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1,301,830 | Half-Life: Decay | 1,155,438,259 | 2001 video game | [
"2001 video games",
"Alien invasions in video games",
"Cooperative video games",
"First-person shooters",
"Gearbox Software games",
"Half-Life (series)",
"PlayStation 2 games",
"PlayStation 2-only games",
"Science fiction video games",
"Valve Corporation games",
"Video game expansion packs",
"Video games about zombies",
"Video games developed in the United States",
"Video games featuring female protagonists",
"Video games set in New Mexico",
"Video games set in laboratories",
"Video games set in the 2000s",
"Video games set in the United States"
]
| Half-Life: Decay is a multiplayer-only expansion pack for Valve's first-person shooter Half-Life. Developed by Gearbox Software and published by Sierra On-Line, Decay was released as part of the PlayStation 2 version of Half-Life in 2001. It is the third expansion pack for Half-Life, and like its predecessors, Decay returns to the setting and timeline of the original story, albeit portraying the story from the viewpoint of a different set of protagonists: two female scientists working in the Black Mesa Research Facility. Decay is a cooperative multiplayer game, designed to be played by two people working together to pass through the game's levels.
Decay was not a critical success, but was received with some positivity by video game journalists. Many reviewers felt the game was best when played with other players, but that its more puzzle-oriented gameplay somewhat detracted from the overall experience. A number of reviews stated that the game simply felt like little more than an extra add-on for the PlayStation 2 version of Half-Life.
## Gameplay
As is the case with the other games in the Half-Life series, Decay is a first-person shooter. Like the original title it is based on, Decay requires players to engage in combat with hostile non-player characters and complete various puzzle solving tasks to advance through the game. However, Decay differs from Half-Life and its first two expansion packs, Opposing Force and Blue Shift, in that it is designed for cooperative multiplayer gameplay. This requires players to work together to progress through the game's levels and complete puzzles as they arise in-game. Although intended to be played by two people in split screen mode, Decay can still be played by a single player. In this case, the player can only control one character at a time, and can switch between the two characters quickly. When not in use, a character has sufficient artificial intelligence to defend themselves, but otherwise does not move from where they have been left by the player.
In Half-Life, players usually fight alone and only occasionally encounter friendly non-player characters who assist them, such as security guards and scientists. While Decay still features levels where this is the case, significant sections in Decay are dedicated to working with friendly non-player characters, usually escorting them to various objectives and protecting them in firefights. An array of enemy characters from Half-Life populate the game, including alien lifeforms such as headcrabs and Vortigaunts, as well as human soldiers sent in to contain the alien threat. The players have access to a limited selection of Half-Life's weaponry to assist them in the game. Although developed after Opposing Force, no non-player characters or weapons from the earlier expansion appear in Decay.
The game is unique in the context of the Half-Life series in that it is the only game divided into separate missions, each with a specific objective to pursue, instead of consisting of a single unbroken narrative. How players perform in each mission is ranked at the conclusion of the level as a grade from "A" to "F". This score is based on each player's accuracy with weapons, the number of kills they acquired and the amount of damage they sustained during the course of the mission. Should players successfully complete the game's nine missions with "A" grades on every level, they are given access to a bonus cooperative mission, in which they can play as a pair of Vortigaunts, as well as the ability to play through the PlayStation 2 version of the original Half-Life as a Vortigaunt.
## Plot
Decay is set in the same location and timeframe as Half-Life. Half-Life takes place at a laboratory called the Black Mesa Research Facility, situated in a remote desert in New Mexico. In Half-Life, the player takes on the role of Gordon Freeman, a scientist involved in an accident that opens an inter-dimensional portal to the borderworld of Xen, allowing the alien creatures of Xen to attack the facility. The player guides Freeman in an attempt to escape the facility and close the portal, ultimately traveling to Xen to do so. Like the previous expansions, Decay shows the story of Half-Life from the perspective of a different set of protagonists. In Decay, players assume the roles of Colette Green and Gina Cross, two doctors who work in the same labs as Freeman, analyzing anomalous materials and specimens retrieved from Xen in prior teleportation experiments. After the experiment that causes the alien invasion takes place, Green and Cross must work with two ranking members of the science team, Dr. Richard Keller and Dr. Rosenberg, to contain and stabilize the deteriorating situation in Black Mesa.
Decay begins with Gina Cross and Colette Green arriving at the Anomalous Materials Labs at Black Mesa and reporting to Dr. Keller, who is readying the day's analysis of an unknown specimen. Despite the objections of Dr. Rosenberg to pushing the analysis equipment beyond its design capacities, Cross and Green are assigned to assist setting up the experiment for Gordon Freeman. When Freeman inserts the specimen into the scanning beam, however, it triggers a "resonance cascade", causing massive damage to the facility and teleporting alien creatures into the base. Keller and Rosenberg agree that Black Mesa cannot deal with the situation on its own, and so decide to call for military assistance. Cross and Green escort Rosenberg to the surface, where he sends a distress signal to the military. However, the military are ordered not only to contain the situation, but to silence the base by killing its employees. Rosenberg elects to stay behind to meet with the military on arrival and Cross and Green return to Keller.
Once reunited with Keller, Cross and Green work to seal the dimensional tear to stop the invasion. The military arrive and try to remove all personnel as well as the alien force. After resetting key equipment to prevent a second dimensional rift, the two are tasked with preparing a satellite for launch. The satellite, which is launched by Freeman in Half-Life, is used in tandem with ground-based equipment to significantly weaken the effects of the resonance cascade. Keller tasks Cross and Green with activating this set of prototype equipment, a displacement beacon, which through the satellite may be able to seal the dimensional rift. However, after activating the beacon, both characters are caught up in a "harmonic reflux", a distortion caused by the rift. Despite this, Cross and Green are able to return safely and Keller congratulates them on their success.
The unlockable vortigaunt mission provides background information explaining how the orange crystals used by the rift-sealing machine in Half Life: Decay are acquired and used by the Nihilanth during the final boss battle in Half Life. The two player-controlled vortigaunts battle through Marines and Black Ops in the underground Black Mesa complex to find the orange crystals in the back of a military van. At this point the screen fades and the mission is declared a success; it is presumed that the Nihilanth warps them back to Xen and installs the crystals in his cave.
## Development
A cooperative Half-Life game was first alluded to by publisher Sierra On-Line in November 2000 with the announcement of a PlayStation 2 version of Half-Life. At the time, however, it was unclear how a cooperative version of Half-Life would be implemented; the developers, Gearbox Software, were still experimenting with finding the most balanced number of players to build a cooperative game around. By E3 2001, the game had acquired the title Decay, named after the scientific concept of exponential decay for consistency with the scientific names used by previous Half-Life titles. While the E3 convention only provided a demonstration of the main Half-Life PlayStation 2 game, further details were released relating to Decay's premise and story, as well as confirming that the cooperative mode was to be designed for two players. The game's use of new model sets were also showcased. These new models were updated versions of Gearbox's High Definition pack for Blue Shift, featuring higher numbers of polygons and animation features such as facial expressions. The enhanced models were around twice as detailed as those in the High Definition pack, which itself was of a much higher quality than the original models in Half-Life. Media updates through the months following E3 showed various screenshots and the trailer to the game. On August 18, 2001, Sierra announced that Decay was nearly complete, and would be submitted to PlayStation 2 manufacturer Sony for verification within days. The entire Half-Life for PlayStation 2 package achieved gold status on October 30, 2001, and the game was released on November 14, 2001.
In October 2005, work was begun by a group of Ukrainian developers to port Decay over to Windows, as a modification for both the old World Opponent Network and current Steam versions of Half-Life. The port relied on the discovery of a method that allowed Decay's PS2 game files to be converted to Windows version of the game. The port went into the beta development stage in December 2007 and was released publicly on September 23, 2008. The port was received well by the journalists in the industry; GameSpy site Planet Half-Life noted that it was a shame that an official PC version of Decay never emerged, while British journalist Alec Meer stated that it was "fantastic to have this short but sweet lost Half-Life episode on PC at last, and it even has something the PS2 version didn't—online play".
## Reception
Decay received a weak but overall positive reception from the video games industry's critics. Writing for GameSpot, Doug Radcliffe argued that Decay was "impressive", praising the design of puzzles required players to work together, as well as the way in which the ranking system discouraged players from competing against each other. GameSpy's David Hodgson was more reserved in his views of the game; although describing it as "great fun", he noted that it could become "tedious, with one member waiting for minutes at a time, while the other scratches their head, then completes an objective". In addition, Hodgson felt that the more puzzle-orientated nature of Decay left the action elements "a little muted compared to Gordon's single player quest". Allgame described Decay as an "added bonus" for the PlayStation 2 version of Half-Life, but noted that as the game was designed for two players, it significantly suffered when a single player attempts to play it by switching between two characters, a point that both GameSpy and GameSpot agreed on. In his review for IGN, critic Doug Perry felt that Decay was "neat in its own limited way", but that it was more of a distraction from the main game, more "a complementary cup of vegetable soup than a piping hot main dish of New York steak". While The Electric Playground reviewer Steve Smith stated that the control scheme for the PlayStation 2 version of Half-Life "is about the best we have seen on the PS2 or any console", he concluded that although Decay was a "nice add-on", it was "no reason to buy this port". |
62,588,043 | Psycho (Red Velvet song) | 1,166,358,589 | 2019 single by Red Velvet | [
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"Korean-language songs",
"Number-one singles in Singapore",
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| "Psycho" is a song that was recorded by South Korean girl group Red Velvet and was released as the lead single from their first compilation album The ReVe Festival: Finale (2019), which is the third and final installment in the group's album trilogy The ReVe Festival. The song was composed by Andrew Scott, Cazzi Opeia, and EJAE; was arranged by Druski and long-time SM Entertainment record producer Yoo Young-jin; and the Korean lyrics were written by Kenzie. "Psycho" is an R&B track that incorporates elements of pop, trap and future bass, and is about a couple who are in a complicated romantic relationship. A gothic-themed music video accompanied the single's digital release on December 23, 2019.
"Psycho" received positive reviews from music critics for its "smooth and sultry" delivery and its "haunting", "catchy yet structured" production. Though released at the end of 2019, critics cited the single as one of the best K-pop songs of that year. The song charted at number one in Singapore and in North America, where it was the group's second number-one song on the Billboard World Digital Songs chart and tied them with 2NE1 as the girl groups with the most top-10 entries on the ranking. It peaked at number two in Malaysia and for three consecutive weeks on South Korea's Gaon Digital Chart, giving Red Velvet their 12th domestic top-10 entry. The song also charted at number 10 on the New Zealand Hot Singles chart, and spent one week at number 99 on the component UK Singles Downloads Chart, marking the group's UK chart debut.
## Background and release
Following Red Velvet's third concert La Rouge in November 2019, SM Entertainment revealed two teaser posters on social media at 00:00 on December 12 that year, along with an official press release that confirmed Finale would conclude Red Velvet's "Music Festival" trilogy throughout 2019. Two days later, the first batch of teaser photographs were posted on the group's official social media accounts, including "Psycho" as the lead single for this release. The song's instrumental intro was also revealed on their official Instagram account before a 17-second video teaser for the song was uploaded to the official SM Town YouTube channel. The music video was released the following day.
## Composition
"Psycho" was written by American record producer Andrew Scott, Korean producer EJAE, and their frequent Swedish collaborator Cazzi Opeia during a 2018 songwriting camp in Seoul, South Korea. Following a conversation between the three composers about a breakup in which "being heartbroken is almost like feeling psycho", they started working the idea into a song. Having acknowledged Red Velvet's dual sonic concepts, in which "Red" refers to the group's mild and vibrant image, and "Velvet" refers to their smooth R&B side, Scott wanted to "blend the two" concepts together. Opeia recorded a demo version in English that was leaked on the Internet weeks before the song's release; songwriter Kenzie the rewrote the lyrics in Korean with additional arrangement from producer Druski and Yoo Young-jin, the latter of whom co-produced the group's previous single "Bad Boy" in 2018.
