title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: The longest ground duration of totality was 2 minutes 41.6 seconds at about in Giant City State Park, just south of Carbondale, Illinois, and the greatest extent (width) was at near the village of Cerulean, Kentucky, located in between Hopkinsville and Princeton. This was the first total solar eclipse visible from the Southeastern United States since the solar eclipse of March 7, 1970. Two NASA WB-57Fs flew above the clouds, prolonging the observation time spent in the umbra. A partial solar eclipse was seen from the much broader path of the Moon's penumbra, including all of North America, particularly areas just south of the totality pass, where the eclipse lasted about 3–5 hours, northern South America, Western Europe, and some of Africa and north-east Asia.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: At one location in Wyoming, a small group of astronomers used telescopic lenses to photograph the sun as it was in partial eclipse, while the International Space Station was also seen to briefly transit the sun. Similar images were captured by NASA from a location in Washington. (See Gallery – partial eclipse section).


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: During the eclipse for a long span of its path of totality, several bright stars and four planets were visible. The star system Regulus was almost in conjunction with the Sun. Mars was 8° to the right, and Venus 34° right. Mercury was 10° left, and Jupiter 51° left.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: This was the first total solar eclipse visible from the United States since that of July 11, 1991—which was seen only from part of Hawaii—and the first visible from the contiguous United States since 1979. An eclipse of comparable length (up to 3 minutes, 8 seconds, with the longest eclipse being 6 minutes and 54 seconds) occurred over the contiguous United States on March 7, 1970 along the southern portions of the Eastern Seaboard, from Florida to Virginia.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: The path of totality of the solar eclipse of February 26, 1979 crossed only the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota. Many enthusiasts traveled to the Pacific Northwest to view the eclipse, since it would be the last chance to view such an eclipse in the contiguous United States for almost four decades.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: The August 2017 eclipse was the first with a path of totality crossing the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of the U.S. since 1918. Also, its path of totality made landfall exclusively within the United States, making it the first such eclipse since the country's declaration of independence in 1776. Prior to this, the path of totality of the eclipse of June 13, 1257, was the last to make landfall exclusively on lands currently part of the United States.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: The path of the 2017 eclipse crosses with the path of the upcoming total solar eclipse of April 8, 2024, with the intersection of the two paths being in southern Illinois in Makanda Township at Cedar Lake, just south of Carbondale. An area of about , including the cities of Makanda, Carbondale, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and Paducah, Kentucky, will thus experience two total solar eclipses within a span of less than seven years. The cities of Benton, Carbondale, Chester, Harrisburg, Marion, and Metropolis in Illinois; Cape Girardeau, Farmington, and Perryville in Missouri, as well as Paducah, Kentucky, will also be in the path of the 2024 eclipse, thereby earning the distinction of witnessing two total solar eclipses in seven years.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: The solar eclipse of August 12, 2045 will have a very similar path of totality over the U.S. to the 2017 eclipse: about 400 km (250 mi) to the southwest, also crossing the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of the country; however, totality will be more than twice as long and it will be seen not only in the United States. It will be seen in the Americas.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: A partial eclipse was visible across the width of Canada, ranging from 89 percent in Victoria, British Columbia to 11 percent in Resolute, Nunavut. In Ottawa, viewing parties were held at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum. In Toronto, viewing parties were held at the CNE and the Ontario Science Centre.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: A partial eclipse was visible from Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean islands, and ships and aircraft in and above the adjacent oceans, as well as the northern countries of South America such as Colombia, Venezuela, and several others.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: On the Caribbean Sea, Bonnie Tyler performed her 1983 song "Total Eclipse of the Heart" live with the pop group DNCE on board the cruise ship "Oasis of the Seas", as the ship entered the eclipse's totality path, east of The Bahamas.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: A partial eclipse was visible during sunrise or morning hours in Russian Far East (including Severnaya Zemlya and New Siberian Islands archipelagos). For big cities in Russia, the maximal obscuration was in Anadyr, and it was 27.82%.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: In northwestern Europe, a partial eclipse was visible in the evening or at sunset. Only those in Iceland, Ireland, Scotland and the Portuguese Azores archipelago saw the eclipse from beginning to end; in Wales, England, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, and Portugal, sunset occurred before the end of the eclipse. In Germany, the beginning of the eclipse was visible just at sunset only in the extreme northwest of the country. In all regions east of the orange line on the map, the eclipse was not visible.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: In some locations in West Africa and western North Africa, a partial eclipse was seen just before and during sunset. The most favorable conditions to see this eclipse gained the Cape Verde Archipelago with nearly 0.9 magnitude at the Pico del Fogo volcano.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: A large number of media outlets broadcast coverage of the eclipse, including television and internet outlets. NASA announced plans to offer streaming coverage through its NASA TV and NASA Edge outlets, using cameras stationed on the ground along the path of totality, along with cameras on high-altitude balloons, jets, and coverage from the International Space Station; NASA stated that "never before will a celestial event be viewed by so many and explored from so many vantage points—from space, from the air, and from the ground." ABC, CBS, and NBC announced that they would respectively broadcast live television specials to cover the eclipse with correspondents stationed across the path of totality, along with CNN, Fox News Channel, Science, and The Weather Channel. The PBS series "Nova" presented streaming coverage on Facebook hosted by Miles O'Brien, and aired a special episode chronicling the event—"Eclipse Over America"—later in the day (which marked the fastest production turnaround time in "Nova" history).


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: Other institutions and services also announced plans to stream their perspectives of the eclipse, including the Exploratorium in San Francisco, the Elephant Sanctuary of Hohenwald, Tennessee, the Slooh robotic telescope app, and The Virtual Telescope Project. The Eclipse Ballooning Project, a consortium of schools and colleges that sent 50 high-altitude balloons into the sky during the eclipse to conduct experiments, provided streams of footage and GPS tracking of its launches. Contact with one balloon with $13,000 of scientific equipment, launched under the aegis of the LGF Museum of Natural History near Vale, Oregon, was lost at . Given that the balloon was believed to have burst at , it could have parachuted down anywhere from eastern Oregon to Caldwell, Idaho (most likely) to Sun Valley, Idaho; a $1,000 reward is offered for its recovery.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: The National Solar Observatory organized Citizen CATE volunteers to man 60 identical telescopes and instrumentation packages along the totality path to study changes in the corona over the duration of the eclipse.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: In orbit, the satellites Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the International Space Station, the Solar Dynamics Observatory, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, and Hinode gathered data from the eclipse.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: A viewing party was held at the White House, during which President Donald Trump appeared on the Truman Balcony with First Lady Melania Trump. With the sun partially eclipsed, President Trump looked briefly in the general direction of the sun before using solar viewing glasses.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: The eclipse generated reports of abnormal behavior in animal and plant life. Some chickens came out from beneath their coops and began grooming, usually an evening activity. Horses displayed increased whinnying, running, and jumping after the event. Cicadas were reported to grow louder before going silent during totality. Various birds were also observed flying in unusually large formations. Flowers such as the Hibiscus closed their petals which typically happens at night, before opening again after the solar event.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: Pornhub, a pornographic video-sharing website provided an unusual sociological and statistical report: its traffic dropped precipitously along the path of totality, so much so that its researchers were themselves surprised.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: NASA reported over 90 million page views of the eclipse on its websites, making it the agency's biggest online event ever, beating the previous web traffic record about seven times over.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: In the months leading up to the eclipse, many counterfeit glasses were put up for sale. Effective eclipse glasses must not only block most visible light, but most UV and infrared light as well. For visible light, the user should only be able to see the Sun, sunglint reflected off shiny metal, halogen bulbs, the filament in unfrosted incandescent bulbs, and similarly intense sources. Determining whether the glasses effectively block enough UV and infrared light requires the use of spectrophotometer, which is a rather expensive piece of lab equipment.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: The American Astronomical Society (AAS) said products meeting the ISO 12312-2 standard avoid risk to one's eyes, and issued a list of reputable vendors of eclipse glasses. The organization warned against products claiming ISO certification or even citing the same number, but not tested by an accredited laboratory. Another problem was counterfeits of reputable vendors' products, some even claiming the company's name such as with American Paper Optics which published information detailing the differences between its glasses and counterfeits.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: Andrew Lund, the owner of a company which produces eclipse glasses, noted that not all counterfeit glasses were necessarily unsafe. He stated to "Quartz" that the counterfeits he tested blocked the majority of harmful light spectrum, concluding that "the IP is getting ripped off, but the good news is there are no long-term harmful effects." As one example, the Springdale Library in metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, accidentally passed out dozens of pairs of counterfeit eclipse glasses, but as of August 23 had not received any reports of eye damage.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: On July 27, 2017, Amazon required all eclipse viewing products sold on its website have a submission of origin and safety information, and proof of an accredited ISO certification. In mid-August 2017, Amazon recalled and pulled listings for eclipse viewing glasses that "may not comply with industry standards", and gave refunds to customers who had purchased them.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: Lensrentals, a camera rental company based in Tennessee, reported that many of its customers returned cameras and lenses with extensive damage. The most common problem reported was damage to the camera's sensor. This most often happens when shooting in live view mode, where the sensor is continuously exposed to the eclipse image and becomes damaged by the sun's light. Another problem was the heat and brightness of the eclipse destroying the lens iris, which mechanically regulates the amount of light that enters the camera. Another problem reported was one of a cinema camera's neutral-density filter being damaged by the heat and light of the eclipse. The cost of all of this damage likely amounted to thousands of dollars.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: Officials inside and near the path of totality plannedsometimes for yearsfor the sudden influx of people. Smaller towns struggled to arrange viewing sites and logistics for what could have been a tourism boom or a disaster.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: In the American West, illegal camping was a major concern, including near cities like Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Idaho's Office of Emergency Management said Idaho was a prime viewing state, and advised jurisdictions to prepare for service load increases; nearly every hotel and motel room, campground, and in some cases backyards for nearly north and south of the path of totality had been reserved several months, if not years, in advance. The state anticipated up to 500,000 visitors to join its 1.6 million residents.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: Oregon deployed six National Guard aircraft and 150 soldiers because the influx of visitors coincided with the state's fire season. Hospital staffing, and supplies of blood and antisnake bite antidote, were augmented along the totality line.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: Also in Oregon, there were reports of hoteliers canceling existing reservations made at the regular market rate and increasing their rate, sometimes threefold or more, for guests staying to view the eclipse. The Oregon Department of Justice (DOJ) investigated various complaints and reached settlements with affected customers of at least 10 hotels in the state. These settlements included refunds to the customers and fines paid to the DOJ.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: Although traffic to areas within the path of totality was somewhat spread out over the days prior to the eclipse, there were widespread traffic problems across the United States after the event ended. Michael Zeiler, an eclipse cartographer, had estimated that between 1.85 million and 7.4 million people would travel to the path of the eclipse.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: In Oregon, because an estimated one million people were expected to arrive, the Oregon National Guard was called in to help manage traffic in Madras along US 26 and US 97. Madras Municipal Airport received more than 400 mostly personal planes that queued for hours while waiting to leave after the eclipse.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: Officials in Idaho, where the totality path crossed the center of the state, began planning for the eclipse a year in advance. The state Transportation Department suspended construction projects along Interstate 15, which traverses Eastern Idaho, from August 18–22 in order to have all lanes open; their counterparts in neighboring Utah, where many were expected to travel the north via the highway from the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, did the same. On the morning of the eclipse, many drivers left before dawn, creating traffic volume along I-15 normally not seen until morning rush hour; northbound traffic on the interstate in Box Elder County north of Salt Lake City slowed to . The Idaho State Police (ISP) stationed a patrol car along I-15 every between Shelley and the Utah border.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: After the eclipse, traffic more than doubled along I-15 southbound, with extensive traffic jams continuing for eight hours as viewers who had traveled north into the totality path from Utah returned there and to points south. The ISP tweeted a picture of bumper-to-bumper traffic stalled on the interstate just south of Idaho Falls. Motorists reported to local news outlets that it was taking them two hours to travel the from that city to Pocatello to the south, a journey that normally takes 45 minutes. Others reported that it took three hours to travel from Idaho Falls to the closer city of Blackfoot, farther north of Pocatello.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: In the rest of the state the impact was less severe. Traffic nearly doubled on US 93, and was up 55 percent on US 20.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: For some northbound travelers on I-15, the Montana Department of Transportation had failed to make similar plans to those in Idaho, scheduling a road construction project to begin on August 21 that narrowed a section of the highway to a single northbound lane, near the exit to Clark Canyon Dam south of Dillon. Though that stretch of highway generally has a traffic count of less than 1,000 vehicles per day, on the day of the eclipse there were over a thousand vehicles per hour at peak times. As a result, traffic backed up as far as Lima, creating a delay of at least an hour for travelers heading northward. Further, as construction had not yet begun, drivers observed cones set up but no workers present on the road. While the state traditionally halts construction projects during high traffic periods, a state official admitted "we ... probably made a bad mistake here in this regard."


