title: AptX

text: The example CD-quality 16-bit 44 kHz (up to 22 kHz signal bandwidth) stream is divided by two layers of 64-tap QMF (Quadrature mirror filter) into four 16-bit subbands of 11 kHz (up to 5.5 kHz signal bandwidth each). The first 64-tap QMF divides into two bands (0–11 kHz and 11–22 kHz bands), and then each one is fed into another 64-tap QMF dividing into four bands: 0–5.5 kHz, 5.5–11 kHz, 11–16.5 kHz and 16.5–22 kHz. Reduced variance is generally expected to be found in higher bands compared to lower bands, thus ADPCM is employed to allocate bits optimally.


title: AptX

text: Each band is coded with ADPCM using bit allocation of 8 bits for band 1 (0-5.5 kHz spectrum), 4 bits for band 2 (5.5–11 kHz), 2 bits each for bands 3 and 4 (11-16.5 kHz and 16.5–22 kHz). A future modification is considered with adaptive bit reallocation based on variance analysis of each subband, for example 9, 2, 3, 2 etc.


title: AptX

text: As a result, for mono channel, 16 bits @ 44.1 kHz=705.6 kbit/s input is converted into (4×16) 64 bits@11.025 kHz=705.6 kbit/s and then to (8+4+2+2) 16 bits @ 11.025 kHz=176.4 kbit/s.


title: AptX

text: Optionally (adds a small delay) a short-term RMSE analyzer is used to reduce dynamic range, and thus allocate bits more effectively during quiet passages (i.e. lossy format).


title: AptX

text: Details can be found in the EP0398973B1 patent. The main reasoning is that signal variation is reduced at higher frequencies, which makes it amenable to coding with codecs like ADPCM.


title: Christ's College, Cambridge

text: Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 170 graduate students. The college was founded by William Byngham in 1437 as God's House. In 1505, the college was granted a new royal charter, was given a substantial endowment by Lady Margaret Beaufort, and changed its name to Christ's College, becoming the twelfth of the Cambridge colleges to be founded in its current form. Alumni of the college include some of Cambridge University’s most famous members, including Charles Darwin and John Milton.


title: Christ's College, Cambridge

text: Within Cambridge, Christ's has a reputation for high academic standards. It has averaged 1st place on the Tompkins Table from 1980 to 2006 and third place from 2006 to 2013, returning to first place in 2018, 2019 and 2022.


title: Christ's College, Cambridge

text: Simon McDonald is the college's current Master. Robert Evans is the chaplain; he was ordained in the Church of England.


title: Christ's College, Cambridge

text: Christ's College was founded by William Byngham in 1437 as God's House, on land which was soon after sold to enable the enlargement of King's College. Byngham obtained the first royal licence for God's House in July 1439. The college was founded to provide for the lack of grammar-school masters in England at the time, and the college has been described as "the first secondary-school training college on record". The original site of Godshouse was surrendered in 1443 to King's College, and currently about three-quarters of King's College Chapel stands on the original site of God's House.


title: Christ's College, Cambridge

text: After the original royal licence of 1439, three more licences, two in 1442 and one in 1446, were granted before in 1448 God's House received the charter upon which the college was in fact founded. In this charter, King Henry VI was named as the founder, and in the same year the college moved to its current site.


title: Christ's College, Cambridge

text: In 1505, the college was endowed by Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII, and was given the name Christ's College, perhaps at the suggestion of her confessor, the Bishop John Fisher. The expansion in the population of the college in the seventeenth century led to the building, in the 1640s, of the Fellows' Building in what is now Second Court.


title: Christ's College, Cambridge

text: The original 15th/16th century college buildings now form part of First Court, including the chapel, Master's Lodge and Great Gate tower. The gate itself is disproportionate: the bottom has been cut off to accommodate a rise in street level, which can be seen in the steps leading "down" to the foot of L staircase in the gate tower. The college hall, originally built at the very start of the 16th century, was restored in 1875–1879 by George Gilbert Scott the younger. The lawn of First Court is famously round, and a wisteria sprawls up the front of the Master's lodge.


title: Christ's College, Cambridge

text: Second Court is fully built up on only three sides, one of which is formed by the 1640s Fellows' Building. The fourth side backs onto the Master's garden.


title: Christ's College, Cambridge

text: The Stevenson Building in Third Court was designed by J. J. Stevenson in the 1880s and was extended in 1905 as part of the College's Quadcentenary. In 1947 Professor Albert Richardson designed a new cupola for the Stevenson building, and a second building, the neo-Georgian Chancellor's Building (W staircase, now known as The Blyth Building), completed in 1950. Third Court's Memorial Building (Y staircase), a twin of the Chancellor's building, also by Richardson, was completed in 1953 at a cost of £80,000. Third Court is also noted for its display of irises in May and June, a gift to the college in 1946.


title: Christ's College, Cambridge

text: The controversial tiered concrete New Court (often dubbed "the Typewriter") was designed in the Modernist style by Sir Denys Lasdun in 1966–70, and was described as "superb" in Lasdun's obituary in the "Guardian". Design critic Hugh Pearman comments "Lasdun had big trouble relating to the street at the overhanging rear". It appears very distinctively in aerial photographs, forming part of the northern boundary of the college.


title: Christ's College, Cambridge

text: An assortment of neighbouring buildings have been absorbed into the college, of which the most notable is the Todd Building, previously Cambridge's County Hall.


title: Christ's College, Cambridge

text: Through an arch in the Fellows' Building is the Fellows' Garden. It includes two mulberry trees, of which the older was planted in 1608, the same year as Milton's birth. Both trees have toppled sideways, the younger tree in the Great Storm of 1987, and are now earthed up round the trunks, but continue to fruit every year.


title: Christ's College, Cambridge

text: Christ's College is one of only 5 colleges in Oxford or Cambridge to have its own swimming pool. It is fed by water from Hobson's Conduit. Recently refurbished, it is now known as the 'Malcolm Bowie Bathing Pool', and is thought to be the oldest outdoor swimming pool in the UK, dating from the mid 17th century. The other four swimming pools within colleges belong to Girton College (indoor pool), Corpus Christi College (outdoor pool), Emmanuel College (outdoor pool) and Clare Hall (indoor pool).


title: Christ's College, Cambridge

text: With a deserved reputation even within Cambridge for the highest academic standards, Christ's came first in the Tompkins Table's twentieth anniversary aggregate table, and between 2001 and 2007, it had a mean position of third. Academic excellence continues at Christ's, with 91% of students in 2013 gaining a first class degree or an upper second (II.i). This is significantly higher than the University average of 70%.


title: Christ's College, Cambridge

text: Christ's is noted for educating two of Cambridge's most famous alumni, the poet John Milton and the naturalist Charles Darwin, who, during the celebrations for the 800th anniversary of the University, were both placed at the foreground as two of the four most iconic individuals in the University's history. The college has also educated Nobel Laureates including Martin Evans, James Meade, Alexander R. Todd, Baron Todd and Duncan Haldane. It is the University's 6th largest producer of Nobel Prize winners.


title: Christ's College, Cambridge

text: Some of the college's other famous alumni include former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, theologian William Paley, historian Simon Schama, South African Prime Minister Jan Smuts, Lord Louis Mountbatten of Burma, medical doctor, scientist, and diplomat Davidson Nicol, and comedians John Oliver, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Andy Parsons.


title: Christ's College, Cambridge

text: The Junior Combination Room (JCR), represents the undergraduate students. It organises social and welfare events, and negotiates on the students' behalf on important issues. The JCR has a standing committee and a common room for all the students. The JCR's counterpart, the Middle Combination Room (MCR) represents the graduate students of the College, and has its own bar. The MCR organises regular Graduate Halls. A Garden Party is held by both the JCR and the MCR every June in the Fellows' Garden. The Senior Combination Room (SCR) is composed solely of fellows of the College and holds two feasts each year.


title: Christ's College, Cambridge

text: Christ's, like most other Cambridge Colleges, also hosts a biennial May Ball in the time after undergraduate examinations which is by students commonly known as May Week. A separate society called "Christ's College May Ball Committee" is set up every two years to organise and direct this event. The 2010 May Ball, named "L'Esprit Nouveau", was held on 15 June 2010 and featured a 1920s Parisian theme, Two Door Cinema Club headlined the entertainment. The May Ball in June 2012 featured a Rio de Janeiro carnival theme. Other previous themes include Le Reve in 2002, Silhouette in 2004, Elysium in 2006 and 'The Jasmine Ball' in 2008.


title: Christ's College, Cambridge

text: The May Ball on Tuesday 17 June 2014 was hailed as one of the best May Balls of the year, coming close to perfection. It was themed "The Emerald City".


title: Christ's College, Cambridge

text: The May Ball on Tuesday 14 June 2016 was themed as Biophilia. In 2018 the theme was A Night's Tale. While the 2020 Ball was cancelled due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the May Ball returned in 2022, themed as Mythos.


