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An Action Hero
An Action Hero is a 2022 Indian Hindi-language action film directed by debutant Anirudh Iyer and written by Neeraj Yadav, based on an original story by Iyer. It was produced by Bhushan Kumar and Krishan Kumar, under T-Series Films, and Aanand L. Rai, under Colour Yellow Productions. The film stars Ayushmann Khurrana and Jaideep Ahlawat in lead roles.
Plot.
Maanav is a popular actor, known as a leading man in action films. For his upcoming film shoot, he heads to Mandothi in Haryana. Vicky Solanki, an aspiring strongman politician currently contesting the local elections, wants to meet Maanav gain publicity. Due to busy shooting schedule Maanav does not pay heed. Just when he is about to meet Vicky, he is distracted by the delivery of his new Ford Mustang and goes for a long drive. However, an enraged Vicky follows and manhandles him. Maanav enraged by Vicky's actions pushes him away. Vicky dies from blunt force trauma, on the spot after landing head first on a rock.
Frightened, Maanav flees to his house in Portsmouth, UK. Unbeknownst to him Vicky's brother, Bhoora Singh Solanki, a municipal councilor of Mandothi, is on his tail to hunt him down. The Haryana police conclude role of Maanav in Vicky's murder citing the side mirror of Maanav's new Mustang. Maanav's reputation is degraded and his films are boycotted. The news reaches UK, as well, and Maanav is forced to hide himself from the UK police, and later witnesses Bhoora killing two British officers at his home.
Maanav manages to escape the scene and tries to seek help from his UK lawyer, who does not respond. During his attempt to escape Maanav's car runs out of gas and Bhoora confronts him. He tries to prove his innocence, but Bhoora does not listen and tries to kill him. Maanav manages overpower and lock Bhoora in the car's trunk. Upon pressuring his manager, Roshan, for help, Maanav finally gets to meet another lawyer and fixer, Sai, for capturing potential footage of Bhoora killing the two cops. Sai tells Maanav to meet his contact in London, for collecting the footage.
Meanwhile, Bhoora escapes by calling a towing company and follows and kills Sai. When Bhoora was about to kill Maanav, he is intercepted by Kaadir, Sai's friend. Maanav and Bhoora together overpower Kaadir, but Maanav gets in the car and flees again leaving Bhoora behind. Bhoora manages to learn of Maanav's whereabouts from Kaadir as a hostage. Meanwhile, Maanav gets fed up of hiding, and surrenders himself to the police with the footage that Sai's contact procured from the dashcams of the cars nearby Maanav's house in Portsmouth. Masood Abraham Katkar, a feared terrorist from the D-Company, who was taunted by Maanav as irrelevant, abducts him through his men. He is taken to a rooftop, where Katkar is awaiting him.
Katkar takes a photograph with Maanav, seemingly planning on sending it to the media, to paint a picture that Maanav has contacts in the underworld. Katkar tells Maanav to perform at his granddaughter's wedding, in exchange for his freedom. Bhoora arrives and disrupts Maanav's dance number, only to be held at gunpoint, by Katkar's men. After an interrogation, Katkar advises Bhoora to kill Maanav. His image with Katkar becomes viral on social media and the news, just as Bhoora is about to shoot, Maanav deflects him and Katkar was shot dead in the skirmish.
Katkar's men are alerted and arrive to kill them both. Maanav and Bhoora manage to defeat Katkar's men, before turning on each other. With his newfound inner strength, Maanav defeats and wounds Bhoora. Later, Maanav formulates a plan to make a deal with the Indian Embassy to project a story that the government used Maanav's situation and assigned him for the mission to track and kill Katkar, thus saving him from imprisonment. Bhoora refuses to spare him, out of ego, despite fully being aware of his innocence from the beginning. With no choice left, Maanav kills Bhoora and his plan succeeds and returns to India to find himself surrounded by greetings from his fans and the public outside the Mumbai airport.
Production.
Development.
The film was announced in October 2021.
Filming.
Filming began in January 2022 in London and concluded in March 2022.
Music.
The music of the film is composed by Tanishk Bagchi, Biddu, Parag Chhabra and Amar Jalal. The background score is composed by Sunny M.R. and the Action Hero Theme is composed by Parag Chhabra.
The song "Jehda Nasha" was recreated from the 2019 track "Nasha" which was sung by IP Singh, Amar Jalal, written by Amar Jalal Group and composed by Faridkot, Amar Jalal. The song "Aap Jaisa Koi" was recreated from the 1980 film "Qurbani" sung by Pakistani singer Nazia Hassan, and was composed by British Indian producer Biddu. The song was featured in the film as an item number, picturised on Zeenat Aman.
The film version of "Aap Jaisa Koi" replaces original male vocalist Altamash Faridi with Yash Narvekar.
Release.
"An Action Hero" had its trailer released on T-Series' YouTube Channel. The film was theatrically released on 2 December 2022. Digital rights were acquired by Netflix and was released on 27 January 2023.
Reception.
"An Action Hero" received positive reviews from critics
"Bollywood Hungama" rated the film 4 out of 5 stars and wrote ""An Action Hero" works due to Ayushmann's action-oriented role and Jaideep's screen presence. The twist in the last 30 minutes adds to the fun". Saibal Chatterjee of "NDTV" rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "The film bustles with coiled energy every time Jaideep Ahlawat is on the screen as a toughie responding to a rough, ready and rustic notion of justice and self-worth". Sonil Dedhia of "News 18" rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and said that the film is "wacky, breezy, bizzare and outlandish". Pratikshya Mishra of "The Quint" rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "The film makes fun of everything it can get its hands on while weaving a story worthy of its strong cast". Devesh Sharma of "Filmfare" rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "The film is cleverly written. It serves us twists and turns admiringly well. The insider jokes are a hoot. The arrogance of a superstar is on point". Kartik Bhardwaj of "Cinema Express" rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "Ayushmann Khurrana and Jaideep Ahlawat lock horns in this cheeky take on stars, fans, and media culture". Himesh Mankad of "Pinkvilla" rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote ""An Action Hero" is an intelligently written action thriller, wherein the director follows his conviction to strike the right balance in the genre with some humor and whacky scenarios".
Rohit Bhatnagar of "The Free Press Journal" rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and said that the film might derail from the set formula concept, but it might entertain and delve deeper into world affairs. Fengyn Chiu of "Mashable" rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "Ayushmann Khurrana and Jaideep Ahlawat will take you a wild ride filled with black comedy, suspense, satire". Sukanya Verma of "Rediff" rated the film 3 out of 5 stars and wrote ""An Action Hero" oil and water combination of genres doesn't always gel, gets overly far-fetched in places but still holds up on the strength of whimsy and surprise". Archika Khurana of "The Times of India" rated the film 3 out of 5 stars and wrote "The interesting thing about the film is not so much the story itself, but seeing Ayushmann Khurrana get into the skin of an action hero and flex his muscles (literally) on screen". Bharathi Pradhan of "Lehren" rated the film 3 out of 5 stars and summarized "Bollywood Plays Hero & Victim". Anna M. M. Vetticad of "Firstpost" rated the film 2.75 out of 5 stars and described it as "a fun package.” Vetticad praised the chemistry between the two leads but commented on the lack of female characters: “It’s a good thing that the narrative’s drooping minutes don’t last long, because it is in those minutes that the glaring absence of women from the scene becomes impossible to ignore. Rahul Desai from "Film Companion" wrote "This is perhaps his timeliest and most pressing deed yet. After all, is there a bigger underdog than mainstream Hindi cinema today?" |
Solaris Bus & Coach
Solaris Bus & Coach is a Polish producer of public transport vehicles (buses, trolleybuses and trams), with its headquarters in Bolechowo-Osiedle near Poznań. It is a subsidiary of Spanish CAF. Solaris owns four production sites: its main factory and headquarters in Bolechowo (final assembly of buses and trolleybuses), two plants in Środa Wielkopolska (a welding shop for bodyframes of buses and trolleybuses and a welding shop for tram bodies) as well as a final assembling hall for rolling stock, located in Poznań, in Wieruszowska street.
The firm arose from the enterprise Neoplan Polska established in 1994. A production facility was launched in Bolechowo-Osiedle near Poznań in 1996. The first low-floor bus produced in Bolechowo rolled off the assembly line on 22 March 1996 and it is this very date that is understood as the beginning of the company's history. 1999 saw the première of the first city bus of the Solaris brand – the Solaris Urbino 12. In 2001 the company was rebranded into Solaris Bus & Coach Sp. z o.o., only to be converted from a limited liability company into a joint-stock company. The company is not listed on the stock exchange.
Solaris city buses are available in diverse drive configurations as well as bodywork sizes and types. In 2006, Solaris became the first manufacturer to market, in Europe, the first serially produced hybrid drive bus Solaris Urbino 18 Hybrid. The portfolio of the bus maker covers conventionally fuelled vehicles (diesel) as well as those with an alternative drive (electric, hybrid and CNG buses or trolleybuses). The Solaris Urbino 12 electric was the first Polish, and the first electric bus at that, to win an international title for the year Bus and Coach of the Year 2017. In July 2018, it was announced that Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) had acquired Solaris.
History.
Neoplan Polska.
In 1994, Krzysztof Olszewski founded the company Neoplan Polska Sp. z o.o., a branch office for the Polish market of German bus brand Neoplan. In 1995, this enterprise won a tender for the delivery of 72 low-floor city buses for Poznań. The tender was made conditional upon locating the bus manufacturing factory in the vicinity of Poznań. As a result, the company launched an assembly plant for buses in Bolechowo-Osiedle. The first bus produced by Neoplan Polska came fresh off the production line on 22 March 1996. Having carried out the order for Poznań, the firm went on to reach the position of Polish market leader in the segment of low-floor city buses. Initially, the Bolechowo plant manufactured licence-based buses of the Neoplan family:
The buses stood out from other ones thanks to their reliability and the quality of execution, but above all thanks to their innovative design and, which was a novelty back then, its accessibility for elderly and disabled people thanks to the low floor. An element distinguishing the Neoplan buses produced in Poland from those made abroad was the green dachshund logo pasted onto the left-hand corner of the front face. It was supposed to symbolise the low-floor feature of the bus and the simplicity of use. The colour of the dachshund was a reference to the company's environmental commitment in the production of public transport vehicles. The green dachshund has remained the symbol of the company to this day.
In the second half of the 1990s, the company Neoplan Polska expanded its own technical office in charge of research and development. Back then, the company was already using software that allowed it to shorten the time needed to design and build a prototype of a new model. Towards the end of the 1990s Neoplan launched a new generation of city buses. However, Mr Olszewski decided not to launch their production in the Bolechowo plant, as they would not meet with interest in Poland on account of their exorbitant price. Then, in 1998, the Neoplan Polska engineers constructed the first city bus to be produced only in Bolechowo – the Neoplan K4016TD (and its shorter version, the Neoplan K4010TD), for marketing purposes dubbed "Olibus". 1999 saw the début of the first city bus of the Solaris Urbino family (see: section City and intercity buses). To begin with Neoplan Polska was tied by its contract with Neoplan, so the company of Mr Olszewski was able to sell buses only in Poland or in countries in central and eastern Europe. In 2001, Neoplan was taken over by German company MAN. That is why on 1 September 2001, the firm Neoplan Polska was turned into a private limited company (pol. "spółka z ograniczoną odpowiedzialnością)", and its name was changed to Solaris Bus & Coach Sp. z o.o. Krzysztof and Solange Olszewski became the sole owners. From that point on the export of Solaris buses was no longer limited by contracts with Neoplan, and all ties to that company were rendered invalid. On 1 July 2005 the company was transformed into joint-stock company (pol."spółka akcyjna") Solaris Bus & Coach S.A..
Years later Solange Olszewska notes: “My husband and I were looking for a name that would evoke positive connotations in all languages, that would be easy to pronounce and would be related to the future. We were unable to find anything suitable. Then, among hundreds of words, we noticed “solaris” – a simple name, bringing to mind positive associations with sunshine and beginning with the same letter as my first name.
Acquisition by CAF.
On 5 September 2018 Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) finalised its acquisition of Solaris Bus & Coach. This was following an announcement on 3 July 2018. Additionally, CAF has entered into an agreement with the Polish Development Fund for the acquisition by the latter of a minority stake in Solaris (35%) in the same terms and conditions agreed in by CAF in the acquisition of Solaris. On 4 October 2018, Javier Calleja was named CEO.
Models.
City and intercity buses.
The first buses of the Solaris Urbino family were designed by a group of Polish engineers in collaboration with Berlin-based designer office IFS Designatelier under the leadership of Krzysztof Olszewski. In May 1999, at the Poznań International Fair Motor Show, the company unveiled its low-floor city bus MAXI class Solaris Urbino 12. Two other models of the MEGA class premièred that same year – the Solaris Urbino 15 and the Solaris Urbino 18. 2000 saw the market launch of the smallest member of the bus family – Solaris Urbino 9. A bodyframe made completely of stainless steel and the asymmetric front windscreen are turning into typical features of all buses of the Urbino family. The new series of city buses was characterised by the modern design and innovative technical solutions (e.g. the asymmetric line of the front windscreen improves the driver's field of vision). The first generation buses were made chiefly for the Polish market. In March 2000 the company sold the first vehicle to a non-Polish company; the Solaris Urbino 15 went to DPO from the Czech city of Ostrava. The first-generation Solaris Urbino buses have also made it to Slovakia, Latvia, and Germany.
The second generation Urbinos premièred in 2002. The manufacturer introduced small modifications compared to the predecessors, so the second generation was a transition between the first and the third edition of the Urbino. What is more, the new Solaris Urbino 10 was introduced, replacing the Urbino 9. The year 2002 was also a historic moment for the company, as it marks the first time that export sales double and foreign orders exceed the volume of domestic commissions
2002 saw also the unveiling of the first Solaris intercity bus, dubbed Solaris Valletta for commercial purposes. The vehicle was designed for a regional operator, based in Valletta, Malta. It was the first Solaris bus adapted to left-hand traffic. 2004 saw also the début of the intercity low-entry bus model Solaris Urbino 12 LE.
In September 2004, the third generation of Solaris Urbino buses had its début; serial production of those models kicked off in spring 2005. Many style and construction modifications were undertaken. It is this model that enabled the company's global success internationally. Moreover, in 2004, the company presented also the Solaris Urbino 15 CNG model – the first Solaris bus running on compressed natural gas. The Solaris Urbino participated in a contest titled Bus of the Year 2005, where it came second, losing by a whisker to MAN Lion's City. In 2006, Solaris became the first European manufacturer to present a serially produced hybrid drive bus – the Solaris Urbino 18 hybrid. In 2011 the company also launched a hybrid model of 12 meters.
In 2006 the company launched production of a 15 cm shorter model, 8.6 m long, i.e. the model Solaris Alpino, designed specifically for narrow streets of city centres and also less frequented communication routes. In 2008, the company extended the production line by two low-entry models, the Solaris Alpino 8,9 LE and the Solaris Urbino 15 LE. Also low-floor CNG- or biogas-fuelled models, designed specifically for buyers in Scandinavian countries, were launched around that time.
Mid-2009 the company designed the first prototypes of the intercity bus Solaris InterUrbino 12 which premièred in September 2009 at the Transexpo trade fair.
In September 2011, Solaris presented the prototype of the fully electric MIDI class city bus: the Solaris Urbino 8,9 LE electric. The first buyer of that electric Solaris bus was an Austrian carrier from Klagenfurt. A year later, at the IAA trade fair in Hanover, the producer unveiled the 12-metre version of its electric bus, the Solaris Urbino 12 electric. The first such model was sold in 2013, to an operator in Braunschweig, Germany. That is also, where the first articulated electric buses - the Solaris Urbino 18 electric - went to. In 2014 the producer supplied its innovative city buses Solaris Urbino 18,75 electric to Hamburg; these vehicles were the first to use a hydrogen fuel cell as an additional power source.
In September 2014, during the IAA trade fair in Hanover (world première), and in October that year, at the Transexpo trade fair in Kielce (Polish premiere), Solaris presented the new generation of Solaris Urbino buses – initially only with conventional drives and in the length versions 12 and 18 metres. This time, the producer introduced more modifications to the design compared to the predecessor buses. The design was profoundly amended and many technical innovations were applied. Over the next years, Solaris showed off a range of new generation models (the firm started using that name instead of the fourth generation, to distinguish it from the older model), though it continued to concurrently manufacture vehicles of the third generation.
In 2016 Solaris announced that the new generation Solaris Urbino 12 electric would compete in the “Bus Euro Test 2016” for the title Bus and Coach of the Year 2017. In the contest, the Solaris bus faced off against three competitors – the buses also evaluated in the test were the Mercedes-Benz Citaro C2 NGT, the Van Hool Exqui.City 18, the Irizar i2e and the Ebusco 2.01. Solaris turned out the final winner – thus becoming the first Polish bus to secure this title and the first electric bus ever to win this distinction.
Solaris supplies complete buses, i.e. it does not use the chassis of other manufacturers. However, it does implement components made by other sub-suppliers. It installs diesel engines and CNG engines made by Paccar/DAF, Cummins, whereas the transmissions are supplied by Voith or ZF Friedrichshafen. In the case of hybrid drives, Solaris vehicles use BAE Systems.
On 29 November 2016 Solaris became the leader of a technological cluster named “Polish Electric Bus - supply chain for electromobility”. The goal of the cluster is the design of electric buses, batteries and charging options. The cluster consists of: Akademia Górniczo-Hutnicza (University of Science and Technology), Politechnika Poznańska (Poznań University of Technology), Politechnika Warszawska (Warsaw University of Technology), EC Grupa, Ekoenergetyka Polska, Impact Clean Power Technology, Medcom, Instytut Napędów i Maszyn Elektrycznych KOMEL and SKB Drive. Later on companies El-Cab and ENEA joined the cluster.
In 2018 Solaris announced the debut of the three following vehicles: the Solaris Trollino 24, the Solaris Urbino 12 hydrogen with a hydrogen drive and the Solaris Urbino 12 LE lite hybrid, meaning a low-entry and low-emission bus involving lower operating costs.
Coaches.
In the first years of operation, Neoplan Polska also handled the assembly of the coaches Neoplan Transliner and Neoplan Skyliner. Serial production of the tourist coach of the company's own design Solaris Vacanza 12 began one year after the official unveiling in August 2001. The design of these coaches was drafted by the Berlin-based enterprise IFS Designatelier. A characteristic feature of these vehicles is the wedge-shaped bodywork line. Engines made by DAF were used for the driveline. In 2004, the company launched production of the longer model Solaris Vacanza 13. In 2003 the Solaris Vacanza was ranked second ("ex aequo" with the Volvo 9700) in the contest Coach of the Year 2004, right behind such brands as MAN Lion's Star and Scania Irizar PB, which took the first place "ex aequo". Due to limited sales, Solaris decided to eliminate them from its offer in 2011.
In 2002 Solaris assembled its first special purpose vehicle - a mobile blood donation station based on the Vacanza coach. Solaris bloodmobiles have been used in many Polish cities, but have also been sold to Riga. In 2018, Solaris presented the first fully electric special vehicle for blood donation, based on the Urbino 8.9 LE model.
Trolleybuses.
Solaris Trollino trolleybuses have been produced since 2001, based on low-floor buses of the Solaris Urbino series. The first Trollino 12 units were created in collaboration with PKT Gdynia. In 2002, the company launched serial production of longer trolleybuses, namely 15-metre and 18-metre versions. The Solaris Trollino 15 was the first trolleybus in the world of that length. Originally, the vehicles were made with drives manufactured by Hungarian company Ganz Transelektro and Czech firm Cegelec. In spring 2007, Solaris and the firm Medcom from Warsaw decided to build a prototype of the trolleybus Solaris Trollino 12, fitted with an asynchronous drive made in Poland. It was created in August 2007 and was then submitted for tests in Lublin. Two more vehicles were made for public operator MPK Lublin. Tychy-based TLT, too, is authorised to assemble and obtain the type approval for the Trollino model.
Trollino trolleybuses are available in various length versions: 12-, 15- and 18-metre models. In Poland, the Trollino can be encountered on the streets of Gdynia, Tychy and Lublin. They are also used by the Rome trolleybus system (the battery version which enables driving in the city centre while detached from the traction line) and for the trolleybus systems in Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn, Landskrona, Opava and Ostrava. In 2009, the first Solaris trolleybus made it to Portugal, with the purchase of a single Trollino by the Coimbra system. The Solaris Trollino is also available in a special version with a "MetroStyle" bodywork that has an affinity to the style of the Solaris Tramino tram. Trolleybuses of that type have been supplied to Salzburg, Esslingen and Castellón de la Plana.
Trams.
In March 2006 Solaris Bus & Coach signed a contract with Bombardier Transportation and German firm Vossloh Kiepe on the assembly of trams in Poland. In 2006 these companies won a tender for the supply of 24 trams of the Bombardier NGT6/2 type for Kraków and 3 for Gdańsk. Under the cooperation agreement, Bombardier Transportation supplied the bodyworks and carriages, Vossloh Kiepe provided the electric fittings and Solaris ensured the delivery of the remaining components and the assembly of the vehicles, in collaboration with MPK Kraków. The assembly of the trams for Cracow took place in the tram depot Zajezdnia Podgórze. 2007 saw the delivery of three ordered vehicles to Gdańsk and of eight vehicles for MPK Kraków.
Mid-2009 Solaris presented the prototype of its own tram, named Solaris Tramino. Its début took place on 14 October 2009 during the Trako trade fair in Gdańsk. Solaris scored its first commission for trams of its own design when it won a tender for the supply of 45 trams to the operator MPK in Poznań. The delivery of the vehicles started in July 2011 and ended in May 2012.
The second tender for Solaris concerned an order for 5 bi-articulated fully low-floor trams adapted to a 1000 mm track gauge, placed by Jenaer Nahverkehr – a public transport operator from the German city of Jena. The tram cars have been fitted with two driver cabins, three bogies, including four axles integrated with a 90 kW motor, and an air conditioning system for the passenger compartment. The trams were delivered in 2013. They were the first ones produced in Poland and sold to a customer in Germany. As part of the third tender in 2014, Solaris provided 18 tri-articulated trams riding on a 1100 mm track gauge to Braunschweig in Germany. These were the longest trams made by Solaris.
In August 2012 Solaris won a tender for the supply of 15 double-ended trams for the newly built tram network in Olsztyn. This vehicle features many state-of-the-art solutions, such as traction batteries allowing for a short-distance ride without a connection to the traction line. These are also the least noise-emitting trams in Poland. The 15 vehicles were supplied in 2015.
At the beginning of February 2015 Solaris won a commission for the supply of 41 trams to the Leipzig-based public transport operator Leipziger Verkehrsbetriebe GmbH in Germany. The new trams for the Saxon buyer have been given a completely new design, in compliance with the customer's wishes. However, references to the former Tramino construction have been maintained. The longest vehicle of the family (37 630 mm) was named "Tramino XL". The official première of the Tramino for Leipzig took place in February 2017, marking also the beginning of the delivery.
On 20 September 2016, at the InnoTrans trade fair in Berlin, the company announced that it had started cooperation with Stadler Rail – a Swiss rolling stock producer. The consortium won a tender for the delivery of 50 trams for public transport operator MPK S.A. from Kraków.
On 9 December 2016, Solaris announced the establishment of the joint venture Solaris Tram. The company started operation on 1 January 2017, with Zbigniew Palenica assuming the post of CEO, whereas the shares are divided between Solaris and Stadler Rail at a 40:60. In July 2017 Solaris Tram secured its first order, for the supply, to Braunschweig, of seven trams featuring a similar design as the vehicles from the previous contract.
Company management and staff.
Company management.
Source:.
Number of employees.
In the first year of operation there were 36 employees working in the production hall. In the following years, as new production halls were launched and production expanded, the staff number kept growing. In 2005 Solaris reported a headcount of 1000. As of 2018 Solaris employs 2300 people in Poland and in foreign agencies.
Commercial symbols.
Logo.
Initially, Neoplan Polska did not use its logo – it relied on the symbol of holding company Neoplan. The first logotype of Solaris was presented in 2001, when Solaris Bus & Coach Sp. z o.o. was officially established. It featured a stylised inscription reading Solaris, enclosed in an ellipse. Moreover, for buses the company used a complex logo on a black background, where the letter O was replaced by a planet, whereas the letter A was set against a star in the backdrop. In 2005 a new graphic system for Solaris was shown. The company introduced the characteristic logotype resembling the letter S. In 2012 the company launched an overhauled version of the symbol making it bolder and changing the interior filling of the letter S. What is more, the stylised name Solaris, in line with the design from 2001, is placed underneath the graphic symbol.
Advertising slogan.
In 2005 Solaris introduced its first advertising slogan: “Power of Enthusiasm”. It was in use until 2017, when the company replaced it with the slogan “Wspólny kierunek” (Polish for "Common direction").
Green dachshund.
The green dachshund is the mascot of the company Solaris. It used to be attached to Neoplan Polska buses, distinguishing them from vehicles produced in other Neoplan factories. It was created by the company's vice-president of the day, Solange Olszewska. The dachshund resembles a low-floor bus in shape, but it also symbolises the loyalty towards customers and low operating costs. The green colour is a symbol of concern for the natural environment. Its image is glued to the outside of the bus, usually on the front face, on the left side of the vehicle (when looking in the travel direction). A plush toy version of the symbol is often handed out during official release of buses to customers. In the case of the first and second generation and for some third-generation vehicles, the logo included the word “low-floor” written in the language of the country in question (e.g. “Niederflur” for Germany or “niskopodłogowy” for Poland). In the case of low-entry buses, the inscription was changed accordingly to “low-entry”. Standard buses of the Urbino family (with diesel or natgas engines) feature a dachshund logo in the basic form, whereas other drive or construction types have their distinguishing feature represented in the image of the dachshund, as shown in the table below:
Production and sales.
Solaris buses have found buyers in over 700 cities in 34 countries in Europe, Africa and Asia (as of: 2022). The furthest Solaris buses have ventured from Bolechowo so far is the island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean. Solaris has been leader of sales in Poland of new city buses with a DMC of more than 8 t since 2003 without interruption. The number of buses, trolleybuses and trams sold by Solaris was biggest for Poland (5528), Germany (2960), the Czech Republic (860), Italy (829), Sweden (616), France (523) and Norway (478).
Production facilities.
The production of Solaris vehicles is handled in four production facilities situated in the vicinity of Poznań and in the city itself. The headquarters is located in Bolechowo-Osiedle. That is also where the final stage of production takes place. Furthermore, Solaris operates two plants in Środa Wielkopolska and one in Poznań. According to company plans, within the framework of the joint-venture of Solaris and Stadler Rail, as of 2019 the final assembly of Solaris Tramino trams is to be executed in the Stadler Polska plants located in Siedlce. In 2017 Solaris launched yet another plant – the Solaris Logistics Center – located in Jasin near Poznań. The new distribution centre and spare part warehouse was to streamline the order implementation process and raising the level of after-sales customer care.
Bolechowo-Osiedle.
The factory in Bolechowo-Osiedle is the biggest production facility of Solaris. That is where the final stage of bus production takes place. Opened in 1996, is the oldest factory of Solaris, created for the execution of an order for buses for MPK Poznań. In 2014 the company started expanding the factory, adding additional production and office space. The following extension of that facility began in 2018. Annual output amounts to 1300–1400 vehicles, meaning that every day 5 to 8 new buses roll off the assembly line in Bolechowo. The average production time for one city bus is approx. 20 working days. Offices are located next to the production hall, constituting the headquarters of Solaris Bus & Coach. Since 2016, it is possible to sneak a peek at the interior of the factory and the office building in Bolechowo using Google Street View.
Środa Wielkopolska.
The facility in Środa Wielkopolska specialises in the production of steel bodyframes for buses and rolling stock. Solaris bought the factory in 1998, following the bankruptcy of the former owner, TRAMAD. The facility in Środa Wielkopolska employs about 360 people. About 8 bodyframes are completed here every day. In 2018, the company started the concurrent extension of the steel structure plant in Środa Wielkopolska and the plant in Bolechowo.
The second production hall in Środa Wielkopolska was launched in 2009, to serve the needs of orders for Solaris Tramino trams for the public transport operator MPK Poznań. Specialising in tram bodyframes, this particular facility caters only for the production of Tramino trams.
Poznań.
The factory in Poznań at Wieruszewska street is a facility focusing on the production of rolling stock, where the final assembly of Solaris Tramino trams takes place. Just like the plant in Środa Wielkopolska, this facility was built to handle orders placed by MPK Poznań. Earlier prototype models of trams were manufactured in production halls of external firms.
Biggest orders.
E.THE.L Athens.
At the beginning of 2008 the municipal bus operator from Athens, E..THE.L, issued an invitation to tender for 320 city buses – namely 220 MIDI-class and 100 MAXI-class vehicles. Solaris’ bid was singled out from among others and so, in July 2008, the company signed a contract for the supply of 100 Urbino 18 and 220 Alpino 8,6 buses. The contract value exceeded EUR 80 million. The deliveries were completed by the end of 2009.
Cotral Lazio.
At the beginning of 2016, Solaris won a contract for the delivery of 300 suburban buses for the operator Cotral from the Italian region of Lazio. This contract was worth nearly EUR 110 million. Under this contract, Solaris supplied 12-metre buses of the Solaris InterUrbino category. The buses were provided with, among others, baggage holds, air-conditioning and rear-view reversing cameras. The drive consists of a diesel engine made by DAF.
BVG Berlin.
In 2004 Solaris secured an order of Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe for the supply of 260 city buses of the MEGA class (130 + 130 under a contractual option). Following this contract, there are now 260 low-floor Solaris Urbino 18 buses of the third generation driving on the streets of Berlin. They joined 10 older Urbino 18 buses of the previous generation, already in use in the city.
RTA Dubai.
Towards the end of 2006 the Dubai Roads & Transport Authority (the municipal transport operator in Dubai) put out a tender for the supply of a total of 620 city buses, although the order was divided into several batches. One of these batches, covering 225 vehicles, was won by Solaris. The contract entailed the delivery of 150 articulated Urbino 18 buses and 75 Urbino 12 buses of the third generation. The deliveries of buses were spread in time, from the end of 2007 and over the first half of 2008. One novelty applied in the buses for the Dubai RTA was a more efficient air-conditioning system and systems protecting the engine from sand storms. Special curtains of cool air have been applied in the buses, too, to prevent heat from entering the bus through open doors.
SWRT Wallonia.
Société Régionale Wallonne du Transport (regional carrier of the Belgian region of Wallonia) ordered 208 hybrid buses of Solaris in 2017. Under the EUR 105 million commission the producer supplied Solaris Urbino 12 Hybrid buses of the 4 generation. The deliveries were spread over a period of two years – 97 buses were supplied in 2017 and another 111 were shipped over in 2018.
MZA Warsaw.
In March 2019, Solaris won the tender organized by MZA Warsaw, the subject of which was the delivery of 130 electric buses. The contract was signed on July 22, 2019. The vehicles will take to the streets of Warsaw in 2019 and 2020. The contract is worth PLN 399.5 million (roughly 89.5 million euro) and was the largest electric bus order to date in Europe. Solaris submitted the only tender.
ATM Milan.
In July 2019, Solaris won an order for the supply of 250 electric buses with a length of 12 m for a carrier from Milan, winning the bid against Mercedes. It was a tender for electric buses worth up to EUR 192 million. |
19th Canadian Army Field Regiment RCA
The 19th Canadian Army Field Regiment (Self Propelled) Royal Canadian Artillery (RCA) was a Field Artillery regiment in the Canadian Armed Forces during the Second World War. They would see action in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, before ending the war in Germany. It was commonly referred to as The 19th Field Regiment, The 19th Army Field Regiment, The 19th Field or by the men of the regiment, Hell on Wheels.
Canada.
The 19th Field received its mobilizing orders in August 1941, for three batteries to be formed from the three Reserve Brigade areas in Military District No. 1. The batteries were the 55th Field Battery (London, Ontario), the 63rd Field Battery (Guelph, Ontario), and the 99th Field Battery (Wingham, Ontario). From September 1941 to July 1943, the 19th Field was brought up to full strength and received training at Camp Borden, Ontario; Shilo, Manitoba; Prince Rupert, British Columbia; and Petawawa, Ontario.
During this time, they trained first with 18-pounders, 4.5" howitzers, and finally, what would become their main armament in Europe, the 25-pounder RAM, better known as the Sexton.
England.
On 5 July 1943, the 19th Field received orders to move overseas. They left Halifax on 21 July on board the and arrived in Greenock 27 July 1943 and fell under the command of the II Canadian Corps. On 19 October 1943, the 19th Field was briefly transferred to the command of the 5th Canadian Armoured Division before once again being transferred to the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division when the 5th was moved to the Italian Campaign. Between July 1943 and May 1944, the 19th Field would begin training for the coming invasion of mainland Europe and exchanged their Sextons for American M7 Priests, which were self-propelled 25-pounders, similar to the Sexton that had an armament of 105mm and could fire a distance of 11,500 yards.
While in England, the 19th took part in several training operations, but specifically "Exercise Savvy". It was the first divisional training exercise the regiment took part in, which focused on the firing of artillery on ships towards coastal targets and landing on beaches under fire. While in England, the 19th Field was also inspected by General Bernard Montgomery on 28 February 1944, and King George VI on 25 April 1944, in the prelude to the invasion of Europe.
On 23 May 1944, the 19th Field's camp was sealed for security reasons and plans were finalized for Operation Overlord: the long-awaited invasion of German occupied France. The final preparations were made as all vehicles were waterproofed and ammunition was brought up. On 1 June 1944, the 19th Field moved to its marshalling areas in Gosport and Southampton before embarking on the longest day. On June 3, 1944, Forward Observation Officers (FOOs) went to their respective units with the North Shore Regiment as Landing Craft were prepared to be filled with infantry units.
D-Day: 6 June 1944.
The Canadian assault on Juno Beach had three infantry brigades – the 7th, 8th and 9th – of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division with the 7th landing at Courseulles-sur-Mer, the 8th at Bernieres-sur-Mer and St. Aubin-sur-Mer with the 9th landing after the initial assault passing through the 8th's sector and advancing on Authie and Carpiquet airfield before capturing the high ground above Caen. The 19th was attached to the 8th brigade and the 12th, 13th, and 14th Field Regiments were also involved bringing a total of 96 M7 Priest guns into action. Specifically, the 19th was part of the 14th Canadian Field Regiment Artillery Group led by Lt.-Col. H.S. Griffin with each regiment firing towards the beaches from four Landing Craft towards their target of Nan Red beach.
The Landing Craft carrying the 19th and the other three Field Regiments advanced at about 6:30 a.m. with the 22nd and 30th LCT Flotilla carrying the 24 M7 Priests of the 19th. At 7:39 a.m., Major Peene the Fire Control Officer, gave the order to commence firing when they were 9,000 yards out. The guns of the 19th were the first Canadian to go into action and began firing towards northern France to signal the imminent invasion of German occupied Europe. Each gun launched 100 to 150 rounds over the course of about 30 minutes further saturating the German held territory. One gun from each of the six troops were firing phosphorus shells with seven fires being started on the Nan Red beach The commander of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, General Rod Keller, said the SP's "put on the best shoot they ever did." The Field Regiments had their M7 Priests strapped to the deck of the landing craft and went in firing towards the beaches as planes and naval vessels pounded the beaches. After they reached a 2,000 yards from shore they turned around and passed the inbound North Shore Regiment infantry of the first wave. Once the beachhead had been secured they came around again and landed with the second wave of infantry to provide close artillery support against any German counterattack.
Artillery is often a feared weapon of war, but studies conducted by the 21st Army Group's 2nd Operational Research Section found the gunners were highly inaccurate thanks to the intense waves of the English Channel. The report said the 19th missed their targets by up to 1,000 yards since they were sent on the wrong course inland by the navy. Once it was corrected, the inaccuracy prevailed with the unpredictable English Channel wreaking havoc on the sights of the gunners. They were still about 700 yards wide and 300 yards deep from their intended target. Also causing difficulty was that the concrete fortifications were between three and seven feet in thickness.
At 9:10 a.m. 'D' Troop of the 63rd Battery landed west of St. Aubin-sur-Mer under mortar and rifle fire on Nan Red beach and within 10 minutes they had their first gun 200 yards inland and in action providing fire support. 'C' Troop followed shortly after with 'E' and 'F' Troop also landing and in action by 10 a.m. with the 55th Battery and Q Battery being delayed due to a rudder being damaged and massive traffic trying to land on the beaches.
Shortly after landing, the 19th took their first casualties of the war with Lt. Malcolm, the regimental survey officer, being wounded and Gunner B.T. McHughen being killed. A further two men were killed and 17 more wounded on the first day. The regiment had its vehicle damaged when a M7 Priest of 'E' Troop hitting a mine and a track was blown off with it taking two hours to repair. The 55th Battery also faced its first difficulty when an ammunition explosion had two M7 Priests and a Bren Carrier catch fire quickly spreading to other vehicles and threatening to become larger as it moved towards live ammunition. Gunner H.R. Chaplin, already wounded from shrapnel, jumped in the Bren Carrier that had the ammunition and moved it safety to prevent further casualties or damage. Chaplin received the Military Medal for this act.
They ran into the German 716th Infantry Division that was primarily used as an occupation division and primarily made up of Polish, Russians, Ukrainians and other nationalities from the Soviet Union who were pressed into service. They had mostly obsolete Czechoslovakian equipment from the late-1930s, but also had a small cadre of non-commissioned officers that had combat experience on the Eastern Front giving the green troops veteran leadership.
The 19th ended D-Day in positions just outside St. Aubin-sur-Mer with them being called for close fire support multiple times throughout the day as German tanks and infantry counterattacked the positions gained by Canadian infantry. With night falling over northern France and the Allied beachhead secured the 19th had three soldiers killed and another 18 wounded in the first 24 hours of .
Casualties in Action.
Killed in Action |
Bonnie Sherk
Bonnie Ora Sherk (née Bonnie Ora Kellner; May 18, 1945 – August 8, 2021) was an American landscape-space artist, performance artist, landscape planner, and educator. She was the founder of "The Farm", and "A Living Library". Sherk was a professional artist who exhibited her work in museums and galleries around the world. Her work has also been published in art books, journals, and magazines. Her work is considered a pioneering contribution to Eco Art.
Early life.
Bonnie Ora Kellner was born on May 18, 1945, in New Bedford, Massachusetts. She grew up in Montclair, New Jersey. Her father Sydney Kellner was the area director of the American Jewish Committee and lecturer of art and architecture. Her mother was a first grade teacher.
Sherk graduated Douglass College, Rutgers University in the 1960s. She studied under Robert Watts at Rutgers, who taught her about the Fluxus movement. She later enrolled in an MFA program at San Francisco State University.
Career.
Sherk moved to San Francisco in the late 1960s with her husband David Sherk.
Sherk is a developer of a systemic, place-based approach to environmental transformation and education which links systems - biological, cultural, technological. Integrated with such innovations, like Green-Powered Digital Gateways, Sherk's approach incorporates interdisciplinary, standards-based, hands-on learning, community ecological planning and design, and state-of-the-art communications and technologies. Sherk's goal is to integrate local resources: human, ecological, economic, historic, technological, and aesthetic - seen through the lens of time - to make relevant ecological transformations, which are integrated with hands-on learning opportunities and community programs.
In an interview with Peter Cavagnaro, Sherk shares her love and passion for the environment. She believes that the environment is a "beautiful" and "diverse" place and that it is the most practical place for art and to create transformation, because it has the ability to reach communities near and far.
Works.
"A Living Library" (1980s–2021).
"A Living Library" was Sherk's ongoing work she started in the 1980s, that consists of transforming environments -buried urban streams and asphalted public spaces, into thriving art gardens. She has transformed these spaces in order to build education centers for children in communities in San Francisco and New York City.
"The Farm" (1974–1980).
Created in 1974, and lasting through 1980, by Sherk, "The Farm" (also known as "Crossroads Community") was a 7 acre eco garden and art space that spreads across traffic meridians and underused spaces under freeway overpasses. It even includes animals. This piece provided internships, educational activities for children, and acted as a public park throughout its duration.
Sherk felt that people lacked a “spiritual and ecological balance within ourselves and larger groups and nations,” and felt that a space like the Farm could offer a solution to this issue through community connection, education, and creating a space within the urban landscape to uncover the natural environment that exists within the landscape and demonstrate our connection to life and the ecosystem.
"Living In The Forest".
"Living In The Forest: Demonstrations of Atkin Logic, Balance, Compromise, Devotion, Etc." was an installation created in 1973 for De Saisset Museum in Santa Clara, conceived as a "a metaphor for life in all of its aspects, including birth, death, struggles for survival, compromise, living our daily lives, etc."
"Public Lunch".
"Public Lunch" was one of Sherk's most well-known performance pieces. The piece consisted of Bonnie eating lunch in cages with various animals, such as lions and tigers, at the San Francisco Zoo. She did this on a Saturday at 2pm in 1971, during normal feeding time and prime spectator watching.
"Sitting Still Series".
In Bonnie Ora Sherk's "Sitting Still Series", 1970 (digital projection, photo documentation of performances) the artist sate for approximately one hour in various locations around San Francisco as a means to subtly change the environment simply by becoming an unexpected part of it. At the first performance, Sherk, dressed in a formal evening gown, sat in an unholstered armchair amidst garbage and creek runoff from the construction of the Army Street freeway interchange. Facing slow moving traffic, her audience was the people driving by. The following month Sherk sat silently in the midst of a flooded city dump at California and Montgomery Streets. Other locations in the series included the Financial District, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Bank of America plaza. Sherk also continued her piece at the San Francisco Zoo in a number of indoor and outdoor animal cages. "Sitting Still" culminated in the performance "Public Lunch", in which the artist ceremoniously ate an elaborately catered lunch in an empty cage located next to a cage of lions during public feeding time at the zoo. The project reinforced Sherk's commitment to studying the interrelationship of plants, animals, and humans with the goal of creating sustainable systems for social transformation. The "Sitting Still Series" was exhibited in total as part of Public Works: Artists Interventions 1970s - Now, curated by Christian L. Frock and Tanya Zimbardo at Mills College Art Museum, September - December 2016; Sherk's first image from the series graces the cover of the exhibition catalogue designed by John Borruso.
Awards.
In 1970, the first SECA Vernal Equinox Special Award, which recognizes conceptual and experimental projects, was presented to Sherk and Howard Levine by the SFMOMA.
In 2001, Marion Rockefeller Weber's Arts and Healing Network awarded Sherk the 2001 AHN Award "for being an outstanding educator and for using her creativity to foster environmental healing."
Personal.
Sherk was married to David Sherk. The couple later divorced.
Sherk died on August 8, 2021 in San Francisco, California. She was buried on August 11 at the Mendocino Jewish Cemetery near the grave of her parents. |
U.S. Route 127 in Michigan
US Highway 127 (US 127) is a part of the United States Numbered Highway System that runs from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. In Michigan, it is a state trunkline highway that runs for , entering from Ohio south of Hudson and ending at a partial interchange with Interstate 75 (I-75) south of Grayling. US 127 is the primary route connecting Lansing and Central Michigan to Northern Michigan and the Mackinac Bridge. From the south side of Jackson northerly, it is mostly a four-lane freeway. A notable exception is a stretch from north of St. Johns to just south of Ithaca, where the highway is built as an expressway and speed limits are lower. South of Jackson to the state line, the trunkline is a two-lane, undivided highway with access from adjacent properties.
The highway was first designated on November 11, 1926, along a series of existing state highways from Lansing southward toward Toledo. In 1930, the southern end was rerouted south of Somerset in rural northwestern Lenawee County to a course that ran directly south to the Ohio state line; the remainder was renumbered US 223. Starting in the 1950s, the highway was reconfigured to bypass Mason and other communities, converting US 127 into a freeway from Jackson to the Lansing area by the mid-1970s. When the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) successfully petitioned the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) in 1999 to remove US 27 from the state, US 127 was to be extended northward from Lansing to Grayling as the replacement designation. This change was made in 2002, resulting in the current configuration of the highway in Michigan. The United States Congress has designated an additional Interstate Highway, to be part of I-73, that would replace most or all of US 127 through Central and Southern Michigan, but any plans by MDOT to complete this highway were cancelled in 2001.
Route description.
Running just about in Michigan, US 127 runs north–south up the center of the Lower Peninsula. North of its junction with US 223 in Lenawee County, it is listed as a part of the National Highway System, a system of roads importance to the nation's economy, defense and mobility. As a state trunkline highway, the roadway is maintained by the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), and it includes approximately of freeway in two segments, the southernmost running between Jackson and Clinton counties, separated by a gap from the northernmost segment between Gratiot and Crawford counties.
According to the department, 1,253 vehicles use US 127 on average near the state line, and 68,853 vehicles do so between M-43 and Kalamazoo Street in Lansing, the lowest and highest traffic counts along the highway in 2013, respectively.
State line to Lansing.
US 127 enters Michigan as a two-lane highway south of Hudson called Meridian Road, which follows the course (with minor deviations) of the Michigan Meridian used to survey Michigan in the early 19th century. From the state line north, US 127 follows the Hillsdale–Lenawee county line north through agricultural areas in Southern Michigan. The highway intersects M-34 at Hudson. Near Beecher Road north of the city, US 127 veers westward, off the county line and travels fully within Hillsdale County for about . Near intersections with Manitou and Adams roads south of Addison, it crosses fully into Lenawee County. The highway continues due north from Addison to an intersection with US 223's northern terminus in the northwestern corner of the county, where US 127 turns northwesterly.
About a mile (1.6 km) farther north, US 127 intersects US 12 east of Somerset. US 127 continues northward, clipping through the corner of Hillsdale County and crossing into Jackson County. The highway follows Meridian Road through the southern area of the county until the interchange with M-50 southeast of Jackson. There US 127 transitions into a full freeway bypass to the east of Jackson while Business US 127 (Bus. US 127) follows M-50 into the city. The freeway crosses the Grand River twice near the South Street interchange. It also crosses a rail line of the Norfolk Southern Railway near the Page Avenue interchange. Northeast of Jackson, US 127 meets I-94 and turns westward to run concurrently with it along the northern edge of Jackson. US 127 crosses the Grand River again on this section of I-94 before turning northward again.
The US 127 freeway continues northward, concurrent with M-50 for the first mile and a half (2.4 km) north of I-94. The freeway runs through rural northern Jackson County, paralleled by State Road before curving northwesterly near the county line with Ingham County. US 127 passes through Leslie with Churchill and Hull roads running parallel on either side of the freeway. US 127 loses these companion roads at Mason where it curves northwest to the Lansing area.
On the southeastern side of the capital city, US 127 meets I-96. From this interchange northward, the freeway is also designated as part of I-496 (Ransom E. Olds Freeway). The I-496/US 127 freeway runs northward through suburban Delhi Township and into the city of Lansing. Right near the Red Cedar River, just west of the Michigan State University campus, I-496 and US 127 separate as US 127 continues north and I-496 turns west. This side of the city is mostly residential neighborhoods as US 127 runs along the East Lansing border, but there is a commercial area surrounding the Lake Lansing Road interchange before the highway crosses into Clinton County. US 127 meets I-69 northeast of Lansing, at the 1998–2002 terminus of the highway. From here north, US 127 follows the former US 27 north to Grayling.
Central Michigan.
The freeway continues northward through rural Central Michigan farmlands. The freeway passes over the Looking Glass River near DeWitt. At Price Road, Bus. US 127 splits off to connect into St. Johns while the freeway bypasses the city to the east. US 127 intersects M-21 due east of downtown St. Johns before the freeway curves west and then north to intersect the northern end of the business loop. North of this interchange, for about , US 127 follows an expressway segment. It is a four-lane divided highway with some local driveway access and cross traffic through at-grade intersections.
The expressway segment passes through an area that is mostly farms with occasional business. Just north of the Gratiot County line, the highway crosses the Maple River in the large wetlands area of Maple River State Game Area. North of the river, the expressway crosses a rail line at grade north of the one interchange along the expressway, connecting with M-57. South of Ithaca, the highway crosses the Bad River and transitions back to a freeway for the remainder of its routing. There are two interchanges on either end of Ithaca for that city's Bus. US 127 as the freeway runs east of that city's downtown area. US 127 runs due northward until curving northwesterly to pass between Alma and St. Louis. At the adjacent partial interchanges for Lincoln and State roads, two separate business loops depart from the freeway to run through the two cities. The Bus. US 127 for Alma follows Lincoln Road westward, while the one for St. Louis runs north on State Road. The freeway crosses the Pine River while running between Alma and St. Louis before intersecting M-46 and the northern ends of the two business loops at another pair of adjacent partial interchanges.
North of Alma, US 127 turns due north again and crosses into Isabella County. It runs near the campus of Central Michigan University, crossing the Chippewa River in Mount Pleasant. Mount Pleasant is also home to the Saginaw Band of Chippewa Indians and their tribal reservation. The area between the directional interchanges for Bus. US 127 in Mount Pleasant is marked by residential neighborhoods; the location of the M-20 interchange has some commercial properties, however. Otherwise, the landscape in Isabella County is mostly farms adjacent to the freeway.
The business loop for Clare splits from the main freeway south of the city, and it is also signed to provide access to eastbound US 10 via Bus. US 10, which US 127 crosses just south of the Clare County line. North of this line, US 10 and US 127 meet at a directional interchange. Traffic from westbound US 10 defaults onto northbound US 127, and traffic from the southbound freeway can exit onto eastbound US 10; no other direct connections are provided between the two freeways, requiring the use of the business loops through downtown to make the missing connections. The freeway rounds Lake Shamrock north of downtown and intersects the joint northern end of two business loops. There is a welcome center in the median of US 127/US 10 before the two highways separate north of the city.
US 127 continues northward through rural woodlands in Clare County to the community of Harrison. There is another Bus. US 127 for the community, part of which is also M-61. The freeway passes between Little Long and Sutherland lakes north of Harrison before intersecting the northern end of the business loop. US 127 serves the resort area at Houghton Lake in Roscommon County. It crosses the Muskegon River on the west side of Houghton Lake before running along the western side of Higgins Lake near the Crawford County line. US 127 ends about south of Grayling at a partial interchange with I-75. Traffic along US 127 northbound has access to northbound I-75 and southbound traffic on I-75 can access US 127 southbound.
History.
In 1919, the Michigan State Highway Department (MSHD) signposted the highway system for the first time, At the time, the original M-14 designation was assigned from the Ohio state line northward through Jackson, Lansing, Mount Pleasant, Clare, and Grayling. The highway also continued from Grayling northward through Gaylord to Cheboygan. Seven years later, the United States Numbered Highway System was created on November 11, 1926, and in Michigan's initial assignments, US 27 replaced M-14 between Lansing and Cheboygan, while US 127 ran from Lansing southward through Jackson to the Somerset area where it turned southeasterly, replacing the former M-80 and M-34 through Adrian to Toledo, Ohio. The remainder of M-14 south to the state line remained a shortened M-14.
The southern end of US 127 was rerouted in 1930 from Somerset south to Hudson and on to Cincinnati, Ohio. The section of former US 127 between Somerset and Toledo became US 223. The northern end was shifted slightly in 1950 in the city of Lansing when US 27 was rerouted from its car-only route to its truck route and US 127 was realigned to connect to the new routing.
The city of Mason was bypassed in 1954. The former route through town was designated Bus. US 127 at the time. The US 127 expressway was first started in 1957 with an extension south of Mason to Leslie. A further extension to Jackson was opened in 1958. By 1960, Jackson was bypassed to the east and the former route through downtown was redesignated Bus. US 127. Over the next few years, the expressway was upgraded to a full freeway that was completed in by 1964. The US 127 freeway was extended north to the Lansing area by 1968. Near Lansing, it was routed along I-496 to the north side of Lansing and East Lansing to connect with US 27. The last extension of US 127 for another 11 years was completed in 1973 when the freeway was completed north to the DeWitt area, connecting with US 27 there.
Two changes took place in the routing of US 127 in the 1980s as the I-69 freeway was completed. The northern Lansing bypass was completed in 1984, and I-69 was built through Clinton County in 1987. These changes routed I-69 along a portion of US 127 near DeWitt and removed a Temporary I-69 routing from US 127 on the east side of Lansing. The opening of the St. Johns Bypass on August 31, 1998, shortened US 127 by almost while US 27 was routed along the I-69 freeway between exits 87 and 89 to connect with the new freeway northward. US 127 ended at its junction with I-69 and US 27 and no longer ran concurrently with I-69 afterward.
MDOT petitioned the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) for approval to remove US 27 from Michigan in 1999. This proposed change was to remove the concurrency of I-69 and US 27 southwest of the Lansing area. MDOT also proposed that US 127 be extended north over the former US 27 to Grayling. AASHTO approved this change on April 16, 1999, nearly tripling the highway from . The highway markers were changed over in 2002, converting US 27 and the Bus. US 27 designations to US 127 and Bus. US 127, respectively.
In 2009, MDOT constructed Michigan lefts at several intersections in northern Clinton County to remove cross-street traffic. In April 2010, the department raised speed limits for passenger cars on this non-freeway stretch to from the previous .
In 2017, some speed limits in Michigan for passenger cars were increased from , and the speed limit for trucks was increased from . In turn, the expressway section of US 127 had a speed limit increase to for trucks (matching passenger car speed limits), and all freeway sections north of the I-69 interchange have a speed limit of (for passenger cars) now.
Future.
As originally defined in 1991, the alignment of I-73 in Michigan would have run along I-75 to Detroit. However, the definition was amended in 1995 to include a branch along the US 223 corridor to south of Jackson and the US 127 corridor north to I-75 near Grayling. From Grayling northward, the I-73 corridor would follow I-75 to Sault Ste. Marie. Except south of Jackson, where it is a two-lane road and a section of road north of Lansing where the freeway reverts to a divided highway, this is mostly a rural four-lane freeway. While there are no immediate plans to convert the section between St. Johns and Ithaca to freeway, MDOT continues to purchase parcels for right-of-way to be used for future upgrades.
MDOT included using the US 127 and US 223 corridors as one of its three options to build I-73 in 2000. The others included using the US 127 corridor all the way into Ohio with a connection to the Ohio Turnpike or using US 127 south and a new freeway connection to US 223 at Adrian. MDOT abandoned further study of I-73 after June 12, 2001, diverting remaining funding to safety improvement projects along the corridor. The department stated there was a "lack of need" for sections of the proposed freeway, and the project website was closed down in 2002. According to press reports in 2011, a group advocating on behalf of the freeway is working to revive the I-73 project in Michigan. According to an MDOT spokesman, "to my knowledge, we're not taking that issue up again." The Lenawee County Road Commission is not interested in the freeway, and according to the president of the Adrian Area Chamber of Commerce, "there seems to be little chance of having an I-73 link between Toledo and Jackson built in the foreseeable future." |
Xu Keqiong
Xu Keqiong (許可瓊) was a general of the Chinese Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period state Chu. When, in Chu's last years, the realm was torn in a civil war between Ma Xiguang and Ma Xi'e (Prince Gongxiao), Xu betrayed Ma Xiguang, leading to Ma Xi'e's victory.
Background.
It is not known when Xu Keqiong was born. He was a son of the great Chu chancellor Xu Dexun. While it is not known when he began his military career, by 950, he had become the commander of the fleet because of prior accomplishments.
Betrayal of Ma Xiguang.
As of 950, Chu was torn by a civil war, as then-prince Ma Xiguang was facing the challenge to his rule by his older brother Ma Xi'e the military governor ("Jiedushi") of Wuping Circuit (武平, headquartered in modern Changde, Hunan). In late 950, Ma Xi'e's forces approached the capital Changsha, and Ma Xiguang stationed the fleet under Xu Keqiong's command to defend an attack on water, while having the cavalry commander Li Yanwen () and infantry commander Han Li () also taking their troops to defend other potential routes of attack. Soon, Zhu Jinzhong (朱進忠), a general under Ma Xi'e, arrived with Ma Xi'e's forward troops and camped with a mix of 7,000 Han and non-Han troops west of the Xiang River across from Changsha.
Ma Xiguang greatly trusted Xu, and had the other generals serve under his command, believing Xu to be a faithful and disciplined general. The non-Han officer Peng Shigao (), who had long been thankful for Ma Xiguang's trust and had sworn to be willing to die for Ma Xiguang, advocated that he be allowed to take some men to circle around Zhu's troops and attack it from the rear while Xu did so from the front, believing that once Zhu's forward troops were defeated, Ma Xi'e would give up his campaign. Ma Xiguang was ready to follow Peng's advice, but Xu, whom Ma Xi'e had already secretly contacted and enticed with an offer that they would divide the kingdom among themselves, opposed (as he was ready to accept Ma Xi'e's offer), stating to Ma Xiguang, "Peng Shigao is of the same kind as the Meishan barbarians, so how can you trust him? I, Xu Keqiong, and my family have been serving as Chu generals for generations, and will surely not disappoint you. There is nothing Ma Xi'e can do." Soon, when Ma Xi'e arrived with his fleet, his and Xu's fleet set up opposing lines across the Xiang. Xu, without letting his soldiers know, met with Ma Xi'e and continued negotiating with him, finally agreeing to his terms. Peng realized this, and went to Ma Xiguang, stating to him, "Xu Keqiong is about to commit treason. Everyone knows this. Please immediately execute him to stop this." Ma Xiguang, not believing Peng, responded, "He is Chancellor Xu's son. How would this happen?" Peng left his presence and lamented, but could do nothing else further.
Early in the morning on January 21, 951, Ma Xi'e's officer He Jingzhen (), seeing that Han's flags were in disarray, believed that that was a sign that Han's army was in disarray, and therefore launched an attack against Han. Han's army was defeated, and Han died from injuries. The Wuping army then used the opportunity to make a fierce assault on Changsha. Ma Xiguang's other infantry commander, Wu Hong (), and Yang Di (), fought hard to try to resist the Wuping army's assault from the early morning to noon, but eventually, Yang's army was worn out, without any aid coming from either Xu or another commander Liu Yantao (). Ma Xi'e's non-Han soldiers set fire to Changsha's east wall, and when the defenders requested that Xu come to their aid, Xu instead surrendered to Ma Xi'e, and Changsha thereafter fell. Ma Xi'e seized the throne, and subsequently forced Ma Xiguang to commit suicide.
After Ma Xi'e's victory.
Ma Xi'e, after his victory, neither carried out his promise to Xu Keqiong (to divide Chu among them) nor gave him any particular rewards. Suspecting that Xu would resent him, he sent Xu out to Meng Prefecture (蒙州, in modern Wuzhou, Guangxi) to serve as its prefect. Meanwhile, Ma Xi'e also sent the general Peng Yanhui () to Jingjiang Circuit (靜江, headquartered in modern Guilin, Guangxi) to take control of the circuit, drawing resentment from his younger brother Ma Xiyin, who was then the deputy military governor of the circuit. Ma Xiyin secretly summoned Xu to come to Gui to oppose Peng with him. Xu thereafter arrived at Gui and defeated Peng in battle; Peng abandoned Gui and fled to Hengshan (衡山, in modern Hengyang, Hunan), where Ma Xi'e was at that time after being overthrown by another brother, Ma Xichong. Xu stayed at Gui, in alliance with Ma Xiyin.
However, with Xu having abandoned Meng, the Southern Han general Wu Huai'en () seized it and proceeded to approach Jingjiang's capital Gui Prefecture (), pillaging the circuit at will. Meanwhile, Ma Xichong, finding his own position untenable, surrendered the remaining parts of the Chu realm that he still had control over to Southern Tang, leaving Ma Xiyin without possible reinforcements from Chu proper. Ma Xiyin and Xu did not know what to do, and then spent time drinking and crying together. Ma Xiyin considered surrendering to Southern Han, but could not resolve to do so. When Wu quickly reached Gui Prefecture, Ma Xiyin and Xu instead abandoned it and fled to Quan Prefecture (全州, in modern Guilin). Xu died at Quan thereafter. |
Rafina
Rafina () is a suburban port town located on the eastern coast of Attica in Greece. It has a population of 13,091 inhabitants (2011 census). Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Rafina-Pikermi, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 18.979 km2. It is part of Athens metropolitan area.
Geography.
Rafina lies on the Aegean Sea coast, east of the Penteli mountains and northeast of the Mesogaia plain. It is north of Artemida, south of Nea Makri and east of Athens city centre. The municipal unit of Rafina contains, besides the city itself, a large portion of the surrounding area, which is mostly woodland and farmland. The only other town is Kallitechnoupoli with a population of 923.
The town can be accessed through Greek National Road 54 (Athens – Rafina), Greek National Road 83 (Athens – Marathon – Rafina) and Greek National Road 85 (Lavrio – Rafina).
Rafina is a port town serving ferries to the southern part of Euboea as well as most of the Cyclades. Its port acts as the second port of Athens, after the Athens's port of Piraeus, but it will probably be superseded by the one in Lavrio, which is currently being expanded.
History.
Prehistory.
Rafina was inhabited in prehistoric times. The oldest finds are from the Neolithic Period, and a large number date from the Bronze Age (3,000 years B.C.), discovered by the excavations of Dimitrios Theocharis in '50s: a settlement on the hill above the port, bronze processing facilities near the delta of the Great Stream, and a Protohelladic Akropolis in the cape of Askitario which you can visit today.
Antiquity and later.
In ancient times, Rafina was one of the 100 demes of Athens as defined by Kleisthenes. The municipality was called "Araphen", after its first ruler, Arafinas, who was one of the 100 heroes of Attica. In the municipality of Arafin, lived one of the ten breeds of Attica. Also, the area near the sea till Artemida, called "Halae Araphenides" is where Orestis and Ifigenia arrived from Tavrida according to the myth.
From later centuries, excavations discovered Roman baths and the remains of a Byzantine Church.
Modern period and settlement of Triglian refugees.
After the defeat of the Greek army in the Minor Asia (1922), many refugees arrived in Greece. Some of them arrived in the area by Triglia, with ships owned by Filippos Kabounides, a Triglian shipowner, who arrived at the time of the destruction to save people and heirlooms.
A year later (August 29, 1923), Kabounides' ships brought to Rafina refugees who have lived in Tenedos for one year. After a few months, the first houses of the new refugee settlement were built and were located at the Skouze's estate that was given to the refugees. Also, around the area of the square, small shops were built and given to shop owners.
Six years later (1929), Rafina became a community.
Expansion.
During the 1950s, Pantovasilissa's church was built in remembrance of the Byzantine church in Triglia which held the same name. At its forecourt was erected a statue of the metropolite of Smyrni, Chrysostomos, who was killed by the Turks during the destruction. Many years later, people in Rafina built a little church to his memory.
When Triglians arrived from Asia Minor, they brought many things from their old country, the most important being "Panagia Episkepsis", a hagiography created during the 14th century A.D., which one can now see in the Byzantine Museum in Athens. A copy can be found in the city hall of Rafina.
Many heirlooms can be found in the Refugee Museum "Triglia's House", where visitors can see many originals or their copies.
World War II.
During the Second World War, and during the German Occupation, German and Italian armies were installed in Rafina. Important projects for the guarding and the vallation of the area were built at the port, along the seaside and on the hill that was since named "Fort".
Rafina Today.
In 1994, Rafina became a municipality and its first mayor was Andreas Kechagioglou, who kept his office until November 2011 when Rafina integrated with Pikermi as part of the Kallikratis plan. Following the planned municipal elections, Giorgios Christopoulos was elected Mayor for the new municipality of Rafina and Pikermi. During the past few years, the town has advanced significantly. Its population reaches about 12,000 people, and climbs to 30,000–50,000 during the summer. During the summer, many events take part in the town such as the "August's Moon", which takes place in August when the last full moon of August occurs. During this day, many musicians gather outside the church of St. Nikolaos and sing songs about the moon.
Rafina suffered damage from a forest fire in July 2005 and again in 2018.
Culture.
Sports.
Rafina is the seat of two football clubs with presence in third national division (Gamma Ethniki), Triglia Rafina, club founded in 1932 by refugees, and Thyella Rafina, club founded in 1957.
International relations.
Rafina is twinned with: |
International Ultraviolet Explorer
International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE or Explorer 57, formerly SAS-D), was the first space observatory primarily designed to take ultraviolet (UV) electromagnetic spectrum. The satellite was a collaborative project between NASA, the United Kingdom's Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC, formerly UKSRC) and the European Space Agency (ESA), formerly European Space Research Organisation (ESRO). The mission was first proposed in early 1964, by a group of scientists in the United Kingdom, and was launched on 26 January 1978 aboard a NASA Thor-Delta 2914 launch vehicle. The mission lifetime was initially set for 3 years, but in the end it lasted 18 years, with the satellite being shut down in 1996. The switch-off occurred for financial reasons, while the telescope was still functioning at near original efficiency.
It was the first space observatory to be operated in real time by astronomers who visited the groundstations in the United States and Europe. Astronomers made over 104,000 observations using the IUE, of objects ranging from Solar System bodies to distant quasars. Among the significant scientific results from IUE data were the first large scale studies of stellar winds, accurate measurements of the way interstellar dust absorbs light, and measurements of the supernova SN 1987A which showed that it defied stellar evolution theories as they then stood. When the mission ended, it was considered the most successful astronomical satellite ever.
History.
Motivation.
The human eye can perceive light with wavelengths between roughly 350 (violet) and 700 (red) nanometres. Ultraviolet light has wavelengths between roughly 10-nm and 350-nm. UV light can be harmful to human beings, and is strongly absorbed by the ozone layer. This makes it impossible to observe UV emission from astronomical objects from the ground. Many types of object emit copious quantities of UV radiation, though: the hottest and most massive stars in the universe can have surface temperatures high enough that the vast majority of their light is emitted in the UV. Active Galactic Nuclei, accretion disks, and supernovae all emit UV radiation strongly, and many chemical elements have strong absorption lines in the UV, so that UV absorption by the interstellar medium provides a powerful tool for studying its composition.
Ultraviolet astronomy was impossible before the Space Age, and some of the first space telescopes were UV telescopes designed to observe this previously inaccessible region of the electromagnetic spectrum. One particular success was the second Orbiting Astronomical Observatory (OAO-2), which had a number of UV telescopes on board. It was launched in 1968, and took the first UV observations of 1200 objects, mostly stars. The success of OAO-2 motivated astronomers to consider larger missions.
Conception.
The orbiting ultraviolet satellite which ultimately became the IUE mission was first proposed in 1964 by British astronomer Robert Wilson. The European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) was planning a "Large Astronomical Satellite" (LAS), and had sought proposals from the astronomical community for its aims and design. Wilson headed a British team which proposed an ultraviolet spectrograph, and their design was recommended for acceptance in 1966.
However, management problems and cost overruns led to the cancellation of the LAS program in 1968. Wilson's team scaled down their plans and submitted a more modest proposal to ESRO, but this was not selected as the Cosmic Ray satellite was given precedence. Rather than give up on the idea of an orbiting UV telescope, they instead sent their plans to NASA astronomer Leo Goldberg, and in 1973 the plans were approved. The proposed telescope was renamed the "International Ultraviolet Explorer".
Design and aims.
The telescope was designed from the start to be operated in real time, rather than by remote control. This required that it would be launched into a geosynchronous orbit – that is, one with a period equal to one sidereal day of 23h 56m. A satellite in such an orbit remains visible from a given point on the Earth's surface for many hours at a time, and can thus transmit to a single ground station for a long period of time. Most space observatories in Earth orbit, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, are in a low Earth orbit in which they spend most of their time operating autonomously because only a small fraction of the Earth's surface can see them at a given time. Hubble, for example, orbits the Earth at an altitude of approximately , while a geosynchronous orbit has an average altitude of .
As well as allowing continuous communications with ground stations, a geosynchronous orbit also allows a larger portion of the sky to be viewed continuously. Because the distance from Earth is greater, the Earth occupies a much smaller portion of the sky as seen from the satellite than it does from low Earth orbit.
A launch into a geosynchronous orbit requires much more energy for a given weight of payload than a launch into low Earth orbit. This meant that the telescope had to be relatively small, with a primary mirror, and a total weight of . Hubble, in comparison, weighs 11.1 tonnes and has a mirror. The largest ground-based telescope, the Gran Telescopio Canarias, has a primary mirror across. A smaller mirror means less light-gathering power, and less spatial resolution, compared to a larger mirror.
The stated aims of the telescope at the start of the mission were:
Construction and engineering.
The telescope was constructed as a joint project between NASA, ESRO (which became ESA in 1975) and the United Kingdom's SERC. SERC provided the Vidicon cameras for the spectrographs as well as software for the scientific instruments. ESA provided the solar arrays to power the spacecraft as well as a ground observing facility in Villafranca del Castillo, Spain. NASA contributed the telescope, spectrograph, and spacecraft as well as launching facilities and a second ground observatory in Greenbelt, Maryland at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC).
According to the agreement setting up the project the observing time would be divided between the contributing agencies with 2/3 to NASA, 1/6 to ESA and 1/6 to the UK's SERC.
Mirror.
The telescope mirror was a reflector of the Ritchey–Chrétien telescope type, which has hyperbolic primary and secondary mirrors. The primary was across. The telescope was designed to give high quality images over a 16 arcminute field of view (about half the apparent diameter of the Sun or Moon). The primary mirror was made of beryllium, and the secondary of fused silica – materials chosen for their light weight, moderate cost, and optical quality.
Instruments.
The instrumentation on board consisted of the Fine Error Sensors (FES), which were used for pointing and guiding the telescope, a high resolution and a low resolution spectrograph, and four detectors.
There were two Fine Error Sensors (FES), and their first purpose was to image the field of view of the telescope in visible light. They could detect stars down to 14th magnitude, about 1500 times fainter than can be seen with the naked eye from Earth. The image was transmitted to the ground station, where the observer would verify that the telescope was pointing at the correct field, and then acquire the exact object to be observed. If the object to be observed was fainter than 14th magnitude, the observer would point the telescope at a star that could be seen, and then apply "blind" offsets, determined from the coordinates of the objects. The accuracy of the pointing was generally better than 2 arcsecond for blind offsets
The FES acquisition images were the telescope's only imaging capability; for UV observations, it only recorded spectrum. For this, it was equipped with two spectrographs. They were called the Short Wavelength Spectrograph (SWS) and the Long Wavelength Spectrograph (LWS), and covered wavelength ranges of 115 to 200 nanometres and 185 to 330-nm respectively. Each spectrograph had both high and low resolution modes, with spectral resolutions of 0.02 and 0.60-nm respectively.
The spectrographs could be used with either of two apertures. The larger aperture was a slot with a field of view roughly 10 × 20 arcsecond; the smaller aperture was a circle about 3 arcsecond in diameter. The quality of the telescope optics was such that point sources appeared about 3 arcsecond across, so use of the smaller aperture required very accurate pointing, and it did not necessarily capture all of the light from the object. The larger aperture was therefore most commonly used, and the smaller aperture only used when the larger field of view would have contained unwanted emission from other objects.
There were two cameras for each spectrograph, one designated the primary and the second being redundant in case of failure of the first. The cameras were named LWP, LWR, SWP and SWR where P stands for prime, R for redundant and LW/SW for long/short wavelength. The cameras were television cameras, sensitive only to visible light, and light gathered by the telescope and spectrographs first fell on a UV-to-visible converter. This was a caesium-tellurium cathode, which was inert when exposed to visible light, but which gave off electrons when struck by UV photons due to the photoelectric effect. The electrons were then detected by the TV cameras. The signal could be integrated for up to many hours, before being transmitted to Earth at the end of the exposure.
Mission.
Launch.
The IUE was launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida on a Thor-Delta launch vehicle, on 26 January 1978. It was launched into a transfer orbit, from which its on-board launch vehicle fired it into its planned geosynchronous orbit. The orbit was inclined by 28.6° to the Earth's equator, and had an orbital eccentricity of 0.24, meaning that the satellite's distance from Earth varied between and . The ground track was initially centred at a longitude of approximately 70° West.
Commissioning.
The first 60 days of the mission were designated as the commissioning period. This was divided into three main stages. Firstly, as soon as its instruments were switched on, the IUE observed a small number of high priority objects, to ensure that some data had been taken in the event of an early failure. The first spectrum, of the star Eta Ursae Majoris, was taken for calibration purposes three days after launch. The first science observations targeted objects including the Moon, the planets from Mars to Uranus, hot stars including Eta Carinae, cool giant stars including Epsilon Eridani, the black hole candidate Cygnus X-1, and galaxies including Messier 81 (M81) and Messier 87 (M87).
Then, the spacecraft systems were tested and optimised. The telescope was focussed, and the prime and redundant cameras in both channels were tested. It was found that the SWR camera did not work properly, and so the SWP camera was used throughout the mission. Initially, this camera suffered from significant electronic noise, but this was traced to a sensor used to align the telescope after launch. Once this sensor was switched off, the camera performed as expected. The cameras were then adjusted for best performance, and the slewing and guiding performance of the telescope evaluated and optimised
Finally, image quality and spectral resolution were studied and characterised, and the performance of the telescope, spectrographs and cameras were calibrated using observations of well-known stars. After these three phases were completed, the "routine phase" of operations began on 3 April 1978. Optimisation, evaluation and calibration operations were far from complete, but the telescope was understood well enough for routine science observations to begin.
Usage.
Use of the telescope was divided between NASA, ESA and United Kingdom in approximate proportion to their relative contributions to the satellite construction: two thirds of the time was available to NASA, and one sixth each to ESA and United Kingdom. Telescope time was obtained by submitting proposals, which were reviewed annually. Each of the three agencies considered applications separately for its allocated observing time. Astronomers of any nationality could apply for telescope time, choosing whichever agency they preferred to apply to. If an astronomer was awarded time, then when their observations were scheduled, they would travel to the ground stations which operated the satellite, so that they could see and evaluate their data as it was taken. This mode of operation was very different from most space facilities, for which data is taken with no real time input from the astronomer concerned, and instead resembled the use of ground-based telescopes.
Ground support.
For most of its lifetime, the telescope was operated in three eight-hour shifts each day, two from the U.S. ground station at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, and one from the ESA ground station at Villanueva de la Cañada near Madrid. Because of its elliptical orbit, the spacecraft spent part of each day in the Van Allen radiation belts, during which time science observations suffered from higher background noise. This time occurred during the second U.S. shift each day, and was generally used for calibration observations and spacecraft "housekeeping", as well as for science observations that could be done with short exposure times. The twice-daily transatlantic handovers required telephone contact between Spain and the U.S. to coordinate the switch. Observations were not coordinated between the stations, so that the astronomers taking over after the handover would not know where the telescope would be pointing when their shift started. This sometimes meant that observing shifts started with a lengthy pointing manoeuvre, but allowed maximum flexibility in scheduling of observing blocks.
Data transmission.
Data was transmitted to Earth in real time at the end of each science observation. The camera read-out formed an image of 768 × 768 pixels, and the analogue-to-digital converter resulted in a dynamic range of 8 bits. The data was then transmitted to Earth via one of six transmitters on the spacecraft; four were S-band transmitters, placed at points around the spacecraft such that no matter what its attitude, one could transmit to the ground, and two were Very high frequency (VHF) transmitters, which could sustain a lower bandwidth, but consumed less power, and also transmitted in all directions. The VHF transmitters were used when the spacecraft was in the Earth's shadow and thus reliant on battery power instead of solar power.
In normal operations, observers could hold the telescope in position and wait approximately 20 minutes for the data to be transmitted, if they wanted the option of repeating the observation, or they could slew to the next target and then start the data transmission to Earth while observing the next target. The data transmitted were used for "quick look" purposes only, and full calibration was carried out by IUE staff later. Astronomers were then sent their data on magnetic tape by post, about a week after processing. From the date of the observation, the observers had a six-month proprietary period during which only they had access to the data. After six months, it became public.
Scientific results.
The IUE allowed astronomers their first view of the ultraviolet light from many celestial objects, and was used to study objects ranging from Solar System planets to distant quasars. During its lifetime, hundreds of astronomers observed with IUE, and during its first decade of operations, over 1500 peer reviewed scientific articles based on IUE data were published. Nine symposia of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) were devoted to discussions of IUE results.
Solar System.
All the planets in the Solar System except Mercury were observed; the telescope could not point at any part of the sky within 45° of the Sun, and Mercury's greatest angular distance from the Sun is only about 28°. IUE observations of Venus showed that the amount of sulfur monoxide and sulfur dioxide in its atmosphere declined by a large amount during the 1980s. The reason for this decline is not yet fully understood, but one hypothesis is that a large volcanic eruption had injected sulfur compounds into the atmosphere, and that they were declining following the end of the eruption.
Halley's Comet reached perihelion in 1986, and was observed intensively with the IUE, as well as with a large number of other ground-based and satellite missions. UV spectra were used to estimate the rate at which the comet lost dust and gas, and the IUE observations allowed astronomers to estimate that a total of 3×108 tons of water evaporated from the comet during its passage through the inner Solar System.
Stars.
Some of the most significant results from IUE came in the studies of hot stars. A star that is hotter than about 10,000 K emits most of its radiation in the UV, and thus if it can only be studied in visible light, a large amount of information is being lost. The vast majority of all stars are cooler than the Sun, but the fraction that is hotter includes massive, highly luminous stars which shed enormous quantities of matter into interstellar space, and also white dwarf stars, which are the end stage of stellar evolution for the vast majority of all stars and which have temperatures as high as 100,000 K when they first form.
The IUE discovered many instances of white dwarf companions to main sequence stars. An example of this kind of system is Sirius, and at visible wavelengths the main sequence star is far brighter than the white dwarf. However, in the UV, the white dwarf can be as bright or brighter, as its higher temperature means it emits most of its radiation at these shorter wavelengths. In these systems, the white dwarf was originally the heavier star, but has shed most of its mass during the later stages of its evolution. Binary stars provide the only direct way to measure the mass of stars, from observations of their orbital motions. Thus, observations of binary stars where the two components are at such different stages of stellar evolution can be used to determine the relationship between the mass of stars and how they evolve.
Stars with masses of around ten times that of the Sun or higher have powerful stellar winds. The Sun loses about 10−14 solar masses per year in its solar wind, which travels at up to around , but the massive stars can lose as much as a billion times more material each year in winds travelling at several thousand kilometres per second. These stars exist for a few million years, and during this time the stellar wind carries away a significant fraction of their mass, and plays a crucial role in determining whether they explode as supernova or not. This stellar mass loss was first discovered using rocket-borne telescopes in the 1960s, but the IUE allowed astronomers to observe a very large number of stars, allowing the first proper studies of how stellar mass loss is related to mass and luminosity.
SN 1987A.
In 1987, a star in the Large Magellanic Cloud exploded as a supernova. Designated SN 1987A, this event was of enormous importance to astronomy, as it was the closest known supernova to Earth, and the first visible to the naked eye, since Kepler's star in 1604 – before the invention of the telescope. The opportunity to study a supernova so much more closely than had ever been possible before triggered intense observing campaigns at all major astronomical facilities, and the first IUE observations were made about 14 hours after the discovery of the supernova.
IUE data were used to determine that the progenitor star had been a blue supergiant, where theory had strongly expected a red supergiant. Hubble Space Telescope images revealed a nebula surrounding the progenitor star which consisted of mass lost by the star long before it exploded; IUE studies of this material showed that it was rich in nitrogen, which is formed in the CNO cycle – a chain of nuclear reactions which produces most of the energy emitted by stars much more massive than the Sun. Astronomers inferred that the star had been a red supergiant, and had shed a large amount of matter into space, before evolving into a blue supergiant and exploding.
The interstellar medium.
The IUE was used extensively to investigate the interstellar medium (ISM). The ISM is normally observed by looking at background sources such as hot stars or quasars; interstellar material absorbs some of the light from the background source and so its composition and velocity can be studied. One of IUE's early discoveries was that the Milky Way is surrounded by a vast halo of hot gas, known as a galactic corona. The hot gas, heated by cosmic rays and supernova, extends several thousand light years above and below the plane of the Milky Way.
IUE data was also crucial in determining how the light from distant sources is affected by dust along the line of sight. Almost all astronomical observations are affected by this interstellar extinction, and correcting for it is the first step in most analyses of astronomical spectra and images. IUE data was used to show that within the galaxy, interstellar extinction can be well described by a few simple equations. The relative variation of extinction with wavelength shows little variation with direction; only the absolute amount of absorption changes. Interstellar absorption in other galaxies can similarly be described by fairly simple "laws".
Active Galactic Nuclei.
The IUE vastly increased astronomers' understanding of active galactic nuclei (AGN). Before its launch, 3C 273, the first known quasar, was the only AGN that had ever been observed at UV wavelengths. With IUE, UV spectra of AGN became widely available.
One particular target was NGC 4151, the brightest Seyfert galaxy. Starting soon after IUE's launch, a group of European astronomers pooled their observing time to repeatedly observe the galaxy, to measure variations over time of its UV emission. They found that the UV variation was much greater than that seen at optical and infrared wavelengths. IUE observations were used to study the black hole at the centre of the galaxy, with its mass being estimated at between 50 and 100 million times that of the Sun. The UV emission varied on timescales of a few days, implying that the region of emission was only a few light days across.
Quasar observations were used to probe intergalactic space. Clouds of hydrogen gas in between the Earth and a given quasar will absorb some of its emission at the wavelength of Lyman alpha. Because the clouds and the quasar are all at different distances from Earth, and moving at different velocities due to the expansion of the universe, the quasar spectrum has a "forest" of absorption features at wavelengths shorter than its own Lyman alpha emission. Before IUE, observations of this so-called Lyman-alpha forest were limited to very distant quasars, for which the redshift caused by the expansion of the universe brought it into optical wavelengths. IUE allowed nearer quasars to be studied, and astronomers used this data to determine that there are fewer hydrogen clouds in the nearby universe than there are in the distant universe. The implication is that over time, these clouds have formed into galaxies.
Ultraviolet Spectrograph Package.
This experiment included the ultraviolet spectrograph package carried by the IUE, consisting of two physically distinct echelle-spectrograph/camera units capable of astronomical observations. Each spectrograph was a three-element echelle system composed of an off-axis paraboloidal collimator, an echelle grating, and a spherical first-order grating that was used to separate the echelle orders and focus the spectral display on an image converter plus SEC Vidicon camera. There was a spare camera for each unit. The camera units were able to integrate the signal. The readout/preparation cycle for the cameras took approximately 20 minutes. Wavelength calibration was provided by the use of a hollow cathode comparison lamp. The photometric calibration was accomplished by observing standard stars whose spectral fluxes had previously been calibrated by other means. Both echelle-spectrograph/camera units were capable of high-resolution (0.1 Angstrom (A)) or low-resolution (6 A) performance. The dual high/low-resolution capability was implemented by the insertion of a flat mirror in front of the echelle grating, so that the only dispersion was provided by the spherical grating. As the SEC Vidicons could integrate the signal for up to many hours, data with a signal-to-noise ratio of 50 could be obtained for B0 stars of 9th and 14th magnitudes in the high- and low-resolution modes, respectively. The distinguishing characteristic of the units was their wavelength coverage. One unit covered the wavelength range from 1192 to 1924 A in the high-resolution mode and 1135 to 2085 A in the low-resolution mode. For the other unit, the ranges were from 1893 to 3031 A and 1800 to 3255 A for the high-and low-resolution modes, respectively. Each unit also had its own choice of entrance apertures: either a 3-arcsecond hole or a 10- by 20-arcsecond slot. The 10- by 20-arcsecond slots could be blocked by a common shutter, but the 3-arcsecond aperture was always open. As a result, two aperture configurations were possible: (1) both 3-arcsecond apertures open and both 10- by 20-arcsecond slots closed, or (2) all four apertures open. With this instrumentation, the observational options open to an observer were long-wavelength and/or short-wavelength spectrograph, high or low resolution, and large or small apertures. Exposures could be made with the two spectrographs simultaneously, but the entrance apertures for each were distinct and separated in the sky by about 1 arcminute. An additional restriction was that data could be read out from only one camera at a time. However, one camera could be exposed while the other camera was being read out. The choice of high or low resolution could be made independently for the two spectrographs.
Particle Flux Monitor (Spacecraft).
The particle flux monitor experiment was placed in IUE to monitor the trapped electron fluxes that affected the sensitivity of the ultraviolet sensor in the IUE spectrograph package experiment, NSSDC ID 1978-012A-01. The particle flux monitor was a lithium-drifted silicon detector with a half-angle conical field of view of 16°. It had an aluminum absorber of 0.357 g/cm2 in front of the collimator and a brass shield with a minimum thickness of 2.31 g/cm2. The effective energy threshold for electron measurements was 1.3 MeV. The experiment was also sensitive to protons with energies greater than 15 MeV. The instrument was used as an operational tool to aid in determining background radiation and acceptable camera exposure time. The data were also useful as a monitor of the trapped radiation fluxes. The instrument was provided by Dr. C. Bostrom of the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University. The instrument was turned off on 4 October 1991 because it was giving erroneous information.
Mission termination.
The IUE was designed to have a minimum lifetime of three years, and carried consumable sufficient for a five-year mission. However, it lasted far longer than its design called for. Occasional hardware failures caused difficulties, but innovative techniques were devised to overcome them. For example, the spacecraft was equipped with six gyroscopes to stabilise the spacecraft. Successive failures of these in 1979, 1982, 1983, 1985 and 1996 ultimately left the spacecraft with a single functional gyroscope. Telescope control was maintained with two gyros by using the telescope's Sun sensor to determine the spacecraft's attitude, and stabilisation in three axes proved possible even after the fifth failure, by using the Sun sensor, the Fine Error Sensors and the single remaining gyroscope. Most other parts of the telescope systems remained fully functional throughout the mission.
In 1995, budget concerns at NASA almost led to the termination of the mission, but instead the operations responsibilities were redivided, with ESA taking control for 16 hours a day, and GSFC for the remaining 8 only. The ESA 16 hours was used for science operations, while the GSFC 8 hours was used only for maintenance. In February 1996, further budget cuts led ESA to decide that it would no longer maintain the satellite. Operations ceased on 30 September 1996, and all the remaining hydrazine was discharged, the batteries were drained and switched off, and at 18:44 UTC on 30 September 1996, the radio transmitter was shut down and all contact with the spacecraft was lost.
It continues to orbit the Earth in its geosynchronous orbit, and will continue to do so more or less indefinitely as it is far above the upper reaches of the atmosphere of Earth. Anomalies in the Earth's gravity due to its non-spherical shape meant that the telescope tended to drift West from its original location at approximately 70°W longitude towards approximately 110°W. During the mission, this drift was corrected by occasional rocket firings, but since the end of the mission the satellite has drifted uncontrolled to the West of its former location.
Archives.
The IUE archive is one of the most heavily used astronomical archives. Data were archived from the start of the mission, and access to the archive was free to anyone who wished to use it. However, in the early years of the mission, long before the advent of the World Wide Web and fast global data transmission links, access to the archive required a visit in person to one of two Regional Data Analysis Facilities (RDAFs), one at the University of Colorado and the other at GSFC.
In 1987, it became possible to access the archive electronically, by dialling into a computer at Goddard Space Flight Center. The archive, then totalling 23 Gb of data, was connected to the computer on a mass storage device. A single user at a time could dial in, and would be able to retrieve an observation in 10–30 seconds.
As the mission entered its second decade, plans were made for its final archive. Throughout the mission, calibration techniques were improved, and the final software for data reduction yielded significant improvements over earlier calibrations. Eventually, the entire set of available raw data was recalibrated using the final version of the data reduction software, creating a uniform high quality archive. Today, the archive is hosted at the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes at Space Telescope Science Institute and is available via the World Wide Web and APIs.
Impact on astronomy.
The IUE mission, by virtue of its very long duration and the fact that for most of its lifetime it provided astronomers' only access to UV light, had a major impact on astronomy. By the end of its mission it was considered by far the most successful and productive space observatory mission. For many years after the end of the mission, its archive was the most heavily used dataset in astronomy, and IUE data has been used in over 250 PhD projects worldwide. Almost 4,000 peer-reviewed papers have now been published based on IUE data, including some of the most cited astronomy papers of all time. The most cited paper based on IUE data is one analysing the nature of interstellar reddening, which has subsequently been cited over 5,500 times.
The Hubble Space Telescope has now been in orbit for 31 years (as of 2021) and Hubble data has been used in almost 10,000 peer-reviewed publications at that time. In 2009, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph was installed on HST by astronauts launched with the instrument by the Space Shuttle, and this device records ultraviolet spectrum, thus proving some ultraviolet observation ability in this period. Another ultraviolet space telescope, quite different in focus, was the wide-angle imaging GALEX space telescope operated between 2003 and 2013.
Some telescope visions such as Habex or Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope (ATLAST) have included an ultraviolet capability, although its not clear if they have any real prospects. In the 2010s, many telescope projects were struggling, and even some ground observatories saw their potential for being shut down ostensibly to save budget. |
Yuval Ne'eman
Yuval Ne'eman (, 14 May 1925 – 26 April 2006) was an Israeli theoretical physicist, military scientist, and politician. He was Minister of Science and Development in the 1980s and early 1990s. He was the President of Tel Aviv University from 1971 to 1977. He was awarded the Israel Prize in the field of exact sciences (which he returned in 1992 in protest of the award of the Israel Prize to Emile Habibi), the Albert Einstein Award, the Wigner Medal, and the EMET Prize for Arts, Sciences and Culture.
Biography.
Yuval Ne'eman was born in Tel Aviv during the Mandate era, graduated from high school at the age of 15, and studied mechanical engineering at the Technion.
At the age of 15, Ne'eman also joined the Haganah. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War Ne'eman served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as battalion deputy commander, then as Operations Officer of Tel Aviv, and commander of Givati Brigade.
Later (1952–54) he served as Deputy Commander of Operations Department of General Staff, Commander of the Planning Department of the IDF. In this role, he helped organize the IDF into a reservist-based army, developed the mobilization system, and wrote the first draft of Israel's defense doctrine.
Between 1958 and 1960 Ne'eman was IDF Attaché in Great Britain, where he also studied for a PhD in physics under the supervision of 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics winner Abdus Salam at Imperial College London. In 1961, he was demobilized from the IDF with a rank of colonel.
In 1981, Ne'eman became a founding member of the World Cultural Council.
Between 1998 and 2002 Ne'eman was the head of the Israeli Engineer Association
Scientific career.
One of his greatest achievements in physics was his 1961 discovery of the classification of hadrons through the SU(3) flavour symmetry, now named the "Eightfold Way", which was also proposed independently by Murray Gell-Mann. This SU(3) symmetry laid the foundation of the quark model, proposed by Gell-Mann and George Zweig in 1964 (independently of each other).
Ne'eman was founder and director of the School of Physics and Astronomy at Tel Aviv University from 1965 to 1972, President of Tel Aviv University from 1971 to 1977 (following George S. Wise, and succeeded by Haim Ben-Shahar), and director of its Sackler Institute of Advanced Studies from 1979 to 1997. He was also the co-director (along with Sudarshan) of the Center for Particle Theory at the University of Texas, Austin from 1968 to 1990. He was a strong believer in the importance of space research and satellites to Israel's economic future and security, and thus founded the Israel Space Agency in 1983, which he chaired almost until his death. He also served on the Israel Atomic Energy Commission from 1965 to 1984 and held the position of scientific director in its Soreq facility. Nee'man was chief scientist of the Defense Ministry from 1974 to 1976.
He was described as "one of the most colorful figures of modern science" and co-authored "The Particle Hunters", which was published in English in 1986. "The Times Literary Supplement" hailed this book as "the best guide to quantum physics at present available".
Awards and honours.
He was also awarded with the College de France Medal and the Officer's Cross of the French Order of Merit (Paris, 1972), the Wigner Medal (Istanbul-Austin, 1982), Birla Science Award (Hyderabad, 1998) and additional prizes and honorary doctorates from universities in Europe and USA.
Political career.
In the late 1970s, Ne'eman founded Tehiya, a right-wing breakaway from Likud, formed in opposition to Menachem Begin's support for the Camp David talks that paved the way for peace with Egypt and the evacuation of Yamit. He was elected to the Knesset in the 1981 elections in which Tehiya won three seats. The party joined Begin's coalition about a year after the elections and Ne'eman was appointed Minister of Science and Development, the role later changed to Minister of Science and Technology.
He retained his seat in the 1984 elections, but Tehiya were not included in the grand coalition formed by the Alignment and Likud. After the 1988 elections, Tehiya were again excluded from the governing coalition. Ne'eman resigned from the Knesset on 31 January 1990 and was replaced by Gershon Shafat. However, Tehiya joined the government in June after the Alignment had left, and he was appointed Minister of Energy and Infrastructure and Minister of Science and Technology despite not retaking his seat in the Knesset. He lost his ministerial position following the 1992 elections and did not return to politics.
Death.
He died at age 80, on 26 April 2006 in the Ichilov Hospital, Tel Aviv, from a stroke. He left a wife, Dvora; a son and daughter; and a sister, Ruth Ben-Yisrael. |
Sant Tukaram (film)
Sant Tukaram ("Sant Tukārām"), also known as Saint Tukaram, is a 1936 Marathi film, produced by Prabhat Film Company and based on the life of Tukaram (1608–50), a prominent Varkari saint and spiritual poet of the Bhakti movement in India. The film was directed by Vishnupant Govind Damle and Sheikh Fattelal and featured Vishnupant Pagnis in the lead role of the saint.
"Sant Tukaram" is revered as a great Indian film. It was one of the first Indian films to receive international recognition. It was adjudged one of the three best films of the world at the Venice Film Festival and was showcased in other international film festivals. It was a runaway success and broke the box office records by being the first Indian film to run in a single theatre for more than a year. It was Prabhat's and Pagnis's most famous film and became the archetype for devotional film.
Plot.
Set in 17th century Dehu, Maharashtra, Tukaram - a farmer and grocer - loses interest in the material world after losing his first wife and child in a famine. He neglects his worldly duties to his second wife Jijai (Awali) and their two children. The Brahmin Salomalo is jealous of the religious following and popularity of the "shudra" (a caste lower than the Brahmin) saint. He claims that Tukaram stole his verses, and questions a shudra's right to examine the Hindu scriptures, Vedas, a right reserved for Brahmins (priest caste). Pandit Rameshwar Shastri, a learned Brahmin scholar and religious authority, is invited by Salomalo to examine his claims, which he backs by fabricating evidence. Shastri orders that Tukaram immerse his works into the river and never discuss religion in public. Tukaram complies and sits on a fast on the river bank with his family for thirteen days, when God returns him his works. Shastri falls seriously sick, which he interprets as divine retribution and becomes Tukaram's devotee. Salomalo then approaches the reigning king Shivaji, the founder of the Maratha Empire. When Shivaji tests Tukaram by offering material gifts, the saint refuses and in turn, Shivaji becomes a disciple too. Salomalo then informs the Mughals, Shivaji's enemies that the king was in town, but God protects Shivaji at behest of Tukaram, when the Mughals come to Dehu. His saintliness brought hordes of people from different regions of the state offering worship at his feet and also offering him huge gifts which could enrich him but he refuses to accept any kind of rewards. When Tukaram's work is done on earth, God comes to take him to heaven. Tukaram asks his wife to join, but she refuses as she has to look after the children.
The film also depicts various miracles of Tukaram like God visiting him, an army being created from Vithoba's image, showering of grains from the sky, curing a sick boy, retrieving his works from the river which was intentionally thrown there, and in the end, going to the heaven in a celestial chariot.
Cast.
The cast included:
Characters and casting.
The film is based on the life of Tukaram, one of the most revered saints of Maharashtra and a devotee of the god Vithoba (the patron of the Varkaris), who propagated a vision of Hindus living together with no distinction of class, creed and gender. He wrote religious poetry in Marathi, the vernacular language of Maharashtra, which had mass appeal. It touched the heart strings of the common people, particularly those who were downtrodden or oppressed by the Brahminical hegemony. His preaching, rendered in rhythmic poetry, thus had great mass appeal and was considered the beginning of an "emancipatory movement in the country." Tukaram through his devotional songs conveys a message to the people that offering prayers to God sincerely in one's own humble way was, like Vedic rituals, a way of worship. His devotional verses were selected for translation by UNESCO.
Pagnis was a kirtankar, a minstrel who sang devotional songs. Before being cast by V. Shantaram of the producer company Prabhat as Tukaram, Pagnis was a specialist actor in donning female roles in plays by his theatre group "Swadesh Hitinchal Mandali". His selection was initially resented by directors Damle and Fattelal as they felt uncomfortable with his effeminate mannerisms. But it proved to be a blessing as Pagnis adopted his feminine style to match the saintly role of Tukaram to the "T"; a saint whose verses reflect an urge towards God as a woman pines for her lover. Pagnis also did a dedicatory visit to the "samadhi" (memorial shrine) of Tukaram in Dehu, before starting shooting for the film. After the film was made, film critiques stated that Pagnis was ideal for the role as his face was an "iconic but also indexical of both actor and character."
Availabai, Tukaram's second wife (although the film makes no mention of his first wife), is portrayed as a hard-working village woman with a practical earthy sense. She is a practical woman who has to endure poverty because her husband is a pious and unworldly simpleton. She is often impatient because of this, but she understands and respects her husband for his saintly goodness, and also defers to him and acts according to his wishes at the end of every issue that arises. Though devoted to her husband, she is irritated by his devotional ways, but nevertheless always obeys Tukaram's unworldly, charitable wishes. She frequently loses her temper on Tukaram for ignoring the family needs to feed their children and their upkeep. In a famous scene, when their son is ill and there is no money for treatment, and Tukaram expresses the view that prayer and faith will see them through the crisis, an infuriated Availabai drags her son to the temple by one hand and holds a "chappal" (sandal) in her other hand to threaten Tukaram's patron God Vithoba with a beating for bringing her family into dire straits. A miracle follows and the son is cured instantly in the precincts of the temple.
Availabai routinely admonishes her husband, telling him that singing bhajans (devotional songs) alone will not sustain his family. However, she also maintains the dignity of her wifely obligations to her husband. In one of the most touching scenes of the film, when Tukaram wanders in the forest to praise God, (the song shown is "vrikshavalli amha"), Availabai follows him with a basket of food so that he will eat in time. She explains that just as Tukaram is following his God in the path "dharma" through the forest of life, she also is following 'her personal God (her husband Tukaram) in the path of "dharma" through this forest. She then playfully asks if his God is kinder or hers; does his God sit down to dine with his devotee the way her God is eating now? In the final scenes of the film, Tukaram has a premonition that he will be transported in his mortal body to heaven by God. He reveals this to Availabai and asks her to accompany him. Availabai receives this priceless communication with her usual caustic derision and goes about her duties, cooking "poli" (chapati) for dinner. A final miracle ensues and a heavenly chariot indeed appears to convey Tukaram to heaven. Availabai runs out of her kitchen and is blessed with a vision of her husband being flown from earth to the skies on this chariot. This is the end of the film.
Gauri, who played the part of Availabai, was not a professional actress. She started as a sweeper in Prabhat and worked as an extra in films, finally graduating to the main role segment.
Salomalo is a bigoted Brahmin village priest and the chief adversary of Tukaram, who tries to ostracise Tukaram time and again.
Salomalo, as the aspirant to the status of a great devotional poet (like Tukaram), is jealous of Tukaram and harasses him frequently. Salomalo's verses are in refined language, incomprehensible to unread villagers, contrasting with Tukaram's simple poetry, which quickly becomes popular. Salomalo is also shown to lack dignity, moving in awry motion as in a tamasha, against Tukaram's calm, composed nature. Salomalo's goal is not to surpass Tukaram in scholarship, but just to ruin him. He ridicules Tukaram's devotional poetry and parodies it into a vulgar version. He visits courtesans, a sign of "spiritual bankruptcy" and also the dancing girls' performances adds glamour to the film to sustain the audience's film experience.
Shastri, a learned Brahmin, is a contrast to Salomalo, an orthodox village Brahmin. Shivaji, the king – a symbol of worldly power, being a disciple of the saint satisfies Availabai's practical mind. Shivaji is antipole of Tukaram's lack of worldliness and Salomalo's unjust jealousy. The film captures the historical fact of the union of Shivaji and the Varkari sect.
Production.
"Sant Tukaram" was directed by Vishnupant Govind Damle and Sheikh Fattelal. The script was written by Shivram Washikar. It was produced at the Prabhat Film Company at Pune owned by V. Shantaram, a notable and internationally acclaimed film maker of India. The film was made in Marathi language. The running time is 131 minutes.
Two earlier films from 1932 tried to capture Tukaram's life, but were unsuccessful at the box office. While those focussed on the miracles of the saint, directors Damle and Fattelal tell the story of a saint who rose from the common folk, concentrating on his everyday life, with little importance given to miracles. Washikar said that he wrote the film as a "researcher" as well as a devotee, keeping in time that most of the audience of the genre of "sant" (saint) films are devotees and want a hagiographical telling, rather than complete historical accuracy.
Damle and Fattelal created the settings to ensure that the features of the actors were accentuated distinctly in the film by having minimum background settings and scenes, which was termed as "compositional style”. The film was made in neo-realistic style (a style which came into vogue much later in foreign films) and provided telling performances from all the artists but the most impressive, which won the hearts of the people, was that of Jijai, wife of Tukaram played by Gauri.
The filming is done in traditional style. After the title cards are presented, a song dedicated to Vithoba, seen as a black stone image, is presented. The song which begins with the title cards is also continued. The meditative shot of Tukaram gives a Bhakti ethos which is continued for about 2 minutes. This is followed by the saintly presence of Tukaram in a traditional pose, cross legged with folded hands and holding a musical instrument and with religious markings on his face. Sitting on the ground in deep meditation for a while, his singing merges with the background song. The song is one of the Tukaram's 4,000 verses and is aptly fitted with the devotional worship of Vithoba. The song's first stanza is "Panduranga Dhyani, Panduranga mani" (meaning "I meditate on the figure of Panduranaga (Vithoba); his thoughts fill my mind"). This is an "aradhana" (prayer) shot where the saint, the God and the audience are brought to the same ethereal plane of worship. The scene is set by the directors in a very "scopic aspect of the worship", the "mise en scène". In the scene that follows, the song is continued but is now sung in a theatrical style (Sangeet Natak style) by Tukaram's arch rival, the Brahmin priest Salomalo, in a temple setting. Salomalo claims that the song is his own composition and not that of Tukaram. With this scene, the story of the film starts with clever editing of scenes in which the two adversaries exchange claims to the song, in a shot reverse shot technique.
Music.
Most of the songs of the film were Tukaram's own verses, except one song by Shantaram Athavale, written so realistically in Tukaram's style of writing that confused scholars contacted the film makers to know more about the source.
The rendering of music had a telling impact on the audience, as the narration was poetic and devotional. The music score was provided by Keshavrao Bhole. He had moved to Prabhat Films with an impressive record of giving music scores for 14 films, in many languages. His music compositions adopted innovations by introducing piano, Hawaiian guitar, and violin. This blending is stated to have given a "catholic, modern and cerebral outlook to his film music" for his devotional films. For "Sant Tukaram", Bhole followed the traditional music style of the Varkari sect, which turned out to be innovative without sacrificing the traditional originality of the bhakti music. Damle was also an accomplished singer, and he rendered many songs in the film.
Release and reception.
The film was first released on 12 December 1936 at the Central Cinema hall in Bombay, now Mumbai.
"Sant Tukaram" was the first Indian film to receive international recognition. The film was screened at the 1937 Venice Film Festival (the 5th Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematographica) and was the first Indian entry to get a screening at an international film festival. The film was adjudged as one of the three best films of the World, the other two being "Maria Nover" of Hungary and "Flying Doctor" from Australia. However, the citation document was lost. It was reportedly discovered in 1974 by Sunny Joseph, a cinematographer, from Thiruvananthapuram, in a garbage can on Law College road in Pune. Joseph restored it to the National Film Archive of India, Pune for safekeeping on 23 March 2004. In 1982, the film made a very honoured re-entry on the occasion of the celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Mostra Internazionale del Cinema (La Biennale di Venezia), along with another Prabhat film "Duniya Na Mane"; when best films from previous festivals were screened.
The film was also selected to be screened at various other international film festivals. It was also viewed by the then Maharaja of Mysore and Lady Linlithgow, wife of Victor Hope, 2nd Marquess of Linlithgow, the then Viceroy of India. A special screening was also arranged for the foreign consulates in Mumbai.
The film is described to emphasize the Gandhian philosophy of non-violence. The Indian Motion Pictures Congress in its 1939 session praised the film as extolling the ethos of nationalism, Gandhian ideals and the devotional bhakti movement.
"Sant Tukaram" broke box office records by being the first Indian film to run in a single theatre for more than a year. It was then a runaway success and an all-time record for the time, as it ran for 57 weeks continually. The film was seen by 6 million people in Maharashtra alone. It drew hoards of people from across villages wherever it was shown. "Filmindia" (1941) records a screening in a village with a population of 300 having a crowd of 1,500 for the film. Film scholar and professor on Indian cinema Gayatri Chatterjee describes how "Sant Tukaram" has a spiritual effect on audience of all ages, sections of society, Indian or foreign. She specially narrates about the experience of a Canadian Muslim student, who had a spiritual experience by watching this film.
On the eve of the celebration of 100 years of Indian cinema, Shyam Benegal, a doyen among film makers of India, considers this classic film, set in the true Maharashtrian rural cultural setting, when the Bhakti movement was at its peak frenzy in the state, as one of his five favourite films. Benegal does not consider this "somewhat primitively made film" a "work of cinematic craftsmanship", however regards it "an extraordinary achievement", as it was "culturally true". The dialogues between Tukaram and Jijai are correctly catching the nuances of their relationship. Critics like Dwyer and Shahani echo similar sentiments about its "timeless quality" and cultural accuracy.
"Sant Tukaram" is regarded as one of the greatest Indian films. It became Prabhat's "most famous and acclaimed" film. The film is regarded as the archetypal classic of "sant" film genre, and also devotional films in general. Pagnis, became immortal in the role of Tukaram and also performed as the saint in live performances in his later life. Even, later portraits of Tukaram used for worship resemble Pagnis's face and his attire in the film.
The film is an amalgamation of asymmetrical character of Tukaram with symmetrical character of his wife Jijai, a practical reality is the way Lyle Peason, a film critique explains the film. He extends this observation with a further saying that ""Sant Tukaram" does not give out concepts but...demonstrates their function in actual life...that a realistic story with songs and magic." The film was described as a "human document of great value." A simple theme was presented effectively and with appealing emotions by the main actors of the film. |
Dangerous Habits
Dangerous Habits is a six-issue "Hellblazer" story arc written by Garth Ennis with art by Will Simpson, published by DC Comics, later under their Vertigo imprint. "Dangerous Habits" comprises issues #41-46 of the "Hellblazer" series. The story features occult detective John Constantine contracting terminal lung cancer and attempting to con the Lords of Hell into curing it.
"Dangerous Habits" was a critical and commercial success, and is often considered to be among both the best "Hellblazer" stories and the best of Ennis' work. Its success helped to launch Ennis's career in the American comic book industry.
Publication history.
"Dangerous Habits" was written by Garth Ennis, who took over writing "Hellblazer" in 1991 after the conclusion of Jamie Delano's run on the series. "Dangerous Habits" was Ennis' first story written for the title. "Hellblazer" was Ennis' first major work in the American comic industry.
Plot.
After suffering severe coughing fits, John Constantine checks himself into a hospital. There he is diagnosed with advanced terminal lung cancer, and told that he has only a short time to live. Upon hearing this, Constantine determines to cure it and save himself, knowing that his soul is damned and Hell is set to claim it upon his death.
John visits a friend and fellow mage in Ireland named Brendan Finn for help. Upon arriving, he learns that Brendan cannot help him and that he, too, is dying. Disappointed, John and Brendan decide to spend their remaining time drinking together. Brendan tells John the secret of how Jesus turned water into wine. He leads John to the cellars, where he changes a pool of holy water into Guinness. The two get drunk together and share one final drink as Brendan passes away. As John leaves, he has his first meeting with Satan, known as The First of The Fallen, who has come to collect Brendan's soul.
The First tells Constantine that Brendan sold his soul in exchange for the largest wine collection in the world, and that he agreed to the deal because he finds a hopeless drunkard like Brendan amusing. The deal decreed that the First must collect Brendan's soul at midnight the day he died, or the deal would be null and void. The First suspects that Brendan may have been trying to cheat him due to the fact he hid himself inside an undetected holy place. Angered by the discovery, John attempts to save his friend's soul from being dragged into Hell. Five minutes before midnight, he invites the First for a drink, offering him a glass. Unbeknownst to the First, the drink is actually holy water that has been transformed into alcohol. The First drinks it and is poisoned. With the First in a weakened state, John mutilates him with a shattered bottle and sends him back to Hell. With Brendan's soul failing to be collected within the allotted time, his soul is sent to Heaven instead of Hell, thus saving him from eternal damnation.
John then seeks to enlist his demonic ally Ellie's aid in his search for a cure. Ellie reveals that the First is furious with John and that upon Constantine's death, his soul will be claimed by Hell and tormented like none before it. Now understanding that he cannot afford to die, John crashes a gentlemen's club and seeks aid from the Angel Gabriel. John reminds the angel of his debt to the conman, but Gabriel is unfazed. Believing that no mortal can issue orders to an angel, Gabriel rebukes him, saying that he deserves Hell for all the mortal sins he's committed. Realizing that he can only rely upon himself, John sets about saving his own life, though only after stopping to give his good-byes to his lifelong friend Chas Chandler and to an old man and fellow cancer patient whom John has befriended.
On the eve of his death, Constantine sells his soul to the other two Lords of Hell, Azrael and Beelzebub, doing so separately such that each believes himself to be the only one who has claimed John's soul. As John dies, the First of the Fallen arrives to taunt John during his dying minutes. The First, however, is shocked when the other two Lords also arrive to claim John's soul. The three Lords are faced with a dilemma: if Constantine dies with all three Lords claiming ownership of his soul, they will be forced to go to war for it, causing unbalance in Hell and creating an opening for Heaven to attack. However, each of the three Lords is too proud to simply cede John's soul to the others; surrendering a deal is seen as humiliating, and all three wish to uphold their reputations. Unwilling to accept either outcome of John's death, the three decide to heal him of his cancer. Once the healing is complete, John taunts the Lords of Hell, flipping the First of The Fallen the finger.
Reception and legacy.
"Dangerous Habits" has been praised by critics as one of the greatest stories in "Hellblazer". It maintains a score of 4.30 out of 5 on social cataloging website Goodreads. Writer Jim Pascoe praised the comic, saying "The result is a tense supernatural drama that begins with Constantine being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Though this book only hints at the freeform casualness and over-the-top vulgarity that became Ennis's trademark in the Preacher series, this is an immensely enjoyable read with strong characters and dynamite plot twists."
"Dangerous Habits" was voted the best Garth Ennis story on Comic Book Resources, ahead of his work on "Preacher", "The Boys" and "The Punisher". The popularity of Ennis and Dillon's run on "Hellblazer" is also credited for influencing Vertigo to agree to publish their seminal series "Preacher". "Empire" called it "rightly one of the most celebrated in comic book history".
Adaptations.
The cancer storyline was loosely adapted in the 2005 film "Constantine", which involves John learning that he is dying of cancer while knowing that he is destined to go to Hell. Rather than make a deal with the demons to save himself, he escapes Hell when he commits suicide to draw Lucifer's attention while confronting Mammon, Satan's son, now in an alliance with Gabriel to bring Hell to Earth in advance of Satan's own plans. Since Constantine selflessly sacrificed his chance to come back to life to request that the soul of a friend's sister be sent to Heaven, he redeemed himself and was allowed to go to Heaven, although Satan healed him of his injuries and cancer so that he could "prove" he deserved to go to Hell.
"Dangerous Habits" also inspired the fifth season of "Legends of Tomorrow", where Constantine's future death by lung cancer is advanced to the present by Astra, a girl he banished to Hell in a botched exorcism years ago, forcing Constantine to make a deal to extend his life by assuring Astra he will use the Loom of Fate to get her out.
Collected editions.
The story was reprinted and collected in trade paperback released in 1994. The book includes an introduction by its author, Garth Ennis. |
Trier Cathedral Treasury
The Trier Cathedral Treasury is a museum of Christian art and medieval art in Trier, Germany. The museum is owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Trier and is located inside the Cathedral of Trier. It contains some of the church's most valuable relics, reliquaries, liturgical vessels, ivories, manuscripts and other artistic objects. The history of the Trier church treasure goes back at least 800 years. In spite of heavy losses during the period of the Coalition Wars, it is one of the richest cathedral treasuries in Germany. With the cathedral it forms part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
History.
Early sources indicate that the cathedral's relics were kept in a separate room north of the east choir around 1200. Considering that the church is one of the oldest in Germany, it may be assumed that the treasure is even older. Tradition has it that Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, who resided in Trier in the early 4th century, gave the church some of its most valuable relics. In the late 10th century, under archbishop Egbert, Trier became a centre of the Ottonian Renaissance. Egbert's famous workshops produced metalwork and illuminated manuscripts, of which the cathedral acquired several.
The treasure was moved to a larger room in 1480 in the so-called "Badische Bau", part of the cloisters, where the treasury and the cathedral's archives are still housed. An increase in pilgrims led to the main relics and reliquaries being shown from 1512 until 1655 on a purpose-built platform in front of the western apse to the gathered pilgrims on the Domfreihof square. Inventories dating from 1238, 1429 and 1776 provide detailed information on the history of the treasure, which for centuries remained largely intact, in spite of fires, sieges and pillaging. For the safety of the relics, several times (particularly during war), the main relics were transferred to Ehrenbreitstein, which had a safe haven maintained by the bishops of Trier.
The outbreak of the First Coalition War led in 1794 to the incorporation of Trier and most of the German Rhineland into the French First Republic. During this period a large portion of the treasure was lost, principally due to the heavy war taxes imposed on the cathedral chapter, which resulted in the melting down of gold and silver objects in order to pay the taxes. In 1792 alone, 399 kg of precious metal was handed in at the Trier Electoral mint. Only twelve objects made of precious metal survived. One of the many treasures that went missing was the so-called "monile of Saint Helena", a golden hanger with a relic of the True Cross, listed in the 1238 inventory. The 10th-century "staff of Saint Peter", a masterpiece from the Egbert workshops, survived but ended up in the treasury of Limburg Cathedral.
During the 19th and 20th century the treasure was partly restored through donations, loans, acquisitions from art dealers and commissions. The Byzantine Adventus Ivory that had been part of the cathedral treasure until 1792 was bought back in 1845. In 1851, a 12th-century crosier was discovered in the grave of archbishop Heinrich II of Finstingen. Also in the 19th century, the periodical showing of the relics, especially the Holy Tunic, was resumed. In 1844 it was estimated that 600,000 pilgrims participated in the pilgrimage; in 1891 perhaps more than a million.
At the end of the Second World War the main treasures from Trier, along with those from Aachen and Essen, were hidden in a deserted mine tunnel near Siegen. Here they were discovered by American troops in April 1945 and returned to Trier within a month. Other, less valuable objects ended up in the Marburg Central Collecting Point in Marburg, from where they were returned through the work of Walker Hancock (a member of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program).
Collections.
The Trier Cathedral treasure consists mainly of reliquaries, liturgical vessels, religious statues and reliefs, ivories and illuminated manuscripts. The objects date from the 3rd through the 20th century.
Relics and reliquaries.
Four of the cathedral's main relics are not kept in the Treasury but elsewhere in the church. These are the Holy Tunic (in a separate chapel behind the main altar), the head reliquary of Saint Helena (in the east crypt), the reliquary shrine of Saint Maternus (in the central crypt) and the reliquary shrine of Saint Blaise and other saints (in the west crypt).
The following are kept in the Treasury:
Liturgical objects.
During its long history the cathedral collected numerous liturgical vessels, candlesticks, processional crosses and other objects used in mass or for administering the Holy Sacraments. Despite the losses in the late 18th and early 19th century, the following remain:
Enamelling.
The collection includes many enamels, including:
Painting and sculpture.
The cathedral in Trier owns many paintings, statues and reliefs, most of which can be found in the church, where they have a religious function. A few, mainly ivory carvings, are kept in the treasury:
Books and manuscripts.
Only a few specimens from the collection of historical books and medieval manuscripts are on display in the treasury: |
Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan
Dr. Khan Sahib () (born 1883, Utmanzai, Charsadda – 9 May 1958, Lahore), mistakenly named as Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan (), was a pioneer in the Indian Independence Movement and a Pakistani politician. He was the elder brother of the Pashtun activist Abdul Ghaffar Khan, both of whom opposed the partition of India. Upon independence, he pledged his allegiance to Pakistan and later served as the Chief Minister of West Pakistan.
As the Chief Minister of the North-West Frontier Province, Dr Khan Sahib along with his brother Bacha Khan and the Khudai Khidmatgars boycotted the July 1947 NWFP referendum about the province joining India or Pakistan after the partition of India, citing that the referendum did not have the options of the NWFP becoming independent or joining Afghanistan.
Early life.
He was born in the village of Utmanzai, Charsadda, in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of British India (now in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan). His father, Bahram Khan was a local landlord. He was eight years older than his brother, Abdul Ghaffar Khan (Bacha Khan).
