title: Politics of South Africa

text: Many of the principles of racial equality, majority democracy and minority rights that it established were translated into the final Constitution of South Africa that was adopted in 1996 and which remains in force. It sets out the structure of the government, protects fundamental human rights, creates mechanisms of accountability and divides legislative and executive power among the national, provincial and local spheres of government.


title: Politics of South Africa

text: South Africa is a parliamentary representative democratic republic, wherein the President of South Africa, elected by parliament, is the head of government, and of a multi-party system. It consists of three branches.


title: Politics of South Africa

text: The executive branch consists of the President of South Africa and the Cabinet of South Africa. The President is elected by the Parliament of South Africa for a five-year term. The President may only serve two terms. By convention this position is occupied by the leader of the largest party in the National Assembly. The President appoints other members of the Cabinet called Ministers. Ministers oversee executive government departments. The Cabinet forms and executes policy and most legislative proposals originate from the Cabinet. The President and members of the Cabinet are accountable to the National Assembly. It has the power to remove them from office by passing a motion of no confidence and it has the power to hold them accountable through oral and written replies to questions from Members of Parliament.


title: Politics of South Africa

text: The legislative branch consists of the Parliament. The Parliament consists of two chambers: the upper house is the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) and the lower house is the National Assembly. In practice, the National Assembly is by far the more powerful house. It controls the composition of the government and its approval is required for most legislative proposals to become law. The NCOP provides equal representation to South Africa's nine provinces and its approval is required for laws that affect South Africa's provinces and cultural communities. Whereas the National Assembly is elected by party proportional representation, the NCOP is elected by the legislatures of each province.


title: Politics of South Africa

text: The judicial branch consists of the courts. It interprets and enforces laws. The highest court for constitutional matters is the Constitutional Court of South Africa. It has the power to strike down laws that conflict with the Constitution. The Supreme Court of Appeals is the highest court for non-constitutional matters. The High Court of South Africa is a court of general jurisdiction with appellate powers. It is divided into divisions that have authority over a geographic region of the country. Magistrate Courts serve as courts of first instance. There are specialized courts and tribunals with power that can be equivalent to the Supreme Court of Appeals.


title: Politics of South Africa

text: Following the 1994 elections, South Africa was governed under an interim constitution. This constitution required the Constituent Assembly (CA) to draft and approve a permanent constitution by 9 May 1996. The present constitution was passed in 1996 and promulgated by President Nelson Mandela in 1997. It is the highest law in the land; all other laws are expected to abide by and conform to the principles of the constitution. The Constitution not only sets out the structure of the three branches of government and the fundamental human rights of all of South Africa's people, but it provides for the management of public funding, the delineation of the boundaries and organization of Provinces, the formation of Chapter 9 Institutions to hold the government accountable.


title: Politics of South Africa

text: General elections take place every 5 years. The first fully non-racial democratic election was held in 1994, the second in 1999, the third in 2004, the fourth in 2009, the fifth in 2014, and the most recent in 2019. Until 2008, elected officials were allowed to change political party, while retaining their seats, during set windows which occurred twice each electoral term, due to controversial floor crossing legislative amendments made in 2002. The last two-floor crossing windows occurred in 2005 and in 2007.


title: Politics of South Africa

text: After the 2009 elections, the ANC lost its two-thirds majority in the national legislature which had allowed it to unilaterally alter the constitution.


title: Politics of South Africa

text: The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) are in a formal alliance with the ruling ANC (the so-called "Tripartite Alliance"), and thus do not stand separately for election.


title: Politics of South Africa

text: The constitution's bill of rights provides extensive guarantees, including equality before the law and prohibitions against discrimination; the right to life, privacy, property, and freedom and security of the person; prohibition against slavery and forced labour; and freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and association. The legal rights of criminal suspects also are enumerated. It also includes wide guarantees of access of food, water, education, health care, and social security. The constitution provides for an independent and impartial judiciary, and, in practice, these provisions are respected.


title: Politics of South Africa

text: Citizens' entitlements to a safe environment, housing, education, and health care are included in the bill of rights, and are known as secondary constitutional rights. In 2003 the constitutional secondary rights were used by the HIV/AIDS activist group the Treatment Action Campaign as a means of forcing the government to change its health policy.


title: Politics of South Africa

text: Violent crime, including violence against women and children, and organised criminal activity are at high levels and are a grave concern. Partly as a result, vigilante action and mob justice sometimes occur.


title: Politics of South Africa

text: Some members of the police are accused of applying excessive force and abusing suspects in custody; as a result, the number of deaths in police custody remains a problem. In April 1997, the government established an Independent Complaints Directorate to investigate deaths in police custody and deaths resulting from police action.


title: Politics of South Africa

text: Some discrimination against women continues, although it has improved overall, and discrimination against those living with HIV/AIDS has been becoming a serious issue.


title: Politics of South Africa

text: As of 2010, there has been a growing political intolerance and repression in regards to the persons in power.


title: Politics of South Africa

text: Many leaders of former bantustans or homelands have had a role in South African politics since their abolition.


title: Politics of South Africa

text: Mangosuthu Buthelezi was chief minister of his Kwa-Zulu homeland from 1976 until 1994. In post-apartheid South Africa he has served as President of the Inkatha Freedom Party.


title: Politics of South Africa

text: He was a Minister in President Mandela's cabinet. He also served as acting President of South Africa when President Nelson Mandela was overseas.


title: Politics of South Africa

text: Bantubonke Holomisa, who was a general in the homeland of Transkei from 1987, has served as the president of the United Democratic Movement since 1997. Today he is a Member of Parliament.


title: Politics of South Africa

text: General Constand Viljoen was a former chief of the South African Defence Force, who, as a leader of the Afrikaner Volksfront, sent 1500 of his militiamen to prop up the government of Lucas Mangope and to contest the termination of Bophuthatswana as a homeland in 1994. He co-founded the Freedom Front in 1994. He retired from being a Member of Parliament before his death in 2020.


title: Politics of South Africa

text: Lucas Mangope, former chief of the Motsweda Ba hurutshe-Boo-Manyane tribe of the Tswana, ex-president of the former bantustan of Bophuthatswana, was the leader of the United Christian Democratic Party.


title: Rusty Schwimmer

text: Rusty Schwimmer is an American character actress and singer. She has appeared in films such as "A Little Princess" (1995), "Twister" (1996), "The Perfect Storm" (2000), "Runaway Jury" (2003), "North Country" (2005), "The Informant!" (2009), and "The Sessions" (2012).


title: Rusty Schwimmer

text: Schwimmer was raised in Chicago. She attended New Trier High School in suburban Winnetka, with her best friend, actress Virginia Madsen.


title: Rusty Schwimmer

text: Schwimmer made her film debut in 1988, appearing in "Memories of Me". She had small parts in "", "Sleepwalkers" and "Candyman", before playing Joey B in "" (1993). In 1995, she starred as Amelia Minchin in" A Little Princess" directed by Alfonso Cuarón. She went on to appear as Mrs. Thornton (Jo Harding's mother) in "Twister" (1996), Mrs Pendleton in "Amistad" (1997), Gridlock'd "Gridlock'd" (1997), Alice in "EDtv" (1999), Irene "Big Red" Johnson in "The Perfect Storm" (2000), Millie Dupree in "Runaway Jury" (2003), Big Betty in "North Country" (2005), and as Aunt Martha in "Perfect Sisters" (2014) as well as office worker Peggy Displasia in The Belko Experiment in 2016.


title: Rusty Schwimmer

text: On television, Schwimmer had starring role in the 2006 Western miniseries "Broken Trail" playing "Big Rump" Kate Becker. From 2001 to 2003, she had a recurring role as Barbara Ludzinski on the CBS legal drama "The Guardian". Schwimmer has also appeared in guest starring roles in several television series, including "Parker Lewis Can't Lose", "In the Heat of the Night", "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air", "Tales from the Crypt", "Married... with Children", "ER", "Chicago Hope", "Ally McBeal", "Judging Amy", "The X-Files", "Gilmore Girls", "", "Criminal Minds", "Heroes", "Desperate Housewives", "Boston Legal", "Private Practice", "Six Feet Under", "Drop Dead Diva", "Louie", "Lucifer", "Grey's Anatomy" and "Better Call Saul". She also appeared in "The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special".


title: Rusty Schwimmer

text: Schwimmer also appeared in Paul Thomas Anderson’s teenage short film "The Dirk Diggler Story", an early version of "Boogie Nights".


title: Excited state

text: In quantum mechanics, an excited state of a system (such as an atom, molecule or nucleus) is any quantum state of the system that has a higher energy than the ground state (that is, more energy than the absolute minimum). Excitation refers to an increase in energy level above a chosen starting point, usually the ground state, but sometimes an already excited state. The temperature of a group of particles is indicative of the level of excitation (with the notable exception of systems that exhibit negative temperature).


title: Excited state

text: The lifetime of a system in an excited state is usually short: spontaneous or induced emission of a quantum of energy (such as a photon or a phonon) usually occurs shortly after the system is promoted to the excited state, returning the system to a state with lower energy (a less excited state or the ground state). This return to a lower energy level is often loosely described as decay and is the inverse of excitation.


title: Excited state

text: Long-lived excited states are often called metastable. Long-lived nuclear isomers and singlet oxygen are two examples of this.


title: Excited state

text: Atoms can be excited by heat, electricity, or light. A simple example of this concept comes by considering the hydrogen atom.


title: Excited state

text: The ground state of the hydrogen atom corresponds to having the atom's single electron in the lowest possible orbital (that is, the spherically symmetric "1s" wave function, which, so far, has demonstrated to have the lowest possible quantum numbers). By giving the atom additional energy (for example, by the absorption of a photon of an appropriate energy), the electron is able to move into an excited state (one with one or more quantum numbers greater than the minimum possible). If the photon has too much energy, the electron will cease to be bound to the atom, and the atom will become ionized.


title: Excited state

text: After excitation the atom may return to the ground state or a lower excited state, by emitting a photon with a characteristic energy. Emission of photons from atoms in various excited states leads to an electromagnetic spectrum showing a series of characteristic emission lines (including, in the case of the hydrogen atom, the Lyman, Balmer, Paschen and Brackett series).