Musically, "Psycho" has been described as an up-tempo urban song; Tamar Herman of Billboard described it as an R&B-pop track with future bass, a "grandiose operatic" instrumental intro with "dramatic" pizzicato strings, "classical" chords and trap beats, squelching synthesizers, which made it the group's seventh single to fall under the "Velvet" concept. According to Scott, the chorus contains the syncopation of hi-hats that is combined with the drum line to maintain the song's pace. It was composed in the key of Eb major with a tempo of 140 beats per minute. The group's vocals span two octaves, from the low note of G3 to the high-note of G5. A slightly different version of the song was used for the music video; the chorus has an additional synth line and the pre-chorus included a string melody, elements that were omitted from the digital and streaming version. The song's lyrics tell the story of a relationship that is "full of ups and downs" in which a couple "fights so much that they appear crazy in the eyes of others but are nonetheless meant for each other" and eventually assure the listener "we're gonna be alright".
## Commercial performance
"Psycho" debuted at number two on South Korea's Gaon Digital Chart for the period December 22–28, 2019, the year's final chart; rapper Changmo's "Meteor" blocked it from reaching number one for three consecutive weeks. The song entered the Monthly Digital Chart for December at number 31 and peaked at number three on the January 2020 issue. It topped the Gaon Download Chart for two weeks, giving the group their sixth number-one song on the chart, and peaked at number two for two weeks on the component Streaming Chart. The song entered the Billboard K-Pop Hot 100 at number nine on the chart issue dated December 28, 2019.
On the chart issue dated January 1, 2020, "Psycho" peaked at number two, where it remained for two consecutive weeks. In November 2020, the song received platinum certification from the Korea Music Content Association for surpassing 100 million streams. "Psycho" was the ninth-best performing single of 2020 on Gaon's Year-end Digital Chart, and the only one by an idol group to appear in the top ten.
On the week of January 4, 2020, "Psycho" debuted at number one on the US Billboard World Digital Songs Chart, giving Red Velvet their second US number-one song following their 2018 single "RBB (Really Bad Boy)". This made them one of the nine K-pop artists to top the chart more than once, and the fourth girl group to do this. Moreover, "Psycho" became Red Velvet's 16th top-ten entry, thus tying with 2NE1 as the South Korean girl groups with the most top-ten entries on the chart. The song also became Red Velvet's second entry on the New Zealand Hot Singles chart after "Zimzalabim", entering at number 10 for the week of December 30, 2019. It also debuted at number 99 on the UK Singles Downloads Chart, where it spent one week, becoming their first song to appear on a UK component chart.
## Live performances
Red Velvet delivered their first live performance of "Psycho" at the ReVe Festival FINALE Party on December 22, 2019, which premiered exclusively on V Live. The group's attendance at the annual SBS Gayo Daejeon for the debut television performance of the single was confirmed on 25 December but vocalist Wendy was injured during rehearsals and a pre-recorded performance was aired instead. The group subsequently performed as a quartet, and covered all of Wendy's parts, at the 29th Seoul Music Awards on January 30, 2020. "Psycho" was also included in Red Velvet's three-song set for the SMTOWN Live Culture Humanity online live concert on January 1, 2021.
## Critical reception
Following its initial release, music critics gave "Psycho" positive reviews. Tamar Herman of Billboard magazine said the track is "smooth and sultry in its delivery". In an individual song review, writer Kim Do-hyun of IZM said the track is "an upgraded version" of "Bad Boy" and praised the balancing of "a great melody, interesting themes and performance" that crafted "a good song" and rated it three-and-a-half stars out of five. Refinery29's Natalie Morin wrote the song has "all the charm and swagger of ...'Bad Boy' but with an updated, sophisticated glow". In an interview with the song's producer in February 2020, writer Yim Hyun-su of The Korea Herald described "Psycho" as a "catchy earworm" and said Red Velvet "shows no signs of stopping anytime soon".
Despite being released in December, "Psycho" appeared on several year-end music lists as one of the best K-pop releases of 2019. Billboard ranked it at number 18 on their critics-pick list. L'Officiel Malaysia cited "Psycho" as one of 14 definitive K-pop songs of 2019 and called it a "go-to track to sing in the shower". Online magazine Whole Tone described "Psycho" as "the track that has created the most impressive spot among K-pop works released over the past year" and put it at number one on their list. "Psycho" was also placed at number one on Paper's list "The 40 Best K-Pop Songs of 2020".
## Accolades
Despite Red Velvet not attending nor performing on any television music show, "Psycho" won nine music-show trophies by January 2020, became the group's second most-awarded title track in a tie with their 2017 single "Rookie", and was their first song to achieve triple-crown status on all three national television channels, namely Music Bank, Show! Music Core and Inkigayo. The song also achieved two consecutive Melon Weekly Popularity Awards.
### Awards
## Music video
### Background
The accompanying music video for "Psycho" was directed by video director O, whom previously worked on the music video for "Umpah Umpah". The music video for "Psycho" was premiered on December 23, 2019, to coincide with the release of the song and that of Finale. Prior to its premiere date, the music video was teased with a series of short videos showing each group member in a "glam" and "gothic-themed" scenario. The music video was choreographed by Mina Myoung of 1MILLION and Bailey Sok.
### Synopsis and reception
The music video for "Psycho" is set in a Victorian Gothic scene. In the video, the members of Red Velvet sing about the alternating moods of a relationship. Following the music video's release, Tamar Herman of Billboard described it as "a modern take: on the elegant, yet festive, flair of flappers with lace and feather looks", praising the video for being "glam". Writer Morin noted the video's "gorgeous A24-esque indie classic" aesthetic. Red Velvet released a performance video for "Psycho" on January 8, 2020, and also released a live performance of the song during a fan-meeting party on January 13 of that year. On March 26, 2020, the music video for the track reached 100 million views on YouTube in 91 days and 7 hours, which is the shortest time in which a Red Velvet video had accrued that many views. By November 17, 2020, the track's music video had gained 200 million views on YouTube, which is the second of the group's videos to reach the 200 million view milestone, achieving it in 10 months and 24 days.
## Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of The ReVe Festival: Finale.
Studio
- Recorded at SM SSAM Studio
- Engineered for mix at SM LYVIN Studio
- Mixed at SM Concert Hall Studio
Personnel
- Red Velvet (Irene, Seulgi, Wendy, Joy, Yeri) – vocals, background vocals
- Kenzie – lyrics, vocal directing
- Andrew Scott – composition
- Cazzi Opeia – composition, background vocals
- EJAE – composition, background vocals
- Druski – arrangement
- Yoo Young-jin – arrangement, music and sound supervisor
- No Min-ji – recording
- Jung Yu-ra – digital editing
- Lee Ji-hong – mixing engineer
- Nam Koong-jin – mixing
## Certifications
! colspan="3" \| Streaming \|-
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Monthly charts
### Year-end charts
## Release history
## See also
- List of number-one songs of 2020 (Singapore)
- List of Music Bank Chart winners (2020)
- List of Show! Music Core Chart winners (2020)
- List of Inkigayo Chart winners (2020)
- List of certified songs in South Korea |
19,883,985 | USS West Lianga | 1,152,186,555 | Cargo ship for the United States Navy | [
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| USS West Lianga (ID-2758) was a cargo ship for the United States Navy during World War I. She was later known as SS Helen Whittier and SS Kalani in civilian service under American registry, as SS Empire Cheetah under British registry, and as SS Hobbema under Dutch registry.
West Lianga was launched for the United States Shipping Board (USSB) in May 1918 as a part of the West boats, a series of steel-hulled cargo ships built on the West Coast of the United States for the World War I war effort. West Lianga briefly had the distinction of being the fastest-launched and fastest-completed ocean-going ship in the world. Pressed into cargo service for the US Navy, USS West Lianga was commissioned into the Naval Overseas Transportation Service (NOTS) and completed four round-trip voyages to France for the Navy. After decommissioning in mid 1919, she was briefly in cargo service out of Seattle before being laid up in late 1921.
West Lianga was sold to the Los Angeles Steamship Company (LASSCO) in early 1929, refurbished, and renamed Helen Whittier for intercoastal cargo service. When Matson Navigation Company purchased LASSCO in 1931, Helen Whittier frequently sailed on Matson's Hawaiian sugar routes. She was renamed Kalani in 1938 and continued in Hawaiian service until 1940 when she was sold to British interests to help fill the United Kingdom's urgent need for merchant ships.
After sailing to the UK as Kalani, the ship was renamed Empire Cheetah and sailed in transatlantic convoys, making three round trips between February 1941 and May 1942. At that time, Empire Cheetah was transferred to Dutch interests and renamed Hobbema. She successfully completed one transatlantic roundtrip under Dutch registry and was on the homeward leg of her second in Convoy SC 107, when that convoy was attacked by a wolf pack of German submarines. Shortly after midnight on 4 November 1942, Hobbema was struck in the engine room by a single torpedo fired by German submarine U-132. Of Hobbema's complement of 44 men and British gunners aboard, only 16 survived the attack. Hobbema was one of 19 Allied ships in the convoy sunk by German submarines. The sinking of Hobbema (or possibly Hatimura, also sunk by U-132 at the same time) resulted in one of the largest non-nuclear man-made explosions in history, with the German submarine also destroyed by the ensuing explosion.
## Design and construction
The West ships were cargo ships of similar size and design built by several shipyards on the West Coast of the United States for the USSB for emergency use during World War I. All were given names that began with the word West, like West Lianga, one of some 24 West ships built by Skinner & Eddy of Seattle, Washington. West Lianga (Skinner & Eddy No. 21; USSB No. 1176) was laid down on 14 February 1918. When she was launched on 20 April with an elapsed time of 55 working days—65 calendar days—from keel laying to launch, it was reported in the New York Times as a new world-record.
When all remaining post-launch work on West Lianga was completed and she was delivered on 4 May, 67 working days after her keel laying, it was another world record for ocean-going vessels. By 1920, West Lianga still counted as the third-fastest delivery, behind two ships that were over one-third smaller than West Lianga. Shipbuilder Skinner & Eddy received a \$71,600 bonus (\$ million today) for completing West Lianga early.
West Lianga was 5,673 gross register tons (GRT), and was 409 feet 5 inches (124.79 m) long (between perpendiculars) and 54 feet 2 inches (16.51 m) abeam. West Lianga had a steel hull and a deadweight tonnage of . The ship had a single steam turbine that drove her single screw propeller which moved the ship at an 11.5-knot (21.3 km/h) pace.
## World War I
West Lianga's activities after her 4 May delivery to the USSB are not entirely clear. Many West ships, to avoid sailing empty to the East Coast, loaded grain products intended for the United Kingdom, France, and Italy and sailed to Europe without unloading or transferring their cargo, but it is not known whether West Lianga did so or not. Whatever her early activities, West Lianga was handed over to the United States Navy at Brooklyn in August 1918 and assigned the identification number 2758. USS West Lianga was commissioned into the NOTS on 19 August.
At New York, West Lianga took on a load of 6,882 tons of materiel for the United States Army and a deck-load of 32 trucks and departed for France in a convoy. After unloading her cargo at Bordeaux, she returned to New York on 16 October. After voyage repairs, she loaded another 6,685 tons of cargo for the Quartermaster Corps and departed for Europe on 3 November. West Lianga was en route to France when the Armistice that ended fighting was signed on 11 November. West Lianga delivered her cargo to Saint-Nazaire and took on a load of 1,700 tons for delivery to the United States. After departing from France on 21 December, West Lianga arrived at New York on 4 January 1919.
After shifting to New Orleans and taking on a load of cargo there, West Lianga began her third voyage to France. After making her delivery at Brest, the cargo ship took on a load of steel rails and sand as ballast and sailed for Newport News, Virginia, where she arrived on 21 March. She loaded railroad supplies for the Quartermaster Corps and sailed on 4 April on what would be her final NOTS trip to France. After delivery at La Pallice, West Lianga returned to New York on 10 June. Two weeks later, she was decommissioned, struck from the Navy list, and returned to the USSB.
## Interwar career
After her return to the USSB in June 1919, West Lianga returned to Seattle and was based out of there for several years of operation. The United States Official Number 216274 was allocated. On 7 September 1921, the ship was laid up in the reserve fleet at Norfolk. On 19 February 1929, the USSB sold West Lianga to the LASSCO for \$100,000 on the basis of unrestricted operation. LASSCO, which announced plans for a \$50,000 overhaul and reconditioning of the ship for operation on its Arrow Line intercoastal cargo service, paid ten percent in cash and signed a note for the balance to be paid over the next ten years.
