title: Peter the Hermit

text: Peter appears, at the beginning of 1098, as attempting to escape from the privations of the siege of Antioch—showing himself, as Guibert of Nogent says, a "fallen star." Guibert and other sources go on to write that Peter was responsible for the speech before the half-starved and dead Crusaders which motivated their sally from the gates of Antioch and their subsequent victory over the overwhelmingly superior Muslim army besieging the city. Thus, having recovered his stature, in the middle of the year he was sent by the princes to invite Kerbogha to settle all differences via a duel, which the emir subsequently declined.


title: Peter the Hermit

text: In 1099 Peter appears as the treasurer of the alms at the siege of Arqa, and as leader of the supplicatory processions around the walls of Jerusalem before it fell, and later within Jerusalem which preceded the Crusaders' surprising victory at the Battle of Ascalon (August). At the end of 1099, Peter went to Latakia, and sailed thence for the West. From this time he disappears from the historical record. Albert of Aix records that he died in 1131, as prior of a church of the Holy Sepulchre which he had founded in France.


title: Peter the Hermit

text: Albert of Aix in his "Historia Hierosolymitanae Expeditionis" claims that Peter the Hermit was the true author and originator of the First Crusade. This story later appears in the pages of William of Tyre, which indicates that even a few generations after the crusade, the descendants of the crusaders believed Peter was its originator. This myth was dismissed by modern historians beginning with Heinrich von Sybel."" Various historical sources also recount that during an early visit to Jerusalem sometime before 1096, Jesus appeared to Peter the Hermit in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and bade him preach the crusade. The origins of these legend is a matter of some interest. Von Sybel suggested that in the camp of the paupers (which existed side by side with that of the knights, and grew increasingly large as the crusade took a more and more heavy toll on the purses of the crusaders) some idolization of Peter the Hermit had already begun, parallel to the similar glorification of Godfrey of Bouillon by the Lorrainers.


title: Peter the Hermit

text: There is very little concrete record for his life after returning to Europe and much of what is known is speculation or legend. However, Albert of Aix records that he died in 1131, as prior of a church of the Holy Sepulchre which he had founded in France or Flanders. It is thought that during the Siege of Antioch during the days of famine and cold weather, Peter attempted to flee only to be captured by the Norman Tancred and placed back on the battlefield in 1112. Peter also held services of intercession for Latin and native recruits. Peter advised Greeks and Latins to form processions as well.


title: Peter the Hermit

text: It is generally quoted that he founded an Augustinian monastery in France named for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. However, it was actually in Flanders at Neufmoustier near Huy, or Huy itself which may have been his home town. His tomb is in Neufmoustier Abbey, so it is presumed that this was his abbey but in another tradition the nearby Solières Abbey claims that it was his foundation.


title: Peter the Hermit

text: Peter's obituary is in the chronicle of Neufmoustier Abbey. On its page entry of 8 July 1115 the chronicle says that this day saw "the death of Dom Pierre, of pious memory, venerable priest and hermit, who deserved to be appointed by the Lord to announce the first to the holy Cross" and the text continues with "after the conquest of the holy land, Pierre returned to his native country" and also that "he founded this church ... and chooses them a decent burial". This record further supports Neufmoustier's claim as his foundation.


title: Peter the Hermit

text: Since his death various legends have sprung up around Peter. One legend has its roots in the writings of Jacques de Vitry, who found it convenient to convince people from the bishopric of Liège of the merits of participating in the Albigensian Crusade by manipulating the story of Peter.


title: Peter the Hermit

text: Another legend is given in the 14th century by the French troubadour Jehan-de-Bouteiller, who sings the memory of "a dict Peter the Hermit deschendant a count of Clairmont by a Sieur d'Herrymont [who] married a Montagut". Peter the Hermit's parents would, therefore, be Renauld de Hérimont and Aleidis Montaigu (Aleidis is known in Huy as the "mother of Dom Pierre, with a home in Huy").


title: Peter the Hermit

text: There is also a strong and old tradition that Peter the Hermit was the first to introduce the use of the Rosary. It follows that he began this tradition in about 1090.


title: Maia Morgenstern

text: Maia Emilia Ninel Morgenstern (; born 1 May 1962) is a Romanian film and stage actress, described by Florin Mitu of AMOS News as "a symbol of Romanian theater and film". In the English-speaking world, she is best known for portraying the Blessed Virgin Mary in Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ". In Romania, she has been nationally known since her 1992 role as Nela in "Balanța", a film known in the United States as "The Oak", set during the waning days of Communist Romania. She received a star on the Romanian Walk of Fame in Bucharest on 1 May 2011.


title: Maia Morgenstern

text: attended the Zoia Kosmodeminskaia High School in her native city, and graduated from the Film and Theatre Academy of Bucharest in 1985. She then played at "Teatrul Tineretului" (Youth Theater) in Piatra Neamț until 1988, and at the "Teatrul Evreiesc de Stat" (State Jewish Theatre) in Bucharest 1988, 1989, and 1990. From 1990 to 1998 she was a member of the company of the National Theatre in Bucharest, and since 1998 of Teatrul Bulandra, also in Bucharest; in addition, she continues to act at the Jewish State Theatre and other Bucharest theaters and elsewhere in Romania. Among her notable stage roles in recent years, in a Romanian-language production of "The Blue Angel" ("Îngerul Albastru" in Romanian) at Bucharest's Odeon Theater, in 2001-2 she played (to great critical acclaim) Lola Lola, the character made famous by Marlene Dietrich. At the same time, she was also playing the role of Kathleen Hogan in a Romanian-language production of Israel Horovitz's "Park Your Car in Harvard Yard" at the State Jewish Theater.


title: Maia Morgenstern

text: Morgenstern has appeared in numerous films, primarily in Romanian language roles. In "The Passion of the Christ", she performs a role in Aramaic, but like the other actors in the cast of that film, she simply memorized her lines phonetically.


title: Maia Morgenstern

text: Her surname, Morgenstern, means "Morning Star" in German, a title of the Virgin Mary, the character she played in "The Passion of the Christ". Mel Gibson, a devout Traditionalist Catholic, thought this of great significance when casting her. In interviews, she has defended "The Passion of the Christ" against allegations of antisemitism, saying that the high priest Caiaphas is portrayed not as a representative of the Jewish people, but as a leader of the establishment, adding that "Authorities throughout history have persecuted individuals with revolutionary ideas."


title: Maia Morgenstern

text: On 29 March 2021, a Romanian man was arrested after Morgenstern received an email stating "I intend to throw her in the gas chamber".


title: Maia Morgenstern

text: She has been married twice, first to Claudiu Istodor (1983–1999), and then to Dumitru Băltățeanu (2001–2015). She has 3 children: Tudor Aaron, an actor, Eva Leea Cabiria and Ana Isadora.


title: Maia Morgenstern

text: Where translations of titles are italicized, it indicates use of the translated title for the film in English-language release.


title: Weightlifting at the 2020 Summer Olympics

text: The weightlifting at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo took place in 2021 at Tokyo International Forum.


text: The number of weightlifters at these Games was reduced to 196, down from 260 in the 2016 Summer Olympics.


text: Furthermore, many countries had reduced squads, and four were excluded from weightlifting at these Games due to punishments given as a result of high numbers of historic doping offenses.


text: During the Women's +87 competition, Laurel Hubbard made history by becoming the first transgender woman to compete in the Olympics.


text: Doping in weightlifting was highlighted during the Games due to historic problems in the sport. Due to corruption, failed reforms of the International Weightlifting Federation, and doping problems, the IOC is threatening to drop weightlifting entirely from the Olympics unless substantial reforms are made to the sport.


title: Normal matrix

text: The concept of normal matrices can be extended to normal operators on infinite dimensional normed spaces and to normal elements in C*-algebras. As in the matrix case, normality means commutativity is preserved, to the extent possible, in the noncommutative setting. This makes normal operators, and normal elements of C*-algebras, more amenable to analysis.


title: Normal matrix

text: The spectral theorem states that a matrix is normal if and only if it is unitarily similar to a diagonal matrix, and therefore any matrix satisfying the equation is diagonalizable. The converse does not hold because diagonalizable matrices may have non-orthogonal eigenspaces.


title: Normal matrix

text: The left and right singular vectors in the singular value decomposition of a normal matrix formula_1 differ only in complex phase from each other and from the corresponding eigenvectors, since the phase must be factored out of the eigenvalues to form singular values.


title: Normal matrix

text: Among complex matrices, all unitary, Hermitian, and skew-Hermitian matrices are normal, with all eigenvalues being unit modulus, real, and imaginary, respectively. Likewise, among real matrices, all orthogonal, symmetric, and skew-symmetric matrices are normal, with all eigenvalues being complex conjugate pairs on the unit circle, real, and imaginary, respectively. However, it is "not" the case that all normal matrices are either unitary or (skew-)Hermitian, as their eigenvalues can be any complex number, in general. For example,


title: Normal matrix

text: is neither unitary, Hermitian, nor skew-Hermitian, because its eigenvalues are formula_3; yet it is normal because


title: Normal matrix

text: The concept of normality is important because normal matrices are precisely those to which the spectral theorem applies:


title: Normal matrix

text: The diagonal entries of are the eigenvalues of , and the columns of are the eigenvectors of . The matching eigenvalues in come in the same order as the eigenvectors are ordered as columns of .


title: Normal matrix

text: Another way of stating the spectral theorem is to say that normal matrices are precisely those matrices that can be represented by a diagonal matrix with respect to a properly chosen orthonormal basis of . Phrased differently: a matrix is normal if and only if its eigenspaces span and are pairwise orthogonal with respect to the standard inner product of .


title: Normal matrix

text: The spectral theorem for normal matrices is a special case of the more general Schur decomposition which holds for all square matrices. Let be a square matrix. Then by Schur decomposition it is unitary similar to an upper-triangular matrix, say, . If is normal, so is . But then must be diagonal, for, as noted above, a normal upper-triangular matrix is diagonal.


title: Normal matrix

text: The spectral theorem permits the classification of normal matrices in terms of their spectra, for example:


title: Normal matrix

text: In general, the sum or product of two normal matrices need not be normal. However, the following holds:


title: Normal matrix

text: In this special case, the columns of are eigenvectors of both and and form an orthonormal basis in . This follows by combining the theorems that, over an algebraically closed field, commuting matrices are simultaneously triangularizable and a normal matrix is diagonalizable – the added result is that these can both be done simultaneously.