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: In Wyoming, estimates were that the population of the state, officially 585,000, may have doubled or even tripled, with traffic counts on August 21 showing 536,000 more cars than the five-year average for the third Monday in August; a 68 percent increase. One official offered an estimate of "two people in every car" to arrive at a one-million-visitor figure, and others noted that one million was a conservative estimate based on a one-day traffic count of limited portions of major highways. There were additional arrivals by aircraft, plus travelers who arrived early or stayed for additional days. Two days before the eclipse, traffic increased 18 percent over a five-year average, with an additional 131,000 vehicles on the road. Sunday saw an additional 217,000-vehicle increase.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: Following the eclipse, more than 500,000 vehicles traveled Wyoming roads, creating large traffic jams, particularly on southbound and eastbound highways. Drivers reported that it took up to 10 hours to travel into northern Colorado. There was one traffic fatality, and another fatality related to an off-highway ATV accident, but in general there were far fewer incidents and traffic citations than authorities had anticipated.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: In Tennessee, the "Knoxville News Sentinel" described the traffic problems created by the eclipse as the worst ever seen in that part of the state. One backup along Interstate 75 reached in length, between Niota and the Interstate 40 interchange at Farragut. A spokesman for the state's Department of Transportation allowed that the traffic jams were the worst he had seen in six and a half years on the job, noting that accidents had aggravated the already heavy traffic flows, attributed the I-75 congestion to Knoxville-area residents heading for the totality path at Sweetwater and returning during what was the city's normal afternoon rush hour.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: Before the eclipse, state officials had described their traffic expectations as equivalent to that generated by the Bonnaroo Music Festival, the twice-a-season NASCAR Cup Series races at Bristol or the formerly-held Boomsday fireworks festival. "Maybe they should have considered a tsunami of traffic combining all three of those heavily attended events", the "News Sentinel" commented. The Tennessee Highway Patrol made sure that "[e]very trooper not on sick leave or military leave or pre-approved leave [wa]s working" the day of the eclipse; the state DOT made sure its full complement of emergency-aid HELP trucks were available as well. Alert signs on the highways also warned motorists not to pull over onto the shoulders to watch the eclipse as it could increase the risk of dangerous accidents and block the path of emergency vehicles.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: In North Carolina, the Department of Transportation added cameras, message boards and safety patrols in the counties where the total eclipse would take place, as well as stopping road work. The department warned that due to "unprecedented" traffic ordinary activities requiring driving might prove difficult, and advised people to act as if there were snow.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: In Kentucky, particularly around the Hopkinsville area, which was dubbed "Eclipseville, USA", post-eclipse traffic caused extensive delays. The en masse departure of tourists via Interstate 69 as well as the Western Kentucky Parkway resulted in commute times double or even triple of normal. The Hopkinsville-to-Lexington commute under normal circumstances lasts three and a half hours.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: An eclipse causes a reduction of solar power generation where the Moon shadow covers any solar panel, as do clouds.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: The North American Electric Reliability Corporation predicted minor impacts, and attempted to measure the impact of the 2017 eclipse. In California, solar power was projected to decrease by 4–6,000 megawatts at 70 MW/minute, and then ramp up by 90 MW/minute as the shadow passes. CAISO's typical ramp rate is 29 megawatts per minute. Around 4 GW mainly in North Carolina and Georgia were expected to be 90 percent obscured.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: After the 2017 eclipse, grid operators in California reported having lost 3,000–3,500 megawatts of utility-scale solar power, which was made up for by hydropower and gas reliably and as expected, mimicking the usual duck curve. Energy demand management was also used to mitigate the solar drop, and NEST customers reduced their demand by 700 MW.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: NV Energy prepared for the solar eclipse months in advance and collaborated with 17 western states. When the eclipse began covering California with partial darkness, which reduced its usual amount of solar-generated electricity, NV Energy sent power there. Likewise, when Nevada received less sunlight, other west coast states supplied electricity to it. During the solar eclipse, the state of Nevada lost about 450 megawatts of electricity, the amount used by about a quarter million typical residences.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: The 2015 eclipse caused manageable solar power decreases in Europe; in Germany, solar power dropped from 14 GW to 7 GW, of a 38 GW solar power capacity.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: On June 20, 2017, the USPS released the first application of thermochromic ink to postage stamps in its Total Eclipse of the Sun Forever stamp to commemorate the eclipse. When pressed with a finger, body heat turns the dark image into an image of the full moon. The stamp was released prior to August 21, so uses an image from the eclipse of March 29, 2006 seen in Jalu, Libya.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: Occurring only 3.2 days after perigee (Perigee on Friday, August 18, 2017), the moon's apparent diameter was larger during the total solar eclipse on Monday, August 21, 2017.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: Astronomers Without Borders began collecting eclipse glasses for redistribution to Latin America for the total solar eclipse occurring on July 2, 2019, and to Asia for the annular eclipse on December 26, 2019.


title: Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017

text: A partial lunar eclipse took place on August 7, 2017, in the same eclipse season. It was visible over Africa, Asia, Australia, and eastern Europe.


title: 2007 Gujarat Legislative Assembly election

text: Gujarat's twelfth legislative election was held in 2007. In this election, the BJP led by Narendra Modi won 117 seats out of 182 (ten seats fewer than in 2002). Congress improved its performance and won 59 seats (eight more than last election). Modi fought elections in Maninagar and won with a major majority. NCP won three seats, JDU won only one seat and independent candidates won only two seats. This was a turning point of Modi in politics.


title: Ivanna Sakhno

text: Ivanna Anatoliyivna Sakhno (; born 14 November 1997) is a Ukrainian and American actress. She is known for her roles as Cadet Viktoriya in the science fiction monster film "Pacific Rim Uprising" (2018) and the hitwoman, "Nadejda", in the 2018 action comedy film "The Spy Who Dumped Me". She had already achieved certain prominence in Ukraine after appearing in 2005 in the first ever Ukrainian-language sitcom, "Lesia + Roma", and the 2013 biopic "Ivan the Powerful".


title: Ivanna Sakhno

text: Ivanna Sakhno was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, in a family of local filmmakers. Ivanna has a brother named Taras (Tar), an inventor of a scientific field "Conceptology" and a digital arts producer.


title: Ivanna Sakhno

text: At the age of 13, Ivanna Sakhno left Ukraine to study English in Vancouver, Canada. It was here she was discovered by Janet Hirshenson and Jane Jenkins at a casting workshop, later, in 2018 she came to the attention of Katelyn Feuling.


title: Ivanna Sakhno

text: Sakhno moved to the United States in 2013, settling in Hollywood to pursue an acting career. While there she studied at Beverly Hills High School and later at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, working with Ivana Chubbuck.


title: Ivanna Sakhno

text: Sakhno's first television appearance was in the 2005 series "Lesya + Roma" (a Ukrainian adaptation of the successful Canadian sitcom "Un gars, une fille") and her debut feature film role was as "Milka" in the 2013 biopic film, "Ivan the Powerful". Her first major Hollywood role was in Thomas Dunn's 2016 thriller film "The Body Tree". She followed this with roles in two big budget 2018 releases, "Pacific Rim Uprising" and "The Spy Who Dumped Me".


title: Ivanna Sakhno

text: At the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, Sakhno expressed her support for Ukrainian political prisoners held by the Russian Federation authorities.


title: Quirinus

text: In Roman mythology and religion, Quirinus ( , ) is an early god of the Roman state. In Augustan Rome, "Quirinus" was also an epithet of Janus, as "Janus Quirinus".