On 12 March, LASSCO changed West Lianga's port of registry from Seattle to Los Angeles, and on 26 March, announced that the ship had been renamed Helen Whittier after the daughter of California oil pioneer Max Whittier. The Code Letters LKQR were allocated. LASSCO also announced that Helen Whittier, to be operated by Sudden and Christenson Steamship Company for LASSCO, was scheduled to sail from Baltimore on 25 April to begin her intercoastal service.
Helen Whittier's activities over the next two years were not recorded in contemporary newspaper accounts, but she was affected by the absorption of LASSCO into its former competitor, Matson Navigation Company, on 1 January 1931. In late August 1931, Helen Whittier was added to Matson's Hawaiian sugar service to Gulf Coast and North Atlantic ports.
Helen Whittier had returned to intercoastal service by early 1934 when The New York Times reported that she had sailed from San Francisco on 23 March and arrived at New York on 25 April. In June that same year, Helen Whittier was one of the Matson ships added to carry food cargo to Hawaii. Shipments of food from the mainland—which accounted for up to 90% of Hawaii's needs—had been curtailed as a coastwise strike had affected all ports except Los Angeles. Helen Whittier sailed on her first food delivery on 23 June with 2,500 tons of food from Los Angeles to Honolulu.
During 1935, her Code Letters were changed to LKAO. In February 1935, Helen Whittier was returned to the Hawaiian sugar service full-time. During her time on this service, Helen Whittier often called at New York. One typical voyage, as tracked in The New York Times, began when she departed New York on 23 November for Honolulu, passed through the Panama Canal on 4 December, and arrived at Honolulu. Helen Whittier departed there on 11 January 1936 and arrived at New York again on 16 February. Occasionally, Helen Whittier would make side trips to Baltimore for voyage repairs between her arrival at New York and her next departure for Hawaii. The cargo ship continued her Honolulu – New York service through September 1936.
In 1938, Matson renamed the ship Kalani, and continued using her in Hawaiian service through 1940. On 15 July 1940, Matson received the permission of the United States Maritime Commission (USMC), a successor to the USSB, to sell Kalani to Sir R. Ropner & Co., Ltd., of West Hartlepool. Six days after the approval, Kalani, now under British registry, departed from Los Angeles for New York.
## World War II
Kalani, acquired to fill the United Kingdom's urgent need for merchant vessels, was operated by Ropner under the authority of the Ministry of War Transport. After departing Panama on 4 August, Kalani arrived at New York on 13 August. Kalani shuttled between New York, Albany, and Boston, ending up at Baltimore on 25 August. Sailing from there on 15 September with a load of pig iron, she arrived at Halifax five days later. She departed from Halifax for Liverpool as a part of convoy HX 78 on 4 October but had to turn back and put in at Sydney, Nova Scotia. Kalani set out again on 15 October as a part of Convoy SC 8, a Sydney – Liverpool convoy. Kalani departed the convoy and arrived at Clyde on 31 October.
### Empire Cheetah
Kalani was renamed Empire Cheetah on 12 November, two weeks into a three-and-a-half-month stay at Clyde. Her port of registry was London. The United Kingdom Official Number 168041 and Code Letters GMJT were allocated. Empire Cheetah departed on her first transatlantic voyage under her new name when she sailed with convoy OB 288 on 18 February 1941. After the convoy came under attack by German bombers and the convoy escorts departed, the convoy dispersed. Although nine convoy ships were sunk by six German and two Italian submarines on 23–24 February, Empire Cheetah safely reached her destination of Philadelphia on 10 March.
After taking on a load of steel, Empire Cheetah sailed for Halifax, and then on to Newport, Monmouthshire, as a part of convoy HX 122, arriving on 9 May. She sailed for Swansea on 27 May, and on to Milford Haven on 9 June. On 26 June, she sailed as a part of convoy OB 339 but put back into Milford Haven with defects. Empire Cheetah tried again as a part of convoy OB 343 on 6 July but had to return once again, putting in at Clyde on 9 July.
After a month at Clyde, Empire Cheetah set out a third time for North America in convoy ON 7 which, although dispersed mid-ocean, lost no ships to submarines. Empire Cheetah successfully reached her destination of Boston on 3 September. From there she made her way to Philadelphia on 3 October, and on to Sydney on 23 October. There she joined convoy SC 51 sailing for Holyhead and Manchester the same day with a cargo of grain, steel, and cotton. She arrived at Holyhead on 8 November, but departed for Liverpool three days later. After returning to Holyhead later in the month, Empire Cheetah sailed in convoy BB 106 to Barry, where she arrived on 1 December.
Empire Cheetah spent two and a half months at Barry before sailing to Swansea on 14 February 1942. Heading to Milford Haven on 23 February, she sailed the next day as a part of convoy ON 70 headed to Portland, Maine, where she safely arrived on 20 March after an intermediate stop at Halifax from 15 to 18 March. Four days later, Empire Cheetah sailed for Boston. She departed Boston on 12 April for Halifax and departed from there in convoy SC 80 five days later for Hull with a general cargo. Empire Cheetah arrived at Loch Ewe on 2 May and sailed the next day for Methil. After arriving at Methil on 6 May, she headed to her destination of Hull on 7 May.
### Hobbema
On 18 May at Hull, Empire Cheetah was transferred to the Dutch government and assigned to the Netherlands Shipping & Trading Committee. The ship's name was changed to Hobbema and the port of registry changed to The Hague, even though the Netherlands were under German occupation. Hobbema was placed under the management of the British & Continental Shipping Agency Ltd.
Hobbema departed Hull on 23 May and called at Methil and Loch Ewe before sailing for New York as a part of convoy ON 100 on 2 June. After an intermediate stop at Halifax, Hobbema arrived at the Cape Cod Canal on 19 June and proceeded on to New York where she arrived the next day. After making two trips to Philadelphia and back, she departed for Cape Cod Bay to form up with convoy BX 28 for Halifax, where she arrived on 11 July. Hobbema sailed from Halifax to Sydney, Nova Scotia, in convoy HS 28, and from there sailed on 17 July for Liverpool with convoy SC 92. After her arrival on 31 July, she spent nearly a month at Liverpool before joining convoy ON 126 for New York, arriving at that destination on 19 September.
Hobbema sailed the next day for Newport News and took on 7,000 long tons (7,100 t) of general cargo and ammunition and returned to New York on 15 October. She sailed nine days later as a part of convoy SC 107 headed for Liverpool. On 30 October, German submarine German submarine U-522 sighted the eastbound convoy and relayed the convoy's position to the Wolfpack Veilchen of thirteen U-boats and to two other U-boats—U-522 and U-521—patrolling nearby. After getting into position and dodging convoy escorts over the next two days, the wolf pack attacked the convoy on the night of 1–2 November and sank seven ships. Another ship was sunk during the day on 2 November. On the night of 2–3 November the convoy sailed through thick fog that concealed its location and kept the U-boats at bay. At dawn the fog had lifted and another ship was sunk.
After dark, the wolf pack struck again. At 00:10 on 4 November U-132 closed in and torpedoed Hobbema, SS Empire Lynx and SS Hatimura. At 00:15, a single torpedo from U-132 hit Hobbema on the starboard side in the engine room, immediately knocking out power to the ship, and caused her to begin rapidly sinking. The lifeboats and several life rafts from the port side were launched with 16 men on board. The ship's master and 20 crewmen along with 7 British gunners died in the attack and sinking. US Navy tugs Uncas and Pessacus rescued Hobbema's survivors.
At 00:40 the entire convoy and nearby U-boats were jolted by a very heavy explosion thought to have been one of the largest prior to atomic bomb testing. The explosion stopped the engine of the tug Uncas rescuing survivors six miles astern of the convoy. SS Titus was rescuing survivors from Empire Lynx when the explosion lifted her bow so violently the crew believed Titus had been torpedoed. The crew abandoned ship before the master realized Titus was undamaged and reboarded to sail to England with a skeleton crew including some Empire Lynx and Hatimura survivors. Titus was drydocked upon arrival in England, but the only damage found was a small dent in her port side. U-132 is believed to have been destroyed by the explosion. The cause of the explosion is unknown, but it is assumed to have resulted from detonation of the ammunition cargo aboard either Hobbema or Hatimura. In all, 19 Allied ships were sunk from convoy SC 107.
## See also
- Operation CHASE for a description of experimental detonation of obsolete munition cargoes in sinking ships to simulate nuclear testing. |
65,293 | Fëanor | 1,160,401,481 | Character in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth | [
"Characters in The Silmarillion",
"Literary characters introduced in 1977",
"Middle-earth rulers",
"Noldor"
]
| Fëanor () is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion. He creates the Tengwar script, the palantír seeing-stones, and the three Silmarils, the skilfully-forged jewels that give the book their name and theme, triggering division and destruction. He is the eldest son of Finwë, the King of the Noldor Elves, and his first wife Míriel.
Fëanor's Silmarils form a central theme of The Silmarillion as Men and Elves battle with the forces of evil for their possession. After the Dark Lord Morgoth steals the Silmarils, Fëanor and his seven sons swear the Oath of Fëanor, vowing to fight anyone and everyone—whether Elf, Man, Maia, or Vala—who withholds the Silmarils.
The oath commands Fëanor and his sons to press to Middle-earth, in the process committing atrocities against their fellow Elves, the first Kinslaying, at the havens of the Teleri. Fëanor dies soon after his arrival in Middle-earth; his sons unite in the cause of defeating Morgoth and retrieving the Silmarils, but end up causing further harm among the Elves.
The Tolkien scholar Jane Chance has seen Fëanor's pride as leading to his downfall, alongside Morgoth's corruption of Elves and Men as reflecting Satan's temptation of Adam and Eve, and the desire for godlike knowledge as in the Garden of Eden. Others have likened Fëanor to the Anglo-Saxon leader Byrhtnoth whose foolish pride led to defeat and death at the Battle of Maldon. Tom Shippey writes that the pride is specifically a desire to make things that reflect their own personality, and likens this to Tolkien's own desire to sub-create. John Ellison further likens this creative pride to that of the protagonist in Thomas Mann's 1947 novel Doctor Faustus, noting that both that novel and Tolkien's own legendarium were responses to World War.
## Fictional history
### Early life
Fëanor's father is Finwë, the first King of the Noldor; his mother, Míriel, dies, "consumed in spirit and body", shortly after giving birth to him. Fëanor "was made the mightiest in all parts of body and mind: in valour, in endurance, in beauty, in understanding, in skill, in strength and subtlety alike: of all the Children of Ilúvatar, and a bright flame was in him." Finwë remarries and has several children, including Fëanor's half-brothers Fingolfin and Finarfin. Fëanor studies under his father-in-law Mahtan, who was a student of the godlike Vala Aulë. He becomes a craftsman and gem-smith, inventor of the Tengwar script, and the creator of the magical seeing-stones, the palantírs.
### Silmarils
Fëanor, "in the greatest of his achievements, captured the light of the Two Trees to make the three Silmarils, also called the Great Jewels, though they were not mere glittering stones, they were alive, imperishable, and sacred." Even the Valar with their godlike powers could not copy them. In fact, Fëanor himself could not copy them, as part of his essence goes into their making. Their worth is close to infinite, as they are unique and irreplaceable. The Vala "Varda hallowed the Silmarils so that thereafter no mortal flesh, nor hands unclean, nor anything of evil will might touch them, for it would be scorched and withered."
Fëanor prizes the Silmarils, and grows suspicious of the Valar and Elves who he believes covet them. The Vala Melkor, recently released from imprisonment and now residing in Valinor, sees an opportunity to sow dissent among the Noldor. Fëanor refuses to communicate with Melkor, but is still caught in his plot. Fëanor angrily warns Fingolfin not to spread lies, and threatens to kill him. As punishment, the Valar exile Fëanor to his remote home Formenos for twelve years. Finwë too withdraws to Formenos.
The Valar learn that Melkor is manipulating Fëanor, and send one of their number, Tulkas, to capture Melkor, but he has already escaped. Fëanor wisely realises that Melkor's goal is to obtain the Silmarils, "and he shut the doors of his house in the face of the mightiest of all the dwellers in Eä." The Valar invite Fëanor and Fingolfin to Valinor to make peace. Fingolfin offers a hand to his half-brother, recognising Fëanor's place as the eldest. Fëanor accepts, but soon Melkor and Ungoliant destroy The Two Trees, leaving the Silmarils as the only surviving light of the Trees. The Valar ask Fëanor to give them up so that they can restore the Trees. Fëanor replies: "It may be that I can unlock my jewels, but never again shall I make their like; and if I must break them, I shall break my heart." He refuses to give up the Silmarils of his own free will. Messengers from Formenos tell him that Melkor has killed Finwë and stolen the Silmarils. Yavanna is thus unable to heal the Two Trees.