title: Normal matrix

text: It is possible to give a fairly long list of equivalent definitions of a normal matrix. Let be a complex matrix. Then the following are equivalent:


title: Normal matrix

text: Some but not all of the above generalize to normal operators on infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. For example, a bounded operator satisfying (9) is only quasinormal.


title: Normal matrix

text: It is occasionally useful (but sometimes misleading) to think of the relationships of special kinds of normal matrices as analogous to the relationships of the corresponding type of complex numbers of which their eigenvalues are composed. This is because any function of a non-defective matrix acts directly on each of its eigenvalues, and the conjugate transpose of its spectral decomposition formula_7 is formula_8, where formula_9 is the diagonal matrix of eigenvalues. Likewise, if two normal matrices commute and are therefore simultaneously diagonalizable, any operation between these matrices also acts on each corresponding pair of eigenvalues.


title: Normal matrix

text: As a special case, the complex numbers may be embedded in the normal 2×2 real matrices by the mapping


title: Normal matrix

text: which preserves addition and multiplication. It is easy to check that this embedding respects all of the above analogies.


title: Geoff Rickly

text: Geoffrey William Rickly (born March 8, 1979) is an American musician, best known as the lead singer and songwriter of rock band Thursday. Rickly is also a member of hardcore punk band United Nations, and the alternative rock group No Devotion with former members of Lostprophets, and is the founder of the record label Collect Records.


title: Geoff Rickly

text: Rickly was born in Providence, Rhode Island and raised in Dumont, New Jersey, into a Catholic family, and attended Dumont High School, where he was a member of the band and played the tenor sax. He was raised Catholic, Rickly is a diagnosed epileptic, which has affected his ability to tour.


title: Geoff Rickly

text: In early 2013, Rickly was mugged in New York City, where his cell phone, iPad, wallet, credit card, rent money, and medication were stolen. In 2015, Rickly was poisoned and robbed in Hamburg, Germany, while touring with No Devotion to play at the Reeperbahn Festival. Rickly was hospitalized, causing them to cancel their concert, but recovered for a scheduled show in Paris the following day.


title: Geoff Rickly

text: In a 2017 interview with "Spin", Rickly admitted to battling a heroin addiction that began shortly after Thursday's breakup in 2011. Following Thursday's reunion in 2016, Rickly was inspired to quit using the drug.


title: Geoff Rickly

text: Rickly has contributed guest vocals to many songs, including My American Heart's "We Are the Fabrication", Murder by Death's "Killbot 2000", This Day Forward's "Sunfalls and Watershine", Circa Survive's "The Lottery", and My Chemical Romance's "This Is the Best Day Ever". He also occasionally performs solo, most recently in Hoboken, New Jersey, at the Eyeball Records holiday party, performing his band, Thursday songs "Autumn Leaves Revisited" and "This Side of Brightness" acoustically.


title: Geoff Rickly

text: Lyrically, Rickly has been known to draw from a wide variety of influences, many of them being authors and poets. In a March 2009 interview, he cited the works of Denis Johnson, Martin Amis, Roberto Bolaño and David Foster Wallace as being among his influences for the lyrics of Thursday's Common Existence album, which was released in February 2009. A tattoo on his forearm reads "love is love", a lyric from the band Frail; Rickly adopted these lyrics into Thursday's "A Hole in the World." The band's song, "Autobiography Of A Nation" is clearly influenced by poet Michael Palmer's "Sun." Rickly has also written, recorded and played for United Nations, an experimental powerviolence collaboration.


title: Geoff Rickly

text: In 2009, Rickly formed Collect Records, a record label which in its early years only co-released various albums, including releases by Touché Amoré, United Nations and Midnight Masses, but in 2014, the label announced plans to be the primary label behind albums by Black Clouds, Vanishing Life, Sick Feeling and No Devotion, the new band formed by the ex members of Lostprophets, featuring Rickly on lead vocals.


title: Geoff Rickly

text: During the 2015 public scandal of hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli and his controversial monetary inflation of AIDS-related pharmaceuticals, it was revealed that Shkreli was a silent investor in Collect Records, while still allowing Rickly to retain creative control. Rickly and Shkreli met when the guitar that Rickly used to make Thursday's album "Full Collapse" was purchased by Shkreli for $10,000. Rickly said he was completely shocked by the scandal, stating: "I've seen the guy give away money to schools, charities, and frankly, our bands, who if anyone really knows the industry, is a hard sell. I am struggling to find how this is OK." Due to the controversy, Shkreli's relationship with Collect Records angered several artists signed to the label. One of the artists, Sick Feeling, said in a public statement: "One thing is clear; as long as he has a part in the label, we, Sick Feeling, cannot. Our experience with Geoff, Norm, and Shaun has been nothing but positive, however, we cannot continue to work with Collect as long as Martin Shkreli has any part in it." Dominic "Nicky" Palermo of Nothing, who had just recently signed a two-record deal with Collect Records, expressed interest in ending the contract and said: "I'm hoping that we can just get out of this with someone else and not have to go down whatever ugly road that could lead to." Within two days of the controversy, Rickly put out a press release stating that the label had severed its relationship with Shkreli, and that the amount of money he currently had in the bank could not cover Collect Records' outstanding invoices, leaving its future uncertain, without Shkreli's significant financial contributions to Collect (estimated to be "somewhere around a million dollars").


title: D. C. Stephenson

text: David Curtis "Steve" Stephenson (August 21, 1891 – June 28, 1966) was an American Ku Klux Klan (KKK) leader, convicted rapist and murderer. In 1923 he was appointed Grand Dragon of the Indiana Klan and head of Klan recruiting for seven other states. Later that year, he led those groups to independence from the national KKK organization. Amassing wealth and political power in Indiana politics, he was one of the most prominent national Klan leaders. "He was viewed as responsible for reviving the Klan and widening its base, and considered the most powerful man in Indiana". He had close relationships with numerous Indiana politicians, especially Governor Edward L. Jackson.


title: D. C. Stephenson

text: In "Stephenson v. State" (1925) Stephenson was tried for and convicted of the abduction, rape, and murder of Madge Oberholtzer, a state education official. His trial, conviction and imprisonment was a severe blow to the public perception of Klan leaders as law abiding. The case destroyed the Klan as a political force in Indiana, and significantly damaged its standing nationally. Denied a pardon by Governor Jackson, in 1927 he started talking with reporters for the "Indianapolis Times" and released a list of elected and other officials who had been in the pay of the Klan. This led to a wave of indictments in Indiana, more national scandals, the rapid loss of tens of thousands of members, and the end of the second wave of Klan activity in the late 1920s.


title: D. C. Stephenson

text: Stephenson's burial in USVA Mountain Home National Cemetery in Johnson City, Tennessee also led to Congress passing restrictions barring serious sex offenders or those convicted of capital crimes from burial in veterans' cemeteries.


title: D. C. Stephenson

text: Stephenson was born in Houston, Texas on August 21, 1891, and moved as a child with his family to Maysville, Oklahoma. After some public schooling, he started work as a printer's apprentice.


title: D. C. Stephenson

text: During World War I, he enlisted in the Army and completed officers' training. He never served overseas, but his training proved useful when he organized and led groups.


title: D. C. Stephenson

text: In 1920 at the age of 29, he moved to Evansville, Indiana, where he worked for a retail coal company. He joined the Democratic Party and in 1922, ran unsuccessfully for a Democratic Congressional nomination. He was said to have already "married and abandoned two wives" before settling in Evansville.


title: D. C. Stephenson

text: Joseph M. Huffington, whom the Ku Klux Klan had sent from Texas as an agent for organizing in Evansville, recruited Stephenson to the group's inner circle. The historian Leonard Moore characterized them as both young men on the make. The Evansville Klavern became the most powerful in the state, and Stephenson soon contributed to attracting numerous new members. More than 5,400 men, or 23 percent of the native-born white men in Vanderburgh County, ultimately joined the Klan.


title: D. C. Stephenson

text: Building on the momentum, Stephenson set up a base in Indianapolis, where he helped create the Klan's state newspaper, "Fiery Cross". He quickly recruited new agents and organizers, building on news about the organization. Protestant ministers were offered free membership. From July 1922 to July 1923, nearly 2,000 new members joined the Klan each week in Indiana. Hiram Wesley Evans, who led recruiting for the national organization, maintained close ties to state leaders throughout 1921–1922 and he was especially close to Stephenson, because by then, Indiana had the largest state Klan organization. Stephenson backed Evans in November 1922 when he unseated William J. Simmons as Imperial Wizard of the national KKK. Evans had ambitions to make the Klan a political force in the country.


title: D. C. Stephenson

text: After Evans won, he officially appointed Stephenson as Grand Dragon of Indiana. Privately he made him head of recruiting for seven other states north of Mississippi. In the 1920s, Klan membership grew dramatically in these states. In Indiana, membership grew to nearly 250,000 or about one third of all white males in the state. Stephenson acquired great wealth and political power by leading the Klan; agents received a portion of fees paid by new recruits, and he began to wield other powers. Evans, who had a monopoly on the sale of Klan uniforms and paraphernalia, appointed Stephenson as Grand Dragon of the Indiana Klan at a 1923 Fourth of July gathering of the Klan in Kokomo, Indiana, with more than 100,000 members and their families in attendance. Stephenson said,


title: D. C. Stephenson

text: My worthy subjects, citizens of the Invisible Empire, Klansmen all, greetings. It grieves me to be late. The President of the United States kept me unduly long counseling on matters of state. Only my plea that this is the time and the place of my coronation obtained for me surcease from his prayers for guidance.


title: D. C. Stephenson

text: Evans and Stephenson's relationship quickly deteriorated. Evans responded by attempting to remove Stephenson as Grand Dragon in 1923 but Stephenson refused to step down. Encouraged by his success, in September 1923, Stephenson severed his ties with the existing national organization of the KKK, and formed a rival KKK that was made up of the chapters which he led. To bolster his legitimacy, Stephenson realigned with William Joseph Simmons and the original leaders of the national organization that had been ousted by Evans in 1922. That year Stephenson changed his affiliation from the Democratic to the Republican Party, which was predominant in Indiana and much of the Midwest. He supported Republican Edward L. Jackson, who was rumored to be a Klan member, when Jackson ran successfully for governor in 1924. Stephenson once claimed, "I am the law in Indiana."


