title: John II Komnenos

text: Though he fought a number of notable pitched battles, the military strategy of John II relied on taking and holding fortified settlements in order to construct defensible frontiers. John personally conducted approximately twenty five sieges during his reign.


title: John II Komnenos

text: In 1119–1121 John defeated the Seljuq Turks, establishing his control over southwestern Anatolia. However, immediately afterwards, in 1122, John quickly transferred his troops to Europe to counter a Pecheneg invasion across the Danube frontier into Paristrion. These invaders had been auxiliaries of the Prince of Kiev. John surrounded the Pechenegs as they burst into Thrace, tricked them into believing that he would grant them a favourable treaty, and then launched a devastating surprise attack upon their fortified camp. The ensuing Battle of Beroia was hard-fought, John was wounded in the leg by an arrow, but by the end of the day the Byzantine army had won a crushing victory. The decisive moment of the battle was when John led the Varangian Guard, largely composed of Englishmen, to assault defensive Pecheneg wagon laager, employing their famous axes to hack their way in. The battle put an effective end to the Pechenegs as an independent people; many of the captives taken in the conflict were settled as soldier-farmers within the Byzantine frontier.


title: John II Komnenos

text: After his accession, John II had refused to confirm his father's 1082 treaty with the Republic of Venice, which had given the Italian republic unique and generous trading rights within the Byzantine Empire. Yet the change in policy was not motivated by financial concerns. An incident involving the abuse of a member of the imperial family by Venetians led to a dangerous conflict, especially as Byzantium had depended on Venice for its naval strength. After a Byzantine retaliatory attack on Kerkyra, John exiled the Venetian merchants from Constantinople. But this produced further retaliation, and a Venetian fleet of 72 ships plundered Rhodes, Chios, Samos, Lesbos, Andros and captured Kefalonia in the Ionian Sea. Eventually John was forced to come to terms; the war was costing him more than it was worth, and he was not prepared to transfer funds from the imperial land forces to the navy for the construction of new ships. John re-confirmed the treaty of 1082, in August 1126.


title: John II Komnenos

text: John's marriage to the Hungarian princess Piroska involved him in the dynastic struggles of the Kingdom of Hungary. In giving asylum to Álmos, a blinded claimant to the Hungarian throne, John aroused the suspicion of the Hungarians. The Hungarians, led by Stephen II, then invaded Byzantium's Balkan provinces in 1127, with hostilities lasting until 1129; however, an alternative chronology has been suggested with the Hungarian attack and Byzantine retaliation taking place in 1125 with a renewal of hostilities in 1126. John launched a punitive raid against the Serbs, who had dangerously aligned themselves with Hungary, many of whom were rounded up and transported to Nicomedia in Asia Minor to serve as military colonists. This was done partly to cow the Serbs into submission (Serbia was, at least nominally, a Byzantine protectorate), and partly to strengthen the Byzantine frontier in the east against the Turks. The Serbs were forced to acknowledge Byzantine suzerainty once again. The Serbian campaign may have taken place between two distinct phases in the war against Hungary. The Hungarians attacked Belgrade, Nish and Sofia; John, who was near Philippopolis in Thrace, counterattacked, supported by a naval flotilla operating on the Danube. After a challenging campaign, the details of which are obscure, the emperor managed to defeat the Hungarians and their Serbian allies at the fortress of Haram or Chramon, which is the modern Nova Palanka; many Hungarian troops were killed when a bridge they were crossing collapsed as they were fleeing from a Byzantine attack. Following this the Hungarians renewed hostilities by attacking Braničevo, which was immediately rebuilt by John. Further Byzantine military successes, Choniates mentions several engagements, resulted in a restoration of peace. The Byzantines were confirmed in their control of Braničevo, Belgrade and Zemun and they also recovered the region of Sirmium (called Frangochorion in Choniates), which had been Hungarian since the 1060s. The Hungarian pretender Álmos died in 1129, removing the major source of friction.


title: John II Komnenos

text: Early in John's reign the Turks were pressing forward against the Byzantine frontier in western Asia Minor. In 1119, the Seljuqs had cut the land route to the city of Attaleia on the southern coast of Anatolia. John II and Axouch the Grand Domestic besieged and recaptured Laodicea in 1119 and took Sozopolis by storm in 1120, re-opening land communication with Attaleia. This route was especially important as it also led to Cilicia and the Crusader states of Syria.


title: John II Komnenos

text: Following the end of hostilities with Hungary, John was able to concentrate on Asia Minor during most of his remaining years. He undertook annual campaigns against the Danishmendid emirate in Malatya (Melitene) on the upper Euphrates from 1130 to 1135. Thanks to his energetic campaigning, Turkish attempts at expansion in Asia Minor were halted, and John prepared to take the fight to the enemy. In order to restore the region to Byzantine control, he led a series of well planned and executed campaigns against the Turks, one of which resulted in the reconquest of the ancestral home of the Komnenoi at Kastamonu (Kastra Komnenon); he then left a garrison of 2,000 men at Gangra. John quickly earned a formidable reputation as a wall-breaker, taking one stronghold after another from his enemies. Regions that had been lost to the empire since the Battle of Manzikert were recovered and garrisoned. Yet resistance, particularly from the Danishmends of the northeast, was strong, and the difficult nature of holding the new conquests is illustrated by the fact that Kastamonu was recaptured by the Turks even as John was in Constantinople celebrating its return to Byzantine rule. John persevered, however, and Kastamonu soon changed hands once more.


title: John II Komnenos

text: In the spring of 1139, the emperor campaigned with success against Turks, probably nomadic Turkomans, who were raiding the regions along the Sangarios River, striking their means of subsistence by driving off their herds. He then marched for the final time against the Danishmend Turks, his army proceeding along the southern coast of the Black Sea through Bithynia and Paphlagonia. The breakaway Byzantine regime of Constantine Gabras in Trebizond was ended, and the region of Chaldia brought back under direct imperial control. John then besieged but failed to take the city of Neocaesarea, in 1140. The Byzantines were defeated by the conditions rather than by the Turks: the weather was very bad, large numbers of the army's horses died, and provisions became scarce.


title: John II Komnenos

text: In the Levant, the emperor sought to reinforce Byzantine claims to suzerainty over the Crusader States and to assert his rights over Antioch. In 1137 he conquered Tarsus, Adana, and Mopsuestia from the Principality of Armenian Cilicia, and in 1138 Prince Levon I of Armenia and most of his family were brought as captives to Constantinople. This opened the route to the Principality of Antioch, where Raymond of Poitiers, Prince of Antioch, and Joscelin II, Count of Edessa, recognized themselves as vassals of the emperor in 1137. Even Raymond II, the Count of Tripoli, hastened northwards to pay homage to John, repeating the homage that his predecessor had given John's father in 1109. There then followed a joint campaign as John led the armies of Byzantium, Antioch, and Edessa against Muslim Syria. Aleppo proved too strong to attack, but the fortresses of Balat, Biza'a, Athareb, Maarat al-Numan, and Kafartab were taken by assault.


title: John II Komnenos

text: Although John fought hard for the Christian cause in the campaign in Syria, his allies Prince Raymond of Antioch and Count Joscelin II of Edessa remained in their camp playing dice and feasting instead of helping to press the siege of the city of Shaizar. The Crusader Princes were suspicious of each other and of John, and neither wanted the other to gain from participating in the campaign. Raymond also wanted to hold on to Antioch, which he had agreed to hand over to John if the campaign was successful in capturing Aleppo, Shaizar, Homs, and Hama. Latin and Muslim sources describe John's energy and personal courage in prosecuting the siege. The city was taken, but the citadel defied assault. The Emir of Shaizar offered to pay a large indemnity, become John's vassal, and pay yearly tribute. John had lost all confidence in his allies, and a Muslim army under Zengi was approaching to try to relieve the city, therefore the emperor reluctantly accepted the offer. The emperor was distracted by a Seljuq raid on Cilicia and developments in the west, where he was pursuing a German alliance directed against the threat posed by the Normans of Sicily. Joscelin and Raymond conspired to delay the promised handover of Antioch's citadel to the emperor, stirring up popular unrest in the city directed at John and the local Greek community. John had little choice but to leave Syria with his ambitions only partially realised.