title: Excited state

text: An atom in a high excited state is termed a Rydberg atom. A system of highly excited atoms can form a long-lived condensed excited state e.g. a condensed phase made completely of excited atoms: Rydberg matter.


title: Excited state

text: A collection of molecules forming a gas can be considered in an excited state if one or more molecules are elevated to kinetic energy levels such that the resulting velocity distribution departs from the equilibrium Boltzmann distribution. This phenomenon has been studied in the case of a two-dimensional gas in some detail, analyzing the time taken to relax to equilibrium.


title: Excited state

text: Excited states are often calculated using coupled cluster, Møller–Plesset perturbation theory, multi-configurational self-consistent field, configuration interaction, and time-dependent density functional theory.


title: Excited state

text: The excitation of a system (an atom or molecule) from one excited state to a higher-energy excited state with the absorption of a photon is called "excited-state absorption" (ESA). Excited-state absorption is possible only when an electron has been already excited from the ground state to a lower excited state. The excited-state absorption is usually an undesired effect, but it can be useful in upconversion pumping. Excited-state absorption measurements are done using pump–probe techniques such as flash photolysis. However, it is not easy to measure them compared to ground-state absorption, and in some cases complete bleaching of the ground state is required to measure excited-state absorption.


title: Excited state

text: A further consequence of excited-state formation may be reaction of the atom or molecule in its excited state, as in photochemistry.


title: Jack Russell (musician)

text: Jack Russell (born December 5, 1960) is an American rock vocalist. He is a founding member of the American hard rock band Great White.


title: Jack Russell (musician)

text: Russell was born in Montebello, California on 5 December 1960. He grew up with influences such as Robert Plant and Steven Tyler, and became a vocalist for many bands in high school and later on. He met Mark Kendall in a concert and began plans to form a band called Dante Fox. Band manager Alan Niven and Kendall decided to change the name of the band to Great White because "that was Mark Kendall's nickname. He had very white hair and very light complexion. They called him the Great White".


title: Jack Russell (musician)

text: Russell was with Great White from 1981 until 1996, then took three years off to record and release his first solo album, entitled "Shelter Me", but rejoined in 1999 until the band broke up in 2001. He then tried touring solo under his own name briefly, then changed the band name to "Jack Russell's Great White" and toured from 2002 to 2005, while also releasing his second solo album "For You" in 2002.


title: Jack Russell (musician)

text: Jack Russell's Great White was the official name of the band that performed at The Station nightclub fire in 2003.


title: Jack Russell (musician)

text: In 2006, he began touring with the official Great White band when they reformed with their classic lineup, but left the band in 2009 due to a fall in his bathroom where he cracked two vertebrae and herniated a disc. He had multiple back surgeries and was using a plethora of pain medication. Having fallen into alcoholism, the sudden death of his good friend Jani Lane of Warrant, propelled him to get help and become sober.


title: Jack Russell (musician)

text: Fully recovered, he started touring again as Jack Russell's Great White in December 2011 to avoid confusion with the still-touring official Great White band which had continued onward in 2009 with a different singer following Russell's departure.


title: Jack Russell (musician)

text: In 2012, Russell guest-starred on VH1 Classics "That Metal Show", where he revealed his side of the Great White story, and how he was feeling well and ready for more.


title: Jack Russell (musician)

text: In August 2021, Jack Russell's Great White is releasing a sequel to Great White's 1998 tribute album to Led Zeppelin titled "Great Zeppelin II: A Tribute to Led Zeppelin." On 13 July 2021, a cover of "Whole Lotta Love" was released.


title: Russian Circles

text: Russian Circles is an American instrumental band based in Chicago, Illinois. The band was originally formed by childhood friends Mike Sullivan and Dave Turncrantz after their previous musical projects dissolved. After parting ways with their original bass player Colin DeKuiper in 2007, the trio was rounded out by Brian Cook. The band has gained widespread recognition based on a series of critically acclaimed albums and extensive international touring. Their name is taken from a drill exercise used in ice hockey, a sport Sullivan and Turncrantz grew up playing in their original hometown of St. Louis.


title: Russian Circles

text: Russian Circles was formed in late 2004 by guitarist Mike Sullivan and bassist Colin DeKuiper (both formerly of instrumental band Dakota/Dakota), they quickly recruited drummer Dave Turncrantz, formerly of St. Louis band Riddle of Steel.


title: Russian Circles

text: In the autumn of 2007, it was announced that the band had parted ways with Colin DeKuiper. As a result, the bass tracks on their second album, titled "Station", were handled by ex-Botch/These Arms Are Snakes bass player Brian Cook, who then joined the band permanently. The group's third full-length, "Geneva", was released on October 20, 2009 and reached No. 24 on the "Billboard" Heatseekers chart.


title: Russian Circles

text: In 2011, Russian Circles signed to Sargent House who had previously only exclusively released the band's albums on limited edition vinyl. Their fourth studio album "Empros" was released on October 25, 2011. A supporting tour with Deafheaven followed the release. In May 2013 the group began recording their fifth studio album, produced by Brandon Curtis. "Memorial" was released at the end of October 2013 and featured a guest-vocal by Chelsea Wolfe. Together they embarked on a co-headlining UK/European tour in the fall.


title: Russian Circles

text: Russian Circles released its sixth studio album "Guidance" on August 5, 2016 through Sargent House. The album was produced by Kurt Ballou of Converge fame. On August 1, 2019, they released their seventh studio album, "Blood Year", recorded at GodCity Studio in Salem and Steve Albini's Electrical Audio Studio in Chicago and again produced by Kurt Ballou.


title: Russian Circles

text: The band's eighth album "Gnosis" was released on August 19, 2022 via Sargent House. It was engineered and mastered by Kurt Ballou.


title: Stroud

text: Stroud is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is the main town in Stroud District. The town's population was 13,500 in 2021.


title: Stroud

text: Below the western escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, at the meeting point of the Five Valleys, the town is noted for its steep streets. The Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty surrounds the town, and the Cotswold Way path passes by it to the west. It lies south of the city of Gloucester, south-southwest of Cheltenham, west-northwest of Cirencester and north-east of the city of Bristol. London is east-southeast of Stroud and the Welsh border at Whitebrook, Monmouthshire, is to the west. Not part of the town itself, the civil parishes of Rodborough and Cainscross form part of Stroud's urban area.


title: Stroud

text: Stroud acts as a centre for surrounding villages and market towns including Amberley, Bisley, Bussage, Chalford, Dursley, Eastcombe, Eastington, King's Stanley, Leonard Stanley, Minchinhampton, Nailsworth, Oakridge, Painswick, Randwick, Selsley, Sheepscombe, Slad, Stonehouse, Brimscombe & Thrupp, Whiteshill and Woodchester.


title: Stroud

text: In March 2021 "The Sunday Times" named Stroud the best place to live in the UK, citing the town's abundance of green spaces, independent spirit, and school quality.


title: Stroud

text: Stroud was named "La Strode" in a document of 1221, though most early records use the spelling "Stroud". The Old English name "Strōd" refers to a "marshy land overgrown with brushwood". Although the name is now pronounced to rhyme with "proud", its original pronunciation survives in the Kent town of Strood, which has the same etymology.


title: Stroud

text: Stroud is known for its involvement in the Industrial Revolution. It was a cloth town: woollen mills were powered by the small rivers which flow through the five valleys, and supplied from Cotswold sheep which grazed on the hills above. Particularly noteworthy was the production of military uniforms in the colour Stroudwater Scarlet. Stroud became known for its production of broadcloth, which was widely known as "Stroud cloth" and traded around the world. The area became home to a sizable Huguenot community in the 17th century, fleeing persecution in Catholic France, followed by a significant Jewish presence in the 19th century, linked to the tailoring and cloth industries.


title: Stroud

text: Stroud was an industrial and trading location in the 19th century, and so needed transport links. It first had a canal network in the form of the Stroudwater Navigation and the Thames & Severn Canal, both of which survived until the early 20th century. Restoration of these canals as a leisure facility by a partnership of Stroud District Council and the Cotswold Canals Trust is well under way with a multimillion-pound Lottery grant. Stroud railway station (on the Gloucester–Swindon Golden Valley Line) was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel.


title: Stroud

text: Though there is much evidence of early historic settlement and transport, Stroud parish was originally part of Bisley, and only began to emerge as a distinct unit in the 13th century, taking its name from the marshy ground at the confluence of the Slad Brook and the River Frome called "La Strode", and was first recorded in 1221. The church was built by 1279, and it was assigned parochial rights by the rectors of Bisley in 1304, often cited as the date of Stroud's foundation.


title: Stroud

text: Historic buildings and places of interest in the area include the neolithic long barrows at Uley, Selsley Common and Nympsfield to the west; Roman era remains at Frocester, West Hill near Uley, and Woodchester; the medieval buildings at Beverston Castle; and the outstanding Tudor houses at Newark Park and Owlpen Manor. Woodchester Mansion is a masterpiece of the Gothic Revival by local architect Benjamin Bucknall.


title: Stroud

text: From 1837 to 1841, Stroud's MP was Lord John Russell of the Whig party, who later became prime minister. Russell was an important politician: he was responsible for passing Acts of Parliament such as the Public Health Act 1848, but he is mainly remembered as one of the chief architects of the Reform Act 1867. This Act, also known as the Second Reform Act, gave the vote to every urban male householder, not just those of considerable means. This increased the electorate by 1.5 million voters. Lord John Russell is remembered in the town in the names of two streets, John Street and Russell Street, as well as the Lord John public house. In 1835 the local press referred to Lord John Russell's opportunism in choosing Stroud as his new constituency as 'trying his hand in the vales of Gotham', a reference to a 1798 poem mocking Stroud residents for opening a church organ "before it could speak". "Gotham" was a popular local town nickname and "house" name at Eastcombe Manor school in the 1940s and 1950s.


title: Stroud

text: The long barrow at Randwick is large: about , it still stands high at the north-east end. Excavations in 1883 found a round barrow opening to the north-east, from which there was access to a simple square chamber of one cell containing disarticulated human remains. Traces of the chamber can still be seen, although it is not accessible. Additional burials were found adjacent to the barrow on the south-west side.


