title: Vaccinia

text: Vaccinia virus infection is typically very mild and often does not cause symptoms in healthy individuals, although it may cause rash and fever. Immune responses generated from a vaccinia virus infection protects the person against a lethal smallpox infection. For this reason, vaccinia virus was, and still is, being used as a live-virus vaccine against smallpox. Unlike vaccines that use weakened forms of the virus being vaccinated against, the vaccinia virus vaccine cannot cause a smallpox infection because it does not contain the smallpox virus. However, certain complications and/or vaccine adverse effects occasionally arise. The chance of this happening is significantly increased in people who are immunocompromised. Approximately 1 to 2 people out of every 1 million people vaccinated could die as a result of life-threatening reactions to the vaccination. The rate of myopericarditis with ACAM2000 is 5.7 per 1,000 of primary vaccinees.


title: Vaccinia

text: On September 1, 2007, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) licensed a new vaccine ACAM2000 against smallpox which can be produced quickly upon need. Manufactured by Sanofi Pasteur, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stockpiled 192.5 million doses of the new vaccine (see list of common strains below).


title: Vaccinia

text: A smallpox vaccine, Imvanex, which is based on the Modified vaccinia Ankara strain, was approved by the European Medicines Agency in 2013. This strain has been used in vaccines during the 2022 monkeypox outbreak.


title: Vaccinia

text: "Vaccinia" is also used in recombinant vaccines, as a vector for expression of foreign genes within a host, in order to generate an immune response. Other poxviruses are also used as live recombinant vaccines.


title: Vaccinia

text: The original vaccine for smallpox, and the origin of the idea of vaccination, was Cowpox, described by Edward Jenner in 1798. The Latin term used for Cowpox was "Variolae vaccinae", Jenner's own translation of "smallpox of the cow". That term lent its name to the whole idea of vaccination. When it was realized that the virus used in smallpox vaccination was not, or was no longer, the same as cowpox virus, the name 'vaccinia' was used for the virus in smallpox vaccine. (See OED.) Vaccine potency and efficacy prior to the invention of refrigerated methods of transportation was unreliable. The vaccine would be rendered impotent by heat and sunlight, and the method of drying samples on quills and shipping them to countries in need often resulted in an inactive vaccine. Another method employed was the "arm to arm" method. This involved vaccinating an individual then transferring it to another as soon as the infectious pustule forms, then to another, etc. This method was used as a form of living transportation of the vaccine, and usually employed orphans as carriers. However, this method was problematic due to the possibility of spreading other blood diseases, such as hepatitis and syphilis, as was the case in 1861, when 41 Italian children contracted syphilis after being vaccinated by the "arm to arm" method. Henry Austin Martin introduced a method for vaccine production from calves.


title: Vaccinia

text: In 1913, E. Steinhardt, C. Israeli, and R. A. Lambert grew vaccinia virus in fragments of pig corneal tissue culture.


title: Vaccinia

text: A paper published in 1915 by Fredrick W. Twort, a student of Willian Bulloch, is considered to be the beginning of modern phage research. He was attempting to grow vaccinia virus on agar media in the absence of living cells when he noted that many colonies of contaminating micrococci grew up and appeared mucoid, watery or glassy, and this transformation could be induced in other colonies by inoculation of the fresh colony with material from the watery colony. Using a microscope, he observed that bacteria had degenerated into small granules that stained red with Giemsa stain. He concluded that "...it [the agent of transformation] might almost be considered as an acute infectious disease of micrococci."


title: Vaccinia

text: In 1939 Allan Watt Downie showed that the smallpox vaccines being used in the 20th century and cowpox virus were not the same, but were immunologically related.


title: Vaccinia

text: In March 2007, a 2-year-old Indiana boy and his mother contracted a life-threatening vaccinia infection from the boy's father. The boy developed the telltale rash over 80 percent of his body after coming into close contact with his father, who was vaccinated for smallpox before being deployed overseas by the United States Army. The United States military resumed smallpox vaccinations in 2002. The child acquired the infection due to eczema, which is a known risk factor for vaccinia infection. The boy was treated with intravenous immunoglobulin, cidofovir, and Tecovirimat (ST-246), a (then) experimental drug developed by SIGA Technologies. On April 19, 2007, he was sent home with no after effects except for possible scarring of the skin.


title: Vaccinia

text: In 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that a woman in Washington had contracted vaccinia virus infection after digital vaginal contact with her boyfriend, a military member who had recently been vaccinated for smallpox. The woman had a history of childhood eczema, but she had not been symptomatic as an adult. The CDC indicated that it was aware of four similar cases in the preceding 12 months of vaccinia infection after sexual contact with a recent military vaccinee. Further cases—also in patients with a history of eczema—occurred in 2012.


title: Stephen Norrington

text: Stephen Norrington (born 1964) is an English filmmaker and special effects artist known for his work in the horror and action genres. Beginning his career as a sculptor and makeup artist, he worked under Dick Smith, Rick Baker, and Stan Winston on a number of well-known, effects-driven films of the 1980s and 90s. His directorial credits include the cult sci-fi horror film "Death Machine" and the comic book adaptations "Blade" and "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen". He portrayed Michael Morbius in the alternate ending to "Blade".


title: Stephen Norrington

text: Norrington first worked in film as a special effects artist, doing so for several years, which included work on the films "Alien"s and "Split Second". His debut as a director was in the 1994 movie "Death Machine" but it was directing "Blade" in 1998 that gained him international status as the film became a box office hit. Despite the film's success, he turned down directing the sequel. He directed "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" (2003) during which he had such a hard time with Sean Connery, the film's star, that he announced he would never direct another film. He later changed his mind, though as of 2022 he has yet to do so.


title: Stephen Norrington

text: Norrington was originally attached to Dimension Films's "Ghost Rider" before it was acquired by Columbia Pictures. He was set to direct a remake of the 1981 fantasy film "Clash of the Titans" before the position went to Louis Leterrier, director of "The Incredible Hulk".


title: Stephen Norrington

text: In 2008 it was announced that Norrington would direct a reboot of "The Crow" franchise. In 2010 it was reported he would direct and write the supernatural action thriller "The Lost Patrol," to be distributed by Legendary Pictures.


title: Stephen Norrington

text: In December 2011, Norrington revealed in an interview that, for the past year, he'd been working on "Untitled Norrington Genre Project #1", based on a feature film script he wrote in April 2008 for that year's "Script Frenzy" challenge. Centering on car chases, it was said to feature both live-action footage and scale models for greenscreen shots. Norrington revealed he was doing most of the work himself, as he did in his 2001 film "The Last Minute".


title: Stephen Norrington

text: In 2018, "Blade" co-star Stephen Dorff said Norrington was making a film with miniatures at his own house. Dorff thought it would take him another decade to complete it.


title: Stephen Norrington

text: Norrington has had several unrealised projects throughout his career, listed here in roughly chronological order. During a career that has spanned over 20 years, he has worked on projects which never progressed beyond the pre-production stage under his direction. Many of them were produced after he left production.


title: Stephen Norrington

text: In 1999, Norrington was invited to direct "Blade II", the sequel to his 1998 film. He turned it down, and the studio hired Guillermo del Toro instead.


title: Stephen Norrington

text: In 2001, Norrington was attached to Dimension Films's "Ghost Rider" before it was acquired by Columbia Pictures. It was eventually released in 2007, directed by Mark Steven Johnson.


title: Stephen Norrington

text: In 2001, Norrington announced he had agreed to direct a film based on "The Hands of Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu", a film adaptation based on the Marvel character Shang-Chi. He described it as "a real honest-to-goodness martial arts film, rather than a film that simply has martial arts in it". In 2004, it was announced that Ang Lee had been brought on as producer. In 2005, it was announced that Stan Lee had agreed to executive produce the film for DreamWorks, with Yuen Woo-ping directing from a Bruce McKenna screenplay. In 2005, Avi Arad stated that he thought that a PG-13 adaptation was possible. In 2006, Ang Lee confirmed his and Yuen's continued involvement with the project. In December 2018, a different film adaptation of Shang-Chi was announced, with a script by David Callaham, without Norrington.


title: Stephen Norrington

text: Shortly after Warner Bros. acquired the rights in 2002, Norrington was slated to direct a remake to the 1988 film "Akira", with James Robinson writing the screenplay and Dan Lin producing. Norrington planned to make it more appealing to Western audiences by making Kaneda and Tetsuo brothers. Following "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" underperformed at the box office in 2003, which both Norrington and Robinson were also on, the project was put on hold.


title: Stephen Norrington

text: In 2003, Norrington's "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" was intended to spawn a film franchise based on further titles in the original comic book series, but there was little enthusiasm for a sequel due to underperformance at the box office. In 2013, after the sequel was scrapped, it was reported that Fox was ordering a pilot for the television version of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" with Michael Green as writer and executive producer. If the project went to series, Norrington and showrunner Erwin Stoff would have executive produced. Neither Moore nor O'Neill would be producers on the series. It had also been reported that the pilot episode would still be broadcast, even if Fox opted not to green-light the series. Only a couple years after news of the television series ceased, The Tracking Board reported, on 26 May 2015 that 20th Century Fox and Davis Entertainment had agreed to develop a reboot film with hopes of launching a new franchise. The report stated that a search was underway for a director who could help "continue to develop the reboot". John Davis told Collider in an interview that the reboot would be a female-centric film. Since then, there have been no further announcements.


title: Stephen Norrington

text: In 2007, Norrington was set to direct the remake of the 1981 fantasy film "Clash of the Titans". However, he was unsure about his direction for the project because he did not grow up with the original. Louis Leterrier, who did, contacted him through their shared agent about replacing him. Leterrier's film was released in 2010.


title: Stephen Norrington

text: In 2008, it was announced that Norrington would direct a reboot of "The Crow" franchise. He left the film by 2013 and was replaced by F. Javier Gutiérrez. By July 2015, Gutiérrez had left the project and was replaced by Corin Hardy. Hardy also left the project on 31 May 2018, leaving the film in limbo.


title: Stephen Norrington

text: In 2010, Norrington was going to direct and write the supernatural action thriller "The Lost Patrol" to be distributed by Legendary Pictures.