title: John II Komnenos

text: In early 1142 John campaigned against the Seljuqs of Iconium to secure his lines of communication through Attalia (Antalya). During this campaign his eldest son and co-emperor Alexios died of a fever. Having secured his route, John embarked on a new expedition into Syria determined to reduce Antioch to direct imperial rule. This expedition included a planned pilgrimage to Jerusalem on which he intended to take his army. King Fulk of Jerusalem, fearing that the emperor's presence with overwhelming military force would constrain him to make an act of homage and formally recognise Byzantine suzerainty over his kingdom, begged the emperor to bring only a modest escort. Fulk cited the inability of his largely barren kingdom to support the passage of a substantial army. This lukewarm response resulted in John II deciding to postpone his pilgrimage. John descended rapidly on northern Syria, forcing Joscelin II of Edessa to render hostages, including his daughter, as a guarantee of his good behaviour. He then advanced on Antioch demanding that the city and its citadel be surrendered to him. Raymond of Poitiers played for time, putting the proposal to the vote of the Antiochene general assembly. With the season well advanced John decided to take his army into winter quarters in Cilicia, proposing to renew his attack on Antioch the following year.


title: John II Komnenos

text: Having prepared his army for a renewed attack on Antioch, John amused himself by hunting wild boar on Mount Taurus in Cilicia, where he accidentally cut himself on the hand with a poisoned arrow. John initially ignored the wound and it became infected. He died a number of days after the accident, on 8 April 1143, probably of septicaemia. It has been suggested that John was assassinated by a conspiracy within the units of his army of Latin origins who were unhappy at fighting their co-religionists of Antioch, and who wanted to place his pro-western son Manuel on the throne. However, there is very little overt support for this hypothesis in the primary sources. John's final action as emperor was to choose Manuel, the younger of his surviving sons, to be his successor. John is recorded as citing two main reasons for choosing Manuel over his older brother Isaac: Isaac's irascibility, and the courage that Manuel had shown on campaign at Neocaesarea. Another theory alleges that the reason for this choice was the AIMA prophecy, which foretold that John's successor should be one whose name began with an "M". Fittingly, John's close friend John Axouch, although he is recorded as having tried hard to persuade the dying emperor that Isaac was the better candidate to succeed, was instrumental in ensuring that Manuel's assumption of power was free from any overt opposition.


title: John II Komnenos

text: Historian John Birkenmeier argued that John's reign was the most successful of the Komnenian period. In "The Development of the Komnenian Army 1081–1180," he stresses the wisdom of John's approach to warfare, which focused on sieges rather than risking pitched battles. Birkenmeier argues that John's strategy of launching annual campaigns with limited, realistic objectives was a more sensible one than that followed by his son Manuel I. According to this view, John's campaigns benefited the Byzantine Empire because they protected the empire's heartland, which lacked reliable borders, while gradually extending its territory in Asia Minor. The Turks were forced onto the defensive, while John kept his diplomatic situation relatively simple by allying with the Holy Roman Emperor against the Normans of Sicily.


title: John II Komnenos

text: Overall, it is clear that John II Komnenos left the empire a great deal better off than he had found it. By the time of his death substantial territories had been recovered, and the goals of the recovery of control over central Anatolia and the re-establishment of a frontier on the Euphrates seemed achievable. However, the Greeks of the interior of Anatolia were becoming increasingly accustomed to Turkish rule and often found it preferable to that of Byzantium. Also, though it was relatively easy to extract submission and admissions of vassalage from the Anatolian Turks, Serbs and Crusader States of the Levant, converting these relationships into concrete gains for the security of the Empire had proven elusive. These problems were left for his gifted and mercurial son, Manuel, to attempt to solve.


title: John II Komnenos

text: John II Komnenos married Princess Piroska of Hungary (renamed Irene), a daughter of King Ladislaus I of Hungary in 1104; the marriage was intended as compensation for the loss of some territories to King Coloman of Hungary. She played little part in government, devoting herself to piety and their large brood of children. Irene died on 13 August, 1134, and was later venerated as Saint Irene. John II and Irene had 8 children:


title: Kel-Tec KSG

text: The Kel-Tec KSG is a bullpup 12-gauge pump-action shotgun designed by Kel-Tec. It has two tube magazines which the user of the gun can switch between manually. Each tube holds up to seven 12-gauge shotshells or six shotshells. Kel-Tec has also introduced a larger variant, called the KSG25, which holds 24+1 rounds to the originals 14+1 rounds


title: Kel-Tec KSG

text: Barrel locking is achieved by a swinging wedge, located inside the top of the bolt, which engages the barrel extension. The sliding forend is connected to the bolt by dual operating bars. The ammunition feed is from two independent tubular magazines, located below the barrel.


title: Kel-Tec KSG

text: The user is required to manually select a magazine by switching a three-position lever, located behind the pistol grip. The middle position of the switch blocks the feed from both magazines and allows the user to chamber a single round manually. Switching the lever to one side brings the respective magazine into the feed cycle. Once one magazine is depleted, the user manually switches to the second magazine by pushing the magazine selection lever toward it, or the user can load each magazine with a different type of load, and use the selector to choose the desired load when required. For example, one magazine can be loaded with buckshot, the second with slugs. The selector can be used to switch between the two types (although this will require the user to either fire the round already chambered, or to eject it unfired in order to chamber the new type, unless the chamber is already empty).


title: Kel-Tec KSG

text: Rounds are loaded into the magazines through a large loading/ejection port, located at the bottom of the gun in the stock, behind the pistol grip. Empty shells are ejected down through the same port. A manual safety is available in the form of the cross-bolt button, located above the grip, making the gun fully ambidextrous in use. Sighting equipment (iron sights and/or red dot sights) can be installed using the standard Picatinny rail located above the barrel. A second Picatinny rail is provided at the bottom of the sliding forend, permitting installation of other accessories.


title: Kel-Tec KSG

text: The initial release of the KSG had a mixed reception with some having flawless experiences and others having various issues ranging from the selector switch breaking to double feeding. Kel-Tec quickly released a second generation addressing these issues while also offering to upgrade 1st generation KSGs with the second generation improvements for free. Other improvements to the KSG on the 2nd generation include a trigger reset, small shell tube peep holes, and a fix of the action release to be easier to use and ambidextrous.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: Hafiz Muhammad Saeed (, born 5 June 1950) is a Pakistani Islamist who co-founded Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based Islamist militant organization that is designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, India, the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia, and Russia. He is listed on India's NIA Most Wanted. In April 2012, the United States placed a bounty of US$10 million on Saeed for his role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 civilians. While India officially supported the American move, there were protests against it in Pakistan.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: After the 2008 Mumbai attacks, he was designated by the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee of the Security Council. He is also listed on the United States Department of the Treasury's Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: India has demanded that Saeed be handed over into Indian custody by Pakistan; however, there is no extradition agreement between the two countries. Saeed has denied ever being a leader of LeT and has said all allegations that he planned attacks in India are baseless.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: In July 2019, three months before the scheduled reviewal of Pakistan's action plan by the Financial Action Task Force, Saeed was arrested by Pakistani authorities and sentenced to an 11-year prison sentence. In early April 2022, he was sentenced an additional 31 years for terror financing.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: Saeed was born in Sargodha, Punjab, Pakistan. As told by him, his father, Maulana Kamal-ud-Din, a religious scholar, landlord and farmer, along with his family started migrating from East Punjab and reached Pakistan in around four months in the autumn of 1947. The family is of Gujjar background and three of his brothers, Hafiz Hamid, Hafiz Mastodon and Hafiz Hannan, are involved in Islamic activism as well, having previously run Islamic centres in Boston in the United States.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: He was named "hafiz" because he memorized the Qur'an during his childhood, a time during which he was already enthusiastic about the verses on jihad. He then attended the Government College Sargodha (now University of Sargodha) before getting a Master's in Islamic Studies at the King Saud University in Riyadh.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: A major early influence on his life and ideology was his maternal uncle, and later father-in-law, Hafiz Abdullah Bahawalpuri, who was a famed theologian belonging to the Ahl-i Hadith, who held that democracy was incompatible with Islam (which alienated him with Maulana Maududi's Jamaat-e-Islami) and argued, on the importance of jihad, "that only in jihad does one offer one's life in the way of Allah, which elevates it to a higher plane than merely fulfilling other religious responsibilities such as saying prayers and paying zakat, also entailing sacrifices and adjustments, but not at the scale evident in jihad" and "considered shahadat (martyrdom) to be the


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: crux of jihad." Bahawalpuri's only son, Abdul Rehman Makki, is Saeed's brother-in-law and has been described as "his close partner."