title: Stroud

text: According to history books, the Iron Age tribesmen of Gloucestershire made their final stand against the massive Roman invasion on Minchinhampton Common. Survivors eventually fled to the north. Some earthworks, known as 'the Bulwarks,' and the Longstone of Minchinhampton are evidence of these ancient fortifications.


title: Stroud

text: Woodchester Roman Villa is one of many Roman villas discovered in Gloucestershire and was occupied between the early 2nd and late 4th centuries AD. There is now nothing visible of the villa above ground and the site is occupied by a later churchyard. The villa's most famous feature is the Orpheus mosaic, the second largest of its kind in Europe and one of the most intricate. It dates to c. AD 325 and was re-discovered by Gloucestershire-born antiquarian Samuel Lysons in 1793. It has been uncovered seven times since 1880, the last time in 1973, but there are no plans to reveal it again. It depicts Orpheus charming all forms of life with his lyre and has been praised for its accuracy and beauty.


title: Stroud

text: In 1979, several portions of Roman tessellated pavement, Roman tiles, coins, pottery, etc. were discovered in the grounds of the house at Brown's Hill, one mile north of Stroud, suggesting the existence of a Roman villa.


title: Stroud

text: Remains of a Roman villa have been found in the parish of Painswick, on a farm called Highfield, about half a mile north-west of the town. Walls were found, crossing one another at right angles; also many flue tiles, and some Roman coins. It was opened some years ago in a rough and hurried way, and covered up again. A short account of it appeared in the public press at the time.


title: Stroud

text: The excavation at a site at Ebley Road in Stonehouse has revealed evidence of some of the earliest Roman activity known in the Stroud Valleys. A large rectangular enclosure dating back to the 1st century AD was found and more than a dozen human skeletons were unearthed at the end of 2010.


title: Stroud

text: For every 100 females, there were 96.4 males. Ethnically, the population is predominantly white (98.2%).


title: Stroud

text: 20.6% of the population were under the age of 16 and 8.3% were aged 75 and over; the mean age of the people of the urban area was 39.5. 92.6% of residents described their health as "fair" or better, similar to the average of 92.8% for the wider district.


title: Stroud

text: lower than the national average of 28.9%. Of those aged 16–74, 2.6% were unemployed and 28.4% were economically inactive. At the 2011 census, 107,026 people were described as white British, plus 591 being from the Irish Republic. 2,752 were white other, 364 Caribbean, 129 African, 429 Asian and 300 other Asian, all from mixed multiple ethnic groups. Of these, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh accounted for 258 people. Chinese and Arab people accounted for 226 people.


title: Stroud

text: There are two definitions for the town of Stroud. The narrowest definition is the parish, which had a population of 13,259 in 2011 and only includes the town centre and inner suburban areas. The urban subdivision had a population of 32,670 and includes many suburbs often considered part of the town. The urban area, which includes Stonehouse that has a largely separate identity, and other surrounding villages had a population of 60,155. Despite its extensive urban area, Stroud is surrounded by the greenbelt of the Cotswolds to the north, south and east.


title: Stroud

text: Stroud has a significant artistic community that dates back to the early 20th century. Jasper Conran called Stroud "the Covent Garden of the Cotswolds"; the "Daily Telegraph" has referred to it as "the artistic equivalent of bookish Hay-on-Wye"; while the "London Evening Standard" likened the town to "Notting Hill with wellies". The town has a large and diverse number of creative artists, musicians.


title: Stroud

text: The town was one of the birthplaces of the organic food movement and was home to Britain's first fully organic café. The Biodynamic Agricultural Association is based in the town.


title: Stroud

text: For many years Stroud has hosted a fringe festival on the second weekend in September. A new committee took over in early 2015 and now holds the festival on August Bank Holiday each year. The festival has been expanded to cover art and literature, as well as a diverse range of unsigned bands who are a contract with a record label. With a number of outdoor stages, and the majority of the venues in town taking part, over 400 performers can be seen free of charge over the course of the weekend. The town also hosts an annual series of lectures and exhibitions on contemporary textiles and textile culture called SELECT, run by Stroud International Textiles, an event that exhibits international textiles.


title: Stroud

text: The Stroudwater Textile Trust was founded in 1999 to link the past and present of textiles in the Five Valleys and to manage the opening of several mills in which historic textile machinery, including a working waterwheel, has been restored and is demonstrated. The Trust has produced a DVD, "Rivers of Cloth", using archive film and interviews which was due to be released in early 2011 and a photographic survey of surviving woollen mills was undertaken for a book, "Wool and Water", published in 2012.


title: Stroud

text: The Subscription Rooms at the centre of the town centre provide a venue for a variety of entertainment. There is also a small theatre, the Cotswold Playhouse, which is home to the amateur Cotswold Players; it occasionally hosts visiting professional companies.


title: Stroud

text: On the fringes of the town are Stratford Park, originally the park of a small local weaver, now home to a leisure centre with an indoor and an outdoor swimming pool, and the Museum in the Park, a museum of the history and culture of the Stroud valleys.


title: Stroud

text: The Redlers industrial estate is the site of the original Dudbridge Mills, beside the River Frome. From the mid-18th century onwards it housed the three mills of Daniel Chance: one corn, one gig and a dyehouse with eight drying racks. It was acquired in 1794 by John Apperley, whose family used the site for wool- and cloth-making for the next 140 years. In 1801 an industrial accident killed a young worker.


title: Stroud

text: Stroud citizens have a history of protest going back to the Stroudwater Riots of 1825. In the late 1970s Stroud Campaign Against The Ringroad prevented Gloucestershire County Council's attempt to introduce new traffic plans. A few years later Stroud District Council tried to demolish 18th-century buildings in the town centre. Stroud High Street Action Group, with some rooftop protests and a high court judgement, demonstrated against this. The restored buildings are now a feature of the High Street. After a short occupation a compromise was reached in the demolition of buildings in Cornhill with many being saved, including one identified as a medieval house. This campaign led to the formation of the Stroud Preservation Trust. which has been instrumental in saving many of the town's oldest buildings such as Withey's house, the Brunel Goods Shed and the Hill Paul building.


title: Stroud

text: In 1989 Stroud District Council tried to fell at midnight thirteen trees in Stratford Park near the road, which attracted national and international attention. Local Save The Trees campaigners had got in position first and prevented the felling, which was intended to allow road-widening. Campaigners occupied the trees for the next six weeks while, with the help of Friends of the Earth, introducing the County Surveyor to 'traffic calming' which he agreed to adopt instead of changing the road alignment. During the next five years County Surveyors' figures showed a fifty per cent decrease in accidents along this part of Stratford Road. The trees still survive.


title: Stroud

text: In 2000 Stroud District Council gave permission for the Victorian landmark Hill Paul building to be demolished. After thwarting demolition, local activists formed a company and sold enough shares at £500 each to take an option on the building, which they passed on to a local developer. The building has now been restored and converted into apartments (see photo on the right). The full records of the Hill Paul building campaign are with the Gloucestershire Archivist at D9242/Accession 11679/3.


title: Stroud

text: The Save Stroud Hospitals Taskforce has been campaigning since spring 2006 against a range of cuts to health services in and around Stroud, with thousands of people taking part in street demonstrations. Stroud Maternity Hospital was saved in September 2006.


title: Stroud

text: The Uplands Post Office branch in Stroud was one of 26 in the county to shut as part of a nationwide programme to cut losses.


title: Stroud

text: Following local opposition, the Post Office agreed to talks with civic chiefs to look at how it could reopen. The town council agreed to provide £10,000 of funding for the service in 2008 and up to £25,000 for 2009. In November 2008 it was confirmed that Stroud has become only the second place in Britain to save one of its Post Offices.


title: Stroud

text: In September 2010 the BNP scrapped plans to move their national media centre to Stroud after protests by local residents.


title: Stroud

text: In February 2012 NHS managers agreed to halt plans for Stroud General Hospital to be run by a social enterprise after local residents mounted a legal challenge in the High Court.


title: Stroud

text: There is still a small textile industry (the green baize cloth used to cover snooker tables and the cloth covering championship tennis balls is made here), but today the town functions primarily as a centre for light engineering and small-scale manufacturing, and a provider of services for the surrounding villages. Stroud is a Fairtrade Town.


title: Stroud

text: The Stroud and Swindon Building Society had its headquarters here until it merged with the Coventry Building Society on 1 September 2010. The building is now the headquarters of the renewable energy provider Ecotricity.


title: Stroud

text: In September 2009, the Stroud Pound Co-operative launched the Stroud Pound as an attempt to reinforce the local economy and encourage more local production. The currency's design follows that of the Chiemgauer, in being backed on a one-for-one basis by the national currency, having a charge for redemption which is donated to local charities, and including a system of demurrage to encourage rapid circulation.


title: Stroud

text: A farmers' market, launched by Jasper Conran and Isabella Blow on 3 July 1999, takes place every Saturday at the Cornhill market. It was nominated for the national Farmers' Market of the Year in 2001 and won it in 2007 and 2013. It also won the "Cotswold Life" magazine award for the best farmers' market in Gloucestershire in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2010. The market featured in an episode of BBC TV's "The Hairy Bikers' Food Tour of Britain" in September 2009, and won the Best Food Market award at the BBC Food & Farming Awards 2010. It is certified by FARMA.


title: Stroud

text: In addition to the farmers' market there is a smaller market held (Fri & Sat) in The Shambles, an area adjacent to the steep High Street. John Wesley preached from a butcher's block in The Shambles on 26 June 1742. The Old Town Hall is one of the oldest existing buildings in Stroud: originally referred to as the market house, it was built in 1596 and is still in occasional use today.


title: Stroud

text: "There was a school at Stroud in 1576 but the schoolmaster, who did not have a licence and failed to teach the catechism, was then dismissed..."


title: Stroud

text: Archway School is a County Council maintained comprehensive school offering an 11-to-18 education for children in Stroud, Rodborough and Cainscross.


title: Stroud

text: There are also two state-funded selective schools, Marling School and Stroud High School. These former grant-maintained and foundation schools became academies in 2011. Both schools can trace their history back to the founding of Marling School in 1889 and Stroud High School which was founded in 1904 as the Girls' Endowed School. They continued to be grammar schools long after the comprehensive school became the norm in secondary education, and their future was the subject of long-running controversy. The two schools previously shared a mixed sixth form, called the Downfield Sixth Form, which worked in a three-way consortium with Archway Sixth Form and South Gloucestershire and Stroud College.