After matriculating from the Edwards Mission High School in Peshawar, Khan Sahib studied at Grant Medical College, Bombay. He subsequently completed his training from St Thomas' Hospital in London. During the First world war, he served in France. During his stay in France, he met a Scottish girl Mary. They fell in love and soon they got married, though his younger brother Bacha Khan was against this marriage. After the war, he joined the Indian Medical Service and was posted in Mardan with the "Guides regiment". He resigned his commission in 1921, after refusing to be posted in Waziristan, where the British Indian Army was launching operations against his fellow Pashtun tribes (1919–20).
Contribution to the Indian independence movement.
In 1935, Khan Sahib was elected alongside Peer Shahenshah of Jungle Khel Kohat as representatives of the North-West Frontier Province to the Central Legislative Assembly in New Delhi.
Along with his brother Abdul Ghaffar Khan and the Khudai Khidmatgar, Jabbar Khan strongly opposed the partition of India, favouring a united country.
With the grant of limited self-government and announcement of 1937 Indian provincial elections, Dr. Khan Sahib led his party to a comprehensive victory. The Frontier National Congress, an affiliate of the Indian National Congress emerged as the single largest party in the Provincial Assembly.
In the 1940s, a Sikh family was killed in the Hazara District of colonial India, with their daughter Basanti being married off to a Muslim man. Basanti asked to be sent to her Sikh relatives and Jabbar Khan agreed with this. The All India Muslim League, however, agitated against Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan's decision, "and made the woman’s return to Islam the principal demand of its civil disobedience movement in the Frontier Province."
In the same district, Jabbar Khan fined the villages of the Hazara District for riots that targeted Hindus and Sikhs. When a crowd of pro-separatist Muslim League supporters arrived at his residence, Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan stated that he did what he considered his rightful duty.
Politics in Pakistan 1947 – 1954.
At the time of the creation of Pakistan in 1947, he was the chief executive of the province appointed in British India. Later he was jailed by Abdul Qayyum Khan Kashmiri's government. After Abdul Qayyum Khan Kashmiri's appointment to the Central government and the personal efforts of the Chief Minister of the North West Frontier Province at the time, Sardar Bahadur Khan, he along with his brother and many other activists were released.
Back in government.
He joined the Central Cabinet of Muhammad Ali Bogra as Minister for Communications in 1954. This decision to join the government led to his split with his brother.
In October 1955, he became the first Chief Minister of West Pakistan following the consolidation of the provinces and princely states under the One Unit scheme. After differences with the ruling Muslim League over the issue of Joint versus Separate Electorates, he created the Republican Party with the help of then Governor-General of Pakistan Iskander Mirza.
He resigned in March 1957 after the provincial budget was rejected by the assembly. In June, he was elected to the National Assembly of Pakistan representing the constituency of Quetta, the former capital of Balochistan.
Assassination.
He was assassinated by Atta Mohammad at approximately 8:30 am on 9 May 1958, according to some sources on the orders of Allama Mashraqi, leader of the Khaksars.
In a book entitled “Allama Mashriqi Narrowly Escapes the Gallows: Court Proceedings of an Unpardonable Crime Against the Man Who Led the Freedom of the Indian Subcontinent”, scholar and historian Nasim Yousaf, Mashriqi’s grandson, provides a day-by-day account of the court proceedings.
This tragic incident occurred while Dr. Khan Sahib was sitting in the garden of his son Sadullah Khan's house at 16 Aikman Road, GOR, Lahore. He was waiting for Colonel Syed Abid Hussein of Jhang to accompany him to a meeting organised in connection with the scheduled February 1959 General Elections. The assailant was a "Patwari" (Land Revenue Clerk) from Mianwali who had been dismissed from service two years previously. Despite his appeal in court, the assailant had not been reinstated to his position as 'Patwari'.
"In his first public address after the assassination of his elder brother in Lahore, Abdul Ghaffar said on May 19 that he felt that Dr. Khan
Sahib had been done to death by those people for whom he had forsaken his own people, discarded his party and thrown to the winds the position he held as a result of a glorious political career."
The body of Dr. Khan Sahib was taken to his village Utmanzai, Charsadda about 30 miles from Peshawar, where he was laid to rest by side of his European wife Mary Khan.
Speaking of his passing, Pakistani President Iskander Mirza said, about him that he was "the greatest Pathan of his times, a great leader and a gallant gentleman whose life-long fight in the cause of freedom, his sufferings and sacrifices for the sake of his convictions and his passion to do good to the common man were the attributes of a really great man."
Legacy.
A major shopping district in New Delhi, India, the Khan Market, is named in his honour. The market was established in 1951 for refugees of the Partition of India from the North West Frontier Province. Dr. Khan who was the Chief Minister of NWFP during the partition had helped many families to escape without harm. |
Eighteen Mile Creek (Niagara County)
Eighteen Mile Creek, or Eighteenmile Creek, is a tributary of Lake Ontario located entirely in Niagara County, New York in the United States. The name of "Eighteen Mile" Creek refers not to the length of the creek, but to its distance from the Niagara River to the west.
Originating just north of City of Lockport in the Town of Lockport, it travels approximately northward, winding through the Town of Newfane. A dam by the community of Burt forms a widening of the creek as far upstream as the community of Newfane. Eighteen Mile Creek enters Lake Ontario at Olcott harbor.
Much of the course of the creek is followed by New York State Route 78.
Watershed and course.
The Eighteen Mile Creek drainage basin is located along the southern shore of Lake Ontario in Niagara County, New York. The creek flows generally to the north and discharges into Lake Ontario, through Olcott Harbor, approximately east of the mouth of the Niagara River. The watershed has a drainage area of approximately and includes Eighteen Mile Creek and its two main tributaries, the East Branch and the Gulf, as well as minor tributaries. In addition, much of the flow in the main branch of Eighteen Mile Creek comes from water diverted from the New York State Barge Canal.
The natural topography of the area can be characterized as two relatively flat plains at different elevations separated by the Niagara Escarpment. The southernmost portion of the watershed is at a higher elevation than the remainder of the watershed and is separated by the Niagara Escarpment along the northern portion of the City of Lockport. The watershed lies entirely within Niagara County and encompasses portions of the Towns of Cambria, Lockport (including a portion of the City of Lockport), Royalton, Hartland, Newfane, and Wilson. The majority of the watershed can be characterized as a rural area comprising agricultural lands, with scattered residences along roadways, and rural villages; including Olcott, Newfane, and Gasport. A portion of one urban area, the City of Lockport, falls within the watershed and is the most densely populated area within the watershed. Commercial and industrial uses are concentrated in the City of Lockport.
The main branch of Eighteen Mile Creek originates southeast of the City of Lockport, in the vicinity of Keck and Chestnut Ridge Roads, on the south side of the Niagara Escarpment. It travels northwest through the city until it is diverted underground near Vine Street. It then flows north in an underground culvert and resurfaces briefly south of the canal. It travels a short distance under the Canal, to a point near Clinton Street north of the canal, where it again resurfaces. It continues generally north, descending approximately over the Niagara Escarpment. As the creek descends the escarpment, it travels through the abandoned Flintkote factory property on Mill Street, and adjacent to the Lockport Wastewater Treatment Plant. The creek then flows north through the Town of Newfane before draining into Lake Ontario at Olcott Harbor.
Environmental protection.
On March 13, 2012, the section of the creek north of the canal in Lockport was added to the U.S. Superfund National Priorities List.
A section of Eighteen Mile Creek was designated as an Area of Concern (AOC) by the International Joint Commission because of an existing fish consumption advisory, benthic population decline, a degradation of fish and wildlife populations, prevalence of bird and animal deformities or reproductive problems and restrictions on dredging. Over the years, numerous contaminants have been identified in creek sediments which have a detrimental effect to the AOC and Lake Ontario. These contaminants include but are not limited to: polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), mercury, dioxins and furans, dieldrin, mirex, DDT, lead, and copper. Sediments contaminated with these substances have directly contributed to the impairments just mentioned.
The AOC is relatively pristine to the naked eye. This section of Eighteen Mile Creek flows through a steep-sided, undeveloped wooded gorge, where habitat disturbances are minimal. The extensive beds of emergent and submergent aquatic vegetation in this area account for an estimated , comprising one of the largest coastal wetlands in the western portion of Lake Ontario. These wetlands and undisturbed woodlands bordering Eighteen Mile Creek provide valuable habitats for wildlife that are uncommon in Niagara County's coastal area.
A variety of bird species inhabit the area, including great blue heron, green heron, mallard, wood duck, belted kingfisher, marsh wren, common yellowthroat, red-winged blackbird, and swamp sparrow. Eighteen Mile Creek is particularly significant because large concentrations of Coho and Chinook salmon and brown trout migrate from Lake Ontario into the creek each fall. In addition, steelhead migrate into Eighteen Mile Creek during the fall and between late February and April. Due to the importance of this area, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has determined that, "Disturbances of wetland vegetation, including submergent beds, through dredging, filling, or bulkheading [excluding Olcott Harbor], would result in a direct loss of valuable habitat area."
The mission of the Eighteen Mile Creek Remedial Action Plan (RAP) is to restore the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the ecosystem in the Eighteen Mile Creek Area of Concern in a manner that reflects the communities concern for the preservation and protection of the waterway. Specific goals of the RAP are the protection and enhancement of human health, fish and wildlife, aesthetics, recreation and the economy of the Eighteen Mile Creek Area of Concern. Bathing and aquatic life have been established as the best uses of Eighteen Mile Creek through a public process under the New York State Stream Classification System. The RAP is designed to restore these uses where they have been impaired and to move toward the reduction of all sources of pollutants. |
Cohabitation (government)
Cohabitation is a system of divided government that occurs in semi-presidential systems, such as France, whenever the president is from a different political party than the majority of the members of parliament. It occurs because such a system forces the president to name a premier (prime minister) who will be acceptable to the majority party within parliament. Thus, cohabitation occurs because of the duality of the executive: an independently elected president "and" a prime minister who must be acceptable both to the president and to the legislature.
France.
Cohabitation took place in France in 1986–1988, 1993–1995, and 1997–2002. The president faced an opposition majority in the National Assembly and had to select his government from them.
Origins.
Cohabitation was a product of the French Fifth Republic, albeit an unintended one. This constitution brought together a president with considerable executive powers and a prime minister, responsible before Parliament. The president's task was primarily to end deadlock and act decisively to avoid the stagnation prevalent under the French Fourth Republic; the prime minister, similarly, was to "direct the work of government", providing a strong leadership to the legislative branch and to help overcome partisan squabbles.
Since 1962, French presidents have been elected by popular vote, replacing the electoral college, which was only used once. This change was intended to give Fifth Republic presidents more power than they might have had under the original constitution. While still seen as the symbol and embodiment of the nation, the president also was given a popular mandate. Of course, the majority party of the National Assembly retained power as well, but since the popularly elected president appointed the prime minister, the former was seen as having the upper hand in any conflict between executive and legislature. Furthermore, the imbalance is further illustrated by the fact that the president can dissolve the Assembly at any time (but not more than once in a year), whereas the legislature has no powers of removal against the president.
The sole caveat to this position of presidential pre-eminence was the fact that the president's selection to the premiership required approval by the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament: because the assembly can dismiss the government by a vote of no confidence, it follows that the prime minister must command a majority in the assembly. This was not a problem whilst the legislative majority was aligned with the president, and indeed, de Gaulle, who was responsible for inspiring much of the Constitution, envisioned that the president would resign if the people disavowed him in an assembly election, and would then elect a new president (there is no vice-president in France) and a new election takes places less than two months after a resignation, a new president being elected for a new, full term; that happened in 1969, when de Gaulle resigned because the people voted against a referendum proposed by him.
The first "near miss" with cohabitation occurred with the election of Socialist President François Mitterrand in 1981. A right-wing coalition headed by the Gaullist Rally for the Republic controlled the assembly at the time. Almost immediately, Mitterrand exercised his authority to call assembly elections, and the electorate returned an assembly with an absolute majority of Socialists, ending the presumed crisis.
However, when assembly elections were held as required in 1986, five years later, the Socialists lost their majority to the right. Mitterrand decided to remain president, beginning the first cohabitation.
Cohabitation in practice.
There have been only three periods of cohabitation, but each is notable for illustrating the oscillation of powers between the president and prime minister.
Mitterrand–Chirac period (1986–1988).
After the 1986 assembly elections, Mitterrand was forced to nominate as a Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, the leader of Rally for the Republic (RPR), the largest party in the majority coalition. Throughout the cohabitation between Mitterrand and Chirac, the president focused on his foreign duties and allowed Chirac to control internal affairs. Since Mitterrand was distanced from these policies, Chirac began to reverse many of Mitterrand's reforms by lowering taxes and privatising many national enterprises. There were however tense moments, such as when Mitterrand refused to sign "ordonnances", slowing down reforms by requiring Chirac to pass his bills through parliament. This lasted for two years until 1988 when the newly reelected Mitterrand called for new legislative elections that were won by a leftist majority, which lasted five years.
Mitterrand–Balladur period (1993–1995).
In 1993, President Mitterrand found himself in a similar position when the right won an 80% majority in the National Assembly elections. Once again, he was forced to appoint an opposition member from the RPR and Union for French Democracy (UDF) parties. This time he appointed Édouard Balladur to the post of prime minister, because Chirac was focused on running for president instead of being prime minister for the third time. Balladur maintained this post through the cohabitation until May 18, 1995 when Jacques Chirac took office as president.
Chirac–Jospin period (1997–2002).
In 1995, rightist leader Jacques Chirac succeeded Mitterrand as president, and, since the right had a majority in the assembly, he was able to appoint his fellow RPR member Alain Juppé as his prime minister, ending cohabitation by a change in the presidency. This alignment of president and assembly should have lasted until at least the normally scheduled 1998 assembly elections.
However, in 1997, President Chirac made the ill-fated strategic decision to dissolve parliament and call for early legislative elections. This plan backfired when the French electorate turned back to the leftists and removed the right-wing assembly majority. Chirac was forced to appoint Socialist Lionel Jospin to the premiership. Jospin remained prime minister until the elections of 2002, making this third term of cohabitation the longest ever, one of five years. Chirac called this a state of 'paralysis', and found it particularly difficult to arrange campaign activities for the National Assembly.
With Jospin holding the premiership, Chirac's political influence was constrained and he had no say over certain major reforms being instituted by the left-wing majority. This included the 1998 legislation to shorten the working week from 39 to 35 hours, which came into effect in 2000.
Observations.
Arend Lijphart contends that the French Fifth Republic usually operates under a presidential system, but when in cohabitation, this effectively changes, at least in terms of domestic policy, to a parliamentary system, in which the prime minister controls the legislative agenda and the president's powers are limited to foreign policy and defence.
A common problem during cohabitation is that each leader wants his or her own policies to be carried out so that the public is positive toward their strategies, and he or she will be elected when the time comes. Because each party is in competition, there is little room for progression since the friction between both sides holds each other back. Whilst leaders of the same political spectrum help each other in decision-making when in power concurrently, cohabitation can lead to a decline in national authority and make the country appear outwardly insecure.
Although originally believed to be improbable, France was governed under a cohabitation of leaders for almost half the period from 1986 to 2006, suggesting that French people no longer fear the prospect of having two parties share power.
Future prospects.
In 2000, with the support of President Chirac, the term of a president was shortened from seven years to five years, a change accepted by a referendum. Furthermore, legislative elections are now held one month after presidential ones, thus creating a coattail effect that encourages those who won the presidential election to confirm their vote one month later during legislative elections.
The near-simultaneity of presidential and legislative elections makes cohabitation less likely by reducing the prospect of major changes in public opinion between the two elections, but cohabitation remains a possibility even if public opinion remains stable. For example, a group of voters (e.g. voters on the left) may be split between two or more presidential candidates, thus making it unlikely that any of this group's candidates wins the presidential election, but these coordination problems may be resolved in the legislative election, leading to a different outcome in the two elections. Alternatively, a party that wins a majority of support in both the presidential and legislative elections may nonetheless fail to control the National Assembly because that support is distributed unequally across legislative districts. In another scenario, a presidential candidate from a new party may win the presidency despite his party not having the candidates or the party apparatus to win legislative elections.
Cohabitation can also occur if the presidential and legislative elections occur at different times due to extraordinary circumstances. For example, the president can dissolve the Assembly and call for new elections mid-term, which could theoretically lead to a different party winning (though the president would of course seek to avoid calling elections if this result were likely). The president could also die, be incapacitated, resign, or be impeached during his term, leading to a new presidential election. Cohabitation could result, although the new president would then be likely to call new assembly elections.
Elsewhere in Europe.
Finland.
The Constitution of Finland, as written in 1918, was originally similar to the French system of 40 years later. It included explicit provisions that the president focuses on national security and international relations. The arrangement was a compromise between monarchists and parliamentarists. In essence, a strong presidency was adopted instead of a constitutional monarchy. The new constitution of 2000 reduced the power of the president by transferring the power to choose a prime minister to the parliament. Cohabitation has occurred frequently, as Finland has multiple powerful parties which are not highly polarized between left and right, and also since the terms of a parliament are shorter (four years) than the presidential terms (six years). Theoretically, the president should remain strictly non-partisan, and presidents have usually formally renounced party membership while in office.
Georgia.
Georgia underwent a period of cohabitation from 2012 to 2013, occasioned by the defeat of the ruling United National Movement party by the opposition Georgian Dream coalition in the 2012 parliamentary election. At the same time, a new constitutional system came into effect and the leader of the defeated party, the incumbent President Mikheil Saakashvili, had to appoint the Georgian Dream leader, Bidzina Ivanishvili, as prime minister. According to the European Commission report, with the expiration of Saakashvili's two terms as president and the victory of the Georgian Dream candidate, Giorgi Margvelashvili, in the 2013 presidential election, Georgia completed a complex and peaceful transition from a "presidential" to a "parliamentary" system. The period of cohabitation was assessed in the same report as "uneasy but functioning."
Poland.
The president of Poland is required to be non-partisan while in office, but so far all presidents were elected as partisan candidates. A cohabitation occurred in 2007, when President Lech Kaczyński was forced to appoint Donald Tusk, his main rival in 2005 presidential election as prime minister.
Romania.
The 2012 Romanian political crisis was a major political conflict between Prime Minister Victor Ponta of the Social Democratic Party and the centre-right President Traian Băsescu, after the former was asked to form a government in May 2012. The dispute degenerated into civil disobedience and alleged democratic backsliding, lasting until the two sides signed an agreement on institutional cohabitation in December.
There have been six periods of cohabitation in Romania, involving two presidents and five prime ministers.
Russia.
In the Russia, the State Duma has to approve a prime minister chosen by the president. However, if the State Duma rejects the president's candidate(s) three times in a row the President has the right to dissolve the State Duma and call legislative elections, but he cannot do so within a year after the last election, which in this period may lead to cohabitation.
Though the rest of the time cohabitation is unlikely, it can occur when in the State Duma there is no stable majority loyal to the president. Thus, cohabitation evolved between 1998 and 1999, when the State Duma twice refused to appoint Viktor Chernomyrdin as prime minister. However, since the appointment of the new prime minister was caused by the recent default, there was a risk that the opposition would improve its result after the snap election, which in turn would lead to even more tension between President Boris Yeltsin and the State Duma, especially since at this time preparations for the impeachment process were already underway. In consequence, Boris Yeltsin had to nominate Yevgeny Primakov for prime minister, who had broad support among the left opposition.
Ukraine.
A cohabitation in a semi-presidential system also existed in Ukraine between 2006 and 2010. After 2006 Ukrainian parliamentary election, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko had to appoint Viktor Yanukovych, his rival from the 2004 presidential election, as prime minister in August 2006.
Asia.
Palestinian National Authority.
The Palestinian National Authority, a quasi-governmental organization responsible for administering the Palestinian territories, has operated within the framework of a semi-presidential republic since the creation of the office of prime minister in the spring of 2003. While the president has the power to appoint anyone as prime minister, there was an unspoken agreement upon the establishment of the office that the prime minister would be appointed from the majority party in the Legislative Council. This arrangement led to a period of cohabitation after the 2006 legislative election, in which Fatah President Mahmoud Abbas appointed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh prime minister after Hamas' victory in the elections. The cohabitation did not last long, however, as funds were withheld from the Palestinian Authority and hostilities between Fatah and Hamas broke out in December 2006, leading to the appointment of a caretaker government led by Salam Fayyad on June 14, 2007.
Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankan politics for several years witnessed a bitter struggle between the president and the prime minister, belonging to different parties and elected separately, over the negotiations with the LTTE to resolve the longstanding civil war. Since 1978, Sri Lanka transferred from parliamentary system to semi-presidential system, which the president has more executive power.
Other countries.
Cohabitation does not occur within standard presidential systems. While a number of presidential democracies, such as the United States, have seen power shared between a president and legislature of different political parties, this is another form of divided government. In this situation, the executive is directed by a president of one party who serves for a fixed term of years, even if and while the legislature is controlled by another party; in cohabitation, by contrast, executive power is divided between a president of one party and a cabinet of another party. Cohabitation thus only occurs in systems that have both parliamentary government (i.e. ministers accountable to parliament) and a directly elected executive president, i.e., semi-presidential systems. In a true parliamentary system, the head of state, whether president or constitutional monarch, has no significant influence over the government.
As seen above, the theory of cohabitation is no longer limited to France. However, there are not many countries where the constitutional structure exists in which it "could" occur. Since some of the new democracies of eastern Europe have adopted institutions quite similar to France, cohabitation may become more common, but if those countries elect their executives and legislature at or near the same time, as France is now doing, then cohabitation will be less likely. |
Richie Tozier
Richard "Richie" Tozier is a fictional character created by Stephen King and one of the main characters of his 1986 novel "It". The character is a member of "The Losers Club" and is seen to be the comic relief of the group; however, his loudmouthed antics often get him in trouble, leading to him being called "Richie 'Trashmouth' Tozier" and his friends often using the phrase "Beep Beep Richie" when they want him to be quiet. He was portrayed by Seth Green as a child and Harry Anderson as an adult in the 1990 miniseries adaptation of the novel, and by Ankur Javeri as a child and Nasirr Khan as an adult in the novel's 1998 television series adaptation. He was later portrayed by Finn Wolfhard as a child and Bill Hader as an adult in the 2017 film and its 2019 sequel.
Fictional character biography.
Richard (Richie) Tozier was born on March 7, 1946 (novel), 1950 (miniseries), or 1976 (films) and is the son of Maggie and Wentworth Tozier. Richie is known for his loudmouthed and sarcastic personality, which led to him being called "Richie 'Trashmouth' Tozier" by his peers. Richie is good friends with Bill Denbrough and the other members of The Losers Club Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak, Ben Hanscom, Beverly Marsh, and Mike Hanlon. After Bill's younger brother Georgie is killed by Pennywise the Dancing Clown, Richie and his friends each have individual encounters with Pennywise before facing It collectively at Neibolt Street. After this encounter, they believe they have killed It, but they take an oath that if they have not succeeded, they will one day return to Derry to finish the job.
27 years later, Richie is a disc-jockey in Beverly Hills and one of the only members of The Losers Club to have never married. Richie receives a call from Mike – who remained behind in Derry – that It has returned, causing the death of Adrian Mellon. Richie returns to Derry and reunites with The Losers Club, with whom he encounters It once again. Eventually, the group descends into the sewers to kill It by performing the Ritual of Chud. During the ritual, It mortally wounds and kills Eddie, leaving Richie devastated.
Adaptations.
Richie was portrayed by Seth Green as a child, and by Harry Anderson as an adult in the 1990 miniseries, and by Ankur Javeri as a child and Nasir Khan as an adult (named "Raja") in the 1998 television series. The adult portrayal is well known for a scene where Pennywise taunts him in a public library, which has become iconic for Tim Curry's over-the-top performance.
Richie was portrayed again by Finn Wolfhard in the 2017 film and as an adult by Bill Hader in the 2019 sequel. This interpretation of Richie tends to make more pop-culture references and becomes a stand-up comedian as an adult rather than a DJ. A popular fan theory of Wolfhard's interpretation of the character is that his family has a tendency to neglect Richie and that he struggles with ADHD.
Richie's sexuality.
In the adaptation of "It Chapter Two", Richie is portrayed as being secretly in love with Eddie Kaspbrak until the latter's death, and Eddie remained unaware of these feelings. It is confirmed that Richie's reason for making jokes are just in part a defense mechanism to hide his feelings for Eddie, as most of his jokes target him, as opposed to just trying to be humorous as in the book or other adaptation of "IT". This film incorporates a scene where, when Eddie is killed by Pennywise, Richie is visibly more upset than the rest of the Losers' Club. It is revealed in one of the final scenes of the film that Richie recarves his and Eddie's initials into a bridge.
Director Andy Muschietti has stated that the decision to depict Richie as gay in "It Chapter Two" was based on this interpretation of the book. Stephen King said that while he didn't intend for there to be an unrequited romance between the two characters, he approved of the storyline, saying "it’s one of those things that’s kind of genius, because it echoes the beginning [with Adrian Mellon's gay bashing]. It comes full circle. At least there’s love involved. Somebody cares for [Eddie,] and that echoes the love that Adrian’s partner has for him. So that was cool.”
Comedy.
Richie is known as being the comedian of The Losers Club, often telling jokes at inappropriate times, which leads to his friends often saying "Beep Beep, Richie" when they want him to stop talking. Richie's humor has been viewed as being either a defense mechanism, or a call for attention. It has been speculated that Richie uses his comedy as a defense mechanism, to hide his fear of not only Pennywise, but his fear of not being accepted by The Losers Club. Once Richie has his first encounter with Pennywise, his comedy turns into a coping mechanism as well, hiding his fears of the supernatural being and the possibility of his death at the hands of the creature. Strictly in "It Chapter Two", it has been interpreted by some fans that Richie's comedic defense mechanism also doubles as him hiding his romantic feelings for Eddie Kaspbrak. It has also been speculated that Richie's comedy derives from a feeling of neglect by his parents, and as a cry for attention from his friends. He wants to have the attention and love from his friends that he doesn't receive at home from his parents.
Appearances in other King stories.
Richie briefly appears in a cameo appearance in King's novel "11/22/63". In the novel, after the events of Pennywise, Richie is seen dancing with Beverly preparing for a talent show. The two are approached by time traveler Jake Epping, who enquires about the Dunning family. Afterwards, Epping teaches the two how to dance properly. However, this meeting is erased by the end of the novel as Epping removes his mark on history.
In King's novel "Duma Key", the song excerpt in the beginning is by a band called Shark Puppy. In the credits page of the book, the song is written by R. Tozier and W. Denbrough.
Reception.
The portrayals of Richie in the 2017 remake by Wolfhard and the 2019 sequel by Hader were both highly praised and considered to be "show-stealers". Both portrayals were noted for their comedic relief and chemistry with their fellow cast members, in particular between Wolfhard and Jack Dylan Grazer for the first film and Hader and James Ransone in the second. Hader's portrayal was noted for its blend of comedy and drama when required, as well as the subtle references to Richie's sexuality and his implicated love for Eddie, referred to by Pennywise as his "dirty little secret." |
Foreign policy of the Gerald Ford administration
The United States foreign policy during the 1974-1977 presidency of Gerald Ford was marked by the Cold War. Gerald Ford continued Richard Nixon's policies regarding detente with both the Soviet Union and China. He presided over the final stages of the Vietnam War, announcing in April 1975 that U.S. participation in the war had ended. In the aftermath of the war, his administration responded forcefully to both the Mayaguez incident and an incident with North Korea in Panmunjom. In the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, the Ford administration facilitated completion of the Sinai Interim Agreement between Israel and Egypt.
Leadership.
Appointments.
Upon assuming office, Ford inherited Nixon's cabinet. Ford quickly replaced Chief of Staff Alexander Haig with Donald Rumsfeld, who had served as a counselor to the president under Nixon. Rumsfeld and Deputy Chief of Staff Dick Cheney rapidly became among the most influential people in the Ford administration. Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger and Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger remained highly influential officials early in Ford's tenure. Ford retaines Kissinger as Secretary of State throughout his presidency, but Brent Scowcroft replaced Kissinger as National Security Advisor in 1975.
Cold War.
Ford continued Nixon's détente policy with both the Soviet Union and China, easing the tensions of the Cold War. In doing so, he overcame opposition from members of Congress, an institution which became increasingly assertive in foreign affairs in the early 1970s. This opposition was led by Senator Henry M. Jackson, who scuttled a U.S.–Soviet trade agreement by winning passage of the Jackson–Vanik amendment. The thawing relationship with China brought about by Nixon's 1972 visit to China was reinforced with another presidential visit in December 1975.
Despite the collapse of the trade agreement with the Soviet Union, Ford and Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev continued the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, which had begun under Nixon. In 1972, the U.S. and the Soviet Union had reached the SALT I treaty, which placed upper limits on each power's nuclear arsenal. Ford met Brezhnev at the November 1974 Vladivostok Summit, at which point the two leaders agreed to a framework for another SALT treaty. Opponents of detente, led by Jackson, delayed Senate consideration of the treaty until after Ford left office.
Helsinki Accords.
When Ford took office in August 1974, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) negotiations had been underway in Helsinki, Finland, for nearly two years. Although the USSR was looking for a rapid resolution, none of the parties were quick to make concessions, particularly on human rights points. Throughout much of the negotiations, U.S. leaders were disengaged and uninterested with the process. In an August 1974 Kissinger told Ford, that "we never wanted it but we went along with the Europeans ... [i]t is meaningless—it is just a grandstand play to the left. We are going along with it."
In the months leading up to the conclusion of negotiations and signing of the Helsinki Final Act in August 1975, Americans of Eastern European descent voiced their concerns that the agreement would mean the acceptance of Soviet domination over Eastern Europe and the permanent incorporation of the Baltic states into the USSR. Shortly before President Ford departed for Helsinki, he held a meeting with a delegation of Americans of Eastern European background, and stated definitively that US policy on the Baltic States would not change, but would be strengthened since the agreement denies the annexation of territory in violation of international law and allows for the peaceful change of borders. he told the delegation that:
His reassurances had little effect. The volume of negative mail continued to grow. The American public was still unconvinced that American policy on the incorporation of the Baltic States would not be changed by the Helsinki Final Act. Despite protests from all around, Ford decided to move forward and sign the agreement. As domestic criticism mounted, Ford hedged on his support for the Helsinki Accords, which had the impact of overall weakening his foreign-policy stature. His blunder in the debate with Carter when he denied Kremlin control of Poland prove disastrous.
Though Ford was criticized for his apparent recognition of the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, the new emphasis on human rights would eventually contribute to the weakening of the Eastern bloc in the 1980s and speed up its collapse in 1989.
Vietnam.
One of Ford's greatest challenges was dealing with the ongoing Vietnam War. American offensive operations against North Vietnam had ended with the Paris Peace Accords, signed on January 27, 1973. The accords declared a cease fire across both North and South Vietnam, and required the release of American prisoners of war. The agreement guaranteed the territorial integrity of Vietnam and, like the Geneva Conference of 1954, called for national elections in the North and South. South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu was not involved in the final negotiations, and publicly criticized the proposed agreement, but was pressured by Nixon and Kissinger into signing the agreement. In multiple letters to the South Vietnamese president, Nixon had promised that the United States would defend Thieu's government, should the North Vietnamese violate the accords.
Fighting in Vietnam continued after the withdrawal of most U.S forces in early 1973. As North Vietnamese forces advanced in early 1975, Ford requested Congress approve a $722 million aid package for South Vietnam, funds that had been promised by the Nixon administration. Congress voted against the proposal by a wide margin. Senator Jacob K. Javits offered "...large sums for evacuation, but not one nickel for military aid". President Thieu resigned on April 21, 1975, publicly blaming the lack of support from the United States for the fall of his country. Two days later, on April 23, Ford gave a speech at Tulane University, announcing that the Vietnam War was over "...as far as America is concerned".
With the North Vietnamese forces advancing on the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon, Ford ordered the evacuation of U.S. personnel, while also allowing U.S. forces to aid others who wished to escape from the Communist advance. Forty-thousand U.S. citizens and South Vietnamese were evacuated by plane until enemy attacks made further such evacuations impossible. In Operation Frequent Wind, the final phase of the evacuation preceding the fall of Saigon on April 30, military and Air America helicopters took evacuees to off-shore U.S. Navy vessels. During the operation, so many South Vietnamese helicopters landed on the vessels taking the evacuees that some were pushed overboard to make room for more people.
The Vietnam War, which had raged since the 1950s, finally came to an end with the Fall of Saigon, and Vietnam was reunified into one country. Many of the Vietnamese evacuees were allowed to enter the United States under the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act. The 1975 act appropriated $455 million toward the costs of assisting the settlement of Indochinese refugees. In all, 130,000 Vietnamese refugees came to the United States in 1975. Thousands more escaped in the years that followed. Following the end of the war, Ford expanded the embargo of North Vietnam to cover all of Vietnam, blocked Vietnam's accession to the United Nations, and refused to establish full diplomatic relations.
Mayaguez and Panmunjom.
North Vietnam's victory over the South led to a considerable shift in the political winds in Asia, and Ford administration officials worried about a consequent loss of U.S. influence in the region. The administration proved it was willing to respond forcefully to challenges to its interests in the region on two occasions, once when Khmer Rouge forces seized an American ship in international waters and again when American military officers were killed in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North Korea and South Korea.
In May 1975, shortly after the fall of Saigon and the Khmer Rouge conquest of Cambodia, Cambodians seized the American merchant ship "Mayaguez" in international waters, sparking what became known as the Mayaguez incident. Ford dispatched Marines to rescue the crew, but the Marines landed on the wrong island and met unexpectedly stiff resistance just as, unknown to the U.S., the "Mayaguez" sailors were being released. In the operation, two military transport helicopters carrying the Marines for the assault operation were shot down, and 41 U.S. servicemen were killed and 50 wounded while approximately 60 Khmer Rouge soldiers were killed. Despite American losses, the rescue operation proved to be a boon to Ford's poll numbers; Senator Barry Goldwater declared that the operation "shows we've still got balls in this country." Some historians have argued that the Ford administration felt the need to respond forcefully to the incident because it was construed as a Soviet plot. But work by Andrew Gawthorpe, published in 2009, based on an analysis of the administration's internal discussions, shows that Ford's national security team understood that the seizure of the vessel was a local, and perhaps even accidental, provocation by an immature Khmer government. Nevertheless, they felt the need to respond forcefully to discourage further provocations by other Communist countries in Asia.
A second crisis, known as the axe murder incident, occurred at Panmunjom, a village which stands in the DMZ between the two Koreas. At the time, Panmunjom was the only part of the DMZ where forces from North Korea and South Korea came into contact with each other. Encouraged by U.S. difficulties in Vietnam, North Korea had been waging a campaign of diplomatic pressure and minor military harassment to try and convince the U.S. to withdraw from South Korea. In August 1976, North Korean forces killed two U.S. officers and injured South Korean guards who were trimming a tree in Panmunjom's Joint Security Area. The attack coincided with a meeting of the Conference of Non-Aligned Nations, at which North Korea presented the incident as an example of American aggression, helping secure the passage of a motion calling for a U.S. withdrawal from South Korea. Determined not to be seen as "the paper tigers of Saigon," the Ford administration decided that it was necessary to respond with a major show of force. A large number of ground forces went to cut down the tree, while at the same time the air force deployed flights over Panmunjom. The North Korean government backed down and allowed the tree-cutting to go ahead, and later issued an unprecedented official apology.
Middle East.
In the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean, two ongoing international disputes developed into crises during Ford's presidency. The Cyprus dispute turned into a crisis with the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus, which took place following the Greek-backed 1974 Cypriot coup d'état. The dispute put the United States in a difficult position as both Greece and Turkey were members of NATO. In mid-August, the Greek government withdrew Greece from the NATO military structure; in mid-September 1974, the Senate and House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to halt military aid to Turkey. Ford vetoed the bill due to concerns regarding its effect on Turkish-American relations and the deterioration of security on NATO's eastern front. A second bill was then passed by Congress, which Ford also vetoed, fearing that it might impede negotiations in Cyprus, although a compromise was accepted to continue aid until December 10, 1974, provided Turkey would not send American supplies to Cyprus. U.S. military aid to Turkey was suspended on February 5, 1975.
In 1973, Egypt and Syria had launched a joint surprise attack against Israel, seeking to re-take land lost in the Six-Day War of 1967. However, early Arab success gave way to an Israel military victory in what became known as the Yom Kippur War. Although an initial cease fire had been implemented to end active conflict in the Yom Kippur War, Kissinger's continuing shuttle diplomacy was showing little progress. Ford disliked what he saw as Israeli "stalling" on a peace agreement, and wrote, "[Israeli] tactics frustrated the Egyptians and made me mad as hell." During Kissinger's shuttle to Israel in early March 1975, a last minute reversal to consider further withdrawal, prompted a cable from Ford to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, which included:
On March 24, Ford informed congressional leaders of both parties of the reassessment of the administration policies in the Middle East. "Reassessment", in practical terms, meant canceling or suspending further aid to Israel. For six months between March and September 1975, the United States refused to conclude any new arms agreements with Israel. Rabin notes it was "an innocent-sounding term that heralded one of the worst periods in American-Israeli relations". The announced reassessments upset many American supporters of Israel. On May 21, Ford "experienced a real shock" when seventy-six U.S. senators wrote him a letter urging him to be "responsive" to Israel's request for $2.59 billion in military and economic aid. Ford felt truly annoyed and thought the chance for peace was jeopardized. It was, since the September 1974 ban on arms to Turkey, the second major congressional intrusion upon the President's foreign policy prerogatives. The following summer months were described by Ford as an American-Israeli "war of nerves" or "test of wills". After much bargaining, the Sinai Interim Agreement (Sinai II) between Egypt and Israel was formally signed, and aid resumed.
Angola.
A civil war broke out Angola after the fledgling African nation gained independence from Portugal in 1975. The Soviet Union and Cuba both became heavily involved in the conflict, backing the left-wing MPLA, one of the major factions in the civil war. In response, the CIA directed aid to two other factions in the war, UNITA and the FNLA. After members of Congress learned of the CIA operation, Congress voted to cut off aid to the Angolan groups. The Angolan Civil War would continue in subsequent years, but the Soviet role in the war hindered détente. Congress's role in ending the CIA presence marked the growing power of the legislative branch in foreign affairs.
Indonesia.
U.S. policy since the 1940s has been to support Indonesia, which hosted American investments in petroleum and raw materials and controlled a highly strategic location near vital shipping lanes. In 1975, the left-wing Fretilin party seized power after a civil war in East Timor (now Timor-Leste), a former colony of Portugal that shared the island of Timor with the Indonesian region of West Timor. Indonesian leaders feared that East Timor would serve as a hostile left-wing base that would promote secessionist movements inside Indonesia. Anti-Fretilin activists from the other main parties fled to West Timor and called upon Indonesia to annex East Timor and end the communist threat. On December 7, 1975, Ford and Kissinger met Indonesian President Suharto in Jakarta and indicated the United States would not take a position on East Timor. Indonesia invaded the next day, and took control of the country. The United Nations, with U.S. support, called for the withdrawal of Indonesian forces. A bloody civil war broke out, and over one hundred thousand died in the fighting or from executions or starvation. Upwards of half of the population of East Timor became refugees fleeing Fretilin-controlled areas. East Timor took two decades to settle down, and finally, after international intervention in the 1999 East Timorese crisis, East Timor became an independent nation in 2002.
Other issues.
Ford attended the inaugural meeting of the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations (initially the G5) in 1975 and secured membership for Canada. Ford supported international solutions to issues. "We live in an interdependent world and, therefore, must work together to resolve common economic problems," he said in a 1974 speech.
List of international trips.
Ford made seven international trips during his presidency. |
Alcoy, Cebu
Alcoy, officially the Municipality of Alcoy (; ), is a 5th class municipality in the province of Cebu, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 19,186 people.
It is named after Alcoy in Spain.
History.
Spanish colonization.
The old town of Alcoy, located in the current barangay of Daanlungsod, known as "Mambaje", becomes one of the "visitas" of Carcar in 1690. Mambaje is absorbed as a barrio of Boljoon in 1692. The church in Alcoy and three "Bantayan sa Hari" or watchtowers are built. The settlers choose Sta. Rosa de Lima as their patron saint.
A creation of the town of "Mambaje" was proposed. On July 16, 1866, Mambaje becomes a municipality. A year after, the first formal school opened in Alcoy, according to the Spanish Organic Law of 1863. In 1869, Mambaje was renamed to Alcoy. The seat of local government or the poblacion was moved from Mambaje to "Hulomaynon" (now Poblacion). In 1890, the town of Alcoy ranks first in production of coffee and sixth in cotton in the province of Cebu. Then in 1898, Alcoy joins the Anti-Spanish Uprising.
American and Japanese period.
In 1899, Alcoy, and the rest of the Philippines, is occupied by the Americans. Resistance against the new colonizers in Cebu ceased in 1901. The town experienced a smallpox and cholera epidemic in 1903. Between 1904 to 1916, Alcoy is merged to the town of Dalaguete. Herminigildo Mosqueda becomes Alcoy’s first elected mayor after he wins the local elections in 1928.
During World War II, Hilario de los Santos organizes and heads the local guerilla resistance against the Japanese in Alcoy. The Civil Affairs unit is formed at Nug-as with former Mayor Herminigildo Mosquedo as president.
Post-independence.
The Philippines became independent from the United States in July 4, 1946. On November 11, 1947, Pedro Romanos is the first elected mayor of Alcoy in the post-war era. In 1971, Catalino de los Santos is elected mayor and remained in office during the Martial Law period until the EDSA Revolution in 1986. The Dolomite Mining Corporation is established in 1980.
Contemporary.
Eusebio Sestoso becomes the elected mayor of Alcoy after the EDSA Revolution in 1988. During the administration of Antonio Plando, the Siloy Festival is launched in 2005. Michael Angelo Sestoso wins the mayoralty election in 2016.
Geography.
Alcoy is from Cebu City.
It is bordered to the north by the town of Dalaguete, to the west is the town of Alegria, to the east is the Cebu Strait, and to the south is the town of Boljoon.
Barangays.
Alcoy comprises 8 barangays:
Daan-Lungsod and Guiwang.
Daan-Lungsod, formerly known as Mambaje, is the southernmost barangay of Alcoy. Tingko Beach is located partly in this small barangay and partly in Guiwang. A fiesta is held in Daan-Lungsod every 3 May in honor of Santa Cruz. There is a reef called "Mabad-on" which appears during low tide, and is completely submerged during high tide. Mabad-on is listed as Mambahi Reef in the Philippine maritime and navigation map.
The elementary school is located in Guiwang. Guiwang celebrates 13 June the feast day of Saint Anthony of Padua.
Two "baluwarti" (watchtowers) still stand in the two barangays. The watchtowers are the oldest-surviving structures in Alcoy and they are reminders of the Spanish occupation of Cebu Island. They were used to warn the locals that pirates were coming. Originally a settlement of Dalaguete, it was founded by the Spaniards in 1880 and was developed into a stop-over station for priests going to Dalaguete. In 1869, via a royal decree, "Mambaje" became a municipality and was renamed to Alcoy, after a city in Spain.
Poblacion.
The Poblacion is the principal barangay of Alcoy. It is where the main facilities of the town are located: the municipal government center, police station, and main health center.
Pugalo.
The country's largest dolomite quarry is mined in Pugalo.
Tourist attractions.
Alcoy's Nug-as forest is the last rainforest of Cebu. It borders the town of Argao and is connected to the town's Lantoy Mountain. It is the home of the Black Shama (Copsychus Cebuensis), a local species of song bird in the family Muscicapidae that is only found in Cebu, where it is known locally as "Siloy".
The Siloy Festival is Alcoy's nature festival and eco-tourism project. It is in honor of St. Rose of Lima. The festival takes its name from the local term of the Black Shama. The festival is a project meant to promote awareness of the Black Shama and its endangered nature and to help preserve Cebu's endemic Shama species of birds, as well to help save Mother Earth. It is celebrated on 23 August every year.
Economy.
Alcoy is mainly an agricultural town with Nugas, a mountain barangay, more than half of commercial crops. The rest of the communities rely on subsistence fishing and backyard farming. The country's largest dolomite quarry is mined in Pugalo. Beaches are located in Guiwang and Daanlungsod. |
Hu Zongxian
Hu Zongxian (; November 4, 1512 – November 25, 1565), courtesy name Ruzhen () and art name Meilin (), was a Chinese general and politician of the Ming dynasty who presided over the government's response to the wokou pirate raids during the reign of the Jiajing Emperor. As supreme commander, he was able to defeat Xu Hai's () substantial raid in 1556 and capture the pirate lord Wang Zhi the next year through ruses. Despite his accomplishments, Hu Zongxian's reputation had been tarnished by his association with the clique of Yan Song and Zhao Wenhua, traditionally reviled figures in Ming historiography. He was rehabilitated decades after his death and was given the posthumous name Xiangmao () by the emperor in 1595.
He is a direct ancestor of Hu Jintao, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and Chinese paramount leader from 2002 to 2012.
Early life and career.
Hu Zongxian was born in the year 1512, in the Hu ancestral village of Longchuan () in Jixi County, part of Huizhou prefecture at the time. Today Longchuan is called Kengkou village (); Jixi is now part of Anhui province. At the age of 23, he passed the provincial imperial examination and became a "juren" (). This was followed by him passing the palace examination in 1538, becoming a "jinshi" () and paving the road to officialdom.
Hu was first assigned to be the magistrate of Yidu in Shandong province in 1540, where his administration of justice won him the love of the people, who claimed that he brought rains during a drought and magpies to eat the locusts destroying the crops. He raised a thousand volunteer troops from miners out of work and sent them to the northern frontiers under the command of the Shandong grand coordinator Zeng Xian. For this, Hu Zongxian was earmarked for promotion, but he had to retire due to the death of his mother in May 1542 to observe the three years-long period of mourning per Confucian rituals. Two years later, his father also died, and Hu Zongxian stayed at his home village for another three years.
In 1547, Hu Zongxian reemerged as the magistrate of Yuyao of Zhejiang province. There he became known for his unconventional thinking such as when he solved the longstanding problem of illegal quarrying on Mt. Shenggui () north of the city by buying the mountain with his personal salary. His energetic governance was met with the people's approval and he became one of the few local officials to earn the praise of Zhu Wan, the grand coordinator of Zhejiang. In 1548, Hu's likeness was carved into the cliff of Mt. Shenggui in his honour.
As investigating censor.
Hu Zongxian was summoned to the capital Beijing in 1548 to take a position under the Censorate. In the six years as an investigating censor, Hu Zongxian distinguished himself by not only writing memorials to the throne evaluating the performance of provincial officials, but also participating in the actual administration of the provinces. During his tour of the Northern Metropolitan Region (Beizhili) from 1549 to 1551, Altan Khan broke through the defences at Gubeikou and pillaged the suburbs of Beijing. The defences of Xuanfu, where Hu Zongxian was stationed during the crisis, held fast, and Hu was able to send troops to relieve Beijing. He was rewarded for this and the emperor began to take note of his abilities.
In the summer of 1551, Hu was transferred to Wuchang in the province of Huguang where he participated in the suppression of a Miao rebellion on the provincial border with Guizhou. There, he gained firsthand knowledge of the Miao's fighting qualities such that he called for their service during the pirate suppression campaigns a few years later. He was recalled to serve in the Censorate headquarters in Beijing in 1552. He made lasting connections with the political elite there: the most important of which was that of Zhao Wenhua, and by extension that of Zhao's patron, the Senior Grand Secretary Yan Song, the official closest to the emperor.
At this time the southeastern coast was under attack by the pirates known as the "wokou", who were a mix of Chinese merchants and foreign elements from Japan and Portugal violating the maritime prohibition laws. Hu Zongxian and Zhao Wenhua recommended a series of measures to counter this threat, including the expansion of the powers given to the grand coordinator, a position roughly equivalent to a provincial governor, so he could complete his task more freely. As a result of these suggestions, a new supreme commander position was created above the grand coordinators, overseeing the coastal provinces from Shandong to Guangdong. The Nanjing Minister of War Zhang Jing was assigned to this position in June 1554, and a few months later Zhao Wenhua and Hu Zongxian were sent south to scrutinize his actions.
For over six months, Hu Zongxian could write nothing but reports of military failures and the serious loss of life fighting against the pirates, citing the government troops' poor discipline and leadership. Zhang Jing himself refused to cooperate with Zhao Wenhua, and Zhao Wenhua put his displeasure into writing by accusing Zhang Jing in a memorial of deliberately delaying the operation for his own profit. However, soon after Zhao Wenhua sent out the memorial, Zhang Jing defeated the pirates at the Battle of Wangjiangjing () on May 10, 1555, taking 1900 heads in what became the greatest Ming victory so far in the anti-"wokou" campaign. As it was too late to recant his earlier statement, Zhao Wenhua wrote another memorial to the throne downplaying Zhang Jing's victory while emphasizing Hu Zongxian's role leading up to Wangjiangjing, such as his ruse of placing poisoned shipments of wine on the pirates' path which killed up to 800 of their number. Zhao Wenhua also claimed that Hu Zongxian was present at the scene of battle in a suit of armour, even though he was actually at Hangzhou at the time. Hu Zongxian nevertheless went along with Zhao Wenhua and denounced Zhang Jing as well, adding that he had become arrogant after the victory. In the imperial court, Yan Song convinced the emperor that the victory proved that Zhang Jing had the capability to defeat the pirates and Zhao Wenhua was correct in his accusation that Zhang had been holding back, only striking when he heard about Zhao Wenhua's accusation against him. Infuriated, the emperor ordered Zhang Jing's arrest on June 5 and had him executed on November 12.
Zhang Jing's replacement, Zhou Chong (), had his powers greatly limited compared to his predecessor. Instead of the 6 coastal provinces under Zhang Jing's command, Zhou Chong's was limited to only the Southern Metropolitan Region, Zhejiang, and Fujian. Hu Zongxian was meanwhile promoted to Grand Coordinator of Zhejiang, and was soon promoted even higher to supreme commander in April 1556, after Zhou Chong and his successor Yang Yi () were cashiered after less than a year in service due to their underwhelming performance.
Presiding over the "wokou" affair.
Defeating Xu Hai.
Compared to the short appointments of his predecessors, Hu Zongxian remained in power until 1563. His longevity as supreme commander, and indeed his meteoric rise, were due in part to his association with Zhao Wenhua's clique. Zhao Wenhua was opposed to a strict enforcement of the maritime prohibitions like the ones carried out by Zhu Wan, and instead favoured opening trade as the means to solve the "wokou" problem. Hu Zongxian, in turn, carried out a policy of appeasement despite his subordinates' disapproval and the emperor's orders to capture the pirate lord Wang Zhi dead or alive.
Even before he had become supreme commander, Hu Zongxian sent envoys to Japan in his capacity as grand coordinator ostensibly to request assistance from Japanese authorities, but in fact to establish contact with Wang Zhi to entice him to surrender. Drawn by the prospect of legal trade, Wang Zhi agreed to clean the shores of Zhejiang of pirates in return for a pardon. Wang Zhi also warned Hu that one of the pirate leaders in his consortium, Xu Hai, was on his way to raid Zhejiang again and Wang was not able to stop him in time. This was alarming news to Hu as it severely disrupted his plans of appeasement.
To deal with the "wokou" threat, Hu assembled his own "mufu", or private secretariat, enlisting the prominent figures of the region using his own connections since he was native to the area. In this way, he attracted talents such as the writer Mao Kun (), the artist Xu Wei, the ink maker Luo Longwen (), and the cartographer Zheng Ruoceng (), who helped to advise him in diplomacy and strategy.
When Xu Hai came ashore and laid siege to the cities of Zhejiang along with his fellow Satsuma pirates Chen Dong () and Ye Ma (), Hu Zongxian and his "mufu" decided that they did not have the adequate numbers to decisively defeat the invaders, since the main Ming armies were in the northern frontier and Miao reinforcements were forthcoming. Instead, they manipulated Xu Hai with a generous offer of surrender. Throughout the course of the campaign, Hu Zongxian kept friendly contacts with Xu Hai, slowly turning him from his pirate allies by the use of bribes, deceptive promises of official status and ships to sail back to Japan, and false warnings of mutiny among Xu's ranks. He also made use of existing interpersonal feuds among Xu Hai, Chen Dong, and Ye Ma by sending Xu's mistress trinkets so she would badmouth Chen Dong and Ye Ma in front of Xu Hai. Xu Hai eventually turned both Chen and Ye in to the authorities, and Hu made further use of them by making them write letters to their followers explaining that Xu Hai was going to betray and kill them. Hu Zongxian handed Xu Hai a copy of the letters, making Xu Hai grateful and thinking that Hu Zongxian had his interests in mind. When Chen and Ye's former followers received the letters, they rose up against Xu Hai at the Shen Family Estate () in Pinghu. At this point, Hu Zongxian's government forces, including newly arrived Miao troops, entered the fray and killed indiscriminately. On September 29, the battle ended with up to 1600 marauders killed in the estate, and Xu Hai's body was found in a nearby stream. On October 10, Chen Dong, Ye Ma, and Xu Hai's brother were all executed in Jiaxing.
Capturing Wang Zhi.
With Xu Hai's group put down, Hu Zongxian was given the post of grand coordinator of Zhejiang in February 1557, concurrent with his supreme commander position, but it was Zhao Wenhua who took much of the credit and rewards for the victory. However, in September 1557, Zhao Wenhua was accused of embezzlement, lost imperial favour, and died a commoner. Hu now had to cultivate direct relations with Yan Song, and he did so by introducing Luo Longwen, a dealer and connoisseur in antiques and other luxury goods, to Yan Song's son Yan Shifan ().
Hu Zongxian turned his attention to Wang Zhi. On October 17, 1557, Wang Zhi arrived at Zhoushan Island with a large trading fleet. There he laid down his terms for surrender: he sought an imperial pardon, a naval commission, and that ports be open for trade; in return he offered to patrol the coast and persuade the raiders to return to the islands through force if necessary. Hu Zongxian now faced a dilemma: he could not let Wang Zhi go, but if he accepted Wang Zhi's surrender he might be forced to execute him (Zhao Wenhua's downfall made his policy of opening trade a political taboo), turning appeasement efforts to naught. Instead of dirtying his own hands, Hu Zongxian told Wang Zhi to present his petition to the investigating censor Wang Bengu (), a political hardliner, in Hangzhou.
In December, confident in his prospects and his invulnerability, Wang Zhi made landing at Hangzhou. There he was accorded respectable treatment by the authorities, who feared antagonizing his followers, while they figure out what to do with him. During this time Hu Zongxian asked Wang Zhi to help manufacture arquebuses for the Ming army, which led to the weapon being widely used in China. Finally in February next year, Wang Zhi was sent to prison, where he was given the luxuries of novelties, books, and healthy foods. Wang Zhi believed this was a temporary arrangement and remained hopeful for a pardon until January 22, 1560, when an imperial edict handed down the death sentence, and he was summarily beheaded.
As pacification-minded officials like Hu Zongxian had feared, Wang Zhi's followers gave up hope for peaceful trade and went back to their violent ways. Feeling betrayed after Wang Zhi's arrest, Wang Zhi's godson Mao Haifeng made Zhoushan Island his base and launched raids on Zhejiang and Fujian. Hu Zongxian made a concerted effort to dislodge Mao from Zhoushan in March 1558, converging on the island from six directions with the generals Yu Dayou and Qi Jiguang, but failed and was forced to retreat. He tempered the rising criticism against him by blaming Yu and Qi, while sending Beijing a white deer, an auspicious Taoist symbol, to the emperor's great delight. The pirates eventually abandoned Zhoushan in December of the same year owing to the heavy military presence there, and scattered south to Fujian which became their new area of operation. In the summer of 1559, the remaining pirate bands in the Yangtze River Delta were wiped out. For his efforts, Hu was given the rank of Minister of War in June 1560 and the prestigious title of Junior Guardian () in October 1561. His supreme commandership was also extended to include the Jiangxi province since bandits were infesting the area, which lasted until November 1562. Shrines were erected in Hangzhou and his home district in his honour.
Downfall and death.
Hu Zongxian had now reached the zenith of his career. In June 1562, his ally Yan Song fell out of imperial favour and finally lost his position as Senior Grand Secretary. In the following purge of Yan's associates, Hu Zongxian was impeached for being too friendly to Wang Zhi and mishandling military funds, among other perceived transgressions. An order for Hu Zongxian's arrest was made, and he arrived at the capital on January 19, 1563. The Jiajing Emperor, remembering Hu's substantial service and his auspicious gifts, interceded on his behalf and refuted claims that Hu Zongxian was part of Yan Song's clique, commenting that the recent attacks on Hu Zongxian were partisan. Hu was released and allowed to retire with all his titles intact, but his supreme commander position overseeing three provinces was considered too powerful, especially since the "wokou" had moved away from the crucial Jiangnan region, so the position was abolished after Hu Zongxian left office. Grand coordinators became the paramount figure in those provinces again.
In April 1565, Yan Song's son Yan Shifan was executed along with Luo Longwen for treasonable offenses. Luo Longwen's estate was confiscated, and a search therein turned up a letter from Hu Zongxian asking Luo to present a bribe to Yan Shifan. Adding to this evidence of corruption, Hu Zongxian was also accused of providing shelter to Luo Longwen's son to help him escape the authorities. Hu Zongxian was thus brought from his home county of Jixi to Beijing to face trial in November 1565. While in prison, Hu submitted a memorial asking for clemency due to his past service, but it was soon discovered that Hu had died, supposedly from suicide by poison. The emperor ordered the case be closed after Hu's death.
When Hu Zongxian's son tried to transport his father's body back to their home village, the local populace sixty miles north of Jixi threatened the entourage, forcing the son to leave the coffin on the roadside. Due to the interference of officials sympathetic to Hu Zongxian, the coffin was moved to a temple and later transferred back to Jixi for interment. Despite the people's hostility at the time of his death, Hu Zongxian's name was rehabilitated over the following decades. In 1569, the people of Hangzhou built a new shrine in his memory, and his original titles and ranks were restored posthumously by imperial order in 1572. In 1589, on the appeal of Hu's grandson, Hu's achievements were recounted and he was accorded a state reburial. During the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–98), Hu Zongxian's victory against the "wokou" was given new currency, and he was canonized with the posthumous name Xiangmao (), meaning "splendid assistance". |
Wolfenschiessen
Wolfenschiessen is a village and municipality in the canton of Nidwalden in Switzerland. Besides the village of Wolfenschiessen itself, the municipality includes the settlements of Altzellen, Büren ob dem Bach, Dörfli, and Oberrickenbach, together with a large area of high alpine land, mountains, lakes, and glaciers.
History.
Wolfenschiessen was first mentioned around 1200 as "Wolvinscizin" though a 14th century copy of a land record from around 1160 mentions two fields at "Wolfenschiessen". During the 12th century the farm and fields of Wolfenschiessen were owned by the Benedictine Muri Abbey. In the 13th and 14th centuries the lands were gradually transferred to Murbach-Lucerne and Engelberg Abbeys. Between the 12th and 13th centuries, the von Wolfenschiessen family were, probably, raised from farming to minor nobility and appointed to administer the monastery’s estates at Wolfenschiessen. They built a tower in the center of the village from which they administered and ruled over the village and farms. The family eventually grew to local prominence, before losing most of their wealth and status in the 15th century and dying out at the beginning of the 17th century.
A village church was built by 1277 but was initially a filial church of the parish church in Stans. The village received its own priest in 1438 and in 1469 became an independent parish. During the 14th through 16th centuries several other hamlets developed around Wolfenschiessen.
Coat of arms.
The municipality's coat of arms is "Azure, a Wolf rampant Argent pierced by an Arrow in bend sinister Or". This is an example of canting where the name of the municipality is translated or represented on the coat of arms. In this case, Wolfenschiessen means "to shoot the wolf."
Geography.
Wolfenschiessen encompasses both sides of the deep valley of the river Engelberger Aa downstream of Engelberg, with high alpine areas encircling Engelberg to the north, west and south. The settlements of Wolfenschiessen, Büren ob dem Bach and Dörfli lie in the valley, whilst Altzellen and Oberrickenbach are on higher ground to the east.
The lake Bannalpsee lies above Oberrickenbach to the north of Engelberg, while the Trüebsee is on high ground to the south of Engelberg. The southernmost part of the municipality reaches high up the flank of the Titlis, including part of the Titlis Glacier ("Titlisgletscher").
Wolfenschiessen has an area, (as of the 2004/09 survey) of . Of this area, about 39.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while 33.6% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 1.4% is settled (buildings or roads) and 25.4% is unproductive land. In the 2004/09 survey a total of or about 0.7% of the total area was covered with buildings, an increase of over the 1980/81 amount. Of the agricultural land, is used for orchards and vineyards, is fields and grasslands and consists of alpine grazing areas. Since 1980/81 the amount of agricultural land has decreased by . Over the same time period the amount of forested land has increased by . Rivers and lakes cover in the municipality.
Demographics.
Wolfenschiessen has a population () of . , 10.8% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 5 years (2010-2015) the population has changed at a rate of 7.13%. The birth rate in the municipality, in 2015, was 14.1, while the death rate was 4.7 per thousand residents.
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 24.4% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) are 60.6% of the population and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 15.0%. In 2015 there were 1,019 single residents, 952 people who were married or in a civil partnership, 91 widows or widowers and 86 divorced residents.
In 2015 there were 819 private households in Wolfenschiessen with an average household size of 2.59 persons. In 2015 about 41.4% of all buildings in the municipality were single family homes, which is greater than the percentage in the canton (35.5%) but is much less than the percentage nationally (57.4%). Of the 416 inhabited buildings in the municipality, in 2000, about 39.9% were single family homes and 26.2% were multiple family buildings. Additionally, about 31.5% of the buildings were built before 1919, while 15.1% were built between 1991 and 2000. In 2014 the rate of construction of new housing units per 1000 residents was 2.37. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 1.71%.
Most of the population () speaks German (93.6%), with Albanian being second most common (2.7%) and Serbo-Croatian being third (1.4%). the gender distribution of the population was 51.7% male and 48.3% female.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
Politics.
In the 2015 federal election the only major party which ran in Nidwalden was the SVP which received 88.7% of the vote in Wolfenschiessen. In the federal election, a total of 901 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 58.1%.
In the 2011 federal election the SVP received 57.2%, while the FDP got 29.7% and the GPS received the remaining 13.1%.
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the FDP which received 89.3% of the vote. The next two most popular parties were the local, small right-wing parties (10.7%) and the SPS (0.1%).
Education.
In Wolfenschiessen about 58.6% of the population (between age 25-64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education (either university or a "Fachhochschule").
Economy.
Wolfenschiessen is a mixed agro-industrial community, a municipality where agriculture and manufacturing play a significant role in the economy.
, there were a total of 870 people employed in the municipality. Of these, a total of 229 people worked in 86 businesses in the primary economic sector. The secondary sector employed 267 workers in 31 separate businesses, of which 6 were small businesses that employed a total of 162 employees. Finally, the tertiary sector provided 374 jobs in 91 businesses.
In 2015 a total of 2.4% of the population received social assistance. In 2011 the unemployment rate in the municipality was 0.8%.
In 2015 local hotels had a total of 22,642 overnight stays, of which 33.5% were international visitors.
In 2015 the average cantonal, municipal and church tax rate in the municipality for a couple with two children making was 3.8% while the rate for a single person making was 13.5%, both of which are much higher than average for the canton. The canton has a slightly lower than average tax rate for those making and one of the lowest for those making . In 2013 the average income in the municipality per tax payer was and the per person average was , which is less than the cantonal average of and respectively. It is also less than the national per tax payer average of and the per person average of .
Transport.
The municipality of Wolfenschiessen is served by two railway stations on the Luzern–Stans–Engelberg line. Besides Wolfenschiessen itself, there is Niederrickenbach station, a request stop, to the north. The former Dörfli station to the south was closed in 2013. The hourly InterRegio service between Luzern and Engelberg stops at both stations, while the half hourly S4 service from Luzern terminates at Wolfenschiessen.
A Swiss PostBus service within the municipality links the villages of Wolfenschiessen and Oberrickenbach, with eight services per day. From Oberrickenbach, a cable car provides access to the Bannalpsee.
Many other cable cars provide access to higher dwellings, farms and tourist destinations on both sides of the valley.
On the Alpine pasture of "Ober Trüebsee" one finds the lake called Trüebsee (lit.: "dull lake"). At its uttermost east end is also the place of an intermediate stop ("Trübsee", Germanized without 'e') on the cable car system that links Engelberg and the summit of Klein Titlis.
Sights.
The main sights of Wolfenschiessen are the "St. Maria" parish church, the "St. Joder" chapel in "Altzellen", and the "Hechhuis" and "Grossitz" mansions.
Heritage sites of national significance.
The farm houses Grossitz at Hauptstrasse 31 and Unteres Brunnifeld at Hauptstrasse 41, the "Hechhuis" or "Lussyhaus" mansion and the house Hofstatt im Dörfli are all listed as Swiss heritage site of national significance. |
Landau (automobile)
Landau is a carriage design with a folding fabric top consisting of two sections supported by external elliptical springs.
When used in referencing an automobile, landau generally means a simulated convertible.
The Nash Rambler Landau introduced in 1950 is a cabrio coach with a power-operated fabric top.
A "landau bar" is an ornamental feature located on a car's rear quarter panel, mostly used on hearses.
Origins.
Carriages that had a fabric top that could be lowered and raised were named "Landau" carriages after the city of Landau in Germany where convertible carriages were first produced.
Thus the name "landau", like many other automobile terms, originates from coachbuilding (since coachbuilders began making motor car bodies instead, and because customers were familiar with coachbuilding terms).
The "landau" described a carriage that featured a manually folding fabric roof that was supported by elliptical springs. The top was designed with separate folding front and rear sections that raised or lowered independently or locked together in the middle to cover the carriage. To differentiate the landau models, the coachbuilders typically included large sidebars.
The automotive equivalent to the horse-drawn landau carriage was not popular, since a forward view was generally insisted upon by passengers. Instead, the more popular body style for automobiles was the landaulet (half-landau), with its covered front seats and open rear seats.
The 1935 handbook of the Society of Automotive Engineers defines the landau as "a closed-type body with provision for opening or folding the rear quarter, by the use of landau joints" and this usually makes it impossible to include quarter glass.
Simulated convertible.
In the 1920s and 1930s, especially in the United States, "landau" became associated with cars where the fixed (eg metal) roof and rear quarter panels were covered with fabric or leather and fitted with S-shaped side landau bars, to make it appear like a convertible roof.
Following the 1920s and 1930s, when custom-built bodies were available with a split front and rear roof design, the use of landau changed from a functional feature on limited production cars to that of a decorative feature in some higher market segment production cars.
The term landau fell into disuse from the mid-1940s until the late-1950s. It was used to describe fixed-roof cars styled to simulate a two-piece roof or to resemble convertibles, sometimes time using vinyl roofs. An example of a two-piece roof is the 1957 Imperial four-door hardtop with simulated "landau-type" roof design. Some models were called "landaus" by their manufacturers, and many were fitted with landau bars on the rear quarters (faux cabriolet).
Landau bar.
A landau bar is an ornamental S-shaped metallic bar installed on the rear quarter panel of a car. Mostly used on hearses, the landau bar represents the folding roof structure on a Landau carriage.
Since the mid-1940s, hearses in the United States commonly feature chrome bow-shaped landau bars on the simulated leather covered rear roof sides.
Nash Rambler Landau.
In 1950, Nash Motors introduced the Rambler, "the first true compact car of the post-World War II era" in a two-door cabrio coach body style called the "Nash Rambler Landau."
This model was described as a "convertible landau" and the roof section from the top of the windscreen could be retracted into the trunk/boot. A "bridge beam" steel structure remained in place at the top of the doors and windows. No other convertible featured anything like the Nash Rambler Landau with the fabric top that slid back to open along the fixed side rails. The fabric top was power-operated with a cover that could be snapped on when the top was open. The Rambler's strong body structure eliminated the internal bracing that was normally needed on other open roof cars.
Ford Thunderbird Landau.
Ford marketed versions of the Ford Thunderbird using Landau as a model name. The 1962 Landau was a hardtop that included a padded vinyl roof in white or black with simulated S-bars with a raised wing Thunderbird emblem on the C-pillars. This model was popular and contributed to increased sales.
The "Town Landau" model was a model of the 1966 Thunderbird line. It featured a wide rear C-pillar with no rear quarter windows with painted roof or available with a vinyl-covered roof that came in black, white, parchment, or sage gold and included color-coordinated S-bars.
The Thunderbird was redesigned for 1967 and included a four-door sedan body design with rear-hinged (suicide) doors. All four-door models included a vinyl roof and landau bars giving them the official name of "Landau Sedan". The C-pillar was visually extended into the rear door window area and covered to match the vinyl top, with the landau bars helping camouflage the cut line. The simulated landau design with overwrought trim on the four-door model has been described as "a one-car funeral procession". The Town Landau two-door version was reintroduced as a mid-1977 model with standard luxury features, and it was continued for several more years. |
Capital punishment for homosexuality
Capital punishment as a criminal punishment for homosexuality has been implemented by a number of countries in their history. It currently remains a legal punishment in several countries and regions, all of which have sharia-based criminal laws. Gay people also face extrajudicial killings by state and non-state actors, as in Chechnya in 2019, though it is denied by the Chechen authorities and Russia.
Imposition of the death penalty for homosexuality may be classified as judicial murder of gay people, which has been analyzed as a form of genocide.
In current state laws.
As of July 2020, the following jurisdictions prescribe the death penalty for homosexuality:
Extrajudicial killings.
In some regions, gay people have been murdered by Islamist militias and terrorist groups, such as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in parts of Iraq, Libya, and Syria, the Houthi movement in Yemen and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
In February 2016 Hamas, which controls the Palestinian National Authority and rules Gaza, executed by firing squad Mahmoud Ishtiwi—one of the group's leading commanders—for homosexual activity.
Anti-gay purges in the Chechen Republic, a predominantly Muslim region of Russia, have included forced disappearances—secret abductions, imprisonment, and torture—by local Chechen authorities targeting persons based on their perceived sexual orientation. Of 100 men, who authorities detained on suspicion of being gay or bisexual, three have reportedly died after being held in what human rights groups and eyewitnesses have called concentration camps.
Extrajudicial killings have occurred in Iraq. Cases include abductions, torture, rape and murder by vigilante mobs, millitia and perpetrators. LGBT people living in fear of their lives, campaigners Human Rights Watch (HRW) and IraQueer found. HRW's LGBT rights researcher Rasha Younes said: "LGBT Iraqis live in constant fear of being hunted down and killed by armed groups with impunity, as well as arrest and violence by Iraqi police, making their lives unliveable."
Report of vigilante executions, attacks, beatings, and torture have been reported in heavily Christian and Muslim regions of Africa, in countries such as Algeria, Uganda, South Africa, Kenya, Liberia, Ghana, Cameroon, and Senegal. In these countries, police turn a blind eye or even are complicit in the anti-gay violence.
History.
Australia.
Australian states and territories first passed laws against homosexuality during the colonial era, and nineteenth-century colonial parliaments retained provisions which made homosexual activity a capital offence until 1861. Most jurisdictions removed capital punishment as a sentence for homosexual activity, although in Victoria it remained as such when committed while also inflicting bodily harm or to a person younger than the age of fourteen until 1949. The last person arrested for homosexual sex in Australia was a man in 1984 in Tasmania. The last part of Australia to legalise consensual homosexual sex between adults was Tasmania in 1997. In 2017, same-sex marriage was legalised by the Australian government.
Of the seven men in Australian history known to have been executed for sodomy, six cases involved the sexual abuse of minors; only one of the seven cases was for consensual acts between adults. In that sole case, Alexander Browne was hanged at Sydney on 22 December 1828 for sodomy with his shipmate William Lyster on the whaler "Royal Sovereign"; Lyster was also convicted and sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted before execution. Joseph Fogg was hanged at Hobart on 24 February 1830 for an "unnamed crime", also described in one source as an "abominable crime". The exact nature of his crime is unclear; while likely a same-sex sexual offence given the labels applied ('unnamed', 'abominable'), it too may not have been for consensual acts, but for same-sex rape, or abuse of a minor.
Germany.
During the period of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, homosexual men were persecuted with thousands being imprisoned in concentration camps (and eventually extermination camps) by the Nazi regime. Roughly 5,000–15,000 were sent to the concentration camps, with the death rate being estimated to be as high as 60%. Homosexuals in the camps suffered an unusual degree of cruelty by their captors, including being used as target practice on shooting ranges.
In a 1937 speech, Himmler argued that SS men who had served sentences for homosexuality should be transferred to a concentration camp and shot when trying to escape. This policy was never implemented, and some SS men were acquitted on homosexuality charges despite evidence against them. A few death sentences against SS men for homosexual acts were pronounced between 1937 and 1940. In a speech on 18 August 1941, Hitler argued that homosexuality should be combatted throughout Nazi organizations and the military. In particular, homosexuality in the Hitler Youth must be punished by death in order to protect youth from being turned into homosexuals, however the Hitler Youth never implemented this policy.
After learning of Hitler's remark, Himmler decided that the SS must be at least as tough on homosexuality and drafted a decree mandating the death penalty to any member of the SS and police found guilty of engaging in a homosexual act. Hitler signed the decree on 15 November 1941 on the condition that there be absolutely no publicity, worried that such a harsh decree might lend fuel to left-wing propaganda that homosexuality was especially prevalent in Germany. Since it could not be published in the SS newspaper, the decree was communicated to SS men one-on-one by their superiors. However, this was not done consistently and many arrested men asserted that they had no knowledge of the decree.
Even after the decree, only a few death sentences were pronounced. Himmler often commuted the sentence especially if he thought that the accused was not a committed homosexual, but had suffered a one-time mistake (particularly while drunk). Many of those whose sentence was commuted were sent to serve in the Dirlewanger Brigade, a penal unit on the Eastern Front, where most were killed. After late 1943, because of military losses, it was the policy to recycle SS men convicted of homosexuality into the Wehrmacht.
The 1933 law on habitual criminals also allowed for execution after the third conviction. On 4 September 1941 a new law allowed the execution of dangerous sex offenders or habitual criminals when "the protection of the "Volksgemeinschaft" or the need for just atonement require it". This law enabled authorities to pronounce death sentences against homosexuals, and is known to have been employed in four cases in Austria. In 1943, Wilhelm Keitel, head of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, authorized the death penalty for soldiers convicted of homosexuality in "particularly serious cases". Only a few executions of homosexual Wehrmacht soldiers are known, mostly in conjunction with other charges especially desertion. Some homosexuals were executed at Nazi euthanasia centers, such as Bernburg or Meseritz-Obrawalde. It is difficult to estimate the number of homosexuals directly killed during the Nazi era.
United Kingdom.
From 1533, under the Buggery Act 1533, capital felony for any person to "commit the detestable and abominable vice of buggery with mankind or beast", was enacted, repealed and re-enacted several times by the Crown, until it was reinstated permanently in 1563. Homosexual activity remained a capital offence until 1861. The last execution took place on 27 November 1835 when James Pratt and John Smith were hanged outside Newgate Prison in London.
United States.
During the colonial era of American history, the various European nations which established colonies in the Americas brought their pre-existing laws against homosexuality (which included capital punishment) with them. The establishment of the United States after their victory in the Revolutionary War did not bring about any changes in the status of capital punishment as a sentence for being convicted of homosexual behavior. Beginning in the 19th century, the various state legislatures passed legislation which ended the status of capital punishment being used for those who were convicted of homosexual behavior. South Carolina was the last state, in 1873, to repeal the death penalty for homosexual behaviour from its statute books. The number of times the penalty was carried out is unknown. Records show there were at least two executions, and a number of more convictions with vague labels, such as "crimes against nature".
Sudan.
In July 2020, the sodomy law that previously punished gay men with up to 100 lashes for the first offence, five years in jail for the second and the death penalty the third time around was abolished, with new legislation reducing the penalty to prison terms ranging from five years to life. Sudanese LGBT+ activists hailed the reform as a 'great first step', but said it was not enough yet, and the end goal should be the decriminalisation of same-sex sexual activity altogether. |
Frederick W. Garber
Frederick W. Garber (July 21, 1877 – August 7, 1950) was an American architect in Cincinnati, Ohio and the principal architect in the Garber & Woodward firm with Clifford B. Woodward (1880–1932). The firm operated from 1904 until it was dissolved in 1933 Their work has been described as in the Beaux-Arts tradition and included buildings on the University of Cincinnati campuses, schools, hospitals, commercial buildings, "fine residences" and public housing.
Background.
Garber was the eldest son of Frederick H.C. Garber who was born in Hanover Germany and worked at a German newspaper.
Garber and Woodward were students together, business partners in their architectural firm, and brothers-in-law. They attended Cincinnati Technical School, worked as draftsmen for Elzner & Anderson in Cincinnati; and attended a two-year course in architecture at M.I.T. (studying with Beaux-Arts-trained Professor C.D. Despradelle). Garber won a Rotch Scholarship and studied abroad. He may have traveled with Bertram Goodhue while in Europe, as well as with a partner in the firm of Cass Gilbert.
Woodward was born in the Walnut Hills area of Cincinnati and spent most of his life in the Glendale section of town. He was the third son of Henry L. Woodward who worked for First National Bank.
Garber was a fellow of the AIA and a member of its board of directors, a member of the Corporation of M.I.T., and a member of the visiting committee of the art and archaeological department of Princeton University.
Firm.
The Garber & Woodward firm's design for Withrow High School (1915–1919) at 2488 Madison Road in Hyde Park included "an agricultural section with conservatories and a poultry house, a manual-training shop, and a fine gymnasium" on a campus Garber & Woodward "made the difficult challenge of a ravine across the front of the site into a dramatic asset by means of a Palladian bridge leading to the tall bell tower, which resembles the campanile in St. Mark's Piazza in Venice. The main building is graceful, balanced composition with horizontal lines. Two matching wings are attached at a slight angle so that they spread across the wide entrance court to embrace the visitor."
The firm collaborated with Cass Gilbert and John Russell Pope of New York on the design of the Union Central Life Insurance Co. Building (now the PNC bank building) and on the Cincinnati Gas & Electric Co. (Cinergy/Duke Energy) headquarters (Duke Energy Building).
Garber & Woodward designed the Phelps Apartment House (The Phelps) at 506 East Fourth Street for the Taft family and remodeled the Baum-Longworth-Sinton-Taft House as the Taft Museum, after the deaths of Charles Phelps and Anna Sinton Taft (ca. 1930). The firm "restored much of the Victorianized interior according to a fairly authentic but Deco-flavored Federal style." The firm also designed the Anna Louise Inn for Girls (originally the Union Bethel) on Pike St. near the Taft Museum and a work that may have been carried out in association with Elzner & Anderson. Mr. and Mrs. "Charles P. Taft" also funded construction of the operation for the Cincinnati Union Bethel (CUB) to run a non-profit offering 120 "working young women, who had come to Cincinnati seeking employment from various rural areas, both security and affordable housing" on Third and Lytle streets.
During the Great Depression F.W. Garber was head of the Associated Architects responsible for the design of the early WPA Projects: Laurel Homes and Lincoln Court (formerly on Ezzard Charles Drive) west of Music Hall (replaced by City West ca. 2002–2003), and later the English Woods and Winton Terrace housing projects.
Garber's firm designed the Phoenix Building, now known as the Cincinnati Club, a 1924 former hotel and private club in Cincinnati, Ohio that is now used as a banquet hall. It was listed in the National Register on January 11, 1985 and is also recognized as a historic landmark by the Miami Historical Preservation Association.
The firm's Chamber of Commerce Building on 1-11 Capitol Street in Charleston, West Virginia was later demolished. It was a six floor rigid frame steel structure user as a commercial office.
The nine-story Vernon Manor Hotel was built in 1924 the Avondale neighborhood "for wealthy Cincinnatians longing to get away from the hustle and bustle of downtown". Perched atop one of the cities' Seven Hills it overlooks the city skyline. It was featured in the 1986 film "Rainman" starring Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman.
Garber & Woodward were involved in planning with landscape architect John Nolen for a recreation center in the Mariemont project development, "an essential component" but after Nolen's services were terminated the commission was never fulfilled, and it was designed by New York architect George B. deGersdorff instead who was an old classmate and friend of Charles Livingood. Architect Edward Kruckemeyer worked with Garber & Woodward for a time before joining with another MIT classmate, Charles Strong in 1915 after they traveled together in Europe.
Garber practiced with John Postler and Lawrence Lefken from 1933 to 1938 and on his own from 1939 to 1952. His son Woodie (Woodward) Garber also had a firm "with a more contemporary approach" from 1949 to 1971.
Legacy (Woodie Garber).
Frederick William Garber's son Woodie Garber (often spelled Woody) took a more contemporary approach to architecture. He designed Cincinnati's first post World War II main library building at the corner of Eighth and Vine using a plan with a lot of open space. The building is "the cornerstone of the present Main Library complex". He also designed Sander Hall at the University of Cincinnati (since imploded). He also authored a 1973 guide called "An architectural program for adult corrections facilities for Cincinnati and Hamilton County".
Further reading.
Conversations with Dr. Stanley T. Garber and Woodie Garber, sons of F.W. Garber; |
Psychedelic frogfish
The psychedelic frogfish ("Histiophryne psychedelica") is a yellow-brown or peach colored frogfish named for its pink and white stripes arranged in a fingerprint pattern. The fish is from waters near Ambon Island and Bali, Indonesia.
Description.
The psychedelic frogfish was first described in 2009 by Pietsch, Arnold, and Hall in the scientific journal "Copeia", where they described it as having "a remarkable pigment pattern of white swirling stripes", hence their use of the term "psychedelic". The psychedelic frogfish has been known to reach a length of . The skin of the psychedelic frogfish is flabby and fleshy, like other frogfishes. As a member of the order Lophiiformes, it has no scales. The skin covers the dorsal and ventral fins of the fish, which aid in camouflaging the fish. The skin may be covered in protective mucus.
The psychedelic frogfish is different from many other anglerfishes in that it has a tiny luring appendage on its forehead. It has a relatively flat face, and forward facing eyes with a mouth smaller than that of most anglerfishes.
The coloring of the skin is a pattern of yellowish brown or peach colored stripes. This pattern covers the entire fish, including its fins, except for the hidden skin that is exposed when the lips are stretched forward, which is pale in color. At the margins, the skin can appear to be turquoise, although the exact nature of this coloration is unclear. Unlike some frogfishes, the psychedelic frogfish's color never changes, even if the habitat changes, and its offspring maintain that color as well. The fingerprint pattern, like the stripes on a zebra or the spots on a humpback whale's tail, is unique to each individual. This allows researchers to easily track multiple psychedelic frogfish in the wild and still identify them from any angle.
The face of the psychedelic frogfish is flattened; the cheeks and chin of the fish are extended laterally, much like the sides of a collapsible paper orb. The fish is able to both expand its head and extend its mouth forward, thus expanding the head and giving it a more elongated shape more often seen in large fish. The fish employs this behavior periodically when not feeding, as though yawning. The psychedelic frogfish has so far been positively identified only at Ambon Island, Indonesia. It has been found in coral rubble, where it may be camouflaged from predators, though the location is primarily considered a 'muck' dive with few corals in the area. The fish have so far been found in locations where the water is deep, about away from the shoreline. Occasionally, the current in these areas is so strong that it makes it nearly impossible for the fish to swim, but usually the current is only mild.
The coloration of the fish may be reminiscent of a number or hermatypic corals such as "Symphyllia sinuosa", "Leptoseris explanata", "Pachyseris rugosa", "Platygyra ryukyuensis", "Pectinia lactuca", and "Caulastrea furcata", all located in the Indo-West Pacific area.
Habits.
Locomotion.
The psychedelic frogfish moves by walking on its pectoral fins over the seafloor, and has been observed using its fins to push off from the sea floor while at the same time shooting water through its gills to propel itself forward via jet propulsion. When doing so, the fish takes on a ball shape, and its behavior takes on that of a bouncing beach ball in the wind. These modes of locomotion are quite common for frogfishes, although rare for other fish.
Diet.
The fish's diet likely consists of shrimp and small fish. Fish cannot be attracted using the illicium, as this spine is so reduced in size that it is unnoticeable externally.
Instead, the psychedelic frogfish is presumed to strategically block off tight crevices which serve as passages to chambers in rocks and coral. The psychedelic frogfish was reported to wriggle itself very tightly into these holes, pushing with its fins, often for as long as two minutes before making its way inside the hole. Its skin may be covered with a protective mucus that aids in protecting it from scratches. This may also be an artifact of divers causing a fright response, especially when using high-powered strobes on underwater cameras.
Defense.
The psychedelic frogfish is relatively defenseless, but by hiding in these tight passages it is highly unlikely that any fish capable of swallowing it will be able to reach it. The combination of camouflage and the tight cavities in which it might hide makes it virtually impossible to find a psychedelic frogfish without overturning rocks and coral. According to Andy Shorten, co-owner of the Maluku Divers diving facility where the fish was discovered, "Seeking out these fish is probably going to be like the Holy Grail of divers for a while."
It is not known what the purpose is of the frilled cheeks and chin, although Pietsch, Arnold, & Hall hypothesize that these serve the same function as whiskers on a cat, which is to detect movement of potential predators. It is also hypothesized that the ball-like shape which the psychedelic frogfish takes on when swimming in the open may be a form of camouflage. When assuming this shape, the fish looks much less like a fish and more like a piece of debris bouncing along the reef.
Spawning.
One female psychedelic frogfish laid a cluster of about 220 eggs. Like all members of the genus "Histiophryne", the female wrapped its caudal, dorsal, and anal fins around the cluster of eggs, hiding it from view. As the fish had already spawned when it was observed carrying the eggs, the length of time to hatching is unknown.
Discovery.
In June 1992, a shipment of assorted fishes from Bali, Indonesia, to the Dallas Aquarium at Fair Park revealed "something different"— two curious-looking anglerfish that became known as the "paisley anglers". They were in "very poor condition", and they died that same month. The specimens were preserved and sent to Theodore W. Pietsch for identification, along with a photo, although the photo was poor quality. However, after having been fixed in formalin and preserved in ethanol, their colors faded to a solid white, and their frilled faces lost their distinct frill shape. When the fish were analyzed, they were misidentified as cryptic anglerfish ("Histiophryne cryptacanthus"). These specimens were preserved and placed on a shelf. No one returned to them until their recent rediscovery in 2008.
The species was first photographed in the wild during its second sighting in January 2008 by Buck Randolph, Fitrie Randolph and Toby Fadirsyair of Maluku Divers, located in Ambon, Indonesia. This quickly made headlines across American and Indonesian online newspapers, and the species was named one of the top 10 species discovered in 2009 by the International Institute for Species Exploration.
Researchers were not sure how to classify it, since it was so different from any other known fish. The nearest genus, "Histiophryne", had so many differences it was debated whether the fish deserved its own genus. In fact, it was even considered that the new fish did not belong in the family Antennariidae. However, DNA tests, which are today's standard for making the final call on whether a species is new, proved that the fish belonged in the genus "Histiophryne".
Ichthyologists Pietsch, Arnold, and Hall collected a holotype from the Laha I dive site at Maluku Divers on April 2, 2008. They discovered that the fish, when fixed in formalin and preserved in ethanol, shrank 23% (especially the fleshy cheeks and chin) within four months and hardened considerably. The colors all faded to a solid white, but when viewed using a dissecting microscope, the stripes were again visible. These observations were consistent with the mysterious paisley anglers from Bali in 1992. This was subsequently tested on the two specimens saved from 1992, and the stripes could still be found using this method. |
Lecrae
Lecrae Devaughn Moore (born October 9, 1979) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record and film producer, record executive, actor, and entrepreneur.
He is the president, co-owner and co-founder of the independent record label Reach Records, was the co-founder and president of the now-defunct non-profit organization ReachLife Ministries, is an investor and co-owner of the audio production software MXD, and is a co-founder of the film production studio 3 Strand Films. To date, he has released ten studio albums and three mixtapes as a solo artist, and has released three studio albums, a remix album, one EP, and numerous singles as the leader of the hip hop group 116 Clique. He produced much of his earlier material along with other early Reach Records releases. Lecrae, in reference to him being labelled as a Christian rapper, has stated that his music is just hip hop, though it reflects his Christian faith. In May 2016, Lecrae signed to Columbia Records in a joint deal between his label and Columbia. He left Columbia in May 2020.
Lecrae's debut recording, "Real Talk", was released in 2004 through Reach Records. His third solo album, "Rebel", released in 2008, became the first Christian hip hop album to reach No. 1 on the "Billboard" Gospel chart. "Rehab" followed in 2010, and Lecrae began attracting mainstream attention when he performed at the 2011 BET Hip Hop Awards Cypher and appeared on the Statik Selektah song "Live & Let Live" from "Population Control". On May 10, 2012, Lecrae released his first mixtape, "Church Clothes", which was hosted by Don Cannon. Considered his breakthrough into mainstream hip hop, the mixtape was downloaded over 100,000 times in less than 48 hours. His sixth studio album, "Gravity", came out on September 4, 2012, and has been called the most important album in Christian hip hop history by Rapzilla and "Atlanta Daily World". The album debuted as the best-selling album overall in the iTunes Store, No. 3 on the "Billboard" 200 and won the Grammy Award for Best Gospel Album at the 2013 Grammy Awards, marking the first time that a hip hop artist received this award. Lecrae released his seventh album, "Anomaly", on September 9, 2014. It debuted at No. 1 on the "Billboard" 200 with 88,587 copies sold through the first week, the first album to top both the "Billboard" 200 and the Gospel chart simultaneously. He released a third mixtape, "Church Clothes 3", on January 15, 2016, an eighth studio album, "All Things Work Together", on September 22, 2017, and a ninth studio album, "Let the Trap Say Amen", a collaborative project with Zaytoven, on June 22, 2018. His tenth studio album, "Restoration", was released on August 21, 2020.
Lecrae received nominations for Artist of the Year at the 43rd, 44th, 45th, and 46th GMA Dove Awards, the last of which he won, and for Best Gospel Artist at the 2013 and 2015 BET Awards, the latter of which he won, a first for a rap artist. Lecrae's filmography includes a role in the television film "A Cross to Bear" (2012) and brief roles in the comedy film "Believe Me" (2014), crime film "Superfly" (2018), and Christian drama film "Breakthrough" (2019). In the social sphere, Lecrae has presented on and written about racial tension and injustice in the United States as well as advocated for the preservation of responsibility and fatherhood as a value among men in the United States. In 2013 he partnered with Dwyane Wade and Joshua DuBois in the multimedia initiative "This Is Fatherhood" as part of the Obama administration's Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative, and in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic worked with Love Beyond Walls to distribute hand-washing stations and food to homeless people in Atlanta.
Life and career.
Early life.
Lecrae was raised by his single mother in a poor neighborhood in southern Houston. Shortly after his birth, he moved to Denver, away from his father, then to San Diego. At the age of 6, he was sexually abused by his babysitter. As a teenager, his role models were the rapper Tupac Shakur and his uncle, a member of a street gang.
At age 16, he began using drugs, trying almost every substance except crack and heroin. He started stealing in high school and dealing drugs, using his grandmother's Bible as a lucky charm. He was arrested for possession of drugs, but the policeman who arrested him discovered his Bible and made him promise that, if he let Lecrae go, he would live according to biblical principles from now on. Subsequently, he began rehab. He dropped drugs but replaced them with alcohol and partying.
Lecrae received a scholarship to study theater at the University of North Texas, and graduated with a Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences in 2002. He also briefly attended Middle Tennessee State University.
At 19, he went to a Bible study after being invited by a girl from college. He was amazed to see people like himself there, who liked the same books and music, but who were loving. He decided to live for God, but continued making bad choices. Following a friend's invitation, he attended a Christian conference in Atlanta and was impressed by the performance of a Christian rap group, The Cross Movement. He was also touched by a clear presentation of the gospel by Pastor James White (of Our King Community Church). He then asked forgiveness for his sins and claimed to have experienced a new birth.
Subsequently, he was in a car accident but came out unscathed. In 2003, in a Bible study meeting at Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas, he met Ben Washer, with whom he would volunteer and sing in a juvenile correctional facility. Young people's positive response to Christian rap encouraged them to start a label.
Early career (2004–2011).
In 2004, five years after his conversion, Lecrae teamed up with Ben Washer to found Reach Records, and at the age of 25 he released his first album, "Real Talk". The following year it was re-released by Cross Movement Records and reached No. 29 on the "Billboard" Gospel Albums chart, staying on the chart for 12 weeks. The album later received a nomination at the 2007 Stellar Awards. In 2005, Lecrae co-founded the non-profit organization ReachLife Ministries (no longer operational since April 2015), which equipped local Christian leaders with tools, media, curriculum, and conferences that were based on the teachings of the Bible and relevant to hip-hop culture. Also in 2005, the debut album of 116 Clique, "The Compilation Album", was released.
After the success of "Real Talk", Lecrae then released his second studio album on August 15, 2006. "After the Music Stops" charted at No. 5 on the "Billboard" Gospel Albums chart, No. 7 on the "Billboard" Christian Albums chart and No. 16 on the "Billboard" Heatseeker Album charts, and received a nomination for a Dove Award, as did the single "Jesus Muzik", featuring Trip Lee. In 2007, 116 Clique released its second album, "13 Letters", reaching No. 10 on the Gospel Albums chart and No. 29 on the Christian Albums chart. 116 Clique also released the remix EP "Amped", which peaked at No. 24 on the Gospel Albums chart.
On October 8, 2008, Lecrae's third album, "Rebel", entered the "Billboard" charts at No. 60 with 9,800 units sold and topped the "Billboard" Gospel Album charts for two weeks, the first hip-hop album to do so. It also charted at No. 2 on the Christian Albums chart and No. 15 on the Top Independent charts. In 2009, the album received a nomination at the 40th Dove Awards, as did the Flame song "Joyful Noise", which featured Lecrae and John Reilly. 2009 also saw Lecrae's first film role, when he appeared in the documentary "Uprise Presents: Word from the Street" by the UK-based TV channel OHTV.
In 2009, he moved to Atlanta and he helped establish Blueprint Church (Southern Baptist Convention).
On February 5, 2010, Lecrae released a charity single entitled "Far Away", a tribute to the victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Lecrae promised that all proceeds from the single's sales would go directly to the Haiti relief effort. On July 7, Lecrae announced on the Reach Records website that the title of his new album would be "Rehab". On August 5, 2010, Rapzilla shared a new song from Lecrae called "Amp It Up". Lecrae subsequently clarified on his Twitter account that the song was not a single from "Rehab", but rather a theme song for Kanakuk Kamps, a chain of Christian camps for which he writes songs annually. On August 31, 2010, Reach Records revealed the track list for "Rehab", released it for pre-order, and premiered a promotional video "Idols". A second promotional video, entitled "I Am Dust", debuted on September 9, 2010. Upon its release, "Rehab" hit No. 16 on the "Billboard" 200 chart, making it one of the highest selling Christian hip hop albums at that time.
On September 22, 2010, Rapzilla reported that the "Rehab" packaging came with an advertisement encouraging buyers to purchase another upcoming album, "", which saw release on January 11, 2011. It included 11 new songs and featured several other Christian artists such as Thi'sl and Swoope. "Rehab: The Overdose" debuted at No. 15 on the "Billboard" 200. On August 29, 2011, Lecrae announced through Twitter that on September 27, 2011, he would release a special edition of "Rehab", entitled "Rehab: Deluxe Edition". On the same day, 116 Clique released their fourth album, entitled "Man Up". On September 7, 2011, Rapzilla announced that Lecrae would be featured on the BET Hip Hop Awards Cypher on October 11, 2011. Lecrae gained popularity after his verse on the cypher trended nationwide on Twitter and was featured on AllHipHop. Lecrae then appeared as a feature on Statik Selektah's song "Live and Let Live" from his "Population Control" album.
Mainstream breakthrough (2012–2016).
On February 16, 2012, Rapzilla announced that Lecrae was preparing to release his first mixtape, "Church Clothes". On May 3, 2012, Lecrae premiered his music video for the title track of his "Church Clothes" mixtape online on "XXL". The video was noted for including cameos by Kendrick Lamar and DJ Premier, and attracted almost 20,000 views in less than a day. Hosted by Don Cannon, the mixtape featured the song "Darkest Hour", in which Lecrae collaborated with No Malice of Clipse. "Church Clothes" was downloaded more than 100,000 times in less than 48 hours on DatPiff.com, and in less than a month reached 250,000 downloads, a platinum rating on the website. On June 25, 2012, a remastered version of the mixtape, without DJ Don Cannon, was released as an EP for sale on iTunes. Due to issues with sampling, this version was much shorter with only seven songs. Upon its release, the EP debuted on the "Billboard" charts at No. 10 on both the Christian Albums and Gospel Albums charts for the week of July 14, 2012.
On April 27, Lecrae announced that his next album, "Gravity", was to be released in late 2012, and recording sessions began in May. On June 21, 2012, Lecrae appeared live at the Apple Store in Chicago for Black Music Month. The release date for "Gravity", September 4, 2012, as well as the album artwork was announced on July 19, 2012, via Rapzilla.
On August 30, 2012, the rapper Saigon announced that Lecrae would be one of the featured artists on his upcoming album "", due November 6, 2012.
"Gravity" was released on September 4, 2012, to critical acclaim. Upon its release, "Gravity" debuted at No. 3 on the "Billboard" 200, with 72,000 units sold. The album also debuted at No. 1 on the Christian, Gospel, Independent, and Rap Album charts, No. 3 on the Digital Albums chart, and 24 on the Canadian Albums Chart. After the iTunes deluxe version of the album hit No. 1 on that vendors charts, and the regular version at number No. 2, "Time" wrote an article about Lecrae and his success with the album.
On November 7, 2013, Lecrae released his second mixtape, entitled "Church Clothes Vol. 2", hosted once again by Don Cannon. The mixtape debuted at No. 21 on the "Billboard" 200, No. 1 on the "Billboard" Christian Albums and Gospel Albums charts, and No. 3 on the Rap Albums chart. On Datpiff.com, the album was download over 146,000 times by November 26, 2013.
On June 3, 2014, Lecrae announced through social media that his seventh studio album would be titled "Anomaly". The album released on September 9, 2014. It is supported by the single "Nuthin". It debuted at No. 1 on the "Billboard 200" with over 88,000 copies sold through the first week. It is the first time an album tops both the "Billboard" 200 and the Gospel Albums chart. Lecrae also became the fifth artist following Chris Tomlin (2013), TobyMac (2012), LeAnn Rimes (1997) and Bob Carlisle (1997) to score a number one album on both Christian Albums and the "Billboard" 200. "Anomaly" also marks the sixth time that Lecrae topped the Gospel Albums chart and the fifth time he topped the Christian Albums chart. In its second week of sales, the album sold 31,000 copies, bringing the total to 120,000 copies sold. In its third week of sales, the album sold another 17,000 copies, bringing the total to 137,000 copies. "Anomaly" went on to sell over 500,000 copies, and was certified Gold by the RIAA on August 26, 2016. As a reward to fans for their support in helping his album go No. 1 on "Billboard", Lecrae released a new song, "Non-Fiction", as a free download on September 17. The song was subsequently released on October 21, 2014, in the iTunes store. The single "All I Need Is You" from the album was nominated for Best Rap Performance at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards, and on June 12, 2019, the song was certified Gold by the RIAA.
To promote "Anomaly", on September 18, 2014, Lecrae appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, performing alongside The Roots, the program's house band. He made a subsequent appearance the following year, on January 9, 2015, this time as a featured performer. On January 15, 2016, Lecrae released his third mixtape "Church Clothes 3". The mixtape debuted at No. 12 on the "Billboard" 200 and No. 1 on the Christian, Rap, and Independent charts, selling some 29,207 units.
Signing with Columbia and "Restoration" (2016–present).
In August 2015, Lecrae announced an upcoming memoir titled "Unashamed", which on May 3, 2016, was published through B&H Publishing Group, a subsidiary of LifeWay Christian Resources. It opened at No. 19 on The New York Times Best Seller list. In May 2016, Lecrae signed to Columbia Records, which will release future recordings in conjunction with Reach. Lecrae explained that he signed this deal in order to increase the international audience for Reach, since his label peaked nationally with the release of "Anomaly". In September 2016, Reach Records announced Lecrae's upcoming tour schedule, The Destination Tour (You're Accepted), which ran through October and November. On October 21, 2016, Lecrae released the single "Can't Stop Me Now (Destination)", the lead single from his upcoming studio album. On January 27, 2017, he released the second single "Blessings", featuring Ty Dolla Sign. Lecrae followed this up with the third single "I'll Find You", featuring Tori Kelly, on June 8, 2017. Then, on June 23, 2017, he released a promotional single "Hammer Time", featuring 1K Phew. On August 7, 2017, Lecrae announced his eighth studio album, "All Things Work Together", his major label debut. The album was released on September 22, 2017. "Blessings" went on to be certified Gold on April 30, 2019, and "I'll Find You" was certified Platinum on February 26, 2020.
On May 24, 2018, he announced in a DJ Booth editorial that he and producer Zaytoven would release a collaborative album called "Let the Trap Say Amen". The album was released on June 22, 2018. In December 2019, the Atlanta Hawks accidentally leaked information about a new Lecrae album coming March 2020 when they posted about a Lecrae performance—also in March—that included information about the album: "Restoration". In an interview with Black Enterprise, Lecrae said that he is excited to put out some healing music, that there is always "hope, healing, and restoration available if you seek it". In the same interview, Lecrae discussed his forthcoming second book, "I Am Restored: How I Lost My Religion but Found My Faith", which will be a follow up to his first book "Unashamed". "I Am Restored" will release October 13, 2020. The first single to "Restoration", "Set Me Free", featuring YK Osiris, and the accompanying music video, was released on March 20, 2020. In May 2020, Lecrae left Columbia, and stated that this would give him more artistic freedom and control. "Restoration" was released on August 21, 2020. On December 3, 2021, Lecrae released "No Church In a While", a ten-track collaboration album with 1K Phew.
Influences and musical style.
Lecrae's musical genre is predominantly Southern hip hop and has been described as falling under the styles of crunk, gangsta rap, and hardcore hip hop. On his third release, "Rebel", Lecrae slowed down his style on many songs. "Rehab" was noted for its stylistic diversity, particularly on the song "Children of the Light", which featured Dillavou and Sonny Sandoval and incorporated rock, and reggae influences. With the release "Gravity", "Billboard" described Lecrae as incorporating reggae and soul influences into his "signature brash sound." "Let the Trap Say Amen" blended Lecrae's spiritual lyrics with Zaytoven's trap-style production.
Regarding which musical artists have influenced him, Lecrae, in an interview with "Essence", cited Tupac, Nas, DJ Quik, Scarface, and The Cross Movement. In an interview with "The Christian Post", Lecrae listed his top favorite five hip hop artists as Tupac, Nas, The Ambassador, Snoop Dogg, and Jay Z, though he admires Jay-Z for his business approach rather than his music. Lecrae also names Outkast and Lauryn Hill as major influences, particularly their albums "Aquemini" and "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill", respectively. He considers Hill's song "Adam Lives in Theory" the top song that nourishes him spiritually. In the song "Non-Fiction", he lists the Tunnel Rats alongside The Cross Movement as an influence when he was newly converted to Christianity. Theologically, Lecrae follows the Reformed tradition and is considered an influential figure in the New Calvinist movement. He cites Tommy Nelson, John MacArthur, and John Piper, among others, as early influences on his Christian faith, and Lecrae even titled one of his songs, "Don't Waste Your Life", after the book of the same name by Piper. Lecrae explains that through Nelson, MacArthur, and Piper, he subsequently discovered Charles Spurgeon, John Calvin, and Francis Schaeffer, the last of whom Lecrae calls his "personal hero". Other theologians cited by Lecrae include Tim Keller, Andy Crouch, Randy Alcorn, and Abraham Kuyper. He also looks to Martin Luther King Jr. for inspiration on working out faith in application to social issues.
According to "Miami New Times", he frequently tells the press: "My music is not Christian, Lecrae is." He continues: "I think Christian is a wonderful noun, but a terrible adjective. Are there Christian shoes, Christian clothes, Christian plumbers, Christian pipes? I think if you're going to, you should label it hip-hop... hip-hop is a particular poetic style. Labeling it with the faith assumes that the song is going to be some kind of sermon, but there's a lot of social and political things that I don't think make it gospel or Christian music." He also stated, "I like to wrap my mind around a total situation. I'm a social anthropologist. If I never been homeless, let me try to be homeless for a week and soak up that information. More like a method actor. So for me it's spending time with people and talking about things from their perspective."
Popular culture.
Brooklyn Nets guard Jeremy Lin recommended Lecrae and Hillsong in an interview when asked about his pre-game music. Former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow and professional wrestler Ezekiel Jackson have also endorsed Lecrae. During March 2014, Lecrae signed a ten-day contract with the Atlanta Hawks, and on April 4, 2014, he performed live at Philips Arena after the Hawks game. "Dum Dum", a song by Tedashii featuring Lecrae, was used on an episode of "So You Think You Can Dance". Lecrae also created the theme song for a new ESPN "SportsCenter" block called "Coast to Coast".
Social activism.
In 2011, 116 Clique and ReachLife Ministries, both headed by Lecrae, launched a media campaign titled "Man Up", intended to mentor male urban youths on fatherhood and biblical manhood. It features concert tours and a curriculum centered on a short film and a studio album, both titled "Man Up", and since 2012 has also featured a string of conference events.
In May 2013, Lecrae partnered with NBA player Dwyane Wade, filmmaker Art Hooker, and Joshua DuBois, the former head of the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships under the Obama administration, to create the national media campaign "This Is Fatherhood", an initiative "devoted to restoring America's commitment to healthy fatherhood." The campaign began on May 1 with a "This is Fatherhood Challenge", in which contestants could submit videos, songs, and essays about fatherhood through June 10. The winners received cash prizes and a trip to Washington, D.C., for a ceremony on Father's Day. In addition, Lecrae offered studio time and mentoring to the grand prize winner. Lecrae, Wade, DuBois, Jay Z, and U.S. President Barack Obama all made appearances in the campaign's promotional public service announcements.
Lecrae has also contributed op-ed articles to "Billboard" dealing with race relations in the United States, including the 2014 Ferguson unrest, 2015 Charleston church shooting, and 2016 shootings of Alton Stirling, Philando Castile, and five Dallas police officers. In these articles, Lecrae has called for understanding and empathy across racial divides and willingness to listen to the oppressed, and also pointed out the need for spiritual healing through Jesus Christ. In mid 2016, Lecrae did a talk about racial reconciliation at Yale University, titled "Knowledge through Narrative: Bridging the Racial Divide in America". He also spoke on hip hop culture at a Nashville TEDx conference, decrying the misogyny and violence rampant in much of hip hop's lyrics but advocating for hip hop to be used as an agent for social change. At the 2016 BET Hip Hop Awards, Lecrae performed an original composition addressing racial injustice in the United States, referencing the shooting of Philando Castile.
In March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lecrae worked with a local non-profit, Love Beyond Walls, to distribute hand-washing stations and food to homeless people in Atlanta. He also wrote an essay for "Billboard" in which he discussed the need for humane behavior in the midst of widespread social panic due to the outbreak. After the murder of George Floyd, Lecrae was inspired to write "Deep End", which was a late addition to "Restoration".
Other business ventures.
Lecrae has partnered with Oust Labs to be an investor and co-owner of the audio production software MXD, which was founded by Jacob "Biz" Morris. In 2020, Lecrae teamed up with Adam Thomason to found the film production studio 3 Strand Films. He is a venture partner in Collab Capital, and has participated in several real estate ventures, including Invest Atlanta and Peace Preparatory Academy, intended to revitalize English Avenue.
Personal life.
Lecrae currently resides in Atlanta since relocating there from Memphis in 2009, and is married to Darragh Moore. The couple have three children together. In an interview with HipHopDX, Lecrae stated that Clipse member No Malice sought him out as a spiritual advisor. On October 20, 2016, Lecrae wrote in "The Huffington Post" that he has been struggling with depression and doubt, which was partly caused by the backlash he received from many American evangelicals who are critical of his public stance on race-related issues. On August 14, 2020, Lecrae posted a video on his YouTube channel that includes footage of him re-connecting with his long-absent father who now resides in San Diego.
Awards and nominations.
In 2016, he received an honorary doctorate in music from the Canada Christian College of Whitby (Ontario) for his commitment to sharing a message of hope with disadvantaged young people.
Lecrae has won many music awards over the space of his career, including two Grammy Awards and eight Dove Awards. In 2013, he became the first hip hop artist to win the Grammy Award for Best Gospel Album, which was awarded to his sixth album, "Gravity", and in 2015 became the first rapper to win the BET Award for Best Gospel Artist. |
Dance with Me (1998 film)
Dance with Me is a 1998 American romantic dance drama film directed by Randa Haines and starring Vanessa L. Williams and Puerto Rican singer Chayanne.
Plot.
After burying his mother, Rafael Infante comes from Santiago, Cuba to Houston, Texas to work for a man named John Burnett as a handyman in Burnett's dance studio. It soon becomes clear to the audience that Burnett is the father Rafael never knew. While there he finds himself falling for a dancer and instructor Ruby Sinclair, who incidentally brought him to the studio.
It turns out that the dancers in the studio are preparing for a dance competition in Las Vegas and that Ruby would be taking part as well. Rafael gets close to Ruby and their attraction to each other grows, but she is not willing to commit herself to a relationship as she seems more interested in her dancing.
Meanwhile, Rafael's arrival and persona wins him the friendship of an older dancer Bea Johnson as well as the studio receptionist Lovejoy, but it also causes some discomfort to Burnett, who suddenly begins to withdraw into himself and takes less interest in the preparations for the competition, much to the chagrin of his own partner Patricia Black.
While visiting Burnett at his home, Rafael notices and offers to repair his old and broken-down truck. He and Ruby go downtown to get the parts needed to repair the truck and are invited to an engagement party by a Cuban man whose daughter was getting engaged. While there, both of them discover more about each other as he tells her that his mother had died but that he never knew his father.
Later, Rafael invites Ruby to a dance party at a club in the city and they agree to go on the following Saturday night. Before leaving, Rafael helps Patricia learn a dance lift she had been practicing, explaining that his mother made him take a little ballet. The following Saturday, he and Ruby go to the party in which they perform, along with other dancers, the Latin Salsa dancing to a song by Albita Rodriguez.
After the party, he takes Ruby home where he discovers that she has a 7-year-old son Peter who is "looked after" by Bea in Ruby's absence and who happens to be fathered by Ruby's former dance partner, Julian Marshall. While there, he comes up to Ruby and they share a passionate kiss, but she eventually breaks it up.
Later on Rafael comes to Burnett's home to show him the refurbished truck, to the latter's delight. While there, Patricia comes to the house and has a discussion with John asking him to explain why he suddenly lost interest in their choreography preparations. John then tells her that she can dance with Rafael if she wants and both she and Rafael start their practice to the amazement of the other dancers at the studio.
After the rehearsal, Rafael overhears John telling Lovejoy that Ruby would be in Las Vegas without them and also asking her to switch his name with Rafael's when Patricia's dance comes up.
Sensing that she wants to reunite with Julian, Rafael goes to see Ruby who explains that she wanted Peter to see his father often and that she did not want to be in love. While at a fishing trip with Burnett, Rafael is shocked when Burnett tells him to go back to Cuba after the competition and that he did not have a son. Devastated by the double rejection, he decides to return to Cuba after his dance with Patricia.
At Las Vegas, Rafael meets Ruby and tells her that he was returning to Cuba after the competition. Burnett (who did not go) reflects on his cruel rejection of Rafael and decides to come to the dance to apologize to Rafael and persuade him not to go back to Cuba. Rafael dances with Patricia and while watching them, Ruby realized that she was in love with Rafael and felt a stab of jealousy seeing them together.
Just as Rafael and Patricia leave the stage, Bea comes in, saying, "I wanna do that too" and she and Rafael perform a very humorous dance to the amusement and delight of the crowd. After the dance, Burnett meets and apologizes to Rafael, eventually convinces him to stay back and also commending his dancing.
The main dances begin and Ruby and her partner Julian are involved. Despite the slight tension between them, they win the competition although Ruby almost all the time seems to keep her eyes on Rafael, who is in the audience and who is watching her, however he leaves and when Ruby looked around without seeing him, she breaks down in tears.
Later at a dance party for all the contestants, Ruby is met by a man who wishes to promote her. However, to her relief, Rafael appears again and leads her to the dance floor for a final dance scene that has the rest of the dancers watching with admiration.
The movie ends at the studio with the entire studio members and some new dancers dancing to the theme song "You Are My Home" by Chayanne and Williams themselves.
Film soundtrack.
Track listing:
Reception.
"Dance with Me" received mixed reviews from critics, as it holds a 51% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from a sample of 43 reviews.
Awards.
Nomination |
1995–96 in English football
The 1995–96 season was the 116th season of competitive football in England.
Overview.
Premiership.
Newcastle United were at one stage twelve points clear of Manchester United at the top of the table, but Alex Ferguson's relatively young and inexperienced side overhauled them during the second half of the season to win the title. Manchester United were England's entrants for the Champions League, while Newcastle United were joined in the UEFA Cup by Liverpool, the League Cup winners Aston Villa and Arsenal.
The teams relegated were Manchester City, Queens Park Rangers and Bolton Wanderers.
Division One.
Sunderland and Derby County returned to the Premiership after a five-year exile, joined by Division One play-off winners Leicester City.
Watford and Luton Town, who had both been established top division sides a decade earlier, were relegated to the league's third tier. On the last day of the season they were joined by Millwall, who had been top of the division five months earlier but slumped dramatically after Mick McCarthy's departure for the Republic of Ireland manager's job.
Division Two.
Swindon Town returned to Division One at the first attempt after lifting the Division Two championship trophy. They were joined by runners-up Oxford United, who were enjoying their first successful season since the mid-1980s, and playoff winners Bradford City.
Going down were Carlisle United, Swansea City (who got through five managers in a season), Brighton & Hove Albion (sinking further into a financial crisis) and Hull City.
Division Three.
Preston North End, Gillingham, Bury and playoff winners Plymouth Argyle won promotion to Division Two. Preston's win made them the third club to win all four top tiers of English football, next to Wolverhampton Wanderers and Burnley.
Torquay United finished at the bottom of Division Three, having won just five games all season, but were saved from demotion because Conference champions Stevenage Borough did not meet the league's required minimum stadium capacity.
Successful managers.
Alex Ferguson guided Manchester United to a unique second double of the league title and FA Cup.
Brian Little guided Aston Villa to victory in the League Cup as well as a fourth-place finish in the Premiership.
Peter Reid brought some long-awaited success to Sunderland as they finished champions of Division One and won promotion to the Premiership.
Experienced manager Jim Smith achieved another managerial success by winning promotion to the Premiership with Derby County.
Martin O'Neill achieved his third promotion in four seasons by winning promotion to the Premiership with Leicester City.
Steve McMahon succeeded in getting Swindon Town back into Division One at the first attempt as they were crowned champions of Division Two.
Denis Smith built on the success he achieved earlier in his career (with York City and later Sunderland) by gaining promotion to Division One with Oxford United.
Gary Peters had a dream start to his reign as Preston North End manager as they were crowned champions of Division Three.
Stan Ternent finally enjoyed some success in his long management and coaching career by winning promotion to Division Two with Bury.
Neil Warnock achieved the fifth promotion of his managerial career (and his fourth via the playoffs) by winning the Division Three playoffs with Plymouth Argyle.
Chris Kamara got Bradford City promoted via the Division 2 playoffs just 6 months after taking over as manager. The feat was all the more amazing considering they lost 0–2 at home to Blackpool in the 1st leg of the play off semi final. A 3–0 victory in the 2nd leg saw Bradford City reach Wembley for the first ever time defeating Notts County 2–0 in the final with goals from 19-year-old local boy Des Hamilton and Kamara's first signing Mark Stallard.
Tony Pulis guided Gillingham F.C. out of Division Three and was named the Manager of the Season.
Successful players.
Alan Shearer topped the Premiership scoring charts with 31 goals, the highest number of goals in the league charted at the time. Shearer was followed closely by Robbie Fowler on 28, Ian Wright and Les Ferdinand, who won the PFA Players' Player of the Year award.
Steve McManaman led the assists chart with 25 assists this season, also a new record for the league.
Eric Cantona was awarded the FWA Footballer of the Year for his comeback and galvanising influence over a successful young Manchester United side.
Events.
Double delight for United.
Manchester United made history as the first English club to win the double of the league title and FA Cup twice. They did so despite having sold key players Paul Ince, Mark Hughes and Andrei Kanchelskis before the start of the season. Manager Alex Ferguson selected young players like Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt, David Beckham, Gary Neville and Phil Neville, alongside more experienced players Steve Bruce, Gary Pallister and Eric Cantona. Cantona, who returned from his suspension to spearhead United's chase for trophies, was voted the FWA Footballer of the Year.
At Christmas, United trailed Newcastle United by 12 points. On 27 December they beat Newcastle 2–0 to cut the gap to seven points, and a 1–0 win at St. James' Park on 4 March cut the gap to a single point. A 1–0 win against Tottenham Hotspur on 24 March put United on top of the Premiership and they remained in that position for the rest of the season. On the final day of the season they confirmed their status as Premiership champions for the third time in four seasons thanks to a 3–0 away win over Middlesbrough, who were managed by former United captain Bryan Robson.