title: Quirinus

text: The name of god Quirinus is recorded across Roman sources as "Curinus", "Corinus", "Querinus", "Queirinus" and "QVIRINO", also as fragmented "IOVI. CYRIN[O]". The name is also attested as a surname to Hercules as "Hercules Quirinus".


title: Quirinus

text: The name "Quirīnus" probably stems from Latin "quirīs", the name of Roman citizens in their peacetime function. Since both "quirīs" and "Quirīnus" are connected with Sabellic immigrants into Rome in ancient legends, it may be a loanword. The meaning "wielder of the spear" (Sabine "quiris", 'spear', cf. "Janus Quirinus"), or a derivation from the Sabine town of Cures, have been proposed by Ovid in his ""Fasti"" 2.477-480.


title: Quirinus

text: Some scholars have interpreted the name as a contraction of "*Co-Virīnus" (originally the protector of the community, cf. "cūria" < "*co-viria"), descending from an earlier *"Co-Wironos", itself from the Proto-Indo-European noun "" ("man"). Linguist Michiel de Vaan argues that this etymology "is not credible phonetically and not very compelling semantically."


title: Quirinus

text: In earlier Roman art, Quirinus was portrayed as a bearded man with religious and military clothing. However, he was almost never depicted in later Roman art. His main festival was the Quirinalia, held on February 17.


title: Quirinus

text: The priest of Quirinus, the "Flamen Quirinalis", was one of the three patrician "flamines maiores" ("major flamens") who had precedence over the Pontifex Maximus.


title: Quirinus

text: Quirinus most likely was originally a Sabine war god. The Sabines had a settlement near the eventual site of Rome, and erected an altar to Quirinus on the "Collis Quirinalis" Quirinal Hill, one of the Seven hills of Rome. When the Romans settled in the area, the cult of Quirinus became part of their early belief system. This occurred before the later influences from classical Greek culture.


title: Quirinus

text: In Plutarch's "Life of Romulus", he writes that shortly after Rome's founder had disappeared under what some considered suspicious circumstances, a Roman noble named Proculus Julius reported that Romulus had come to him while he was travelling. He claimed that the king had instructed him to tell his countrymen that he, Romulus was Quirinus.


title: Quirinus

text: Historian Angelo Brelich argued that Quirinus and Romulus were originally the same divine entity which was split into a founder hero and a god when Roman religion became demythicised. To support this, he points to the association of both Romulus and Quirinus with the grain spelt, through the "Fornacalia" or "Stultorum Feriae", according to Ovid's "Fasti".


title: Quirinus

text: The last day of the festival is called the "Quirinalia" and corresponds with the traditional day of Romulus' death. On that day, the Romans would toast spelt as an offering to the goddess Fornax. In one version of the legend of Romulus' death cited by Plutarch, he was killed and cut into pieces by the nobles and each of them took a part of his body home and buried it on their land.


title: Quirinus

text: Brelich claimed this pattern – a festival involving a staple crop, a god, and a tale of a slain founding hero whose body parts are buried in the soil – is a recognized mytheme that arises when such a split takes place in a culture's mythology (see "Dema deity" archetype). The possible presence of the "Flamen Quirinalis" at the festival of Acca Larentia would corroborate this thesis, given the fact that Romulus is a stepson of hers, and one of the original twelve arval brethren (Fratres Arvales).


title: Quirinus

text: The association of Quirinus and Romulus is further supported by a connection with Vofionos, the third god in the triad of the Grabovian gods of Iguvium. Vofionos would be the equivalent of Liber or Teutates, in Latium and among the Celts respectively.


title: Quirinus

text: His early importance led to Quirinus' inclusion in the Archaic Triad (the first Capitoline Triad), along with Mars (then an agriculture god) and Jupiter.


title: Quirinus

text: Over time, however, Quirinus became less significant, and he was absent from the later, more widely known triad (he and Mars had been replaced by Juno and Minerva). Varro mentions the "Capitolium Vetus", an earlier cult site on the Quirinal, devoted to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, among whom Martial makes a distinction between the "old Jupiter" and the "new".


title: Quirinus

text: Eventually, Romans began to favor personal and mystical cults over the official state belief system. These included those of Bacchus, Cybele, and Isis, leaving only Quirinus' flamen to worship him.


title: Quirinus

text: Even centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, the Quirinal hill in Rome, originally named from the deified Romulus, was still associated with power – it was chosen as the seat of the royal house after the taking of Rome by the Savoia and later it became the residence of the Presidents of the Italian Republic.


title: Fanny Kaplan

text: Fanny Efimovna Kaplan (; real name Feiga Haimovna Roytblat, ; February 10, 1890 – September 3, 1918) was a Ukrainian Jewish woman, Socialist-Revolutionary, and early Soviet dissident. She was arrested for the attempted assassination of Vladimir Lenin and was executed by the Cheka in 1918.


title: Fanny Kaplan

text: As a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, Kaplan viewed Lenin as a "traitor to the revolution" when the Bolsheviks enacted one-party rule and banned her party. On August 30, 1918, she approached Lenin, who was leaving a Moscow factory, and fired three shots, which badly injured him. Interrogated by the Cheka, she refused to name any accomplices and was executed. The Kaplan attempt and the Moisei Uritsky assassination was used by the government of Soviet Russia for the reinstatement of the death penalty, which had been abolished by the Russian Provisional Government in March 1917.


title: Fanny Kaplan

text: Relatively little is known for certain about Kaplan's background. She was born into a Jewish family. Her father was a teacher, and she had seven siblings. There has been confusion about her full name. Vera Figner (in her memoirs, "At Women's Katorga"), stated that Kaplan's original name was Feiga Khaimovna Roytblat-Kaplan (Фейга Хаимовна Ройтблат-Каплан). However, other sources have stated that her original family name was Roytman (Ройтман), corresponding to the common German and Yiddish surname Reutemann (). She was also sometimes known by the given name Dora.


title: Fanny Kaplan

text: Kaplan was home educated and soon left home to work as a milliner in Odesa. She became a political revolutionary at an early age and joined a socialist group, the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs). In 1906, when she was 16 years old, Kaplan was arrested in Kyiv over her involvement in a terrorist bomb plot but was captured after a bomb she and her romantic partner were working on accidentally exploded. She was committed for life to the katorga, a hard labour prison camp. She served in the Maltsev and Akatuy prisons of Nerchinsk katorga, Siberia, where she lost her sight, which was partially restored later. She was released on March 3, 1917, after the February Revolution overthrew the imperial government. As a result of her imprisonment, Kaplan suffered from continuous headaches and periods of blindness.


title: Fanny Kaplan

text: Kaplan became disillusioned with Lenin sometime around 1917, as a result of conflict between the SRs and the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks had strong support in the soviets, but in elections to a competing body, the Constituent Assembly, the Bolsheviks failed to win a majority in the November 1917 elections, and a Socialist Revolutionary was elected president in January 1918. The Bolsheviks, supporting soviets, ordered for the Constituent Assembly to be dissolved. By August 1918 conflicts between the Bolsheviks and their political opponents had led to the banning of most other influential parties, most recently the Left Socialist Revolutionaries (Left SRs), who had been the Bolsheviks' main coalition partner for some time but then organised the Left SR uprising in July because of their opposition to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Kaplan decided to assassinate Lenin because she considered him "a traitor to the Revolution".


title: Fanny Kaplan

text: On August 30, 1918, Lenin spoke at the Hammer and Sickle, an arms factory in southern Moscow. As Lenin left the building and before he had entered his car, Kaplan called out to him. When Lenin turned towards her, she fired three shots with a Browning pistol. One bullet passed through Lenin's coat, and the other two struck him. One passed through his neck, punctured part of his left lung, and stopped near his right collarbone; the other lodged in his left shoulder.


title: Fanny Kaplan

text: Lenin was taken back to his living quarters at the Kremlin. He feared that other plotters might be planning to kill him and refused to leave the security of the Kremlin to seek medical attention. Doctors were brought in to treat him but could not remove the bullets outside a hospital. Despite the severity of his injuries, Lenin survived, but his health never fully recovered from the attack. It is believed the shooting contributed to the strokes that incapacitated and eventually killed him in 1924.


title: Fanny Kaplan

text: There are contradictory stories of her capture. According to the testimony of Deputy Commissar S. N. Batulin, he was within 20 steps of Lenin when he heard three shots and saw Lenin face down on the ground. Afterwards, he identified a woman who he felt looked suspicious and detained her. That turned out to be Kaplan. However, the factory commissar N. I. Ivanov claimed to have arrested her after she had been identified by several children, who had followed her down the street. During interrogation by the Cheka, she made the following statement:


title: Fanny Kaplan

text: When it became clear that Kaplan would not implicate any accomplices, she was executed in Alexander Garden. The order was carried out by the commander of the Kremlin, the former Baltic sailor P. D. Malkov and a group of Latvian Bolsheviks on September 3, 1918 with a bullet to the back of the head. Her corpse was bundled into a barrel and set alight. The order came from Yakov Sverdlov, who only six weeks earlier had ordered the execution of the tsar and his family. Because there were no remains, rumours of her survival in Siberian labor camps persisted for years.


title: Fanny Kaplan

text: Grigory Semyonov, a military commander in the SR who later turned state's evidence against the group, testified in 1922 that Kaplan had been a member of his organization and that he regarded her as the "best person to carry out the attack on Lenin".


title: Fanny Kaplan

text: Some historians such as Dmitri Volkogonov, Arkady Vaksberg and Donald Rayfield have questioned the actual role of Kaplan in the assassination attempt. Volkogonov suggested that "it is more likely" that Kaplan was actually not the culprit and described her assassination attempt as "another of the many mystifications of Bolshevik history". Vaksberg stated that Lidia Konopleva, another SR, was the culprit and believed that it would be all too comforting that Lenin narrowly avoided being assassinated by a woman whose personality is so far from the stereotype of a national hero. In particular, it had been suggested that she was working on behalf of others and, after her arrest, assumed sole responsibility. The main arguments put forth in that and other versions is that she was nearly blind, and none of the witnesses actually saw her fire the gun. Another argument points to the contradiction between the official Soviet account and official documents, particularly a radiogram by Yakov Peters that mentions the arrest of several suspects, instead of only one. Furthermore, the bullet removed from Lenin's neck after his death was found to have been fired from a weapon other than the one that Kaplan had. Semion Lyandres went so far as to argue that Kaplan was not even a SR.