title: D. C. Stephenson

text: Shortly after, on May 12, 1924, at an assembly in the Cadle Tabernacle in Indianapolis, he said:"God help the man who issues a proclamation of war against the Klan in Indiana now ... We are going to Klux Indiana as she has never been Kluxed before ... I'll appeal to the ministers of Indiana to do the praying for the Ku Klux Klan and I'll do the scrapping for it ... And the fiery cross is going to burn at every crossroads in Indiana, as long as there is a white man left in the state."


title: D. C. Stephenson

text: Publicly a Prohibitionist and a defender of "Protestant womanhood," Stephenson was tried in 1925 for the rape and murder of Madge Oberholtzer, a young state employee who ran a state program to combat adult illiteracy. During the trial, the Klan's image as upholders of law and morality was gravely weakened as it was proven that Stephenson and many of his associates were in private womanizers and alcoholics. The scandal of the charges and trial led to the rapid decline in the "Second Wave" of Klan activity. Stephenson was convicted of the abduction, forced intoxication, and rape of Oberholtzer. His abuse led to her suicide attempt while she was still in his captivity. Because the suicide attempt eventually caused Oberholtzer's death, Stephenson was also charged with murder.


title: D. C. Stephenson

text: Stephenson had bitten her many times during his attack, and witnesses said it appeared as if she had been "chewed by a cannibal." The attending doctor described her condition included a very significant bite on her breast. He later testified that the bite wounds which Stephenson inflicted on her were the leading contributor to her death due to a staph infection that eventually reached her lungs. The doctor also testified that she could have been saved if she had been given medical attention sooner. In her dying declaration, Oberholtzer claimed that Stephenson had refused to give her medical attention unless she agreed to marry him first. The jury convicted Stephenson of second-degree murder on November 14, 1925, on its first ballot. Stephenson was sentenced to life in prison on November 16, 1925.


title: D. C. Stephenson

text: After his conviction, Governor Edward L. Jackson refused to grant Stephenson clemency or commute his sentence. On September 9, 1927, Stephenson released lists of public officials who were or had been on the Klan payroll. The "Indianapolis Times" interviewed Stephenson and proceeded with an extended investigation of the Klan's political ties. (The "Times" won a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for its investigative reporting.) This publicity and the state's crackdown on Klan activity sped up the decline of the organization by the end of the 1920s. The KKK suffered a dramatic nationwide loss of reputation and its membership rapidly fell from 5 million in 1925; few Klan members were counted in the organization's former Midwestern stronghold soon after.


title: D. C. Stephenson

text: The state filed indictments against Governor Jackson; George V. "Cap" Coffin, chairman of the Marion County Republican Party; and attorney Robert I. Marsh, charging them with conspiring to bribe former Governor Warren McCray. The mayor of Indianapolis, John Duvall, was convicted and sentenced to jail for 30 days (and barred from political service for four years). Some Republican commissioners of Marion County resigned from their posts after being charged with accepting bribes from the Klan and Stephenson.


title: D. C. Stephenson

text: On January 7, 1941, the Valparaiso "Vidette-Messenger" reported that Governor M. Clifford Townsend, a Democrat, was considering granting an early parole to Stephenson. No parole was approved that year. Stephenson was paroled on March 23, 1950, by a Democratic administration, but violated parole by disappearing on or before September 25, 1950. On December 15, 1950, he was captured in Minneapolis, Minnesota and returned to custody. He was sentenced in 1951 to serve 10 years in prison. In 1953, he pleaded for release, denying that he had been a leader of the Klan. On December 22, 1956, the state paroled him on condition that he leave Indiana and never return. Stephenson moved to Seymour, Indiana, where he soon married Martha Dickinson. They were separated in 1962 when he left and never returned.


title: D. C. Stephenson

text: Stephenson then moved to Jonesborough, Tennessee (briefly spelled as Jonesboro during this time), where he was employed at the "Herald & Tribune" newspaper, and where he married Martha Murray Sutton without having been divorced from Dickinson.


title: D. C. Stephenson

text: In 1961, at the age of 70, Stephenson was arrested in Independence, Missouri on charges of attempting to sexually assault a 16-year-old girl but he was released after paying a $300 fine because the charges were dropped on grounds of insufficient evidence. He was ordered to leave Missouri immediately. A few years later, in 1966, Stephenson died at his home in Jonesborough, Tennessee, and as an honorably discharged veteran was buried at the USVA Mountain Home National Cemetery in Johnson City, Tennessee. Congress later passed restrictions barring serious sex offenders or those convicted of capital crimes from burial in veterans' cemeteries.


title: D. C. Stephenson

text: His legal wife Martha Dickinson petitioned for and was granted a divorce in Jackson County Circuit Court in Brownstown in 1971, not knowing that Stephenson had remarried and died in 1966.


title: Manga Plus

text: Manga Plus (stylized as MANGA Plus) is an online manga platform and smartphone app owned by Shueisha that was launched on January 28, 2019. It is available worldwide except in Japan, China, and South Korea which already have their own services, including "Shōnen Jump+", the original Japanese service. "Manga Plus" publishes translated versions of new chapters from currently serialized manga in "Weekly Shōnen Jump", a big portion of manga from the "Shōnen Jump+" app/website, and some manga from "Jump Square", "Weekly Young Jump", "Tonari no Young Jump" and "V Jump". The first three chapters and the three most recent chapters of all titles on the platform are available for free, while all titles from "Shonen Jump+" have all of their chapters for free, except in the United States where some are also limited to first and last three chapters, due to the license of some manga. A Spanish version of the service launched in February 2019, and was followed by several other languages in the next two years.


title: Manga Plus

text: "Weekly Shōnen Jump" reached a peak weekly circulation of 6.53 million copies in the 1990s, but the decline of print media has since been reducing readership. In response, publisher Shueisha turned towards digital distribution to attempt to reach out to a wider audience. In 2012, they launched the online Jump Book Store. In 2014, Shueisha launched "Shōnen Jump+", an online platform that allows users to buy e-book versions of "Jump" manga and a digital version of "Weekly Shōnen Jump". It also has large samples that can be read for free.


title: Manga Plus

text: Shuhei Hosono, the head editor for "Shōnen Jump+" and "Manga Plus", said that they were aware of the many manga readers overseas, and that they wanted to bring manga to more people around the world. They began talks about a possible global version of "Shōnen Jump+" in 2017. Shueisha finally launched "Manga Plus" on January 28, 2019. The service was made available to every country except China, South Korea, and Japan, with the latter countries being excluded because they each already have their own separate services. The "Shōnen Jump+" editorial department manages overseas distribution through "Manga Plus" in-house. Yūta Momiyama, a Shueisha editor who manages the "Shōnen Jump+" and "Manga Plus" online services, said this is with the intent of making the creation of hit manga on a global scale "a core part of "Weekly Shōnen Jump"s editorial approach".


title: Manga Plus

text: Until "Manga Plus", Shueisha's titles were distributed throughout the world via local publishers or distribution lines. The launch was the first time that Shueisha had expanded direct service globally. 50 manga titles were available at launch. A portion of the revenue earned from advertisements goes directly to the original manga authors.


title: Manga Plus

text: At launch, English was the only language available on "Manga Plus". The Spanish version launched on February 25, 2019, albeit with a different lineup of manga titles. The Thai version launched in December 2019, only available in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. In February 2021, some titles became available in Indonesian. The Portuguese version of the site launched in April 2021, only available in Brazil and Portugal. In August 2021, "Manga Plus" took away the region restrictions for all languages, and made it possible to switch to other languages from the series page. The Russian version of the website and app launched on August 9, 2021, with the French version following in September 2021.


title: Manga Plus

text: In February 2021, a redesigned web-app version of "Manga Plus" launched to commemorate its second anniversary.


title: Manga Plus

text: At the end of June 2022, it was announced that starting in 2023, every new manga series launched on "Shōnen Jump+" would receive a simultaneous English release on "Manga Plus".


title: Manga Plus

text: In August 2022, Shueisha launched "Manga Plus Creators", a website and app that publishes user-submitted manga from users inside and outside of Japan; the "Shōnen Jump+" editorial department is running the service along with localization company MediBang.


title: Dean Blunt

text: Roy Nnawuchi, better known by his pseudonym Dean Blunt, is a British singer-songwriter, musician and contemporary artist. He is best known for his current solo work as well as his previous work as part of avant-garde duo Hype Williams (along with Inga Copeland), and more recently, the hip hop group Babyfather. Blunt was also the founder of London rock band Graffiti Island. He has been described as "a prolific, category-rejecting artist" and "an art-pop provocateur."


title: Dean Blunt

text: Although little is known about his personal life, Blunt has said he comes from a London family that he describes as "Sun readers, working class, kind of ignorant in ways".


title: Dean Blunt

text: Blunt performed music with Russian-born artist Inga Copeland (also known as Lolina) as the electronic duo Hype Williams from 2007 until 2012. Supposedly founded in 2005 as a "relay" project passed between artists every five years, the group has given few interviews, leaving music journalists and the media in doubt as to the exact nature of the project. The group's lineup has remained obscure, although Blunt's artistic style has been heard within newer releases, and a variety of other names have also been invoked as members. A mysterious representative named Denna Frances Glass has alternately been posited as either the manager of the project or a fake identity created by Blunt and Copeland. In 2016, Glass announced that Blunt and Copeland were no longer part of the project, which would be continuing with other members.


title: Dean Blunt

text: Blunt embarked his solo career in 2011, releasing a set of albums as well as several EPs and singles. His first few full-length studio albums, "The Narcissist II" (2012), "The Redeemer" (2013), and "Black Metal" (2014), received attention and praise from various music publications. "BBF Hosted By DJ Escrow," his first album as Babyfather, was named the best album of 2016 by "Tiny Mix Tapes" and "Resident Advisor".


title: Dean Blunt

text: In 2018, Blunt contributed heavily to ASAP Rocky's album "Testing", with production and writing credits on "Purity" and "Gunz N Butter" and additional vocals on "Calldrops". Blunt's work on the album followed collaborative singles between the two artists prior, such as the Babyfather track "Benzo Amore". The pair have since collaborated on multiple recordings.