title: Christ's College, Cambridge

text: The College Grace is normally said before any dinner held in the Formal Hall of the College. Though the student body rises for the recitation of the Grace, Christ's is one of the only Colleges in Cambridge where the students do not rise when the Fellows enter and leave the Dining Hall. This is said to be the result of a historical conflict between the Students and Fellows at Christ's, who were on opposite sides during the English Civil War. The words of the Grace are as follows:


title: European exploration of Africa

text: The geography of North Africa has been reasonably well known among Europeans since classical antiquity in Greco-Roman geography. Northwest Africa (the Maghreb) was known as either "Libya" or "Africa", while Egypt was considered part of Asia.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: European exploration of Sub-Saharan Africa begins with the Age of Discovery in the 15th century, pioneered by the Kingdom of Portugal under Henry the Navigator. The Cape of Good Hope was first reached by Bartolomeu Dias on 12 March 1488, opening the important sea route to India and the Far East, but European exploration of Africa itself remained very limited during the 16th and 17th centuries. The European powers were content to establish trading posts along the coast while they were actively exploring and colonizing the New World. Exploration of the interior of Africa was thus mostly left to the Muslim slave traders, who in tandem with the Muslim conquest of Sudan established far-reaching networks and supported the economy of a number of Sahelian kingdoms during the 15th to 18th centuries.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: At the beginning of the 19th century, European knowledge of the geography of the interior of Sub-Saharan Africa was still rather limited. Expeditions exploring Southern Africa were made during the 1830s and 1840s, so that around the midpoint of the 19th century and the beginning of the colonial Scramble for Africa, the unexplored parts were now limited to what would turn out to be the Congo Basin and the African Great Lakes. This "Heart of Africa" remained one of the last remaining "blank spots" on world maps of the later 19th century (alongside the Arctic, Antarctic and the interior of the Amazon basin). It was left for 19th-century European explorers, including those searching for the famed sources of the Nile, notably John Hanning Speke, Sir Richard Burton, David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley, to complete the exploration of Africa by the 1870s. After this, the general geography of Africa was known, but it was left to further expeditions during the 1880s onward, notably, those led by Oskar Lenz, to flesh out more detail such as the continent's geological makeup.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: The Phoenicians explored North Africa, establishing a number of colonies, the most prominent of which was Carthage. Carthage itself conducted exploration of West Africa. The first alleged circumnavigation of the African continent attested to was made by Phoenician sailors, in an expedition commissioned by Egyptian pharaoh Necho II, circa 600 BC which took three years. A report of this expedition is provided by Herodotus (4.37). They sailed south, rounded the Cape heading west, made their way north to the Mediterranean, and then returned home. He states that they paused each year to sow and harvest grain. Herodotus himself is sceptical of the historicity of this feat, which would have taken place about 120 years before his birth; however, the reason he gives for disbelieving the story is the sailors' reported claim that when they sailed along the southern coast of Africa, they found the Sun stood to their right, in the north; Herodotus, who was unaware of the spherical shape of the Earth found this impossible to believe. Some commentators took this circumstance as proof that the voyage is historical, but other scholars still dismiss the report as unlikely.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: The West African coast may have been explored by Hanno the Navigator in an expedition c.500 BC. The report of this voyage survives in a short "Periplus" in Greek, which was first cited by Greek authors in the 3rd century BC. There is some uncertainty as to how far precisely Hanno reached; he may have sailed as far as Sierra Leone, Guinea or even Gabon. However, Robin Law notes that some commentators have argued that Hanno's exploration may have taken him no farther than southern Morocco.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: "Africa" is named for the Afri people who settled in the area of current-day Tunisia. The Roman province of Africa spanned the Mediterranean coast of what is now Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria. The parts of North Africa north of the Sahara were well known in antiquity. However, the Romans never seem to have explored the Sahara itself, or the lands South of it.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: Prior to the 2nd century BC, however, Greek geographers were unaware that the landmass then known as Libya expanded south of the Sahara, assuming that the desert bounded on the outer Ocean. Indeed, Alexander the Great, according to Plutarchus' "Lives", considered sailing from the mouths of the Indus back to Macedonia passing south of Africa as a shortcut compared to the land route. Even Eratosthenes around 200 BC still assumed an extent of the landmass no further south than the Horn of Africa.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: By the Roman imperial period, the Horn of Africa was well-known to Mediterranean geographers. The trading post of Rhapta, described as "the last marketplace of Azania," may correspond to the coast of Tanzania. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, dated to the 1st century AD, appears to extend geographical knowledge further south, to Southeast Africa. Ptolemy's world map of the 2nd century is well aware that the African continent extends significantly further south than the Horn of Africa, but has no geographic detail south of the equator (it is unclear whether it is aware of the Gulf of Guinea).


title: European exploration of Africa

text: Jaume Ferrer sailed from Majorca down the West African coast to find the legendary "River of Gold" in 1346, but the outcome of his quest and his fate are unknown.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: Portuguese explorer Prince Henry, known as "the Navigator", was the first European to methodically explore Africa and the oceanic route to the Indies. From his residence in the Algarve region of southern Portugal, he directed successive expeditions to circumnavigate Africa and reach India. In 1420, Henry sent an expedition to secure the uninhabited but strategic island of Madeira. In 1425, he tried to secure the Canary Islands as well, but these were already under firm Castilian control. In 1431, another Portuguese expedition reached and annexed the Azores.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: Naval charts of 1339 show that the Canary Islands were already known to Europeans. In 1341, Portuguese and Italian explorers prepared a joint expedition. In 1342 the Catalans organized an expedition captained by Francesc Desvalers to the Canary Islands that set sail from Majorca. In 1344, Pope Clement VI named French admiral Luis de la Cerda "Prince of Fortune", and sent him to conquer the Canaries. In 1402, Jean de Bethencourt and Gadifer de la Salle sailed to conquer the Canary Islands but found them already plundered by the Castilians. Although they did conquer the isles, Bethencourt's nephew was forced to cede them to Castile in 1418.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: In 1455 and 1456 two Italian explorers, Alvise Cadamosto from Venice and Antoniotto Usodimare from Genoa, together with an unnamed Portuguese captain and working for Prince Henry of Portugal, followed the Gambia river, visiting the land of Senegal, while another Italian sailor from Genoa, Antonio de Noli, also on behalf of Prince Henry, explored the Bijagós islands, and, together with the Portuguese Diogo Gomes, the Cape Verde archipelago. Antonio de Noli, who became the first governor of Cape Verde (and the first European colonial governor in Sub-Saharan Africa), is also considered the discoverer of the First Islands of Cape Verde.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: Along the western and eastern coasts of Africa, progress was also steady; Portuguese sailors reached Cape Bojador in 1434 and Cape Blanco in 1441. In 1443, they built a fortress on the island of Arguin, in modern-day Mauritania, trading European wheat and cloth for African gold and slaves. It was the first time that the semi-mythic "gold of the Sudan" reached Europe without Muslim mediation. Most of the slaves were sent to Madeira, which became, after thorough deforestation, the first European plantation colony. Between 1444 and 1447, the Portuguese explored the coasts of Senegal, Gambia, and Guinea. In 1456, the Venetian captain Alvise Cadamosto, under Portuguese command, explored the islands of Cape Verde. In 1462, two years after Prince Henry's death, Portuguese sailors explored the Bissau islands and named Serra Leoa ("Lioness Mountains").


title: European exploration of Africa

text: In 1469, Fernão Gomes rented the rights of African exploration for five years. Under his direction, in 1471, the Portuguese reached modern Ghana and settled in A Mina ("the mine"), today's Elmina. They had finally reached a country with an abundance of gold, hence the historical name of "Gold Coast" that Elmina would eventually receive.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: In 1472, Fernão do Pó discovered the island that would bear his name for centuries (now Bioko) and an estuary abundant in shrimp (), giving its name to Cameroon.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: Soon after, the equator was crossed by Europeans. Portugal established a base in Sāo Tomé that, after 1485, was settled with criminals. After 1497, expelled Spanish and Portuguese Jews were also sent there.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: In 1482, Diogo Cão found the mouth of a large river and learned of the existence of a great kingdom, Kongo. In 1485, he explored the river upstream as well.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: But the Portuguese wanted, above anything else, to find a route to India and kept trying to circumnavigate Africa. In 1485, the expedition of João Afonso d'Aveiros, with the German astronomer Martin of Behaim as part of the crew, explored the Bight of Benin (Kingdom of Benin), returning information about African king Ogane.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: In 1488, Bartolomeu Dias and his pilot Pêro de Alenquer, after putting down a mutiny, turned a cape where they were caught by a storm, naming it Cape of Storms. They followed the coast for a while realizing that it kept going eastward with even some tendency to the north. Lacking supplies, they turned around with the conviction that the far end of Africa had finally been reached. Upon their return to Portugal, the promising cape was renamed Cape of Good Hope.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: Some years later, Christopher Columbus landed in America under rival Castilian command. Pope Alexander VI decreed the "Inter caetera" bull, dividing the non-Christian parts of the world between the two rival Catholic powers, Spain and Portugal.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: Finally, in the years 1497 to 1498, Vasco da Gama, again with Alenquer as a pilot, took a direct route to Cape of Good Hope, via St. Helena. He went beyond the farthest point reached by Dias and named the country Natal. Then he sailed northward, making land at Quelimane (Mozambique) and Mombasa, where he found Chinese traders, and Malindi (both in modern Kenya). In this town, he recruited an Arab pilot who led the Portuguese directly to Calicut. On 28 August 1498, King Manuel of Portugal informed the Pope of the good news that Portugal had reached India.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: Egypt and Venice reacted to this news with hostility; from the Red Sea, they jointly attacked the Portuguese ships that traded with India. The Portuguese defeated these ships near Diu in 1509. The Ottoman Empire's indifferent reaction to Portuguese exploration left Portugal in almost exclusive control of trade through the Indian Ocean. They established many bases along the eastern coast of Africa except for Somalia (See Ajuran-Portuguese wars). The Portuguese also captured Aden in 1513.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: One of the ships under command of Diogo Dias arrived at a coast that was not in East Africa. Two years later, a chart already showed an elongated island east of Africa that bore the name Madagascar. But only a century later, between 1613 and 1619, did the Portuguese explore the island in detail. They signed treaties with local chieftains and sent the first missionaries, who found it impossible to make locals believe in Hell, and were eventually expelled.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: The Kingdom of Congo was converted to Christianity in 1495, its king taking the name of João I. The Portuguese also established their trade interests in the Kingdom of Mutapa in the 16th century, and in 1629 placed a puppet ruler on the throne.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: The Portuguese (and later also the Dutch) also became involved in the local slave economy, supporting the state of the Jaggas, who performed slave raids in the Congo.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: They also used the Kongo to weaken the neighboring realm of the Ndongo, where Queen Nzinga put up a fierce but eventually doomed resistance to Portuguese and Jagga ambitions. Portugal intervened militarily in these conflicts, creating the basis for their colony of Angola. In 1663, after another conflict, the royal crown of Kongo was sent to Lisbon. Nevertheless, a diminished Kongo Kingdom would still exist until 1885, when the last Manicongo, Pedro V, ceded his almost non-existent domain to Portugal.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: The Portuguese dealt with the other major state of Southern Africa, the Monomotapa (in modern Zimbabwe), in a similar manner: Portugal intervened in a local war hoping to get abundant mineral riches, imposing a protectorate. But with the authority of the Monomotapa diminished by the foreign presence, anarchy took over. The local miners migrated and even buried the mines to prevent them from falling into Portuguese hands. When in 1693 the neighboring Cangamires invaded the country, the Portuguese accepted their failure and retreated to the coast.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: Beginning in the 17th century, the Netherlands began exploring and colonizing Africa. While the Dutch were waging a long war of independence against Spain, Portugal had temporarily united with Spain, starting in 1580 and ending in 1640. As a result, the growing colonial ambitions of the Netherlands were mostly directed against Portugal.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: For this purpose, two Dutch companies were founded: the West Indies Company, with power over all the Atlantic Ocean, and the East Indies Company, with power over the Indian Ocean.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: The West India Company conquered Elmina in 1637 and Luanda in 1640. In 1648, they were expelled from Luanda by the Portuguese. Overall the Dutch built 16 forts in different places, including Gorée in Senegal, partly overtaking Portugal as the main slave-trading power. The Dutch Gold Coast and Dutch Slave Coast were successful.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: In Dutch Mauritius the colonization started in 1638 and ended in 1710, with a brief interruption between 1658 and 1666. Numerous governors were appointed, but continuous hardships such as cyclones, droughts, pest infestations, lack of food, and illnesses finally took their toll, and the island was definitively abandoned in 1710.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: The Dutch left a lasting impact in South Africa, a region ignored by Portugal that the Dutch eventually decided to use as a station in their route to East Asia. Jan van Riebeeck founded Cape Town in 1652, starting the European exploration and colonization of South Africa.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: Almost at the same time as the Dutch, other European colonial powers attempted to create their own outposts in West Africa, following in the footsteps of the Portuguese.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: During the Tudor period, English merchant adventurers started trading in West Africa, coming into conflict with Portuguese troops. In 1581, Francis Drake reached the Cape of Good Hope. In 1660, the Royal African Company was founded. In 1663, the English built Fort James in Gambia. One year later, another English colonial expedition attempted to settle southern Madagascar, resulting in the death of most of the colonists. The English forts on the West African coast were eventually taken by the Dutch.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: In 1626, the French Compagnie de l'Occident was created. This company expelled the Dutch from Senegambia (Senegal), making it the first French domain in Africa, they also conquered the island of Arguin.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: France also set her eyes on Madagascar, the island that had been used since 1527 as a stop in travels to India. In 1642, the French East India Company founded a settlement in southern Madagascar called Fort Dauphin. The commercial results of this settlement were scarce and, again, most of the settlers died. One of the survivors, Etienne de Flacourt, published a "History of the Great Island of Madagascar and Relations", which was for a long time the main European source of information about the island. Further settlement attempts had no more success but, in 1667, François Martin led the first expedition to the Malagasy heartland, reaching Lake Alaotra. In 1665, France officially claimed Madagascar, under the name of Île Dauphine. However, little colonial activity would take place in Madagascar until the 19th century.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: In 1651, the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia (a vassal of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth) gained a colony in Africa on St. Andrew's Island at the Gambia River and established the Jacob Fort there. The Duchy also took other local lands including St. Mary Island (modern-day Banjul) and Fort Jillifree