title: Fanny Kaplan

text: Despite her refusal to name accomplices, the official announcement of the assassination attempt had Sverdlov blame the Right SRs although it denied any involvement. Moisei Uritsky, the People's Commissar for Internal Affairs in the Northern Region and the head of the Cheka in Petrograd, had been assassinated nearly two weeks prior to the attack on Lenin. The Cheka did not find any evidence linking both events, but their occurrence so soon after each other appeared significant in the context of the intensifying civil war. The Bolsheviks' reaction was an abrupt escalation in the persecution of their opponents.


title: Fanny Kaplan

text: An official decree announcing the Red Terror was issued only hours after the Kaplan shooting and called for an all-out struggle against enemies of the revolution. In the next few months, about 800 Right SRs and other political opponents of Bolsheviks were executed. During the first year, the scope of the Red Terror expanded significantly.


title: Fanny Kaplan

text: In the 1934 Hollywood film "British Agent" directed by Michael Curtiz, Corinne Williams and Zozia Tanina portray Kaplan.


title: Fanny Kaplan

text: The life of Fanny Kaplan has also been portrayed in a Ukrainian film "My Grandmother Fanny Kaplan" (2016) directed by Olena Demyanenko.


title: Fanny Kaplan

text: Kaplan has been the subject of or character in several plays including ("Fanny Kaplan" by Venedikt Yerofeyev; "Kill me, o my beloved!" by Elena Isaeva; "The Bolsheviks" by Mikhail Shatrov) and books ("Europe Central" by William T. Vollmann).


title: Meet Bros

text: Meet Bros is an Indian musical duo from Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. The duo consists of brothers Manmeet Singh and Harmeet Singh. They were formerly known as Meet Bros Anjjan with longtime collaborator Anjjan Bhattacharya.


title: Meet Bros

text: Initially starting out as actors, the duo switched to composing and singing after the success of their first song "Jogi Singh Barnala Singh". They began with composing for "Isi Life Mein" and "Do Dooni Chaar" but it was with "Kyaa Super Kool Hain Hum" and "OMG – Oh My God!" that they got their first recognition as music directors.


title: Meet Bros

text: Meet Bros' most well-known and critically acclaimed songs are "Baby Doll" from "Ragini MMS 2" and "Chittiyaan Kalaiyaan" from "Roy". Both songs feature the vocals of Kanika Kapoor and the latter was part of a soundtrack that fetched them multiple awards including the Filmfare Award for Best Music Director, the Screen Award for Best Music Director, and the IIFA Award for Best Music Director.


title: Meet Bros

text: Meet Brothers are biological brothers from Gwalior. Their early education took place in Scindia School, Gwalior Fort, Gwalior. After this they went to Mumbai for higher education. Harmeet completed his graduation from Sydenham College, Mumbai. They started acting in TV serials and Bollywood to step in, but after the success of their solo song "Jogi Singh Barnala Singh", they chose music, leaving the acting. After that they started working as music director in films. Other than being a popular television personality, Manmeet has also produced a couple of serials for television including a hit comedy serial for Star Plus. While Harmeet had done advertising commercials and acted in Hindi soaps such as "Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki" and "Kkusum". Both have not received formal education in music. Both have worked in the TV serial "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi" and "Shagun".


title: Meet Bros

text: After leaving acting, Meet Brothers worked as a music director in Bollywood. Many years ago, they met Anjjan Bhattacharya in a program and the three decided to work together and they named their trio as Meet Bros Anjjan. The three together made music for many songs and gave their voices. They made the song "Baby Doll", which they sang with Kanika Kapoor in the 2014 film "Ragini MMS 2". In 2015, Anjjan Bhattacharya got separated from the trio and started his own music business. Meet Bros also opened their own recording studio named "Meet Bros Recording Studio".


title: Meet Bros

text: "Pink Lips", "Hangover", "Party To Banti Hai", "Chittiyaan Kalaiyaan" were their songs. They both also hold concerts and take part in the concert. They have received the Filmfare Awards for their music.


title: Meet Bros

text: Older brother Manmeet married Karishma Modi in 2002 and they have a daughter. Karishma works in Hindi TV serials. Younger brother Harmeet Singh married actress Shefali Jariwala in 2004. The couple later got divorced in 2009. Later, Shefali married actor Parag Tyagi in 2015.


title: Gian Gastone de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany

text: Gian Gastone de' Medici (born Giovanni Battista Gastone; 24 May 1671 – 9 July 1737) was the seventh and last Medicean Grand Duke of Tuscany.


text: He was the second son of Grand Duke Cosimo III and Marguerite Louise d'Orléans. His sister, Electress Palatine Anna Maria Luisa, arranged his marriage to the wealthy and widowed Anna Maria Franziska of Saxe-Lauenburg in 1697. The couple despised each other and had no children. As Grand Prince Ferdinando, Gian Gastone's elder brother, predeceased Cosimo III, Gian Gastone succeeded his father in 1723.


text: His reign was marked by the reversal of his predecessor's conservative policy; he abolished taxes for poorer people, repealed penal laws which restricted Jews and discontinued public executions. The Medici were wanting in male heirs; his father, Cosimo III, wanted the Electress Palatine to succeed Gian Gastone. However, Spain, Great Britain, Austria and the Dutch Republic disregarded Cosimo's plan and appointed Charles of Spain—whose mother, Elisabeth Farnese, was a great-granddaughter of Margherita de' Medici—Gian Gastone's heir. Charles later transferred his claim to Francis Stephen of Lorraine pursuant to a preliminary peace that was finalized in 1738. Francis Stephen duly succeeded at Gian Gastone's demise, on 9 July 1737, ending almost 300 years of Medici rule over Florence. For the latter part of his reign, Gian Gastone chose to remain confined in his bed, tended by his entourage, the "Ruspanti".


text: On 24 May 1671, the first anniversary of his grandfather Ferdinando II's death, Giovanni Battista Gastone de' Medici was born in Florence to Grand Duke Cosimo III and Marguerite Louise d'Orléans. He derived his baptismal name, Giovanni Battista Gastone, from his maternal grandfather, Gaston, Duke of Orléans. Cosimo and Marguerite Louise frequently quarreled. As a result, four years after his birth, Marguerite Louise returned home to France. Gian Gastone and his siblings were left in the care of their grandmother Vittoria della Rovere.


text: Gian Gastone was tutored by Cardinal Henry Noris, whose company the prince hardly left. The Tuscan prince was an avid intellectual, being an antiquarian, a botanist and an amateur scientist. In addition, he could speak English, among other languages. However, it was these traits that earned Gian Gastone the disdain of his father and of his elder brother, Grand Prince Ferdinando; Gian Gastone was thus granted a scant allowance by his father and therefore could not enjoy the "dissipations" of court.


text: Cosimo III considered compelling Gian Gastone to become a cardinal. In order to rally Gian Gastone to its cause, Spain, concerned that another Medicean cardinal—Gian Gastone's uncle, Francesco Maria de' Medici, Duke of Rovere and Montefeltro, already enjoyed that dignity—would tip the scales in favour of France at a Papal conclave, offered to create him "General of the Spanish Seas". Peter II of Portugal, however, had other things in mind for him: he wanted Gian Gastone to marry his only daughter, Isabel Luísa, Princess of Beira. To marry her, Gian Gastone would have to convince his father to allot him an allowance of "adequate stature". However, the Grand Duke refused and neither the cardinalate nor the Portuguese marriage ever materialised.


text: Out of sympathy, Gian Gastone befriended his unhappy sister-in-law, Duchess Violante Beatrice of Bavaria. Her husband, Grand Prince Ferdinando, thought her too ugly and too dull for him. At the same time, Gian Gastone sank into a state of melancholy. In an attempt to rouse him from this condition, Cardinal Francesco Maria often summoned Gian Gastone to festivities at his villa, Lappeggi. However, these soirées had no effect and Gian Gastone continued to weep unceasingly in his private rooms.


text: By 1697, Violante Beatrice and Ferdinando had been married for eight years and still lacked issue, as did Gian Gastone's sister, the Electress Palatine. Concerned for the future of the dynasty, Cosimo urged the Electress to find Gian Gastone—currently the only one of his siblings unmarried—a suitable bride. She put forward Anna Maria Franziska, her brother-in-law's widow and potential heiress of the Duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg. The bride-to-be was hailed as "more like a Bohemian peasant than a princess" by a contemporary. They were married in Düsseldorf, the capital of the Electorate of the Palatinate, by the Bishop of Osnabrück on 2 July 1697. As she did not like cities or courts, Anna Maria Franziska demanded they establish themselves in her Bohemian residences, Ploskovice Castle and Reichstadt (Zákupy), post-haste.


text: Gian Gastone found life in the little village intolerable. Anna Maria Franziska was unpredictable and prone to outbursts of rage, she held "conversations in the stables [i.e. with the horses]" and would rather have remained a widow than have been married again. The lack of intellectual society there and his wife's hostility towards him drove Gian Gastone into the arms of alcohol. Gian Gastone, unable to rein in his disgust, abandoned Anna Maria Franziska for Paris after one year in Reichstadt. When he arrived there, an enraged Cosimo, who had explicitly told his son not to leave Anna Maria Franziksa without his prior consent, ordered him back to Reichstadt. Anna Maria Franziska made an effort to welcome him back; however, her mood turned sour when Gian Gastone brought up the prospect of wintering in Prague. Thus, he went to Prague alone but for his suite and favourite attendant, Giuliano Dami.


text: Gian Gastone's once acclaimed complexion and weight were ruined by the course of dissipation he pursued in Prague, becoming blotchy and bloated respectively. Dami acted as a pimp for the Prince, soliciting countless young men for his master's enjoyment. The Prince frequently gambled, racking up exorbitant debts, losing, on one occasion, 150,000 crowns. His ruinous behaviour was relayed to Florence by the Electress Palatine. Gian Gastone replied to Cosimo's ensuing admonishments with an account of his married life, blaming Anna Maria Franziska's "capriciousness, peevish faces and sharp words" for his desperate conduct. Considering summoning him to Florence, Cosimo sent the Marquis Rinuccini to scrutinise his younger son's debts. Rinnucci was horrified to learn that the Archbishop of Prague was among his creditors. Anna Maria Franziska greeted Rinuccini warmly, and implied that Gian Gastone pawned some of her jewels to ameliorate his gambling debts. The Marquis concluded that nothing—not even the Holy Roman Empress's reproaches—could compel Anna Maria Franziska to Florence, where Gian Gastone longed to be. Forced once again to quell his enmity towards his wife, Gian Gastone returned to Reichstadt as per the Holy Roman Emperor and Holy Roman Empress's advice. Nevertheless, their reconciliation was brief, and Gian Gastone left for Hamburg in October 1703, only to return to Prague the next February.