On 11 May, United faced Liverpool in the FA Cup final at Wembley. A late goal from Cantona saw United make history and lift the FA Cup as England's first 'double double' winners.
Venables out, Hoddle in.
Terry Venables announced in January that he would not be continuing as England manager after the 1996 European Championships, so the FA began their hunt for his successor. The likes of Alex Ferguson, Howard Kendall, Steve Coppell, Gerry Francis and Kevin Keegan were all linked with the job, but all quickly ruled themselves out either because of club commitments or a lack of experience.
In the end, the 39-year-old Chelsea manager Glenn Hoddle agreed to take charge of the England team on a four-year contract. Hoddle's successor at Chelsea was the 33-year-old Dutch legend Ruud Gullit.
Euro '96: So close for England.
In 1996 England hosted the European Championships for the first time. They went through to the quarter-finals after drawing with Switzerland and beating Scotland and the Netherlands in the group stages. They drew 0–0 with Spain in the quarter finals but England went through on penalties. A goal by Alan Shearer gave them an early lead over Germany in the semi-finals, but the Germans forced extra-time and England lost the ensuing penalty shoot-out. Germany went on to beat Czech Republic 2–1 in the final.
European competitions.
English clubs endured a tough time in European competition during the 1995–96 season. Manchester United, Liverpool and Leeds United suffered early exits from the UEFA Cup, while Blackburn Rovers were eliminated from the Champions League at the group stages and Everton were dumped out of the Cup Winners Cup in the Second Round. That left Nottingham Forest as the only English club still in Europe after Christmas.
Forest took on Bayern Munich in the UEFA Cup quarter-finals and lost 2–1 away in the first leg. Jürgen Klinsmann scored twice as the German side defeated Forest 5–1 at the City ground and went on to win the competition.
Bosman ruling.
A legal challenge in the European Court of Human Rights by the Belgian midfielder Jean-Marc Bosman gave out-of-contract players aged 23 or above the right to become free agents and move to other clubs for no fee. There was widespread controversy following the announcement, as many clubs feared that they would lose expensively signed players for nothing. The Bosman ruling also saw an end to the "three foreigner" rule which restricted teams to fielding a maximum of three players born outside the country that they were employed in. In the Premiership, the limit of three foreigners in a match squad had covered Welsh, Scottish and Northern and Southern Irish players. The Bosman ruling allowed clubs in EU countries to field an unlimited number of players who were of EU nationalities, although they were still restricted to fielding 3 players of non-EU nationalities.
England national team.
As England was hosting the 1996 UEFA European Football Championship the England national team did not play any competitive fixtures up until the championships themselves but played a number of friendlies this season.
League tables.
Premiership.
Manchester United were Premiership champions for the third time in four seasons, after Newcastle United led for most of the season, the Tyneside club's lead having peaked at 10 points just before Christmas. United also won the FA Cup to complete the double. The star of their season was undoubtedly striker Eric Cantona, who returned from his eight-month suspension at the beginning of October to spearhead United's attack with 19 goals in all competitions, several of them in crucial late season games as they took the initiative in the title race, and the last being the winning goal in the FA Cup final.
Liverpool continued to show signs of a return to their former glory by finishing third and ending the season as runners-up in the FA Cup final. Aston Villa, enjoying a revival with a reshaped squad under Brian Little, finished fourth and won the Football League Cup. Arsenal built the foundations for a revival under new manager Bruce Rioch by finishing fifth and coming within a goal of reaching the League Cup final. However, Rioch was gone by the start of the following season after a dispute with the club's directors.
FA Cup holders Everton failed to retain the cup and finished in sixth place in the league one place outside of a UEFA Cup place.
Blackburn Rovers failed to retain their league title and finished seventh in the league, with Alan Shearer finding the net more than 30 times for the third season in a row.
Nottingham Forest finished ninth in the league and were the only English side to progress to the quarter-finals of any of the European competitions, doing so in reaching the quarter-final UEFA Cup. 1995-96 was one of the worst seasons ever for English clubs in European competitions.
Bolton Wanderers were relegated in bottom place, having won just twice before New Year's Day, with not even an improvement under caretaker manager Colin Todd helping them. Queens Park Rangers were unable to recover from the sale of star striker Les Ferdinand to Newcastle and finished second bottom, ending 13 seasons in the top division. Manchester City were the last team to be relegated, eventually undone by their failure to win in their first 11 matches, but they did manage to take the fight to the last day of the season. Coventry City and Southampton stayed up on goal difference.
Leading goalscorer: Alan Shearer (Blackburn Rovers) - 31
Division One.
Sunderland gave their best performance in years by clinching the Division One title, and were joined among the elite by runners-up Derby County and play-off winners Leicester City. Crystal Palace conceded a last-minute Leicester winner at Wembley, and would have gone up automatically had it not been for their dismal first half of the season.
Luton Town, Watford and Millwall, who had all played in the top flight at some stage in the last nine seasons, went down to Division Two. Millwall had been top of the league five months before going down on the final day of the season before a 6–0 defeat at Sunderland signaled a dramatic decline in their fortunes.
Oldham Athletic narrowly avoided a second relegation in three seasons, while Wolverhampton Wanderers finished 20th and the last safe place was secured by Portsmouth. Norwich City and Birmingham City finished in the bottom half of the table after both enjoying spells at the top during the first half of the season. West Bromwich Albion finished 12th after a dramatic season where they had looked like promotion contenders in the autumn, before enduring a 14-match winless run where they picked up just one point and dropped into the relegation zone.
Leading goalscorer: John Aldridge (Tranmere Rovers) - 27
Division Two.
Swindon Town secured an immediate return to Division One by winning the Division Two title. They were joined by local rivals and runners-up Oxford United, while the final promotion place went to playoff winners Bradford City whose Wembley glory gave Chris Kamara a dream start in management.
Blackpool, who missed out on automatic promotion by one place, attained their highest league finish for more than 20 years but a playoff semi-final failure cost them a place in Division One and cost Sam Allardyce his job. Crewe Alexandra were defeated in the playoffs for the second season running, while beaten finalists Notts County had been relegated the season before.
Carlisle United, Swansea City, Brighton & Hove Albion and Hull City were relegated to Division Three. York City, who made headlines by knocking Manchester United out of the League Cup early in the season, avoided relegation by three points after beating Brighton in their delayed final fixture of the season, sending Carlisle down.
Leading goalscorer: Marcus Stewart (Bristol Rovers) - 21
Division Three.
Preston North End got on the right path towards better days by sealing the Division Three title. Joining them in Division Two were runners-up Gillingham (after seven years in the league's basement division), third placed Bury and playoff winners Plymouth Argyle.
Torquay United finished at the bottom of the league by quite a margin, but avoided relegation because Conference champions Stevenage Borough did not meet the required Football League stadium capacity standards. Scarborough endured another torrid season, finishing second from bottom in the league for the second season in succession.
Lincoln City climbed up to 18th place under John Beck, who took over in October after the club had propped up the Football League. Fulham suffered the lowest finish of their history by finishing 17th, and weeks before the end of the season they appointed Micky Adams as player-manager in hope that the former Coventry and Southampton defender could revive the club after a decade of decline. Cambridge United finished 16th in the table, a mere four years after narrowly missing out on promotion to the inaugural Premier League.
Leading goalscorers: Steve White (Hereford United) - 30
Diary of the season.
1 July 1995: Nottingham Forest paid a club-record £2.5 million for Sheffield Wednesday midfielder Chris Bart-Williams, the day after they sold striker Stan Collymore to Liverpool for a national-record £8.5 million. Collymore's successor is Kevin Campbell, a £2.8million signing from Arsenal.
3 July 1995: Alan Ball is appointed the new manager of Manchester City after 18 months as manager of Southampton.
5 July 1995: Aston Villa sign Leicester City midfielder Mark Draper for £3.25 million.
6 July 1995: Newcastle United sign French winger David Ginola from Paris St Germain for £2.5 million and striker Les Ferdinand from Queens Park Rangers for a club record fee of £6 million.
10 July 1995: England midfielder Paul Gascoigne returns to Britain after three years in Italy with Lazio a £4.3-million move to Glasgow club Rangers.
12 July 1995: George Graham is banned from football worldwide for a year for accepting illegal payments, which had resulted in his sacking as Arsenal manager five months ago.
14 July 1995: Arsenal sign England captain David Platt from Sampdoria for £4.75million. Platt is now the world's costliest players, with his career transfer fees now totalling more than £22million.
17 July 1995: Mike Naylor, chairman and founder of the sponsors of the Football League, Endsleigh Insurance, dies in a car crash in France.
19 July 1995: Sheffield Wednesday sign Belgian midfielder Marc Degryse from Anderlecht for £1.5 million.
24 July 1995: Southampton goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar, Wimbledon goalkeeper Hans Segers and former Wimbledon and Aston Villa striker John Fashanu are charged with match-fixing and bribery.
26 July 1995: Queens Park Rangers sign Australia national football team captain Ned Zelic from Borussia Dortmund of Germany for £1.25million.
1 August 1995: Everton sign Derby County defender Craig Short for £2.4 million.
3 August 1995: Coventry City sign winger John Salako from Crystal Palace for £1.5 million.
5 August 1995: Middlesbrough pay a club-record £5.25 million for Tottenham forward Nick Barmby.
8 August 1995: Eric Cantona announces his intention to leave English football, but Manchester United refused to terminate his contract.
10 August 1995: Cantona announces his intention to stay with Manchester United after a discussion with Alex Ferguson in Paris. Newcastle United sign Reading goalkeeper Shaka Hislop for £1.575 million.
12 August 1995: The Football League season begins. Relegated Crystal Palace begin their bid for an immediate return to the Premier League with a dramatic 4–3 home win over Barnsley. Oldham, who went down a year earlier, start the season well with a 3–0 home win over newly promoted Huddersfield. Portsmouth beat Southend 4–2 at Fratton Park.
13 August 1995: A Vinny Samways goal gives Everton a 1–0 win over Blackburn in the FA Charity Shield. Norwich City begin their quest for an immediate return to the Premier League by beating Luton Town 3–1 at Kenilworth Road.
16 August 1995: Andrea Silenzi becomes first Italian to play for a Premier League side when he joins Nottingham Forest in a £1.8million move from Torino.
19 August 1995: The FA Premier League season begins with Manchester United defeated 3–1 at Aston Villa, which sparks immediate criticism throughout the media due to the number of young players in the team as well as the fact that United have sold three key players this summer and not made any major signings, Alan Hansen is known for coining the phrase "you can't win anything with kids",having made the remark following Manchester United's 3–1 defeat to Aston Villa on the opening day of the 1995–96 FA Premier League season. Blackburn Rovers begin their defence of the Premier League title with a 1–0 win at home against Queens Park Rangers. Matt Le Tissier scores a hat-trick for Southampton at The Dell but they lost 4–3 to Nottingham Forest. Newcastle United beat Coventry City 3–0 at home, with record signing Les Ferdinand scoring on his debut. Bolton Wanderers lose 3–2 to Wimbledon at Selhurst Park in their first top flight game since May 1980.
20 August 1995: Middlesbrough's Nick Barmby scores on his debut, a 1–1 draw against Arsenal at Highbury.
23 August 995: Manchester United bounce back from their opening day defeat with a 2–1 home win over West Ham United.
24 August 1995: Everton complete their club record £5 million signing of Manchester United winger Andrei Kanchelskis, more than a month after their offer for Kanchelskis was first accepted.
26 August 1995: Middlesbrough defeat Chelsea 2–0 in their first game at the new Riverside Stadium, with Craig Hignett scoring the stadium's first goal. Manchester United beat Wimbledon 3–1 at Old Trafford. Leeds are top of the league for the first time since their 1992 title triumph after a 2–0 home win over Aston Villa.
27 August 1995: Newcastle United go top of the Premier League with a 2–0 win at Sheffield Wednesday.
28 August 1995: Manchester United defeat Blackburn Rovers 2–1, despite being reduced to 10 men after Roy Keane was sent off for two bookable offences.
30 August 1995: Newcastle are the month-end leaders in the Premier League with a 1–0 home win over Middlesbrough, with second-placed Leeds being held to a 1–1 draw at Southampton.
2 September 1995: The upcoming international fixtures mean that there is no action in the Premier League this weekend, but it is business as usual in the Football League. Newly-promoted Birmingham City win 5–0 at Barnsley in Division One. Millwall go top of the table with a 1–0 win over Portsmouth at Fratton Park. Sheffield United's 3–1 defeat at West Bromwich Albion leaves them bottom of the table and still looking for their first point of the season after five games.
9 September 1995: In their first meeting since the FA Cup Final, Manchester United defeat Everton 3–2. Lee Sharpe scored twice, and former United player Andrei Kanchelskis is taken off with a dislocated shoulder. United are now level on points with leaders Newcastle, who lose 1–0 at Southampton. Wimbledon go third with a 1–0 home win over Liverpool. In Division One, Sheffield United pick up their first points of the season with a 2–1 home win over Norwich City.
11 September 1995: A London derby at Upton Park sees Chelsea beat West Ham 3–1.
16 September 1995: Newcastle United and Manchester United remain level on points at the top of the Premier League after both managing home victories. Aston Villa move into third place with a 2–0 home win over Wimbledon.
20 September 1995: York City defeat Manchester United 3–0 in the League Cup second-round first leg at Old Trafford.
23 September 1995: Manchester United go top of the Premier League after drawing 0–0 at Sheffield Wednesday. Defending champions Blackburn snap out of a recent run of dismal form and defeat Coventry City 5–1 at Ewood Park with Alan Shearer scoring a hat-trick. Liverpool remain third after a 5–2 home win over Bolton. Tony Yeboah scored a hat-trick for Leeds in a 4–2 win at Wimbledon. Manchester City are bottom of the table with one point from their first seven games, losing 1–0 at home to Middlesbrough today.
24 September 1995: Newcastle go back to the top of the Premier League with a 2–0 home win over Chelsea.
26 September 1995: Manchester United are knocked out of the UEFA Cup on away goals after drawing 2–2 at home to Russian side Rotor Volgograd in the first round second leg, but still maintain their 39-year unbeaten run in European competitions following a late equaliser by goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel - the club's first goalkeeper to score a goal in any competitions since Alex Stepney in 1973.
30 September 1995: Manchester City's terrible start to the season continues with a 3–0 defeat at Nottingham Forest, which makes it one point from their first eight league games. Aston Villa go second with a 3–0 away win over their former manager Ron Atkinson's new club Coventry City.
1 October 1995: Eric Cantona returns from his eight-month suspension to score a late equaliser from the penalty spot in a 2–2 home draw with Liverpool. Newcastle extend their lead to four points with a 3–1 win at Everton.
3 October 1995: York City eliminate Manchester United from the League Cup despite their Premier League opponents winning 3–1 in the second round second leg at Bootham Crescent.
11 October 1995: Everton striker Duncan Ferguson is sentenced to three months' imprisonment for assault for his headbutt of Raith Rovers player John McStay 18 months ago, making him the first British professional footballer to be imprisoned for an on-field offence.
14 October 1995: 20-year-old striker Paul Scholes scores the only goal of the Manchester derby at Old Trafford, aiding United's title challenge and pushing City further into relegation trouble. Newcastle remain four points ahead at the top with a 3–2 win at QPR. Arsenal go third by beating Leeds 3–0 at Elland Road.
15 October 1995: Middlesbrough sign 22-year-old Brazilian midfielder Juninho in a £4.75million deal.
21 October 1995: Les Ferdinand scores a hat-trick in Newcastle's 6–1 home league win against Wimbledon, and Manchester United remain in second place with a 4–1 away victory over Chelsea. The gap remains four points wide. Middlesbrough fine start to life back in the Premier League continues with a 1–0 home win over QPR keeping their hold on fourth place. Down in Division One, West Bromwich go second with a 2–1 home win over Portsmouth, sparking hope at The Hawthorns that Albion are close to ending their decade-long absence from the top flight.
28 October 1995: The Football Association announces that the 72 Football League clubs would receive an additional £21 million in television revenue after they failed to agree on an initial sum of nearly £120 million. Liverpool's Ian Rush scores twice in a 6–0 home league win against Manchester City, who are still without a win after 11 games, and Leeds United captain Gary McAllister scores a hat-trick in a 3–1 home league win over Coventry City. Millwall knock Leicester off the top of Division One with a 2–1 win over West Bromwich Albion, while Leicester lose 3–2 at home to Crystal Palace.
30 October 1995: Striker John McGinlay scores for struggling Bolton Wanderers in a surprise 1–0 home win against Arsenal.
4 November 1995: Manchester United lose 1–0 at Arsenal with an early goal from Dennis Bergkamp, their first Premier League defeat since the opening day of the season, and Newcastle extended their lead to five points with a 2–1 home win over Liverpool, with Steve Howey scoring a late winner. Manchester City finally win a Premier League at the 12th attempt, being Bolton 1–0 at Maine Road. In Division One, Sheffield United climb off the bottom of the table and out of the bottom three with a 4–1 home win over Portsmouth. Tranmere beat Derby 5-1 and Stoke beat Luton 5–0.
6 November 1995: Nottingham Forest go third in the Premier League with a 4–1 win over Wimbledon, who remain fourth from bottom.
8 November 1995: Chelsea sign Romanian defender Dan Petrescu from Sheffield Wednesday for a club record fee of £2.3million.
10 November 1995: The FA withdraws its £118.5-million television deal with Football League clubs after they failed to meet a deadline.
11 November 1995: In the FA Cup's first round, Shrewsbury Town defeat Northern Premier League side Marine by a club-record 11-2 and Division Two crisis club Swansea City lose 7–0 to Division Three side Fulham. Division Two's Bradford City are made to work hard for a 4–3 win over non-league Burton Albion. Hitchin Town, another non-league side, eliminate Bristol Rovers with a 2–1 win. Dorchester Town lose 9–1 to Oxford United.
13 November 1995: Former England manager Graham Taylor resigns after 20 months managing Wolverhampton Wanderers, who began the season as Division One promotion favourites but have fallen to 17th.
17 November 1995: Kenny Dalglish, director of football at Blackburn Rovers since June after guiding them to the Premier League title, is reported to be in the running to be the new Wolves manager.
18 November 1995: Alan Shearer scores a hat-trick for Blackburn in their 7–0 home win over Nottingham Forest, while leaders Newcastle are held to a 1–1 draw at Aston Villa, enabling Manchester United to cut the gap at the top to six points (and having the advantage of a game in hand) with their 4–1 home win over Southampton.
22 November 1995: Manchester United beat Coventry City 4–0 at Highfield Road to cut the gap at the top to three points and sent their opponents to the bottom of the Premier League table. Bolton miss the chance to climb out of the bottom three as they lose 3–2 at Chelsea. Manchester City's slow improvement continues with a 1–0 win over Wimbledon at Maine Road.
24 November 1995: Leeds United pay a club record £4.5million for Parma's Swedish striker Tomas Brolin.. Everton striker Duncan Ferguson was released from prison after serving 44 days of his three-month sentence for assault.
25 November 1995: 34-year-old defender Steve Nicol returns to the Premier League less than a year after leaving Liverpool for a Notts County side now in Division Two, signing for Sheffield Wednesday. Newcastle United remain in the driving seat at the top of the Premier League with a 2–1 home win over Leeds. Coventry and Wimbledon both grind out a point in the battle for Premier League survival with a thrilling 3–3 draw at Highfield Road.
27 November 1995: The Football League signs a five-year television-coverage deal worth £125 million with BSkyB. Manchester United are held to a 1–1 draw with Nottingham Forest at the City Ground, with Eric Cantona converting a penalty to equalise in the second half after the home side took the lead. They have now played as many games as leaders Newcastle but are still five points behind.
2 December 1995: Alan Shearer scores a hat-trick in Blackburn's 4–2 home win against West Ham United, and Manchester United are held to a 1–1 home draw by Chelsea, meaning that Newcastle could be on the verge of a seven-point lead at the top of the Premier League.
3 December 1995: Newcastle are held to a 3–3 draw at Wimbledon, limiting their lead at the top of the table to five points. Sunderland overtake Millwall at the top of Division One with a 1–0 win over Crystal Palace at Roker Park.
4 December 1995: Coventry striker Dion Dublin finds himself in the situation of scoring a hat-trick for the losing side when the Sky Blues lose 4–3 to Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough in the Premier League. Coventry are bottom of the table, having won just one of their first 16 Premier League games.
7 December 1995: Mark McGhee leaves Division One promotion challengers Leicester City after a year in charge to become manager of Wolves.
9 December 1995: Defending Premier League champions Blackburn Rovers are beaten 5–0 at Coventry, and in Division One Sunderland beat Millall 6–0 to maintain their lead of the table with a 6–0 win at Roker Park. Manchester United drop two points when they are held to a 2–2 draw at home to Sheffield Wednesday in the Premier League, but leaders Newcastle drop all three points when they lose 1–0 at Chelsea, meaning that their lead is cut to four points when a victory would have put them seven points ahead.
10 December 1995: Having fallen into the bottom three yesterday when other results went against him, Wolves climb three places in Division One when a 3–2 win at Luton ends their six-match winless run in the league.
12 December 1995: Dave Bassett, the fifth-longest-serving manager in the English league, resigns as manager of Division One's Sheffield United after nearly eight years in charge. Walsall beat Torquay United 8–4 in the FA Cup second-round replay at Bescot Stadium which followed a 1–1 draw in the first match at Plainmoor 10 days ago.
13 December 1995: Former Everton manager Howard Kendall is named the new manager of Sheffield United.
15 December 1995: QPR sell Ned Zelic to Eintracht Frankfurt for £1million.
16 December 1995: Blackburn Rovers left back Graeme Le Saux fractures his ankle in a 1–0 home win against Middlesbrough in the FA Premier League, an injury which is set to rule him out of action until next season. Newcastle United go seven points ahead in the Premier League with a 1–0 victory over Everton, and Aston Villa striker Savo Milosevic scores a hat-trick in Villa's 4–1 home win against Coventry City. Yorkshire rivals Sheffield Wednesday and Leeds United clash at Hillsborough, with the hosts winning a thrilling match 6–2. Bolton remain bottom of the table after losing 2–1 at QPR, who climb out of the bottom three.
17 December 1995: Manchester United remained seven points behind Newcastle after losing 2–0 at Liverpool, with Robbie Fowler scoring both of Liverpool's goals.
21 December 1995: Martin O'Neill resigns after six months as Norwich manager to take over at Leicester City, and Division One bottom club Luton Town replace Terry Westley with Bradford City's Lennie Lawrence. England World Cup winner Jack Charlton resigns after nearly 10 years as manager of the Republic of Ireland national football team.
22 December 1995: Bolton Wanderers, the bottom club in the Premier League, pay a club-record £1.2 million for Sheffield United striker Nathan Blake.
23 December 1995: Coventry City defeat Everton 2–1 at home. Robbie Fowler scores a hat-trick for Liverpool at home against Arsenal for the second season running in a 3–1 win. Newcastle United extend their lead to 10 points with a 3–1 win over Nottingham Forest. Middlesbrough go fifth with a 4–2 home win over West Ham. Derby go top of Division One with a 2–1 home win over Sunderland, who fall into second place.
24 December 1995: Newcastle remain 10 points ahead as their nearest rivals, Manchester United, lose 3–1 at Leeds United. The top two will meet in three days time for a showdown at Old Trafford.
26 December 1995: A Boxing Day London derby at Highbury sees Arsenal beat QPR 3–0 to send the hosts fifth in the Premier League and leave the hosts fourth from bottom.
27 December 1995: Manchester United cut the lead in the FA Premier League to seven points with a 2–0 home win against Newcastle with goals from Andy Cole and Roy Keane. The only other league action of the day sees Leeds keep their bid for a second successive UEFA Cup campaign on track with a 2–0 win over Bolton at Burnden Park.
30 December 1995: Manchester United reduce Newcastle's lead to four points with a 2–1 win against struggling Queens Park Rangers. Alan Shearer scores his 100th goal for Backburn in a 2–1 home win against Tottenham.
1 January 1996: Manchester United suffer their heaviest Premier League defeat yet when they lose 4–1 to Tottenham at White Hart Lane. They are still four points behind Newcastle, but Kevin Keegan's team have two games in hand. Liverpool muscle in on the top two with a 4–2 home win over Nottingham Forest. Bolton remain rooted to the bottom of the table with a 4–2 defeat at Sheffield Wednesday.
2 January 1996: Roy McFarland is sacked as co-manager of Bolton Wanderers, with Colin Todd being put in sole charge. Newcastle United regains a seven-point by defeating Arsenal 2–0 at home.
6 January 1996: Ian Rush breaks Denis Law's FA Cup goal-scoring record with two goals for Liverpool in their 7–0 win over Rochdale in the third round. An 80th-minute goal by Eric Cantona forces a 2–2 draw for Manchester United against Sunderland at Old Trafford, taking the tie to a replay at Roker Park.
10 January 1996: Terry Venables announces that he will resign as England manager after Euro 96 to concentrate on clearing his name in a legal dispute with Alan Sugar over his June 1993 dismissal from Tottenham Hotspur.
13 January 1996: Manchester United's title hopes are hit hard when they drop two points at home to Aston Villa, who hold them to a goalless draw. Their neighbours City are pushed deeper into relegation trouble with a 1–0 defeat at Tottenham, who move into third place. Down in Division One, Huddersfield boost their hopes of a second successive promotion with a 1–0 win at struggling Watford lifting them into second place. The Black Country derby ends in a goalless draw at the Hawthorns, with both Wolves and Albion on the brink of the relegation zone.
14 January 1996: Newcastle are now nine points ahead with a game in hand at the top of the Premier League with a 1–0 win at Coventry. Charlton go second in Division One with a thrilling 4–3 away win over Birmingham, whose own promotion hopes are hit hard as a result.
15 January 1996: Bryan Robson, Middlesbrough manager and England assistant manager, is reportedly in line to succeed Terry Venables as England manager after Euro 96.
16 January 1996: Sunderland take the lead against Manchester United in the FA Cup third round replay at Roker Park before Nicky Butt equalises and Andy Cole scores a late winner to give Alex Ferguson's team a 2–1 win and a fourth round clash with Reading at Elm Park.
17 January 1996: In the FA Cup third round, Sheffield United eliminated Arsenal with a 1-0 replay win at Bramall Lane in which Carl Veart scored the winning goal.
20 January 1996: Neil Ruddock and Robbie Fowler score twice each in Liverpool's 5–0 home win over Leeds United. Newcastle United beat Bolton Wanderers 2–1 to go 12 points clear at the top of the table, ahead of Liverpool and Manchester United.
22 January 1996: Despite being reduced to 10 men after Nicky Butt was sent off, Manchester United still manage a 1–0 win over West Ham at Upton Park (where they last won seven years ago) thanks to an Eric Cantona goal which cuts Newcastle's lead to nine points, although the Tynesiders still have a game in hand.
23 January 1996: Blackburn Rovers block a move by the Irish Football Association to appoint their director of football, Kenny Dalglish, as the national coach.
24 January 1996: Out-of-favour Liverpool striker Nigel Clough is sold to Manchester City for £1.5 million.
27 January 1996: Manchester United defeat Reading 3–0 in the FA Cup fourth round at Elm Park on a weekend where most league and cup fixtures are cancelled due to heavy snow.
31 January 1996: Newcastle United led Manchester United by nine points, with a game in hand. Manchester United signed Manchester City goalkeeper Tony Coton for £500,000 as cover for Peter Schmeichel. Derby County led Division One, with Charlton Athletic second. West Bromwich Albion approached relegation, a goal away from the bottom three.
3 February 1996: Eric Cantona returned to Selhurst Park for the first time since his flying kick the previous year, scoring twice as United defeated Wimbledon 4–2 to keep Manchester United's title hopes alive. Newcastle are still nine points ahead with a game in hand, beating Sheffield Wednesday 2–0 at home. Liverpool are confined to third place after a goalless draw at home to Tottenham. Aston Villa go fourth win a 3–0 home win over Leeds.
4 February 1996: Gavin Peacock scores a hat-trick in Chelsea's 5–0 win against Middlesbrough.
5 February 1996: Millwall manager Mick McCarthy is appointed manager of the Republic of Ireland team.
6 February 1996: Wolverhampton Wanderers reserve midfielder Jimmy Kelly, 22, is jailed for five years for manslaughter following his part in a fight outside a Liverpool hotel in September 1994, in which a 26-year-old man died.
8 February 1996: The Department of Employment denies work permits to Marc Hottiger (who agreed to move from Newcastle United to Everton) and Ilie Dumitrescu (who agreed to move from Tottenham Hotspur to West Ham). Both clubs are set to appeal the decisions. Crystal Palace, 16th in Division One, appoint Dave Bassett manager, ending Steve Coppell's brief second spell as manager.
10 February 1996: Newcastle United pay a club record £6.7million for Parma and Colombia striker Faustino Asprilla, on the same day that they beat Middlesbrough 2–1 at the Riverside Stadium. Manchester United keep up the pressure with a goal from Lee Sharpe and a series of spectacular saves from Peter Schmeichel giving them a 1–0 home win over Blackburn.
14 February 1996: Former Liverpool manager Bob Paisley dies at 77 after several years of suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Everton surrender their defence of the FA Cup with a fourth-round replay defeat by Port Vale.
17 February 1996: Middlesbrough lose 4–1 at home to a resurgent Bolton Wanderers, while QPR also give their survival hopes a boost with a 3–1 win at Sheffield Wednesday. In Division One, new Crystal Palace manager Dave Bassett oversees a 4–0 home win over bottom club Watford which gives his side's hopes of reaching the playoffs a major boost.
20 February 1996: Glenn Roeder is sacked after nearly three years as manager of Watford. Away from the Division One relegation battle, Crystal Palace home in on the playoff places with a 3–2 win at Tranmere, who are now in the bottom half of the table after spending much of the first half of the season in the top six.
21 February 1996: The title race takes an unexpected turn when Newcastle lose 2–0 at West Ham, allowing Manchester United to cut their lead to six points with a 2–0 home win over Everton, although Kevin Keegan's men still have a game in hand.
22 February 1996: Former Wolves and England manager Graham Taylor is appointed manager of Watford for the second time.
24 February 1996: Manchester City hold Newcastle United to a 3–3 draw at Maine Road, meaning that the Premier League leaders still have a seven-point lead over Manchester United but no longer have the advantage of a game in hand. Liverpool remain in contention for the title, beating Blackburn 3–2 at Ewood Park.
25 February 1996: Newcastle's lead is cut to four points when Manchester United beat Bolton Wanderers 6–0 at Burnden Park.
28 February 1996: Swindon Town and Huddersfield Town, the last remaining non-Premier League teams in the FA Cup, are defeated in fifth-round replays.>
2 March 1996: A much-changed Nottingham Forest team find their first away win since October with victory over Sheffield Wednesday. At the lower reaches of the table, Manchester City climb out of the relegation zone at the expense of Southampton, and bottom club Bolton win at Leeds to keep their survival hopes alive.
4 March 1996: Manchester United cut Newcastle United's lead to one point with a goal by Eric Cantona goal giving them a 1–0 win on Tyneside, following a series of thrilling saves by Peter Schmeichel.
5 March 1996: Arsenal's bid for a UEFA Cup place was is bolstered with a 3–1 win over Manchester City at Highbury.
7 March 1996: Marc Hottiger and Ilie Dumitrescu receive work permits to complete their long-awaited transfers.
9 March 1996: Aston Villa boost their chances of making a late run to the title with a 4–2 home win over QPR, which deprives the visitors of vital points needed in their battle to avoid relegation.
11 March 1996: Manchester United remain in contention for a unique second double by defeating Southampton 2–0 in the FA Cup quarter-final at Old Trafford.
13 March 1996: Liverpool drop two points in their push for the title when they are held to a 2–2 draw at home to Wimbledon.
16 March 1996: Manchester United go top of the Premier League on goal difference, with a 1–1 away draw against Queens Park Rangers, Eric Cantona equalising after Denis Irwin scored an own goal.
18 March 1996: Newcastle regain their lead with a 3–0 home win against West Ham.
20 March 1996: An Eric Cantona goal from 25 yards puts Manchester United level on points at the top as they beat Arsenal 1–0 at Old Trafford.
23 March 1996: Arsenal aid Manchester United's title bid by defeating Newcastle United 2–0 at Highbury, sending Alex Ferguson's team back to the top on goal difference.
24 March 1996: Aston Villa beat Leeds United 3–0 in the League Cup final to equal Liverpool's record of five victories in the competition. Manchester United defeat Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 for a three-point lead over Newcastle. Eric Cantona scores the only goal of the game.
25 March 1996: To celebrate England's hosting of the European Championships, an edition of stamps commemorating five legends of the English game is released. After a public poll, Dixie Dean, Bobby Moore, Duncan Edwards, Billy Wright and Danny Blanchflower were selected.
28 March 1996: Manchester City sign Georgian striker Mikhail Kavelashvili from Alania Vladikavkaz for £1.4 million.
30 March 1996: Queens Park Rangers beat Southampton 3–0 at Loftus Road to keep their Premier League survival hopes alive. In the race for a UEFA Cup place, Andrei Kanchelskis scores twice as Everton beat Blackburn 3–0.
3 April 1996: Liverpool defeat Newcastle United 4–3 in a thrilling game where Robbie Fowler and Stan Collymore both scored twice for the hosts, helping keep Newcastle in second and boosting Manchester United's title bid.
5 April 1996: Middlesbrough move closer to survival and mid-table security with a 3–1 home win against Sheffield Wednesday, who are still in a precarious position.
6 April 1996: Manchester United retained their lead in the Premier League with a 3–2 win over City in the Manchester derby at Maine Road, putting the hosts deeper into relegation trouble.
8 April 1996: Coventry City defender David Busst sustains a compound leg fracture in the 1-0 Premier League defeat by Manchester United at Old Trafford. Busst is expected to be out of action for at least a year and may never be fully fit to play professional football again. United moved closer to the title with Newcastle's 2–1 defeat by Blackburn. Queens Park Rangers kept their survival bid alive by defeating Everton 3–1. Bolton Wanderers also kept their survival hopes alive by defeating Chelsea, 2–1.
12 April 1996: John Aldridge is appointed player-manager of Tranmere Rovers, succeeding John King, who steps down as manager after nine years.
13 April 1996: Mark Hughes scores his first hat-trick for Chelsea as they defeated Leeds United 4–1 at Stamford Bridge. His old club Manchester United lose 3–1 at Southampton but still have a six-point lead at the top of the Premier League, while the win is a big boost to Southampton's survival bid.
14 April 1996: Newcastle kept their title challenge alive by defeating Aston Villa 1–0, cutting Manchester United's lead to three points.
16 April 1996: The Merseyside derby at Goodison Park ended in a 1–1 draw, with Andrei Kanchelskis scoring for Everton and Robbie Fowler for Liverpool.
17 April 1996: Manchester United and Newcastle United won 1–0 at home (against Leeds United and Southampton, respectively), keeping Manchester's lead at three points. Roy Keane scores the only goal of the game.
20 April 1996: Sunderland won promotion to the Premier League, playing Middlesbrough and Newcastle United for the first time since the 1970s.
22 April 1996: England midfielder Paul Gascoigne publicly asks Terry Venables to remain as national team manager.
25 April 1996: Bryan Robson agreed to remain as manager of Middlesbrough until at least the end of the 1999–2000 season, effectively ending speculation that he will take over as the England manager if Terry Venables follows through with his intention to resign this summer.
27 April 1996: Bolton Wanderers are relegated after one season in the Premier League, losing 1–0 at home to Southampton. Although Queens Park Rangers defeat West Ham United 3–0, it is too late to save their 13-year tenure in the top flight. Manchester City boost their survival bid with a 1–0 win over Aston Villa, as do Coventry City with a 2–0 win over Wimbledon.
28 April 1996: A 5–0 home win against Nottingham Forest moves Manchester United closer to their third league title in four seasons.
29 April 1996: The Football Association offer Chelsea manager Glenn Hoddle the England manager's job. Hoddle, in management since taking over at Swindon Town five years ago, took his first club into the Premier League in 1993 before taking over at Chelsea, guiding them to an FA Cup final and a European semi-final. Newcastle United defeat Leeds 1–0, with Newcastle manager Kevin Keegan ranting on live television against his opposite number at Manchester United, Alex Ferguson.
2 May 1996: Chelsea boss Glenn Hoddle agreed to a four-year contract as England manager after the European Football Championships. Former Manchester City chairman Peter Swales dies of a heart attack at 63. Newcastle United are held to a 1–1 draw at Nottingham Forest.
5 May 1996: Manchester United clinched the Premier League title with a 3–0 away win against Middlesbrough on the season's final day, also clinching a place in the European Cup. Runners-up Newcastle, who have gone without winning a league title since 1927 and had a 12-point lead in January, are held to a 1–1 draw at Tottenham, who finish eighth and miss out on a UEFA Cup place. Liverpool finish third and draw 2–2 at Maine Road with Manchester City, who are relegated on goal difference, while Coventry and Southampton avoid the drop, both finishing the season with goalless draws. Liverpool will compete in next season's Cup Winners' Cup, while fourth placed Aston Villa and fifth placed Arsenal will join Newcastle in the UEFA Cup. Down in Division One, Millwall are relegated five months after being top of the table, going down on the final day with Watford, while Luton's relegation was confirmed before the final game. Champions Sunderland and runners-up Derby have already secured automatic promotion, while Crystal Palace, Stoke, Leicester and Charlton will contest the playoffs.
10 May 1996: Ruud Gullit accepted Chelsea's offer to become their player-manager, replacing Glenn Hoddle. Gullit, 33, is set become the youngest manager in the Premier League and one of the first foreign managers in the English game.
11 May 1996: Manchester United become the first English team to repeat the "double" when a late Eric Cantona goal gives them a 1–0 win over Liverpool in the FA Cup final.
14 May 1996: Middlesbrough agree to sign FC Porto's Brazilian midfielder Emerson for £4million.
18 May 1996: England beat Hungary 3–0 in a friendly witnessed by incoming Three Lions manager Glenn Hoddle and his second-in-command John Gorman. A Darren Anderton goal in each half coming either side of David Platt's 27th international goal.
19 May 1996: Ian Rush agrees to sign for Leeds United on a free transfer on 1 June, after spending 15 of the last 16 years with Liverpool.
20 May 1996: Glenn Hoddle agrees to play for Chelsea in a posthumous testimonial match for the former Swindon Town physio Kevin Morris.
24 May 1996: Gianluca Vialli agrees to sign for Chelsea on a free transfer from Juventus, who won the European Cup two days ago. Gary Speed agrees to join Everton from Leeds United for £3.5million.
27 May 1996: Although England's 22-man squad for Euro 96 has yet to be confirmed, it is reported that 35-year-old Newcastle United forward Peter Beardsley is no longer being considered for a place in the squad.
28 May 1996: Leicester City win promotion back to the Premier League with a 2–1 win against Crystal Palace at Wembley Stadium, with Steve Claridge scoring the winner during the final minute of extra time. England's Euro 96 squad is announced, but does not include Peter Beardsley, Ugo Ehiogu, Dennis Wise, Robert Lee and Jason Wilcox. Stuart Pearce, who is the oldest player in the England squad at 34, signs a three-year contract with Nottingham Forest.
8 June 1996: FIFA mandates licensing for all football agents involved in transfers. The Premier League announces that teams would be able to select five substitutes on the match squad (increased from three), although only three could be used, for the 1996–97 season.
26 June 1996: England bow out of Euro 96 in the semi-final when a Gareth Southgate penalty miss put them out after a 1–1 draw with Germany. Alan Shearer had put England ahead in the third minute before Stefan Kuntz equalised, and a German goal in extra time was disallowed before the whistle blew for 120 minutes. The defeat sparks a night of rioting in British towns and cities including London, Birmingham, Swindon, Bedford, Dunstable, Bradford and Solihull.
30 June 1996: Euro 96 is won by Germany, who defeat the Czech Republic 2–1 at Wembley despite the Czechs taking an early lead through a Patrik Berger penalty. Oliver Bierhoff scores both of Germany's goals.
Transfer deals.
For subsequent transfer deals see 1996-97 in English football.
Notable debutants.
26 August 1995: Michael Brown, 18-year-old midfielder, makes his debut for Manchester City in a 1–0 defeat to QPR at Loftus Road in the Premier League.
13 January 1996: Ian Harte, 18-year-old left-back, makes his debut as a substitute in a 2–0 home win for Leeds United against West Ham United in the Premier League.
31 January 1996: Frank Lampard, 17-year-old midfielder, makes his debut for West Ham United—where his father Frank Lampard made over 650 appearances—in their 3–2 home win over Coventry City in the Premier League.
30 March 1996: Harry Kewell, 18-year-old Australian winger, makes his debut for Leeds United against Middlesbrough in the Premier League.
5 May 1996: Rio Ferdinand, 18-year-old central defender, makes his debut for West Ham United in their 1–1 home draw with Sheffield Wednesday on the final day of the Premier League season.
Retirements.
19 July 1995: Alan Smith, 32-year-old Arsenal striker who helped them win five major trophies since joining them in 1987, retires after failing to recover from an ankle injury.
10 October 1995: Clive Allen, 34-year-old striker, retires after being given a free transfer by Carlisle United after playing just three games for them in Division Two. His best days came at Tottenham Hotspur, where he scored 49 goals in all competitions in the 1986–87 season and was voted PFA Player of the Year.
16 October 1995: David O'Leary, 37-year-old Leeds United defender, retires due to an Achilles injury after 18 months out of action.
11 November 1995: Jimmy Case, 41-year-old Brighton & Hove Albion player-manager, announces his retirement from playing. Case, who is best known for his time at Liverpool and Southampton, was the oldest outfield player registered in the English Football League or Premier League.
11 November 1995: Simon Webster, 31-year-old West Ham United defender, retires after failing to recover from a broken leg suffered in a training ground collision with Julian Dicks.
4 January 1996: Paul Lake, 27-year-old Manchester City midfielder, retires after failing to recover from a succession of knee injuries which had seen him out of action for more than three years and play just six times in as many seasons. He underwent numerous operations to try to regain full fitness, but was unsuccessful. |
Fixed deposit
A fixed deposit (FD) is a specific deposit instrument provided by banks or other financial institutions which provides investors a higher rate of interest than a regular savings account, until the given maturity date. It may or may not require the creation of a separate account. The term fixed deposit is most commonly used in India and the United States. It is known as a term deposit or time deposit in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and as a bond in the United Kingdom.
A fixed deposit means that the money cannot be withdrawn before maturity unlike a recurring deposit or a demand deposit. Due to this limitation, some banks offer additional services to FD holders such as loans against FD certificates at competitive interest rates. Banks may offer lesser interest rates under uncertain economic conditions. The tenure of an FD can vary from 7, 15 or 45 days to 1.5 years and can be as high as 10 years.
In India these investments can be safer than Post Office Schemes as they are covered by the Indian Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC). However, DICGC guarantees amount up to ₹ 500000 (about $6850) per depositor per bank. In India they also offer income tax and wealth tax benefits.
Functioning.
Fixed deposits are high-interest-yielding term deposits and are offered by banks. The most popular form of term deposits are fixed deposits, while other forms of term deposits are recurring deposit and Flexi Fixed deposits (the latter is actually a combination of demand deposit and fixed deposit).
To compensate for the low liquidity, FDs offer higher rates of interest than saving accounts. The longest permissible term for FDs is 10 years. Generally, the longer the term of deposit, the higher is the rate of interest but a bank may offer a lower rate of interest for a longer period if it expects interest rates, at which the Central Bank of a nation lends to banks ("repo rates"), will dip in the future.
Usually the interest on FDs is paid every three months from the date of the deposit (e.g. if FD a/c was opened on 15 Feb, the first interest installment would be paid on 15 May). The interest is credited to the customers' Savings bank account or sent to them by cheque. This is a "Simple FD." The customer may choose to have the interest reinvested in the FD account. In this case, the deposit is called the "Cumulative FD" or compound interest FD. For such deposits, the interest is paid with the invested amount on maturity of the deposit at the end of the term.
Although banks can refuse to repay FDs before the expiry of the deposit, they generally don't. This is known as a premature withdrawal. In such cases, interest is paid at the rate applicable at the time of withdrawal. For example, a deposit is made for 5 years at 8% but is withdrawn after 2 years. If the rate applicable on the date of deposit for 2 years is 5 percent, the interest will be paid at 5 percent. Banks can charge a penalty for premature withdrawal.
Banks issue a separate receipt for every FD because each deposit is treated as a distinct contract. This receipt is known as the Fixed Deposit Receipt (FDR), which has to be surrendered to the bank at the time of renewal or encashment.
Many banks offer the facility of automatic renewal of FDs where the customers do give new instructions for the matured deposit. On the date of maturity, such deposits are renewed for a similar term as that of the original deposit at the rate prevailing on the date of renewal.
Income tax regulations require that FD maturity proceeds exceeding Rs 20,000 not to be paid in cash. Repayment of such and larger deposits has to be either by "A/c payee" crossed cheque in the name of the customer or by credit to the saving bank a/c or current a/c of the customer.
Nowadays, banks give the facility of Flexi or sweep in FD, where in customers can withdraw their money through ATM, through cheque or through funds transfer from their FD account. In such cases, whatever interest is accrued on the amount they have withdrawn will be credited to their savings account (the account that has been linked to their FD) and the balance amount will automatically be converted in their new FD. This system helps them in getting their funds from their FD account at the times of emergency in a timely manner.
Taxability.
In India, tax is deducted at source by the banks on FDs if interest paid to a customer at any bank exceeds ₹ 10,000 in a financial year. This is applicable to both interest payable or reinvested per customer. This is called Tax deducted at Source and is presently fixed at 10% of the interest. With CBS banks can tally FD holding of a customer across various branches and TDS is applied if interest exceeds ₹ 10,000.
Banks issue Form 16 A every quarter to the customer, as a receipt for Tax Deducted at Source.
However, tax on interest from fixed deposits is not 10%; it is applicable at the rate of tax slab of the deposit holder. If any tax on Fixed Deposit interest is due after TDS, the holder is expected to declare it in Income Tax returns and pay it by himself.
If the total income for a year does not fall within the overall taxable limits, customers can submit a Form 15 G (below 60 years of age) or Form 15 H (above 60 years of age) to the bank when starting the FD and at the start of every financial year to avoid TDS.
How bank FD rates of interest vary with Central Bank policy.
In certain macroeconomic conditions (particularly during periods of high inflation) a Central Bank adopts a tight monetary policy, that is, it hikes the interest rates at which it lends to banks ("repo rates"). Under such conditions, banks also hike both their lending (i.e. loan) as well as deposit (FD) rates. Under such conditions of high FD rates, FDs become an attractive investment avenue as they offer good returns and are almost completely secure with no risk. These can be checked with the excess rates in the country. |
Portrait of Madame X
Madame X or Portrait of Madame X is a portrait painting by John Singer Sargent of a young socialite, Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, wife of the French banker Pierre Gautreau. "Madame X" was painted not as a commission, but at the request of Sargent. It is a study in opposition. Sargent shows a woman posing in a black satin dress with jeweled straps, a dress that reveals and hides at the same time. The portrait is characterized by the pale flesh tone of the subject contrasted against a dark-colored dress and background.
The scandal resulting from the painting's controversial reception at the Paris Salon of 1884 amounted to a temporary set-back to Sargent while in France, though it may have helped him later establish a successful career in Britain and America.
Background.
The model was an American expatriate who married a French banker, and became notorious in Parisian high society for her beauty and rumored infidelities. She wore lavender powder and prided herself on her appearance. She was referred to as a "professional beauty" – an English-language term for a woman who uses personal skills to advance herself socially. Her unconventional beauty made her an object of fascination for artists; the American painter Edward Simmons claimed that he "could not stop stalking her as one does a deer." Sargent was also impressed, and anticipated that a portrait of Gautreau would garner much attention at the upcoming Paris Salon, and increase interest in portrait commissions. He wrote to a friend:
"I have a great desire to paint her portrait and have reason to think she would allow it and is waiting for someone to propose this homage to her beauty. If you are 'bien avec elle' and will see her in Paris, you might tell her I am a man of prodigious talent."
Although she had refused numerous similar requests from artists, Gautreau accepted Sargent's offer in February 1883. Sargent was an expatriate like Gautreau, and their collaboration has been interpreted as motivated by a shared desire to attain high status in French society.
Studies.
Little progress was made during the winter of 1883, as Gautreau was distracted by social engagements, and was not by nature inclined to the discipline of sitting for a portrait. At her suggestion, Sargent traveled to her estate in Brittany in June, where he commenced a series of preparatory works in pencil, watercolors, and oils. About thirty drawings resulted from these sessions, in which many poses were attempted. Like the eventual portrait, an oil sketch entitled "Madame Gautreau Drinking a Toast" (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum), shows the subject's profile and bare arms against a dark background, but is of a more freely brushed and informal character.
Just as she had been in Paris, in the country Gautreau was bored by the process of sitting; here, too, there were social engagements, as well as the responsibilities of tending to her four-year-old daughter, her mother, house guests, and a full domestic staff. Sargent complained of "the unpaintable beauty and hopeless laziness of Madame Gautreau."
Execution.
As in his previous entries to the Salon, "The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit" and "El Jaleo", Sargent chose a canvas of dimensions large enough to ensure notice on the crowded Salon walls. The pose proved to be different from any of those tried in the preliminary works. It necessitated that Gautreau stand with her body facing the artist while her head was turned away, her right arm extended behind her for support, her hand on a low table; the result was to create tension in the neck and arm as well as to emphasize the subject's elegant contours. For painting the artificial tone of Gautreau's pale skin, Sargent used a palette composed of lead white, rose madder, vermilion, viridian, and bone black.
Even when composition had been decided upon and painting started, work progressed slowly. In a letter to a friend Sargent wrote "One day I was dissatisfied with it and dashed a tone of light rose over the former gloomy background... The "élancée" [tall and slender] figure of the model shows to much greater advantage." On September 7, Sargent wrote "still at Paramé, basking in the sunshine of my beautiful model's countenance." By the fall, Sargent's interest in the venture was nearing completion: "The summer is definitely over and with it, I admit, is my pleasure at being at Les Chênes [Gautreau's estate]."
Description.
There is an assertion and showiness in the expanse of white skin – from her high forehead down her graceful neck, shoulders, and arms. Although the black of her dress is bold, it is also deep, recessive and mysterious. She is surrounded by a rich brown which is at once luminous and dark enough to provide contrast to the skin tones. Most disconcerting is the whiteness of the skin, an overt contrivance of "aristocratic pallor"; by contrast her red ear is a jarring reminder of the color of flesh unadorned.
Sargent chose the pose for Gautreau carefully: her body boldly faces forward while her head is turned in profile. A profile is both assertion and retreat; half of the face is hidden while, at the same time, the part that shows can seem more defined than full face.
The table provides support for Gautreau, and echoes her curves and stance. At the time, her pose was considered sexually suggestive. As originally exhibited, one strap of her gown had fallen down Gautreau's right shoulder, suggesting the possibility of further revelation; "One more struggle", wrote a critic in "Le Figaro", "and the lady will be free". (Perhaps unknown to the critic, the bodice was constructed over a metal and whalebone foundation and could not have fallen; the shoulder straps were ornamental).
The image's erotic suggestion is of a distinctly upper-class sort: unnaturally pale skin, cinched waist, severity of profile and an emphasis on aristocratic bone structure all imply a distant sexuality "under the professional control of the sitter", rather than offered for the viewer's delectation.
Classical sources, such as the figures in a fresco by Francesco de' Rossi, have been suggested as inspiration for the pose. The painting features several subtle classical references: sirens of Greek mythology adorn the table's legs, and the crescent tiara worn by Gautreau symbolizes the goddess Diana. The latter was not contrived by the artist, but was part of Gautreau's self-display.
Reception.
While the work was in progress, Gautreau was enthusiastic; she believed that Sargent was painting a masterpiece. When the painting first appeared at the Paris Salon under the title "Portrait de Mme ***" in 1884, people were shocked and scandalized; the attempt to preserve the subject's anonymity was unsuccessful, and the sitter's mother requested that Sargent withdraw the painting from the exhibition. Sargent refused, saying he had painted her "exactly as she was dressed, that nothing could be said of the canvas worse than had been said in print of her appearance". Later, Sargent overpainted the shoulder strap to raise it up and make it look more securely fastened. He also changed the title, from the original "Portrait de Mme ***", to "Madame X" – a name more assertive, dramatic and mysterious, and, by accenting the impersonal, giving the illusion of the "woman" archetype.
The poor public and critical reception was a disappointment to both artist and model. Gautreau was humiliated by the affair, and Sargent soon left Paris and moved to London permanently.
Aftermath.
Sargent hung "Madame X" first in his Paris studio, and later in his studio in London. Starting in 1905, he displayed it in a number of international exhibitions. In 1916, Sargent sold the painting to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, writing to its director "I suppose it is the best thing I have ever done." A second, unfinished version of the same pose, in which the position of the right shoulder strap remained unresolved, is in the Tate, London.
Seven years after Sargent painted Madame Gautreau, Gustave Courtois painted her. As in the earlier painting, the portrait shows her face in profile. She wears the same style of dress, with Courtois's portrait showing a bit more skin. The strap of her dress hangs off her shoulder much as it had in Sargent's portrait. This time, however, the portrait was well received by the public. In 1897 Gautreau posed yet again for a standing portrait, for what would be her favorite version, by Antonio de La Gándara.
In 1960, Cuban-American fashion designer Luis Estévez created an iconic black dress based on the John Singer Sargent painting "Portrait of Madame X" (1884). Dina Merrill modeled the Estévez dress for photographer Milton H. Greene published in "Life" magazine on 11 January 1960. |
Ord River
The Ord River is a river in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. The river's catchment covers .
The lower Ord River and the conjunction with Cambridge Gulf create the most northern estuarine environment in Western Australia.
The Ord River Irrigation Scheme was built in stages during the 20th century. Australia's largest artificial lake by volume, Lake Argyle, was completed in 1972. It has not been economically successful; $1.45 billion has been spent on the Ord Irrigation Scheme for a return of 17 cents on the dollar, and only 260 jobs created.
The lower reaches of the river support an important wetland area known as the Ord River Floodplain, a protected area that contains numerous mangrove forests, lagoons, creeks, flats and extensive floodplains.
The traditional owners are the Miriwoong and Gajerrong peoples who have inhabited the area for thousands of years and know the Ord River as . In a letter to the Surveyor General, dated 12 October 1959, Louise Gardiner, Secretary of the Nomenclature Advisory Committee wrote: Cununurra'...means 'Black Soil'. It is the native name for Ord River. Perhaps it may be the native name for any big river, but according to Mary Durack it is definitely the name for the 'Ord'."
English naming.
It was given its English name in honour of Sir Harry St. George Ord GCMG, CB, RE, Governor of Western Australia from 1877 to 1880, by Alexander Forrest on 2 August 1879. Forrest's journal states:
We are still 300 miles from the telegraph line, and cannot of course tell what difficulties may not yet be in store for us, so I feel bound to push on, at the same time no one can regret more than I do that I am unable to follow this magnificent stream to its mouth which I have no doubt will be found in Cambridge Gulf—the whole of its waters, in that case, being in Western Australian territory. I have named this river the Ord, after His Excellency the Governor of Western Australia, who has taken so great an interest in this expedition. Marked a tree F 158.
The headwaters of the Ord River are located below the Mount Wells and initially flow east and around the edge of Purnululu National Park before heading north through Lake Argyle then passing west of Kununurra and discharging into the Cambridge Gulf, which is at the southern extremity of the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, Timor Sea. The river has 35 tributaries of which the five longest are Bow River, Nicholson River, Dunham River, Panton River and Negri Rivers.
Ord River Irrigation Scheme.
The idea of damming the Ord was first mentioned over 100 years ago, when the Western Australia Commissioner of Tropical Agriculture, Adrian Despeissis, suggested,
Substantial wooden dams constructed on a double row of jarrah piles driven into the bed of the river, with a core wall of puddle clay between, would appear to form suitable weirs.
Between 1935 and 1942 drought affected the Kimberley Pastoral Industry, providing the key motivation for the Ord Scheme. The focus in 1937 was that a dam on the Ord could supplement the pastoral industry.
Ord River experimental station.
Then Minister for Lands and Agriculture, Wise, in 1937 wrote
...we set a plan in motion during the past twelve months in connection with the establishment of experimental areas on Ivanhoe Station somewhere near Carlton Reach.
Carlton Reach was the largest waterhole in the Kimberley, being naturally dammed and held back by the Bandicoot Bar, a quartzite rock bar that held back the waterhole for many miles forming a natural permanent lake.
In 1939, Michael Durack and Isaac Steinberg traveled to the region to investigate its suitability for resettling Jewish refugees. Any resettlement scheme would have involved irrigation works on the Ord.
By 1941 the Carlton Reach Research Station, also known as the Ord River Experimental Station, was set up by Kimberley Michael Durack for the Western Australia Department of Agriculture with funds, supposedly "siphoned off" from the Kalgoorlie pipeline and assistance from the Western Australia Public Works Department (PWD).
Ord River dam surveys.
Several possible dam sites were selected in August 1941 by the newly appointed Director of Works, Dumas, who spent three weeks in the East Kimberley with a party traveling on horseback along the Ord River and through the Ord River gorges in the Carr Boyd Range. Work continued at the Carlton Reach experimental station for Kim Durack with assistance from his brother William A. Durack, on various agricultural experiments, centred on supplementing the pastoral industry.
Involving the Commonwealth.
Early in 1944 Dumas wrote to the Commonwealth Government, advising of the soil, botanical, erosion and engineering surveys about to take place in the East Kimberley, explaining that the project must become largely a national one and any assistance from the Commonwealth would be welcome. By May 1944 there was a large body of agriculturalists, botanists and surveyors carrying out investigations in the vicinity of Carlton Reach. The Aboriginal people who lived in the Ord River basin were decimated through killing and the spread of introduced diseases.
Establishment of the Kimberley Research Station.
It would be another two years before the Commonwealth Government became involved, with the establishment of a joint CSIR and Western Australia Department of Agriculture facility. As the Carlton Reach, Ord River experimental station site was river alluvium (red soil) and most of the surveyed agricultural land was "Cununurra Clay" (blacksoilVolcanic soil eroded from the Antrim Plateau Volcanics), it was moved to a new site further down river and the new Kimberley Research Station (KRS) was established in 1946.
Justifying dam construction.
In 1951, the KRS Supervisory Committee (KRSSC) indicated that sugar and rice were two cash crops that could justify dam construction. By 1953, 150 varieties of rice were being tested.
Over the 13 years between 1946 and 1959 various agricultural experiments were undertaken at KRS and in April 1959 the KRSSC recommended the establishment of a pilot farm. In August 1959, the Commonwealth Government made a grant of £5m to the Government of Western Australia, most to be used for the Ord River Scheme.
Origin of the Ord River Irrigation Area.
The Ord River Irrigation Area (ORIA), which was originally known as the Ord River Irrigation Scheme (ORIS) or Ord River Project, when it was approved by the Commonwealth Government, late in 1959 and began in 1960 with the establishment of the town of Kununurra, which was gazetted a town on 10 February 1961.
The first dam – Ord River Diversion Dam.
The construction of the Ord River Diversion Dam started in late 1960 and was officially opened in July 1963 by then Prime Minister, Robert Menzies. The Ord River Diversion Dam holds back Lake Kununurra, which gravity feeds the Ord River Irrigation Area with water via the Main Channel (M1C1). The main channel is visible in the photograph with Lake Kununurra, Ord River (formerly the Carlton Reach waterhole, Ord River) in the background.
The Ord River pilot farm.
To test the commercial viability of the ORIA, the WA Government, passed an act of parliament, known as the Northern Development (Ord River) Act, and in October 1960, ratified an agreement with the company Northern Developments, Ord River Pty Ltd to set up and run the first "pilot farm." This was backed by the WA Government but was to run as a commercial farming venture.
By November 1960 the first had been chain-dozed and cleared, a channel and pumps were in place, to irrigate the first commercial rice crop that had been planted on the new pilot farm. This was almost three years before the completion of the Ord River Diversion Dam and main channel, so the pilot farm irrigated by pumping water from the Carlton Reach waterhole.
Commercial irrigation farming.
Allocation of commercial farm land during Stage 1 of the project was allocated in stages, with the first group of farmers arriving in 1962 and final allocations completed in 1966. 30 farms produced mostly cotton, however pest problems soon became apparent. The early 1970s saw the application of large amounts of pesticides on crops. The primary pest was the caterpillar Helicoverpa armigera which developed resistance to the pesticides. The resulting low crop yields combined with a drop in world cotton prices led to suspension of the commercial cotton industry in the region.
The second dam – Ord River (main) Dam.
Work started on the main Ord River Dam in 1969 and was completed before the official opening on 30 June 1972 by Prime Minister William McMahon, when he said:
This marks the beginning of Ord stage two.
The main Ord River Dam, known locally as "Top Dam" holds back the waters of the Ord River in Lake Argyle. The Ord scheme created Lake Argyle, which is Australia's largest dam reservoir, covering an area of .
Disputed views about economic value of the irrigation scheme.
Until the mid-2010s most reports of the scheme derided its lack of economic return. In 2013, the Wilderness Society estimated that $1.45 billion had been spent on the Ord Irrigation Scheme for a return of 17 cents for every dollar spent. In 2016 the Auditor General for Western Australia reported that "The sustained social and economic benefits underpinning the decision to proceed with this $529 million investment have not been realized. Nor is there a plan to track and assess them." The Australia Institute reported that "Attempts to develop northern Australia by subsidizing capital-intensive industries like irrigated agriculture have a long and unimpressive history. An example is the Ord River Scheme which currently supports just 260 jobs despite $2 billion spent and decades of effort.".
A turnaround in fortunes may be on the horizon, with the second half of the 2010s seeing new crops being planted and fresh fruit markets in both South-East Australia and Asia being exploited with greater economic success. In the late 2010s the opening of export markets in China gave the Ord Scheme a potential basis for financial sustainability.
The Ord River irrigation area today.
The Ord River dams provide water for irrigation to over of farmland and extensions to the scheme are underway to allow irrigation of a further . The main Ord River dam also generates power for the local community of Kununurra. By 2009 more than 60 different crops were grown in the Ord catchment area. One third of the area was used for sugar cane cultivation until the closure of the Ord Sugar Mill in 2007. In 2012 the release was approved of an additional of Stage 2 Goomig lands for irrigated agriculture, while the same year the West Australian Department of Agriculture conducted soil and water investigations of the Cockatoo Sands (red loamy sands) near the Ord River Irrigation Area, Kununurra. These investigations identified about of Cockatoo Sands and about of Pago Sands on Carlton Hill Station suitable for fodder or perennial crops. The Cockatoo Sands have great potential because they are well-drained and have capacity to support agriculture throughout the wet season. As part of the Water for Food government program, the Department of Agriculture also investigated an additional of Cockatoo soils north of Kununurra for possible expansion.
In 2009, the Rudd Government and Colin Barnett announced a development plan for the area. The plan emphasised community and infrastructure development including upgrades of Kununurra Airport and the port at Wyndham.
Power generation.
The Ord River Dam Hydro Scheme is a privately funded, owned and operated power system in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. It consists of a new 36 MW hydro electric power station at Lake Argyle interconnected, by lengthy 132 kV transmission lines, with existing diesel fuelled power systems at the Argyle diamond mine and the Kununurra township. The scheme can currently only produce 1% of the power the Snowy Mountains Scheme produces. The power station was constructed from 1995 to 1996.
Environmental effects.
CSIRO research conducted in 2008 found that the water quality in the lower reaches of the river was good and that planned activities were not an ecological threat. However, salinity and erosion are becoming an issue in the area, due to the rising of the water table in the area. The use of groundwater drains has been suggested by hydrologist Tony Smith, as a possible remedy to salinity problems.
Some concerns have been raised that the large body of water created by the dam could attract Asian insects and birds which may transmit dangerous viruses such as avian influenza.
Like so many other experiments in tropical agriculture, the scheme initially failed because of difficulties growing crops and attack from pests. Today the irrigated areas successfully produce a variety of fruits and vegetables, with the most recent crop being sandalwood.
Associated wetland areas have been preserved within the Lakes Argyle and Kununurra Ramsar Site. Ord water quality and flow contributed to the disappearance of the Common Banana Prawn.
The site forms part of the Ord Irrigation Area Important Bird Area (IBA), so identified by BirdLife International because of its importance for wild birds, especially estrildid finches.
Logistics.
Much of the produce is exported to South East Asia. Sugar, which was produced from the late 1990s until the end of 2007 in the ORIA was trucked to Wyndham where it was exported to a Korean-owned food manufacturing plant in Surabaya, Indonesia. Fruit and vegetables are sold to domestic markets and are trucked to all capital cities. The ORIA is also home to the largest commercial Indian Sandalwood plantations in the world. |
Dexter's Laboratory
Dexter's Laboratory is an American animated television series created by Genndy Tartakovsky for Cartoon Network and distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution. The series follows Dexter, an enthusiastic boy-genius with a hidden science laboratory in his room full of inventions, which he keeps secret from his clueless parents, who are only referred to as "Mom" and "Dad". Dexter is at constant odds with his older and more extroverted sister Dee Dee, who always gains access to the lab and inadvertently foils his experiments. Dexter has a bitter rivalry with his neighbor and classmate Mandark, a nefarious boy-genius who attempts to undermine Dexter at every opportunity. Prominently featured in the first and second seasons are other segments focusing on superhero-based characters Monkey, Dexter's pet lab-monkey/superhero, and the Justice Friends, a trio of superheroes who share an apartment.
Tartakovsky pitched the series to Fred Seibert's first animated shorts showcase "What a Cartoon!" at Hanna-Barbera, basing it on student films he produced at the California Institute of the Arts. Four pilots aired on Cartoon Network and TNT from 1995 to 1996. Viewer approval ratings led to a half-hour series, which consisted of two seasons totaling 52 episodes, airing from April 27, 1996, to June 15, 1998. On December 10, 1999, a television film titled "" aired as the intended series finale, and Tartakovsky left to begin working on "Samurai Jack".
In November 2000, the series was renewed for two seasons containing 26 total episodes, which began airing on November 18, 2001, and concluded on November 20, 2003. Due to Tartakovsky's departure, the last two seasons featured Chris Savino as showrunner along with a new production team at Cartoon Network Studios with changes made to the visual art style and character designs.
"Dexter's Laboratory" won three Annie Awards, with nominations for four Primetime Emmy Awards, four Golden Reel Awards, and nine other Annie Awards. The series is notable for helping launch the careers of animators Craig McCracken, Seth MacFarlane, Butch Hartman, Paul Rudish, and Rob Renzetti. Spin-off media include children's books, comic books, DVD and VHS releases, music albums, toys, and video games.
Premise.
Dexter (voiced by Christine Cavanaugh in seasons 1–3; Candi Milo in seasons 3–4) is a bespectacled boy-genius who, behind a bookcase in his bedroom, conceals a secret laboratory, which can be accessed by spoken passwords or hidden switches on his bookshelf. Though highly intelligent, Dexter often fails to achieve his goals when he becomes overexcited and careless. Although he comes from a typical American family, Dexter speaks with an accent of indeterminate origin. Christine Cavanaugh described it as "an affectation, [a] kind of accent, we're not quite sure. A small Peter Lorre, but not. Perhaps he's Latino, perhaps he's French. He's a scientist; he knows he needs [a] kind of accent." Genndy Tartakovsky explained, "he's a scientist. All scientists are foreign and have accents...It's not really a German accent. It's just Eastern European."
Dexter conceals his lab from his clueless parents, addressed only as Mom (voiced by Kath Soucie) and Dad (voiced by Jeff Bennett), who never take notice of it. His hyperactive, good-hearted, older sister Dee Dee (voiced by Allison Moore in seasons 1 and 3 and by Kat Cressida in seasons 2 and 4) delights in playing haphazardly in the lab, wreaking havoc with Dexter's inventions. Though seemingly dim-witted, Dee Dee, who is also a talented ballet dancer, can outsmart her brother and even give him helpful advice. For his part, Dexter, though annoyed by his intrusive sibling, feels a reluctant affection for her and will come to her defense if she is imperiled.
Dexter's nemesis is rival classmate Mandark Astronomonov (voiced by Eddie Deezen). Like Dexter, Mandark is a boy genius with his own laboratory, but his schemes are generally evil and designed to gain power or downplay or destroy Dexter's accomplishments. In revival seasons, Mandark becomes significantly more evil, becoming Dexter's enemy rather than his rival, and Mandark's laboratory changes from brightly lit with rounded features to gothic-looking, industrial, and angular. Dexter's inventions are objectively better than his, and Mandark tries to compensate for this by stealing Dexter's plans. Mandark's weakness is his unrequited love for Dee Dee.
Recurring segments.
Every "Dexter's Laboratory" episode, with the exception of "Last But Not Beast", is divided into different stories or segments, each being 7–12 minutes long. Occasionally, a segment centers on characters other than Dexter and his family. Two segments are shown primarily during season one: "Dial M for Monkey" and "The Justice Friends". "Dial M for Monkey" is the middle segment for six episodes of season one, and "The Justice Friends" takes its place until season one's end.
"Dial M for Monkey".
"Dial M for Monkey" shorts feature Dexter's pet laboratory monkey named Monkey (vocal effects provided by Frank Welker), whom Dexter believes is an ordinary monkey and nothing more. However, Monkey secretly has superpowers and fights evil as a superhero named Monkey. Monkey is joined by his partner Agent Honeydew (voiced by Kath Soucie) of Global Security, Commander General (voiced by Robert Ridgely in season 1, Earl Boen in season 2), and a team of assembled superheroes. "Dial M for Monkey" was created by Genndy Tartakovsky, Craig McCracken, and Paul Rudish. Monkey's superpowers include super-strength, telekinesis, flight, and super speed, among others.
"The Justice Friends".
"The Justice Friends" consists of Major Glory (voiced by Rob Paulsen) of whom Dexter himself is revealed to be a fan and collects Major Glory action-figures, Valhallen (voiced by Tom Kenny), and the Infraggable Krunk (voiced by Frank Welker), a trio of superhero roommates residing in an apartment called Muscular Arms. Their adventures deal less with superhero life and more with an inability to agree with each other; it is presented much like a sitcom, including a laugh track. Genndy Tartakovsky's inspiration for "The Justice Friends" came from reading Marvel Comics when learning how to speak English. Tartakovsky stated in a 2001 "IGN" interview that he was disappointed with how "The Justice Friends" turned out, saying, "it could have been funnier and the characters could have been fleshed out more."
Mini-segments.
Between the three main segments in seasons one and two are brief mini-segments, which often feature only Dexter and Dee Dee. Other characters that star in these include "The Puppet Pals" - two live-action puppets named Puppet Pal Clem (voiced by Rob Paulsen) and Puppet Pal Mitch (voiced by Tom Kenny).
Production.
Genndy Tartakovsky, the creator of "Dexter's Laboratory", was born in Moscow, where his father, a dentist, served in the government of the Soviet Union. Although relatively wealthy and well-connected, his family feared racial persecution due to their Jewish heritage and moved to the United States when Tartakovsky was seven. Along with his older brother, Alex, Tartakovsky taught himself how to draw as a child by copying comic books.
After transferring from Columbia College Chicago to the California Institute of the Arts in 1990 to study animation, Tartakovsky wrote, directed, animated, and produced two student short films, one of which was a precursor to "Dexter's Laboratory"'s television pilot, "Changes". Described as a two-and-a-half-minute pencil test, this short film was included in a university screening for the producers of "", who were impressed and hired Tartakovsky.
Later on, Tartakovsky joined the production team of "2 Stupid Dogs". His co-workers on that series, Craig McCracken, Rob Renzetti, Paul Rudish, and Lou Romano, had been classmates of his at Cal Arts and went on to collaborate with him on "Dexter's Laboratory". Tartakovsky's last job before developing "Dexter's Laboratory" into a television series was to serve as a sheet timer on "The Critic". During his time on that series, Tartakovsky received a phone call from Larry Huber, who had been a producer on "2 Stupid Dogs". Huber had shown Tartakovsky's unfinished student film to a then-nascent Cartoon Network and wanted Tartakovsky to develop the concept into a seven-minute storyboard.
Unhappy with his position on "The Critic", Tartakovsky accepted Huber's proposal, and the resulting project, "Changes", was produced as part of Cartoon Network's animation showcase series, "World Premiere Toons", debuting on February 26, 1995. Viewers worldwide voted through phone lines, websites, focus groups, and consumer promotions for their favorite short cartoons; "Dexter's Laboratory" was the first of 16 to earn that vote of approval. Mike Lazzo, then-head of programming for Cartoon Network, said in 1996 that it was his favorite of the 48 shorts that had been produced by that point, commenting that he and colleagues "loved the humor in the brother-versus-sister relationship".
Even after "Changes" premiered, Tartakovsky had no expectations that it would lead to an entire series. In 2018, he noted that his generation was the first in which people could become showrunners at a young age, saying, "Everybody before us were in their forties, at least, and so [our generation's experience] was a very different way to do something where we had no clue what we were doing and we were just trying to make each other laugh." When "Dexter's Laboratory" received a series green-light, Tartakovsky became, at age twenty-seven, one of the youngest animation directors of that era. Speaking with the "Los Angeles Times" in 2002, Tartakovsky remarked about the network, "With Cartoon Network, they were looking for more undiscovered talent, people that may have had a hard time getting in.[...]It became a great opportunity to do something. And as I got into it, I realized that they were also offering the creative freedom. They were letting the creators make the shows."
Tartakovsky's former classmates McCracken and Rudish helped him design "Changes". Soon afterward, Tartakovsky helped McCracken create his own short film for "World Premiere Toons/What a Cartoon!", which would eventually become the basis for "The Powerpuff Girls". After finishing McCracken's project, the group proceeded to a second short film for "Dexter's Laboratory", titled "The Big Sister". At the time, Tartakovsky was still not anticipating a series green-light for "Dexter's Laboratory". He went on to reminisce that, in those days, he was simply having fun working on short films with his friends. Tartakovsky and McCracken, who had been roommates shortly after college, went on to become regular collaborators on each other's series. Animation historian David Perlmutter noted a symbiosis between the two men, which he felt led to stylistic similarities between "Dexter's Laboratory" and "The Powerpuff Girls".
In August 1995, Turner ordered six half-hours of "Dexter's Laboratory", which included two cartoons of one spin-off segment titled "Dial M for Monkey". In addition to Tartakovsky, McCracken, Renzetti, and Rudish, directors and writers on "Dexter's Laboratory" included Seth MacFarlane, Butch Hartman, John McIntyre, and Chris Savino. McCracken also served as an art director on the series. Perlmutter described McCracken's role on "Dexter's Laboratory" as that of Tartakovsky's "effective second-in-command".
Conception.
"Dexter's Laboratory" originated with one of Genndy Tartakovsky's designs of a ballet dancer. While attending CalArts, Tartakovsky drew a tall, thin girl dancing and decided to pair her with a short and blocky opposite. These two characters would eventually develop into Dee Dee and Dexter respectively, although they went unnamed until Tartakovsky started expanding the concept for Cartoon Network. To further contrast the two characters, Tartakovsky determined that Dee Dee would be artistic, while Dexter would be focused on science. In an interview, Tartakovsky said, "Dee Dee came first. She was really the star of the show to me. She was so much fun. Later on, I started on Dexter and he took over."
The names Dexter and Dee Dee were both found in name books; "Dexter" caught Tartakovsky's attention for sounding scientific, while "Dee Dee" appealed to him because of its uniqueness and because he felt that it complemented that character's two pigtails. Before settling on these options, Tartakovsky had considered titling the series "Dartmouth and Daisy". Explaining why he discarded this idea, Tartakovsky said that "Dartmouth doesn't exactly roll off the tongue" and that the name Daisy was already heavily associated with Disney. The title "Dexter's Laboratory" was not settled on until around midway through production of the series' pilot episode, "Changes".
The ages of Dexter and Dee Dee are meant to be nebulous. Although Tartakovsky suggested that Dexter is intended to be about six to eight years old and that Dee Dee is "a couple years older", he also stressed that he would "never want" to specify Dexter's exact age. Tartakovsky wrote Dexter as a hardworking, unspoiled "Midwest kid" who loves food and explained, "I'm not saying he's from Chicago, but there's a reason he's got his own burrito palace, just like I had growing up in Chicago."
The sibling dynamic in "Dexter's Laboratory" was partially modeled on Tartakovsky's relationship with his older brother, Alex. Comparing himself to Dee Dee and Alex, who became a computer engineer, to Dexter, Tartakovsky acknowledged that he was most likely a "pest" to his older brother while they were growing up. Another time, he reminisced that as kids, he and his brother could each be a "pain in the ass" to the other. To illustrate one of the parallels between his childhood and the series, Tartakovsky noted that Alex had kept him from playing with "intricate" toy soldiers in those days, much like Dexter attempts to keep Dee Dee away from his inventions.
Tartakovsky determined that Dexter should have an accent because the character "considers himself a very serious scientist, and all well-known scientists have accents." During one interview, Tartakovsky suggested that viewers should decide for themselves whether or not the character's accent is an affectation, saying that "[n]obody knows" whether the character is "pretending to be a German scientist" or is speaking naturally. Although Tartakovsky noted in a separate interview that Dexter's accent is not meant to denote any specific nationality, he revealed in a 2012 Reddit AMA that it was partially inspired by "a funny French accent" done by his college roommate.
Tartakovsky also drew inspiration from his experiences as an immigrant growing up in Chicago. He explained that, like Dexter, he had a "very thick accent" as a child—and even though he lived in a diverse neighborhood, children would tease him for this. Speaking with "The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles" in 2001, Tartakovsky explained, "When I moved to America, I wanted to fit in and be American...We never tried to be too heavy-handed with "Dexter's", but if you look at the underlying themes of the show, it's about a little kid trying to fit in." Tartakovsky noted that when he was a child, he was less confident than the character, telling "The New York Times", "The one thing about Dexter, if he doesn't fit in, he'll start his own club. He's not afraid to be an outsider."
Linda Simensky, who served as senior vice-president of Original Animation for Cartoon Network during the production of "Dexter's Laboratory", wrote in 2011 that Dexter was designed "to be more of an icon in some ways"; she continued, "his body was short and squat and his design was simple, with a black outline and relatively little detail... Since Tartakovsky knew he was developing "Dexter" for television, he purposely limited the design to a degree, designing the nose and mouth, for instance, in a Hanna-Barbera style to animate easily." This simplistic style was influenced by UPA shorts, as well as by the "Merrie Melodies" cartoon "The Dover Boys". Simensky noted though, that in contrast to those cartoons, "Dexter's Laboratory" is "staged cinematically, rather than flat and close to the screen, to leave space and depth for the action and gags in the lab". Tartakovsky was also influenced by Warner Bros. cartoons, Hanna-Barbera, and Japanese anime.
Original run.
"Dexter's Laboratory" premiered on TNT on April 27, 1996, and the following day on Cartoon Network and TBS. It became the first in a brand of Cartoon Network original cartoons, later including "Cow and Chicken", "I Am Weasel", "Johnny Bravo", "The Powerpuff Girls", "Ed, Edd n Eddy", and "Courage the Cowardly Dog", collectively known as Cartoon Cartoons. A second season was ordered, which premiered on Cartoon Network on July 16, 1997. This run of the series includes the episode "Dexter and Computress Get Mandark!", whose author was a seven-year-old boy from Long Island named Tyler Samuel Lee, who submitted his story to Tartakovsky as an audiotape. Tyler's recorded narration was used in the episode, and Tartakovsky (who often received letters and comments from other fans) said that Tyler had "a great understanding of the show and genuinely captured the imaginative kid perspective we're always striving for."
"Dexter's Laboratory" went on hiatus on June 15, 1998, after two seasons, with season two lasting 39 episodes. The series finale was initially intended to be "Last But Not Beast", which differed from the format of other episodes, in that it was a single 25-minute episode, rather than a collection of shorter segments. By this point, Tartakovsky was exhausted. His focus on the series had cost him two relationships, and he went on to joke that the process of running "Dexter's Laboratory" was like "giving birth to ten children." After putting the series on hiatus, Tartakovsky became a supervising producer on colleague Craig McCracken's series, "The Powerpuff Girls"; he also directed episodes of that series and worked on "The Powerpuff Girls Movie." After the movie, McCracken would later go on to create "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends", also for Cartoon Network. Both Hartman and MacFarlane left Cartoon Network altogether at this point; they moved on to create "The Fairly OddParents" and "Family Guy", respectively. Rob Renzetti would later go on to create "My Life as a Teenage Robot" for Nickelodeon. Paul Rudish would also have a chance to develop an animated series for Disney Television Animation; he would reboot Mickey Mouse in 2013 for Disney Channel and 2020 for Disney+.
In 1999, Tartakovsky returned to direct "", an hour-long television movie. It was his last "Dexter's Laboratory" production to be involved with and was intended to be its conclusion. "Ego Trip" was hand-animated, though character and setting designs were subtly revised. Its plot follows Dexter on a quest through time to discover his future triumphs.
Revival.
On February 21, 2001, Cartoon Network issued a press release stating that "Dexter's Laboratory" had been revived for a 13-episode third season. The series was given a new production team at Cartoon Network Studios, and Chris Savino took over the role of creative director from Tartakovsky, who at the time was immersed in launching his next series, "Samurai Jack". During season four of "Dexter's Laboratory", Savino was promoted to producer giving him further control of the series, including the budget. Revival episodes featured revised visual designs and sound effects, recast voice actors, continuity shakeups, and a transition from traditional cel animation, which was used until "Ego Trip", to digital ink and paint, which was used permanently beginning with season three's premiere.
Christine Cavanaugh voiced Dexter for early episodes of season three, but she retired from voice acting in 2001 for personal reasons. She was replaced by Candi Milo. Allison Moore, a college friend of Tartakovsky, was cast as Dee Dee. Moore's role was later recast with Kat Cressida. In season three, Moore briefly returned to voice Dee Dee before Cressida again assumed her role for season four. The character redesigns were handled by Dexter's original creator Genndy Tartakovsky, with the help of one of Dexter's original model designers, Chris Battle, known individually for acting as character designer for Nickelodeon's "Aaahh!!! Real Monsters" and Cartoon Network's "The Powerpuff Girls". Aaron Springer and Chris Reccardi are also credited on the writing staff.
Episodes.
"Dexter's Laboratory" broadcast 78 half-hour episodes over 4 seasons during its 7-year run. Four pilot shorts were produced for "What a Cartoon!" that aired from 1995 to 1996, and were reconnected into season one in later airings. Fifty-two episodes were produced from 1996 to 1998, followed by "Ego Trip" in 1999.
Another 26 episodes were produced and broadcast from 2001 to 2003. "Chicken Scratch" debuted theatrically with "The Powerpuff Girls Movie" in 2002, and was later broadcast in season four.
Broadcast.
On December 31, 2000, Cartoon Network aired its "New Year's Bash" marathon featuring "Dexter's Laboratory" among other programs. On November 18, 2001, it broadcast a 12-hour "Dexter Goes Global" marathon in 96 countries and 12 languages. This marathon featured fan-selected episodes of "Dexter's Laboratory" and culminated by premiering two new episodes of season 3.
From 2005 to 2008, "Dexter's Laboratory" was rerun in segments on "The Cartoon Cartoon Show" with other Cartoon Cartoons from that era. From 2012 to 2014, it returned in reruns on the revived block, "Cartoon Planet".
From January 16, 2006, to January 4, 2015, "Dexter's Laboratory" aired reruns on Boomerang. Occasionally reruns of the series still occur.
Cartoon Network has aired reruns in Canada since its launch on July 4, 2012. This launch was commemorated by parent network Teletoon, which aired Cartoon Network-related programming blocks and promotions in weeks leading up to it, including episodes of "Dexter's Laboratory".
Controversial episodes.
"Dial M for Monkey: Barbequor", a season 1 episode from 1996, was removed from rotation after being broadcast in the United States. It features a character named the Silver Spooner (a spoof of Silver Surfer), which was perceived by Cartoon Network to be a stereotype of gay men. Second, Krunk appears to become drunk, has a hangover, and vomits off-camera. In later broadcasts and on its Season 1 DVD (Region 1), "Barbequor" has been replaced with "Dexter's Lab: A Story", an episode from season two.
"Rude Removal", a season 2 episode, was produced but not aired. It involves Dexter creating a "rude removal system" to diminish Dee Dee and Dexter's rudeness; however, it instead creates highly rude clones of both siblings. "Rude Removal" was only shown during certain animation festivals and was never aired on television due to characters swearing, even though all swear words were censored. Tartakovsky commented that "standards didn't like it." Linda Simensky, then-vice president of original programming for Cartoon Network, said "I still think it's very funny. It probably would air better late at night." Michelle Klein-Häss of "Animation World Network" called the episode "hilarious" after viewing it at the 1998 World Animation Celebration, although she predicted that it would "never be shown on television". In October 2012, Genndy Tartakovsky was asked about "Rude Removal" during an AMA on Reddit, and he replied "Next time I do a public appearance I'll bring it with me!" Adult Swim later asked fans on Twitter if interest still existed with it, and fan response was "overwhelming". "Rude Removal" was finally uploaded on Adult Swim's official YouTube account on January 22, 2013.
Reception.
"Dexter's Laboratory" was one of Cartoon Network's highest-rated original series for years. Internationally, it garnered a special mention for best script at the 1997 Cartoons on the Bay animation festival in Italy. From 1998–2000, a Dexter balloon was featured in Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade alongside other iconic characters, including the titular piglet from "Babe" whom Christine Cavanaugh voiced. The series was part of Cartoon Network's 20% ratings surge during mid-1999. On July 7, 2000, the series was the network's highest-rated original telecast among households (3.1), kids 2–11 (7.8), and kids 6–11 (8.4), with a delivery of almost 2 million homes. On July 31, 2001, it scored the highest household rating (2.9) and delivery (2,166,000 homes) for a Cartoon Network telecast for that year. "Dexter's Laboratory" was one of the network's highest-rated original series of 2002.
Critical reception.
One of Cartoon Network president Betty Cohen's favorite animated shows was "Dexter's Laboratory". Rapper Coolio stated in an August 2002 "Billboard" interview that he is a fan of the series, stating, "I watch a lot of cartoons because I have kids. I actually watch more cartoons than movies."
Shortly after the premiere of its first season, "Dexter's Laboratory" was hailed as one of the best new series on Cartoon Network by Ted Cox of the "Daily Herald". In the lead up to its second season, "Dexter's Laboratory" was called the most imaginative series on Cartoon Network by Nancy McAlister of "The Florida Times-Union". Although McAlister critiqued the gender stereotyping of Dexter's parents, she acknowledged that she was only applying such scrutiny to the series because "Dexter's Laboratory" had helped convince her that "viewers should take animated programming seriously".
In 1997, Bill Ward of the "Star Tribune" named "Dexter's Laboratory" to his Critic's Choice list, recommending it for the "young of all ages". In a 2012 top 10 list by "Entertainment Weekly", "Dexter's Laboratory" was ranked as the fourth best Cartoon Network series. In 2009, "Dexter's Laboratory" was named 72nd best animated series by "IGN", whose editors remarked, "Aimed at and immediately accessible to children, "Dexter's Laboratory" was part of a new generation of animated series that played on two levels, simultaneously fun for both kids and adults." In his 2015 book "Animation: A World History Volume III: Contemporary Times", Giannalberto Bendazzi called "Dexter's Laboratory" "visually and verbally innovative". He considered the series to be a groundbreaking work of pop art, likening its visual style to both street art and the designs of Takashi Murakami. David Perlmutter wrote in his 2018 book, "The Encyclopedia of American Animated Television Shows", that all three segments of "Dexter's Laboratory" (the main scenario, along with "Dial M for Monkey" and "The Justice Friends") elevate stereotypical ideas through an approach that contains "verve and originality". Perlmutter called the series more "complex" than it first seems. He praised the staging of action sequences throughout the series and wrote that "Dexter's Laboratory" is "much more effective (and funny) than it would have been under a director less committed to the project [than Tartakovsky]."
Legacy.
As affirmed by Giannalberto Bendazzi in "Animation: A World History Volume III", "Dexter's Laboratory", along with Craig McCracken's "The Powerpuff Girls", helped define the style of Cartoon Network, both for being works "in which lines and colour are predominant", and for underlining their graphic aspect through limited animation. Television critic Robert Lloyd claimed that both artists were "at the forefront of a second wave of innovative, creator-driven television animation, whose first wave began in the 1990s with the likes of Ralph Bakshi's ' and John Kricfalusi’s "The Ren & Stimpy Show"." The show has also been credited for "kickstarting" the channel's ascent and launching Tartakovsky's career, which later gave way to "Samurai Jack" and '. To this, Gizmodo's editor Beth Elderkin adds: "Since then, he's become a staple in children's and adult animation, responsible for everything from the "Hotel Transylvania" series to the powerful (and ultra-violent) "Primal"." "Vulture" calls the first pilot episode "a testament to Tartakovsky's talent and commitment as a filmmaker and a proof of concept for the "What a Cartoon!" anthology format." For a while, the show's simplistic look was adopted by other American cartoons; animator Butch Hartman said: "When I started making "Fairly OddParents", I took cues from what Genndy did in terms of simplifying the designs and using bold colors and simple shapes."
Merchandise.
Home media.
"Dexter's Laboratory" first appeared in home media on three VHS tapes from 2000 to 2001. Episodes had not been officially released before this, except for a complete series DVD contest prize in 1999.
Warner Bros. stated in a 2006 interview that they were "...in conversations with Cartoon Network" for DVD collections of cartoons, among which was "Dexter's Laboratory". Madman Entertainment released season one and part of season two in Region 4 in 2008. A Region 1 release of season one was released by Warner Home Video on October 12, 2010. It was third official release of a Cartoon Cartoon on DVD under the "Cartoon Network Hall of Fame" label.
Every episode, except for the television film "Ego Trip" and the banned "Rude Removal" episode, became available on iTunes in 2010. "Rude Removal" later became available on Adult Swim's official YouTube channel on January 22, 2013, but it has been prevented from being released on any home media for its obscenities. "Dexter's Laboratory" was formerly released on Hulu and is currently on HBO Max and Amazon Prime Video as of January 2023. "Cartoon Network Racing", a PlayStation 2 video game, contains the episodes "Dexter's Rival" and "Mandarker" as unlockable extras.
Music releases.
"Dexter's Laboratory" has spawned two music soundtrack albums: "The Musical Time Machine", which was released by Atlantic Records on May 19, 1998, and "", which was released by the Kid Rhino and Atlantic Records dual label on August 20, 2002. "The Hip-Hop Experiment" concurrently released with three hip hop music videos for the tracks "Back to the Lab" by Prince Paul, "Dexter (What's His Name?)" by Coolio, and "Secrets" by will.i.am. A fourth music video featuring Japanese-style animation was released by They Might Be Giants for the song "Dee Dee and Dexter", which was produced by Klasky Csupo, the animation studio known for producing Nickelodeon's "Rugrats", "Aaahh!!! Real Monsters", "The Wild Thornberrys", "Rocket Power", and "As Told by Ginger" animated series. Upon Cartoon Network's request for the artist to write an original song for "Dexter's Laboratory: The Hip-Hop Experiment", rapper Coolio, who provided the track "Dexter (What's His Name?)", stated, "I didn't really know what I wanted to do at first, but I knew I wanted it to be positive and lively." Three "Dexter's Laboratory" tracks are featured on Cartoon Network's 1999 compilation album "Cartoon Medley".
Publications.
Books set in "Dexter's Laboratory" were released by Scholastic and Golden Books.
Characters from "Dexter's Laboratory" are featured in a 150,000-print magazine called "Cartoon Network", published by Burghley Publishing and released in the United Kingdom on August 27, 1998.
DC Comics printed four comic book volumes featuring "Dexter's Laboratory". Characters from the series first appear in "Cartoon Network Presents", a 24-issue volume showcasing Cartoon Network's premiere animated programming, which was produced from 1997 to 1999. In 1999, DC gave "Dexter's Laboratory" its own 34-issue comic volume, which ran until 2003. DC's "Cartoon Cartoons" comic book, which ran from 2001 to 2004, frequently includes "Dexter's Laboratory" stories. This was superseded by "Cartoon Network Block Party", which ran from 2004 to 2009.
On February 25, 2013, IDW Publishing announced a partnership with Cartoon Network to produce comics based on its properties, which included "Dexter's Laboratory". Its first issue was released on April 30, 2014.
Toys and promotions.
In November 1997, Wendy's promoted "Dexter's Laboratory" with six collectible toys in their kids' meals. A Subway promotion supported by Publicis & Hal Riney of Chicago lasted from August 23 to October 3, 1999, called "Dexter's Super Computer Giveaway", in which a computer, monitor, games, software, and an exclusive set of "Dexter's Laboratory" DVDs were given out as prizes. Discovery Zone sponsored Cartoon Network's eight-week-long "Dexter's Duplication Summer" in 1998 to promote the series' new schedule. Trendmasters released a series of "Dexter's Lab" figures and playsets in 2001. Six kids' meal toys were sold during an April 2001 Dairy Queen promotion. That month, Cartoon Network and Perfetti Van Melle launched the "Out of Control" promotion, which included on-air marketing and a sweepstakes to win an "Air Dextron" entertainment center. The following April, a similar promotion featured "Dexter's Laboratory"-themed Airheads packs and an online sweepstakes. Subway promoted "Dexter's Laboratory" from April 1 to May 15, 2002, with four kids' meal toys. In September 2003, Burger King sponsored "Dexter's Laboratory" toys with kids' meals during a larger promotion featuring online games, Cartoon Orbit codes, and new episodes. In the United Kingdom, the characters of Dexter and Dee Dee were given away in Kellogg's cereal boxes as part of the Cartoon Network Wobble Heads in 2003. A trading card series was also published by Artbox Entertainment.
"Race to the Brainergizer" and "The Incredible Invention Versus Dee Dee", two board games, were released by Pressman Toy Corporation in 2001.
Video games.
Six "Dexter's Laboratory" video games have been released: ' for the Nintendo Game Boy Color, "Chess Challenge" and ' for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance, "" for the Sony PlayStation, "Dexter's Laboratory: Science Ain't Fair" for PC, and "Dexter's Laboratory: Security Alert!" for mobile phones.
Similar to "Battle Chess", "Chess Challenge" is a chess video game that triggers battle animations each time an overtaking move occurs. Each capture is accompanied by the sequences set in Dexter's home depicting the piece's defeat. Those scenes are set in Dexter's home with magic attacks and Dee Dee's toys having an appearance. The completion of the puzzles will unlock certain game modes, including a two-player mode.
A "Dexter's Laboratory" combat-style action video game on PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube was set to be developed by n-Space, published by BAM! Entertainment, and distributed in Europe by Acclaim Entertainment for a 2004 release, but it was canceled. On February 15, 2005, Midway Games announced plans to develop and produce a new "Dexter's Laboratory" video game for multiple consoles, but it was never published.
Dexter, Mandark, Dee Dee, Dexter's computer, and Major Glory, as well as items, areas, and inventions are featured in the MMORPG "FusionFall". "Dexter's Laboratory" characters are featured in "Cartoon Network Racing" and "". "Punch Time Explosion" features different voice talent for Dexter (Tara Strong instead of Christine Cavanaugh or Candi Milo) and Monkey (Fred Tatasciore instead of Frank Welker). |
Bactrocera dorsalis
Bactrocera dorsalis, previously known as "Dacus dorsalis" and commonly referred to as the oriental fruit fly, is a species of tephritid fruit fly that is endemic to Southeast Asia. It is one of the major pest species in the genus "Bactrocera" with a broad host range of cultivated and wild fruits. Male "B. dorsalis" respond strongly to methyl eugenol, which is used to monitor and estimate populations, as well as to annihilate males as a form of pest control. They are also important pollinators and visitors of wild orchids, "Bulbophyllum cheiri" and "Bulbophyllum vinaceum" in Southeast Asia, which lure the flies using methyl eugenol.
The fly is similar to the closely related species "B. carambolae" and "B. occipitalis." The species name "B. dorsalis" is identical to other synonyms "B. papayae, B. invadens" and "B. philippinensis".
Description.
"B. dorsalis" is a species of tephritid fruit fly. Flies that belong to this family are usually small to medium-sized with colorful markings. In particular, "B. dorsalis" belongs to a complex of physically similar flies called the "Bactrocera dorsalis" complex, whose defining characteristics include a mostly black thorax and dark T-shaped marking on the fly's abdominal segment. The T-shape marking consists of a dark medial and transverse band along the fly's abdomen.
The "B. dorsalis" species has distinctive yellow and black markings on its thorax and abdomen, which may vary between flies. Two vertical yellow markings on the thorax and the dark T-shaped marking on the abdomen differentiate this species of fly from its close relatives. The wings are clear with a continuous costal band. The adult body is around 8.0 mm in length, with wings approximately 7.3 mm in length. The female adult has a tapered ovipositor for depositing eggs in host fruits, while in male adults this ovipositor is notably absent.
Distribution.
Endemic to Southeast Asia, "B. dorsalis" is a highly invasive pest species that now has a presence in at least 65 countries. It has also been introduced to Hawaii, the Mariana Islands, and Tahiti. The fly is also found in most countries of sub-Saharan Africa. From 1910 to 1990, the fly species was only observed in 5 countries; however, in the last three decades, the rate of spread by "B. dorsalis" has sharply increased, with the species invading an additional 70 countries.
Elsewhere in the United States, "B. dorsalis" has been spotted in California and Florida. These appearances then trigger a cascade of eradication efforts. Four major oriental fruit fly eradication efforts occurred in response to infestations in California between 1960 and 1997. Two additional infestations were eradicated in 2006 and 2007, occurring within 3–4 years of reports of these infestations. In July 2010, flies were discovered in traps in the Sacramento and Placer counties of California. A quarantine was established, and eradication efforts followed. These sightings in the mainland United States are generally quarantined infestations that have been eradicated.
CLIMEX, a modeling software, has been used to map the future trajectory for the fruit fly in terms of opportunities for increasing its distribution. This was tested both under current and future predicted climate conditions, given the current research on climate change. Under current conditions, the fly's projected distribution includes much of the tropics and subtropics and extends into areas like Mediterranean Europe. The model predicts optimal climate conditions in the southeast United States. Under climate change conditions, the spread overall increases as the fly is less limited by cold weather. However, its distribution does possibly decrease in areas where precipitation decreases.
Habitat.
These tephritid fruit flies are found in tropical areas. "B. dorsalis" also prefers to pupate in shaded rather than brightly lit areas, moist over dry soil, and in soil with larger particles (particle size greater than or equal to 2.5 mm) than in soil with smaller particles.
Life history.
Under summer conditions, development from egg to adult requires 16 days. Several stages can be delayed in cooler conditions. "B. dorsalis" eggs may take up to 20 days to hatch under cool conditions, extended from the usual single day. Pupariation occurs in the soil under the host plant and is normally completed within 10–12 days, but can be delayed up to 90 days under cool conditions. Flies typically live from 1–3 months, but this can be extended to up to 12 months under cool conditions.
Eggs.
Mated female "B. dorsalis" puncture the skin of mature fruit and deposit eggs in a few batches of 3-30 eggs underneath a fruit's skin via ovipositor, depending on the quality and ripeness of the fruit. Eggs usually hatch within a day, although the hatching process can be delayed in cool conditions. Females are capable of laying over 3,000 eggs during their lifetime under optimal conditions, but in field conditions, reports a typical range from about 1,200 to 1,500 eggs laid per female.
Larvae.
Eggs hatch to larvae and moult twice (there are three larval instars) while feeding on the flesh of the fruit for about 6–35 days. Larvae are creamy white in color with a maggot-like appearance and are about 10 mm in length.
Pupae.
The third instar larvae exit the fruit and burrow into the soil under the host plant to pupate. Larvae generally pupate in the upper 4 cm of the soil. Pupation can take approximately 10–12 days, but depending on the season, this process can be delayed in cooler conditions.
Adults.
In 1-2 weeks, the adult emerges from the pupae and matures. Most adults emerge from the soil between 7:00 AM and 10:00 AM. Once sexual maturity is reached (which takes approximately 9 days), adults engage in the mating process and the life cycle repeats. The adult lifespan for "B. dorsalis" is about 90 days, and the flies have been reported to travel up to 30 miles in search of new egg laying sites and food, such as decaying fruit and plant nectar. Adult females prefer to lay eggs in old egg deposit sites on fruits.
Food resources.
"B. dorsalis" has been seen in more than 200 kinds of fruit and nut plants, but the species lay eggs in mango, papaya, and avocado fruits most often. Adult flies feed on decaying fruit, plant nectar, and other substances during their lifetime and prefer to feed in the morning.
Social behavior.
Mating.
Polyandry has been observed in "B. dorsalis". For females, there is typically a re-mating refractory period. The length of this period does not vary based on whether the female is mating with a virgin or non-virgin male. However, when there was a refractory period, females lay more eggs. Females who were exposed to two males continuously without a refractory period in between lay fewer eggs, but still lay more eggs than females with only one male. Therefore, there appears to be a reproductive benefit for females with polyandry.
Reproductive senescence does appear to be present in this species, as male and female age correlates negatively with the rate of fertilization.
Flying.
The flight capacity of "B. dorsalis" adult females at various life stages has been observed in order to better understand and prevent their spread. Past research has shown that the species can spread extensively following fruit harvests, with a dispersal radius up to 37 km observed in Hawaii. Transmission electron microscopy was employed to view changes in flight muscle ultrastructures. Researchers observed that flight speed and distance changed with the age of the fruit fly, reaching its maximum capacity at 15 days of age.
Long-distance flight.
"B. dorsalis" has been observed to be capable of long-distance flight. One study investigated the relationship between flight muscle structure and the flies' flight capacity: as the number of mitochondria increased, myofibril diameter increased, and sarcomere length decreased, the researchers found the fly's flight capacity to be maximized. This particular muscle structure was evident in 15-day-old female adult "B. dorsalis" flies.
Symbiotic relationships.
"B. dorsalis" has symbiotic relationships with many bacteria. Different bacteria dominate at different developmental stages of the fruit fly. Pseudomonadota are most often present in immature stages, whereas "Bacillota" are most often present in the adult stages. Overall, the most abundant families are "Enterococcaceae" and "Comamondaceae." Meanwhile, "Comamonas" are extremely abundant in pupae, but disappear entirely by adulthood.
Researchers have also tested the relationship between certain gut symbiotic bacteria and fly foraging behavior and nutrient ingestion. Suppression of the fly's microbiome resulted in changes in the foraging behavior in both male and female flies. Aposymbiotic flies responded faster to diets in experimental conditions and fed more, for longer periods of time.
Interactions with humans.
Human activities are partially responsible for causing the spread of the species from one region to another. The primary risk comes from import of fruit that may contain larvae, either in passenger cargo, or through the smuggling of fruit in passenger baggage or mail. In New Zealand, researchers recorded 7-33 interceptions of fruit flies per year in cargo. Researchers also recorded an additional 10-28 interceptions in passenger baggage.
Agricultural pest.
"B. dorsalis" is not only a highly invasive species, accidentally introduced to Hawaii from Taiwan during the 1940s in World War II, but also very destructive to crop yield for farmers of various fruits, vegetables, and nuts across the world. The larval stage of the life cycle is the most damaging to fruits because of larval feeding on the soft flesh of fruits. After ovipositing occurs by a female fly, the larvae develop under the skin of the fruit or soft tissues of the plant and begin to feed on the fruit or plant's flesh. Once feeding occurs, other microorganisms can invade the site of larval feeding and cause the fruit to decay faster. Although ripe fruits are believed to be preferred for ovipositing, unripe fruits have served as hosts for eggs as well.
Conventional pest treatment.
"B. dorsalis" has created many agricultural issues for humans, especially in the areas where it is endemic. In the Pacific Islands, the fly has restricted the development of a diverse tropical fruit and vegetable industry, necessitated that commercial fruits go through quarantine treatment before shipment, and provided an avenue for their introduction to countries not previously exposed to the fly species. The Miami-Dade County in Florida had to perform the quarantine technique when the insect was detected in fruits there in August 2015; they were eliminated from the area in February 2016.
To resolve these concerns, several techniques have been implemented, including sterile insect technique, protein bait sprays, and male annihilation. Male annihilation technique is effective because methyl eugenol attracts male flies prior to the beginning of their sexual maturation, to an extent of 40 to 50 percent of the flies.
One of the most experimentally effective control techniques has been the wrapping of fruit, often in a paper or polythene sleeve. This physical barrier prevents oviposition from occurring. The caveat with this method is that it must be implemented far in advance of the fruit fly's presence. Alternatively, fruits can be harvested earlier in the season than the flies anticipate; this has proven effective with the mango fruit.
Parasitoid wasps.
In addition to these, Hawaii has developed methods to suppress "Bactrocera" species using parasitoid wasps, including "Fopius arisanus". The parasitic wasp oviposits its own eggs into "B. dorsalis" eggs, the parasitoids are reared in the host, and the developed parasitoids emerge in the pupal stage. "F. arisanus" has been observed to be the most successful example of parasitoid control of "B. dorsalis", and researchers are looking to introduce its model of suppression from Hawaii to other areas of the world that the fly affects.
Field sanitation.
One simple, but effective technique called field sanitation, through which all unmarketable fruits get removed from the fields and disposed as soon as they are observed, so that re-infestation does not occur.
Insecticide resistance.
Many organophosphorus insecticides target the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE); mutations in the acetylcholinesterase gene of "B. dorsalis" have been found to be associated to resistance to such insecticides. Researchers have identified three point mutations in "B. dorsalis"' gene encoding AChE that generate nonsynonymous changes in the produced amino acid sequence. Two of the point mutations are identical in site to mutations identified in other "Bactrocera" species, but one of the mutations is specific to "B. dorsalis". Widespread use of such insecticides could result in rapid resistance acquisition in populations of "B. dorsalis". |
Giant Dipper
The Giant Dipper is a historic wooden roller coaster located at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, an amusement park in Santa Cruz, California. The Giant Dipper, which replaced the Thompson's Scenic Railway, took 47 days to build and opened on May 17, 1924 at a cost of $50,000. With a height of and a speed of , it is one of the most popular wooden roller coasters in the world. As of 2012, over 60 million people have ridden the Giant Dipper since its opening. The ride has received several awards such as being named a National Historic Landmark, a Golden Age Coaster award, and a Coaster Landmark award.
History.
The Thompson's Scenic Railway was built on the site of the current Giant Dipper in 1908 as the longest roller coaster in the United States. In October 1923, manager R.L. Cardiff and Walter Looff began negotiations to build a new ride to replace the Scenic Railway. The price was set at $50,000, $15,000 more than the Scenic Railway. In January 1924, the permit to build the Giant Dipper was granted to Arthur Looff. He wanted to create a ride that had "the thrill of a plunge down a mine shaft, a balloon ascent, a parachute jump, airplane acrobatics, a cyclone, a toboggan ride, and a ship in a storm." Demolition of the Scenic Railway began in January 1924 to make room for the Giant Dipper. It took 5 months to demolish the Scenic Railway and construct the Giant Dipper. The actual construction of the Giant Dipper took 47 days. The ride opened to the public for the first time on May 17, 1924.
In 1974, the ride received a new coat of paint with Victorian-style architecture around the station. In the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the Giant Dipper was almost completely untouched. The ride was closed for about a month to be inspected. The park held a benefit for victims of the earthquake. In 2002, the ride celebrated its 50 millionth rider. Ten years after the 50 millionth rider, the park celebrated the Giant Dipper's 60 millionth rider on July 27, 2012. The park gave out trivia coasters leading up to the event. The 24 riders that were on the train when it hit 60 million riders received a hoodie among other prizes.
The Giant Dipper was built by Arthur Looff and designed by Frederick Church. It required of lumber, 743,000 nails, and 24,000 bolts to construct. The lumber was provided by Homer T. Maynard Lumber, and the 70 horsepower motor, which is still used today, was provided by Santa Cruz Electric. The concrete was done by T.F. Costello, and the steel work was done by Berger and Carter.
Fatalities.
The ride had a few incidents over the years in which three people have died. The first death on Giant Dipper occurred four months after it debuted, on September 21. A 15-year-old boy fell from the ride while standing up near the end of the ride. The emergency brake was applied, but the boy fell head first onto the track and was crushed by the roller coaster train. Other fatalities also occurred in 1940 and 1970. Several modifications have been made to the trains as a result.
Ride experience.
After departing from the station, the train immediately enters a tunnel. After going through some drops and turns in the tunnel, the train emerges at the base of the lift hill. Once climbing to the top, the train drops , reaching a top speed of . The train then rises up into a banked turn to the left. Riders then go through two hills next to the lift hill followed by a turnaround that is positioned over the tunnel at the beginning of the ride. The train then travels over three small hills situated next to the lift hill followed by another turnaround. Riders then go through three more small hills and enter the final brake run.
Characteristics.
Trains.
The Giant Dipper currently operates with two trains with six cars per train. Riders are arranged two across in two rows for a total of 24 riders per train. The trains were built by Dana Morgan from D.H. Morgan Manufacturing.
When the Giant Dipper first opened in 1924, it ran with three trains, each with ten cars. Over the years, the trains have been redesigned and replaced several times, with the current trains being the ride's third set.
Track.
The wooden track is approximately in length, and the height of the lift is approximately . The track is colored red with white supports. When built in 1924, of lumber was used. The track is inspected every two hours.
Legacy.
In the early 1970s, the Giant Dipper became the last "classic roller coaster" between Vancouver, British Columbia and San Diego, California. It is only one of three Church rides to still operate. The other two are Dragon Coaster at Playland Park and Giant Dipper at Belmont Park. It is one of the only roller coasters that are still operating from what ACE calls the "golden age of roller coasters." Other than being the oldest roller coaster in California, the ride is also one of the oldest roller coasters in the world.
Reception.
Since the Giant Dipper was one of the first roller coasters in existence when it opened, many people were concerned about the safety of the ride. Looff, as well as a local newspaper, insisted it was "virtually impossible" for the cars to leave the track because of the makeup of the trains and track. Although several incidents happened on the ride, none were related to the integrity of the track or trains. Many people call the Giant Dipper the icon and crown jewel of Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk as well as one of the nation's most exciting roller coasters. It is considered to be the signature ride of the park.
The Giant Dipper is referred to in the song "Big Dipper", from the 1996 album "The Golden Age" by David Lowery's band Cracker. The ride also appeared in many television commercials and movies, including "The Lost Boys", "Sudden Impact", "The Sting II", "Bumblebee" and "Dangerous Minds".
Awards.
On February 27, 1987, the United States National Park Service recognized the Giant Dipper as a National Historic Landmark along with the Looff Carousel.
It was awarded the American Coaster Enthusiasts Golden Age Coaster award in June 1994. The 1920s is often considered the "golden age of roller coaster construction" so the award recognizes the roller coasters that still remain today. It is only one of two roller coasters to receive this designation, the other being the Giant Dipper at Belmont Park. Giant Dipper was also awarded the ACE Coaster Landmark award on May 5, 2007 at the 100th anniversary of Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. It won the award for its innovative track design, unusual curved station and for being one of the ten oldest operating coasters in the world and one of only three remaining examples of Frederick Church's work. |
He Knew He Was Right
He Knew He Was Right is an 1869 novel written by Anthony Trollope which describes the failure of a marriage caused by the unreasonable jealousy of a husband exacerbated by the stubbornness of a wilful wife. As is common with Trollope's works, there are also several substantial subplots. Trollope makes constant allusions to Shakespeare's "Othello" throughout the novel. Trollope considered this work to be a failure; he viewed the main character as unsympathetic, and the secondary characters and plots as much more lively and interesting, but it is one of his best known novels. It was adapted for BBC One in 2004 by Andrew Davies.
Plot summary.
A wealthy young English gentleman, Louis Trevelyan, visits the fictional Mandarin Islands, a distant British possession, and becomes smitten with Emily Rowley, the eldest daughter of the governor, Sir Marmaduke Rowley. The Rowleys accompany Trevelyan to London, where he marries Emily. When the rest of the family goes home, Emily's sister Nora remains behind, under Trevelyan's protection.
The marriage is initially a happy one and the couple have a baby boy. Then a seemingly minor matter undermines their marriage. Colonel Osborne, an old friend of Sir Marmaduke's, visits Emily much too frequently for her husband's taste. Though nothing improper occurs, Trevelyan orders his wife to avoid the man in future. Emily resents his lack of trust and makes no attempt to hide it. Their relationship deteriorates to the point that they separate.
Meanwhile, Nora attracts two admirers, the wealthy Charles Glascock, the eldest son and heir of Lord Peterborough, and Hugh Stanbury, a close friend of Trevelyan's from their days at Oxford University. Stanbury ekes out a precarious living writing newspaper articles. Glascock proposes to Nora, but despite the fact that Stanbury has given no indication of his feelings for her, she rejects the future nobleman, not without a great deal of struggle and much to the dismay of her friends.
Another subplot involves Jemima Stanbury, the capricious, formidable spinster aunt of Hugh. In her youth, she had been engaged to the eldest son of a leading banker. They had had a falling out and parted company, but upon his demise, he had left everything to her, making her very wealthy. Aware of the poverty of Hugh's branch of the family, she had generously paid for his education and helped him get a start in life. However, when he chose to work for what she considered to be a radical publication, the staunch Tory withdrew her support. She then offers to accept one of Hugh's sisters as a companion. After some debate, timid, unassertive Dorothy Stanbury is sent.
Trevelyan arranges to have Emily and Nora live with Hugh's mother and her other daughter, Priscilla. However, Emily obstinately receives a visit from Colonel Osborne, against all advice to the contrary. Trevelyan finds out and becomes further maddened.
In the meantime, Aunt Stanbury tries to promote a marriage between her niece Dorothy and a favoured clergyman, Mr Gibson. This causes much resentment with Arabella and Camilla French, two sisters who had considered him a future husband for one of them (though which was still a matter of much debate). However, this plan is derailed.
Aunt Stanbury had always intended to bequeath her wealth back to the Burgess family, rather than to her Stanbury relations. She had chosen as her heir Brooke Burgess, the nephew of her former fiancé. When he visits her for the first time as an adult, everyone is charmed by his warm, lively personality, especially Dorothy. When Gibson finally proposes to her, she cannot avoid unfavourably comparing him to Brooke and declines. Her aunt is at first much put out by Dorothy's obstinacy. Eventually however, she places the blame on the clergyman, which results in a serious breach between them.
The feud with his former patron leaves Gibson so distracted that he finds himself engaged to a domineering Camilla French. After a while, he comes to regret his choice. Finally, finding Camilla's overpowering personality unbearable, he extricates himself by agreeing to marry the milder Arabella instead. Camilla is driven to extravagant threats and is finally sent to stay with her stern uncle in the period leading up to the wedding.
Then Aunt Stanbury becomes very ill, resulting in Dorothy and Brooke spending a good deal of time in each other's company. Brooke takes the opportunity to propose to an unsuspecting Dorothy. She however is reluctant to accept, fearing that her aunt will disinherit Brooke. Instead, the old woman blames her niece. They quarrel and Dorothy returns to her mother.
Aunt Stanbury misses Dorothy greatly and makes it known that she would welcome her back, though she still vehemently opposes her marriage to Brooke. Dorothy does come back, and even tries to break off her engagement, but Brooke will not stand for it. In the end, Aunt Stanbury's love for her niece is stronger than her desires and she gives her blessing to their wedding.
Meanwhile, Trevelyan departs England to escape the shame he feels. During his aimless wanderings, he meets Mr Glascock, who is on his way to Italy to visit his father. They encounter two attractive young American ladies, Caroline and Olivia Spalding. Glascock's father is in such poor health that the son is obliged to remain in the country to await his probable demise. While waiting, he courts and wins Caroline's hand in marriage, despite her misgivings about her reception in English society.
Trevelyan receives word that Colonel Osborne has dared to visit Emily once again. While Osborne had not been permitted to see Emily, Trevelyan does not believe it and has the boy taken away from his mother by deception; he takes his son back to Italy, where he descends further into madness. Eventually, he is tracked down by his wife and friends. Emily persuades him first to give her their son, then to return with her to England; he dies, however, shortly after their return. In his dying moments, Emily begs Louis to kiss her hand to signify that he does not believe she did anything wrong. Whether or not he does is unclear, but Emily believes "the verdict of the dying man had been given in her favour." A few months later, Hugh Stanbury and Nora marry.
In popular culture.
The residents of Edward Everett Hale's "The Brick Moon" ask Earth "who proved Right in 'He Knew He Was Right.'" Their friends reply "SHE." |
Greg Proops
Gregory Everett "Greg" Proops (born October 3, 1959) is an American actor, stand-up comedian and television host. He is widely known for his guest appearances on the U.K. and U.S. versions of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?". He has also voiced the titular character on the U.S. version of "Bob the Builder".
Early life.
Proops was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and raised in San Carlos, California, a suburb south of San Francisco, attending San Carlos High School. He attended the College of San Mateo and spearheaded the comedy duo "Proops & Brakeman". Later, he took courses in improvisation and acting at San Francisco State University, though he never finished college.
Career.
Improv comedy.