title: Lars Knudsen (producer)

text: Lars Knudsen is a Danish film producer. In 2004, he and producer Jay Van Hoy founded Parts & Labor, a production company dedicated to director-driven, collaborative filmmaking. Parts & Labor has produced more than 20 films including "Frank & Lola, The Witch", "American Honey", "Ain't Them Bodies Saints", and "Beginners," and help bring their stories to life for directors like Andrea Arnold or Robert Eggers"." In 2016, after 15 years, Knudsen and Van Hoy decided to part ways. Prior to the release of "Midsommar" in June of 2019, Knudsen and director Ari Aster announced the launch of their new production company, Square Peg. Knudsen is best known for his work with "Midsommar" (2019), "Hereditary" (2018), and "The Witch" (2015).


title: Radial basis function

text: A radial basis function (RBF) is a real-valued function formula_1 whose value depends only on the distance between the input and some fixed point, either the origin, so that formula_2, or some other fixed point formula_3, called a "center", so that formula_4. Any function formula_1 that satisfies the property formula_2 is a radial function. The distance is usually Euclidean distance, although other metrics are sometimes used. They are often used as a collection formula_7 which forms a basis for some function space of interest, hence the name.


title: Radial basis function

text: Sums of radial basis functions are typically used to approximate given functions. This approximation process can also be interpreted as a simple kind of neural network; this was the context in which they were originally applied to machine learning, in work by David Broomhead and David Lowe in 1988, which stemmed from Michael J. D. Powell's seminal research from 1977.


title: Radial basis function

text: RBFs are also used as a kernel in support vector classification. The technique has proven effective and flexible enough that radial basis functions are now applied in a variety of engineering applications.


title: Radial basis function

text: A radial function is a function formula_8. When paired with a metric on a vector space formula_9 a function formula_10 is said to be a radial kernel centered at formula_11. A Radial function and the associated radial kernels are said to be radial basis functions if, for any set of nodes formula_12


title: Radial basis function

text: Commonly used types of radial basis functions include (writing formula_13 and using formula_14 to indicate a "shape parameter" that can be used to scale the input of the radial kernel):


title: Radial basis function

text: "*For even-degree polyharmonic splines" formula_15", to avoid numerical problems at formula_16 where formula_17, the computational implementation is often written as formula_18."


title: Radial basis function

text: These RBFs are compactly supported and thus are non-zero only within a radius of formula_19, and thus have sparse differentiation matrices


title: Radial basis function

text: where the approximating function formula_20 is represented as a sum of formula_21 radial basis functions, each associated with a different center formula_22, and weighted by an appropriate coefficient formula_23 The weights formula_24 can be estimated using the matrix methods of linear least squares, because the approximating function is "linear" in the weights formula_24.


title: Radial basis function

text: Approximation schemes of this kind have been particularly used in time series prediction and control of nonlinear systems exhibiting sufficiently simple chaotic behaviour and 3D reconstruction in computer graphics (for example, hierarchical RBF and Pose Space Deformation).


title: Radial basis function

text: can also be interpreted as a rather simple single-layer type of artificial neural network called a radial basis function network, with the radial basis functions taking on the role of the activation functions of the network. It can be shown that any continuous function on a compact interval can in principle be interpolated with arbitrary accuracy by a sum of this form, if a sufficiently large number formula_26 of radial basis functions is used.


title: Radial basis function

text: The approximant formula_20 is differentiable with respect to the weights formula_24. The weights could thus be learned using any of the standard iterative methods for neural networks.


title: Radial basis function

text: Using radial basis functions in this manner yields a reasonable interpolation approach provided that the fitting set has been chosen such that it covers the entire range systematically (equidistant data points are ideal). However, without a polynomial term that is orthogonal to the radial basis functions, estimates outside the fitting set tend to perform poorly.


title: Radial basis function

text: Radial basis functions are used to approximate functions and so can be used to discretize and numerically solve Partial Differential Equations (PDEs). This was first done in 1990 by E. J. Kansa who developed the first RBF based numerical method. It is called the Kansa method and was used to solve the elliptic Poisson equation and the linear advection-diffusion equation. The function values at points formula_29 in the domain are approximated by the linear combination of RBFs:


title: Radial basis function

text: where formula_21 are the number of points in the discretized domain, formula_31 the dimension of the domain and formula_32 the scalar coefficients that are unchanged by the differential operator.


title: Radial basis function

text: Different numerical methods based on Radial Basis Functions were developed thereafter. Some methods are the RBF-FD method, the RBF-QR method and the RBF-PUM method.


title: Sam Langford

text: Samuel Edgar Langford (March 4, 1886 – January 12, 1956), known as the Boston Tar Baby, Boston Terror and Boston Bonecrusher, was a Black Canadian boxing standout of the early part of the 20th century. Called the "Greatest Fighter Nobody Knows", by ESPN, Langford is considered by many boxing historians to be one of the greatest fighters of all time. Originally from Weymouth Falls, a small community in Nova Scotia, he was known as "The Boston Bonecrusher", "The Boston Terror", and his most famous nickname, "The Boston Tar Baby". Langford stood and weighed in his prime. He fought from lightweight to heavyweight and defeated many world champions and legends of the time in each weight class. Considered a devastating puncher even at heavyweight, Langford was rated No. 2 by "The Ring" on their list of "100 greatest punchers of all time". One boxing historian described Langford as "experienced as a heavyweight James Toney with the punching power of Mike Tyson".


title: Sam Langford

text: He was denied a shot at many World Championships, due to the colour bar and by the refusal of Jack Johnson, the first African-American World Heavyweight Champion, to fight him in a rematch. Langford was the World Colored Heavyweight Champion, a title vacated by Johnson after he won the World Championship, a record five times. Alongside this, Langford also defeated the reigning Lightweight Champion Joe Gans, the first African-American World Champion in boxing history and widely regarded as one of the greatest boxers of all time, in a non-title bout. Many boxing aficionados consider Langford to be the greatest boxer not to have won a world title. On August 13, 2020, the WBC granted Langford to be an honorary world champion. BoxRec ranks him as the 22nd greatest Canadian boxer of all time.


title: Sam Langford

text: Born in Nova Scotia, his grandfather was a former slave from the USA who helped settle Weymouth Falls. Langford left home as a youth to escape an abusive father. He made his way to Boston where he eventually found work as a janitor in a boxing gymnasium at the Lenox Athletic Club. Not long after he started working he was sparring and improving his own boxing skills. He won the amateur featherweight championship of Boston at age 15.


title: Sam Langford

text: Langford was a boxer who fought greats from the lightweight division right up to the heavyweights, beating many champions in the process. However, he was never able to secure a world title for himself. Despite the fact, Langford never received a chance to fight for Jack Johnson's heavyweight title, " Ring" magazine founder Nat Fleischer rated Langford as one of the ten best heavyweights of all time. Renowned champion Jack Dempsey claimed that as a young boxer in 1916 he refused a fight with Langford. According to Dempsey: "I think Sam Langford was the greatest fighter we ever had."


title: Sam Langford

text: Langford's most memorable fights were his numerous encounters against fellow black boxers Sam McVey, Battling Jim Johnson, Joe Jeanette and Harry Wills, who all experienced similar barriers in their fighting careers.


title: Sam Langford

text: Langford defeated World Lightweight Champion Joe Gans on December 8, 1903, via a 15-round decision. Gans' title was not on the line, however. The two would later become good friends. Langford considered Gans the pound-for-pound greatest fighter of all time.


title: Sam Langford

text: He fought Jack Blackburn, trainer of the legendary Joe Louis, six times. The first three fights were draws, the fourth a decision win for Langford, the fifth another draw and the sixth a no contest.


title: Sam Langford

text: Although Langford is often credited as the greatest fighter to never challenge for a world title, he fought World Welterweight Champion Barbados Joe Walcott on September 5, 1904, for his title. The fight resulted in a draw via decision, thus Walcott retained his title. However, reports of the fight say Langford clearly outpointed the champion. Langford kept Walcott at a distance with his longer reach and used his footwork to evade all of Walcott's attacks. Langford landed lefts and rights to the jaw so effectively, Walcott was bleeding by round two and continued bleeding more after every round. Walcott was brought on one knee in the third round and the fight ended with hardly a scratch on Langford.


title: Sam Langford

text: In 1912, Langford was one of the contenders for the World Colored Heavyweight Championship fought at various venues across Australia. Sam McVey his opponent, McVey ranked alongside Jack Johnson, Joe Jeanette, Sam Langford, and Harry Wills as the top black heavyweights of their generation. Prior to his win, Langford stayed at the Nedlands Park Hotel where he:


title: Sam Langford

text: Langford fought various contenders throughout his career. He fought welterweight Young Peter Jackson six times, winning the first two by decision, the third was a draw via points, losing the fourth by technical knockout and winning the fifth and sixth bouts again by decision. Their bout on November 12, 1907, at the Pacific Athletic Club in Los Angeles was billed as being for the World Colored Middleweight Championship (158  lbs.). Langford won the title by besting Jackson on points in the 20-round bout.


title: Sam Langford

text: Langford fought heavyweight Joe Jeanette fourteen times, losing the first by eighth-round retirement, winning second by decision, third and fourth were a draw via points, winning the fifth through eighth by decision, ninth was a draw via points, winning the tenth on the decision, eleventh was a draw via points, lost the twelfth by decision and winning the thirteenth by seventh-round knock out and fourteenth by decision (Total: 8 wins (1 KO), 2 losses (1 RT and 1 PTS) and 4 draws).


title: Sam Langford

text: He fought future World Heavyweight Champion Jack Johnson on April 26, 1906, losing by a fifteenth-round decision. Johnson was 29 pounds heavier than Langford. Langford took severe punishment and was knocked down 3 times; however, he lasted the 15 round distance. After winning their first match, Johnson repeatedly refused rematches against Langford, who was considered by some to be the most dangerous challenger for Johnson's crown, although Johnson cited Langford's inability to meet his $30,000 appearance fee.


title: Sam Langford

text: Langford fought heavyweight Fireman Jim Flynn six times, winning the first by first-round knockout, losing the second by decision, winning the third by eighth-round knockout, winning the fourth by decision, winning the fifth by third-round knockout, and winning the sixth by decision.


title: Sam Langford

text: Winner of the World Colored Middleweight Championship in 1907 when he beat Young Peter Jackson, he fought World Middleweight Champion Stanley Ketchel on April 27, 1910 in a six round non-title fight, a no-decision draw. A longer rematch bout was rumoured but never happened due to Ketchell's murder six months later.


title: Sam Langford

text: Langford fought heavyweight Battling Jim Johnson twelve times, winning the first three by decision, fourth and fifth were a draw via points, winning the sixth and seventh on points, eighth by twelfth-round knockout, ninth through eleventh by points, and drawing in the twelfth via points (Total: 9 wins (1 KO), 0 losses and 3 draws). Johnson was always heavier than Langford by 26–40 pounds.