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq appointed Saeed to the Council on Islamic Ideology, and he later served as an Islamic Studies teacher at the University of Engineering and Technology, Pakistan. He was sent to Saudi Arabia in the early 1980s by the university for higher studies where he met Saudi sheikhs who were taking part in the Soviet–Afghan War. They inspired him in taking an active role supporting the mujahideen in Afghanistan. During his studies at the King Saud University, where he was gold medalist for his academic performances as well as taught there, he came under the influence of Salafi scholars like Shaykh Muhammad ibn al Uthaymeen and especially Shaykh Ibn Baz.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: Saeed held two master's degrees from the University of Punjab and a specialisation in Islamic Studies and Arabic Language from King Saud University.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: In 1987, Saeed, along with Abdullah Azzam, founded Markaz Dawa-Wal-Irshad, a group with roots in the Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadis.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: This organisation spawned the jihadist group Lashkar-e-Taiba in 1987, with the help of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence officers.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: Saeed's son Talha Saeed serves as the Lashkar-e-Taiba second-in-command. He controls the finances of Lashkar. In 2019, Talha escaped an assassination attempt when a bomb inside a refrigerator shop exploded in Lahore. According to Lashkar the bombing was attributed to the infighting in the Lashkar and R&AW.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: In 1994, Saeed visited the United States and "spoke at Islamic centres in Houston, Chicago and Boston".


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: Pakistan took Saeed into custody on 21 December 2001 due to an Indian government assertion that he was involved in the 13 December 2001 attack on the Lok Sabha. He was held until 31 March 2002, released, then taken back into custody on 15 May. He was placed under house arrest on 31 October 2002 after his wife Maimoona Saeed sued the province of Punjab and the Pakistan federal government for what she claimed was an illegal detention.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: After 11 July 2006 Mumbai train bombings, the provincial government of Punjab, Pakistan arrested him on 9 August 2006 and kept him under house arrest but he was released on 28 August 2006 after a Lahore High Court order. He was arrested again on the same day by the provincial government and was kept in the Canal Rest House in Sheikhupura. He was finally released after the Lahore High Court order on 17 October 2006.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: After the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, India submitted a formal request to the U.N. Security Council to put the group Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Saeed on the list of individuals and organisations sanctioned by the United Nations for association with terrorism. India has accused the organisation and its leader, Saeed, of being virtually interchangeable with Lashkar-e-Taiba. India said that the close links between the organisations, as well as the 2,500 offices and 11 seminaries that Jamaat-ud-Dawa maintains in Pakistan, "are of immediate concern with regard to their efforts to mobilise and orchestrate terrorist activities." On 10 December 2008, Saeed denied a link between LeT and JuD in an interview with Pakistan's Geo television stating that "no Lashkar-e-Taiba man is in Jamaat-ud-Dawa and I have never been a chief of Lashkar-e-Taiba."


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: On 11 December 2008, Hafiz Muhammed Saeed was again placed under house arrest when the United Nations declared Jamaat-ud-Dawa to be an LeT front. Saeed was held in house arrest under the Maintenance of Public Order law, which allows authorities to detain temporarily individuals deemed likely to create disorder, until early June 2009 when the Lahore High Court, deeming the containment to be unconstitutional, ordered Saeed to be released. India quickly expressed its disappointment with the decision.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: On 6 July 2009, the Pakistani government filed an appeal of the court's decision. Deputy Attorney General Shah Khawar told the Associated Press that "Hafiz Saeed at liberty is a security threat."


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: On 25 August 2009, Interpol issued a red notice against Saeed, along with Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, in response to Indian requests for his extradition.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: On 12 October 2009, the Lahore High Court quashed all cases against Saeed and set him free. The court also notified that Jama'at-ud-Da'wah is not a banned organisation and can work freely in Pakistan. Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, one of two judges hearing the case, observed "In the name of terrorism we cannot brutalise the law."


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: On 11 May 2011, in an effort to place pressure on Pakistan, India publicly revealed a list of its 50 most wanted fugitives hiding in Pakistan. India believes Saeed is a fugitive, but the Indian arrest warrant had no influence in Pakistan and presently has no effect on Saeed's movements within Pakistan. Following the Lahore High Court ruling, Saeed has been moving freely around the country. For many years, India has demanded that Saeed be handed over but there is no extradition treaty between the two countries.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: The United States declared two Lashkar-e-Tayyiba leaders—Nazir Ahmad Chaudhry and Muhammad Hussein Gill—specially designated global terrorists. The State Department also maintained LeT's designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation and added the following aliases to its listing of LeT: Jama’at-ud-Dawa, Al-Anfal Trust, Tehrik-i-Hurmat-i-Rasool, and Tehrik-i-Tahafuz Qibla Awwal. The Department of Treasury said that LeT was responsible for the November 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai which killed nearly 200 people. The group's leader is Saeed, who is listed under UN Security Council Resolution 1267.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: In keeping with Pakistani establishment's wishes, Lashkar has been keeping focus on India and Saeed is among those who are thought to have helped Pakistan in capturing important al-Qaeda members like Abu Zubaydah. Senior Pakistani officials have said that Saeed is helping in de-radicalisation and rehabilitation of former extremists and that security is being provided to him because he could be targeted by militants who disapprove of Saeed's co-operation with Islamabad.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: In April 2012, the United States announced a bounty of US$10 million on Saeed, for his role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Saeed stated that he had nothing to do with the Mumbai attacks and condemned them. When asked about the bounty, Saeed replied, "I am living my life in the open and the U.S. can contact me whenever they want." He subsequently stated that he was ready to face "any American court" to answer the charges and added that if Washington wanted to contact him, they knew where he was. "This is a laughable, absurd announcement. Here I am in front of everyone, not hiding in a cave," he said in a press conference. Saeed identified his leading role in the Difa-e-Pakistan Council and US attempts to placate India as reasons behind the bounty.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: On 3 July 2019, 23 cases related to terror financing and money laundering under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), 1997 were registered by Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of Pakistan. According to CTD, JuD was financing terrorism from the funds collected by several non-profit organisations and trusts that included Al-Anfaal Trust, Dawatul Irshad Trust, Muaz Bin Jabal Trust, etc. CTD had banned these non-profit organisations in April 2019. On further investigations, CTD had found that these organisations were linked with JuD and were in touch with the top leadership of JuD.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: On 17 July 2019, Saeed was arrested in Gujranwala by the Punjab CTD on the charges of terror financing. He was subsequently sent to the prison on judicial remand by a Gujranwala Anti Terrorism Court (ATC). On 27 September 2019, during the United Nations General Assembly, USA asked Pakistan to prosecute Saeed, Masood Azhar and other UN-designated terrorists. On 30 November 2019, the Government of Pakistan stated that they will prosecute Saeed. On 11 December 2019, he was indicted by the ATC in the charges of terror financing in several cities of Punjab province of Pakistan. As of December 2019, Saeed resides in the Kot Lakhpat jail also known as Central Jail Lahore. He was convicted for five years by a Pakistan court for financing terrorism, in February 2020. On November 19, 2020 a Pakistani court sentenced him for 5 years in prison on terrorism-financing charges making the conviction for a total of 10 years meanwhile an anti-terrorism court in the city of Lahore on fined Saeed 110,000 rupees (about $700). On 24 December he was sentenced to 15 and a half years in jail by an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan in one more terror financing case along with Rs20,000 (about $125) fine.


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: While being in prison, Saeed's former residence in Lahore was targeted by a bomb blast on June 23, 2021, resulting in the death of three people and the wounding of 22 more. Three people were arrested for the attack. Pakistan's national security adviser Moeed Yusuf said that while the three arrested were Pakistani citizens who planted the bomb, it was suspected that "India was behind the attack".


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: Saeed has criticised Pakistani leaders and has stated that they should aspire to be more like British Prime Minister David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson. He had declared his admiration for the British Conservative Party along with several Tory MPs when he lodged a petition to the Lahore High Court calling for public officials in Pakistan to tone down their privileged lifestyles. According to "The Daily Telegraph", Saeed wrote in the petition that while Pakistan's political elite were 'living like kings and princes in palatial government houses,' Britain's prime minister lived in a 'four-bedroom flat.' He added, 'When the sun never set on the British Empire, the chief executive of that great country lived in the same house of a few marlas in a small street. That is truly Islamic, that is like following the Sunnah of the Holy Prophet.'


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: Speaking on the issue of arrest of separatist Kashmiri leader Masarat Alam by the Jammu and Kashmir government, Saeed said, "Jihad is the duty of an Islamic government... there is a government in Pakistan and it has always taken the stand that it is the right of Kashmiris to attain freedom. I say what our Army will do to secure the right of the Kashmiris is jihad... We extend help to Kashmiris alongside government ... we call this jihad."