After college, he joined an improv group with Mike McShane. Both Proops and McShane impressed producers Dan Patterson and Mark Leveson, who put them on their show, "Whose Line Is It Anyway?". He frequently instigated jokes concerning various idiosyncrasies and differences between British English and American English, and would frequently banter with Clive Anderson on these matters (among others). He lived in London for four years when he was doing the show and lists McShane, Richard Vranch and Colin Mochrie among his best friends. After the show ended, he was recalled for the American version and has been a frequent "fourth contestant". Through 2020, he has appeared in 74 U.S. "Whose Line" episodes, more than any other non-regular cast member.
Proops also appeared in every episode of the short-lived "Drew Carey's Green Screen Show", where the performers would play improv games (some of which were taken from the show's main influence "Whose Line Is It Anyway?") in front of a massive green screen. Later, animators would draw on the background and other props. In April 2011, "Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza" premiered on GSN featuring Proops along with other frequent guests from "Whose Line is it Anyway?" In July 2012, Proops appeared in ABC's improvisation show, "Trust Us with Your Life".
In November 2011, Proops did a week on Royal Caribbean's "Freedom of the Seas" with the Lewis Black Comedy Cruise Tour. He performed the entire week of stand-up with other artists, which included a live, one-hour podcast in front of his entire audience.
Film and television.
Proops has performed his stand-up act across Britain, mainland Europe, Australia and New Zealand. His other credits include hosting "Space Cadets", a mid-1990s science-fiction comedy game show on Channel 4 in the UK, which also featured Craig Charles (Dave Lister from "Red Dwarf") and Bill Bailey, and appearances on BBC2's "Mock the Week". He appeared as a panelist on the 2000 revival of "To Tell the Truth". Proops has also hosted game shows, including "VS." in 1999, "Rendez-View" in 2001, and "Head Games", a Science Channel game show which ran for one season in 2009. Proops also competed on the November 8th, 1984 episode of "Jeopardy!", losing to eventual five day champion John Genova. He would later record video clues for two "Jeopardy!" episodes in 2000 & 2001.
In addition to his stand-up and improv acts, Proops has done voice work in various films and TV shows, including Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas", and the miniseries "Stripperella" with Pamela Anderson. Proops provided the voice of Bob in the US version of the TV series "Bob the Builder" for the five seasons of "Project Build It". He has also featured in 2003 film "Brother Bear" as the voice of one of the Love Bears and provided the voice as Cryptograf in 2006 film "Asterix and the Vikings".
Proops has been involved with Turner Classic Movies since 2013, appearing on several of the network's podcasts and in person at public events. In 2016, he appeared as a television presenter for TCM, introducing comedy films by the Marx Brothers and Wheeler & Woolsey.
Proops has been involved with the "Star Wars" franchise as well. He played the role of Fode in '. He would later work with the Expanded Universe, reprising his role as Fode in the video game ' and the video game adaptation of ', and he guest-starred on two episodes of the animated series ' ("The Mandalore Plot" and "Voyage of Temptation") as Tal Merrick. In 2018, Proops voiced Jak Sivrak in "Star Wars Resistance".
Proops appeared as a guest on "The George Lucas Talk Show" during their "May the AR Be LI$$ You" Arli$$ marathon fundraiser.
Radio and podcast.
Since 2010, Proops has hosted a podcast called "The Smartest Man In The World", often together with his wife Jennifer Canaga, in which he talks about current events, celebrity culture, and his personal life, usually in front of a live audience. Before "Smartest Man", Proops hosted a podcast called "The Greg Proops Experiment".
From 1995 to 1996, Proops presented "Bits from Last Week's Radio" on BBC Radio 1. He did voice work for the BBC Radio 2 series "Flight of the Conchords", first broadcast in September 2005. Proops also played the title role in BBC Radio 4's sci-fi comedy series "Seymour the Fractal Cat".
Proops provided the voices for the Harlequin Demon, the Devil, and the Sax Player in "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas" soundtrack and movie.
Video games.
Proops provides voice-over work as Howard "Buckshot" Holmes, a game show announcer along with John DiMaggio for the Nintendo Wii game "MadWorld". DiMaggio and Proops play as comical announcers on a brutal game show set in the future.
Proops provided the voice of Matthew Black, a reporter in the forgotten Psygnosis game, "ZombieVille (1997)".
Proops also provided the voice of Fargus, a pyromantic court jester for the PlayStation "Pandemonium" game series.
He later worked as a voice actor in "", where he voiced a Brain that was freed by Kaos in order to help perfect his Doomlanders project.
"The Smartest Book in the World".
On May 5, 2015, Proops released nonfiction book "The Smartest Book in the World" through publisher Touchstone. The book is based in part on Proops's weekly podcast "The Smartest Man in the World", detailing the author's movie and poetry recommendations, baseball facts, powerful women, and misconstrued history. The paperback version of the book was released from Touchstone on February 21, 2017. |
Friend Richardson
Friend William Richardson (born William Richardson; December 1, 1865September 6, 1943) was an American newspaper publisher and politician, most famous for supporting a 1923 gun control bill aimed at Chinese and Latinos. A member of the Progressive Party and later the Republican Party, Richardson was elected as the California State Treasurer from 1915 to 1923, and shortly afterwards as the 25th governor of California from 1923 to 1927. Richardson's governorship marked a sharp reversal in policies from previous administrations, rolling back many of the Progressive reforms and state governmental agencies put in place by previous governors Hiram Johnson and William Stephens.
Biography.
William Richardson was born in December 1865 to William and Rhoda Richardson at Friends Colony, Michigan, a Quaker township located outside of Ann Arbor. Early in his life, William legally changed his first name to "Friend", the traditional Quaker greeting. In his young adult life, Richardson worked as a county clerk and law librarian, and following his move to San Bernardino, California, married Augusta Felder in 1891, with whom he had five children. Five years later, Richardson became the owner and newspaper editor of "The San Bernardino Times Index".
In 1900, Richardson relocated to Berkeley where he purchased within a year "The Berkeley Daily Gazette" and became active in the California Press Association. Due to greater name recognition, Richardson was increasingly noticed by the state government. In 1901, Richardson was appointed as Superintendent of the State Printing Office with the consent of the California State Legislature and Governor Henry Gage. The Richardson family relocated to Sacramento where he assumed state printing responsibilities, while at the same time, continuing to own his newspapers in both San Bernardino and Berkeley.
In 1914, Richardson officially entered politics, running as a Progressive for California State Treasurer. Richardson easily defeated his Socialist and Prohibitionist rivals by a voting gap of 66 percent. Following the Progressive Party's collapse, Richardson again won a second term as Treasurer in 1918, this time as a Republican, and again won a landslide victory against his Socialist and Prohibitionist rivals by garnering 78.2 percent of the vote.
After two successful terms as state treasurer, Richardson set his sights on the governorship as the Republican Party's nomination in 1922. Running against incumbent William Stephens in the party's primary election, Richardson campaigned on a conservative platform, capitalizing on electoral fatigue with Progressive-minded politics. The campaign worked, successfully defeating Governor Stephens and effectively returned the state Republican Party to a more conservative bent.
With Stephens out of the 1922 general election, Richardson faced Democrat Thomas L. Woolwine, the popular District Attorney of Los Angeles County. Amongst Richardson's supporters in the election were the Ku Klux Klan, (although the California state Republican committee chairman A. E. Boynton repudiated these claims) which deeply opposed Woolwine's Catholicism, as well as being an organization that was rumored to count Richardson as a member. His campaign manager in the election, California State Assemblyman Frank Merriam, would himself become governor in 1934. In the end, Richardson triumphed in the election, defeating Woolwine by nearly 24 percent of the vote.
Governorship.
Richardson began his governorship on January 9, 1923, promising a no-frills administration to deeply cut governmental expenditures. Despite his past affiliation with the Progressive Party, Richardson blamed both the party and its Progressive movement with excess in his inaugural speech, replacing the Southern Pacific Railroad political machine with a Progressive machine. "In 1911 the people did a good job of political house cleaning," Richardson spoke, alluding the Hiram Johnson and his Progressive majority in the Legislature. "During the past few years another great political machine has come into power which has cost the people millions of dollars. It will be necessary to first wreck this political machine before the state can be put on an economical basis and the government again handed back to the people."
Richardson embarked on a program to eliminate "unnecessary boards and officers, by consolidation, and by doing away with overlapping functions," calling it a massive waste of taxpayers’ money. In the preface to his proposed 1923 budget to the Legislature, Richardson declared his opposition to pork barrel politics and that "[m]y chief burden has been to relieve the people of their great burden of taxation." In his various modifications to the state bureaucracy, Richardson appointed various individuals that were favorable to corporate interests.
An electoral backlash against his deep-rooted fiscal conservatism came during the 1924 legislative elections, when resurgent Progressives regained control of the California State Legislature, beginning a legislative bulwark against more proposed cuts to the state government and increased corporate influence. A proposal by Richardson to close two state universities, believing that education had become too costly for state coffers, was successfully defeated by the Progressives. Meanwhile, Richardson blocked the Progressives' passage of a bill in the Legislature to create a professional State Bar of California with a pocket veto in 1925.
As the Legislature and Richardson thwarted each other's political agendas, the governor attended to other duties outside of the political realm. Richardson personally accompanied Swedish Prince Gustaf Adolf and Princess Louise Mountbatten on a portion of their tour through Southern California in 1926.
That same year, the increasingly embattled Richardson faced a crucial primary election. Growing anger at Richardson's overly-conservative administration led to the progressive wing of the Republican Party supporting C. C. Young, the lieutenant governor under both William Stephens and Richardson. Young emerged victorious in the primary vote, depriving Richardson of the chance to run in the general election.
Defeated by his own party, Richardson left the governorship as his term expired on January 4, 1927. One accomplishment to his various eliminations and consolidations to the state government was a surplus of $20 million in the state treasury.
Post-governorship.
Richardson returned to newspaper publishing, becoming the chief publisher of the "Alameda Times Star" in 1931. He became politically active again in the 1930s, though in appointed positions. He served as the State Building and Loan Commissioner under James Rolph from 1932 to 1934, and later as the State Superintendent of Banks from 1934 to 1939 under his former campaign manager in 1922, Frank Merriam. He retired from public life in 1939.
In July 1943, Richardson suffered a heart attack from which he never recovered, and died at his Berkeley home on September 6, 1943. His ashes are now interred at the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland.
Throughout his life, Richardson was a member of the Freemasons, the Knights Templar, the Shriners, the Order of the Eastern Star, the Elks, the Kiwanis, the Moose, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Rotary and the Woodmen. |
1st U.S. Artillery, Battery E
Battery E, 1st U.S. Artillery was a United States Army field artillery battery that was in service between 1821 and 1901, most notably in extensive service with the Union Army during the American Civil War.
During the Civil War, the battery was present at the Siege of Fort Sumter in April 1861 under the command of Captain Abner Doubleday. Returned to the artillery defenses of Washington, D.C. and rearmed as a field artillery battery, the unit was merged with Battery G, 1st U.S. Artillery in February 1862. Consolidated and renamed Battery E & G, 1st U.S. Artillery, the unit continued with this designation until the end of the war.
The unit is also known for its participation in the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890.
Service.
Battery E, 1st U.S. Artillery was formed by a reorganization of the U.S. Army artillery service in 1821. The battery saw service in the Second Seminole War and the early engagements of the Mexican–American War.
From 1856 through 1858, the battery was stationed in Florida during the Third Seminole War.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, the battery was stationed at Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina in January 1861, where it was present during the Battle of Fort Sumter in April which sparked the war. Following the surrender of that post, it moved to Washington, D.C. where it was attached to Patterson's army to October 1861, in the field but not present at the First Battle of Bull Run. Its new commander, Captain Jefferson C. Davis, was absent on detached service throughout the duration of the war; under the command of subaltern battery officer Lieutenant Alanson Merwin Randol, the battery was merged with Battery G, 1st U.S. Artillery in February 1862, serving as Battery E & G with the Artillery Reserve, Army of the Potomac, to May 1862; 2nd Brigade, Artillery Reserve, V Corps, Army of the Potomac, to September 1862; Artillery, 2nd Division, V Corps, to October 1862; Artillery, 3rd Division, V Corps, to May 1863; 2nd Regular Brigade, Artillery Reserve, Army of the Potomac, to June 1863; 2nd Brigade, Horse Artillery, Artillery Reserve, Army of the Potomac, to June 1864; 3rd Brigade, DeRussy's Division, XXII Corps, to July 1864; and 1st Brigade, DeRussy's Division, XXII Corps, to October 1865.
On garrison duty along the East Coast post-war, the battery also participated in the Indian Wars at Wounded Knee.
Detailed service.
Defense of Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, April 12–13, 1861. Evacuation of Fort Sumter April 13. Reached Fort Hamilton, New York Harbor, April 19. Moved to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, June 3. Ordered to Washington, D.C., August 26, 1861. Duty at the federal arsenal and at Camp Duncan, defenses of Washington, until March 1862. Moved to the Virginia Peninsula. Siege of Yorktown April 5-May 4. Battle of Seven Pines, May 31-June 1. Seven Days Battles before Richmond June 26-July 1. Savage's Station and Peach Orchard June 29. White Oak Swamp and Glendale June 30. Malvern Hill July 1. At Harrison's Landing until August 16. Moved to Fortress Monroe, then to Centerville August 16–28. Pope's Virginia Campaign August 28-September 2. Battle of Groveton August 29. Second Battle of Bull Run August 30. Maryland Campaign September 6–22. Battle of Antietam September 16–17. Shepherdstown Ford September 19–20. At Sharpsburg until October 30. Movement to Falmouth, Virginia, October 29-November 19. Battle of Fredericksburg, December 11–15. At Falmouth, Virginia, until April 1863. Chancellorsville Campaign April 27-May 6. Battle of Chancellorsville May 1–5. Gettysburg Campaign June 11-July 24. Aldie June 17. Middleburg June 19. Upperville June 21. Ashby's Gap June 21. Battle of Gettysburg, July 1–3. Near Harpers Ferry July 14. Shepherdstown July 16. Bristoe Campaign October 9–22. Advanced to line of the Rappahannock November 7–8. Mine Run Campaign November 26-December 2. Custer's Raid into Albemarle County February 28-March 1, 1864. Near Charlottesville February 29. Stannardsville March 1. Rapidan Campaign May 4-June 8. Battle of the Wilderness May 5–7. Spotsylvania May 8–21. Milford Station May 21. Chesterfield May 23. North Anna River May 23–26. On line of the Pamunkey May 26–28. Totopotomoy May 28–31. Mechump's Creek May 31. Cold Harbor June 1–5. Sharp's Farm June 3. Moved to Washington, D.C., June 18. Garrison duty at Fort Willard and Fort Strong, defenses of Washington, D.C. until October 1865.
Later service.
One of the most notable actions of Battery E, 1st U.S. Artillery was in support of the Colonel James W. Forsyth's 7th U.S. Cavalry at the now-controversial engagement at Wounded Knee on December 29, 1890. The battery was commanded by Captain Allyn Capron and equipped with four Hotchkiss M1875 mountain guns which were used against the Wounded Knee encampment with devastating effect after the fight broke out. Some estimates report that as many as 200 Lakota Indians were killed or wounded in the engagement, the majority of whom were women and children.
The battery participated in the Spanish–American War in Cuba in 1898, under the command of Captain Capron.
In 1899, the battery was deployed to the Philippine Islands during the Philippine–American War; it remained there until 1901, when the unit was dissolved and reorganized as the First Battery, Field Artillery in the newly organized Artillery Corps of the United States Army. |
Credit unions in the United Kingdom
Credit unions in the United Kingdom were first established in the 1960s. Credit unions are member-owned financial cooperatives operated for the purpose of promoting thrift, providing credit and other financial services to their members.
Credit unions in the UK now offer a wide range of services to their members; including current accounts, payroll deductions, standing orders and insurance.
Co-operative or mutual organisations engaging in cooperative banking, such as building societies, have existed in the UK since the 18th century.
History.
Institutions known as mutual societies grew out of the friendly society movement of the 18th century, with the first mutual insurer, Equitable Life, being founded in 1762. Formalised under the Friendly Societies Act 1819, mutual institutions predated the welfare state and were formed to meet the needs of a growing urban working class. This communitarian self-help movement allowed small regular individual contributions to be pooled for mutual collective benefit, obtaining the same economies of scope and scale necessary for providing insurance and financial products. Mutual societies helped to raise funds for housing and consumer durables at a time when commercial banks were still exclusively commercial lenders. Building societies were formed as small temporary societies by worker co-operatives, pooling resources to build local houses and subsequently allocating them among members by drawing lots. Once all members were housed, these organisations were typically wound up, although some became permanent societies in an effort to promote wider home ownership, as exemplified by the Leeds Permanent Building Society.
The first recorded credit union in the United Kingdom was formed in Derry, Northern Ireland, in 1960. Inspired by the formation of the first credit unions in the Republic of Ireland, six individuals pooled their savings and formally established the Derry Credit Union. In Great Britain, modern day credit unions emerged in the mid-1960s in London and Scotland. The first recorded British credit union was the Hornsey Co-operative, established 1964 in North London by Caribbean families, and is the foundation of what is now London Capital Credit Union. Credit unions were popular in the Caribbean and large numbers of first generation Caribbean-British would become members of credit unions. By 1998, 38% of Caribbean British adults were members of credit unions. In Scotland, several credit unions were established by immigrants from Ireland. In Glasgow, credit union coverage and membership remains broad: one in six Glaswegians is member of a credit union, with nine employee credit unions and 25 community credit unions serving the city.
The Credit Unions Act 1979 for the first time regulated credit unions in the UK. The Act required that all credit unions in Scotland, Wales and England register with the Registrar of Friendly Societies, who was responsible for ensuring that credit unions had a "satisfactory" common bond and adhered to common set of rules. The registrar was tasked with monitoring the activities of credit unions, who had to submit quarterly and annual returns to the registrar. The Act allowed the registrar to suspend a credit union's operations, strike credit unions off the registry and prosecute illegal financial activity by a credit union. In the years immediately following the passing of the Act, the number of credit unions increased significantly. In 1982, 73 credit unions were registered. From the late 1980s to early 1990s the registration of credit unions surged, increasing fourfold between 1987 and 1994. Between 1994 and 2000 a large number of small credit unions closed or merged with other credit unions. In 2000, 660 credit unions were regarded officially registered. A further 220 credit unions had failed to submitted their annual return to the Registrar.
In 1980, the first credit union was registered in Wales. The St Therese's Credit Union served the Catholic community living on a housing estate in Port Talbot. In the 1990s membership of credit unions in Wales grew as credit unions helped to deliver anti-poverty and financial inclusion policies in cooperation with local authorities and national charities. By 1997, 31 credit unions were registered in Wales. Following mergers between smaller credit unions the number of registered credit unions in Wales reduced to 26 by 2010. Between them the 26 credit unions achieve all-Wales coverage. According to Bank of England figures, the number of credit union members in Britain nearly doubled from 562,000 in 2004 to almost 1.04 million in 2012, while total assets increased from £432m to £956m. However, the number of active credit unions in Britain fell from 565 in 2004 to 390 in 2012. Some merged with rivals but others ceased trading, at least fourteen of them between January 2012 and July 2013.
Regulation and policy.
Credit unions in the United Kingdom have been regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority for prudential purposes and the Financial Conduct Authority for conduct purposes since 1 April 2013, previously regulated by the Financial Services Authority from July 2002. Before the Credit Unions Act 1979 was passed, there was no special legal structure for credit unions in the UK. Some of the early credit unions chose to register under the Companies Act and some under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act. They are classified in two types: type 1 are the smaller credit unions while type 2 are larger. From November 2006, many type 2 credit unions began offering their members debit card accounts so that they could withdraw cash from any Link ATM.
In June 2008, the Treasury announced plans to encourage the growth of credit unions by broadening the common bond and removing outdated restrictions, with the intention of significantly reducing the influence of door step lenders and loan sharks. Amendments to the Credit Unions Act 1979 were made by the Legislative Reform (Industrial and Provident Societies and Credit Unions) Order 2011 (SI 2011/2687), which came into force on 8 January 2012. The main changes were the removal of restrictions of membership to reach out to new groups by serving more than one group of people, provide services to community groups, businesses and social enterprises with specific business loans and to offer interest on savings, instead of a dividend, in line with mainstream banking.
Regulations for credit unions place a maximum interest rate on loans of 3% per month.
Security of savings.
Since October 2008 UK credit unions are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), which protects savings in banks and similar institutions up to £85,000 (), covering about 98% of people; most members get their money back within a week.
Credit unions offer savers considerably more protection than commercial "savings clubs", as was demonstrated by the 2006 collapse of the Christmas hamper club Farepak.
Recent changes in credit unions.
In Britain the number of active credit unions fell from 565 in 2004 to 390 in 2012; some merged, but others became insolvent. Six ceased trading in 2012, and at least eight had ceased in 2013 by the end of July. However, the number of members has increased from 1.04 million in 2012 to 2 million in 2018.
Many credit unions are actively engaged in battling high interest payday loan organisations and loan sharks, offering an affordable credit alternative. In 2013 the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby launched a Church of England plan to support credit unions, to combat the rise of UK payday lenders charging extremely high interest rates, which gave rise to much publicity. |
Paul Shoup
Paul Shoup (January 8, 1874 – July 30, 1946) was an American businessman, president and later vice-chairman of the Southern Pacific Railroad in the 1920s and 1930s, a founding board member of the Stanford University School of Business, and founder of the community of Los Altos, California.
Family.
He was the third of five children of Timothy and Sarah Sumner Shoup. His siblings included older twin brothers, Carl and Guy, a younger brother, Fred, and a younger sister, Faith. Paul’s father was a well-respected attorney in San Bernardino who relocated the family from Iowa in 1872. After Timothy’s death in 1877, Sarah moved back to Iowa with her children. Carl died in 1898 while still in his early 20s. Guy and Fred joined Paul in careers with Southern Pacific, with Guy becoming an influential company attorney and Fred working for the Pacific Electric Railway Company in Los Angeles. Paul married Rose Wilson in 1900 in San Francisco and eventually settled in Los Altos with their three children – Carl Sumner Shoup, Jack Wilson Shoup, and Louise Shoup. Son Carl went on to become an economist, responsible for drafting the post-World War II Japanese tax structure, forming the modern Value Added Tax; he also taught economics as a professor at Columbia University. Brother Guy became a business partner with Paul in various Los Altos-focused businesses.
Southern Pacific Career.
While he wrote for various magazines during his early life, as a contributing writer to the "New York Sun", "Overland Monthly", "Black Cat", "Illustrated Monthly", and "Sunset Magazine", he turned from it after high school to start a career in the railroad industry by becoming a clerk in the mechanical department of the Santa Fe Railroad in San Bernardino. This job was short lived, as he moved to the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1891 as a ticket clerk in San Bernardino. While there, he began his training in managing a railroad. In between shifts, he tutored individuals in mathematics, and learned telegraphy and stenography, and he continued to write, submitting short pieces to eastern magazines.
From San Bernardino, Shoup was given a position in San Francisco in the Passenger Department, which began his personal relationship with the San Francisco Bay area. It is there that he supposedly began creating promotional materials for local fruit and agricultural products that were distributed by Southern Pacific on the east coast.
On April 11, 1906, just one week before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, it was announced that Shoup was being transferred back to San Francisco as part of his promotion to Assistant General Freight and Passenger Agent for the region. This placement put him at the forefront of the rebuilding of Southern Pacific’s northern California interests in the aftermath of the earthquake and fire.
As part of this promotion, Paul was unofficially in charge of the development of the electric lines in the City of Los Angeles. Today, a street in Los Angeles today is named for Paul Shoup in recognition of his contributions. Building on Paul’s experience with electric interurban service in San Jose, Southern Pacific purchased Pacific Electric Railway Company in 1910 and made Paul Vice President of the new acquisition. He was given the responsibility for overseeing the complete integration and conversion of the newly combined interurban system from steam to electric trains. In 1920 he was made Vice President of Southern Pacific and assistant to the President. In 1925, he was again promoted, this time to Executive Vice President of the company. Four years later he was made President of Southern Pacific, a post he held until his retirement in 1938. Other executive positions included Vice Chairman of the Board (1932) and President of the Pacific Electric Railway Company (1933).
Activities outside of Southern Pacific Railroad.
After Shoup retired in 1938, he became President of Southern Californians, later renamed the Merchants and Manufacturers Association, a pro-business, anti-labor political group that was highly influential in Los Angeles and Southern California. His involvement in politics continued as well, including a strong supportive role in the presidential campaign of Republican Alfred Landon against Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935.
Paul Shoup was one of the first to ascend Table Mountain in California with his brother Fred Shoup and Gilbert Hassell on August 25, 1908.
Beyond Southern Pacific, Paul Shoup was very active in other social and business interests. Early in his career these interests focused on the development of Los Altos as a residential commuter community. He became a founding member of the San Jose Chamber of Commerce and worked to promote the Santa Clara Valley as an ideal place to live and establish business interests. He joined all the influential social clubs of the time, including the Pacific Union Club and the Bohemian Club in San Francisco, as well as the Bankers Club in New York. In 1924, during a Bohemian Club meeting, Herbert Hoover urged
the leading western businessmen of the club to consider starting a first-rate business school on the west coast to limit the siphoning of talent to the eastern seaboard. As a result, in 1925, Paul became a founding board member of the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Both as a representative of Southern Pacific and as a private citizen, he corresponded with Congress regarding labor and management issues.
Los Altos.
Only months after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, the Interurban Electrical Railroad purchased a 160-acre tract of ranch land in the Santa Clara Valley owned by Sarah Winchester. The Interurban Electrical Railroad was a subsidiary of Southern Pacific. In 1906, Paul Shoup was named Assistant General Manager of Southern Pacific’s local municipal and interurban lines. When Southern Pacific wanted to purchase a right of way through the Winchester property, Sarah realized that the section the railroad wanted would cut her property in two, separating her cattle barn from her grazing lands. It would render her ranch ineffective, therefore she demanded that the railroad purchase the entire property. This left the railroad with an excessive amount of land. Shoup gathered his business associates and purchased the excess property from Southern Pacific. They incorporated as the Altos Land Company for the purposes of developing the area as a residential community marketed to executives and businessmen working in San Francisco. Clark marketed Los Altos as the “Crown of the Peninsula.”
Paul Shoup is considered the founder of Los Altos because of his personal and professional contributions to the ongoing economic health of the fledgling settlement. Beginning in 1907, Paul and several business associates formed the Altos Land Company to develop the former Winchester and Merriman ranches as a residential enclave along the Southern Pacific Railroad’s Los Gatos cutoff, then under construction. This rail line would allow residents to have a direct rail connection to both San Jose (30 minutes) and San Francisco (60 minutes). Paul sold his interest in the company only to buy back the company in 1913 to prevent it from going into bankruptcy. Beyond this direct involvement, he played a large role in bringing businesses and people to the town. It was his business connections through his roles at Southern Pacific and his involvement in the influential social clubs of the time that gave legitimacy to the enterprise, drawing in an influential and well-heeled group of early residents to bring his vision of a bucolic residential commuter community to light.
In January 2000, Paul Shoup was chosen by the Los Altos Town Crier as its “Los Altan of the Century.”
Paul Shoup House in Los Altos.
The Paul Shoup House was the first property in Los Altos to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places by the Department of the Interior on September 23, 2011 based on the significance of the original owner, Paul Shoup. |
Pennsylvania Route 88
Pennsylvania Route 88 (PA 88) is a north–south state highway located in southwestern Pennsylvania. The southern terminus of the route is at U.S. Route 119 (US 119) in Point Marion less than from the Pennsylvania-West Virginia border. The northern terminus is at PA 51 in Pittsburgh. PA 88 runs parallel to the Monongahela River for almost its entire length.
Signed in 1927, PA 88 is one of the oldest state highways in Pennsylvania. For a brief period between 1927 and 1928, the route followed the Perry Highway between Pittsburgh and Erie. In 1928, the Perry Highway became US 19.
Route description.
PA 88 begins in Point Marion at an intersection with US 119. PA 88 begins as Main Street then turns to the west crossing the Monongahela River into Greene County on the Albert Gallatin Memorial Bridge. After crossing the river, PA 88 turns to the north as it begins to parallel the Monongahela River to the east as well as railroad tracks to the west. After crossing the Dunkard Creek, PA 88 has entered the village of Poland Mines. In Monongahela Township, PA 88 intersects Pennsylvania Route 21. In the boro of Carmichaels, PA 88 is called Vine Street and crosses Muddy Creek. In Jefferson Township, PA 88 intersects the eastern terminus of Pennsylvania Route 188 southwest of Rices Landing.
After crossing the Tenmile Creek, PA 88 has entered Washington County as Front Street. PA 88 passes through the following villages: Milfred Terrace, Fredericktown Hill, North Fredericktown, Vesta Heights, and Vestaburg. In East Bethlehem Township and Centerville Boro. In Centerville Boro, PA 88 becomes Low Hill Rd. PA 88 has a snake like curve paralleling the Monongahela River. In Centerville Boro, PA 88 joins Pennsylvania Turnpike 43 for before leaving to join another concurrency with U.S. Route 40. East of PA 43, PA 88 leaves US 40 at a trumpet interchange in West Brownsville. North of the concurrency, PA 88 becomes a local road named California Road. In California, PA 88 becomes Wood Street then turns to the west and becomes 3rd Street. In Coal Center, PA 88 Highpoint Drive, then Spring Street, and then Highpoint Drive again. Passengers can see Turnpike 43 from PA 88 in Coal Center. As PA 88 begins to shift to the east, it enters the following boros: Elco, Roscoe, and Stockdale. As PA 88 enters these boros it becomes Highpoint Drive and Chester Avenue. North of Stockdale, PA 88 begins to turn to the north and becomes Main Street. In Speers as Pennsylvania Street, PA 88 interchanges Interstate 70 at exit 40 in a scaped shaped interchange with long ramps. In Charleroi and North Charleroi, PA 88 is called McKean Avenue. In Carroll Township, PA 88 is called Country Club Road and meets the southern terminus of Pennsylvania Route 837. In Monongahela, PA 88 begins a three route concurrency with Pennsylvania Route 136 and Pennsylvania Route 837. Then PA 88/PA 136/PA 837 become Main Street and intersect the northern terminus of Pennsylvania Route 481. In the northern tip of Monongahela, PA 136 splits off from PA 88 and PA 837. As PA 88/PA 837 enter New Eagle, PA 837 splits from PA 88 then PA 88 becomes Union Street. In Union Township, PA 88 passes under Turnpike 43. In Finleyville, PA 88 becomes Sheridan Avenue. Finleyville is where the future Interstate 576 (Southern Beltway) will meet Turnpike 43. Then PA 88 re-enters Union Township passing several businesses and then becomes Library Road near the Allegheny County line.
The entire Allegheny County stretch of PA 88 is also designated as Library Road. Starting at the Washington/Allegheny County line where PA 88 becomes Library Road, PA 88 runs through South Park, Bethel Park, Castle Shannon, and the Overbrook neighborhood of Pittsburgh where PA 88/Library Rd. ends at an "Y" intersection with Pennsylvania Route 51/Saw Mill Run Blvd. Three of the six county's colored Belt Routes connect with and/or run along PA 88 (see below).
History.
PA 88 originally was planned to extend from Pittsburgh all the way north to Erie, along the highway that now largely follows US 19. US 19 was first proposed for this route in 1927, but the routing at the time was turned down. The route does appear as both PA 88 and US 19 on one 1928 map.
In the 1930s (most likely 1935 or 1936) PA 88 was extended north to New Castle. The route is not marked as PA 88 on the official 1930 map but is so marked on the 1940 map. The Pittsburgh-to-New Castle section was largely split off on July 15, 1960 to form Pennsylvania Route 65, in honor of the 65th Infantry Division of the United States Army during World War II. The 7.7 mile stretch of PA 88 from PA 65's current southern terminus at the West End Bridge to PA 88's current northern terminus was decommissioned. This designation change was made to reduce the number of concurrent routes in Pittsburgh. The changes took effect a few months later and signs were changed by spring 1961.
Connections to PA 65.
Nonetheless, PA 88's legacy still survives in its former northern sections. Of PA 88's five spur routes, PA 288 and PA 488 were branch routes off what is now US 19, while PA 288, PA 388, PA 488, and PA 588 now appear as spur routes of 65, but still retain the "88" base numbers. (PA 88 did retain PA 188 as a spur route.) In addition, a drive-in theater known as Spotlight 88 in North Sewickley Township retained its name after the route was rebadged as 65, and is still known by that name as its current incarnation as a flea market after the drive-in was destroyed by an F3 tornado on May 31, 1985.
PA 88 Truck.
Pennsylvania Route 88 Truck is a truck route in California, Pennsylvania. The route was created to allow access to the Pennsylvania Route 43 toll freeway and to allow large vehicles to avoid the large hill into the Monongahela Valley. The center of the route is at the PA 43 interchange, with a two-lane stretch providing access to California University of Pennsylvania and the surrounding business district, as well as connecting traffic with northbound Route 88; a four-lane stretch provides a more gradual ascent of the hill on Route 88 southbound. |
The End (American Horror Story)
"The End" is the first episode and season premiere of the of the anthology television series "American Horror Story". It aired on September 12, 2018, on the cable network FX. The episode was written by Ryan Murphy & Brad Falchuk, and directed by Bradley Buecker.
Plot.
In the near future, while heiress Coco St. Pierre Vanderbilt gets her hair done by Mr. Gallant in Santa Monica, people are warned of an impending nuclear missile strike. Coco escapes the city on a private jet along with her assistant Mallory, Gallant, and his grandmother Evie, but leaving Coco's boyfriend Brock behind. The nuclear blast hits, destroying Los Angeles. Several other world cities are also destroyed.
Teenager Timothy Campbell is also evacuated, without his family, by guards from an organization called the Cooperative who arrive, stating that this is because of Timothy's genetic makeup. After being evacuated, Timothy meets another chosen survivor, Emily.
Two weeks later, nuclear holocaust has effectively ended the world and nuclear winter has descended. Timothy and Emily are taken to Outpost 3, one of several fallout bunkers across the world under the rule of the Cooperative. Outpost 3's overseer Wilhemina Venable explains to Timothy and Emily that in Outpost 3 there are two castes: "purples" and "grays". Purples are the "elite", who bought a ticket or were chosen to survive. Grays are the worker class. There are strict rules, including no unauthorized sexual intercourse and no going outside due to the risk of radiation contamination. The "purples" consist of Timothy, Emily, Coco, Gallant, Evie, former talk show host Dinah Stevens, Dinah's son Andre, and Andre's boyfriend Stu. Mallory is a "gray".
Rations begin to run low and have only enough food for the next eighteen months. Miriam Mead, Outpost 3's sadistic warden, tampers with a Geiger counter so it detects traces of radiation on Gallant and Stu. The two are brutishly "decontaminated", but Mead pretends she still detects radiation traces on Stu and so kills him. During dinner later, Andre finds human bones in the meal and deduces that they have been eating Stu.
Over the next eighteen months, Timothy and Emily develop a romantic relationship. Michael Langdon then arrives at the outpost and tells Venable that many other outposts have been overrun. Michael states he will judge who is fit to be saved and join an impenetrable outpost with a ten-year food supply. Outside, Mead kills the horses that brought Langdon to the outpost, and their corpses are devoured by unseen monsters.
Reception.
"The End" was watched by 3.08 million people during its original broadcast, and gained a 1.5 ratings share among adults aged 18–49.
The episode received positive reviews from critics, with many critics calling it the show's best premiere in years. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, "The End" holds a 91% approval rating, based on 32 reviews with an average rating of 8.10 out of 10. The critical consensus reads, ""AHS" returns in frightening form with "The End," a wickedly fun - if unfortunately witch-free - premiere that's equal parts camp, chaos, and Sarah Paulson chewing scenery like no one else can."
Ron Hogan of "Den of Geek" gave the episode a positive review, saying, "Ryan Murphy's shows tend to start out strong and then the cracks begin to show, but I think with the short season order (10 episodes) and the very strong premise, he'll continue his recent trend of stellar storytelling and not get too bogged down with aliens and assorted unrelated weirdness. Even if it goes off the rails, "Apocalypse" will go off the rails in entertaining Murphy fashion, with a brilliant cast to bring that inspired weirdness to life. The best is yet to come."
Kat Rosenfield from "Entertainment Weekly" gave the episode an A−. She enjoyed Paulson's performance, calling her "fabulously stern", and appreciated that the episode did not use the usual post-apocalypse tropes. She also praised the costumes worn by the characters, saying that "everybody looks fabulous" and that the episode made "the apocalypse look like the world's greatest Prince tribute show". "Vulture"s Brian Moylan gave the episode a 5 out of 5, with a positive review, commenting, "this was one of the strongest premieres in "American Horror Story" history". He added that it was "a clear expectation for what the season was going to be about, introduced us to some delicious characters, had a great balance between scares and camp, and evoked a clear mood and visual style."
Matt Fowler of "IGN" gave the episode a 6.4 out of 10, with a mixed review. He said, ""American Horror Story" leaned into camp and comedy, including a couple of time jumps meant for laughs, to speed us through a sassy set-up episode that could have actually been disturbing and scary. Somewhere down the line, the franchise stopped evenly mixing its sinister elements and snarky quips and it's worked to defang the show a bit. The beginning and end of the episode though, featuring the exodus from LA and the arrival of the antichrist, helped juice things up."
In "The A.V. Club", Molly Horan rated the episode a B−, criticizing it for not being sufficiently scary. |
Tickle Me
Tickle Me is a 1965 American musical comedy western film directed by Norman Taurog and starring Elvis Presley as a champion rodeo bull rider and bronco buster.
Presley won a 1966 Golden Laurel Award as best male actor in a musical film for his role. It is the only Presley film released by Allied Artists Pictures, and it saved the studio from financial collapse and bankruptcy. The film made $5 million at the box office.
For the first and only time in a Presley film, the soundtrack had no new material, utilizing album cuts dating back as early as 1960. Some of these tracks were overdubbed for the film. In one case, a different take was used ("I Feel That I've Known You Forever", featuring what appears to be a vocal done on the soundstage). In another case, a song was presented without the harmony vocal and narration of the original release ("I'm Yours"). The cost-cutting experiment of recycling older recordings would not be repeated by Presley. However, another song from its recycled soundtrack, "(Such an) Easy Question", peaked at #11 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and #1 on the "Billboard" Easy Listening chart in July 1965.
Julie Adams and Jocelyn Lane co-star with Presley. The screenplay was written by Elwood Ullman and Edward Bernds, who had written The Three Stooges film shorts and theatrical films as well as scripts for The Bowery Boys. They brought to the film a sizable quota of slapstick, sight gags and general silliness not found in any other Presley vehicle.
Plot.
Lonnie Beale, an out-of-work rodeo star with a heart of gold, is trying to make ends meet until the season starts up again. He comes to the fictional Western town of Zuni Wells because a friend said that Lonnie could get a job on a ranch, but the friend cannot be found.
Having no other option, Lonnie begins singing in a local club, but he gets fired after a fight with one of the customers. Vera Radford sees his performance and offers him a job taking care of the horses at a ranch that she runs called the Circle-Z. However, the ranch is not what Lonnie had expected; it is a fitness salon referred to as Yogurt Gulch where actresses and models go to lose weight and get in shape.
After upsetting the staff a few times by disrupting activities with his singing, Lonnie follows Pam Meritt to the nearby ghost town of Silverado, where he learns that one of her relatives has hidden a treasure. They share a comical vision of what the town must have been like when it was still populated.
There is a brief interlude parodying Western films in which Lonnie becomes the Panhandle Kid, a milk-drinking cowboy, with Pam and ranch hand Stanley in costume as characters in the saloon.
Back at the ranch, people try to abduct Pam to find the location of the treasure, and they want a letter that Pam possesses. Lonnie defends Pam, and they begin a relationship, but matters are complicated when Vera throws herself at Lonnie and Pam walks in on them.
When rodeo season starts, Lonnie goes on the circuit. But because things were left unresolved with Pam, he is unable to do his job well. Every time he tries to call, she hangs up on him, and when he writes to her, she sends his letters back marked "Return to Sender" (an homage to a 1962 Presley hit). Eventually, Stanley finds Lonnie on the circuit and talks him into confronting Pam.
When the two reach the Circle-Z, Pam is on her way to Silverado, so they follow her. A fierce storm begins, so the trio spends the night in a hotel that seems to be haunted, as strange things happen to Pam and Stanley whenever Lonnie is not around. Eventually it is revealed that the ghosts and goblins in the hotel are actually masked men trying to capture Pam's treasure.
The men are unmasked, and the hiding place of the treasure is discovered. Lonnie and Pam get married, with a big reception at the Circle-Z. Stanley gets tangled up in the decorations behind their car. Lonnie sings to Pam as they drive off toward their honeymoon, dragging Stanley in a metal tub behind them.
Production.
By mid-1964, Allied Artists was a studio in financial trouble. Presley's management knew that Allied head Steve Broidy hoped that the profits from a new Presley vehicle would keep the studio solvent. On the suggestion of Colonel Parker, instead of recording a new soundtrack, previously issued LP tracks were used instead to save costs; this had not been done on any of Presley's earlier films.
The film was originally called "Isle of Paradise". It was written by Edward Bernds and Elwood Ullman, who had written for The Three Stooges and the Bowery Boys.
Presley was paid $600,000 plus $150,000 in expenses and was allocated 50% of the profits. The below-the-line costs were estimated at $399,750; it went $6,650 over budget and finished at $406,400. This made "Tickle Me" the cheapest of Presley's films to date.
Although produced by Allied Artists, the film was actually made at Paramount Pictures Studios, which Allied hired for the duration of the shoot. It was shot over 23 days in October–November 1964, plus two days of second-unit photography.
Reception.
Howard Thompson of "The New York Times" called the film "the silliest, feeblest and dullest vehicle for the Memphis Wonder in a long time. And both Elvis and his sponsors, the time Allied Artists, should know better." "Variety" noted that the screenplay was "wispy thin" but allowed Presley to "rock over nine numbers from past albums to good effect." Kevin Thomas of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote that the film had "lousy color, cheap sets, hunks of stock footage, painted scenery and unconvincing process work. But who's to quibble when the movie is so much fun?" "The Monthly Film Bulletin" called it an "Exceptionally routine Presley vehicle" with "uninspired songs."
The film was popular at the box office, making over $3 million in the US and $5 million worldwide. It became the third highest-grossing film in the history of Allied Artists and saved the studio from bankruptcy.
Awards.
Presley won a 1966 Golden Laurel Award for best male performance in a musical film. This was the only acting award that he received during his film career.
Home media.
The film was first released in the VHS format in the early 1980s in a limited version from Allied Artists Home Video. The film was released on videocassette by Key Video in February 1985 as part of the release of 11 videos to mark the 50th anniversary of Presley's birth. It was issued again by CBS/Fox Video in 1987 and 1992, and by Warner Home Video in 1997. In 2007, "Tickle Me" was released for the first time on DVD, in widescreen letterbox format. |
Finger Lakes National Forest
The Finger Lakes National Forest is a United States National Forest that encompasses of Seneca and Schuyler counties, nestled between Seneca Lake and Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes Region of the State of New York. It has over 30 miles (50 km) of interconnecting trails that traverse gorges, ravines, pastures, and woodlands.
Although about 3.2 million acres (1300 km²) of the State of New York is in the State Forest Preserve, Wildlife Management Areas, and Forests, there are few large areas of public land in the Finger Lakes Region. The Finger Lakes National Forest is the only National Forest in New York and the only public land that has had an explicit philosophy of multiple use.
Early history.
The area around the Finger Lakes National Forest was originally inhabited by the Iroquois Indians. Information of their use of the area within the current forest boundary is sketchy at best. It is thought that at least some hunting activity occurred. This area was a forested hunting territory for the Iroquois people 250 years ago. Just 100 years ago, it was nearly treeless, the result of logging, farming, and grazing practices by Euro-American settlers. Today it is a mix of second growth woodland, pasture and lots which are in a transition from pasture-to-woodland. The cellar holes, stone walls, artifacts, and other material evidence of the former residents of this area are an unwritten reminder and historical record of their lives. They are protected by Federal Law. There are a number of archaeological sites on lands managed by the Finger Lakes National Forest, most from the post-Revolutionary period.
Prior to the European rediscovery of eastern North America, Native Americans lived in this part of New York for more than 10,000 years. The Iroquois are the last in a series of Indian cultures to have lived here, and two of the six Iroquois Nations' homelands border the Forest. The lakes around which much Indian life took place now bear their names: Cayuga and Seneca. The lack of reliable water sources and lime-rich soils (good for corn agriculture) precluded development of large year-round Iroquois villages within the Forest's present-day boundaries, but the original forest cover of pines and hardwoods (such as hickory, elm, beech, chestnut, oak, and maple) would have made this a good hunting and nut-gathering territory for these people.
American Revolution.
Because of the Iroquois alliance with the British during the American Revolution, George Washington assigned Generals Sullivan and Clinton to mount a campaign against them. The Sullivan Campaign of 1779 was a major military undertaking which destroyed more than 40 villages and laid to waste hundreds of acres of cultivated fields and a large portion of the stored food and materials the Iroquois and British were dependent upon.
A secondary, non-military result of the neutralization of the Six Nations Iroquois in this region was that it created "new" lands to allot to Colonial soldiers after the war in partial payment or reward for their service. The land was divided up into "military lots", the one mile (1.6 km) square (2.6 km²) units that are still the basis for the road (and much of the trail) system present on the Finger Lakes National Forest today. In 1790, the area was divided into 600 acre (2.4 km²) military lots and distributed among Revolutionary War veterans as payment for their services. These early settlers cleared the land for production of hay and small grains such as buckwheat. As New York City grew, a strong market for these products developed, encouraging more intensive agriculture. The farmers prospered until the mid-19th century, when a series of unfortunate events occurred - the popularity of motorized transportation in urban centers (reducing the number of horses to be fed), gradual depletion of the soil resource, and competition from the midwest.
Federal purchase of the land.
Between 1890 and the Great Depression, over 1 million acres (4000 km²) of farmland was abandoned in south central New York State. In the 1930s it was recognized that farmers in many parts of the country could no longer make a living from their exhausted land. Environmental damage was occurring as they cultivated the land more and more intensively to make ends meet. Several pieces of legislation were passed, including the Federal Emergency Relief Act of 1933, and the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act of 1937 to address these problems. One result was the formation of a government agency, the Resettlement Administration, to carry out the new laws. This agency directed the relocation of farmers to better land or different jobs, and the purchase of marginal farmland by the Federal government. Between 1938 and 1941, over 100 farms were purchased in the area now in the National Forest. Because this was done on a willing-seller, willing-buyer basis, the resulting Federal ownership resembled a patchwork quilt. This was especially true in the Seneca County end of the Forest, where soils were more productive, and some families elected to stay. This ownership pattern still exists today.
The newly acquired Federal land, named the Hector Land Use Area (LUA), was initially managed by the Soil Conservation Service. The emphasis was on stabilization of the soil by planting conifers, and development of a grazing program. Previously cultivated fields were converted to improved pastures to demonstrate how less intensive agriculture could still make productive use of the land. In 1943, the Hector Cooperative Grazing Association was formed. This organization was issued a long term lease to manage grazing on the (LUA). They coordinated use of the pastures by as many as 120 individual livestock owners within a 100-mile (160 km) radius of the (LUA).
In 1996, the property associated with the former Camp Fossenvue was added to the forest. On that property is the Queen's Castle, a structure listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.
Creation of the national forest.
By the 1950s, many of the original objectives of the Hector (LUA) had been met. Farmers had been resettled, the eroding soil stabilized, and alternative agriculture uses demonstrated. At the same time, the public was becoming interested in the concept of multiple uses of public land. Management and appropriate ownership of the Hector LUA was reevaluated. The decision was made in 1954 to transfer administrative responsibilities to the U.S. Forest Service, which already had a fairly long history of multiple use management. Initially this was carried out by the Regional Office in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. When this region was later consolidated within the Forest Service's Northeast Region, Hector became an administrative unit of the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont.
In 1982, the Federal land management agencies were directed to identify isolated parcels of federal land that could be sold without significantly affecting the resource base or public service. The intent was to dispose of lands that were inefficient to manage, and to generate revenue. The Hector Land Use Area was one parcel studied for possible disposal under this "Assets Management" program. When public meetings were held to evaluate this idea, there was strong local support for continued federal ownership. Local and regional citizens had come to depend on Hector for wood products, forage, recreation, and other benefits. Because of this public support, Congress enacted legislation to make it a permanent part of the National Forest System. The Hector Ranger District, Green Mountain National Forest, had been created. Local citizens asked the Forest Service to change the name to Hector Ranger District, Finger Lakes National Forest, so it would be less confusing to visitors, and promote local pride about the area. This change was made in October 1985.
Today.
The national forest is a public use resource in both Seneca County and Schuyler County, lying between Cayuga Lake and Seneca Lake. The Finger Lakes National Forest is an administrative unit of the Green Mountain National Forest. Both are managed by the Forest Service from offices in Rutland, Vermont. The Forest has continued the management mix of pasture, forest, recreation and wildlife and includes the preservation of historic and archaeological sites. It is the second-smallest National Forest in the United States, larger only than the Tuskegee National Forest in Alabama. |
Samasingha
Samasingha is a gram panchayat in the district of Jharsuguda in the state of Odisha in India. The block office and police station of Samasingha is Kolabira, site of the Kolabira fort. It is divided into fourteen wards. The MLA constituency is Jharsuguda and the MP constituency is Bargarh. The village is situated on the bank of the Bheden river, a tributary of the Mahanadi. Two small seasonal streams flow through the village, the larger is named Badbahal and the smaller Nalia. Bhugarapali, Junadihi, Belmunda, Jalapara/Jaladihi and Kumharmal are villages are in the neighbourhood of Samasingha. Other nearby places include Jharsuguda, Sambalpur, Kuchinda, Bamra and Bagdihi. The nearest place of tourist attraction is Gudguda. It is on the route between Sambalpur and Ranchi.
National Highway 200 (Raipur-Chandikhole) runs along the periphery of the village. The population of the village is around 6000. The local wine is produced from rice and the flower of "Madhuca indica". The mango and cashew nut trees spread throughout the village area.
The administrative hierarchy, from smallest to largest, is Samasingha (Post office, Gram Panchayat), Kolabira (Block or Panchayat Samiti and Tahsil), Jharsuguda (district), Odisha (State), India.
The nearest airport is in Jharsuguda, Bhubaneswar, Raipur. The nearest railway station is Jharsuguda.
History.
According to popular legend, the town's name is derived from the samarsing, or horn of a Samar, an animal. Historically, it was used as a gateway to the local kingdom, Haihay. When there was any invasion this samarsing horn to alert the security of the kingdom. The King's palace was situated on the bank of the Bheden river. A Shiva temple had been constructed at Mahadevpali by the king on the river bank. The king of Ratnapur (Surguja) attacked this kingdom over the marriage of the only daughter of the Haihay king. During this aggression the Haihay King was killed and his kingdom was destroyed. People say the 7 rani, the king's wives, committed suicide when the king was killed; a spot near the ancient palace on the Beden river is a tourist destination known as "Rani Darah".
In the 16th century, Balram Dev, the first Chouhan king of Sambalpur, occupied this fort and there was a war between the Sambalpur king and the Ratnapur king, as a result of which the importance of the Bhogaragarh fort declined.
For a long time the Bhogaragarh fort and the surrounding temples remained abandoned. As a result, the temples near the fort decayed. A few years back, the villagers of Mahadevpali constructed a new temple at the original site. Local history is clearly linked with this temple, so it is considered to be one of the Astaswayambhus of Jharsuguda district. Every year, a fair takes place here on the day of Sivaratri.
Flora and fauna.
Domestic animals and birds include cattle, sheep, goats, chickens, ducks, parrots, champa and maina. Cultivated plants include tulsi, mango, guava, banana, rose, dahlia, chauldhua, kuiler, coconut, lichi, apple, "Moringa oleifera" and many others. Monkeys, rabbits and elephants are commonly found in the jungle. Local vegetation is composed of sishu, kendu, "Madhuca indica", "Azadirachta indica", "Tamarindus indica", "Ficus religiosa", "Ficus bengalensis", kusam, jam, palm, saguan, harda, bahara, ananla, bel, char, krushnachuda, tut, kaha, kia, semel and a wide range of other plants.
Economy, demographics and religion.
100% of the population of the village practices Hinduism. Most of the villagers are farmers and a significant number are teachers. Shops sell a wide variety of goods. A few people are also engaged in professions like IT, law enforcement, management, medicine, research and technical. The village produces surplus quantities of rice, potatoes, capsicum, mango, cashew nut, sugarcane, and other agricultural products. The village is divided into "pada". People from many castes (e.g. Agharia, Badhai, Bhuiyan, Brahman, Chamar, Ganda, Gauda, Ghansia, Gudia, Keunt, Kharra, Khujria, Kuilta, Kumhar, Luhura, Mali, Sunari, Sundhi, Teli) live in the village.
Local secular and religious institutions.
There are a number of schools, from the elementary up to the college level, such as the Basumati Science College. There are also branches of the State Bank of India and post office and an Ayurveda Hospital, and veterinary offices. Prabhu Jagannath Temple, Maa Durga Temple, and Lord Shiva Temple are the places of worship found in the village. Various festivals are organized throughout the year but Makar Yatra organised on 26 and 27th of January is widely famous.
Sports.
Once the village football team was well-known in this area and they were victorious in a number of local tournaments. With the rise of cricket, the people started playing cricket. Every year on the occasion of Makar Yatra, a cricket tournament was held from 21 January to 25 January. Champa fighting is a yearly tournament organized by the villagers on 28 January (mostly). Kabbadi, Khokho, Gillidanda, luklukani are some of the other sporting events played by the villagers during leisure time.
Tourist places nearby.
The village of Banjari lies about 25 km from Jharsuguda on the Jharsuguda-Lakhanpur road. The ancient cave of Bikramkhol is located near this village, where a group of people lived starting around 4000 BC.
There are ancient script carvings in the wall of the Bikramkhol cave and also paintings of animals. Circular holes have been dug in the wall from which weapons, dress and other useful household items were suspended. There are also circular holes on the floor where grains were pounded. Bikramkhol has been declared a tourist spot by the Central Government and tourists, historians and researchers from all over the country and abroad.
Ruins of Hill Forts of Ulapgarh.
On the Jharsuguda-Belpahar Road 21 km from Jharsuguda lies the village Lajkura. In the vicinity there is a hill known as "Maheswar Pahad" where the remains of an old holy fort attracts the attention of historians, researchers and tourists.
At the foot of Maheswar Pahad, there is a village named "Ulap". The ruins of Ulapgarh are located about one kilometre from the village. Here, the Maheswar pahad is about high and on the top there is a huge plain, where the fort of Ulapgarh stands. The plain is about 400 metres long and 250 metres wide. On the eastern side of the fort there are several kilometres of densely forested Baramunda Hills and on the western side, the Belpahar Railway Station is located at a distance of 5 km. On the north there is a dense forest stretching up to Hemgir and in the south stretching up to the village of Badjob.
A moat, 4 metres wide and 150 metres long, runs east to west. There was a Sivalingam and a place of worship in the Fort. A well dug within the Fort provided drinking water to the residents of the Fort throughout the year.
On the stone floor, there are many square and round holes, with diameters varying from 1-3 inches. Wooden poles used to be inserted into these holes to support super structures for living space, storage, arsenals, kitchen, sleeping areas and so on.
About 1000 people could take shelter at Ulapgarh at a time. On the western side of Ulapgarh and down the slope there is a cave named Ushakothi. On the walls and floors of this cave there are also circular and square holes, which the defence personnel of the fort may have used to suspend their clothes and other belongings from wooden poles fitted to these holes. The soldiers of the dense forest of Maheswar hill could easily overpower the enemies before they could climb up the hill and attack the fort.
It is believed that Ulapgarh was being used as a residential fort by kings of the Naja Dynasty. Indian and foreign researchers and historians are researching in this direction.
Padmasini Temple of Padampur.
The Hirakud reservoir lies 60 km from Jharsuguda, near Bhikampali. There was once a town called "Padampur" located where the Mahanadi river leaves Madhya Pradesh and enters Orissa to pour into the Hirakud reservoir. The Sanskrit dramatist "Bhabahbhoti" was believed to be born here. The Bajrajan Tantraof Buddhism may have originated here.
Padmasini is the reigning goddess of this town. The Padmasini temple was constructed in the seventh century A.D. by a Chalukya king; the original temple decayed and was believed to be reconstructed by the Chouhan king of Sambalpur in the 16th century. The Jagmohan of original temple reveals a striking resemblance to architecture of the Chalukya era.
Even the stone statue of the goddess Padmasini bears striking similarities to the style of the Chalukya period. In the whole of Orissa, this Padmasini Temple is a unique example of Chalukya art and architecture. In 1956, Padampur was submerged in Hirakud reservoir, but the deity was shifted to a new temple at nearby Pujaripali. It is uncertain who made the original statue of Padmasini, although it is probably also seventh century in origin.
Ramchandi: An ancient Shaktipitha.
This important place of ‘Shakti Worship’ is 10 km. away from Jharsuguda town inside a cave.
Rampur Dandapat (Jamindari) was created during the reigning ‘Chhatrasai Dev’ the 7th King of Sambalpur (1657–1695). One Khytriya youth of Rajpotana belonging to Gaharwal family ‘Prannath Singh’ with his valour subdued the local aborigines of Rampur area in IB basin and received Rampur area as Jagirdari from Chhatrasai Dev, the ruling king of Sambalpur. The Rampur Jamindari had an area of 786 sq. miles.
Davi Ramchandi has been worshipped as the reigning deity of the Rampur region since time immemorial. Many pilgrims and devotees come to the Rampur cave from far and near to worship the goddess Ramchandi.
Koilighugar Waterfall.
The Koilighugar water fall is situated 55 km away from Jharsuguda in the Lakhanpur block near the village Kushmelbahal. A rivulet named ‘Ahiraj’ originates in the ‘Chhuikhanch’ forest and while flowing through its rocky belt falls from a height of creating the water fall of Koilighugar. After the fall the rivulet flows westwards to merge into the Mahanadi river.
Inside the fall there is a Shivalingam known as ‘Maheswarnath’. The lingam is submerged in water and not ordinarily visible. If somebody tries to see it from inside the water in winter and summer the lingum is visible under the reflected sunlight, hence for the benefit of the pilgrims another Sivalingam has been created outside the waterfall.
There is an Ashram of a holy man, or Saham swami near the water fall. Every year a fair sits in Kalighugar on the occasion of Maha Sivaratri.
Ancient Siva Shrine of Jhadeswar Temple, Jharsuguda.
The Jhadeswar temple is located at a distance of about 1 km. from the Jharsuguda Railway station beyond the old town Purunabasti inside a small forest.
There is a Swayambhu Sivalingam here the actual age of which is unknown; during the reign of Govind Singh Jamindar of Jharsuguda the lingam was worshipped inside a hut made of leaves. In 1916, a Gujarati contractor named Mulju Jagmal erected a small temple here. The Jamindar of Jharsuguda arranged Savayats for daily worship and donated agricultural lands for maintenance of the temple and puja.
The temple was renovated in 1969 by a philanthropist from Calcutta, Lt. Surajmal Mohota.
Since 1916 a fair takes place here on every Sivaratri day. The Jhadeswar temple area has important significance in the history of Jharsuguda. On the eastern side of the temple the original ‘Jharguda’ settlement has grown. On its northern side there was a settlement of ‘Gond subject’ of the Jamindar of Jharsuguda. Jhadeswar temple is recognised as original Siva shrine.
‘Adyaswambhu pitha’ of Jharsuguda. A small garden has been grown near the Jhadeswar temple which is used as a picnic spot.
Shree Pahadeswar Temple, Jharsuguda.
It is situated at the top of a small hill on the eastern side of Jharsuguda and is another place of attraction in the District.
The temple was constructed by a Gujarati Contractor Lt. Bitthal Bhai Saha in 1921. With its natural surroundings and because its accessibility, it attracts a lot of visitors. From the hill top a bird’s eye view of Jharsuguda town enthrals the visitors. |
Monroe College
Monroe College is a private for-profit college in New York City. It was founded in 1933 and has campuses in the Bronx, New Rochelle and Saint Lucia, with an extension site in Manhattan. The college is named after James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States. It is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
History.
The college was founded in 1933 by Mildred King as the Monroe School of Business, a women's business school, in the West Farms section of the Bronx. Classes were held at the site of the former Starlight Ballroom.
Monroe became an accredited junior college in 1972 when it earned the right to grant associate degrees; it was renamed to Monroe Business Institute. More classrooms were added on Morris Avenue, and in 1977 the West Farms facilities were closed and all Monroe programs were consolidated in the Fordham Road area.
In 1990 the school received accreditation from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, and the name was again changed, to Monroe College. In the same year, the college joined the National Junior College Athletic Association.
On-campus student housing was constructed at its New Rochelle, New York location in 2003. In the same year, degree programs in hospitality, criminal justice and culinary arts were introduced. The college built Milavec Hall, a building for math, English and arts classes, and began construction of a 200-bed student housing building at its Main Street location in New York.
Online course options for business management and administration were introduced in 2004 and an MBA program was added in 2005.
In January 2017, Marc M. Jerome, who had worked at Monroe College for more than 22 years, became its fourth president.
Academics.
Monroe has more than 250 full-time faculty members and adjunct faculty members, and the undergraduate student-faculty ratio is 15:1. Monroe College has three academic semesters during the 12-month calendar year. Each semester is a standard 15-week course of study.
The School of Allied Health Professions was founded in 2000 and has clinical and non-clinical programs. The School of Nursing has programs such as the certificate in practical nursing program (LPN), an associate's in applied science degree program (AAS), and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree (BSN) that qualifies graduates to obtain their license as a registered nurse.
Monroe College has an associate degree program for accounting and business administration, and bachelor's degrees in accounting, public accounting, general business and business management. The school is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs for its MBA, associate and bachelor programs as of June 2014. Monroe also has associate and bachelor's degree programs in information technology.
Started in 2009, Monroe College's School of Hospitality Management and the Culinary Arts has associate degree programs in baking and pastry, culinary arts, and hospitality management, as well as bachelor's degrees in hospitality management. Monroe students in the culinary program prepare each item and are responsible for the restaurant's daily operations. The culinary arts program was awarded the Marc Sarrazin Cup at the Salon of Culinary Art competition for two consecutive years, in 2013 and 2014.
Founded in the fall of 2011, Monroe's School of Education has a bachelor's degree program in early childhood education; students receive training working with children at local nursery schools, daycare facilities, and special needs schools. It is partnered with the Americorp Jumpstart Program, an early education organization that trains college students to serve preschool children in low-income neighborhoods.
Accreditation.
Monroe College has been accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education since 1990. Degree programs include the Master of Business Administration, Bachelor of Science, Associate in Science and Associate in Applied Science. The college also offers an English Language Learning Institute post-secondary certificate program and a post-baccalaureate bilingual extension certificate.
The college instituted bachelor's programs in accounting, business management, and information systems after authorization from the New York State Board of Regents in 1996. In 2005, the board of regents authorized the college to grant Master of Business Administration degrees in business management. Since January 2006, its licensed practical nursing programs have been accredited by the Office of the Professions (Nursing Education) of the New York State Board of Regents. Other programs are accredited by the American Culinary Federation Education Foundation Accrediting Commission, the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs, and the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing.
Campuses.
Monroe College has three main campuses:
Student life.
Students at Monroe College are 64 percent female and 36 percent male; about 48 percent are of black or African-American ethnicity and about 44 percent of Hispanic or South American origin. Undergraduate enrollment is 6,794 students, with approximately 958 international students. The Monroe Mustangs Marching Band marches in the annual New Rochelle Thanksgiving Day parade.
Athletics.
The Monroe College athletic teams are called the Mustangs (New Rochelle Campus) or the Express (Bronx Campus). The college is a member of the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) in the Division I level within NJCAA Region XV, primarily competing as an Independent. The Mustangs previously competed in the Mid Hudson Conference.
Monroe competes in 13 intercollegiate varsity sports: Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, football, soccer, track & field and volleyball; while women's sports include basketball, cross country, soccer, softball, track & field and volleyball.
Accomplishments.
In 2014, Monroe's women's soccer team won the NJCAA Division 1 National Championships. Monroe launched its Rugby program in 2017, with World Rugby Hall-of-Fame inductee Phaidra Knight as coach. In 2018, the women's soccer team also won their same NJCAA Championship title, and the baseball team made it to JUCO World Series. That same year, their football team made its first NJCAA bowl appearance at the Graphic Edge Bowl. In 2019, the Monroe Mustangs men's soccer team won its first NJCAA Championship with an undefeated 18–0 record.
Alumni.
Notable alumni who went on to pursue professional sports careers include: Orlando Sánchez, Maurice Ndour, Tuzar Skipper, Anthony Stubbs, Francisco Justo, Christopher Belcher, Kathellen Sousa, Carol Rodrigues, and Sandra Žigić. |
Meet the New Boss
"Meet the New Boss" is the first episode of the paranormal drama television series "Supernatural"s season 7, and the 127th overall. The episode was written by showrunner Sera Gamble and directed by Philip Sgriccia. It was first broadcast on September 23, 2011 on The CW. In the episode, Castiel decides to go fix the world's problems as their new "God". However, he is being taunted by new evil forces known as the Leviathans. Meanwhile, Sam is now having hallucinations about his time in Lucifer's Cage.
Plot.
Picking up exactly where the season 6 finale finished, Castiel (Misha Collins) proclaims himself to be the new God and tells Sam (Jared Padalecki), Dean (Jensen Ackles) and Bobby Singer (Jim Beaver) to bow and profess their love for him or be killed. When he sees that they only do it out of fear, he leaves to fix wrongs in the world. Sam begins to suffer hallucinations due to the torture he endured in Lucifer's Cage.
Castiel goes to Heaven and kills all the angels that sided with Raphael, before starting to chastise false preachers and hear voices in his head. He goes to Crowley (Mark A. Sheppard) to make a trade, he will receive souls and he will reinstate Crowley's position as King of Hell. Seeing he can't refuse, Crowley accepts. In an attempt to stop Castiel, the Winchesters and Bobby summon Crowley to give them information to attempt to bind Death (Julian Richings) so he can kill Castiel.
The ritual takes place and Death is bound. Castiel then appears, ready to kill them for their betrayal. Death then explains to Castiel that he consumed the Leviathans from the Purgatory, the first beasts created by God but locked in Purgatory as they were a threat to humanity. Castiel then disappears and while trying to punish a senator, the entities make him kill her entire staff. Death decides to help them stop Castiel, stating he will cause an eclipse to open a door to Purgatory so the souls can return.
Realizing his powers are beyond his control, Castiel goes to Sam and Dean for help. While alone, Sam is taunted by Lucifer (Mark Pellegrino), who tries to convince Sam that he never left the Cage and he's currently giving him false hope through mental torture. Dean and Bobby open the door to the Purgatory as Castiel lets out the souls. Once the door closes, Castiel returns to normal, but the Leviathans are revealed to have remained inside his body. Castiel, now possessed by the Leviathans, attacks Dean and says, "this is going to be so much fun".
Reception.
Viewers.
The episode was watched by 2.01 million viewers with a 0.8/3 share among adults aged 18 to 49. This was a 5% decrease in viewership from the previous episode, which was watched by 2.11 million viewers and it was also a 31% decrease from the previous season premiere, which was watched by 2.90 million viewers. This means that 0.8 percent of all households with televisions watched the episode, while 3 percent of all households watching television at that time watched it. "Supernatural" ranked as the most watched program on The CW in the day, beating "Nikita".
Critical reviews.
"Meet the New Boss" received generally positive reviews. Diana Steenbergen of IGN gave the episode a "great" 8.5 out of 10 and wrote, "I needn't have worried. 'Meet the New Boss' was far more entertaining than expected and that is tough to pull off for a show entering its seventh season. If the rest of the season can continue the way it started, then we are in for a good year."
Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave the episode a "B+" and wrote, "Seven years is long in the tooth indeed, and what's really cool is how well "Supernatural" is holding up. Eric Kripke, the series' creator, left after season five, and while last year showed definite signs of wobbling, it wasn't the sort of season you get from a show that's creatively dead. And as premieres go, 'New Boss' isn't bad at all. It's a little abrupt in some ways, which has me worried the season will burn through plot too quickly (that sounds silly; given how long "Supernatural" has been on the air, the writers should have some idea how to pace things, but one of last season's big frustrations was a lot of aimless wandering), but we do get an idea of some of the big problems the Winchesters and their surrogate father Bobby will have to deal with down the road. The episode hit many of the expected beats, from Sam and Dean bickering to magic spell recipes to The Car rising slowly from the dead. In some places, it was maybe a little too familiar, but it's good to have these guys back on my television."
Sandra Gonzalez of "EW" stated: "Monsters are nothing special on "Supernatural". Over six seasons, we've encountered the ugliest uglies, the baddest baddies and, let's face it, some really disgusting things. But last night's premiere chilled me to the bone like no episode ever has."
Sean McKenna from "TV Fanatic", gave a perfect 5 star rating out of 5, stating: "Overall, it was a fantastic start to the season that already has the wheels of the show off to a speedy start. Glad to see that even with seven years under the belt, "Supernatural" remains fresh, exciting, and destined for big things." |
K. Alex Müller
Karl Alexander Müller (20 April 1927 – 9 January 2023) was a Swiss physicist and Nobel laureate. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1987 with Georg Bednorz for their work in superconductivity in ceramic materials.
Biography.
Müller was born in Basel, Switzerland, on 20 April 1927, to Irma (née Feigenbaum) and Paul Müller. His family immediately moved to Salzburg, Austria, where his father was studying music. Alex and his mother then moved to Dornach, near Basel, to the home of his grandparents. Then they moved to Lugano, in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, where he learned to speak Italian fluently. His mother died when he was 11.
In the spring of 1956 Müller married Ingeborg Marie Louise Winkler. They had a son, Eric, in the summer of 1957, and a daughter, Sylvia, in 1960.
Education.
After his mother’s death, Müller was sent to school at the Evangelical College in Schiers, in the eastern part of Switzerland. Here he studied from 1938 to 1945, obtaining his baccalaureate (Matura).
Müller then enrolled in the Physics and Mathematics Department of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich). He took courses by Wolfgang Pauli, who made a deep impression on him. After receiving his Diplom, he worked for one year, then returned to ETH Zürich for a PhD, submitting his thesis at the end of 1957.
Career.
Müller joined the Battelle Memorial Institute in Geneva, soon becoming the manager of a magnetic resonance group. During this time he became a lecturer at the University of Zürich. In 1963 he accepted an offer as a "research staff member" at the IBM Zürich Research Laboratory in Rüschlikon, where he remained until his retirement. In parallel, he maintained his affiliation with University of Zurich where he was appointed professor in 1970. From 1972 to 1985 Müller was manager of the ZRL physics department. In 1982 he became an IBM Fellow. He received an honorary doctorate from Technical University of Munich and University of Geneva. In 1987 (before winning the Nobel Prize) he got an honorary degree ("laurea honoris causa") in Physics from the University of Pavia.
Research.
For his undergraduate diploma work, Müller studied under G. Busch. He worked on the Hall Effect in gray tin, a semimetal.
Between his undergraduate degree and beginning his graduate studies, he worked for one year in the Department of Industrial Research at ETH on the Eidophor large-scale display system.
At IBM his research for almost 15 years centered on SrTiO3 (strontium titanate) and related perovskite compounds. He studied their photochromic properties when doped with various transition-metal ions; their chemical binding, ferroelectric and soft-mode properties; and the critical and multicritical phenomena of their structural phase transitions. Important highlights of this research have been published in a book written together with Tom Kool from the University of Amsterdam (publisher: World Scientific).
Death.
Müller died on 9 January 2023, at the age of 95 in Zürich.
Nobel Prize–winning work.
In the early 1980s, Müller began searching for substances that would become superconductive at higher temperatures. The highest critical temperature ("T"c) attainable at that time was about 23 K. In 1983 Müller recruited Georg Bednorz to IBM, to help systematically test various oxides. A few recent studies had indicated these materials might superconduct, but experts who knew about Müller’s idea thought it was “crazy”. In 1986 the two researchers succeeded in achieving superconductivity in lanthanum barium copper oxide (LBCO) at a temperature of 35 K. Over the previous 75 years the critical temperature had risen from 11 K in 1911 to 23 K in 1973 where it had remained for 13 years. Thus 35 K was incredibly high by the prevailing standards of superconductivity research. This discovery stimulated a great deal of additional research in high-temperature superconductivity, leading to the discovery of compounds such as BSCCO ("T"c = 107 K) and YBCO ("T"'c = 92 K).
They reported their discovery in the June 1986 issue of "Zeitschrift für Physik B". Before the end of the year, Shoji Tanaka at the University of Tokyo and then Paul Chu at the University of Houston had each independently confirmed their result. A couple of months later Chu achieved superconductivity at 93 K in YBCO, triggering a stampede of scientific interest exemplified by the 1987 "Woodstock of physics", at which Müller was a featured presenter.
In 1987 Müller and Bednorz were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in physics—the shortest time between the discovery and the prize award for any scientific Nobel. |
Tom Barrett (riding mechanic)
Tom Barrett (21 November 1891 – 27 September 1924) was an English motor-racing riding mechanic. His death in the 1924 San Sebastian Grand Prix brought an end to the practice of riding mechanics in two-seat racing cars.
Racing in this early period was conducted between unreliable cars over long road courses, rather than by repeated laps of a dedicated short circuit. There was no nearby "pit lane" in which to conduct repairs and so it was necessary to carry a mechanic on board the car.
Life and early career.
Barrett was born in 1891, at Prestwood Road, Heath Town, Wolverhampton, one of nine children. His father, George Barrett, had been born in rural Essex but came to Wolverhampton and worked in engineering factories. Tom and his eldest brother William served apprenticeships at the pump-making factory of Joseph Evans & Sons, where their father also worked.
During the First World War, Barrett worked at Guy Motors. Rather than Guy's better-known lorries, this work was on small mechanisms such as fuses for depth charges. As with Barrett's future driver, Kenelm Lee Guinness, this war-work was sufficiently important to excuse military service during the war.
In 1915, Barrett married local girl Lillian Ivy Worthington-Roberts. They moved to Burleigh Road, Wolverhampton, remaining near to Wolverhampton's engineering works. Barrett continued to be an active church-goer and became a member of St. John's Church choir.
In early 1918, Guy began work on aero-engines, planning large orders for the ultimately unsuccessful ABC Wasp and Dragonfly aero-engines. In fact they only managed to produce one complete prototype of each, before the semi-completed production batch was transferred to another factory. After the end of the war, the aero-engine work at Guy was closed. Barrett's appetite for aero-engines had been whetted though and he moved to the nearby Sunbeam works so as to continue it. The market for aero-engines at this time was flooded by war-surplus and so Sunbeam focused on new engines for airships.
By 1921 though, airship accidents made this work less attractive and so Tom moved into Sunbeam's 'Experimental Department', supporting their successful racing cars, including the Sunbeam 350HP. Sunbeam's road cars were highly regarded in this period and the prestige and engineering innovation derived from the racing effort was seen as a significant part of this.
1924 accident.
Sunbeam's works drivers for the Grand Prix were Henry Segrave and Kenelm Lee Guinness. Guinness' usual mechanic, Bill Perkins, had been injured in a crash at Brooklands some weeks earlier, when the driver, Dario Resta, had been killed.
Two mechanics travelled to Spain with Segrave and Guinness, Tom Barrett and the Italian, Marocchi. As Segrave spoke a little Italian, he and Marocchi were in one car, Guinness and Barrett in the other.
September weather for the race day was wet with rain and the track was slippery. There was an attempt to sprinkle sand on the track for extra grip, but the earth from local fields that was used was more clay than sand and actually made things worse.
On the 11th lap Guinness's car hit a rut in the road, which along with the slippery surface, caused him to lose control. The car left the track, spun, rolled, and crossed back over the track before coming to rest. Both occupants were thrown out of the car and into a railway cutting. Barrett was killed instantly. Guinness was a little more fortunate, his fall being broken by some telegraph wires, but was still seriously injured. He never raced again and seems to have been permanently affected by the crash, culminating in his suicide in 1937.
Segrave was always known for his concern for others in his team, but he was unaware of the accident. After winning the race, he was aghast to discover the fate of his colleagues.
On 16 October 1924, Barrett was buried at Holy Trinity Church, Heath Town, Wolverhampton. Many of his engineering colleagues from Sunbeam, Guy and Joseph Evans attended.
After the accident, Lillian was given a job at Sunbeam. She later worked as an auxiliary nurse at the Wolverhampton Royal Hospital.
Rule changes.
After this accident, rules were changed so that mechanics no longer rode in the cars during the race. Barrett's untimely death must thus have saved many lives and injuries in motor racing. However the requirement for two seats in sports car racing classes has been retained to this day.
Legacy.
Barrett's grand-daughter appeared on the BBC Television programme Antiques Road Show in May 2018, with a suitcase of memorabilia from his racing years. |
The Varsitarian
The Varsitarian (Varsi, The V, or V) is the official student publication of the University of Santo Tomas (UST). Founded in January 1928 by a group of students led by Jose Villa Panganiban, it is one of the first student newspapers in the Philippines. It is published fortnightly. The lampoon issue is called "The Vuisitarian". Tomas U. Santos, the mascot of "The Varsitarian", is a Thomasian who represents the students of the campus. He is usually seen accompanied by a talking, and quite cynical, T-square.
Aside from publishing the school paper, "The Varsitarian" holds the Inkblots national campus journalism fellowship, hosts the Cinevita Film Festival, and organizes the Pautakan, the longest-running campus-based quiz contest in the Philippines. It also organizes Ustetika, the country's longest-running university-based literary competition, and the Creative Writing Workshop, which celebrated its 10th year in 2014.
"The Varsitarian" also publishes other editorial supplements such as Montage, Tomasino, Breaktime, Amihan, and Botomasino.
History.
The first issue of "the Varsitarian" came off the press on January 16, 1928, with Pablo Anido as the first editor in chief. However, the title of the "father of "the Varsitarian"" is given to Jose Villa Panganiban, who managed the day-to-day operations of the school paper. The other founders included Elizabeth C. Bowers and Olimpia Baltazar, a granddaughter of poet Francisco Baltazar. The paper cost 10 centavos, and was bought by 426 people out of a possible 2,000 students.
"The Varsitarian" co-founded the College Editors Guild of the Philippines on July 25, 1931 along with "The GUIDON" of the Ateneo de Manila, "The Philippine Collegian" of the University of the Philippines Diliman and "The National" of National University (Philippines).
Previously limited on publishing articles on university issues, "the Varsitarian" started reporting on national issues as well during the 1960s and 1970s.
Through the years, the pages of "The Varsitarian" would be graced by the likes of: Teodoro Valencia, Joe Guevarra, Felix Bautista, Jose Bautista, Joe Burgos, Antonio Siddayao, Jess Sison, Jullie Yap-Daza, Antonio Lopez, Rina Jimenez-David, Neal Cruz, A. O. Flores, Jake Macasaet, Fred Marquez, Mario Hernando, Alfredo Saulo, Alice Colet Villadolid, and Eugenia Duran-Apostol. The titans of Philippine literature learned writing in "the Varsitarian": Bienvenido Lumbera, F. Sionil José, Celso Al Carunungan, Ophelia Alcantara-Dimalanta, Paz Latorena, Cirilo Bautista, Federico Licsi Espino, Wilfrido Nolledo, Rogelio Sicat, Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo, Norma Miraflor, Eric Gamalinda and Vim Nadera.
In March 2001, a "Varsitarian" article with information obtained from whistleblower Mark Welson Chua was published, detailing alleged corruption in the university's ROTC corps. While this led to the sacking of the commandant and his staff, Chua started receiving death threats. Chua's corpse was later found in the Pasig River, with the autopsy showing that he was still alive when he was dumped into the murky waters. This led Congress to legislate that all ROTC courses be made optional.
The Cultural Center of the Philippines' Encyclopedia for the Arts has an entry for "The Varsitarian", the only school paper in the country to be listed.
Amid the national debate on the merits of the Reproductive Health bill, "the Varsitarian" published in September 2012 an editorial condemning the proposed law, and calling the professors from Ateneo de Manila University and De La Salle University who were in favor of the measure as " intellectual pretenders and interlopers." The editorial went viral and elicited various reactions among social media users. With feedback and reactions to the article turning out to be mostly negative, the paper's adviser issued an apology but added that such words were needed to deliver the message with emphasis. The university disowned the portion of the editorial that called the pro-RH bill professors "intellectual pretenders and interlopers," saying that while it supports the paper's opposition to the bill, that portion of the editorial "does not bear the university's imprimatur," as the paper is accorded editorial independence.
Extra-editorial activities.
Inkblots.
"The Varsitarian" hosts the annual Inkblots, a journalism workshop catered to campus journalism. The first Inkblots was held in 1999. In its 2011 edition, lecturers included musician and journalist Lourd de Veyra, "Philippine Star" columnist Quinito Henson, "Manila Bulletin" columnist Vim Nadera, GMA TV news reporter Cesar Apolinario, and GMANews.tv cartoonist Manix Abrera. In 2009, its lecturers were Apolinario, Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist Conrado de Quiros, "Tempo" entertainment editor Nestor Cuartero, and University of the Philippines vice president for public affairs Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo, among others.
Cinevita.
Starting from 2007, the paper hosts the Cinevita Film Festival, its annual film program. Its 2011 lineup included films "Peñafrancia: Ikaw ang Pagibig" by Marilou Diaz-Abaya and produced by the Dominican Order chronicling the life of Saint Dominic, Gil Portes's "Two Funerals", Milo Tolentino's "Andong, Blogog, Orasyon, P", "Demographic Winter", the winner of the UST Quadricentennial short film contest "The 13th Day: The Story of Fatima", and "The Rite".
Pautakan.
"The Varsitarian" organizes the Philippines' longest-running campus-based quiz contest called Pautakan. Almost all of the universities' constituent colleges and faculties participate in the event. The hosts for the 2011 event were former UAAP court side reporter Claude Despabiladeras, actor Dino Imperial and radio personality Andi Manzano.
Ustetika.
Ustetika is the country's longest-running university-based literary competition, founded by Vim Nadera in 1986. It bestows UST's highest literary award for students, the Rector's Literary Award. In 1997, the 1st Parangal Hagbong was introduced during the 13th Ustetika Awards to pay tribute to two great Thomasian writers, Rolando Tinio and Rogelio Sicat.
Creative Writing Workshop.
The Creative Writing Workshop, formerly the Fiction Workshop, started some time in 2004 and recently celebrated its 10th year in 2014. Its name was officially changed in its 9th year in 2013. It is an exclusive workshop facilitated by premier poets and fictionists for 12 to 16 Thomasians. Some of the panelists who graced the workshop include Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta, Carlomar Daoana, Jun Cruz Reyes, Eros Atalia, Joselito Delos Reyes, Rebecca Añonuevo, and Vim Nadera. |
Tom Brokaw
Thomas John Brokaw (; born February 6, 1940) is an American retired network television journalist and author. He first served as the co-anchor of "The Today Show" from 1976 to 1981 with Jane Pauley, then as the anchor and managing editor of "NBC Nightly News" for 22 years (1982–2004). At this position he was one of the "Big Three anchors" along with Dan Rather and Peter Jennings. In the previous decade he served as a weekend anchor for the program from 1973 to 1976. He is the only person to have hosted all three major NBC News programs: "The Today Show", "NBC Nightly News", and, briefly, "Meet the Press". He formerly held a special correspondent post for NBC News.
Along with his competitors Peter Jennings at ABC News and Dan Rather at CBS News, Brokaw was one of the "Big Three" U.S. news anchors during the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. All three hosted their networks' flagship nightly news programs for more than 20 years. Brokaw has also written several books on American history and society in the 20th century including "The Greatest Generation" (1998). He occasionally writes and narrates documentaries for other outlets. In 2021, NBC announced that Brokaw would retire after 55 years at the network, one of the longest standing anchors in the world at the same news network.
Brokaw is recipient of numerous awards and honors including the two Peabody Awards, and two Emmy Awards, as well the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which was awarded to him by President Barack Obama in 2014. and a French Legion of Honor in 2016.
Early life.
Brokaw was born in Webster, South Dakota, the son of Eugenia "Jean" ("née" Conley; 1917–2011), who worked in sales and as a post-office clerk, and Anthony Orville "Red" Brokaw (1912–1982). He was the eldest of their three sons (brothers named William and Michael) and named for his maternal great-grandfather, Thomas Conley.
His father was a descendant of Huguenot immigrants Bourgon and Catherine ("née" Le Fèvre) Broucard, and his mother was Irish-American, although the origin of the name Brokaw is contested. His paternal great-grandfather, Richard P. Brokaw, founded the town of Bristol, South Dakota, and the Brokaw House, a small hotel and the first structure in Bristol.
Brokaw's father was a construction foreman for the Army Corps of Engineers. He worked at the Black Hills Ordnance Depot (BHOD) and helped construct Fort Randall Dam; his job often required the family to resettle throughout South Dakota during Brokaw's early childhood. The Brokaws lived for short periods in Bristol, Igloo (the small residential community of the BHOD), and Pickstown, before settling in Yankton, where Brokaw attended high school.
As a high school student attending Yankton Senior High School, Brokaw was governor of South Dakota American Legion Boys State, and in that capacity he accompanied then-South Dakota Governor Joe Foss to New York City for a joint appearance on a TV game show. It was to be the beginning of a long relationship with Foss, whom Brokaw would later feature in his book about World War II veterans, "The Greatest Generation". Brokaw also became an Advisory Board member of the Joe Foss Institute.
Brokaw matriculated at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, but dropped out after a year as he apparently failed to keep up in his studies, in his words majoring in "beer and co-eds". In 2010, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University, and he later donated his papers to the University of Iowa Libraries. He joked that the "honorary degree is especially coveted because it helps to make up for the uneven (to put it mildly) performance of my freshman year." He later transferred to the University of South Dakota, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1964 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science.
For several years, Brokaw mountain-climbed with the "Do Boys," whose members included Yvon Chouinard and Douglas Tompkins. He owned 53-acres with a home in Pound Ridge, New York, for over two decades.
Broadcasting career.
1966–1981: Early years.
Brokaw's television career began at KTIV in Sioux City, Iowa followed by stints at KMTV in Omaha, Nebraska, and WSB-TV in Atlanta, In 1966, he joined NBC News, reporting from Los Angeles and anchoring the 11:00 pm news for KNBC. In 1973, NBC made Brokaw White House correspondent, covering the Watergate scandal, and anchor of the Saturday editions of "Nightly News." He became co-host (with Jane Pauley) of NBC's "Today Show" in 1976 and remained in the job until 1981, when he was succeeded by Bryant Gumbel.
He kept a closely guarded secret for many years, in 2017 Brokaw wrote of having been offered – and having promptly turned down – the press secretary position in the Nixon White House in 1969. While living in California before Nixon made his political comeback, Brokaw had come to know H. R. 'Bob' Haldeman (White House chief of staff and initiator of the offer) as well as Nixon's press secretary, Ron Ziegler, and others members of the White House staff.
In 2019, Brokaw wrote a book entitled, "The Fall of Richard Nixon: A Reporter Remembers Watergate", about his experiences working as a reporter and experiences as a member of the White House press corps.
1982–2004: "NBC Nightly News".
On April 5, 1982, Brokaw began co-anchoring "NBC Nightly News" from New York with Roger Mudd in Washington, succeeding John Chancellor. After a year, NBC News president Reuven Frank concluded that the dual-anchor program was not working and selected Brokaw to be sole anchor. The "NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw" commenced on September 5, 1983. Among other news items, he covered the Challenger disaster, EDSA Revolution, the June Struggle, Loma Prieta earthquake, fall of the Berlin Wall and Hurricane Andrew.
Brokaw scored a major coup when, on November 9, 1989, he was the first English-language broadcast journalist to report the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Brokaw attended a televised press conference organized in East Berlin by Günter Schabowski, press spokesman for East German Politburo, which had just decided to allow its citizens to apply to permanently leave the country through its border with West Germany. When Schabowski was asked when this loosening of regulations would take effect, he glanced through his notes, then said, "sofort, unverzüglich" ("immediately, without delay"), touching off a stampede of East Berliners to the Wall. Brokaw had an interview with Schabowski after the press conference, who repeated his "immediately" statement when pressed. Later that evening Brokaw reported from the west side of Brandenburg Gate on this announcement and pandemonium that had broken out in East Berlin because of it.
As anchor, Brokaw conducted the first one-on-one American television interviews with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He and Katie Couric hosted a prime-time newsmagazine, "Now", that aired from 1993 to 1994 before being folded into the multi-night "Dateline NBC" program.
Also, in 1993, on the first broadcast of "Late Show with David Letterman" on CBS, in response to David Letterman's monologue containing jokes about NBC, Brokaw walked on stage in a surprise cameo (accompanied by Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra playing the "NBC Nightly News" theme). He congratulated Letterman on his new show and wished him well, but also stated he was disappointed and shocked; he subsequently walked over to the man holding the cue cards, took two, and remarked, "These last two jokes are the intellectual property of NBC!", leaving the stage afterwards. Letterman then remarked, "Who would have thought you would ever hear the words 'intellectual property' and 'NBC' in the same sentence?"
In 1996 Brokaw made the following statement about Richard Jewell's suspected involvement in the 1996 Olympic Park bombing, after which Jewell sued NBC News:
Even though NBC stood by its story, the network agreed to pay Jewell $500,000.
On September 11, 2001, Brokaw joined Katie Couric and Matt Lauer around 9:30 a.m., following the live attack on the South Tower of the World Trade Center, and continued to anchor all day, until after midnight. Following the collapse of the second tower, Brokaw observed: "This is war. This is a declaration and an execution of an attack on the United States." He continued to anchor coverage to midnight on the following two days. Later that month, a letter containing anthrax was addressed to him as part of the 2001 anthrax attacks. Brokaw was not harmed, but two NBC News employees were infected. In 2008, he testified before the Commission on Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism about the anthrax attacks, publicly discussing his experiences for the first time in a detailed, day-by-day account.
In 2002, NBC announced that Brokaw would retire as anchor of the "NBC Nightly News" following the 2004 Presidential election, to be succeeded by Brian Williams. Brokaw would remain with NBC News in a part-time capacity from that point onwards, serving as an analyst and anchoring and producing documentary programs. Brokaw closed his final "Nightly News" broadcast in front of 15.7 million viewers on NBC on December 1, 2004, by saying:
By the end of his time as "Nightly News" anchor, Brokaw was regarded as the most popular news personality in the United States. "Nightly News" had moved into first place in the Nielsen ratings in late 1996 and held on to the spot for the remainder of Brokaw's tenure on the program, placing him ahead of ABC's Peter Jennings and "World News Tonight", and CBS's Dan Rather and the "CBS Evening News".
Along with Jennings and Rather, Brokaw helped usher in the era of the TV news anchor as a lavishly compensated, globe-trotting star in the 1980s. The magnitude of a news event could be measured by whether Brokaw and his counterparts on the other two networks showed up on the scene. Brokaw's retirement in December 2004, followed by Rather's ousting from the "CBS Evening News" in March 2005, and Jennings's death in August 2005, brought that era to a close.
2004–2021: After "Nightly News".
After leaving the anchor chair, Brokaw remained at NBC as Special Correspondent, providing periodic reports for "Nightly News". He served as an NBC analyst during the 2008 presidential election campaign and moderated the second presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain at Belmont University. He reported documentaries for the Discovery Channel and the History Channel and in 2006 delivered one of the eulogies during the state funeral of former President Gerald R. Ford.
On June 13, 2008, when NBC interrupted its regular programming to announce the sudden death of NBC News Washington Bureau Chief and "Meet the Press" moderator Tim Russert, Brokaw served as the announcer. A week later, NBC announced that Brokaw would serve as host of "Meet the Press" on an interim basis. He was succeeded by David Gregory in December 2008.
Brokaw serves on the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the International Rescue Committee and the Mayo Clinic. He is also a member of the Howard University School of Communications Board of Visitors and a trustee of the University of South Dakota, the Norton Simon Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and the International Rescue Committee. He also provides the voiceover for a University of Iowa advertisement that airs on television during Iowa Hawkeyes athletic events.
In 2011 Brokaw began hosting "The Boys in the Hall", a baseball documentary series for Fox Sports Net.
In December 2012, Brokaw starred in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's annual Christmas concert, with live audiences of 84,000. The concert, titled "Home for the Holidays", was nationally televised in December 2013.
In April 2014, a new broadcast facility opened on the Universal Studios Hollywood lot, and named in Brokaw's honor as the Brokaw News Center. The facility houses KNBC-TV, Telemundo owned-and-operated station KVEA, and the Los Angeles bureau of NBC News.
In November 2014, President Barack Obama presented Brokaw with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, American's highest civilian honor. He received the honor with the citation, "The chronicler of the Greatest Generation...we celebrate him as one of our nation’s greatest journalists".
On March 11, 2016, Brokaw gave one of the eulogies for former First Lady Nancy Reagan at her funeral. He spoke about his relationship with both the Reagans as a reporter and later anchor.
On January 22, 2021, NBC announced Brokaw would retire after 55 years at the network, one of the few news anchors in the world who have spent the longest time on the same news network, along with Ecuadorian news anchor Alfonso Espinosa de los Monteros who has been in Ecuavisa since 1967.
Personal life.
Since 1962, Brokaw has been married to author Meredith Lynn Auld. They have three daughters: Jennifer, Andrea, and Sarah. Brokaw and his wife spend considerable time at their ranch near Livingston, Montana, which they bought in 1989.
On September 6, 2012, Brokaw was hospitalized after appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe". He later tweeted that he was "all well" and explained his illness as having accidentally taken half a dose of Ambien in the morning. He was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a treatable but incurable blood cancer, in August 2013 at the Mayo Clinic. Brokaw and his physicians were "very encouraged with his progress". He continued to work for NBC throughout his treatments. On December 21, 2014, Brokaw announced that his cancer is in full remission. His book "A Lucky Life Interrupted" tells the personal and compelling story of his battle with multiple myeloma.
In 2018, Brokaw was accused of unwanted sexual advances toward two women in the 1990s. Brokaw denied the allegations. In response to the allegations, former colleagues Rachel Maddow, Andrea Mitchell, Maria Shriver, Kelly O'Donnell, and 64 others, signed a letter characterizing Brokaw as "a man of tremendous decency and integrity".
Awards and honors.
Public and industry awards
Honorary degrees |
St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough
Saint Michael's Abbey (French: "Abbaye Saint-Michel") is a Benedictine abbey in Farnborough, Hampshire, England. The small community is known for its liturgy (which is sung in Latin and Gregorian chant), its pipe organ, and its liturgical publishing and printing. This abbey is also known for enshrining a Pontifically crowned image of Saint Joseph.
Public tours of the abbey take place every Saturday at 3pm, with the visit comprising a tour of the church and a visit to the crypt.
History.
Following the fall of the Second French Empire in 1870, Napoleon III (1808–1873), his wife Empress Eugénie (1826–1920) and their son the Prince Imperial (1856–1879) were exiled from France and took up residence in England at Camden Place in Chislehurst, Kent, where Napoleon III died in 1873. He was originally buried at St Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Chislehurst. Following the death of the Prince Imperial in 1879, the grief-stricken Empress Eugénie set about establishing a monument to her family.
She founded the Abbey in 1881 as a mausoleum for her husband and son, wishing that the burial site should be a place of prayer and silence. The Abbey included an Imperial Crypt, modelled on the crypt of Saint-Denis basilica near Paris, where the Emperor had originally desired to be buried. Empress Eugénie was later buried alongside her husband and son. All three rest in granite sarcophagi that were provided by Queen Victoria.
The Abbey Church itself was designed in an eclectic flamboyant gothic style by the renowned French architect Gabriel-Hippolyte Destailleur, and it contains the thigh bone of St Alban, the largest relic of the saint in England. After the church and monastery were founded, they were initially administered by Premonstratensian Canons. In 1895, the Empress replaced them with French Benedictine monks from St Peter's Abbey, Solesmes. Dom Fernand Cabrol, a noted scholar, became prior and afterwards abbot (1903), remaining in the post until his death in 1937. Dom Henri Leclercq and a small group of French monks joined the house at the same time, and Leclercq and Cabrol collaborated for many years in scholarly endeavours. The medievalist and liturgist Dom André Wilmart (1876–1941) was a monk of the abbey.
The church's present two-manual organ was installed in 1905, built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll & Company. The instrument's origins are shrouded in mystery. Although installed after the death of Cavaillé-Coll, it bears his name rather than that of his son-in-law Mutin, and the internal works are of a quality which identifies this model with the highest standards of workmanship of the high days of that company.
The community, once famed for its scholarly writing and musical tradition of Gregorian chants, became depleted in number by 1947, and most of the remaining monks dispersed to houses of the Solesmes Congregation, in particular Quarr Abbey. Farnborough was once more resettled, this time by a small group of English monks from Prinknash Abbey in Gloucestershire. The last French monk, Dom Leopold Zerr, for many years the abbey's organist, died in 1956. In 2006, the community elected the first English Abbot of Farnborough—the Right Reverend Dom Cuthbert Brogan.
Catholic National Library.
The Catholic Central Library was set up by the Catholic Truth Society after the First World War. It was maintained for many years by the Graymoor Friars in Westminster until they were obliged to withdraw. It moved into the care of St Michael's Abbey in 2007 for a probationary period pending a final decision on its future. In 2007, it was renamed the Catholic National Library, and it is one of the finest collections of Roman Catholic books in England. In 2015, the collection was relocated to Durham University Library.
National Shrine to Saint Joseph.
The "National Shrine to Saint Joseph" at Saint Michael's Abbey is cared for by the monks of Farnborough. A statue of Saint Joseph in a side chapel to the right of the high altar in the monastery church initially belonged to the Mill Hill Fathers, founded by Herbert Vaughan in 1866. At Vaughn's request, Pope Pius IX granted a canonical coronation for the statue, conducted by Henry Cardinal Manning on the occasion of the dedication of the chapel of St Joseph's College on 13 April 1874.
The Missionary Institute of London was established in the late 1960s to consolidate training facilities for the various mission societies in Britain. St Joseph's College was closed in 2006. The property was subsequently sold, and the Society relocated to Maidenhead. Farnborough Abbey agreed to receive the Shrine's statue and altars, and the present National Shrine was erected in 2008. (A second statue of St Joseph, formerly at the entrance to the Mill Hill property, was sent to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.) |
1831 Bristol riots
The 1831 Bristol riots took place on 29–31 October 1831 and were part of the 1831 reform riots in England. The riots arose after the second Reform Bill was voted down in the House of Lords, stalling efforts at electoral reform. The arrival of the anti-reform judge Charles Wetherell in the city on 29 October led to a protest, which degenerated into a riot. The civic and military authorities were poorly focused and uncoordinated and lost control of the city. Order was restored on the third day by a combination of a "posse comitatus" of the city's middle-class citizens and military forces.
Much of the city centre was burnt, up to £300,000 of damage caused and up to 250 casualties incurred. The city's mayor Charles Pinney was tried for failing to prevent the riot and acquitted. The military commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Brereton was court-martialled on a similar charge and committed suicide before he could be sentenced. A renewed third reform bill passed in 1832, as the Great Reform Act, introducing sweeping changes to the electoral system. Local government in Bristol was likewise reformed with the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act 1835.
Background.
In early 19th-century Britain there were large discrepancies in the size of constituencies of the lower house, the House of Commons. Some seats, so called rotten boroughs returned up to two Members of Parliament (MPs) from a small number of electors, while seats in new urban centres, such as Manchester, had no MPs.
In March 1831 an attempt was made by the Whigs to introduce a Reform Bill to address the matter. This was defeated in parliament and the prime minister, Earl Grey, resigned. Grey was returned to office with a majority in the subsequent general election and introduced a second Reform Bill. This passed in the House of Commons but was defeated in the Lords on 8 October 1831. Bristol, a city of 100,000 people, was represented by just two members of parliament.
The rejection of the bill and the second resignation of Grey resulted in a period of political upheaval which has since been characterised as "the closest that Britain came to revolution". Inhabitants of cities and towns were angry at the failure to pass the bill and there were serious disturbances in London, Derby, Leicester, Yeovil, Sherborne, Exeter, Bath, Worcester and Bristol. The disturbances in Birmingham were so severe that the British Army's Scots Greys cavalry regiment was deployed to the city. Full scale riots erupted in Bristol, Nottingham and Derby.
The Bristol Recorder (senior judge) Charles Wetherell was a noted opponent of the Reform Bill. Although he was given a hero's welcome in the city in 1829 for his opposition to Catholic emancipation, he sparked controversy in 1830 for stating in parliament that the people of Bristol opposed reform. The city had, in fact, sent a petition of 17,000 names to support reform and hosted large pro-reform public meetings in the first week of October. Wetherell himself was MP for the Yorkshire rotten borough of Boroughbridge. Boroughbridge, with just 48 electors, was set to be abolished by the Reform Bill. Wetherell was due to attend the court of assizes in Bristol at the end of October.
Preceding days.
The Mayor of Bristol and head of its local authority, the Bristol Corporation, was Charles Pinney, a Whig and a supporter of the Reform Bill. His election, in September, may have been arranged by the other aldermen of the city, who were mainly anti-reform Tories, to curry favour with pro-reform elements and to reduce the likelihood of unrest. Pinney, by virtue of his office, was responsible for leading the response of the civil authorities to the riots. The citizens were angered as they regarded Pinney, who had not publicly supported electoral reform since taking office, as having abandoned the cause to join the Establishment.
The Bristol Political Union (BPU), under William Herapath, was a key organisation in the city supporting reform. On 18 October the BPU broke up a meeting of sailors who were discussing forming a bodyguard for Wetherell's arrival. On 24 October a riot was narrowly averted when pro-reform citizens protested the arrival of George Henry Law, Bishop of Bath and Wells for the consecration of a new church in Bedminster. Law had voted against the Reform Bill in the House of Lords (from 22 present Lords Spiritual 21 voted against the bill).
The BPU met with the city magistrates in October and agreed to maintain neutrality during any civil disturbance, provided that troops were not used. Herapath called off the agreement on 25 October, when he learnt that the magistrates had requested troops be sent to the city. Herapath later stated that he was confident that he could have maintained order in the city, had the troops not been deployed.
The Bristol under-sheriff had command of only 100 constables and estimated that at least 300 would be required to deal with the anticipated size of the protests against Wetherell. Herapath refused to allow BPU members to be enlisted as special constables and there were few volunteers from the middle class who were traditionally called upon to provide this service. The magistrates managed to enlist 119 volunteers, but many of these were of known violent tendencies. Despite having the power to do so the magistrates did not order the yeomanry or half-pay and retired army personnel to be called up. They did, however, clear weapons from the city's gun smiths in case of looting.
The city magistrates requested British Army troops be sent to help with any disorder. The government was reluctant to send any, knowing that it would be unpopular with the public, but eventually the Home Secretary William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne authorised the deployment of a force of 93 soldiers to be only used in the case of an "absolute emergency". These were a mix of men from the 14th Light Dragoons and the 3rd Dragoon Guards. The 14th were unpopular in Bristol as they had recently been involved in the suppression of disorder in the West Country, where they had earned the nickname the "Bloody Blues".
During the course of the riots men of this regiment, recognisable in their distinctive blue uniforms, would be jeered by the crowd while those of the 3rd, a regiment based locally, were cheered. Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Brereton was commander of the 3rd Dragoon Guards and led the military response to the riots. He was a supporter of reform and, after the riots, would be accused of having sympathies with the mob.
When the troops arrived in the city the aldermen and magistrates refused to ride at the head of the troops as they crossed the city boundary, as tradition demanded. The officials were fearful that doing so would cause the mob to single out their businesses for looting and arson.
29 October.
The location of Wetherell's entrance into the city had been changed for security reasons but soon became common knowledge and he was met with a mob upon his arrival on 29 October. The carriage carrying Wetherell and Pinney was stoned and they sought refuge at the corporation's Mansion House. Violence escalated, particularly after the special constables carried out a number of charges into the crowd, one of which led to the death of a member of the public. There were disputes between the dragoons and the constables over the perceived heavy-handedness of the latter. Pinney twice spoke to the crowd to attempt to regain control, but felt he had no option but to read the Riot Act at dusk, by which time many of the special constables had abandoned their posts.
The rioting continued into the night and the Mansion House was stormed, the 14th Light Dragoons attempted to halt the riot and shot one man dead whilst doing so. Wetherell fled the Mansion House via the rooftop to an adjacent building and Pinney escaped to seek refuge at a friend's house where he spent much of the following day.
30 October.
The looting of the Mansion House continued from 7 am on 30 October, a Sunday. Its wine cellar was emptied and the building set on fire. Efforts to control the riot were hampered by a crowd of middle-class onlookers, who encouraged the rioters. Pinney ordered a notice to be read out in the city's places of worship that morning that ordered a "posse comitatus" to be formed. However, fewer than 200 men answered the call and these mostly dispersed when the civic authorities failed to organise them effectively. Part of the problem was that the civic authorities moved their headquarters between a number of different buildings. This meant that their leaders were hard to locate at key times, for example on 30 October a force of 57 men from the Dodington yeomanry arrived in the city but were withdrawn by their officer when no magistrate could be found to requisition lodgings. Herapath spoke to the mob but failed to halt the violence, he later offered to mobilise the BPU members as a peacekeeping force but was refused by Pinney who thought it would reflect badly upon the authorities.
There was mistrust between the civic and military leaders and confusion over what actions to take. Pinney's orders to Brereton were vague and did not explicitly authorise the use of deadly force; at one point Brereton had to dissuade Pinney from issuing direct orders to fire into the crowd. Brereton had never served in a public order role before and behaved indecisively, he consistently overestimated the size of the rioting crowd and underestimated his ability to control it. Brereton may have been affected by the criticism the armed forces received for its actions in Manchester in 1819, in which 18 people were killed when cavalry charged a crowd in the so-called Peterloo Massacre.
A charge by the 14th Dragoons in Corn Street against a mob attacking the Council House resulted in the deaths of two men. Brereton believed an element in the 14th were provoking trouble with the crowd and, assured by the mob that they would disperse if the "Bloody Blues" were sent away, ordered them to withdraw. There was a short lull in the fighting, during which Wetherell escaped from the city disguised as a woman, but the mob afterwards attacked the town gaols. The few soldiers of the 3rd Dragoon Guards left on the scene were powerless to stop them; the Bridewell Jail, Lawford's Gate Prison and Gloucester County Prison were overrun and the prisoners freed.
Further destruction was inflicted upon houses, warehouses, tollhouses and civic buildings, particularly on Queen Square, Prince's Street and King Street. There was an attempt to attack the Bristol Corporation's dock company and the dock gates were burnt. Fires set at the Bishop's Palace, customs house, excise office and at other buildings were reportedly visible from Newport, Wales. Chants from the crowd included "Oh! It's only Corporation property!" to justify the destruction of civic buildings and "Down with the churches and mend the roads with them". It is known that a number of "fireballs" of flammable tow and pitch were manufactured for use by rioters; though otherwise they were armed only with improvised sticks, railings, and tools looted from blacksmiths.
31 October.
The destruction caused during the night of 30/31 October, in which many private houses were attacked, shocked the citizens of the city. The middle classes were provoked into action and some 3,000 men reported for duty in the posse comitatus on the following morning. An additional 100 soldiers from the 14th Light Dragoons arrived in the city later that day. Their officer, Major Beckwith, and a war office liaison officer, Major Mackworth, took control of the situation, without regard for Brereton's seniority. They responded to a rush of rioters on the southern side of Queen Square with a charge by the 3rd Dragoon Guards that effectively quelled the riot. The posse comitatus had largely restored order across the city by the time General Sir Richard Downes Jackson arrived from London with several hundred soldiers to do so.
Aftermath.
The riots were the worst in an English city since the 1780 Gordon Riots in London. The total death toll is unknown but twelve citizens are known to have been killed in clashes with the authorities; many other corpses were recovered later from within burned buildings. Historian Mark Harrison in 1988 estimated between 120 and 250 casualties from all parties. A large part of the city centre was destroyed and up to £300,000 of damage caused.
Bristol was governed by Jackson and his troops for four months. Many in parliament had no confidence in the local government under Pinney and set up a committee of enquiry to remove the Bristol magistrates from office, opposed by Melbourne, who claimed he lacked jurisdiction. Pinney was eventually brought to trial before the Court of King's Bench in October 1832 and acquitted.
Trials of the rioters were held in January 1832, 102 were tried and 31 were sentenced to death. One of the men sentenced to hang was a retired tradesman whose only crime was to shout encouragement to the rioters. He was singled out by the court for particular punishment because of the respectable position he held in society. Clemency was granted to all bar four of those sentenced to death after a petition of 10,000 names was presented, which included the names of people whose houses had been destroyed in the riot. Some 22 people were transported to Australia and 43 imprisoned. Captain Warrington of the 3rd Dragoon Guards was court-martialled and cashiered for failing to pass on a message to Brereton during the riot. The colonel himself was arraigned before a court-martial in January 1832. During the proceedings he offered to plead guilty to charges of failing to control the riot if the court agreed not to call any more witnesses. The court refused this request and Brereton committed suicide before a sentence could be passed.
Both pro-reform and anti-reform activists blamed the other for the riots. Pro-reformers suspected the Tory aldermen of Bristol of wanting the riots to get out of hand to discredit the movement while the Tories blamed the Whig government of withholding troops from the city authorities. It was alleged that the riots were directed by an external party; allegations were made of French involvement (revolutionaries there had overthrown Charles X in July 1830) and of members of the Birmingham Political Union travelling to the city, but not substantiated. Reform campaigners, eager to avoid any political connection to the riot, claimed the rioters were all youths, the unemployed and "women of abandoned character" from St Philips and Lawford's Gate areas of the city. However court records show the rioters seem to have largely been men aged 20–40 from the Temple and St James districts. Only one of those convicted of rioting was unemployed, for example.
Another common misconception of the time was that troublemakers had come from the Kingswood collieries; though the pit owners stated that their men had largely remained at work throughout the riots. No defendant claimed a political motive in court and many pleaded drunkenness as mitigation for their behaviour.
The Third Reform Bill, known afterwards as the Great Reform Act, finally passed in 1832 after a political crisis known as the Days of May. The Royal Commission on Municipal Corporations of 1833 thought Bristol's local authority was jealous of its power and incapable of controlling the city; with many city officials viewing their positions as sinecures. The corporation was reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835. Pinney returned to the corporation that year as an alderman, a position he held for 18 years, Wetherell lost his Boroughbridge seat as one of the rotten boroughs abolished by the Reform Act and did not sit in parliament again.
W. J. Müller's 1831 depictions of the riots.
The artist William James Müller, an artist of the Bristol School, witnessed the rioting and recorded some of the scenes in a series of "raw and brilliant oil and watercolour sketches". |
Jacques Chenevière
Jacques-Louis-Edmond Chenevière (17 April 1886, Paris – 22 April 1976, Bellevue GE, Switzerland), commonly known as Jacques Chenevière, was a Swiss poet, librettist and novelist from a Patrician family in Geneva. For more than sixty years, he also served as a humanitarian official in top-positions of management and organisation at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The award-winning author, whose father Adolphe Chenevière (1855–1917) was a critically acclaimed man of letters as well, wrote in French and became most famous for his works of psychological fiction. The external contexts of the plots were mostly set in Paris, Geneva or Provence. His "Œuvre" comprises ten novels, two books of poems as well as several essays, lyrics and novellas. He was widely considered to be one of the most important representatives of literature from Romandy in the 20th century.
Shortly after the beginning of the First World War, Chenevière took up a leading role in the International Prisoners-of-War Agency (IPWA). In 1919 he was elected as a member of the ICRC and in 1923 became its director-general. During the Second World War he was appointed the director of the Central Information Agency on Prisoners-of-War as well as of the Central Bureau of the ICRC. In 1945, he rose to be its vice-president for the first time. Within the ICRC leadership he belonged to the legalistic group which prevented a public denounciation of the Nazi-terror regime. In recent years, the ICRC has recognised that its silence about the holocaust was «the greatest failure» in its history.
Chenevière remained a regular member of the ICRC for half a century, which made him the one with the second-longest term of office in the history of the organisation. Upon his retirement in 1969 he was made an honorary member. A decade earlier he had been appointed as the first ever honorary vice-president of the ICRC.
Life.
Family background.
Chenevière's paternal family originated from L’Arbresle near Lyon. Since many of his forefathers were Protestant pastors, it may be assumed that they like many other Huguenots fled to Geneva because of the French Wars of Religion. In 1631, the Chenevières obtained Genevan citizenship. Their descendants are thus officially amongst the ten oldest families of the city. Jacques Chenevière's great-grandfather was Jean-Jacques-Caton Chenevière (1783–1871), who became a professor of dogmatic theology and played a major role in Genevan politics of the 19th century.
Jacques Chenevière's grandfather Arthur Chenevière (1822–1908) worked at the "Banque Bonna & Cie" which became what is today the private bank Lombard Odier & Co, one of the biggest players in the Swiss financial sector. In 1868, he founded the "Banque Chenevière & Cie" and later also became a board member of BNP Paribas and other banks. At the same time, he was the controversial leader of the "Parti indépendant" («Independent Party»). During a feud about election results in 1864 some of his supporters even had a bloody shoot-out in the city centre with followers of a rival party. Between 1864 and 1871, he led the treasury of the canton of Geneva, before serving as a member of the Grand Council of Geneva until 1888 and as a member of the National Council from 1878 until 1884. Arthur Chenevière was married to Susanne-Firmine Munier, a daughter of the influential theologian David-François Munier (1798-1872). A street in Cologny, one of the wealthiest municipalities in Switzerland, is named after the couple. The plot of land, where the Villa Chenevière used to be, is nowadays the seat of the World Economic Forum (WEF).
While two sons of Arthur and Susanne-Firmine became bankers as well and their daughter married the founder of the Union Bank (later UBS), their brother Adolphe did not pursue his career as an advocate but instead became a novelist and essayist. The four siblings thus embodied the development of their Patrician class, which «turned to banking and philanthropic activities at the end of the 19th century, after losing control of the major public offices in Geneva.»Adolphe moved to Paris around 1880, where he worked as a literary critic at the prestigious "Revue des Deux Mondes," which is today the oldest still existing cultural magazine in Europe. Jacques’ mother Blanche (1865–1911), née Lugol, originated from an area close to Nîmes, where her family owned the wine-growing estate of "Campuget". In his youth, Jacques Chenevière spent much of his holidays in Provence and Languedoc, which evidently inspired his literary works. The critic Charlotte König-von Dach argued that Jacques' mother gave him «the sparkling verve, the luster, and the mobility of poetic intuition as gifts from the "Midi de la France", in contrast to the heavier calvinist-protestant blood of Geneva».Jacques Chenevière grew up as a "de facto" single-child, since his younger brother André Alfred died in 1888 shortly after birth.
Education and early career.
Chenevière spent his childhood and youth in Paris during the cultural heyday of the "Belle Époque". Thanks to his privileged family background he had access to gatherings of artists like the famous "salon" of the painter Madeleine Lemaire (1845–1928). At a young age already he thus had personal encounters with luminaries like novelist Marcel Proust (1871–1922), the composer Reynaldo Hahn (1874–1947) and the stage actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923). Meanwhile, he received his secondary school education at the elitist Lycées "Carnot" and "Condorcet". He subsequently graduated from "Sorbonne Université" with a degree in humanities.
In 1906, Chenevière published his first poems in the "Revue de Paris". Three years later, a Parisian publishing company published his first book of poems: "Les beaux jours" («The beautiful days»). The "Académie Française" honoured the debut with the "Prix Archon-Despérouses", an award for young poets. Shortly afterwards, Chenevière was commissioned by the French composer Louis Aubert (1877–1968) to write the lyrics for the "Opéra-comique" "La forêt bleue" («The blue forest»), which premiered in Boston at the end of 1911.
When Chenevière's mother suddenly died in late 1911 from an embolism at the age of 46 years, he increasingly turned towards Geneva, which he only knew from the holidays he spent there. Hence, he started developing a life-long friendship with the Genevan composer and music educator Émile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865–1950), the founder of Dalcroze eurhythmics. Chenevière wrote the lyrics for the chorus of Jaques-Dalcroze's miming piece "Eco e Narciso" («Echo and Narcissus»), which premiered in 1912 at Jaques-Dalcroze's newly opened Hellerau Festival House near Dresden.
In 1913, Chenevière published his second book of poems: "La chambre et le jardin" («The chamber and the garden»). Many of the poems were also syndicated to the "Revue de Paris", the "Revue des Deux Mondes", for which his father worked, and to Swiss papers. In early 1914, Chenevière and his father moved from Paris to Geneva.
World War I.
Shortly after the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the ICRC under its president Gustave Ador established the International Prisoners-of-War Agency (IPWA) to trace POWs and to re-establish communications with their respective families. Chenevière was one of the first to register as a volunteer at the IPWA in September. He was joined by his father. The Austrian writer and pacifist Stefan Zweig described the situation during those early days at the agency as follows:«Hardly had the first blows been struck when cries of anguish from all lands began to be heard in Switzerland. Thousands who were without news of fathers, husbands, and sons in the battlefields, stretched despairing arms into the void. By hundreds, by thousands, by tens of thousands, letters and telegrams poured into the little House of the Red Cross in Geneva, the only international rallying point that still remained. Isolated, like stormy petrels, came the first inquiries for missing relatives; then these inquiries themselves became a storm. The letters arrived in sackfuls. Nothing had been prepared for dealing with such an inundation of misery. The Red Cross had no space, no organization, no system, and above all no helpers.»However, by the end of 1914 there were already some 1,200 volunteers working at the IPWA which was then housed inside the "Musée Rath". Amongst them was the French novelist and pacifist Romain Rolland, who was given his initial tasks by Chenevière. When Rolland was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for 1915, he donated half of the prize money to the Agency.
