Sorsa is regarded as one of Finland's most influential prime ministers, making major contributions to schools and health care, and increasing social security for families with children and pensioners. His governments strengthened the welfare state in Finland, by enacting many reforms—child care laws, longer maternity leave, the annual vacation benefit act, as well as the public health act.
In domestic politics, Sorsa had a particularly difficult relationship with Paavo Väyrynen, the strong-willed head of the Center Party. Another notable conflict was his rivalry with young rising politician Paavo Lipponen.
In June 1984, Sorsa gave a speech on "infocracy" (i.e. the power of the mass media) at the Social Democratic party convention. Infocracy challenges parliamentary democracy, is unintelligent and avoids discussing social problems, he said: it takes more interest in individual politicians than political issues and is never critical of its own actions.
Hyacinthe Henri Boncourt
Hyacinthe Henri Boncourt (1765? – March 23, 1840) was one of the leading chess players in France in the years between 1820 and 1840.
Not much is known about his life. The date of his birth, 1765, is based on a comment by an English chess player, George Walker, that in 1839 Boncourt was about 70 years old.
Boncourt learned how to play chess from students of the great Philidor, including Carlier, Bernard and Leger who often played at the Café de la Régence.
He was a civil servant, and chess was mostly a hobby for him. He got his best results after he was 60 years old, when after retiring from work, he could spend all his time playing to chess.
In 1818, for a brief period, he was one of the players hidden inside the chess machine, the Turk. At one time he was sick, and he did not play very well. While he was hiding inside the Turk, he could not stop coughing and he could be heard by people watching. After this, the owner of the Turk, Mälzel, added some noisy gears. This was simply to cover any noise coming from the person inside.
Aaron Alexandre
Aaron (Albert) Alexandre (, around 1765/68 in Hohenfeld, Franconia – 16 November 1850 in London, England) was a Jewish German–French–English chess player and writer.
Aaron Alexandre trained as a rabbi. He arrived in France in 1793. He taught German and was a mechanical inventor. He later became a full-time chess player. He wrote a book of all the known chess openings, the "Encyclopédie des échecs" ("Encyclopedia of Chess", Paris, 1837). In the book, he used the algebraic notation and the castling symbols 0–0 and 0–0–0.
His next book was about the endgame and a collection of about 2000 chess problems, which he published in 1846 as "Collection des plus beaux Problèmes d'Echecs", Paris. English and German translations: "Beauties of Chess", London, and "Praktische Sammlung bester Schachspiel-Probleme", Leipzig.
Both books became standard reference books, demonstrating Alexandre’s great technical knowledge. Alexandre was also one of the chess players who worked inside the chess playing machine, the Turk.
Stacey Abrams
Stacey Yvonne Abrams (born December 9, 1973) is an American politician, lawyer, romance novelist, and businesswoman. She was the house minority leader for the Georgia General Assembly and state representative for the 89th House District. She is a member of the Democratic Party.
Abrams was the Democratic nominee in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election, the first black female major party gubernatorial nominee in the United States. She narrowly lost the general election to Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who, as Secretary of State was in charge of the election and is widely thought to have manipulated the election in his favor by disenfranchising African-American voters.
In June 2018 Stacey Abrams joined the 9th annual Augusta Pride festival and talked about her campaign.
Abrams received a single vote from Rep. Kathleen Rice for the 2019 election for Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
In early February 2019, Abrams became the first African-American woman to deliver a State of the Union response to President Trump's earlier delivery.
Maryland Gazette
The Gazette, founded in 1727 as The Maryland Gazette, is one of the oldest newspapers in America. Its based of "The Capital,". It was bought by The Baltimore Sun Media Group in 2014. Before, it was owned by the Capital Gazette Communications group, which published "The Capital", "Bowie Blade-News", "Crofton-West County Gazette", and "Capital Style" Magazine.
The Capital
The Capital is a daily newspaper published in Annapolis since 1884. Its sister newspaper, "The Gazette", is one of the oldest newspapers in America.
"The Capital" serves the city of Annapolis, much of Anne Arundel County, and neighboring Kent Island in Queen Anne's County. "The Capital" was bought by The Baltimore Sun Media Group in 2014.
William Lewis (chess player)
William Lewis (1787–1870) was an English chess player and author. He is best known for the Lewis Countergambit and for being the first player ever to be described as a Grandmaster of the game.
Born in Birmingham, William Lewis moved to London where he worked for a merchant. He became a student of chess player Jacob Sarratt. In later years he showed himself to be very unkind to his old teacher. He said Sarratt's "Treatise on the Game of Chess" (1808) was a "poorly written book". But in 1822 three years after Sarrat died, Lewis published a second edition of it. This was in competition with a much better revision by Sarrat published in 1821 by Sarratt's poverty-stricken widow. In 1843, many players gave money to help the old widow, but Lewis' name is not on the list.
Around 1819 Lewis was the hidden player inside the Turk, a fake chess playing machine. He told Johann Maelzel that Peter Unger Williams, also a student of Sarratt, should be the next person to operate inside the machine. Maezel took his advice and Williams replaced Lewis.
Lewis began writing books including translations of the works of Greco and Carrera, published in 1819 and 1822.
He was the leading English player in a game played by letters sent between London and Edinburgh in 1824, won by the Scots. He wrote a book on the match with analysis of the games. In 1834–36 he was on the Committee of the Westminster Chess Club. They lost games played by letter with the Paris Chess Club. The other players were his students McDonnell and Walker, while the French team included Boncourt, Alexandre, St. Amant and Chamouillet. When De La Bourdonnais visited England in 1825, Lewis played about 70 games with the French master.
Lewis was known as a famous chess player in his time. The weekly magazine "Bell's Life" in 1838 called him "our past grandmaster", the first known use of the term in chess. In 1825 he began a chess club where he taught people to play the game. He wrote two books on how to play chess, the Series of Progressive Lessons (1831) and Second Series of Progressive Lessons (1832).
Lewis's books, and those of his teacher Sarratt, were based on reworking Philidor's ideas to those of the Modenese school of Del Rio, Lolli and Ponziani. Lewis gradually stopped playing competition chess.
After his retirement he wrote other chess books, but he was no longer up to date with new ideas. The Oxford Chess Companion said his last book, "A Treatise on Chess" (1844), was already "out of date when published".
Mod (video games)
A video game mod is a change made to a video game. The word "mod" is short for "modification." A mod can be a change to any part of a game, including how it sounds, how it plays, the way it looks, or anything else. They are usually created by fans of a game instead of the people who made the original game. Mods are usually put on the internet for free when they are released.