For this deed, Fëanor names Melkor "Morgoth", "Black Enemy". Fëanor rails against the Great Enemy, blaming the Valar for Morgoth's deeds. He gives a speech in the Elvish city of Tirion, persuading most of his people to return to Middle-earth to avenge Finwë and free themselves from the Valar. Together with his seven sons, they swear the Oath of Fëanor:
> They swore an oath which none shall break, and none should take, by the name even of Ilúvatar, calling the Everlasting Dark upon them if they kept it not... ...vowing to pursue with vengeance and hatred to the ends of the World Vala, Demon, Elf or Man as yet unborn or any creature, great or small, good or evil, that time should bring forth unto the end of days, whoso should hold or take or keep a Silmaril from their possession.
### Return to Beleriand
To get to Middle-earth, Fëanor goes to the shores of Aman, and asks the seafaring Teleri for their aid. When they refuse, Fëanor orders the Noldor to steal the ships. The Teleri resist, and many of them are killed. The battle became known as the Kinslaying at Alqualondë, or the first kinslaying. His sons later commit two other acts of warfare against Elves in Middle-earth in his name. In repentance, Finarfin, Finwë's third son, takes his host and turns back. They are accepted by the Valar, and Finarfin rules as High-King of the Noldor in Valinor. The remaining Elves, those who follow Fëanor and Fingolfin, become subject to the Doom of Mandos, that they will come to harm if they continue their rebellion against the Valar. There are not enough ships to carry all the Noldor across the sea, so Fëanor and his sons lead the first group. Upon arriving in the far west of Beleriand, they decide to burn the ships and leave Fingolfin and his people behind. Fingolfin, furious, returns to Beleriand by the long and hard land route, via the northern ice.
Morgoth summons his armies from his fortress of Angband and attacks Fëanor's encampment in Mithrim. This battle was called the Battle under the Stars, or Dagor-nuin-Giliath, for the Sun and Moon had not yet been made. The Noldor win the battle. Fëanor presses on toward Angband with his sons. He comes within sight of Angband, but is ambushed by a force of Balrogs, with few Elves about him. He fights mightily with Gothmog, captain of the Balrogs. His sons come upon the Balrogs with a great force of Elves, and drive them off; but Fëanor knows his wounds are fatal. He curses Morgoth thrice, but with the eyes of death, he sees that his Elves, unaided, will never throw down the dark towers of Thangorodrim.
### Aftermath
The Oath of Fëanor affects the lovers Beren and Lúthien. They steal a Silmaril from Morgoth, leading to Kinslaying and years of strife among the Elves, until Eärendil carries a Silmaril off into the West. That Silmaril is lost to the Sons of Fëanor, but the other two remain in the crown of Morgoth. They too are stolen, one ending in the earth, one in the sea.
According to Mandos' prophecy, following Melkor's final return and defeat in the Dagor Dagorath, the world will be changed and the Valar will recover the Silmarils. Fëanor will be released from the Halls of Mandos and will give Yavanna the Silmarils. Fëanor will break them, and Yavanna will revive the Two Trees. The Pelóri Mountains will be flattened and the light of the Two Trees will fill the world in eternal bliss.
### House of Fëanor
` Kings of the Noldor in Valinor`
` High Kings of the Noldor in Exile (in Middle-earth)`
All the characters shown are Elves.
## Development
Fëanor was originally named Curufinwë ("skilful [son of] Finwë") in Tolkien's fictional language of Quenya. He is known as Fëanáro, "spirit of fire" in Quenya, from fëa ("spirit") and nár ("flame"). Fëanáro is his "mother-name" or Amilessë, the name given by an Elf's mother at, or some years after, birth and it was one of their true names.
Tolkien wrote at least four versions of the Oath of Fëanor itself, as found in The History of Middle-earth. The three earliest versions are found in The Lays of Beleriand: in alliterative verse (circa 1918–1920s), in chapter 2, "Poems Early Abandoned" The Flight of the Noldoli from Valinor. Lines 132–141; in rhyming couplets (circa 1928), in chapter 3, "The Lay of Leithian". Canto VI, lines 1628–1643; and in a different form as restated by Celegorm, third son of Fëanor, in chapter 3, "The Lay of Leithian." Canto VI, lines 1848–1857. A later version is found in Morgoth's Ring. Fëanor is among those major characters whom Tolkien, who also used to illustrate his writings, supplied with a distinct heraldic device.
## Analysis
### Pride and downfall
The Tolkien scholar Jane Chance sees Morgoth's corruption of Elves and Men as clearly Biblical, as it "mirrors that of Adam and Eve by Satan; the desire for power and godlike being is the same desire for knowledge of good and evil witnessed in the Garden of Eden." She treats the Silmarils as symbols of that same desire. She identifies Fëanor's wish to be like the Valar in creating "things of his own" as rebellious pride, and that, like Melkor, he "succumbs to a 'greedy love'" of his creations that causes his downfall. She points out that Fëanor's rebellion is echoed by that of the Númenórean man Ar-Pharazon, and then at the end of The Silmarillion by the (angelic) Maia, Sauron, who becomes the Dark Lord of The Lord of the Rings.
The philologist Elizabeth Solopova suggests that the character of Fëanor was inspired by the Anglo-Saxon leader Byrhtnoth, and in particular his appearance in the poem "The Battle of Maldon". The poem tells how he is slain in that battle, which took place in the year 991. Tolkien has described Byrhtnoth as misled by "pride and misplaced chivalry proven fatal" and as "too foolish to be heroic", and Fëanor is driven by "overmastering pride" that causes his death and that of countless followers.
### Pride in sub-creation
The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey comments that Fëanor and his Silmarils relate to The Silmarillion's theme in a particular way: the sin of the Elves is not human pride, as in the Biblical fall, but their "desire to make things which will forever reflect or incarnate their own personality". This Elvish form of pride leads Fëanor to forge the Silmarils, and, Shippey suggests, led Tolkien to write his fictions: "Tolkien could not help seeing a part of himself in Fëanor and Saruman, sharing their perhaps licit, perhaps illicit desire to 'sub-create'."
John Ellison, writing in the Tolkien Society's journal Mallorn, draws a comparison between Fëanor and the Faust legend, in particular Thomas Mann's version in his 1947 novel Doctor Faustus. In Ellison's view, the life history of both characters is of "genius corrupted finally into insanity; the creative drive turns on its possessor and destroys him, and with him a good part of the fabric of society." He describes as parallel Mann's depiction of his Faust character Leverkühn in a collapsing Nazi Germany and Tolkien's starting his mythology amidst the collapse of pre-1914 Europe in the First World War. Fëanor is, he writes, not an exact equivalent of Doctor Faustus: he does not make a pact with the devil; but both Fëanor and Leverkühn outgrow their teachers in creative skill. Ellison calls Leverkühn "a Fëanor of our times", and comments that far from being a simple battle of good versus evil, Tolkien's world as seen in Fëanor has "the creative and destructive forces in man's nature ... indivisibly linked; this is the essence of the 'fallen world' in which we live." He adds that Fëanor is central to the whole of Tolkien's legendarium, "the hinge on which the whole great Tale ... turns."
Like Shippey, Ellison relates Fëanor's making of the Silmarils to what he supposes was Tolkien's own belief: that it was "a dangerous and impermissible act" that went beyond what the Creator had intended for the Elves. Further, Ellison suggests that while Fëanor does not directly represent Tolkien, there is something about his action that can be applied to Tolkien's life. Tolkien calls Fëanor "fey"; Ellison notes that Tolkien analysed his own name as tollkühn, with the same meaning. Further, Tolkien seems, Ellison writes, to have felt a conflict between his own "sub-creation" and his Catholic faith.
### Ancestry as guide to character
Shippey and the Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger both note that Tolkien intended ancestry to be a guide to character. Shippey writes that The Silmarillion echoes Norse mythology in this belief, and that one perhaps needs to study the family trees to see clearly how it all works:
### "Subtle" and "skilled"
Flieger writes that Fëanor's fire drives his creativity, making the beautiful letters of the Fëanorian script, and jewels, including, fatefully, the Silmarils. She comments that Tolkien, choosing his words very carefully, calls Fëanor both "subtle", by etymology from Latin sub-tela, "under the warp (of a weaving)", hence the crosswise weft threads that go against the grain, a dangerous part of the fabric of life; and "skilled", by etymology from Indo-European skel-, "to cut", like the Noldor as a whole tending to cause division among the Elves; and indeed his choices, and the Silmarils, lead to division and war, to the Kinslaying of Elf by Elf, the theft of the Telerin Elves' ships in Aman, and in turn to further disasters across the sea in Beleriand. |
35,861,237 | Two Birds (Awake) | 1,149,163,591 | null | [
"2012 American television episodes",
"Awake (TV series) episodes",
"Television episodes written by Howard Gordon"
]
| "Two Birds" is the twelfth episode of the American television police procedural fantasy drama Awake. The episode premiered on NBC on May 17, 2012. In the episode, Michael learns more about the truth of the accident. He tries to get evidence that Ed Hawkins (Kevin Weisman) tried to kill him, and finds out that Hawkins' commanding officer Carl Kessel (Mark Harelik) was also in on this setup.
The story and concept of the episode was written by Evan Katz, with teleplay by Howard Gordon and Davey Holmes. It was directed by Milan Cheylov. "Two Birds" was well received by critics, who praised its storylines. Commentators noted that the script was well written. Upon airing, "Two Birds" obtained 2.1 million viewers in the United States and a 0.7 rating in the 18–49 demographic, according to Nielsen ratings.
## Plot
The episode starts with Michael Britten (Jason Isaacs) trying to convince therapists Dr. Jonathan Lee (BD Wong) and Dr. Judith Evans (Cherry Jones) that Ed Hawkins (Kevin Weisman) tried to kill him. The therapists claim that he is imagining the plot to cope.
Later, Michael tells Rex he must stay with his Aunt Carol, as Michael is working on a case with a dangerous suspect. His partner, Bird, goes to his house, after trying to call him to make sure he is alright, but then looks in the garage and finds Michael's work on his accident and Detective Hawkins. Bird goes to Dr. Judith Evans, who reluctantly advises Bird to check on Michael. Michael goes to Ed Hawkins' house, shoots Hawkins in the leg, and asks him for evidence. Hawkins says heroin was taken from various evidence lockers and sent out for sale through Westfield Distribution, and further evidence is on his laptop. Hawkins tries to overpower Michael, forcing him to kill Hawkins, right before Bird enters the house. Michael takes Bird's gun and handcuffs him. Bird suggests that to get into Hawkins' laptop, they use a hacker they both worked with previously, right before he knocks out Michael, who wakes up in the red reality.
Michael tells his wife to stay somewhere safe, and then tells the red reality Bird to meet him in the park. He tells Bird what he found out in the green reality (where his son is alive and his wife is dead) regarding Hawkins, his accident and the encrypted file and convinces Bird to copy it from Hawkins' computer, though neither of them know Hawkins has been watching them. Hawkins meets immediately with Tricia Harper and Carl Kessel (revealed to be Bird and Hawkins' precinct chief in this reality) and Kessel says they will kill both Michael and Bird and make it look like Michael did it, given his recently unstable behavior. Captain Harper shows doubts and remorse at this idea, but agrees.
Still in the red reality (where his son is dead and his wife is alive), Michael visits the hacker suggested in the green reality. He gains Hawkins' password and unlocks the file. The files tell Michael that Hawkins and Kessel had a shipping container where they had been storing the heroin. Bird tells Michael that they will meet at his house, but when Michael gets there, Hawkins has killed Bird and tries to kill Michael. Hawkins, however, only manages to injure him. Hawkins calls in that Michael killed Bird and Captain Harper tells her precinct to use deadly force to bring Michael in, much to Detective Vega's surprise. Vega tries to tell Harper that, even deranged, Michael would never kill Bird, but Harper emotionally rebuts him, saying he is showing sympathy for a killer. This leaves Vega confused and suspicious. Michael manages to escape Hawkins, but passes out from his wound and wakes up back in the green reality.