Most of the staff were women though. Some of them came from the Patrician class of Geneva and joined the IPWA because of male relatives in high ICRC positions, which was all-male for more than half century. This group included female pioneers like the legal scholar and historian Marguerite Cramer, the art historian Marguerite van Berchem, and the Dalcroze eurhythmics educator Suzanne Ferrière. The connection between the Chenevières came through family tradition and bonds as well: Adolphe's younger brother Edmond (1862–1932) was married to a daughter of the Milanese banker Charles Brot, who played a role when the ICRC was founded. The wife of Adolphe's older brother Alfred-Maurice (1848–1926) was related to the families of ICRC co-founder Gustave Moynier (1826–1910) and of his successor Ador.
Under those conditions, Chenevière quickly rose to become the co-director of the IPWA department which was responsible for the Triple Entente of the Russian Empire, the French Third Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Upon the suggestion of his co-director Cramer they established a system, which could cope with the flood of incoming information through index cards and catalogues.
At the same time, Chenevière established himself further in the cultural life of Geneva. Most notably, he joined the child psychologist Édouard Claparède (1873–1940) and his brother-in-law Auguste de Morsier (1864–1923), a prominent proponent of women's suffrage, to collect funds for Jaques-Dalcroze who was thus able to found his own institute in October 1915. The academy still exists today in the Eaux-Vives quarter of Geneva in the building which was purchased at the time from those donations. Chenevière also supported Georges Pitoëff, a student of Jaques-Dalcroze, when he founded his theatre group.
Moreover, Chenevière continued to work on his own literary career: in 1917, his first novel was published under the title "L’île déserte" («The lonely island») by "Éditions Bernard Grasset", one of the most important literary publishing companies in France. The plot about a Parisian man and a woman who get stranded on a polynesian atoll and gradually overcome their mutual resentments, was a scandalous affront for large swaths of the Calvinist-puritan upper-class. It is a striking example of Chenevière's «biting satire of the Genevan society which was imprisoned in its corset of moralism».
At the end of 1917, just a few months after Chenevière's father Adolphe had died at the age of 63 years, the ICRC received its first Nobel Peace Prize (ICRC founder Henry Dunant had been ousted because of his personal bankruptcy by co-founder Moynier and hence received the first Noble Peace Prize in 1901 as an individual). It was the only prize awarded during the war years. Chenevière as the co-director of the Entente-department at the IPWA had contributed accordingly to the honour.
Shortly before the end of the war, Jaques-Dalcroze premiered in his institute the eurhythmic show "Les premiers souvenirs" («The first memories») for which Chenevière had written the lyrics.
Between the World Wars.
In November 1919, the ICRC assembly voted for Chenevière to become its member. He subsequently worked in several commissions of the organisation, e.g. the one which decided upon the foreign missions of delegates and those which conducted negotiations with the newly founded League of National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
In August 1920, Chenevière and Marguerite Oehl got married in Neuchâtel. The bride, who was thirteen years younger than the groom, had graduated in the previous year with a diploma from the "Institut Jaques-Dalcroze." The couple moved into the luxurious "Villa Hauterive" («High Shore») in Cologny. The estate had originally been owned by the Turrettini family of prominent theologians. Before the Chenevières it had hosted other famous tenants, amongst them the Austrian-Hungarian composer Franz Liszt (1811–1886), the Swiss landscape painter Barthélemy Menn (1815–1893) and the French landscape painter Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (1796–1875), as well as the French artillery officer Alfred Dreyfus (1859–1935) after his acquittal in the Dreyfus affair.
The Chenevières lived in the mansion for a dozen years and made it a centre of "romand" and French high culture. Regular guests in their salon were the literary writers Gonzague de Reynold (1880–1970), Robert de Traz (1884–1951), Edmond Jaloux (1878–1949), Valery Larbaud (1881–1957), François Mauriac (1885–1970), Guy de Pourtalès (1881–1941) and Paul Valéry (1871–1945) as well as the composers Igor Strawinsky (1882–1971) and Jaques-Dalcroze. In 1922, Jacques Chenevière once more wrote lyrics for the grandmaster of eurhythmics, this time for "La fête de la jeunesse et de la joie" («The festival of youth and joy»).
In 1923, ICRC president Ador – who was Chenevière's nextdoor neighbour in Cologny – appointed him as director-general. Since the end of the Greco-Turkish War in the previous year a relatively calm period set in which lasted until the beginning of the Chaco War in 1932. This left Chenevière with more time for his literary activities:
In 1925, Chenevière took over the co-editorship of the "Bibliothèque universelle et Revue de Genève", which supported the principal mission of the Geneva-based League of Nations to foster international understanding and maintain world peace. With his childhood friend de Traz, who like him was born in Paris as the son of a Swiss father and a French mother, he especially promoted the revival of literary exchanges between the German- and French-speaking worlds. In this context they managed, for instance, to make the works by Thomas Mann and Rainer Maria Rilke socially acceptable in France again. The monthly magazine was published until 1930.
In May 1930, the Swiss Schiller Foundation awarded Chenevière for his novel "Les messagers inutiles" («The useless messengers»). At the same time, he was nominated by the Federal Council to serve as its representative on the board of that foundation, which he remained a member of for a quarter of a century.
In the years before the Second World War, Chenevière increased his activities at the ICRC. On the one hand side, he dealt with issues surrounding humanitarian assistance during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). On the other hand, he was a member of a commission that dealt with relief operations during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, a war of aggression and conquest which fascist Italy waged against the Ethiopian Empire in East Africa between 1935 and 1937. When the ICRC in March 1936 received reports from its delegate Marcel Junod, a medical doctor, about the Italian use of chemical weapons in Korem, ICRC-president Max Huber travelled to Rome with Chenevière and Carl Jacob Burckhardt, who was a professor of history at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva and a leading ICRC-member as well. According to Chenevière, Huber – a scholar of international law – mentioned the issue of poison gas warfare during a brief audience with dictator Benito Mussolini. During the internal debate which followed upon their return to Geneva, Chenevière joined the group of lawyers around Huber against the idealist faction led by Lucie Odier, a former nurse. The legalists argued that the ICRC had no legal mandate to denounce the use of weapons of mass destruction. They prevailed and eventually the ICRC only sent a cautious letter to the Italian Red Cross
World War II.
On 1 September 1939 – the very day of the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union – the "Revue de Paris" published an essay by Chenevière on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the first Geneva Convention in which he stressed that the ICRC and the whole Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement was ready and prepared for humanitarian interventions with regard to the lingering conflicts. Two weeks later, the ICRC opened the Central Agency for Prisoners of War. As the successor of the IPWA from WWI its mandate was based on the 1929 Geneva Convention. The ICRC leadership appointed Chenevière as its director.
When Nazi Germany started its Western Campaign on 10 May 1940 by invading the neutral states of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg, Chenevière reacted immediately by expanding the Central Agency. By the time of the German victory over France at the end of June it had already almost one thousand volunteers. As in the First World War, most of them were women. In order to cope with the information which came in as an unprecedented flood due to the new dimensions of human suffering, Chenevière introduced a modern data processing system which used punched cards. The US-based technology company IBM provided six pieces of unit record equipment for free. They were nicknamed Watson-machines and could tabulate, sort and cataolgue large numbers of index cards with unprecedented speed. It is, however a bitter irony of history that the Nazi regime on its part also used IBM technology to systematically organise the genocidal persecution of minorities in Europe.
In November 1941, Chenevière travelled to Vichy, where he discussed the situation of the French POWs in the German "Reich" with Marshal Philippe Pétain. At the same time, Chenevière received a first report about the so-called Final Solution, the genocide of European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. The Swiss ambassador in Bucharest, René de Weck (1887–1950), who as a "romand" poet and novelist was an old friend of Chenevière's, sent a private letter to him with an alarming message:«Dear Chenevière, As I am sure you are aware, the Jews of Romania have for some time, particularly since the country's declaration of war against the USSR, been the object of systematic persecution, compared to which the massacres in Armenia which aroused such indignation in Europe at the dawn of our century seem as harmless as children's games. [..] inhuman acts of violence, despoilments of every kind, deportations, executions and massacres which have taken place.»
De Weck strongly suggested that the ICRC send a delegate under the pretext of another mission to Romania where he could then gather relevant information. De Weck was certain that thanks to the reputation of the ICRC the Romanian government would not ignore the resulting recommendations: «Thousands of lives now under threat could thus be saved.» However, despite the urging, Chenevière only replied more than a month later that «we do not feel able to resolve the question which you put to me».
In 1942, the University of Geneva awarded an honorary doctorate in humanities to Chenevière. In the same year, he took over the editorship of the book review page at the "Journal de Genève", a liberal daily newspaper, which had contributed to the founding of the ICRC by publishing a report by Dunant about the Battle of Solferino. He kept that position for about a decade.
By the autumn of 1942 the ICRC had received more reports about the ongoing holocaust. In the plenary session on 14 October a clear majority of its members – led by Marguerite Frick-Cramer, Suzanne Ferrière and Lucie Odier – supported as the ultimate intervention a public denouncation of the genocide. However, the top-leaders around Burckhardt, who chaired the meeting since president Huber had fallen ill, and Philipp Etter, who was not only a member but also the powerful President of the Confederation, rejected this proposal steadfastly. Chenevière sided with his friend Burckhardt, who was married to a daughter of Chenevière's right-wing-authoritarianist friend Gonzague de Reynold (Etter was widely considered to be a disciple of Gonzague de Reynold). The legalists argued that an open protest against the Nazi-terror regime would jeopardise the charitable activities of the ICRC. Chenevière warned on several other occasions as well about the consequences of any extension of its protection efforts and insisted that the ICRC should stick to its traditional operations, especially taking care of POWs.In 1943, Chenevière published his novel "Les captives" («The captives»), which is generally considered as his masterpiece. While the plot does not refer directly to the catastrophes of the Second World War, the book reviews suggest that the moral struggles at the ICRC did have a major impact on it. As one put it:«Its theme is the unfathomable human heart, shackled by distrust and barricades of defense. From these dark chambers the doom of a whole house is caused. In inescapable consistency events get rolling which have been set in motion by men from within their own chests. Nothing turns out to be good, not even the possibility of a compromise appears anywhere on the horizon of this beset world. The law of great tragedy reigns here; entanglement and downfall of a character from the fatal conditions of his own nature.»
In late 1944, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that it awarded the ICRC its second Nobel Peace Prize after 1917. As in World War I, it was the only recipient during the war years. The jury in Oslo credited the ICRC with its Central Agency, led by Chenevière, for «the great work it has performed during the war on behalf of humanity.»
Post-WWII.
In June 1946, Chenevière published a lengthy article in the "Revue de Paris" about the ICRC activities during WWII. Towards the end of the essay he also dealt with the question why the ICRC remained silent about the Shoa. However, he deliberately failed to mention the fact that his friend de Weck had suggested to him in 1941 a promising way to obtain independent information:«People have expressed surprise that the ICRC did not protest publicly while there was still time. But what could it have protested about? Its own powerlessness? But all the states that were signatories to the Conventions knew the reason and yet failed to make any protest themselves. Could it have protested against the brutal treatment the deportees claimed they were suffering from? But the ICRC had no way of confirming, even partially, such statements. Besides, experience proved that public protests by the ICRC not supported by observations of its own were fruitless, doing more harm than good. In the absence of hard proof they were taken by the accused country as evidence of "a priori" bias, and put in jeopardy the other activities which the Red Cross was duty bound under the Conventions to carry out.
Protest can be the last resort of the weak. Or they can be a quick way of salving our conscience and giving us the illusion of having done something. Even then, anyone indulging in them needs to be totally free of obligations that imply effective action. Some will always say 'the public must be told'. But that often amounts to a call for reprisals, and the Red Cross must never take the risk of stoking a fire that is ever ready to flare up. So it was in silence, though with all its strength, that the ICRC laboured on behalf of the deportees.
The afore-mentioned is the description of a tragic problem and not an act of self-justification.»
In May 1947, Chenevière as well as his old friend Jaques-Dalcroze and the painter Alexandre Blanchet received the Prize of Geneva in the city's theatre. It was awarded for the first time that year and henceforth every three years to honour artists who had increased the reputation of Geneva.
Upon the occasion of the 30th anniversary of his ICRC membership, the ICRC assembly awarded Chenevière at the end of 1949 the gold medal of the organisation. He was only the second person after Huber who received that honour. At the same time, Chenevière remained active at the top of the organisation as a member of the presidential council, as chairman of the commission for external affairs and from 1950 until 1952 once more as vice-president. He thus continued to participate both in daily politics and strategic decisions, especially with regard to the humanitarian crises in Algeria, Greece, Indochina, Indonesia, Korea, Palestine / Israel, Syria, and Tunisia.
In early 1955, Chenevière retired from the board of the Swiss Schiller Foundation, where he had represented the Federal Council since 1930. However, in June of the same year he still delivered the main speech at the Zürich Town Hall during the award ceremony for the Great Prize of the foundation which honoured Gonzague de Reynold, Chenevière's old friend who as an apologist of Switzerland's aristocratic past and sympathiser of authoritarian regimes was very controversial back then and has remained so ever since. Two years later, Chenevière received the award of the foundation for his own complete works.
In late 1959, upon the 40th anniversary of Chenevière's membership, the ICRC assembly appointed him honorary vice-president. The title was created especially for him. Four years later, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the ICRC its third Nobel Peace Prize after 1917 and 1944. It has remained since then the only organisation which received the award that often. Only Chenevière and Marguerite van Berchem were active top-officials at the ICRC during all three times (Marguerite Frick-Cramer was an honorary member when the Nobel Committee announced its decision in late 1963, a few days before her death).
In 1966, Chenevière published his memoirs, titled "Retours et images" («Recollections and images»), in which he however did not revisit the silence about the holocaust. At the end of the same year, the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium awarded him its Grand Prize for French-language literature from outside of France. In 1968, the "Académie française" once again honoured Chenevière, almost six decades after awarding him as one of the best newcomers in poetry, with the "Prix du Rayonnement de la langue et de la littérature françaises".
In November 1969, Chenevière retired for age reasons as ICRC member after half a century. In the history of the organisation only Ador served longer than him. At the same time, the ICRC assembly appointed its honorary vice-president also honorary member. ICRC president Marcel Naville praised Chenevière's constant commitment as well as his«unique discernment»
Chenevière died on 22 April 1976, just a few days after his 90th birthday, in Bellevue GE, a municipality on Lake Geneva's right bank, close to the ICRC headquarters. The Chenevières had lived there in a lake-view mansion for decades since moving out of the Villa Hauterive in Cologny. Jacques Chenevière was buried in between the graves of his parents and his mother-in-law on the cemetery of Collonge-Bellerive, a municipality on Lake Geneva's left bank, where he had a second residency on the shores. The obituaries in the Swiss newspapers focused on his literary legacy. The daily "Thuner Tagblatt" noted: «The vividness with which he portrayed human characters was accompanied by the subtility of his linguistic skills. The knowledge about the severity and the doubtfulness of being went along with a relaxing cheerfulness. It is just fair to call him one of the most important representatives of the Western Swiss and – moreover – the protestant French-language literature of our contemporary times.» The ICRC published in its journal "Revue internationale de la Croix-Rouge" an encomium that borrowed heavily from the apologia which Chenevière published in 1946, arguing that the ICRC could only work silently behind the scenes and try to convince the actors so that it would not jeoparidise its position as a neutral mediator. Since the public apology of its president Cornelio Sommaruga (* 1932) in 1995, the ICRC had acknowledged that its silence about the holocaust was «the greatest failure» in its history. However, two decades earlier the then leadership still defended the diplomatic reserve, for which Chenevière carried major responsibility, and honoured him as a man«who gave to the Red Cross the best from his energy, his intelligence and his heart»
Legacy.
In early 1987, the "Bibliothèque publique et universitaire de Genève" organised an exhibition about Chenevière's life and works to celebrate the centenary of his birthday.
In 1991, Chenevière's widow Marguerite died at the age of 92 years.
In 1992, Chenevière's masterpiece Les captives was reissued. In the same year, the "Fondation Jacques et Marguerite Chenevière" was established in Geneva. Its stated purpose was to spend the income from its capital partly or completely on supporting recognised institutions which assist elderly people, especially women, in need.
The graves of Chenevière and his wife Marguerite, who did not have children, of Marguerite's mother Marie (1864–1957) as well as those of his parents Adolphe and Blanche at the cemetery of Collonge-Bellerive are scheduled to be levelled in 2022.
List of works.
Biographies and essays.
In French
In German
In English
Novels and novellas.
In French
In German |
Agents of Atlas
The Agents of Atlas are a fictional superhero team appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The first lineup was composed of characters originally appearing in unrelated stories published in the 1950s by Marvel's predecessor company, Atlas Comics. The characters debuted as a team in "What If" #9 (June 1978) and starred in the 2006 limited series "Agents of Atlas", written by Jeff Parker and with art by Leonard Kirk.
In 2019, the team's lineup was revamped as a new team made up of Asian and Asian American superheroes as "The New Agents of Atlas", written by Greg Pak and art by Gang Hyuk Lim.
Publication history.
This group of heroes, which was not a team in 1950s comics, was established through retroactive continuity as having been formed in the 1950s. They originally appeared as a group in the alternate-universe story "What If" #9 (June 1978) and then reappeared in "Avengers Forever" (1998–2000 miniseries), in which they and their reality were destroyed.
The limited series "Agents of Atlas" #1–6 (Oct. 2006 – March 2007) was set in the present day and likewise set in mainstream continuity. The series emerged from what writer Parker called "a huge editorial hunch" at Marvel, and said the revival of the characters "is something that [editor] Mark Paniccia was looking at and [for which he] thought specifically of me, and asked me what I would do with it". Paniccia says the idea came to him when he picked up a copy of the "What if?" story and found the cover "intriguing".
The team made a brief appearance in "The Resistance", an eight-page story that was part of the Secret Invasion crossover story arc. Parker and editor Paniccia said in July 2008, that the former will write an "Agents of Atlas" ongoing series which was one of the titles launched as part of the Dark Reign storyline. That series ended after eleven issues but the title relaunched as part of the "Heroic Age" under the title "Atlas" because, according to Parker, it not only makes for a smaller logo but it is a "natural progression to what most people call the book and the team". The series was canceled with "Atlas" #5.
During "War of the Realms" a new iteration of the Agents of Atlas debuted in the "War of the Realms: Agents of Atlas" mini-series. This new team, along with the classic roster, was featured together in a new, 5-issue "Agents of Atlas" limited series.
Characters.
The original team, with the individual characters' debuts in chronological order, consists of:
Other characters from the original "What if?" story, such as Jann of the Jungle, made guest appearances. Parker explained that original "What if?" team-member the 3-D Man was left out "[b]ecause he wasn't really around in the 1950s" books, having been introduced in 1977 in "Marvel Premiere", with stories set in the 1950s.
After the Agents of Atlas took over the Atlas Foundation, the following characters joined as Atlas Foundation members:
During the "War of the Realms", Jimmy Woo recruited several of his teammates from the Asian American superhero team the Protectors as well as several new Asian superheroes to form "The New Agents of Atlas" to stop the Queen of Cinders invading the Asian continent. The current members consist of:
The Inhuman Pakistani-American superheroine Ms. Marvel was offered membership along with the other Protectors, but left to rejoin her original team the Champions in New York before she could accept the offer. M-41 Zu, a mystically enhanced android created by Jimmy and the Atlas foundation, briefly joined the team under the guise of the Hawaiian volcano goddess Pele. The Immortal Monkey King Sun Wukong of the Ascendants briefly assisted the team as well.
When most of the Agents are summoned to the portal city of Pan, they are introduced to the current Giant-Man, Raz Malhotra, who is informally recruited into Atlas by Amadeus when rejecting Mike Nguyen's offer to become Pan's protectors. Following the "Atlantis Attacks" storyline, Brawn and Shang-Chi leave the team while Issac Ikeda, the Protector of Pan, officially joins the team.
Fictional team biography.
The group was formed in Spring 1958 by Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Jimmy Woo to rescue President Dwight D. Eisenhower from the villainous Yellow Claw. Woo first recruits Venus and Marvel Boy. He then tries to recruit Namora, who declines but tells Woo where to find a broken but potentially useful robot named M-11. While Marvel Boy fixes M-11, Woo asks Jann of the Jungle to take Marvel Boy to extend an invitation to the Gorilla-Man, who accepts Woo's offer. The group quickly rescues President Eisenhower and remains together for six months until the federal government, deciding the public is not ready for such a group, disbands it and classifies information about it.
Years later, Woo, by now a high-ranking agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., attempts a secret raid of a group identified as the Atlas Foundation. Going AWOL and taking several other willing agents with him, Woo invades an Atlas location, resulting in all of the recruits being killed. Woo himself is critically burned and loses his higher brain functions. The Gorilla-Man, by now also a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, gives the organization a record of the 1950s team, of which S.H.I.E.L.D. had no knowledge, and rescues Woo with the aid of M-11 and Marvel Boy, who can only restore Woo to his 1958 self. Namora, whom the group believed dead, is located by the Agents and joins the group. The team learns M-11 is a double agent for the Yellow Claw, and that Venus is one of the legendary Sirens given flesh, not the Venus/Aphrodite of mythological legend.
Using M-11 as a beacon, the heroes find the Yellow Claw, who reveals his true identity, Plan Chu, an almost immortal Mongol khan who claims he orchestrated each of his battles with Woo only to establish Woo's worthiness to marry Suwan and succeed him as khan. Chu created Atlas to put Woo again in the spotlight. Woo accepts his destiny, takes over Atlas hoping to turn it into a force for good, and the Yellow Claw, having found his heir, appears to commit suicide. The team resurfaces in New York City, where together with Spider-Man, they defeat Temple of Atlas splinter cells still loyal to the Yellow Claw.
They later work as a resistance cell against the invasion of Earth by the shapeshifting aliens the Skrulls. Following the Skrulls' defeat and the rise of Norman Osborn to power, the Agents of Atlas decide to oppose Osborn's agenda by taking on the role of "supervillains." They attack Fort Knox and steal the gold reserve, which Osborn had planned on using to finance a secret weapons system.
The Agents of Atlas encounter (and battle) the Avengers, the X-Men, fight Norman Osborn's Thunderbolts. and later investigate an abandoned Thule Society headquarters during the events of "Fear Itself".
During the "War of the Realms" event, Woo recruits his Protectors teammates Brawn, Shang-Chi, and Silk as the New Agents of Atlas before departing to defend Asia from Malekith's ally Queen Sindr and her Fire Goblin forces from Muspelheim. While the team is in Seoul, Woo is briefly incapacitated, forcing Brawn to assume leadership of the team. The Agents join forces with the Korean heroes White Fox, Crescent, Io and Luna Snow against Sindr. When the agents are forced to retreat, Brawn summons the Chinese heroes Sword Master and Aero, Filipina heroine Wave and the Hawaiian goddess of Fire and Volcanoes Pele from Shanghai to help assist in the fight against Sindr. With the assistance Sun Wukong of the Ascendants, the New Agents of Atlas are able to defeat Sindr and her army in Northern China, although Sun Wukong and "Pele" (who reveals herself to be M-41 Zu, a mystically enhanced Android created by the Atlas Foundation) are killed in the process. Sindr flees using the Black Bifrost, only for the Agents to follow her with Brawn's teleporter, where they help Captain Marvel defeat her and her remaining forces at the Great Wall of China near Beijing. After Malekith's defeat, the Agents are seen in Shanghai looking on while the captured Fire Goblins are escorted back to Muspelheim.
Following the "War of the Realms", the New Agents of Atlas and Giant-Man are inadvertently summoned to Pan, a city of portals created by tech mogul Mike Nguyen linking major Asian and Pacific cities and enclaves into a single borderless metropolis. Despite the team's mistrust of Nguyen and the Protector of Pan, Issac Ikeda, a mercenary under Nguyen's employ, they decide to help protect Pan and its citizens after the city is attacked by wyverns and sea serpents and several Madripoorian refugees are harassed by Nguyen's Pan Guard. With Woo having mysteriously lost contact with the team following Pan's activation, Brawn has the New Agents investigate Nguyen and the Big Nguyen Company while continuing to protect Pan. Brawn reluctantly allows help from Ikeda, who also has his own suspicions of Nguyen. It is later revealed that the team's actions are being monitored by Woo and Mr. Lao, who are testing them for their capabilities. During their investigations, a photograph of Woo and Nguyen together is uncovered while the New Agents discover that the Big Nguyen Company have imprisoned an Atlantean dragon and have been harvesting her magical scales to power Pan's portals. Nguyen downplays his relationship with Woo, explaining that Pan and Atlas had previously signed a non-aggression treaty (which the New Agents just violated) but warns that freeing the dragon would disrupt Pan's portals while Woo and Lao order the team to release her immediately. Before a decision can be made, an enraged Namor invades the city to reclaim his dragon from Pan.
Meanwhile, the original Agents of Atlantis are sent by Woo and Mr. Lao on a mission to Thailand where they encounter a dragon named Mr. Thong, who warns them of an upcoming "Clash of Dragons".
During the "Atlantis Attacks" storyline, Namor gives the New Agents one day to return Atlantis' dragon. After the skirmish, Jimmy introduces the original and new Agents of Atlas to each other. Both teams work together to safely release the dragon while keeping Pan's portals stable. Despite their success, the sea serpent goes berserk upon her return home. Discovering an implant imbedded in her scales, Namor accuses Atlas of treachery and resumes his attack on Pan. To help the Agents defend Pan, Nguyen recruits the Sirenas, the longtime enemies of Atlantis. With the Sirenas' help, Namor is eventually subdued and imprisoned. The Sirenas, with Nguyen's support, propose a retaliatory attack against Atlantis. When Namora reveals that the dragon's implant was made from their tech, the Sirenas argue that the dragon had already wrought destruction for generations. While the team disagrees on who to side with, Namor breaks free from his prison. Brawn is able to talk down Namor and the Agents from fighting each other and confronts Woo for withholding secrets from the team. Woo reveals to them that for thousands of years, ancient dragons have served as advisors for human rulers. As fighting each other openly would raze the planet, dragons have used humans as proxies in their own personal conflicts against each other, making them responsible for almost every major war in history, including the on between Pan and Atlantis. Woo is content with this balance of power, but Nguyen suggests uniting the world under Pan, proposing to Namor and Woo that by harvesting the power of their dragons, they could overtake the rest of them. In a last ditch effort to destroy Atlantis, Nguyen places a Sirena tech implant on Brawn, transforming him into the Hulk and putting him under his control. Namor and the Agents are able to stop the Hulk's rampage by removing the implant, but the shockwaves generated the Hulk's fight with Namor have created a massive tsunami that is heading towards the Heart of Pan. Namor and the Agents are able to weaken the tsunami and save the city, although a repentant Nguyen dies while protecting civilians. One month after the conflict, Atlantis and the Sirenas sign a non-aggression pact, recognizing Pan as an independent nation. Upset for being treated as Woo's pawns, Shang-Chi and Brawn leave the team while Ikeda is recruited by Woo. While Mr. Lao laments losing Brawn as a potential leader, he and Woo prepare the Agents to help Namor against the King in Black.
Temple of Atlas.
As part of a viral marketing strategy to promote the series, fans could participate in an alternate reality game centered around the "Temple of Atlas" weblog on Marvel's website. There, readers received weekly prose excerpts of the exploits of Jimmy Woo and his team, and were given "missions" from the Temple's curator, the mysterious "Mr. Lao". The goal was to discover each week's keyword by following textual clues Lao would post on the messageboards of such comic book webzines as "Newsarama" and "Comic Book Resources". They, along with IGN.com and "Comics Bulletin", would also feature fake news posts that players would be led toward, containing more clues for finding keywords. Anagrams were regular, and on several occasions one keyword had to be taken "into the field" by going to a local comic shop and saying the phrase to the staff in order to receive a keyword in response. On two occasions, players were required to attend a Heroes Convention and the San Diego Comic-Con International to find keywords.
Other versions.
In the "Marvel Adventures: Avengers" universe, a time travel story involved a 1958 version of the Agents of Atlas that found Captain America frozen in ice. The special was written by Jeff Parker and penciled by Leonard Kirk, same creative team as the Agents of Atlas miniseries. |
Government Junta of Chile (1810)
Government Assembly of the Kingdom of Chile (September 18, 1810 – July 4, 1811), also known as the First Government Gathering, was the organization established to rule post-colonial Chile following the deposition and imprisonment of King Ferdinand VII of Spain by Napoleon Bonaparte. It was the earliest step in the Chilean struggle for independence, and the anniversary of its establishment is celebrated as the national day of Chile.
Background.
At the start of 1808, the Captaincy General of Chile—one of the smallest and poorest colonies in the Spanish Empire—was under the administration of Luis Muñoz de Guzmán, an able, respected and well-liked Royal Governor. In May 1808 the overthrow of Charles IV and Ferdinand VII, their replacement by Joseph Bonaparte and the start of the Peninsular War plunged the empire into a state of agitation. In the meantime, Chile was facing its own internal political problems. Governor Guzmán had suddenly died on February of that year and the crown had not been able to appoint a new governor before the invasion. After a brief interim regency by Juan Rodríguez Ballesteros, and according to the succession law in place at the time, the position was laid claim to and assumed by the most senior military commander, who happened to be Brigadier Francisco García Carrasco.
García Carrasco took over the post of Governor of Chile in April and in August the news of the Napoleonic invasion of Spain and of the conformation of a Supreme Central Junta to govern the Empire in the absence of a legitimate king reached the country. In the meantime, Charlotte Joaquina, sister of Ferdinand and wife of the King of Portugal, who was living in Brazil, also made attempts to obtain the administration of the Spanish dominions in Latin America. Since her father and brother were being held prisoners in France, she regarded herself as the heiress of her captured family. Allegedly among her plans was to send armies to occupy Buenos Aires and northern Argentina and to style herself as "Queen of La Plata".
Brigadier García Carrasco was a man of crude and authoritarian manners, who managed in a very short time to alienate the criollo elites under his command. Already in Chile, as in most of Latin America, there had been some independence agitation but very minimal and concentrated in the very ineffectual Conspiracy of the Tres Antonios back in 1781. The majority of the people were fervent royalists but were divided into two groups: those who favored the "status quo" and the divine right of Ferdinand VII (known as "absolutists") and those who wanted to proclaim Charlotte Joaquina as Queen (known as "carlotistas"). A third group was composed of those who proposed the replacement of the Spanish authorities with a local "junta" of notable citizens, which would conform a provisional government to rule in the absence of the king and an independent Spain (known as "juntistas").
In 1809 Governor García Carrasco himself was implicated in a flagrant case of corruption (the Scorpion scandal) that managed to destroy whatever remnants of moral authority he or his office had left. From that moment on the pressure for his removal began to build. In June 1810 news arrived from Buenos Aires that Napoleon Bonaparte's forces had conquered Andalusia and laid siege to Cádiz, the last redoubt against the French on Spanish soil. Moreover, the Supreme Central Junta, which had governed the Empire for the past two years, had abolished itself in favor of a Regency Council. García Carrasco, who was a supporter of the "Carlotist" group, managed to magnify the political problems by taking arbitrary and harsh measures, such as the arrest and deportation to Lima without due process of well-known and socially prominent citizens under simple suspicions of having been sympathetic to the "junta" idea. Among those arrested were José Antonio de Rojas, Juan Antonio Ovalle and Bernardo de Vera y Pintado.
The autonomy movement also had, inspired by the May Revolution in Argentina, thoroughly propagated through the criollo elite. They resented the illegal arrests and, together with the news that Cádiz was all that was left of a free Spain, finally solidified in their opposition to the Governor. Brigadier García Carrasco was suspended from office and forced to resign on July 16, 1810, to be in turn replaced by the next most senior soldier, Mateo de Toro Zambrano Count of la Conquista, even though a legitimate Governor, Francisco Javier de Elío, had already been appointed by the Viceroy of Peru.
Count Toro Zambrano was, by all standards, a very unorthodox selection. He was a very old man already (82 years old at the time) and moreover a "criollo" (someone born in the colonies) as opposed to a "peninsular" (someone born in Spain). Immediately after his appointment in July, the "juntistas" began to lobby him in order to obtain the formation of a junta. In August the Royal Appeals Court () took a public loyalty oath to the Regency Council in front of a massive audience, which put added pressure on the Governor to define himself. After vacillating for some time over which party to follow, Toro Zambrano finally agreed to hold an open "Cabildo" (city hall) meeting in Santiago to discuss the issue. The date was set for September 18, 1810 at 11 AM.
Establishment.
From the very beginning the "juntistas" took the political initiative. They were able to place their members in charge of sending the invitations, thus manipulating the assistance lists to their own advantage. At the September 18th session, they grabbed center stage with shouts of "¡Junta queremos! ¡junta queremos!" ("We want a junta! We want a junta"). Count Toro Zambrano, faced with this very public show of force, acceded to their demands by depositing his ceremonial baton on top of the main table and saying "Here is the baton, take it and rule". The discussion ended with the establishment of the Government Junta of the Kingdom of Chile, also known as the "First Junta", which was organized with the same powers held by a Royal Governor. In the discussion triumphed the idea of a local independent government as opposed to the monarchist idea of submitting themselves to the control of the Regency Council. Nonetheless, this idea of "independence" must not be taken in the modern sense. This junta never intended to sever the relationship with the monarchy, but was only taking advantage of the possibility to assert local rule.
Administrative measures.
Their first measure was to take a formal loyalty oath to Ferdinand VII as legitimate King. Count Toro Zambrano was elected President, and the rest of the positions were distributed equally among all parties, but the real power was left in the hands of the secretary, Juan Martínez de Rozas. The junta then proceeded to take some concrete measures that had been long-held aspirations of the colonials: it created a militia for the defense of the kingdom, decreed freedom of trade with all nations that were allied to Spain or neutrals, a unique tariff of 134% for all imports (with the exceptions of printing presses, books and guns which were liberated from all taxes) and in order to increase its representation, and ordered the convocation of a National Congress.
Immediately, political intrigue began amongst the ruling elite, with news of the political turbulence and wars of Europe all the while coming in. It was eventually decided that elections for the National Congress, to be composed of 42 representatives, would be held in 1811. By March of that year 36 representatives had already been elected in all major cities with the exception of Santiago and Valparaíso.
Political tendencies.
After the natural death of the president, Mateo de Toro Zambrano on February 26, 1811, he was replaced by Juan Martínez de Rozas, due to the illness of the Vice President, Bishop José Martínez de Aldunate, (who was to die on April 8, 1811).
Three political tendencies were starting to appear: the "extremists", the "moderates" and the "royalists". These groups were all decidedly against independence from Spain and differentiated themselves only in the degree of political autonomy that they sought. The "moderates" (), under the leadership of José Miguel Infante, were a majority, and wanted a very slow pace of reforms since they were afraid that once the King was back in power he would think that they were seeking independence and would roll-back all changes. The "exalted" () were the second most important group and they advocated a larger degree of freedom from the Crown and a faster pace of reforms stopping just short of full independence. His leader was Juan Martínez de Rozas. The "royalists" were against any reform at all and for the maintenance of the "status quo".
Figueroa Mutiny.
The great political surprise up to that point had been the results from the other center of power, Concepción, in which royalists had defeated the supporters of Juan Martínez de Rozas. In the rest of Chile, the results were more or less equally divided: twelve pro-Rozas delegates, fourteen anti-Rozas and three royalists. So, the Santiago elections were the key to Rozas' desire to remain in power. This election was supposed to take place on April 10, but before they could be called the Figueroa mutiny broke out.
On April 1, the royalist colonel Tomás de Figueroa—considering the notion of elections to be too populist—led a revolt in Santiago. The revolt sputtered, and Figueroa was arrested and summarily executed. The mutiny was successful in that temporarily sabotaged the elections, which had to be delayed. Eventually, however, a National Congress was duly elected, and all 6 deputies from Santiago came from the "moderate" camp. Nonetheless, the mutiny also encouraged a radicalization of political postures: even though "moderates" advocating only greater autonomy of the elites from Spanish Imperial control—without a complete rupture—gained the majority of seats, a vocal minority was formed by "excited" revolutionaries who now wanted complete and instant independence from Spain.
As a consequence of the mutiny, Martinez de Rozas was replaced on April 2, 1811, by Fernando Márquez de la Plata. The Royal Appeals Court, a long-standing pillar of support of the Spanish Crown, was dissolved for its alleged "complicity" and the idea of full independence gained momentum for the first time. The Junta lasted until July 4, 1811, when it was replaced by the National Congress, and later by the Second Junta. |
Unleashed (Fringe)
"Unleashed" is the 16th episode of the first season of the American science fiction drama television series "Fringe". It centered on a man-made chimera, which escaped from an animal testing facility and attacked various people, including Agent Charlie Francis, while the Fringe team tries to stop it.
The episode was written by Zack Whedon and J. R. Orci, and directed by Brad Anderson. Actress Kiersten Warren guest-starred as Charlie's wife Sonia.
It first aired in the United States on the Fox Broadcasting Network on April 14, 2009, and more than 10 million viewers watched the episode. It received mixed reviews, with a common criticism being that the "monster-of-the-week" was becoming a tired idea for the show.
Plot.
Animal rights activists ransack a laboratory and unwittingly release a creature with a ferocious appetite. As they flee in an SUV, the creature follows and grotesquely mutilates them. The Fringe team consisting of FBI agents Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv), Charlie Francis (Kirk Acevedo), Philip Broyles (Lance Reddick), and civilian consultants Peter (Joshua Jackson) and Walter Bishop (John Noble) arrives, and Walter sees evidence of different creatures' marks on the bodies. Olivia realizes one of them is missing, and after interviewing a student at MIT to try to identify the victims, she realizes they were animal rights activists. While conducting autopsies on the bodies, an animal control team at a different site is killed by the creature after investigating a call.
While investigating the animal control team deaths, Charlie is attacked by the creature, but it fails to kill him after Olivia arrives on the scene. Walter explains he believes the creature is a man-made chimera, which has the best genetic traits of many different creatures, including a lizard, bat, and wasp. He had tried to create the creature years before, but his experiments failed, and concludes that someone else must have taken up his research. Though initially thinking Charlie was healthy after the attack, they realize the chimera's stinger injected him with its larvae, and that he has less than 24 hours to live.
After experimenting with poison fails to kill the larvae in Charlie's body, Walter believes that mixing the chimera's blood with Charlie's will stop the larvae from attacking and bursting out of his body, as they did in the other victims' corpses. Olivia learns one of the victims, Jonathan Swift, was the son of a scientist who tests on animals, and was killed while breaking into his father's lab. They also realize the chimera was created based on work by one of Walter's peers, not Walter himself.
After several sightings, the Fringe team move into some nearby storm drains to bait the chimera with its larvae. Feeling somewhat responsible, Walter locks himself in with the chimera and ingests some poison that will kill him within the hour, believing that if it kills him, the chimera will only be killing itself. He manages to shoot the chimera in time, however, and they use its blood to find a cure for Charlie.
Production.
"Unleashed" was directed by filmmaker Brad Anderson, his third episode of the season. It was co-written by writer Zack Whedon and supervising producer J. R. Orci.
The episode centered on Kirk Acevedo's character Charlie Francis. Acevedo explained in an interview, "Charlie goes out on this call, and he gets attacked by this mythological, genetically enhanced griffin. He fights for his life throughout the episode". Acevedo suggested that his wife, actress Kiersten Warren, play his character's wife Sonia, and the producers duly cast her. Acevedo explained his choice was because, "to create intimacy with someone who you don't know is actually not going to work. So to have your real wife do it, then you can be a lot better on screen".
The scene where Walter confronts the chimera was shot in a Boston sewer. He and Peter carry 50 caliber Desert Eagle handguns, called "monster killers" by one prop crew member. While shooting, the actors had to use their imagination, as the CGI monster was not yet complete. Director Brad Anderson described the chimera "sort of an amalgam of a bat, lion, and a dragon". Anderson called the scene between Walter and the chimera as a "triumphant moment" for Walter, and actor Joshua Jackson characterized the scene as Walter's "action hero moment". The actor himself, John Noble, described the scene with the chimera as "terrifying", as his character "tries to be a hero". Andrew Orloff, Zoic’s Creative Director and Visual Effects Supervisor later called the chimera effect the most difficult effect he'd done for the show thus far. Sound editor Thomas Harris explained that because the episode had a monster that was "part lizard, part wasp, part bat, and part lion," it was difficult to "manipulate sounds from all these animals, as well as other sweeteners, without getting muddy and meshing together". Their efforts on the episode were ultimately nominated in several categories at the Golden Reel Awards, and at the HPA Awards, for which they won.
Actress Jasika Nicole explained in a May 2009 interview that the scariest episode for her at the time was "Unleashed". She described the episode's production, "The props people had these big buckets of earth worms, but they were thicker and meatier and longer. They had teeny little bitty faces... So the guy's chest is cut open and he’s been in make-up for hours to make it look like he’s been torn open and he’s all bloody and stuff. So then they pour these worms and this goopy, syrupy stuff and this fake blood onto this guy’s chest... We had to zip him up in the body bag. It takes a few minutes to get to 'action' after he's zipped up. We unzip him and we see the worms and it’s so gross–and the look on his face. The worms are crawling up and their in his armpits and starting to crawl toward his face and he can’t move at all because he’s supposed to be dead." Nicole continued that this scene had to be shot "three or four times. We kept trying to get faster and faster but we were all laughing [for him]. It was like a "Fear Factor" episode with no chance of getting money... It was so gross but so much fun. The guy was such a trooper."
New Media consultant Glen Whitman stated in an interview that this particular episode contains some recent scientific developments that were part of their inspiration for the creation of "Fringe" in the first place. Specifically, Whitman is referring to the use of transgenics, which is the idea that there are organisms with genes from other species. Whitman concluded that they were partly inspired by scientists Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie, and Roger Y. Tsien and their work on research on isolating genes from jellyfish for the treatment of Huntington's disease; all three won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Reception.
Ratings.
"Unleashed" was watched by more than 10.15 million viewers in the United States. It had a 5.9/9 share among all households.
Reviews.
Ramsey Isler from IGN rated it 7.8/10, explaining the "mysterious escaped monster" is a tired idea that failed to bring anything new to the show, and the episode "lacked real suspense and intrigue". Isler however praised the further development of John Noble's character, as Walter took responsibility for his actions. Josie Kafka of "Open Salon.com" saw allusions in the episode to many other genres, including "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Halloween", and "Dollhouse". She thought the "Walter-Peter interchanges" were the most interesting aspects of the episode. "The A.V. Club"s Noel Murray graded the episode a "B-", writing that though he enjoyed the "thrilling, funny opening" and the "multiple amusing lines of dialogue," he wished the episode had gone further with the genetic experimentation concept. Murray concluded that "'Unleashed' stays at the level of a well-shot, disappointingly straightforward monster movie, with an everything’s-okay-now ending".
Sarah Stegall from SFScope was skeptical of the chimera premise, but wrote she was willing to overlook that because the episode "delivers [entertainment] in spades" and gives "a fine payoff... There are creepy sewers, pee jokes, heroics, tears, laughter, scares, and finally a kill shot of a terrifically scary monster". Stegall also praised Torv and Acevedo's performances, and called the episode the best she's watched in a while. Andrew Hanson from the "Los Angeles Times" praised the episode, writing the writers and characters were "finally getting into their groove," and that the monster sequence was "better than most horror films I’ve seen lately".
Awards and nominations.
"Unleashed" was nominated for several awards. At the 2009 HPA Awards, the episode and its crew were nominated and ultimately won for Outstanding Audio Post — Television. Its competition was an episode of "Lost" and an episode of "". At the 2010 Golden Reel Awards, the episode was nominated for two categories: Best Sound Editing: Short Form Dialogue and ADR in Television and Best Sound Editing: Short Form Sound Effects and Foley in Television. It lost in the first category to an episode of "True Blood", and the second category award went to an episode of "House". |
Yukio Ozaki
was a Japanese politician of liberal signature, born in modern-day Sagamihara, Kanagawa. Ozaki served in the House of Representatives of the Japanese Diet for 63 years (1890–1953). He is still revered in Japan as the "God of constitutional politics" and the "father of the Japanese Constitution".
Biography.
Ozaki was one of three children of Ozaki Yukimasa and his wife Sadako, who lived in the village of Matano, in the county of Tsukui, in Kanagawa Prefecture, in the Sagami hills, 35 miles west of Edo (present-day Tokyo). The three Ozaki children were born there—Yukio in 1858, Yukitaka in 1865 and Yukitake in 1866—just as Japan was opening itself up to the western world.
Ozaki began his career as a student at Keio Gijuku, before becoming chief editor of the Niigata Shimbun (Niigata Newspaper) at the age of 20. At 22 he returned to Tokyo and was given an appointment at the Bureau of Statistics. He was elected to the Tokyo Prefectural Assembly in 1885, before being expelled from Tokyo in 1887 for 3 years in accordance with the newly-passed Safety Preservation Law.
Yukio and his brother Yukitaka went to the United States in 1888 but Ozaki could not endure the temperature extremes and could not sleep in the heat of New York City and Washington, D.C. He sailed back to Japan via England and was then elected to his first term in the Japanese Imperial Diet. He would serve in that position for more than 62 years, becoming one of history's longest-serving parliamentarians.
In 1890, Ozaki was elected to the First Parliament as a member of the House of Representatives from Mie Prefecture; and he was re-elected 25 times. During these years, he was named to a number of cabinet posts. In 1898 he was Minister of Education 1898, a position which he had to resign due to a speech which conservative elements in the Diet considered to have promoted republicanism; his resignation did not end the crisis, which culminated with the fall of PM Ōkuma Shigenobu and a split in the ruling Kenseitō Party. Later on, in 1914, he was Minister of Justice. He is nicknamed "the god of constitutionalism" ("kensei no kami") and "the father of parliamentary government".
He married teacher and folklore author Yei Theodora Ozaki, who was not related to him despite sharing the same surname as her maiden name. For many years, her letters were frequently delivered by mistake to him, and his to her. In 1904, after the death of his first wife, the two met and married. Of the couple's three daughters Yukika Sohma was to become Japan's first female simultaneous English/Japanese translator. She claimed to represent her father's legacy because, she stated, she was only following in her father's footsteps as president of Japan's Association for Aid and Relief (AAR Japan), one of the network of co-laureate organizations honored with the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.
Ozaki was opposed to militarism and was sometimes confined by the authorities for expressing unpopular views. He could also applaud those whose beliefs differed from his own. For example, in 1921, would-be assassins rushed into his house while he hid in the garden with his daughter, Yukika. The father of one of these dangerous young men later approached Ozaki to apologize in person for the actions of his son. Ozaki immediately responded with a 32-syllable "tanka" poem, which he handed to the surprised man:
He was especially active in the struggle for universal suffrage; universal male suffrage was established in 1925. During the 1930s, as an independent politician, he criticised the growing influence of the Japanese military and advocated the vote for women. He was imprisoned during both world wars. Hailed as a political hero after World War II, he was involved in anti-war, World Federalist and pro-democratic activities until his death.
As the second elected Mayor of Tokyo after its administration was separated from the surrounding prefectures, he found himself in an arduous and sometimes disagreeable job—but his determination to make the city better produced noticeable results. Initial infrastructure projects that demanded his attention were wide-ranging: improving water supply and sewage, developing street surfacing, expanding streetcar service, and overseeing gas company mergers. His mayoral position also provided a more ambiguous range of opportunities that included entertaining foreign dignitaries like US Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan and Britain's Field Marshal Lord Kitchener.
In 1910, Prince Iyesato Tokugawa visited Washington, D.C. leading a Japanese delegation that included Mayor Ozaki; this visit was linked to the Japanese gifting of cherry blossom trees to the U.S. Prince Tokugawa introduced Mayor Ozaki to many prominent members of the Japanese American community and to leading U.S government officials. In 1910, the City of Tokyo gifted 2,000 cherry blossom trees to the City of Washington, D.C., but due those trees being diseased and had to be destroyed, The City of Tokyo replaced them and presented 3020 cherry tree saplings to the City of Washington, D.C. in 1912. Since that time, Washington's annual display of blooming cherry blossoms can be seen in West Potomac Park surrounding the Tidal Basin, a result of Ozaki's persistence in furthering this project during a time when he was mayor of Tokyo. These flowering trees were the genesis of the continuing National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C. and in other states as well.
Ozaki's pen name was "Ozaki Gakudo" until he relinquished it in 1946 in exchange for "So-tsuō" (meaning "grand old man of 90"), simply because he had attained the age of 90. Starting in 1996, a yearly Gakudo Award has been "presented to individuals or organizations active in issues including the promotion of democracy, disarmament and human rights". |
Lunchables
Lunchables is a brand of food and snacks manufactured by Kraft Heinz in Chicago, Illinois and marketed under the Oscar Mayer brand. They were initially introduced in Seattle in 1988 before being released nationally in 1989. Many Lunchables products are produced in a Garland, Texas facility, and are then distributed across the United States.
In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the product is sold as "Dairylea Lunchables" under the Dairylea brand, originally by Kraft Foods Inc., and currently by its successor Mondelez.
History.
Tom Bailey created the concept and product known as Lunchables. Lunchables was designed in 1985 by Bob Drane, Tom Bailey, Jeff James, and Deborah Giarusso as a way for Oscar Mayer to sell more bologna and other lunch meat. After organizing focus groups of American mothers Drane discovered that their primary concern was time. Working mothers especially were pressed by the time constraints of fixing breakfast for their families as well as packing a lunch for their children to eat at school. This gave Drane the idea of creating a convenient prepackaged lunch featuring Oscar Mayer's trademark lunch meats. Crackers were substituted for bread because they would last longer in grocery coolers. The cheese was provided by Kraft when Oscar Mayer merged with Kraft in 1988. The design of the package was based on the look of an American TV dinner.
The term 'Lunchables' emerged from a list of possible names for the prepackaged meal that included, among others: On-Trays, Crackerwiches, Mini Meals, Lunch Kits, Snackables, Square Meals, Walk Meals, Go-Packs, and Fun Mealz.
Lunchables combinations.
Lunchables offers 30 different kinds of meal variety combinations, which include crackers, pizzas, chicken nuggets, small hot dogs, small burgers, nachos, subs, and wraps. A typical package, such as the crackers meal combination, contains an equal number of crackers and small slices of meat and cheese. The brand also created two versions targeting adults, by increasing the amount of food offered in each package, but these have since been discontinued. The first was called the "Deluxe" and contained two types of meats and cheeses as well as a mustard condiment and a mint. The second version, called "Maxed Out" (originally "Mega Packs"), was available with 40% more food than a regular Lunchables.
Lunchables also carries an assortment of drinks and desserts. In certain meal combinations, Capri Sun juice drinks are offered, either in a traditional flavor or of the "Roarin’ Waters" variant. Other drinks included are bottled water and a generic unlabeled small can of cola; however, the latter was later replaced with Capri Sun drinks due to health concerns. As for dessert, some packages contain Jell-O gelatin or pudding or a candy alternative, such as Butterfingers or Reese's cups.
As of 2022, the varieties of Lunchables available in the UK are more limited in comparison to the 1990s and 2000s. The burger, pizza, hot dog and sub varieties are no longer sold, and the product is mostly limited to crackers, cheese and ham. Many varieties including turkey, ham, sausage, hot dog and pizza still are sold in Canada.
Concern about health effects.
A line of the trays called Maxed Out was eventually released that had as many as nine grams of saturated fat, or nearly an entire day's recommended maximum for children, with up to two-thirds of the maximum for sodium and 65 grams (13 tsp) of sugar. Regarding the shift toward more salt, sugar, and fat in meals for kids, Geoffrey Bible, former C.E.O. of Philip Morris USA (prior owner of Kraft Foods), remarked that he read an article that said: "If you take Lunchables apart, the most healthy item in it is the napkin."
In 1997, Lunchables came under fire for having high saturated fat and sodium content while being marketed as a healthy children's meal. For example, a single serving of Ham and Swiss Lunchables contained 1,780 milligrams of sodium, which is 47 percent of the recommended daily allowance for an adult.
Due to the growing concern of childhood obesity, UK Lunchables opted to create healthier options for children by eliminating Capri Sun drinks and mini Daim bars, and replacing the sugary drink and candy with orange juice and strawberry yogurt in 2004. The brand also began offering lower calorie candy alternatives, rather than including the standard Reese's cup in the package. Capri Sun and candy are still available as options in the U.S. Lunchables.
As of 2007, eight varieties of Lunchables are considered Sensible Solution products; the brand has since excluded the exceptionally unhealthy items, replacing Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Cola, Nestle Crunch bars, M&M's, and Kool-Aid Jammers with lower calorie and sugar options, such as Airheads, fruit cups, and Tropical Punch flavored Kool-Aid mix. |
Turk Shahis
The Turk Shahis or Kabul Shahis were a dynasty of Western Turk, or mixed Turko-Hephthalite, origin, that ruled from Kabul and Kapisa to Gandhara in the 7th to 9th centuries AD.
They may have been of Khalaj ethnicity. The Gandhara territory may have been bordering the Kashmir kingdom and the Kanauj kingdom to the east. From the 560s, the Western Turks had gradually expanded southeasterward from Transoxonia, and occupied Bactria and the Hindu-Kush region, forming largely independent polities. The Turk Shahis may have been a political extension of the neighbouring Western Turk Yabghus of Tokharistan. In the Hindu-Kush region, they replaced the Nezak Huns – the last dynasty of Bactrian rulers with origins among the "Xwn" (Xionite) and/or "Huna" peoples (who are sometimes also referred to as "Huns" who invaded Eastern Europe during a similar period).
The Turk Shahis arose at a time when the Sasanian Empire had already been conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate. The Turk Shahis then resisted for more than 250 years to the eastward expansion of the Abbasid Caliphate, until they fell to the Persian Saffarids in the 9th century AD. The Ghaznavids then finally broke through into India after overpowering the declining Hindu Shahis and Gurjaras.
Kabulistan was the heartland of the Turk Shahi domain, which at times included Zabulistan and Gandhara.
Territorial extents.
The Turks under the Western Turk ruler Tong Yabghu Qaghan crossed the Hindu-Kush and occupied Gandhara as far as the Indus river from circa 625 AD. Overall, the territory of the Turk Shahi extended from Kapisi to Gandhara, with a Turkic branch becoming independent in Zabulistan at one point. The Gandhara territory may have been bordering the Kashmir kingdom and the Kanauj kingdom to the east. The Turk Shahi capital of Gandhara, which possibly fonctionned as a winter capital alternating with the summer capital of Kabul, was Udabhandapura. The Korean pilgrim Hui Chao, visiting the area in 723-729 AD, mentioned that these regions were ruled by Turk kings.
History.
Establishment: Arab offensive and displacement of the Nezaks.
The last extant Nezak ruler Ghar-ilchi was recorded as the king of Jibin (former Kapisi/ Kabulistan) by the Tang dynasty in 653 AD. He was also likely to be the unnamed ruler who was confirmed as Governor of Jibin under the newly formed Chinese Anxi Protectorate in 661 CE and would broker a peace-treaty with the Arabs, the same year. Nonetheless, in 664-665 CE, Abd al-Rahman ibn Samura launched an expedition to reconquer the territories lost during the Caliphate Wars. Kabul was occupied in 665 CE after a siege of a few months but soon revolted, only to be reoccupied after another year-long siege. These events mortally weakened the Nezaks though their ruler — not named in sources — was spared upon converting to Islam.
Sometime soon (666/667 - ?), the Nezaks were replaced by the Turk Shahis, first in Zabulistan and then in Kabulistan and Gandhara. Their ethnic identity remain unclear and the name might be a misnomer. According to Hyecho, who visited the region about 50 years after the events, the first Shahi ruler of Kapisi — named Barha Tegin by Al-Biruni — was an usurper, who used to be a military commander in the service of the last Nezak King. Al-biruni provides a rather-legendary account of Barhategin's rise extrapolating from multiple mythological motifs and the precise circumstances surrounding the dawning of Turk Shahis remain unclear.
Tang Protectorate and vassalage to the Tokhara Yabghus.
The Turk Shahis, like the rest of the Western Turks, were nominally part of a protectorate under the Chinese Tang dynasty since circa 658 AD. The territory of the Turk Shahis was nominally partitioned into several Chinese Commanderies under administration of the Anxi Protectorate: the city of Yege (modern Mihtarlam) east of Kabul was considered as the seat of a Chinese Commandery for the Jibin country, and named the Xiuxian Commandery (修鮮都督府, "Xiūxiān Dūdùfû"), the city of Yan at the border with Gandhara was the seat of the Yuepan Commandery (悅般都督府, "Yuèpān Dūdùfû"), Ghazni was the seat of the Tiaozhi Commandery (條枝都督府, "Tiáozhī Dūdùfû").
According to Chinese sources, in particular the chronicles of the "Cefu Yuangui", the Turks in Kabul were vassals of the Yabghus of Tokharistan, who in turn swore allegiance to the Tangs. A young brother of the Tokhara Yabghu Pantu Nili—named Puluo (僕羅 "púluó" in Chinese sources)—visited the court of the Tang dynasty in Xi'an in 718 AD and gave an account of the military forces in the Tokharistan region, explaining that "two hundred and twelve kingdoms, governors and prefects" had been recognizing the authority of the Yabghus (specifically mentioning among them that "the king of Zabul rules two hundred thousand soldiers and horses, the king of Kabul two hundred thousand"), since the time of his grandfather, that is, probably since the time of their establishment.
Conflict with the Arabs.
Under Barha Tegin, the Shahis mounted a counter-offensive and repulsed the Arab forces after Abd al-Rahman ibn Samura was replaced as Governor of Sistan c.665 CE, taking back lost territory as far as the region of Arachosia and Kandahar. The capital was shifted from Kapisa to Kabul. The Arabs attempted a counter-offensive when Rabi ibn Ziyad al-Harithi assumed the governorship of Sistan in 671 CE, attacking the Turkic "Rutbil" at Bost, and driving him to al-Rukhkhaj (Arachosia). Rabi's successor Ubayd Allah ibn Abi Bakra continued the war upon being appointed in 673 CE, leading Rutbil to negotiate a peace treaty for both Kabul and Zabul, in which the governor of Sistan acknowledged control of these territories by Rutbil and the King of Kabul. Little more is known about the rule of Barha Tegin, but many of the early Turk Shahi coins are attributed to him.
He was succeeded by his son Tegin Shah c. 680, whose regal title was "Khorasan Tegin Shah" meaning "Tegin, King of the East", probably referring to his resistance against the Umayyad caliph. His territory comprised the area from Kabulistan to Gandhara and initially included Zabulistan, which came to be ruled by Rutbil (Turkic: "Iltäbär"), his elder brother, who founded the dynasty of the Zunbils. Their relationship was at times antagonistic, but they fought together against Arab incursions.
The Arabs again failed to capture Kabul and Zabulistan in 683 AD: their general Abu Ubaida ibn Ziyad was imprisoned in Kabul and Governor of Sijistan Yazid ibn Ziyad was killed as he attacked the city. In 684–685, Kabul briefly comes under Arab control. In 698 Ubayd Allah ibn Abi Bakra of the Umayyad Caliphate lead an 'Army of Destruction' against the Zunbils, was defeated and was forced to offer a large tribute, give hostages including three of his sons and take an oath not to invade Zunbil again. About 700 Ibn al-Ash'ath tried again to invade with the 'Peacock Army', but after some initial progress eventually formed a peace treaty with the Turks, and turned around to lead a rebellion against the Umayyad viceroy of the east, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf.
Tegin Shah apparently regained complete suzerainty over Zabulistan around 710 CE. This appears from the accounts in the Chinese chronicles, which relates that the rulers of Zabulistan "subjugated themselves to Jibin (Kabul)", sometime between 710 and 720 CE. During this period, it seems the Zunbils and the Turk Shahis intermittently accepted, or were forced to accept, payment of taxes to the Arabs, thereby acknowledging some form of political dependence, but resisted fiercely when the Arabs attempted to take a more direct military, political or religious control.
From 711 CE, the Turk Shahis also had to face a Muslim threat from the southeast, as the campaigns of Muhammad ibn Qasim established the Caliphal province of Sind, as far as Multan, at the gates of Punjab, which would last until 854 CE as an Ummayad and then Abbasid dependency.
Tang dynasty investiture.
In 719/20 CE, the Tegin of Kabulistan (Tegin Shah) and the Iltäbär of Zabulistan (here named "Shiquer") sent a combined embassy to Xuanzong, the Chinese Emperor of the Tang dynasty in Xi'an, to obtain confirmation of their thrones. The Chinese emperor signed an investiture decree, which was returned to the Turk rulers. The official Chinese recognition of the enthronement of Tegin Shah appears in the annals of the "Tangshu":
The word "Geluodazhi" in this extract (Chinese: 葛罗达支, pronounced in Early Middle Chinese: kat-la-dat-tcǐe), is thought to be a transliteration of the ethnonym Khalaj. Hence Tegin Shah was described as "Tegin of the Khalaj". This title also appears on his coinage in Gupta script, where he is named "hitivira kharalāča", probably meaning "Iltäbär of the Khalaj".
In 720 CE, the ruler of Zabulistan (謝䫻, "Xiėyù") also received the title "Gedaluozhi Xielifa" (Chinese: 葛達羅支頡利發), "Xielifa" being the known Chinese transcription of the Turkish "Iltäbär", hence "Iltäbär of the Khalaj". This appears in another extract from the "Tangshu" describing the country of Zabulistan (谢䫻, "Xiėyù"), mentioning how Zabulistan was a vassal to the Kabul Shah around the same period, and how the Zunbil ruler, named "Shiquer", was also recognized by the Chinese court:
These two Chinese accounts tend to confirm that the Turk Shahi and Zunbil rulers were Khalaj Turks. The Korean pilgrim Hyecho accompanied the return embassy in 726 AD, and wrote an account of his travel and visit at the court of Kabul, relating that Turk ("T’u-chüeh") kings ruled the territories of Gandhara, Kapisa and Zabulistan at the time, that they were Buddhists, and that the King of Kabul was the uncle of the ruler of Zabul.
Victory over the Arabs.
In 739 CE, Tegin abdicated in favour of his son Fromo Kesaro:
"Fromo Kesaro" is probable phonetic transcription of "Rome Caesar". He was apparently named in honor of "Caesar", the title of the then East Roman Emperor Leo III the Isaurian who had defeated their common enemy the Arabs during the Siege of Constantinople in 717 AD, and sent an embassy to China through Central Asia in 719 AD which probably met with the Turk Shahis. In Chinese sources "Fromo Kesaro" was aptly transcribed "Fulin Jisuo" (拂菻罽娑), "Fulin" (拂菻) being the standard Tang dynasty name for "Byzantine Empire" and Jisuo (罽娑) the phonetic transcription of "Caesar":
Fromo Kesaro appears to have successfully fought against the Arabs. His coinage suggests that the Arabs were defeated and forced to pay tribute to Fromo Kesaro, since Sasanian coins and coins of Arab governors were overstruck by him on the rim with the following text in the Bactrian script:
Since these coins did not come out from Fromo Kesaro's foundries, but were simply pre-existing Arab/Sasanian coins which he overstruck on the rim with his victorious legends in Bactrian, it would seem that in all likelihood the coins underwent this rather simple overstriking procedure in the field, probably during one of his victorious campaigns against the Muslims.
Fromo Kesaro's victories may have forged parts of the epic legend of the Tibetan King whose name appears to be phonetically similar: Phrom Ge-sar.
Dissolution of the Tang protectorate.
In 745 AD, Fromo Kesaro's son Bo Fuzhun (勃匐準 "Bo Fuzhun" in Chinese sources) became the king, as recorded in the Old Book of Tang; he was simultaneously conferred with the Tang title "General of the Left", which probably alludes to a strategic relationship between the Chinese and the Turk Shahis, in the context of expanding Islamic frontiers.
The Chinese departed from the region c. 760 AD, following their strategic defeat at the Battle of Talas (751 AD) and the events of the An Lushan Rebellion, thus weakening the geopolitical position of the Turk Shahis. Al-Yakubhi records that c. 775–785, a Turk Shahi ruler of Kabul—variously reconstructed as Ḥanḥal/Khinkhil/Khingil/Khingal—was sent a proposal by Al-Mahdi (775-785), the third Abbasid Caliph, asking for his submission, to which he conceded. He was either a unique ruler of the Turk Shahis or identical with Bo Fuzhun.
Renewed conflict with the Arabs and decline.
The struggle between the Arabs and the Turk Shahis continued into the 9th century AD. Hoping to take advantage of the Great Abbasid Civil War (811-819 AD), the Turk Shahi, named "Pati Dumi" in Arab sources, invaded parts of Khorasan. Once the Abbasid caliph Al-Ma'mun prevailed in the Civil War, he sent troops to confront the Turk invaders: in 814/815 AD, the Turk Shahis were soundly defeated by these Arab troops, which pushed as far as Gandhara. The Turk Shah now had to convert to Islam, and had to pay an annual tribute of 1,500,000 dirhams and 2,000 slaves to the Abbasid governor of Khorasan. He also ceded a large and precious idol made of gold, silver and jewels, which was sent to Mecca. Following Al-Azraqi's initial account of 834 AD, Quṭb ed-Dîn wrote:
Al-Azraqi also made a very detailed description of the statue, which points to a crowned and bejewelled Buddha seated on a throne, a design otherwise well known and quite specific to this historical period for the region of Afghanistan and Kashmir. In the south, the Zunbil Turk Shahis escaped unaffected and continued to rule for about two more decades, before falling in 870/871 AD to the Saffarids under an upstart adventurer Ya'qub ibn al-Layth al-Saffar.
Takeover by the Hindu Shahis (822 CE).
According to the Arab chronicler al-Biruni, the last Turk Shahi ruler of Kabul, Lagaturman—probable son of Pati Dumi—was deposed by a Brahmin minister, named Kallar around 822 AD. A new dynasty, the Hindu Shahi took over, with its capital in Kabul. To the south, the Zunbils held fort against Muslim forces until the Saffarid offensive of 870 CE.
Society and Religion.
The Alchon Huns, predecessors of the Turk Shahis in Afghanistan and Gandhara, had brought destruction upon Buddhism. When Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang visited northwestern India in AD, he reported that Buddhism had drastically declined, and that most of the monasteries were deserted and left in ruins. The Turk Shahis are reported as having been supporters of Buddhism, and are generally presented as Buddhists. There was a renewed patronage of Buddhism in the area of Afghanistan during the 7-8th century AD as a function of the expansion of the Tang dynasty power in Central Asia at that time, just as the Arabs were pressuring Khorasan and Sistan. The Korean pilgrim Hui Chao in 726 AD recorded in the Chinese language that the Turkic (突厥, Tū-chuèh) rulers of Kapisa ("Jibin") followed the Triratna and dedicated many Buddhist temples:
The Kingdoms of Central Asia, often Buddhist or with an important Buddhist community, were generally under the formal control of the Tang dynasty, had regular exchanges with China, and expected Tang protection. Chinese monks were probably directly in charge of some of the Buddhist sanctuaries of Central Asia, such as the temple of Suiye (near Tokmak in present-day Kirghizistan). During this period too, the Chinese Tang Empire extended its influence and promotion of Buddhism to the kingdoms of Central Asia, including Afghanistan, with a corresponding influx of Chinese monks, while there was conversely a migration of Indian monks and artistic styles from India to Central Asia, as "Brahmanical revivalism" was pushing Indian Buddhist monks out of their country.
According to the Chinese pilgrim Wukong, who arrived in Gandhara in 753 AD, the country of Kapisi had its eastern capital in Gandhara during the winter, and its capital in Kapisi during the summer. In Kashmir, which he visited from 756 to 760 AD, he explained that Buddhist temples were dedicated by the "Tü-kiu" ("Turk") kings. Brahmanism too seems to have flourished, but to a lesser extent, under the Turk Shahis, with various works of art also attributed to their period.
At the end of the 10th century, the Samanid Empire led by the Turk ghulams Alp Tigin established itself in Eastern Afghanistan, later followed by the Ghaznavid dynasty. At that time, local Buddhist Turk communities seem to have mingled with the newly arrived Muslim Turks of the Samanid Empire, forming an ethnic continuity among the ruling class of Ghazni. The local Buddhist Turks progressively islamized, but there was a continuation in artistic development and Buddhist religious activities, not a break. The Buddhist site of Qol-i Tut in Kabul remained in use until the end of the 11th century.
Coinage.
From the middle of the 7th century AD, the Turk Shahis emulated the coinage of their predecessors, the Hunnish Nezak-Alchons. kept the winged bull's head of the Nezak as well as their legend "King of Nezak" ("nycky MLKA") but in corrupted Pahlavi script. But the style of the rulers in the coins was now quite different, and the coins were of markedly higher silver quality. Soon, these coins introduced a new legend in replacement of the "King of Nezaks" legend, using the Indian honorific "Shri" ("Perfection") with the royal title "Shahi" in the Bactrian language (, "Srio šauoi") and in Sanskrit ("Śri Sāhi"). This new coinage corresponds to the formal establishment of the Turk Shahis, sometime after 661 AD.
In later stages, the crown adorned with a bull's head is replaced by a crown consisting in three crescent moons in the middle of which a flower or trident is set. Often the bull's head in the crown is also replaced by the symbol of a lion's or a wolf's head. In other coins the triple-crescent moons were kept, and the king was shown wearing a Central Asian caftan.
Many of these coins are attributed to Shahi Tegin, the second Turk Shahi ruler, and dated to circa 700 AD. After this transitory period, Turk Shahi coinage adopted the Sasanian coinage style, and added a trilingual legend in Greco-Bactrian, Pahlavi, and Brahmi. Based on finds, Turk Shahi coins apparently circulated in Zabulistan, Kabulistan, Gandhara and Uddiyana.
Art.
There was a relatively high level of artistic activity in the areas controlled by the Turk Shahis during 7-8th centuries CE, either as a result of the Sasanian cultural heritage, or as a result of the continued development of Buddhist art, with possible Hephthalite influence. The destruction upon Buddhism wrought by their predecessors had deeply weakened the Hellenitic-Buddhist art of Gandhara. Yet, consequent to Tang patronage of Buddhism, a Sinicized-Indian phase re-developed during the 7th to 9th century CE. The Western Turks in Afghanistan are generally associated with a major revival of Gandharan Buddhist art between the 7th and 9th century CE, especially in the areas of Bamiyan, Kabul and Ghazni, with major new Buddhist sites such as Tapa Sardar in Ghazni, or Tepe Narenj and Mes Aynak near Kabul, which remained active at least until the 9th century CE. This process and chronology are visible in the archaeological site of Tapa Sardar near Ghazni in Afghanistan, while this new form of art appears in its mature state in Fondukistan.
Buddhist works of art.
The works of art of this period in eastern Afghanistan, with a sophistication and iconography comparable to other works of art of the Silk Road such as those of Kizil, are attributable to the sponsorship of the "cosmopolitan" Turks, rather than their "Ephthalite" predecessors in this area (the Nezak-Alchon Huns), who, in the words of Edmund Bosworth, "were not capable of such work". And, soon after, the expansion of Islam made the creation of such works of art impossible.
The style as well as the techniques used in making these works of art (modelling of clay mixed with straw, wool or horsehair), are characteristic of the paintings and sculptures of Central Asia. The production of Fondukistan must correspond to the southernmost expansion of this particular type of Buddhist art. The new region occupied by the Turk Shahis had numerous Buddhist monasteries, such as Mes Aynak, which appear to have remained in use until the 9th century CE. Dedications including Turk Shahis coins have been found under a statue in the Buddhist monastery of Fondukistan.
Devotees or sponsors wearing Central Asian clothes such as the tight-fitting double-lapel caftan appear in the Buddhist Monastery of Fondukistan, as in , seated together with a Queen of Indian type, and dated to the 7th century CE.
Dedications including coins of the Buddhist Turk Shahis and one Sasanian coin of Khusro II have been found under the statue of the royal couple with a king in Turk attire in the monastery of Fondukistan, providing important insights regarding the datation of the statue as well as Buddhist art in general: as a result of the analysis the statue can be dated to after 689 CE, and as a consequence a date of circa 700 CE is generally given for it and the other works of art of Fondukistan. The royal couple consists in a princess in "Indian" dress, and a prince "wearing a rich caftan with double lapel and boots", characteristic of Central Asian clothing.
Hindu works of art.
Hinduism too seems to have flourished to some extent under the Turk Shahis, with various works of art also attributed to their period. In particular the famous statue of a Sun deity that is either Mitra or Surya in tunic and boots discovered in Khair Khaneh near Kabul, as well as a statue of Ganesha from Gardez are now attributed to the Turk Shahis in the 7-8th century CE, and not to their successors the Hindu Shahus as formerly suggested. In particular, great iconographical and stylistic similarities with the works of the Buddhist monastery of Fondukistan have been identified. Archaeologically, the construction of the Khair Khaneh temple itself is now dated to 608-630 CE, at the beginning of the Turk Shahis period.
The marble statue of Ganesha from Gardez is now attributed to the Turk Shahis, and was donated by a certain "Śrī Ṣāhi Khiṃgāla", possibly the Turk Shahi king named "Khingala" who according to Al-Yakubhi gave his submission to Al-Mahdi in 775–785 CE. |
1973 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
The 1973 NASCAR Winston Cup Series was the 25th season of professional stock car racing in the United States and the 2nd modern-era Cup season. The season began on Sunday January 21 and ended on Sunday October 21. 31 races were scheduled in the 1973 season. 28 were held.
Benny Parsons was crowned Winston Cup champion at the end of the season finishing 67 points ahead of Cale Yarborough. Lennie Pond was named NASCAR Rookie of the Year, succeeding Larry Smith, who was fatally injured in the year's Talladega 500. David Pearson dominated the season winning 11 of the 18 races he entered. Ten of Pearson's wins were on superspeedways, setting a NASCAR record for superspeedway wins that lasted until Bill Elliott broke it in 1985.
Pre-season changes.
Rule changes.
Rule changes made in late November 1972 adjusted maximum carburetor sleeve sizes depending upon the type of engine and manufacturer of a given car. As NASCAR President Bill France Jr. explained, the goal of the adjustments was to differentiate between engines manufactured specifically for racing, and "volume production" engines that came off a consumer assembly line. This was done "...so the events next year can continue to be representative of the type of the extremely close competition that has been typical of NASCAR racing."
In 1973, the NASCAR points system was changed. In 1972, only the number of laps completed in a race (regardless of position) counted toward the accumulation of points. In 1973, points were awarded both for the number of laps in a race completed, and for a finish in the top 50 in a race, a higher placing receiving more points. Additionally, the first-place finisher received a 25-point bonus.
Team changes.
Bobby Allison left Richard Howard's racing team, and would drive his own Chevrolet in 1973. Bobby Allison's team would also furnish a car for his brother, Donnie Allison and the new DiGard Racing team. Taking Bobby's place on the Howard racing team would be Cale Yarborough, returning from the USAC Stock Car division.
Richard Petty, driver and owner of Petty Enterprises, expected to be racing exclusively in Dodge automobiles in 1973 (rather than the mix of Dodge and Plymouth the team had been).
Buddy Baker, who took over at Krauskopf Racing after Bobby Isaac left that team after the 1972 Southern 500, now signed up with Krauskopf for the full 1973 season, driving Dodges.
Retirements.
Fred Lorenzen, a NASCAR notable, ended his career with the end of the 1972 season.
Schedule.
31 Winston Cup races were scheduled for the 1973 season. In the end it had 28 races, as well as two exhibition races. The schedule also includes two 125 Mile Qualifying Races, which are the qualifying races for the Daytona 500.
Key changes from 1973 include:
Race recaps.
Winston Western 500 - Indycar and road racing star Mark Donohue drove an AMC Matador with a set of disc brakes - new for racing at the time - and led 138 laps en route to the win. David Pearson won the pole but never led and fell out with clutch failure, while Richard Petty started fifth and led 39 laps before his engine failed while leading on Lap 95. Bobby Allison finished second driving a self-fielded Chevrolet following a surprise divorce from the Richard Howard team. Cale Yarborough, new driver for Howard's team with the cars renumbered to #11, fell out with transmission failure.
Daytona 500 - Buddy Baker won the 500 pole in the Harry Hyde Dodge formerly driven by Bobby Isaac. Baker led 156 laps but was closely pursued by Cale Yarborough until his engine failure with 45 laps to go. Richard Petty, sporting a mustache called his Fu Manchu look, took up pursuit and grabbed the lead on a fast late pitstop; Baker blew his engine with six laps to go and finished a distant sixth as Petty grabbed his fourth 500 win.
Richmond 500 - Petty and Yarborough combined to lead 378 laps at the Richmond Fairgrounds. Bobby Allison won the pole and led 66 laps but finished 49 laps down. Petty lost time when he ran into a backmarker's car under yellow and needed bumper repairs; he nonetheless rallied past Baker for the win.
Miller High Life 500 - Ownership changes at Ontario Motor Speedway led to cancellation of NASCAR's annual race in 1973.
Carolina 500 - After two dismal races (he was not entered at Richmond) David Pearson began his record-setting assault on the 1973 season, leading 491 laps to easily win the Carolina 500.
Southeastern 500 - Cale Yarborough won the pole and then led all 500 laps for a two-lap win. Numerous crashes, notably a bad wreck to Buddy Baker's Dodge, thinned the field.
Atlanta 500 - David Pearson and Cale Yarborough combined to lead 309 laps in a close battle before Pearson broke away for a two-lap win over Bobby Isaac. Cale finished seven laps down.
Gwyn Staley 400 - Bobby Allison and Richard Petty returned to the scene of their famed slugfest from the previous October, but this time Petty put the race away early, leading 387 laps and finishing at least four laps ahead of the field.
Rebel 500 - Darlington Raceway's spring 400-miler was lengthened to 500 miles and David Pearson led the last 176 laps and grabbed his fourth career win in the event. Crashes permeated the race to where only twelve of forty entries finished. Second-place Benny Parsons was thirteen laps down, third-place Bobby Allison spent the last eighteen laps on pit road with engine failure, and seventh-place Richard Petty crashed out in a big melee in Turn One with 27 laps to go.
Virginia 500 - The Wood Brothers once again were entered in the only short track on their schedule. David Pearson made up a lap with just over 100 laps to go when a yellow flew for an infield spectator needing transport to a local hospital; with no tunnel the track needed the yellow for an ambulance to leave. Cale Yarborough had led 311 laps but Pearson would lead almost the entire final 106 laps after the yellow; the yellow angered team manager Junior Johnson.
Winston 500 - The starting field of 50 was expanded to 60 by track management, and it proved controversial in the subsequent 500, as early in the race Ramo Stott blew his engine on the backstretch and two separate packs of cars hit the oil and crashed; Wendell Scott's car was blasted by several other cars and Scott suffered serious injuries; Buddy Baker and Cale Yarborough were eliminated;, and when they got out of their cars they had to dodge additional crashing cars. Bobby Allison ripped the track for the enormity of the field - "They (filled the field) all right, all over the backstretch." David Pearson lost the lead draft (Baker saying Pearson fouled out the spark plugs on his Mercury and got them replaced under the lengthy yellow), and with all legitimate challengers eliminated he led 111 laps to an easy win, his fifth of the season and fifth in his consecutive starts.
Music City USA 420 - The Nashville Fairgrounds track had come under fire for banking up its corners to 35 degrees, and following driver complaints plus collapsing asphalt in Turn One from the previous season management lowered the banking to roughly 20 degrees. Cale Yarborough led all but four laps to an easy win, only his second of the season.
World 600 - Buddy Baker and Richard Petty combined to lead 354 laps. Petty slid into the wall in Three and finished a distant 13th. Baker led the final sixteen laps and beat Pearson for the win, his first of the season and first since the end of the 1972 season.
Mason-Dixon 500 - Bobby Allison and Cale Yarborough led 175 laps between them but could do nothing about Pearson as he led all but three of the last 241 laps to yet another win.
Alamo 500 - The financially troubled Texas World Speedway hosted another Petty-Baker showdown as Buddy led 168 laps; the lead changed back and forth between the two before Baker lost power in the final 30 laps and finished a distant sixth behind Petty, who posted only his third superspeedway win in the last two seasons. Rookie Darrell Waltrip finished second. The track was unable to host its annual November 500-miler later that season.
Tuborg 400 - Bobby Allison ended his season-long winless streak when Richard Petty hit a barrier at the Riverside road course and Cale Yarborough blew his engine. Allison led 85 laps to Petty's 57 and Cale's eleven for his first win since the 1972 American 500. Finishing third was Benny Parsons, and largely unnoticed was that Parsons was clawing into contention for the season championship.
Motor State 400 - Once again Buddy Baker grabbed the lead at will, leading 119 laps, and once again it would not be enough as David Pearson led the last 23 laps for the fifth win for the Wood Brothers team (and Pearson's fourth, third with the #21) at Michigan International Speedway; but it was the combination's first Michigan win since Roger Penske took control of the speedway after the final collapse of Larry LoPatin's raceway empire. Finishing fifth was Ron Keselowski, whose nephew Brad would race for Penske in coming years.
Medal of Honor Firecracker 400 - NASCAR mandated restrictor plates for all tracks beginning at Daytona after nearly two seasons running carburetor sleeves. Bobby Allison and Cale Yarborough swept the front row in their Chevrolets and battled for the lead in the first 65 laps before Cale crashed out, but from there David Pearson and February's 500 champ Petty took over; Allison fell out with engine failure and Pearson beat Petty for his second straight Firecracker win and eighth win of the season, his highest win total since 1969.
Volunteer 500 - Lost amid the season's other drama was that Benny Parsons was in the thick of the points race despite not winning a race. That part of his ledger was checked off at Bristol amid brutal heat and humidity; John A. Utsman had to drive relief for Parsons as the combination led 320 laps. Early contenders Bobby Allison and Cale Yarborough crashed out while battling for the lead at Lap 331, leaving the #72 of Parsons and Utsman alone; runner-up L.D. Ottinger finished seven laps down.
Northern 300 - Bobby Allison qualified on pole. The Sunday race at Trenton Speedway was rained out, first postponed to August 5, and later cancelled entirely, as the race promoter did not believe they had time to properly promote the race.
Dixie 500 - David Pearson's superspeedway roll continued as he broke out of a tight duel with Cale Yarborough and led the final 165 laps for the win at Atlanta. Richard Petty won the pole but blew his engine and hit the guardrail after 72 laps, while Bobby Isaac led 29 laps but crashed himself after 52 laps. Also falling out was Buddy Baker with a broken axle, his sixth failure to finish a race so far in 1973.
Talladega 500 - Tragedy blackened the fifth running of Talladega's summer 500-miler. Early in the race sophomore Larry Smith hit the wall in Turn One and did not survive what appeared to be a harmless crash. The race, held amid heavy Alabama heat, was a ferocious affair; the lead changed 64 times, a motorsports record for the time, among fourteen drivers. Bobby Allison won the pole while Donnie Allison for almost the first time all year had a strong run in the DiGard Racing Chevrolet. Both crashed on Lap 156 when Donnie blew his engine and the wreck swept up Bobby. Buddy Baker roared from 21st to the lead but even more dramatic was that Dick Brooks, driving the Crawford brothers Plymouth in a last-minute deal and starting 24th, roared through the field; he stormed to the lead when Baker broke a steering line and Pearson slowed, stealing the win in the biggest NASCAR upset in years. A bigger story developed as well; Bobby Isaac parked Bud Moore's Ford and said he was quitting racing (Coo Coo Marlin got into the #15 and finished the race).
Nashville 420 - Buddy Baker ended months of frustration at Nashville's Fairgrounds speedway. He took the lead from pole-sitter Cale Yarborough with 160 laps to go and beating Richard Petty by four laps. Cale faltered and finished 23 laps down in 14th. Bobby Allison blew another engine and finished 22nd.
Southern 500 - What was expected to be another David Pearson big track triumph after he won the pole instead became a runaway by Cale Yarborough as Cale led 277 laps for a runaway win. Finishing fifth was Benny Parsons, quietly surging to the points lead, while finishing eighth was rookie Darrell Waltrip, now driving the Bud Moore Ford.
Capital City 500 - Richard Petty lead 429 laps to his first win since June, beating Cale Yarborough by two laps and pole-sitter Bobby Allison by three. Benny Parsons finished fourth, his eleventh top-five finish of the season to go with the mid-summer Bristol win; the consistency kept boosting him in the points race.
Delaware 500 - Parsons grabbed another top five (finishing fourth after leading seven laps; they were his first laps led since winning at Bristol in July) while David Pearson grabbed another win, his tenth of the season. Bobby Allison and Buddy Baker led 134 laps between them and finished behind Pearson in the top three, the only other cars on the lead lap.
Wilkes 400 - A year after their vicious showdown in the same race, Bobby Allison got a measure of revenge on Richard Petty and he swept to the win on the final lap, only his second of the season. The two led 383 laps between them. Cale Yarborough led eight laps and finished third at team manager Junior Johnson's home track.
Old Dominion 500 - A late yellow allowed Richard Petty to close up on Cale Yarborough and grab the win in the final 48 laps. Cale had led 366 laps to Petty's 108. Bobby Allison and Buddy Baker endured another frustrating day as they finished over 24 laps down but still together in the top four.
National 500 - Mounting frustration in several quarters spilled into an ugly weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Charlie Glotzbach appeared to win the pole in Hoss Ellington's Chevrolet but NASCAR ruled he ran with an illegal sliding restrictor plate and Glotzbach had to start 34th; he later crashed with David Pearson 46 laps into the race and the two drivers nearly came to blows exiting their cars. Harry Hyde clashed with inspectors the entire week and finally parked Buddy Baker's Dodge 228 laps in and was officially disqualified. Cale Yarborough led 257 laps and Richard Petty led 52 as the track paid $100 per lap led; with Cale the winner third-place Bobby Allison filed a protest demanding a re-inspection of the top two finishers. The inspection process on Cale's Chevrolet - owned by track president Richard Howard and wrenched by Junior Johnson - lasted an unusually long number of hours and NASCAR finally issued a statement that the results of the inspection of Cale's car would be sent to NASCAR headquarters for additional study. A furious Allison promptly filed a lawsuit against NASCAR but the suit was withdrawn after a closed-door meeting between Allison and Bill France Jr. of NASCAR, and the inspection process was changed at the next race. Robert Yates, the head engine builder for Junior at the time, stated some thirty years later to racing writer Tom Jensen (in his book "CHEATING: An Inside Look At The Bad Things Good NASCAR Winston Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of Speed") that the engine was indeed illegal. Petty stated at the time that only three of his engine's eight cylinders were checked, and that they were of varying sizes that averaged out to the NASCAR-mandated limit of 431 CID.
American 500 - Amid the controversy Benny Parsons led the points race despite only one win. Prerace inspections all weekend were noticeably tougher than usual; Cale Yarborough had to requalify on the second day of qualifying and ran faster than on pole day; he started 18th. None of it could stop David Pearson from leading 396 laps to Cale's 85. Parsons crashed hard into the lapped car of Johnny Barnes and the crash ripped out the right side of his Chevrolet; he felt his title hopes were over but his crew and other crews worked to rebuild the car to run enough laps to win the title; Parsons 28th, some 182 laps down, and won the title after Richard Petty broke a cam and finished 35th, Petty's eighth engine-related failure of the 1973 season.
1973 Winston Cup Championship.
() Bold – Pole position awarded by time. "Italics" – Pole position set by owner's points. * – Most laps led. ** - All laps led.
Manufacturers' Championship.
Manufacturers would receive points for the highest placing driver with each manufacturer, from 9 points for a win, down to 1 point for a 6th-place finish. Points would be reduced if the highest placing driver placed lower than the corresponding manufacturer placing, or could be reduced by a penalty sanction. |
Masao Inoue (wrestler)
is a Japanese professional wrestler who currently works for Pro Wrestling Noah as a freelancer. He started his career in All Japan Pro Wrestling in 1991, before jumping to Pro Wrestling Noah during a mass exodus in 2000. Inoue spent the next 12 years with Noah before returning to AJPW in 2012. Since then, he has competed regularly for both promotions as a freelancer.
Career.
All Japan Pro Wrestling.
Masao Inoue spent the better part of his time with All Japan as an underling for Toshiaki Kawada and Akira Taue. He found little success until he started a regular tag team with Tamon Honda near the end of his All Japan stay. The tandem won the All Asia Tag Team Championship in 1999.
In mid-2000 Masao Inoue left All Japan Pro Wrestling along with all but two All Japan native workers to join Mitsuharu Misawa's newly formed Pro Wrestling Noah. Inoue and Honda were still the All Asia Tag Team champions and as a result, the titles were vacated when they left.
Return to All Japan (2012-Present).
Following over a decade away from All Japan, Inoue made his return on March 4, 2012, where he teamed with Masanobu Fuchi in a losing effort to Akebono and Ryota Hama. Inoue received his first title match since his return on August 8 where he faced Akebono and Hama with KENSO as his partner, however, the pair fell short in their bid for the All Asia Tag Team Championships.
Inoue's first attempt at winning an All Japan singles championship since his return came on September 25, 2016, where he came up short against Yohei Nakajima in a match for the Gaora TV Championship. Inoue on January 2, 2017, received, along with partner Jun Akiyama, a match for the All Asia Tag Team Championships in a Street Bunkhouse Death Match against the champions Atsushi Onita and Masanobu Fuchi. The tandem ultimately came up short in their bid to dethrone the champions.
Pro Wrestling Noah.
Inoue was a founding member of the Dark Agents stable along with Akitoshi Saito and Takashi Sugiura. He would be second-in-command to Saito. Inoue generally spent his time near the bottom card, not receiving very many high-profile matches. After several years of struggling to make it up the card, Inoue and seven other NOAH wrestlers were given a huge opportunity in late March and early April 2006 to main event a Tokyo Nippon Budokan event. GHC Heavyweight Champion Jun Akiyama proposed a tournament to determine his next challenger. Inoue shocked many wrestling fans by beating rookie Shuhei Taniguchi, Takuma Sano, and finally stablemate Akitoshi Saito to win the tournament. Inoue faced Akiyama in an emotional match and lasted over 23 minutes before falling to the wrist-clutch exploder. Through this tournament win and his subsequent hard-fought match against Akiyama, Inoue greatly improved his stock in the company.
Inoue took part in another number one contender tournament through August and early September 2007, however, Inoue did not make it out of his five-person block winning only one match via forfeit against Takeshi Rikio. While Inoue throughout the majority of 2007 and 2008 was featured only in multi-man tag team matches, on December 23 and 24 he took part in another tournament, this simply titled 'The Tournament' which consisted of matches contested to a ten-minute time limit where, if the time limit was met, the matches would be decided by a five-person judge panel. Inoue defeated Kentaro Shiga, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Yoshihiro Takayama, and Takuma Sano, all matches that went the time limit and were decided in Inoue's favor by the judges, before facing off with stable mate Saito in a rematch of the 2006 title tournament. In this tournament, Saito came out on top defeating Inoue in a 5-0 judges' clean sweep.
Inoue took part in the 2009 Global Tag League alongside Akira Taue. The duo proved fairly unsuccessful as they won only one match finishing last out of the eight teams with two points. Inoue won a Noah 'Royal Rumble', wrestling under the ring name "Naomichi Marufuji" on July 5. In his final match of the year, Inoue lost a match to Kenta Kobashi for the GHC Openweight Hardcore Championship. In April 2011, Inoue took part in the Global Tag League for the second time in his career, this time with Bison Smith. Inoue fared better this time, finishing in sixth place out of eight teams with five points.
Following 2011, Inoue began to make only sporadic appearances in Pro Wrestling Noah as he spent the better part of his time in All Japan. Inoue's appearances in Noah steadily dropped off to the point where Inoue made no appearances in 2016 and only six in 2015 and seven in 2014. Inoue made his return to Noah on June 16, 2017, following nearly two full years away from the company where, teaming with Cody Hall, they defeated the team known as the Back Breakers, Hajime Ohara and Hitoshi Kumano. |
Don Cunningham
Donald Cunningham Jr. (born December 13, 1965) is an American politician who is president and CEO of the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation (LVEDC). He previously served as executive of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of General Services, and mayor of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Cunningham is credited with leading an economic renaissance in Bethlehem, rejuvenating the city's two downtowns and helping kick-start Bethlehem's economy after the collapse of Bethlehem Steel. As Lehigh County executive, Cunningham restructured county operations to make economic growth and community regionalization the focus of his administration.
Early life and career.
Don Cunningham Jr. was born on December 13, 1965, to parents Don Sr. and Valerie Cunningham. His family had lived in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for five generations, and his father and grandfather were both steel workers at Bethlehem Steel. He graduated from the Freedom High School in 1983. During his time at Freedom he played football, ran track, worked on the student newspaper, and was the front man for a teenage rock band. Cunningham was inducted into the School's hall of fame in 2001.
Cunningham went to Shippensburg University and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and a minor in government in 1987. He completed a Master of Arts Degree in political science from Villanova University in 1991.
Cunningham worked as a correspondent with "The Philadelphia Inquirer" and as a reporter with the "Globe-Times" of Bethlehem from 1988 to 1992, covering city government. He then worked as a spokesman for Moravian College from 1992 to 1993 and as an information specialist at the PPL Corporation in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Political career.
In 1995, Cunningham was elected to Bethlehem City Council along with two other political newcomers, Democrats Robert Donchez and James Gregory, defeating two veteran councilmen in what "The Morning Call" newspaper called "a new era for City Democrats". He served as chairman of the council's Parks and Public Property Committee. In January 1997, during his first council term, Cunningham announced his intention to run for mayor, a post held since 1988 by Ken Smith. Donchez served as his campaign chairman. His candidacy was supported by U.S. Rep Paul McHale and Pennsylvania Rep. T. J. Rooney. Cunningham defeated Marakovits in the Democratic primary by a vote count of 3,384 to 2,916, and went on to face Republican Councilman Otto Ehrsam in the general election. Ehrsham was a 67-year-old Bethlehem Steel retiree who had been on council for 20 years. He was elected with 62 percent of the vote, collecting 6,336 to Ehrsam's 3,919 votes. "The Morning Call" called it "one of the most decisive victories in a Bethlehem mayoral race". Voter turnout was approximately 50 percent. At age 31, Cunningham became the youngest elected mayor in the city's history. Cunningham was re-elected to a second term in 2001.
Cunningham was inaugurated not long after the city's largest employer, Bethlehem Steel, had closed, resulting in the loss of thousands of jobs and a significant portion the city's tax base. During his tenure, Cunningham guided more than $1 billion of new development and the creation of 2,500 new jobs into the city. As mayor, Cunningham proposed five city budgets, only one of which had a tax increase in his final year in the office. Cunningham advocated public-private partnerships and developed new programs to improve public safety and the delivery of neighborhood services.
Secretary of General Services.
Cunningham became a short-list candidate for the cabinet of Governor Ed Rendell. Initial discussions centered around the secretary position for the Department of Community and Economic Development. Cunningham said he had modeled his administration's economic development plan in part after the prototype Rendell used as mayor of Philadelphia. In January 2003, it was announced Rendell had tapped Cunningham for the Department of General Services. Cunningham oversaw $4 billion of Pennsylvania's budget, including his department's own budget of $141.6 million. Within his first month in the post, Rendell tasked him with reducing that budget by 10 percent.
Cunningham oversaw the design and construction of the non-highway capital construction projects in Pennsylvania, as well as the state's minority and women-owned business contracting program and the Bureau of Commonwealth Media Services. In addition to his secretary position, Cunningham served on the State Public School Building Authority, the Pennsylvania Higher Educational Facilities Authority, the Governor's Homeland Security Advisory Council, the PENNVEST board, the Capitol Preservation Committee, and the Agricultural Land Preservation Interagency Committee during his time in Rendell's administration.
Lehigh Valley positions.
Starting in early 2005, Cunningham was courted by Lehigh Valley Democrats to run for executive of Lehigh County. No Democrat had won the executive's office since the county's home rule charter went into effect in 1978, and Lehigh County Democratic Committee Chairman Charles F. Smith Jr. called Cunningham the party's "dream candidate". Cunningham announced his candidacy for the position in March, and formally resigned from the Rendell administration on April 8. He ran with no opposition in the Democratic primary, clearing the way for a challenge against Republican Executive Jane R. Ervin, who was seeking a second four-year term. During his campaign, Cunningham criticized Ervin for a 69 percent county tax increase in 2003, calling it "unconscionable" and declaring that a change in leadership was necessary. Ervin responded aggressively to Cunningham's campaign, raising questions about his record in Bethlehem and Rendell's administration and defending her tax increase as the right thing to do for the county. Cunningham defeated Ervin by 33,263 to 20,721, with 62 percent of the vote, becoming the first Democrat ever elected to the executive post. He had spent roughly $500,000 in the election.
Several major development projects and corporate relocations came to fruition during Cunningham's tenure, including the Boston Beer Company establishing their largest brewery in Upper Macungie Township, Olympus Corporation opening its headquarters in Upper Saucon Township; Ocean Spray establishing manufacturing operation in Upper Macungie Township; and Coca-Cola Park, the baseball stadium for the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, opening in Allentown. Cunningham also funded open space preservation, negotiated contracts to stem rising health care costs, and helped municipalities with higher crime rates hire more police officers.
In 2007, Cunningham endorsed Hillary Clinton in her campaign for U.S. President. In April 2008, Cunningham was the top vote-getter in the 15th congressional district to serve as a delegate Hillary Clinton to the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Cunningham announced as early as 2007 that he was considering a run for Pennsylvania governor in 2010. However, in June 2009, he announced he would not seek the post due to family concerns and time restraint. Cunningham had raised about $725,000 for the possible campaign by that point.
In 2009, Cunningham was challenged in his re-election campaign by Scott Ott, a Republican political newcomer associated with the conservative Tea Party movement. Ott accused Cunningham of avoiding a county tax increase only by depleting a tax relief fund established during Jane Ervin's administration, leaving the county in a position where future tax hikes would be necessary. Cunningham accused Ott of using scare tactics in his campaign and said he lacked the experience to lead the county. He also argued Republican county commissioners had actually increased spending. Cunningham defeated Ott in the general election by a voter count of 21,063 to 20,201, capturing 51 percent of the vote to Ott's 49 percent. In 2010, a 16.1 percent tax increase was proposed as part of the county budget, with Cunningham said was necessary due to difficult financial times, but would avoid the need to sell assets, deplete savings, impose massive layoffs, or reduce government services to the point that the problem would grow worse in subsequent years. It was the first county tax increase since 2003. The budget was ultimately passed. In 2011, Ott was elected to the county's board of commissioners, along with a slate of fellow conservatives who ran together on a ticket of reform, which heavily criticized the 16 percent county tax increase during their campaigns.
Although the board had always been Republican-majority during Cunningham's tenure, he had a particularly difficult relationship with the commissioners after the 2011 election. Cunningham unsuccessfully attempted to veto a county-wide reassessment that commissioners approved, arguing it should have been delayed at least a year to allow time for the market to become less volatile.
In May 2012, Cunningham accepted the position of president and CEO of the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Council, resigning as Lehigh County executive with a year-and-a-half remaining in his second term. |
Vesoul
Vesoul () is a commune in the Haute-Saône department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté located in eastern France.
It is the most populated municipality of the department with inhabitants in 2014. The same year, the Communauté d'agglomération de Vesoul which covers 20 municipalities together had inhabitants while the Urban area of Vesoul which includes 78 municipalities, had inhabitants. Its inhabitants are known in French as "Vésuliens".
Built on top of the hill of La Motte in the first millennium under the name of "Castrum Vesulium", the city gradually evolved into a European commercial and economic center. At the end of the Middle Ages, the city experienced a challenging period beset with plagues, epidemics, and localized conflict.
Main urban center of the department, Vesoul is also home to a major PSA parts manufacturing plant and to the Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema. It was immortalized by Jacques Brel in his 1968 song "Vesoul".
The town is the capital of the department of Haute-Saône.
History.
Vesoul is first mentioned in a document dated 899. That document speaks about an elevation with a fortified watchtower. The document speaks about "Castrum Vesulium". Castrum is a fortification, and "Vesulium" has the syllable "ves" which meant hill or mountain in a language that was spoken before the Celts. Today, there is a castle that forms the centre of the city. The first houses were built inside the walls of the castle. Newcomers who found no place settled outside the city walls, on the flanks of the hill. Growing wine was popular.
The town was severely affected by the plague in 1586. It became part of France in 1678.
In 1814, after the fall of the empire, a buffer state was created, with Vesoul as capital. The principality was that of Free County, of the Vosges and of Porrentruy.
Today, one of the main factories of PSA Peugeot Citroën is near Vesoul.
Geography.
Vesoul is located in the easter part of France, about 100 kilometers away from the Germany and the Switzerland's border and between the Jura and the Vosges's mountain ranges. Vesoul is also situated in the center of the Haute-Saône, which is in the nord of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. Inside of this region, Vesoul is included in the "Pays de Vesoul et du Val de Saône", a geographical region composing of the Vesoul's area and the northern part of the river Saône.
By the road, Vesoul is from Luxeuil-les-Bains, from Lure and from Gray, that are the main towns close to Vesoul. About the biggest cities in the French East region, Vesoul is located from Besançon, from Belfort and from Dijon and from Nancy. Situated at the equidistance of Dijon and Mulhouse, Vesoul is from the city of Paris. The town of Vesoul is located at the intersection of national roads N19 and N57. Vesoul station is on the SNCF Paris–Mulhouse railway line, and has connections with Paris, Belfort, Mulhouse and Chaumont.
The area of Vesoul is also included in the "Pôle métropolitain Centre Franche-Comté" which is a government structure unifying the biggest areas of central Franche-Comté. There are nine communes that are bordering the town of Vesoul.
Vesoul is crossed by four watercourses : two rivers (Durgeon and Colombine) and two streams (Vaugine and Méline). All of them are tributaries and sub-tributaries of the Saône, the fourth longest river in France with 473 kilometers long and flowing about ten kilometers from the western side of Vesoul.
Population and society.
Media.
"Vesoul" is also the name of a song by Jacques Brel from 1968, a fast-paced waltz during the recording of which Brel famously yelled "Chauffe, Marcel, chauffe!" ("heat up, Marcel, heat up!") at his accordionist, Marcel Azzola.
The town is also mentioned facetiously in the satirical rap "Fous ta cagoule" by Michael Youn.
Education.
Vesoul has schools of higher education. The city has 1,200 students divided between an IUT, an IUFM, an Institute of Nursing Training, a School of Management and Commerce and BTS. A Council of Student Life (CVE), led by the Officer in charge of Higher Education, was established in 2011. It offers activities to stimulate student life. In all, Vesoul has 10,000 students.
All schools and studies in Vesoul
Culture and heritage.
Library.
The first public library of Vesoul opened in 1771. The "abbé" (abbot) Bardenet, superior of the Saint-Esprit hospital in Besançon, gave his book collection to the town. There were 1772 books. The collections became a lot larger with the Revolution. At that time, the revolutionaries (people who led the French Revolution) took the books from the monasteries of the town ("capucins") and even of the region ("Luxeuil" and "Faverney" monasteries). Around 20,000 books were added to the library this way, including some 11th century manuscripts. The Mayor's office was responsible for keeping the books.
In 1981, the municipality decided to build a new building to encourage the public to read. The library was recently equipped with computers. There are around 200 manuscripts and 150 incunables. |
Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was a German poet, writer and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of "Lieder" (art songs) by composers such as Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert. Heine's later verse and prose are distinguished by their satirical wit and irony. He is considered a member of the Young Germany movement. His radical political views led to many of his works being banned by German authorities—which, however, only added to his fame. He spent the last 25 years of his life as an expatriate in Paris.
Early life.
Childhood and youth.
Heine was born on 13 December 1797, in Düsseldorf, in what was then the Duchy of Berg, into a Jewish family. He was called "Harry" in childhood but became known as "Heinrich" after his conversion to Lutheranism in 1825. Heine's father, Samson Heine (1764–1828), was a textile merchant. His mother Peira (known as "Betty"), "née" van Geldern (1771–1859), was the daughter of a physician.
Heinrich was the eldest of four children. He had a sister, Charlotte (later ), and two brothers, Gustav (later Baron Heine-Geldern and publisher of the Viennese newspaper ""), and Maximilian, who became a physician in Saint Petersburg. Heine was also a third cousin once removed of philosopher and economist Karl Marx, also born to a German Jewish family in the Rhineland, with whom he became a frequent correspondent in later life.
Düsseldorf at the time was a town with a population of around 16,000. The French Revolution and subsequent Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars involving Germany complicated Düsseldorf's political history during Heine's childhood. It had been the capital of the Duchy of Jülich-Berg, but was under French occupation at the time of his birth. It then passed to the Elector of Bavaria before being ceded to Napoleon in 1806, who turned it into the capital of the Grand Duchy of Berg, one of three French states he established in Germany. It was first ruled by Joachim Murat, then by Napoleon himself. Upon Napoleon's downfall in 1815 it became part of Prussia.
Thus Heine's formative years were spent under French influence. The adult Heine would always be devoted to the French for introducing the Napoleonic Code and trial by jury. He glossed over the negative aspects of French rule in Berg: heavy taxation, conscription, and economic depression brought about by the Continental Blockade (which may have contributed to his father's bankruptcy). Heine greatly admired Napoleon as the promoter of revolutionary ideals of liberty and equality and loathed the political atmosphere in Germany after Napoleon's defeat, marked by the conservative policies of Austrian chancellor Klemens von Metternich, who attempted to reverse the effects of the French Revolution.
Heine's parents were not particularly devout. They sent him as a young child to a Jewish school where he learned a smattering of Hebrew, but thereafter he attended Catholic schools. Here he learned French, which became his second language – although he always spoke it with a German accent. He also acquired a lifelong love for Rhenish folklore.
In 1814 Heine went to a business school in Düsseldorf where he learned to read English, the commercial language of the time. The most successful member of the Heine family was his uncle Salomon Heine, a millionaire banker in Hamburg. In 1816 Heine moved to Hamburg to become an apprentice at Heckscher & Co, his uncle's bank, but displayed little aptitude for business. He learned to hate Hamburg, with its commercial ethos, but it would become one of the poles of his life alongside Paris.
When he was 18 Heine almost certainly had an unrequited love for his cousin Amalie, Salomon's daughter. Whether he then transferred his affections (equally unsuccessfully) to her sister Therese is unknown. This period in Heine's life is not clear but it seems that his father's business deteriorated, making Samson Heine effectively the ward of his brother Salomon.
Universities.
Salomon realised that his nephew had no talent for trade, and it was decided that Heine should enter law. So, in 1819, Heine went to the University of Bonn (then in Prussia). Political life in Germany was divided between conservatives and liberals. The conservatives, who were in power, wanted to restore things to the way they were before the French Revolution. They were against German unification because they felt a united Germany might fall victim to revolutionary ideas. Most German states were absolutist monarchies with a censored press. The opponents of the conservatives, the liberals, wanted to replace absolutism with representative, constitutional government, equality before the law and a free press.
At the University of Bonn, liberal students were at war with the conservative authorities. Heine was a radical liberal and one of the first things he did after his arrival was to take part in a parade which violated the Carlsbad Decrees, a series of measures introduced by Metternich to suppress liberal political activity.
Heine was more interested in studying history and literature than law. The university had engaged the famous literary critic and thinker August Wilhelm Schlegel as a lecturer and Heine heard him talk about the "Nibelungenlied" and Romanticism. Though he would later mock Schlegel, Heine found in him a sympathetic critic for his early verses. Heine began to acquire a reputation as a poet at Bonn. He also wrote two tragedies, "Almansor" and "William Ratcliff", but they had little success in the theatre.
After a year at Bonn, Heine left to continue his law studies at the University of Göttingen. Heine hated the town. It was part of Hanover, ruled by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the power Heine blamed for bringing Napoleon down.
Here the poet experienced an aristocratic snobbery absent elsewhere. He hated law as the Historical School of law he had to study was used to bolster the reactionary form of government he opposed. Other events conspired to make Heine loathe this period of his life: he was expelled from a student fraternity due to anti-Semitism reasons and he heard the news that his cousin Amalie had become engaged. When Heine challenged another student, Wiebel, to a duel (the first of ten known incidents throughout his life), the authorities stepped in and he was suspended from the university for six months. His uncle then decided to send him to the University of Berlin.
Heine arrived in Berlin in March 1821. It was the biggest, most cosmopolitan city he had ever visited (its population was about 200,000). The university gave Heine access to notable cultural figures as lecturers: the Sanskritist Franz Bopp and the Homer critic F. A. Wolf, who inspired Heine's lifelong love of Aristophanes. Most important was the philosopher Hegel, whose influence on Heine is hard to gauge. He probably gave Heine and other young students the idea that history had a meaning which could be seen as progressive. Heine also made valuable acquaintances in Berlin, notably the liberal Karl August Varnhagen and his Jewish wife Rahel, who held a leading salon.
Another friend was the satirist Karl Immermann, who had praised Heine's first verse collection, "Gedichte", when it appeared in December 1821. During his time in Berlin Heine also joined the "Verein für Cultur und Wissenschaft der Juden", a society which attempted to achieve a balance between the Jewish faith and modernity. Since Heine was not very religious in outlook he soon lost interest, but he also began to investigate Jewish history. He was particularly drawn to the Spanish Jews of the Middle Ages. In 1824 Heine began a historical novel, "Der Rabbi von Bacherach", which he never managed to finish.
In May 1823 Heine left Berlin for good and joined his family at their new home in Lüneburg. Here he began to write the poems of the cycle "Die Heimkehr" ("The Homecoming"). He returned to Göttingen where he was again bored by the law. In September 1824 he decided to take a break and set off on a trip through the Harz mountains. On his return he started writing an account of it, "Die Harzreise".
On 28 June 1825 Heine converted to Protestantism. The Prussian government had been gradually restoring discrimination against Jews. In 1822 it introduced a law excluding Jews from academic posts and Heine had ambitions for a university career. As Heine said in self-justification, his conversion was "the ticket of admission into European culture". In any event, Heine's conversion, which was reluctant, never brought him any benefits in his career.
Julius Campe and first literary successes.
Heine now had to search for a job. He was only really suited to writing but it was extremely difficult to be a professional writer in Germany. The market for literary works was small and it was only possible to make a living by writing virtually non-stop. Heine was incapable of doing this so he never had enough money to cover his expenses. Before finding work, Heine visited the North Sea resort of Norderney which inspired the free verse poems of his cycle "Die Nordsee".
In Hamburg one evening in January 1826 Heine met , who would be his chief publisher for the rest of his life. Their stormy relationship has been compared to a marriage. Campe was a liberal who published as many dissident authors as he could. He had developed various techniques for evading the authorities. The laws of the time stated that any book under 320 pages had to be submitted to censorship (the authorities thought long books would cause little trouble as they were unpopular). One way around censorship was to publish dissident works in large print to increase the number of pages beyond 320.
The censorship in Hamburg was relatively lax but Campe had to worry about Prussia, the largest German state and largest market for books (it was estimated that one-third of the German readership was Prussian). Initially, any book which had passed the censor in a German state was able to be sold in any of the other states, but in 1834 this loophole was closed. Campe was reluctant to publish uncensored books as he had bad experiences with print runs being confiscated. Heine resisted all censorship; this issue became a bone of contention between the two.
However, the relationship between author and publisher started well: Campe published the first volume of "Reisebilder" ("Travel Pictures") in May 1826. This volume included "Die Harzreise", which marked a new style of German travel-writing, mixing Romantic descriptions of nature with satire. Heine's "" followed in 1827. This was a collection of already published poems. No one expected it to become one of the most popular books of German verse ever published, and sales were slow to start with, picking up when composers began setting Heine's poems as Lieder. For example, the poem "Allnächtlich im Traume" was set to music by Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn. It contains the ironic disillusionment typical of Heine:
<poem lang="de" style="margin-left:1em; float:left;">
Allnächtlich im Traume seh ich dich,
Und sehe dich freundlich grüßen,
Und laut aufweinend stürz ich mich
Zu deinen süßen Füßen.
Du siehst mich an wehmütiglich,
Und schüttelst das blonde Köpfchen;
Aus deinen Augen schleichen sich
Die Perlentränentröpfchen.
Du sagst mir heimlich ein leises Wort,
Und gibst mir den Strauß von Zypressen.
Ich wache auf, und der Strauß ist fort,
Und das Wort hab ich vergessen.</poem>
<poem style="margin-left:1em; float:left;">
Nightly I see you in dreams – you speak,
With kindliness sincerest,
I throw myself, weeping aloud and weak
At your sweet feet, my dearest.
You look at me with wistful woe,
And shake your golden curls;
And stealing from your eyes there flow
The teardrops like to pearls.
You breathe in my ear a secret word,
A garland of cypress for token.
I wake; it is gone; the dream is blurred,
And forgotten the word that was spoken.
(Poetic translation by Hal Draper)</poem>
Starting from the mid-1820s, Heine distanced himself from Romanticism by adding irony, sarcasm, and satire into his poetry, and making fun of the sentimental-romantic awe of nature and of figures of speech in contemporary poetry and literature. An example are these lines:
<poem lang="de" style="margin-left:1em; float:left;">
Das Fräulein stand am Meere
Und seufzte lang und bang.
Es rührte sie so sehre
der Sonnenuntergang.
Mein Fräulein! Sein sie munter,
Das ist ein altes Stück;
Hier vorne geht sie unter
Und kehrt von hinten zurück.</poem>
<poem style="margin-left:1em; float:left;">
A mistress stood by the sea
sighing long and anxiously.
She was so deeply stirred
By the setting sun
My Fräulein!, be gay,
This is an old play;
ahead of you it sets
And from behind it returns.</poem>
The blue flower of Novalis, "symbol for the Romantic movement", also received withering treatment from Heine during this period, as illustrated by the following quatrains from "Lyrisches Intermezzo":
<poem lang="de" style="margin-left:1em; float:left;">Am Kreuzweg wird begraben
Wer selber brachte sich um;
dort wächst eine blaue Blume,
Die Armesünderblum.
Am Kreuzweg stand ich und seufzte;
Die Nacht war kalt und stumm.
Im Mondenschein bewegte sich langsam
Die Armesünderblum.</poem>
<poem style="margin-left:1em; float:left;">At the cross-road will be buried
He who killed himself;
There grows a blue flower,
Suicide’s flower.
I stood at the cross-road and sighed
The night was cold and mute.
By the light of the moon moved slowly
Suicide’s flower.</poem>
Heine became increasingly critical of despotism and reactionary chauvinism in Germany, of nobility and clerics but also of the narrow-mindedness of ordinary people and of the rising German form of nationalism, especially in contrast to the French and the revolution. Nevertheless, he made a point of stressing his love for his Fatherland:
Plant the black, red, gold banner at the summit of the German idea, make it the standard of free mankind, and I will shed my dear heart's blood for it. Rest assured, I love the Fatherland just as much as you do.
Travel and the Platen affair.
The first volume of travel writings was such a success that Campe pressed Heine for another. "Reisebilder II" appeared in April 1827. It contains the second cycle of North Sea poems, a prose essay on the North Sea as well as a new work, "Ideen: Das Buch Le Grand", which contains the following satire on German censorship:
<poem style="margin-left:2em;">
The German Censors —— —— —— —— ——
—— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— ——
—— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— ——
—— —— —— —— —— idiots —— ——
—— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— ——
—— —— —— —— ——</poem>
Heine went to England to avoid what he predicted would be controversy over the publication of this work. In London he cashed a cheque from his uncle for £200 (equal to £ today), much to Salomon's chagrin. Heine was unimpressed by the English: he found them commercial and prosaic, and still blamed them for the defeat of Napoleon.
On his return to Germany, Cotta, the liberal publisher of Goethe and Schiller, offered Heine a job co-editing a magazine, "Politische Annalen", in Munich. Heine did not find work on the newspaper congenial, and instead tried to obtain a professorship at Munich University, with no success. After a few months he took a trip to northern Italy, visiting Lucca, Florence and Venice, but was forced to return when he received news that his father had died. This Italian journey resulted in a series of new works: "Die Reise von München nach Genua" ("Journey from Munich to Genoa"), "Die Bäder von Lucca" ("The Baths of Lucca") and "Die Stadt Lucca" ("The Town of Lucca").
"Die Bäder von Lucca" embroiled Heine in controversy. The aristocratic poet August von Platen had been annoyed by some epigrams by Immermann which Heine had included in the second volume of "Reisebilder". He counter-attacked by writing a play, "Der romantische Ödipus", which included anti-Semitic jibes about Heine. Heine was stung and responded by mocking Platen's homosexuality in "Die Bäder von Lucca". This back-and-forth ad hominem literary polemic has become known as the .
Paris years.
Foreign correspondent.