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: Criticising his anti-India comments, Indian Muslim leader Asaduddin Owaisi said, "People like Hafiz Saeed are unaware about teachings of Islam, jihad in Islam. They are killing innocent lives in Pakistan, children are being killed. They are using Pakistan for maligning another country. The Government of India should take strict action against it and I condemn his comments in clear and strong words."


title: Hafiz Saeed

text: In January 2013, India's then Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde released a statement on the alleged existence of Hindu terrorism as well as the existence of Hindu terror camps on Indian soil, being run and organised by the BJP and the RSS. As a result, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawa welcomed Shinde's statements and congratulated him for admitting the existence of Hindu terrorism.<ref name="LeT and JuD Congratulates Shinde for His Claims on Hindu Terror">


title: Equation of time

text: The equation of time describes the discrepancy between two kinds of solar time. The word "equation" is used in the medieval sense of "reconcile a difference". The two times that differ are the apparent solar time, which directly tracks the diurnal motion of the Sun, and mean solar time, which tracks a theoretical mean Sun with uniform motion along the celestial equator. Apparent solar time can be obtained by measurement of the current position (hour angle) of the Sun, as indicated (with limited accuracy) by a sundial. "Mean" solar time, for the same place, would be the time indicated by a steady clock set so that over the year its differences from apparent solar time would have a mean of zero.


title: Equation of time

text: The equation of time is the east or west component of the analemma, a curve representing the angular offset of the Sun from its mean position on the celestial sphere as viewed from Earth. The equation of time values for each day of the year, compiled by astronomical observatories, were widely listed in almanacs and ephemerides.


title: Equation of time

text: During a year the equation of time varies as shown on the graph; its change from one year to the next is slight. Apparent time, and the sundial, can be ahead (fast) by as much as 16 min 33 s (around 3 November), or behind (slow) by as much as 14 min 6 s (around 11 February). The equation of time has zeros near 15 April, 13 June, 1 September, and 25 December. Ignoring very slow changes in the Earth's orbit and rotation, these events are repeated at the same times every tropical year. However, due to the non-integral number of days in a year, these dates can vary by a day or so from year to year.


title: Equation of time

text: The graph of the equation of time is closely approximated by the sum of two sine curves, one with a period of a year and one with a period of half a year. The curves reflect two astronomical effects, each causing a different non-uniformity in the apparent daily motion of the Sun relative to the stars:


title: Equation of time

text: The equation of time is constant only for a planet with zero axial tilt and zero orbital eccentricity. Two examples of planets with large equations of time are Mars and Uranus. On Mars the difference between sundial time and clock time can be as much as 50 minutes, due to the considerably greater eccentricity of its orbit. The planet Uranus, which has an extremely large axial tilt, has an equation of time that makes its days start and finish several hours earlier or later depending on where it is in its orbit.


title: Equation of time

text: The United States Naval Observatory states "the Equation of Time is the difference "apparent solar time" minus "mean solar time"", i.e. if the sun is ahead of the clock the sign is positive, and if the clock is ahead of the sun the sign is negative. The equation of time is shown in the upper graph above for a period of slightly more than a year. The lower graph (which covers exactly one calendar year) has the same absolute values but the sign is reversed as it shows how far the clock is ahead of the sun. Publications may use either format – in the English-speaking world, the former usage is the more common, but is not always followed. Anyone who makes use of a published table or graph should first check its sign usage. Often, there is a note or caption which explains it. Otherwise, the usage can be determined by knowing that, during the first three months of each year, the clock is ahead of the sundial. The mnemonic "NYSS" (pronounced "nice"), for "new year, sundial slow", can be useful. Some published tables avoid the ambiguity by not using signs, but by showing phrases such as "sundial fast" or "sundial slow" instead.


title: Equation of time

text: In this article, and others in English Wikipedia, a positive value of the equation of time implies that a sundial is ahead of a clock.


title: Equation of time

text: The phrase "equation of time" is derived from the medieval Latin "aequātiō diērum", meaning "equation of days" or "difference of days".


title: Equation of time

text: The word "aequātiō" (and Middle English "equation") was used in medieval astronomy to tabulate the difference between an observed value and the expected value (as in the equation of the centre, the equation of the equinoxes, the equation of the epicycle).


title: Equation of time

text: Gerald J. Toomer uses the medieval term "equation" from the Latin "aequātiō", for Ptolemy's difference between the mean solar time and the apparent solar time. Johannes Kepler's definition of the equation is "the difference between the number of degrees and minutes of the mean anomaly and the degrees and minutes of the corrected anomaly."


title: Equation of time

text: The difference between apparent solar time and mean time was recognized by astronomers since antiquity, but prior to the invention of accurate mechanical clocks in the mid-17th century, sundials were the only reliable timepieces, and apparent solar time was the generally accepted standard. Mean time did not supplant apparent time in national almanacs and ephemerides until the early 19th century.


title: Equation of time

text: Book III of Ptolemy's "Almagest" (2nd century) is primarily concerned with the Sun's anomaly, and he tabulated the equation of time in his "Handy Tables". Ptolemy discusses the correction needed to convert the meridian crossing of the Sun to mean solar time and takes into consideration the nonuniform motion of the Sun along the ecliptic and the meridian correction for the Sun's ecliptic longitude. He states the maximum correction is  time-degrees or of an hour (Book III, chapter 9). However he did not consider the effect to be relevant for most calculations since it was negligible for the slow-moving luminaries and only applied it for the fastest-moving luminary, the Moon.


title: Equation of time

text: Based on Ptolemy's discussion in the "Almagest", values for the equation of time (Arabic "taʿdīl al-ayyām bi layālayhā") were standard for the tables ("zij") in the works of medieval Islamic astronomy.


title: Equation of time

text: A description of apparent and mean time was given by Nevil Maskelyne in the "Nautical Almanac" for 1767: "Apparent Time is that deduced immediately from the Sun, whether from the Observation of his passing the Meridian, or from his observed Rising or Setting. This Time is different from that shewn by Clocks and Watches well regulated at Land, which is called equated or mean Time." He went on to say that, at sea, the apparent time found from observation of the Sun must be corrected by the equation of time, if the observer requires the mean time.


title: Equation of time

text: The right time was originally considered to be that which was shown by a sundial. When good mechanical clocks were introduced, they agreed with sundials only near four dates each year, so the equation of time was used to "correct" their readings to obtain sundial time. Some clocks, called equation clocks, included an internal mechanism to perform this "correction". Later, as clocks became the dominant good timepieces, uncorrected clock time, i.e., "mean time", became the accepted standard. The readings of sundials, when they were used, were then, and often still are, corrected with the equation of time, used in the reverse direction from previously, to obtain clock time. Many sundials, therefore, have tables or graphs of the equation of time engraved on them to allow the user to make this correction.


title: Equation of time

text: The equation of time was used historically to set clocks. Between the invention of accurate clocks in 1656 and the advent of commercial time distribution services around 1900, there were three common land-based ways to set clocks. Firstly, in the unusual event of having an astronomer present, the sun's transit across the meridian (the moment the sun passed overhead) was noted; the clock was then set to noon and offset by the number of minutes given by the equation of time for that date. Secondly, and much more commonly, a sundial was read, a table of the equation of time (usually engraved on the dial) was consulted and the watch or clock set accordingly. These calculated the mean time, albeit local to a point of longitude. The third method did not use the equation of time; instead, it used stellar observations to give sidereal time, exploiting the relationship between sidereal time and mean solar time.


title: Equation of time

text: The first tables to give the equation of time in an essentially correct way were published in 1665 by Christiaan Huygens. Huygens, following the tradition of Ptolemy and medieval astronomers in general, set his values for the equation of time so as to make all values positive throughout the year.


title: Equation of time

text: Another set of tables was published in 1672–73 by John Flamsteed, who later became the first Astronomer Royal of the new Royal Greenwich Observatory. These appear to have been the first essentially correct tables that gave today's meaning of Mean Time (previously, as noted above, the sign of the equation was always positive and it was set at zero when the apparent time of sunrise was earliest relative to the clock time of sunrise). Flamsteed adopted the convention of tabulating and naming the correction in the sense that it was to be applied to the apparent time to give mean time.


title: Equation of time

text: The equation of time, correctly based on the two major components of the Sun's irregularity of apparent motion, was not generally adopted until after Flamsteed's tables of 1672–73, published with the posthumous edition of the works of Jeremiah Horrocks.


title: Equation of time

text: Robert Hooke (1635–1703), who mathematically analyzed the universal joint, was the first to note that the geometry and mathematical description of the (non-secular) equation of time and the universal joint were identical, and proposed the use of a universal joint in the construction of a "mechanical sundial".