title: Sam Langford

text: Langford fought heavyweight Sam McVea fifteen times, drawing in the first via points, losing the second by decision, winning the third and fourth by decision, winning the fifth by technical knockout (McVea claimed a foul; this was not allowed and he refused to continue), winning the sixth by thirteenth-round knockout, seventh was a draw via points, losing the eighth by decision, ninth through eleventh were draws via points, winning the twelfth by decision, thirteenth and fourteenth were draws via decision and winning the fifteenth by decision (Total: 6 wins (2 KO), 2 losses (0 KO) and 7 draws). Langford was 37 years old in the final bout.


title: Sam Langford

text: Langford defeated former World Light Heavyweight Champion Philadelphia Jack O'Brien on August 15, 1911, by fifth-round technical knockout. Langford outweighed O'Brien by ten pounds. The fight was stopped after a hard left hook put O'Brien on the canvas. O'Brien had to be helped to his corner. The poetic O'Brien later said of Langford, "When he appeared upon the scene of combat, you knew you were cooked."


title: Sam Langford

text: Langford fought heavyweight Gunboat Smith twice, losing the first by decision (many ring siders were surprised) and winning the second by third-round knockout.


title: Sam Langford

text: Langford fought heavyweight Harry Wills seventeen times. Langford was 31 in the first bout and continued to suffer from old age and failing eyesight more and more each fight. The first was a draw via points, the second a win via fourteenth-round knockout, the third and fourth losses via decision, the fifth a win via nineteenth-round knockout, the sixth through ninth losses via decision, the tenth a draw via points, the eleventh a loss via sixth-round knockout and the twelfth by seventh-round technical knockout, the thirteenth through seventeenth by decision (Total: 2 wins (2 KO), 14 losses (2 KO) and 2 draws).


title: Sam Langford

text: Former World Heavyweight Champion Tommy Burns was a referee in the third fight. At the end, he caught Langford's hand and said to him, "Sam, this is the hardest I ever had to do in my life. I always admired you and never thought to see you beaten, but I have to give the decision against you."


title: Sam Langford

text: Although Langford is often credited as the greatest fighter to never challenge for a world title, he fought World Welterweight Champion Barbados Joe Walcott, a black man, on September 5, 1904, at Lake Massabesic Coliseum in Manchester, New Hampshire for his title. Both fighters weighed in at 142 lbs.


title: Sam Langford

text: The fight resulted in a draw via decision, thus Walcott retained his title. However, reports of the fight say Langford clearly outpointed the champion. Langford kept Walcott at a distance with his longer reach and used his footwork to evade all of Walcott's attacks. Langford landed lefts and rights to the jaw so effectively, Walcott was bleeding by round two and continued bleeding more after every round. Walcott was brought on one knee in the third round and the fight ended with hardly a scratch on Langford.


title: Sam Langford

text: Sam Langford won the World Colored Heavyweight Championship a record five times between 1910 and 1918. Jack Johnson had reigned as the World Colored Heavyweight Champion from 1903 to 1908, when he relinquished the title after winning the World Heavyweight Championship. Joe Jeanette and Sam McVey fought in Paris in February 1909 to fill the vacant title, with McVey the victor. Jeanette took the title away from McVey two months later.


title: Sam Langford

text: Subsequently, Langford claimed the title during Jeanette's reign after Johnson refused to defend the World Heavyweight Championship against him. For a year there were two dueling claimants to the world coloured heavyweight crown, Jeanette, the "official" champ, and Langford, the pretender, the man whom Jack Johnson "ducked". On September 6, 1910, in Boston, Massachusetts, Langford became the undisputed coloured champ by winning a 15-round bout with Jeanette on points. Still, Jack Johnson refused to give him a title shot.


title: Sam Langford

text: Langford had lost to Jack Johnson the only time they had fought, on April 26, 1906, in a fifteen-round decision. Johnson was 29  lbs. heavier than Langford, and though he knocked down Langford in the sixth round, many spectators felt Langford had won the bout, even though Sam was on the verge of going down several times only for Johnson to hold him up and prevent a knockdown. In truth, Johnson actually toyed with him, carrying on conversations with ringsiders all through the fight. After winning their first match, Johnson repeatedly refused rematches against Langford, who was considered by some to be the most dangerous challenger for Johnson's crown. Another explanation for this Johnson's refusal is that he knew that a fight between two black fighters would not generate nearly as much revenue as a fight between him and a white man.


title: Sam Langford

text: Battling Jim Johnson, the man Sam fought twelve times, beating Johnson nine times and never losing once, would be the one who got the title shot against Johnson that Langford had rightly believed his.


title: Sam Langford

text: Ironically, the color bar that had marred the world heavyweight title by blackballing boxers of color remained in force even under Jack Johnson. Once he was the World's Heavyweight Champion, Johnson did not fight a black opponent for the first five years of his reign. In addition to Langford, he denied matches to black heavyweights Joe Jeanette and to the young Harry Wills (who was Colored Heavyweight Champion during the last year of Johnson's reign as World Heavyweight Champion).


title: Sam Langford

text: Blacks were not given a shot at the title allegedly because Johnson felt that he could make more money fighting white boxers. In August 1913, as Johnson neared the end of his troubled reign as World Heavyweight Champion, there were rumours that he had agreed to fight Langford in Paris for the title, but it came to naught. Johnson claimed that Langford was unable to raise $30,000 (equivalent to approximately $ in today's funds) for his guarantee.


title: Sam Langford

text: Because black boxers with the exception of Johnson had been barred from fighting for the heavyweight championship because of racism, Johnson's refusal to fight African-Americans offended the African-American community, since the opportunity to fight top white boxers was rare. Jeanette criticized Johnson, saying, "Jack forgot about his old friends after he became champion and drew the color line against his own people."


title: Sam Langford

text: When Johnson finally did agree to take on a black opponent in late 1913, it was not Sam Langford, the current Colored Heavyweight Champion, that he gave the title shot to. Instead, Johnson chose Battling Jim Johnson, a mediocrity who, in 1910, had lost to Langford and had a draw and loss via knockout to Sam McVey, another former Colored Champion. Battling Jim fought fellow former Colored Champion Joe Jeanette four times between July 19, 1912, and January 21, 1912, and lost all four fights. The only fighter of note he did beat in that period was future Colored Champion Big Bill Tate, whom he knocked out in the second round of a scheduled 10-round bout. It was Tate's third pro fight.


title: Sam Langford

text: The fight, scheduled for 10 rounds, was held on December 19, 1913, in Paris. It was the first time in history that two blacks had fought for the World Heavyweight Championship. While the Johnson v. Johnson fight had been billed as a World Heavyweight title match, in many ways, it resembled an exhibition. A sportswriter from the "Indianapolis Star" reported that the fight crowd became unruly when it was apparent that neither boxer was putting up a fight." The champ barely engaged Battling Jim, and it turned out he had broken his arm during the third round, a distinct disadvantage that Battling Jim failed to capitalize on. The fight was a draw, and Jack Johnson kept his championship.


title: Sam Langford

text: Battling Jim's next fight, four months later, also was a title match. On March 27, 1914, in New York City, Sam Langford won a newspaper decision in a ten-rounder with Johnson. According to the "New York Times", the coloured champ "won by a wide margin" because Johnson "failed to show anything remotely resembling championship ability."


title: Sam Langford

text: Battling Jim fought Langford ten more times (including two more coloured title matches). Two of the fights were draws, including their last fight on September 22, 1918, which was also Battling Jim's last pro bout. He faced Joe Jeanette five more times and did not win a single contest. Two of their fights were draws and their last fight on August 20, 1918, Battling Jim's penultimate pro fight, was a no-decision.


title: Sam Langford

text: Of the other former and future Colored Heavyweight Champions that Battling Jim battled, he won only one fight, against Harry Wills, because he broke his wrist blocking a punch in a non-title match and Johnson won by a technical knockout. Battling Jim lost his other two fights with Wills and lost all of the five fights he had with ex-champ Sam McVey in the post-Jack Johnson title shot period.


title: Sam Langford

text: Battling Jim, who died during Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918, ended with a career record of 30 wins against 31 losses and six draws when his newspaper decisions are factored in. Looking at his dismal performance with the top black heavyweights of his era and his inability to best a one-armed Jack Johnson, Battling Jim Johnson cannot be considered a top contender of his era or a worthy opponent when Jack awarded him the sole title shot given to a black heavyweight from 1908 to 1937. Fittingly, he was scheduled to fight Langford before he died.


title: Sam Langford

text: In 1915, Jack Johnson lost his title to Jess Willard, the last in a long line of Great White Hopes. Because of the animosity he had generated combined with the virulent racism of the period, it would be 22 years before another African American, Joe Louis, was given a shot at the Heavyweight title.


title: Sam Langford

text: When it was in his power to give an African American a title shot, Jack Johnson refused to grant that privilege to Sam Langford, the fighter who after former champ Jim Jeffries (a man Langford said he would not face when Jeff was in the prime of his career), had to be considered the No. 1 contender in the heavyweight division. Johnson beat Jeffries but ducked Langford, likely as he feared losing his title. Many people consider the failure of Langford to secure a shot at the Heavyweight title one of the greatest injustices of American sports.


title: Sam Langford

text: Langford fought heavyweight Fred Fulton twice, losing the first by seventh-round technical knockout and the second by a four-round decision. Langford was 34 and 35 in each respective fight. Langford was much heavier, yet much shorter than Fulton.


title: Sam Langford

text: On June 5, 1922, Langford knocked out Tiger Flowers in only the second round. Langford was mostly blind and Flowers would soon afterwards win the World Middleweight Championship.


title: Sam Langford

text: In 1923, Sam Langford fought and won Boxing's last "fight to the finish" for the Mexican Heavyweight title.


title: Sam Langford

text: His last fight was in 1926, when his failing eyesight finally forced him to retire. Langford was 43 years old and completely blind.


title: Sam Langford

text: One story characterizing his career involved Langford in a bout where he had been ordered not to throw any knockout punches until after the 7th round. So walking out for the 8th round, after 21 minutes of patting away, Langford touched gloves with his opponent. "What's the matter, Sam, it ain't the last round!" said his mystified opponent. "Tis for you son," said Langford, who promptly knocked his opponent out. Another story involves Langford at a fight where just before it began he apologized to the audience and said he would have to make it a quick fight as he had a train to catch very soon. He then knocked out his opponent within the first round, apologized to the audience once again, and left, just in time to catch his train.