title: European exploration of Africa

text: In 1650, Swedish merchants founded Swedish Gold Coast in modern Ghana following the foundation of the Swedish Africa Company (1649). In 1652 the foundations were laid of the fort Carlsborg.In 1658 Fort Carlsborg was seized and made part of the Danish Gold Coast colony, then to the Dutch Gold Coast. Later on the local population started a successful uprising against their new masters and in December 1660 the King of the Akan people subgroup-Efutu again offered Sweden control over the area, but in 1663 were seized by the Danish after a long defense of Fort Christiansborg.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: The Dano-Norwegian colonized the Danish Gold Coast, from 1674 to 1755 the settlements were administered by the Danish West India-Guinea Company. From December 1680 to 29 August 1682, the Portuguese occupied Fort Christiansborg. In 1750 it was made a Danish crown colony. From 1782 to 1785 it was under British occupation. From 1814 it was made part of the territory of Denmark.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: In 1677, King Frederick William I of Prussia sent an expedition to the western coast of Africa. The commander of the expedition, Captain Blonk, signed agreements with the chieftains of the Gold Coast. There, the Prussians built a fort named Gross Friederichsburg and restored the abandoned Portuguese fort of Arguin. But in 1720, the king decided to sell these bases to the Netherlands for 7,000 ducats and 12 slaves, six of them chained with pure gold chains.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: In 1777, the Spanish Empire and Portuguese Empire signed the Treaty of San Ildefonso in which Portugal give the islands of Annobón and Fernando Poo in waters of the Gulf of Guinea, as well as the Guinean coast between the Niger River and the Ogooué River, to Spain.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: The British expressed their interest by the formation in 1788 of The Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa. The individuals who formed this club were inspired in part by the Scotsman James Bruce, who had ventured to Ethiopia in 1769 and reached the source of the Blue Nile.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: Overall, the European exploration of Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries was very limited. Instead, they were focused on the slave trade, which only required coastal bases and items to trade. The real exploration of the African interior would start well into the 19th century.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: Although the Napoleonic Wars distracted the attention of Europe from exploratory work in Africa, those wars nevertheless exercised great influence on the future of the continent, both in Egypt and South Africa. The occupation of Egypt (1798–1803), first by France and then by Great Britain, resulted in an effort by the Ottoman Empire to regain direct control over that country. In 1811, Mehemet Ali established an almost independent state, and from 1820 onward established Egyptian rule over eastern Sudan. In South Africa, the struggle with Napoleon caused the United Kingdom to take possession of the Dutch settlements at the Cape. In 1814, Cape Colony, which had been continuously occupied by British troops since 1806, was formally ceded to the British crown.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: Meanwhile, considerable changes had been made in other parts of the continent. The occupation of Algiers by France in 1830 put an end to the piracy of the Barbary states. Egyptian authority continued to expand southward, with the consequent additions to knowledge of the Nile. The city of Zanzibar, on the island of that name, rapidly attained importance. Accounts of a vast inland sea, and the discovery of the snow-clad mountains of Kilimanjaro in 1840–1848, stimulated the desire for further knowledge about Africa in Europe.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: In the mid-19th century, Protestant missions were carrying on active missionary work on the Guinea coast, in South Africa and in the Zanzibar dominions. Missionaries visited little-known regions and peoples, and in many instances became explorers and pioneers of trade and empire. David Livingstone, a Scottish missionary, had been engaged since 1840 in work north of the Orange River. In 1849, Livingstone crossed the Kalahari Desert from south to north and reached Lake Ngami. Between 1851 and 1856, he traversed the continent from west to east, discovering the great waterways of the upper Zambezi River. In November 1855, Livingstone became the first European to see the famous Victoria Falls, named after the Queen of the United Kingdom. From 1858 to 1864, the lower Zambezi, the Shire River and Lake Nyasa were explored by Livingstone. Nyasa had been first reached by the confidential slave of António da Silva Porto, a Portuguese trader established at Bié in Angola, who crossed Africa during 1853–1856 from Benguella to the mouth of the Rovuma. A prime goal for explorers was to locate the source of the River Nile. Expeditions by Burton and Speke (1857–1858) and Speke and Grant (1863) located Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria. It was eventually proved to be the latter from which the Nile flowed.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: Henry Morton Stanley, who had in 1871 succeeded in finding and succouring Livingstone (originating the famous line "Dr. Livingstone, I presume"), started again for Zanzibar in 1874. In one of the most memorable of all exploring expeditions in Africa, Stanley circumnavigated Victoria Nyanza (Lake Victoria) and Lake Tanganyika. Striking farther inland to the Lualaba, he followed that river down to the Atlantic Ocean—which he reached in August 1877—and proved it to be the Congo.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: In 1895, the British South Africa Company hired the American scout Frederick Russell Burnham to look for minerals and ways to improve river navigation in the central and southern Africa region. Burnham oversaw and led the Northern Territories British South Africa Exploration Company expedition that first established that major copper deposits existed north of the Zambezi in North-Eastern Rhodesia. Along the Kafue River, Burnham saw many similarities to copper deposits he had worked in the United States, and he encountered native peoples wearing copper bracelets. Copper rapidly became the primary export of Central Africa and it remains essential to the economy even today.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: The emergence of modern cartography, and placing it at the heart of the approach to scientific exploration, meant that a new drive to explore Africa began in Europe, particularly Britain. According to John Barrow, undersecretary to the Admiralty in the early 1800s, described British knowledge of the African continent as "retrograded" and "almost blank", and pushed for further explorations of the continent. This cartographic approach "emptied African space of prior political and ethnic identifications" in Europeans' eyes.


title: European exploration of Africa

text: Explorers were also active in Southern Morocco, the Sahara and the Sudan, which were traversed in many directions between 1860 and 1875 by Georg Schweinfurth and Gustav Nachtigal. These travellers not only added considerably to geographical knowledge, but obtained invaluable information concerning the people, languages and natural history of the countries in which they sojourned. Among the discoveries of Schweinfurth was one that confirmed Greek legends of the existence beyond Egypt of a "pygmy race". But the first western discoverer of the pygmies of Central Africa was Paul Du Chaillu, who found them in the Ogowe district of the west coast in 1865, five years before Schweinfurth's first meeting with them. Du Chaillu had previously, through journeys in the Gabon region between 1855 and 1859, made popular in Europe the knowledge of the existence of the gorilla, whose existence was thought to be as legendary as that of the Pygmies of Aristotle.


title: Amazonian Guard

text: The Amazonian Guard (also the "Amazons") was an unofficial name given by Western journalists to an all-female elite cadre of bodyguards officially known as The Revolutionary Nuns (, "ar-rāhibāt ath-thawriyyāt"), tasked with protecting the late, former leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi.


title: Amazonian Guard

text: The group was formed in the early 1980s, after Gaddafi's official resignation as Libyan head of state in favour of the title of "Brotherly Leader and Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya".


title: Amazonian Guard

text: According to Joseph T. Stanik, Gaddafi reportedly employed a cadre of female bodyguards because he believed that an Arab gunman would have difficulty firing at women. However, it has also been submitted by other authors that Gaddafi's female bodyguards were, in reality, just an aspect of the dictator's well-known eccentric showmanship and his fondness of surrounding himself with young women. Gaddafi would usually travel with 15 of his Amazonian Guards assigned to security or housekeeping.


title: Amazonian Guard

text: Candidates for the Amazonian Guard participated in firearms and martial arts training at a special academy, were required to take an oath of chastity, then were chosen by Gaddafi.


title: Amazonian Guard

text: In 1998, one of Gaddafi's female bodyguards was killed and seven others were wounded when Islamic fundamentalists in Libya ambushed Gaddafi's motorcade. It was claimed that the dead guard, Aisha, was Gaddafi's favourite and threw herself across Gaddafi's body to stop the bullets.