title: Equation of time

text: The corrections in Flamsteed's tables of 1672–1673 and 1680 gave mean time computed essentially correctly and without need for further offset. But the numerical values in tables of the equation of time have somewhat changed since then, owing to three factors:


title: Equation of time

text: From 1767 to 1833, the British "Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris" tabulated the equation of time in the sense 'add or subtract (as directed) the number of minutes and seconds stated to or from the apparent time to obtain the mean time'. Times in the Almanac were in apparent solar time, because time aboard ship was most often determined by observing the Sun. This operation would be performed in the unusual case that the mean solar time of an observation was needed. In the issues since 1834, all times have been in mean solar time, because by then the time aboard ship was increasingly often determined by marine chronometers. The instructions were consequently to add or subtract (as directed) the number of minutes stated to or from the mean time to obtain the apparent time. So now addition corresponded to the equation being positive and subtraction corresponded to it being negative.


title: Equation of time

text: As the apparent daily movement of the Sun is one revolution per day, that is 360° every 24 hours, and the Sun itself appears as a disc of about 0.5° in the sky, simple sundials can be read to a maximum accuracy of about one minute. Since the equation of time has a range of about 33 minutes, the difference between sundial time and clock time cannot be ignored. In addition to the equation of time, one also has to apply corrections due to one's distance from the local time zone meridian and summer time, if any.


title: Equation of time

text: The tiny increase of the mean solar day due to the slowing down of the Earth's rotation, by about 2 ms per day per century, which currently accumulates up to about 1 second every year, is not taken into account in traditional definitions of the equation of time, as it is imperceptible at the accuracy level of sundials.


title: Equation of time

text: The Earth revolves around the Sun. As seen from Earth, the Sun appears to revolve once around the Earth through the background stars in one year. If the Earth orbited the Sun with a constant speed, in a circular orbit in a plane perpendicular to the Earth's axis, then the Sun would culminate every day at exactly the same time, and be a perfect time keeper (except for the very small effect of the slowing rotation of the Earth). But the orbit of the Earth is an ellipse not centered on the Sun, and its speed varies between 30.287 and 29.291 km/s, according to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and its angular speed also varies, and thus the Sun appears to move faster (relative to the background stars) at perihelion (currently around 3 January) and slower at aphelion a half year later.


title: Equation of time

text: At these extreme points this effect varies the apparent solar day by 7.9 s/day from its mean. Consequently, the smaller daily differences on other days in speed are cumulative until these points, reflecting how the planet accelerates and decelerates compared to the mean. As a result, the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit contributes a periodic variation which is (in the first-order approximation) a sine wave with an amplitude of 7.66 min and a period of one year to the equation of time. The zero points are reached at perihelion (at the beginning of January) and aphelion (beginning of July); the extreme values are in early April (negative) and early October (positive).


title: Equation of time

text: Even if the Earth's orbit were circular, the perceived motion of the Sun along our celestial equator would still not be uniform. This is a consequence of the tilt of the Earth's rotational axis with respect to the plane of its orbit, or equivalently, the tilt of the ecliptic (the path the Sun appears to take in the celestial sphere) with respect to the celestial equator. The projection of this motion onto our celestial equator, along which "clock time" is measured, is a maximum at the solstices, when the yearly movement of the Sun is parallel to the equator (causing amplification of perceived speed) and yields mainly a change in right ascension. It is a minimum at the equinoxes, when the Sun's apparent motion is more sloped and yields more change in declination, leaving less for the component in right ascension, which is the only component that affects the duration of the solar day. A practical illustration of obliquity is that the daily shift of the shadow cast by the Sun in a sundial even on the equator is smaller close to the solstices and greater close to the equinoxes. If this effect operated alone, then days would be up to 24 hours and 20.3 seconds long (measured solar noon to solar noon) near the solstices, and as much as 20.3 seconds shorter than 24 hours near the equinoxes.


title: Equation of time

text: In the figure on the right, we can see the monthly variation of the apparent slope of the plane of the ecliptic at solar midday as seen from Earth. This variation is due to the apparent precession of the rotating Earth through the year, as seen from the Sun at solar midday.


title: Equation of time

text: In terms of the equation of time, the inclination of the ecliptic results in the contribution of a sine wave variation with an amplitude of 9.87 minutes and a period of a half year to the equation of time. The zero points of this sine wave are reached at the equinoxes and solstices, while the extrema are at the beginning of February and August (negative) and the beginning of May and November (positive).


title: Equation of time

text: The two above mentioned factors have different wavelengths, amplitudes and phases, so their combined contribution is an irregular wave. At epoch 2000 these are the values (in minutes and seconds with UT dates):


title: Equation of time

text: On shorter timescales (thousands of years) the shifts in the dates of equinox and perihelion will be more important. The former is caused by precession, and shifts the equinox backwards compared to the stars. But it can be ignored in the current discussion as our Gregorian calendar is constructed in such a way as to keep the vernal equinox date at 20 March (at least at sufficient accuracy for our aim here). The shift of the perihelion is forwards, about 1.7 days every century. In 1246 the perihelion occurred on 22 December, the day of the solstice, so the two contributing waves had common zero points and the equation of time curve was symmetrical: in "Astronomical Algorithms" Meeus gives February and November extrema of 15 m 39 s and May and July ones of 4 m 58 s. Before then the February minimum was larger than the November maximum, and the May maximum larger than the July minimum. In fact, in years before −1900 (1901 BCE) the May maximum was larger than the November maximum. In the year −2000 (2001 BCE) the May maximum was +12 minutes and a couple seconds while the November maximum was just less than 10 minutes. The secular change is evident when one compares a current graph of the equation of time (see below) with one from 2000 years ago, e.g., one constructed from the data of Ptolemy.


title: Equation of time

text: If the gnomon (the shadow-casting object) is not an edge but a point (e.g., a hole in a plate), the shadow (or spot of light) will trace out a curve during the course of a day. If the shadow is cast on a plane surface, this curve will be a conic section (usually a hyperbola), since the circle of the Sun's motion together with the gnomon point define a cone. At the spring and fall equinoxes, the cone degenerates into a plane and the hyperbola into a line. With a different hyperbola for each day, hour marks can be put on each hyperbola which include any necessary corrections. Unfortunately, each hyperbola corresponds to two different days, one in each half of the year, and these two days will require different corrections. A convenient compromise is to draw the line for the "mean time" and add a curve showing the exact position of the shadow points at noon during the course of the year. This curve will take the form of a figure eight and is known as an analemma. By comparing the analemma to the mean noon line, the amount of correction to be applied generally on that day can be determined.


title: Equation of time

text: The equation of time is used not only in connection with sundials and similar devices, but also for many applications of solar energy. Machines such as solar trackers and heliostats have to move in ways that are influenced by the equation of time.


title: Equation of time

text: Civil time is the local mean time for a meridian that often passes near the center of the time zone, and may possibly be further altered by daylight saving time. When the apparent solar time that corresponds to a given civil time is to be found, the difference in longitude between the site of interest and the time zone meridian, daylight saving time, and the equation of time must all be considered.


title: Equation of time

text: The equation of time is obtained from a published table, or a graph. For dates in the past such tables are produced from historical measurements, or by calculation; for future dates, of course, tables can only be calculated. In devices such as computer-controlled heliostats the computer is often programmed to calculate the equation of time. The calculation can be numerical or analytical. The former are based on numerical integration of the differential equations of motion, including all significant gravitational and relativistic effects. The results are accurate to better than 1 second and are the basis for modern almanac data. The latter are based on a solution that includes only the gravitational interaction between the Sun and Earth, simpler than but not as accurate as the former. Its accuracy can be improved by including small corrections.


title: Equation of time

text: The following discussion describes a reasonably accurate (agreeing with almanac data to within 3 seconds over a wide range of years) algorithm for the equation of time that is well known to astronomers. It also shows how to obtain a simple approximate formula (accurate to within 1 minute over a large time interval), that can be easily evaluated with a calculator and provides the simple explanation of the phenomenon that was used previously in this article.


title: Equation of time

text: Here time and angle are quantities that are related by factors such as: 2 radians = 360° = 1 day = 24 hours. The difference, EOT, is measurable since GHA is an angle that can be measured and Universal Time, UT, is a scale for the measurement of time. The offset by = 180° = 12 hours from UT is needed because UT is zero at mean midnight while GMHA = 0 at mean noon. Both GHA and GMHA, like all physical angles, have a mathematical, but not a physical discontinuity at their respective (apparent and mean) noon. Despite the mathematical discontinuities of its components, EOT is defined as a continuous function by adding (or subtracting) 24 hours in the small time interval between the discontinuities in GHA and GMHA.