title: Sam Langford

text: Langford eventually went completely blind and ended up penniless, living in Harlem, New York City. In 1944, a newspaper column was published about his plight after which close to $10,000.00 was donated by fans to help Langford. The column was titled "A Dark Man Laughs" and it was written by Al Laney of the New York Herald Tribune. Eventually, funding was obtained to pay for successful eye surgery. Langford was enshrined in the Ring Boxing Hall of Fame and Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1955. He died a year later in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he had been living in a private nursing home.


title: Sam Langford

text: In 2018 Langford was ranked fifth in a selection of the greatest 15 athletes in Nova Scotia's history.


title: Sam Langford

text: All newspaper decisions are officially regarded as “no decision” bouts and are not counted in the win/loss/draw column.


title: ROH Women's World Championship

text: The ROH Women's World Championship is a women's professional wrestling world championship created and promoted by the American professional wrestling promotion Ring of Honor (ROH). The current champion is Athena, who is in her first reign.


title: ROH Women's World Championship

text: On January 1, 2020, the ROH Women of Honor World Championship was deactivated when the last champion Kelly Klein was stripped of the championship after ROH didn't renew her contract. A new tournament to crown the inaugural ROH Women's World Champion was set to start on April 24 of that year at "Quest for Gold", however, ROH postponed all future events due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: ROH Women's World Championship

text: On March 26, 2021, at ROH 19th Anniversary Show, ROH Board of Directors member Maria Kanellis-Bennett announced a tournament to crown a new ROH Women's World Champion. On July 11, at Best in the World, the tournament bracket and the championship itself were revealed.


title: ROH Women's World Championship

text: On September 12, 2021 Rok-C defeated Miranda Alize via pinfall at the ROH pay-per-view Death Before Dishonor XVIII, the culmination of a 15-woman singles elimination tournament to become the inaugural ROH Women's World Championship holder.


title: ROH Women's World Championship

text: On October 27, 2021, Ring of Honor announced that it would go on a hiatus after Final Battle in December, with a return tentatively scheduled for April 2022. All personnel would also be released from their contracts as part of plans to "reimagine" the company as a "fan-focused product". After Final Battle, several ROH wrestlers began to appear on other promotions and defended the titles. Rok-C defended the title against Impact Wrestling's Deonna Purrazzo during a television taping. However, Rok-C was defeated and lost the title to Purrazzo.


title: ROH Women's World Championship

text: In early 2022, during the hiatus, then-ROH Women's World Champion Purrazzo was booked for the Multiverse of Matches at WrestleCon, which happened to be when the Supercard of Honor XV event was later scheduled for April 1, 2022. Purrazzo was unable to attend the latter event. At Supercard of Honor XV, Mercedes Martinez defeated Willow Nightingale to become the Interim ROH Women's World Champion and earned the opportunity to face lineal champion Purrazzo in a unification match at a later date. On the May 4, 2022 episode of "Dynamite", Martinez defeated Purrazzo to become the undisputed ROH Women's World Champion.


title: ROH Women's World Championship

text: As of 28, 2022, there have been four reigns between four champions. Rok-C was the inaugural champion. Mercedes Martinez's reign is the longest reign at 220 days, while Deonna Purrazzo has the shortest reign at 115 days. Mercedes Martinez is the oldest champion at 41 years old, while Rok-C is the youngest champion at 19 years old.


title: ROH Women's World Championship

text: Athena is the current champion in her first reign. She defeated Mercedes Martinez on December 10, 2022 at Final Battle in Arlington, TX.


title: Coprinopsis atramentaria

text: Coprinopsis atramentaria, commonly known as the common ink cap or inky cap, is an edible (although poisonous, when combined with alcohol) mushroom found in Europe and North America. Previously known as "Coprinus atramentarius", it is the second best known ink cap and previous member of the genus "Coprinus" after "C. comatus". It is a widespread and common fungus found throughout the northern hemisphere. Clumps of mushrooms arise after rain from spring to autumn, commonly in urban and disturbed habitats such as vacant lots and lawns, as well as grassy areas. The grey-brown cap is initially bell-shaped before opening, after which it flattens and disintegrates. The flesh is thin and the taste mild. It can be eaten, but due to the presence of coprine within the mushroom, it is poisonous when consumed with alcohol, as it heightens the body's sensitivity to ethanol in a similar manner to the anti-alcoholism drug disulfiram. For this reason, the ink cap has an additional common name, tippler's bane.


title: Coprinopsis atramentaria

text: The common ink cap was first described by French naturalist Pierre Bulliard in 1786 as "Agaricus atramentarius" before being placed in the large genus "Coprinus" in 1838 by Elias Magnus Fries. The specific epithet is derived from the Latin word "atramentum" "ink".


title: Coprinopsis atramentaria

text: The genus was formerly considered to be a large one with well over 100 species. However, molecular analysis of DNA sequences showed that most species belonged in the family Psathyrellaceae, distinct from the type species that belonged to the Agaricaceae. It was given its current binomial name in 2001 as a result, as this and other species were moved to the new genus "Coprinopsis".


title: Coprinopsis atramentaria

text: The term "tippler's bane" is derived from its ability to create acute sensitivity to alcohol, similar to disulfiram (Antabuse). Other common names include common ink cap and inky cap. The black liquid that this mushroom releases after being picked was once used as ink.


title: Coprinopsis atramentaria

text: Measuring in diameter, the greyish or brownish-grey cap is initially bell-shaped, is furrowed, and later splits. The colour is more brownish in the centre of the cap, which later flattens before melting. The very crowded gills are free; they are whitish at first but rapidly turn black and easily deliquesce. The short stipe measures high by 1–2 cm in diameter, is grey in colour, and lacks a ring. In young groups, the stems may be obscured by the caps. The spore print is dark brown, and the almond-shaped spores measure 8–11 by 5–6 μm. The flesh is thin and pale grey in colour.


title: Coprinopsis atramentaria

text: "Coprinopsis atramentaria" occurs across the Northern Hemisphere, including Europe, North America, and Asia, but has also been found in Australia, where it has been recorded from such urban locations as the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney and around Lake Torrens, and also in South Africa. Recent finds of ink caps (photographs inserted on the right) in Dunedin on New Zealand's South Island have been identified as "C. atramentaria" and "Coprinellus micaceus", a related species, though the exact species is still to be confirmed. in the process known as deliquescence.


title: Coprinopsis atramentaria

text: Like many ink caps, it grows in tufts. It is commonly associated with buried wood and is found in grassland, meadows, disturbed ground, and open terrain from late spring to autumn. Fruiting bodies have been known to push their way up through asphalt and even tennis courts. It is also common in urban areas and appears in vacant lots, and tufts of fungi can be quite large and fruit several times a year. If dug up, the mycelium can often be found originating on buried dead wood.


title: Coprinopsis atramentaria

text: Consuming "Coprinopsis atramentaria" within a few hours of alcohol results in a "disulfiram syndrome". This interaction has only been known since the early part of the twentieth century. Symptoms include facial reddening, nausea, vomiting, malaise, agitation, palpitations, and tingling in limbs, and arise five to ten minutes after consumption of alcohol. If no more alcohol is consumed, they will generally subside over two or three hours. Symptom severity is proportional to the amount of alcohol consumed, becoming evident when blood alcohol concentration reaches 5 mg/dl, and prominent at concentrations of 50–100 mg/dl. Disulfiram has, however, been known to cause myocardial infarction (heart attack). The symptoms can occur if even a small amount of alcohol is consumed up to three days after eating the mushrooms, although they are milder as more time passes. Rarely, a cardiac arrhythmia, such as atrial fibrillation on top of supraventricular tachycardia, may develop. Because of these effects, in some cases, the mushroom has been used to cure alcoholism.


title: Coprinopsis atramentaria

text: The fungus contains a cyclopropylglutamine compound called coprine. Its active metabolite, 1-aminocyclopropanol, blocks the action of an enzyme, acetaldehyde dehydrogenase, which breaks down acetaldehyde in the body. Acetaldehyde is an intermediate metabolite of ethanol and is responsible for most symptoms of a hangover; its effect on autonomic β receptors is responsible for the vasomotor symptoms.


title: Coprinopsis atramentaria

text: Treatment involves reassuring the patient that the often frightening symptoms will pass, rehydration (fluid replacement) for fluid loss from vomiting, and monitoring for cardiac arrhythmias.


title: Coprinopsis atramentaria

text: Large and prolonged doses of coprine were found to have gonadotoxic effects on rats and dogs in testing.


title: Vellalar

text: Vellalar is a generic Tamil term used primarily to refer to various castes who traditionally pursued agriculture as a profession in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and northeastern parts of Sri Lanka. The Vellalar are members of several endogamous castes such as the numerically strong Arunattu Vellalar, Chozhia Vellalar, Karkarthar Vellalar, Kongu Vellalar, Thuluva Vellalar and Sri Lankan Vellalar.


title: Vellalar

text: The earliest occurrence of the term "Velaalar" (வேளாளர்) in Sangam literature is in Paripadal where it is used in the sense of a landowner. The term Velaalar (வேளாளர்) can be derived from the word Vel (வேள்), Vel being a title that was borne by the Velir chieftains of Sangam age among other things.


title: Vellalar

text: The word "Vellalar" (வெள்ளாளர் ) may come from the root "Vellam" for flood, which gave rise to various rights of land; and it is because of the acquisition of land rights that the Vellalar got their name.


title: Vellalar

text: The Vellalars have a long cultural history that goes back to over two millennia in southern India, where once they were the ruling and land-owning community. Though the Vellalar have generally been associated with the landed gentry and agriculture, they are not a homogenous group and various people from diverse backgrounds have identified themselves as a Vellalar in the course of history.


title: Vellalar

text: The Vellalar are spoken of as a group of people right from the Sangam period and are mentioned in many of the classical works of Sangam literature. The Tolkappiyam does not contain the term "Vellalar" but refers to a group of people called "Velaan Maanthar" who apart from practising agriculture had the right to carry weapons and wear garlands when they were involved in affairs of the state. The term "Vellalar" itself occurs in the sense of a landowner in Paripadal. The poem Pattinappaalai lists the six virtues of Vellalar as abstention from killing, abstention from stealing, propagation of religion, hospitality, justice and honesty.