title: Amazonian Guard

text: In November 2006, as Gaddafi arrived at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, Nigeria, with a 200-strong troop of heavily armed bodyguards, a diplomatic incident was caused as security officials tried to disarm them. Gaddafi furiously walked away, gesturing that he intended to cover the journey to the capital on foot, and could be persuaded to yield only after intervention by Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, who coincidentally was also at the airport.


title: Amazonian Guard

text: In the latter days of the Libyan Civil War, accusations emerged from five members of the Amazonian Guard of rape and other abuse by the upper echelons of the Gaddafi government, which included Gaddafi, his sons, and senior officials. Some Amazonian Guards claim they were offered a choice between suicide and executing rebels (Al-Qaeda).


title: Inner Hebrides

text: The Inner Hebrides (; Scottish Gaelic: "Na h-Eileanan a-staigh", "the inner isles") is an archipelago off the west coast of mainland Scotland, to the south east of the Outer Hebrides. Together these two island chains form the Hebrides, which experience a mild oceanic climate. The Inner Hebrides comprise 35 inhabited islands as well as 44 uninhabited islands with an area greater than . Skye, Mull, and Islay are the three largest, and also have the highest populations. The main commercial activities are tourism, crofting, fishing and whisky distilling. In modern times the Inner Hebrides have formed part of two separate local government jurisdictions, one to the north and the other to the south. Together, the islands have an area of about , and had a population of 18,948 in 2011. The population density is therefore about .


title: Inner Hebrides

text: There are various important prehistoric structures, many of which pre-date the first written references to the islands by Roman and Greek authors. In the historic period the earliest known settlers were Picts to the north and Gaels in the southern kingdom of Dál Riada prior to the islands becoming part of the "Suðreyjar" kingdom of the Norse, who ruled for over 400 years until sovereignty was transferred to Scotland by the Treaty of Perth in 1266. Control of the islands was then held by various clan chiefs, principally the MacLeans, MacLeods and MacDonalds. The Highland Clearances of the 19th century had a devastating effect on many communities and it is only in recent years that population levels have ceased to decline.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: Sea transport is crucial and a variety of ferry services operate to mainland Scotland and between the islands. The Gaelic language remains strong in some areas; the landscapes have inspired a variety of artists; and there is a diversity of wildlife.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: The islands form a disparate archipelago. The largest islands are, from south to north, Islay, Jura, Mull, Rùm and Skye. Skye is the largest and most populous of all with an area of and a population of just over 10,000.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: The southern group are in Argyll, an area roughly corresponding with the heartlands of the ancient kingdom of Dál Riata and incorporated into the modern unitary council area of Argyll and Bute. The northern islands were part of the county of Inverness-shire and are now in the Highland Council area.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: The geology and geomorphology of the islands is varied. Some, such as Skye and Mull, are mountainous, whilst others like Tiree are relatively low-lying. The highest mountains are the Cuillins of Skye, although peaks over are common elsewhere. Much of the coastline is machair, a fertile low-lying dune pastureland. Many of the islands are swept by strong tides, and the Corryvreckan tide race between Scarba and Jura is one of the largest whirlpools in the world.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: There are various smaller archipelagoes including the Ascrib Islands, Crowlin Islands, Slate Islands, Small Isles, Summer Isles and Treshnish Islands.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: The inhabited islands of the Inner Hebrides had a population of 18,257 at the 2001 census, and this had grown to 18,948 in 2011. During the same period Scottish island populations as a whole grew by 4% to 103,702.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: There are a further 44 uninhabited Inner Hebrides with an area greater than . Records for the last date of settlement for the smaller islands are incomplete, but most of them were inhabited at some point during the Neolithic, Iron Age, Early Historic or Norse periods. In common with the other main island chains of Scotland, many of the smaller and more remote islands were abandoned during the 19th and 20th centuries, in some cases after continuous habitation since prehistoric times. These islands had been perceived as relatively self-sufficient agricultural economies, but a view developed among both islanders and outsiders that the more remote islands lacked the essential services of a modern industrial economy. However, the populations of the larger islands grew overall by more than 12% from 1981 to 2001.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: The main commercial activities are tourism, crofting, fishing and whisky distilling (centred on Islay but also including Talisker in Skye, Isle of Jura Single Malt and Tobermory and Ledaig in Mull). Overall, the area is relatively reliant on primary industries and the public sector; there is a dependence on self-employment and micro-business, and most parts are defined by Highlands and Islands Enterprise as economically "Fragile Areas". However, the islands are well placed to exploit renewable energy, particularly onshore and offshore wind; and the Sleat peninsula of Skye is an example of a more economically robust area. Some of the islands have development trusts that support the local economy.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: The influence of the Atlantic Ocean and the North Atlantic Current creates a mild oceanic climate. Temperatures are generally cool, averaging 6.5 °C (44 °F) in January and 15.4 °C (60 °F) in July at Duntulm on the Trotternish peninsula of Skye. Snow seldom lies at sea level and frosts are fewer than on the mainland. Winds are a limiting factor for vegetation: a speed of 128 km/h (80 mph) has been recorded; south-westerlies are the most common. Rainfall is generally high at between 1300 and 2000 mm (50–80 in) per annum, and the mountains and hills are wetter still. Tiree is one of the sunniest places in the country and had 300 days of sunshine in 1975. Trotternish typically has 200 hours of bright sunshine in May, the sunniest month.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: The Hebrides were originally settled in the Mesolithic era and have a diversity of prehistoric sites. A flint arrowhead found in a field near Bridgend, Islay has been dated to 10,800 BCE. This find may indicate the presence of a summer hunting party rather than permanent settlement. Burnt hazelnut shells and microscopic charcoal found at Farm Fields, Kinloch on Rùm indicate a settlement of some kind and this is amongst the oldest evidence of occupation in Scotland.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: Evidence of large-scale Mesolithic nut processing, radiocarbon dated to circa 7000 BCE, has been found in a midden pit at Staosnaig on Colonsay. The dig discovered the remains of hundreds of thousands of burned hazelnut shells and gives an insight into communal activity and forward planning in the period. The nuts were harvested in a single year and pollen analysis suggests that the hazel trees were all cut down at the same time. The scale of the activity, unparalleled elsewhere in Scotland, and the lack of large game on the island, suggests the possibility that Colonsay contained a community with a largely vegetarian diet for the time they spent on the island.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: Three stone hearths and traces of red ochre found on Jura and dated to 6000 BCE are the earliest stone-built structures found so far in Scotland. However, in general the Neolithic sites in the Inner Hebrides lack the scale and drama of those found in Orkney and the Western Isles. There are numerous Iron Age sites including the remains of Dun Ringill fort on Skye, which are similar in layout to that of both a broch and a complex Atlantic roundhouse.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: The earliest extant written reference to these islands appears in Pliny the Elder's "Natural History", where he states that there are 30 "Hebudes". Ptolemy, writing about 80 years later, around AD 140-150 and drawing on the earlier naval expedition of Agricola, refers to the Ἐβοῦδαι ("Eboudai") ("Ebudes" or "Ebudae" in Latin translation) of which he writes that there were only five, thus possibly specifically meaning the Inner Hebrides. Pliny probably took his information from Pytheas of Massilia who visited Britain sometime between 322 and 285 BCE. It is possible that Ptolemy did so also, as Agricola's information about the west coast of Scotland was of poor quality.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: Watson (1926) states that the meaning of Ptolemy's "Eboudai" is unknown and that the root may be pre-Celtic. Other early written references include the flight of the Nemed people from Ireland to "Domon and to Erdomon in the north of Alba", which is mentioned in the 12th century "Lebor Gabála Érenn". Domon, meaning the "deep sea isle" refers to the Outer Hebrides and Erdomon, meaning "east of, on or near Domon" is thus the Inner Hebrides.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: Although Ptolemy's map identifies various tribes such as the "Creones" that might conceivably have lived in the Inner Hebrides in the Roman era,