He finds himself back in his car, handcuffed, but relieved to see that the green reality Bird is still alive. He gives Bird Hawkins' password ("tulip"), and the information regarding Kessel and the shipping container convinces Bird that something is wrong. He takes Michael to Harper still in cuffs but they both tell her what they have learned. Harper approves Bird's plan to send a team to the storage container but sends Michael to a cell, saying that if they do not find any evidence of his accusations, he'll go to jail for killing Hawkins.
## Production
The story and concept of the episode was written by consulting producer Evan Katz, with teleplay by executive producer Howard Gordon and co-executive producer Davey Holmes; it was Katz's third writing credit, Gordon's fourth writing credit, and Holmes' second writing credit. It was directed by Milan Cheylov, his first directing credit for the series.
In January 2012, it was announced that Kevin Weisman would appear in multiple episodes of Awake. This is Weisman's second appearance on the series as Ed Hawkins. Other guest stars included Laura Innes as Tricia Harper and Daniela Bobadilla as Emma.
## Reception
### Ratings
"Two Birds" was originally broadcast on May 17, 2012 (2012-05-17) in the United States on NBC between 10:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m., and obtained 2.1 million viewers in the United States, slightly down from the previous episode. It acquired a 0.7 rating in the 18–49 demographic, according to Nielsen ratings, meaning that it was seen by 0.9% of all 18- to 49-year-olds.
### Critical response
The episode was met with praise from most critics. IGN rated it 9 of 10 as "amazing", and wrote that "it really ramped up the intensity". Alan Sepinwall from HitFix complimented parts of the episode, notably the "excellent work from Jason Isaacs, Steve Harris and Laura Innes in both realities", despite claiming that they did not particularly care for the script. TV Fanatic rated it 4.6 out of 5, and noted that "Awake works so much better when there’s one unifying case". Screenrant praised the episode, claiming that there was "some fantastic editing and writing that allows two conversations between three people to appear as one cohesive interchange, basically setting up the remainder of the episode". ScreenCrush claimed that "a conspiracy that saw NBC running this great show off the road, or a simple unfortunate accident.". The Voice of TV graded the episode an "A−", despite claiming that it is annoying that he doesn't tell his family members about his new knowledge. The TV.com official blog claimed the episode was "impossible to sustain". The A.V. Club graded the episode "B+", claiming that it was "completely entertaining and engrossing", and that "it's just a slight tick down from last week's "Say Hello to My Little Friend", which was the best episode since Awake's pilot, and the most surreal since the hallucinations of "That's Not My Penguin." |
2,682,546 | Barbad | 1,170,905,860 | Persian musician under Khosrow II (r. 590–628) | [
"7th-century Iranian people",
"Eastern lutes players",
"Musicians from the Sasanian Empire",
"People from Jahrom",
"People from Merv",
"Persian musicians",
"Shahnameh characters",
"Year of birth unknown",
"Year of death unknown"
]
| Barbad (Persian: باربد; ) was a Persian poet-musician, lutenist, music theorist and composer of Sasanian music. He served as chief minstrel-poet under the Shahanshah Khosrow II (r. 590–628). A barbat player, he was the most distinguished Persian musician of his time and is regarded among the major figures in the history of Persian music.
Despite scarce biographical information, Barbad's historicity is generally secure. He was highly regarded in the court of Khosrow, and interacted with other musicians, such as Sarkash. Although he is traditionally credited with numerous innovations in Persian music theory and practice, the attributions remain tentative since they are ascribed centuries after his death. While none of Barbad's music or poetry is fully extant, a single poem survives, as do the title of some of his compositions.
No Sasanian sources discuss Barbad, suggesting his reputation was preserved through oral tradition, until at least the earliest written account by the poet Khaled ibn Fayyaz (d. c. 718). Barbad appears frequently in later Persian literature, most famously in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh. The content and abundance of such references demonstrate his unique influence, inspiring musicians such as Ishaq al-Mawsili. Often described as the "founder of Persian music", Barbad remains a celebrated figure in modern-day Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan.
## Name
Posthumous sources refer to the Sasanian musician with little consistency. Persian sources record "Barbād" while Arabic scholars use Fahl(a)bad, Bahl(a)bad, Fahl(a)wad, Fahr(a)bad, Bahr(a)bad and Bārbad/ḏ. Modern sources most often use "Barbad", a spelling that Danish orientalist Arthur Christensen first asserted to be correct. However, the German orientalist Theodor Nöldeke suggested that spellings from Arabic commentators such as "Fahl(a)bad" were really an arabicization of his actual name, probably Pahrbad/Pahlbad. Nöldeke furthered that "Bārbad" was a mistake in the interpretation of ambiguous Pahlavi characters. The Iranologist Ahmad Tafazzoli agreed with Nöldeke, citing a Sasanian seal which includes the name "Pahrbad/Pahlbad" and the earliest mention of the Sasanian musician, which uses a spelling—"Bahrbad/Bahlbad"—that suggests the name had been arabicized.
## Background
The music of Iran/Persia stretches to at least the depictions of arched harps from 3300–3100 BCE, though not until the period of the Sasanian Empire in 224–651 CE is substantial information available. This influx of Sasanian records suggests a prominent musical culture in the Empire, especially in the areas dominated by Zoroastrianism. Many Sasanian Shahanshahs were ardent supporters of music, including the founder of the empire Ardashir I and Bahram V. Khosrow II (r. 590–628) was the most outstanding patron, his reign being regarded as a golden age of Persian music. Musicians in Khosrow's service include Āzādvar-e Changi, Bāmshād, the harpist Nagisa (Nakisa), Ramtin, Sarkash (also Sargis or Sarkas) and Barbad, who was by-far the most famous. These musicians were usually active as minstrels, which were performers who worked as both court poets and musicians; in the Sasanian Empire there was little distinction between poetry and music.
Though many Middle Persian (Pahlavi) texts of the Sasanian Empire survive, only one—Khusraw qubadan va ridak—includes commentary on music, though neither it or any other Sasanian sources discuss Barbad. Barbad's reputation must have been transmitted through oral tradition, until at least the earliest source: an Arabic poem by Khaled ibn Fayyaz (d. c. 718). In later ancient Arabic and Persian sources Barbad is the most discussed Sasanian musician, though he is rarely included in writings dedicated solely to music. A rare exception to this is a brief mention in Muhammad bin Muhammad bin Muhammad Nishābūrī's music treatise Rasaleh-i musiqi-i. Ancient sources in general give little biographical information and most of what is available is shrouded in mythological anecdotes. Tales from the poet Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, written during the late 10th century, include the most celebrated accounts of Barbad. Other important sources included Ferdowsi's contemporary, the poet al-Tha'alibi in his Ghurar al-saya, as well as Khosrow and Shirin and Haft Peykar from the poet Nezami Ganjavi's Khamsa of Nizami from the late 12th century. Despite this plethora of stories depicting him in a legendary context, scholars generally consider Barbad a wholly historical person.
## Life and career
### Early life
There are contradictory ancient accounts as to the location of Barbad's birthplace. Older sources record the city of Merv in northeastern Khorasan, while later works give Jahrom, a small city south of Shiraz in Pars. Tafazzoli postulated that the writers who recorded Jahrom were referencing a line of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh that says Barbad traveled from Jarom to the capital in Ctesiphon when Khosrow was murdered; the modern historian Mehrdad Kia records only Merv.
Ferdowsi and al-Tha'alibi both relay a story that Barbad was a gifted young musician who sought a place as a court minstrel under Khosrow II but the jealous chief court minstrel Sarkash supposedly prevented this. As such, Barbad hid in the royal garden by dressing in all green. When Khosrow walked by Barbad sang three songs with his lute: Dād-āfrīd ("created by god"), Peykār-e gord ("battle of the hero" or "splendor of Farkar") and Sabz dar sabz ("green in the green"). Khosrow was immediately impressed and ordered that Barbad be appointed chief minstrel, a position known as the shah-i ramishgaran. In Nizami's Khosrow and Shirin, Khosrow II is said to have had a dream where his grandfather Khosrow I prophesied that he would have a "have a minstrel called Barbad whose art could make even poison taste delicious".
### Stories with Khosrow
Since his appointment at court, Barbad was Khosrow's favorite musician, and many stories exist about this prestige. His relationship with Khosrow was reportedly such that other members of the court would seek his assistance in mediating conflicts between them and the Shahanshah. A story in Nizami's Khosrow and Shirin, tells of Khosrow and Shirin as previously together, but forced to separate for political reasons; Khosrow marries someone else, but is soon reminded of Shirin. The two later met and arranged for the Nagisa to sing of Shirin's love for Khosrow, while Barbad sung of Khosrow's love for Shirin. The duet reconciled the couple and was recorded by Nizami in 263 couplets. The idea of setting music to poetry in order to represent the emotions of characters was unprecedented in Persian music. According to the 10th-century historian Ibn al-Faqih al-Hamadani's Kitab al-buldan, Khosrow's wife Shirin asked Barbad to remind Khosrow of his promise to build her a castle. To do so, he sung a song and was rewarded with an estate near Isfahan for him and his family. According to the Seljuk scholar Nizam al-Mulk, Barbad visited a courtier who had been imprisoned by Khosrow and upon being scolded by the Shahanshah, a "witty remark" was enough to resolve the situation.
In the literary scholar Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani's Kitab al-Aghani, a jealous rival musician once untuned the strings of Barbad's lute during a royal banquet. Upon returning to perform, Barbad began to play; royal rules forbade the tuning instruments in the Shahanshah's presence, but Barbad's skill was such that he could adapt to the untuned strings and play the pieces regardless. Al-Isfahani attributed this story to Ishaq al-Mawsili (776–856)—a renowned minstrel under Harun al-Rashid—who purportedly relayed the story to friends.
Among the most popular legends about Barbad involves Khosrow's beloved horse Shabdiz. In this story, Khosrow declared that when Shabdiz died, anyone who announced the news would be executed. Upon Shabdiz's death, no members of the court wished to risk conveying the news. To resolve the issue, Barbad sang a sad song, and Khosrow, understanding the purpose of the song, stated "Shabdiz is dead"; Barbad responded "Yes and it is your majesty who announced it", thereby preventing any possibility of death. This story was relayed earliest by the poet Khaled ibn Fayyaz (d. c. 718), with later accounts by al-Tha'alibi and the 13th-century writer Zakariya al-Qazwini. Many similar ancient stories originated in Iran, Turkey and Central Asia that pertain to musicians using music to express the death of a ruler's horse, as to avoid the ruler's wrath against the announcer. Various pieces for the Khwarazm dutar, Kyrgyz komuz and Kazakh dombra relay equivalent stories. Tafazzoli asserts that the story demonstrates Barbad's unique influence on Khosrow, while musicologist Lloyd Miller suggest that this and similar stories suggest that music and musicians in general exerted a significant influence on their political leaders.
### Death
Like his birthplace, there are conflicting accounts surrounding the final years of Barbad's life. According to Ferdowsi, upon the murder of Khosrow by Kavad II, Barbad rushed from Jahrom to the capital of Ctesiphon. After arriving he sang elegies, cut off his fingers and burned his instruments out of respect. Al-Tha'alibi's account holds that Sarkash, who had remained at the court since being ousted from the chief minstrel position, poisoned Barbad. The 9th-century geographer Ibn Khordadbeh's Kitāb al-lahw wa-l-malahi, however, records the opposite, stating that Barbad poisoned Sarkash but was spared from Khosrow's punishment by way of a "witty remark". The 9th-century scholar Ibn Qutaybah's ‘Uyūn al-Akhbār and the 10th-century poet Ibn Abd Rabbih's al-ʿIqd al-Farīd state that Barbad was killed by a different musician, variously recorded as Yošt, Rabūst, Rošk and Zīwešt.