title: Vellalar

text: In the years that immediately followed the Sangam age (from third to sixth century CE), the Tamil lands were ruled by a dynasty called Kalabhras. Scholar and historian M. Raghava Iyengar identifies the Kalabhras with the Kalappalar section of the Vellalar and equates king Achyuta Vikranta with Achyuta Kalappala the father of Meykandar. Buddhadatta, the Pali writer who stayed in the Chola kingdom and authored Buddhist manuals refers (in the "Nigamanagātha" of "Vinayavinicchaya", verse 3179) to his patron Achyuta Vikranta who was then (fifth century CE) ruling the Chola kingdom as "Kalamba-kula nandane" meaning "the favourite of the Kalamba family". In Pali language as in Tamil, the word Kalamba or Kalambam (in Tamil) means the Kadamba tree, the sacred totemic symbol that is associated with Tamil god Murugan.


title: Vellalar

text: The Velir were an ancient group of Tamil chieftains who claimed Yadava (Yadu) descent. The Ay Vels were one such Velir group that ruled the territory in and around Venad during the Sangam period. The word Venad is derived from "Vel" -nadu, that is the country ruled by "Vel" chieftains. We know of a queen of Vikramaditya Varaguna, an Ay king of 9th century who is referred to as Murugan Chenthi and as Aykula Mahadevi from inscriptions. Her father, an Ay chief called Chathan Murugan is described as a Vennir Vellala that is a Vellala by birth, in the Huzur plates of king Karunandakkan, the predecessor of Vikramaditya Varaguna.


title: Vellalar

text: The Irunkovel or Irukkuvel chieftains were another ancient Velir clan who ruled from their capital Kodumbalur (near Pudukottai district). They were related to the Cholas by marriage. In an inscription of Rajadhiraja Chola an Irukkuvel feudatory who was a high-ranking military officer ("Dandanayaka") of the king is described as a Velala.


title: Vellalar

text: The Irungovels are considered to be of the same stock as the Hoysalas as in one of the Sangam poems, the ancestor of the Irungovel chieftain is said to have ruled the fortified city of Tuvarai. This city is identified with the Hoysala capital Dwarasamudra by some historians. Also, the legend of the chief killing a tiger ("Pulikadimal") has a striking resemblance to the origin legend of the Hoysalas where ‘'sala'’ kills the tiger to save a sage. As per historian Arokiaswami, the Hoysala title ‘'Ballala'’ is only a variant of the Tamil word ‘'Vellala'’. The Hoysala king Veera Ballala III is even now locally known as the ‘'Vellala Maharaja'’ in Thiruvannamalai, the town that served as their capital in 14th century.


title: Vellalar

text: According to the anthropologist Kathleen Gough, "the Vellalars were the dominant secular aristocratic caste under the Chola kings, providing the courtiers, most of the army officers, the lower ranks of the kingdom's bureaucracy, and the upper layer of the peasantry".


title: Vellalar

text: Two identical Tamil inscriptions from Avani and Uttanur in Mulbagal Taluk dated in the 3rd year of Kulottunga I (about 1072-1073 CE) describe how the great army of the right hand class ("perumpadai valangai mahasenai") having arrived with great weapons of war from the 78-nadus of Chola-mandalam and the 48000-bhumi of Jayangonda-cholamandalam (the northern districts of Tamil Nadu that is Tondaimandalam) conquered and colonized southern Karnataka (Kolar district) by the grace of Rajendrachola (Kulottunga I).


title: Vellalar

text: Historian Burton Stein who has done a detailed analysis of this inscription equates the "Valangai" military forces and the "Velaikkara" troops of the Cholas with the Vellalas and notes that the contents of the above inscription confirm this identification. The "Velaikkara" troops were special units of armed forces drawn from the right-hand castes that were close to the king. The units were generally named after the king like "Rajaraja-terinda-valangai-velaikkarar", that is "the known (terinda) forces of king Rajaraja Chola I". The Chola inscriptions state that the Velaikkara forces pledged under oath to commit suicide in case they failed to defend their king or in the event of his death. The Chalukya kings were also known by the title "Velpularasar", that is kings of "Vel" country ("pulam" means region or country in Tamil) and as "Velkulattarasar", that is kings of the "Vel" clan ("kulam"), in epigraphs and in the old Tamil lexicon Divakaram.


title: Vellalar

text: The Vellalar also contributed to the Bhakti movement in south India from the seventh century CE onwards and helped revive Hinduism. Many of the Nayanmars, the Shaiva saints, were Vellalar. In the 12th century CE, saint Sekkilan Mahadevadigal Ramadeva sang the glories of these Nayanmars in his magnum opus, the Periyapuranam. Sekkizhar was born in a Vellala family in Kundrathur in Thondaimandalam and had the title Uttama Chola Pallavaraiyan. Sekkilan Mahadevadigal Ramadeva was an elder contemporary of Kulothunga Chola II, the king who is said to have persecuted the Brahmin philosopher Ramanuja for his Vaishnavite preachings by forcing him to sign a document stating Shiva is the greatest god.


title: Vellalar

text: The Vellalars of Sri Lanka have been chronicled in the "Yalpana Vaipava Malai" and other historical texts of the Jaffna kingdom. They form half of the Sri Lankan Tamil population and are the major husbandmen, involved in tillage and cattle cultivation. Local Sri Lankan literature, such as the "Kailiyai Malai", an account on Kalinga Magha, narrates the migration of Vellala Nattar chiefs from the Coromandel Coast to Sri Lanka.


title: Vellalar

text: Their dominance rose under Dutch rule and they formed one of the colonial political elites of the island.


title: Vellalar

text: At present, most of the Tamil Jains are from the Vellalar social group. Also, the Saiva Velaalar sect are originally believed to have been Jainas before they embraced Hinduism. The Tamil Jains refer to the Saiva Velaalar as "nīr-pūci-nayinārs" or "nīr-pūci-vellalars" meaning the vellalars who left Jainism by smearing the sacred ash or "(tiru)-nīru". While some of the Jains assign this conversion to the period of the Bhakti movement in Tamil nadu others link it to a conflict with a ruler of the Vijayanagar empire in the 15th century. The villages and areas settled by the Saiva Velaalar even now have a small number of Jaina families and inscriptional evidence indicate that these were earlier Jaina settlements as is evident by the existence of old Jaina temples.


title: Vellalar

text: Even though at present, the term Vellalar has come to mean a farmer or agricultural people, a number of non-cultivating landholding castes like Kaarukaatha Velaalar and the Kondaikatti Velaalar who served ruling dynasties in various capacities also identify themselves as Vellalar. Likewise, the Kottai Pillaimar who were traditionally land-holders and lived inside forts, neither lease land for agriculture nor do they till their own fields. They also do not supervise cultivation directly due to the stigma attached to farming and manual labor. Similarly, the Vellala Chettis, a branch of the Chozhia Vellalars were traders and merchants. The Adi-saiva vellalar sect is a strictly vegetarian Saivite group that traditionally served as priests.


title: Vellalar

text: The Vellalar were considered to be of high status and enjoyed a high rank during the Chola period. They helped promote and stabilize Shaivism during the Chola era and many of the cult's leaders were drawn from the ranks of the Vellalar. They were a prosperous community of farmers and landowners who had provided economic support to Shiva temples in the Tamil country. In the Tamil region, Vellalar like Mudaliyar and Pillai along with certain other non-brahmin groups enjoyed a status equal to that of the Brahmins. The Vellalar also had more authority, power and status than the Brahmins in some social and ritual contexts.


title: Vellalar

text: The Smarta Brahmins have always competed with the Tamil Shaivites for religious influence in the temples in the Kaveri delta region. The Smarta adopted the worship of Hindu deities and combined their Sanskritic background with Tamil Saiva and Vaishnava devotionalism and eventually identified themselves as Shaivites and started worshipping in Shiva temples.


title: Vellalar

text: Despite being a relatively lowly group, they were dominant communities in Tamil agrarian societies for 600 years until the decline of the Chola empire in the 13th century, with their chieftains able to practise state-level political authority after winning the support and legitimisation of Brahmins and other higher-ranked communities with grants of land and honours.


title: Vellalar

text: During the British colonial period, the Vellalars who were land owners and tillers of the soil and held offices pertaining to land, were ranked as Sat-Sudra in the 1901 census; with the Government of Madras recognising that the 4-fold division (four varnas) did not describe the South Indian, or Dravidian, society adequately. Following the arrival of Dutch missionaries in the early 18th century, some Vellalar converted to Christianity.


title: Alvars

text: The Alvars () were the Tamil poet-saints of South India who espoused "bhakti" (devotion) to the Hindu preserver deity Vishnu, in their songs of longing, ecstasy, and service. They are venerated in Vaishnavism, which regards Vishnu as the Ultimate Reality.


title: Alvars

text: Many modern academics place the lifetime of the Alvars between the 5th century and 10th century CE. Traditionally, the Alvars are considered to have lived between and . Orthodoxy posits the number of Alvars as ten, though there are other references that include Andal and Madhurakavi Alvar, making the number 12. Andal is the only female Alvar among the 12. Together with the contemporary 63 Shaivite Nayanars, they are among the most important saints from Tamil Nadu.


title: Alvars

text: The devotional outpourings of the Alvars, composed during the early medieval period of Tamil history, were the catalysts behind the Bhakti Movement through their hymns of worship to Vishnu and his avatars. They praised the Divya Desams, the 108 divine realms of deities affiliated to Vaishnavism. The poetry of the Alvars echoes "bhakti" to God through love, and in the ecstasy of such devotions they sang hundreds of songs which embodied both depth of feeling and the felicity of expressions. The collection of their hymns is known as the "Naalayira Divya Prabandham". The "bhakti" literature that sprang from Alvars has contributed to the establishment and sustenance of a culture that deviated from the Vedic religion and rooted itself in devotion as the only path for salvation. In addition, they contributed to Tamil devotional verses independent of a knowledge of Sanskrit. As a part of the legacy of the Alvars, five Vaishnavite philosophical traditions ("sampradayas") developed over a period of time.


title: Alvars

text: The word "Alvar" has traditionally been etymologized as from Tamil. "Al" (ஆழ்), 'to immerse oneself' as 'one who dives deep into the ocean of the countless attributes of god'.


title: Alvars

text: The Indologist Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan has established from epigraphy and textual evidence that the traditional term Āḻvār (ஆழ்வார்) for Vaiṣṇavaite Tamil poet saints has historically been a corruption of the original Āḷvār (ஆள்வார்).