title: Inner Hebrides

text: the first written records of life begin in the 6th century CE when the founding of the kingdom of Dál Riata is recorded. This encompassed roughly what is now Argyll and Bute and Lochaber in Scotland and County Antrim in Ireland.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: In Argyll it consisted initially of three main kindreds: Cenél Loairn in north and mid-Argyll, Cenél nÓengusa based on Islay and Cenél nGabráin based in Kintyre. By the end of the 7th century a fourth kindred, Cenél Comgaill had emerged, based in eastern Argyll.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: The figure of Columba looms large in any history of Dál Riata and his founding of a monastery on Iona ensured that Dál Riata would be of great importance in the spread of Christianity in northern Britain. However, Iona was far from unique. Lismore in the territory of the Cenél Loairn, was sufficiently important for the death of its abbots to be recorded with some frequency and many smaller sites, such as on Eigg, Hinba and Tiree, are known from the annals. The kingdom's independent existence ended in the Viking Age, and it eventually merged with the lands of the Picts to form the Kingdom of Alba.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: North of Dál Riata the Inner Hebrides were nominally under Pictish control although the historical record is sparse.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: According to Ó Corráin (1998) "when and how the Vikings conquered and occupied the Isles is unknown, perhaps unknowable" although from 793 onwards repeated raids by Vikings on the British Isles are recorded. "All the islands of Britain" were devastated in 794 with Iona being sacked in 802 and 806. In 870 Dumbarton was besieged by Amlaíb Conung and Ímar, "the two kings of the Northmen". It is therefore likely that Scandinavian hegemony was already significant on the western coasts of Scotland by then. In the 9th century the first references to the "Gallgáedil" (i.e. "foreign Gaels") appear. This term was variously used in succeeding centuries to refer to individuals of mixed Scandinavian-Celtic descent and/or culture who became dominant in south-west Scotland, parts of Northern England and the isles.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: The early 10th century are an obscure period so far as the Hebrides are concerned but Aulaf mac Sitric, who fought at the Battle of Brunanburh in 937 is recorded as a King of the Isles from c. 941 to 980.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: It is difficult to reconcile the records of the Irish annals with Norse sources such as the "Orkneyinga Saga" but it is likely that Norwegian and "Gallgáedil" Uí Ímair warlords fought for control for much of period from the 9th to the 12th centuries. In 990 Sigurd the Stout, Earl of Orkney took command of the Hebrides, a position he retained for most of the period until he was killed at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. There is then a period of uncertainty but it is possible that Sigurd's son Thorfinn the Mighty became ruler circa 1035 until his own death some two decades later.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: By the late 12th century Irish influence became a significant feature of island life and Diarmait mac Maíl na mBó, the High King of Ireland took possession of Mann and the Isles until 1072. The records for the rulers of the Hebrides are obscured again until the arrival of Godred Crovan as King of Dublin and the Isles. The ancestor of many of the succeeding rulers of Mann and the Isles, he was eventually ousted by Muirchertach Ua Briain and fled to Islay, where he died in the plague of 1095. It is not clear the extent to which Ui Briain dominance was now asserted in the islands north of Man, but growing Irish influence in these seas brought a rapid and decisive response from Norway.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: A second expedition in 1102 saw incursions into Ireland but in August 1103 he was killed fighting in Ulster. The next king of the isles was Lagmann Godredsson and there followed a succession of Godred Crovan's descendants who, (as vassals of the kings of Norway) ruled the Hebrides north of Ardnamurchan for the next 160 years. However, their control of the southern Inner Hebrides was lost with the emergence of Somerled, the self-styled Lord of Argyle.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: For a while Somerled took control of Mann and the Hebrides "in toto", but he met his death in 1164 during an invasion of the Scottish mainland. At this point Godred the Black, grandson of Godred Crovan re-took possession of the northern Hebrides and the southern isles were distributed amongst Somerled's sons, his descendant's eventually becoming known as the Lords of the Isles, and giving rise to Clan MacDougall, Clan Donald and Clan Macruari. However, both during and after Somerled's life the Scottish monarchs sought to take a control of the islands he and his descendants held. This strategy eventually led to an invasion by Haakon Haakonarson, King of Norway. After the stalemate of the Battle of Largs, Haakon retreated to Orkney, where he died in 1263. Following this expedition, the Hebrides and Mann and all rights that the Norwegian crown "had of old therein" were yielded to the Kingdom of Scotland as a result of the 1266 Treaty of Perth.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: The Lords of the Isles, a phrase first recorded in 1336, but which title may have been used earlier, would continue to rule the Inner Hebrides as well as part of the Western Highlands as subjects of the King of Scots until John MacDonald, fourth Lord of the Isles, squandered the family's powerful position. Through a secret treaty with Edward IV of England, negotiated at Ardtornish Castle and signed in 1462, he made himself a servant of the English crown. When James III of Scotland found out about the treaty in 1476, he issued a sentence of forfeiture for MacDonald's lands. Some were restored for a promise of good behaviour, but MacDonald was unable to control his son Aonghas Óg, who defeated him at the Battle of Bloody Bay, fought off the coast of Mull near Tobermory in 1481. A further rebellion by his nephew, Alexander of Lochalsh, provoked an exasperated James IV to forfeit the lands for the last time in 1493.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: The most powerful clans on Skye in the post-Norse period were Clan MacLeod, originally based in Trotternish, and Clan MacDonald of Sleat. Following the disintegration of the Lordship of the Isles, the Mackinnons also emerged as an independent clan, whose substantial landholdings in Skye were centred on Strathaird. The MacDonalds of South Uist were bitter rivals of the MacLeods, and an attempt by the former to murder church-goers at Trumpan in retaliation for a previous massacre on Eigg, resulted in the Battle of the Spoiling Dyke of 1578.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: After the failure of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, Flora MacDonald became famous for rescuing Prince Charles Edward Stuart from the Hanoverian troops. Her story is strongly associated with their escape via Skye and she is buried at Kilmuir. She was visited by Samuel Johnson and James Boswell during their 1773 "Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland" and written on her gravestone are Johnson's words that hers was "A name that will be mentioned in history, and if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour". In the wake of the rebellion the clan system was broken up and islands of the Hebrides became a series of landed estates.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: With the implementation of the Treaty of Union in 1707 the Hebrides became part of the new Kingdom of Great Britain, but the clans' loyalties to a distant monarch were not strong. A considerable number of islesmen "came out" in support of the Jacobite Earl of Mar in the "15" and again in the 1745 rising including Macleod of Dunvegan and MacLea of Lismore. The aftermath of the decisive Battle of Culloden, which effectively ended Jacobite hopes of a Stuart restoration, was widely felt. The British government's strategy was to estrange the clan chiefs from their kinsmen and turn their descendants into English-speaking landlords whose main concern was the revenues their estates brought rather than the welfare of those who lived on them. This may have brought peace to the islands, but in the following century it came at a terrible price.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: The early 19th century was a time of improvement and population growth. Roads and quays were built, the slate industry became a significant employer on Easdale and surrounding islands, and the construction of the Crinan and Caledonian canals and other engineering works such as Telford's "Bridge across the Atlantic" improved transport and access. However, in the mid-19th century, the inhabitants of many parts of the Hebrides were devastated by the clearances, which destroyed communities throughout the Highlands and Islands as the human populations were evicted and replaced with sheep farms. The position was exacerbated by the failure of the islands' kelp industry that thrived from the 18th century until the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and large scale emigration became endemic. The "Battle of the Braes" involved a demonstration against lack of access to land and the serving of eviction notices. This event was instrumental in the creation of the Napier Commission, which reported in 1884 on the situation in the Highlands. Disturbances continued until the passing of the 1886 Crofters' Act and on one occasion 400 marines were deployed on Skye to maintain order.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: For those who remained new economic opportunities emerged through the export of cattle, commercial fishing and tourism. Nonetheless emigration and military service became the choice of many and the archipelago's populations continued to dwindle throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries. Jura's population fell from 1300 in 1831 to less than 250 by 1961 and Mull's from 10,600 in 1821 to less than 3,000 in 1931. Lengthy periods of continuous occupation notwithstanding, some of the smaller islands were abandoned – the Treshnish Isles in 1934, Handa in 1948, and Eilean Macaskin in the 1880s among them.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: Nonetheless, there were continuing gradual economic improvements, among the most visible of which was the replacement of the traditional thatched blackhouse with accommodation of a more modern design and in recent years, with the assistance of Highlands and Islands Enterprise many of the island's populations have begun to increase after decades of decline.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: Scheduled ferry services between the Inner Hebrides and the Scottish mainland operate on various routes including: Tayinloan, Kintyre to Gigha; Kennacraig, Kintyre to Islay; Oban to Mull, Coll and Tiree and Colonsay; Mallaig to Armadale, Skye and Eigg, Muck, Rùm & Canna; and Glenelg to Kyle Rhea on the Sleat peninsula, Skye.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: Some ferries reach the Inner Hebrides from other islands such as the Seil to Luing route, Fionnphort on the Ross of Mull to Iona, Sconser to Raasay and Port Askaig to Feolin, Jura. There is also a service to and from the Outer Hebrides from Tarbert, Harris and Lochmaddy on North Uist to Uig, Skye and from Castlebay, Barra to Tiree.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: National Rail services are available for onward journeys, from stations at Oban, which has direct services to Glasgow and from Kyle of Lochalsh to Inverness. There are scheduled flights from Colonsay Airport, Islay Airport near Port Ellen and Tiree Airport.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: The archipelago is exposed to wind and tide, and there are numerous sites of wrecked ships. Lighthouses are sited as an aid to navigation at various locations.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: Dubh Artach lighthouse is located on a remote rock and warns seafarers away from the area itself and the nearby Torran Rocks. Originally it was considered to be an impossible site for a light, but the loss of the steamer "Bussorah" with all thirty-three hands on her maiden voyage in 1863 and of an astonishing 24 vessels in the area in a storm on 30–31 December 1865 encouraged positive action. Skerryvore is another remote lighthouse in the vicinity and at a height of it is the tallest in Scotland.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: There are about 4,000 Gaelic speakers in the Inner Hebrides, equal to 20% of the population of the archipelago.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: There have been speakers of Goidelic languages in the Inner Hebrides since the time of Columba or before, and the modern variant of Scottish Gaelic ("Gàidhlig") remains strong in some parts. However, the Education (Scotland) Act 1872 led to generations of Gaels being forbidden to speak their native language in the classroom, and is now recognised as having dealt a major blow to the language. Children were being beaten for speaking Gaelic in school as late as the 1930s. More recently the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act was enacted by the Scottish Parliament in 2005 in order to provide continuing support for the language.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: By the time of the 2001 census Kilmuir parish in Skye had 47% Gaelic speakers, with Skye overall having an unevenly distributed 31%. At that time Tiree had 48% of the population Gaelic-speaking, Lismore 29%, Islay 24%, Coll 12%, Jura 11%, Mull 13% and Iona 5%. Students of Scottish Gaelic travel from all over the world to attend Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, a Scottish Gaelic college based on Skye.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: Hebridean landscapes have inspired a variety of musicians, writers and artists. "The Hebrides", also known as "Fingal's Cave", is a famous overture written by Felix Mendelssohn inspired by his visit to Staffa. Contemporary musicians associated with the islands include Ian Anderson, Donovan and Runrig. Enya's song "Ebudæ" from "Shepherd Moons" is based on a traditional waulking song.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: The poet Sorley MacLean was born on Raasay, the setting for his best known poem, "Hallaig". George Orwell wrote much of the novel "1984" whilst living at Barnhill on Jura and J.M. Barrie wrote a screenplay for the 1924 film adaptation of "Peter Pan" whilst on Eilean Shona. Cressida Cowell, the author of "How to Train Your Dragon", spent childhood summers in the Inner Hebrides and has stated that they are "one of the most beautiful places on Earth" and "the kind of place where you expect to see dragons overhead".


title: Inner Hebrides

text: In some respects the Hebrides generally lack biodiversity in comparison to mainland Britain, with for example only half the number of mammalian species the latter has. However, these islands have much to offer the naturalist. Observing the local abundance found on Skye in the 18th century Samuel Johnson noted that:


title: Inner Hebrides

text: In the modern era avian life includes the corncrake, red-throated diver, rock dove, kittiwake, tystie, Atlantic puffin, goldeneye, golden eagle and white-tailed sea eagle. The last named was re-introduced to Rùm in 1975 and has successfully spread to various neighbouring islands, including Mull. There is a small population of red-billed chough concentrated on the islands of Islay and Colonsay.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: Mountain hare (apparently absent from Skye in the 18th century) and rabbit are now abundant and predated on by Scottish wildcat and pine marten. Red deer are common on the hills and the grey seal and common seal are present around the coasts of Scotland in internationally important numbers, with colonies of the former found on Oronsay and the Treshnish Isles and the latter most abundant in the Firth of Lorn. The rich fresh water streams contain brown trout, Atlantic salmon and water shrew. Offshore minke whales, killer whales, basking sharks, porpoises and dolphins are among the sea life that can be seen and edible crab and oyster are also found, in for example, the Sound of Scalpay. There are nationally important horse mussel and brittlestar beds in the sea lochs.