title: Dean Blunt

text: Blunt is also known for his playfulness and obfuscation. In 2015, he sent his bodyguard to accept his Philip Hall Radar Award at the NME Awards. In 2016, he listed a toy Foxtons estate agents Mini Cooper filled with marijuana on eBay. At a New York concert, in March 2016, media guests were asked to check in under aliases that they had received with their ticket confirmations.


title: Dean Blunt

text: Blunt has produced theatre works including "The Narcissist" at HAU1 in Berlin in 2012; "Lord Knows" at Le Romandie in Lausanne in 2013; and "I’m Just Passin Thru To Show Some Love" in 2013 and "Urban" in 2014, both at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. In October 2017, Blunt also debuted "Inna", an opera directed by himself with music from Mica Levi, at the same institute.


title: Dean Blunt

text: Blunt has put on a number of art exhibitions, including "New Paintings" at the Triangle and "W44VY" at Arcadia Missa. He has also published a book compiling "excessive expenses made in the most popular VIP clubs in the hip hop scene", entitled "Cîroc Boyz: Vol 1".


title: Dean Blunt

text: Blunt practises Transcendental Meditation and is a vocal proponent of it. In a 2016 interview with i-D, he said: "Transcendental Meditation is an effortless practice that brings a lot. Pareto. The hardest thing to remember is how simple it is. Focusing too much on the mantra defeats the objective."


title: Transgene

text: A transgene is a gene that has been transferred naturally, or by any of a number of genetic engineering techniques, from one organism to another. The introduction of a transgene, in a process known as transgenesis, has the potential to change the phenotype of an organism. "Transgene" describes a segment of DNA containing a gene sequence that has been isolated from one organism and is introduced into a different organism. This non-native segment of DNA may either retain the ability to produce RNA or protein in the transgenic organism or alter the normal function of the transgenic organism's genetic code. In general, the DNA is incorporated into the organism's germ line. For example, in higher vertebrates this can be accomplished by injecting the foreign DNA into the nucleus of a fertilized ovum. This technique is routinely used to introduce human disease genes or other genes of interest into strains of laboratory mice to study the function or pathology involved with that particular gene.


title: Transgene

text: The construction of a transgene requires the assembly of a few main parts. The transgene must contain a promoter, which is a regulatory sequence that will determine where and when the transgene is active, an exon, a protein coding sequence (usually derived from the cDNA for the protein of interest), and a stop sequence. These are typically combined in a bacterial plasmid and the coding sequences are typically chosen from transgenes with previously known functions.


title: Transgene

text: Transgenic or genetically modified organisms, be they bacteria, viruses or fungi, serve many research purposes. Transgenic plants, insects, fish and mammals (including humans) have been bred. Transgenic plants such as corn and soybean have replaced wild strains in agriculture in some countries (e.g. the United States). Transgene escape has been documented for GMO crops since 2001 with persistence and invasiveness. Transgenetic organisms pose ethical questions and may cause biosafety problems.


title: Transgene

text: The idea of shaping an organism to fit a specific need isn't a new science. However, until the late 1900s farmers and scientist could breed new strains of a plant or organism only from closely related species, because the DNA had to be compatible for offspring to be able to reproduce another generation.


title: Transgene

text: In the 1970 and 1980s, scientists passed this hurdle by inventing procedures for combining the DNA of two vastly different species with genetic engineering. The organisms produced by these procedures were termed transgenic. Transgenesis is the same as gene therapy in the sense that they both transform cells for a specific purpose. However, they are completely different in their purposes, as gene therapy aims to cure a defect in cells, and transgenesis seeks to produce a genetically modified organism by incorporating the specific transgene into every cell and changing the genome. Transgenesis will therefore change the germ cells, not only the somatic cells, in order to ensure that the transgenes are passed down to the offspring when the organisms reproduce. Transgenes alter the genome by blocking the function of a host gene; they can either replace the host gene with one that codes for a different protein, or introduce an additional gene.


title: Transgene

text: The first transgenic organism was created in 1974 when Annie Chang and Stanley Cohen expressed "Staphylococcus aureus" genes in "Escherichia coli". In 1978, yeast cells were the first eukaryotic organisms to undergo gene transfer. Mouse cells were first transformed in 1979, followed by mouse embryos in 1980. Most of the very first transmutations were performed by microinjection of DNA directly into cells. Scientists were able to develop other methods to perform the transformations, such as incorporating transgenes into retroviruses and then infecting cells, using electroinfusion which takes advantage of an electric current to pass foreign DNA through the cell wall, biolistics which is the procedure of shooting DNA bullets into cells, and also delivering DNA into the egg that has just been fertilized.


title: Transgene

text: The first transgenic animals were only intended for genetic research to study the specific function of a gene, and by 2003, thousands of genes had been studied.


title: Transgene

text: A variety of transgenic plants have been designed for agriculture to produce genetically modified crops, such as corn, soybean, rapeseed oil, cotton, rice and more. , these GMO crops were planted on 170 million hectares globally.


title: Transgene

text: One example of a transgenic plant species is golden rice. In 1997, five million children developed xerophthalmia, a medical condition caused by vitamin A deficiency, in Southeast Asia alone. Of those children, a quarter million went blind. To combat this, scientists used biolistics to insert the daffodil phytoene synthase gene into Asia indigenous rice cultivars. The daffodil insertion increased the production of β-carotene. The product was a transgenic rice species rich in vitamin A, called golden rice. Little is known about the impact of golden rice on xerophthalmia because anti-GMO campaigns have prevented the full commercial release of golden rice into agricultural systems in need.


title: Transgene

text: The escape of genetically-engineered plant genes via hybridization with wild relatives was first discussed and examined in Mexico and Europe in the mid-1990s. There is agreement that escape of transgenes is inevitable, even "some proof that it is happening". Up until 2008 there were few documented cases.


title: Transgene

text: Corn sampled in 2000 from the Sierra Juarez, Oaxaca, Mexico contained a transgenic 35S promoter, while a large sample taken by a different method from the same region in 2003 and 2004 did not. A sample from another region from 2002 also did not, but directed samples taken in 2004 did, suggesting transgene persistence or re-introduction. A 2009 study found recombinant proteins in 3.1% and 1.8% of samples, most commonly in southeast Mexico. Seed and grain import from the United States could explain the frequency and distribution of transgenes in west-central Mexico, but not in the southeast. Also, 5.0% of corn seed lots in Mexican corn stocks expressed recombinant proteins despite the moratorium on GM crops.


title: Transgene

text: In 2011, transgenic cotton was found in Mexico among wild cotton, after 15 years of GMO cotton cultivation.


title: Transgene

text: Transgenic rapeseed "Brassicus napus", hybridized with a native Japanese species "Brassica rapa", was found in Japan in 2011 after they had been identified 2006 in Québec, Canada. They were persistent over a 6-year study period, without herbicide selection pressure and despite hybridization with the wild form. This was the first report of the introgression—the stable incorporation of genes from one gene pool into another—of an herbicide resistance transgene from "Brassica napus" into the wild form gene pool.


title: Transgene

text: Transgenic creeping bentgrass, engineered to be glyphosate-tolerant as "one of the first wind-pollinated, perennial, and highly outcrossing transgenic crops", was planted in 2003 as part of a large (about 160 ha) field trial in central Oregon near Madras, Oregon. In 2004, its pollen was found to have reached wild growing bentgrass populations up to 14 kilometres away. Cross-pollinating "Agrostis gigantea" was even found at a distance of 21 kilometres. The grower, Scotts Company could not remove all genetically engineered plants, and in 2007, the U.S. Department of Agriculture fined Scotts $500,000 for noncompliance with regulations.


title: Transgene

text: The long-term monitoring and controlling of a particular transgene has been shown not to be feasible. The European Food Safety Authority published a guidance for risk assessment in 2010.


title: Transgene

text: Genetically modified mice are the most common animal model for transgenic research. Transgenic mice are currently being used to study a variety of diseases including cancer, obesity, heart disease, arthritis, anxiety, and Parkinson’s disease. The two most common types of genetically modified mice are knockout mice and oncomice. Knockout mice are a type of mouse model that uses transgenic insertion to disrupt an existing gene’s expression. In order to create knockout mice, a transgene with the desired sequence is inserted into an isolated mouse blastocyst using electroporation. Then, homologous recombination occurs naturally within some cells, replacing the gene of interest with the designed transgene. Through this process, researchers were able to demonstrate that a transgene can be integrated into the genome of an animal, serve a specific function within the cell, and be passed down to future generations.


title: Transgene

text: Oncomice are another genetically modified mouse species created by inserting transgenes that increase the animal’s vulnerability to cancer. Cancer researchers utilize oncomice to study the profiles of different cancers in order to apply this knowledge to human studies.


title: Transgene

text: Multiple studies have been conducted concerning transgenesis in "Drosophila melanogaster", the fruit fly. This organism has been a helpful genetic model for over 100 years, due to its well-understood developmental pattern. The transfer of transgenes into the "Drosophila" genome has been performed using various techniques, including P element, Cre-loxP, and ΦC31 insertion. The most practiced method used thus far to insert transgenes into the "Drosophila" genome utilizes P elements. The transposable P elements, also known as transposons, are segments of bacterial DNA that are translocated into the genome, without the presence of a complementary sequence in the host’s genome. P elements are administered in pairs of two, which flank the DNA insertion region of interest. Additionally, P elements often consist of two plasmid components, one known as the P element transposase and the other, the P transposon backbone. The transposase plasmid portion drives the transposition of the P transposon backbone, containing the transgene of interest and often a marker, between the two terminal sites of the transposon. Success of this insertion results in the nonreversible addition of the transgene of interest into the genome. While this method has been proven effective, the insertion sites of the P elements are often uncontrollable, resulting in an unfavorable, random insertion of the transgene into the "Drosophila" genome.


title: Transgene

text: To improve the location and precision of the transgenic process, an enzyme known as Cre has been introduced. Cre has proven to be a key element in a process known as recombinase-mediated cassette exchange (RMCE). While it has shown to have a lower efficiency of transgenic transformation than the P element transposases, Cre greatly lessens the labor-intensive abundance of balancing random P insertions. Cre aids in the targeted transgenesis of the DNA gene segment of interest, as it supports the mapping of the transgene insertion sites, known as loxP sites. These sites, unlike P elements, can be specifically inserted to flank a chromosomal segment of interest, aiding in targeted transgenesis. The Cre transposase is important in the catalytic cleavage of the base pairs present at the carefully positioned loxP sites, permitting more specific insertions of the transgenic donor plasmid of interest.