title: Alvars

text: Palaniappan shows that what was originally Āḷvār (ஆள்வார்) meaning 'One who rules', or '(Spiritual) Master' got changed through hypercorrection and folk etymology to Āḻvār (ஆழ்வார்) meaning 'One who is immersed'. Palaniappan cites inscriptional evidence and even literary evidence from Vaishnavaite tradition itself for a gradual sound change from Āḷvār (ஆள்வார்) to Āḻvār (ஆழ்வார்) over a period of two centuries from the 9th to the 11th century involving references to religious leaders in Vaiṣṇavism, Śaivism and even Jainism and to political personalities. He states: "āḻvār is but a corrupt form of āḷvār which has been used interchangeably with nāyanār in secular and religious contexts in the Tamil land" and "... Notwithstanding the Vaiṣṇava claim of unbroken teacher-student tradition, the fact that Nāthamuni has used the form āļvār but Piļļān, a disciple and younger cousin of Rāmānuja, ended up using the form āḻvār suggests that there has been an error in transmission somewhere along the teacher-student chain between the two teachers. This error was obviously due to the influence of the sound variation that has occurred in the Srirangam area and elsewhere".


title: Alvars

text: The original word ஆள்வார் compares with the epithet 'Āṇḍãḷ' (ஆண்டாள்) for the female canonized Vaishnava saint Gōdai (கோதை) and they share the same verb Tamil. āḷ (ஆள், to rule), the former being the honorific non-past (or present-future) form and the latter the feminine past form of that same verb.


title: Alvars

text: Palaniappan's findings on 'Āḻvār' have been accepted by scholars like Prof. Alexander Dubyanskiy. In his article on Āṇṭāḷ, Dubyanskiy says, "Āṇṭāḷ was among the twelve Āḻvārs, the poet-saints, adepts of Viṣṇu, canonized by the tradition, which accepted the interpretation of meaning of the word āḻvār as "submerged, plunged [in love for god]", from the verbal root āḻ, "to plunge, to be in the deep". But recently it was convincingly shown by S. Palaniappan (2004) that initially the term in question was represented by the word āḷvār (from the verbal root āḷ "to rule"), which reads as "those who rule, lords", and was applied in the texts, both Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava, to Śiva and Viṣṇu accordingly (pp. 66–70). In the course of time the term underwent the process of sound variation, took the form āḻvār and acquired the folk etymology which was accepted and fixed by the tradition. It is worth noting here that this interpretation agrees well with the meaning of the poetess' nickname Āṇṭāḷ, which means "she who rules".


title: Alvars

text: The Alvars are considered the twelve supreme devotees of Vishnu in Sri Vaishnavism, who were instrumental in popularising Vaishnavism in the Tamil-speaking regions. The Alvars were influential in promoting the Bhagavata cult and the two Hindu epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The religious works of these saints in Tamil, and their hymns, are compiled as the "Naalayira Divya Prabandham," containing 4000 verses, and the 108 temples revered in their hymns are classified as "Divya Desams". The verses of the various "Alvars" were compiled by Nathamuni (824–924 CE), a 10th-century Vaishnavite theologian, who called it the "Dravida Veda or Tamil Veda". The songs of the "Prabandam" are regularly sung in various Vishnu temples of South India, daily, and also during festivals.


title: Alvars

text: The legendary birth of the Alvars is traced to an event in the mid-Dvapara Yuga, due to a heated debate between Vishvakarma (the divine architect of the gods) and Agastya (a sage) about the superiority of the Sanskrit or the Tamil language. In the midst of this debate, Agastya gets furious, which makes him curse the former that at some point of time, one of his pieces of architecture would be destroyed (a contemporary to Gandhari's curse to Dvaraka) and would never be recovered. (Some sources say Agastya curses Vishvakarma for Sanskrit to lose its fame, as the curse became true in the present Kali Yuga). Enraged, Vishvakarma curses Agastya in turn that his most favourite language (Tamil) would be tarnished in the future. Agastya, feeling guilty regarding his actions, is offered a divine vision of Vishnu, who promises him that Tamil would regain its prestige, and that a Tamil Veda would emerge.


title: Alvars

text: After the Kurukshetra war, the decline of Dvaraka, and Krishna's death at the hands of the hunter Jara, Krishna, as Vishnu resumes his residence at his abode in Vaikuntha, sowing the seeds of the Kali Yuga. He becomes worried about the people of the Kali Yuga. His attributes, such as the Sudarshana Chakra and the Panchajanya, enquire the reason for his anxiety, and he confides his fears to them. The Sudarshana Chakra suggests that he slice the head of all the people who refuse dharma, to which Vishnu smiles and refuses. Vishnu decides that his "amshas" (parts of his identity) would be incarnated as humans on earth, and teach them the path of righteousness and devotion to him. These amshas happily accepted their birth as the twelve Alvars, aligning with the boon given to Agastya, and also became a role model for the human beings who came later in the Kali Yuga.


title: Alvars

text: Fulfilling the promise that Vishnu made to Agastya, Nammalvar (Regarded to be an incarnation of Vishvaksena) is credited for converting the Rigveda to 100 poems called the "Tiruviruttam," the Yajurveda as "Thiruvarshiyam," and the Sama Veda as "Tiruvaymoli" in 1000 verses (poems).


title: Alvars

text: The saints had different origins and belonged to different varnas. As per tradition, the first three Alvars, Poigai Alvar, Bhuthath Alvar, Peyalvar and Andal were born miraculously i.e., they were not given birth. Thirumalisai Alvar was the son of a sage Bhargava; Thondaradipodi Alvar, Mathurakavi Alvar, Perialvar were Brahmin; Kulasekhara was a Kshatriya, Nammalvar was from a cultivator family, Thirupanalvar from "Tamil Panar" community and Thirumangai Alvar from "kalvar" community. Some Vaishnavities consider only the main 10 Alvars (except Andal and Madhurakavi Alvar) while other include these two in the list too. Srirangam is the only Divya Desam that was glorified commonly by the 12 Alvars.


title: Alvars

text: Temple records and inscriptions give a detailed account of the Alvars and their works. According to these texts, the saints were considered incarnations of some form of Vishnu. Few of them are:


title: Alvars

text: According to traditional account by Manavala Mamunigal, the first three "Alvars" namely Poigai Alvar, Bhoothath Alvar and Pey Alvar belong to "Dvapara Yuga" (even before the birth of Krishna, i.e., before 4200 BCE). It is widely accepted by tradition and historians that the trio are the earliest among the twelve Alvars. Along with the three Saiva Nayanmars, they influenced the ruling Pallava kings, creating a Bhakti movement that resulted in changing the religious geography from Buddhism and Jainism to these two sects of Hinduism in the region.


title: Alvars

text: After the era of Alvars, few of the Divya Prabandham were lost. In order to retrieve them, Vishnu is believed to have sent Nathamuni, who had a vision of Nammalvar through the idol that Nammalvar advised Madhurakavi Alvar to obtain. The idol can be found today in the Alvarthirunagari Temple.


title: Alvars

text: Some modern scholars suggest that they lived during 5th – 9th century CE, "on the basis of a few historical evidences", although no "clear" evidence exists to place them between the 5th to the 9th century CE. The "Encyclopædia Britannica" says that Alvars lived between 7th and 10th centuries CE. Professor of Religion and Asian Studies, James G. Lochtefeld of Carthage College, notes in his "The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism", the first three Alvars Poigai, Bhoothath and Pey belonged to the 7th century; while Nammalvar and Madhurakavi belonged to the 10th century; while the rest of them lived in the 9th century.


title: Alvars

text: Traditionally the Alvars are considered to have lived between 4200 BCE and 2700 BCE, while some texts account for range between 4200 BCE and early 10th century. Traditional dates take them to the age of Shuka from the period of the "Bhagavata Purana", the first four (Poigai Alvar, Bhoothathalvar, Peyalvar and Thirumalisai Alvar) are from "Dvapara Yuga", while Nammalwar, Madhurakavi Alvar and others belong to "Kali Yuga".


title: Alvars

text: The following table shows the place, century and star of birth of each Alvar. Scholarly dating, except that of Kulasekhara Alvar, is based on summary of views of modern scholars by Dr. N Subba Reddiar, although even these dates lack historical evidence. Much effort has gone into dating Kulasekhara Alvar recently. The Alvar is now tentatively identified as Sthanu Ravi Kulasekhara (reigned c. 844/45–870/71 CE), the first known ruler of the medieval Cheras kings of Kerala.


title: Daniella Kertesz

text: Daniella Kertesz (; born ) is an Israeli actress. She played Segen in the film "World War Z", and starred as Onie in the psychological thriller film "AfterDeath". She played a starring role as Racheli Warburg in Season 3 of the international Israeli hit show "Shtisel".


title: Daniella Kertesz

text: Kertesz was born in Ramat HaSharon, Israel, to a family of Jewish background. Her father Gabriel Kertesz is an architect. Her mother Dorothy is an English teacher. Kertesz is the youngest child in her family.


title: Daniella Kertesz

text: Kertesz spent her childhood growing up in the Yemin Moshe neighbourhood in Jerusalem, Israel. She moved with her family to Tel Aviv when she was 15 years old.


title: Daniella Kertesz

text: Although her father served in an anti-aircraft unit in the Israel Defense Forces, and her brother is a helicopter pilot, Kertesz herself did not serve in the Israeli military due to her being a conscientious objector. She emigrated from Israel when she was 18, and resided in the United States.


title: Daniella Kertesz

text: Kertesz originally was an avid dancer, studying dance from age three and attending the Rubin Academy of Music and Dance. But her last summer living in Jerusalem, before she was to enter ninth grade, while visiting her brother in Tel Aviv she met a casting director in the stairwell of his building, and the casting director offered her an audition for a new television series. She was given the part, and her first appearance was in the Israeli television series "Reds" (), created by brothers Uri Barbash and Benny Barbash, at the age of 14. She was the main character Noa Sperling, a 15-year-old soccer player who creates a girls-only team after being asked to leave the boys' team. The show aired for two seasons.


title: Daniella Kertesz

text: She then had small roles in two series in 2007, "Screenz" and "Custody" ("Mishmoret"), created by Irit Linur, in which she played Tamar, the young daughter of a twice-divorced father.


title: Daniella Kertesz

text: Kertesz came to greater prominence playing in 13 episodes of the 2008 Israeli Channel 10 series ("Ha-Emet Ha’Eroma") as missing 17-year-old Hagar Ben David. That year she also played Avia, an innocent girl, in Israel Channel 10’s "Loving Anna" ( "Le'ehov et anna").