title: Inner Hebrides

text: Heather moor containing ling, bell heather, cross-leaved heath, bog myrtle and fescues is abundant and there is a diversity of arctic and alpine plants including alpine pearlwort and mossy cyphal.


title: Thomas Bernhard

text: Nicolaas Thomas Bernhard (; 9 February 1931 – 12 February 1989) was an Austrian novelist, playwright and poet who explored death, social injustice, and human misery in controversial literature that was deeply pessimistic about modern civilization in general and Austrian culture in particular. Bernhard's body of work has been called "the most significant literary achievement since World War II." He is widely considered to be one of the most important German-language authors of the postwar era.


title: Thomas Bernhard

text: Thomas Bernhard was born in 1931 in Heerlen in the Netherlands, where his unmarried mother Herta Bernhard worked as a maid. From the autumn of 1931 he lived with his grandparents in Vienna until 1937 when his mother, who had married in the meantime, moved him to Traunstein, Bavaria, in Nazi Germany. There he was required to join the "Deutsches Jungvolk", a branch of the Hitler Youth, which he hated. Bernhard's natural father Alois Zuckerstätter was a carpenter and petty criminal who refused to acknowledge his son. Zuckerstätter died in Berlin from gas poisoning in an assumed suicide in 1940; Bernhard never met him.


title: Thomas Bernhard

text: Bernhard's grandfather, the author , pushed for an artistic education for him, including musical instruction. Bernhard went to elementary school in Seekirchen and later attended various schools in Salzburg including the "Johanneum" which he left in 1947 to start an apprenticeship with a grocer. George Steiner describes Bernhard's schooling as "hideous... under a sadistically repressive system, run first by Catholic priests, then by Nazis".


title: Thomas Bernhard

text: Bernhard's "Lebensmensch" (a predominantly Austrian term, which was coined by Bernhard himself and which refers to the most important person in one's life) was Hedwig Stavianicek (1894–1984), a woman more than thirty-seven years his senior, whom he cared for alone in her dying days. He had met Stavianicek in 1950, the year of his mother's death and one year after the death of his beloved grandfather. Stavianicek was the major support in Bernhard's life and greatly furthered his literary career. The extent or nature of his relationships with women is obscure. Thomas Bernhard's public persona was asexual.


title: Thomas Bernhard

text: Suffering throughout his teens from lung ailments, including tuberculosis, Bernhard spent the years 1949 to 1951 at the Grafenhof sanatorium in Sankt Veit im Pongau. He trained as an actor at the Mozarteum in Salzburg (1955–1957) and was always profoundly interested in music. His lung condition, however, made a career as a singer impossible. After that he worked briefly as a journalist, mainly as a crime reporter, and then became a full-time writer. In 1970, he won the Georg Büchner Prize.


title: Thomas Bernhard

text: In 1978, Bernhard was diagnosed with sarcoidosis. After a decade of needing constant medical care for his lungs, he died in 1989 in Gmunden, Upper Austria. Although there have been claims that he died by assisted suicide, contemporaneous obituaries reported, and Bernhard's half-brother, Dr. Peter Fabjan, confirmed that Bernhard had a heart attack. His death was announced only after his funeral. In his will, which aroused great controversy on publication, Bernhard prohibited any new stagings of his plays and publication of his unpublished work in Austria; however, in 1999 this was annulled by his heir, Peter Fabjan. Bernhard's attractive house in Ohlsdorf-Obernathal 2 where he had moved in 1965 is now a museum and centre for the study and performance of his work.


title: Thomas Bernhard

text: Often criticized in Austria as a "Nestbeschmutzer" (one who dirties his own nest) for his critical views, Bernhard was highly acclaimed abroad. Nevertheless, while reviled by some Austrians for his outspoken and harsh views of his homeland, including its Nazi past, he was, during his lifetime, also highly acclaimed in Austria, winning major awards, and was seen by many as the preeminent writer of the time.


title: Thomas Bernhard

text: His work is most influenced by the feeling of being abandoned (in his childhood and youth) and by his incurable illness, which caused him to see death as the ultimate essence of existence. His work typically features loners' monologues explaining, to a rather silent listener, their views on the state of the world, often with reference to a concrete situation and sometimes reported secondhand by the listener. Alongside his serious and pessimistic views, his works also contain funny observations on life. Bernhard is often considered a verbose writer, but Andreas Dorschel has broadened this view by showing that Bernhard's characters (specifically in "Das Kalkwerk") oscillate between excessive speech and highly economical expressions. As Dorschel argues, the two modes produce a series of oppositions with mutually informing sides.


title: Thomas Bernhard

text: Bernhard's main protagonists, often scholars or, as he calls them, "Geistesmenschen" (intellectuals), denounce everything that matters to the Austrian in contumacy-filled tirades against a "stupid populace". He also attacks the state (often called "Catholic-National-Socialist"), generally respected institutions such as Vienna's Burgtheater, and much-loved artists. His work also deals with the isolation and self-destruction of people striving for an unreachable perfection, since this same perfection would mean stagnancy and therefore death. Anti-Catholic rhetoric is not uncommon.


title: Thomas Bernhard

text: "Es ist alles lächerlich, wenn man an den Tod denkt" (It's all ridiculous, when one thinks of death) was his comment when he received a minor Austrian national award in 1968, which resulted in one of the many public scandals he caused over the years and which became part of his fame. His novel "Holzfällen" (1984), for instance, could not be published for years because of a defamation claim by a former friend. Many of his plays—above all "Heldenplatz" (1988)—were met with criticism from many Austrians, who claimed they sullied Austria's reputation. One of the more controversial lines referred to Austria as "a brutal and stupid nation ... a mindless, cultureless sewer which spreads its penetrating stench all over Europe." "Heldenplatz", as well as the other plays Bernhard wrote in these years, were staged at Vienna's famous Burgtheater by the controversial director .


title: Thomas Bernhard

text: Even in death Bernhard caused disturbance by his " literary emigration", as he supposedly called it, by which his will disallowed all publication and stagings of his work within Austria. The International Thomas Bernhard Foundation, established by his executor and half-brother Dr. Peter Fabjan, has since made exceptions, although the German firm of Suhrkamp remains his principal publisher.


title: Thomas Bernhard

text: The correspondence between Bernhard and his publisher Siegfried Unseld from 1961 to 1989 – about 500 letters – was published in December 2009 at Suhrkamp Verlag, Germany.


title: Maybe I'm Amazed

text: "Maybe I'm Amazed" is a song written by English musician Paul McCartney that was first released on his 1970 debut solo album "McCartney".


title: Maybe I'm Amazed

text: Although the original recording has never been released as a single, a live performance by McCartney's later band Wings, from the live album "Wings over America", was. Released in 1977, this version became a top ten hit in the United States and reached number 28 in the United Kingdom.


title: Maybe I'm Amazed

text: In 2011, "Rolling Stone" magazine ranked "Maybe I'm Amazed" number 347 on its "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list.


title: Maybe I'm Amazed

text: McCartney wrote the song in 1969, just before the Beatles' break-up. He credited his wife Linda with helping him get through the difficult time. Although most of his debut solo album was recorded at his home in London, McCartney recorded "Maybe I'm Amazed" entirely in EMI's Number Two studio in Abbey Road, on the same day as he recorded "Every Night". He played all the instruments: guitars, bass, piano, organ and drums. Although McCartney declined to release the song as a single in 1970, it nonetheless received a great deal of radio airplay worldwide. A promotional film was made, comprising still photographs of McCartney, his wife Linda, stepdaughter Heather, and daughter Mary, which first aired in the UK on 19 April 1970 on ITV in its own slot, and as a part of an episode of CBS Television's "The Ed Sullivan Show".


title: Maybe I'm Amazed

text: Regarded as one of McCartney's finest love songs, it achieved the number 347 position in the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list compiled by "Rolling Stone" magazine in November 2004, and is the only solo McCartney song to make the list. In a late 2009 Q&A with journalists held in London to promote his live album "Good Evening New York City", McCartney said "Maybe I'm Amazed" was "the song he would like to be remembered for in the future".


title: Maybe I'm Amazed

text: In a review for the "McCartney" album on release, Langdon Winner of "Rolling Stone" described "Maybe I'm Amazed", as "a very powerful song", that states "one of the main sub-themes of the record, that the terrible burden of loneliness can be dispelled by love." Winner continued to describe the track as "the only song on the album that even comes close to McCartney's best efforts of the past. It succeeds marvelously." In a retrospective review for "McCartney", "Record Collector" has highlighted "Maybe I'm Amazed", along with "Every Night" and "Junk", as songs that "still sound absolutely effortless and demonstrate the man's natural genius with a melody". Joe Tangari of "Pitchfork" similarly evaluated "Maybe I'm Amazed", along with "Junk" and "Singalong Junk", as the "peaks" of "McCartney".


title: Maybe I'm Amazed

text: A live recording from the 1976 album "Wings over America" was released as a single by McCartney's band Wings on 4 February 1977 and reached number 10 in the US on the "Billboard" pop charts, and number 28 in the UK. This live version is longer than the original and has a slower tempo.


title: Maybe I'm Amazed

text: Versions of the song can be heard on several other live McCartney albums including "Back in the U.S." and "Back in the World". "Maybe I'm Amazed" has become a centrepiece of McCartney's concerts, along with "Band on the Run" and "Live and Let Die". Live versions of the song are available on the 2011 reissue of "McCartney".


title: Tommy Cash (rapper)

text: Tomas Tammemets (born 18 November 1991), better known by his stage name Tommy Cash (sometimes stylised as TOMM¥ €A$H), is an Estonian rapper and singer. He is known for raunchy lyrical themes and provocative music videos.


title: Tommy Cash (rapper)

text: Cash was born Tomas Tammemets in Tallinn, Estonia. He is reportedly of mixed ethnic Estonian, Russian, and Kazakh ancestry. Cash has described himself as Estonian first and foremost, then "Eastern European in his soul", and "Scandinavian in a CV". Cash was raised in the working-class Kopli subdistrict of Tallinn.