title: Transgene

text: To overcome the limitations and low yields that transposon-mediated and Cre-loxP transformation methods produce, the bacteriophage ΦC31 has recently been utilized. Recent breakthrough studies involve the microinjection of the bacteriophage ΦC31 integrase, which shows improved transgene insertion of large DNA fragments that are unable to be transposed by P elements alone. This method involves the recombination between an attachment (attP) site in the phage and an attachment site in the bacterial host genome (attB). Compared to usual P element transgene insertion methods, ΦC31 integrates the entire transgene vector, including bacterial sequences and antibiotic resistance genes. Unfortunately, the presence of these additional insertions has been found to affect the level and reproducibility of transgene expression.


title: Transgene

text: One agricultural application is to selectively breed animals for particular traits: Transgenic cattle with an increased muscle phenotype has been produced by overexpressing a short hairpin RNA with homology to the myostatin mRNA using RNA interference.


title: Transgene

text: Transgenes are being used to produce milk with high levels of proteins or silk from the milk of goats. Another agricultural application is to selectively breed animals, which are resistant to diseases or animals for biopharmaceutical production.


title: Transgene

text: The application of transgenes is a rapidly growing area of molecular biology. As of 2005 it was predicted that in the next two decades, 300,000 lines of transgenic mice will be generated. Researchers have identified many applications for transgenes, particularly in the medical field. Scientists are focusing on the use of transgenes to study the function of the human genome in order to better understand disease, adapting animal organs for transplantation into humans, and the production of pharmaceutical products such as insulin, growth hormone, and blood anti-clotting factors from the milk of transgenic cows.


title: Transgene

text: As of 2004 there were five thousand known genetic diseases, and the potential to treat these diseases using transgenic animals is, perhaps, one of the most promising applications of transgenes. There is a potential to use human gene therapy to replace a mutated gene with an unmutated copy of a transgene in order to treat the genetic disorder. This can be done through the use of Cre-Lox or knockout. Moreover, genetic disorders are being studied through the use of transgenic mice, pigs, rabbits, and rats. Transgenic rabbits have been created to study inherited cardiac arrhythmias, as the rabbit´s heart markedly better resembles the human heart as compared to the mouse. More recently, scientists have also begun using transgenic goats to study genetic disorders related to fertility.


title: Transgene

text: Transgenes may be used for xenotransplantation from pig organs. Through the study of xeno-organ rejection, it was found that an acute rejection of the transplanted organ occurs upon the organ's contact with blood from the recipient due to the recognition of foreign antibodies on endothelial cells of the transplanted organ. Scientists have identified the antigen in pigs that causes this reaction, and therefore are able to transplant the organ without immediate rejection by removal of the antigen. However, the antigen begins to be expressed later on, and rejection occurs. Therefore, further research is being conducted.


title: Transgene

text: Transgenic microorganisms capable of producing catalytic proteins or enzymes which increase the rate of industrial reactions.


title: Transgene

text: Transgene use in humans is currently fraught with issues. Transformation of genes into human cells has not been perfected yet. The most famous example of this involved certain patients developing T-cell leukemia after being treated for X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (X-SCID). This was attributed to the close proximity of the inserted gene to the LMO2 promoter, which controls the transcription of the LMO2 proto-oncogene.


title: Extraordinary Measures

text: Extraordinary Measures is a 2010 American medical drama film starring Brendan Fraser, Harrison Ford, and Keri Russell. It was the first film produced by CBS Films, the film division of CBS Corporation, who released the film on January 22, 2010. The film is about parents who form a biotechnology company to develop a drug to save the lives of their children, who have a life-threatening disease. The film is based on the true story of John and Aileen Crowley, whose children have Pompe's disease. The film was shot in St. Paul, Oregon; Portland, Oregon; Tualatin, Oregon; Wilsonville, Oregon; Manzanita, Oregon; Beaverton, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington.


title: Extraordinary Measures

text: John Crowley and his wife Aileen are a Portland couple with two of their three children suffering from Pompe disease, a genetic anomaly that typically kills most children before their tenth birthdays. John, an advertising executive, contacts Robert Stonehill, a researcher in Nebraska who has done innovative research for an enzyme treatment for the rare disease. John and Aileen raise money to help Stonehill's research and the required clinical trials. John takes on the task full-time to save his children's lives, launching a biotechnology research company working with venture capitalists and then rival teams of researchers. This task proves very daunting for Stonehill, who already works around the clock. As time is running short, Stonehill's angry outburst hinders the company's faith in him, and the profit motive may upend John's hopes. The researchers race against time to save the children who have the disease.


title: Extraordinary Measures

text: Adapted by Robert Nelson Jacobs from the nonfiction book "The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million—and Bucked the Medical Establishment—in a Quest to Save His Children" by the Pulitzer Prize journalist Geeta Anand, the film is also an examination of how medical research is conducted and financed.


title: Extraordinary Measures

text: Filming took place at several spots in and around Portland, Oregon, mostly at the OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital, Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the Nike campus in Beaverton, Oregon. This was the first time Nike allowed filming on their campus and they donated the location payment to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital. During filming, the working title was "The Untitled Crowley Project".


title: Extraordinary Measures

text: In the film, the children are 9 and 7 years old. Their non-fiction counterparts were diagnosed at 15 months and 7 days old and received treatment at 5 and 4, respectively.


title: Extraordinary Measures

text: Myozyme, a drug developed for treating Pompe disease, was simultaneously approved for sale by the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency. Henceforth, more than 1000 infants born worldwide every year with Pompe disease will no longer face the prospect of death before reaching their first birthday for lack of a treatment for the condition.


title: Extraordinary Measures

text: The screenplay by Robert Nelson Jacobs is based on Geeta Anand's book "The Cure" (). Parts of the book first appeared as a series of articles in the Wall Street Journal.


title: Extraordinary Measures

text: The small start-up company Priozyme was based on Oklahoma City-based Novazyme. The larger company, called Zymagen in the film, was based on Genzyme in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Novazyme was developing a protein therapeutic, with several biological patents pending, to treat Pompe Disease, when it was bought by Genzyme. The patent portfolio was cited in the press releases announcing the deal.


title: Extraordinary Measures

text: Genzyme claims that Dr. Robert Stonehill's character is based upon scientist and researcher William Canfield, who founded Novazyme. According to Roger Ebert's review, the character is based on Yuan-Tsong Chen, a scientist and researcher from Duke University who collaborated with Genzyme in producing Myozyme, the drug which received FDA approval.


title: Extraordinary Measures

text: Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 29% based on reviews from 142 critics and an average rating of 4.88 out of 10. The site's general consensus is, "Despite a timely topic and a pair of heavyweight leads, "Extraordinary Measures" never feels like much more than a made-for-TV tearjerker." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 0–100 reviews from film critics, has a rating score of 45 based on 33 reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Extraordinary Measures

text: Richard Corliss of "Time" magazine wrote: "Fraser keeps the story anchored in reality. Meredith Droeger does too: as the Crowleys' afflicted daughter, she's a smart little bundle of fighting spirit. So is the movie, which keeps its head while digging into your heart. You have this critic's permission to cry in public." "The New York Times" A. O. Scott said in his review: "The startling thing about "Extraordinary Measures" is not that it moves you. It's that you feel, at the end, that you have learned something about the way the world works."


title: Extraordinary Measures

text: Ramona Bates MD, writing for the health news organisation, EmaxHealth, stated that the film brings attention to Pompe disease. Peter Rainer from "The Christian Science Monitor" mentions that Big Pharma got a surprisingly free pass in the film and that it will come as a surprise to all those sufferers struggling to get orphan drugs developed.


title: Extraordinary Measures

text: Jef Akst, writing for the journal "The Scientist", stated that the film is good depiction of the "hard to swallow fiscal issues of drug development."


title: Extraordinary Measures

text: The film opened at #8 on its opening weekend, taking in $6 million. The film remained in theaters for four weeks, earning $12 million.


title: A Moment Like This

text: "A Moment Like This" is the debut single by American singer Kelly Clarkson. The song was written by Jörgen Elofsson and John Reid from British house music project Nightcrawlers) and produced by Stephen Ferrera and Steve Mac. It was released as a double A-side with "Before Your Love" as her coronation single after winning the first season of "American Idol." The song was later included on her debut studio album, "Thankful" (2003). "A Moment Like This" was a huge hit in North America, topping the US "Billboard" Hot 100 and Canadian Singles Chart.


title: A Moment Like This

text: In 2006, the song was recorded and released by British singer Leona Lewis, the winner of the third series of "The X Factor." Her version was the Christmas number one for 2006, outselling the rest of the top 40 combined. Lewis' version has sold 914,000 copies as of 2015.


title: A Moment Like This

text: The song was co-written by Jörgen Elofsson and John Reid (of dance act Nightcrawlers), produced by Stephen Ferrera and Steve Mac, and mixed by Andy Zulla. It was written to be the first single for the winner of the first season of "American Idol". As a result, the four remaining finalists, Kelly Clarkson, Justin Guarini, Nikki McKibbin, and Tamyra Gray each recorded a version of the song in case they won. The song was first revealed to the public when Guarini and Clarkson competed in a final showdown while singing this song, along with another track, "Before Your Love". After the American public had voted, Guarini performed the song (and Clarkson performed "Before Your Love") at the final show before the results were revealed. When Clarkson was announced as the winner, she became emotional, and sang the song as her final performance.


title: A Moment Like This

text: "Before Your Love", was also given to radio and had a video shot, which debuted on MTV's "Total Request Live" before "A Moment Like This" did; however, it failed to achieve the level of success of "A Moment Like This", but shares the Gold certification as a double-a sided single.


title: A Moment Like This

text: "A Moment Like This/Before Your Love" was certified gold by RIAA on October 18, 2002. As of June 4, 2009, the single has sold approximately 1,047,000 copies.


title: A Moment Like This

text: On March 5, 2013, "Billboard" ranked the song number 11 in its list of Top 100 American Idol Hits of All Time.


title: A Moment Like This

text: The song moves at a tempo of 73 beats per minute in common time. The first two verses are in the key of E flat minor, and the chorus after each verse transitions to A flat major. The final chorus transposes to B flat major. Clarkson's vocals span from A to F.