title: Stroud

text: Other secondary schools in the locality include Maidenhill School in Stonehouse, and Thomas Keble School in Eastcombe and the private Wycliffe College in Stonehouse


title: Stroud

text: The University of Gloucestershire has campuses a few miles to the north (in Cheltenham and Gloucester) and the Royal Agricultural University west of Cirencester is to the east.


title: Stroud

text: There are multiple bus routes around Stroud, and to nearby towns as well as Gloucester, many of which are operated by Stagecoach West.


title: Stroud

text: The town is also served by Great Western Railway trains from Stroud railway station, with frequent services to


title: Stroud

text: Gloucester, Cheltenham, Swindon, Reading and London Paddington. The railway link was established in 1845. Up to then, Stroud had its own time which was set by a sundial at the top of Gloucester Street. There was also an observatory across the road from the hospital where now is a car park. As Stroud time was roughly 9 minutes behind GMT and people kept missing the train, a railway clock was put up in 1858 at the bottom of High Street. It was later moved across King Street to the top of Gloucester Street. The clock fell into disrepair over the years. It was finally saved by Captain Michael Maltin, who restored the clock in 1984 and found a new home for it in the Stroud library. Stonehouse railway station is on the western edge of the town and in the wider urban area.


title: Stroud

text: National Express coaches serve the town on routes 401 (Bristol – London Victoria) and 445 (Hereford – London Victoria). Stroud also lies on the traffic-free section of Sustrans National Cycle Network Route 45.


title: Stroud

text: Stroud was connected to the canal system when the Stroudwater Navigation opened in 1779. It then became part of a through canal route from Bristol to London when the Thames and Severn Canal added a route over the Cotswolds in 1789. The canal closed in 1954 but the Cotswold Canals Trust is leading a project to reopen the entire length of the trans-Cotswold route. A visitor centre and restored lock are located in the town.


title: Stroud

text: Novelists Sue Limb, Jilly Cooper and Katie Fforde, children's authors Jamila Gavin, John Dougherty Cindy Jefferies and Clive Dale, poet Jenny Joseph, and "The Guardian"s food critic Matthew Fort have followed in the footsteps of the Rev. W. Awdry, and W. H. Davies and made the Stroud area their home.


title: Stroud

text: Two of its most famous sons are the authors Laurie Lee, whose most notable creation "Cider with Rosie" is set in the nearby Slad valley, and Booker Prize-winning author Alan Hollinghurst. Poets Dennis Gould, Jeff Cloves, Philip Rush, Ted Milton, Michael Horovitz, Frances Horovitz and Adam Horovitz have grown up, lived and/or live in the area.


title: Stroud

text: Stroud is home to the Bardic Chair of Hawkwood, an annual competition held at Hawkwood College in May to select that year's Bard who then has the responsibility to promote the bardic arts in the Stroud area.


title: Stroud

text: Stroud Rugby Club, founded in 1873, play in the Western Counties North league. Their home ground is Fromehall Park, near the town centre.


title: Stroud

text: Stroud Cricket Club is over 150 years old and plays its home games at Farmhill. The club has three senior teams, with the first eleven playing its cricket in the South West Premier league.


title: Stroud

text: Since 1982 Stroud Athletic Club has organised an annual half marathon which takes place in October. Nearly 2,500 runners, from all over the country, entered in 2007. Members of the club include the UK number one Olympic Marathon runner Dan Robinson.


title: Stroud

text: Stroud Swimming Club was officially formed in 1978, but can trace its origins back to 1905 when it was known as Stroud Swimming and Water Polo Club. In 2006 and 2007 club members made up two-thirds of the County team that finished in silver and bronze places respectively in the National Open Water Championships.


title: Stroud

text: Stroud Hockey Club was founded in 1928 and has produced some top-class hockey players including Simon Mason. The club has three men's teams, three women's teams and a boys Badgers and a girls Vixens team, and under 8s, 10s and 12s for rising club stars. The club's home ground is at Stratford Park Leisure Centre, with training on Tuesday evenings during the season.


title: Stroud

text: Forest Green Rovers is the nearest professional football club and play in . Their home ground is in Nailsworth, around 3.5 miles away. A lot of supporters live and come from Stroud and it is owned by Dale Vince who also owns Ecotricity.


title: Stroud

text: Siobhan Baillie is the current Member of Parliament (MP) for Stroud, having beaten the sitting Labour MP, David Drew, at the 2019 general election. Drew had previously represented the constituency from 1997 until 2010, when Conservative Neil Carmichael was elected, and from 2017 to 2019.


title: Stroud

text: In March 2008, a community radio station, Stroud FM, was launched in the town, broadcasting 24 hours a day on 107.9FM. The station, staffed by volunteers and funded by donations, focussed on local news and music, as well as national and international music, but closed in February 2014 due to a lack of funds. Both "BBC Radio Gloucestershire" and Heart (Gloucester) have dedicated FM and DAB transmitters serving the town.


title: Stroud

text: There are now two local newspapers covering the town: the weekly "Gloucester Citizen", now called "Stroud Citizen" to replace "Stroud Life", published by Gloucestershire Media (part of the Northcliffe Group); and the "Stroud News & Journal", published by Newsquest Media (Southern) Limited, part of the American Gannett Company.


title: Stroud

text: "Stroud Life" launched in 2008 and closed in October 2017. Most of its distribution was free direct to homes, but a significant share (about one-third) was sold through the news trade. The "Stroud News and Journal" was formed by a merger in 1959 of the "Stroud Journal" (which started in 1854 as a Liberal-supporting newspaper) and the "Stroud News" (which started in 1867 and generally supported Conservative and Unionist interests).


title: Stroud

text: In a March 2021 guide, "The Sunday Times" named Stroud the best place to live in the UK. The newspaper praised the town's green spaces and independent spirit, as well as the quality of Stroud's schools.


title: Princess Athena of Denmark

text: Princess Athena of Denmark, Countess of Monpezat (Athena Marguerite Françoise Marie; born 24 January 2012) is a member of the Danish royal family. She is the younger child and only daughter of Prince Joachim and Princess Marie of Denmark. Princess Athena is currently tenth in the line of succession to the Danish throne.


title: Princess Athena of Denmark

text: Princess Athena was born on 24 January 2012 at Rigshospitalet, the Copenhagen University Hospital. When her father met the press following her birth, he joked that the name selected for her could be anything from Jo to Scheherazade. She has two older half-brothers from her father's first marriage, Prince Nikolai and Prince Felix, and an older brother, Prince Henrik.


title: Princess Athena of Denmark

text: As per Danish royal traditions, her names were not revealed until her christening, which took place on 20 May 2012 at the Møgeltønder Church, where her older brothers Felix and Henrik were also christened. She was named Athena Marguerite Françoise Marie for both of her grandmothers as well as for her mother. Her godparents are her maternal uncles, Gregory Grandet and Edouard Cavallier; Carina Axelsson, the long-term girlfriend of her father's cousin Prince Gustav; and friends of her parents, Julie Mirabaud, Diego de Lavandeyra and Henriette Steenstrup.


title: Princess Athena of Denmark

text: On 11 August 2017, she started school at Sct. Joseph Søstrenes Skole – the same Catholic private school in Ordrup as her brother Henrik. In 2019, when Athena and her family moved to France, she enrolled at the private school EIB Monceau in the 8th arrondissement of Paris alongside her brother.


title: Princess Athena of Denmark

text: Athena is styled as "Her Highness Princess Athena of Denmark, Countess of Monpezat". In September 2022, Queen Margrethe II decided to strip the descendants of her son Joachim of their princely titles. From 1 January 2023, she will be known as "Her Excellency Countess Athena of Monpezat". All four grandchildren maintain their places in the order of succession.


title: Oglala

text: The Oglala (pronounced , meaning "to scatter one's own" in Lakota language) are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people who, along with the Dakota, make up the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Seven Council Fires). A majority of the Oglala live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the eighth-largest Native American reservation in the United States.


title: Oglala

text: The Oglala are a federally recognized tribe whose official title is the Oglala Sioux Tribe (previously called the Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota). However, many Oglala reject the term "Sioux" due to the hypothesis (among other possible theories) that its origin may be a derogatory word meaning "snake" in the language of the Ojibwe, who were among the historical enemies of the Lakota. They are also known as Oglála Lakhóta Oyáte.


title: Oglala

text: Oglala elders relate stories about the origin of the name "Oglala" and their emergence as a distinct group, probably sometime in the 18th century.


title: Oglala

text: In the early 1800s, Europeans passed through Lakota territory in greater and greater numbers. They sought furs, especially beaver fur at first, and later buffalo fur. The trade in fur changed the Oglala economy and way of life.


title: Oglala

text: 1868 brought the Fort Laramie Treaty, and in its wake the Oglala became increasingly polarized over this question: How should they react to continued American encroachment on their territory? This treaty forfeited large amounts of Oglala to the United States in exchange for food and other necessities. Some bands turned to the Indian agencies—forerunners to the Indian reservations—where they received beef and other rations from the US government. Other bands held fast to traditional ways of life. Many bands moved between these two extremes, coming in to the agencies during the winter and joining their relatives in the north each spring. These challenges further split the various Oglala bands.


title: Oglala

text: The influx of white immigrant-pioneers into the Idaho Territory often meant passing through Oglala territory, and, occasionally, brought with it its perils, as described by Fanny Kelly in 1871, in her book entitled, "Narrative of My Captivity among the Sioux Indians".


title: Oglala

text: The Great Sioux Reservation was broken up into five portions. This caused the Red Cloud Agency to be moved multiple times throughout the 1870s until it was relocated and renamed the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1878. By 1890, the reservation included 5,537 people, divided into a number of districts that included some 30 distinct communities.