title: Equation of time

text: Like the formula for GHA above, one can write , where the last term is the right ascension of the mean Sun. The equation is often written in these terms as


title: Equation of time

text: where . In this formulation a measurement or calculation of EOT at a certain value of time depends on a measurement or calculation of at that time. Both and vary from 0 to 24 hours during the course of a year. The former has a discontinuity at a time that depends on the value of UT, while the latter has its at a slightly later time. As a consequence, when calculated this way EOT has two, artificial, discontinuities. They can both be removed by subtracting 24 hours from the value of EOT in the small time interval after the discontinuity in and before the one in . The resulting EOT is a continuous function of time.


title: Equation of time

text: Here , is the Greenwich mean sidereal time (the angle between the mean vernal equinox and the mean Sun in the plane of the equator). Therefore, GMST is an approximation to GAST (and is an approximation to EOT); eqeq is called the equation of the equinoxes and is due to the wobbling, or nutation of the Earth's axis of rotation about its precessional motion. Since the amplitude of the nutational motion is only about 1.2 s (18″ of longitude) the difference between EOT and can be ignored unless one is interested in subsecond accuracy.


title: Equation of time

text: A third definition, denoted to distinguish it from EOT and , and now called the Equation of Ephemeris Time (prior to the distinction that is now made between EOT, , and the latter was known as the equation of time) is


title: Equation of time

text: here is the ecliptic longitude of the mean Sun (the angle from the mean vernal equinox to the mean Sun in the plane of the ecliptic).


title: Equation of time

text: The difference is 1.3 s from 1960 to 2040. Therefore, over this restricted range of years is an approximation to EOT whose error is in the range 0.1 to 2.5 s depending on the longitude correction in the equation of the equinoxes; for many purposes, for example correcting a sundial, this accuracy is more than good enough.


title: Equation of time

text: The right ascension, and hence the equation of time, can be calculated from Newton's two-body theory of celestial motion, in which the bodies (Earth and Sun) describe elliptical orbits about their common mass center. Using this theory, the equation of time becomes


title: Equation of time

text: All these angles are shown in the figure on the right, which shows the celestial sphere and the Sun's elliptical orbit seen from the Earth (the same as the Earth's orbit seen from the Sun). In this figure is the obliquity, while is the eccentricity of the ellipse.


title: Equation of time

text: Although this equation cannot be solved exactly in closed form, values of can be obtained from infinite (power or trigonometric) series, graphical, or numerical methods. Alternatively, note that for , , and by iteration:


title: Equation of time

text: and continued iteration produces successively higher order terms of the power series expansion in . For small values of (much less than 1) two or three terms of the series give a good approximation for ; the smaller , the better the approximation.


title: Equation of time

text: The correct branch of the multiple valued function to use is the one that makes a continuous function of starting from . Thus for use , and for use . At the specific value for which the argument of is infinite, use . Here is the principal branch, ; the function that is returned by calculators and computer applications. Alternatively, this function can be expressed in terms of its Taylor series in , the first three terms of which are:


title: Equation of time

text: For small this approximation (or even just the first two terms) is a good one. Combining the approximation for with this one for produces


title: Equation of time

text: The relation is called the equation of the center; the expression written here is a second-order approximation in . For the small value of that characterises the Earth's orbit this gives a very good approximation for .


title: Equation of time

text: The value of varies non-linearly with because the orbit is elliptical and not circular. From the approximation for :


title: Equation of time

text: Finally, knowing calculate from a relation for the right triangle on the celestial sphere shown above


title: Equation of time

text: where is 0 if is in quadrant 1, it is 1 if is in quadrants 2 or 3 and it is 2 if is in quadrant 4. For the values at which tan is infinite, .


title: Equation of time

text: Although approximate values for can be obtained from truncated Taylor series like those for , it is more efficacious to use the equation


title: Equation of time

text: The equation of time is obtained by substituting the result of the right ascension calculation into an equation of time formula. Here is used; in part because small corrections (of the order of 1 second), that would justify using , are not included, and in part because the goal is to obtain a simple analytical expression. Using two-term approximations for and allows to be written as an explicit expression of two terms, which is designated because it is a first order approximation in and in .


title: Equation of time

text: This equation was first derived by Milne, who wrote it in terms of . The numerical values written here result from using the orbital parameter values, = , = ° =  radians, and = ° =  radians that correspond to the epoch 1 January 2000 at 12 noon UT1. When evaluating the numerical expression for as given above, a calculator must be in radian mode to obtain correct values because the value of in the argument of the second term is written there in radians. Higher order approximations can also be written, but they necessarily have more terms. For example, the second order approximation in both and consists of five terms


title: Equation of time

text: This approximation has the potential for high accuracy, however, in order to achieve it over a wide range of years, the parameters , , and must be allowed to vary with time. This creates additional calculational complications. Other approximations have been proposed, for example, which uses the first order equation of the center but no other approximation to determine , and which uses the second order equation of the center.


title: Equation of time

text: The time variable, , can be written either in terms of , the number of days past perihelion, or , the number of days past a specific date and time (epoch):


title: Equation of time

text: Here is the value of at the chosen date and time. For the values given here, in radians, is that measured for the actual Sun at the epoch, 1 January 2000 at 12 noon UT1, and is the number of days past that epoch. At periapsis , so solving gives = . This puts the periapsis on 4 January 2000 at 00:11:41 while the actual periapsis is, according to results from the "Multiyear Interactive Computer Almanac" (abbreviated as MICA), on 3 January 2000 at 05:17:30. This large discrepancy happens because the difference between the orbital radius at the two locations is only 1 part in a million; in other words, radius is a very weak function of time near periapsis. As a practical matter this means that one cannot get a highly accurate result for the equation of time by using and adding the actual periapsis date for a given year. However, high accuracy can be achieved by using the formulation in terms of .


title: Equation of time

text: When , "M" is greater than 2 and one must subtract a multiple of 2 (that depends on the year) from it to bring it into the range 0 to 2. Likewise for years prior to 2000 one must add multiples of 2. For example, for the year 2010, varies from on 1 January at noon to on 31 December at noon; the corresponding values are and and are reduced to the range 0 to 2 by subtracting 10 and 11 times 2 respectively. One can always write , where is the number of days from the epoch to noon on 1 January of the desired year, and (365 if the calculation is for a leap year).


title: Equation of time

text: The result of the computations is usually given as either a set of tabular values, or a graph of the equation of time as a function of . A comparison of plots of , , and results from MICA all for the year 2000 is shown in the figure on the right. The plot of is seen to be close to the results produced by MICA, the absolute error, , is less than 1 minute throughout the year; its largest value is 43.2 seconds and occurs on day 276 (3 October). The plot of is indistinguishable from the results of MICA, the largest absolute error between the two is 2.46 s on day 324 (20 November).


title: Equation of time

text: For the choice of the appropriate branch of the relation with respect to function continuity a modified version of the arctangent function is helpful. It brings in previous knowledge about the expected value by a parameter. The modified arctangent function is defined as:


title: Equation of time

text: The difference between the MICA and results was checked every 5 years over the range from 1960 to 2040. In every instance the maximum absolute error was less than 3 s; the largest difference, 2.91 s, occurred on 22 May 1965 (day 141). However, in order to achieve this level of accuracy over this range of years it is necessary to account for the secular change in the orbital parameters with time. The equations that describe this variation are:


title: Equation of time

text: According to these relations, in 100 years ( = ), increases by about 0.5% (1.7°), decreases by about 0.25%, and decreases by about 0.05%.


title: Equation of time

text: As a result, the number of calculations required for any of the higher-order approximations of the equation of time requires a computer to complete them, if one wants to achieve their inherent accuracy over a wide range of time. In this event it is no more difficult to evaluate using a computer than any of its approximations.


title: Equation of time

text: In all this note that as written above is easy to evaluate, even with a calculator, is accurate enough (better than 1 minute over the 80-year range) for correcting sundials, and has the nice physical explanation as the sum of two terms, one due to obliquity and the other to eccentricity that was used previously in the article. This is not true either for considered as a function of or for any of its higher-order approximations.


title: Equation of time

text: Another procedure for calculating the equation of time can be done as follows. Angles are in degrees; the conventional order of operations applies.


title: Equation of time

text: where is the Earth's mean angular orbital velocity in degrees per day, a.k.a. ""the mean daily motion"".