title: A Moment Like This

text: This song received moderately positive reviews. "Entertainment Weekly" editor Henry Goldblatt wrote about Clarkson's performance of the song on "American Idol": "the woman whose tears during her winning rendition of "A Moment Like This" were so heartfelt, grown men cried along with her." David Browne, also of "Entertainment Weekly", wrote: "A choir at the end of "A Moment Like This" is meant to indicate earthiness." Arion Berger of "Rolling Stone" wrote that this song "signaled that Kelly might be headed toward the Mariah-Whitney-Celine radio-ballad sausage mill." Sal Cinquemani of "Slant Magazine" wrote that this song is "Adult Contemporary goo. AllMusic senior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that the song "may have been a number one hit, but it was such a staid adult contemporary tune that it suggested that her career was over before it really began, since it was not a work that played to her age or audience, and it gave her no room to grow." He also marked this song as a standout on album "Thankful". "The Huffington Post" ranked the song at number 11 on "The 33 Greatest Pop Divas' Debut Singles" list.


title: A Moment Like This

text: As the first single ever from "American Idol", much pressure was put on "A Moment Like This" to perform well. The debut single from Will Young, the winner of the United Kingdom's "Pop Idol" (the forerunner to "American Idol"), sold 1.2 million copies in its first week, becoming the fastest-selling British debut single of all time; however, critics argued that the American singles market was different from the British market. The single became a hit in the U.S., debuting at number 60 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 on September 21, 2002, and reaching number one on its third week on the chart. It sold 236,000 in its first week. It topped the "Billboard" Hot 100 for two consecutive weeks and remained on the chart for 20 consecutive weeks. Sales of the commercial single also helped the song (as evidenced by its number-one peak on the Hot 100 Singles Sales) break records.


title: A Moment Like This

text: On the "Billboard" issue dated October 5, 2002, the song topped the Hot 100 chart with a single-week jump of 51 positions, the largest single-week jump to number one on the Hot 100. She held that record until Maroon 5's "Makes Me Wonder" single-week jump 63 positions to number one, on May 12, 2007. Clarkson would break the record again when her song "My Life Would Suck Without You" jumped 96 spots from 97 to 1 on February 7, 2009.


title: A Moment Like This

text: The music video for "A Moment Like This" was directed by Antti J. It has Clarkson exploring a vacant theatre, where she takes the stage to sing and perform the song. Clips of her singing on "American Idol" and getting emotional when she won the competition are also shown.


title: A Moment Like This

text: In December 2006, the song was recorded as the UK debut single by British singer Leona Lewis, the winner of series 3 of "The X Factor". The single was rush-released on Wednesday, December 20, 2006. This is unusual as most new singles are released on a Monday to gain maximum sales for the UK Singles Chart the following Sunday. The late release of "A Moment Like This" was because Lewis was only chosen as the artist on the night of Saturday, December 16, when the live final was transmitted. The song was available for download after she was announced winner of "The X Factor".


title: A Moment Like This

text: It was the United Kingdom's second best selling single of 2006. In January 2007, the single was awarded Platinum status by the British Phonographic Industry. The song has sold 943,000 copies in the United Kingdom as of December 2015, according to the Official Charts Company.


title: A Moment Like This

text: In January 2007, "A Moment Like This" was shortlisted for Best British Single at the 2007 BRIT Awards. It made it to the second round but was eliminated and did not make it to the final selection. In May, it was awarded the prestigious Ivor Novello Award for Best Selling British Single.


title: A Moment Like This

text: Lewis' version of the song broke a world record after it was downloaded 50,000 times within just 30 minutes of release. It sold over 100,000 copies on its first day on sale (an "X Factor" winner record later beaten by Alexandra Burke in 2008 and then again by James Arthur in 2012) and also went on to become the most downloaded song of 2006.


title: A Moment Like This

text: "A Moment Like This" stayed at number one for four weeks and also topped the Irish Singles Chart for six weeks. On January 4, 2007, it charted at number three on the Eurochart Hot 100 Singles. On October 28, 2007, after the release of Lewis's second single "Bleeding Love", "A Moment Like This" re-entered the UK Singles Chart at number 55.