text: The Grand Duke tired of the Princess of Saxe-Lauenburg's stubborn ways. He requisitioned the help of Pope Clement XI, who sent the Archbishop of Prague to tell her she must go to Florence with Gian Gastone. The Princess was incensed, replying that there was no point going with him because he was "absolutely impotent." Cosimo III conceded defeat and recalled Gian Gastone to Florence in 1708; he never saw his wife again.


text: As Prince Gian Gastone disliked his father's hyper-pious character, he elected to stay away from him and the royal court. The closed court that Gian Gastone did keep was dominated by his favourite, Dami. Meanwhile, the Grand Prince Ferdinando was slowly dying from syphilis, making Gian Gastone's immediate succession more likely. Ferdinando, nonetheless, was not alone in his suffering: Guyot de Merville, a French adventurer, took note of Gian Gastone's mental decline: "He carries [apathy] so far that it is said he never opens a letter, to avoid having to answer." Additionally, Gian Gastone's fragile temperament required long periods of isolation; he spent several hours alone each night, drinking and staring up at the moon.


text: The Grand Prince finally succumbed to syphilis on 30 October 1713, sparking a succession crisis. Cosimo III deposited a bill in the Tuscan senate, the nominal legislature, provisioning for a male line succession failure by making the Electress Palatine Gian Gastone's heiress. It passed and was disseminated to chancelleries across Europe. Austria refused to sanction it, fearing that Tuscany would fall into the Bourbons' hands. However, France and England did.


text: The Electress returned to Florence in October 1717, following the death of her husband the previous summer.


text: Violante Beatrice of Bavaria, to whom Gian Gastone had become quite attached, disliked the Electress and therefore left the grand ducal court for the position of governor of the town of Siena. The Electress, now the First Lady of Tuscany, and Gian Gastone were not on good terms: he scorned her for marrying him to Anna Maria Franziska, who, for eleven years, made his life unbearable.


text: On 4 April 1718, England, France and the Dutch Republic (and later Austria) selected Charles of Spain, the elder child of Elisabeth Farnese (a great-granddaughter of Margherita de' Medici) and Philip V of Spain, as the Tuscan heir, the Electress's rights to the throne being completely disregarded in the process. All his ambitions in regards to the succession being thwarted, Cosimo III distributed one final proclamation shortly before his death, on 31 October 1723, decreeing that the Electress shall succeed Gian Gastone. Unfortunately for Cosimo, his declaration was completely ignored.


text: The Tuscany Gian Gastone inherited was in a pitiful state: the army numbered less than 3,000, the royal coffer was empty and Florence was full of beggars. The ramshackle condition of the capital was noted by philosopher Montesquieu five years into Gian Gastone's reign: "There is no town where men live in less luxury than Florence". Despite these hindrances, Gian Gastone, aged 52, commenced his reign with a burst of ebullience, releasing prisoners, abolishing exorbitant taxes, "Pensions on the Creed" (monies paid to converts to Christianity) and public executions.


text: Gian Gastone recalled Governor Violante Beatrice to the royal court and banished his sister, the Dowager Electress, to the Villa La Quiete. The Governor reigned supreme over Tuscan society, and Gian Gastone delegated most of his public duties to her, and chose to spend most of his time in bed. Here, Gian Gastone was entertained by the "Ruspanti", a team of poor, handsome young men assembled by Dami, who performed sexual acts for and with the Grand Duke. Loathing the aristocracy, Gian Gastone called the foremost "Ruspanti" by the names of prominent Tuscan nobles. A contemporary dubbed the head of the "Ruspanti", Giuliano Dami, "the despot of Gian Gastone's court"; he exploited his influence with the Grand Duke by offering anybody who was willing to bribe him an audience with their monarch.


text: During the period 1723–1731, the powers-that-be busied themselves hammering out a solution to the "Tuscan question". Spain zealously endorsed its candidate, Charles of Spain, who had been made heir by the powers in 1718 but did not enjoy universal recognition; Austria would not accept another Bourbon monarch in Italy. Gian Gastone, knowing the Dowager Electress probably would never succeed, went about ensuring his sister's inheritance of all the House of Medici's private property. Thus, he separated Medici possessions from those of the state; hitherto, there had been no distinction between the two.


text: Governor Violante Beatrice and the Dowager Electress, following the former's sojourn in Rome, in spite of their mutual dislike of each other, attempted to ameliorate Gian Gastone's decadent public image together. Violante Beatrice organised banquets to remove him from the sway of the "Ruspanti". His behaviour at these sent guests running for their carriages: he vomited into his napkin, wiped his mouth with his peri-wig and told rude jokes. These parties ceased when Violante Beatrice died, in 1731; Gian Gastone was devastated by the loss of his beloved sister-in-law. Rumours abounded that the Grand Duke had died, as the public never saw him. To discredit these, the Dowager Electress induced Gian Gastone to make a public appearance—his final one—on Saint John the Baptist's day of 1729. An alcoholic, Gian Gastone drank too much before the ceremony and vomited repeatedly throughout; he had to be carried unconscious back to the Palazzo Pitti, the royal palace, on a litter. A sprained ankle incurred in July 1729 left the Grand Duke bed-ridden for—barring two occasions—the rest of his life.


text: The "Tuscan question" finally seemed resolved by the Treaty of Vienna (1731): in exchange for Spain and its allies' recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction, Austria confirmed Infante Charles as Gian Gastone's heir—the Grand Duke wasn't consulted. He was, however, appointed joint-guardian of the Infante with Dorothea Sophia of the Rhine, Dowager Duchess of Parma and the Electress Palatine's sister-in-law. Thirty thousand Spanish troops occupied the Grand Duchy of Tuscany on Charles's behalf in October 1731. Charles, known as Duke of Parma since January, arrived in Florence the next March. Gian Gastone was taken with the Infante-Duke, showering him with gifts. He even went so far as to have the Duke created Grand Prince of Tuscany, the title borne by the Tuscan heir-apparent, against the wishes of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI; however, the latter soon had the grant revoked.


text: After the War of the Polish Succession broke out in 1733, Charles marched a Spanish army south and defeated the Austrians holding the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily. Pursuant to preliminary peace terms negotiated in 1735 (but not finalized until after Gian Gastone's death with the 1738 Treaty of Vienna), Charles surrendered Parma and the claim to the Tuscan throne to Francis III of Lorraine in exchange for being crowned king of Naples and Sicily. (Francis was forced to surrender Lorraine to Stanisław Leszczyński, the losing claimant to the Polish throne.) Neither the Grand Duke nor Francis III were consulted. The latter was reluctant to cede his homeland to France, but the Holy Roman Emperor (soon to be his father-in-law) compelled him. Gian Gastone was angry; he had become quite attached to the Infante-Duke, and didn't like the prospect of a foreigner ruling Tuscany. Spain accordingly withdrew its troops from Tuscany in January 1737; 6,000 Austrians took their place on Francis's behalf.


text: By the time of the Spanish withdrawal, the Grand Duke was dying from "an accumulation of diseases". One of his final acts was to order the erection of a statue of Galileo Galilei, who was patronised by his great-grandfather Cosimo II and his grandfather Grand Duke Ferdinando II, in the Basilica of Santa Croce. Anna Maria Luisa, the Dowager Electress Palatine, rushed to his bedside when it became apparent he would not recover. Gian Gastone could not eat anything, and his condition steadily worsened; Anna Maria Luisa subsequently had him moved to a clean bed. Worried for her brother's soul, the Dowager Electress had the irreligious Gian Gastone repent for his sins. On 9 July 1737, in the fourteenth year of his reign, the last Medicean Grand Duke expired. The Electress Anna Maria Luisa inherited all of the House of Medici's allodial possessions, but in accordance with the wishes of the great powers, Francis of Lorraine succeeded to the title Grand Duke of Tuscany.


text: Gian Gastone gave his all in reforming his realm, purging corrupt churchmen from government, reversing Cosimo III's ban of teaching "new ideas", i.e. the philosophy of Galileo et al., in the University of Pisa and abolishing the burdensome income taxes. As a result, he was sincerely mourned by his people. Charles de Brosses, a French politician and writer, wrote, in 1739, "The Tuscans would give two-thirds of their property to have the Medici back, and the other third to get rid of the Lorrainers." This sentiment did not diminish much in 62 years, when, in 1799, during the French occupation of Tuscany, the people called for the long-dead Gian Gastone to ascend the throne. His remains were interred in the Medicean necropolis, the Basilica of San Lorenzo. His corpse was dressed in "black velvet", according to "Official Report on the Examination of the Tombs in the Medici Mausoleum" of 1857, "with, over this, the great cloak of Grand Master of the Order of Saint Stephen. On the head was the Grand Ducal crown, worn over a cap; and by his side the sceptre. But the crown and sceptre were corroded by the acids which had been used in embalming the body." The one group who may have taken exception to such adulation is the Freemasons whom, in his final year, under harsh penalty he forbade to meet.


text: As of August 2015, access to see his white rectangular marble tomb slab is denied. His remains are not under the white slab; they are under a grey circular stone near his slab. Under this grey stone is a red brick staircase which leads to an underground burial chamber that was studied for the first time ever in 2004. In the chamber are many family members. Gian Gastone had a lead coffin in a wooden frame. It was replaced with a modern coffin. Near him are the remains of many De Medici children who were buried in unmarked graves. Some of them still have their garments.


text: Gian Gastone was descended from both Cosimo the Elder and Lorenzo the Elder through the marriage between Maria Salviati, grandchild of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and Giovanni de' Medici, great-grandson of Lorenzo the Elder. This becomes clearer when one understands their common ancestor: Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, father to both Lorenzo the Elder and Cosimo de' Medici. Thus the kings of France from Louis XIII and on, are descended from the 'cadet' branch, confirming that Gian Gastone was not the last Medici.