Heine left Germany for France in 1831, settling in Paris for the remainder of his life. His move was prompted by the July Revolution of 1830 that had made Louis-Philippe the "Citizen King" of the French. Heine shared liberal enthusiasm for the revolution, which he felt had the potential to overturn the conservative political order in Europe. Heine was also attracted by the prospect of freedom from German censorship and was interested in the new French utopian political doctrine of Saint-Simonianism. Saint-Simonianism preached a new social order in which meritocracy would replace hereditary distinctions in rank and wealth. There would also be female emancipation and an important role for artists and scientists. Heine frequented some Saint-Simonian meetings after his arrival in Paris but within a few years his enthusiasm for the ideology – and other forms of utopianism – had waned.
Heine soon became a celebrity in France. Paris offered him a cultural richness unavailable in the smaller cities of Germany. He made many famous acquaintances (the closest were Gérard de Nerval and Hector Berlioz) but he always remained something of an outsider. He had little interest in French literature and wrote everything in German, subsequently translating it into French with the help of a collaborator.
In Paris, Heine earned money working as the French correspondent for one of Cotta's newspapers, the "Allgemeine Zeitung". The first event he covered was the Salon of 1831. His articles were eventually collected in a volume entitled "Französische Zustände" ("Conditions in France"). Heine saw himself as a mediator between Germany and France. If the two countries understood one another there would be progress. To further this aim he published "De l'Allemagne" ("On Germany") in French (begun 1833). In its later German version, the book is divided into two: "Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland" ("On the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany") and "Die romantische Schule" ("The Romantic School"). Heine was deliberately attacking Madame de Staël's book "De l'Allemagne" (1813) which he viewed as reactionary, Romantic and obscurantist. He felt de Staël had portrayed a Germany of "poets and thinkers", dreamy, religious, introverted and cut off from the revolutionary currents of the modern world. Heine thought that such an image suited the oppressive German authorities. He also had an Enlightenment view of the past, seeing it as mired in superstition and atrocities. "Religion and Philosophy in Germany" describes the replacement of traditional "spiritualist" religion by a pantheism that pays attention to human material needs. According to Heine, pantheism had been repressed by Christianity and had survived in German folklore. He predicted that German thought would prove a more explosive force than the French Revolution.
Heine had had few serious love affairs, but in late 1834 he made the acquaintance of a 19-year-old Paris shopgirl, Crescence Eugénie Mirat, whom he nicknamed "Mathilde". Heine reluctantly began a relationship with her. She was illiterate, knew no German, and had no interest in cultural or intellectual matters. Nevertheless, she moved in with Heine in 1836 and lived with him for the rest of his life (they were married in 1841).
Young Germany and Ludwig Börne.
Heine and his fellow radical exile in Paris, Ludwig Börne, had become the role models for a younger generation of writers who were given the name "Young Germany". They included Karl Gutzkow, Heinrich Laube, Theodor Mundt and Ludolf Wienbarg. They were liberal, but not actively political. Nevertheless, they still fell foul of the authorities.
In 1835, Gutzkow published a novel, "Wally die Zweiflerin" ("Wally the Sceptic"), which contained criticism of the institution of marriage and some mildly erotic passages. In November of that year, the German Diet consequently banned publication of works by the Young Germans in Germany and – on Metternich's insistence – Heine's name was added to their number. Heine, however, continued to comment on German politics and society from a distance. His publisher was able to find some ways of getting around the censors and he was still free, of course, to publish in France.
Heine's relationship with his fellow dissident Ludwig Börne was troubled. Since Börne did not attack religion or traditional morality like Heine, the German authorities hounded him less although they still banned his books as soon as they appeared.
Börne was the idol of German immigrant workers in Paris. He was also a republican, while Heine was not. Heine regarded Börne, with his admiration for Robespierre, as a puritanical neo-Jacobin and remained aloof from him in Paris, which upset Börne, who began to criticise him (mostly semi-privately). In February 1837, Börne died. When Heine heard that Gutzkow was writing a biography of Börne, he began work on his own, severely critical "memorial" of the man.
When the book was published in 1840 it was universally disliked by the radicals and served to alienate Heine from his public. Even his enemies admitted that Börne was a man of integrity so Heine's "ad hominem" attacks on him were viewed as being in poor taste. Heine had made personal attacks on Börne's closest friend Jeanette Wohl so Jeannette's husband challenged Heine to a duel. It was the last Heine ever fought – he received a flesh wound in the hip. Before fighting, he decided to safeguard Mathilde's future in the event of his death by marrying her.
Heine continued to write reports for Cotta's "Allgemeine Zeitung" (and, when Cotta died, for his son and successor). One event which really galvanised him was the 1840 Damascus Affair in which Jews in Damascus had been subject to blood libel and accused of murdering an old Catholic monk. This led to a wave of anti-Semitic persecution.
The French government, aiming at imperialism in the Middle East and not wanting to offend the Catholic party, had failed to condemn the outrage. On the other hand, the Austrian consul in Damascus had assiduously exposed the blood libel as a fraud. For Heine, this was a reversal of values: reactionary Austria standing up for the Jews while France temporised. Heine responded by dusting off and publishing his unfinished novel about the persecution of Jews in the Middle Ages, "Der Rabbi von Bacherach".
Political poetry and Karl Marx.
German poetry took a more directly political turn when the new Frederick William IV ascended the Prussian throne in 1840. Initially it was thought he might be a "popular monarch" and during this honeymoon period of his early reign (1840–42) censorship was relaxed. This led to the emergence of popular political poets (so-called "Tendenzdichter"), including Hoffmann von Fallersleben (author of "Deutschlandlied", the German anthem), Ferdinand Freiligrath and Georg Herwegh. Heine looked down on these writers on aesthetic grounds – they were bad poets in his opinion – but his verse of the 1840s became more political too.
Heine's mode was satirical attack: against the Kings of Bavaria and Prussia (he never for one moment shared the belief that Frederick William IV might be more liberal); against the political torpor of the German people; and against the greed and cruelty of the ruling class. The most popular of Heine's political poems was his least typical, "Die schlesischen Weber" ("The Silesian Weavers"), based on the uprising of weavers in Peterswaldau in 1844.
In October 1843, Heine's distant relative and German revolutionary, Karl Marx, and his wife Jenny von Westphalen arrived in Paris after the Prussian government had suppressed Marx's radical newspaper. The Marx family settled in Rue Vaneau. Marx was an admirer of Heine and his early writings show Heine's influence. In December Heine met the Marxes and got on well with them. He published several poems, including "Die schlesischen Weber", in Marx's new journal "Vorwärts" ("Forwards"). Ultimately Heine's ideas of revolution through sensual emancipation and Marx's scientific socialism were incompatible, but both writers shared the same negativity and lack of faith in the bourgeoisie.
In the isolation he felt after the Börne debacle, Marx's friendship came as a relief to Heine, since he did not really like the other radicals. On the other hand, he did not share Marx's faith in the industrial proletariat and remained on the fringes of socialist circles. The Prussian government, angry at the publication of "Vorwärts", put pressure on France to deal with its authors, and Marx was deported to Belgium in January 1845. Heine could not be expelled from the country because he had the right of residence in France, having been born under French occupation. Thereafter Heine and Marx maintained a sporadic correspondence, but in time their admiration for each other faded. Heine always had mixed feelings about communism. He believed its radicalism and materialism would destroy much of the European culture that he loved and admired.
In the French edition of "Lutetia" Heine wrote, one year before he died: "This confession, that the future belongs to the Communists, I made with an undertone of the greatest fear and sorrow and, oh!, this undertone by no means is a mask! Indeed, with fear and terror I imagine the time, when those dark iconoclasts come to power: with their raw fists they will batter all marble images of my beloved world of art, they will ruin all those fantastic anecdotes that the poets loved so much, they will chop down my Laurel forests and plant potatoes and, oh!, the herbs chandler will use my Book of Songs to make bags for coffee and snuff for the old women of the future – oh!, I can foresee all this and I feel deeply sorry thinking of this decline threatening my poetry and the old world order – And yet, I freely confess, the same thoughts have a magical appeal upon my soul which I cannot resist ... In my chest there are two voices in their favour which cannot be silenced ... because the first one is that of logic ... and as I cannot object to the premise "that all people have the right to eat", I must defer to all the conclusions...The second of the two compelling voices, of which I am talking, is even more powerful than the first, because it is the voice of hatred, the hatred I dedicate to this common enemy that constitutes the most distinctive contrast to communism and that will oppose the angry giant already at the first instance – I am talking about the party of the so-called advocates of nationality in Germany, about those false patriots whose love for the fatherland only exists in the shape of imbecile distaste of foreign countries and neighbouring peoples and who daily pour their bile especially on France".
In October–December 1843, Heine made a journey to Hamburg to see his aged mother and to patch things up with Campe with whom he had had a quarrel. He was reconciled with the publisher who agreed to provide Mathilde with an annuity for the rest of her life after Heine's death. Heine repeated the trip with his wife in July–October 1844 to see Uncle Salomon, but this time things did not go so well. It was the last time Heine left France. At the time, Heine was working on two linked but antithetical poems with Shakespearean titles: "Deutschland: Ein Wintermärchen" ("Germany. A Winter's Tale") and "Atta Troll: Ein Sommernachtstraum" ("Atta Troll: A Midsummer Night's Dream"). The former is based on his journey to Germany in late 1843 and outdoes the radical poets in its satirical attacks on the political situation in the country. "Atta Troll" (actually begun in 1841 after a trip to the Pyrenees) mocks the literary failings Heine saw in the radical poets, particularly Freiligrath. It tells the story of the hunt for a runaway bear, Atta Troll, who symbolises many of the attitudes Heine despised, including a simple-minded egalitarianism and a religious view which makes God in the believer's image (Atta Troll conceives God as an enormous, heavenly polar bear). Atta Troll's cubs embody the nationalistic views Heine loathed.
"Atta Troll" was not published until 1847, but "Deutschland" appeared in 1844 as part of a collection "Neue Gedichte" ("New Poems"), which gathered all the verse Heine had written since 1831. In the same year Uncle Salomon died. This put a stop to Heine's annual subsidy of 4,800 francs. Salomon left Heine and his brothers 8,000 francs each in his will. Heine's cousin Carl, the inheritor of Salomon's business, offered to pay him 2,000 francs a year at his discretion. Heine was furious; he had expected much more from the will and his campaign to make Carl revise its terms occupied him for the next two years.
In 1844, Heine wrote series of musical feuilletons over several different music seasons discussing the music of the day. His review of the musical season of 1844, written in Paris on 25 April of that year, is his first reference to Lisztomania, the intense fan frenzy directed toward Franz Liszt during his performances. However, Heine was not always honorable in his musical criticism. That same month, he wrote to Liszt suggesting that he might like to look at a newspaper review he had written of Liszt's performance "before" his concert; he indicated that it contained comments Liszt would not like. Liszt took this as an attempt to extort money for a positive review and did not meet Heine. Heine's review subsequently appeared on 25 April in "Musikalische Berichte aus Paris" and attributed Liszt's success to lavish expenditures on bouquets and to the wild behaviour of his hysterical female "fans". Liszt then broke relations with Heine. Liszt was not the only musician to be blackmailed by Heine for the nonpayment of "appreciation money". Meyerbeer had both lent and given money to Heine, but after refusing to hand over a further 500 francs was repaid by being dubbed "a music corrupter" in Heine's poem "Die Menge tut es".
Last years: the "mattress-grave".
In May 1848, Heine, who had not been well, suddenly fell paralyzed and had to be confined to bed. He would not leave what he called his "mattress-grave" ("Matratzengruft") until his death eight years later. He also experienced difficulties with his eyes. It had been suggested that he suffered from multiple sclerosis or syphilis, although in 1997 it was confirmed through an analysis of the poet's hair that he had suffered from chronic lead poisoning. He bore his sufferings stoically and he won much public sympathy for his plight. His illness meant he paid less attention than he might otherwise have done to the revolutions which broke out in France and Germany in 1848. He was sceptical about the Frankfurt Assembly and continued to attack the King of Prussia.
When the revolution collapsed, Heine resumed his oppositional stance. At first he had some hope Louis Napoleon might be a good leader in France but he soon began to share the opinion of Marx towards him as the new emperor began to crack down on liberalism and socialism. In 1848 Heine also returned to religious faith. In fact, he had never claimed to be an atheist. Nevertheless, he remained sceptical of organised religion.
He continued to work from his sickbed: on the collections of poems "Romanzero" and "Gedichte (1853 und 1854)", on the journalism collected in "Lutezia", and on his unfinished memoirs. During these final years Heine had a love affair with the young Camille Selden, who visited him regularly. He died on 17 February 1856 and was interred in the Paris Cimetière de Montmartre.
His tomb was designed by Danish sculptor Louis Hasselriis. It includes Heine's poem "Where?" () engraved on three sides of the tombstone.
<poem lang="de" style="margin-left:1em; float:left;">
Wo wird einst des Wandermüden
Letzte Ruhestätte sein?
Unter Palmen in dem Süden?
Unter Linden an dem Rhein?
Werd ich wo in einer Wüste
Eingescharrt von fremder Hand?
Oder ruh ich an der Küste
Eines Meeres in dem Sand?
Immerhin! Mich wird umgeben
Gotteshimmel, dort wie hier,
Und als Totenlampen schweben
Nachts die Sterne über mir.</poem>
<poem lang="de" style="margin-left:1em; float:left;">
Where shall I, the wander-wearied,
Find my haven and my shrine?
Under palms will I be buried?
Under lindens on the Rhine?
Shall I lie in desert reaches,
Buried by a stranger's hand?
Or upon the well-loved beaches,
Covered by the friendly sand?
Well, what matter! God has given
Wider spaces there than here.
And the stars that swing in heaven
Shall be lamps above my bier.
(translation in verse by L.U.)</poem>
His wife Mathilde survived him, dying in 1883. The couple had no children.
Legacy.
Among the thousands of books burned on Berlin's Opernplatz in 1933, following the Nazi raid on the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, were works by Heinrich Heine. To memorialize the event, one of the most famous lines of Heine's 1821 play "Almansor", spoken by the Muslim Hassan upon hearing that Christian conquerors burned the Quran at the marketplace of Granada, was engraved in the ground at the site: "Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen." ("That was but a prelude; where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people as well.")
In 1835, 98 years before Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party seized power in Germany, Heine wrote in his essay "The History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany":
Christianity – and that is its greatest merit – has somewhat mitigated that brutal Germanic love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame. This talisman is fragile, and the day will come when it will collapse miserably. Then the ancient stony gods will rise from the forgotten debris and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes, and finally Thor with his giant hammer will jump up and smash the Gothic cathedrals. ...
Do not smile at my advice – the advice of a dreamer who warns you against Kantians, Fichteans, and philosophers of nature. Do not smile at the visionary who anticipates the same revolution in the realm of the visible as has taken place in the spiritual. Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder is of true Germanic character; it is not very nimble, but rumbles along ponderously. Yet, it will come and when you hear a crashing such as never before has been heard in the world's history, then you know that the German thunderbolt has fallen at last. At that uproar the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in the remotest deserts of Africa will hide in their royal dens. A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll.
The North American Heine Society was formed in 1982.
Heine in Nazi Germany.
Heine's writings were abhorred by the Nazis and one of their political mouthpieces, the "Völkischer Beobachter", made noteworthy efforts to attack him. Within the pantheon of the "Jewish cultural intelligentsia" chosen for anti-Semitic demonization, perhaps nobody was the recipient of more National Socialist vitriol than Heinrich Heine. When a memorial to Heine was completed in 1926, the paper lamented that Hamburg had erected a "Jewish Monument to Heine and Damascus...one in which "Alljuda" ruled!". Editors for the "Völkischer Beobachter" referred to Heine's writing as degenerate on multiple occasions as did Alfred Rosenberg. Correspondingly, as part of the effort to dismiss and hide Jewish contribution to German art and culture, all Heine monuments were removed or destroyed during Nazi Germany and Heine's books were suppressed and, from 1940 on, banned.
The popularity of many songs to Heine's lyrics represented a problem for the policy of silencing and proposals such as bans or rewriting the lyrics were discussed. However, in contrast to an often-made claim, there is no evidence that poems such as "" were included in anthologies as written by an "unknown author".
Music.
Many composers have set Heine's works to music. They include Robert Schumann (especially his Lieder cycle "Dichterliebe"), Friedrich Silcher (who wrote a popular setting of "Die Lorelei", one of Heine's best known poems), Franz Schubert, Franz Liszt, Felix Mendelssohn, Fanny Mendelssohn, Johannes Brahms, Hugo Wolf, Richard Strauss, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Edward MacDowell, Elise Schlick, Elise Schmezer, Sophie Seipt, Charlotte Sporleder, Maria Anna Stubenberg, Pauline Volkstein, Clara Schumann and Richard Wagner; and in the 20th century Nikolai Medtner, Lola Carrier Worrell, Hans Werner Henze, Carl Orff, Lord Berners, Paul Lincke, Yehezkel Braun, and Marcel Tyberg.
Heine's play "William Ratcliff" was used for the libretti of operas by César Cui ("William Ratcliff") and Pietro Mascagni ("Guglielmo Ratcliff"). Frank Van der Stucken composed a "symphonic prologue" to the same play.
In 1964, Gert Westphal and the Attila-Zoller Quartet released the vinyl "Heinrich Heine Lyrik und Jazz". In 2006 Philips/Universal launched a republication on CD.
Wilhelm Killmayer set 37 of his poems in his song book "", subtitled "Ein Liederbuch nach Gedichten von Heinrich Heine", in 1994.
Morton Feldman's "I Met Heine on the Rue Fürstemberg" was inspired by a vision he had of the dead Heine as he walked through Heine's old neighborhood in Paris: "One early morning in Paris I was walking along the small street on the Left Bank where Delacroix's studio is, just as it was more than a century ago. I'd read his journals, where he tells of Chopin, going for a drive, the poet Heine dropping in, a refugee from Germany. Nothing had changed in the street. And I saw Heine up at the corner, walking toward me. He almost reached me. I had this intense feeling for him, you know, the Jewish exile. I saw him. Then I went back to my place and wrote my work, "I Met Heine on the Rue Fürstemberg"."
Controversy.
In the 1890s, amidst a flowering of affection for Heine leading up to the centennial of his birth, plans were made to honor Heine with a memorial; these were strongly supported by one of Heine's greatest admirers, Elisabeth of Bavaria, Empress of Austria. The empress commissioned a statue from the sculptor Louis Hasselriis. This statue, originally located at Achilleion, Empress Elisabeth's palace in Corfu, was later removed by Kaiser Wilhelm II after he acquired Achilleion in 1907, but it eventually found a home in Toulon. This became the inspiration for Tony Harrison's 1992 film-poem, "The Gaze of the Gorgon".
Another memorial, a sculpted fountain, was commissioned for Düsseldorf. While at first the plan met with enthusiasm, the concept was gradually bogged down in anti-Semitic, nationalist, and religious criticism; by the time the fountain was finished, there was no place to put it. Through the intervention of German American activists, the memorial was ultimately transplanted into the Bronx, New York City (in Philadelphia already in 1855 was printed the complete edition of Heine's works in German language). While the memorial is known in English as the Lorelei Fountain, Germans refer to it as the Heinrich Heine Memorial. Also, after years of controversy, the University of Düsseldorf was named Heinrich Heine University. Today the city honours its poet with a boulevard (Heinrich-Heine-Allee) and a modern monument.
In Israel, the attitude to Heine has long been the subject of debate between secularists, who number him among the most prominent figures of Jewish history, and the religious who consider his conversion to Christianity to be an unforgivable act of betrayal. Due to such debates, the city of Tel Aviv delayed naming a street for Heine, and the street finally chosen to bear his name is located in a rather desolate industrial zone rather than in the vicinity of Tel Aviv University, suggested by some public figures as the appropriate location.
"Ha-‘Ir" ("העיר" – "The City", a left-leaning Tel Aviv magazine) sarcastically suggested that "The Exiling of Heine Street" symbolically re-enacted the course of Heine's own life. Since then, a street in the Yemin Moshe neighborhood of Jerusalem and, in Haifa, a street with a beautiful square and a community center have been named after Heine. A Heine Appreciation Society is active in Israel, led by prominent political figures from both the left and right camps. His quote about burning books is prominently displayed in the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. (It is also displayed in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and in the pavement in Frankfurt am Main.)
Works.
A list of Heine's major publications in German. All dates are taken from . |
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center
The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) is an exhibition and performance space and resource center located at 120 College Street on Pack Square Park in downtown Asheville, North Carolina dedicated to preserving and continuing the legacy of educational and artistic innovations of Black Mountain College (BMC). BMCM+AC achieves its mission through collection, conservation, and educational activities including exhibitions, publications and public programs.
History.
Arts advocate Mary Holden Thompson founded BMCM+AC in 1993 to celebrate the history of Black Mountain College as a forerunner in progressive interdisciplinary education and to explore its extraordinary impact on modern and contemporary art, dance, theater, music, and performance. Today, the museum remains committed to educating the public about BMC's history and raising awareness of its extensive legacy. BMCM+AC's goal is to provide a gathering point for people from a variety of backgrounds to interact through art, ideas, and discourse.
Location.
BMCM+AC was first based out of founder Mary Holden Thompson's house in Black Mountain, NC. From 2003 to 2018, BMCM+AC was housed in a storefront gallery at 56 Broadway. In September 2018, BMCM+AC opened a new space at 120 College Street, a relocation and expansion to a newly renovated building on Pack Square Park in the heart of the city. The new 6,000 square foot space doubled the museum's footprint and includes 2,500 square feet of flexible exhibition/event space with a seating capacity for 180, a permanent Black Mountain College history and research center, an expanded library and education center with over 1,500 BMC-related texts, and on-site storage for the museum's permanent collection and research center.
Exhibitions.
Pieces from the permanent collection, as well as loaned works, are featured via a rotating schedule of temporary exhibitions, which are on display for an average of four months at time. Exhibitions display the many histories of Black Mountain College through shared themes or the work of singular alumni. Exhibitions are often connected to contemporary legacies of BMC through programming or complimentary installations.
BMCM+AC has also co-curated exhibitions with a variety of regional institutions, including the Hickory Museum of Art, Western Carolina University, Folk Art Center, the Western Regional Archives, and the Smith-McDowell House.
Collections.
BMCM+AC Permanent Collection.
The BMCM+AC permanent collection includes items with dates of creation ranging from 1931 to 2004. All items in the collection have a direct connection to the history of BMC, such as original college publications and other primary source materials. Components of the collection are photographs, ephemera, paintings, drawings/prints, poems/books/monographs/magazines/articles, writings/correspondences. The museum owns a variety of objects, including ceramics/clay, furniture/wood, sculptures, weavings/fiber, collages and mixed media pieces, broadsides/artists’ books and music/album covers.
In addition, the collection features a full set of the poetry journal "The Black Mountain Review", which formed the group of writers known as the Black Mountain Poets. In Summer 2013, the museum acquired a 1971 work by BMC alumnus Robert Rauschenberg, "Opal Gospel, 10 American Indian Poems", consisting of 10 moveable silkscreened acrylic panels of American Indian stories and imagery. Other noted pieces in the collection are furniture from the original Black Mountain College campuses: two benches from the Quiet House, a place for contemplation, meditation, and observance of special occasions at the Lake Eden campus and a desk designed by Josef Albers. BMCM+AC has an original Black Mountain College directional sign from the Lake Eden Campus, which is displayed in the museum library. The collection features many other works by various alumni, faculty and key figures of Black Mountain College including, among many others, Ruth Asawa, Ray Johnson, Kenneth Noland, Charles Olson, M. C. Richards, Dorothea Rockburne, Suzi Gablik and Susan Weil. The museum also manages image requests on behalf of the Hazel Larsen Archer Estate. Hazel Larsen Archer was the first full-time instructor of photography at Black Mountain College, and her photographs are among the most well-known documentation of the people and daily activities of the college.
BMCM+AC has been facilitating oral history documentation since 1999, resulting in a collection of recorded interviews with 69 BMC alumni as of 2019. BMCM+AC also has a research library, which includes approximately 400 BMC-related resources in audio, video and book form. These resources, in addition to the aforementioned oral histories, are available to museum visitors and members as a part the museum's publicly accessible resource center.
In addition to the museum's regional use of the collection in exhibitions, the collection is also accessed nationally and internationally by means of traveling exhibitions and loans to other institutions. Works from BMCM+AC's permanent collection have been loaned to the exhibitions "Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College" (Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston Wexner Center for the Arts and Hammer Museum), "Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends" at the Museum of Modern Art, "Black Mountain College and Interdisciplinary Experiment 1933 - 1957" at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, among others.
The Jargon Society.
In 2012, BMCM+AC was chosen as the receiving institution for the remaining publications and archive of The Jargon Society, a small press publisher founded in 1951 by Jonathan Williams. The archive currently includes over 70 titles out of the total 115 Jargon titles. Of the 115 originals in the Jargon catalogue, approximately 85 are books and another 30 are broadsides, pamphlets and other publications. The museum has continued publication under the imprint. The most recent Jargon title as of 2019 is "The Black Mountain College Anthology of Poetry", produced in collaboration with the University of North Carolina Press"."
Programs.
{Re}HAPPENING.
The {Re}HAPPENING, an annual multidisciplinary art event, honors the interdisciplinary nature of Black Mountain College and pays tribute to the innovations of that community of artists. Hosted on the former BMC campus at Lake Eden, NC, the site-specific event launches a contemporary platform for artists and attendees to experience creativity in the present day.
Taking its name from what is widely considered to be the first ‘Happening’ in the United States—from John Cage’s emphasis on chance and the observer as vital components in artistic creation—the {Re}HAPPENING reimagines BMC's tradition of Saturday night parties and performances. Cage's proto-Happening took place at BMC in 1952 and featured Cage reading Meister Eckhart, Charles Olson and M.C. Richards reciting poetry, Robert Rauschenberg showing his White Paintings and playing recordings on an old victrola, and Merce Cunningham dancing.
Each year, the {Re}HAPPENING features over 80 local, regional, national, and international artists collaborating on 30+ visual art installations, new media presentations, and performances dependent upon wildly innovative visual and participatory components. As with Cage's 1952 event, the {Re}HAPPENING is a democratizing art experience, participatory and interactive rather than hierarchical.
Annual conference.
The ReVIEWING Black Mountain College Conference is annual academic event which engages a variety of humanities disciplines. Hosted on the campus of UNC Asheville, the conferences of the past have included film screenings, musical and dramatic productions, hands-on workshops and lectures by new and established scholars.
Performance Initiative.
Starting in fall 2017 with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s HESH Program, BMCM+AC has worked to bring international artists to the region, with an emphasis on how art can strengthen community and deepen conversations around social justice. This work extends the legacy of Black Mountain College, which brought international artists previously unknown in the region to interact with the culture and practices of Western North Carolina. The stream of programs began in September 2017 with the Southeast premiere of Black Mountain Songs, an expansive choral and visual celebration of Black Mountain College performed by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and curated by Bryce Dessner and Richard Reed Parry. Other projects have included choreographer Silvana Cardell’s "Supper, People on the Move", a dance performance inspired by themes of migration and the complex experience of dislocation. This performance was accompanied by an exhibition of photographs and narratives telling the story of “People on the Move” in the Western North Carolina community. This initiative continued in the spring with the Southeast premiere of "Dance Heginbotham" and Maira Kalman’s "The Principles of Uncertainty", an evening-length dance-theater work by choreographer John Heginbotham and author/illustrator Maira Kalman.
Active Archive.
In 2017, BMCM+AC launched an initiative called Active Archive, a stream of programs that pairs the museum's collection with contemporary artists, curators, and cultural thinkers. Components of the initiative include an artist's residency program and commissions of new work. The first artist resident was interdisciplinary artist Martha McDonald, whose output as part of "Active Archive" included a curated exhibition and catalogue, as well as community programs such as a performance, conference presentation, and gallery talks.
Publications.
The BMCM+AC has published numerous dossiers, exhibition catalogues and books about Black Mountain College, its teachers, and alumni.
Journal of Black Mountain College Studies.
Black Mountain College Studies is an online peer-reviewed publication of the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis.
Dossiers.
The Dossiers focus on specific BMC alumni and serve both as exhibition catalogues and critical studies.
The museum has published dossiers featuring BMC alumni including Joseph Fiore, Fannie Hillsmith, Lore Kadden Lindenfeld, Ray Johnson, Susan Weil, Michael Rumaker, Gwendolyn Knight and Gregory Masurovsky. |
Autumn Jackson
Autumn Jaquel Jackson (born September 20, 1974), also known as Autumn Williams, first came to media attention in 1997 for her extortion attempt against comedian Bill Cosby. Jackson had threatened to go to the tabloids with her claim she was Cosby's illegitimate child unless Cosby paid her $40 million USD. Jackson's disputed paternity claim against Cosby resurfaced in the media in 2014, as a result of sexual assault allegations against Cosby.
Paternity.
Autumn Jaquel Jackson was born to Shawn Thompson Upshaw on September 20, 1974. The paternity has been disputed. Jackson and her mother have claimed that comedian Bill Cosby is Jackson's father while Cosby has denied the claim. In 1997, Cosby admitted to having an extra-marital affair with Upshaw in the 1970s. Upshaw also disclosed the affair with Cosby to the media in 1997, per interviews by the tabloid "Daily Mail" and the "National Enquirer". In 2005, following sexual assault allegations against Cosby from an athletics director at Temple University, Jackson's mother alleged that she became pregnant with Jackson after Cosby allegedly drugged and raped her. This allegation received renewed attention in 2014, when other women claiming to have been raped by Cosby came forward. Jackson's mother claims she had consensual sex with Cosby prior to the alleged rape, but she alleges the last time they were together, Cosby spiked her drink and raped her. Upshaw claimed that when she later found out she was pregnant, she knew Cosby was the father as he was the only man she was sexually active with during that time period. According to Jackson's mother, when Cosby was told she was pregnant, he persuaded her to put her former boyfriend Jerald Jackson's name on the birth certificate. She claims she agreed to do so to protect Cosby's reputation. Upshaw expressed concern that no one would believe her account as she first made her allegations to the supermarket tabloid the "National Enquirer" in 2005.
Jerald Jackson claims to be Jackson's father and is listed on her birth certificate as her father. Additionally, Jesus Vasquez, who is an ex-husband of Upshaw, has also claimed paternity. Jackson's mother claims she never had sex with Vasquez, who was a Mexican immigrant and former busboy.
Cosby says he paid over $100,000 over 20 years to keep the affair with Upshaw secret. The money went to a trust fund for Jackson, paid for Jackson's car, and her college tuition. While she was in college at Tallahassee Community College in Florida, Jackson says she and Cosby talked on the phone approximately 15 times. Cosby required that in order for Jackson's tuition to be paid, she was to maintain a B-average. When Cosby learned in April 1995 that Jackson had dropped out of college, he stopped having funds released from her education trust fund. Cosby reports he had told his wife about the affair but was concerned with what the media would do with the information.
Following new sexual assault allegations against Cosby in 2014, questions surrounding Jackson's paternity resurfaced in the media. In November 2014, former NBC employee Frank Scotti said he helped Cosby by providing women Cosby liked with up to $2000 per month, claiming one of those women was Jackson's mother, Shawn Upshaw.
Extortion, conviction, prison.
In 1997, Jackson, along with two others, attempted to extort $40 million from Cosby in exchange for not going to the press with her claims of being his daughter. At the time, Jackson was living in Burbank, California. Jackson believed the leverage she held over Cosby was that his public and professional image would be damaged if the affair and disputed paternity claims were revealed. Jackson was contacted by Cosby's lawyer who warned her that what she was doing constituted an extortion attempt. Jackson persisted, and sent Cosby a copy of the $25,000 contract she had negotiated with "The Globe" to sell her story.
Cosby's lawyers contacted the FBI, who covertly contacted Jackson using the guise of a settlement agreement. Jackson was persuaded to come to New York for the purposes of a sting operation devised to gain proof of extortion on her part. Jackson was subsequently arrested on January 20, 1997. During the ensuing trial, Cosby was represented by attorneys Jack Schmidtt; Paul A. Engelmayer; and Lewis J. Liman, son of Arthur L. Liman, while Jackson was represented by Robert Baum. On December 12, 1997, Judge Barbara S. Jones of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York found Jackson guilty of threatening to injure another person's reputation with the intent to extort money, traveling across state lines to promote extortion, and conspiring to commit extortion. She was sentenced to 26 months in federal prison.
When Jackson began her sentence at the Dublin Federal Correctional Institution in April 1998, she was six months pregnant with twin boys. Their father was Jackson's then-boyfriend, now husband, Antonay Williams of Perry, Florida. Williams raised their sons while Jackson was in jail. In June 1999, after serving 14 months of her sentence, Jackson's conviction was overturned and she was released from jail, pending a retrial. She was also barred from contacting Cosby. In November 1999, Jackson's conviction was reinstated by the same court of appeals.
It has been suggested by legal experts that if Jackson had negotiated the original terms through a lawyer rather than acting on her own, she would have been able to avoid extortion charges and reach a settlement with Cosby. While citing Jackson's case as such an example, Eric Dezenhall described the nature of the legal strategy as "wrapping an extortion threat in a legal cloak." Criminal defense attorney Gerald B. Lefcourt stated that "Threatened lawsuits, and even filed lawsuits, are often no more than blackmail."
Personal life.
As a young woman, Jackson had aspirations of attending UCLA with the intention of studying film. Before the extortion case, Jackson worked for Spanish filmmaker José Medina and his production company. Jackson met Antonay Williams while both attended university at Tallahassee Community College in Tallahassee, Florida. On October 18, 1997, at Clearlake, California, Jackson married Williams in a private ceremony. On the marriage certificate, Jackson's father is listed as "unknown". As of 2014, Jackson works as a kitchen and bathroom designer and lives in Maryland. |
George Dexter Whitcomb
George Dexter Whitcomb (May 13, 1834 – June 21, 1914) an American manufacturer and founder of the town of Glendora, California.
Biography.
Early life.
Born in Brandon, Vermont to Dexter and Emily (née Tilton) Whitcomb, George Dexter Whitcomb was the second of eight children. The family relocated to Franklin Mills, Ohio (now known as Kent, Ohio), where Dexter worked as a shoemaker and mechanic. Young Whitcomb attended public schools and later worked as a ticketing agent and telegraphist for the Panhandle Railroad to pay his tuition while at business college in Akron, Ohio. This was the beginning of a lifelong career and association with railroading.
In 1856, he moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota, to manage a company that was trading with Indians on the frontier. There, in 1857, he met and began courting Leadora Bennett. Leadora was the daughter of Captain Abraham and Elizabeth (Barney) Bennett. Leadora's father was a well known pioneer steamboat captain and owner on the upper Mississippi River. She was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, and had graduated from the Young Ladies Seminary there.
Shortly after their marriage, in 1859, the Whitcombs moved to Chicago, where Whitcomb returned to railroading and became a purchasing agent for the Chicago and Alton Railroad. When the American Civil War broke out, he volunteered for duty with the Union Army, and his service assignment was production of ties and supplies for use on Union railroads. While assigned to the war construction supply, he and Leadora lost their infant son Henry, in January 1864.
Career.
After the Civil War, Whitcomb continued to push railroad development. He saw the potential for westward continental expansion and he threw himself into work with the railroads. His endeavors included a construction contract for a major bridge across the Ohio River and several hundred miles of track for the Panhandle Railroad. In an attempt to cheer Leadora and help them through the loss of their infant son, he built a steamboat on the nearby Mississippi River named the "Leadora", in her honor.
By 1865, Whitcomb had been promoted to General Purchasing Agent for the Panhandle Railroad, and the family included children George Bennett Whitcomb and Carroll Sylvanus Whitcomb. He was now moving on to ownership of his own company and relocated to Chicago.
Whitcomb Mining and Manufacturing Company.
His new company, Whitcomb Mining and Manufacturing Company, was engaged in production of coal mining machinery and coal field development to supply the railroads. In 1871, the disastrous Great Chicago Fire destroyed most of the central city. The offices of the company were relocated to the corner of LaSalle and Adams Street in the Loop area of downtown Chicago. The Schlosser Block, where the company offices were located, was a four-story impressive granite faced building, just doors from the famed "Rookery" building by the architects Burnham and Root. These were heady days in Chicago. A rebirth swept the city after the fire and it was a time for men with ideas and dreams to seize potential.
Whitcomb was swept into this renaissance and continued the development and manufacture of all manner of mining machinery as well as other kinds of small machinery. With the completion of the First transcontinental railroad in 1869, easier quicker and cheaper methods of locating and processing coal were now in great demand. That demand drove the need for more advanced drilling and processing machinery as well as a safer method to transport the coal from the inside of the mines. Men with pickaxes and mules and wagons had long been the means of locating and moving the coal to the surface. Whitcomb recognized the need for more advanced methods and went on to invent a small battery operated locomotive that would pull coal cars safely from the mines. He also developed more precise coal drills and processing machinery that sped up as well as made safer the coal mining process.
By the late 1870s George Whitcomb had a successful company and a fine home in the Drexel Park area of Chicago and his family had grown once again to include William Card Whitcomb, Leadora Whitcomb, Elizabeth Emily Whitcomb, and Virginia Whitcomb.
However, the failing health of his son Carroll and the continued health problems of his beloved wife forced dramatic changes on the family very quickly. Through his entire life, Whitcomb was a dedicated husband and family man and his foremost thoughts were always of his family's security and wellbeing. Remembering the pain of the loss of their son, the couple was willing to do whatever the doctors advised to recover the health of both Carroll and Leadora. A milder climate such as Arizona or Southern California was suggested, and the Whitcombs soon began investigating the Los Angeles area. Since the expansion of the railroads was complete, travel that before took four to six months time overland, had now been reduced to six days. The western states were now much more attractive and the more temperate climate of Southern California was the place where people went to escape the harsh winters and humid summers of the east coast.
Southern California.
Using the same attention he had to previously concentrated on his company, Whitcomb scoured the Los Angeles Basin, and determined that he should relocate the family there. He would continue to run his company, now renamed the Whitcomb Locomotive Works, through the means of telegraph messages and with the assistance of trusted employees in the Chicago offices. By the early 1880s the family was living in a rented home near downtown Los Angeles and Whitcomb was homing in on the location for his latest and most lasting endeavor, the creation of a new foothill town.
Glendora.
He finally settled on a parcel of land that had once been a western section of the Mexican land grant Rancho Azusa de Dalton. He purchased several hundred acres and became associated with John W. Cook, a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors member, and Merrick Reynolds, the owner of the San Pedro Lumber Company. The three formed the Glendora Land Company and the Glendora Water Company. Whitcomb constructed a 26-room villa at the northernmost end of Vista Bonita Avenue. He laid out groves of oranges, and other citrus and deciduous fruit trees around his residence. Once his residence was established and his family was settled, his work began in earnest to develop the plans for his new town.
He chose the name Glendora, a combination of two words, the first being the location of his new home in a glen of the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, and the second was his wife's nickname (Dora). Combined they became "Glendora."
The company set about to establish infrastructures that would support a "family town" founded with a sense of permanence and values. The company built a hotel, the Belleview, and a land office. both were elegant structures in Victorian architectural styles. Whitcomb donated the land and $5,000 for the construction of a school. He also donated land for the Methodist Church. Drilling equipment was brought in to locate a reliable source of water. Streets were graded, laid out, and named. Thousands of Peruvian pepper trees ("Schinus molle") were planted.
Whitcomb entered into negotiations with Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway executives to relocate the new southern transcontinental line's planned local route to the north of the San Jose Hills (South Hills) for the town's prospering. He used his past affiliations with rail officials, and could be seen assisting the survey crews, to bring the route along the southern border of the town's site. He then brought the L.A. city newspaper "The Signal" out to the new town, to publicize the local improvements and attract new lot sales. The town development was designed to attract "solid" white families as residents, who needed schools, churches, and upstanding businesses. Completing Glendora's infrastructure and subdividing lots for residential development was accomplished in less than three years.
Whitcomb continued his untiring interest and devotion to Glendora for the next 30 years. The Whitcomb home was a center of activity during these years. Guests ranged from the Bovards of the newly established University of Southern California, to civic leaders from the city and county of Los Angeles and other parts of California, as well as business leaders from around the region and country. During those years, he was able to convince Glendorans to delay the incorporation of Glendora (est. 1911) until the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed to pave Foothill Boulevard and make several other civic improvements in the town using Los Angeles County funds.
He worked to bring the light rail Pacific Electric Red Cars to serve Glendora, resulting in the Monrovia–Glendora Line connecting the town with Downtown Los Angeles and numerous other lines across Greater Los Angeles. Whitcomb helped to form the Glendora School District, and served on its first board of trustees.
He and Leadora continued to travel regularly to Chicago, and to Rochelle where his Geo D. Whitcomb Company factory had been relocated in Illinois, to check on his company, which was by now manufacturing locomotives, an automobile, small machinery, and mining equipment. They also traveled regularly to Sacramento, California to follow the state legislature.
Death.
On June 21, 1914, after a lifetime of achievements, George Dexter Whitcomb died at his home in Glendora, at the age of 80. He is buried in Inglewood Cemetery, in Los Angeles. He left his beloved wife Leadora, three surviving sons and three daughters. His company, the Whitcomb Locomotive Works continued to operate until 1930, when controlling interest was sold to Baldwin Locomotives. His beautiful home in Glendora, known as "The White House," was destroyed by fire in the 1920s. In his honor today in Glendora there remains, Whitcomb Avenue, Whitcomb High School and The Whitcomb Courtyard at the Glendora Historical Society on Glendora Avenue. But surely the greatest tribute to his memory was the founding of the city of Glendora, California. |
After Ashley
After Ashley is a 2004 play written by Gina Gionfriddo.
Productions.
The play was a hit at the 2004 Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, Kentucky where it received its world premiere in March 2004. The play was commissioned by Philadelphia Theatre Company and received staged readings at the 2003 O'Neill Playwrights Conference of the Euguene O'Neill Theatre Center.
It was then produced Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre, from February 11, 2005 to April 3, 2005. The run had been extended "in response to strong audience and critical support." This production was directed by Terry Kinney and starred Kieran Culkin, Anna Paquin, Dana Eskelson, and Grant Shaud. For his performance as Justin, Culkin won an Obie Award in 2005.
Regional productions.
The play was produced by Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington D.C. in September 2005 to October 2005, directed by Lee Mikeska Gardner.
The play was presented by the Philadelphia Theatre Company (PTC) at the Plays & Players Theatre, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in February to March 5, 2006, with direction by Pam MacKinnon. The play received a reading at the PTC STAGES series in Fall 2003.
Plot.
In 1999, Justin Hammond lives with his mother and father, Ashley and Alden. They endure trials and tribulations of being a dysfunctional family due to Alden's passive-aggressive nature and Justin's desire to want to be able to grow up without having to talk to his mother about topics such as sexual intercourse or drug usage. An argument ensues when Alden informs Ashley that he has hired a homeless man to do some finishing touches on their long postponed yard work. As a result, the homeless man (who is given the name Glen but is not given any stage time) murders Ashley and leaves her body in the basement for Justin to find. Justin immediately makes a call to 911 to inform them of his mother's murder.
Three years later, in 2002, Alden and Justin have been invited to appear on a talk show in Central Florida with TV producer David Gavin to talk about Alden's best selling book, entitled After Ashley. Alden makes certain that everyone knows of the pain he and Justin have endured since losing a wife and mother, but Justin continuously gives unhelpful and insulting answers to all of David's questions, and protests that simply because someone has died, doesn't mean that all their recognition should be directed on only the good qualities of their character, and not only that, but Alden is lying about his wife to make the two of them look good.
That night, Justin sneaks into a bar where he meets Julie, a girl with a gothic image who recognizes him as the "911 Kid". At first, Justin talks about his "love" for Jesus Christ, which he shortly thereafter admits he was only lying to be funny. During this conversation, he attempts to "figure her out" so that she'd be more interested in having sex with him, which as it turns out, is why Julie initiated a conversation at all. So they go to Justin's apartment that night.
The following day, Alden comes in and is surprised by Julie's presence, but decides to tell Justin that he has news: David has decided to produce a new show depicting crimes similar to Ashley's murder and unresolved cases, and he has put a demo of an episode on a VHS tape that they plan to screen the next day. To add on to the problem, David shows up shortly after that and announces that he is opening a homeless shelter entitled "Ashley House", which will open on the same evening. Justin, disgusted by this news, employs the help of a sex cult leader named Roderick Lord to help in any way he can to ruin the premiere. With the aid of Roderick, Justin is able to swap the demo episode for a sex tape that Ashley had made with Roderick when she was still alive, only in exchange for his making a sex tape with Julie. The screening happens the next day, beginning with an introduction from David, a statement read by Alden, and finally an excerpt from a poem read by Justin, and as Ashley's sex tape premieres, Justin lashes out at a painting that was created for the premiere by slashing it. Appalled by this, Alden leaves the screening and cuts off Justin financially.
After the exposure, Justin and Julie sit on the edge of a lake and talk about their relationship, or lack thereof. They resolve that in the end, it would be best for them to be together due to some of the hardships that Justin has had to endure and because his need of a female companion whom he wasn't uncomfortable with, their relationship would be an ideal solution. As this conversation is happening, Ashley's ghost is standing behind them, yet, they are both oblivious to her presence, as she looks at their union disapprovingly.
Awards and nominations.
The play was a finalist for the Steinberg New Play Award in 2005. The play was one of three nominees for the Outer Critics Circle Award, John Gassner Playwriting Award. The play was nominated for the Lucille Lortel Award, Outstanding Play. |
Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Characters/Fleur Delacour
Overview.
Fleur Isabelle Delacour was once a student at the French magical school, Beauxbatons Academy. She was chosen to be her school's Champion in the Triwizard Tournament that was held at Hogwarts in book 4. A stunningly beautiful witch, she has wavy silver-blonde hair that seems to float behind her as she walks. Many males seem unnaturally attracted to her.
Fleur's rosewood wand is among the few seen in the series that was crafted by someone other than Mr. Ollivander. Its core contains a Veela hair.
Role in the Books.
Goblet of Fire.
Fleur Delacour enters our story as the students from Beauxbatons arrive to take part in the Triwizard Tournament. She visits the Gryffindor table that first evening to ask for bouillabaisse, and Ron is stunned by her beauty. When Hermione seems somewhat nettled by this, Ron suggests that there might be some Veela in her ancestry.
The next evening, the Goblet of Fire selected her to participate in the Triwizard Tournament at Hogwarts, competing against Durmstrang's Viktor Krum and Hogwarts' Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory. She is openly contemptuous of Harry being selected, saying that "'E cannot compete. 'E is too young!" She is, however, overruled by Mr. Crouch's interpretation of the rule book.
At the Weighing of the Wands, it is revealed by Mr. Ollivander that Fleur's wand has, as its core, the hair of a Veela. Fleur says that it is her grandmother's, confirming Ron's earlier belief that she has Veela ancestors.
Although the First Task was intended to be a surprise, Fleur Delacour was forewarned of its nature by Olympe Maxime, headmistress of Beauxbatons, who discovered what was coming when Rubeus Hagrid allowed her to see the dragons. Fleur's first task was to seize a golden egg from the nest of a mother Welsh Green dragon. She attempted to put it in a trance, but her plan backfired when the dragon snored, lighting her skirt on fire and forcing her to put out the flame with a jet of water from her wand. She did however, manage to collect the egg.
As the Yule Ball approaches, Ron, desperate, asks Fleur to the ball; she does not even deign to notice him. Utterly crushed, he retreats to the Gryffindor common room. Harry reveals Fleur's Veela ancestry to him at this point, but he is so defeated that he does not seem to notice. At the Ball, Ron spends some time hiding from Fleur; he is so embarrassed that he does not even want to be seen by her. Fleur, however, is keeping Roger Davies entranced, and again does not seem to notice him.
In the Second Task, Fleur had to rescue her sister from the merpeople at the bottom of the lake at Hogwarts. She used an excellent Bubble-Head Charm, giving her a supply of air, but she was attacked by grindylows and was forced to forfeit. She earned twenty-five points. Like Harry, she had thought that the song of the merpeople was to be meant literally and was afraid that her sister, Gabrielle, would die or be kept underwater forever. So when Harry brought Gabrielle to the surface, Fleur was overjoyed, and ended up kissing him on both cheeks, twice, which left Harry feeling rather as if there was steam coming out his ears. Ron got kissed also, for helping, and seemed extremely pleased about it.
Being in last place, Fleur was the last to enter the obstacle course/maze of the Third Challenge, which was full of enchantments to break and magical creatures to fight. She lost her chance to reach the Triwizard Cup when Barty Crouch Jr. used the Imperius curse to force Victor Krum to Stun her.
As the Beauxbatons carriage is prepared for departure, Fleur comes up to Harry and Ron on the steps at Hogwarts to say goodbye. Ron becomes somewhat tongue-tied when she approaches, which seems to vex Hermione.
Order of the Phoenix.
Fleur is largely off-stage here, although it is mentioned that she has stayed in England to "eemprove 'er Eenglish", tutored by Bill Weasley.
Half-Blood Prince.
In the Half-Blood Prince it is revealed that Fleur will marry Ron's brother, Bill. The other characters dislike this, mostly Hermione, Molly and Ginny Weasley, who refers to her as 'Phlegm'. Ron, though, is delighted at this news; he seems to still secretly have a bit of a crush on her. According to Ginny, Mrs. Weasley hopes that Bill will instead become interested in Nymphadora Tonks, but everyone agrees, that particularly with Tonks seeming depression since the events at the end of the previous school year, there is little chance she will succeed. Fleur, for her part, staying at the Burrow getting to know the rest of the Weasley family, greets Harry enthusiastically, delivering him his breakfast tray, and kissing him goodbye when he leaves for Hogwarts.
When Bill is attacked by Fenrir Greyback and is disfigured, Mrs. Weasley laments that he won't be getting married now. Fleur passionately declares that she loves Bill and will marry him despite his disfigurement and that the scars will just show that her husband is brave. This statement seems to change Mrs. Weasley's feelings for Fleur and she even offers to persuade her great aunt to lend Fleur a goblin-made tiara for the wedding.
Deathly Hallows.
The plan to extract Harry from the Dursleys' involves multiple simulacra of Harry, each one traveling to a separate safe house, each with a protector. One of the mock Harrys is Fleur, who will be traveling on a Thestral with Bill as her protector. They are the last pair to arrive at The Burrow, as they were apparently detained by Auntie Muriel, and missed the Portkey that would have brought them to the Weasleys'.
At The Burrow, Harry finds himself in the midst of the chaos that is Mrs. Weasley's preparations for Bill and Fleur's wedding, set for the first of August. While both Bill and Fleur are present, and are occasionally being set tasks to assist in the preparations, we see very little of them until two days before the wedding, when Fleur's parents and sister Gabrielle arrive. It is mentioned then that Gabrielle is following Fleur around.
As Fleur walks up the aisle at the wedding, she is radiantly beautiful; and the radiance seems to make her attendants, Gabrielle and Ginny, especially beautiful as well. And they are wed, and they dance, and everyone dances... and then the Trio must make a hasty exit.
When Ron rejoins the Trio after Christmas, it turns out that he had been staying with Bill and Fleur at Shell Cottage. He does not say much about what had been going on there.
When the Trio escape from Malfoy Manor, they end up going to Shell Cottage. Fleur is present at the burial ceremony for Dobby. Then, Fleur takes care of the wounded, specifically Griphook and Mr. Ollivander. She is not terribly happy about caring for Griphook, as she feels that he is treating her as a servant in her own home.
Fleur is part of the celebration that ensues when Lupin arrives to report that Tonks has had her baby.
A month or so later, Bill and Fleur are among the people who arrive at Hogwarts for the battle at the school. They are still in the Room of Requirement when Percy arrives; the ensuing awkward moment, as Percy has been estranged from the rest of his family for years, is somewhat defused by Fleur, who asks Lupin how their child is doing. Lupin, in response, produces a photo, which he drops when Percy loudly proclaims his stupidity and begs forgiveness.
While we don't see much of them in the battle, we do see the entire Weasley family after the battle; and in the epilogue we hear mention of Victoire, who we assume to be Bill and Fleur's daughter.
Strengths.
By being selected as Beauxbatons' Tri-wizard Champion alone, we can assume that Fleur Delacour was a reasonably talented student. Not only does she have this advantage over others at Beauxbatons, but, being part-Veela, she has a charm that brings many men to their knees. As Fleur's younger sister is chosen as the person Fleur will miss the most it could be said she is family oriented; particularly as she is greatly relieved when Harry rescues her sister.
Weaknesses.
Fleur appears standoffish during Goblet of Fire, she makes underhand comments about the food at Hogwarts. Fleur comes across as a cold character.
Relationships with Other Characters.
Ron Weasley accidentally asks Fleur to attend the Yule Ball with him; she ignores him. Harry suggests that this because she has turned on the charm to try to ensnare Roger Davies, and Ron had been caught in the flux of her spell. Fleur attends the Yule Ball with Roger Davies of Ravenclaw. Fleur is attracted to Bill Weasley and in Half Blood Prince it is announced they are to marry. Fleur has a younger sister Gabrielle who the Merpeople choose as the thing she will miss the most during the 2nd Triwizard Test. Hermione, Ginny, and (initially) Mrs. Weasley all dislike Fleur.
Much like most of the students, Fleur looked down on Harry, when he was selected as a Triwizard Champion, seeing him nothing more than a "little boy" and a person who was in it for the glory. However, after Harry was able to save her sister from the lake, Fleur started to act more nicer and friendlier to him. Because of this heroic action, she was more than willing to help volunteer to be a decoy for Harry and escort him to safety, as well as provide hospitality to Harry and friends.
Fleur, because of her Veela background, will tend to have some of the glamour of the Veela, and so will be extremely attractive to almost all males. Presumably, she will have learned that the only way to cut down on the number of admirers is to appear cold, to not be open to approach. This will make her seem aloof and uncaring, and yet she will still leave a trail of attracted men (and boys) behind her. This is bound to incite jealousy in other women, and it is likely this that we see in Hermione, Ginny, and Mrs. Weasley.
Greater Picture.
While Mrs Weasley does object - officially - to Bill and Fleur's quick marriage and quite possibly - unofficially - to Fleur herself, it is all but certain that Ginny's belief, that this was the reason for Nymphadora Tonks' frequent invitations to the Weasley home, was mistaken. It appears that the adults all know about the love between Tonks and Remus Lupin, and support it, and also know about Lupin's hesitation; with him being an old friend of the family, we can assume (and in one case are told) that he is regularly another person invited, so as not to let the relationship wax cold.
This does not mean we can totally rule out any intent whatsoever of Molly to bring both Tonks (seeing Lupin's doubts) and Bill to get other ideas, but in all probability this would then be a thought of an "And-if-that's-the-outcome-it-wouldn't-be-bad-either" nature, and one hidden rather deep in her brain, especially from Arthur Weasley who is an open supporter of a Lupin-Tonks marriage (though this is unknown to the children). |
Melody Belle
Melody Belle (foaled 26 September 2014) is a champion New Zealand Thoroughbred racehorse who is the only horse to win the New Zealand Triple Crown. She is also a two-time New Zealand Horse of the Year and holds the New Zealand record for the most Group 1 races won with 14, surpassing the previous New Zealand record of 13 set by the great mare Sunline and only one off the Australian record of 15 set by Black Caviar.
Background.
Melody Belle was bred at Haunui Farm in Karaka, New Zealand. She was bred by Haunui's longest standing client, Marie Leicester. Melody Belle is a member of the famous "Belle" family brought to the fore by Marie's parents, James and Annie Sarten.
Melody Belle was then sold for NZ$57,500 at the 2016 New Zealand Premier Yearling Sale.
Racing career.
Melody Belle was trained throughout her career by Jamie Richards, and ridden in the majority of her races by top Kiwi jockey Opie Bosson. She also had a close bond with her strapper Ashley Handley.
2016/2017: Two-Year-Old Season.
Melody Belle made a successful start to her racing career, winning her debut at Ruakaka Racecourse in October 2016 under jockey Cameron Lammas. In her next two races, she came third at Trentham Racecourse on 3 December under Cameron Lammas, then changed to jockey Michael McNab and came eighth at Ellerslie Racecourse on 14 January 2017.
Ridden by Opie Bosson for the first time, Melody Belle rebounded to win the prestigious Two-Year-Old Karaka Million at Ellerslie Racecourse on 29 January.
She missed the Group One Sistema Stakes because of injury, and was pointed to the Group 1 $225,000 Manawatu Sires Produce Stakes (1400m) at Awapuni Racecourse on 1 March. Ridden by Michael McNab again, she won the Manawatu Sires Produce which made her one of the top two-year-old fillies.
She went to Australia and trialed ahead of her next start, the Group 2 $250,000 Brisbane Sires Produce Stakes at Eagle Farm Racecourse on 27 May. She was ridden by Opie Bosson and won by four lengths. Winning the Manawatu Sires Produce Stakes and the Brisbane Sires Produce was a rare feat for a New Zealand-trained horse, and she had won almost twenty times her $57,500 purchase price.
She finished her two-year-old season with a tenth place in the J.J. Atkins Stakes at Eagle Farm Racecourse, where she was ridden by Damian Lane. Melody Belle was named Champion Two-Year-Old for the 2016/2017 season.
2017/2018: Three-Year-Old Season.
Melody Belle was spelled 182 days before her next start on 9 December 2017, now as a three-year-old. Ridden by Michael McNab, she came third in a handicap at Ellerslie Racecourse. She then came sixth in the Railway Stakes, a prestigious sprint at Ellerslie on 1 January 2018, ridden by Michael McNab.
She then ran in the Group 3 $70,000 Mongolian Khan Trophy, again at Ellerslie Racecourse, which she won by 3.5 lengths under Opie Bosson in her only win as a three-year-old.
She went to Randwick Racecourse in Australia for her final two starts of the season, a fifth place finish in the Light Fingers Stakes on 17 February under Rory Hutchings, and a ninth place finish in the Surround Stakes on 3 March under Hugh Bowman.
2018/2019: Four-Year-Old Season.
In her 4yo season, Melody Belle improved significantly, winning all three starts. In her first start on 18 August, Shafiq Rusof rode her to win the Group 2 $100,000 Foxbridge Plate (1200m) at Te Rapa Racecourse against a strong field. The victory gave trainer Jamie Richards his first win as the sole trainer for Te Akau Racing, and it was on his birthday too!
Melody Belle then won the first two legs of the New Zealand Triple Crown, giving her back-to-back Group 1 wins. She was ridden by Shafiq Rusof in both races. The first victory was in the Group 1 $200,000 Tarzino Trophy (1400m) on 1 September, on the first day of the Hawkes Bay Racing Carnival at Hastings Racecourse. The second victory was in the Group 1 $200,000 Windsor Park Plate (1600m). The race is currently run as the Horlicks Plate. She did not attempt to win the final leg and become the first horse to win the New Zealand Triple Crown.
After a spell of 101 days, Melody Belle returned on 1 January 2019, coming third from the outside gate in the Group 1 Railway Stakes under Shafiq Rusof again. She then finished 16th in the prestigious Telegraph Handicap sprint under Jason Waddell after being the short priced favorite.
Stepping up in distance, Melody Belle hit a remarkable run of form through the New Zealand summer. Firstly she earned her fourth Group 1 win in the $200,000 Waikato Sprint at Te Rapa in February under Troy Harris. Two weeks later on 23 February, she won the Group 1 $200,000 Haunui Classic (1600m) at Otaki Racecourse. Her jockey in the race, Opie Bosson, had now won every Group 1 race in New Zealand.
In her first race further than a mile, Melody Belle won the $200,000 Group 1 New Zealand Stakes (2000m), under Opie Bosson again. She won against dual Group 1 winner Danzdanzdance after an epic two-horse war down the homestretch where Melody Belle refused to give in. The victory was her fifth Group 1 of the season and her sixth Group 1 win in her career, surpassing the outstanding horse Darci Brahma as Te Akau's horse with the Group 1 wins.
At the NZTR Horse of the Year Awards in September, Melody Belle was crowned the Champion Sprinter/Miler and the New Zealand Horse of the Year for the 2018/2019 season, receiving 59 of the available 61 votes.
2019/2020: Five-Year-Old Season.
Melody Belle was spelled 161 days and then kicked off the 2019/2020 season on August 17 with a fourth place in the Group 2 $100,000 Foxbridge Plate at Te Rapa Racecourse under Michael McNab.
She then returned to Hastings Racecourse in late August to race for the second time in the first leg of the New Zealand's Triple Crown, the Group 1 $200,000 Tarzino Trophy (1400m). She cruised to victory under Michael McNab. Three weeks later, Melody Belle returned in the second leg of the Triple Crown, the Group 1 Windsor Park Plate (1600m), for the second time. She won by nearly three lengths under Opie Bosson, tying with the two-time New Zealand Horse of the Year Mufhasa for the most Group 1 wins in New Zealand with eight.
Huge crowds gathered to watch the Livamol Spring Classic on 5 October, where Opie Bosson rode Melody Belle into the history books as she became the only horse to win the New Zealand's Triple Crown. By winning the Triple Crown, Melody Belle had won three Group 1 races in only five weeks. With the win, she also became the only horse to win 9 Group One races in New Zealand.
Keeping her brilliant win streak alive, Melody Belle returned under Opie Bosson to win the Group 1 $1,000,000 Empire Rose Stakes (1600m) at Flemington Racecourse in Australia on Australian Derby Day, 2 November. This was her first Group 1 win in Australia and her tenth Group 1 win overall. Melody Belle stayed in Melbourne and came second from gate 15 under Opie Bosson in the Group 1 $2,000,000 Mackinnon Stakes on 9 November against star mare Magic Wand.
After a 105 day spell, Melody Belle returned to Australia for am autumn campaign. Her first race was the Group 1 Futurity Stakes (1400m) on 22 February, which she finished third under Opie Bosson. She came third again with Opie Bosson in the All Star Mile on 14 March. On 4 April, Opie Bosson rode her again in the Doncaster Mile where they cane fourth over a very heavy track. Her autumn campaign concluded with a gritty fifth place finish in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Royal Randwick on 4 April under Kerrin McEvoy.
Melody Belle was named 2019/2020 Champion Sprinter Miler and Champion Middle Distance Horse, as well as being crowned Horse of the Year for the second consecutive year.
2020/2021: Six-Year-Old Season.
Melody Belle was spelled 119 days and then came sixth in the Missile Stakes with Kerrin McEvoy on 8 August. On 22 August, she came 11th in the Group 1 Winx Stakes under Kerrin McEvoy, and then she returned to New Zealand.
Her first start back in New Zealand was the Group 1 Windsor Park Plate (1600m) on 3 October. She was ridden by Troy Harris and made a brilliant comeback, winning by a nose over her stablemate Avantage. This was the Te Akau's fourth consecutive Windsor Park Plate win, with Melody Belle's three wins coming after the win by Gingernuts in 2017.
On 17 October, Melody Belle ran in the Group 1 Livamol Spring Classic where she would try to make it a seventh Group 1 win at Hastings in seven starts there. Under Troy Harris, Melody Belle achieved back-to-back wins in the Livamol Spring Classic, giving Te Akau five Livamol Classic wins and bringing her total Group 1 wins to 12.
She then came third in the Mackinnon Stakes on 7 November at Flemington Racecourse in Australia, before coming back to New Zealand. She trialed on 12 January 2021 at Matamata, ahead of her next start.
She won the Group 1 Thorndon Mile (1600m) on 30 January at Trentham Racecourse, equalling the record of 13 Group 1 wins set by Sunline. It was also her eighteenth career win. In February, Melody Belle disappointed in the Herbie Dyke Stakes at Te Rapa where she was trying to become the all-time leader of Group 1 wins.
On 13 March, Melody Belle won the New Zealand Stakes at Ellerslie Racecourse on Auckland Cup day, defeating Avantage in a dramatic stretch battle to set an all-time record for most Group 1 wins by a New Zealand-trained horse with 14.
Melody Belle said farewell to New Zealand indefinitely and went to Australia for her final races and a broodmare career. Her final Australian campaign didn't get off to a good start, as she had muscle tie-up after her trackwork a few days before the Tancred Stakes, where stepping up to 2400m. She was passed fit to race by Racing New South Wales vets, but it affected her performance and she finished sixth.
She ran another below-par race when she finished 10th to winner Zaaki in the Hollindale Stakes at Aquis Park. She had a bad barrier position and was checked halfway down the stretch which ended any chance of her winning. Melody Belle's final race was the Doomben Cup at Doomben Racecourse on 22 May, where she finished a gallant fifth to Zaaki.
She finished her brilliant career with a record of 41 races with 19 wins, 1 second place finish, and 6 third place finishes. She won 46% and placed in 63% of her races. Her wins came from 900m (around 0.5 miles) to 2040m (around 1 1/4 miles), showing her incredible versatility. Her earnings came to an impressive $4,024,052.
Breeding career.
Upon her racing retirement, Melody Belle was sold for A$2.6 million at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale in May 2021. She was purchased by Yulong Investments and will be sent to their sire Written Tycoon for her first season of breeding. |
She-She-She Camps
The She-She-She Camps were camps for unemployed women that were organized by Eleanor Roosevelt (ER) in the United States as a counterpart to the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) programs designed for unemployed men. ER found that the men-only focus of the CCC program left out young women who were willing to work in conservation and forestry and to sign up for the six-month programs living away from family and close support. She lobbied for a sister organization to the CCC that would be for young women. Eleanor Roosevelt proposed that this would consist of camps for jobless women and residential worker schools. The She-She-She camps were funded by presidential order in 1933. Labor Secretary Frances Perkins championed one such camp after ER held a White House Conference for Unemployed Women on April 30, 1934, and subsequently ER's concept of a nationwide jobless women's camp was achieved. While the public largely supported the New Deal programs and the CCC was a huge success, the women's version barely topped 5,000 women annually by 1936 and overall served 8,500 as a result of ER's support.
Forestry and conservation.
President Franklin Roosevelt valued the CCC because it was fueled both by his passion for rural life and the philosophy of William James. James deemed this sort of program the "moral equivalent of war," channeling the passion for combat into productive service. Although administered by US Army officers, the camps were designed not to be militaristic since the Administration did not want any resemblance to the Hitler Youth of Germany. These tree armies kept the young male population occupied and engaged with conservation, fighting wildland fires, building dams and creating man-made lakes. Much of the state's parkland was improved even before the National Parks, but Eleanor Roosevelt asked, "What about the women?"
Camp TERA.
Criteria for participation in the women's camps were different from the CCC. Eleanor Roosevelt fought resistance from the administration, many of whom objected to sending America's unemployed women on what could be described as a government-sponsored vacation in the middle of a depression. ER was troubled by the plight of so many women, many of whom did not show up in the bread-lines but were relegated to living in subway tunnels and "tramping", foraging for subsistence outside urban areas. "As a group women have been neglected in comparison with others," the First Lady said, "and throughout this depression have had the hardest time of all." The number of women seeking jobs grew to two million by 1933. The feminist writer Meridel Le Sueur wrote that once out of work, women "will go for weeks verging on starvation, crawling in some hole, going through the streets ashamed, sitting in libraries, parks, going for days without speaking to a living soul like some exiled beast".
Hilda Worthington Smith, New Deal education specialist, went to work for FDR with experience at this, having established the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Working Women in 1921. It took several months but, with promotion and work, the first camp got off the ground at Bear Mountain's Camp TERA (Temporary Emergency Relief Assistance), later called Camp Jane Addams. Marian Tinker was selected as its first director. She had gone to High School in Manchester, Massachusetts, before completing her studies at Arnold College in New Haven, Connecticut and the University of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg. As a social worker, she was experienced at working with young women in various organizations like the YWCA and Girl Scouts, as well as several schools. Camp TERA began on June 10, 1933, with 17 young women from New York. Currently Bear Mountain State Park in New York, the site had 12 camps for CCC enrollees in 1934. FDR visited camp sp-20 that year to review the corps. He spent time at the recreation center, mess hall, barracks and camp library, praising the more than 200 enrollees for their hard work. Before leaving, he visited the signature project, a dam across the outlet of the Pine Meadow Valley that created the first of many swimming lakes for tourists, a direct expression of FDR's regard for conservation and forestry.
When ER first visited Camp TERA, she found only 30 girls at the 200-acre camp. Smith had planned for 20 girls to arrive twice a week until the capacity of 200 was met. However, massive red tape and confusion prevailed. ER appreciated the camp, but decided the requirements were too strict. She could not believe there were not enough women willing to accept the job and warned that the numbers had to increase or the idea might be abandoned. This put the State relief administration representative, Walter W. Petit, on the hot seat to explain why only 30 of the 700 women who had applied had been selected. Defending the "thorough" investigation needed some doing and while the program extended eligibility to age 40, blaming the "rigorousness of the qualifications for eligibility" did not absolve him of his part in delaying the project. Despite the delays, mail supporting Camp TERA poured in to the White House with offers of more properties for the camps and pleas from individuals to attend. Government officials promised support for more camps if Camp TERA succeeded. There were also questions and media attention about the nature of the camps. Some of the women thought that the camp was intended for them to work at reforestation using manual labor and accordingly expected to be given hard work with little to show for it. With the dollar per day given the male enrollees holding back $22–25 of the monthly $30 for family back home, the offer of work was enticing to those who did not want to pass up the chance of job and with glowing reports coming back from participants, the proponents of She-She-She renewed efforts in the fall of 1933 to expand the program. But in the 1930s many Americans objected to the use of public resources to support individuals, especially women. Many considered that the role of the woman was in the home. Others considered the idea of putting women out in the woods to learn dubious skills just plain wrong.
Critics.
Men laboring in CCC camps were highly amused by the female counterpart. Writing for a CCC newspaper, one noted how little work women at Camp TERA did, adding, "Some of the girls are pretty. All are happy. They say they may never want to go back to New York, from where they came. Life has been tough for most of them."
Pauli Murray, who would later become a lawyer, writer, black civil rights activist, and episcopal priest, arrived at Camp TERA on the advice of her doctor at the end of 1933. Living on the edge of poverty and diagnosed with pleurisy, she found her time there cut short after she clashed with the camp's director, Miss Mills. An ambulance driver during World War I and an authoritarian, Mills attempted to run the camp on semi-military lines. Murray had a copy of "Das Kapital" in her bags and when director Mills found it, she ejected her from the camp. Murray would later become a close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt. That leftist songs sung at camp sing-alongs became a focus of detractors. It was not surprising that there were leftists in the camps, given that they were not far removed from the "Hoovervilles", and the troubadour-style of fellow travelers like singer Woody Guthrie fueled these sing-alongs. It also was not surprising that in 1936 controversies over communist influences enveloped the camp. In July 1936, the American Legion of Rockland County accused Camp TERA officials of using Federal funding for communist purposes. The new Director, Bernice Miller, countered the charges, saying that "the campers were permitted the completest freedom to say and discuss what they wanted, and sing any songs they wanted to". She also was quick to add that most supported the government. As to complaints of the "Internationale" and radical satires being sung, and that controversial material was being read, some, Miller admitted were "of communist and socialist persuasion". Also adding to embarrassment, women from Camp TERA "escaped" and visited a men's CCC camp nearby. A teacher at Camp TERA, Harry Gersh, commented, "It was a most unnatural environment for these women. No one had thought that sexual isolation would be a problem".
After returning home to New York City from Camp TERA, some of the women joined the radical Workers' Alliance. Spokeswoman for the organization Sarah Rosenberg, a vocal critic of the benefit of the She-She-She camps said, "More than one girl says there is nothing left except suicide or tramping on the roads".
Indigenous pride.
Over 90 camps were created across the U.S. by 1936, and over 8,500 women cycled through before they were closed. Each reflected the different cultures indigenous to their locations and depended heavily upon what was available in terms of local resources and talent. There are audio histories of communities cleaning old facilities and donating beds, clothes, food and other staples for the women. Many North Dakota Indian women left the reservation for the very first time to attend camp programs. Oberlin College welcomed stenographers and clerical workers at its Summer School for Office Workers. Barnard College in New York City hosted classes for unemployed unionized women. Black sharecropper women in the south studied at an agricultural college in Arkansas. The YWCA in Philadelphia provided a space for 40 women to study and live. Unemployed professional women in New Jersey attended a specially created program. In Michigan, rented houses provided unemployed women instruction in housekeeping skills. In the Ozarks, women attended literacy classes.
Details.
The personal allowance for women was the same as that for men, $5 per month for personal needs in exchange for 56–70 hrs work per month on camp work projects. No remittance was sent back home as was the case for the CCC men's allowance. The camps were located where a facility had heat, lighting and sanitary conveniences—typically summer hotels, abandoned CCC camps and vacated schools. They were administered by female camp directors, project supervisors, staff teachers and counselors. The average camp had around 100 women, with a supervisory staff of 10–20 including cooks and a nurse. Each enrollee was assigned fixed hours of work on camp assignments, including working in forest nurseries at some camps. Other made and repaired toys and playground equipment, while some worked at creating visual training aids for public schools. Those with visual disabilities (there were camps for the blind) would make finished bedding or use natural materials to create woven products. Sewing equipment enabled the women to make their own clothing (one popular class was to make dresses from empty cloth feed bags) and no uniforms were required. WPA programs also supplied clothing, and canneries were used as teaching aids and product generation. Layettes and hospital sundries were made for public institutions and other WPA nursing projects. Maintenance of the barracks, housekeeping and kitchen duties along with instruction in economics and cooking were integral to the residential program, which lasted three to four months and was not subject to re-enrollment. The Native American women were paid an additional allotment to find rental housing and traveled with the men who went off the reservation to work. No camps were established exclusively for Native American men, so many traveled as a family group. Blacks were still segregated at this time but in their camps were given the same educational opportunities.
The educational program included English, adult education, domestic science, hygiene, public health, and economics. Games, athletic contests, hikes, music, and drama groups were included in the recreational plans and handicraft activities were encouraged. Some camps at schools had typing and secretarial classes. The cost per enrollee was estimated at $39 each, plus $5 which went to personal expenses. They worked to cover food costs (taken from the $5), lodging and medical care. The camps were operated on a year-round basis and eligibility for NYA (National Youth Administration) employment was a requirement. (The NYA took over from the TERA in 1936 in administering FERA (Federal Emergency Relief Administration)).
When the housing and shelter crisis eased in 1937, the NYA decided that the women's program was too costly and shut it down. Most of the women approved had led hard lives in the midst of the Depression and found the duties a relief from the meager sustenance in the cities, many embracing the outdoors with a vigor to match that of the young men working in the CCC camps.
The She-She-She camps for women closed October 1, 1937. The NYA (National Youth Administration) then in charge of the program, criticized the objectives and necessity of the camps and decided it was too expensive. As the crisis of hunger and shelter eased, the camp program for women could not be justified and it ended. Eleanor Roosevelt was never happy with either the women's or the men's camps. She objected to the military aspect of the CCC from the outset, but the success of the CCC and other New Deal programs left her with other anti-poverty programs and women-centered initiatives to pursue. Her vision was a two-year program for young men and women to be devoted to domestic projects such as conservation, health care, education and settlement houses. At the end of 1933, after Camp TERA was established, she had stated, "There is nothing more exciting than building a new social order." |
Plaza Miranda bombing
The Plaza Miranda bombing () occurred during a political rally of the Liberal Party at Plaza Miranda, Quiapo district, Manila, the Philippines on August 21, 1971. It caused nine deaths and injured 95 others, including many prominent Liberal Party politicians.
Bombing.
The Liberal Party's campaign rally was held to proclaim the candidacies of eight senatorial bids as well as the candidate for the mayoralty race in Manila. As a crowd of about 4,000 gathered to hear speeches, two grenades were reportedly tossed on stage.
Casualties.
Among those killed instantly were a 5-year-old child and "The Manila Times" photographer Ben Roxas. Almost everyone on stage was injured, including incumbent congressman for Palawan and future senator Ramon V. Mitra Jr., incumbent Senator Jovito Salonga, Senator Eddie Ilarde, Senator Eva Estrada-Kalaw, Liberal Party president Gerardo Roxas, Sergio Osmeña Jr., son of former President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines Sergio Osmeña, attorney Martin B. Isidro who served as councilor, Vice Mayor and Congressman for the City of Manila, Ambrosio "King" Lorenzo Jr. who served as the 2nd District Councilor of Manila, and Ramon Bagatsing, the party's mayoral candidate for Manila.
Salonga was among those most seriously injured. The blast left him blind in one eye and deaf in one ear. Small pieces of shrapnel remained lodged in his body until his death in 2016. Councilor Ambrosio "King" Lorenzo Jr. was in a coma for two weeks. He lost sight in his left eye and hearing on the same side. Ramon Bagatsing, the Liberal Party mayoralty candidate for Manila, lost his left leg and suffered a crushed right cheek bone and a shattered right arm.
Suspects.
Marcos blamed the communists and subsequently suspended the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus.
Suspicion of responsibility for the blast fell upon incumbent President Ferdinand Marcos. Most historians continue to suspect that Marcos perpetrated the bombing as a pretext for his declaration of martial law. There were a series of deadly bombings in 1971, and the CIA privately stated that Marcos was responsible for at least one of them. The agency was also almost certain that none of the bombings were perpetrated by Communists. U.S. intelligence documents declassified in the 1990s contained further evidence implicating Marcos. A proven false flag attack took place with the attempted assassination of Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile in 1972. President Richard Nixon then approved Marcos' martial law move on the rationale that the country was being terrorized by Communists.
Some prominent personalities laid the blame on the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) under José María Sison. Jovito Salonga, in his autobiography, stated his belief that Sison and the CPP were responsible. New People's Army defector-turned-Armed Forces of the Philippines Brig. General Victor Corpuz (ret'd) alleged in a 2004 interview that Sison dispatched the cadre who attacked the meeting with a hand grenade. In the prologue of his 1989 autobiography, Corpus claimed that he was present when some leaders of the CPP discussed the bombing after it took place. In interviews by "The Washington Post", unnamed former CPP officials alleged that "the (Communist) party leadership planned -- and three operatives carried out -- the attack in an attempt to provoke government repression and push the country to the brink of revolution... Sison had calculated that Marcos could be provoked into cracking down on his opponents, thereby driving thousands of political activists into the underground, the former party officials said. Recruits were urgently needed, they said, to make use of a large influx of weapons and financial aid that China had already agreed to provide." José María Sison has denied these accusations and the CPP has never claimed responsibility for the incident.
Historian Joseph Scalice has argued that "the evidence of history now overwhelmingly suggests that the Communist Party of the Philippines, despite being allied with the Liberal Party, was responsible for this bombing, seeing it as a means of facilitating repression which they argued would hasten revolution."
Aftermath.
Assumption of emergency powers by President Marcos.
Having blamed communists, Marcos used the bombing to justify his subsequent suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, an act which would later be seen as a prelude to the declaration of Martial Law more than a year later.
Radicalization of the moderate opposition.
Historians note that Marcos' suspension of the writ of Habeas Corpus was the event that forced many members of the moderate opposition, including figures like Edgar Jopson, to join the ranks of the radicals. In the aftermath of the bombing, Marcos lumped all of the opposition together and referred to them as communists, and many former moderates fled to the mountain encampments of the radical opposition to avoid being arrested by Marcos' forces. Those who became disenchanted with the excesses of the Marcos administration and wanted to join the opposition after 1971 often joined the ranks of the radicals, simply because they represented the only group vocally offering opposition to the Marcos government.
Bearing on the election.
In a setback for Marcos' ruling Nacionalista Party, the Liberals took six of the eight contested Senate seats, as well as the Manila mayoralty with then Congressman Ramon Bagatsing defeating the incumbent Antonio Villegas for the mayorship of the country's premiere city.
Commemoration.
On August 21, 2002, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo unveiled a commemorative marker in Plaza Miranda in honor of the nine innocent civilians killed in the blast. |
Ion Nestor
Ion Nestor (25 August 1905, Focșani – 29 November 1974, Bucharest) was a Romanian historian and archaeologist. In 1955, he became a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy.
Biography.
After attending Unirea High School in Focșani, he pursued his studies at the University of Bucharest, taking courses at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy, Department of Classical Philology. In 1926, he obtained a degree in classical philology and secondary archeology. His interest in education facilitated his specialization in 1928–1932 in Berlin and Marburg (Lahn), while participating in the archaeological research that revealed the Neolithic culture of Goldberg (ordlingen). Because of his stay in Berlin he also got acquainted with some materials preserved kept at the Museum of Archeology, at the prehistoric section, coming from the Romanian territory, collected in the previous decades. When he got familiar with these materials it allowed him to make the records for those from the Cucuteni, Sărata Monteoru, Cernavodă, and other cultures.
Nestor was, together with Sorin Pavel and Petre Pandrea, author of the "Manifestul "Crinului Alb"" ("White Lily Manifesto"), published in the no. 8-9 editions (August–September) of 1928 of the magazine "Gândirea" ("The Thinking"). He became, according to critic Zigu Ornea, a follower of the racist ideology of the German philosopher Oswald Spengler.
Career.
In 1932 he submitted his PhD thesis at the Philipps University of Marburg, with a relevant analysis of the state of research in the field of Romanian prehistory. The examination commission, highly appreciating the researcher's contribution, recommended him to undertake further research to allow the writing of an extensive paper that would provide a wide range of data on the evolution of human life in the Carpatho–Danubian–Pontic territory in ancient times. The historiographical and archaeological term Thraco-Cimmerian was first introduced by Nestor during this study. This work, which through the completions made became a laborious synthesis, was published in 1933 in German (Der Stand der Vorgerschichtsforschung in Rumänien) and was awarded the "Vasile Pârvan" Award by the Romanian Academy.
The passionate researcher considered that of his duty to deepen the problems by corroborating the information already acquired, hoarded in museum collections. Thus, on February 13, 1934, Nestor, assistant at the National Museum of Antiquities, informed the leadership of the Ministry of Instruction, Cults and Arts that he published in Berlin, under the auspices of the German Archaeological Institute, a synthesis of Romanian prehistory. Considering that it is necessary to complete the documentation based on visits to museums and taking photographs, he requested material support from the ministry. The Minister's resolution of February 13, 1934 requested the academician Ioan Andrieșescu, director of the National Museum of Antiquities in Bucharest, to report on this issue. Prompt answer was received on February 18, 1934, from Andrieșescu, who gave a warm recommendation to Nestor.
The PhD in History, archaeologist, with an intense activity within the National Museum of Antiquities and the Institute of Archeology in Bucharest, he coordinated during the years of activity the researches on the archeological sites from Glina, Sărata Monteoru, Zimnicea, Glăvăneștii Vechi, Corlăteni, Suceava, Dridu, Bratei, and Păcuiul lui Soare.
From 1945 he carried out at the same time a prestigious didactic career as a professor at the University of Bucharest, contributing to the formation of disciples (such as noted archaeologist Alexandru Vulpe) who, through what they achieved, proved that they properly received what was invested by their mentor, Ion Nestor. Through the studies undertaken, Ion Nestor contributed to the substantiation of the formation process of the Romanian people, constituting at the same time a valuable methodological guide for the younger collaborators through the way of analysis, synthesis, and support of the stated theses.
Nestor had major contributions in the field of periodization of Neolithic and Eneolithic cultures of the transition period that led to the metal age. His contributions were integrated in the treatise "Istoria României, vol. I, 1960" and in "Istoria poporului român, 1970".
A pedantic publicist, those entrusted to the press constitute a permanent methodological guide. The appreciation from foreign researchers was also materialized by entrusting the mission of being editor for Romania of the contributions integrated in the Archaeological Inventory and Prähistorirische Bronzefunde, as well as by his election as a member of the German Archaeological Institute, the Yugoslav Archaeological Society, the Permanent Council of the International Union for Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences, and the International Union of Slavic Archeology. On July 2, 1955, he was elected a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy.
As a trainer for future researchers, Ion Nestor has paid a lot of attention to the way of stating the findings by each of participant on the site, intervening, when he considered it necessary, with connections that allowed a clarification of the problem in question. Pedantic to detail, he asked the collaborators to pay attention to every detail encountered during the excavation, the immediate recording of what was observed, then allowing an analysis whose purpose was to understand the evolution of the way of life of the creators of material and spiritual culture.
Awards.
Ion Nestor was a Laureate of the (1962). |
Rich Hill, Missouri
Rich Hill is a city in southern Bates County, Missouri, and is part of the Kansas City metropolitan area within the United States. The population was 1,232 at the 2020 census.
History.
Rich Hill was platted in 1880. The city was named in 1871 by C.W. Ratekin and used the slogan "The Town That Coal Built". The town experienced a rapid population expansion during the late 1800s, until mining efforts began to decline and eventually ended in 1906. The mining effort was renewed by Peabody Energy in the 1950s.
The Prairie View Stock Farm was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.
Geography.
Rich Hill is located on Missouri Route A adjacent to the west side of US Route 71 eleven miles south of Butler. The Bates-Vernon county line is 2.5 miles to the south. The upper reaches of the Truman Reservoir are two miles east on the Marais des Cygnes River.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water.
Demographics.
2010 census.
As of the census of 2010, there were 1,396 people, 567 households, and 351 families living in the city. The population density was . There were 701 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 95.5% White, 0.2% African American, 0.4% Native American, 0.1% Asian, 0.6% from other races, and 3.2% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.4% of the population.
There were 567 households, of which 33.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 45.3% were married couples living together, 12.3% had a female householder with no husband present, 4.2% had a male householder with no wife present, and 38.1% were non-families. 33.2% of all households were made up of individuals, and 18.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.46 and the average family size was 3.11.
The median age in the city was 41 years. 27.4% of residents were under the age of 18; 7.5% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 20.8% were from 25 to 44; 27.2% were from 45 to 64; and 17% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 47.4% male and 52.6% female.
2000 census.
As of the census of 2000, there were 1,461 people, 617 households, and 391 families living in the city. The population density was. There were 727 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 97.33% White, 0.14% African American, 1.37% Native American, 0.14% Asian, 0.21% from other races, and 0.82% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.82% of the population.
There were 617 households, out of which 30.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 48.9% were married couples living together, 11.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 36.5% were non-families. 32.4% of all households were made up of individuals, and 20.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.37 and the average family size was 3.00.
In the city, the population was spread out, with 27.0% under the age of 18, 8.8% from 18 to 24, 24.4% from 25 to 44, 22.4% from 45 to 64, and 17.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females, there were 85.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 80.2 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $22,964, and the median income for a family was $28,938. Males had a median income of $25,476 versus $15,978 for females. The per capita income for the city was $15,356. About 16.0% of families and 19.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 25.5% of those under age 18 and 18.7% of those age 65 or over.
Economy.
KLM Telephone Company, a rural telephone company, serves the area. Its owner, Fastwyre, is based in Blair, Nebraska.
Education.
Public education in Rich Hill is administered by Rich Hill R-IV School District.
Rich Hill has a public library, the Rich Hill Memorial Library. |
Vanessa Gold
Vanessa Gold is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera "EastEnders". She is portrayed by Zöe Lucker, and first appeared in "EastEnders" in the episode broadcast on 4 June 2010. A "dynamic and assured" businesswoman, Vanessa was created by series consultant Simon Ashdown to be "a Zöe Lucker-type". Lucker accepted the role on a seven-episode contract, which was extended after she impressed the series producers with her performance. In April 2011, it was announced that Lucker was to leave the show. She departed on 6 October 2011, after the conclusion of her storylines.
Vanessa was introduced as a love interest for local car salesman Max Branning (Jake Wood), intended to facilitate a reunion between Max and his former wife Tanya (Jo Joyner). Concurrent to their romance, which was extended to span Lucker's increased tenure, Vanessa separates from her husband Harry (Linal Haft), and reveals that he is not the father of her teenage daughter Jodie (Kylie Babbington). Lucker describes Vanessa as a glamorous risk-taker, who does not fit into the soap's Albert Square setting. She received critical praise for her comic timing in the role, and was nominated Most Popular Newcomer at the 2010 "Inside Soap" Awards.
Storylines.
Vanessa arrives in Albert Square to purchase a car from salesman Max Branning (Jake Wood). When she returns to sign her paperwork, the two kiss and are seen by Max's daughter Abi (Lorna Fitzgerald). Max's employee and lodger Darren Miller (Charlie G. Hawkins) begins dating Vanessa's daughter Jodie, unaware of the connection between them. Upon realising that they are mother and daughter, he and Max toss a coin to decide which one of them will terminate their new relationship. Max loses, but continues to see Vanessa regardless. Suspicious that Max may still be in love with his estranged wife Tanya (Jo Joyner), Vanessa returns to her controlling husband Harry (Linal Haft) in Chigwell. The two later reconcile, and Vanessa moves in with Max when Harry discovers the affair and breaks up with her. Jodie disowns her mother over her infidelity, but recants after they narrowly escape a fire in the local pub. Jodie plans to separate from Darren, as she feels uncomfortable spending time in his and Max's home while her father is alone in Chigwell. Instead, Vanessa sacrifices her relationship with Max, and moves back in with Harry.
The following week, Vanessa meets and gets on well with Tanya. On Vanessa's birthday, Tanya interrupts her celebration dinner to tell her Max misses her and that she should go back to him. Jodie agrees, having realised that her father treats her mother badly. Vanessa returns to Max, and Harry serves her with divorce papers. His claim that Jodie has always been a "daddy's girl" prompts Vanessa to reveal he is not her father. Harry begins a series of escalating attacks against Vanessa. Having learned that Harry is not her father, Jodie briefly disowns Vanessa again, before forgiving her. Vanessa tells Jodie that her real father is a Portuguese fisherman, whose name she did not know. Harry's attacks continue: he throws a brick through their window, slashes the tyres at Max's car lot and all of Vanessa's clothes, and kills Jodie's cat. Max and his brother Jack (Scott Maslen) threaten Harry, who retaliates by having Jack locked in the boot of his car on the night of his wedding.
Unbeknownst to Vanessa, Max's feelings for Tanya resurface. Although she remarries, he kisses her on her wedding day and continues to harbour hope that they will reconcile. Max's one year anniversary with Vanessa passes, and Max upsets her with his disinterest. She soon realises that he is still not over Tanya, and when she comforts him, Max makes a spur of the moment marriage proposal, which Vanessa accepts. However, Max and Tanya continue to have an affair, secretly meeting in a bedsit. Vanessa later finds perfume that she knows is not hers or Jodie's, and tells Tanya she knows Max is cheating. Tanya says it is her perfume that Lauren borrowed, and tells Vanessa that Max is not cheating. Vanessa takes off her engagement ring to clean the house and she panics when she cannot find it, though it is revealed that Max has it.
Vanessa is led to believe that Max is fully on board with the idea of a double wedding with Darren and Jodie, so cooks a candle-lit dinner for Max, unaware that he is meeting up with Tanya again because they are preparing to inform their partners of their affair. However, Tanya breaks up with Max and he returns home deflated. He tells Vanessa that he no longer loves her and breaks up with her. Vanessa is furious and heartbroken, accusing another woman of being involved. When Max's daughter Lauren Branning (Jacqueline Jossa) overhears this, she informs Vanessa, along with the rest of the family, that Tanya is the other woman. Vanessa confronts Tanya, slapping her, and reveals the affair to Tanya's husband Greg Jessop (Stefan Booth). Max leaves Walford but Vanessa believes he will come back to her. Vanessa discovers the bedsit and is stunned when Tanya tells her she broke up with Max and she does not know where he is, saying that if he has left Vanessa, it is because he no longer loves her. Vanessa returns home and completely loses control, smashing up the house. Max's sister Carol Jackson (Lindsey Coulson) and Jack agree to throw Vanessa out so Tanya and her family can live there, but find her smashing Max's photos, so Carol throws her out onto the street. Michael and his father Eddie Moon (David Essex) witness this and go to help. Vanessa tells Michael that Eddie is a good dad. However, Michael, who is plotting revenge against his father, informs Vanessa that Eddie destroyed his mother's life, before offering Vanessa cash to do the same to Eddie. Vanessa reluctantly agrees, desperate for money to fund Jodie's upcoming wedding. Vanessa gets back in touch with Harry after several months without contact, and asks if he will help pay for the wedding. Harry agrees as long as Vanessa will not attend, but Jodie learns of this and tells Harry not to come.
Vanessa confesses her true feelings for Eddie, but he rejects her, however they later sleep together. Eddie and Vanessa's relationship continues, and eventually she moves in with him and his family, to Michael's despair. Michael attempts to pay Vanessa to leave, and she takes the money, but does not leave Eddie. Eddie then plans to move to Spain, and asks Vanessa to steal Michael's money, which she does. However, she panics as she is caught on CCTV, and tells Jodie what she has done. She says goodbye to Jodie, thinking she will go to prison, and then meets Eddie, thinking he is taking her with him to Spain. After she hands the cash to Eddie, he leaves her stranded on the street, telling her that the police are looking for her.
Creation and development.
Conception and introduction.
Vanessa was created by "EastEnders" series consultant Simon Ashdown, who wanted a "Zöe Lucker-type" character in the show. Lucker was approached and agreed to take on the role, initially on a seven-episode contract. The character was intended to help her love-interest Max realise that he was still in love with his ex-wife Tanya. Her impending arrival was announced by media entertainment website "Digital Spy" on 20 March 2010, at which point Lucker deemed herself a "huge fan" of the series, eagerly anticipated working alongside Wood. She later told the website that accepting the role "just felt so right, especially at this stage in [her] life."
Lucker was the third signing of new executive producer Bryan Kirkwood, following the reintroduction of Kat (Jessie Wallace) and Alfie Moon (Shane Richie). Kirkwood described Vanessa as "a strong confident force of nature who will play Max at his own game", while a spokesperson for the series said, "[Max and Vanessa] are both volatile and explosive characters and their meeting will be like putting a lit match next to a barrel [of] gunpowder." Pleased by the "absolutely perfect" casting, Kirkwood also anticipated Lucker and Wood's screen partnership. After filming began, Wood called Lucker a "fantastic addition" to the show, "fabulous" in the role and "a joy" to work with.
Vanessa's first appearance was in Kirkwood's first episode as executive producer. Originally scheduled for 7 June 2010, it actually aired on 4 June. Many of Lucker's first scenes involved driving a five-and-a-half litre Mercedes, which caused her some concern as she had only passed her driving test four weeks previously. Four days after her arrival, it was announced that Lucker's performance had so impressed the series producers that she had signed a new contract to appear more permanently.
Characterisation.
Vanessa is a businesswoman who is described as "dynamic and assured". In an interview with Digital Spy, Kirkwood said Vanessa was strong-minded and quite positive, and they wanted a female character with a different energy to the many "strong, feisty, shouty" women in the show. He added: "She knows that she's likely to rub women up the wrong way and she knows what she wants. But she doesn't intimidate or use bullyboy tactics. She's clever, interesting and she might just have a secret." Lucker described Vanessa as savvy, strong, stylish, glamorous, a risk-taker who gets bored very easily, complicated, hard-working, laid-back, a doting mother, and opined that she looks out of place in Albert Square. Lucker went shopping with the costume department and it was decided that Vanessa would wear light-coloured clothing. Lucker said Vanessa's style is "very smart; power dressing really". Some of her clothes come from Reiss and Zara. During an interview on "Loose Women", Lucker said Vanessa has "big" hair, which took 45 minutes to style. A full set of heated rollers was used, then it would be then backcombed and Lucker groomed it herself afterwards. She said that people often though she wore a wig to play Vanessa but it was her real hair. By the time Lucker left the series, she said her hair was so big that "it was ridiculous." Although Lucker is from the north of England and "EastEnders" is set in London, Lucker used her own accent.
Storyline development.
Soon after Vanessa and her daughter Jodie appear, so does Vanessa's husband Harry, who is shown to be very controlling of Vanessa. In September 2010, Lucker said that she and Max's ex-wife Tanya could become friends as they are fairly similar, adding, "I think Vanessa probably really likes Tanya and I'm hoping that Tanya will warm to Vanessa. They've obviously got Max in common, so you never quite know which way that's going to work out". Lucker later said that she hoped Max and Vanessa would stay strong despite Harry's threats for revenge, calling them a "lovely couple".
In May 2011, it was reported that Max would cheat on Vanessa with Tanya. Lucker predicted that if Vanessa found out about the affair, it would be "very, very explosive". She said that Vanessa would fight to keep Max if she had to, and when asked if Vanesa would take revenge, she said, "We haven't seen that side to Vanessa, but I think she's pretty tough and if pushed, who knows how far she'd actually go? [...] Vanessa is trying hard to make Max realise that she is the right woman for him. What lengths will she go to in order to keep her man?" Kirkwood commented on the storyline, saying, "People had better duck for cover when Vanessa finds out that she's been betrayed again. She stood by her ex-husband Harry for years and in no time at all, she finds herself in the very same situation with Max. The end of that relationship doesn't mean the end of Vanessa, though. She's got a really exciting storyline still in store. It kicks off over the summer and there's a big change of direction for the character that will really give Vanessa some momentum for the time she's got left in Albert Square." Lucker said that viewers would see a more vulnerable side to Vanessa as she realises Max still loves Tanya.
Departure.
It was announced on 30 April 2011 that Lucker was to depart from the series and would have an "explosive" departure. A spokesperson told Digital Spy: "Zöe was brought into "EastEnders" for a storyline playing Max's love interest and will go out with a bang. Zöe has done a fabulous job of bringing the character of Vanessa to life and the door has been left wide open for her return." An "EastEnders" insider said "Vanessa has proved to be a popular character and although her exit storyline will be explosive, there is every belief that she may return to the Square in the future." Lucker and Kirkwood both promised that Vanessa's exit storyline would be "exciting", and said that viewers had not seen the "full force" of Vanessa, explaining that there is much more to come before her departure.
Reception.
Lucker was nominated for the "Most Popular Newcomer" award at the 2010 "Inside Soap" Awards for her portrayal of Vanessa but lost out to her "EastEnders" co-star, Ricky Norwood (Fatboy). "The Guardian" gave Vanessa an "Individual style award" in their "alternative soap awards", saying "There's more diversity of colour at a Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizards' Congress than in Vanessa's wardrobe. Drawing her inspiration in equal parts from whipped cream and "Logan's Run", Vanessa's retro-futuristic look revolves around her signature white trouser suit, evidently versatile and stain-resistant enough for shopping, cooking, cleaning and servicing Max on the car lot desk." After Lucker left the show, "Gay Times" called Vanessa a "legend" and said she had a "gay legacy".
"Bubbly's in the fridge".
After Vanessa discovers Max's affair with Tanya, she finds a scrunched up note from Max to Tanya reading "Bubbly in the fridge". She then dwells on this as she destroys Max's home, tearing curtains from their hooks, swiping everything from a sideboard, tipping over a coffee table, and then stabbing a photo frame. Lucker revealed that the script, which she said reminded her of "Mommie Dearest", only called for her to say the line "bubbly's in the fridge" once, but she said it a lot more, which Lucker said led to the scenes becoming "a bit more of a big deal." Lucker was not aware of how the "bubbly in the fridge" meltdown became an internet hit, and did not know what it meant to be trending on Twitter. She told Digital Spy: "It's so weird, because I'm a huge technophobe! [...] I wasn't aware of all this, but I suddenly started getting all these texts saying, 'You're trending on Twitter!' I had no idea what that meant at all! My other half had to explain it to me, but it's great. I'm glad that people enjoyed what they saw." She explained that executive producer Bryan Kirkwood had called her to say there was a mash-up of the video on the internet. She said she had not yet seen it but would get someone to show her how.
"Inside Soap" called the scenes "Pure soap gold", while Devon newspaper "Midweek Herald" described the scenes as "reminiscent of horror movie "The Shining"" and said that "Vanessa Gold last week stabbed at a photo frame like a woman possessed". They added that the "immaculately-styled and normally ultra house-proud Vanessa slipped into psycho mode." The newspaper held an online poll, which revealed that 80% of those who took part would follow in Vanessa's footsteps if they discovered their partner was cheating. In 2016, Digital Spy listed the scene among their "10 of the best soap rampages", calling it a "somewhat amusing meltdown".
The scene became a standalone meme in animated GIF format and the phrase gained an entry on Urban Dictionary and became a technical expression among television viewers for any character in any soap opera who has a similar meltdown. Lucker discovered it had become a meme in December 2017 and revealed that people were still quoting the phrase to her, and that "Bubbly's in the fridge" post-it notes had been placed in the toilets of gay nightclub G-A-Y. Lucker said the scene was "relatable" because "we all have moments when we're angry or frustrated, but we tend to internalise it because our subconscious tells us it'd cost a fortune to replace everything, and, we'd potentially get arrested for being a psycho." Writer of the episode, Jesse O'Mahoney, said the note was "designed as [a] window into the casual indifference Max and Tanya had towards Vanessa. It's the lightness of it that eats away at her. Her life, her happiness, destroyed in the face of a flirtatious, throwaway note. It also has a metaphorical element; her rage has been kept on ice and here she explosively pops the cork. But again, without Zöe's performance, it's just a line in a script. [...] [Lucker] throws herself into a frenzied breakdown without reservation. You could imagine her continuing long after the end of the take, rampaging from set to set, tearing down the whole studio. She played the role of Vanessa with such confidence and poise and style that to see her properly lose it, with such authenticity, was a just joyful shock to the system." He said he wished he had thought of Vanessa stabbing the photo frame over and over, adding, "I don't know if that was [Lucker's] idea or the director's but it added a new dimension to her rage." |
Tahrunessa Abdullah
Tahrunessa Ahmed Abdullah (born 21 April 1937) is a Bangladeshi writer and activist. She is notable for her researches and contribution to an uplift in the lives of women in rural Bangladesh through her various levels of involvement with Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development. In 1978, she became the first Bangladeshi to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award in the community leadership category.
Early life and education.
Abdullah was born on 21 April 1937 in the village of Ghoragachha of Jessore District. Her father Rafiuddin Ahmed was a lawyer. After completing primary education from Calcutta, Ahmed moved to Dhaka with her family. There she attended Kamrunnesa Government Girls High School and afterwards received a Bachelor of Arts from Eden Girls' College, University of Dhaka, in 1958. She then attended the College of Social Welfare and Research Center (also affiliated with Dhaka University and now an institute called the Institute of Social Welfare and Research), receiving her Master of Arts in the school's first graduating class in 1960. In 1966, Ahmed went to the United States to study at Michigan State University, from which she received a Master of Science in agriculture extension education in 1968. Her thesis was entitled, The Place of Evaluation in Comilla Women's Program. This graduate year was underwritten by the Ford Foundation.
Career.
Pakistan era.
Ahmed's first position after graduation was as Executive Officer of the East Pakistan Council for Child Welfare in Dacca. She organised the Crippled Children's Center which is still in operation. At that time she also wrote the first of the numerous articles she has published on social problems, "School Social Work and Its Scope in East Pakistan." From mid-1961 to 1963 she was District Health Education Officer for the Bureau of Health Education. In pursuit of this interest, she attended, under a US International Cooperation Administration (now Agency for International Development) grant, the American University in Beirut, receiving a Diploma, with Distinction, in Public Health in 1962.
In 1963 Ahmed joined then Pakistan Academy for Rural Development in Comilla as instructor in charge of the recently instituted Women's Program and in that capacity headed the Academy's Women's Education and Home Development Program. The Women's Education and Home Development Program was begun at Comilla Academy in 1962. During her nine years at Comilla, she was responsible for the organisation of village level training programs for women that included adult literacy; health education, sanitation, and nutrition; agricultural extension; creation of cooperatives to promote cottage crafts and other income generating activities. She also developed training courses for government officials on women's problems and health needs in rural East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and coordinated the overall Comilla Academy training program. For two years she was also in charge of the publication section and for one year served as vice-chairman of the Comilla Khadi Association.
Bangladesh era.
Within this context of crisis Abdullah's excellent experience, a Comilla Academy brought her to the forefront of the rehabilitation of fort after the war. In 1972 she became the Director (Training) of the National Board of the Bangladesh Women's Rehabilitation and Welfare Foundation. During her two years in this capacity she established the Women' Career Training Institute, the first institution in Bangladesh wholly devoted to career training for women. Intended for women war victims it became the training model for the National Board. As director Abdullah was involved in the planning, organisation and execution of all training, production and marketing programs of the institute, and exercised administrative and financial supervision, as well.
After 1974 Abdullah served, under a series of Directors General, as Joint Director in charge of the Women's Program, of Bangladesh's Integrated Rural Development Program (IRDP). Her job has been to develop a national plan for integrating rural women into the nation's economic and social development process. She is well aware that unless women are regarded as an integral, functional part of society, their development, and the development of the nation, will be hampered. Since the beginning she has administered and supervised the program and has been responsible for staff training.
The IRDP was established in 1971 as a national extension of the Comilla Academy model'with important modifications. It organised the villagers into credit and service cooperatives to give them access to government services and to increase their productive abilities. The Women's Program, which was instituted in 1974, received initial funds under the population planning project of the World Bank which saw "direct involvement of women in development as a way to bring down the birth rate."
Due to profound poverty, life expectancy in Bangladesh in the 1970s was estimated at 46 years, and the functional literacy rate was less than 25 percent nationwide'only 5 percent for women. Adrienne Germain, in a report for the Ford Foundation, noted that "over 90 percent of Bengali females live in rural areas and bear the brunt poverty even more than males." In 1974 the median marriage for women was 13.3 years and maternal mortality was "very high. "The school drop-out rate for girls was earlier and higher than for boys, a factor which reduced their opportunity to learn ways and skills improve their lives".
The hypothesis of the Women's Program was that women would have more control over their reproductive lives if they had some economic autonomy. The program set up pilot projects in one thana in each of the 19 districts the country. In each thana it established 10 village-based women's cooperatives. The initial project, begun officially in July 1975, was to last three and a half years; it had a budget of 16,700,000 taka (US$1,670,000 from the International Development Association (the World Bank agency handling soft loans and headquartered in Washington, D.C., US including US$760,000 in foreign exchange, plus US$45,000 allotted the Ford Foundation. By 1978 women's cooperatives were operating in 500 villages, with a total membership of 18,000; 15 women needed to organise a cooperative and the average one today has members. Over the next three years the program hopes to add a thousand more villages to its roster.
The Women's Program is divided into two major activities cooperative and population planning'both of which are supported and coordinated by ABDULLAH and her staff, under the guidance of the IRI director general. In each thana the program is represented by a staff consisting of one deputy project officer and two women inspector who organise and supervise the women's cooperatives and population planning activities in their thana. One male inspector works on male side of the population planning program.
From the beginning Abdullah and her colleagues "found misinformation about rural women to be extraordinarily pervasive and persistent." Abdullah's own early studies of village women were just the beginning; the most fundamental area of misinformation concerned the daily activities of the women. Previous researchers who had questioned male villagers about women had been told they work at "nothing" and know "nothing." Rural women were consequently perceived by all levels of society as ignorant, superstitious and without much work except cooking, cleaning and childbearing. Since the urban elite responsible for economic planning was given to understand that women did no agricultural work'and certainly they appear in the fields only under conditions of the most desperate poverty'women were consistently omitted from planning objectives.
Unfortunately, the information was untrue. Abdullah's workers quickly learned that women are consistently responsible for a significant portion of the family's agricultural endeavour. They are in charge of seed preservation and storage, post-harvest rice-processing and grain storage; vegetable and fruit growing; poultry raising and livestock care; food processing and food preservation; manufacturing of household items such as bedding; house maintenance and repairs, and fuel gathering. In short, as an external study in 1975 revealed, rural women in Bangladesh spend more time than men in productive work when the definition includes child raising and food preparation. As Zeidenstein points out, "since 73 percent of the consumption of rural people is food and 14 percent is housing, it should be obvious how integrated women's economic role is."
The IRDP Women's Program seeks to incorporate women in the development process. It acts on the premise that a subsistence level activity by women can be raised to a commercial activity if a surplus is produced. The cooperatives, which are individual self-help societies rather than communal efforts, therefore provide credit facilities to help women start projects in which they already have expertise'for example, raising poultry, goats or cows'or provide them with improved varieties of seeds or fruit stock.
The credit extended is small, varying between US$15 and US$25, and lent for a period of six months. The women exhibit excellent managerial abilities and are very punctual and regular in repaying their loans. One woman, for example, the wife of a poor labourer and mother of eight, received a loan for Tk300 (about US$l25) to buy a calf. She repaid her loan punctually and took out a second loan which enabled her to buy another. These calves are now milk cows, providing enough milk for her children and a surplus to sell in the market. The cows are also used by her husband to plow a small plot of land which he could not otherwise have cultivated. Her assets have increased tenfold.
Since the Women's Program is part of the Bangladesh population project, Abdullah became a respected voice on the international level on both advancement of women and population planning. In 1975 she attended the Population Planning Communications seminar at the East-West Center, Honolulu; the World Congress for International Women's Year in Berlin, and the International Seminar on Population Communication sponsored by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The United Nations also invited her in 1976 to be a delegate to the Economic and Social Council of Asia and the Pacific committee meeting on population in Bangkok, and to a U.N. Expert Group Meeting in New York on the "Establishment of an International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women." In 1977 she was invited by the director general of FAO to attend a meeting of experts on "Integration of Rural Women in Development" in Rome, and the following year she attended a consultancy meeting of the U.N. International Labor Organization in Geneva on "Women and Rural Development." That same year she also attended the seminar on Action Research on Women in Rural Development at the University of Sussex, England. For the last three years she has worked as short term consultant to the U.N. Development Program and the U.N. Fund for Population Activities in Lanka, helping the Sri Lanka Mahila Samiti (women's institutes introduced by Dr. Mary H. Rutnam, 1958 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Public Service for "her gift of service to the Ceylonese people and example she has set by her full life of dedication as a private citizen the needs of others") develop a production-oriented women's program similar to the one she has developed in Bangladesh.
Throughout the years Abdullah has written more than 15 papers and articles on her work, and co-authored one book, Village Women of Bangladesh' Prospect for Change, written with Sondra Zeidenstein.
One observer has remarked that Abdullah is unusual, not only overcoming her society's traditional suspicion of women who "presume to provide community leadership," but in winning the respect of the male segment of that society. He noted that "she not only is a charismatic person, some of that charisma rubs off on her village staff." A final accolade he adds that in Bangladesh Tahrunnesa Ahmed Abdullah "virtually is unique among both male and female sexes in her community dedication."
Awards.
As a recognition of her role in "leading rural Bangladeshi Muslim women from the constraints of purdah toward an equal citizenship and fuller family responsibility" Tahrunnesa Ahmed was awarded Ramon Magsaysay award for community leadership in 1978. |
Kanshi Ram
Kanshi Ram (15 March 1934 – 9 October 2006), also known as Bahujan Nayak or Manyavar or Saheb, was an Indian politician and social reformer who worked for the upliftment and political mobilisation of the Bahujans, the backward or lower caste people including untouchable groups at the bottom of the caste system in India. Towards this end, Kanshi Ram founded Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (DS-4), the All India Backward (SC, ST, OBC..) and Minorities Communities Employees' Federation (BAMCEF) in 1971 and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 1984. He ceded leadership of the BSP to his protégé Mayawati who has served four terms as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.
Early life.
Kanshi Ram was born to a Ramdasia family of Chamar caste on 15 March 1934 in Ropar district, Punjab, British India. Some sources say his birthplace was the village of Pirthipur Bunga and others that it was Khawaspur village.
After studies at various local schools, Ram graduated in 1956 with a BSc degree from Government College Ropar.
Career.
Kanshi Ram joined the offices of the Explosive Research and Development Laboratory in Pune. It was at this time that he first experienced caste discrimination and in 1964 he became an activist. Those who admire him point out that he was spurred to this after reading B. R. Ambedkar's book "Annihilation of Caste" and witnessing the discrimination against a Dalit employee who wished to observe a holiday celebrating Ambedkar's birth. Kanshi Ram strongly inspired by B. R. Ambedkar and his philosophy.
Ram initially supported the Republican Party of India (RPI) but became disillusioned with its co-operation with the Indian National Congress. In 1971, he founded the All India SC, ST, OBC and Minority Employees Association and in 1978 this became BAMCEF, an organisation that aimed to persuade educated members of the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backwards Classes and Minorities to support Ambedkarite principles. BAMCEF was neither a political nor a religious body and it also had no aims to agitate for its purpose. Suryakant Waghmore says it appealed to "the class among the Dalits that was comparatively well-off, mostly based in urban areas and small towns working as government servants and partially alienated from their untouchable identities".
Later, in 1981, Ram formed another social organisation known as Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (DSSSS, or DS4). He started his attempt of consolidating the Dalit vote and in 1984 he founded the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). He fought his first election in 1984 from Janjgir-Champa seat in Chhattisgarh. The BSP found success in Uttar Pradesh, initially struggled to bridge the divide between Dalits and Other Backward Classes but later under leadership of Mayawati bridged this gap.
In 1982 he wrote his book "The Chamcha Age", in which he used the term "chamcha" (stooge) to describe Dalit leaders such as Jagjivan Ram and Ram Vilas Paswan. He argued that Dalits should work politically for their own ends rather than compromise by working with other parties.
After forming BSP Ram said the party would fight first election to lose, next to get noticed and the third election to win. In 1988 he contested Allahabad seat up against a future Prime Minister V. P. Singh and performed impressively but lost polling close to 70,000 votes.
He unsuccessfully contested from East Delhi (Lok Sabha constituency) (against HKL Bhagat) and Amethi (Lok Sabha constituency) (against Rajiv Gandhi) in 1989 and came in the third position on both the seats. Then he represented the 11th Lok Sabha (1996-1998) from Hoshiarpur, Kanshiram was also elected as member of Lok Sabha from Etawah in Uttar Pradesh.
After Demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Kanshi Ram joined hands to keep communal forces out of power by creating unity among the backward and Dalit castes and giving the popular slogan "Mile Mulayam-Kanshi Ram, Hawa mein ud gaye Jai Shri Ram". After the election, a coalition government of Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party was formed in UP under the leadership of Mulayam Singh Yadav, although due to some differences and Mayawati's ambition, this alliance broke up in June 1995, Mayawati became first time Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in support of BJP. In the late 1990s, Ram described the BJP as the most corrupt ("mahabrasht") party in India and the Indian National Congress INC, Samajwadi Party and Janata Dal as equally corrupt. In 2001 He declared Mayawati as his successor.
Proposed conversion to Buddhism.
In 2002, Ram announced his intention to convert to Buddhism on 14 October 2006, the 50th anniversary of Ambedkar's conversion. He intended for 50,000,000 of his supporters to convert at the same time. Part of the significance of this plan was that Ram's followers include not only untouchables, but persons from a variety of castes, who could significantly broaden Buddhism's support. However, he died on 9 October 2006.
Mayawati his successor said "Saheb Kanshi Ram and I had decided that we will convert and adopt Buddhism when we will get "absolute majority" at the centre. We wanted to do this because we can make a difference to the religion by taking along with us millions of people. If we convert without power then only we two will be converting. But when you have power you can really create a stir".
Death.
Kanshi Ram was a diabetic. He suffered a heart attack in 1994, an arterial clot in his brain in 1995, and a paralytic stroke in 2003. He died in New Delhi on 9 October 2006 of a severe heart attack at the age of 72. He had been virtually bed-ridden for more than two years. According to his wishes, his funeral rites were performed according to Buddhist tradition, with Mayawati lighting the pyre. His ashes were placed in an urn and kept at Prerna Sthal, where many people paid their respects.
In his condolence message, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described Ram as "one of the greatest social reformers of our time.. his political ideas and movements had a significant impact on our political evolution... He had a larger understanding of social change and was able to unite various underprivileged sections of our society and provide a political platform where their voices would be heard." Under Ram's leadership, the BSP won 14 parliamentary seats in the 1999 parliamentary elections.
Books.
In 1982, Kanshi Ram wrote "The Chamcha Age" (The Era of the Stooges), a book in which he used the term "chamcha" (stooge) for Dalit leaders who he alleged had selfish reasons to work for parties such as the Indian National Congress (INC) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). His book "Birth of BAMCEF" was also published. His biography, "Kanshiram: Leader of the Dalits" was written by Badri Narayan Tiwari. His speeches are compiled in books like "Bahujan Nayak Kanshiram Ke Avismarniya Bhashan" by Anuj Kumar, "Writings & Speeches of Kanshiram" compiled by S. S. Gautam & A.R. Akela and "The Editorials of Kanshi Ram" by Bahujan Samaj Publications in 1997.
Legacy.
There are many government programmes and schemes and public institutions named after Kanshi Ram in Uttar Pradesh. His birthplace Pirthipur Bunga Sahib has a memorial with his statue. Manyawar Shri Kanshiram Ji Green Eco Garden in Lucknow has been named in his memory.
Biopic.
In 2017, a Hindi-language Biopic film "The Great Leader Kanshiram" was released in India, directed and produced by Arjun Singh, based on the story of DS4, BAMCEF and Bahujan Samaj Party founder Kanshi Ram from his childhood to 1984. |
Headlamp
A headlamp is a lamp attached to the front of a vehicle to illuminate the road ahead. Headlamps are also often called headlights, but in the most precise usage, "headlamp" is the term for the device itself and "headlight" is the term for the beam of light produced and distributed by the device.
Headlamp performance has steadily improved throughout the automobile age, spurred by the great disparity between daytime and nighttime traffic fatalities: the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration states that nearly half of all traffic-related fatalities occur in the dark, despite only 25% of traffic travelling during darkness.
Other vehicles, such as trains and aircraft, are required to have headlamps. Bicycle headlamps are often used on bicycles, and are required in some jurisdictions. They can be powered by a battery or a small generator like a bottle or hub dynamo.
History of automotive headlamps.
Origins.
The first horseless carriages used carriage lamps, which proved unsuitable for travel at speed. The earliest lights used candles as the most common type of fuel.