title: A Moment Like This

text: The music video, like Clarkson's, is very simple, with Lewis singing the song on a stage. It also features several clips from Lewis's time in "The X Factor", from her first audition to the moment she was announced the winner. Simon Cowell, Sharon Osbourne, Louis Walsh, Kate Thornton and Ray Quinn all feature within the clips. The video was directed by JT.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: The Western Desert campaign (Desert War) took place in the deserts of Egypt and Libya and was the main theatre in the North African campaign of the Second World War. Military operations began in June 1940 with the Italian declaration of war and the Italian invasion of Egypt from Libya in September. Operation Compass, a five-day raid by the British in December 1940, was so successful that it led to the destruction of the Italian 10th Army (10ª ) over the following two months. Benito Mussolini sought help from Adolf Hitler, who sent a small German force to Tripoli under Directive 22 (11 January). The ( Erwin Rommel) was formally under Italian command, as Italy was the main Axis power in the Mediterranean and North Africa.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: In the spring of 1941, Rommel led Operation Sonnenblume, which pushed the Allies back to Egypt except for the siege of Tobruk at the port. At the end of 1941, Axis forces were defeated in Operation Crusader and retired again to El Agheila. In early 1942 Axis forces drove the Allies back again, then captured Tobruk after the Battle of Gazala but failed to destroy their opponents. The Axis invaded Egypt and the Allies retreated to El Alamein, where the Eighth Army fought two defensive battles, then defeated the Axis forces in the Second Battle of El Alamein in October 1942. The Eighth Army drove Axis forces out of Libya to Tunisia, which was invaded from the west by the Allied First Army in Operation Torch. In the Tunisian campaign the remaining Axis forces surrendered to the combined Allied forces in May 1943.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: The British Western Desert Force (renamed Cyrcom and later the Eighth Army) had been reduced in early 1941 to send units to Greece, rather than complete the conquest of Libya, just as German troops and Italian reinforcements arrived. British Commonwealth and Empire troops released after the conclusion of the East Africa Campaign were sent to Egypt and by summer, the surviving Commonwealth troops had returned from Greece, Crete and Syria. From the end of 1941, increasing amounts of equipment and personnel, including US supplies and tanks, arrived for the Eighth Army. The Axis never overcame the supply constraints limiting the size of their land and air forces in North Africa and the desert war became a sideshow for Germany, when the expected quick conclusion of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, was not achieved.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: Cyrenaica (Libya) had been an Italian colony since the Italo-Turkish War in 1911–1912. With Tunisia, part of French North Africa, to the west, and Egypt to the east, the Italians prepared to defend both fronts through a North Africa Supreme Headquarters, under the command of the Governor-General of Italian Libya, Marshal of the Air Force, Italo Balbo. Supreme Headquarters had the 5th Army (General Italo Gariboldi) and the 10th Army (General Mario Berti), which in mid-1940 had nine metropolitan divisions of about each, three (Blackshirt) divisions and two Libyan divisions, each with an establishment with 8,000 men. Italian army divisions had been reorganised in the late 1930s from three regiments each to two; reservists were recalled in 1939, along with the usual call-up of conscripts.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: Morale was considered high and the army had recent operational experience. The Italian navy had prospered under the Fascist regime, which had paid for fast, well-built, well-armed ships and a large submarine fleet but it lacked experience and training. The air force had been ready for war in 1936 but by 1939 had stagnated; the British did not consider it capable of maintaining a high rate of operations. The 5th Army, with eight divisions, was based in Tripolitania, the western half of Libya, opposite Tunisia and the 10th Army, with six infantry divisions, held Cyrenaica in the east. When war was declared, the 10th Army sent the 1st Libyan Division to the Egyptian frontier from Giarabub to Sidi Omar and XXI Corps from Sidi Omar to the coast, Bardia and Tobruk. The XXII Corps moved south-west of Tobruk to act as a counter-attack force.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: The British had based forces in Egypt since 1882 but these were greatly reduced by the terms of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936. The small British and Commonwealth force garrisoned the Suez Canal and the Red Sea route. The canal was vital to British communications with its Far Eastern and Indian Ocean territories. In mid-1939, Lieutenant-General Archibald Wavell was appointed General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C) of the new Middle East Command, over the Mediterranean and Middle East theatres. Until the Franco-Axis armistice, French divisions in Tunisia faced the Italian 5th Army on the western Libyan border. In Libya, the Royal Army had about 215,000 men and in Egypt, the British had about 36,000 troops and another 27,500 men training in Palestine.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: British forces included the Mobile Division (Egypt) under Major-General Percy Hobart, one of only two British armoured training formations. In mid-1939 it was renamed the Armoured Division (Egypt) and on 16 February 1940, it became the 7th Armoured Division. The Egypt–Libya border was defended by the Egyptian Frontier Force and in June 1940, the headquarters of the 6th Infantry Division under Major-General Richard O'Connor took command in the Western Desert, with instructions to drive back the Italians from their frontier posts and dominate the hinterland if war began. The 7th Armoured Division, less the 7th Armoured Brigade, assembled at Mersa Matruh and sent the 7th Support Group forward towards the frontier as a covering force, where the RAF also moved most of its bombers. Malta was also reinforced.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: The HQ of the 6th Infantry Division, which lacked complete and fully trained units, was renamed the Western Desert Force on 17 June. In Tunisia, the French had eight divisions, capable only of limited operations and in Syria, three poorly armed and trained divisions, about 40,000 troops and border guards, on occupation duties against the civilian population. Italian land and air forces in Libya greatly outnumbered the British in Egypt but suffered from poor morale and were handicapped by inferior equipment. In Italian East Africa, another 130,000 Italian and African troops with 400 guns, 200 light tanks and 20,000 lorries. Italy declared war on 11 June 1940.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: The war was fought primarily in the area known as the Western Desert, which was about wide, from Mersa Matruh in Egypt to Gazala on the Libyan coast, along (), the only paved road. The Sand Sea, inland, marked the southern limit of the desert at its widest points at Giarabub and Siwa. In British parlance, the term "Western Desert" applied to the desert of Egypt west of the Nile but came to describe the whole area of conflict, including eastern Cyrenaica in Libya. From the coast, a raised, flat plain of stony desert extends inland about above sea level and runs south for from the coast to the edge of the Sand Sea. Scorpions, vipers and flies abound in the region, which was inhabited by a small number of Bedouin nomads.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: Bedouin tracks linked wells and the more easily traversed ground; navigation was by sun, star, compass and "desert sense", good perception of the environment gained by experience. When Italian troops advanced into Egypt in September 1940, the Maletti Group got lost leaving Sidi Omar, disappeared and had to be found by aircraft. In spring and summer the days are miserably hot and the nights very cold. The Sirocco ( or ), a hot desert wind, blows clouds of fine sand, which reduce visibility to a few metres and coat eyes, lungs, machinery, food and equipment; motor vehicles and aircraft need special oil filters and the barren terrain means that supplies for military operations have to be transported from outside. German engines tended to overheat and the life of their tanks' engines fell from to and this problem was made worse by the lack of standardized spare parts for the German and Italian motor types.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: Italian supply shipments to Libya went about west around Sicily, then approached the coast of Tunisia before going on to Tripoli, in order to avoid interference from the British aircraft, ships and submarines based at Malta. In Africa, supplies had to be hauled huge distances by road or in small consignments by coaster. The distance from Tripoli to Benghazi was about and to El Alamein was . A third of the Italian merchant marine was in ships berthed in British-controlled ports and was interned after Italy declared war. By September 1942 half of the remainder had been sunk, although much was replaced by new shipbuilding, salvage and transfers of German ships. From June 1940 to May 1943, 16 per cent of supply shipments were sunk.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: Tobruk was pressed into use in June 1942 but Allied bombing and its long approach route led this effort to be abandoned in August. The Germans assumed that the maximum distance a motorised army could operate from its base was but on average about a third of Axis lorries were unserviceable and 35–50 per cent of the fuel deliveries were consumed transporting the remainder to the front. Fuel oil shortages in Italy, the small size of the ports in Libya and the need to meet civilian demand, required the inefficient dispatch of large numbers of small convoys. (OKH, German army high command) concluded that German forces in Libya could not be supplied for a decisive offensive unless Italian forces were withdrawn to Italy, which was politically impossible.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: The geographical position of Italy made it possible for it to close the Mediterranean if war came and force the Mediterranean Fleet based in Egypt to rely on the Suez Canal. In 1939, Wavell began to plan a base in the Middle East to support about fifteen divisions (300,000 men), six in Egypt, three in Palestine and the rest further afield. Many of the supplies needed by the British were imported from the colonies and the rest obtained locally by stimulating the production of substitutes. The plan for a garrison of nine divisions in Egypt and Palestine was changed to fourteen divisions by June 1941 and then to 23 by March 1942. Once the Italians declared war in 1940 and until 1943, merchant ships travelled east from Britain around the Cape of Good Hope, which made Egypt as distant as Australia and New Zealand. The Middle East Supply Centre (MESC) operated in Egypt, Palestine and Syria to co-ordinate imports and create local substitutes for civilian rations and promote agricultural efficiencies. By March 1943 the MESC had replaced about 100 Liberty Ship deliveries' worth of imports with increased local production of potatoes, cooking oil, dairy products and fish; cattle drives from Sudan obviated the need for refrigerated shipping.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: In 1940, British military forces had a base at the terminus of the Egyptian state railway, road and the port of Mersa Matruh (Matruh) west of Alexandria. Construction began on a water pipeline along the railway and the British surveyed sources of water. Wells were dug but most filled with salt water; in 1939 the primary fresh water sources were the Roman aqueducts at Mersa Matruh and Maaten Baggush. Water-boats from Alexandria and a distillation plant at Matruh increased supply but rigorous rationing had to be enforced and much water had to be moved overland to outlying areas. Not enough vehicles were available in 1939 and lorries were diverted to provide the Armoured Division with a better rear link. Only desert-worthy vehicles could be risked cross-country, which left tanks unable to move far from Matruh which was east of the Libyan border. From the border there was no water at Sollum or for another east of Sollum to Sidi Barrani, along a very poor road. An invader would have to move through a waterless and trackless desert to reach the main British force. In September 1940, the New Zealand Railway Battalion and Indian labourers began work on a coastal railway, which reached Sidi Barrani by October 1941 and Tobruk by December 1942, west of El Alamein, carrying of water per day.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: British troops were ordered to dominate the frontier and isolate Giarabub. They crossed into Libya that night, exchanged fire with Italian troops at Sidi Omar and discovered that some Italians were unaware that war had been declared. On 14 June, the British captured Fort Capuzzo and Fort Maddalena, taking 220 prisoners. Two days later, the British raided a convoy on the Tobruk–Bardia road, killed 21 Italian soldiers and took 88 prisoners, including (Brigadier General) Romolo Lastrucci, the 10th Army Chief Engineer. At an engagement near the frontier wire at Nezuet Ghirba, a mixed force of British tanks, artillery and motorised infantry defeated an Italian force of 17 light tanks, four guns and 400 infantry.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: The British patrolled the frontier area as far west as Tobruk, establishing dominance over the 10th Army. On 5 August, thirty Italian tanks engaged the 8th Hussars in an inconclusive action and Wavell concluded that vehicle wear made it impractical to continue operations when an Italian offensive loomed. Sand wore out equipment quickly, shortening the track life of tanks. Spare parts ran out and only half the tank strength could be kept operational. A lull fell from August to early September as Operation Hats, a naval operation, reinforced the Mediterranean Fleet and helped to bring an army convoy of tanks and crews via the Cape. The British claimed to have inflicted 3,500 casualties with a loss of 150 men between 11 June and 9 September. Further afield, both sides established scouting groups, the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) and Auto-Saharan Company () which ranged the desert, raided and observed enemy dispositions.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: Benito Mussolini had no plans to invade Egypt, intending to remain on the defensive in Libya if war came. After the fall of France in 1940, the 5th Army could send reinforcements east and on 7 August, Mussolini ordered an invasion to occupy Egypt and establish a land connexion with Italian East Africa. In August a lull fell on the frontier. Most British armoured units had withdrawn to Mersa Matruh, in order to conserve their ability to defend the port. The 7th Support Group took over and established observation posts from Sollum to Fort Maddalena, ready to delay an Italian offensive and the Hussars reconnoitred further into Libya.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: The Libyan divisions lacked the transport necessary to operate with the Maletti Group, which had one medium, two mixed and four light tank battalions on the escarpment and were redeployed to the coast road. On 9 September, the Maletti Group got lost en route to Sidi Omar and Rodolfo Graziani cancelled a flanking move and concentrated on the coast road, with five divisions and the Maletti Group; the 4th CC.NN. Division "3 Gennaio" and 64th Infantry Division "Catanzaro" divisions stayed in reserve at Tobruk. The 5th , a mixed air unit with about 300 serviceable aircraft, airfield equipment and transport, stood by to support the advance and occupy airfields.