title: Selina Scott

text: Selina Mary Scott (born 13 May 1951) is an English television presenter who co-hosted the first dedicated breakfast television programme in the UK before crossing the Atlantic to join "West 57th", a prime-time current-affairs show broadcast from New York. Scott continues to write, and run her lifestyle brand "Naturally Selina Scott".


title: Selina Scott

text: Scott was born in Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, in 1951. Her secondary education was at Laurence Jackson School in Guisborough, North Yorkshire where she became Head Girl. She read English and American studies at the University of East Anglia.


title: Selina Scott

text: Scott trained in Dundee, Scotland on D. C. Thomson's "The Sunday Post" newspaper, once lauded in "Guinness World Records" as having the "highest per capita readership in the world", before becoming press officer for the Highlands and Islands Tourist board on the Isle of Bute. She made her television debut on the weeknightly news programme for the regional ITV station Grampian Television, "North Tonight" in Aberdeen at the height of the North Sea oil boom.


title: Selina Scott

text: Several months after "North Tonight" began, Scott, aged 29, was headhunted by ITN, appearing as a newsreader on ITN's "News at Ten". In 1982, at the outbreak of the Falklands War, Scott became the Forces' pin-up.


title: Selina Scott

text: Eighteen months after she first anchored ITV's "News at Ten", she was poached by the BBC to launch "Breakfast Time" in January 1983. In contrast to Alastair Burnet and Sandy Gall, who had welcomed her at ITN, she presented the new show with Frank Bough. In a 2020 interview Scott said that Bough would deliberately undermine her by interrupting mid-question and in other ways; when she attempted to complain she said that senior management simply wasn't interested: "they seemed to have no emotional intelligence, and they let men like Frank Bough roam the BBC without any check on them". She said that there was a very sexist atmosphere at the BBC, "this malevolence".


title: Selina Scott

text: When she left "Breakfast Time", she accepted the role as presenter of the BBC's "The Clothes Show" (1986–1988), and was guest host on the chat show "Wogan". Here she interviewed, amongst many others, Ginger Rogers and Prince Andrew. In connection with interviewing Andrew, she says he asked her out, but she managed to ignore it.


title: Selina Scott

text: It was at this time that Albert Broccoli, the producer of the James Bond films, auditioned Scott for the role of Miss Moneypenny in "The Living Daylights". "He sat me on a high stool so he and his producer could get a good eyeful," Scott told "The Lady" in 2013.


title: Selina Scott

text: Scott appeared on Britain's first government-authorised satellite service, BSB, before Rupert Murdoch's Sky headhunted her when the two companies merged. There she co-anchored its 1992 election-night coverage with David Frost.


title: Selina Scott

text: Scott has also produced independent documentaries on the Royals in Europe including "A Prince Among Islands", a profile of Prince Charles which achieved 14 million viewers, the first in depth interview with King Juan Carlos of Spain, "The Year of Spain" (which also achieved record viewing figures for a documentary in Spain) and "The Return of the King", returning to Greece with King Constantine and his family after 25 years of exile to which the Greek government reacted, menacing their journey by boat through the Greek islands with gunboats and aircraft. This dramatic intervention led not only to national headlines in the UK and Greece but ultimately to King Constantine appealing to the European Court of Human Rights to stop the Greek Government confiscating his passport and his Athens property. A settlement was eventually reached.


title: Selina Scott

text: In 2007, she took part in the BBC Two series: "The Underdog Show" to highlight the Dogs Trust Charity for rescued animals. After six weeks of intensive training she was voted the winner with an abandoned wolfhound cross Chump, beating singer Huey Morgan and actress Julia Sawalha in the final.


title: Selina Scott

text: In October 2008, Scott presented a four-part series for the Sky Arts channel and ITV, Edward Seago — "The Forgotten Painter", and included interviews with Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh; who described how he and Seago explored a pristine Antarctic abroad soon after the first official royal tour to Australia.


title: Selina Scott

text: In 2018 Scott appeared in 4 episodes of the BBC's "The Real Marigold Hotel", shot in Rajasthan, which she had always wanted to visit as her great-great-grandfather (a soldier surgeon) survived the Siege of Lucknow.


title: Selina Scott

text: In December 2021, Scott was one of the four walkers travelling with the BBC's 360 degree camera, in the first series of BBC Four's Winter Walks. Scott's episode featured a walk through Wharfedale in the Yorkshire Dales.


title: Selina Scott

text: CBS in the United States hired her for their news show "West 57th", which on one assignment took her to Kenya. For CBS, Scott gained exclusive access and revealing interviews with, amongst others, George Harrison, Prince Charles, Bono of U2 and the world chess champion Garry Kasparov.


title: Selina Scott

text: Whilst in America, Scott interviewed Donald Trump. Her 1995 documentary for ITV about Trump was the first investigation into his honesty. Owing to a technical issue with the camera, Scott interviewed Trump twice. the programme intercut them. When it aired on ITV, Trump was shocked by its critical tone and threatened Scott with legal action and sent her numerous angry threatening letters, an issue which partly became public knowledge at the time. Trump warned ITV that if they sold the rights to any of the American television stations that were bidding for it, he would tie them up in the courts. ITV complied, meaning the US press and public were unable to see the documentary. It also started a long-running feud between Trump and Scott. Shortly after the interview with Trump, Scott signed a deal reportedly worth $200,000 to host her own talk show, "The Selina Scott Show" for NBC Super Channel.


title: Selina Scott

text: By 1997, she was back in the UK, signing a contract with Sky reputedly for £1,000,000. She anchored the breakfast programme, later switching to the 5pm news.


title: Selina Scott

text: Scott lives on a farm in a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Yorkshire where she has created a "nature haven" for threatened species.


title: Selina Scott

text: She has established a natural fibres business, "Naturally Selina Scott", sourcing sustainable cashmere from the Gobi Desert in Outer Mongolia (a journey she made in 2016 to see for herself how the fibre is produced, and animals raised). Scott lived with the nomads in their Gers and traced the entire process from the rearing of the cashmere goats to the making of the finished garment in Ulan Batar before launching to the public.


title: Selina Scott

text: She is the eldest of five children: her brother Robin is editor of Britain's best-selling shooting magazine, "Sporting Gun" and her sisters are Angela, Vanessa, and Fiona, the last a fine art portrait artist, who regularly exhibits at the "Royal Society of Portrait Painters Exhibition" in London. In April 2007 Fiona exhibited a long-awaited portrait of her eldest sister. Selina purchased her portrait.


title: Selina Scott

text: At the time when Princess Diana was, like Scott, having problems with the press, Michael Shea, press secretary to the Queen, asked Scott if she would befriend the princess. He thought that Scott might be able to advise her on dealing with the press; Scott commented "the trouble was I was going through just the same as she was". Scott did befriend Diana, but they did not discuss the press.


title: Selina Scott

text: In a departure from broadcasting, Scott wrote her first autobiographical book, "A Long Walk in the High Hills: The Story of a House, a Dog and a Spanish Island", published in 2010. This book describes how Kendi, her rescued German Shepherd, came to live with her. Scott also has another dog, Nip, a female Border collie cross.


title: Selina Scott

text: With her continuing interest in literature, Scott became Patron of the Charles Dickens Society, based in Malton, North Yorkshire, raising a public appeal to buy a rare signed edition of "A Christmas Carol" at auction in New York. The story of the rescue of the book found in a refuse bin in New York, and its homecoming to the market town of Malton (where the character of Scrooge and his Counting House was reputedly based) made national headlines.


title: Selina Scott

text: In March 2012, Scott was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Journalism degree from the University of Hull.


title: Selina Scott

text: Scott is an active campaigner for causes such as animal welfare and wildlife conservation, spearheading a campaign to ban the live transportation of animals in Europe after Brexit, which achieved over 100,000 signatures to initiate a debate in Parliament. She supported Brexit because of this issue.


title: Selina Scott

text: In August 2008, Scott announced her intention to sue Channel 5, a UK television station, for age discrimination. She claimed Five reneged on an agreement for her to return to News because she was "too old". Scott hired Simon Smith of Schillings, and Five denied the claim. A preliminary hearing began on 24 September 2008 with a full five-day hearing scheduled for December 2008. On 5 December 2008 she won, with Five issuing a public apology and making a confidential out-of-court financial settlement. It was later reported that she accepted the offer, despite publicly declaring she would have her day in court, as her father had become seriously ill in December. He died on Christmas Eve and she wanted to be at his side and felt unable to continue the action as planned.


title: Selina Scott

text: Following her claim against ageism, Age UK and Equal Justice, a legal firm, commissioned Scott to compile a report investigating the employment of women over 50 years old at the BBC. The report was delivered to Sir Michael Lyons, Chairman of the BBC Trust and Jeremy Hunt, the shadow Culture and Media Secretary in April 2010. The report accused the BBC of institutional ageism against older women.


title: Selina Scott

text: In 2014 "the Telegraph" newspaper reported that Scott was considering standing for election to Parliament as a Conservative MP; Scott commented that this was nonsense, she was not even a Tory.


title: Just Push Play

text: Just Push Play is the thirteenth studio album by American rock band Aerosmith, co-produced by song collaborators Marti Frederiksen and Mark Hudson and was released in March 6, 2001. The album's first single, "Jaded", became a Top 10 hit in the US and around the world. As a result, "Just Push Play" was certified Platinum within a month of its release.


title: Just Push Play

text: Subsequent singles "Fly Away from Here", "Sunshine", and "Just Push Play", though garnering some airplay, failed to impact the Hot 100, although the latter two reached the US Mainstream Rock chart and the former appeared within the Adult Top 40.


title: Just Push Play

text: The album's cover, which was designed by Hajime Sorayama, features a gynoid resembling Marilyn Monroe. The illustration had already been used for the cover of a compilation album of various artists hits called "Video Sound", released in 1985, and which did not include any Aerosmith songs.