title: Oglala

text: The respected Oglala elder Left Heron once explained that before the coming of the White Buffalo Calf Woman, "the people ran around the prairie like so many wild animals," not understanding the central importance of community. Left Heron emphasized that not only did this revered spirit woman bring the Sacred Pipe to the tribe but she also taught the Lakota people many valuable lessons, including the importance of family ("tiwahe") and community ("tiyospaye"). The goal of promoting these two values then became a priority, and in the words of Dakota anthropologist Ella Cara Deloria, "every other consideration was secondary — property, personal ambition, glory, good times, life itself. Without that aim and the constant struggle to attain it, the people would no longer be Dakotas in truth. They would no longer even be human." This strong and enduring connection between related families profoundly influenced Oglala history.


title: Oglala

text: Dr. John J. Saville, the U.S. Indian agent at the Red Cloud Agency, observed in 1875 that the Oglala tribe was divided into three main groups: the "Kiyuksa", the "Oyuĥpe" and the True Oglala. "Each of these bands are subdivided into smaller parties, variously named, usually designated by the name of their chief or leader." As the Oglala were settled on the Pine Ridge Reservation in the late 1870s, their communities probably looked something like this:


title: Oglala

text: By 1830, the Oglala had around 3,000 members. In the 1820s and 1830s, the Oglala, along with the Brulé, another Lakota band, and three other Sioux bands, formed the Sioux Alliance. This Alliance attacked surrounding tribes for territorial and hunting reasons.


title: Oglala

text: Historically, women have been critical to the family's life: making almost everything used by the family and tribe. They have cultivated and processed a variety of crops; prepared the food; prepared game and fish; worked skins to make clothing and footwear, as well as storage bags, the covering of tipis, and other items. Women have historically controlled the food, resources and movable property, as well as owned the family's home.


title: Oglala

text: Typically, in the Oglala Lakota society, the men are in charge of the politics of the tribe. The men are usually the chiefs for political affairs, war leaders and warriors, and hunters. Traditionally, when a man marries, he goes to live with his wife with her people.


title: Oglala

text: First used in 1961, this flag was approved by the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council on March 9, 1962, as the flag of the Oglala Sioux Tribe (OST). The circle of nine tipi on the flag represent the nine districts of the reservation: Porcupine, "Wakpamni", Medicine Root, Pass Creek, Eagle Nest, White Clay, LaCreek, Wounded Knee, and Pine Ridge. The red field represents the blood shed by the tribe in defense of their lands and an allegorical reference to the term "red man," by which they were referred to by European Americans. The blue represents the sky, as seen in all four cardinal directions during the worship of the Great Spirit, and the elements. It also represents the Lakota spiritual concept of heaven or "the Spirit World" to which departed tribal members go.


title: Suicide pact

text: A suicide pact is an agreed plan between two or more individuals to die by suicide. The plan may be to die together, or separately and closely timed.


title: Suicide pact

text: Suicide pacts are an important concept in the study of suicide, and have occurred throughout history, as well as in fiction. An example of this is the suicide pact between Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria and Baroness Mary Vetsera.


title: Suicide pact

text: Suicide pacts are sometimes contrasted with mass suicides, understood as incidents in which a larger number of people kill themselves together for the same ideological reason, often within a religious, political, military or paramilitary context. "Suicide pact" tends to connote small groups and non-ideological motivations, as do bonding as married or romantic partners, as family members or friends, or even as criminal partners.


title: Suicide pact

text: In England and Wales, suicide pact is a partial defense, under section 4 of the Homicide Act 1957, which reduces murder to manslaughter. In Northern Ireland, this defense is created by section 14 of the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1966 (c. 20) (N.I.).


title: Suicide pact

text: One of the first Internet suicides in Israel occurred in 1997, when Eran Aderet, a 19-year-old soldier, died after expressing a desire to kill himself online, and received detailed instructions on how to accomplish this with an M16 rifle in his possession. Following this case, in 1999, a new Israeli association, SAHAR, sought to prevent suicide by providing supportive conversations and referrals to relevant resources. In 2005, following an increase in the number of Internet suicide cases, the police established a special unit which consists of six policemen and specializes in helping people who communicate online that they want to die by suicide. The unit keeps in contact with forum moderators, who are asked to look out for posts from suicidal users. About 200 cases are detected each year, preventing dozens of suicides.


title: Suicide pact

text: Following the success of the Israeli model, similar units have been founded in Sweden, Germany and France.


title: Suicide pact

text: Although the majority of such Internet-related suicide pacts have occurred in Japan (where it takes the name of "netto shinjū," ネット心中), similar incidents have also been reported from other countries including China, South Korea, Germany, Australia, Norway, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.


title: Suicide pact

text: The first known Internet-related suicide pact occurred in February 2000, when one Norwegian man and one Austrian woman plunged 300 metres down the famous cliff Preikestolen, in Rogaland county, Norway. Later, a Norwegian woman came forward stating that the Norwegian man had met her on an Internet forum, and planned to die by suicide with her too, but he had instead chosen to go with the Austrian woman. Both victims were in their 20's.


title: Suicide pact

text: Despite the alarmed response of the media, Internet-connected suicide pacts are still relatively rare. Even in Japan, where most of such pacts have occurred, they still represent only 2% of all group suicide-pacts, and less than 0.01% of all suicides combined. However, they have been increasing in the country: 34 deaths from such pacts occurred in 2003; at least 50 are estimated to have occurred in 2004; and 91 deaths occurred in 2005. One notable example would be Hiroshi Maeue, who on March 28, 2007, was sentenced to death by hanging, alleged to have murdered three participants in a suicide pact.


title: Suicide pact

text: An article published in the "British Medical Journal" in December 2004, by Dr Sundararajan Rajagopal, Consultant Psychiatrist from St. Thomas' Hospital in London, highlighted the emergence of the relatively new phenomenon of cybersuicide pacts, addressing it from a psychiatric perspective. Dr Rajagopal commented "The recent suicide pacts in Japan might just be isolated events in a country that has even previously been shown to have the highest rate of suicide pacts. Alternatively, they might herald a new disturbing trend in suicide pacts, with more such incidents, involving strangers meeting over the Internet, becoming increasingly common. If the latter is the case then the epidemiology of suicide pacts is likely to change, with more young people living on their own, who may have died by suicide alone, joining with like-minded suicidal persons to die together".


title: Suicide pact

text: An article published by the "Canterbury Suicide Project" makes some notable comparisons between the nature of "traditional" suicide pacts and more recent Internet-related suicide pacts (or, as described in the article, "cyber-based suicide pacts"). It points out that traditionally suicide pacts:


title: Suicide pact

text: On the other hand, the growing number of Internet-related suicide pacts are almost the exact opposite:


title: Suicide pact

text: The article also points out that the trend of Internet-related suicide pacts is changing the way that mental-health workers need to deal with depressed and/or suicidal young people, advising that it is "prudent for clinicians to ask routinely if young people have been accessing Internet sites, obtaining suicide information from such sites, and talking in suicide chat rooms".


title: Suicide pact

text: A person who enters into an Internet suicide pact can also be lying intentionally. William Francis Melchert-Dinkel is an example of a person who made multiple Internet suicide pacts, in which he falsely promised to hang himself after the other person died by suicide. Melchert-Dinkel was later convicted of criminally assisting or attempting to assist in two suicides by providing detailed information about a suicide method.


title: Shopping cart

text: A shopping cart (American English), trolley (British English, Australian English), or buggy (Southern American English, Appalachian English), also known by a variety of other names, is a wheeled cart supplied by a shop or store, especially supermarkets, for use by customers inside the premises for transport of merchandise as they move around the premises, while shopping, prior to heading to the checkout counter, cashiers or tills. Increasing the amount of goods a shopper can collect increases the quantities they are likely to purchase in a single trip, boosting store profitability.


title: Shopping cart

text: In many cases customers can then also use the cart to transport their purchased goods to their vehicles, but some carts are designed to prevent them from leaving either the store or the designated parking area by magnetically locking the wheels. In many places in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, customers are encouraged to leave the carts in designated areas within the parking lot, and store employees will return the carts to the entrances. In some areas carts are connected by locking mechanisms that require the insertion of a coin or token to release an individual cart. Returning the cart to its designated area releases the coin to the customer.


title: Shopping cart

text: Studies have shown that it is advisable for shoppers to sanitize the handles and basket areas prior to handling them or filling them with groceries due to high levels of bacteria that typically live on shopping carts. This is due to the carts having a high level of exposure to the skin flora of previous users.


title: Shopping cart

text: Most modern shopping carts are made of metal or a combination of metal and plastic and have been designed to nest within each other in a line to facilitate collecting and moving many at one time and also to save on storage space. The carts can come in many sizes, with larger ones able to carry a child. There are also specialized carts designed for two children, and electric mobility scooters with baskets designed for individuals with disabilities.


title: Shopping cart

text: In the United States, 24,000 children are injured each year in shopping carts. Some stores both in the U.S. and internationally have child carrying carts that look like a car or van with a seat where a child can sit equipped with a steering wheel and sometimes a horn. Such "Car-Carts" may offer protection and convenience by keeping the child restrained, lower to the ground, protected from falling items, and amused.


title: Shopping cart

text: Shopping carts are usually fitted with four wheels, however if any one wheel jams the cart can become difficult to handle. Most carts in the United States have swivel wheels at the front, while the rear wheels are fixed in orientation, while in Europe it is more common to have four swivel wheels. This difference in design correlates with smaller retail premises in Europe. The front part of the cart is often sectioned off in order to place household goods such as bleach, cleaning products etc. so that they do not mix with edible products.


title: Shopping cart

text: An alternative to the shopping cart is a small hand-held shopping basket. A customer may prefer a basket for a small amount of merchandise. Small shops, where carts would be impractical, often supply only baskets, or may offer a small cart which uses an inserted shopping basket within the frame of the cart to provide either choice to a customer.


title: Shopping cart

text: One of the first shopping carts was introduced on June 4, 1937, the invention of Sylvan Goldman, owner of the Humpty Dumpty supermarket chain in Oklahoma. One night, in 1936, Goldman sat in his office wondering how customers might move more groceries. He found a wooden folding chair and put a basket on the seat and wheels on the legs. Goldman and one of his employees, a mechanic named Fred Young, began tinkering. Their first shopping cart was a metal frame that held two wire baskets. Since they were inspired by the folding chair, Goldman called his carts "folding basket carriers". Another mechanic, Arthur Kosted, developed a method to mass-produce the carts by inventing an assembly line capable of forming and welding the wire. The cart was awarded patent number 2,196,914 on April 9, 1940 (Filing date: March 14, 1938), titled, "Folding Basket Carriage for Self-Service Stores". They advertised the invention as part of a new “No Basket Carrying Plan." Goldman had already pioneered self-serve stores and carts were part of the self-serve retail concept.