## Music and poetry
Barbad was active as a poet-musician, lutenist, music theorist and composer. His compositions included panegyrics, elegies and verses. These were performed by himself at festivals such as Nowruz and Mehregan, as well as state banquets and victory celebrations. While none of the compositions are extant, the names have survived for some, and they suggest a wide variety in the topics he musically engaged with. Ethnomusicologist Hormoz Farhat has tentatively sorted them into different groupings: epic forms based on historical events, kin-i Iraj (lit. 'the Vengeance of Iraj'), kin-i siavash (lit. 'the Vengeance of Siavash'), and Taxt-i Ardashir (lit. 'the Throne of Ardashir'); songs connected to the Sasanian royal court, Bagh-i shirin (lit. 'the garden of Shirin'), Bagh-i Shahryar (lit. 'the Sovereign's Garden'), and haft Ganj (lit. 'the seven treasures'); and "compositions of a descriptive nature", roshan charagh (lit. 'bright lights'). According to both scholars Ibn al-Faqih and the 13th-century geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi, Barbad wrote Bag-e nakjiran (lit. 'garden of the game') for workers who had recently finished the gardens of Qasr-e Shirin.
A single poem by Barbad survives, though in a quoted state from the Kitab al-lahw wa al-malahi by Ibn Khordadbeh. The work is a 3-hemistich panegyric in Middle Persian, but with an Arabic script; none of its music is extant. The poem is as follows:
> > Ceasar resembles the moon and Khaqan the sun, [but] my lord is like the rich clouds, whenever he wants he hides the moon or the sun.
Christensen suggested in 1936 that the text Khvarshēdh ī rōshan (lit. 'The shining sun') is from a poem that was written and performed by Barbad himself or another poet-musician of his time. The text is found in a group of Manichaean manuscripts in Turpan, Xinjiang, China and is written in Middle Persian, which Barbad would have used. It has four 11-syllable lines and its title recalls the Sasanian melody Arāyishn ī khvarshēdh (lit. 'The beauty of the sun').
> > The shining sun, the beaming full moon Resplendent and beaming behind the trunk of a tree; The eager birds strut about it full of joy, The doves and the colorful peacocks strut about.
Barbad is traditionally regarded as the inventor of numerous aspects of Persian music theory and practice. Al-Tha'alibi first credited him with creating an organized modal system of seven "Royal modes" (al-ṭoruq al-molukiya) [fa], known variously as xosrovani (Persian: سرود خسروانى), Haft Ḵosravāni, or khosravani. This attribution is later repeated by scholars such as al-Masudi and Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi. From these royal modes, Barbad created 30 "derivative modes" (lahn) [fa], and 360 melodies (dastan). The structure of seven, 30 and 360 variations corresponds to the number of days, weeks and months of the Zoroastrian calendar. Farhat notes that the exact reason for this is not known, though according to the 14th-century poet Hamdallah Mustawfi's Tarikh-i guzida, Barbad sang one of the 360 melodies each day for the Shahanshah. Al-Tha'alibi recorded that the seven royal modes were still in use during his lifetime, from 961 to 1039. Further information on the nature of these subjects, theories or compositions has not survived. In her analysis of the historical and literary sources concerning Barbad, musicologist Firoozeh Khazrai stated that "until a new independent source on the subject comes to light, many of these attributions should be regarded as authorial inventions". She noted that many of the attributions to Barbad date centuries after his death and the 30 modes in particular are first connected to Barbad by Nizami, who lived in the 12th century. In addition, in his divan (collection of poems), the 11th-century poet Manuchehri names a few of the modes that Nizami mentioned but does not associate them with Barbad, even though he references the Sasanian musician elsewhere.
## Reputation
Barbad's lute was the four-stringed barbat. It had been popular in his time, but no traces of the instrument survive and it was eventually substituted for the oud. The musicologists Jean During and Zia Mirabdolbaghi note that despite the instrument's gradual disuse, "the term barbat survived for centuries, through classical poetry, as a symbol of the golden age of the Persian musical tradition, served by artists such as Bārbad." Later sources regularly praise Barbad and some offer him the epitaph as the "founder of Persian music". He is regarded as the most significant musician of his time, being among the major figures in the history of Iranian/Persian music. In Sharh bar Kitāb al-adwar, the 14th-century writer al-Sharif al-Jurjani—whom the work is attributed to—says:
> "Among the ancient musicians, there were those who never played the same melody twice in presence of the king. Such was Barbad, who lived during the time of [Khosrow II]. He took care to study his audience well. He paid attention to the disposition of his listeners' souls, and then he would improvise words and a melody suited to the occasion and corresponding perfectly to each person's desire. His fame spread throughout the world, and [Khosrow] boasted about the fact that neither the kings of the past, nor those of his time, possessed such an artist."
The preponderance and frequent transmission of stories involving Barbad attest to his popularity long after his death. In modern-day Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, Barbad continues to be a celebrated figure. In 1989 and 1990 the cultural establishment of the Tajik government encouraged their people to find pride in Barbad's achievements; the panegyrics given for Barbad are part of a larger effort by the Tajik government to pass off the "achievements of pre-Islamic Iranian civilization" as Tajik ones. The largest musical hall of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, is named "Kokhi Borbad" after Barbad. Musicologist Firoozeh Khazrai sums up Barbad's legacy as such:
> "From the sources and nature of the things attributed to Barbad, we can conclude that Barbad survived in an oral popular culture that immortalized him by continually retelling old stories about him, and the legendary power of his music, and by spinning out new ones. While all these stories mythologize Barbad without telling us any solid information about the actual nature of his music, they underscore the unparalleled authority of the minstrel and the powerful grip he and his music continued to exercise on the imagination of the people in the post-Sasanian era." |
10,533,970 | HMS Diana (H49) | 1,031,040,653 | British D-class destroyer | [
"1932 ships",
"C and D-class destroyers",
"Canadian River-class destroyers",
"Canadian River-class destroyers converted from C and D-class destroyers",
"Maritime incidents in October 1940",
"Ships built on the River Tyne",
"Ships of the Royal Canadian Navy",
"Ships sunk in collisions",
"World War II destroyers of the United Kingdom",
"World War II shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean"
]
| HMS Diana was a D-class destroyer of the Royal Navy. Ordered in 1931, the ship was constructed by Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company, and entered naval service in 1932. Diana was initially assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet before she was transferred to the China Station in early 1935. She was temporarily deployed in the Red Sea during late 1935 during the Abyssinia Crisis, before returning to her duty station where she remained until mid-1939. Diana was transferred back to the Mediterranean Fleet just before the Second World War began in September 1939. She served with the Home Fleet during the Norwegian Campaign. The ship was transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy in 1940 and renamed HMCS Margaree. She served for just over a month with the Canadians before being sunk in a collision with a large freighter she was escorting on 22 October 1940.
## Design and construction
Diana displaced 1,375 long tons (1,397 t) at standard load and 1,890 long tons (1,920 t) at deep load. The ship had an overall length of 329 feet (100.3 m), a beam of 33 feet (10.1 m) and a draught of 12 feet 6 inches (3.8 m). She was powered by Parsons geared steam turbines, driving two shafts, which developed a total of 36,000 shaft horsepower (27,000 kW) and gave a maximum speed of 36 knots (67 km/h; 41 mph). Steam for the turbines was provided by three Admiralty 3-drum water-tube boilers. Diana carried a maximum of 473 long tons (481 t) of fuel oil that gave her a range of 5,870 nautical miles (10,870 km; 6,760 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph). The ship's complement was 145 officers and men.
The ship mounted four 45-calibre 4.7-inch Mark IX guns in single mounts. For anti-aircraft (AA) defence, Diana had a single 12-pounder AA gun between her funnels and two QF 2-pounder Mk II AA guns mounted on the side of her bridge. She was fitted with two above-water quadruple torpedo tube mounts for 21-inch torpedoes. One depth charge rail and two throwers were fitted; 20 depth charges were originally carried, but this increased to 35 shortly after the war began.
Diana was ordered under the 1930 Naval Estimates on 2 February 1931 from the yards of Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company, Hebburn-on-Tyne. She was laid down on 12 June 1931, launched on 16 June 1932 and finally commissioned into the Navy on 21 December 1932. She cost a total of £229,502, excluding the weapons and the communications equipment which were supplied by the Admiralty.
## Operational history
### With the Royal Navy
The ship was initially assigned to the 1st Destroyer Flotilla in the Mediterranean and made a brief deployment to the Persian Gulf and Red Sea in September–November 1933. While in the Mediterranean, Diana was commanded by Geoffrey Oliver for a time. The ship was refitted at Sheerness Dockyard between 3 September and 23 October 1934 for service on the China Station with the 8th (later the 21st) Destroyer Flotilla and arrived there in January 1935. She was attached to the Mediterranean Fleet in the Red Sea from September 1935 to May 1936 during the Abyssinian Crisis and made port visits in Bombay and East Africa before returning to Hong Kong on 7 August. On one occasion in 1937 Diana investigated why a lighthouse near Amoy was not lit and discovered that it had been attacked by pirates. She remained in the Far East until the rise in tensions before World War II began prompted her recall in August 1939.
With the outbreak of war, Diana and her sisters Duncan, Daring, and Dainty, were assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet, arriving there in October. She was repaired at Malta during November and rejoining the fleet in December where she was briefly placed on contraband control duties before she was transferred to the Home Fleet's 3rd Destroyer Flotilla. Diana arrived in Home waters in January 1940, and was assigned to the 3rd Destroyer Flotilla. Here her duties included screening units of the Home Fleet and carrying out patrols. On 15 February, the ship escorted HMS Duncan as she towed by tugs from Invergordon to the Forth for permanent repairs, after the latter had been damaged in a collision whilst escorting a convoy.
During the Norwegian Campaign, Diana escorted the aircraft carrier HMS Furious as she returned to Scapa Flow on 25 April to replenish her aircraft. On 1 May, she screened the light cruisers HMS Manchester and HMS Birmingham of the 18th Cruiser Squadron as they covered the evacuations from Åndalsnes and the ship transported the Norwegian Commander-in-chief Major General Otto Ruge from Molde to Tromsø. The ship escorted the carriers HMS Glorious and Furious as the latter flew off RAF Gloster Gladiators fighters to Bardufoss airfield on 21 May. Ten days later Diana escorted the carriers HMS Ark Royal and Furious during Operation Alphabet, the Allied withdrawal from Norway.
### Transfer to Canada
The ship was taken in hand for refit and repair in London in July. After their completion, Diana was transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy to replace which had been sunk in a collision on 25 June 1940 with the British anti-aircraft cruiser HMS Calcutta. The ship was formally commissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy as HMCS Margaree on 6 September 1940. On 17 October, she escorted Convoy OL8 bound for Canada, but the ship was sunk five days later when she was cut in two by the freighter just after midnight on 22 October. Of the 176 men aboard Margaree at the time, six officers and 28 ratings in the stern section, which remained afloat, were rescued by Port Fairy; the other 142 were lost. |
965,084 | HMS Afridi (F07) | 1,117,841,914 | British Tribal-class destroyer | [
"1937 ships",
"Destroyers sunk by aircraft",
"Maritime incidents in May 1940",
"Ships built by Vickers Armstrong",
"Ships built on the River Tyne",
"Ships sunk by German aircraft",
"Tribal-class destroyers (1936) of the Royal Navy",
"World War II destroyers of the United Kingdom",
"World War II shipwrecks in the Norwegian Sea"
]
| HMS Afridi was one of 16 Tribal-class destroyers built for the Royal Navy shortly before the beginning of Second World War in 1939. Completed in 1938 the ship was initially assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet where she served as a flotilla leader. Afridi was briefly involved enforcing the arms blockade on the combatants in the Spanish Civil War. The ship returned home shortly after the start of the Second World War and was assigned convoy escort duties. She played an active role in the Norwegian Campaign of April–May 1940, escorting convoys to and from Norway. Afridi was sunk by German dive bombers on 3 May as she was escorting the evacuation convoy after the failure of the Namsos Campaign.
## Description
The Tribals were intended to counter the large destroyers being built abroad and to improve the firepower of the existing destroyer flotillas and were thus significantly larger and more heavily armed than the preceding I class. The ships displaced 1,891 long tons (1,921 t) at standard load and 2,519 long tons (2,559 t) at deep load. They had an overall length of 377 feet (114.9 m), a beam of 36 feet 6 inches (11.13 m) and a draught of 11 feet 3 inches (3.43 m). The destroyers were powered by two Parsons geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft using steam provided by three Admiralty three-drum boilers. The turbines developed a total of 44,000 shaft horsepower (33,000 kW) and gave a maximum speed of 36 knots (67 km/h; 41 mph). During her sea trials Afridi made 34.9 knots (64.6 km/h; 40.2 mph) from 44,720 shp (33,350 kW) at a displacement of 2,244 long tons (2,280 t). The ships carried enough fuel oil to give them a range of 5,700 nautical miles (10,600 km; 6,600 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph). The ships' complement consisted of 190 officers and ratings, although the flotilla leaders carried an extra 20 officers and men consisting of the Captain (D) and his staff.
