He was killed as a main target during the Night of the Long Knives by the SS. Hitler justified his actions the next day by announcing that Von Schleicher and Ernst Röhm were plotting to overthrow him. His wife, Elizabeth, was also killed in the attack.
Vienna Philharmonic
The Vienna Philharmonic (in German: die Wiener Philharmoniker) is an orchestra based in Vienna, Austria. It is thought of as one of the greatest orchestras in the world.
The orchestra play in a concert hall called the Musikverein. Before becoming a member of the Vienna Philharmonic the musicians have to work for at least three years in the opera house (the Vienna State Opera). Then they are allowed to try to become a member of the Vienna Philharmonic.
The orchestra started in 1842, when Otto Nicolai formed the "Philharmonische Academie". The members of this orchestra made all the decisions about how the orchestra should be organized, and the orchestra still works in this way today.
When Nicolai left in 1847, the orchestra nearly came to an end. They did not play very much until 1860, when Karl Anton Eckert joined as conductor. Since then, the orchestra has given concerts all the time.
From 1875 to 1898 Hans Richter was principal conductor, except for the season 1882-1883 when he had an argument with the orchestral committee. During the time Richter was conductor the orchestra gave the first performances of several very famous works, including Symphonies no 2 and 3 by Brahms and Symphony no 8 by Anton Bruckner.
Gustav Mahler was their conductor from 1898 to 1901. During this time the orchestra played abroad for the first time. They played at the 1900 Paris World Exposition. The next conductors of the orchestra were Felix Weingartner, Wilhelm Furtwängler and Clemens Krauss.
Since 1933, the orchestra has not had one main conductor, but instead it has many guest conductors who have stayed for short periods. These have included a great many of the world's best known conductors, including Richard Strauss, Arturo Toscanini, Hans Knappertsbusch, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Karl Böhm, John Barbirolli, Herbert von Karajan, Carlo Maria Giulini, Georg Solti, Erich Kleiber, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Carlos Kleiber, Leonard Bernstein, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Pierre Boulez, Lorin Maazel, Mariss Jansons, Daniel Barenboim and Valery Gergiev. Three conductors, however, gave many concerts with the orchestra during the period after World War II: Karajan and Böhm, who were made honorary conductors, and Bernstein, who was made an honorary member of the orchestra.
Since 1941 the orchestra has played the New Year's Day concert every January 1, in their concert hall Musikverein. The concert is dedicated to the music of the Strauss family composers, especially Johann Strauss II. The concert is watched on television by people all over the world.
In recent years the orchestra has been criticised because they did not allow women to become full members of the orchestra. This is now gradually starting to change. They were also criticised for racism because they only took people who were white. In 2001 they appointed a violinist who was half-Asian.
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (in German: Gewandhausorchester Leipzig or just Gewandhausorchester) is a famous German orchestra based in Leipzig, Germany. It is named after the concert hall in which it is based, the Gewandhaus (pronounce: “Ge-VANT-house”). The word “Gewandhaus” means "Textiles Hall". It is a hall that originally was used for people to buy and sell textiles.
The beginnings of the orchestra go back to 1743, when a society called the "Grosses Concert" began performing in private homes. In 1744 the "Grosses Concert" moved its concerts to the "Three Swans" Tavern. Their concerts continued there for 36 years. Gradually more and more people started to complain about the noise and the behaviour in the tavern, so in 1780 the mayor and city council of Leipzig offered to let the orchestra use part of the Gewandhaus, the building where the merchants were selling textiles. The orchestra gave its first concert in the Gewandhaus in 1781. It is the oldest orchestra in Germany, apart from private orchestras who belonged to rich people.
In 1835 the great composer Felix Mendelssohn became the orchestra's main conductor (music director). He was called the "Gewandhauskapellmeister". He kept this position, apart from one year, until his death in 1847. In 1885, the orchestra moved into a new hall which was given the same name. This was destroyed by bombing in World War II in 1944. The present Gewandhaus is the third building with the name. It was opened in 1981.
The orchestra gives concerts in Leipzig and all over the world, and makes many recordings. They also play at the Thomaskirche, the church where Johann Sebastian Bach used to work, and as the official opera orchestra of the Leipzig Opera.
Later principal conductors included Arthur Nikisch, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Bruno Walter, and Václav Neumann. From 1970 to 1996, Kurt Masur was Gewandhauskapellmeister. From 1998 to 2005 their conductor was Herbert Blomstedt.
In 2005, Riccardo Chailly took over as both Gewandhauskapellmeister and music director of the Leipzig Opera. They have released recordings on the Decca label of Felix Mendelssohn, Johannes Brahms, and the Robert Schumann symphonies in the re-orchestrations by Gustav Mahler.
Troll (internet)
A troll is someone who tries to make people mad by saying things on the Internet. The purpose is to excite strong emotion in an online community. This is to get a reaction from other online users, or to cause problems. In social networks platforms, troll is a user who make inflammatory or inappropriate comments for the sole purpose of upsetting other users and provoking a response.
Sometimes trolling can get a user banned as it can be disruptive. Some users do it to be humorous when they know others will be angry. The best solution is to ignore trolls and to not give them the attention they want. This has become known as "don't feed the trolls". It can also mean destroying other people's stuff on online video games (specifically Minecraft) or "spawn killing" which is when a player in a war game "kills" another player repeatedly after they re-spawn but before they have a chance to fight back. This is sometimes called "griefing" because trolls cause grief and make them sad or angry.
On websites such as Encyclopedia Dramatica where trolling is welcomed, users can troll without fear of being banned.
In October 2012, the internet news site Gawker, publicly revealed the name of an internet troll who had called himself "Violentacrez". Michael Brutcsh had collected photos of young girls from Facebook, often in bikinis or short skirts, and them posted them on the site Reddit. He also posted photos of women, taken without their permission, which focused on their breasts or bottoms. His actions made many people very angry. Brutsch said he was an internet troll because "...I just like riling people up in my spare time."
There are a lot of efforts to detect and ban trolls on social networks platform such as "TrollSpot" in which Li a user of the website and other members of the team whom are also users of the social media website use machine learning techniques or whats known as a computer robobt to propose a comprehensive approach to detect trolls.
Wikipedia takes a very tough stance on trolls. Any recent changes made to a Wikipedia page is automatically displayed on a list and volunteers and administrators look over the page and determines if the change is acceptable.
Santalales
Santalales is an order of flowering plants. It has eight families, 151 genera, and about 1,000 species. All the families in Santalales are parasitic to some degree. They attach either to the roots or branches of their hosts.
Chivalry