title: Daniella Kertesz

text: Kertesz played "Segen" (meaning "first lieutenant" in Hebrew), a junior officer in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) assigned to protect Brad Pitt's character's life, in the 2013 film "World War Z". She auditioned for the part in Tel Aviv, and then in Malta with director Marc Forster and the producers.


title: Daniella Kertesz

text: She also played Onie in the psychological thriller "AfterDeath", released in 2015, and was slated to appear in "World War Z 2", but that project was ultimately cancelled in 2019.


title: Daniella Kertesz

text: In 2020, Kertesz joined the cast of Israeli hit show "Shtisel", portraying an art dealer for her family trust who has a bipolar diagnosis.


title: Baarle-Hertog

text: Parts of are surrounded by the Dutch province of North Brabant, but it is part of the Belgian province of Antwerp. , it has a population of 2,935. The total area is .


title: Baarle-Hertog

text: The border's complexity results from a number of medieval treaties, agreements, land-swaps and sales between the Lords of and the Dukes of Brabant. Generally speaking, predominantly agricultural or built environments became constituents of Brabant and other parts devolved to . These distributions were ratified and clarified as a part of the border settlements agreed under the Treaty of Maastricht in 1843. The tight integration of the European Union and in particular the Schengen Agreement have made many of the practicalities of the situation substantially simpler since the 1990s.


title: Baarle-Hertog

text: In total, it consists of 24 separate parcels of land. The largest single section of the municipality of , namely Zondereigen (named after its main hamlet) is located within mainland Belgium right on the contiguous border (north of the town of ). In addition to this, there are twenty Belgian exclaves fully within the Netherlands and three other sections straddling the contiguous Dutch-Belgian border. There are also seven Dutch enclaves within the Belgian exclaves (i.e., counter-exclaves) that are part of the territory of the Netherlands. Six of these Dutch enclaves are located within the largest Belgian exclave, and a seventh in the second-largest Belgian exclave. An eighth Dutch exclave is located near .


title: Baarle-Hertog

text: During the First World War, this situation meant that the Imperial German Army could not occupy these parts of Belgium without crossing the Netherlands, which the Dutch government did not allow. Thus, these pieces of Belgium became a place where refugees could safely stay. A clandestine radio transmitter was smuggled in and from there worked with the Belgian resistance. The Dutch government fenced off these areas and controlled access in or out of them, building a church and school for the Belgian people who were effectively stranded within the enclaves. This situation did not exist in the Second World War, as both countries were occupied by Nazi Germany.


title: Baarle-Hertog

text: Some houses in the town of / are divided between the two countries. At one time, according to Dutch laws, restaurants had to close earlier. For some restaurants on the border, this simply meant that the customers had to move to a table on the Belgian side. In 2020, restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic differed between the two countries; for instance, preventing a Belgian citizen living metres away from an open Dutch bar from patronising it.


title: Baarle-Hertog

text: Many fireworks shops are found in , as Belgian laws controlling the sale of fireworks are more lenient than those of the Netherlands. Many Dutch tourists come to to buy fireworks to celebrate the New Year.


title: Baarle-Hertog

text: Two villages in the municipality, Zondereigen and Ginhoven, are located in the main territory of Belgium.


title: Montserrat national football team

text: The Montserrat national football team represents the small Caribbean island of Montserrat in the CONCACAF football region. Football is the second most popular sport in Montserrat, after cricket. The team plays at the Blakes Estate Stadium, near the village of Look Out. The Montserrat football team was formed in 1973, and has entered the World Cup qualifiers since the 2002 edition, being eliminated in the first round on each occasion.


title: Montserrat national football team

text: Due to the heavy volcanic activity on the island since 1995, the team has only played a handful of matches, and most of those have been away from home. Their only victories were against neighboring Anguilla in the qualifying tournament of the 1995 Caribbean Cup, winning 3–2 at home and 1–0 away. Apart from one draw against Anguilla, all their other matches before 2018 have been lost. Since then, however, Montserrat has proven more competitive.


title: Montserrat national football team

text: On June 30, 2002, the day of the 2002 World Cup Final, Montserrat, then the lowest ranked team in the world, played against the second lowest team, Bhutan, in a friendly match known as "The Other Final", but lost 4–0.


title: Montserrat national football team

text: The Montserrat national team is one of the newest in international football, having played its first senior match on 10 May 1991 during the 1991 Caribbean Cup tournament. The team suffered a 0–3 defeat to Saint Lucia at the Vieux Fort National Stadium in Saint Lucia. The team played their next match at the same venue, securing a 1–1 draw with Anguilla.


title: Montserrat national football team

text: Montserrat again entered the Caribbean Cup the following year but were once more knocked out in the group stage, with heavy defeats by Saint Kitts and Nevis and Antigua and Barbuda. They were drawn against the same two teams for the 1994 Caribbean Cup, but again left the tournament at the group stage, conceding 17 goals in just two matches. In 1994, the Montserrat Football Association (MFA) was formed. Like all other Caribbean football teams, the MFA became a member of CONCACAF.


title: Montserrat national football team

text: On 26 March 1995, Montserrat played their first ever home international match. They defeated Anguilla 3–2 in Plymouth, achieving their first win. The team beat Anguilla again in the next fixture to ensure progress to the Second Qualifying Round of the 1995 Caribbean Cup. The 1–0 win in the second leg would be their only clean sheet in international football and their most recent victory for the next seventeen years. The side exited the competition in the next stage, losing 0–20 on aggregate over two legs against Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.


title: Montserrat national football team

text: Soon afterwards, the Soufrière Hills volcano became active and the eruptions destroyed Plymouth, the capital of Montserrat, severely disrupting all football on the island. Despite the lack of football action, the MFA became a full FIFA member in 1996. However, it was a further three years before the Montserrat team played another international fixture. This was mostly because many of the island's footballers had emigrated away from the area, many of them to England.


title: Montserrat national football team

text: After a four-year hiatus, the team entered the 1999 Caribbean Nations Cup. They were knocked out in the preliminary round of the tournament, losing 1–6 over two legs to the British Virgin Islands. Due to the volcanic activity, Montserrat had been unable to enter the FIFA World Cup 1998 tournament, so their entry to the 2002 World Cup was their first; but it was not a success as they were defeated 0–3 away by the Dominican Republic. In the second leg, played in Trinidad and Tobago, the team lost 1–3 loss in front of only 50 spectators. In 2001, the MFA visited The Football Association to raise money for a new stadium. The Blakes Estate Stadium was opened near the village of Look Out. The team's next match was on 30 June 2002, the day of the World Cup Final, when Montserrat played Bhutan in a game known as "The Other Final". The friendly match between the two lowest-ranked teams in the world ended with a 4–0 win for Bhutan in front of 15,000 fans in Thimphu.


title: Montserrat national football team

text: Montserrat entered the World Cup qualifiers once more for the 2006 competition, but again lost in the first qualifying round, this time losing 0–20 on aggregate to Bermuda. In the first leg at the Bermuda National Stadium they lost 0–13, their heaviest-ever defeat. The second leg, a 0–7 loss, was the first international match played at the team's new ground and was watched by 250 supporters. Montserrat then competed in the 2005 Caribbean Cup, but once more failed to progress past the preliminary round. In 2008, they were defeated 1–7 by Suriname in the first qualifying round of the 2010 World Cup. The match was played in Macoya because neither team's stadiums met FIFA standards.


title: Montserrat national football team

text: A friendly against a Network Rail XI was played at Charlton Athletic's Valley stadium in London on May 19, 2012, ending in a 4–4 draw.


title: Montserrat national football team

text: Montserrat achieved their first victory since 1995 and their first ever victory since joining FIFA, beating the British Virgin Islands 7–0 in a 2012 Caribbean Championship qualifying match, held in Martinique.


title: Montserrat national football team

text: Montserrat's fortunes changed dramatically in 2018 with the arrival of Willie Donachie and launch of the CONCACAF Nations League. The side won three of their four qualifying games, but missed out on qualification for the 2019 CONCACAF Gold Cup on goal difference after Nicaragua scored with 25 minutes to go against Barbados. The team went on to take second place in their group in the inaugural season with two wins, draws, and losses each, thus keeping their place in the second tier.


title: Montserrat national football team

text: The poor results of the team has seen them often frequenting the lower end of the FIFA World Rankings. The loss to Bhutan in "The Other Final" saw them fall to #203 in the rankings, becoming worst-ranked side in the world. After the addition of another two teams to FIFA, Montserrat achieved a new low of #205 between July and October 2004. In July 2006, they achieved a record high rank of #196 but they fell back down to #198 the following month. Success in the qualifying tournament for the CONCACAF Nations League and the first edition of the league proper saw them rise to #184.


title: Montserrat national football team

text: The team have also languished at the lower reaches of the unofficial World Football Elo Ratings, which ranks teams directly based on their match results.


title: Montserrat national football team

text: Since the team's first match in 1991, Montserrat have usually worn a first-choice kit of green, either plain green or green and white hoops. Currently, the away kit is red jersey, shorts and socks.


title: Montserrat national football team

text: The following is a list of match results in the last 12 months, as well as any future matches that have been scheduled.


title: Montserrat national football team

text: The following players were called up to the squad for the 2022–23 CONCACAF Nations League B matches against Guyana on 5 June 2022, Haiti on 7 June 2022 and Guyana on 12 and 14 June 2022.


title: Time-based one-time password

text: Time-based one-time password (TOTP) is a computer algorithm that generates a one-time password (OTP) that uses the current time as a source of uniqueness. As an extension of the HMAC-based one-time password algorithm (HOTP), it has been adopted as Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard .


title: Time-based one-time password

text: TOTP is the cornerstone of Initiative for Open Authentication (OATH), and is used in a number of two-factor authentication (2FA) systems.


title: Time-based one-time password

text: Through the collaboration of several OATH members, a TOTP draft was developed in order to create an industry-backed standard. It complements the event-based one-time standard HOTP, and it offers end user organizations and enterprises more choice in selecting technologies that best fit their application requirements and security guidelines. In 2008, OATH submitted a draft version of the specification to the IETF. This version incorporates all the feedback and commentary that the authors received from the technical community based on the prior versions submitted to the IETF. In May 2011, TOTP officially became RFC 6238.


title: Time-based one-time password

text: To establish TOTP authentication, the authenticatee and authenticator must pre-establish both the HOTP parameters and the following TOTP parameters:


title: Time-based one-time password

text: Both the authenticator and the authenticatee compute the TOTP value, then the authenticator checks whether the TOTP value supplied by the authenticatee matches the locally generated TOTP value. Some authenticators allow values that should have been generated before or after the current time in order to account for slight clock skews, network latency and user delays.