title: Shopping cart

text: The invention did not catch on immediately. Men found them effeminate; women found them suggestive of a baby carriage. "I've pushed my last baby," an offended woman informed Goldman. After hiring several male and female models to push his new invention around his store and demonstrate their utility, as well as greeters to explain their use, shopping carts became extremely popular and Goldman became a multimillionaire. In urban areas like New York City, where transporting groceries home from the store's parking lot is more likely to involve walking and/or a trip by public transportation than a car ride, privately owned carts resembling Goldman's design are still popular. Instead of baskets, these carts are built to hold the paper bags dispensed by the grocery store.


title: Shopping cart

text: Another shopping cart innovator was Orla Watson, who invented the swinging rear door to allow for "nesting" in 1946. Orla Watson continued to make modifications to his original design. Advice from his trusted business partners Fred Taylor, a grocery store owner in Kansas City, and George O'Donnell, a grocery store refrigeration salesman, and the incorporation of Watson's swinging door yielded the familiar nesting cart that we see today using the "double-decker" approach. Goldman patented a similar version of the cart with only one basket rather than the double-decker feature, which he called the "Nest-Kart" in 1948, over one year after Watson filed for his patent. The Nest-Kart incorporated the same nesting mechanism present on the shopping carts designed by Watson, and an interference investigation was ordered by Telescope Carts, Inc. alleging infringement of the patent in 1948. After a protracted legal battle, Goldman ultimately recognized Watson's invention and paid one dollar in damages for counterfeit, in exchange for which Watson granted Goldman an exclusive operating license (apart from the three licenses that had already been granted).


title: Shopping cart

text: In 1909, Bessie DeCamp invented a seat belt for chairs, go-carts or carriages. This was well before shopping carts with child seating areas were invented. Goldman introduced a child seating area on shopping carts in 1947. For whatever reason, it wasn't until 1967 that seat belts for shopping carts were introduced by David Allen. It was high tech for the time, because it was a retractable seat belt.


title: Shopping cart

text: In 1946, Orla Watson devised a system for a telescoping (i.e., "nesting") shopping cart which did not require assembly or disassembly of its parts before and after use like Goldman's cart; Goldman's design up until this point required that the cart be unfolded much like a folding chair. This cart could be fitted into another cart for compact storage via a swinging one-way rear door. The swinging rear door formed the basis of the patent claim, and was a major innovation in the evolution of the modern shopping cart. Watson applied for a patent on his shopping cart invention in 1946, but Goldman contested it and filed an application for a similar patent with the swinging door feature on a shopping cart with only one basket in 1948 which Goldman named the "Nest-Kart". After considerable litigation and allegations of patent infringement, Goldman relinquished his rights to the patent in 1949 to Watson and his company, Telescope Carts, Inc. realizing that the swinging rear door feature was the key to Watson's patent. Watson was awarded patent #2,479,530 on August 16, 1949. In exchange, Goldman was granted an exclusive licensing right in addition to the three other licenses previously granted; Telescope Carts, Inc. continued to receive royalties for each cart produced by Goldman's company that incorporated the "nesting" design. This included any shopping cart utilizing his hinged rear door, including the familiar single basket "nesting" designs similar to those used in the present.


title: Shopping cart

text: Owing to its overwhelming success, many different manufacturers desired to produce shopping carts with the rear swinging door feature but were denied due to the exclusive license issued to Goldman. The federal government filed a lawsuit against Telescope Carts, Inc. in 1950 alleging the exclusive license granted to Goldman was invalid, and a Consent Decree was entered into where Telescope Carts, Inc. agreed to offer the same license to any manufacturer. Orla Watson and Telescope Carts, Inc. licensed their telescoping shopping cart design to several manufacturers throughout the 1950s and 1960s until the patent expired.


title: Shopping cart

text: In 2012, a driverless shopping cart was made by Chaotic Moon Labs. The device, called "Project Sk8" or "Smarter Cart" was basically a cart fitted with Windows Kinect (to detect obstacles), and an electric drivetrain, and used in conjunction with a Windows 8 tablet. For smaller stores, shopping baskets with wheels can be used either as a large basket or a small cart. These carts are designed for indoor use only.


title: Shopping cart

text: In 2017, a mobile device shelf was added to shopping carts at Target stores to support the digital in-store shopping experience. The shelf was invented and designed by Nick Dyer, an employee of Target from 2011 - 2015.


title: Shopping cart

text: Past studies determined that retailers who did not offer shopping carts such as Sears suffered lower sales in comparison to retailers who did use shopping carts.


title: Shopping cart

text: Subsequent to the introduction of shopping carts and centralized checkout lines at Sears stores, the company noticed a correlating increase in sales.


title: Shopping cart

text: In 2004 British supermarket chain Tesco trialed shopping carts with user-adjustable wheel resistance, heart rate monitoring and calorie counting hardware in an effort to raise awareness of health issues. The cart's introduction coincided with Tesco's sponsorship of the cancer awareness Race for Life.


title: Shopping cart

text: Also in 2004, shopping carts were identified as a source of pathogens and became a major public health concern. This was primarily due to the media spotlight on a Japanese research study revealing large amounts of bacteria on shopping carts. Those findings were later backed by a University of Arizona study in 2007.


title: Shopping cart

text: In 2009 researchers developed prototypes of computerized context aware shopping carts by attaching tablet computers to ordinary carts. Initial field trials showed that the prototype's context awareness provided an opportunity for enhancing and altering the shopping experience.


title: Shopping cart

text: Some retailers, such as Target, have begun using carts fully made of recycled plastic with the only metal part being the wheel axles, drawing away from the established metal cart design. Target's cart has won design awards for its improved casters, interchangeable plastic parts to simplify repairs, and handles that improve maneuverability. Other cart designs also incorporate additional features such as a cup holder for cold or hot drinks or a bouquet of flowers, along with other features such as a secure shelf for a tablet computer or mobile phone to allow the use of mobile coupons and circulars, or as seen in an all-plastic design created for the Wisconsin-based Festival Foods and also used by Whole Foods Market by Bemis Manufacturing Company, all of these features, along with extra rungs on the side rail designed to attach plastic bags or carry handles for beverages. Smaller half-sized carts for smaller shopping trips have also become common.


title: Shopping cart

text: In many countries, the customer has to make a small deposit by inserting a coin, token or card, which is returned if and when the customer returns the cart to a designated cart parking point. The system works through a lock mounted on the handle of the cart, connecting it to a chain mounted on the cart in front of it when nested together, or to a chain mounted on a cart collection corral. Inserting the token unlocks the chain, and reinserting the chain locks it in place and ejects the token for user to retrieve.


title: Shopping cart

text: One motivation behind the deposit system is to reduce the expense of employees having to gather carts that are not returned, and to avoid damage done by runaway carts. Another benefit is that carts are less likely to be removed from the store premises and abandoned in the surrounding neighborhood. Carts that are not returned may be returned voluntarily by a pedestrian, with the deposit coin acting as a reward.


title: Shopping cart

text: Although almost ubiquitous in continental Europe and the UK, the deposit system is less common in Canada and has not been widely adopted in the United States, with the exception of some chains like ALDI, which require a $0.25 deposit. One of the first store chains to use the $0.25 deposit system in the US was the Real Superstore (a subsidiary of National Supermarkets) in the early 1990s. Other stores such as Costco and ShopRite also use the coin deposit system, but it is not used at all of their locations.


title: Shopping cart

text: In Australia, deposit systems are common in some local government areas, as they have been made compulsory by local law. Usually, all ALDI stores, and most Coles and Woolworths stores will have a lock mechanism on their carts that requires a $1 or $2 coin to unlock.


title: Shopping cart

text: The deposit varies, but usually coins of higher value, such as €1, £1, or $1 are used. While the deposit systems usually are designed to accommodate a certain size of domestic coin, foreign coins, former currencies (like German D-Marks), or even appropriately folded pieces of cardboard can be used to unlock the carts as well. Cart collectors are also usually provided with a special key that they can use to unlock the carts from the cart bay and get the key back.


title: Shopping cart

text: Some retailers sell "tokens" as an alternative to coins, often for charity. Merchandising companies also offer branded shopping tokens as a product.


title: Shopping cart

text: Shopping cart theft can be a costly problem with stores that use them. The carts, which typically cost between $75 and $150 each, with some models costing $300–400, are removed by people for various purposes. To prevent theft, estimated at $800 million worldwide per annum, stores use various security systems as discussed below.


title: Shopping cart

text: Most retailers in North America utilize a cart retrieval service, which collects carts found off the store's premises and returns them to the store for a fee. The primary strength of this system is the ability of pedestrian customers to take purchases home and allow retailers to recapture abandoned carts in a timely manner at a fraction of the cost of a replacement cart. It also allows retailers to maintain their cart inventories without an expensive capital outlay. A drawback of this method is that it is reactive, instead of proactively preventing the carts from leaving the store premises.


title: Shopping cart

text: Electronic systems are sometimes used by retailers. Each shopping cart is fitted with an electronic locking wheel clamp, or "boot". A transmitter with a thin wire is placed around the perimeter of the parking lot, and the boot locks when the cart leaves the designated area. Store personnel must then deactivate the lock with a handheld remote control to return the cart to stock. Often, a line is painted in front of the broadcast range to warn customers that their cart will stop when rolled past the line. However, these systems are very expensive to install and although helpful, are not foolproof. The wheels can be lifted over the electronic barrier and/or pushed hard enough that the locks break. There are also safety concerns if the person pushing the trolley is running, and also if the trolley doesn't lock and is taken onto a road, locking due to magnetic materials under the road. Some cities have required retailers to install locking wheel systems on their shopping carts. In some cases, electronic systems companies have encouraged passage of such laws to create a captive audience of potential customers.


title: Shopping cart

text: A low-tech form of theft prevention utilizes a physical impediment, such as vertical posts at the store entrance to keep carts from being taken into the parking lot. This method also impedes physically disabled customers, which may be illegal in many jurisdictions. For example, in the United States it would be a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.