title: Tommy Cash (rapper)

text: In his youth, Cash was reportedly a graffiti artist. He has said that his drug use led him to be "ejected" from schooling. He never graduated from secondary school, despite sitting for exams, and later took up painting and dancing instead of formal education.


title: Tommy Cash (rapper)

text: In the dance scene, Cash is a known freestyle dancer with a very distinct style, using elements of popping, krumping, and breakdancing.


title: Tommy Cash (rapper)

text: In 2018, Cash released a clothing line that subversively imitates western styles with eastern elements and in-jokes.


title: Tommy Cash (rapper)

text: In November 2018, Cash released his second album, "¥€$", to positive reviews from "Clash" and "Paper." The album features vocal performances from MC Bin Laden, Charli XCX, Rick Owens, and Caroline Polachek, as well as production from Danny L Harle, A. G. Cook, Amnesia Scanner, and Boys Noize.


title: Tommy Cash (rapper)

text: In 2019, Cash had an exhibition at Kumu art museum in Tallinn. Collaborating with Rick Owens, he exhibited his own sperm, among other artefacts.


title: Tommy Cash (rapper)

text: On 30 January 2020, Cash unveiled his first official tour in the United States, starting on March 22. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the tour was re-scheduled for 2022.


title: Ken Masters

text: , originally spelled in kanji as with his original full name being unknown, is a fictional character in Capcom's "Street Fighter" series. Ken is the best friend and rival of Ryu, who has also appeared in all "Street Fighter" games. Ken's goal is to test his power against many different fighters, as he strives to become stronger. He uses improved Shoryuken (dragon punch) techniques.


title: Ken Masters

text: Ken's physical appearance and biographical traits were inspired by American martial artist Joe Lewis. He appeared in other game franchises, such as "Namco × Capcom", "Project X Zone", "Project X Zone 2", and "Super Smash Bros.", and also appeared in films such as "", "", "", "", "Wreck-It Ralph" and "".


title: Ken Masters

text: Starting from the original "Street Fighter", Ken has been consistently depicted with neck-length blond hair (actually dyed blond), black or dark brown eyebrows and wears a red sleeveless keikogi with a black belt. In the original "Street Fighter", Ken fought barefoot and wore yellow arm bands without gloves (unlike his rival Ryu, who originally wore red slippers with sparring gloves, and began fighting barefooted in subsequent games). For "Street Fighter III", Ken was supposed to be given new techniques but the staff refrained from it as they found him overpowered.


title: Ken Masters

text: By the time of "Street Fighter V", Ken's appearance has undergone the first major design change in the character's history. Ken's gi top now hangs around his waist and he wears a black v-neck training shirt with several red linings in its place. He sports black sparring gloves and has his hair tied back in a topknot instead of hanging loose which it was grown into medium length after the events of "Street Fighter III" series and now wears black ankle wraps with red linings instead of barefoot. For this game, Capcom wanted to differentiate these two characters' moves since they have been seen as "clones". He added "Ken's more of the hothead. He's the one that's gonna rush you down and be in your face, so his V-Skill is a run move that can be used to constantly pressure your opponent."


title: Ken Masters

text: Ken made his first appearance in 1987 in the original "Street Fighter" and is the only other playable character in the game aside from Ryu. He is characterized as the best friend, and rival of the main character, Ryu, who trained under the same master (a character whose identity would later be fleshed out as Gouken). The single-player tournament can only be played with Ken after the second player defeats the first player in a two-player match. Ken was also named one of the best fighters in the game.


title: Ken Masters

text: Ken and Ryu, along with former final boss Sagat, were the only characters from the original game to return in the game's true sequel, "Street Fighter II", in 1991 - here, Ken is invited to participate in the World Warrior tournament by Ryu, having already moved away from Japan to live in America. In Ken's ending, he ends up marrying his girlfriend Eliza. "Street Fighter II" was a breakaway hit for Capcom, leading to the production of revised editions of the same game which included "Champion Edition" and "Hyper Fighting" in 1992, "Super Street Fighter II" in 1993 and "Super Turbo" in 1994, which all follow the same plot. Numerous spinoff products were made as well during the game's popularity: when Capcom licensed Hasbro to produce a line of action figures, Ken was given the surname "Masters". The full name Ken Masters was used in the animated "" movie and in the "Street Fighter II V" series before being canonized in the video games with "Street Fighter Alpha 2".


title: Ken Masters

text: No new "Street Fighter" game was released until 1995's "Street Fighter Alpha". Street Fighter Alpha was a prequel to the "Street Fighter II" series, and it fleshed out the established "Street Fighter II" characters as well as reintroducing characters from the original "Street Fighter" and the beat-em-up game "Final Fight". "Alpha" features a younger Ken who is searching for Ryu, having recently won the first "World Warrior" tournament in the events of the original "Street Fighter". In Ken's ending in the original "Alpha", he defeats Ryu and heads back to America, where he meets Eliza. "Alpha" was followed by its own line of sequels: "Alpha 2", which follows the same plot as in the original "Alpha" (with a revised ending for Ken) and "Alpha 3", which takes place after the events in the first two games. In "Alpha 3", Ken is featured in the numerous characters' storylines within the game.


title: Ken Masters

text: Ken's following appearance is in "Street Fighter III", in which he has a son (Mel) and his own student (Sean). In "Street Fighter IV", Ken enters into the world tournament while waiting for the birth of Mel. Ken also appears in "Street Fighter V", when he take parts of a final raid on Shadaloo's main base, when Mel was two years old. In "Street Fighter 6", set after the events of "III", Ken is framed for criminal conspiracy, forcing him to go into hiding to protect his family until he can find those responsible.


title: Ken Masters

text: In 1990, Capcom produced an action game for the Nintendo Entertainment System titled "". The Japanese version of the game starred an original character named Kevin Straker, a cyborg policeman who fought against alien creatures in the future. When Capcom released "2010" in North America, the main character's identity was changed from Kevin to Ken, with the game's story rewritten to imply that he was the same Ken from the original "Street Fighter". Other than that, the game has little or no plot ties to the original "Street Fighter" and its part in the canonical "Street Fighter" series is disputed.


title: Ken Masters

text: Outside the mainstream "Street Fighter" games, Ken appears in the "Street Fighter EX" games and in the mobile game "Street Fighter: Puzzle Spirits". He also appears in crossover titles like "X-Men vs. Street Fighter", "Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter", "", the "Capcom vs. SNK" series, and "Street Fighter X Tekken". (In the game "Marvel vs. Capcom", Ryu is able to access Ken's moveset when the player enters a certain command.) He also appears in the and versions of "Street Fighter: The Movie". In SNK Playmore's fighting game "" he has an alter-ego named , who later made his full "Street Fighter" debut in "". Ken is featured in the tactical role-playing games "Namco × Capcom", "Project X Zone", and "Project X Zone 2". Ken also makes a cameo as a Trophy in "Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U", as part of the Ryu DLC. He is playable in "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" as an "echo fighter" or clone of Ryu.


title: Ken Masters

text: He was voiced by Scott McNeil in the "Street Fighter" animated series. In "Street Fighter II V", he was voiced by Jimmy Theodore in the Animaze dub and Jason Douglas in the ADV Films dub and in "", he was voiced by Eddie Frierson. He was voiced by Kazuya Ichijo in Japanese and Steven Blum in the dub for the "Street Fighter Alpha" movie. In "Street Fighter II V" and the "Street Fighter II" animated movie, Ken is depicted with reddish hair.


title: Ken Masters

text: Damian Chapa portrayed Ken in the 1994 "Street Fighter" movie, where he and Ryu (played by Byron Mann) are traveling con artists who steal money from wealthy crime bosses/lords and drug kingpins though various schemes such as selling modified toy guns. After the two unsuccessfully try to scam Shadaloo Tong leader Sagat, they are arrested by Allied Nations forces. Guile offers them their freedom in exchange for infiltrating Bison's base (whom Sagat works for as an arms supplier) and revealing its location so that the AN can make a military strike and free the hostages captured earlier in the film. When Guile eventually infiltrates Bison's base and chaos ensues, Ryu and Ken try to help free the hostages but split up when the AN forces arrive, Ken opting to flee for their lives while Ryu desires to stay behind and fight. Ken later comes to Ryu's aid when he is ambushed by Vega and Sagat. While Ryu defeats Vega, Ken defeats Sagat. In the aftermath, though Guile intends to free Ryu and Ken, they decide to stay in Shadaloo to help the AN clear up what Bison has left in his wake.


title: Ken Masters

text: Reuben Langdon provides Ken's voice in the "Street Fighter IV" series, "V", and "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate", and plays him in the live-action short film "Street Fighter x Tekken: The Devil Within".


title: Ken Masters

text: British actor Christian Howard portrayed Ken in the live-action short film "", and reprised his role in the follow-up series "", "" and "". Taking place to a time similar to Street Fighter Alpha, the younger Ken is shown to be arrogant and impatient, and was brought to Japan at a young age by his father (a friend of Gouken's) to Gouken's dojo following the death of his mother. He finds a book showing the techniques of the Satsui no Hado and is warned by Gouken not to use them. During a bout with Ryu, Ryu is taken over by the Satsui No Hado, forcing Ken to nearly kill him with a flaming Shoryuken. As Gouken sends his two students off, he trusts Ken to look after Ryu.


title: Ken Masters

text: Ken artwork was featured on an officially licensed Nubytech/UDON joypad for the PlayStation 2, and a Mad Catz joypad for the PlayStation 3.


title: Ken Masters

text: Ken has often been recognized as one of the best "Street Fighter" characters. IGN ranked Ken at number six in their "Top 25 Street Fighter Characters" article, noting his contrast to Ryu while subsequently questioning his lesser appeal, and stating "he's just as indispensable to the series as Ryu is. After all, could you imagine a Street Fighter game without him? Perhaps, but it probably still wouldn't be the same." GameDaily listed him at number six on their "Top 20 Street Fighter Characters of All Time" article, noting the contrast between himself and Ryu. The same site ranked him sixth along with Ryu in the Top 25 Capcom Characters of All Time with editor Robert Workman saying "It was just impossible to choose between one of these world warriors". Another feature, "Top 25 Gaming Hunks", situated Ken eighteenth, stating it was hard deciding between him and Ryu. In "Gamest" magazine in Japan, Ken ranked at ninth along with Blanka as "Best Characters of 1991" and at number 49 in "Top 50 Characters of 1996". In 2009 "GamePro" ranked Ryu and Ken as number nine in their list of the best palette-swapped video game characters, adding: "While some may have argued that Street Fighter 2's depiction of Ryu and Ken utilized palette swapping, a true palette swapping aficionado would know that only the original Street Fighter exploited the swapping of palettes." GamesRadar writer Tyler Wilde published an article focusing on Ken's and Ryu's development across the franchise under the title of "The evolution of Ken and Ryu." While comparing these two characters, IGN's Jesse Schedeen stated that Ken could "easily suffer from Luigi Syndrome" for his resemblance with Ryu, but thanks to the sequels, Ken gained his own fighting style separated from Ryu's.