The primary armament of the Tribal-class destroyers was eight quick-firing (QF) 4.7-inch (120 mm) Mark XII guns in four superfiring twin-gun mounts, one pair each fore and aft of the superstructure, designated 'A', 'B', 'X', and 'Y' from front to rear. The mounts had a maximum elevation of 40°. For anti-aircraft (AA) defence, they carried a single quadruple mount for the 40-millimetre (1.6 in) QF two-pounder Mk II "pom-pom" gun and two quadruple mounts for the 0.5-inch (12.7 mm) Mark III machine gun. Low-angle fire for the main guns was controlled by the director-control tower (DCT) on the bridge roof that fed data acquired by it and the 12-foot (3.7 m) rangefinder on the Mk II Rangefinder/Director directly aft of the DCT to an analogue mechanical computer, the Mk I Admiralty Fire Control Clock. Anti-aircraft fire for the main guns was controlled by the Rangefinder/Director which sent data to the mechanical Fuze Keeping Clock.
The ships were fitted with a single above-water quadruple mount for 21-inch (533 mm) torpedoes. The Tribals were not intended as anti-submarine ships, but they were provided with ASDIC, one depth charge rack and two throwers for self-defence, although the throwers were not mounted in all ships; Twenty depth charges was the peacetime allotment, but this increased to 30 during wartime.
## Construction and career
Authorized as one of seven Tribal-class destroyers under the 1935 Naval Estimates, Afridi was the second ship of her name to serve in the Royal Navy. The ship was ordered on 10 March 1936 from Vickers-Armstrong and was laid down on 9 June at the company's High Walker, Newcastle upon Tyne, shipyard. She was launched on 8 June 1937 by Lady Foster. Afridi was completed on 29 April 1938 and commissioned on 3 May at a cost of £341,462 which excluded weapons and communications outfits furnished by the Admiralty. The ship was initially assigned to the 1st Tribal Destroyer Flotilla with the Mediterranean Fleet and arriving at Malta on 3 June. In July, she sailed for the Mediterranean Spanish coast to enforce the arms embargo imposed by the Non-Intervention Committee on both sides of the Spanish Civil War. The following month Afridi hosted Rear-Admiral John Tovey, commander of the Mediterranean Fleet's destroyers, for exercises in the Ionian Sea. On 18 September, Afridi rendezvoused with her sister ship, Cossack, and the heavy cruiser Devonshire in the Aegean Sea before continuing onwards to Istanbul, Turkey, for a formal visit the next day. Rising tensions during the Munich Crisis caused the remainder of the Black Sea cruise to be cancelled on 21 September. The ship sailed for Alexandria, British Egypt, where the destroyer was briefly refitted from 9 November to 17 December. Afridi then joined the rest of the first batch of Tribals in Malta which had also been assigned to the flotilla and Captain G. H. Creswell could assume his role as Captain (D).
On 23 February 1939, the ship led her flotilla to Gibraltar where the Mediterranean and Home Fleets were gathering for combined exercises. These ran from 28 February to 18 March and involved dozens of ships from both commands. The ships of the Mediterranean Fleet then split up for visits to various nearby ports; Afridi was lightly damaged when she collided with the light cruiser Penelope off Palma de Mallorca in the Balearic Islands, during the transfer of mail on the night of 21/22 March and had to return to Malta for repairs. When Italy invaded Albania on 7 April, the Mediterranean Fleet was mobilised and remained on a war footing for most of May. During this time the 1st Tribal Destroyer Flotilla was redesignated as the 4th Destroyer Flotilla (DF). By July 7 tensions had decreased such that Afridi and her sisters Gurkha, Mohawk, and Sikh were able to escort the aircraft carrier Glorious on a visit to Athens, Greece. The following month, the fleet spent a week exercising in the area between the Greek island of Crete and British Cyprus. As tensions rose in Europe later in August, the fleet was mobilised and continued to train in preparation for war with Italy. As part of its preparations, the Admiralty had closed the Mediterranean to British shipping and Afridi and seven other destroyers escorted one group of ships that had collected at Suez, Egypt, through the Red Sea to reduce the congestion.
### Second World War
When Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September, Afridi was still in the Red Sea. As Italy took steps to prove her neutrality, the destroyers were released from their mission and returned to Alexandria where they began escorting convoys and conducting contraband inspections of non-British ships. This was not the best use of the Tribals and the 4th DF was ordered back to England in October. It was based at Immingham on the Humber and mostly escorted convoys up and down the eastern coast of Britain. The flotilla was transferred to Rosyth, Scotland, to carry out convoy escort duties between the UK and Norway in December. Cresswell was relieved by Captain Philip Vian on 31 December.
By January 1940, a number of defects had become noticeable, including leaks and problems with turbine blades that caused Afridi to begin a refit at a commercial shipyard in West Hartlepool on 17 January. Vian decided that Captain Robert Sherbrooke of Cossack needed some leave and so exchanged ships with him for the duration of the refit which lasted until 19 March. The 4th DF was then allocated to Plan R 4, a preemptive occupation of cities in western Norway after a German invasion had begun, and was tasked to escort the troop-laden ships of the 1st Cruiser Squadron to Bergen and Stavanger. The Germans decided to move first and occupied most Norwegian ports in a sea- and airborne assault (Operation Weserübung) on 9 April that took both the Norwegians and the Allies by surprise.
Receiving word that the Royal Air Force had attacked north-bound German warships in the North Sea on 7 April, the Home Fleet put to sea that evening. The 2nd Cruiser Squadron departed Rosyth with its two light cruisers, escorted by Afridi and the 4th DF, with orders to sweep through the North Sea before rendezvousing with the main body of the Home Fleet. On the morning of 9 April the 4th DF, minus Tartar, was tasked with attacking Bergen, covered by the 18th Cruiser Squadron, but the Admiralty cancelled the attack that afternoon when it received reports that two German light cruisers were in port. As the British ships were falling back on the main body of the Home Fleet, they were attacked by 88 bombers of Bomber Wing 26 (Kampfgeschwader 26) and Bomber Wing 30 (Kampfgeschwader 30), sinking Gurkha and lightly damaging the battleship Rodney.
After refuelling at Scapa Flow the following day, Afridi, five of her sisters and two light cruisers departed on the evening of 11 April, arriving off Stadlandet the following morning. The destroyers were split up to search the area for German ships before rendezvousing with the cruisers at dusk, but an inaccurate spot report of a German battlecruiser and cruiser that afternoon, interrupted the searches when the destroyers were recalled. On the morning of 13 April the destroyers were sent to search the Romsdalsfjord and only found four merchant ships. As they were leaving Ålesund they were unsuccessfully attacked by a dozen bombers from III Group, Demonstration Wing 1 (Lehrgeschwader 1). The following morning they were ordered north to the Namsos area to examine its suitability for an Allied landing and to coordinate with local Norwegian forces. Harbour facilities were assessed as inadequate and that troops should be landed elsewhere and transferred to destroyers for off-loading at Namsos. The Admiralty ordered that the 148th Infantry Brigade, already at sea, to be diverted to the anchorage at Lillesjona; its troopships arrived there at dawn on 16 April and began transferring their troops to the destroyers after they had completed refuelling. Major General Adrian Carton de Wiart, commander of the Namsos-area forces, also moved from Somali to Afridi. Half-a-dozen Luftwaffe bombers disrupted the transfer that afternoon, but their only success was to put some fragments through Afridi's bow. The destroyers unloaded their troops that night and the rest of the troops arrived the following evening. The destroyers and their covering cruisers were ordered home on 19 April and Afridi transferred Carton de Wiart to the anti-aircraft cruiser Cairo before departing.
Afridi and four other destroyers escorted a small supply convoy to Åndalsnes and Molde that was so heavily attacked by the Luftwaffe on 27 April that they had to abort their mission before two of the ships could complete their unloading. The former town was set on fire, but the ships only suffered splinter damage. They were attacked again the following day as they withdrew.
The Allied defeat during the Namsos Campaign forced them to evacuate the survivors. Afridi was one of the escorts for the troopships that arrived at the entrance to the Namsenfjorden on 1 May to take them off, but thick fog delayed them until the following day. On the evening of 2 May, the destroyer led the heavy cruiser York and three French troopships to Namsos. Two transports were able to dock in the harbour, but the third and York had to have the troops ferried to them by the destroyers and trawlers. All the ships except Afridi departed at 02:30, but she waited until 03:15 for the rearguard to reach the port before leaving herself.
The Germans spotted the evacuation convoy early that morning and Luftwaffe attacks began around 08:45. At 10:00 a Junkers Ju 87 "Stuka" dive bomber of I Group, Dive-bomber Wing 1 (Sturzkampfgeschwader 1) hit the French destroyer Bison with a bomb that caused her forward magazine to explode. Afridi and the destroyers Imperial and Grenade went to her aid and fought off two more air attacks while rescuing survivors. Afridi sank Bison by gunfire around noon after twice missing with torpedoes and departed the area with 69 survivors on board. When she rejoined the convoy at 14:00, another dive bombing attack developed. The ship was targeted by more Stukas diving from each side, making evasive manoeuvres ineffectual. She was hit by two bombs, one passing through the wireless telegraphy office and exploding beside the forward boiler room, the second hitting just forward of the bridge and starting a severe fire at the after end of the mess decks. Imperial came alongside to port and Griffin to starboard to take aboard survivors. At 14:45 hours, Afridi capsized and sank bow-first with the loss of 52 crewmen at . Thirteen soldiers were also lost—the only casualties among the whole force evacuated from Åndalsnes and Namsos–and 30 of the 69 Frenchmen she had picked up from Bison.
## See also
- Afridi, the ethnic group, in present-day Pakistan, erstwhile British India, after which the ship was named |
34,392,891 | 2nd Ranger Infantry Company (United States) | 1,147,046,192 | null | [
"Military units and formations disestablished in 1951",
"Military units and formations established in 1950",
"Ranger companies of the United States Army",
"United States Army units and formations in the Korean War"
]
| The 2nd Ranger Infantry Company (Airborne) was a Ranger light infantry company of the United States Army active during the Korean War. As a small special operations unit, it specialized in irregular warfare. A segregated unit, all of its personnel, including its officers, were African-Americans.
Activated and trained as a successor organization to the 2nd Ranger Battalion from World War II, the 2nd Ranger Company was formed and trained extensively in airborne warfare. Deployed to South Korea in December 1950, the company quickly adopted the motto of "Buffalo Rangers" and worked extensively as a scouting force for the U.S. 7th Infantry Division. In this role, the company undertook several major operations against the Chinese People's Volunteer Army, including Operation Tomahawk in early 1951.
Even though racial politics often resulted in the company receiving untrained replacements, it performed well in many small-scale engagements during this time. In the summer of 1951, the company was employed along the front line as an advance force to push back Chinese attacks as the front lines became more static. The company was highly regarded for its actions capturing and holding Hill 581 during the Battle of the Soyang River, in which the company inflicted hundreds of casualties on the Chinese without a single Ranger being killed.
Disbanded in August 1951 along with all the other Ranger companies, the unit's soldiers accrued several awards in its 10-month existence. These included four campaign streamers, nine Silver Star Medals and over 100 Purple Heart Medals. Subsequent research has focused on the economy of force of how the Rangers were employed and how their performance was impacted by the racist policies of their time.
## Origins
On 25 June 1950 the Korean War began when the North Korean People's Army invaded the Republic of Korea (ROK) with 90,000 well-trained and equipped troops who easily overran the smaller and more poorly equipped Republic of Korea Army. In response, the United States (U.S.) and United Nations (UN) began an intervention campaign to prevent South Korea from collapsing. The U.S. troops engaged the North Koreans first at the Battle of Osan where they were badly defeated on 5 July by the better-trained North Koreans. From there, the U.S. and UN suffered a steady stream of defeats that pushed them back to the Pusan Perimeter by August. At the same time, North Korean agents began to infiltrate behind UN lines and attack military targets and cities.