title: Equation of time

text: where is the date, counted in days starting at 1 on 1 January (i.e. the days part of the ordinal date in the year). 9 is the approximate number of days from the December solstice to 31 December. is the angle the Earth "would" move on its orbit at its average speed from the December solstice to date .


title: Equation of time

text: Here, is the difference between the angle moved at mean speed, and at the angle at the corrected speed projected onto the equatorial plane, and divided by 180° to get the difference in "half-turns". The value 23.44° is the tilt of the Earth's axis ("obliquity"). The subtraction gives the conventional sign to the equation of time. For any given value of , (sometimes written as ) has multiple values, differing from each other by integer numbers of half turns. The value generated by a calculator or computer may not be the appropriate one for this calculation. This may cause to be wrong by an integer number of half-turns. The excess half-turns are removed in the next step of the calculation to give the equation of time:


title: Equation of time

text: The expression means the "nearest integer" to . On a computer, it can be programmed, for example, as . Its value is 0, 1, or 2 at different times of the year. Subtracting it leaves a small positive or negative fractional number of half turns, which is multiplied by 720, the number of minutes (12 hours) that the Earth takes to rotate one half turn relative to the Sun, to get the equation of time.


title: Equation of time

text: Compared with published values, this calculation has a root mean square error of only 3.7 s. The greatest error is 6.0 s. This is much more accurate than the approximation described above, but not as accurate as the elaborate calculation.


title: Equation of time

text: The value of in the above calculation is an accurate value for the Sun's ecliptic longitude (shifted by 90°), so the solar declination becomes readily available:


title: Andronikos I Komnenos

text: Andronikos I Komnenos (;  – 12 September 1185), Latinized as Andronicus I Comnenus, was Byzantine emperor from 1183 to 1185. He was the son of Isaac Komnenos and the grandson of the emperor Alexios I. In later Byzantine historiography, Andronikos I became known under the epithet "Misophaes" ("Hater of Sunlight") in reference to the great number of enemies he had blinded.


title: Andronikos I Komnenos

text: Andronikos Komnenos was born around 1118. Most of what is known of him is from the writings of the historian Niketas Choniates,certain passages in a work by Eustathios, 'The Capture of Thessaloniki', or inferred by later historians of the Byzantine Empire. He was handsome and eloquent, active, hardy, courageous, a great general and an able politician, but also licentious. His early years were spent alternately in pleasure and in military service.


title: Andronikos I Komnenos

text: In 1141, he was taken captive by the Seljuq Turks and remained in their hands for a year. On being ransomed, he went to Constantinople, where he was held at the court of his first cousin Emperor Manuel I Komnenos, to whom he was a great favourite. Here the charms of his niece, Eudoxia, attracted him and she became his mistress. In 1152, accompanied by Eudoxia, he set out for an important command in Cilicia. After his defeat at the Battle of Mamistra, an attack upon Mopsuestia, he returned but was again appointed to the command of a province. This second post he seems also to have left after a short interval, for he appeared again in Constantinople and narrowly escaped death at the hands of the brothers of Eudoxia.


title: Andronikos I Komnenos

text: About 1153, a conspiracy against Emperor Manuel in which Andronikos participated was discovered, and he was imprisoned. After repeated unsuccessful attempts, he escaped in 1165. After passing through many dangers, including captivity in Vlach territory, he reached Kiev, where his cousin Yaroslav Osmomysl of Galicia held court. While under the protection of Yaroslav, Andronikos formed an alliance with the Emperor Manuel I, and with a Galician army he joined Manuel in the invasion of Hungary, assisting at the siege of Semlin. The campaign was successful, and Andronikos returned to Constantinople with Manuel I in 1168; a year later, however, Andronikos refused to take the oath of allegiance to Béla of Hungary, whom Manuel desired to become his successor. Andronikos was removed from court but received the province of Cilicia.


title: Andronikos I Komnenos

text: Still under the displeasure of the emperor, Andronikos fled to the court of Prince Raymond of Antioch. While residing here he captivated and seduced the beautiful daughter of the Prince, Philippa, sister of the Empress Maria. The Emperor was again angered by this dishonour, sent Constantine Kalamanos to woo Philippa (unsuccessfully), and Andronikos was compelled to flee. He took refuge with King Amalric of Jerusalem, whose favour he gained, and who invested him with the Lordship of Beirut. In Jerusalem he saw Theodora Komnene, the beautiful widow of King Baldwin III and niece of Emperor Manuel. Although Andronikos was at that time fifty-six years old, age had not diminished his charms, and Theodora became the next victim of his artful seduction. To avoid the vengeance of the emperor, she fled with Andronikos to the court of Nur ad-Din, the sultan of Damascus. Feeling unsafe there, they continued their perilous journey through the Caucasus and Anatolia. They were well received by King George III of Georgia, whose sister had probably been the first wife of Andronikos.


title: Andronikos I Komnenos

text: Andronikos was granted estates in Kakhetia, in the east of Georgia. In 1173 or 1174, he accompanied the Georgian army on an expedition to Shirvan up to the Caspian shores, where George recaptured the fortress of Shabaran from the invaders from Darband for his cousin, the Shirvanshah Akhsitan I. Finally, Andronikos and Theodora settled in the ancestral lands of the Komnenoi at Oinaion, on the shores of the Black Sea, between Trebizond and Sinope. While Andronikos was on one of his incursions into Trebizond, his castle was surprised by the governor of that province, and Theodora and her two children were captured and sent to Constantinople. To obtain their release Andronikos in early 1180 made abject submission to the Emperor and, appearing in chains before him, besought pardon. This he obtained, and he was allowed to retire with Theodora into banishment at Oinaion.


title: Andronikos I Komnenos

text: In 1180 the Emperor Manuel died and was succeeded by his ten-year-old son Alexios II, who was under the guardianship of his mother, Maria of Antioch. Her Latin origins and culture led to creeping resentment from her Greek subjects. They had felt insulted by the Western tastes of Manuel, watching much of their wealth and opportunity being absorbed by Latin merchants and their trade concessions. The regency of Manuel's Frankish widow saw increasing Latin favor and tensions rising. Andronikos saw this Latin dissatisfaction as an opportunity to seize the crown for himself, leaving his retirement in 1182 and marching to Constantinople with an army that (according to non-Byzantine sources) included Muslim contingents.


title: Andronikos I Komnenos

text: Alexios attempted to negotiate, and sent George Xiphilinos (a future patriarch) to Andronikos' camp, offering a pardon and high office. In the event, Xiphilinos betrayed the prōtosebastos, and Andronikos rejected the offer, insisting instead that the prōtosebastos retire and be held accountable for his administration, and the Empress-dowager be confined to a convent. The defection of the commander of the Byzantine navy, "megas doux" Andronikos Kontostephanos, and the defeat and defection of his cousin general Andronikos Angelos, played a key role in allowing the rebellious forces to enter Constantinople.


title: Andronikos I Komnenos

text: The arrival of Andronikos Komnenos was soon followed by a massacre of the city's Latin inhabitants, who virtually controlled its economy, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Westerners. He was believed to have arranged the poisoning of Alexios II's elder sister Maria the Porphyrogenita and her husband Renier of Montferrat, although Maria herself had encouraged him to intervene; the poisoner was said to be the eunuch Pterygeonites. Soon afterwards Andronikos had the Empress Maria imprisoned and then killed – forcing a signature from the child Emperor Alexios to put his mother to death – by Pterygeonites and the "hetaireiarches" Constantine Tripsychos. Alexios II was compelled to acknowledge Andronikos as colleague in the empire in front of the crowd on the terrace of the Church of Christ of the Chalkè and was then quickly put to death in turn; the killing was carried out by Tripsychos, Theodore Dadibrenos, and Stephen Hagiochristophorites.


title: Andronikos I Komnenos

text: In 1183, sixty-five-year old Andronikos married twelve-year-old Agnes of France, daughter of King Louis VII of France and his third wife Adèle of Champagne – Agnes had been betrothed to Alexios II. By November 1183, Andronikos had associated his younger legitimate son John Komnenos on the throne. In 1184, a Venetian embassy visited Constantinople, and an agreement was reached that compensation of 1,500 gold pieces would be paid for the losses incurred in 1171.


title: Andronikos I Komnenos

text: The reign of Andronikos was characterized by his harsh measures. He resolved to suppress many abuses but above all things to check feudalism and limit the power of the nobles, who were rivals for his throne. He attempted to reform the decaying political system by forbidding the sale of offices, punishing corrupt officials (often brutally) but above all, he moved to check the power of the feudal landowners. The people, who felt the severity of his laws, at the same time acknowledged their justice and found themselves protected from the rapacity of their superiors, who had grown corrupt under the safety and opulence of Manuel I's rule. Andronikos became increasingly paranoid and violent, however, and the Empire descended into a terror state.. In September 1185, he ordered the execution of all prisoners, exiles, and their families for collusion with the invaders. The aristocrats, in turn, were infuriated against him, and there were several revolts.