title: Ken Masters

text: Some sites have commented on Ken's techniques due to being relatively overpowered. "The Guardian" recommended Ken alongside Ryu for beginners in "Street Fighter IV" with Ken being better at close-up fights as a result of his powerful uppercuts. In a humor article by GameSpy, the "Super Street Fighter II Turbo" version of Ken was mentioned to have become unbalanced to the point he was the strongest character from the cast. In "", Ken was also noted to be one of the three more powerful characters from the game alongside Chun-Li and Yun. Similarly, Dave Cook from Now Gamer called him and "Tekken"s Eddy Gordo one of the most hated characters from their franchises due to their overpowered moves. In another article, Cook listed a fight between Ken and Eddy Gordo as one of the fights he wished to see in "Street Fighter X Tekken" calling it the "ultimate battle of super cheapness." UGO Networks placed Ken at #4 on their list of "Top 50 Street Fighter Characters", stating "If you're a fan of dragon punches, you play Ken.". Jeremy Parish of Polygon ranked 73 fighters from "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" "from garbage to glorious", listing Ken as 62th.


title: Ken Masters

text: Ken has also been popular thanks to the Evo Moment 37. With 26 seconds remaining, Wong had the option to run out the clock, but he was eager to end the match. To win the round, Wong attempted to hit Umehara's Ken with Chun-Li's multihit Super Art II move; the Houyoku-sen (, "fanning phoenix-wing"). However, instead of avoiding it, Umehara chose to "Parry", a high-risk, high-reward technique which allows the defender to block an incoming attack without losing any health, but requires moving toward the opponent's direction in the same time a hit lands, within six of sixty frames of the impact animation – about a tenth of a second. Umehara had to predict when his opponent would start his Super Art Move, essentially making the first parry before the move even started, and then perform the same split-second timing on all 14 of the remaining hits. Umehara did so, and went on to counter a final kick of Chun-Li in mid-air before launching a 12-hit combo, capped by Ken's Super Art III; Shippuu Jinraikyaku (, "hurricane thunderclap leg"), winning the match. Evo Moment #37 is frequently described as the most iconic and memorable moment in the history of competitive video gaming. Being at one point the most-watched competitive gaming moment of all time, "Kotaku" compared it to sports moments such as Babe Ruth's called shot and the Miracle on Ice. The downloadable online version of "3rd Strike", "Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition", features a challenge where players need to pull off the Daigo Parry.


title: NATO Response Force

text: The NATO Response Force (NRF) is a high-readiness force comprising land, air, sea and special forces units capable of being deployed quickly. Until February 2022, when NATO activated it in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, units assigned to the NRF had only been used to assist with disaster relief and security at high-profile security events. On 25 February 2022 after a NATO meeting, the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) was activated for the defense of members of the alliance, for the first time.


title: NATO Response Force

text: Rotating forces through the NRF requires nations to meet the demanding standards needed for collective defence and expeditionary operations. As the standards are very high, participation in the NRF is preceded by a six-month NATO exercise program in order to integrate and standardize the various national contingents. Generally, nations carry out a pre-training period in preparation for the NATO exercises of between 6–18 months. Once activated, Reconnaissance Teams deploy within 5 days. This is the first of a number of deployment phases that lead to the deployment of the entire HQ Joint Task Force and Immediate Reaction Forces within 30 days.


title: NATO Response Force

text: The NRF currently comprises up to 40,000 troops and will be increased to over 300,000 troops. It includes units from several countries that do not belong to NATO: non-member partners, Finland, which first contributed forces in 2008; Sweden, 2013; Ukraine, 2014; and Georgia, 2015.


title: NATO Response Force

text: The NRF concept was first endorsed with a declaration of NATO's Heads of State at the Prague Summit on 22 November 2002 and approved by NATO Defence Ministers in June 2003. Dual headquarters were created in Naples, Italy and Brunssum, Netherlands; command rotates annually between them. In 2004 and 2005, NRF units were activated for a small number of civilian missions, including to provide security at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens and the Afghan presidential elections, as well as to provide humanitarian assistance in the United States after Hurricane Katrina and in Pakistan after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. Due to equipment shortages, unfulfilled troop commitments and falling political support among member countries, the size of the NRF was cut in half in 2007 and not used again until 2022. During the 2014 Wales summit following the Crimean crisis, NATO leaders agreed to reorganize the NRF's core troops into a "spearhead force" known as a "Very High Readiness Joint Task Force" (VJTF) designed to be able to deploy at 48 hours notice, although the actual level of readiness was generally several weeks. It was also for the first time linked explicitly to NATO's Article 5 obligations. Altogether, it amounted to around 30,000 troops.


title: NATO Response Force

text: For most of its existence, the lack of enthusiasm of NATO's member states for the NRF resulted in chronic equipment and personnel shortages. It was sometimes branded a wasteful failure and an insignificant force next to NATO's more established units. Nevertheless, some military scholars argue that it played a significant role in modernizing European militaries as their troops rotated through it.


title: NATO Response Force

text: As Russian troops built up around Ukraine in early 2022, various units attached to the NRF were alerted or deployed. On 11 February 2022, a U.S. Army brigade combat team of about 4,700 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division was ordered to Poland, while a Stryker squadron (battalion-sized cavalry unit) was sent from Vilseck's Rose Barracks to Romania.


title: NATO Response Force

text: On 16 February 2022, 8,500 troops in some of the units that make up the U.S. contribution to the NRF were put on alert for possible rotational deployment to EUCOM's area of responsibility. As of 25 February 2022 seven thousand soldiers of the 8500-troop tranche, including the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team/3rd Infantry Division (1st ABCT/3rd ID —4700 troops, plus support units) deployed to Germany, initially. For the first time in decades, three US heavy brigades are deploying to EUCOM concurrently —(from the 1ABCT/3rd ID, the 1ABCT/1st ID, and an IBCT/82nd AB, all to be deployed as needed for the situation). Two forward-deployed headquarters, one from V Corps (United States), and the capability for one from XVIII Airborne Corps are now positioned in Poznan, Poland, and Wiesbaden, Germany respectively, should any further need arise for a proportionate response to a threat to the member states of NATO.


title: NATO Response Force

text: After a NATO meeting on 25 February 2022, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stated that the NATO leadership had agreed to deploy part of the NRF to alliance members in Eastern Europe. Stoltenberg said that Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, currently led by France, would be among the units sent. This was the first time the NRF had been activated. In light of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the NATO Response Force can activate up to 40,000 troops. Eight of NATO's thirty member nations (as of 24 February 2022) have triggered urgent consultations under Article 4 of the NATO Washington Treaty. In advance of the 2022 Madrid summit, Jens Stoltenberg announced the plan to increase the NRF size to more than 300,000 troops, which was approved during the summit.


title: Safiyya bint Huyayy

text: Ṣafīyya bint Ḥuyayy () was one of the wives of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. She was, along with all other wives of Muhammad, titled Umm-ul-Mu'mineen or the "Mother of Believers".


title: Safiyya bint Huyayy

text: After Muhammad's death, she became involved in the power politics of the early Muslim community, and acquired substantial influence by the time of her death.


title: Safiyya bint Huyayy

text: Safiyya was born in Medina to Huyayy ibn Akhtab, the chief of the Jewish tribe Banu Nadir. Her mother, Barra bint Samawal, was from the Banu Qurayza tribe. She was the granddaughter of Samaw'al ibn Adiya from the Banu Harith tribe. According to a source, she was married off to Sallam ibn Mishkam, who later divorced her.


title: Safiyya bint Huyayy

text: When the Banu Nadir were expelled from Medina in 625, her family settled in Khaybar, an oasis near Medina. Her father and brother went from Khaybar to join the Meccan and Bedouin forces besieging Muhammad in Medina during the Battle of the Trench. When the Meccans withdrew Muhammad besieged the Banu Qurayza. After the defeat of the Banu Qurayza in 627 Safiyya's father, a long-time opponent of Muhammad, was captured and executed by the Muslims.


title: Safiyya bint Huyayy

text: In 627 or early in 628, Safiyya married Kenana ibn al-Rabi, treasurer of the Banu Nadir; she was about 17 years old at that time. According to Muslim sources, Safiyya is said to have informed Kenana of a dream she had in which the moon had fallen from the heavens into her lap. Kenana interpreted it as a desire to marry Muhammad and struck her in the face, leaving a mark which was still visible when she first had contact with Muhammad.


title: Safiyya bint Huyayy

text: In May 628 CE, the Muslims defeated several Jewish tribes (including the Banu Nadir) at the Battle of Khaybar. The Jews had surrendered, and were allowed to remain in Khaybar on the provision that they give half of their annual produce to the Muslims. The land itself became the property of the Muslim state. This agreement, Stillman says, did not extend to the Banu Nadir tribe, who were given no quarter. Safiyya's first husband, Kenana ibn al-Rabi, was killed in battle.


title: Safiyya bint Huyayy

text: According to Muhammad al-Bukhari, Muhammad stayed for three days between Khaybar and Medina, where he consummated his marriage to Safiyya. His companions wondered if she was to be considered a captive () or a wife. The former speculated that they would consider Safiyya as Muhammad's wife, and thus "Mother of the Believers".


title: Safiyya bint Huyayy

text: Muhammad advised Safiyya to convert to Islam, she accepted and agreed to became Muhammad's wife. Safiyya did not bear any children to Muhammad.


title: Safiyya bint Huyayy

text: Regarding Safiyya's Jewish descent, Muhammad once said to his wife that if other women insulted her for her "Jewish heritage" and were jealous because of her beauty, she was to respond,


title: Safiyya bint Huyayy

text: "My father (ancestor) Harun (Aaron) was a prophet, my uncle (his brother) Musa (Moses) was a prophet, and my husband (Muhammad) is a prophet ."