Gas headlamp.
The earliest headlamps, fuelled by combustible gas such as acetylene gas or oil, operated from the late 1880s. Acetylene gas lamps were popular in 1900s because the flame is resistant to wind and rain. Thick concave mirrors combined with magnifying lenses projected the acetylene flame light. A number of car manufacturers offered Prest-O-Lite "calcium carbide acetylene gas generator cylinder" with gas feed pipes for lights as standard equipment for 1904 cars.
Electric headlamp.
The first electric headlamps were introduced in 1898 on the Columbia Electric Car from the Electric Vehicle Company of Hartford, Connecticut, and were optional. Two factors limited the widespread use of electric headlamps: the short life of filaments in the harsh automotive environment, and the difficulty of producing dynamos small enough, yet powerful enough to produce sufficient current.
Peerless made electric headlamps standard in 1908. A Birmingham, England firm called Pockley Automobile Electric Lighting Syndicate marketed the world's first electric car-lights as a complete set in 1908, which consisted of headlamps, sidelamps, and tail lights that were powered by an eight-volt battery.
In 1912 Cadillac integrated their vehicle's Delco electrical ignition and lighting system, forming the modern vehicle electrical system.
The Guide Lamp Company introduced "dipping" (low-beam) headlamps in 1915, but the 1917 Cadillac system allowed the light to be dipped using a lever inside the car rather than requiring the driver to stop and get out. The 1924 Bilux bulb was the first modern unit, having the light for both low (dipped) and high (main) beams of a headlamp emitting from a single bulb. A similar design was introduced in 1925 by Guide Lamp called the "Duplo". In 1927 the foot-operated dimmer switch or dip switch was introduced and became standard for much of the century. 1933–1934 Packards featured tri-beam headlamps, the bulbs having three filaments. From highest to lowest, the beams were called "country passing", "country driving" and "city driving". The 1934 Nash also used a three-beam system, although in this case with bulbs of the conventional two-filament type, and the intermediate beam combined low beam on the driver's side with high beam on the passenger's side, so as to maximise the view of the roadside while minimizing glare toward oncoming traffic. The last vehicles with a foot-operated dimmer switch were the 1991 Ford F-Series and E-Series [Econoline] vans. Fog lamps were new for 1938 Cadillacs, and their 1954 "Autronic Eye" system automated the selection of high and low beams.
Directional lighting, using a switch and electromagnetically shifted reflector to illuminate the curbside only, was introduced in the rare, one-year-only 1935 Tatra. Steering-linked lighting was featured on the 1947 Tucker Torpedo's center-mounted headlight and was later popularized by the Citroën DS. This made it possible to turn the light in the direction of travel when the steering wheel turned.
The standardized round sealed-beam headlamp, one per side, was required for all vehicles sold in the United States from 1940, virtually freezing usable lighting technology in place until the 1970s for Americans. In 1957 the law changed to allow smaller round sealed beams, two per side of the vehicle, and in 1974 rectangular sealed beams were permitted as well.
Britain, Australia, and some other Commonwealth countries, as well as Japan and Sweden, also made extensive use of 7-inch sealed beams, though they were not mandated as they were in the United States. This headlamp format was not widely accepted in continental Europe, which found replaceable bulbs and variations in the size and shape of headlamps useful in car design.
Technology moved forward in the rest of the world. In 1962 a European consortium of bulb- and headlamp-makers introduced the first halogen lamp for vehicle headlamp use, the H1. Shortly thereafter headlamps using the new light source were introduced in Europe. These were effectively prohibited in the US, where standard-size sealed beam headlamps were mandatory and intensity regulations were low. US lawmakers faced pressure to act, due both to lighting effectiveness and to vehicle aerodynamics/fuel savings. High-beam peak intensity, capped at 140,000 candela per side of the car in Europe, was limited in the United States to 37,500 candela on each side of the car until 1978, when the limit was raised to 75,000. An increase in high-beam intensity to take advantage of the higher allowance could not be achieved without a move to halogen technology, and so sealed-beam headlamps with internal halogen lamps became available for use on 1979 models in the United States.
halogen sealed beams dominate the sealed-beam market, which has declined steeply since replaceable-bulb headlamps were permitted in 1983.
High-intensity discharge (HID) systems appeared in the early 1990s, first in the BMW 7 Series. 1996's Lincoln Mark VIII was an early American effort at HIDs, and was the only car with DC HIDs.
Design and style.
Beyond the engineering, performance, and regulatory-compliance aspects of headlamps, there is the consideration of the various ways they are designed and arranged on a motor vehicle. Headlamps were round for many years because that is the native shape of a parabolic reflector. Using principles of reflection, the simple symmetric round reflective surface projects light and helps focus the beam.
Headlamp styling outside the United States, pre-1983.
There was no requirement in Europe for headlamps of standardized size or shape, and lamps could be designed in any shape and size, as long as the lamps met the engineering and performance requirements contained in the applicable European safety standards. Rectangular headlamps were first used in 1960, developed by Hella for the German Ford Taunus P3 and by Cibié for the Citroën Ami 6. They were prohibited in the United States where round lamps were required until 1975. Another early headlamp styling concept involved conventional round lamps faired into the car's bodywork with aerodynamic glass covers, such as those on the 1961 Jaguar E-Type, and on pre-1967 VW Beetles.
Headlamp styling in the United States, 1940–1983.
Headlight design in the U.S. changed very little from 1940 to 1983.
In 1940, a consortium of state motor vehicle administrators standardized upon a system of two round sealed beam headlamps on all vehicles—the only system allowed for 17 years. This requirement eliminated problems of tarnished reflectors by sealing them together with the bulbs. It also made aiming the headlight beams simpler and eliminated non-standard bulbs and lamps.
The Tucker 48 included a defining "cyclops-eye" feature: a third center-mounted headlight connected to the car's steering mechanism. It only illuminated if the steering was moved more than ten degrees off center and the high beams were turned on.
A system of four round lamps, rather than two, one high/low and one high-beam sealed beam on each side of the vehicle, was introduced on some 1957 Cadillac, Chrysler, DeSoto, and Nash models in states that permitted the new system. Separate low and high beam lamps eliminated the need for compromise in lens design and filament positioning required in a single unit. Other cars followed suit when all states permitted the new lamps by the time the 1958 models were brought to market. The four-lamp system permitted more design flexibility and improved low and high beam performance. Auto stylists such as Virgil Exner carried out design studies with the low beams in their conventional outboard location, and the high beams vertically stacked at the centerline of the car, but no such designs reached volume production.
An example arrangement includes the stacking of two headlamps on each side, with low beams above high beams. The Nash Ambassador used this arrangement in the 1957 model year. Pontiac used this design starting in the 1963 model year; American Motors, Ford, Cadillac, and Chrysler followed two years later. Also in the 1965 model year, the Buick Riviera had concealable stacked headlamps. Various Mercedes models sold in America used this arrangement because their home-market replaceable-bulb headlamps were illegal in the US.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, some Lincoln, Buick, and Chrysler cars had the headlamps arranged diagonally with the low-beam lamps outboard and above the high-beam lamps. British cars including the Gordon-Keeble, Jensen CV8, Triumph Vitesse, and Bentley S3 Continental used such an arrangement as well.
In 1968, the newly initiated Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108 required all vehicles to have either the twin or quad round sealed beam headlamp system and prohibited any decorative or protective element in front of an operating headlamp. Glass-covered headlamps like those used on the Jaguar E-Type, pre-1968 VW Beetle, 1965 Chrysler and Imperial models, Porsche 356, Citroën DS, and Ferrari Daytona were no longer permitted, and vehicles had to be equipped with uncovered headlamps for the US market. This made it difficult for vehicles with headlamp configurations designed for good aerodynamic performance to achieve it in their US-market configurations.
The FMVSS 108 was amended in 1974 to permit rectangular sealed-beam headlamps. This allowed manufacturers flexibility to lower the hoods on new cars. These could be placed in horizontal arrays or in vertically stacked pairs. As previously with round lamps, the US permitted only two standardized sizes of rectangular sealed-beam lamp: A system of two high/low beam units corresponding to the existing 7-inch round format, or a system of four units, two high/low and two high-beam. corresponding to the existing round format.
The rectangular headlamp design became so prevalent in U.S.-made cars that only a few models continued using round headlamps by 1979.
International headlamp styling, 1983–present.
In 1983, granting a 1981 petition from Ford Motor Company, the US headlamp regulations were amended to allow replaceable-bulb, nonstandard-shape, architectural headlamps with aerodynamic lenses that could for the first time be made of hard-coated polycarbonate. This allowed the first US-market car since 1939 with replaceable bulb headlamps: the 1984 Lincoln Mark VII. These composite headlamps were sometimes referred to as "Euro" headlamps since aerodynamic headlamps were common in Europe. Though conceptually similar to European headlamps with non-standardized shape and replaceable-bulb construction, these headlamps conform to the headlamp design, construction, and performance specifications of US Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108 rather than the internationalized European safety standards used outside North America. Nevertheless, this change to US regulations made it possible for headlamp styling in the US market to move closer to that in Europe.
Hidden headlamps.
Hidden headlamps were introduced in 1936, on the Cord 810/812. They were mounted in the front fenders, which were smooth until the lights were cranked out—each with its own small dash-mounted crank—by the operator. They aided aerodynamics when the headlamps were not in use and were among the Cord's signature design features.
Later hidden headlamps require one or more vacuum-operated servos and reservoirs, with associated plumbing and linkage, or electric motors, geartrains and linkages to raise the lamps to an exact position to assure correct aiming despite ice, snow, and age. Some hidden headlamp designs, such as those on the Saab Sonett III, used a lever-operated mechanical linkage to raise the headlamps into position.
During the 1960s and 1970s, many notable sports cars used this feature such as the Chevrolet Corvette (C3), Ferrari Berlinetta Boxer and Lamborghini Countach as they allowed low bonnet lines but raised the lights to the required height, but since 2004 no modern volume-produced car models use hidden headlamps because they present difficulties in complying with pedestrian-protection provisions added to international auto safety regulations regarding protuberances on car bodies to minimize injury to pedestrians struck by cars.
Some hidden headlamps themselves do not move, but rather are covered when not in use by panels designed to blend in with the car's styling. When the lamps are switched on, the covers are swung out of the way, usually downward or upward, for example on the 1992 Jaguar XJ220. The door mechanism may be actuated by vacuum pots, as on some Ford vehicles of the late 1960s through early 1980s such as the 1967–1970 Mercury Cougar, or by an electric motor as on various Chrysler products of the middle 1960s through late 1970s such as the 1966–1967 Dodge Charger.
Regulations and requirements.
Modern headlamps are electrically operated, positioned in pairs, one or two on each side of the front of a vehicle. A headlamp system is required to produce a low and a high beam, which may be produced by multiple pairs of single-beam lamps or by a pair of dual-beam lamps, or a mix of single-beam and dual-beam lamps. High beams cast most of their light straight ahead, maximizing seeing distance but producing too much glare for safe use when other vehicles are present on the road. Because there is no special control of upward light, high beams also cause backdazzle from fog, rain and snow due to the retroreflection of the water droplets. Low beams have stricter control of upward light, and direct most of their light downward and either rightward (in right-traffic countries) or leftward (in left-traffic countries), to provide forward visibility without excessive glare or backdazzle.
Low beam.
Low beam (dipped beam, passing beam, meeting beam) headlamps provide a distribution of light designed to provide forward and lateral illumination, with limits on light directed towards the eyes of other road users to control glare. This beam is intended for use whenever other vehicles are present ahead, whether oncoming or being overtaken.
The low beam is often positioned lower than the high beam, and it is designed to illuminate the road immediately in front of the vehicle, making it easier for the driver to see obstacles, pedestrians, and other vehicles. It is also used to make the vehicle more visible to other drivers.
The international ECE Regulations for filament headlamps and for high-intensity discharge headlamps specify a beam with a sharp, asymmetric cutoff preventing significant amounts of light from being cast into the eyes of drivers of preceding or oncoming cars. Control of glare is less strict in the North American SAE beam standard contained in FMVSS / CMVSS 108.
High beam.
High beam (main beam, driving beam, full beam) headlamps provide a bright, center-weighted distribution of light with no particular control of light directed towards other road users' eyes. As such, they are only suitable for use when alone on the road, as the glare they produce will dazzle other drivers.
International ECE Regulations permit higher-intensity high-beam headlamps than are allowed under North American regulations.
Compatibility with traffic directionality.
Most low-beam headlamps are specifically designed for use on only one side of the road. Headlamps for use in left-traffic countries have low-beam headlamps that "dip to the left"; the light is distributed with a downward/leftward bias to show the driver the road and signs ahead without blinding oncoming traffic. Headlamps for right-traffic countries have low beams that "dip to the right", with most of their light directed downward/rightward.
Within Europe, when driving a vehicle with right-traffic headlamps in a left-traffic country or vice versa for a limited time (as for example on vacation or in transit), it is a legal requirement to adjust the headlamps temporarily so that their wrong-side beam distribution does not dazzle oncoming drivers. This may be achieved by methods including adhering opaque decals or prismatic lenses to a designated part of the lens. Some projector-type headlamps can be made to produce a proper left- or right-traffic beam by shifting a lever or other movable element in or on the lamp assembly. Many tungsten (pre-halogen) European-code headlamps made in France by Cibié, Marchal, and Ducellier could be adjusted to produce either a left- or a right-traffic low beam by means of a two-position bulb holder.
Because wrong-side-of-road headlamps blind oncoming drivers and do not adequately light the driver's way, and blackout strips and adhesive prismatic lenses reduce the safety performance of the headlamps, some countries require all vehicles registered or used on a permanent or semi-permanent basis within the country to be equipped with headlamps designed for the correct traffic-handedness. North American vehicle owners sometimes privately import and install Japanese-market (JDM) headlamps on their car in the mistaken belief that the beam performance will be better, when in fact such misapplication is quite hazardous and illegal.
Adequacy.
Vehicle headlamps have been found unable to illuminate an assured clear distance ahead at speeds above 60 km/h (40 mph). It may be unsafe and, in a few areas, illegal to drive above this speed at night.
Use in daytime.
Some countries require automobiles to be equipped with daytime running lights (DRL) to increase the conspicuity of vehicles in motion during the daytime. Regional regulations govern how the DRL function may be provided. In Canada, the DRL function required on vehicles made or imported since 1990 can be provided by the headlamps, the fog lamps, steady-lit operation of the front turn signals, or by special daytime running lamps. Functionally dedicated daytime running lamps not involving the headlamps are required on all new cars first sold in the European Union since February 2011. In addition to the EU and Canada, countries requiring DRL include Albania, Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia (no more from Aug/2011), Iceland, Israel, Macedonia, Norway, Moldova, Russia, Serbia, and Uruguay.
Construction, performance, and aim.
There are two different beam pattern and headlamp construction standards in use in the world: The ECE standard, which is allowed or required in virtually all industrialized countries except the United States, and the SAE standard that is mandatory only in the US. Japan formerly had bespoke lighting regulations similar to the US standards, but for the left side of the road. However, Japan now adheres to the ECE standard. The differences between the SAE and ECE headlamp standards are primarily in the amount of glare permitted toward other drivers on low beam (SAE permits much more glare), the minimum amount of light required to be thrown straight down the road (SAE requires more), and the specific locations within the beam at which minimum and maximum light levels are specified.
ECE low beams are characterized by a distinct horizontal "cutoff" line at the top of the beam. Below the line is bright, and above is dark. On the side of the beam facing away from oncoming traffic (right in right-traffic countries, left in left-traffic countries), this cutoff sweeps or steps upward to direct light to road signs and pedestrians. SAE low beams may or may not have a cutoff, and if a cutoff is present, it may be of two different general types: "VOL", which is conceptually similar to the ECE beam in that the cutoff is located at the top of the left side of the beam and aimed slightly below horizontal, or "VOR", which has the cutoff at the top of the right side of the beam and aimed at the horizon.
Proponents of each headlamp system decry the other as inadequate and unsafe: US proponents of the SAE system claim that the ECE low beam cutoff gives short seeing distances and inadequate illumination for overhead road signs, while international proponents of the ECE system claim that the SAE system produces too much glare. Comparative studies have repeatedly shown that there is little or no overall safety advantage to either SAE or ECE beams; the two systems' acceptance and rejection by various countries is based primarily on which system is already in use.
In North America, the design, performance, and installation of all motor vehicle lighting devices are regulated by Federal and Canada Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108, which incorporates SAE technical standards. Elsewhere in the world, ECE internationalized regulations are in force either by reference or by incorporation in individual countries' vehicular codes.
US laws required sealed beam headlamps on all vehicles between 1940 and 1983, and other countries such as Japan, United Kingdom, and Australia also made extensive use of sealed beams. In most other countries, and in the US since 1984, replaceable-bulb headlamps predominate.
Headlamps must be kept in proper aim. Regulations for aim vary from country to country and from beam specification to beam specification. In the US, SAE standard headlamps are aimed without regard to headlamp mounting height. This gives vehicles with high-mounted headlamps a seeing distance advantage, at the cost of increased glare to drivers in lower vehicles. By contrast, ECE headlamp aim angle is linked to headlamp mounting height, to give all vehicles roughly equal seeing distance and all drivers roughly equal glare.
Light colour.
White.
Headlamps are generally required to produce white light, according to both ECE and SAE standards. ECE Regulation 48 currently requires new vehicles to be equipped with headlamps emitting white light. Different headlamp technologies produce different characteristic types of white light; the white specification is quite large and permits a wide range of apparent colour from warm white (with a brown-orange-amber-yellow cast) to cold white (with a blue-violet cast).
Selective yellow.
Previous ECE regulations also permitted selective yellow light. A research experiment done in the UK in 1968 using tungsten (non-halogen) lamps found that visual acuity is about 3% better with selective yellow headlamps than with white ones of equal intensity. Research done in the Netherlands in 1976 concluded that yellow and white headlamps are equivalent as regards traffic safety, though yellow light causes less discomfort glare than white light. Researchers note that tungsten filament lamps emit only a small amount of the blue light blocked by a selective-yellow filter, so such filtration makes only a small difference in the characteristics of the light output, and suggest that headlamps using newer kinds of sources such as metal halide (HID) bulbs may, through filtration, give off less visually distracting light while still having greater light output than halogen ones.
Selective yellow headlamps are no longer common, but are permitted in various countries throughout Europe as well as in non-European locales such as South Korea, Japan and New Zealand. In Iceland, yellow headlamps are allowed and the vehicle regulations in Monaco still officially require selective yellow light from all vehicles' low beam and high beam headlamps, and fog lamps if present.
In France, a statute passed in November 1936 based on advice from the Central Commission for Automobiles and for Traffic in General, required selective yellow headlights to be fitted. The mandate for yellow headlamps was enacted to reduce driver fatigue from discomfort glare. The requirement initially applied to vehicles registered for road use after April 1937, but was intended to extend to all vehicles through retrofitting of selective yellow lights on older vehicles, from the start of 1939. Later stages of the implementation were disrupted in September 1939 by the outbreak of war.
The French yellow-light mandate was based on observations by the French Academy of Sciences in 1934, when the Academy recorded that the selective yellow light was less dazzling than white light and that the light diffused less in fog than green or blue lights. Yellow light was obtained by dint of yellow glass for the headlight bulb or lens, a yellow coating on a colourless bulb, lens, or reflector, or a yellow filter between the bulb and the lens. Filtration losses reduced the emitted light intensity by about 18 percent, which might have contributed to the reduced glare.
The mandate was in effect until December 1992, so for many years yellow headlights visually marked French-registered cars wherever they were seen, though some French drivers are said to have switched to white headlamps despite the requirement for yellow ones.
The requirement was criticised as a trade barrier in the automobile sector; French politician Jean-Claude Martinez described it as a protectionist law.
Formal research found, at best, a small improvement in visual acuity with yellow rather than white headlights, and French automaker Peugeot estimated that white headlamps produce 20 to 30 percent more light—though without explaining why this estimate was larger than the 15% to 18% value measured in formal research—and wanted drivers of their cars to get the benefits of extra illumination. More generally, country-specific vehicle technical regulations in Europe were regarded as a costly nuisance. In a survey published in 1988, automakers gave a range of responses when asked what it cost to supply a car with yellow headlamps for France. General Motors and Lotus said there was no additional cost, Rover said the additional cost was marginal, and Volkswagen said yellow headlamps added 28 Deutsche Marks to the cost of vehicle production. Addressing the French requirement for yellow lights (among other country-specific lighting requirements) was undertaken as part of an effort toward common vehicle technical standards throughout the European Community. A provision in EU Council Directive 91/663, issued on 10 December 1991, specified white headlamps for all new vehicle type-approvals granted by the EC after 1 January 1993 and stipulated that from that date EC (later EU) member states would not be permitted to refuse entry of a vehicle meeting the lighting standards contained in the amended document—so France would no longer be able to refuse entry to a vehicle with white headlights. The directive was adopted unanimously by the council, and hence with France's vote.
Though no longer required in France, selective yellow headlamps remain legal there; the current regulation stipulates that "every motor vehicle must be equipped, at the front, with two or four lights, creating in a forward direction selective yellow or white light permitting efficient illumination of the road at night for a distance, in clear conditions, of 100 metres".
Optical systems.
Reflector lamps.
Lens optics.
A light source (filament or arc) is placed at or near the focus of a reflector, which may be parabolic or of non-parabolic complex shape. Fresnel and prism optics moulded into the headlamp lens refract (shift) parts of the light laterally and vertically to provide the required light distribution pattern. Most sealed-beam headlamps have lens optics.
Reflector optics.
Starting in the 1980s, headlamp reflectors began to evolve beyond the simple stamped steel parabola. The 1983 Austin Maestro was the first vehicle equipped with Lucas-Carello's "homofocal" reflectors, which comprised parabolic sections of different focal length to improve the efficiency of light collection and distribution. CAD technology allowed the development of reflector headlamps with nonparabolic, complex-shape reflectors. First commercialised by Valeo under their Cibié brand, these headlamps would revolutionise automobile design.
The 1987 US-market Dodge Monaco/Eagle Premier twins and European Citroën XM were the first cars with complex-reflector headlamps with faceted optic lenses. General Motors' Guide Lamp division in America had experimented with clear-lens complex-reflector lamps in the early 1970s and achieved promising results, but the US-market 1990 Honda Accord was first with clear-lens multi-reflector headlamps; these were developed by Stanley in Japan.
The optics to distribute the light in the desired pattern are designed into the reflector itself, rather than into the lens. Depending on the development tools and techniques in use, the reflector may be engineered from the start as a bespoke shape, or it may start as a parabola standing in for the size and shape of the completed package. In the latter case, the entire surface area is modified so as to produce individual segments of specifically calculated, complex contours. The shape of each segment is designed such that their cumulative effect produces the required light distribution pattern.
Modern reflectors are commonly made of compression-moulded or injection moulded plastic, though glass and metal optic reflectors also exist. The reflective surface is vapour deposited aluminum, with a clear overcoating to prevent the extremely thin aluminium from oxidizing. Extremely tight tolerances must be maintained in the design and production of complex-reflector headlamps.
Dual-beam reflector headlamps.
Night driving is difficult and dangerous due to the blinding glare of headlights from oncoming traffic. Headlamps that satisfactorily illuminate the road ahead without causing glare have long been sought. The first solutions involved resistance-type dimming circuits, which decreased the intensity of the headlamps. This yielded to tilting reflectors, and later to dual-filament bulbs with a high and a low beam.
In a two-filament headlamp, there can only be one filament exactly at the focal point of the reflector. There are two primary means of producing two different beams from a two-filament bulb in a single reflector.
American system.
One filament is located at the focal point of the reflector. The other filament is shifted axially and radially away from the focal point. In most 2-filament sealed beams and in 2-filament replaceable bulbs of type 9004, 9007, and H13, the high-beam filament is at the focal point and the low-beam filament is off focus. For use in right-traffic countries, the low-beam filament is positioned slightly upward, forward, and leftward of the focal point, so that when it is energized, the beam is widened and shifted slightly downward and rightward of the headlamp axis. Transverse-filament bulbs such as the 9004 can only be used with the filaments horizontal, but axial-filament bulbs can be rotated or "clocked" by the headlamp designer to optimize the beam pattern or to affect the traffic-handedness of the low beam. The latter is accomplished by clocking the low-beam filament in an upward-forward-leftward position to produce a right-traffic low beam, or in an upward-forward-rightward position to produce a left-traffic low beam.
The opposite tactic has also been employed in certain two-filament sealed beams. Placing the low beam filament at the focal point to maximize light collection by the reflector, and positioning the high beam filament slightly rearward-rightward-downward of the focal point. The relative directional shift between the two beams is the same with either technique – in a right-traffic country, the low beam is slightly downward-rightward and the high beam is slightly upward-leftward, relative to one another – but the lens optics must be matched to the filament placements selected.
European system.
The traditional European method of achieving low and high beams from a single bulb involves two filaments along the axis of the reflector. The high beam filament is on the focal point, while the low beam filament is approximately 1 cm forward of the focal point and 3 mm above the axis. Below the low beam filament is a cup-shaped shield (called a "Graves shield") spanning an arc of 165°. When the low beam filament is illuminated, this shield casts a shadow on the corresponding lower area of the reflector, blocking downward light rays that would otherwise strike the reflector and be cast above the horizon. The bulb is rotated (or "clocked") within the headlamp to position the Graves shield so as to allow light to strike a 15° wedge of the lower half of the reflector. This is used to create the upsweep or upstep characteristic of ECE low beam light distributions. The bulb's rotative position within the reflector depends on the type of beam pattern to be produced and the traffic directionality of the market for which the headlamp is intended.
This system was first used with the tungsten incandescent Bilux/Duplo R2 bulb of 1954, and later with the halogen H4 bulb of 1971. In 1992, US regulations were amended to permit the use of H4 bulbs redesignated HB2 and 9003, and with slightly different production tolerances stipulated. These are physically and electrically interchangeable with H4 bulbs. Similar optical techniques are used, but with different reflector or lens optics to create a US beam pattern rather than a European one.
Each system has its advantages and disadvantages. The American system historically permitted a greater overall amount of light within the low beam, since the entire reflector and lens area is used, but at the same time, the American system has traditionally offered much less control over upward light that causes glare, and for that reason has been largely rejected outside the US. In addition, the American system makes it difficult to create markedly different low and high beam light distributions. The high beam is usually a rough copy of the low beam, shifted slightly upward and leftward. The European system traditionally produced low beams containing less overall light, because only 60% of the reflector's surface area is used to create the low beam. However, low beam focus and glare control are easier to achieve. In addition, the lower 40% of the reflector and lens are reserved for high beam formation, which facilitates the optimization of both low and high beams.
Developments in the 1990s and 2000s.
Complex-reflector technology in combination with new bulb designs such as H13 is enabling the creation of European-type low and high beam patterns without the use of a Graves Shield, while the 1992 US approval of the H4 bulb has made traditionally European 60% / 40% optical area divisions for low and high beam common in the US. Therefore, the difference in active optical area and overall beam light content no longer necessarily exists between US and ECE beams. Dual-beam HID headlamps employing reflector technology have been made using adaptations of both techniques.
Projector (polyellipsoidal) lamps.
In this system a filament is located at one focus of an ellipsoidal reflector and has a condenser lens at the front of the lamp. A shade is located at the image plane, between the reflector and lens, and the projection of the top edge of this shade provides the low-beam cutoff. The shape of the shade edge and its exact position in the optical system determine the shape and sharpness of the cutoff. The shade may be lowered by a solenoid actuated pivot to provide a low beam, and removed from the light path for the high beam. Such optics are known as "BiXenon" or "BiHalogen" projectors. If the cutoff shade is fixed in the light path, separate high-beam lamps are required. The condenser lens may have slight fresnel rings or other surface treatments to reduce cutoff sharpness. Modern condenser lenses incorporate optical features specifically designed to direct some light upward towards the locations of retroreflective overhead road signs.
Hella introduced ellipsoidal optics for acetylene headlamps in 1911, but following the electrification of vehicle lighting, this optical technique wasn't used for many decades. The first modern polyellipsoidal (projector) automotive lamp was the "Super-Lite", an auxiliary headlamp produced in a joint venture between Chrysler Corporation and Sylvania and optionally installed in 1969 and 1970 full-size Dodge automobiles. It used an 85-watt transverse-filament tungsten-halogen bulb and was intended as a mid-beam, to extend the reach of the low beams during turnpike travel when low beams alone were inadequate but high beams would produce excessive glare.
Projector main headlamps appeared in 1981 on the Audi Quartz, a concept car designed by Pininfarina for Geneva Auto Salon. Developed more or less simultaneously in Germany by Hella and Bosch and in France by Cibié, the projector low beam permitted accurate beam focus and a much smaller-diameter optical package, though a much deeper one, for any given beam output. The 1986 BMW 7 Series (E32) was the first volume-production car to use polyellipsoidal low beam headlamps. The main disadvantage of this type of headlamp is the need to accommodate the physical depth of the assembly, which may extend far back into the engine compartment.
Light sources.
Tungsten.
The first electric headlamp light source was the tungsten filament, operating in a vacuum or inert-gas atmosphere inside the headlamp bulb or sealed beam. Compared to newer-technology light sources, tungsten filaments give off small amounts of light relative to the power they consume. Also, during the normal operation of such lamps, tungsten boils off the surface of the filament and condenses on the bulb glass, blackening it. This reduces the light output of the filament and blocks some of the light that would pass through an unblackened bulb glass, though blackening was less of a problem in sealed beam units; their large interior surface area minimized the thickness of the tungsten accumulation. For these reasons, plain tungsten filaments are all but obsolete in automotive headlamp service.
Tungsten-halogen.
Tungsten-halogen technology (also called "quartz-halogen", "quartz-iodine", "iodine cycle", etc.) increases the effective luminous efficacy of a tungsten filament: when operating at a higher filament temperature which results in more lumens output per watt input, a tungsten-halogen lamp has a much longer brightness lifetime than similar filaments operating without the halogen regeneration cycle. At equal luminosity, the halogen-cycle bulbs also have longer lifetimes. European-designed halogen headlamp light sources are generally configured to provide more light at the same power consumption as their lower-output plain tungsten counterparts. By contrast, many US-based designs are configured to reduce or minimize the power consumption while keeping light output above the legal minimum requirements; some US tungsten-halogen headlamp light sources produce less initial light than their non-halogen counterparts. A slight theoretical fuel economy benefit and reduced vehicle construction cost through lower wire and switch ratings were the claimed benefits when American industry first chose how to implement tungsten-halogen technology. There was an improvement in seeing distance with US halogen high beams, which were permitted for the first time to produce 150,000 candela (cd) per vehicle, double the non-halogen limit of 75,000 cd but still well shy of the international European limit of 225,000 cd. After replaceable halogen bulbs were permitted in US headlamps in 1983, the development of US bulbs continued to favor long bulb life and low power consumption, while European designs continued to prioritise optical precision and maximum output.
The H1 lamp was the first tungsten-halogen headlamp light source. It was introduced in 1962 by a consortium of European bulb and headlamp makers. This bulb has a single axial filament that consumes 55 watts at 12.0 volts, and produces 1550 lumens ±15% when operated at 13.2 V. H2 (55 W @ 12.0 V, 1820 lm @ 13.2 V) followed in 1964, and the transverse-filament H3 (55 W @ 12.0 V, 1450 lm ±15%) in 1966. H1 still sees wide use in low beams, high beams and auxiliary fog and driving lamps, as does H3. The H2 is no longer a current type, since it requires an intricate bulb holder interface to the lamp, has a short life and is difficult to handle. For those reasons, H2 was withdrawn from ECE Regulation 37 for use in new lamp designs (though H2 bulbs are still manufactured for replacement purposes in existing lamps), but H1 and H3 remain current and these two bulbs were legalised in the United States in 1993. More recent single-filament bulb designs include the H7 (55 W @ 12.0 V, 1500 lm ±10% @ 13.2 V), H8 (35 W @ 12.0 V, 800 lm ±15% @ 13.2 V), H9 (65 W @ 12.0 V, 2100 lm ±10% @ 13.2 V), and H11 (55 W @ 12.0 V, 1350 lm ±10% @ 13.2 V). 24-volt versions of many bulb types are available for use in trucks, buses, and other commercial and military vehicles.
The first dual-filament halogen bulb to produce both a low and a high beam, the H4 (60/55 W @ 12 V, 1650/1000 lm ±15% @ 13.2 V), was released in 1971 and quickly became the predominant headlamp bulb throughout the world except in the United States, where the H4 is still not legal for automotive use. In 1989, the Americans created their own standard for a bulb called HB2: almost identical to H4 except with more stringent constraints on filament geometry and positional variance, and power consumption and light output expressed at the US test voltage of 12.8V.
The first US halogen headlamp bulb, introduced in 1983, was the HB1/9004. It is a 12.8-volt, transverse dual-filament design that produces 700 lumens on low beam and 1200 lumens on high beam. The 9004 is rated for 65 watts (high beam) and 45 watts (low beam) at 12.8 volts. Other US approved halogen bulbs include the HB3 (65 W, 12.8 V), HB4 (55 W, 12.8 V), and HB5 (65/55 watts, 12.8 V). All of the European-designed and internationally approved bulbs except H4 are presently approved for use in headlamps complying with US requirements.
Halogen infrared reflective (HIR).
A further development of the tungsten-halogen bulb has a dichroic coating that passes visible light and reflects infrared radiation. The glass in such a bulb may be spherical or tubular. The reflected infrared radiation strikes the filament located at the center of the glass envelope, heating the filament to a greater degree than can be achieved through resistive heating alone. The superheated filament emits more light without an increase in power consumption.
High-intensity discharge (HID).
High-intensity discharge lamps (HID) produce light with an electric arc rather than a glowing filament. The high intensity of the arc comes from metallic salts that are vaporized within the arc chamber. These lamps have a higher efficacy than tungsten lamps. Because of the increased amounts of light available from HID lamps relative to halogen bulbs, HID headlamps producing a given beam pattern can be made smaller than halogen headlamps producing a comparable beam pattern. Alternatively, the larger size can be retained, in which case the HID headlamp can produce a more robust beam pattern.
Automotive HID may be generically called "xenon headlamps", though they are actually metal-halide lamps that contain xenon gas. The xenon gas allows the lamps to produce minimally adequate light immediately upon start, and shortens the run-up time. The usage of argon, as is commonly done in street lights and other stationary metal-halide lamp applications, causes lamps to take several minutes to reach their full output.
HID lights consist of a bulb filled with a mixture of gases, such as xenon, and an electrode that generates an electrical arc to produce a high-intensity light. HID lights have a longer lifespan and are more energy-efficient than halogen bulbs, and they also produce a brighter, more focused beam of light, which can improve visibility while driving.
The light from HID headlamps can exhibit a distinct bluish tint when compared with tungsten-filament headlamps.This bluish tint is due to the type of gas mixture used inside the HID bulb, typically xenon, which emits a light with a higher color temperature than a halogen bulb.
Retrofitment.
When a halogen headlamp is retrofitted with an HID bulb, light distribution and output are altered. In the United States, vehicle lighting that does not conform to FMVSS 108 is not street legal. Glare will be produced and the headlamp's type approval or certification becomes invalid with the altered light distribution, so the headlamp is no longer street-legal in some locales. In the US, suppliers, importers and vendors that offer non-compliant kits are subject to civil fines. By October 2004, the NHTSA had investigated 24 suppliers and all resulted in termination of sale or recalls.
In Europe and the many non-European countries applying ECE Regulations, even HID headlamps designed as such must be equipped with lens cleaning and automatic self-leveling systems, except on motorcycles. These systems are usually absent on vehicles not originally equipped with HID lamps.
History.
In 1992 the first production low beam HID headlamps were manufactured by Hella and Bosch beginning in 1992 for optional availability on the BMW 7 Series. This first system uses a built-in, non-replaceable bulb without a UV-blocking glass shield or touch-sensitive electrical safety cutout, designated D1 – a designation that would be recycled years later for a wholly different type of lamp. The AC ballast is about the size of a building brick.
In 1996 the first American-made effort at HID headlamps was on the 1996–98 Lincoln Mark VIII, which uses reflector headlamps with an unmasked, integral-ignitor lamp made by Sylvania and designated "Type 9500". This was the only system to operate on DC, since reliability proved inferior to the AC systems. The Type 9500 system was not used on any other models, and was discontinued after Osram's takeover of Sylvania in 1997. All HID headlamps worldwide presently use the standardized AC-operated bulbs and ballasts.
In 1999 the first worldwide HID headlights for both low and high beam were introduced on the Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C215).
Operation.
HID headlamp bulbs do not run on low-voltage DC current, so they require a ballast with either an internal or external "ignitor". The ignitor is integrated into the bulb in D1 and D3 systems, and is either a separate unit or part of the ballast in D2 and D4 systems. The ballast controls the current to the bulb. The ignition and ballast operation proceeds in three stages:
The command is often near the steering wheel and a specific indicator is shown on the dashboard.
Bulb types.
HID headlamps produce between 2,800 and 3,500 lumens from between 35 and 38 watts of electrical power, while halogen filament headlamp bulbs produce between 700 and 2,100 lumens from between 40 and 72 watts at 12.8 V.
Current-production bulb categories are D1S, D1R, D2S, D2R, D3S, D3R, D4S, and D4R. The "D" stands for "discharge", and the number is the type designator. The final letter describes the outer shield. The arc within an HID headlamp bulb generates considerable short-wave ultraviolet (UV) light, but none of it escapes the bulb, for a UV-absorbing hard glass shield is incorporated around the bulb's arc tube. This is important to prevent degradation of UV-sensitive components and materials in headlamps, such as polycarbonate lenses and reflector hardcoats. "S" lamps – D1S, D2S, D3S, and D4S – have a plain glass shield and are primarily used in projector-type optics. "R" lamps – D1R, D2R, D3R, and D4R – are designed for use in reflector-type headlamp optics. They have an opaque mask covering specific portions of the shield, which facilitates the optical creation of the light-dark boundary (cutoff) near the top of a low-beam light distribution. Automotive HID lamps emit considerable near-UV light, despite the shield.
Color.
The correlated color temperature of factory installed automotive HID headlamps is between 4200K while tungsten-halogen lamps are at 3000K to 3550K. The spectral power distribution (SPD) of an automotive HID headlamp is discontinuous and spikey while the SPD of a filament lamp, like that of the sun, is a continuous curve. Moreover, the color rendering index (CRI) of tungsten-halogen headlamps (98) is much closer than that of HID headlamps (~75) to standardized sunlight (100). Studies have shown no significant safety effect of this degree of CRI variation in headlighting.
Advantages.
Increased safety.
Automotive HID lamps offer about 3000 lumens and 90 Mcd/m2 versus 1400 lumens and 30 Mcd/m2 offered by halogen lamps. In a headlamp optic designed for use with an HID lamp, it produces more usable light. Studies have demonstrated drivers react faster and more accurately to roadway obstacles with good HID headlamps compared to halogen ones. Hence, good HID headlamps contribute to driving safety. The contrary argument is that glare from HID headlamps can reduce traffic safety by interfering with other drivers' vision.
Efficacy and output.
Luminous efficacy is the measure of how much light is produced versus how much energy is consumed. HID lamps give higher efficacy than halogen lamps. The highest-intensity halogen lamps, H9 and HIR1, produce 2100 to 2530 lumens from approximately 70 watts at 13.2 volts. A D2S HID bulb produces 3200 lumens from approximately 42 watts during stable operation. The reduced power consumption means less fuel consumption, with resultant less CO2 emission per vehicle fitted with HID lighting (1.3 g/km assuming that 30% of an engine running time is with the lights on).
Longevity.
The average service life of an HID bulb is 2000 hours, compared to between 450 and 1000 hours for a halogen lamp.
Disadvantages.
Glare.
Vehicles equipped with HID headlamps (except motorcycles) are required by ECE regulation 48 also to be equipped with headlamp lens cleaning systems and automatic beam leveling control. Both of these measures are intended to reduce the tendency for high-output headlamps to cause high levels of glare to other road users. In North America, ECE R48 does not apply and while lens cleaners and beam levelers are permitted, they are not required; HID headlamps are markedly less prevalent in the US, where they have produced significant glare complaints. Scientific study of headlamp glare has shown that for any given intensity level, the light from HID headlamps is 40% more glaring than the light from tungsten-halogen headlamps.
Mercury content.
HID headlamp bulb types D1R, D1S, D2R, D2S and 9500 contain the toxic heavy metal mercury. The disposal of mercury-containing vehicle parts is increasingly regulated throughout the world, for example under US EPA regulations. Newer HID bulb designs D3R, D3S, D4R, and D4S which are in production since 2004 contain no mercury, but are not electrically or physically compatible with headlamps designed for previous bulb types.
Cost.
HID headlamps are significantly more costly to produce, install, purchase, and repair. The extra cost of the HID lights may exceed the fuel cost savings through their reduced power consumption, though some of this cost disadvantage is offset by the longer lifespan of the HID bulb relative to halogen bulbs.
LED.
Timeline.
Automotive headlamp applications using light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have been undergoing development since 2004.
In 2006 the first series-production LED low beams were factory-installed on the Lexus LS 600h / LS 600h L. The high beam and turn signal functions used filament bulbs. The headlamp was supplied by Koito Industries Ltd.
In 2007 the first headlamps with all functions provided by LEDs, supplied by AL-Automotive Lighting, were introduced on the V10 Audi R8 sports car (except in North America).
In 2009 Hella headlamps on the 2009 Cadillac Escalade Platinum became the first all-LED headlamps for the North American market.
In 2010 the first all-LED headlamps with adaptive high beam and what Mercedes called the "Intelligent Light System" were introduced on the 2011 Mercedes CLS.
In 2013 the first digitally controlled full-LED glare-free "Matrix LED" adaptive headlamps were introduced by Audi on the facelifted A8, with 25 individual LED segments. The system dims the light that would shine directly onto oncoming and preceding vehicles, but continues to cast its full light on the zones between and beside them. This works because the LED high beams are split into numerous individual light-emitting diodes. High-beam LEDs in both headlights are arranged in a matrix and adapt fully electronically to the surroundings in milliseconds. They are activated and deactivated or dimmed individually by a control unit. In addition, the headlights also function as a cornering light. Using predictive route data supplied by the MMI navigation plus, the focus of the beam is shifted towards the bend even before the driver turns the steering wheel. In 2014: Mercedes-Benz introduced a similar technology on the facelifted CLS-Class in 2014, called Multibeam LED, with 24 individual segments.
As of 2010, LED headlamps such as those available on the Toyota Prius were providing output between halogen and HID headlamps, with system power consumption slightly lower than other headlamps, longer lifespans, and more flexible design possibilities. As LED technology continues to evolve, the performance of LED headlamps was predicted to improve to approach, meet, and perhaps one day surpass that of HID headlamps. That occurred by mid-2013, when the Mercedes S-Class came with LED headlamps giving higher performance than comparable HID setups.
Cold lenses.
Before LEDs, all light sources used in headlamps (tungsten, halogen, HID) emitted infrared energy that can thaw built-up snow and ice off a headlamp lens and prevent further accumulation. LEDs do not. Some LED headlamps move heat from the heat sink on the back of the LEDs to the inner face of the front lens to warm it up, while on others no provision is made for lens thawing.
Laser.
A laser lamp uses mirrors to direct a laser on to a phosphor that then emits a light. Laser lamps use half as much power as LED lamps. They were first developed by Audi for use as headlamps in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
In 2014, the BMW i8 became the first production car to be sold with an auxiliary high-beam lamp based on this technology. The limited-production Audi R8 LMX uses lasers for its spot lamp feature, providing illumination for high-speed driving in low-light conditions. The Rolls-Royce Phantom VIII employs laser headlights with a high beam range of over 600 meters.
Automatic headlamps.
Automatic systems for activating the headlamps have been available since the mid-1950s, originally only on luxury American models such as Cadillac's Twilight Sentinel, Lincoln, and Imperial. Basic implementations turn the headlights on at dusk and off at dawn. Modern implementations use sensors to detect the amount of exterior light.
UN R48 has mandated the installation of automatic headlamps since 30 July 2016. With a daytime running lamp equipped and operated, the dipped beam headlamp should automatically turn on if the car is driving in less than 1,000 lux ambient conditions such as in a tunnel and in dark environments. While in such situations, a daytime running lamp would make glare more evident to the upcoming vehicle driver, which in turn would influence the upcoming vehicle driver's eyesight, such that, by automatically switching the daytime running lamp to the dipped-beam headlamp, the inherent safety defect could be solved and safety benefit ensured.
Beam aim control.
Headlamp leveling systems.
The 1948 Citroën 2CV was launched in France with a manual headlamp leveling system, controlled by the driver with a knob through a mechanical rod linkage. This allowed the driver to adjust the vertical aim of the headlamps to compensate for the passenger and cargo load in the vehicle. In 1954, Cibié introduced an automatic headlamp leveling system linked to the vehicle's suspension system to keep the headlamps correctly aimed regardless of vehicle load, without driver intervention. The first vehicle to be so equipped was the Panhard Dyna Z. Beginning in the 1970s, Germany and some other European countries began requiring remote-control headlamp leveling systems that permit the driver to lower the lamps' aim by means of a dashboard control lever or knob if the rear of the vehicle is weighted down with passengers or cargo, which would tend to raise the lamps' aim angle and create glare. Such systems typically use stepper motors at the headlamp and a rotary switch on the dash marked "0", "1", "2", "3" for different beam heights, "0" being the "normal" (and highest) position for when the car is lightly loaded.
Internationalized ECE Regulation 48, in force in most of the world outside North America, currently specifies a limited range within which the vertical aim of the headlamps must be maintained under various vehicle load conditions; if the vehicle isn't equipped with an adaptive suspension sufficient to keep the headlamps aimed correctly regardless of load, a headlamp leveling system is required. The regulation stipulates a more stringent version of this anti-glare measure if the vehicle has headlamps with low beam light source(s) that produce more than 2,000 lumens – xenon bulbs and certain high-power halogens, for example. Such vehicles must be equipped with headlamp self-leveling systems that sense the vehicle's degree of squat due to cargo load and road inclination, and automatically adjust the headlamps' vertical aim to keep the beam correctly oriented without any action required by the driver.
Leveling systems are not required by the North American regulations. A 2007 study, however, suggests automatic levelers on all headlamps, not just those with high-power light sources, would give drivers substantial safety benefits of better seeing and less glare.
Directional headlamps.
These provide improved lighting for cornering. Some automobiles have their headlamps connected to the steering mechanism so the lights will follow the movement of the front wheels. Czechoslovak Tatra was an early implementer of such a technique, producing in the 1930s a vehicle with a central directional headlamp. The American 1948 Tucker Sedan was likewise equipped with a third central headlamp connected mechanically to the steering system.
The 1967 French Citroën DS and 1970 Citroën SM were equipped with an elaborate dynamic headlamp positioning system that adjusted the inboard headlamps' horizontal and vertical position in response to inputs from the vehicle's steering and suspension systems.
At that time US regulations required this system to be removed from those models sold in the U.S.
The D series cars equipped with the system used cables connecting the long-range headlamps to a lever on the steering relay while the inner long-range headlamps on the SM used a sealed hydraulic system using a glycerin-based fluid instead of mechanical cables. Both these systems were of the same design as their respective cars' headlamp leveling systems. The cables of the D system tended to rust in the cable sheaths while the SM system gradually leaked fluid, causing the long-range lamps to turn inward, looking "cross-eyed." A manual adjustment was provided but once it was to the end of its travel the system required refilling with fluid or replacement of the tubes and dashpots.
Citroën SM non-US market vehicles were equipped with heating of the headlamp cover glasses, this heat supplied by ducts carrying warm air from the radiator exhaust to the space between the headlamp lenses and the cover glasses. This provided demisting/defogging of the entire interior of the cover glasses, keeping the glass clear of mist/fog over the entire surface. The glasses have thin stripes on their surfaces that are heated by the headlight beams; however, the ducted warm air provides demisting when the headlamps are not turned on. The glasses' stripes on both D and SM cars appear similar to rear windshield glass electric defogger heating strips, but they are passive, not electrified.
Advanced front-lighting system (AFS).
Beginning in the 2000s, there was a resurgence in interest in the idea of moving or optimizing the headlight beam in response not only to vehicular steering and suspension dynamics, but also to ambient weather and visibility conditions, vehicle speed, and road curvature and contour. A task force under the EUREKA organization, composed primarily of European automakers, lighting companies and regulators began working to develop design and performance specifications for what is known as Adaptive Front-Lighting Systems, commonly "AFS".
Manufacturers such as BMW, Toyota, Škoda, and Vauxhall/Opel have released vehicles equipped with AFS since 2003.
Rather than the mechanical linkages employed in earlier directional-headlamp systems, AFS relies on electronic sensors, transducers, and actuators. Other AFS techniques include special auxiliary optical systems within a vehicle's headlamp housings. These auxiliary systems may be switched on and off as the vehicle and operating conditions call for light or darkness at the angles covered by the beam the auxiliary optics produce. A typical system measures steering angle and vehicle speed to swivel the headlamps. The most advanced AFS systems use GPS signals to anticipate changes in road curvature, rather than simply reacting to them.
Automatic beam switching.
Even when conditions would warrant the use of high-beam headlamps, drivers often do not use them. There have long been efforts, particularly in America, to devise an effective automatic beam selection system to relieve the driver of the need to select and activate the correct beam as traffic, weather, and road conditions change. General Motors introduced the first automatic headlight dimmer called the 'Autronic Eye' in 1952 on their Cadillac, Buick, and Oldsmobile models; the feature was offered in other GM vehicles starting in 1953. The system's phototube and associated circuitry were housed in a gunsight-like tube atop the dashboard. An amplifier module was located in the engine compartment that controlled the headlight relay using signals from the dashboard-mounted tube unit.
This pioneering setup gave way in 1958 to a system called 'GuideMatic' in reference to GM's "Guide" lighting division. The GuideMatic had a more compact dashtop housing and a control knob that allowed the driver to adjust the system's sensitivity threshold to determine when the headlamps would be dipped from high to low beam in response to an oncoming vehicle. By the early 1970s, this option was withdrawn from all GM models except Cadillac, on which GuideMatic was available through 1988. The photosensor for this system used an amber lens, and the adoption of retro-reflective yellow road signs, such as for oncoming curves, caused them to dim prematurely - possibly leading to their discontinuation.
Ford- and Chrysler-built vehicles were also available with the GM-made dimmers from the 1950s through the 1980s. A system called 'AutoDim' was offered on several Lincoln models starting in the mid-1950s, and eventually the Ford Thunderbird and some Mercury models offered it as well. Premium Chrysler and Imperial models offered a system called "Automatic Beam Control" throughout the 1960s and early 1970s.
Rabinow dimmer.
Though the systems based on photoresistors evolved, growing more compact and moving from the dashboard to a less conspicuous location behind the radiator grill, they were still unable to reliably discern headlamps from non-vehicular light sources such as streetlights. They also did not dip to low beam when the driver approached a vehicle from behind, and they would spuriously dip to low beam in response to road sign reflections of the vehicle's own high beam headlamps. American inventor Jacob Rabinow devised and refined a scanning automatic dimmer system impervious to streetlights and reflections, but no automaker purchased the rights, and the problematic photoresistor type remained on the market through the late 1980s.
Bone-Midland lamps.
In 1956, the inventor Even P. Bone developed a system where a vane in front of each headlight moved automatically and caused a shadow in front of the approaching vehicle, allowing for high beam use without glare for the approaching driver. The system, called "Bone-Midland Lamps," was never taken up by any car manufacturer.
Camera-based dimmer.
Present systems based on imaging CMOS cameras can detect and respond appropriately to leading and oncoming vehicles while disregarding streetlights, road signs, and other spurious signals. Camera-based beam selection was first released in 2005 on the Jeep Grand Cherokee and has since then been incorporated into comprehensive driver assistance systems by automakers worldwide. The headlights will dim when a bright reflection bounces off of a street sign.
Intelligent Light System.
"Intelligent Light System" is a headlamp beam control system introduced in 2006 on the Mercedes-Benz E-Class (W211) which offers five different bi-xenon light functions, each of which is suited to typical driving or weather conditions:
Adaptive highbeam.
"Adaptive Highbeam Assist" is Mercedes-Benz' marketing name for a headlight control strategy that continuously automatically tailors the headlamp range so the beam just reaches other vehicles ahead, thus always ensuring maximum possible seeing range without glaring other road users. It was first launched in the Mercedes E-class in 2009. It provides a continuous range of beam reach from a low-aimed low beam to a high-aimed high beam, rather than the traditional binary choice between low and high beams.
The range of the beam can vary between 65 and 300 meters, depending on traffic conditions. In traffic, the low beam cutoff position is adjusted vertically to maximise seeing range while keeping glare out of leading and oncoming drivers' eyes. When no traffic is close enough for glare to be a problem, the system provides full high beam. Headlamps are adjusted every 40 milliseconds by a camera on the inside of the front windscreen which can determine distance to other vehicles. The S-Class, CLS-Class and C-Class also offer this technology. In the CLS, the adaptive high beam is realised with LED headlamps - the first vehicle producing all adaptive light functions with LEDs. Since 2010 some Audi models with Xenon headlamps are offering a similar system: adaptive light with variable headlight range control.
In Japan, the Toyota Crown, Toyota Crown Majesta, Nissan Fuga and Nissan Cima offer the technology on top level models.
Until Feb 2022, this technology had been illegal in the US, as FMVSS 108 specifically stated that headlamps must have dedicated high and low beams to be deemed road-legal. An infrastructure bill enacted in November 2021 included language that directs the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to amend FMVSS 108 to allow the use of this technology, and set a two-year deadline for implementing this change. In Feb 2022, the NHTSA amended FMVSS 108 allowing adaptive headlights for use in the US.
Glare-free high beam and pixel light.
A "glare-free high beam" is a camera-driven dynamic lighting control strategy that selectively shades spots and slices out of the high beam pattern to protect other road users from glare, while continuously providing the driver with maximum seeing range. The area surrounding other road users is constantly illuminated at high beam intensity, but without the glare that would typically result from using uncontrolled high beams in traffic. This constantly changing beam pattern requires complex sensors, microprocessors, and actuators because the vehicles which must be shadowed out of the beam are constantly moving. The dynamic shadowing can be achieved with movable shadow masks shifted within the light path inside the headlamp. Or, the effect can be achieved by selectively darkening addressable LED emitters or reflector elements, a technique known as "pixel light".
The first mechanically controlled (non-LED), glare-free high beam was Volkswagen's "Dynamic Light Assist" package, which was introduced in 2010 on the Volkswagen Touareg, Phaeton, and Passat. In 2012, the facelifted Lexus LS (XF40) introduced an identical bi-xenon system: "Adaptive High-beam System".
The first mechanically controlled LED glare-free headlamps were introduced in 2012 on BMW 7 Series: "Selective Beam" (anti-dazzle high-beam assistant). In 2013 Mercedes-Benz introduced the same LED system: "Adaptive Highbeam Assist Plus".
The first digitally controlled LED glare-free headlamps were introduced in 2013 on Audi A8. See LED section.
Care.
Headlamp systems require periodic maintenance. Sealed beam headlamps are modular; when the filament burns out, the entire sealed beam is replaced. Most vehicles in North America made since the late 1980s use headlamp lens-reflector assemblies that are considered a part of the car, and just the bulb is replaced when it fails. Manufacturers vary the means by which the bulb is accessed and replaced. Headlamp aim must be properly checked and adjusted frequently, for misaimed lamps are dangerous and ineffective.
Over time, the headlamp lens can deteriorate. It can become pitted due to abrasion of road sand and pebbles and can crack, admitting water into the headlamp. "Plastic" (polycarbonate) lenses can become cloudy and discoloured. This is due to oxidation of the painted-on lens hardcoat by ultraviolet light from the sun and the headlamp bulbs. If it is minor, it can be polished out using a reputable brand of a car polish that is intended for restoring the shine to chalked paint. In more advanced stages, the deterioration extends through the actual plastic material, rendering the headlamp useless and necessitating complete replacement. Sanding or aggressively polishing the lenses, or plastic headlight restoration, can buy some time, but doing so removes the protective coating from the lens, which when so stripped will deteriorate faster and more severely. Kits for a quality repair are available that allow the lens to be polished with progressively finer abrasives, and then be sprayed with an aerosol of ultra violet resistant clear coating.
The reflector, made out of vaporized aluminum deposited in an extremely thin layer on a metal, glass, or plastic substrate, can become dirty, oxidised, or burnt, and lose its specularity. This can happen if water enters the headlamp, if bulbs of higher than specified wattage are installed, or simply with age and use. Reflectors thus degraded, if they cannot be cleaned, must be replaced.
Lens cleaners.
Dirt buildup on headlamp lenses increases glare to other road users, even at levels too low to reduce seeing performance significantly for the driver. Therefore, headlamp lens cleaners are required by UN Regulation 48 on vehicles equipped with low-beam headlamps using light sources that have a reference luminous flux of 2,000 lumens or more. This includes all HID headlamps and some high-power halogen units. Some cars have lens cleaners fitted even where the regulations do not require them. North America, for example, does not use UN regulations, and FMVSS 108 does not require lens cleaners on any headlamps, though they are permitted.
Lens cleaning systems come in two main varieties: a small motor-driven rubber wiper or brush conceptually similar to windshield wipers, or a fixed or telescopic high-pressure sprayer which cleans the lenses with a spray of windshield washer fluid. Most recent lens cleaning systems are of the spray type because UN regulations do not permit mechanical cleaning systems (wipers) to be used with plastic-lens headlamps, and most recent headlamps have plastic lenses. Some cars with retractable headlamps, such as the original Mazda MX-5, have a squeegee at the front of the lamp recess which automatically wipes the lenses as they are raised or lowered, although it does not provide washer fluid. |
Sarah Lee Fain
Sarah Lee Odend'hal Fain (November 23, 1888 – July 20, 1962) was a Virginia schoolteacher and Democratic politician who became one of the earliest female members of the Virginia General Assembly and later assisted with New Deal reforms in Washington, D.C., North Carolina, Texas and California. In 1923, Fain and fellow schoolteacher Helen Timmons Henderson became the first two women elected to the Virginia House of Delegates.
Early life and education.
Born in Norfolk, Virginia, Sarah Lee Odend'hal was educated locally first at Leache-Wood Seminary (founded by Irene Leache (1839–1900) and Anna Cogswell Wood (1850–1940)). She graduated from Hemmingway High School in 1907.
Virginia career.
Odend'hal then embarked on a teaching career, spending twelve years in the city's public schools as both a teacher and administrator, while taking summer courses through the University of Virginia. The University did not directly offer diplomas to women, but the work she did in her summer courses provided her with the equivalent of an undergraduate degree in education and administration.
Odend'hal married Army officer and architect Walter Colquitt Fain on September 8, 1917, and began a career in civic life shortly thereafter. Since few married women at the time continued their schoolteaching jobs, she turned her attention to her husband's construction firm, becoming its secretary and treasurer. She also began her public life, becoming active in organizations including the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the local Episcopal Church.
Fain's first volunteer activity came when she supported the American Red Cross and sold Liberty bonds to support the American effort in World War I.
When the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in 1920, Fain joined the local branch of the League of Women Voters and became active in local Democratic Party politics, although she had not previously been particularly known as a suffragist nor had she joined the local branch of the Equal Suffrage League. Her success at convincing Norfolk's female voters to re-elect U.S. Senator Claude A. Swanson in 1922 led Fain's friends to urge her to run for a seat in Virginia's House of Delegates. Though initially reluctant, she soon decided to run; her husband served as her campaign manager and treasurer. Fain also gained the support of suffragists, including Pauline Forstall Colclough Adams, the wife of a Norfolk physician and who had become the second woman to practice law in Norfolk as well as one of 13 picketers arrested in 1917 for flaunting banners in front of President Woodrow Wilson's reviewing stand during a parade.
Upon her arrival in Richmond, Fain was treated as something of a novelty, but disappointed some because she focused on the maritime and education issues important to her constituents, rather than a feminist agenda (as her detractors feared). On January 8 Fain seconded the nomination of Richard L. Brewer, Jr. as Speaker of the Virginia House; she received over a minute of applause and cheers when recognized from the floor, and upon his election Fain became the delegate chosen to formally introduce Brewer to party members. She also became one of three delegates chosen to formally introduce Governor E. Lee Trinkle to the House, and also received the honor of hers being the first bill put into the hopper for the session.
In 1925 Fain became the first female legislator in the Southern United States to win reelection, and she won a third term in 1927. In her last session she chaired the Committee on Schools and Colleges, of which she had been a member from her first term. During this session she served with three other women, Sallie C. Booker, Nancy Melvina Caldwell, and Helen Ruth Henderson; the latter, elected in 1927, was the daughter of her former colleague.
Rather than seek a fourth term in 1929, Fain chose to run for a seat in the United States House of Representatives, but she was unsuccessful. Between sessions she served as secretary, treasurer, and chief executive of her husband's furniture factory, a role which she had discharged since 1924.
Federal service and later years.
In 1931 Fain and her husband moved to Washington, D.C., where she received a number of appointments supporting New Deal programs; she worked for the National Emergency Council, and served as the first chief of the United States Information Service, in whose creation she assisted. She held other federal positions in North Carolina and Texas before moving to San Marino, California in 1938.
Fain did not run for public office again, but returned to Norfolk to support Meeta B. Meyers in 1951, when the latter ran unsuccessfully for Fain's former seat. Otherwise she remained in California until her death. The City of Norfolk would not elect another woman to the General Assembly until Evelyn Momsen Hailey in 1973.
Death and legacy.
Fain died on July 20, 1962, survived by her husband. Both are buried in Norfolk's Elmwood Cemetery. The Library of Virginia honored Fain as one of the first group of Virginia Women in History in 2000. In 2018 the Virginia Capitol Foundation announced that Fain's name would be on the Virginia Women's Monument's glass Wall of Honor. |
Duopoly (broadcasting)
A duopoly (or twinstick, referring to "stick" as jargon for a radio tower) is a situation in television and radio broadcasting in which two or more stations in the same city or community share common ownership.
United States.
In the United States, the practice of duopolies has been frowned upon when using public airwaves, on the premise that it gives too much influence to one company. However, rules governing radio stations are less restrictive than those for television, allowing as many as eight radio stations under common ownership in the largest U.S. media markets. Ownership of television stations with overlapping coverage areas was normally not allowed in the United States prior to 2002, even those that were not duopolies under the present legal definition, by way of being located in separate albeit adjacent markets; this required broadcasters to apply for cross-ownership waivers in some cases to retain full-power stations based in adjacent markets. Non-commercial educational broadcasters, mainly those that were members of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), were the only licensees allowed to sign-on or acquire a second television station that did not repeat the parent station's signal in the same market where they already owned a station (some of these acquired stations were originally licensed as commercial outlets).
On August 5, 1999, the Federal Communications Commission voted 4-1 to allow common ownership of two television stations within a single market by one company, so long as eight unique station owners remain in the market once the duopoly is formed, and the four highest-rated stations (based on local monthly viewership reports for the market) remain under separate ownership. The FCC only requires the severance of an existing duopoly in which a once lower-rated station falls within the ratings criteria that prohibits such ownership over time if an ownership transaction is under review (such as a piecemeal or group sale of stations, or necessary license transfers during an ownership transaction involving the stations' existing owner); a company is required to sell one of the stations in the duopoly to another licensee if it is no longer compliant with one or both provisions.
Currently, an entity is permitted to own up to two television stations in the same media market if either the service areas of the stations do not overlap, or at least one of the stations is not rated among the top four rated stations in the media market. There is no limit on the number of television stations a single entity may own as long as the stations group collectively reaches no more than 39% of U.S. households.
Once a duopoly is formed, the acquiring company takes over the operations of its new property. The operations of the two stations are usually consolidated into one facility, depending on the size and age of the facility chosen to house their operations. Since the stations involved in the duopoly are not restricted by FCC law from consolidating their operations, duplicative jobs at one of the stations are often terminated as the consolidation takes effect.
News departments are also often consolidated into a singular operation, with anchoring and reporting staffs from the respective stations often being folded into one unit, subject to hiring determinations made by management; anchors and reporters are usually shared between the two stations, though in some cases, certain anchors may be employed to appear only on each station's own newscasts. In some cases (like with WHDH and WLVI in Boston, Massachusetts, when the former's owner Sunbeam Television formed a duopoly with WLVI after purchasing the station from Tribune Broadcasting in 2006), the junior partner's news department is shut down completely, with the senior partner subsequently taking over production of its news content using only their existing staff. In many cases, news programming on a junior partner is structured to avoid direct competition with a senior partner affiliate of either ABC, NBC or CBS (one notable exception involves WTTV and WXIN in Indianapolis, which carry competing morning and evening newscasts as Tribune Broadcasting opted to launch a separate slate of newscasts for WTTV when it became a CBS affiliate in January 2015, rather than shift those seen on sister Fox affiliate WXIN to the station; WXIN and WTTV largely maintain their own anchors, but share a news department and most reporting staff). This situation is uncommon in duopolies involving only Big Three affiliates, as stations affiliated with those networks are more inclined to carry newscasts in overlapping time periods in order to fulfill local programming requirements included in affiliation agreements.
Certain syndicated programs are also shared between the stations, in the form of either same-day repeat airings of programs seen on the one which holds primary rights or separated runs of programs that air on each station, although each station maintains separate syndication inventories as well. The junior partner, unless it is affiliated with a major network, may also be used to carry network (and occasionally, first-run syndicated) programs that the senior partner is unable to broadcast because of long-form breaking news or severe weather coverage or a locally produced special airing in a scheduled program's normal timeslot, or in the case of certain non-prime time network programs, because the senior partner chooses not to carry it on its regular schedule to carry other scheduled programming.
Although the FCC bars common ownership of any of the four major broadcast networks (ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox), it does not prohibit duopolies involving stations affiliated individually with any two of them, unless both are among the four highest-rated in the market at the time of a sale. As such, several Big Four duopolies exist based on certain market conditions that originally allowed them to be formed under the criteria (such as a company having acquired one of the major network stations as a low-rated affiliate of a smaller network prior to an affiliation switch or the ratings of a non-English station placing among the top four over a Big Four network affiliate). While most duopolies are made up of a senior partner that is affiliated with one of the four major networks and an affiliate of a minor network (such as The CW and MyNetworkTV) or an independent station as the junior partner, those in which both stations are major network affiliates typically involve a Fox station (which serves as the junior partner in all but a few instances) and an ABC, CBS or NBC affiliate, with some limited arrangements where two Big Three affiliates are jointly owned or managed.
One of the few markets where two major network duopolies exist in some form is Jacksonville, Florida, where two companies once owned the licenses of the Big Four stations they respectively controlled. In 2000, the Gannett Company, owner of NBC affiliate WTLV, purchased ABC affiliate WJXX, which had struggled in the local ratings since its sign-on in February 1997 (when it took the ABC affiliation from WJKS through a group affiliation deal with the Allbritton Communications Company) due to its status as a relatively new station and issues with signal interference from PBS station WJCT on its Mediacom cable channel slot. The following year, Clear Channel Communications created a legal duopoly involving its existing Fox affiliate WAWS (now WFOX-TV) and WTEV-TV (now WJAX-TV), a UPN affiliate that it had been managing under a local marketing agreement since 1994; WTEV's viewership gradually rose after it became a CBS affiliate in July 2002, putting it in the top four threshold with WAWS, resulting in Newport Television – upon purchasing the Clear Channel television group in 2007 – restructuring the operation as a virtual duopoly by selling WTEV to shell licensee High Plains Broadcasting (WFOX and WJAX are now respectively owned by the Cox Media Group and Bayshore Television, LLC, but remain under common management through JSA/SSA in which WJAX is the junior partner).
The use of digital subchannels has been termed an "instant duopoly," because of the ease by which a single digital station can deliver multiple channels of programming from different networks at the same time. One station can carry four or more standard definition digital channels; multiple high definition feeds typically require too large a bitrate size to be carried on different subchannels of the same station simultaneously without loss of image quality.
Virtual duopolies.
Some broadcasting companies have used loopholes to establish duopolies in smaller markets by way of a local marketing agreement, shared services agreement or joint sales agreement; where a station effectively brokers its entire airtime to the owner of another station in the market, which becomes responsible for handling its programming and advertising sales – and in effect, operations. These are termed as "virtual duopolies" as the station's license is held by one company, while its operations are handled by another. Through a 2014 FCC ruling, joint sales agreements in which the senior partner sells a minimum of 15% of the advertising time for its junior partner are counted toward ownership caps.
Some larger broadcasting companies have controversially built business models around the practice, by funding the acquisition of stations by what are effectively shill companies or shell corporations; for example, Sinclair Broadcast Group operates the stations of Cunningham Broadcasting and Deerfield Media under LMAs, JSAs, or SSAs. Nearly all of Cunningham's stock is held by trusts in the name of Sinclair's founders and owners, the Smith family. Similarly, Nexstar Media Group funds the purchase of stations by Mission Broadcasting and Vaughan Media, which forms duopolies with their stations through shared services agreements with a Nexstar station. In some cases, the senior partner may acquire a station's physical assets and intellectual property (such as the station's facilities and programming rights), but spin off the license itself to a shell corporation and enter into an agreement to operate the station, making it the "de facto" owner, but not the legal owner. Following the purchase, the station's operations and programming are often merged into that of its new parent station. Similarly, a company that acquires an existing legal duopoly that is no longer complies with FCC rules on duopoly ownership may spin off the junior partner station's license to a shell, rather than sell one of the stations to a licensee that would also assume operational responsibilities, allowing the restructured duopoly to remain under common operation through a resulting management agreement.
In some cases, the use of an adjacent-market city of license has been used on a secondary station to avoid a limit on the number of stations controlled by the same broadcaster in the same market. Occasionally, those arrangements cross international borders. For instance, radio station WLYK in Cape Vincent, New York in the United States is operated from the Canadian studios of Kingston, Ontario's CIKR-FM, a broadcaster already at the two-station limit in its own market, under an LMA. Broadcasters such as Entravision have often entered into local marketing agreements with Mexican border stations (such as Tecate's XHDTV-TDT for content directed at San Diego).
Failing station waivers.
It is also possible to obtain a "failing station waiver," which can exempt a broadcaster from some portion of the existing restrictions on common ownership in order to acquire and operate a station which otherwise would be economically non-viable or would be forced to cease operations.
Requests for failing station waivers have historically met with variable reception; in general, a prospective buyer is on the same wavelength with the FCC on failing-station policies if it can demonstrate to the Commission that:
Waivers under these criteria were granted to sell WASV-TV in Asheville to Media General, owner of CBS affiliate WSPA-TV in that market, and KWBA in Tucson to the Journal Broadcast Group, owner of that market's ABC affiliate KGUN-TV. A similar waiver was refused to KNIN-TV in Boise as the station, a CW affiliate at the time the waiver application was filed, appeared to have reasonable prospects of financial break-even without a takeover by Journal-owned ABC affiliate KIVI-TV; that decision was subsequently appealed, with the waiver being granted upon further review (Journal Broadcast Group would eventually be required to sell KNIN in 2014, as the station's financial condition improved enough in its post-2011 existence as a Fox affiliate to make it unsuitable for the E. W. Scripps Company – which was in the process of purchasing Journal's broadcasting unit in a deal in which Journal simultaneously merged with Scripps' publishing unit – to acquire it under a renewed waiver, in addition to the fact that it could not acquire it legally as the market had fewer than eight unique owners).
Low-power TV stations.
Low-power and Class A television stations are not subject to ownership caps in the United States, as their broadcast signals do not reach as many homes as full-power stations. In areas with high cable television penetration, this distinction is essentially meaningless. LPTV stations were also exempt from digital television transition requirements imposed on full-service broadcasters upon the June 2009 digital conversion.
As such, low-power stations can also be formed to create duopolies; for instance, Weigel Broadcasting maintains triopolies in three markets surrounding the southern part of Lake Michigan (Chicago, Illinois; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and South Bend, Indiana) using a combination of full-power and low-power television stations. In Chicago, it maintains one full-power signal (CW-affiliated station WCIU-TV) and two low-power stations (MeTV flagship station WWME-CD and independent station WMEU-CD). In Milwaukee, Weigel has two full-power stations (CBS affiliate WDJT-TV and full-power independent station WMLW-TV) and two low-power stations (MeTV station WBME-CD and Telemundo affiliate WYTU-LD, the latter stations of which use subchannels of WDJT as its main conduit for full-power carriage). Weigel also takes advantage of digital subchannel broadcasting heavily in addition to MeTV, it also owns MeTV+, Heroes & Icons, Start TV, Decades, Movies!, and Story Television, all of which air on its stations, in addition to other station groups; the company had also previously executed time share agreements on other subchannels with ethnic broadcasters, and in Milwaukee, a local real estate agency to air programming.
A similar situation exists in Lima, Ohio, where Block Communications controls a quadropoly of stations owned by itself (WLIO, a full-powered NBC affiliate which also carries Fox and MyNetworkTV on a digital subchannel) and low-power stations owned by West Central Ohio Broadcasting, Inc. (which owns ABC affiliate WPNM-LD/WOHL-CD, and CBS affiliate WAMS-LD) under an LMA. One of the latter company's heads, Allan J. Block, is the chairman of Block Communications. The group is the sole over-air provider of secular network television programming in the Lima market, though area cable systems also carry out-of-market affiliates from Toledo, Columbus and Dayton.
Radio stations.
As mentioned above, current FCC rules limit the number of radio stations a single entity may own in a certain market. As of May 2020, these are the limitations on radio ownership in a certain market, according to the FCC website:
Unlike television, there is no limit on the percentage of the population to that an entity may reach.
Canada.
Radio.
In radio, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) policy generally allows broadcasters to operate no more than three radio stations in any given market, of which no more than two may be on the same radio band — that is, a company may own two AM stations and an FM station, or two FM stations and an AM station, but may not own three AMs or three FMs. However, in major metropolitan markets where a large number of radio stations are already broadcasting, the limit is increased to four stations with a maximum of two on each band. A company may also exceed these limits if it owns stations broadcasting in both English and French; for instance, in the Montreal media market, Bell Media Radio owns six radio stations, of which two operate in French and four in English.
Television.
Officially, CRTC policy mandates that a broadcaster may only own one television station in a particular language in any given market. However, there are two types of exemptions which may be granted:
The policy does not prevent companies from owning multiple stations in a market provided that the stations broadcast in different languages. In recent years, this has been interpreted as meaning that a single company may own both an English-language station and one or more multicultural stations with some English-language content, which in itself may be considered a form of "exemption". CBC/Radio-Canada owned-and-operated stations (O&Os) are also often deployed in pairs in major cities on both television and radio, separated only by language. In addition, the policy is not interpreted as preventing a single company from owning both a "commercial" general-interest station and an educational station in the same market, even if the latter airs advertising, as with Access in Alberta.
Although the small and large market exemptions have a financial criterion in common, there are notable differences between the two. A small market twinstick may involve major network affiliates licensed to the same community, and is not obligated to provide distinct local news programming on the two stations, while in a large market the stations must be licensed to serve different communities or different programming niches, and "cannot" merge their news programming into a single operation. Small market twinsticks commonly share their branding across both stations, while twinsticks in large markets generally do not. As well, while small market twinsticks generally involve private affiliates, major market twinsticks are virtually always owned-and-operated stations of their associated networks or systems.
In a few isolated cases, the CRTC has permitted "triple-sticks", or triopolies, where a single broadcaster operates "three" stations in a market. These are only possible under unusual circumstances which are discussed as they arise below.
History.
Twinsticks were first allowed in 1967, as a way to help expand CTV service to smaller markets. In the original twinstick model, the second station was a rebroadcaster of a CTV station in a larger market, to which the small market's existing CBC affiliate would be granted the advertising sales rights.
As the company's advertising revenue grew, the CTV transmitter would eventually become an originating station in its own right, and in theory would eventually be sold to another broadcaster. However, in many cases the subsequent sale never happened, as the community's economic growth failed to lend itself to competition between multiple television broadcasters. In other markets where the CRTC had licensed competing broadcasters, such as Northern Ontario, twinstick mergers were subsequently allowed to permit the survival of both television stations after similar economic difficulties were encountered.
With the cross-national consolidation of media ownership, nearly all of the original twinstick stations no longer share ownership with their former twin stations. However, the second type of twinstick, involving media consolidation in larger markets, began to arise in the 1990s.
Small markets.
Up until February 2010, twinsticks of this type outside of Quebec involved CTV and CBC Television affiliates. Currently both small-market twinsticks in English Canada consist of Global and CTV affiliates.
Within Quebec, twinsticks consist of TVA and V affiliates:
From 1997 to 2002, CTV directly owned several CBC twinstick stations that it had inherited from Baton Broadcasting (CKNC, CHNB, CJIC and CFCL in Northern Ontario, which were part of the MCTV system, and CKBI and CKOS in Saskatchewan); these were sold to the CBC in 2002. Similarly, until August 2008, Cogeco owned three twinsticks in Quebec: CKTV and CFRS in Saguenay, CKSH and CFKS in Sherbrooke and CKTM and CFKM in Trois-Rivières. These twinsticks were dissolved when Radio-Canada decided to acquire its former affiliates (CKTV, CKSH and CKTM), while the V affiliates (CFRS, CFKS and CFKM) were acquired by Remstar Corporation, the new owner of V (then known as TQS).
One "triple-stick" also exists, in which a single company, Télé Inter-Rives, operates all three licensed stations in Rivière-du-Loup: CKRT, CIMT and CFTF. RNC Media also formerly had an effective "triple-stick" in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region of Quebec, with ownership of CFEM-DT (TVA) and CKRN-DT (Radio-Canada) in the city of Rouyn-Noranda and CFEM-DT (V) in Val-d'Or — although technically licensed to separate cities, in actual practice all three stations served both cities through rebroadcast transmitters. As of 2018, however, CKRN is no longer in operation. These unusual situations arise because of the unique circumstances of francophone television stations in Quebec: with virtually no sources for syndicated programming, the stations are effectively constrained to network programming at virtually all times, meaning that despite being owned by a single company, the stations are still able to meet the guiding principles behind the CRTC's policies on media ownership.
As noted above, historically, twinstick operations were locally owned. With the cross-national consolidation of media ownership in Canada, however, most twinstick operations are now owned by major media conglomerates. The Thunder Bay Television stations (CHFD/CKPR) are the sole remaining locally owned twinstick anywhere in English Canada. The aforementioned Télé Inter-Rives is similarly unique in Quebec, although Quebecor holds a minority stake in the company.
Major markets.
In the mid-1990s, the CRTC also began to allow private companies operating in large markets to acquire smaller stations. In all such cases, the twinsticks are permitted because a diversity of broadcast voices already exists in the market, and the stations are normally licensed to serve different communities in the metropolitan market or different programming niches. The stations must also be operated independently of each other, although they are permitted to cross-promote each other's programming. They may also air a very limited amount of common programming, although in practice this privilege is rarely used.
Currently, Bell Media operates twinsticks in three major markets, using the CTV and CTV Two brands:
In addition to these "true" twinsticks, in some areas, Bell Media has taken a twinstick-type approach with two stations deemed to be in "adjacent" media markets, but which in practice serve both markets. For example, Bell operates both CTV station CKCO-DT in Kitchener, Ontario and CTV Two station CFPL-DT in London, about away. Both have been carried on the VHF band of basic cable throughout much of southwestern Ontario for several decades. Hence, presumably as a result of this duplicated coverage, their current owner has elected to continue airing distinct programming on both stations (on the other hand, Kitchener is also about 100 km from Toronto; nevertheless both CKCO and Toronto's CFTO operate as CTV stations).
Finally, in some markets, Bell Media operates both a local over-the-air CTV station, and a provincial or regional cable channel that broadcasts CTV Two programming. In Alberta, CTV stations CFCN in Calgary and CFRN in Edmonton co-exist with CTV Two Alberta, which is officially licensed as the provincial educational broadcaster and is therefore technically exempt from the CRTC's common ownership policy (prior to September 2011, CTV Two Alberta also operated over-the-air transmitters in Calgary and Edmonton). In the Maritime Provinces, Bell Media operates both the over-the-air CTV Atlantic group of stations and the cable-only CTV Two Atlantic, which have been jointly owned (under various parent companies) since the latter's launch in 1983.
Previous examples.
Canwest operated the CIII/CHCH twinstick in Toronto-Hamilton and the CHAN/CHEK twinstick in Vancouver-Victoria until 2009, under the Global and E! brands. These two sets of twinsticks were separated as a result of E!'s demise in August 2009, with Canwest retaining the Global O&Os (CIII and CHAN) and selling off the E! stations (CHCH and CHEK). Additionally, Canwest previously owned the now-defunct CHCA in Red Deer, which was available on cable and via rebroadcast transmitters in both Calgary and Edmonton, where Canwest respectively already owned CICT and CITV. This was not considered a true twinstick as CHCA was not based in the larger markets, and did not have permission to solicit local advertising in those markets. It did, however, have simultaneous substitution rights.
CHUM Television operated the CITY/CKVR twinstick in Toronto-Barrie and the CKVU/CIVI twinstick in Vancouver-Victoria under the Citytv and A-Channel brands prior to its acquisition by CTVglobemedia in 2006. Following this acquisition, Rogers Media briefly held twinsticks in Vancouver (CKVU and CHNU) and Winnipeg (CHMI and CIIT), formed from its newly acquired Citytv stations and its Omni-branded religious stations; these two sets of twinsticks were dissolved in 2008 following the sales of CHNU and CIIT to S-VOX.
Unlike the situation in smaller markets, this type of "consolidation" twinstick had been increasingly common up to the late 2000s, concurrently with the rise of secondary television systems (such as CH/E! and A-Channel) launched by their parent companies to complement their primary networks or systems (such as Global and Citytv). This trend was partially reversed in 2009 with the demise of E! and the subsequent dissolution of the Global/E! twinsticks.
Multiple languages.
In many major markets, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation operates both CBC Television (English) and Ici Radio-Canada Télé (French) stations, as listed below. Prior to the CBC decommissioning all of its television rebroadcasters in 2012, both networks were available over-the-air in numerous other markets not listed below, but one or both of the transmitters was a rebroadcaster of a station originating in a different city; these were not usually considered true twinsticks. Nevertheless, both networks continue to be available as part of the basic programming tier on all cable and satellite providers nationwide.
In Toronto, Edmonton and Calgary, Rogers Media's acquisition of the Citytv system put those stations in twinsticks with the multilingual Omni Television stations. In Toronto, Omni Television has its own twinstick, giving the company a nominal "triple-stick" in that market. The two Omni stations in Toronto each serve different segments of the market's multicultural audience, and thus are also permitted under the language exemption.
In Montreal, Canwest owned both Global station CKMI and multicultural station CJNT until August 2009, when the latter was sold to Channel Zero.
CTV was formerly a part-owner of the francophone V network (formerly TQS) in Quebec, meaning that V's owned-and-operated CFJP in Montreal was a partial twinstick with CTV's CFCF for most of the 2000s. CFCF was, in fact, the original "owner" of TQS, meaning that the stations were once a true twinstick under the language exemption, although the two stations went through very different sequences of ownership changes after 1995. Bell Media, the owner of CTV, reacquired V in 2020, reuniting CFJP to co-ownership with CFCF.
Triopolies and quadropolies.
NBCUniversal formerly owned three full-power stations in Los Angeles, NBC owned-and-operated station KNBC, Telemundo O&O KVEA and Spanish language independent station KWHY-TV, before selling KWHY to the Meruelo Group in January 2011. The FCC allows common ownership of three full-power television stations if there are 18 stations that are licensed within the market; as such, Los Angeles and San Francisco are the only two U.S. markets which can legally have a true full-power triopoly, though Sinclair owns a legal "de facto" triopoly in Salt Lake City with CBS affiliate KUTV, independent station KJZZ-TV, and MyNetworkTV station KMYU.
The Federal Communications Commission otherwise only permits common ownership of three full-power television stations within one market if the tertiary station is licensed under a satellite station waiver (the FCC constitutes a full-power station that is licensed as a satellite as the same entity as its parent station, and therefore does not count them toward market ownership caps). A unique instance exists in Austin, Texas, involving the "de facto" triopoly of NBC affiliate KXAN-TV, CW affiliate KNVA and MyNetworkTV affiliate KBVO, the latter of which signed on in 1991 as a Llano-based satellite of KXAN to serve western portions of the market where reception of that station's UHF signal was impaired by the hilly terrain within the area. Even though KBVO was converted into a separately programmed station in October 2009 (and therefore no longer acts as a KXAN repeater, even by way of a subchannel), the FCC granted Media General permission to acquire its license under an existing satellite waiver during that company's merger with LIN Media in 2014 (without the waiver, Media General/LIN would have been forced to sell either KBVO or KNVA, which would not have been viable in any event, since there are not enough unique full-power station owners in the Austin market to permit a second legal duopoly with an owner of one of the market's three English language major network affiliates and neither would have likely had long-term financial survivability as a standalone station).
In addition, the FCC permits common ownership of three or more television stations if there are low-powered stations that are involved. For example, in the New York media market, a full-power duopoly was formed between WNET and WLIW once the two stations merged their operations with each other in 2003; this would be expanded into a physical quadropoly in early 2018 after WNET's owner acquired WNDT-CD and WMBQ-CD as a result of the FCC's 2017 spectrum incentive auction. As of 2020, WNET currently owns or operates six television stations in the New York region, two (WNJN and WNJB) of which are owned by Public Media NJ and operated by WNET through the NJTV state network, which replaced the New Jersey Network (NJN) as New Jersey's public television service in July 2011; the New Jersey Public Broadcasting Authority retained the licenses of all of the former NJN stations.
In the Salisbury, Maryland TV market (DMA #137) - Draper Holdings Business Trust has a triopoly of major broadcast networks: CBS (WBOC-TV, Full Power), FOX (WBOC-TV DT2, Full Power), and NBC (WRDE-LD). It also owns a Telemundo affiliate (WBOC-LD), along with COZI TV & Antenna TV on subchannels of WRDE-LD & WBOC-LD respectfully.
In 2013, through its acquisition of stations from Newport Television, Nexstar and Mission Broadcasting formed a full-power virtual quadropoly made up of two legal duopolies in Little Rock, Arkansas, consisting of NBC affiliate KARK-TV and MyNetworkTV affiliate KARZ-TV (which Nexstar already owned), and Fox affiliate KLRT-TV and CW affiliate KASN (another existing duopoly that was acquired by Mission). Through the resulting local marketing agreement with Nexstar, the operations of KLRT and KASN were consolidated into KARK/KARZ's facilities; 30 employees were laid off as part of the consolidation. A similar virtual quadropoly in the Mobile, Alabama-Pensacola, Florida market was formed through another acquisition from Newport, this time by Sinclair, consisting of Pensacola-based ABC affiliate WEAR-TV and MyNetworkTV affiliate WFGX (which were both already owned by Sinclair and licensed to the beach community of Fort Walton Beach), and Mobile-based NBC affiliate WPMI and Pensacola-licensed independent station WJTC (owned by Deerfield, and operated by Sinclair under a local marketing agreement). Unlike the quadropoly in Little Rock, Sinclair has not consolidated all four stations into one facility and each duopoly maintains their own studios in different parts of the market (WEAR/WFGX on the Florida side, WPMI/WJTC on the Alabama side). Similarly structured virtual triopolies (many of which are run by Nexstar and Sinclair) also exist in a few markets, in which either an existing owner-operator of a legal duopoly also manages a tertiary station owned by a separate if indirectly related licensee, or owns-operates one station and runs two others that are owned by different licensees.
In Canada, at least one community (Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec) has all three of its local French language stations – CKRT-DT, CIMT-DT and CFTF-DT – under common ownership, however such levels of common ownership are for the most part strongly discouraged by the CRTC unless the stations serve remote communities or separately carry programming in different languages (such as Rogers Media's aforementioned triopoly in Toronto, consisting of the English-language CITY-DT and multicultural stations CFMT-DT and CJMT-DT).
In Mexico, media concentration is endemic and it is not uncommon for as many as four stations to be operated by one entity. Televisa owns four Mexico City stations (XEW, XHTV, XHGC and XEQ) while Azteca, Mexico's second-largest broadcaster, owns three (XHIMT, XHDF and XHTVM). These stations, in turn, feed large numbers of full-power affiliates. The largest Mexican network is the Televisa-owned Canal de las Estrellas, which feeds its programming to more than 100 stations nationwide. |
Wikipedia Equality/Paper1
Wikipedia Equality Notability Discussion Paper #1: Maintaining Encyclopedic Scope.
Q: Abolishing the Notability Criteria will allow Wikipedia to host information indiscriminately, including that belonging to personal webpages. It will cease to be an encyclopedia.
A: We agree that Wikipedia has a mission as an encyclopedia, and should not have, for example, pages on your local bus drivers. So there has to be some limit to the information contained in Wikipedia. However, to determine that limit, we should go back to what an encyclopedia is, and what function it should serve.
What is Encyclopedic Information?
An encyclopedia is ultimately a reliable source of information, sitting there waiting for people to look up particular topics whenever they need to. An encyclopedia covering more information is better than an encyclopedia covering less, because people will be able to find what they are looking for more often. This is why even in traditional print encyclopedias, the more expensive and comprehensive ones tend to have more pages. Of course, there is a practical limit to how big a print encyclopedia can be, because of physical size limitations, as well as the fact that information on paper is much harder to search when there are too many pages.
However, Wikipedia is not a print encyclopedia. It does not have any size limitations. It also does not become harder to search with more information, as the search tool automatically brings up the most relevant information almost instantly for any search. Therefore, Wikipedia should include as much information as people potentially want from an encyclopedia.
So, the next question is, what do people potentially want from an encyclopedia. People want to look up all sorts of things that make up the world we are living in, that they may be interested in. The kind of information people want can be pretty diverse. Print encyclopedias, due to their size limits, can only include information that a lot of people would want. But in Wikipedia, information that only a small number of people will want and need can be included — and is sometimes already included, for example information on small rural towns. This makes Wikipedia much more powerful than any print encyclopedia.
However, the Notability Criteria means that certain information some people may want is still excluded: for example, information on self-published authors, non-profit organizations without much media publicity, or obscure programming languages, to name a few categories. If Wikipedia can include information on small rural towns that most people would not find useful, why can’t it include the aforementioned categories of information too? After all, many independent authors and musicians have audiences larger than the population of entire small rural towns featured on Wikipedia. As in the case for information on rural towns, while most people may not find this information useful, some people will. The case of rural towns effectively demonstrates that, just because some information is not interesting to the vast majority of people out there, it doesn’t mean it cannot hold encyclopedic interest for some people. Given that Wikipedia has a virtually unlimited capacity, we argue that such information should be included wherever possible.
What isn’t Encyclopedic Information?
Of course, there still has to be a limit as to what can be included in an encyclopedia, to ensure that is it not just an indiscriminate collection of information. Wikipedia cannot become a place for random biographies, for example, and still remain an encyclopedia. This is because people expect encyclopedias to carry only verifiable and reliable information, that is also relevant to humanity’s shared culture. While the scope of ‘shared culture’ can be pretty broad nowadays due to the internet allowing for an endless number of subcultures and the widespread availability of ‘long tail’ cultural products, something that can be called a part of our ‘shared culture’ must still have some unique cultural value that is not bound by personal association with the subject (e.g. due to friendship or family ties). Random biographies should not belong in any encyclopedia, no matter its capacity, because random biographies are usually unverifiable and usually have no unique cultural value that can transcend personal ties. A biography on your average neighbour is not only non-verifiable for accuracy (meaning that it could have been made up by a prankster), it holds no cultural value for people who do not personally know said neighbour.
The Problem of Verifiability.
Some Wikipedians have taken the aforementioned need for verifiability as a justification for the Notability Criteria. However, not every subject needs to have received mainstream media attention (Wikipedia’s way of assessing Notability) to be able to have a meaningful and useful page with verifiable information. For example, if an independent author’s page claims that they published a certain book, the existence of this book can be easily proven with information from Amazon or Google Books. Moreover, some non-human subjects are even more easily verifiable, such as computer programming languages (as long as there is a book or similar guide published about them).
We also generally trust value-neutral biographical information (e.g. date and place of birth) given by authors, musicians and other cultural icons, and often find such information useful in placing the creator of works in their cultural context. This appears to hold true even for celebrities, as biographical information they give in media interviews is readily accepted and included in Wikipedia profiles. Nobody asks to see a celebrity’s birth certificate before their date and place of birth is included in a Wikipedia page. There is no reason why non-celebrities should be held to a different standard (if anything celebrities are more likely to lie about their birthdays for various reasons). Therefore, value-neutral biographical information about authors and musicians should be considered verifiable as long as one can point to a source that is believed to have come from the subject themselves beyond all reasonable doubt. Actually, to be always objectively correct (as encyclopedias should aim to do), such information on Wikipedia pages can and should be stated to have come from the subject themselves or their trusted representatives where this is the case. If such a policy is adopted, it should apply equally to celebrities and non-celebrities.
NOTE: There will be another discussion paper dedicated to the Verifiability policy and its interaction with the Notability policy.
The Cultural Contribution Criteria.
Gathering the aforemtioned considerations, we propose a new cultural contribution criteria as a replacement to the current Notability Criteria for assessing subjects’ eligibility to have a page on Wikipedia. The standard of having a substantial cultural contribution was chosen for several reasons:
Firstly, it is not a standard that is likely to be discriminatory like the current Notability Criteria. Our mission here at Wikipedia Equality is to end Wikipedia’s role in perpetuating the structural racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia in the wider world. Where some Wikipedians claim that Wikipedia simply reflects the imperfect reality as it stands, the fact that Wikipedia is the Facebook or Google of internet encyclopedias means that it has enormous cultural power. Therefore, where it reflects structural discrimination, it is unavoidably using its power to entrench and enhance such structural discrimination. As the cultural contribution criteria does not depend on mainstream media attention or acceptance, it does not reflect barriers erected by forces of structural discrimination. There are essentially no privilege-based barriers for fulfilling the cultural contribution criteria.
Secondly, it is a standard that will serve to preserve the encyclopedic nature of Wikipedia. While some have argued that there is no harm done to include information on your average neighbour, this information cannot be considered encyclopedic because it holds no cultural value for those who do not personally know said neighbour. However, information on authors, thinkers, musicians, and other cultural contributors are within the scope of an encyclopedia whether they have received media attention or not, because someone who do not personally know them may still want to know more about them having come across one of their works.
Thirdly, the fact that someone has created one or more substantial cultural products means that there is likely to be verifiable and useful information about them, for example in the author’s biography section of books. Such information should be considered verifiable because it is available in published source, and even though it may have come from the subject themselves we generally don’t expect a higher standard of verifiability even for public figures and celebrities. Such information should also be considered potentially useful, because it provides a context to the subject’s cultural contributions.
Recommendations from this Discussion Paper.
Recommendation 1: In general, Wikipedia pages should be about subjects that have had a substantial cultural contribution to the totality of human culture. A substantial cultural contribution is defined as the authorship (if a human subject) or the main subject (if a non-human subject) of a minimum of one musical album of at least four tracks, one book of at least 100 pages (except self-help books, manuals and guidelines), one podcast or blog discussing matter(s) of public interest actively maintained for at least two years, one idea that has received coverage in at least 5 reliable sources (reliability as per the verifiability policy), or equivalent contribution in other formats. Such contributions can be commercially published or self-published, but there must be a clear intent on the author’s behalf to publish, thereby contributing to the totality of human culture. Such contributions must also have been made in good faith, e.g. not to deliberately create a circumstance where the subject can have a Wikipedia page so they can promote their own business.
Recommendation 2: Non-cultural commercial products (e.g. appliances, tools and gadgets) are only considered to have had a substantial cultural contribution if they have received substantial coverage in mainstream news sources over time, or if it can be proven that they have a substantial community of users. This is because such products do not have any inherent cultural value in and of themselves. The average toothbrush does not have unique cultural value, but the iPod does because it has become a cultural phenomenon. Such products are not considered to have had a substantial cultural contribution even if a book has been written about them (since many such products would come with a user manual, for example). (On the other hand, computer programming languages are NOT non-cultural commercial products, therefore as long as there has been a book or equivalent published about such languages, they constitute substantial cultural contributions.)
Recommendation 3: Individual works of one author or artist should not have separate pages, unless the author or artist’s main page is already more than 5,000 words in total. (This recommendation is to replace the current Notability criteria for books and music etc., so that there would not be an explosion in the number of pages for these things once the Notability criteria is abolished.)
Recommendation 4: Wherever human subjects do not meet the cultural contribution criteria, they must meet one of the following criteria to have a page: |
City of Ragusa
City of Ragusa of Liverpool was a yawl (in 19th-century terms), owned by Nikola Primorac, which twice crossed the Atlantic in the early days of 19th-century small-boat ocean-adventuring. She carried the former alternative name of Dubrovnik, the birthplace of her owner. She was originally a ship's boat of a merchantman. The 1870 east-west trip between Ireland and the United States was crewed by John Charles Buckley, a middle-aged Irishman with seagoing experience, and Primorac, a Croatian and tobacconist. The crew on the west–east return trip of 1871 were Primorac and a "lad" called Edwin Richard William Hayter from New Zealand, who had been a steward on the steamer "City of Limerick" of the Inman Line.
Following each trip, the ship and crew were the subject of much international public attention, and President Grant viewed the "City of Ragusa" after she reached America. From 1872, the ship was exhibited in various places in England including the Crystal Palace, and finally at Liverpool Museum where she was destroyed in 1941 when Liverpool was bombed. After the adventure, Primorac resumed his life as a tobacconist in Liverpool, and ultimately died in Rainhill Asylum. Hayter returned to New Zealand, and Buckley made at least one other ocean adventuring trip at the end of 1871: a cargo-ship race involving the "Hypathia".
Ship.
"City of Ragusa".
The "City of Ragusa" of Liverpool, no. 2,020, carried the old name of Dubrovnik, the city of Nikola Primorac's birth. She was originally a clinker-built ship's boat. By 1870 the boat had been decked, and "yawl-rigged" (in 19th-century terms), which allowed "square sails on both masts, spreading altogether of canvas, in eight or nine sails." Before the mizzen mast was a windmill which powered a two-bladed screw propeller. Should the wind fail, the screw could be powered by hand; it could also be raised to prevent reef-damage. The same hand-worked mechanism also pumped water out of the ship. Her tanks took of fresh water, and she could carry three months' victuals. At this point she was described as a ship (albeit "diminutive") by the press. She was "strongly built, double-floored inside, and [was] decked over, leaving a small cockpit aft, so that there [was] a cabin wide, and high from floor to roof." She was double-floored and had a ballast of of iron, a condenser for distilling drinking water from saltwater, and there was coal on board, although cooking was done with a spirit lamp.
The 1870 yawl conversion (in 19th-century terms) was undertaken in Liverpool under the supervision of J.C. Buckley, who received much local support in the form of victualling for the expedition. "The Graphic" reported: "The "City of Ragusa" is the smallest vessel ever cleared at the Liverpool Custom House, and the gentleman who performed that duty for her also cleared the "Great Eastern"." The ship carried the English ensign in 1870, and the US ensign in 1871. Throughout the two transatlantic trips, the ship had the option for one square sail on the main mast, and all the rest would be gaff sails, plus staysail and jib. According to the "Cork Daily Herald" in June 1871, "She is yawl rigged, and returns to Ireland just as she left it, except that a gaff topsail is added, and that her sails have been enlarged. She bears all the traces of her long passage, being coated green with what sailors call "sea grass."
In 1872, following the 1871 transatlantic crossing, the ship was exhibited at the Crystal Palace, but there was an accident. When lowering the ship to allow visitor boarding, the jackscrew holding the stern gave way, and the keel fell on Primorac's leg, causing a compound fracture. No help came. Hayter managed to lift the boat little by little, as Primorac gradually inserted wood under the keel. Primorac, bleeding profusely, was eventually taken to Guy's Hospital. The ship was acquired by Mrs Simms, and was displayed at the Royal Castle Hotel, Chester Road, Tranmere, Merseyside. She then presented it to Birkenhead Park for use on the lakes. Following repairs, the ship "remained a prominent feature in the lower park for some years." On 22 July 1875 "a small boat with red bottom and two top strakes painted white, name on stern "City of Ragusa, Liverpool"," was picked up by Captain Hewett of the schooner "Success", off Douglas Head. The ship was later displayed in the Liverpool Museum, until it was destroyed by a bomb in 1941.
Transatlantic crossings.
Liverpool to Boston, 1870.
On 2 June 1870 the "City of Ragusa", crewed by Captain John Charles Buckley and Nikola Primorac, left Liverpool for New York. Between Liverpool and Queenstown, County Cork they hand-wound the propeller once. The log said: "Shipped propeller and worked it by hand for six hours, and gained thereby two knots per hour." They stopped en route between 12 and 16 June at Queenstown due to the stuffing box of the prop shaft leaking, and they probably removed the windmill gear from above decks at that point. The trip had its share of pranks from the public. For example, on 12 June 1870, a bottle was found on the shore near Bootle. It contained a message in pencil, saying: ""City of Ragusa" June 4th 1870. Off the coast of Ireland making for Waterford. Captain Buckley washed overboard." The document was taken to the police office, but when the "Ragusa" arrived at Queenstown on 12 July the note was recognised as a forgery. The ship arrived at Cork on 18 June, becoming the "centre of attraction" there. Buckley did not mind the attention, but Primorac tended to lose patience, "and for all the visitors knew might have more than once consigned them to all sorts of future pains and sufferings."
The Press monitored the ship's progress via reports from transatlantic vessels which spoke her at sea. For example, the Cunard SS "Russia", and SS "Abyssinia", spoke her on 13 August, off the Banks of Newfoundland. At that point, Primorac was introducing himself as "Antonio Romano, a native of Ragusa." According to the log, on one day of the passage, the "Ragusa" ran ; the slowest day covered . They had a dog on board, but it died on 29 August. They reached Boston on 8 September, the 1870 Atlantic crossing having taken 92 or 98 days. "There were strong westerly winds almost from the beginning of the journey, and two or three heavy gales." The "Cork Constitution" reported that: All things considered, she made a capital voyage across the Atlantic, and became the admiration of the nautical men of New York. No doubt was cast on the voyage of the "City of Ragusa", and Captain Buckley reaped the full reward of the honours he had earned by his enterprising and extraordinary voyage. Whatever may have been the object or intent of the voyage of the tiny craft, one thing would seem certain as already published, that Capt. Buckley with his man reached the harbour of New York without aid or assistance.
"Ragusa" suffering a "serious leakage", the crew took her to Boston for repairs first, then to New York, where she remained on exhibition over winter. The ship continued to attract attention for a while, then Buckley returned to Liverpool by steamer. He said "he [was] glad the journey [was] over, and, although he never had any serious doubts about being successful, he [did] not care to undertake the experiment again. In 1878 Hayter wrote to "The Times" to say, The "City of Ragusa" was visited in America by President Grant and all the State officials of Boston and by the Governor and ex-Governor of Rhode Island, and was seen by Admiral Northcott and many other officers of Her Majesty's Navy and over 400,000 persons at the Crystal Palace. She ... now lies at Liverpool ... I hope next year to have her on view at my boat house [at Maidenhead]. E.R.W. Hayter.
New York to Liverpool, 1871.
After Buckley returned to Liverpool from New York in 1870, Primorac remained with the ship as Captain, looking for a replacement mate for the return trip to Ireland. The first potential crew member agreed to take the job on 20 May 1871, but when he saw the size of the ship he mutinied and left. A second man was offered the position, but he "refused his duty" in the same manner. Primorac then took on Edwin Hayter. The "Cork Daily Herald" gives another view of those events: [Buckley's] retirement elevated his crew Primorez – to the position of captain, and this brave man spent the entire spring in cruising about New York and up the Hudson, and to the principal cities on that part of the coast, where extreme anxiety existed amongst the people for a glimpse at the extraordinary craft. No better idea of her apparent sea going powers could be gleaned from anything than the fact that four experienced sailors who were successively engaged to work her under the directions of Capt. Primorez, and who were anxious to give her a trial. left her on a trip up the Albany river, as they became afraid to risk their lives in her, even in the smooth inland waters.
This time the "Ragusa" was ballasted with "a kind of new patent American brick," which Primorac wanted to exhibit at the London Exhibition. At 5am on 23 May 1871 the crew let go the Sandy Hook pilot and started for Queenstown with a northerly heading. The "New York Herald" called it a "foolhardy adventure," and said, "with the exception of the bark of the dog, she is probably the smallest bark that ever attempted such a trip." This return trip took 36 days. The "Cork Constitution" reported: During the voyage the weather was rather rough, and at times squally, but the tiny craft kept on her course well, making an average in good weather seven knots, and in bad weather 4.5 knots per hour. Her best speed, and one extraordinary for so small a boat, was 160 miles on the third day after leaving her moorings. The log of her voyage could not be obtained, and many statements have been made respecting her voyage, none of which it would be safe to give as representing the whole facts. On [22 June 1871] the little craft made 120 knots during the day, which was the second-best day's running since her starting.
The "Illustrated Police News" reported: Bad weather set in off the banks of Newfoundland, and for ten days a series of gales tossed them about in a terrific sea. The gale subsiding, the captain was able to set his vessel's head to the eastward. Icebergs were frequently seen in that latitude at that time, and a sharp look-out had to be kept. The ice was avoided, and the ship continued her course. The weather remained exceedingly heavy, and there were rare periods of calm. A succession of heavy gales came on, and as it was impossible to take observations the course was taken by dead reckoning throughout. From the beginning to the end of the passage the captain saw the sun rise and set only once, and during the remaining days the weather was too thick to permit him to make observations ... off Fastnet ... they amused themselves with catching a young shark. While following a piece of beef a noose was slipped round his tail and he was pulled on board. His tail was hung at the bowsprit, where it is still to be observed ... The captain has kept a careful log of the whole voyage, which he intends publishing.
The "City of Ragusa" arrived at Queenstown at midnight on Wednesday 28 June 1871, "firing a gun as she entered." According to Primorac's report, he only had time to wash himself once during the voyage, but managed to change his clothes four times. He said that the pair took six-hour watches, but once during a gale Primorac did a thirty-hour watch. He added that they caught a shark near Fastnet, and indeed they arrived in harbour with what was left of the fish on board. That included the jaws, teeth and backbone. The "Ragusa" was flying the Austrian and British flags when she arrived. On 29 June "a number of people visited the little craft, and several boats laden with spectators sailed around her." The "Irish Daily Telegraph" was one of those spectators: We saw the little thing at Queenstown, but 19 feet long, and [1.75] tons measurement, rocking to every wave of the passing stream, bending to every puff of wind, which scarcely stirred the flags of her sisters around her; we looked in wonder at her, and very few could realise that she had made two long voyages across the Atlantic; had ridden out, off the coast of Newfoundland, two severe storms; had seen large vessels dismasted, and herself surrounded with the "debris", which was more dangerous to her than the contending elements. If the vessel is wonderful, the crew more so ... The owner and master, a quiet looking man, with no sign of the hero about him – with nothing to shew that patient, invincible courage, which he must possess to brave many dangers for so long a time ... The dog ... looks thoroughly miserable ... They carried no boat, nor any other means of escaping a sinking ship ... We have welcomed and admired her, and now wish her "God speed."
The "City of Ragusa" left Queenstown for Liverpool on 10 July 1871.
Crew.
Captain John Charles Buckley.
John Charles Buckley was born in Limerick, Ireland, and had also lived in Millstreet, Cork, where he had relatives. By 1870 he was "middle-aged." The "Illustrated London News" reported in 1870: He formerly served in the army of the Papal Government and was taken prisoner, in 1860, during the short campaign of Castelfidardo and Spoleto, by the invading forces of King Victor Emmanuel. He served the Pope three years, and is a Knight of the Order of St. Sylvester. He has since been the officer of an American passenger-steamer, and lately master of a large vessel in the China trade. He has been rewarded with the honorary silver medal of the Humane Society for saving two lives on our coast near Hythe.
At Trafalgar Square, London, on 12 January 1859 the Humane Society awarded J. Buckley of the Royal Limerick Militia a silver medal "for saving the lives of Sergeant M. Mahony and Private J. Bastow of the same corps ... who went to bathe in the sea, and venturing out too far would no doubt have met a watery grave, had not Buckley, after the most desperate exertions, succeeded in bringing both of them ashore." The rescue occurred on 22 September 1858 at Hythe, Kent.
Unlike Primorac and Hayter, Buckley did not retire from adventure. He crewed under Captain Scott on the John S.D. Wolfe sailing ship "Hypathia", which left the Mersey on 18 September 1871, arriving at Philadelphia after 37 days, beating the four ships which accompanied her. Leaving Philadelphia on 4 December for Havre, she encountered "terrific westerly gales" but reached her destination after 17 days. The trip involved running before the gale, with water sweeping the decks, hands lashed at the pumps, lifelines in use, and two men at the wheel.
Nikola Primorac.
Nikola Primorac (Dubrovnik 27 July 1840 – Liverpool 1 March 1886) (anglicised as Nicholas Primovez), otherwise known as Pietro di Costa, was a tobacconist and stationer by trade. He was Croatian, but when using the alias Pietro di Costa assumed Austrian-Italian identity. The "Illustrated London News" was informed that he had a wife and two children, but that they drowned as passengers on an Austrian merchant ship when it was wrecked on the Goodwin Sands, and that he was master of the ship at the time.
Primorac had a dog, Boatswain, who accompanied him on the 1871 return crossing. The dog was described by the "Illustrated Police News" as a "splendid brindled Bull Terrier which bore all the suffering of the long journey with as much fortitude as his fellow passengers." There were two dogs on the voyage; Hayter's Labrador was swept overboard, and Boatswain survived.
However Primorac and Boatswain each came to an unfortunate end in Liverpool. On 27 December 1878, the "Liverpool Mercury" reported:Yesterday forenoon, the inhabitants in the neighbourhood immediately adjoining the Sailor's Home [in Duke Street, Liverpool] were rather startled by seeing a man rushing about the streets with loaded firearms, evidently intent upon shooting some one. His name was found to be Nicholas Primoraz, tobacconist and stationer, carrying on business at 56, Duke-street, and with considerable difficulty he was secured and locked up. As he is evidently out of his mind, he will be taken to a lunatic asylum. Primoraz is the man who a few years ago sailed across the Atlantic in a tiny boat named the "City of Ragusa", his only companion being a dog. This dog yesterday attempted to bite a police constable who snatched a pistol from its master, and was afterwards shot with the same weapon. The faithful animal was not killed by the shot, but was afterwards drowned at the Jordan-street pinfold.
According to the "Liverpool Albion", Primorac was shooting at a man who in due course took over his tobacconist shop. On 16 January 1879 Primorac was incarcerated in Rainhill Asylum, and on 1 March 1886 he died there.
Edwin Richard William Hayter.
Edwin Richard William Hayter (or sometimes Heyter) was from an expatriate English family, and was born in New Zealand. He had been a steward serving on the "City of Limerick", a steamer of the Inman Line. After the 1871 passage he spent some years in Maidenhead, Berkshire as a "boat owner and letter of boats on hire", then went bankrupt in 1879. In 1893 he left for New Zealand, and in 1934 died there. Hayter was possibly Edwin Richard Hayter (born New Zealand ca.1852), who appears in the 1891 England Census as a boot and umbrella repairer, living at 34 Water Lane, Lambeth. The "Cork Daily Herald" said of him, "Heyter ... is a fine young man, a native of New Zealand but of English parentage, and during his time he has been almost in every part of the world." |
Jacques Viau
Jacques Viau (1919 – December 4, 2003) was a Canadian lawyer practising in Montreal, Quebec. He served as bâtonnier of the Barreau du Québec and the Bar of Montreal. He also served as president of the Canadian Bar Association from 1977 to 1978. During his term in office, he chaired a committee which produced a major set of recommendations for reform of the Constitution of Canada.
Early life and family.
Viau was born in 1919 in Lachine. He married Laurette Cadieux Viau. The couple had two children, Hélène and Jacques.
Legal career.
Viau earned his degree in Quebec civil law, a Licentiate of Laws, from the University of Ottawa. He was admitted to the Barreau du Québec in 1942. He practised in Montreal, particularly in the area of municipal law. From 1947 to 1952, he was a municipal court judge in Lachine and Dorval. The government of Quebec appointed him Queen's Counsel ("conseillier de la reine" in French) in 1951.
Viau earned a reputation as an expert in municipal law. He was one of the first lawyers in Quebec to take an interest in municipal law in a systemic fashion. He was credited with being one of the originators of Quebec municipal law as a recognised discipline as it is now known.
Bâtonnier du Québec and bâtonnier of Montreal.
In 1973-74, Viau served simultaneously as the Bâtonnier of the Barreau du Québec (the provincial bar association), and as Bâtonnier of the Bar of Montreal. He was the last person to hold both offices at the same time. He was bâtonnier at a time of considerable change in the legal profession in Quebec.
One major change was the new "Professional Code" introduced by the government of Quebec in 1973, which substantially re-organised the system of professional regulation in Quebec. As a result, the position of bâtonnier would henceforth be elected by universal suffrage of the lawyers of Quebec.
Viau was also heavily involved in the development of the Société québécoise d'information juridique ("SOQUIJ"), a new public organisation for the comprehensive publication of Quebec laws and court decisions, which was brought into operation in 1975. He had a strong interest in having a systemic approach to the publication of judicial decisions, which became one of the goals of SOQUIJ.
During his time in office, Viau was also involved in the implementation of the new legal aid system, instituted by the government of Quebec in 1972, in response to new federal funding for legal aid programs across Canada.
Another of the major events of his time as bâtonnier was the reform of the examination system for the admission of new lawyers. When he took office, the examinations essentially required students to memorise large portions of the "Civil Code" and the "Code of Civil Procedure" and then regurgitate their memory work over a series of exams during a two-day period. The students protested that this was not a truly effective examination system for a professional discipline. Viau received their complaints and delegated the matter to his colleague on the executive committee, Michel Robert (subsequently bâtonnier and later Chief Justice of Quebec). Robert negotiated a new system of examinations which is still used today. He credited Viau with having the ability to delegate complex issues to others, and to accept the results with a generosity of spirit.
As bâtonnier, Viau inadvertently contributed to a run-in between the Chief Justice of the Superior Court and a future justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Morris Fish. The affair grew out of a backlog in the criminal trial courts. In an attempt to reduce the backlog, the Deputy Minister of Justice issued a public letter, with the approval of the Chief Justice, announcing that if an accused elected to be tried by judge and jury, rather than by judge alone, the accused would forfeit their right to bail. The proposal attracted considerable criticism, particularly from one fiery letter in the "Montreal Star", written under a pseudonym. The author of the letter denounced the proposal as being contrary to law, as nothing in the "Criminal Code" suggested that an accused who exercised his right to trial by jury would find his pre-trial liberty restricted. In an attempt to resolve the dispute, a committee was created with representatives from the bench and the bar. Viau appointed Fish, then an up-and-coming young defence counsel, as a member of the committee to represent the interests of the defence bar. What Viau did not know was that Fish was the author of the letter in the Star. At one point in the committee's deliberations, the Chief Justice point-blank demanded of Fish if he was the author of the letter. With a polite smile, Fish replied that the identity of the letter-writer was protected by the tradition of pseudonyms, but he whole-heartedly agreed with the content of the letter.
Canadian Bar Association.
Early participation in the CBA.
Viau was active in the Canadian Bar Association throughout his career. He was president of the CBA's municipal law section from 1966 to 1968, and vice-president of the Quebec Branch of the CBA from 1969 to 1970.
Presidential term and the Quebec sovereignty issue.
Viau was national president of the CBA in 1977-78, a time of political turmoil in Canada. The year before, the Parti québécois had won the provincial general election in Quebec and formed the government, on a platform of separation from Canada. At the annual meeting of the CBA in the summer of 1977, the outgoing president, Boyd Ferris, proposed that the CBA should recognise the need for national unity and a strong federal government. A resolution to that effect was introduced by Paul Fraser, the president of the British Columbia branch of the CBA and seconded by Robert Lesage, the president of the Quebec Branch. The resolution proved controversial, since some members of the CBA did not think the organisation should take part in political issues, while members from Quebec thought that the motion was attempting to impose a particular view on the sovereignty issue as a condition of membership in the CBA. After considerable debate and negotiations, the resolution was amended on a motion by Yves Fortier, a past-president of the Quebec Branch, and Bryan Williams, the incoming president of the British Columbia Branch. The amendment removed the language calling for the CBA to support national unity and reject provincial separatism. Instead, the resolution created a committee to study and make recommendations on the Constitution of Canada.
CBA Committee on the Constitution.
Mandate and composition.
The resolution called for the Constitution to be re-written "so as better to meet the aspriations and present-day needs of all the people of Canada and to guarantee the preservation of the historical rights of our two founding cultures." The resolution also set out the mandate for the Committee, which was to undertake "the search for a definition of the essential constitutional attributes of a Canadian federalism", with a final report to be presented at the next Annual Meeting of the CBA in 1978. The members of the Committee were drawn from each province of Canada, and included two future provincial premiers, a future Supreme Court justice, two future provincial chief justices, and a future Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations.
In addition to Viau, who acted as chairman, the members were:
The Executive Vice-Chairman and Director of Research was Gérard V. La Forest, Q.C., of Ottawa, Ontario, later on the Supreme Court of Canada. The Director of Research was Joel E. Fichaud, later a judge of the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal.