title: Just Push Play

text: Several songs were recorded for the album that went unused. "Ain't It True", "Easy", "Innocent Man", "I Love You Down", and "Sweet Due" can be linked as originating from these sessions. "Angel's Eye" was used for the soundtrack to the 2000 film "Charlie's Angels". "Face" and "Won't Let You Down" were issued as bonus tracks on later pressings of the album; these songs are listed in copyright repertories. The track "Do You Wonder" was supposedly recorded for this album, as well.


title: Just Push Play

text: For his review of "Just Push Play" for Allmusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine said that it was their best-sounding album in the past decade, as well as "tighter, savvier, and better" than anything since their 1989 album "Pump", but it was not much compared to "Pump" and its 1987 predecessor, "Permanent Vacation". He felt it lacked anything memorable, and the band's "refusal to act their age results in a couple of embarrassing slips into stodginess".


title: Just Push Play

text: Ben Mitchell of "Blender" magazine said the album was somewhat better than their 1997 effort "Nine Lives", but was not with the times and was rather poor.


title: Just Push Play

text: Darryl Stredan strongly disliked the album, to the point that he considered it proof that Aerosmith should stop making new music. Chris Willman of "Entertainment Weekly" called the album 'good but not great'.


title: Just Push Play

text: "NME" said that most of the album is not new, but the album was Aerosmith's first album to feature rap metal with songs like "Just Push Play" and "Outta Your Head".


title: Just Push Play

text: David Fricke of "Rolling Stone" said that "Just Push Play" was the closest Aerosmith had come to a 'great album' since 1976's "Rocks", despite the 'weak spots' of the album's power ballads. Robert Christgau picked out the album's lead single, "Jaded", as a choice cut.


title: Just Push Play

text: The album was nominated for three Grammy Awards in 2001, including Best Rock Album "(Just Push Play"), Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group ("Jaded"), and Best Short Form Music Video ("Fly Away from Here").


title: Just Push Play

text: "Just Push Play" debuted at No. 2 within the "Billboard" 200, selling over 240,000 copies in its first week.


title: Just Push Play

text: NB: On the original version, roughly 45 seconds after "Avant Garden" a hidden track entitled "Under My Skin Reprise" plays for about one minute. On the international version, the track is roughly 40 seconds after "Face" and on the Japanese version after "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing".


title: Directory (computing)

text: In computing, a directory is a file system cataloging structure which contains references to other computer files, and possibly other directories. On many computers, directories are known as folders, or drawers, analogous to a workbench or the traditional office filing cabinet. The name derives from books like a telephone directory that lists the phone numbers of all the people living in a certain area.


title: Directory (computing)

text: Files are organized by storing related files in the same directory. In a hierarchical file system (that is, one in which files and directories are organized in a manner that resembles a tree), a directory contained inside another directory is called a subdirectory. The terms parent and child are often used to describe the relationship between a subdirectory and the directory in which it is cataloged, the latter being the parent. The top-most directory in such a filesystem, which does not have a parent of its own, is called the root directory.


title: Directory (computing)

text: Historically, and even on some modern embedded systems, the file systems either had no support for directories at all or had only a "flat" directory structure, meaning subdirectories were not supported; there were only a group of top-level directories, each containing files. In modern systems, a directory can contain a mix of files and subdirectories.


title: Directory (computing)

text: In many operating systems, programs have an associated working directory in which they execute. Typically, file names accessed by the program are assumed to reside within this directory if the file names are not specified with an explicit directory name.


title: Directory (computing)

text: Some operating systems restrict a user's access only to their home directory or project directory, thus isolating their activities from all other users. In early versions of Unix the root directory was the home directory of the root user, but modern Unix usually uses another directory such as for this purpose.


title: Directory (computing)

text: In keeping with Unix philosophy, Unix systems treat directories as a type of file. Caveats include not being able to write to a directory file except indirectly by creating, renaming and removing file system objects in the directory and only being able to read from a directory file using directory-specific library routines and system calls that return records, not a byte-stream.


title: Directory (computing)

text: The name "folder", presenting an analogy to the file folder used in offices, and used in a hierarchical file system design for the Electronic Recording Machine, Accounting (ERMA) Mark 1 published in 1958 as well as by Xerox Star, is used in almost all modern operating systems' desktop environments. Folders are often depicted with icons which visually resemble physical file folders.


title: Directory (computing)

text: There is a difference between a "directory", which is a file system concept, and the graphical user interface metaphor that is used to represent it (a "folder"). For example, Microsoft Windows uses the concept of special folders to help present the contents of the computer to the user in a fairly consistent way that frees the user from having to deal with absolute directory paths, which can vary between versions of Windows, and between individual installations. Many operating systems also have the concept of "smart folders" or virtual folders that reflect the results of a file system search or other operation. These folders do not represent a directory in the file hierarchy. Many email clients allow the creation of folders to organize email. These folders have no corresponding representation in the filesystem structure.


title: Directory (computing)

text: If one is referring to a "container of documents", the term "folder" is more appropriate. The term "directory" refers to the way a structured list of document files and folders are stored on the computer. The distinction can be due to the way a directory is accessed; on Unix systems, is usually referred to as a directory when viewed in a command line console, but if accessed through a graphical file manager, users may sometimes call it a folder.


title: Directory (computing)

text: Operating systems that support hierarchical filesystems (practically all modern ones) implement a form of caching to RAM of recent path lookups. In the Unix world, this is usually called Directory Name Lookup Cache (DNLC), although it is called dcache on Linux.


title: Directory (computing)

text: For local filesystems, DNLC entries normally expire only under pressure from other more recent entries. For network file systems a coherence mechanism is necessary to ensure that entries have not been invalidated by other clients.


title: Murder of Tracie McBride

text: United States Army soldier Tracie Joy McBride was kidnapped, raped, and murdered on February 18, 1995. Louis Jones Jr., a former soldier and Gulf War veteran, was tried and convicted in the U.S. federal court system for kidnapping resulting in death. The crime was a federal case since it started on a military base, and the rape was the prime aspect to the murder which made it a capital offense. Jones, who was sentenced to death, argued that he should be spared execution due to the traumatic effects of Gulf War syndrome. His appeals were unsuccessful and he was executed by lethal injection in 2003.


title: Murder of Tracie McBride

text: Mark Miller of "Newsweek" characterized the Jones case as unusual due to the Gulf War syndrome defense strategy.


title: Murder of Tracie McBride

text: On February 18, 1995, 44-year old Louis Jones drove onto Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas, and kidnapped Private Tracie Joy McBride, a 19-year old from Centerville, Minnesota. Jones was looking for his ex-wife, but instead decided to kidnap McBride. McBride was on the telephone with a friend, and in a laundry facility when she was abducted. Two privates attempted to rescue McBride, but Jones rendered one, Private Michael Peacock, unconscious by hitting him.


title: Murder of Tracie McBride

text: Jones took McBride to his house, raped her, and held her in a closet. He forced McBride to use hydrogen peroxide on herself, washed McBride's clothes, and forced McBride to walk on towels; these efforts were part of an attempt to conceal the crime by hiding any fibers and other possible evidence. He then drove McBride to a remote area and beat her to death with a tire iron. McBride died under a bridge, off Texas State Highway 277 in Coke County, Texas, about north of San Angelo. McBride had been hit in the head at least nine times. Dr. Jan Garavaglia, who was at the time of the murder an associate medical examiner in Bexar County, examined McBride's body at a local morgue. Garavaglia stated that the trauma to her head was "worse than most high-impact car wrecks." Jones likely forced McBride to walk to the point where she was killed; only mud was found on her boots, and no scuff marks were present. McBride's body was found clothed in her U.S. Army battle uniform, itself in excellent condition; the clothing had no forensic evidence of rape. The undergarments were not present.


title: Murder of Tracie McBride

text: Jones was arrested on March 1 by the San Angelo Police Department for sexually assaulting his ex-wife, Staff Sergeant Sandra Lane, after she filed a complaint with the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations (OSI). OSI agents made an inquiry to Jones on whether he was involved in McBride's abduction, and Jones confessed to killing her; he then led authorities to McBride's body. Initially, Jones stated that he did not rape McBride. McBride's body was autopsied by Garavaglia at the Bexar County Forensic Science Center in San Antonio, Texas. Due to the unusually cool weather and the placement of the body under a bridge, the body was well preserved. Despite Jones' efforts to conceal the rape, Garavaglia was able to determine that Jones had raped McBride, and this fact allowed federal prosecutors to ask for the death penalty. Jones later confessed to a psychiatrist to raping McBride.


title: Murder of Tracie McBride

text: Jones, born on March 4, 1950, was a native of Shelby County, Tennessee, and grew up in Chicago. According to testimony presented at his criminal trial, Jones experienced sexual and physical abuse.


title: Murder of Tracie McBride

text: He served in the Army for 22 years. Richard A. Serrano of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote, "It was in the Army where he excelled." Jones, a member of the U.S. Army Rangers, participated in the Invasion of Grenada and the Gulf War of 1991. He was the leader of a platoon in Grenada, and he received a Commendation Medal due to his actions during a ground attack in Iraq. He became a master sergeant and on his retirement in 1993 was honorably discharged from the Rangers. At the time of the crime, he worked on base as a bus driver.


title: Murder of Tracie McBride

text: Jones was married three times, and he had a daughter, Barbara; he raised her as a single parent. One of his wives, Sandra Lane, was an Army staff sergeant. He became estranged from her; she noted changes in his behavior after he returned from Iraq. Jones had no previous criminal record. Before the killing, he worked low-paying jobs and received low grades in university courses. Lane filed an official complaint with the OSI on March 1, 1995, stating that, on February 16 of that year, Jones had kidnapped her, made her take money out of her bank account, and committed sexual assault against her while at his residence.


title: Murder of Tracie McBride

text: Tracie Joy McBride (May 27, 1975 – February 19, 1995), a graduate of Centennial High School in Circle Pines, Minnesota, was at the base for advanced intelligence training for a two-week period. McBride aspired to become a music teacher. McBride joined the United States Army after her high school graduation, intending to fund her university education; she hoped to have her degree completed prior to the end of her tour of duty. At the end of her life, McBride was in a romantic relationship with a member of the U.S. Marines. She was assigned to Goodfellow in early February 1995 after completion of training, at the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio of Monterey in Monterey, California. McBride was kidnapped 10 days after her arrival.