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: The Italian invasion of Egypt on 13–18 September began as a limited tactical operation towards Mersa Matruh, rather the strategic objectives sketched in Rome, due to the chronic lack of transport, fuel and wireless equipment, even with resupply from the 5th Army. Musiad was subjected to a "spectacular" artillery bombardment at dawn, then occupied. The 1st Libyan Division took Sollum and the airfield. By evening the 2nd Libyan Division, 63rd Infantry Division "Cirene", the Maletti Group from Musaid and the 62nd Infantry Division "Marmarica" from Sidi Omar, pushed past British harassing parties and converged on Halfaya Pass.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: The British withdrew past Buq Buq on 14 September and continued to harass the Italian advance. They fell back to Alam Hamid the next day and to on 16 September. An Italian force of fifty tanks attempted a flanking move so the British rearguard retired east of Sidi Barrani, which was occupied by the 1st CC.NN. Division "23 Marzo" and Graziani halted the advance. The British resumed observation and the 7th Armoured Division prepared to challenge an attack on Mersa Matruh. Despite prodding from Mussolini, the Italians dug in around Sidi Barrani and Sofafi, about west of the British defences at Mersa Matruh, repairing roads demolished by the British, cleaning wells and beginning work on a water pipeline from the border, accumulating supplies for the resumption of the advance in mid-December. Egypt broke off diplomatic relations with the Axis and Italian aircraft bombed Cairo on 19 October.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: British naval and air operations to harass the Italian army continued and caused damage which prisoners reported had lowered morale. Armoured car patrols dominated no man's land but a lack of landing grounds reduced the effectiveness of the RAF and Malta was out of range. Operation Compass, a British counter-attack to an Italian advance on Matruh, planned to destroy Italian forces and most of the WDF was moved up to the port. An additional armoured car company joined reconnaissance operations far behind the front line. The WDF had been reinforced with a new tank regiment with Matilda II tanks. Rather than wait for the Italians, the British began after about a month to prepare a raid of 4–5 days' duration on the central group of the Italian encampments and then on Sofafi.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: In December 1940, the 10th Army in Egypt had been reinforced with the 1st and 2nd Libyan divisions and 4th Blackshirt Division, in the fortified camps from Sidi Barrani to the Tummars and Maktila. The Maletti Group was based at Nibeiwa, the 63rd Infantry Division Cirene at Rabia and Sofafi, the 62nd Infantry Division Marmarica was on the escarpment from Sofafi to Halfaya Pass and the 64th Infantry Division "Catanzaro" was east of Buq Buq, behind the Nibeiwa–Rabia gap, supported by about 500 aircraft of the (General Felip Porro). The RAF attacked airfields on 7 December and destroyed 39 aircraft on the ground. Operation Compass (Battle of Marmarica/Battle of the Camps), began when Selby Force advanced from Matruh to isolate Maktila early on 9 December. The 4th Indian Division and the 7th Royal Tank Regiment (7th RTR) attacked Nibeiwa at dawn and overran the camp, then moved on Tummar West, which fell in the afternoon. A counter-attack from Tummar East was repulsed and the camp taken the next day.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: A 7th Armoured Division screen to the west prevented the reinforcement of Sidi Barrani and on 10 December, the British cut the coast road and the 7th Armoured Division mopped up around Buq Buq, taking many prisoners. On 11 December, the Italians were defeated at Sidi Barrani; Rabia and Sofafi were abandoned and the 7th Armoured Division pursued along the coast and the escarpment. Late on 14 December, the 11th Hussars cut the Via Balbia between Tobruk and Bardia, captured Sidi Omar on 16 December and forced the Italians to retreat from Sollum and Fort Capuzzo to Bardia, leaving garrisons at Siwa Oasis and Giarabub in the south. From 9 to 11 December, the British took 38,300 prisoners, 237 guns, 73 tanks and about 1,000 vehicles for 624 casualties.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: Bardia fell between 14 December and 5 January 1941; the British suffered 456 Australian infantry casualties and lost 17 of 23 tanks, for 40,000 Italian casualties and prisoners, more than 400 guns, 130 tanks and hundreds of lorries. At dawn on 21 January, Australian infantry broke into Tobruk and made a path for 18 British I tanks. The Australians pressed on and captured half of the Tobruk defences by nightfall. The Australians took 25,000 prisoners, 208 guns and 87 tanks, for a loss of 355 Australian and 45 British troops. The 7th Armoured Division drove towards Derna and the Babini Group (BCS – under General Valentino Babini), with about 300 tanks, at Mechili. The BCS slipped away and from 26 to 28 January the British tanks bogged down in heavy rain; Derna was abandoned next day. The 7th Armoured Division sent Combeforce, a flying column, to Beda Fomm and cut off the 10th Army.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: In late January, the British learned that the Italians were evacuating Cyrenaica along the Via Balbia from Benghazi. The 7th Armoured Division, under Major-General Sir Michael O'Moore Creagh, was dispatched to intercept the remnants of the 10th Army by cutting through the desert south of the Jebel Akhdar via Msus and Antelat, as the 6th Australian Division pursued the Italians along the coast road north of the Jebel Akhdar. The terrain was hard going for the British tanks and Combeforce (Lieutenant-Colonel John Combe), a flying column of wheeled vehicles, was sent on ahead.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: Late on 5 February, Combeforce arrived at the Via Balbia south of Benghazi and set up roadblocks near Sidi Saleh, about north of Ajedabia and south-west of Antelat. The forward elements of the 10th Army arrived thirty minutes later and found the Via Balbia blocked. The next day the Italians attacked to break through the roadblock and continued to attack into 7 February. With British reinforcements arriving and the Australians pressing down the road from Benghazi, the 10th Army surrendered. From Benghazi–Agedabia, the British took 25,000 prisoners, captured 107 tanks and 93 guns of the totals for Operation Compass of 133,298 men, 420 tanks and 845 guns.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: On 9 February, Churchill ordered the advance to stop and troops to be dispatched to Greece to take part in Operation Marita of the Greco-Italian War, since a German attack through Macedonia was thought imminent. The British were unable to continue beyond El Agheila anyway, because of vehicle breakdowns, exhaustion and the effect of the much longer supply line from the base in Egypt. A few thousand men of the 10th Army escaped the disaster in Cyrenaica but the 5th Army in Tripolitania had four divisions. The Sirte, Tmed Hassan and Buerat strongholds were reinforced from Italy, which brought the 10th and 5th Armies up to about 150,000 men. German reinforcements were sent to Libya to form a blocking detachment () under Directive 22 of 11 January. These were the first units of the of (Lieutenant-General) Erwin Rommel.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: A week after the Italian surrender at Beda Fomm, the Defence Committee in London ordered Cyrenaica held with the minimum of forces and all spare troops sent to Greece. In the Western Desert Force (now XIII Corps), the 6th Australian Division was fully equipped and had few losses to replace. The 7th Armoured Division had been operating for eight months, had worn out its mechanical equipment and had withdrawn to refit. Two regiments of the 2nd Armoured Division with the WDF were also worn out, which left the division with only four tank regiments. The 6th Australian Division went to Greece in March with an armoured brigade group of the 2nd Armoured Division; the remainder of the division and the new 9th Australian Division, minus two brigades and most of its transport, was sent to Greece and was replaced by two under-equipped brigades of the 7th Australian Division. The division took over in Cyrenaica, on the assumption that the Italians could not begin a counter-offensive until May, even with German reinforcements.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: In early 1941, after the big British and Commonwealth victory in Cyrenaica, the military position was soon reversed. The best-equipped units in XIII Corps went to Greece as part of Operation Lustre in the Battle of Greece. Adolf Hitler responded to the Italian disaster with Directive 22 (11 January) ordering (Operation Sunflower), the deployment of a new (DAK) to Libya, as a (barrier detachment). The DAK had fresh troops with better tanks, equipment and air support and was led by General Erwin Rommel, who had enjoyed great success in the Battle of France. The Axis force raided and quickly defeated the British at El Agheila on 24 March and at Mersa el Brega on 31 March, exploited the success and by 15 April, had pushed the British back to the border at Sollum and besieged Tobruk. The new commander of XIII Corps (now HQ Cyrenaica Command) Lieutenant-General Philip Neame, O'Connor and Major-General Michael Gambier-Parry, commander of the 2nd Armoured Division were captured. The Western Desert Force HQ took over under Lieutenant-General Noel Beresford-Peirse, who had been recalled from East Africa. Apart from an armoured brigade group of the 2nd Armoured Division, which had been withdrawn for the Greek campaign, the rest of the division had been destroyed. Several Axis attempts to seize Tobruk failed and the front line settled on the Egyptian border.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: Tobruk was defended by a force of some 25,000 Eighth Army troops, well stocked with supplies and linked to Egypt by the Royal Navy. The garrison had armoured cars and captured Italian tanks, which could raid Axis supply convoys as they passed through Tobruk for the frontier, thus preventing the Axis from invading Egypt. Rommel attempted to take the port but the 9th Australian Division under General Leslie Morshead, resolutely defended the port. The Italians were slow to provide blueprints for the port's fortifications and several attacks were repulsed. After three weeks Rommel suspended the attacks and resumed the siege. Italian infantry divisions took up positions around the fortress while the bulk of the Afrika Korps maintained a mobile position south and east of the port.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: Operation Brevity (15–16 May) was a limited offensive, to inflict attrition on Axis forces and secure positions for a general offensive towards Tobruk. The British attacked with a small tank-infantry force in three columns, "Desert", "Centre" and "Coast". Desert Column, with British cruiser tanks, was to advance inland and destroy tanks found en route to Sidi Aziz. Centre Column was to capture the top of the Halfaya Pass, Bir Wair and Musaid, then press on to Fort Capuzzo. Coast Column was to take Sollum and the foot of Halfaya Pass. Sollum, Halfaya Pass and Fort Capuzzo were captured but then the fort was lost to a counter-attack. A German counter-attack on 16 May threatened the force at the top of the pass and a retreat was ordered, covered by Desert Column. The Germans took Musaid back and a general British retreat began, to a line from Sidi Omar to Sidi Suleiman and Sollum, which left only the Halfaya Pass in British hands. Brevity failed to achieve most of its objectives and only briefly held the Halfaya Pass. The British lost 206 casualties. Five tanks were destroyed and 13 damaged. German casualties were 258 men, three tanks destroyed and several damaged. Italian casualties were 395, of whom 347 were captured. On 12 May, the Tiger convoy lost one ship and arrived in Alexandria, with 238 tanks, to re-equip the 7th Armoured Division and 43 aircraft. On 28 May, planning began for Operation Battleaxe.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: During the evening of 26 May, under [Colonel] Maximilian von Herff comprising three panzer battalions, assembled on the coast at the foot of Halfaya Pass and attacked the next morning, intending to bluff the British into retreat. The pass was defended by the 3rd Coldstream Guards of Lieutenant-Colonel Moubray and supporting units but the bluff became a genuine attack and secured a commanding position, leaving the British in danger of being surrounded. Brigadier William Gott authorised a withdrawal and Moubray extricated the battalion. There were no reinforcements nearby and Gott ordered a withdrawal from the pass, which Axis forces re-occupied. The Italo-German positions on the border were fortified with barbed wire and minefields and covered by 50 mm and 88 mm anti-tank guns. Behind the new defences the Axis began to accumulate supplies and receive the 15th Panzer Division, which began to arrive on 20 May.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: Operation Battleaxe, , was intended to lift the Siege of Tobruk and re-capture eastern Cyrenaica. The attack was to be conducted by the 7th Armoured Division and a composite infantry force based on the 4th Indian Division headquarters, with two brigades. The infantry were to attack in the area of Bardia, Sollum, Halfaya and Capuzzo, with the tanks guarding the southern flank. For the first time in the war, a large German force fought on the defensive. The Halfaya Pass attack failed, Point 206 was captured and only one of three attacks on Hafid Ridge had any success. At the end of 15 June, tanks remained operational. On 16 June, a German counter-attack forced back the British on the western flank but was repulsed in the centre. However, the British were reduced to 21 operational Cruiser tanks and seventeen infantry tanks.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: On 17 June, the British only just evaded encirclement by two Panzer regiments and ended the operation. Despite British overextension, the Germans failed to turn a defensive success into an annihilating victory. Intelligence had provided details of British moves but the RAF had seen German counter-moves and slowed them enough to help the ground forces escape. The British had 969 casualties, 27 cruiser and 64 I tanks were knocked out or broken down and not recovered. The RAF lost 36 aircraft. German losses were 678 men and Italian losses are unknown, with in addition twelve tanks and ten aircraft lost. The British failure led to the sacking of Wavell, the XIII Corps commander, Lieutenant-General Noel Beresford-Peirse and Creagh, the 7th Armoured Division commander. General Claude Auchinleck took over as Commander-in-Chief of the Middle East Command. In September, the Western Desert Force was renamed the Eighth Army.


title: Western Desert campaign

text: The Eighth Army (Lieutenant-General Alan Cunningham) conducted Operation Crusader from 18 November to 30 December, aiming to relieve Tobruk and capture eastern Cyrenaica. The Eighth Army planned to destroy Axis armour before committing its infantry but was repulsed several times, culminating in the defeat of the 7th Armoured Division by the at Sidi Rezegh. Rommel ordered the panzer divisions to relieve the Axis positions on the Egyptian border but failed to find the main body of the Allied infantry, which had bypassed the fortresses and headed for Tobruk. Rommel pulled his armour back from the frontier towards Tobruk and achieved several tactical successes, which led Auchinleck to replace Cunningham with Major-General Neil Ritchie. The Axis forces then withdrew to the west of Tobruk to the Gazala Line and then back to El Agheila, leaving the Axis garrisons at Bardia and Sollum isolated and which surrendered later. The British suffered 17,700 casualties against 37,400 Axis, many of them taken prisoner when the garrisons left behind at Halfaya and Bardia surrendered. Tobruk had been relieved, Cyrenaica recaptured and airfields reoccupied to cover convoys supplying Malta.