The Committee had a budget of $250,000. Funding came from the CBA itself, and also from the Donner Canadian Foundation, the Alberta Law Foundation, the British Columbia Law Foundation, and the Ontario Law Foundation.
Work of the Committee.
The members of the Committee met nine times over the course of the year, with one final marathon meeting for five days at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, the site of the first Confederation Conference in 1864.
As the deadline for the Committee report approached, rumours began to fly about the Committee's recommendations, particularly the possibility that the Committee would call for the abolition of the monarchy. Viau appeared to confirm that speculation several months before the report was released, at a joint meeting of the councils of the Ontario and Quebec Branches of the CBA. Speculation continued right up to the day before the report was released, with Viau stating that he had nothing personally against the monarchy, and noting that even Premier Lévesque had said much the same. However, Viau also commented that the idea of a Canadian head of state "... is really nothing new", noting that a joint Senate-Commons committee had suggested a Canadian head of state some years previously, in 1971.
The Committee Report.
The Committee released its report for consideration by the annual meeting of the CBA in Halifax on August 27 to 31, 1978. The report recommended that:
The federal government had recently released its own draft amendments. Viau indicated before the report was released that he and the other committee members did not see anything in the federal proposals which would lead them to change their recommendations. In particular, Viau said he completely disagreed with the federal proposal that the upper house be chosen half by the federal government and half by the provinces. Earlier that year, with respect to the division of powers, he had said that in his opinion, the provinces had to be given near complete control over cultural and educational matters if Quebec was to stay in Canada. Another member of the Committee, John Agrios, commented that the points in contention in their internal discussions were not really where he had expected them: "Language and so forth was not a difficult area, but the Senate was very, very difficult, and we spent a lot of time on the court system and international relations.
Subsequent professional activities.
Viau remained active in his profession in his later years. From 1981 to 1992, he served as the President of the Tripartite Committee, composed of representatives from the courts, the provincial Ministry of Justice, and the bar, having been a member of the Committee since 1971. From 1982 to 1998, he was the President of the official provincial legal publishing office, SOQUIJ, which he helped to found during his tenure as bâtonnier. In 1984-1985, Viau served as the Président du Comité sur les structures de la Cour d'appel du Québec.
Death.
Viau died in 2003, survived by his wife and two children.
His colleague from the Barreau, Michel Robert, remembered him as a man of warmth and openness, without an ounce of pettiness, albeit with a biting, sarcastic sense of humour. Robert characterised him as having conservative tendencies, but progressive ideas. |
Kelvin Leerdam
Kelvin Leerdam (; born 24 June 1990) is a Surinamese professional footballer who plays as a right-back for LA Galaxy and the Suriname national team.
Club career.
Early career.
Leerdam was born in Paramaribo, the capital and largest city of Suriname. Leerdam has a close relationship with his mother and has one younger sister.
Leerdam started his career at local Utrecht club USV Elinkwijk. Feyenoord followed the midfielder for many years and eventually joined the Feyenoord youth academy in the season 2005–06.
Coming from an amateur side, Leerdam had a difficult start in the Feyenoord youth. The first two seasons he was mainly used as a substitute. Leerdam joined a successful generation in Feyenoord U17, where he had to compete with players like Leroy Fer, Georginio Wijnaldum and Kevin Wattamaleo for a place on the midfield. After two years, when other players took their chance on a higher level, Leerdam became a regular starter in the U19 team. Thanks to his hard work and dedication, Leerdam eventually made it to Feyenoord's first team squad as well. In January 2007, Leerdam was invited to the first team's training camp in Belek, Turkey, by Feyenoord manager Erwin Koeman. On 6 June 2008, Leerdam signed his first professional contract until 2011.
Feyenoord.
Leerdam had his breakthrough in the season 2008–09. On 13 November 2008, Leerdam made his official debut in Feyenoord's first team. Leerdam replaced Karim El Ahmadi in the 69th minute of the KNVB Cup 5–1 away win against HHC Hardenberg. Leerdam made his Eredivisie debut on 16 November 2008. Leerdam replaced Georginio Wijnaldum in the 87th minute in the away match against FC Twente (1–1). On 27 November 2008, Leerdam also made his European debut. In the UEFA Cup away match against Deportivo la Coruña (3–0), Leerdam replaced Karim El Ahmadi in the 56th minute.
On 1 February 2009, Leerdam had a place in the starting line-up for the first time. When Giovanni van Bronckhorst got injured during the warm-up before the Eredivisie match against N.E.C., Leerdam replaced him as left-back. On 12 April 2009, Leerdam made his first and only goal for Feyenoord, in the home match against Heracles Almelo.
In the season 2009–10, Leerdam was candidate to leave Feyenoord on loan for Excelsior. Because of the departure of the right-backs Theo Lucius, Serginho Greene and Dwight Tiendalli, Leerdam remained at Feyenoord and is mainly used as the stand-in for first team right-back Dani Fernández.
Vitesse.
On 14 January 2013, he signed a pre-contract deal with Vitesse. On 2 July, it was announced that Leerdam signed a three-year deal with the Arnhem club. On 1 August 2013, Leerdam made his Vitesse debut in their UEFA Europa League qualifier tie against Petrolul Ploiești, in which Leerdam featured for the entire 90 minutes during the 1–1 draw. Three days later, Leerdam scored on his league debut for Vitesse in their 3–1 home victory over Heracles Almelo, netting the opener in the 27th minute. Leerdam went onto score eight times in total during the 2013–14 campaign and started to attract interest from Vitesse's feeder club, Chelsea during January 2014.
During the 2015–16 campaign, Leerdam was dropped by interim-manager Rob Maas for the foreseeable future after the full-back discredited Vitesse in a recent interview. Leerdam therefore, failed to feature again for Vitesse until the following campaign, when Rob Maas was replaced by Henk Fraser. On 31 March 2017, it was announced that Leerdam would leave Vitesse along with Arshak Koryan, Wouter Dronkers and Ewout Gouw at the end of their current deals in June 2017.
He played as Vitesse won the final of the KNVB Beker 2–0 against AZ Alkmaar on 30 April 2017 to lead the club, three-time runners up, to the title for the first time in its 125-year history.
Seattle Sounders FC.
On 1 July 2017, Leerdam joined American side Seattle Sounders FC preceding his release from Vitesse.
On 10 November 2019, Leerdam scored the opening goal for Seattle in a 3–1 home win over Toronto FC in the 2019 MLS Cup Final, after his shot was deflected by Toronto defender Justin Morrow.
Inter Miami.
On 23 March 2021, Leerdam joined fellow Major League Soccer club Inter Miami. Following the 2021 season, Leerdam's contract option was declined by Miami.
LA Galaxy.
On 6 January 2022, Leerdamn signed with MLS side LA Galaxy on a two-year deal.
International career.
Leerdam made his first appearance on international level in the Netherlands U19. The Dutch team missed out on a place at the 2009 UEFA European Under-19 Football Championship in Ukraine by the narrowest of margins. The Netherlands U19 finished second in the qualifying elite round behind Slovenia U19, with one goal difference.
Leerdam decided to represent Suriname, the country of his birth, at the senior level. He was called up to the Suriname national team for the first time in November 2019. He made his debut on 24 March 2021 in a World Cup qualifier against the Cayman Islands. On 25 June 2021 Leerdam was called up to the Suriname squad for the 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup.
Honours.
Vitesse
Seattle Sounders FC |
ProjeKcts
The ProjeKcts are a succession of spin-off projects associated with the band King Crimson.
The ProjeKcts were most active from 1997 to 1999, but have performed intermittently since. These earlier ProjeKcts, up to ProjeKct Six in 2006, were devoted to instrumental and heavily improvised music. All of them included King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp, who described their purpose as being "research and development" for King Crimson. Two later spin-off projects were of a different nature, but both involving former King Crimson members.
History.
FraKctalisation (1997–1999).
ProjeKct One (1997).
ProjeKct One began as a suggestion by Bruford to Robert Fripp that they do some improvisational shows together. Fripp suggested adding Gunn, while Bruford suggested adding Tony Levin — four of the six members of King Crimson were now involved.
Fripp then developed the idea of "fraKctals": multiple different subsets of the band working separately as a way of developing new material for King Crimson, the band having been at something of a compositional impasse.
ProjeKct One performed four consecutive shows at the Jazz Cafe from 1 through 4 December 1997. All four concerts have been made available for download through DGMLive. These performances marked the end of Bruford's involvement with King Crimson in any form.
ProjeKct Two (1997–1998).
While ProjeKct One was the first of the sub-groups planned, ProjeKct Two actually convened and recorded first. It featured Fripp, Gunn and Adrian Belew on drums rather than guitar (his usual instrument with King Crimson). This configuration was unplanned, but when the group gathered at Belew's home studio to record, he had recently taken possession of the V-drums and Fripp was keen to experiment with their use. The group enjoyed the results enough that it was decided to keep this configuration for the whole course of the project.
They released the studio album "Space Groove" in 1998. Additionally, they performed thirty-five concerts between February and July 1998. As of 2 May 2011, twenty-six of these shows have been made available for download through DGMLive.
ProjeKct Three (1999, 2003).
(Fripp, Gunn, Pat Mastelotto - drums).
ProjeKct Three (P3) performed five shows from 21 March through 25 March 1999 in Texas. In May 2014 all five shows were made available for download from DGMLive.
On 3 March 2003, P3 performed instead of King Crimson at the Birchmere in the Washington, DC, area, as Adrian Belew was taken ill that night. Following their impromptu performance, the three band members interacted with the audience in the form of a question and answer session. This is the only other full concert appearance of P3 other than the tour of Texas in March 1999. The performance is available on CD ("ProjeKct Three – Live in Alexandria, VA, 2003" ), however, the Q&A session on the CD is incomplete. The complete Q&A is available separately as a download at the DGMLive web site.
ProjeKct Four (1998).
ProjeKct Four performed a seven-show tour of the United States from 23 October – 2 November 1998. These shows consisted of improvised material, as well as expanded upon material developed by earlier ProjeKcts.
All seven of these shows have been made available for download through DGMLive.
ProjeKct X (2000).
ProjeKct X was not a group as such, but an alter ego to the Fripp/Belew/Mastelotto/Gunn King Crimson lineup that produced a CD based on material recorded during "the construKction of light" sessions and remixed and re-assembled by the band, particularly Mastelotto and Gunn. The resulting album, "Heaven and Earth", was released in 2000 alongside "the construKction of light". Additionally, when the 2000-2003 group performed improvised pieces during their live shows, they would use the name ProjeKct X to differentiate themselves from the regular King Crimson, thus freeing up their talents to stray beyond the usual repertoire.
ProjeKct Six (2006).
The ProjeKcts were then dormant until 2006, when Fripp on guitar and Belew on drums played live under the name ProjeKct Six. There has been no ProjeKct Five, but in 2006, Fripp mentioned plans for a ProjeKct Five distinct from the then current King Crimson line-up (Fripp, Belew, Levin, Mastelotto).
Porcupine Tree invited ProjeKct Six to play as their support band.
Jakszyk, Fripp and Collins - A King Crimson ProjeKct (2010–11).
A project including Jakko Jakszyk along with Crimson alumni Fripp and Mel Collins (returning after 40 years), this was ultimately dubbed "A King Crimson ProjeKct," and has been referred to by Fripp as "ProjeKct 7". The album "A Scarcity of Miracles" features this line-up, along with other Crimson alumni Tony Levin and Gavin Harrison. Everyone who performed on the album later joined King Crimson full-time in 2013. This is the only ProjeKct not to play live ever, however 2 songs from the album were later performed by current King Crimson - title track and "The Light Of Day"
The Crimson ProjeKCt (2011–2014).
In August 2011, Levin, Mastelotto and Belew organised the "3 of a Perfect Pair Camp", a music seminar that included daily group performances of King Crimson repertoire by the trio, partway through being joined by Markus Reuter (touch guitar) from Stick Men, plus Julie Slick (bass) and Tobias Ralph (drums) from the Adrian Belew Power Trio.
This performance was a preview of the "Two of a Perfect Trio" tour of the US and Canada in September–October 2011 which comprised sets by Stick Men (Tony Levin on Chapman Stick and vocals; Pat Mastelotto on drums, percussion, vocals; and Markus Reuter on touch-style guitars), The Adrian Belew Power Trio (Belew on guitar, vocal and pre-recorded samples, Slick on bass and either Tobias Ralph or Danny Carey on drums) and then a final set by all six musicians (Levin, Mastelotto, Belew, Slick, Reuter and Ralph) or various subsets thereof playing King Crimson material from the 1994-1996 tours' setlists (using the original "double trio" configuration which this particular 6-musicians-ensemble mirrors, with Slick playing Trey Gunn's parts, Ralph playing Bill Bruford's parts, and Reuter playing Robert Fripp's parts).
In the summer of 2012, this sextet supported Dream Theater on a US tour under the name "The Crimson ProjeKCt" and have retained this moniker ever since.
As Robert Fripp stated in his Saturday 14 April 2012 diary: "Tony and myself discussed the not-easily-doable name of "Stick Men & The Adrian Belew Power Trio That Do A Set Of King Crimson Music". Tony's suggestion was "ProjeKct Krimson". Mine was "The Crimson ProjeKCt"."
The Crimson ProjeKCt has toured the United States twice and performed in both Russia and Japan. There are official live recordings available from these tours, including the Dream Theater shows. This is the only ProjeKct to date not to include Robert Fripp.
During 2014, the band toured in Australia, New Zealand and, for the first time, Europe. |
Descant
A descant, discant, or is any of several different things in music, depending on the period in question; etymologically, the word means a voice ("cantus") above or removed from others. The Harvard Dictionary of Music states:
A descant is a form of medieval music in which one singer sang a fixed melody, and others accompanied with improvisations. The word in this sense comes from the term ' (descant "above the book"), and is a form of Gregorian chant in which only the melody is notated but an improvised polyphony is understood. The ' had specific rules governing the improvisation of the additional voices.
Later on, the term came to mean the treble or soprano singer in any group of voices, or the higher pitched line in a song. Eventually, by the Renaissance, descant referred generally to counterpoint. Nowadays the counterpoint meaning is the most common.
Descant can also refer to the highest pitched of a group of instruments, particularly the descant viol or recorder. Similarly, it can also be applied to the soprano clef.
In modern usage, especially in the context of church music, descant can also refer to a high, florid melody sung by a few sopranos as a decoration for a hymn.
Origin and development.
In origin, discant is a style of organum that either includes a plainchant tenor part (usually on a melisma in the chant) or is used without a plainchant basis in conductus, in either case with a "note against note" upper voice, moving in contrary motion. It is not a musical form, but rather a technique. The term continued to be used down to modern times with changing senses, at first for polyphony in general, then to differentiate a subcategory of polyphony (either in contrast to organum, or for improvised as distinct from written polyphony). By extension it became the name of a part that is added above the tenor, and later as the name of the highest part in a polyphonic setting (the equivalent of "cantus", "superius", and "soprano"). Finally, it was adopted as the name of the highest register of instruments such as recorders, cornets, viols, and organ stops.
"English discant is three-voice parallelism in first-inversion triads." However, because it allowed only three, four, or at most five such chords in succession, emphasizing contrary motion as the basic condition, it "did not differ from the general European discant tradition of the time". Because English discant technique has commonly been associated with such a succession of first-inversion triads, it has inevitably become confused with "fauxbourdon", with which it has "no connection whatsoever". This misinterpretation was first brought forward in 1936 by Manfred Bukofzer, but has been proved invalid, first in 1937 by Thrasybulos Georgiades, and then by Sylvia Kenney and Ernest H. Sanders. A second hypothesis, that an unwritten tradition of this kind of parallel discant existed in England before 1500, "is supported neither by factual evidence nor by probability".
In hymns.
Hymn tune descants are counter-melodies, generally at a higher pitch than the main melody. Typically they are sung in the final or penultimate verse of a hymn.
Although the English Hymnal of 1906 did not include descants, this influential hymnal, whose music editor was Ralph Vaughan Williams, served as a source of tunes for which the earliest known hymn tune descants were published. These were in collections compiled by Athelstan Riley, who wrote "The effect is thrilling; it gives the curious impression of an ethereal choir joining in the worship below; and those who hear it for the first time often turn and look up at the roof!". An example of a descant from this collection (for the British national anthem) goes as follows:
<score sound="1">
\new Staff { \clef treble \time 3/2 \key g \major \set Staff.midiInstrument = "choir aahs" \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \override Score.BarNumber #'transparent = ##t
\relative c"
{ g2 b e | d2. e4 | fis2 | g b, e | d2. fis,4 g2 | c2 c4( b) a2 | b1.
\new Staff { \clef treble \key g \major \set Staff.midiInstrument = "church organ"
\relative c"
« { g2 g a | fis2. g4 a2 | b b c | b2. a4 g2 | a g fis | g1.
d'2 d d | d2. c4 b2 | c c c | c2. b4 a2 | b c4 b a g | b2. c4 d2 | \tuplet 3/2 { e4 d c } b2 a | g1. } \\
{ d2 e e | d2. e4 fis2 | g g a | g2. fis4 e2 | e d d | d1.
b'2 g b | a1 g2 | e a a | a2. g4 fis2 | g fis4 g e e | g2. g4 g2 | g g fis! | d1. } »
\new Staff { \clef bass \key g \major \set Staff.midiInstrument = "church organ"
\relative c'
« { b2 b c | a2. d4 c2 | d e e | d e4 c b2 | c a a | b1.
d2 d d | d1 d2 | c2 e e | d1 d2 | d c4 d c b | f'2. e4 d2 | e d c | b1. } \\
{ g2 e c | d c4 b a2 | g e' a, | b c4 d e2 | c d1 | g1.
g2 b g | fis e4 fis g2 | a g fis | g fis4 g d2 | g, a4 b c e | d e d c b2 | c4 a b c d2 | <g g,>1. } »
» »
</score>
Among composers of descants during 1915 to 1934 were Alan Gray, Geoffrey Shaw, and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Several of their descants appear in what is possibly the earliest hymnal to include descants, "Songs of Praise" (London: Oxford University Press, 1925, enlarged, 1931, reprinted 1971).
During the last quarter of the twentieth century, new editions of hymnals increased the number of included descants. For example, the influential "Hymnal 1940" (Episcopal) contains no descants, whereas its successor, "The Hymnal 1982", contains 32. Among other currently used hymnals, "The Worshiping Church" contains 29 descants; "The Presbyterian Hymnal", 19; "The New Century Hymnal", 10; "Chalice Hymnal", 21. The Vocal Descant Edition for "Worship, Third Edition" (GIA Publications, 1994) offers 254 descants by composers such as Hal Hopson, David Hurd, Robert Powell, Richard Proulx, and Carl Schalk.
In the United Kingdom and elsewhere, the "Carols for Choirs" collection, which features descants by David Willcocks and others to well known Christmas tunes such as "O come, all ye faithful" has contributed to the enduring popularity of the genre.
12th-century Aquitanian polyphony.
This style was dominant in early 12th century Aquitanian polyphony, and can be identified by the following characteristics:
Examples of this can be found in some of Léonin’s late 12th-century settings. These settings are often punctuated with passages in discant style, where both the tenor and upper voice move in modal rhythms, often the tenor part in mode 5 (two long notes) and the upper part in mode 1 (a long then short note). Therefore it is easier to imagine how discant style would have sounded, and we can make a guess as to how to recreate the settings. It is suggested by scholars such as Grout, that Léonin used this non-melismatic style in order to mirror the grandeur of Notre Dame Cathedral itself.
Current research suggests that the word 'discantus' was formed with the intention of providing a separate term for a newly developed type of polyphony. If true, then it is ironic that the newer term, "discantus", ended up being applied to the older note-against-note style, while the older word "organum" was transferred to the more innovative style of florid-against-sustained-note polyphony. This may have been partly because the 12th century was an era that believed in progress, so that the more familiar "organum" was kept for the style then considered to be the most up-to-date.
Discant in three or four voices.
The development of modal rhythms enabled the progression from two part discant style to three and four part discant style. This is because, only voices, confined to a set rhythm can be combined effectively to make a set phrase. This was mainly related to Pérotin, around 1200. The parts in these three and four past settings were not necessarily related to each other. Evidence suggests that the parts were either related to the tenor part, or composed independently. Either way, this formed the first ‘composition’, and provided a foundation for development, and a new style, "conductus" was developed from the three and four part discant ideas. |
Chestnut woodpecker
The chestnut woodpecker (Celeus elegans) a species of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found on Trinidad and in every mainland South American country except Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
Taxonomy and systematics.
The chestnut woodpecker has these six subspecies:
Some studies have found that subspecies "citreopygius" and "jumanus" are more closely related to the blond-crested woodpecker ("C. flavescens") than to the other chestnut woodpecker subspecies. They have at times been treated as one or two separate species, and their exact placement is not fully resolved. Several more subspecies have been proposed as divisions of the six, but all have been determined to be either indistinguishable from one of the six, an aberrant form of one of them, or a hybrid.
Description.
The chestnut woodpecker is about long. Subspecies "C. e. hellmayri" weighs , "C. e. leotaudi" weighs , and "C. e. jumanus" weighs . Males of all subspecies have a wide bright red malar area and cheek; females have no red. In the nominate subspecies "C. e. elegans" adults of both sexes have a buffish cream forehead, crown, and crest. The rest of their head including the chin and throat are deep chestnut brown. They have deep rufous-chestnut upperparts with a cream-buff rump and uppertail coverts, and sometimes faint black bars on the back. Their flight feathers are blackish brown with rufous bars at their base. Their wing coverts have small white spots. Their tail feathers are blackish with some rufous on the outermost pair. Their underparts are dark chestnut brown; sometimes the belly and vent are lighter. Their flanks are a paler creamy cinnamon-buff and often have obscure darker bars. The adult's bill is ivory to yellow or greenish yellow, their iris red-brown to red, and their legs olive to dark gray. Juveniles are similar to adults but havea dull blackish face and darker mottling on their underparts.
Subspecies "C. e. hellmayri" is somewhat darker than the nominate overall and especially on the crown; its wing coverts have more spots and the flight feathers more bars. "C. e. deltanus" is even darker on its crown than "hellmayri". Subspecies "C. e. leotaudi" is paler and brighter than the nominate and has a tawny crown and a yellower rump. "C. e. jumanus" is darker overall than the nominate and the three above subspecies. Its crest is shorter, its back feathers have rufous tips, its wing coverts no spots, and its flight feathers are more rufous. "C. e. citreopygius", like "jumanus", has a short crest, but is blacker overall with less rufous.
Distribution and habitat.
The subspecies of the chestnut woodpecker are found thus:
The chestnut woodpecker inhabits the interior and edges of both dense and lighter forests. These include "terra firme", gallery, and "várzea" forests. It also occurs in secondary forest and cocoa and other plantations. In elevation it ranges from sea level to in Venezuela, to in Colombia, to in Peru, and to in Ecuador (though usually below there).
Behavior.
Movement.
The chestnut woodpecker is a year-round resident throughout its range.
Feeding.
The chestnut woodpecker's primary food is ants and termites; fly larvae and fruit are also significant parts of its diet. It forages singly, in pairs, or in small loose groups, and frequently joins mixed species feeding flocks. It mostly forages from the understorey to the sub-canopy, and usually on trunks and large limbs. It captures prey by gleaning from trees and by breaking open arboreal termitaria.
Breeding.
The chestnut woodpecker breeds in April and May on Trinidad and in French Guiana; its breeding season in Venezuela and northwestern Brazil includes at least January and February. It excavates a nest cavity in a dead tree or stub. The clutch size is three eggs. The incubation period, time to fledging, and details of parental care are not known.
Vocal and non-vocal sounds.
The chestnut woodpecker's territorial call is a "[d]escending 'wewa ew-ew-ew-ew-ew-ew' or sarcastic-sounding 'har-hahaha'". It also makes "rattling screeches, e.g. 'whick-frrr' or grating 'wháa-jer'", a "wick-wick-wick-wick-wick", a "mellow 'gwarrr'", and a "nasal 'kyeenh'". Its drum is a double rap "dop-dop", given by both sexes "frequently and loudly in breeding season".
Status.
The IUCN has assessed the chestnut woodpecker as being of Least Concern. It has a very large range but its population size is not known and is believed to be decreasing. No immediate threats have been identified. It ranges from uncommon to very common in different parts of its range and occurs in several protected areas. |
Stepan Borozenets
Stepan Nikolayevich Borozenets (; 20 August 1922 26 August 2016) was a Soviet Air Force colonel and a Hero of the Soviet Union.
Borozenets served as an Ilyushin Il-2 ground attack aircraft pilot during World War II, and was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union for flying 94 sorties and destroying German equipment. Postwar, he went on to command a bomber aviation regiment before retiring in 1978. In 1995, he went to Chicago for medical treatment and remained in America until his death in 2016.
Early life.
Borozenets was born on 20 August 1922 in Aktobe in what is now Ulan District, Kazakhstan, to a Ukrainian peasant family. He graduated from high school and the Semipalatinsk flying club.
Military career.
In April 1941 he was drafted into the Red Army and sent to the military aviation school of pilots.
In May 1941, he became a cadet at the 1st Orenburg Military Flying Academy named after Kliment Voroshilov, and he graduated in June 1943 with the rank of junior lieutenant. After completing a full course of study, he was sent to the 34th Reserve Aviation Regiment, based at the Dyadkovo airfield north of Dmitrov, Moscow Region. The regiment trained the crews of Il-2 attack aircraft for combat operations.
World War II.
In October 1943, Borozenets was assigned to 4th Assault Aviation Corps of the 4th Air Army within the
1st Belorussian Front. He later assigned to the 4th Assault Air Corps of the 2nd Belorussian Front.
As part of the non-standard reconnaissance aviation squadron of the 4th AAC, repeatedly performed aerial reconnaissance flights He participated in operations to break through the fortified zone and destroy the encircled enemy grouping during the Bobruysk Offensive, in East Prussian Operation, East Pomeranian Offensive and in the breakthrough of the enemy's fortified zone on the western bank of the Oder River.
In July 1944, in a battle near the town of Slonim, Borozenets' aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire. He was able to land the burning plane on a railway embankment that crossed the forest, while receiving serious injuries to his face and back. In February 1945, while returning from a combat mission over Poland, his squadron was attacked by a group of 52 enemy fighters. Borozenets' plane was fired upon and as a result, he was wounded and his air gunner Private Leonid Balashenko was killed.
Borozenets flew missions during the Battle of Berlin. Following V-E Day, he was stationed at Rechlin–Lärz Airfield in Berlin.
During World War II, Borozenets flew more 100 missions. He was credited with the destruction of:
By the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of August 18, 1945, Lieutenant Borozenets was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal for the heroism shown in combat missions while in command on the front of the struggle against the Nazis .
Post war.
After the war, he continued to serve in the Armed Forces of the USSR. In September 1945, the 569th Assault Aviation Regiment was relocated from Rechlin to an airfield in Brzeg, Poland, where it remained until the end of 1945. Then the personnel of the regiment, leaving their aircraft, was relocated to the Transcaucasian Military District at the Nasosnaya Air Base north of Baku, Azerbaijan SSR.
In April 1946, the 199th Assault Aviation Division was disbanded. Borozenets by that time squadron commander, was offered a transfer to the post of flight commander in the 166th Guards Attack Aviation Regiment, based at the airfield in Kutaisi, Georgian SSR, flying Ilyushin Il-10 aircraft . He held the posts of flight commander, deputy squadron commander and the commander of the squadron.
In 1948 he graduated from the Tambov Higher Aviation Courses for Blind and Night Pilot Training. In September 1952, he entered and in November 1956 graduated from the command and staff faculty of the Gagarin Air Force Academy. During this time, he flew MiG-15s .
After graduating from the academy, he was sent to the 230th Bomber Aviation Regiment of the 32nd Bomber Aviation Division of the Carpathian Military District, based at the Cherlyany Airfield south-west of Lvov, Ukrainian SSR and flying Ilyushin Il-28 jet bombers, then on the Yak-28 tactical bomber. He held the positions of squadron commander, deputy commander and commander of the regiment .
In October 1965, he was transferred to the position of an officer of the combat training department of the headquarters of the 14th Air Army in Lvov. From the summer of 1967 to December 1972, he served in the Southern Group of Forces in Budapest, Hungary, as a senior officer of the combat training department of the headquarters of the 36th Air Army. From 1972 to 1990 he lived in Kharkov, Ukrainian SSR. He worked as a senior lecturer at the Department of Tactics at the Kharkov Higher Military Aviation Pilot School. He retired from military service in 1978.
Later life.
He worked as an engineer at the Kharkov Design and Research Institute PromStroyNIIProekt. From 1990 to 1995 he lived in Moscow. He took part in the 1995 Moscow Victory Day Parades, which held in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Soviet victory in World War II and the first post-Soviet military parades held in Russia.
As a result of landing his plane without landing gear on a railway track during World War II, Borozenets seriously injured his spine. He went to Chicago in 1995 for surgery to remove several intervertebral discs. However, he was unable to return to Russia because his health prevented him from flying, and Borozenets' wife and son also moved to Chicago. Retaining his Russian citizenship, he applied for the 36,410 ruble cash payment Heroes of the Soviet Union were entitled to in 2006, but his application was denied because he did not live in Russia. Borozenets appealed to the Constitutional Court of Russia, but the court ruled that veterans living outside of Russia were not eligible for the payment, although it allowed for a personal exemption.
Borozenets died on August 26, 2016, in Chicago, at the age of 94.
References. |
Flying wedge
A flying wedge (also called flying V or wedge formation, or simply wedge) is a configuration created from a body moving forward in a triangular formation. This V-shaped arrangement began as a successful military strategy in ancient times when infantry units would move forward in wedge formations to smash through an enemy's lines. This principle was later used by Medieval European armies, as well as modern armed forces, which have adapted the V-shaped wedge for armored assault.
In modern times the effectiveness of flying wedge means it is still employed by civilian police services for riot control. It has also been used in some sports, although the use of wedges is sometimes banned due to the danger it poses to defenders.
Military tactics.
Antiquity.
Greeks and Romans.
The wedge (έμβολον, "embolon" in Greek; "cuneus" in Latin, colloquially also "caput porcinum", "boar's head"), was used by both infantry and cavalry. The men deployed in a triangular or trapezoid formation with the tip leading the way. According to Arrian and Asclepiodotus, the wedge was first used by the Scythians, and then the Thracians. Philip II of Macedon adopted it from them as the main formation of his Companion cavalry and Alexander the Great faced Persian cavalry arrayed thus, as Arrian attests. The advantage of the wedge was that it offered a narrow point for piercing enemy formations and concentrated the leaders at the front. It was easier to turn than a square formation because everyone followed the leader at the apex, "like a flight of cranes".
As an infantry formation it is attested by Frontinus to have been used by the Romans in Pydna against the Macedonian line of Perseus. It was also used to great effect by the Roman legions, with the wedge proving effective in campaigns in Britain, such as during Boudicca's Revolt, where a greatly outnumbered Roman army used it to defeat the Iceni.
Scandinavian and Germanic.
"Keilerkopf" or "Keil" (wild boar's head, wedge, Latin: "cuneus", meaning throng) is a German phrase to describe the attack formation ("Tactical body") of the prehistoric infantry of the Celts and Germanic tribes. It is generally believed that the Germanic tribes were more successful with this tactic than the Celts. It was used to force the Roman forces to split and was later applied specifically to the weakest units.
Due to the high discipline this formation required and the relatively high probability of failure, it is assumed that the front lines were filled with the best and most heavily armoured warriors of the Germanic sibbs who had to break the Roman front line.
Here the individual warrior tried to gain fame and glory in the battle. The most distinguished princes and their acolytes stood at the head of the "Keil". However, this was also the most dangerous point, whence the need to be heavily armoured. But an army leader who survived a lost battle often forfeited his life (usually suicide). Warriors who had fled were hanged or slain.
According to the Roman historian Tacitus, the "Keil" was a tightly packed crowd, strong on all sides, not only in front and back, but also on the flanks. The formation was not like a wedge but more like a rectangle with forty warriors in the first line and 1,600 men strong. In this formation, the wingmen are at most risk. It was therefore well possible that the wing marched with some caution and held back a bit, so that the center stormed further and looked like a wedge. The outer ranks of the rear on the other hand swelled slightly. The goal was to hit hard at the same time and to drive a 40 yard wide hole into the enemy line, according to the German historian Hans Delbrück.
According to Richard Burton, the central body consisted of heavily armed, warriors protecting less-armored archers to the sides. The triangular formation was used to overwhelm an enemy with a frontal assault. Family groups and tribes were placed side-by-side in units to maintain its cohesion in battle. The tactic was a formidable assault strategy against defenders in line or column, however, attackers faced annihilation in the event of retreat because the wedge became an ill-defined mob if its forward momentum collapsed.
When the Germanic "Keil" was advancing against the enemy, they sang the "baritus" or "barditus", the battle song (battle cry); it begins with a muffled grumbling and swells with the heat of the battle up to the roar of the waves beating against the rocks. According to Germanic legend and Tacitus, Hercules once visited German soil and they sang of him first of all heroes.
The Middle Ages.
In the Middle Ages, the tactic was especially effective against defensive shield wall formations when defenders would link their shields together to form an all-but impenetrable barrier. Armored, heavily armed infantry could use their momentum in wedge formation to drive open small sections in the shield wall. This would break up the shield wall exposing the defenders to flank attacks.
Western Europe.
Two complete descriptions of an infantry wedge are given by Saxo Grammaticus in his "Gesta Danorum". In Book I, he describes a shallow wedge, with the front rank of two men then each thereafter doubled. In Book VII, he depicts a sharper pointed formation 10 men deep with the first rank being composed of 2 men, each rank composed of 2 more. Thus, each wedge was composed of 110 men, 10 deep, 2 men on its tip, and 20 on its base. According to the Vikings, the wedge formation, called by them svinfylking, cf. the Latin "caput porcinum", was invented by Odin himself.
A triangular or wedge formation was also used in the medieval period by the Flemish and Swiss infantry.
Deep wedges of cavalry were used by German armies in the later Middle Ages. At the Battle of Pillenreuth in 1450, both the armies of Albrecht Achilles and Nuremberg fought in wedge formation. The Nuremberg cavalry was drawn up in a wedge led by 5 picked knights, then seven, then nine, then 11. The following twenty ranks held 250 ordinary men-at-arms, then a final rank of 14 picked men to hold the formation together. Sir Charles Oman refers to an unpublished manual of 1480 by Philip of Seldeneck which describes the formation, calling it the "Spitz". He gives examples of various formations varying from 200 men to 1000. The formation of 1000 men places seven men in the first rank, with each rank increasing by two men back to the eighth rank with 21. The remaining men are in a column 20 men wide behind the point. The banner would be carried in the seventh rank.
The use of the cavalry wedge in 13th Century Castile is described in the Siete Partidas, a law code compiled for king Alfonso X of Castile
Byzantium.
Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros Phocas analyzes the wedge formation of the Byzantine Cataphracts in the third chapter of his "Praecepta Militaria". There, he relates that the wedge must be formed by 354 cataphracts and 150 horse archers to a total number of 504 men. The row of the first line comprised 20 horsemen, the second 24, the third 28, down to the 12th line, which consisted of 64 men. If such a number of men is not available, he proposes that the wedge be formed by 304 cataphracts and 80 horse archers, or a total of 384 men, the first line comprising 10 men. In his next chapter ("Ordinance on Cavalry Deployment"), he ordains that the wedge must be accompanied by two cavalry units, which will guard its flanks. A wedge whose ranks are not complete in the middle is shaped as an Λ instead of a Δ and is called a hollow wedge, or in Greek κοιλέμβολον,
"koilembolon".
Modern warfare.
The wedge is still used in modern armies, especially by tanks and other armored units. An example of this is the "Panzerkeil" or "armored wedge" used by the German Wehrmacht in World War II.
The hollow wedge formation remains one of the basic infantry formations at the squad and section level, especially when crossing open ground. However unlike in ancient and medieval times, the formation is used not to maximise effectiveness in melee combat, but to maximise the situational awareness and firepower of a unit. The intervals between soldiers is designed to give mutually supporting lines of sight that do not obscure one another forward and to the sides, and this also corresponds to mutually supporting overlapping arcs of fire. The squad automatic weapon will usually anchor one of the flanks of a fireteam wedge. In a platoon wedge the command group and platoon machine guns are placed in the hollow of the wedge.
Exactly the same principles of mutually supporting lines of sight and fire, apply to an armored vehicles deployed in a wedge formation.
There are many advantages to using this formation. It provides more overwatch as a result of the area it spans. Bounding overwatch can also be transitioned fast and efficiently. The regiment can change formation with ease and the front of it has a significant amount of strength from its crossfire.
Drill formation.
The wedge formation is used ceremonially by cadets at the United States Air Force Academy during the annual graduation parade, when the soon-to-be commissioned first-class cadets (seniors) leave the Cadet Wing. This is the reverse of the acceptance parade, held each fall, when the new fourth-class cadets (freshmen) join the Cadet Wing in the inverted wedge formation.
Civilian applications.
Policing.
Police and law enforcement riot squads sometimes charge in flying wedge formations, to break into a dense crowd as a snatch squad to arrest a leader or speaker, or to chop a long demonstration march into segments. It can also be used to escort VIPs through hostile crowds.
Sports.
Although originally permitted in most full contact team sports, the use of the flying wedge is now banned for safety reasons in rugby union, rugby league, and American football. The principle is similar to the military application: the ball carrier starts an attack and is joined on both sides by teammates who drive them forward towards the goal line. However due to the number of deaths and serious injuries related to the flying wedge, any attempt at this formation is now punished by in-game penalties.
In American football, the formation was developed by Lorin F. Deland and first introduced by Harvard in a collegiate game against Yale in 1892. Teammates would lock themselves together with the ball carrier using their hands and arms and rush forward. But despite its practicality, it was outlawed two seasons later in 1894 because of its contribution to serious injury. The penalty against "assisting the runner", which forbids the locking together of players as well as pushing and pulling the ball carrier to increase force in the same manner as the historic flying wedge, remains in the American football rule books; its eradication has been so complete that the foul has not been called in the National Football League since 1991. The concept of wedge-shaped formations continued to influence several football plays in the modern game, particularly on kickoff returns, until 2009 when NFL league owners agreed to stop its use. Recent changes in the rules at various levels regarding runbacks of free kicks are stricter still in that they restrict blocking by teammates close together even without touching each other. The "wedge" commonly referred to in interference on free kick returns simply meant such a close group of blockers. Wedge blocking using only the shoulders to push forward teammates not holding the ball is still legal. Professional and Canadian football went still farther in theoretically not allowing any transfer of momentum between teammates in blocking but that prohibition is not strictly enforced. |
Transportation Deployment Casebook/2021/Kentucky Streetcar
Streetcar refers to vehicles that drive on the streets. In most cases, the purpose of a Streetcar's operation is to ensure the short-distance circulation of people in the city and optimized vehicles and infrastructure. In general, the streetcar routes run on shared lanes, while some streetcar runs on isolated streets. Since the American Civil War, streetcars' appearance has provided many urban residents with a fast and efficient way of transporting from one place to another .People living in North America call streetcar "trolley" instead of "tram" (the European name), and this first came from the street railway opened by Sprague in Richmond, and it quickly expanded throughout North America.
Technological Characteristics and Main Market.
The power supply system of streetcars usually requires overhead contact nets and electric motors. It is necessary to lay fixed tracks on the ground to for streetcars to move. This kind of transportation system is usually classified as the light rail transportation system. In the period after 1888, many cities mainly used electricity to drive streetcars. Electricity was mainly obtained by installing a wire above the street connecting a long pole that could touch a streetcar's roof. The wire would be connected to the electrical grid with the power generator driven by the steam engine. This in turn would provide electricity for the streetcar.
The rise of the streetcar was closely related to the process of urbanization. People living in cities gradually found that their places of residence are far away from their workplaces. This also made these places inaccessible on foot. Therefore, the emergence of streetcar increased the travel accessibility at that time. Some real estate developers constructed suburbs near the streetcar lines. The streetcar system's rapid growth enabled more and more people to live outside the city and commute to and from get off work every day.
Compression and evolution of other Modes.
Until the 1830s, the only mode of transportation for most people was by walking. Around that period, transportation by horse-drawn carriages was no longer the privilege of the rich, and the more and more middle class began to use omnibuses. The number of people commuting to and from getting off work using this transportation system increased, leading to cities' expansion. From the 1820s to 1880, the horse-drawn omnibus in North America's urban traffic began to operate on various cities' streets. The speed was only a few miles per hour.
The horsecar was a significant improvement to the omnibus. Although horses towed the original streetcar, the new design allowed the horsecar to roll along a fixed rail located in the street's center. The advantage of this design was that it ran on the rail. The steel wheels had less energy loss than the wooden wheel driving on ordinary roads. This allowed a horse to pull a larger streetcar and carry more passengers. At that time, horsecar's passenger capacity was about three times that of the omnibus. The experience of passengers using horsecar was often more comfortable than that of the omnibus. Besides, the lower operating cost of horsecar also brought cheaper transportation expenses for passengers (usually using horsecar was 5 cents, while using omnibus was 12 cents). However, there were still a lot of problems with horsecar. The main reason was that any animal could only work in a given period. At the same time, horses needed to eat a lot of feed, and the average working life was less than 5 years.
Since 1873, to find a streetcar system that can effectively replace the horsecar, the first cable car was successfully tested in San Francisco. Since then, the cable car became a means of transportation. A moving steel cable pulled the cable car and followed a fixed track. The cable car was cheaper and more stable than the horse car, but it was also a defect because the cable always had the risk of breaking, and the repair and replacement was also a complicated and expensive process. The innovation of streetcar power didn't stop. After many tests and experiments, Frank Julian Sprague successfully used electricity as a power source in the 1880s and completely changed the entire streetcar market. This was the first time that electricity was successfully used on a large scale to run the whole city's streetcar system. This mainly relied on providing power at a "power" site far away from the actual vehicle. However, some new cable car lines were still being planned. But by 1890, electric railways that were cheaper to build and more straightforward to operate began to become the norm. It was estimated that the cost of constructing a cable car line was twice that of a trolley, and the cost of operating a cable car line was six times that of a streetcar.
Invention of Streetcar.
From the 1840s, there was the idea of moving vehicles by electric current. Still, there was no practical way to generate enough electricity, and experiments to use battery power have also failed in terms of feasibility. In the end, Frank Julian Sprague (1857-1934) successfully applied the power system to the streetcar. It is worth mentioning that he had excellent achievements in both vertical and horizontal transportation. As early as October 4, 1881, Sprague got his first patent," electric motor, "and applied to show it at the famous Paris Electric Exhibition, but it was rejected. While working at Edison, Sprague assisted Edison in installing and operating three-wire electric light systems. Because he was dissatisfied with Edison's focus on electric lighting development, Sprague was interested in electricity. About a year later, Sprague resigned from the Edison company the following year and founded Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Company in 1884.
He then showed his engine for the first time at the International Electric exhibition in Philadelphia. This kind of generator could constantly work for a long time and ran under different loads. By 1886, two inventions of Sprague's company laid the foundation for the large-scale electric railways in the future. They were a fixed constant speed non-sparking motor and a regenerative brake to regenerate electricity or return it to electric drive equipment's main supply system. This design was different from the traditional braking system. In the traditional braking system, the excess kinetic energy was converted into excess heat or waste due to the brake's friction. However, during the braking process, the connection mode of the traction motor would change.
Early Market Development.
In 1880, less than 30% of Americans lived in urban environments. Still, when the First World War broke out, this number jumped to at least 50% as industrial jobs attracted immigrant labor and the country's rural population into cities. In 1890, streetcar lines began to promote suburban development in cities of all sizes. In some older cities, electric railways were rapidly replacing horse-drawn carriages, making it possible to extend transportation lines outward and greatly expanded land availability for residential development. Development took place first in remote villages connected by streetcars and, second, in new residential corridors along the streetcar lines.
For the middle class of Lexington.
Lexington was a walking city in 1800. Most of the urban population lived within a mile or two of the city centers, making it difficult for people living in the surrounding countryside to reach the city. Lexington's first effort at mass transit in the town was completed in 1874 when two omnibuses slowly made their way between Woodland Park and Main Street's cemetery. With the emergence of the street railway, the city's expansion accelerated, especially for the middle class to migrate to the periphery. Because ordinary railways were not in the city's core area, streetcars' construction provided citizens with a convenient way to travel to and from their workplaces.
For Louisville Southern Exposition.
In 1854, Alfred Victor DuPont and Biderman moved to Louisville in search of wealth in the expanding American West. They invested in various businesses, but they bought a mule-drawn tram line in 1866, thus forming a regional trolley system. On August 1, 1883, the Southern Exposition was organized by President Chester A. Arthur, which ended in 1887 four years later. An electric railway took tourists to the Expo site and Central Park. After this, Louisville had one of the best tram systems in the country, and the number of street railroads was at least twice that of other cities of the same size. By 1890, most streetcars were electric and operated by an operator, the Louisville Railway Company. The streetcar ran through the city, connected with the intercity line, and extended to the suburbs such as Jeffersontown, Okolona, Valley Station, and even Shelbyville to go through the city center and nearby neighborhood.
Birth Phase Policy.
Because the streetcar system had a significant impact on urban development, the population living was no longer confined to the city center; people could live in quiet places outside the commercial center, the so-called "streetcar suburbs," and the management needs to be improved on the original track. But it was still supported by the municipal government and experts.
Under normal circumstances, streetcar companies might obtain franchise rights from the municipality to operate the system within the street right of way. The city's franchise structure was different but depending on the city's current income percentage or fixed amount, most payments to the town may be a one-time payment or an annual payment. These franchises usually contained requirements that the streetcar company must follow to obtain contracts, including track and street maintenance or fixed fares (such as 5 cents)．
Growth Phase.
After the Civil War, streetcar services throughout the United States developed rapidly. Before the Civil War, the population in many areas of the south did not have the population to maintain the streetcar system's operation and therefore began to industrialize to a greater degree. This industrialization led to population growth in southern urban communities and was closely followed by trams' development.
The Rise of Interurban line.
At the beginning of the 20th century, there were nearly 100 tram stations in the Louisville area. At the same time, an elevated station about 60 feet high was built in the city. This streetcar system was called the "sky station." The streetcar ran on these elevated lines. What followed was the rise of interurban lines. This system mainly operated between cities through streetcar and took passengers to rural areas around the city. In some areas, interurban lines competed with the regular passenger service on main railways or had interchanges with steam-powered railroads. This kind of system were less expensive, more frequent, than steam railroads. Simultaneously, Lexington's streetcar system connected Lexington with the bluegrass area of central Kentucky and connected with Louisville, Ohio, Indiana, and the entire Midwest. The desire to establish the interurban line was to promote the convenient transportation of people and goods. There was another reason: The interurban "increases the value of agricultural land, the main reason is that, unlike steam railway, the interurban line can stop at locations in the countryside.
Roles of private sector.
At the same time, the widespread use of Streetcar was affected by the development of the real estate. This increases the value of the real estate in the city and suburbs. Therefore, the urbanization process and streetcars of Lexington during that period are closely related, and the street railway construction in Lexington was inspired by real estate development. The most typical example is that the Belt Land Company's development of real estate around the city prompted the Belt Railway Company's establishment in April 1889. The "Belt Railroad" surrounding the city is the central part of the company's plan to develop the city's outer areas by first connecting various railroads into Lexington.
Policy issues: Fixed fare challenge.
In Lexington, Streetcar company officials rarely raised fares but rely on increasing passenger numbers for profit. Streetcar's fare was sold to customers for 5 cents each. This price remained until 1917. The main reason is that real estate speculators know that streetcar services can enhance the value of the land. Streetcar companies held real estate rights in urban fringe areas, and even if the routes themselves are not profitable, they were connected by streetcars to stimulate development.
In the first 30 years of streetcar service, the low fare mainly relied on passenger traffic's rapid growth to ensure considerable profits. However, the gradual increase in fares after 1917 highlighted the company's executives' concerns about rising costs, and the equipment itself proved to be a huge expense. The issue of ticket prices also appeared in 1918. Due to wartime inflation, KT&T and the Frankfort City Council had a ticket dispute, and KT&T tried to increase the ticket price to $0.06. Finally, the city council only approved a one-cent increase because KT&T threatened to stop the service.
The mature phase and decline phase.
However, with the advent of the twentieth century, the city witnessed the over-saturation of streetcars. By 1917 the country's electric streetcar track peaked at approximately 26,000 miles of trackage across the country. However, With Henry Ford's development of a moving assembly line, more and more Americans could afford to start a car. City streets are becoming more and more crowded because cars and streetcars were competing for the market. This difficulty became more serious during the Great Depression. The excessive extension of the streetcar system, the competition of motor vehicles and the burden of railways in other towns, the financial problems caused by original franchise terms all led to the collapse of the electric railway system. The streetcar company was required to pay taxes and pay additional fees to maintain and pave the streets, making the originally difficult financial problems even more serious. While company officials were considering addressing financial concerns,they were also forced to deal with the growing labour shortage. In July 1913, local K T&T drivers went on strike, and riots followed.
Another problem came from jitneys, which were privately operated vehicles looking for potential customers. In particular, it can freely let passengers get off at a place closer to the destination, and the cost was much less than that of a streetcar. Although it had only existed for some time and was stopped by the court because it had no right to operate, it still impacted the entire market. The technological novelty also played a role. Due to technological innovations, the Louisville Railway Company began to use more flexible buses. This was mainly because the bus system didn't need to maintain costly tracks and freely changed routes and dealt with obstacles, followed by electric trolley coaches and feeder Bus lines were established in the city. At the same time, as the country became more and more obsessed with cars, streetcars were also eliminated.
Reborn.
Although many cities have successfully planned light rails and built commercial and residential areas along the routes, sufficient population density is required to drive this type of transit-oriented development. Even Louisville, the largest city in Kentucky, can hardly meet this requirement because most areas have less than 10 people in the census. It is difficult to build a new light railway under low population density, so developing a modern streetcar system with the cheaper investment will be a very effective solution. This will again become a way to stimulate economic development and release economic development signals and promote pedestrian communities. At the same time, it will help the surrounding commercial development because the shop knows that the streetcar line will not change the route like the bus line.At the same time, compared to buses, modern streetcars can solve the congestion problem in urban commercial areas and improve air quality. This is mainly due to the large capacity of streetcars and the lack of diesel.The high cost is still a fatal obstacle to the streetcar development model, but from a politician's perspective, this model should first be seen as a driver for urban commerce and secondly as a link to traffic, which generates considerable taxes through the development of the city. It is one of the driving forces of this model.
Quantitative Analysis.
The total length of the entire Kentucky Streetcar line is recorded according to McGraw Electric Railway Manual-the red book of American street railway investment'.
In predicting the total mileage of the streetcar, it is necessary to find a suitable model. The S curve is mainly used here to predict the entire system. First, the S curve formula is met by finding a suitable saturation status. This mainly uses the excel table for trial and error to perform linear regression to meet the K value with the expected R -squared to satisfy the establishment of the formula. And the estimated value is shown in the table below. The value of the coefficient of determination is between 0 and 1. Although the larger the value, the higher the degree of the fitting. However, since the streetcar's total mile has a downward trend over a period of time, only the growth period data is used here for the simulation. The K value is slightly larger than the maximum track miles.The formulas required for the model are documented in the following formulas.
formula_1
Where:
From the data, it can be seen that the streetcars of entire Kentucky increased steadily from 1895 to 1915. This was mainly due to the rise of the interurban line and the acceleration of the entire Kentucky state's urbanisation process. However, as it approached 1915, streetcar reached a saturated market, mainly because of high operating costs and, with , streetcars gradually began to be rolled out across the state market.The value of R square is 0.9, which indicates that the model can fit well.From the S curve, it can be seen that the birthing phase was before 1900, and the growth phase was from 1900 to 1910. This period was also in line with the construction time of the interurban line.With wartime inflation and increasing operating costs, the streetcar market entered the maturity phase after 1910, and eventually the streetcar market reached saturation in 1915 and began to decline. |
Centre for Foundation Studies, University of Malaya
Centre for Foundation Studies, University of Malaya was established in 1977 under the provisions of Section 18 of the Constitution of the University of Malaya, which is a program of study Pre-University or Matriculation. Planning academic programs at the Center for Science Foundation covering the areas of science and mathematics that aims to equip students with basic knowledge of indigenous sound science to prepare them to pursue a degree in higher education institutions.
History.
Student academic session 1977/78 is the first group of students from the program have been able to continue their studies to the Faculty of Dentistry, Faculty of Engineering and Faculty of Science. They have received a bachelor's degree in Universiti Malaya convocation in 1983 The University convocation in 1984 saw the first batch of this program who successfully received a degree in medicine. In the 1982/1983 session, Center for Science Foundation in collaboration with the Department of Public Service and the Japanese government has arranged a special program, the Special Preparatory Programme (Japan) in response to the government to implement the Look East Policy. Students who do well will continue their studies at Japanese universities in the fields of Science, Engineering Management, Medical, Dental, and Business. Start 1988/1989 session, two new courses have been implemented at the Center for Science Foundation, the Pre-Accounting program dedicated to providing students native to the Faculty of Economics and Administration in Accounting and Business Administration. Meanwhile, Pre Program English as a Second Language prepares students to take to the Faculty of Education Bachelor of Education (Teaching English as a Second Language). 1997/1998 session, Central Science Foundation has reviewed the structure of study to fit in line with current changes. Under the new system, students Science Foundation Center with excellent results can complete the course of study within two semesters. However, students who can not afford the opportunity to complete the course within a period of 3 or 4 semesters. Among the programs involved are Flow of Life Sciences, Physical Sciences Trends, English as a Second Language Pre and Pre Accounting. Special Preparatory Programme (Japan) remained in the study long structure. Pre-Accounting program has been restructured to allow students to consider admission to courses in Business Administration and Economics. Therefore, the program has been renamed Accounting Pre to Pre Program Accounting / Business / Economics (Pre PPE). In this session program Pre-Law and Pre-Built Environment has also been introduced.
Science Foundation Center has a program in collaboration with nine private institutions in the 1998/99 session. Among the colleges that run the program this collaboration is MARA College Banting Institute Maxisegar, IKIP, Cempaka College, Kolej Uniti, Goon Institute, INPENS, Matriculation College Education Foundation MARA Terengganu and Kuantan. 1999/2000 session, almost all of the students were placed in the campus and placed in a small part of MARA College Banting. Program conducted at that time was Science Foundation Program (Life Science and stream flow Physical Sciences), Pre Program Accounting / Business / Economy and Preparedness Plan Special (Japan). 2000/2001 session, only the Special Preparatory Programme (Japan) has a new student and the Program Science Foundation manages a number of students who have completed their studies in semester 3 or 4. In the 2001/2002 academic session, the intake made Foundation Programme for Life Sciences and Physical Science Foundation and the Special Preparatory Programme (Japan). These students have been placed in the Fifth Residential College for students Preparedness Plan Special (Japan) and the Residential College for students Eleventh Science Foundation. For 2002/2003 intake, a total of 1,100 candidates have been successfully placed in the Science Foundation Center for Life Science Foundation Program and Physical Science Foundation. These students as well as students Preparedness Plan Special (Japan), about 160 people stationed at the Eleventh College to facilitate the monitoring process. A total of about 900 students have been placed at the Center for Science Foundation Science Foundation Programme for 2003/2004 admission. Students Science Foundation Program and Special Japanese students Preparedness Plan (RPKJ) of 180 people located in the same residential college.
2004/2005 from the academic session, the teaching is conducted in English for all lectures, tutorials and practicals for Science Foundation Programme. Science Foundation Center emphasis in English courses so that students gain the necessary exposure to facilitate the learning process effectively. For this session, Fundamental Science Center received at about 1000 students for Science Foundation program and still maintaining the intake of students for the Special Preparatory Program Plan Japan about 180 students. Each student center housed in the College of Human Sciences Eleventh House. For 2005/2006 intake, Science Foundation Center has received nearly 1250 students to program and Science Foundation of 160 students for the Special Preparatory Program Plan Japan (RPKJ). In this session, handling lectures / tutorials / practicals in l for the Special Preparatory Program Plan Japan (RPKJ) is in English. Science Foundation Program students remain stayed Sin Aziz Residential College (College Eleventh) while students Preparedness Plan Special Japan (RPKJ) placed in the Residential College Dr. Raja Nazrin Shah. From the academic session 2006/2007, Science Foundation program has been absorbed under matriculation programs or Pre Degree Program under the IPT Management Department, Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia. Therefore, the recruitment of students is through the Student Entry Management Division (BPKP), Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia. For this session, a total of 1,100 students have been accepted into the Science Foundation Center for Basic Science Program. As for the Special Preparatory Program Plan Japan (RPKJ), the number of students admitted remained about 160 students.
2007/2008 session, it will be exactly 30 years of age Establishment Science Foundation Center. In this session, Foundation Center has offered the Built Environment Foundation Programme with a total enrolment of 100. Students who complete this program will continue their studies in the Faculty of Built Environment, University of Malaya in the field of Architecture, Quantity Surveying, Building Surveying and Property Management. From this session students will be staying Science Foundation Center at King College Dr. Nazrin Shah. 2008/2009 session, Science Foundation Center has a total of 745 students registered for the program Science Foundation (Flow of Life Sciences and Physical Science Stream). While a total of 75 students are from the Foundation Programme of the Built Environment. Science Foundation Center has created history in the 2009/2010 session with most of the increase in students 1400 students in the Flow of Life Sciences and Physical Sciences. The Foundation for the Built Environment Programme, a total of 120 students have been successfully placed in the Central Science Foundation. 2010/2011 session, a total of 1,600 people were admitted to the Science Foundation Center for Life Science Foundation Programme and Physical Science Foundation Programme. While a total of 110 students were admitted to Foundation Programme of the Built Environment. Science Foundation Center has received a total of 1,500 students for the Foundation Programme Life Science and Physical Science Foundation Programme in 2011/2012 session. While 100 students have been accepted into the Foundation Programme of the Built Environment. Special Preparatory Program Plan (Japan), a total of 101 students were enrolled in the session. 2012/2013 session, Science Foundation Center maintains a level of intake as the previous year. The Foundation Programme students staying at King College Dr. Nazrin Shah while RPKJ program all students stay in Sin Aziz Residential College. 2013/2014 session, the first time the University of Malaya perform exercises interviews for all programs offered including Foundation Programme at the Centre for Science Foundation. In this session Science Foundation Center maintains 1000 intake of students for each program and the Life Science Foundation Physical Science Foundation Programme. While 100 students were offered a Foundation Built Environment Program. Until now Fundamental Science Center, University of Malaya has successfully produced for indigenous students with a sound scientific basis for further studies into the first degree to the Malaysian public. |
Mabalacat
Mabalacat, officially the City of Mabalacat (; ), is a 3rd class component city in the province of Pampanga, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 293,244 people.
Etymology.
The town's name was derived from indigenous Negrito word "mabalacat" meaning "forest of balacats".
Geography.
Mabalacat has a land area of . It is from Manila, from Angeles, and from the provincial capital, San Fernando.
The soil is charcoal black and shiny, a sign of fertility, and is suitable for growing rice, sugarcane and other rootcrops. Like the neighbouring cities of Angeles and San Fernando and the towns/municipalities of Porac, Bacolor, Santa Rita, Mexico, Magalang and Arayat, this city rarely gets inundated by floods from heavy rains and typhoons because it is situated on an elevated, well-drained part of the Central Luzon plains known as the "Upper Pampanga".
Barangays.
Mabalacat is politically subdivided into 27 barangays.
The largest barangay is Dau, which became a barrio in 1936 by virtue of "Presidential Proclamation No. 1". It is now a business center whose commercial output runs parallel to that of downtown. A former terminus of the North Luzon Expressway, it is the most urban and most populous area in Mabalacat, home to roughly 23% of the city's population.
San Francisco, the second largest barangay, along with San Joaquin, Santa Ines, Poblacion, Calumpang and other barangays are categorized as urban in view of their proximity to the city proper. Sapang Balen, with a population of 166 persons, is the smallest barangay.
History.
Prior to 1712, Mabalacat was a barrio (barangay) of Bambang, now Bamban, Tarlac. It became a town in 1792, and was named after the abundant Balacat tree ("Ziziphus talanai"), a fourth class timber tree with bark that possess antimicrobial properties. Once a settlement of an Aeta tribe, the area was a virtual forest of balacat trees. "Ma-balacat" in the native Kapampangan language means "full of Balacats." Mabalacat in Maranao is "Mababaapalaqat" (Palacat), which means "maiksing hagdan" in Tagalog.
In 1853 Mabalacat had a population of 2,611 and four barangays, namely, Babangdapu, Duquit, Malabni, and Paglimbunan. By 1903 its population increased to 7,049 in 19 barangays. These were Bical, Bundagul, Dapdap, Dau, Dolores, Iba, Mabiga, Mamatitang, Mangalit, Matas, Mawaque, Paralayunan, Poblacion, Quitangil (later renamed to San Francisco), San Joaquin, Santa Ines, Santa Maria, Sapang Balen, and Sapang Biabas. In 1948, Mabalacat's barangays increased to 20 with the addition of Fort Stotsenburg.
In 1860 a military command was established by authorities of the Spanish Governor-General due to the lawlessness and depredations perpetrated by the negritos (Aetas, or derogatorily called "balugas"). The Pampanga towns of Bamban, Capas, Concepcion, Victoria, Tarlac, Magalang, Porac, and Floridablanca and Mabalacat were created into what was called a "Commandancia Militar". However, in 1873 the Military Command returned Mabalacat together with the towns of Magalang, Floridablanca, and Porac to the parent province, Pampanga.
Cityhood.
The former municipality was officially upgraded to a city following a referendum on July 21, 2012, and became the third in Pampanga after Angeles City and San Fernando. It is home to roughly most of the Clark Freeport Zone, the rest in nearby Angeles, where the main gate is located. Clark International Airport, as well as the numerous hotels, casinos, golf courses, and resorts in Clark Freeport, are mostly situated in Mabalacat.
Economy.
Mabalacat has an average annual income of as of 2011 derived mostly from municipal license fees, land tax, Internal Revenue allotment, roads and bridges fund. In 1997, there were 2,447 business establishments registered in the Mabalacat City, consisting of 79 manufacturers mostly involved in sash factory, iron works, ceramics, bakery and 1,806 trading companies. The financial needs are served by eleven banks, mostly concentrated in Dau.
Public utilities include the Mabalacat Water System, Pampanga Electric Corporation II (PELCO II), three telephone companies namely, Datelcom Corporation (DATELCOM), Smart Communications (SMART) and Digital Telecommunications Philippines, Incorporated (DIGITEL) and one cable television network (PRO-SAT) which runs solely for Mabalacat.
The city is also a major transportation hub; a number of major road networks including the North Luzon Expressway, Subic–Clark–Tarlac Expressway, and MacArthur Highway cut across the region. At the southern part of the city is the Dau Bus Terminal, which caters to passengers bound for Metro Manila and provinces in Northern Luzon such as Tarlac, Pangasinan, Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, Nueva Ecija, La Union, Bataan, and Zambales.
Government.
Mabalacat City Government is composed of a Mayor as a Chief Executive and Sangguniang Panlungsod headed by the City Vice Mayor and 10 Sangguniang Panlungsod members with 3 ex-officio.
The following are the elected officials of Mabalacat City who assumed office on the noon of June 30, 2022 "(except for the Ex-Officio members)"
Mayor.
Crisostomo C. Garbo (NPC)
Vice-Mayor.
Atty. Gerald Guttrie P. Aquino (NPC)
Sangguniang Panlungsod.
Ex-Officio Members:
City Fiesta.
Legend tells us that when the early settlers were clearing the forests, Cabezang Laureana's workers found, hidden among the bushes, a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary with baby Jesus sitting on her lap. On February 2, the statue was presented by Caragan as a gift to Padre Maximo Manuguid, the priest of the early Mabalacat Church that was made of "sawali" and cogon grass. From then on, the city fiesta was observed on the second of February.
Pastorella.
The pastorella (Misa de Pastores in honor of the shepherds at the birth of Jesus Christ - a set of Latin hymns of the 9-day Christmas Masses) ceased in Pampanga towns for 40 years after Vatican II.
In Mabalacat, however, at Our Lady of Divine Grace Parish and San Rafael Arkanghel Parish, pastorella lives on: In the 4:30 a.m. mass on Monday, the pastorella repertoire includes the Kyrie (Lord, Have Mercy), Gloria (Glory to God in the Highest), Credo (Nicene Creed), Sanctus (Holy) and Agnus Dei (Lamb of God). The hymns are in Latin, except for Kyrie, which is in Greek."
Education.
There are 31 educational institutions in Mabalacat: one state college, one private college, one technical training school, two secondary public, two private high schools and 25 public elementary schools divided into two districts, Mabalacat North and Mabalacat South. Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) accredited institutions offering vocational-technical skills abound in the area.
State University.
The University of the Philippines - Diliman Extension Program in Pampanga (Clark) is located in a portion of Clark Freeport Zone that is located in Mabalacat City. It offers undergraduate courses such as BA Applied Psychology, BA Business Economics and BS Business Management. It also offers a non-thesis graduate course, Master in Management (MM) (University of the Philippines Diliman - Extension Program in Pampanga, 2020).
Private schools.
Private schools in Mabalacat listed with the Department of Education are Livingstone International School, Athena's Cradle Center, Inc., Brightstone Learning Center, Children of Fatima School, Inc., Christian Vision Academy Madapdap, Dee Hwa Liong College Foundation, Don Bosco Academy Pampanga (originally from Bacolor; moved to Mabalacat after lahar struck the old campus), Don Teodoro V. Santos Institute, Doña Asuncion Lee Integrated School, Great Shepherd Christian Academy, Immanuel Montessori School, Inc., Clark College of Science and Technology, Jose C. Feliciano College, Mabalacat Christian Academy, Mary Help of Christians School, Inc., Montessori School of St. Nicholas, Nehemiah Christian School, Inc., School of the Infant Jesus the Empowered Zone for Excellence in Education, Inc. Dau, Shield of Victory Christian School, St. Anthony College of Technology, St. Mutien College, and Divine Grace Academy, FDSA Aviation College of Science and Technology Inc.
Listed with and accredited by TESDA is the Asian Institute of Computer Studies (AICS), a private technical school offering I.T. courses. |
Bikaner
Bikaner () is a city in the northwest of the state of Rajasthan, India. It is located northwest of the state capital, Jaipur. Bikaner city is the administrative headquarters of Bikaner District and Bikaner division. The Collector and District Magistrate of Bikaner is Sh. Bhagwati Prasad Kalal, and the Superintendent of Police is Tejaswini Gautam IPS.
Formerly the capital of the princely state of Bikaner, the city was founded by Rao Bika in 1488 CE and from its small origins it has developed into the fourth largest city in Rajasthan. The Ganges Canal, completed in 1928, and the Indira Gandhi Canal, completed in 1987, facilitated its development.
History.
Prior to the mid 15th century, the region that is now Bikaner was a barren wilderness called Jangladesh.
Rao Bika established the city of Bikaner in 1488. He was the first son of Maharaja Rao Jodha of the Rathore clan, the founder of Jodhpur and conquered the largely arid country in the north of Rajasthan. As the first son of Jodha he wanted to have his own kingdom, not inheriting Jodhpur from his father or the title of Maharaja. He therefore decided to build his own kingdom in what is now the state of Bikaner in the area of Jangladesh. Though it was in the Thar Desert, Bikaner was considered an oasis on the trade route between Central Asia and the Gujarat coast as it had adequate spring water. Bika's name was attached to the city he built and to the state of Bikaner ("the settlement of Bika") that he established. Bika built a fort in 1478, which is now in ruins, and a hundred years later a new fort was built about 1.5 km from the city centre, known as the Junagarh Fort.
Around a century after Rao Bika founded Bikaner, the state's fortunes flourished under the sixth Raja, Rai Singhji, who ruled from 1571 to 1611. During the Mughal Empire's rule in the country, Raja Rai Singh accepted the suzerainty of the Mughals and held a high rank as an army general at the court of the Emperor Akbar and his son the Emperor Jahangir. Rai Singh's successful military exploits, which involved winning half of Mewar kingdom for the Empire, won him accolades and rewards from the Mughal emperors. He was given the jagirs (lands) of Gujarat and Burhanpur. With the large revenue earned from these jagirs, he built the Chintamani Durg (Junagarh fort) on a plain which has an average elevation of . He was an expert in arts and architecture, and the knowledge he acquired during his visits abroad is amply reflected in the numerous monuments he built at the Junagarh fort.
Maharaja Karan Singh, who ruled from 1631 to 1639, under the suzerainty of the Mughals, built the Karan Mahal palace. Later rulers added more floors and decorations to this Mahal. Anup Singh, who ruled from 1669 to 1698, made substantial additions to the fort complex, with new palaces and the Zenana quarter, a royal dwelling for women and children. He refurbished the Karan Mahal with a Diwan-i-Am (public audience hall) and called it the Anup Mahal. Maharaja Gaj Singh, who ruled from 1746 to 1787 refurbished the Chandra Mahal (the Moon Palace).
During the 18th century, there was an internecine war between the rulers of Bikaner and Jodhpur and also amongst other thakurs, which was put down by British troops.
Following Maharaja Gaj Singh, Maharaja Surat Singh ruled from 1787 to 1828 and lavishly decorated the audience hall (see illustration) with glass and lively paintwork. Under a treaty of paramountcy signed in 1818, during Maharaja Surat Singh's reign, Bikaner came under the suzerainty of the British, after which the Maharajas of Bikaner invested heavily in refurbishing Junagarh fort.
Dungar Singh, who reigned from 1872 to 1887, built the Badal Mahal, the 'weather palace', so named in view of a painting of clouds and falling rain, a rare event in arid Bikaner.
General Maharaja Ganga Singh, who ruled from 1887 to 1943, was the best-known of the Rajasthan princes and was a favourite of the British Viceroys of India. He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Star of India, served as a member of the Imperial War Cabinet, represented India at the Imperial Conferences during the First World War and the British Empire at the Versailles Peace Conference. His contribution to the building activity in Junagarh involved separate halls for public and private audiences in the Ganga Mahal and a durbar hall for formal functions. He also built the Ganga Niwas Palace, which has towers at the entrance patio. This palace was designed by Sir Samuel Swinton Jacob, the third of the new palaces built in Bikaner. He named the building Lalgarh Palace in honour of his father and moved his main residence there from Junagarh Fort in 1902. The hall where he held his Golden Jubilee (in 1938) as Bikaner's ruler is now a museum.
Ganga Singh's son, Lieutenant-General Sir Sadul Singh, the Yuvaraja of Bikaner, succeeded his father as Maharaja in 1943, but acceded his state to the Union of India in 1949. Maharaja Sadul Singh died in 1950, being succeeded in the title by his son, Karni Singh (1924-1988). The Royal Family still lives in a suite in Lalgarh Palace, which they have converted into a heritage hotel.
Climate.
Bikaner is situated in the middle of the Thar desert and has a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification "BWh") with very little rainfall and extreme temperatures. In summer temperatures can exceed 48 °C, and during the winter they may dip below freezing.
The climate in Bikaner is characterized by significant variations in temperature. In the summer season it is very hot when the temperatures lie in the range of . In the winter, it is fairly cold with temperatures lying in the range of . Annual rainfall is in the range of . The highest ever temerature recorded is on 19 May 2016 and lowest ever recorded is on 26 January 1964.
Demographics.
the population of Bikaner city was 644,406 placing it in the top 70 major cities of India and 5th in Rajasthan. The female to male ratio in the city was 904/1,000. The literacy rate in the city was about 79%, male literacy being 87% and female literacy being 71%.
Majority of the population of the city follows Hinduism, with followers of Islam a large minority. The city has a substantial followers of Jainism.
Transport.
Bikaner railway station is a major railway junction in the North Western Railway zone of Indian Railways. The first railway link to Bikaner was established on 9 December 1891 as part of Jodhpur State Railway and it has undergone many administrative modifications since then.
Today Bikaner Railway Station is efficiently well connected to National Capital Delhi and Rajasthan State's capital Jaipur along with major Indian cities like Jodhpur, Sri Ganganagar, Rewari, Howrah, Kolkata, Mumbai, Kanpur, Agra, Allahabad, Surat, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Pathankot, Bhatinda, Amritsar, Haridwar, Jammu, Chandigarh, Pune, Hisar, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Guwahati, Puri, Coimbatore, Thiruvananthapuram, Bhubaneswar, Bilaspur, Indore, Jalandhar, Baroda, Ratangarh, Jaisalmer, Barmer, Alwar, Nagaur, etc.
Bikaner is well served with roads and is linked directly to Delhi, Jaipur, Agra, Sri Ganganagar, Jodhpur, Alwar, Rewari, Narnaul, Ludhiana, Bhatinda, Ambala, Panipat, Surat, Ahmedabad, Ajmer, Haridwar, Jaisalmer, Bhilwara, Churu, Sikar and many other cities.
Central Bus Stand is the main bus station in Bikaner. It connects Bikaner to other cities in Rajasthan and nearby states via road.
Bikaner has Domestic Civil Airport Nal Airport which is located 15 km west of the city. Regular flights to Jaipur JAI and Delhi DEL commenced in 2017-18 under UDAN scheme of Narendra Modi Govt.
Cuisine.
The city is most famous for its savoury snack Bikaneri bhujia which is sold all over the world and also have geographical indication (GI) tag to keep its originality intact. Other special food items for which Bikaner is well known are "Bajre ki Roti" (Chapati made up of Pearl millet flour), Dal baati Churma, Ghevar, Halvas, Papads/Papadum, Rasgulla, Gulab Jamun, Kachori and Samosa.
Places of interest.
Junagarh Fort.
The Junagarh Fort was built around 1594 CE by Raja Rai Singh. The fort was originally called "Chintamani". It is one of the few major forts in Rajasthan which was not built on hilly terrain. The modern city of Bikaner has developed around the fort. The fort is studded with temples, grand palaces and huge pavilions and walls. In 1961, a museum was set up by Maharaja Karni Singh. Its temples and palaces are preserved as museums and provide insight into the grandiose living style of the past Maharanas of Rajasthan.
Laxmi Niwas Palace.
The Laxmi Niwas Palace is a former residential palace built by Maharajah Ganga Singh, the ruler of the former state of Bikaner. It was designed by the British architect, Samuel Swinton Jacob in the year 1902. The style of architecture is Indo-Saracenic. It is now a luxury Heritage hotel owned by the royal family of Bikaner.
Rao Bikaji's Fort.
Rao Bikaji's first fort, 'Bikaji Ki Tekri' built in 1478 is now in ruins. A hundred years later a new fort was built about 1.5 km from the city centre, named Junagarh Fort.
Karni Mata Temple.
The Karni Mata (करणी माता) Temple or the Rat Temple of Rajasthan is situated around 30 km away from the Bikaner city and is dedicated to goddess Karni Mata, a famous mystic of her times, believed to be an incarnation of goddess Durga. The locals will be quick to point out that the creatures running around in the temple are not rats, they are "kaaba". Kaabas are believed to be reincarnations of humans who had been devotees of Karni Mata, and the brevity of human life did not sufficiently satisfy their devotion.
The shrine of Karni Mata can be found in the town of Deshnoke 30 km south from Bikaner on the road to Jodhpur. Karni Mata is worshiped as an incarnation of Goddess Durga.
Mukam Bishnoi Temple.
The Mukam Temple, also known as Mukti Dham Mukam, is located near Nokha. The Mukam is a holy place of 29 rules of followers of Bishnois. Bishnoi sect was founded by Guru Jambeshwar. Bishnois are quite protective of nature. Mukam Temple is the place where the soul of guru Jambeshwar lies.
Laxminath Temple.
Built by Maharaja Rao Lunkaran, Shri Laxminath Temple is one of the oldest temples in Bikaner and just 4 kilometres away from the famous Junagarh Fort. Lord Vishnu and Goddess Laxmi, grace the sacred sanctum of the temple. The most exquisite artwork inside the temple apart from the shrines is the doorway which is embellished in silver work. Festivals like Janmashtmi, Nirjala Ekadashi, Rama Navami, Diwali and Gita Jayanti are majorly celebrated at the temple.
Bhandasar Jain Temple.
Bhandasar Jain Temple is known for its beautiful leaf paintings, frescoes and ornamented mirror work. This temple was constructed by Bhandasa Oswal in the 15th century. This temple is constructed using red sandstone with beautiful paintings on walls and pillars of the sanctum and mandapa. The temple is dedicated to the 5th Tirthankara sumatinatha. The temple consist of "garbhagriha", "antarala", "mahamandapa", and "ardhamandapa".
Wildlife.
A variety of wild animals including various birds, mammals and reptiles are found in Bikaner's Semi-Arid climate. Initiatives are being taken to bring back the number of vultures which have dwindled at a staggering rate before. There are around 600 resident vultures at Jorbeer. The region is host to another 1200 migratory vultures. Local varieties include Egyptian and King Vultures. The most common migratory vulture is Eurasian Griffon coming from Spain and Turkey. Other migratory vultures include Cinereous and Himalayan Griffons.
Saw-scaled Viper is also natively found in Bikaner.
Gajner Wildlife Sanctuary is located 32 km west of the Bikaner city.
Animal Husbandry.
National Research Centre on Camels, Bikaner.
National Research Centre on Camels was established in 1984 in Bikaner by the Central Government under Indian Council of Agricultural Research at the outskirts of Bikaner city to promote research and development related to camels such as effective breeding, utilisation of camel milk. Scientists engage with all stakeholders like Camel herders, traders via collaborative programmes and significant growth had been made. A camel museum is available to apprise them of the developmental and research aspects of the camel in the desert ecosystem. Maharaja Ganga Singh of the Indian State of Bikaner founded Bikaner Camel Corps around 1890 and became a part of the BSF in Independent India.
Cow sanctuary.
The Rajasthan government has decided to set up its first cow sanctuary in Bikaner. It has a dedicated Ministry of Cow Husbandry. The sanctuary is likely to be set up near Amarpura village, about 70 km from Bikaner.
Education.
Educational Institutes located in Bikaner are Sardar Patel Medical College, Government Engineering College Bikaner, Government Polytechnic College Bikaner, Maharaja Ganga Singh University, Rajasthan University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Swami Keshwanand Rajasthan Agricultural University, and Bikaner Technical University.
Fairs and festivals.
International Camel Festival.
International Camel Festival is held every year in January. Organised by the Department of Tourism, Art and Culture, the city celebrates the festival in honour of the "Ship of the Desert – The Camel".
Beautifully adorned camels and performances by artists from different regions are the key attraction for both domestic and foreign tourists. The event includes spectacular camel performances like "Camel dances", "Camel races", "Neck shaking Camel rides".
Competitions like "Mr Bikana" and "Miss Marwan" are also held during the festival. |
Faceted glass
A faceted glass or granyonyi stakan (, literally "faceted glass") (, derived from "грань", meaning "facet") is a type of drinkware made from especially hard and thick glass and having a faceted form. It is a very widespread form of drinking glass in Russia and the former Soviet Union.
Origins.
The antecedents of the faceted glass in Russian history are dated back to the reign of Peter the Great, who valued the design as being less likely to roll off tables aboard ships. Examples of the first such design were supposedly presented to the tsar by glassmaker Yefim Smolin, from Vladimir Governorate, with the assurance that the glass was unbreakable. After drinking from the glass, the tsar threw it to the ground, breaking it, but was still impressed, stating "Let's have that glass" (). The breaking of the glass and the associated statement later became remembered as "break the glasses!" () and is the possible origin of the Russian tradition of breaking glassware after celebrating particularly important toasts.
Glasses with different numbers of facets were produced in Tsarist Russia, with the museum collection in Vladimir-Suzdal including different types of faceted glass, some intended for drinking tea, others for drinking champagne. The museum also holds examples of early 10-, 12-, 16-sided glasses. The design appeared in still-life paintings by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, though the pre-Soviet designs were commonly cylindrical, with wider facets, and lacked the smooth rim of the later designs.
The first Soviet glass tumbler to this design was produced at a glassware factory in Gus-Khrustalny District, either in Gus-Khrustalny or Urshelsky, with the date usually given as 11 September 1943. The design is usually attributed to sculptor Vera Mukhina, who was in charge of the Leningrad Artistic Glass Workshop at this time. Designed for use in Soviet canteens, the particular aspects of the design were necessitated by early Soviet dish washing machines, which restricted the size, shape and durability of the items they could process. The design, which added a smooth ring at the top and a solid bottom, is sometimes called the "Mukhina" tumbler. Annual production in the years following the Second World War reached between 500 million and 600 million glasses. They were used in a wide variety of locations, from the Moscow Kremlin to prisons.
The numbers of facets differed in Soviet designs, from 10 to 20, but the form was otherwise consistent, with the top of the glass formed by a smooth rim, conferring firmness. The 16-sided design, a particularly common form, dates from the late 1940s–early 1950s. The glass was made particularly thick, and sometimes tumblers were made from lead glass. Though traditionally a very strong design, particular problems developed with those made in the 1980s, with cracking or separation of the glass bottom being among the flaws discovered. This was attributed to the use of foreign equipment in the production of the glasses.
In Russian culture.
The glasses became associated with the drinking of vodka during the anti-alcohol initiatives of the Khrushchev period, which limited the sale of vodka to 500-ml bottles. The standard Russian glasses would each hold a third of a bottle of vodka, and it became a tradition for drinkers to gather in threes to share a bottle split equally between each of their glasses. From this came the popular Soviet expression "to arrange for three" , and the continuing association of the type of glass with the drinking of vodka. Drinking traditions associated with the design included the belief that viewing the world through the faceted glass made it appear better, and that vodka drunk from a faceted tumbler would never run out.
More generally, the bevelled design of glass was ubiquitous in Soviet society, and was the standard form found in schools, hospitals, cafeterias, and other locations. They were used as convenient forms for standardised measures in cooking, with cookbooks often using numbers of glasses rather than grams or other measurements. The standard glass size of 250 ml, when filled to the very top, was equivalent to cup under the imperial measurement system. When filled up to the level of the smooth rim it contained 200 ml. The glasses were also used as dough cutters for making pelmeni and vareniki, or for growing seedlings.
With the advent of new and improved glassmaking techniques, the use of the Soviet-era design has declined in modern Russia. It remains popular however on Russian trains, usually alongside the use of podstakanniks for the serving of tea, and has become a symbol of the Russian railways. The glass has been celebrated in commemorative events, such as that held in Izhevsk in 2005, where a tower was created from 2,024 glass tumblers. 11 September is now celebrated in Russia as "Faceted Glass Day". One report on the design concluded that "it remains a piece of dishware that is always associated with Russia". Viktor Yerofeyev noted that "In the archeology of Russian life, cleaning layer after layer, we will always return to the glass tumbler. This is our archeology, or rather, our matrix." |
Wetlands International
Wetlands International is a global organisation that works to sustain and restore wetlands and their resources for people and biodiversity. It is an independent, not-for-profit, global organisation, supported by government and NGO membership from around the world.
Based mostly in the developing world, it has 20 regional, national or project offices in all continents and a head office in Ede, the Netherlands.
The NGO works in over 100 countries and at different scales to tackle problems affecting wetlands. With the support of dozens of governmental, NGO and corporate donors and partners, it supports about 80 projects.
Wetlands International's work ranges from research and community-based field projects to advocacy and engagement with governments, corporate and international policy fora and conventions. Wetlands International works through partnerships and is supported by contributions from an extensive specialist expert network and thousands of volunteers.
History.
It was founded in 1937 as the International Wildfowl Inquiry and the organisation was focused on the protection of waterbirds. Later, the name became International Waterfowl & Wetlands Research Bureau (IWRB). The scope became wider; besides waterbirds, the organisation was also working on the protection of wetland areas.
Later, organisations with similar objectives emerged in Asia and the Americas: the Asian Wetland Bureau (AWB) (initiated as INTERWADER in 1983) and Wetlands for the Americas (WA) (initiated in 1989). In 1991, the three organisations started to work closely together.
In 1995, the working relation developed into the global organisation Wetlands International.
Wetlands International works in many thematic areas throughout the world, including the links between peatlands and climate change, as well as wetlands and waterbird migration, based on extensive research as well as field projects. It coordinates the International Waterbird Census, a large-scale citizen science project with decades of data.
Key areas of work.
Currently, Wetlands International has four primary areas of work, which are:
Peatlands.
Wetlands International's peatlands work is focused in Eurasia and southeast Asia. The peatswamp forests of Central Kalimantan are studied and worked on in particular for climate mitigation. The project Restoring peatlands in Russia is a joint-effort with the government and Greifeswald University, and was recognised by the UNFCCC with a Momentum for Change award in 2017, for storing up to 200,000 tonnes CO2e of carbon emissions every year by rewetting peatlands and preventing fires.
In the severely degraded peat lands of Central Kalimantan (Indonesia), drainage canals and logging have had disastrous impacts in an attempt to convert the unsuitable peatswamps into rice fields. By building small dams and blocks, the drainage of the area was stopped, preventing further oxidation of the peat soil. The area was then reforested with native tree species and community fire brigades to prevent the island's huge problem of peat fires.
China’s Ruoergai marshes.
Previous work in China has included the Ruoergai marshes, and new work is looking at the Yellow Sea/Bohai migratory bird flyway. Runoff from the glaciers in the Himalayas towards China’s lowland is regulated and stored in the Ruoergai marshes. The Wetlands International China office worked to have this peatland declared a Ramsar site, giving the Chinese government the obligation to protect the area. Furthermore, because of the work with the local Chinese authorities in measuring the impact of different management options, peat mining and drainage are now no longer allowed in Ruoergai and the neighbouring counties. This also leads to improved water supply to the Yellow River and Yangtze River.
Turberas of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina.
In Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, the Wetlands International Latin America office built awareness of sustainable use of the peatlands from the local to the national level, which have contributed to their protection.
Coastal wetlands.
Coastal wetlands such as mangrove forests and coral reefs reduce the impact of storms. Mangroves can even cope with sea level rise and provide protection from impacts of waves.
Dryland regions.
In dryland regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, less rainfall and longer droughts increase the already huge importance of the Sahelian wetlands, and at the same time threaten overexploitation of these areas.
Wetlands International works in Mali to improve the livelihoods and water provision of communities in the Inner Niger Delta in a changing climate.
Biodiversity and waterbirds.
Wetlands International works to protect and restore the rich biodiversity of wetlands. Millions of waterbirds depend on wetlands like marshes, lakes and coastal zones. Wetlands International coordinates an International Waterbird Census in most countries of the world outside the USA where it approximates to the Christmas Bird Count run by the Audubon Society. The census takes place in 143 countries, divided into five regions, visiting 15,000 sites over 60 years.
Promoting the protecting of wetlands along the flyways of waterbirds.
Wetlands International promotes the establishment of ecological networks of well managed, protected wetlands, along the main flyway routes of migratory waterbirds. These wetlands provide stepping stones for migratory waterbirds; crucial for their survival. Wetlands International supports international governmental agreements to create these networks. |
Joseph Sturge
Joseph Sturge (1793 – 14 May 1859) was an English Quaker, abolitionist and activist. He founded the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (now Anti-Slavery International). He worked throughout his life in Radical political actions supporting pacifism, working-class rights, and the universal emancipation of slaves. In the late 1830s, he published two books about the apprenticeship system in Jamaica, which helped persuade the British Parliament to adopt an earlier full emancipation date. In Jamaica, Sturge also helped found Free Villages with the Baptists, to provide living quarters for freed slaves; one was named "Sturge Town" in his memory.
Early life.
Born on 2 August 1793, Joseph Sturge was the fourth child in the family of 12 of Joseph Sturge, a farmer in Elberton, Gloucestershire, and his wife Mary Marshall, who belonged to the Religious Society of Friends (commonly known as Quakers). His brothers included John Sturge, who became a manufacturer in Birmingham, and Edmund Sturge. The abolitionist and pacifist Sophia Sturge (1795–1845) was his sister, and Charles Gilpin was a nephew.
After a year at school in Thornbury, Sturge boarded for three years at the Quaker Sidcot School. He then farmed with his father, and on his own account. Of pacifist views, he refused in 1813 to serve in the militia.
Failing at first to earn a living as a corn factor, at Bewdley from 1814, Sturge moved to Birmingham in 1822. There he became an importer of grain. Successful in business, with his brother Charles, he built up the company. The Sturges as a family became investors in railways and docks. Joseph from 1831 ceased to be an active partner, leaving operations to Charles, and concentrated on causes and public life. As an abolitionist, he was allied in 1831 with George Stephen in pressing Parliament for immediate legislation against slavery. The Reform Act 1832, in his view, failed to address poverty, and he worked for radical electoral reform.
Sturge was appointed an alderman in 1835. He opposed the building of the Birmingham Town Hall, to be used for performances, because of a conscientious objection to religious oratorios. He became interested in the island of Jamaica and the conditions of its enslaved workers. He visited it several times and witnessed firsthand the horrors of slavery, as well as the abuses under an apprenticeship system designed to control the labour of all former slaves above the age of six for 12 years. He worked for emancipation and abolition with African-Caribbean and English Baptists.
In 1838, after full emancipation was authorised, Sturge laid the foundation stone to the "Emancipation School Rooms" in Birmingham. Attending were United Baptist Sunday School and Baptist ministers of the city. In 1839 his work was honoured by a marble monument in a Baptist mission chapel in Falmouth, Jamaica. It was dedicated to "the Emancipated Sons of Africa".
Campaign against apprenticeship.
After legislation for the abolition of slavery in the British dominions was enacted in 1833, slave-owning planters in the West Indies lobbied to postpone freedom for adults for twelve years in a form of indenture. Enslaved children under the age of six were emancipated by the new law on 1 August 1834, but older children and adults had to serve a period of bonded labour or "apprenticeship". Sturge led a campaign against this delaying mechanism. He was supported by William Allen, Lord Brougham, and others. In a speech to the House of Lords, Brougham acknowledged Sturge's central role at that time in rousing British anti-slavery opinion.
In 1834 Sturge sailed to the West Indies to study apprenticeship as defined by the British Emancipation Act of 1833. He intended to open it to criticism as an intermediate stage "en route" to emancipation. He travelled throughout the West Indies and talked directly to apprentices, proprietors (planters), and others directly involved. Upon his return to Great Britain, he published "Narrative of Events since the First of August 1834"; In it he cited an African-Caribbean witness, to whom he referred as "James Williams" to protect him from reprisals.
The original statement was signed by two free African-Caribbeans and six apprentices, and was authenticated by an English Baptist minister Thomas Price of Hackney, who wrote the introduction. Following another trip and further study, Sturge published "The West Indies in 1837". Both books highlighted the cruelty and injustice of the system of indentured apprenticeship. They reported on the abuse of apprentices, and the way the treadmill was used in prisons, and by 1840 changes had been made.
Whilst in Jamaica, Sturge worked with the Baptist chapels to found Free Villages, to create homes for freed slaves when they achieved full emancipation. They planned the communities to be outside the control of planters.
He bought two plantations on the Caribbean island of Montserrat, Olveston and Elberton to demonstrate that slavery was unnecessary.
As a result of Sturge's single-minded campaign, in which he publicised details of the brutality of apprenticeship to shame the British Government, a major row broke out amongst abolitionists. The more radical element were pitted against the government. Although both had the same ends in sight, Sturge and the Baptists, with mainly Nonconformist support, led a successful popular movement for immediate and full emancipation. As a consequence, the British Government moved the date for full emancipation forward to 1 August 1838. They abolished the 12-year intermediary apprenticeship scheme. For many English Nonconformists and African-Caribbean people, 1 August 1838, became recognised as the true date of abolition of slavery in the British Empire.
International anti-slavery campaign.
In 1837, keen to act independently of the consensus in the Anti-Slavery Society, Sturge founded the Central Negro Emancipation Committee. More significantly, in 1839, one year after abolition in the British dominions, Sturge led a small group who founded the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society to put an end to slavery worldwide. It continues today as Anti-Slavery International.
The Society's first major activity was to organise the World's Anti-Slavery Convention. It was held at the Freemasons' Hall, London, from 12 June 1840. Others were held in 1843 (Brussels) and 1849 (Paris). It attracted delegates from Europe, North America, South Africa and Caribbean countries, as well as the British dominions of Australia and Ireland. It included African-Caribbean delegates from Haiti and Jamaica (then representing Britain), women activists from the United States, and many Nonconformists.
In 1841 Sturge travelled in the United States with the poet John Greenleaf Whittier to examine the slavery question there. On his return he published "A Visit to the United States in 1841" (1842). On the same visit (22 May), he saw William Jay who was interested in forwarding the peace agenda, by international arbitration.
The 1843 London Peace Congress.
The Peace Congress of June 1843 held in London resulted from proposal made by Sturge to the American Peace Society in 1841, intended to propagate the ideas of William Jay. A preliminary meeting was held in London in 1842, and the decision was taken that the Peace Congress should follow directly on from the second Anti-Slavery Convention. Sturge ended up organising both, after the death of Nun Morgan Harry (1800–1842). The Peace Congress took place 22–24 June 1843, and formally was the responsibility of the London Peace Society.
The resolution of the Congress mentioned Jay's ideas positively, but laid more weight on those of William Ladd, who had died in 1841, proposing international institutions to keep the peace.
Politics and Chartism.
Sturge was critical of the role of William Scholefield, the Mayor of Birmingham, in the suppression of a chartist meeting in the Bull Ring, Birmingham. Schofield had arrived with 60 officers of the newly formed Metropolitan Police, on 4 July 1839. After Schofield read the Riot Act, Sturge held the police were responsible for the escalation of violence that led to the Bull Ring Riots, 1838.
In addition to his other commitments, Sturge joined the Anti-Corn Law League early in its existence. During 1842 he began a campaign for "complete suffrage", and had the support of the Christian Chartist pastor Arthur George O'Neill in Birmingham. His movement was based squarely on the middle classes. He envisaged a platform that could unite the League and the Chartist movement. The League would have nothing to do with it. Sturge had a measure of further Chartist and nonconformist support, but by the end of the year the Chartist leaders William Lovett and Feargus O'Connor had swung against him. O'Connor had supported Sturge's Complete Suffrage Union earlier in the year, before the industrial conflicts of the Plug Riots had hardened his attitude and he began to see Sturge's broadly middle class support as a threat to his leadership position.
Following a dispute over redrafting the People's Charter as a legislative bill, in December 1842 with William Sharman Crawford MP, Sturge walked out of a joint CSU-Chartist delegate conference in Birmingham. Sharman Crawford introduced their reform bill to "a small and bored House" in May 1843. The bill was lost by 101 to 32.
In the years 1842–7 Sturge ran three times for Parliament, on his "complete suffrage" platform, without success. In August 1842 he was parliamentary candidate for Nottingham, in a by-election. He was defeated by John Walter, the proprietor of "The Times". In Nottingham he visited a Sunday School run by Samuel Fox. The idea of teaching not only scripture, but also basic skills such as reading and writing, was taken up by Sturge, who opened a similar school around 1845. In that year he started an Adult School movement, in Birmingham, and took steps in 1847 to spread Sunday (First-Day) Schools among Quakers.
Sturge then contested Birmingham in 1844 as a Chartist candidate, in a by-election caused by the death of Joshua Scholefield. He was strongly supported at the election hustings, split the liberal vote, but ultimately came bottom of the poll: Richard Spooner [Cons] 2095, William Scholefield [Lib] 1735 and Sturge [Chartist] 346). In 1847 he stood once more, for , in the general election. There he was identified as "Bainesite" – a follower of Edward Baines – and was campaigning for schooling, with no state involvement, a divisive position in the British and Foreign School Society.
Later life.
Sturge took up the cause of peace and arbitration being pioneered by Henry Richard. He was instrumental in the founding of the "Morning Star" in 1855 as a newspaper through which to promote the Peace Society and his other social ideas.
In 1854 Sturge and two other Quakers, Robert Charleton and Henry Pease, travelled to St Petersburg to see Tzar Nicholas I, trying to prevent the outbreak of the Crimean War. In 1856 Sturge and Thomas Harvey visited the Grand Duchy of Finland to investigate the damage caused by the Royal Navy and French Navy gunboats, in attacks during the Crimean War. On this trip Sturge bought Robert Wilhelm Ekman's painting "Sunday Morning in a Farmhouse", which was shown in the exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1858. The painting was brought back to Finland in 1960.
Personal life.
Sturge married, first, in 1834, Eliza, sister of John Cropper. After her death, in 1846 he married Hannah, daughter of Barnard Dickinson and his wife Ann Darby, who was a daughter of Abraham Darby III; and they had five children, one being the peace campaigner Sophia Sturge (1849–1936). Fellow Quaker Stephen Henry Hobhouse wrote a biography in 1919 titled "Joseph Sturge, his life and work". Joseph Sturge was a cousin of whaling shipowner, industrialist and philanthropist Thomas Sturge.
Death and memorial.
Sturge died suddenly at his home on Wheeley's Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, on 14 May 1859 of heart disease. He was buried in the graveyard at the Friends Meeting House, Birmingham. Rather than a grand public funeral, the family sought a modest event in keeping with their Quaker beliefs; but the mourning procession from the late Mr Sturge's home included forty carriages of friends and family, led by the mayor, Sir John Ratcliff.
The Joseph Sturge memorial by sculptor John Thomas was unveiled on 4 June 1862 at Five Ways.
On 24 March 2007, the city held a civic ceremony to formally rededicate the statue. The Lord Mayor of Birmingham unveiled an interpretation board giving details of Sturge's life. On the same day, a blue plaque (historic marker) was unveiled at the site of his home in Wheeleys Road, Edgbaston. |
Christine Nagel
Christine Nagel (born 7 October 1959) is a Swiss perfumer. She has served as the in-house perfumer at Hermès since 2016. Prior to joining Hermès she created designer perfume hits like Narciso Rodriguez for Her (2003, with Francis Kurkdjian) and Miss Dior Chérie (2005).
Nagel created Wood Sage & Sea Salt, one of 47 perfumes she created for Jo Malone London. She has been recognized with awards from the Fragrance Foundation France, the François Coty Foundation, and the "Marie Claire" International Fragrance Awards.
Early life and education.
Nagel was born on 7 October 1959 to an Italian mother and Swiss father, Christine Nagel grew up in Geneva, Switzerland. Her earliest scent memory is of the Italian talc powder her mother bought to care for Nagel's baby brother (who also grew up to work in perfume). Her grandmother was a seamstress, sewing men's trousers, and the smell of freshly pressed pants formed another important early scent memory.
With the goal of becoming a midwife, Nagel began her studies in medicine, but discovered her true love was chemistry and switched to studying organic chemistry. This led to her interest in perfume. At the time this was an unusual route into the industry—most perfumers were men who grew up in the perfuming business in Grasse—but Nagel notes that since then perfumery schools have begun requiring training in chemistry as a prerequisite and more women have joined the industry.
Career.
Early career.
Nagel began her career in the research department of Swiss fragrance firm Firmenich, where she became enchanted with the strong emotional reactions a male perfumer colleague's work elicited from the women smelling it. The perfumer was Alberto Morillas, one of the giants of the perfume industry. Nagel asked to transfer to the perfumery section, but lacking the traditional background was told no and switched to chromatography instead, examining fragrances and their ingredient recipes on a molecular level. Subsequently, this has become a mechanized process but Nagel was one of the few in the world trained to recognize ingredients using only her nose.
Unable to advance any further at Firmenich, Nagel moved to Italy to strike out on her own. Within a year she held 60 percent of Italy's perfume contracts, including work for Fendi and Versace. She moved to Paris in 1997.
Nagel's bona fides were established through a versatile array of major hits like her 2003 collaboration with Francis Kurkdjian, Narciso Rodriguez for Her, the 2005 strawberry-and-popcorn confection Miss Dior Chérie, and fruity gourmand Armani Sì (2013); luxury lines like Guerlain's Les Élixirs Charnels; as well as niche perfume creations like 2011's “bizarre yet fascinating” Archive 69 for Etat Libre d'Orange, a camphorous rose and incense scent, and Wood Sage & Sea Salt (2014) for Jo Malone, a skin scent of salt lingering on the body after a day at the beach. (Nagel also created 46 other scents for Jo Malone, including the more conventional bestseller English Pear & Freesia in 2010.)
Hermès.
In 2014, Nagel went in-house at Hermès, joining Jean-Claude Ellena who had become the brand's first house perfumer in 2004. In 2016 Ellena, nearing retirement, handed the reins to Nagel and she became the sole in-house perfumer at Hermès and the director of olfactive creations for Hermès Parfums. This made her the second woman ever to hold an in-house perfumer position at a major luxury brand (the first was Mathilde Laurent at Cartier).
Two of Nagel's first Hermès releases were Galop (2016), a rose and leather scent inspired by Doblis, a suede-like leather kept in the Hermès vault-like cave of archival leather in Paris. and Twilly (2017), a youthful fragrance that added ginger as a twist on a classic tuberose note. Critic Tania Sanchez (co-author of "") said this made for a totally new perfume accord, "an androgynous fougere of fantastic beauty”. Other early Hermès fragrances include Eau des Merveilles Bleue (2017), a minéral and woody marine scent, and two additions to the Hermès line of colognes, Eau de Rhubarbe Écarlate (2016) and Eau de Citron Noir (2018).
Awards.
In 2005, Nagel and Kurkdjian won the Fragrance Foundation France Award (called the FiFi Awards) for best women's fragrance for Narciso Rodriguez for Her. In 2012 they were recognized again for this fragrance with the “Twenty Years of Creativity” Prize at the 20th anniversary of the FiFi Awards: Narciso Rodriguez for Her was selected as the most iconic women's fragrance of the 20 the Foundation had honored with its annual prize over its 20-year history.
In 2007, Nagal won the Prix François Coty (then briefly retitled the Cosmetic Valley's International Fragrance Prize, but since returned to its original name).
In 2015, the "Marie Claire" International Fragrance Awards honored Nagel's creation Wood Sage & Sea Salt for Jo Malone as the year's most daring fragrance for women.
Influences.
Nagel says her favorite perfume is always the “next one” she's working on, but she continues to feel the admiration for perfumers that first drew her to their profession, inspired by their creativity and the signature “personality” of their scents. Among contemporary perfumers, she names Morillas and Dominique Ropion as notable influences, but reserves a special place for path-breaking female perfumer Germaine Cellier, the creator of historic fragrances like Fracas (1948) and Bandit (1944) for Robert Piguet, at a time when the industry had almost no women. I would have liked to have had the audacity of Germaine Cellier … when she presented in 1945 [...] It’s an incredible fragrance that, if it came out today in its original formula, would be extraordinarily modern.
Personal life.
Nagel is married to Benoit Lapouza, also a perfumer. They have three children. |
Battle for Mexico City
The Battle for Mexico City refers to the series of engagements from September 8 to September 15, 1847, in the general vicinity of Mexico City during the Mexican–American War. Included are major actions at the battles of Molino del Rey and Chapultepec, culminating with the fall of Mexico City. The U.S. Army under Winfield Scott won a major victory that ended the war.
Background.
The major objective of American operations in central Mexico had been the capture of Mexico City. After capturing the port of Veracruz in March, General Winfield Scott was able to secure a base and move inland and defeat a large Mexican force at the Battle of Cerro Gordo. After routing the Mexicans at the Battle of Churubusco, Scott's army was less than eight kilometers (five miles) away from its objective of Mexico City.
Battles.
Molino del Rey.
On September 8, the fight for Mexico City began. General Scott believed that a cannon foundry was located at the Molino del Rey, known as the "King's Mill", located just over three kilometers (two miles) outside the city. Scott sent the 1st Division under William J. Worth to seize and destroy the foundry. Worth wished to include Chapultepec Castle in his attack, and when Scott refused, a bitter rivalry began between Scott and Worth. In the ensuing battle, both sides suffered heavy casualties, and Worth drove the Mexicans from the mill, separating them from the forces at Chapultepec. The battle produced no significant military gains for the U.S.
Chapultepec.
The main assault on the city came a few days later on September 12. Mexico City was guarded in part by Chapultepec Castle, which was being used as a military academy. Scott preceded an infantry assault with an all day artillery barrage on September 12. The next day, September 13, the 4th Division, under John A. Quitman, spearheaded the attack against Chapultepec and carried the castle. Future Confederate generals George E. Pickett and James Longstreet participated in the attack. Serving in the Mexican defense were the cadets later immortalized as "Los Niños Héroes" (the "Boy Heroes"). The Mexican forces fell back from Chapultepec and retreated within the city.
Attacks on the Belén and San Cosme Gates.
Quitman's Division made its way down the Belén Causeway towards the Belén Gate, defended by General Terres & Colonel Garay with the 2d Mexico Activos (200 men) and 3 guns ( 1-12 lbs. & 2-8 lbs.), while Worth's Division further to the north made its way up La Verónica Causeway towards the San Cosme Gate, defended by General Rangel's Infantry Brigade (Granaderos Battalion (Adj. A. Manero), 1st Light(Comdte. L. Marquez), part 3d Light (Lt.Col. M.M. Echeagaray)and parts of Matamoros, Morelia and Santa Ana Battalions (Col. J.V. Gonzalez) with 3 guns (1-12 lb, 1-8 lb. and 1 howitzer 24 lbs. Quitman was merely supposed to make a feint towards the city, but he pushed forward his whole division and broke through the defenses. Santa Anna arrived at the Belén Gate in a fury and relieved the front commander. Worth's Division in the meantime had a slow start against the Mexicans after beating off a Mexican cavalry attack. When he reached San Cosme, he found its defenses ill-prepared, but the Mexicans defending it fought well before falling back. Ulysses S. Grant found his way into the action along the causeway on Worth's front and helped in hoisting a cannon into the belltower of a nearby church. From this spot Grant fired into the defenders below. When the fighting subsided on all fronts, both gates had fallen and the Mexicans had withdrawn into the city. Other gates defended were: San Antonio by General M. Martínez ( 3d & 4th Ligero & 11th Line with 10 guns ) before withdrawing; Nino Perdido by the National Guards and 2 guns; and San Lázaro, Guadalupe and Villejo, which were defended by small infantry detachments. Other forces were stationed at la Piedad (1st & 2d Mexico Activos and Guanajunto Battalions), the Insurgente bridge (Gen. Arguelles : Invalidos and Lagos Battalion) and in the rear of these (Gen. Ramirez with 2d Ligero and various pickets) before withdrawing to the Citadel.
Fall of Mexico City.
The Junta (Gens. Alcorta, Carrera, Lombardini & Fran. Pérez) had withdrawn their army: 14 Guns, 4,000 Cavalry (Quijano & Andrade Brigades), and 5,000 Infantry (Four Sections: 1) Gov. Olaguibel: Toluca National Guards, 2) Cmdte. Arroyo: Lagos, Iturbide, & Tula Battalions, 3) Gen. Martínez: various pickets, and 4) Gen. Pérez: 11th Infantry & remnants of Light Regts.) from the city during the night, and the U.S. forces, expecting another assault, found the city undefended. Worth and Quitman advanced cautiously. Quitman sent Lieutenant Pierre Beauregard to arrange the surrender of the ciudadela. Beauregard and Mansfield Lovell were met by a Mexican officer who asked for a receipt for the captured ciudadela.( 15 Guns) Beauregard exclaimed that "we give receipts at the point of their swords". Scott gave the honor of formally entering the city to Quitman's Division. The conquering army was less than impressing, the troops wore ragged and bloodstained uniforms and Quitman only had on one shoe when he marched into the city. Quitman marched into the Zócalo plaza in the center of the city in front of the National Palace where the formal surrender took place. As Worth's division entered the city the leading unit was John Garland's brigade.
Stragglers from the Mexican army left in the city after Santa Anna's withdrawal climbed to the roofs of houses and began shooting at the American soldiers. General Garland was hit in the chest with the first shot and fell severely wounded. Before he evacuated, Santa Anna released 30,000 prisoners into the streets of the city, and these rooftop shots provoked the prisoners into similar acts. Worth did manage to get the shooting under control. William S. Harney's dragoons escorted General Scott into the city wearing his immaculate dress uniform and was greeted by patriotic music. Scott appointed the politically savvy Quitman as military governor, becoming the only American to ever rule from the National Palace.
Order of battle.
United States.
US Army – Major General Winfield Scott
Mexico.
7 August 1847—20,210 men and 104 artillery pieces acs
Mexican Army General Antonio López de Santa Anna
Chief of Artillery: General Martin Carrera
Chief of Engineers: General Ignacio Mora y Villamil
Alcaraz, Ramon "Apuntes para la historia de la guerra entre Mexico...†
Notes.
Lieutenant Colonel James S. McIntosh temporarily commanded Clarke's brigade at Molino del Rey; Clarke returned to command after McIntosh was killed during the fighting. |
Elliott Brood
Elliott Brood (often stylized as Elliott BROOD) is a Canadian three-piece, alternative country band formed in 2002 in Toronto, consisting of Mark Sasso on lead vocals, guitar, banjo, ukulele, harmonica, and kazoo, Casey Laforet on guitar, lead vocals, backing vocals, bass pedals, keys, and ukulele, and Stephen Pitkin on percussion, sampler, and backing vocals. The band's style has been categorized as "death country", "frontier rock", or "revival music".
History.
Mark Sasso and Casey Laforet grew up together in Windsor, and began playing as a band after moving to Toronto following high school. They played their first show in 2002 with two other musicians at Toronto club Holy Joes.
Although the two other musicians dropped out of the band's lineup after a few shows, Sasso and Laforet continued as a duo, hooking up with producer Stephen Pitkin to record their first EP, "Tin Type", which was released in 2004. Tin Type was recorded over two days in Sasso's living room. The band called the recording space 'The Orange Room' because it was painted orange.
The EP was released in January 2004 by weewerk Records, and came packaged in a brown paper bag containing a handmade photobook done in the style of the American Old West (all of the band's albums are designed by Sasso, who is also a graphic artist).
Pitkin recorded and co-produced "Tin Type", but did not officially become a band member until the band released its first LP, "Ambassador", on Six Shooter Records in 2005.
Much of "Ambassador" was recorded by Joe Dunphy in a former abattoir in the Toronto Public Stock Yards, which had been converted to a recording studio called "Monumental Sound". The album was named for the Ambassador Bridge which connects Windsor with Detroit.
The band released its second full-length album, "Mountain Meadows", in 2008. "Mountain Meadows" was coproduced with John Critchley at Green Door Studio in Toronto, where the album was also mixed. In keeping with the band's fondness for incorporating unique room tones within the recording, a number of locations across Canada were selected, including Healey Lake Lodge in MacTier, Wayne Town Hall in Wayne, Mount Robson Lodge in Valemount, and Halla Music in Toronto, as well as Casey Laforet's kitchen and Mark's garage. The album was shortlisted for the 2009 Polaris Music Prize.
Until June 2008, Pitkin's contribution to Elliott Brood was embellished by his use of a Samsonite "Silhouette" suitcase instead of a conventional bass drum. After pummeling through several cases at inopportune times, he decided to put the idea to rest. This came after a particularly destructive encore on a double bill with United Steel Workers of Montreal at Le Divan Orange club in Montreal. The destroyed case from that show now resides as an art installation on the wall of the Moho Tavern in Peterborough.
In 2010, the band wrote the score for Adriana Maggs' film "Grown Up Movie Star". Their song "West End Sky" garnered a Genie Award nomination for Achievement in Music: Original Song.
Paper Bag Records became the band's new record label in June 2011, and released their new album "Days Into Years" on September 27. Much of the album's content was inspired by a visit to the Étaples Military Cemetery during a tour through France. "Days Into Years" spent eight consecutive weeks in the top 10 on the National Campus and Community Radio Association's "!earshot" radio charts, peaking at No. 1 in the folk/roots/blues category, and at No. 5 overall.
After a number of years in Toronto, two members of the band are now based in Hamilton.
Tours.
Elliott Brood has toured extensively throughout Canada as well as internationally. They have opened for acts including Wilco, War On Drugs, The Head and the Heart, Blue Rodeo, The Black Crowes, Corb Lund, Do Make Say Think, and The Sadies and They also headlined the first "Wood, Wires, and Whisky" tour across Canada in fall 2007, with The Acorn, Sunparlour Players, and Plants and Animals. Elliott Brood has also played at major music festivals such as BBK Festival Bilbao Spain (2014), The Sasquatch Festival (2013), Pickathon in Portland, Oregon (2011/2009), the Olympic Village in Whistler for the 2010 Winter Olympics in British Columbia and North Country Fair in 2004 in Driftpile, Alberta.
Discography.
DVD.
Includes music videos (The Bridge, Second Son), Karaoke (Oh, Alberta),unreleased song "Gentle Temper" and tour footage from 2004 (Running time: 20 Minutes) |
Ten Thousand Fists
Ten Thousand Fists is the third studio album by American heavy metal band Disturbed. It was released on September 20, 2005 and became Disturbed's second consecutive number 1 debut on the "Billboard" 200 in the United States, shipping around 239,000 copies in its opening week. It has been certified platinum by the RIAA and was also the band's second number 1 release in New Zealand. It is also the first Disturbed album to not have the Parental Advisory label.
"Ten Thousand Fists" marks the first album with bassist John Moyer who replaced Steve Kmak following his dismissal in 2003. However, Moyer was considered a session musician during the time of recording, and only became a full-time member during the tour supporting the album. It would be the band's third and final collaboration with mainstay producer Johnny K. In addition, "Ten Thousand Fists" is also the first album to feature their now-famous mascot The Guy on the cover; he would later appear full-bodied in the music video for the band's "Land of Confusion" cover.
"Ten Thousand Fists" is, as of 2010, Disturbed's second highest selling album in the United States, with sales of around 2 million copies. "The Sickness", the band's debut CD, has shifted sales of almost 4.2 million copies in the United States. The album was dedicated to Dimebag Darrell, who was murdered the year before the album's release.
Promotion.
On June 16, 2005, the album title was announced via the Disturbed website. Later that month, the album track listing was also revealed. The song "Guarded" was released to radio stations in late June 2005 as a teaser. Vocalist David Draiman said the motive behind releasing the song was to promote the album. He said, "[The song] was put out there to just whet everybody's appetite. It's one of the more aggressive tracks on the record, just to remind everybody where we came from and who we are."
The first single, "Stricken", was released on July 25, 2005. On August 19, 2005 the music video "Stricken", directed by Nathan Cox, was posted on the Warner Bros. Records website. The music video was filmed in an abandoned hospital, in the same location where some scenes from the 1984 horror film "A Nightmare on Elm Street" were filmed. In early August 2005, viral marketing was used to promote "Ten Thousand Fists". A piece of software was sent via e-mail to certain recipients, who passed it along to other recipients. When the software was passed along to at least 250,000 recipients, it unlocked the song "Ten Thousand Fists". In early July 2006, the third single, "Land of Confusion" (originally written by Genesis), was released, alongside an animated music video directed by Todd McFarlane.
Style.
The album features several styles, including nu metal, alternative metal, and hard rock. Some songs have been described as having "speed metal grooves".
Themes.
Vocalist David Draiman said that "Ten Thousand Fists" "seems to fuse the brutality and darkness of "The Sickness" with the added melodic nature and complexity of "Believe". It's more aggressive than the last record, and at times, more aggressive than the first one." The song "Overburdened" is about soldiers going to Hell. Draiman said that the song "Guarded" is about Draiman guarding himself from other people. He said the song "reflects what choosing this life forces certain people to do in a certain way — you have to remain guarded on a certain level." Draiman said the song "Ten Thousand Fists" is meant to "[signify] strength, unity, conviction, power, and the exhilaration that you feel when you get to see that at one of our shows." Draiman continued to say, "It's one of my favorite moments, and people know that I have an affinity for asking people to put their fists in the air, and it's just, it's exhilaration to be able to see ten thousand raised fists or more."
Political content.
According to band members, while "Ten Thousand Fists" was not written as a political album, it was their most political record to date. Vocalist David Draiman's lyrics for the title song, "Ten Thousand Fists", were heavily influenced by his feelings towards American president George W. Bush, and several of the songs included war/anti-war themes, including "Deify", for which the intro features audio clips of Bush urging the nation to push forward in war, interlaced with an individual's political commentary, while the video for "Land of Confusion" depicts big business and capitalism as being a corrupting Nazi-style enemy being overthrown by an army of the people led by The Guy, the band's mascot.
Critical reception.
"Ten Thousand Fists" earned mixed reviews from critics; it received a score of 59% on the review-aggregating website Metacritic, based on seven reviews. Allmusic reviewer Johnny Loftus gave the album a positive review; however, regarding the album's sound, he stated ""Ten Thousand Fists" does start to sound the same after a while." The Village Voice's reviewer Phil Freeman also gave the album a positive review, "The guitarist and drummer are an airtight team, and the session bassist capably underpins the guitar solos that are a welcome new addition to the band's sound. Program out the cover of 'Land of Confusion' and you've got the best mainstream metal release since Judas Priest's "Angel of Retribution"." "NME" gave it a 1/10 review describing it as "unfocused rage" and "you'll find nothing more despicable this year".
Track listing.
The UK and Tour editions of the album both feature four bonus tracks ("Monster", "Two Worlds", "Hell", and "Sickened"), the first of which was also included as an iTunes bonus track. All four songs are also included in the band's B-side compilation, "The Lost Children".
Personnel.
Disturbed
Session member
Production |
Subsets and Splits