title: Shopping cart

text: Another method is to mount a pole taller than the entrance, onto the shopping cart, so that the pole will block exit of the cart. However, this method requires that the store aisles be higher than the pole, including lights, piping, any overhead signage and fixtures. It also prevents customers from carting their purchases to their cars in the store's carts. Many customers learn to bring their own folding or otherwise collapsible cart with them, which they can usually hang on the store's cart while shopping.


title: Shopping cart

text: A further system is to use a cattle grid style system. All pedestrian exits have specially designed flooring tiles, which, along with specially designed wheels on the cart, will immobilize the cart as they roll onto them. Like the magnetic systems, this can easily be overcome by lifting the cart over the tiles.


title: Shopping cart

text: The names of a shopping cart vary by region. The following names are region specific names for shopping carts. Many of these names may be used alone or in descriptive phrases such as grocery ____, shopping ____, or supermarket _____ for disambiguation:


title: Shopping cart

text: Special electronic shopping carts are provided by many retailers for the elderly or disabled people. These are essentially electric wheelchairs with an attached basket. They allow customers to navigate around the store and collect items.


title: Shopping cart

text: Manually powered carts are also available specifically designed for use by wheelchair users. A still-to-be-implemented aid for people with disabilities is the addition of a guide wheel at the center of rotation of a cart with four caster wheels. In order to allow the nesting of carts to be unhindered, this guide wheel is attached to the front of the cart with a piece of spring steel which bends under the cart's weight.


title: Shopping cart

text: Shopping cart manufacturers such as "Caddie", "Wanzl" or "Brüder Siegel" maintained intensive direct and indirect mutual business relations with artists, graphic designers, industrial and furniture designers such as Charles Eames, Harry Bertoia, or Verner Panton since the market launch of the shopping cart - not only for new and further developments of their own shopping carts and wire basket goods, but also for advertising and PR purposes. Olivier Mourgue, Otl Aicher, "" as well as other artists and designers had wire furniture or artwork made by shopping cart manufacturers.


title: Shopping cart

text: One of the most famous thematizations of a shopping cart in art is the 1970 sculpture "Supermarket Lady" by US pop artist Duane Hanson, which is critical of consumerism.


title: Shopping cart

text: In 1983, the neoist "one-man artist group" "Stiletto Studio,s" from Berlin converted a 'stray' shopping cart into an 'inverted' "cantilever"-wire chair on the principle of "objet trouvé". As a design simulation critical of consumer culture, Stiletto's ironically titled ""Consumer's Rest" Lounge Chair" recurred to the fact that Eames' and Bertoia's wire furniture were already over-aestheticized adaptations of the contemporary advent of shopping carts in the United States, and thus were themselves already recursions to the consumer revolutionary context of the "International Style" in architecture and design.


title: Shopping cart

text: By far the most stolen shopping carts that are not returned and left outside their location, however, are misappropriated by occasional subsequent and secondary users without any artistic or cultural-critical ready-made intentions as emergency solutions - among other things as improvised pieces of furniture (for example, as laundry baskets), or universal "nomadic furniture" for the household goods of the homeless, or, ignoring the fact that the zinc and plastic coatings of the wire surfaces are harmful to health when heated, as ad hoc barbecue grills.


title: Germanwings

text: Germanwings GmbH was a German low-cost airline wholly owned by Lufthansa which operated under the Eurowings brand. It was based in Cologne with hubs at Cologne Bonn Airport, Stuttgart Airport, Hamburg Airport, Berlin Tegel Airport, Munich Airport and further bases at Hannover Airport and Dortmund Airport.


title: Germanwings

text: Germanwings operated independently as Lufthansa's low-cost carrier until October 2015, when Lufthansa decided to fully transfer the brand identity of its low cost short haul-product to Eurowings. After 2016, Germanwings operated as a wet lease operator for its sister company Eurowings, with the Germanwings branding being phased out at this time. The IATA code "4U" continued to operate under the Eurowings brand until March 2018, when it was abandoned and replaced with the Eurowings designator "EW". Germanwings was closed in April 2020 as part of a broad restructuring.


title: Germanwings

text: In 1997, Eurowings set up a low-cost department, which became a separate company under the name "Germanwings" on 27 October 2002. On 7 December 2005, the airline signed an agreement to purchase 18 Airbus A319-100 aircraft with a further 12 options, with deliveries scheduled from July 2006 until 2008.


title: Germanwings

text: During winter 2004–2005, Germanwings leased two Boeing 717-200s from Aerolíneas de Baleares to test the aircraft type, but no order was made afterwards.


title: Germanwings

text: In 2008, initial plans were made to merge Germanwings, Eurowings and TUIfly into one airline to compete with Air Berlin and its subsidiary LTU in the German market and with easyJet and Ryanair on international routes. However, these plans never realized. Instead, Germanwings became a wholly owned subsidiary of Lufthansa on 1 January 2009.


title: Germanwings

text: In 2012, Lufthansa announced its plans to transfer point-to-point shorthaul flights operating from cities other than Frankfurt and Munich from Lufthansa to Germanwings. Therefore, the company received a revised corporate design. The transfer of Lufthansa's shorthaul routes occurred between spring 2013 and autumn 2014; Düsseldorf Airport was the last base transferred from March 2014.


title: Germanwings

text: As part of the 2013 restructuring and relaunch of Germanwings, around 30 Lufthansa aircraft were to be added to Germanwings' fleet of 33 aircraft. Additionally, the 23 aircraft currently operated by Eurowings for Lufthansa flights not flying out of Frankfurt and Munich were to join Germanwings. The new Germanwings was to operate around 90 aircraft.


title: Germanwings

text: The airline has a long-standing dispute with the Vereinigung Cockpit union, which demands a scheme in which pilots can retire at the age of 55 and retain 60% of their pay, which parent Lufthansa insists is no longer affordable. Germanwings pilots staged a nationwide strike in support of their demands in April 2014 which lasted 3 days. The pilots staged a six-hour strike in September 2014. Simultaneous strikes were staged by Lufthansa pilots.


title: Germanwings

text: By the end of 2014, all of Lufthansa's national routes and international traffic to and from Germany - except flights to and from Frankfurt and Munich and the routes from Düsseldorf to Newark and Chicago - were transferred to Germanwings. The last route to be transferred was Düsseldorf-Zurich on 8 January 2015.


title: Germanwings

text: In January 2015, Lufthansa Group announced that it would discontinue the "Germanwings" brand and replace it with Eurowings starting in late 2015.


title: Germanwings

text: On 25 October 2015, Eurowings took over 55 routes previously operated under the Germanwings brand. The first Germanwings bases to be mostly taken over by Eurowings were Düsseldorf Airport, Hamburg Airport - at both of which Eurowings already operated on behalf of Germanwings - and Cologne Bonn Airport.


title: Germanwings

text: Lufthansa announced in October 2015 that Germanwings' own website would be dissolved and redirected to Eurowings by January 2016 as part of their merger. However, Germanwings continued to operate as a company. From that date, Eurowings became solely responsible for all sales under the Germanwings brand. In January 2016, Germanwings' social media profiles, such as those on Facebook and YouTube, were renamed Eurowings, while "germanwings.com" was redirected to "eurowings.com". However, Germanwings continued to operate under its own flight numbers, but used the Eurowings brand.


title: Germanwings

text: In December 2016, it was announced that Germanwings would retire 20 aircraft during 2017 without replacement due to Lufthansa's new wet-lease deal with Air Berlin which also provided services for Eurowings. It was reported that the Air Berlin aircraft were newer and cheaper to operate than those of Germanwings.


title: Germanwings

text: In August 2017, it was announced that Germanwings would abandon its own IATA code "4U" by 25 March 2018. Since then, it has used Eurowings' "EW" code on for all operations, which are already carried out under the Eurowings brand.


title: Germanwings

text: In October 2019, the Pristina base, which had been operated by Germanwings since June 2019, was transferred to Eurowings Europe. In return, Germanwings took over the German base in Munich which had been operated by its sister airline.


title: Germanwings

text: On 7 April 2020, Lufthansa announced that it would be shutting down Germanwings, partly due to the large travel ban during the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Germanwings

text: Germanwings had been wholly owned by Lufthansa since 1 January 2009; formal reporting since then had been within the Group Accounts. From 2012, Germanwings figures had been reported only within the 'Lufthansa Passenger Airline Group', and have not generally been available separately. The key known trends for Germanwings are shown below (as at year ending 31 December):


title: Germanwings

text: In line with Lufthansa's declared business strategy, the transfer of European non-hub traffic from Lufthansa Passenger Airlines to Germanwings continued in 2014 and was completed successfully on 7 January 2015. (The increase in 2013 and 2014 figures was due to this intervening transfer of aircraft and routes from Lufthansa.)


title: Germanwings

text: Germanwings had offered three fare types since 2013. "Basic" was no-frills and offered no inclusive catering and only hand luggage. "Best" included hold baggage, inclusive snacks and drinks as well as access to some lounges for tier members of Miles&More. "Smart" and "Best" more or less corresponded to the Lufthansa service offered on the routes taken over by Germanwings. The fleet was only equipped with economy class.


title: Germanwings

text: Germanwings offered "Sky Bistro" ("Bord Shop" in German), a buy on board food and drinks programme. The airline provided an inflight magazine, a bi-monthly German and English magazine called "GW". While the primary editorial focus was rooted in Germanwings destinations, the content was not exclusively about travel.


title: Germanwings

text: Germanwings booking service provided "Blind Booking", a unique option that allowed passengers to choose one of Germanwings' base airports, select a category of destination (e.g. Party, Gay-friendly or Culture) and then purchase a round-trip ticket via a random lottery process from among the cities in the category. Such tickets were often priced lower than the corresponding ticket to the same destination, and Germanwings e-mails its customers with details of their destination shortly after the purchase.


title: Germanwings

text: Germanwings used several different special liveries in the past. Some aircraft had special liveries promoting German cities (e.g. the "Bearbus" paint scheme inspired by the coat of arms of Berlin), or as advertisements (e.g. a pink livery for T-Mobile). Those were abandoned during the 2013 rebranding.