title: Time-based one-time password

text: TOTP uses the HOTP algorithm, replacing the counter with a non-decreasing value based on the current time:


title: Time-based one-time password

text: Unix time is not strictly increasing. When a leap second is inserted into UTC, Unix time repeats one second. But a single leap second does not cause the integer part of Unix time to decrease, and "C" is non-decreasing as well so long as "T" is a multiple of one second.


title: Time-based one-time password

text: Unlike passwords, TOTP codes are single-use, so a compromised credential is only valid for a limited time. However, users must enter TOTP codes into an authentication page, which creates the potential for phishing attacks. Due to the short window in which TOTP codes are valid, attackers must proxy the credentials in real time.


title: Time-based one-time password

text: TOTP credentials are also based on a shared secret known to both the client and the server, creating multiple locations from which a secret can be stolen. An attacker with access to this shared secret could generate new, valid TOTP codes at will. This can be a particular problem if the attacker breaches a large authentication database.


title: Nazi gold train

text: The Nazi gold train or Wałbrzych gold train is an urban legend about a train laden with gold and treasure that was hidden by the Nazis in southwest Poland during the last days of World War II.


title: Nazi gold train

text: The apocryphal tale claims the train full of valuables, including artwork, was concealed in a sealed-up rail tunnel or mine in the Central Sudetes by retreating Nazis. Despite numerous searches since 1945, including by the Polish Army during the Cold War, no evidence of the train, its tracks or treasure have ever been found. Historians believe the train never existed.


title: Nazi gold train

text: Between 2015 and 2018, the train received renewed global media interest when two Polish men claimed to have discovered it using ground-penetrating radar. The search culminated in a dig involving the Polish military, state officials, and privately-funded individuals. However, excavations were halted when the detected anomaly was found to be natural geology. Interest in the train led a group of enthusiasts to construct a full-size replica of a Nazi armored train with the hope of it becoming a tourist attraction.


title: Nazi gold train

text: According to the apocryphal story, in the last months of World War II, a Nazi armoured train laden with gold and other treasures left Breslau (now Wrocław), arrived at the station Freiburg in Schlesien (Świebodzice), but did not reach the next station in Waldenburg in Schlesien (Wałbrzych). The train is suspected to have entered an abandoned coal mine or tunnel system under Książ Castle, which is part of the unfinished, top secret Nazi construction project Project Riese in the Owl Mountains. Onboard the train was supposed to be more than of gold, jewels, weapons, and artistic masterpieces.


title: Nazi gold train

text: According to historians, it has never been proven that the train ever existed. During the Polish People's Republic (1947–1989), the Polish Armed Forces carried out numerous searches for the train but found nothing.


title: Nazi gold train

text: In late August 2015, news stories began circulating about two unidentified men who had obtained a death-bed confession about a buried gold train. The two were later identified as Piotr Koper of Poland and Andreas Richter of Germany, co-owners of the mine exploration company XYZ S.C. Using lawyers as an intermediary, the two men opened secret negotiations with the Polish government for a "finders' fee" of 10% of the value of the train in return for information leading to its location. They would reveal the exact location once the documents were signed.


title: Nazi gold train

text: Koper and Richter would later claim information about their discovery was leaked by the government, resulting in a worldwide media circus.


title: Nazi gold train

text: On 28 August, Polish Deputy Culture Minister Piotr Żuchowski announced that ground-penetrating radar images taken by Koper and Richter confirmed with 99% probability that a train of 100 metres in length had been found. However, on August 31, Tomasz Smolarz, Governor of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship, told reporters that "There is no more proof for this alleged discovery than for other claims made over the years," saying, "It's impossible to claim that such a find actually exists at the location indicated based on the documents that have been submitted."


title: Nazi gold train

text: On 4 September, Koper and Richter went public for the first time, breaking their previous anonymity. They announced that the precise location of the train had been given to Polish authorities. They also released images they had taken with a KS-700 Ground Penetrating Radar system that appeared to show a 50-metre-deep man-made shaft with something in it. Koper and Richter believed the train was buried next to a stretch of track on Polish State Railways' Wrocław–Wałbrzych line at kilometre 65.


title: Nazi gold train

text: Polish authorities sectioned off woodland in the area of kilometer 65, as well as deploying police and other guards in order to prevent access to the numerous treasure hunters who had arrived armed with detection equipment. In late September, the Polish military, acting at the request of the regional governor, began to clear the surface of trees and search for booby traps and mines. The military confirmed on October 4 that no explosives or other dangers existed, down to a metre's depth.


title: Nazi gold train

text: In mid-November, two different teams were cleared by city authorities in Wałbrzych to make a non-invasive assessment of the site. The first team was Koper and Richter. The second team consisted of mining specialists from the Kraków Mining Academy, headed by Janusz Madej. On 15 December, the second team announced that a survey had found no evidence of a train, though possible evidence of a collapsed tunnel. Koper and Richter stood by their claim of a train to which Madej responded: "It's human to make a mistake, but it's foolish to stand by it."


title: Nazi gold train

text: In May 2016, despite outside expert opinion that no train existed, Koper and Richter secured permission to begin digging at the site from the owners of the property, Polish State Railways. The excavation commenced on 15 August 2016 with a team of 64 people, including engineers, geologists, chemists, archaeologists and a specialist in military demolitions. The excavation reportedly cost 116,000 euros or $131,000 and was financed by private sponsors, and with the help of volunteers.


title: Nazi gold train

text: The dig was halted after seven days when no tracks, tunnel or train were found. The radar images thought to have been the train were revealed to be natural ice formations. An official from the town admitted tourism was up 44% for the year and said "the publicity the town has gotten in the global media is worth roughly around $200 million. Our annual budget for promotion is $380,000, so think about that. Whether the explorers find anything or not, that the gold train has already arrived." The town mayor was considering naming a roundabout after Koper and Richter.


title: Nazi gold train

text: At the beginning of December 2016, Koper and Richter declared their intention to create a foundation for the purpose of raising money to drill down to 20 meters in 2017. During the third search in June 2017, with the assistance of a geophysical company from Warsaw, the excavation team encountered seven cavities, which were suspected to be a railway tunnel. The find made deep drilling necessary, which, according to the contractors, would cost at least 100,000 zlotys (about 23,000 euros) for the permits and the actual excavation. The dig was scheduled for the spring or summer of 2018, when sponsors would be found.


title: Nazi gold train

text: In August 2018, Richter left the excavation team. Koper announced he would continue the search. While he never found Nazi gold, in January 2019, Koper discovered a series of large and "priceless" 16th-century wall paintings hidden behind a plaster wall while doing renovation work in an old palace in the village of Struga near Wrocław.


title: English Renaissance theatre

text: English Renaissance theatre, also known as Renaissance English theatre and Elizabethan theatre, refers to the theatre of England between 1558 and 1642.


title: English Renaissance theatre

text: The term "English Renaissance theatre" encompasses the period between 1562—following a performance of "Gorboduc", the first English play using blank verse, at the Inner Temple during the Christmas season of 1561—and the ban on theatrical plays enacted by the English Parliament in 1642.


title: English Renaissance theatre

text: Along with the economics of the profession, the character of the drama changed towards the end of the period. Under Elizabeth, the drama was a unified expression as far as social class was concerned: the Court watched the same plays the commoners saw in the public playhouses. With the development of the private theatres, drama became more oriented towards the tastes and values of an upper-class audience. By the later part of the reign of Charles I, few new plays were being written for the public theatres, which sustained themselves on the accumulated works of the previous decades.


title: English Renaissance theatre

text: The English grammar schools, like those on the continent, placed special emphasis on the "trivium": grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Though rhetorical instruction was intended as preparation for careers in civil service such as law, the rhetorical canons of memory ("memoria") and delivery ("pronuntiatio"), gesture and voice, as well as exercises from the "progymnasmata", such as the "prosopopoeia", taught theatrical skills. Students would typically analyse Latin and Greek texts, write their own compositions, memorise them, and then perform them in front of their instructor and their peers. Records show that in addition to this weekly performance, students would perform plays on holidays, and in both Latin and English.


title: English Renaissance theatre

text: Choir schools connected with the Elizabethan court included St. George’s Chapel, the Chapel Royal, and St. Paul’s. These schools performed plays and other court entertainments for the Queen. Between the 1560s and 1570s these schools had begun to perform for general audiences as well. Playing companies of boy actors were derived from choir schools. John Lyly is an earlier example of a playwright contracted to write for the children's companies; Lyly wrote "Gallathea", "Endymion", and "Midas" for Paul’s Boys. Another example is Ben Jonson, who wrote "Cynthia’s Revels".


title: English Renaissance theatre

text: Academic drama stems from late medieval and early modern practices of miracles and morality plays as well as the Feast of Fools and the election of a Lord of Misrule. The Feast of Fools includes mummer plays. The universities, particularly Oxford and Cambridge, were attended by students studying for bachelor's degrees and master's degrees, followed by doctorates in Law, Medicine, and Theology. In the 1400s, dramas were often restricted to mummer plays with someone who read out all the parts in Latin. With the rediscovery and redistribution of classical materials during the English Renaissance, Latin and Greek plays began to be restaged. These plays were often accompanied by feasts. Queen Elizabeth I viewed dramas during her visits to Oxford and Cambridge. A well-known play cycle which was written and performed in the universities was the "Parnassus Plays".


title: English Renaissance theatre

text: Upon graduation, many university students, especially those going into law, would reside and participate in the Inns of Court. The Inns of Court were communities of working lawyers and university alumni. Notable literary figures and playwrights who resided in the Inns of Court include John Donne, Francis Beaumont, John Marston, Thomas Lodge, Thomas Campion, Abraham Fraunce, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Thomas More, Sir Francis Bacon, and George Gascoigne. Like the university, the Inns of Court elected their own Lord of Misrule. Other activities included participation in moot court, disputation, and masques. Plays written and performed in the Inns of Court include "Gorboduc", "Gismund of Salerne", and "The Misfortunes of Arthur". An example of a famous masque put on by the Inns was James Shirley's "The Triumph of Peace". Shakespeare's "The Comedy of Errors" and "Twelfth Night" were also performed here, although written for commercial theater.


title: English Renaissance theatre

text: The first permanent English theatre, the Red Lion, opened in 1567 but it was a short-lived failure. The first successful theatres, such as The Theatre, opened in 1576.