title: Murder of Tracie McBride

text: Jones, indicted in March 1995, was tried in federal court in Lubbock, Texas, since he had kidnapped McBride from a military base. His specific charge was "kidnapping within special maritime/territorial jurisdiction resulting in death". U.S. Attorney Tanya K. Pierce was the prosecutor. McBride's family supported the prosecutor's decision to seek the death penalty for Jones. The trial was moved from San Angelo to Lubbock due to the news coverage in the former city.


title: Murder of Tracie McBride

text: The trial began on October16, 1995. Nine members of the twelve-person jury were female and the rest were male. Jones stated that he committed the crime due to trauma he received during his military duties, indicative of Gulf War syndrome. Evidence showing brain damage to Jones was presented. Jones was convicted on October23, after two days of testimony and 65 minutes of deliberation from the jury. After finding that Jones had intentionally killed McBride, the jury proceeded to sentencing.


title: Murder of Tracie McBride

text: The sentencing phase involved the jury deliberating for 6.5 hours. The prosecution alleged four statutory aggravating circumstances and three non-statutory aggravating circumstances. The jury unanimously found two statutory aggravating circumstances: Jones killed McBride during the commission of a kidnapping and the murder involved torture or serious physical abuse to McBride, referring to the rape. The finding of statutory aggravating circumstances officially made the McBride's murder a capital offense. The jury rejected two other alleged statutory aggravating circumstances: Jones had knowingly put lives other than that of McBride at risk and the murder was premeditated. As for non-statutory aggravating circumstances, the jury unanimously found that McBride's family had suffered from her death and that McBride was vulnerable due to her young age and other characteristics, but rejected the argument that Jones would present a future danger.


title: Murder of Tracie McBride

text: In addition, seven jurors found that the testimony of Jones's ex-wife, Sandra Lane, was a mitigating factor. Although Lane testified that Jones raped her in his apartment two days before he killed McBride, she also said that he seemed "very crazed" and was "spinning out of control, bouncing from thought to thought."


title: Murder of Tracie McBride

text: On November 3, 1995, the jury came back with a unanimous recommendation for death. On June 11, 1996, Jones was entered into the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) as prisoner #999195 under an agreement with federal authorities. The State of Texas housed its male death-row inmates at the Ellis Unit near Huntsville, Texas. On July 13, 1999, he was moved into federal custody, to the newly opened men's death row at U.S. Penitentiary, Terre Haute. He was Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) prisoner #27265-077.


title: Murder of Tracie McBride

text: Throughout the appeals process, Jones' lawyer, Tim Floyd, continued to argue that he should be spared the death penalty and have his sentence commuted to life imprisonment because nerve gas from Iraq had damaged Jones' brain. Floyd contacted University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center epidemiology department head, Dr. Robert Haley, who published the first major studies related to Gulf War syndrome, and asked him to review his client's medical records; Haley argued that Jones had sustained brain damage and that it "was responsible for the personality changes that contributed significantly to the tragic events of his crime." U.S. senator Kay Bailey Hutchison argued that Jones should have his brain scanned to check for any damage before any death sentence would be carried out. Ross Perot also called for a commutation of the sentence to life without parole. Throughout the appeal process, McBride's family advocated for Jones' execution.


title: Murder of Tracie McBride

text: In 1998, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that two of the non-statutory aggravating circumstances appeared to be redundant. However, they upheld the death sentence since they found that the aggravation still outweighed the mitigation.


title: Murder of Tracie McBride

text: In 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to overturn Jones' death sentence. Jones' final appeal for clemency from then-president of the United States GeorgeW. Bush and his final appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court failed on March17, 2003. On March18, 2003, Jones was executed at USP Terre Haute, making him the third federal prisoner executed since federal executions resumed in 2001. McBride's family and a friend attended the execution.


title: Murder of Tracie McBride

text: After Jones's execution, his attorney read a written statement from him: "I accept full responsibility for the pain, anguish and the suffering I caused the McBrides for having taken Tracie from them." He said he would not ask "for forgiveness for the awful things done to Tracie. They continue to feel anguish and pain that will always be felt by them, and I felt forgiveness from the McBrides is something I had no right to ask for."


title: Murder of Tracie McBride

text: Jones remained the last person executed by the United States federal government until July14, 2020, when Daniel Lewis Lee was executed by lethal injection.


title: Murder of Tracie McBride

text: McBride was buried at Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minnesota. The Tracie Joy McBride Scholarship Fund and its associated event, Tracie's Night, were named after her; the fund is primarily managed by her sister, Stacie McBride-Cox.


title: Murder of Tracie McBride

text: In "Human Behavior in the Social Environment: A Macro, National, and International Perspective", author Rudolph Alexander Jr. wrote that experiences of soldiers during the 2000s Iraq War, in which over 3,700 coming back from the war in 2005 stated that they had fears that they may lose control of themselves or harm another person and that 1,700 reported believing that they believed they were better off dead and considered hurting themselves, "provide support for Jones' claims." 450,000 Americans served in the Gulf War.


title: Conti (ransomware)

text: Conti is a ransomware that has been observed since 2020, believed to be distributed by a Russia-based group. All versions of Microsoft Windows are known to be affected. The United States government offered a reward of up to $10 million for information on the group in early May of 2022.


title: Conti (ransomware)

text: The software uses its own implementation of AES-256 that uses up to 32 individual logical threads, making it much faster than most ransomware. The method of delivery is not clear.


title: Conti (ransomware)

text: The gang behind Conti has operated a site from which it can leak documents copied by the ransomware since 2020. The same gang has operated the Ryuk ransomware. The group is known as Wizard Spider and is based in Saint Petersburg, Russia.


title: Conti (ransomware)

text: Once on a system it will try to delete Volume Shadow Copies. It will try to terminate a number of services using Restart Manager to ensure it can encrypt files used by them. It will disable real time monitor and uninstall the Windows Defender application. Default behaviour is to encrypt all files on local and networked Server Message Block drives, ignoring files with DLL, .exe, .sys and .lnk extensions. It is also able to target specific drives as well as individual IP addresses.


title: Conti (ransomware)

text: According to NHS Digital the only guaranteed way to recover is to restore all affected files from their most recent backup.


title: Conti (ransomware)

text: During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Conti Group announced its support of Russia and threatened to deploy "retaliatory measures" if cyberattacks were launched against the country. As a result, approximately 60,000 messages from internal chat logs were leaked by an anonymous person who indicated their support for Ukraine along with source code and other files used by the group.


title: Conti (ransomware)

text: The leaks cover the time from the start of 2020 to February 27 2022 and consists of more than 60,000 chat messages. Most leaked messages were direct messages sent via Jabber. Attacks were coordinated using Rocket.Chat. The leaks are fragmented.


title: Conti (ransomware)

text: Some of the messages discuss the actions of Cozy Bear in hacking researchers into COVID-19. Kimberly Goody, director of cybercrime analysis at Mandiant says that references to an unnamed external source in the logs that could be helpful to the gang. She points to mention in the leaks of Liteyny Avenue in Saint Petersburg, home to local FSB offices, as evidence that the external source could be the Russian government.


title: Conti (ransomware)

text: Views expressed in the leaks include support for Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, antisemitism (including towards Volodymyr Zelenskyy). A member known as Patrick repeated several false claims made by Putin about Ukraine. Patrick lives in Australia and may be a Russian citizen.


title: Conti (ransomware)

text: The messages use mat heavily. Messages containing homophobia, misogyny and references to child abuse were also found.


title: Conti (ransomware)

text: The most senior member is known by the aliases Stern or Demon and acts as CEO. Another member known as Mango acts as a general manager and frequently communicates with Stern. Mango told Stern in one message that there were 62 people in the main team. The numbers involved fluctuate, reaching as high as 100. Because of constant turnover in members, the group recruits constantly from legitimate job recruitment sites and hacker sites.


title: Conti (ransomware)

text: Ordinary programmers earn around $1500 to $2000 per month, and members negotiating ransom payments can take a share of the profits. In April 2021 one member claimed to have an unnamed journalist who took a 5% share of ransomware payments by pressuring victims to pay up.


title: Conti (ransomware)

text: In May 2022, the United States government offered a reward of up to $15 million for information on the group: $10 million for the identity or location of its leaders, and $5 million for information leading to the arrest of anyone conspiring with it.


title: IPod Touch (6th generation)

text: The sixth generation iPod Touch (marketed as the iPod touch) is a mobile device designed and marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-based user interface. It is the successor to the iPod Touch (5th generation), becoming the first major update to the iPod lineup in more than two and a half years. It was released on the online Apple Store on July 15, 2015, along with minor upgrades to the iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle. This generation of iPod Touch was officially discontinued by Apple on May 28, 2019, with the release of its next-generation successor. It supports up to iOS 12.5.6, released on August 31, 2022.


title: IPod Touch (6th generation)

text: The device originally shipped with iOS 8.4, which was released on June 30, 2015, along with the Apple Music streaming service. It can play music, movies, television shows, audiobooks, and podcasts and can sort its media library by songs, artists, albums, videos, playlists, genres, composers, podcasts, audiobooks, and compilations. Scrolling is achieved by swiping a finger across the screen. Alternatively, headset controls can be used to pause, play, skip, and repeat tracks. However, the EarPods that come with the sixth-generation iPod touch do not include a remote or microphone.


title: IPod Touch (6th generation)

text: The sixth-generation iPod Touch supports iOS 9 through iOS 12. The latest version of iOS that this device can run is 12.5.6, which is a security update to iOS 12 only for devices that cannot run iOS 13.


title: IPod Touch (6th generation)

text: The sixth-generation iPod Touch features the Apple A8 and Apple M8 motion co-processor chipset with 64-bit architecture which is the same chip on iPad Mini 4, Apple TV 4th Gen, iPhone 6, and the HomePod, but it is slightly underclocked at 1.1 GHz (the iPhone 6 series was clocked at 1.4 GHz while the iPad Mini 4 was clocked at 1.5 GHz) because of its small battery. It has 1 GB of LPDDR3 RAM, twice the amount as the previous-generation iPod touch. Apple's Metal graphics technology is also compatible with this generation of iPod touch. With regard to battery life, this device is powered by a non-removable 1,043 mAh lithium-ion polymer battery. Based on tests conducted by Apple, the device can provide up to 40 hours of audio playback or 8 hours of video playback.