title: Germanwings

text: As of the merger, Germanwings had been involved in one major incident, which resulted in 150 fatalities. On 24 March 2015, an Airbus A320-211 with registration D-AIPX was operating Flight 9525 from Barcelona to Düsseldorf when it crashed in the south of France near Digne-les-Bains, with no survivors. The flight was carrying 144 passengers, two pilots and four cabin crew. German prosecutors decided that nobody other than the 27-year-old co-pilot Andreas Lubitz could be held accountable for the crash. Lubitz took time off from his flight training for several months and informed the Flight Training Pilot School in 2009 of a "previous episode of severe depression". He later completed the training. Prior to his training as a commercial pilot, he was also treated for suicidal tendencies.


title: Germanwings

text: Following the incident, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) made a recommendation to airlines that two authorized people must be present in the cockpit at all times. In coordination with the German aviation authority, other German airlines and the German aviation industry association, the airlines of the Lufthansa Group implemented a policy requiring this. However, by 2016, the EASA stopped recommending the two-person rule, instead advising airlines to perform a risk assessment and decide for themselves whether to use the rule. Germanwings and other German airlines dropped the rule in 2017.


title: Sofonisba Anguissola

text: Sofonisba Anguissola ( – 16 November 1625), also known as Sophonisba Angussola or Sophonisba Anguisciola, was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Cremona to a relatively poor noble family. She received a well-rounded education that included the fine arts, and her apprenticeship with local painters set a precedent for women to be accepted as students of art. As a young woman, Anguissola traveled to Rome where she was introduced to Michelangelo, who immediately recognized her talent, and to Milan, where she painted the Duke of Alba. The Spanish queen, Elizabeth of Valois, was a keen amateur painter and in 1559 Anguissola was recruited to go to Madrid as her tutor, with the rank of lady-in-waiting. She later became an official court painter to the king, Philip II, and adapted her style to the more formal requirements of official portraits for the Spanish court. After the queen's death, Philip helped arrange an aristocratic marriage for her. She moved to Sicily, and later Pisa and Genoa, where she continued to practice as a leading portrait painter.


title: Sofonisba Anguissola

text: Her most distinctive and attractive paintings are her portraits of herself and her family, which she painted before she moved to the Spanish court. In particular, her depictions of children were fresh and closely observed. At the Spanish court she painted formal state portraits in the prevailing official style, as one of the first, and most successful, of the relatively few female court painters. Later in her life she also painted religious subjects, although many of her religious paintings have been lost. In 1625, she died at age 93 in Palermo.


title: Sofonisba Anguissola

text: Anguissola's example, as much as her oeuvre, had a lasting influence on subsequent generations of artists, and her great success opened the way for larger numbers of women to pursue serious careers as artists. Her paintings can be seen at galleries in Boston (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum), Milwaukee (Milwaukee Art Museum), Bergamo, Brescia, Budapest, Madrid (Museo del Prado), Naples, and Siena, and at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.


title: Sofonisba Anguissola

text: Her contemporary Giorgio Vasari wrote that Anguissola "has shown greater application and better grace than any other woman of our age in her endeavors at drawing; she has thus succeeded not only in drawing, coloring and painting from nature, and copying excellently from others, but by herself has created rare and very beautiful paintings."


title: Sofonisba Anguissola

text: The origin and the name of the noble family are linked to an ancient Byzantine tradition, rich in historical details.


title: Sofonisba Anguissola

text: According to this tradition, the Anguissolas are descended from the Constantinopolitan warlord Galvano Sordo or Galvano de Soardi/Sourdi (Σούρδη, a family name still in use today in Greece, Constantinople and Smyrna). In 717, Galvano served in the army of the Byzantine emperor Leo III the Isaurian, and "with an ingenious artificial fire, contributed to liberate the city of Constantinople from the Saracens who had kept it besieged by land and sea”. This “artificial fire” was the so-called Greek fire, an incendiary weapon developed in the late 7th century, which was responsible for many key Byzantine military victories, most notably the salvation of Constantinople from two Arab sieges, thus securing the Empire's survival.


title: Sofonisba Anguissola

text: Since the shield of the Sourdi carried the effigy of an asp (in Latin: "anguis"), after Galvano's victory over the Umayyads, his brothers-in-arms and the people of Constantinople exclaimed: ""Anguis sola fecit victoriam"!", i.e.: "The snake alone brought the victory!" This saying became very popular, and Galvano himself was nicknamed "Anguissola". The emperor eventually bestowed the Anguissola surname to all his descendants. In this regard, it has been suggested that the monogram depicted on Anguissola's miniature self-portrait may contain the family motto ""Anguis sola fecit victoriam"" or, more simply, the name of Anguissola's father, Amilcare.


title: Sofonisba Anguissola

text: Fleeing from a pestilence that raged in Constantinople, the descendants of the first Anguissola settled in Italy, intermarried with other noble families such as the Komnenoi, the Gonzagas, the Caracciolos, the Scottis and the Viscontis, and built autonomous estates in Piacenza, Cremona, Vicenza and other regions of Italy. The Anguissolas who settled in Venice belonged to the patriciate of that city from 1499 to 1612.


title: Sofonisba Anguissola

text: Sofonisba Anguissola was born into a wealthy family in Cremona, Lombardy in 1532, the oldest of seven children, six of whom were girls. Her father, Amilcare Anguissola, was a member of the Cremonese nobility, and her mother, Bianca Ponzone, was also of noble background. The family lived near the site of a famous 2nd century B.C. battle, the battle of the Trebbia, between Romans and Carthaginians, and several members of the Anguissola family were named after ancient Carthaginian historical characters: Amilcare was named for the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca; he named his first daughter after the tragic Carthaginian figure Sophonisba and his only son Asdrubale after the warlord Hasdrubal Barca. Amilcare Anguissola, inspired by Baldassare Castiglione's book Il Cortigiano, encouraged all his daughters (Sofonisba, Elena, Lucia, Europa, Minerva and Anna Maria) to cultivate and perfect their talents. Four of the sisters (Elena, Lucia, Europa and Anna Maria) became painters, but Sofonisba was by far the most accomplished and renowned and taught her younger siblings. Elena Anguissola (c. 1532 – 1584) abandoned painting to become a nun. Both Anna Maria and Europa gave up art upon marrying, while Lucia Anguissola (1536 or 1538 – 1565–1568), the best painter of Sophonisba's sisters, died young. The remaining sister, Minerva, became a writer and Latin scholar. Asdrubale, Sophonisba's brother, studied music and Latin, but not painting.


title: Sofonisba Anguissola

text: Her aristocratic father made sure that Anguissola and her sisters received a well-rounded education that included the fine arts. Anguissola was fourteen when her father sent her and her sister Elena to study with Bernardino Campi, a respected portrait and religious painter of the Lombard school. When Campi moved to another city, Anguissola continued her studies with painter Bernardino Gatti (known as Il Sojaro), a pupil of Correggio's. Anguissola's apprenticeship with local painters set a precedent for women to be accepted as students of art. Dates are uncertain, but Anguissola probably continued her studies under Gatti for about three years (1551–1553).


title: Sofonisba Anguissola

text: One of Anguissola's most important early works was "Bernardino Campi Painting Sofonisba Anguissola" (c. 1550). The unusual double portrait depicts Anguissola's art teacher in the act of painting a portrait of her.


title: Sofonisba Anguissola

text: In 1554, at age twenty-two, Anguissola traveled to Rome, where she spent her time sketching various scenes and people. While in Rome, she was introduced to Michelangelo by another painter who was familiar with her work. Anguissola initially showed Michelangelo a drawing of a laughing girl, but the painter challenged her to draw a weeping boy, a subject which he felt would be more challenging. Anguissola drew "Boy Bitten by a Crayfish" and sent it back to Michelangelo, who immediately recognized her talent. Michelangelo subsequently gave Anguissola sketches from his notebooks to draw in her own style and offered advice on the results. For at least two years, Anguissola continued this informal study, receiving substantial guidance from Michelangelo.


title: Sofonisba Anguissola

text: Anguissola's education and training had different implications from those of men, since men and women worked in separate spheres. Her training was not to help her into a profession where she would compete for commissions with male artists, but to make her a better wife, companion, and mother. Although Anguissola enjoyed significantly more encouragement and support than the average woman of her day, her social class did not allow her to transcend the constraints of her sex. Without the possibility of studying anatomy or drawing from life (it was considered unacceptable for a lady to view nudes), she could not undertake the complex multi-figure compositions required for large-scale religious or history paintings.


title: Sofonisba Anguissola

text: Instead, she experimented with new styles of portraiture, setting subjects informally. Self-portraits and family members were her most frequent subjects, as seen in such paintings as "Self-Portrait" (1554, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), "Portrait of Amilcare, Minerva and Asdrubale Anguissola" (c. 1557–1558, Nivaagaards Malerisambling, Nivå, Denmark), and her most famous picture, "The Chess Game" (1555, Muzeum Narodowe, Poznań), which depicted her sisters Lucia, Minerva and Europa. Painted when Anguissola was 23 years old, "The Chess Game" is an intimate representation of an everyday family scene, combining elaborate formal clothing with very informal facial expressions, which was unusual for Italian art at this time. "The Chess Game" explored a new kind of genre painting which places her sisters in a domestic setting instead of the formal or allegorical settings that were popular at the time. This painting has been regarded as a conversation piece, which is an informal portrait of a group engaging in lively conversation or some activity .


title: Sofonisba Anguissola

text: Anguissola's self-portraits also offer evidence of what she thought her place was as a woman artist. Normally, men were seen as creative actors and women as passive objects, but in her self-portrait of 1556, Anguissola presents herself as the artist, separating herself from the role as the object to be painted. Additional pieces show how she rebels against the notion that women are objects, in essence an instrument to be played by men. Her self-portrait of 1561 show her playing an instrument, taking on a different role.


title: Sofonisba Anguissola

text: She became well known outside of Italy, and in 1559 King Phillip II of Spain asked her to be lady-in-waiting and art teacher to Queen Elisabeth of Valois, who was only 14 at the time. Queen Elisabeth of Valois and Anguissola became good friends, and when the Queen died nine years later, Anguissola left the court because she was so sad. She had painted the entire royal family and even the Pope commissioned Anguissola to do a portrait of the Queen.