title: Andronikos I Komnenos

text: The stories of chaos led to an invasion by William II of the Kingdom of Sicily. William landed in Epirus with a strong force of 200 ships and 80,000 men, including 5,000 knights, and marched as far as Thessalonica, which he took and pillaged ruthlessly (7,000 Greeks died). Andronikos hastily assembled five different armies to stop the Sicilian army from reaching Constantinople, but his forces failed to stand and retreated to the outlying hills. Andronikos also assembled a fleet of 100 ships to stop the Norman fleet from entering the Sea of Marmara. The invaders were finally driven out in 1186 by his successor, Isaac Angelos.


title: Andronikos I Komnenos

text: Andronikos seems then to have resolved to exterminate the aristocracy, and his plans were nearly successful. But on 11 September 1185, during his absence from the capital Stephen Hagiochristophorites, his lieutenant, moved to arrest Isaac Angelos, whose loyalty was suspect. Angelos killed Hagiochristophorites and took refuge in the church of Hagia Sophia. He appealed to the populace, and a tumult arose that spread rapidly over the whole city.


title: Andronikos I Komnenos

text: When Andronikos arrived he found that Isaac had been proclaimed emperor. The deposed emperor attempted to escape in a boat with his wife Agnes and his mistress, but they were captured (though some claim that Andronikos survived and managed to escape to the self-proclaimed kingdom of Cyprus). Angelos handed him over to the city mob and for three days he was exposed to their fury and resentment, remaining for that period tied to a post and beaten. His right hand was cut off, his teeth and hair were pulled out, one of his eyes was gouged out, and, among many other sufferings, boiling water was thrown in his face, punishment probably associated with his handsomeness and life of licentiousness. At last he was led to the Hippodrome of Constantinople and hung by his feet between two pillars. Two Latin soldiers competed as to whose sword would penetrate his body more deeply, and he was, according to the representation of his death, torn apart; his remains were left unburied and were visible for several years afterwards. He died on 12 September 1185. At the news of the Emperor's death, his son and co-emperor, John, was murdered by his own troops in Thrace.


title: Andronikos I Komnenos

text: Andronikos I was the last of the Komnenoi to rule Constantinople, although his grandsons Alexios and David founded the Empire of Trebizond in 1204. Their branch of the dynasty was known as the "Great Komnenoi" ("Megalokomnenoi").


title: Andronikos I Komnenos

text: Andronikos I Komnenos was married twice and had numerous mistresses. By his first wife, whose name is not known, he had three children:


title: Andronikos I Komnenos

text: His second marriage to Anna of France, and his liaisons with his other mistresses, remained childless.


title: Andronikos I Komnenos

text: Andronikos is the main protagonist in Michael Arnold's "Against the Fall of Night" (Garden City, New York: Doubleday 1975), as well as Ange Vlachos' "Their Most Serene Majesties" (Vanguard Press, 1964).


title: Andronikos I Komnenos

text: He is mentioned in the Louis L'Amour medieval historical novel, "The Walking Drum", with his gruesome death foreseen by the protagonist in a vision.


title: Andronikos I Komnenos

text: He is among the main characters of the historical novel "Agnes of France" (1980, ) by Greek writer Kostas Kyriazis (b. 1920). The novel describes the events of the reigns of Manuel I, Alexios II and Andronikos I through the eyes of Agnes. The novel ends with the death of Andronikos.


title: Andronikos I Komnenos

text: Andronikos was portrayed in the novel "Baudolino" by Umberto Eco, with much detail being given to his grisly end.


title: Interstate 405 (California)

text: Interstate 405 (I-405) is a major north–south auxiliary Interstate Highway in Southern California. The entire route is known as the northern segment of the San Diego Freeway. I-405 is a bypass auxiliary route of I-5, running along the southern and western parts of the Greater Los Angeles urban area from Irvine in the south to near San Fernando in the north.


title: Interstate 405 (California)

text: I-405, heavily traveled by both commuters and freight haulers along its entire length, is the busiest and most congested freeway in the United States. The freeway's annual average daily traffic between exits 21 and 22 in Seal Beach reached 374,000 in 2008, making it the highest count in the nation. It has played a crucial role in the development of dozens of cities and suburbs along its route through Los Angeles and Orange counties. It also serves Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Long Beach Airport (LGB) and Orange County's John Wayne Airport (SNA).


title: Interstate 405 (California)

text: I-405 begins at the El Toro Y interchange in southeastern Irvine in Orange County, splitting from its parent I-5 and inheriting that route's San Diego Freeway title; I-5 continues north as the Santa Ana Freeway. The freeway passes immediately south of the Irvine Spectrum Center mall before intersecting with State Route 133 (SR 133). It then continues through Irvine, passing north of UC Irvine and then along the northern boundary of John Wayne International Airport. After passing the airport, the freeway enters Costa Mesa and has an interchange with SR 55. It passes South Coast Plaza before a partial interchange with SR 73, which serves as a partially-tolled bypass of I-405 between Costa Mesa and Laguna Niguel.


title: Interstate 405 (California)

text: The freeway then travels through Fountain Valley and along the edges of Westminster and Huntington Beach before entering Seal Beach, where it begins to run concurrently with SR 22. It continues along the northern edge of Seal Beach, passing between Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach and Joint Forces Training Base Los Alamitos, before SR 22 splits from I-405 and continues west while the freeway turns north. I-405 then intersects the southern end of I-605 before crossing the San Gabriel River and entering Los Angeles County.


title: Interstate 405 (California)

text: I-405 enters Los Angeles County in the city of Long Beach. It passes to the north of California State University, Long Beach and then along the south of Long Beach Airport. The freeway then intersects with I-710 before entering Carson (and crossing through a small sliver of the city of Los Angeles before reentering Carson). It passes near California State University, Dominguez Hills and Dignity Health Sports Park, home of Major League Soccer club LA Galaxy.


title: Interstate 405 (California)

text: The freeway then intersects with I-110 as it briefly reenters the city of Los Angeles by passing through the Harbor Gateway, a strip of land connecting San Pedro to the rest of the city. I-405 then continues to roughly parallel the contour of the coastline as it passes through the South Bay communities of Torrance, Lawndale, Redondo Beach, Hawthorne, and El Segundo. The freeway then encounters I-105 on the southeastern corner of Los Angeles International Airport. It passes to the east of the airport, serving it with exits at Imperial Highway and Century Boulevard.


title: Interstate 405 (California)

text: I-405 next passes through Inglewood, coming near SoFi Stadium, home to the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers of the National Football League. It then passes through Westchester and Culver City where it meets SR 90, the Marina Freeway. It serves the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Mar Vista and West Los Angeles while passing a few miles east of Santa Monica, intersecting with I-10 in the process. The freeway continues into Westwood, passing just to the west of UCLA. It then passes the Getty Center as it ascends the Sepulveda Pass through the Santa Monica Mountains.


title: Interstate 405 (California)

text: After cresting the mountains, I-405 descends into the San Fernando Valley, intersecting U.S. Route 101 (US 101) in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood of Los Angeles. The freeway then continues due north through the western part of the valley, passing east of Van Nuys Airport and California State University, Northridge. It intersects SR 118 in the Mission Hills area before ending in a merge with I-5 near San Fernando.


title: Interstate 405 (California)

text: I-405 is part of the California Freeway and Expressway System, and is part of the National Highway System, a network of highways that are considered essential to the country's economy, defense, and mobility by the Federal Highway Administration. The entire freeway is known as the San Diego Freeway, and parts of it are less commonly known as the Sepulveda Freeway (after Sepulveda Boulevard).


title: Interstate 405 (California)

text: The freeway is one of the busiest freeways in the nation, and is the busiest freeway in California. The freeway's congestion problems are well-known, leading to jokes that the road was numbered 405 because traffic moves at "four or five" miles per hour, or because drivers had spent "four or five" hours to travel anywhere. Indeed, average speeds as low as are routinely recorded during morning and afternoon commutes, and its interchanges with the Ventura Freeway (US 101) and with the Santa Monica Freeway (I-10) each consistently rank among the five most congested freeway interchanges in the United States. As a result of these congestion problems, delays passing through the entire Los Angeles metropolitan area using this bypass route instead of merely using the primary route I-5 through Downtown may be present.