UN units, spread out along the Pusan Perimeter, had a difficult time repelling these units as they were untrained in combating guerrilla warfare. North Korean special forces units like the NK 766th Independent Infantry Regiment had great success in defeating ROK troops, prompting U.S. Army Chief of Staff General J. Lawton Collins to order the creation of an elite force which could "infiltrate through enemy lines and attack command posts, artillery, tank parks, and key communications centers or facilities." All U.S. Army Ranger units, which had previously undertaken this role, had been disbanded after World War II because they required time-consuming training, specialization, and expensive equipment. With the defeat of the NK 766th Regiment at the Battle of P'ohang-dong, and the strength of U.S. infantry units in question, U.S. commanders felt the recreation of Ranger units was essential. In early August as the Battle of Pusan Perimeter began, the Eighth United States Army ordered Lieutenant Colonel John H. McGee, the head of its G-3 Operations miscellaneous division, to create a new experimental Army Ranger unit, the Eighth Army Ranger Company, to trial the concept of reestablishing small light infantry companies that specialized in infiltration and irregular warfare. In the meantime, the Ranger Training Center was established at Fort Benning, Georgia.
### Organization
With the successful development of the Eighth Army Ranger Company, the establishment of additional Ranger companies was ordered. The composition of the new 2nd Army Ranger Infantry Company was formulated on the Table of Organization and Equipment documents of the World War II Ranger units. The 2nd Ranger Infantry Company was organized into three heavily armed platoons, which were overseen by a headquarters element of five men. Each platoon comprised 36 men in three squads: two assault squads and one heavy weapons squad. Each platoon was also furnished with 60 mm M2 mortars, M20 Super Bazookas, and M1918 Browning Automatic Rifles. One sniper was designated for each platoon, with the remainder of the troops being equipped with M1 Garand and M2 Carbine rifles. They were authorized two vehicles: an M38 Jeep and an M35 21⁄2 ton cargo truck. Overall, the company was far more heavily armed than both the Eighth Army Ranger Company and standard infantry companies. Like the other numbered Ranger companies, its organization called for 5 officers and 107 enlisted men.
The troops for the Ranger company were to be Airborne qualified, so the Ranger Training Center heavily recruited troops from the 82nd Airborne Division and 11th Airborne Division who had already completed United States Army Airborne School. In spite of this, only one Ranger operation in the conflict ever required an airborne landing. They initially wore a black and gold scroll as a shoulder sleeve insignia, but that insignia was later redesignated the Ranger Tab and the Rangers adopted a black, red and white scroll similar to that unofficially worn by Ranger Battalions in World War II.
Soon after arriving in Korea, the unit took to the nickname "Buffalo Rangers," which U.S. newspapers had applied to the unit as a homage to the Buffalo Soldiers. "Buffalo" subsequently became both the division's motto as well as its password for patrols upon their return to company lines. The 2nd Ranger Company was the only Ranger company in the history of the U.S. Army to consist entirely of African-Americans.
## History
### Formation and training
The U.S. Army, which up until that point typically did not allow African-American soldiers to serve in special forces units, authorized African-Americans to apply to become Rangers. However, in spite of Executive Order 9981, which had de-segregated the U.S. military in 1948, the Army opted to pool all black applicants into one company. By 1950, most units were still de facto segregated, and in the 82nd Airborne Division, Ranger applicants came from the all-black units including the 3rd Battalion, 505th Airborne Infantry, the 758th Tank Battalion and the 80th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion. Many of the applicants were World War II veterans who had seen combat, and many others had served with the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion.
Of a pool of 5,000 applicants, on 2 October the Ranger Training School selected 22 officers and 314 enlisted men for the first three Ranger companies, which were entirely white. A fourth, all African-American company was organized several days later. The 2nd Ranger Infantry Company (Airborne) was organized on 9 October 1950, assuming the lineage of A Company of the 2nd Ranger Battalion. It had an initial strength of 135 enlisted men and 5 officers under the command of First Lieutenant Warren E. Allen, company commander, and Second Lieutenant James C. Queen, executive officer. Originally it had been designated the 4th Ranger Infantry Company (Airborne), but the two companies switched designations, apparently to prevent accusations of racial discrimination. The unit was formally activated on 25 October 1950 at Fort Benning.
The Rangers trained extensively in reconnaissance, long-range patrols, motorized scouting, setting up roadblocks, land navigation, camouflage, concealment, and adjusting indirect fire. They undertook frequent live fire exercises, many at night, simulating raids, ambushes and infiltrations. The Rangers trained 60 hours per week and ran 5 miles (8.0 km) each day and frequently held 20 miles (32 km) speed marches, which were considered traditions for Ranger training from World War II. The training for the numbered companies included much of the program used by Second Lieutenant Ralph Puckett to train the Eighth Army Ranger Company. In spite of a 30 percent dropout rate, most of the men completed the course and graduated on 15 November 1950. The Rangers left Fort Benning on 3 December and traveled to Camp Stoneman, California, with the 4th Ranger Company. They sailed for Japan on 9 December aboard the transport USS General H.W. Butner bound for the front lines in the Korean War. The company arrived at Yokohama, Japan, on 24 December, and was flown from Tachikawa Air Base to Taegu five days later.
### Korea
Arriving in Korea at 11:15 on 30 December, the 2nd Ranger Company was attached to the 32nd Regimental Combat Team, 7th Infantry Division, X Corps which was regrouping in Yonchon having been badly mauled in the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, a battle which signaled the unexpected entry of Chinese troops into the war. The next day, the division was ordered to Tanyang and Wonju to block Chinese southward advance along main roads and railroads in the area. On 6 January the Rangers arrived at Changnim-ni with the regimental headquarters, where they were used as a security element for its medical units to protect them from infiltration. The Rangers established counter-guerrilla patrols around the regiment's main aid station and headquarters. They first saw combat at 02:00 on 7 January, driving off 20 North Korean guerrillas who had inadvertently run into one of their roadblocks. They then repulsed a company-sized second attack on the position. In this action, the Rangers lost their first killed in action, Sergeant First Class Isaac Baker, as well as three wounded. The North Koreans had 50 killed. At 09:00 9 January, 3rd Platoon conducted a patrol to Changnim where they ambushed an advance North Korean patrol, killing 11 while suffering one wounded in a six-hour firefight from 09:00 to 14:45. The company soon created a "curfew," attacking anyone they encountered after dark, a move which effectively disrupted communications and resupply to the local Chinese guerrilla unit, which instead opted to move out of the Rangers' area of operation.
On 14 January, the Rangers formed the armored spearhead of the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry attack on the village of Majori-ri, as part of an offensive to push Chinese forces back from the Tanyang area. The company entered the village at 07:30 and was ambushed by a battalion of Chinese troops entrenched there in fortified positions. The Rangers were able to capture the village and fend off a counterattack with their heavy weapons, suffering five killed and five wounded while killing 100 Chinese soldiers. However, as it moved to reinforce another U.S. infantry company advancing north, the 2nd Ranger Company was hit by a strong Chinese counterattack, and was forced to withdraw after running out of ammunition. It suffered another six killed and three wounded.
Continued patrols and skirmishes in the Tanyang area, as well as non-battle casualties to frostbite and sickness in the middle of the Korean winter, whittled down the 2nd Ranger Company to 67 men by the end of January. X Corps commander Major General Ned Almond ordered all black replacements to be sent to the Ranger company, even though they had not been trained as Rangers. This action, seen as a racist move by historians, was done to keep Almond's troops segregated. Although Ranger replacements were in short supply and the order effectively ensured that the company was brought back to at full strength, it nevertheless reduced the company's effectiveness. Reinforcements from many career fields, including many non-combat troops, joined the company and had to be retrained.
The 7th Infantry Division reached full strength and saw action around Chungju and Pyeongchang as part of an effort to push the North Korean and Chinese forces back above the 38th parallel and away from Seoul. In early February, the 7th Infantry Division engaged in a series of successful "limited objective" small unit attacks and ambushes before advancing slowly as it cleared enemy hilltop positions throughout the remainder of the month. In this time, the 2nd Ranger Company acted as a probing force and spearhead for attacks. On 20 February it led the 17th Infantry Regiment in an attack on Chuchon, taking the town from a superior force of Chinese troops. The action was undertaken with several war correspondents observing the battle, bringing international attention to the Ranger unit. The Rangers were commended for a particularly aggressive attack in which they pursued and surprised a Chinese column moving into the village, persisting in their attack with fixed bayonets even when it became apparent that the Chinese force was larger than anticipated. The Chinese were routed in heavy fighting. A few days later, field commanders reported to The Pentagon that the company was performing extremely well, and it was pulled from the lines for a new mission.
### Operation Tomahawk
On 28 February 1951, the 2nd Ranger Company was attached to the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team (RCT), alongside the 4th Ranger Infantry Company, and began unit training jumps and tactical exercises in preparation for a combat parachute drop. These exercises continued throughout March 1951, as much of the UN force conducted the aggressive Operation Ripper as a large-scale counteroffensive against the Chinese and North Korean forces. To follow-up this attack, Lieutenant General Matthew Ridgway, commander of the Eighth Army, planned Operation Tomahawk, a mission to insert the 187th RCT and the Rangers behind the Chinese lines to cut off Chinese supplies and force them to retreat north of Seoul. During the three weeks of training, the Rangers were reinforced by another platoon of African-American Rangers directly from Ranger school under Lieutenant Antonio Anthony.
On 23 March, the 187th and attached Rangers were dropped around Munsan-ni, 24 miles (39 km) northwest of Seoul, with the mission to hold an airhead to interfere with the Chinese and North Korean logistical network, and linkup with the 6th Medium Tank Battalion 18 hours after drop. The force of 3,500 left Taegu in 150 transports, over the Yellow Sea and over the North Korean coast. The 2nd Ranger Company dropped from its aircraft at 09:15, the first time in history U.S. Army Rangers conducted an aerial insertion into combat. Suffering only two Rangers injured from the jump, the force was nonetheless able to surprise and capture several positions of the NK 19th Division.
The Rangers massed and moved south to a terrain feature known as Hill 151, the linkup point with the 6th Tank Battalion. The company surprised and overwhelmed a Chinese platoon in a village 1 mile (1.6 km) north of the hill, killing six and capturing twenty. They then took the hill despite North Korean resistance, killing eleven and capturing one, and forcing two platoons of North Koreans to retreat from the hill. The Rangers suffered one killed and two wounded. By 18:00 they had linked up with the advancing 64th Medium Tank Battalion of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division. Over the next five days, the Rangers commenced mopping up North Korean and Chinese resistance, advancing 20 miles (32 km) north.
### Retraining and lull
In April, the 2nd Ranger Infantry Company was reattached to the 7th Infantry Division, this time to the 31st Regimental Combat Team. The company spent the month training replacements, with up to 400 enlisted men filtering into the company. By May, the process of transferring these men to other units began as U.S. Army units throughout Korea, driven by necessity, began slowly desegregating. The Rangers eventually settled at a force of 123 men, among them the first white member of the unit, medic Joe Russo.
By May, the Rangers were emplaced at Hill 258, on the front lines between the 31st RCT and the 7th Marine Regiment of the U.S. 1st Marine Division. They conducted frequent patrols along an outpost network, often encountering and engaging Chinese troops. They fortified the hill and surrounding areas, which served as an advance outpost to warn the 7th Infantry Division if the Chinese attacked. During this period, the fighting entered a lull, and troops resumed their rest and recuperation rotations. Allen, Pryor, and Freeman left on one such rotation with a number of men, leaving Queen and only 80 enlisted men on the hill.
### Hill 581
Shortly after this, however, Chinese infiltrators began appearing regularly in the undermanned 2nd Company's area, and by 15 May, Queen discovered the Chinese were moving in force to Hill 581, several miles from their position, from which the Chinese could fortify and attack Hill 258. Queen led the platoon on a sneak attack of the Chinese force on 17 May, covered by 7th Division artillery fire. At 15:00, they engaged the surprised Chinese, conducting a double envelopment supported by continued artillery fire. By 17:00, the Rangers secured Hill 581 from the Chinese, who suffered 50 killed and 90 wounded in the attack.
Chinese troops counterattacked in force at 23:00, with two battalions of infantry supported by snipers and mortar fire. Aided by 7th Division artillery fire, the Rangers held the hill against Chinese resistance. The Rangers repulsed four successive Chinese assaults by one of the battalions, expending all of their grenades by 02:00 on 18 May, and running short on ammunition by 03:00. At that point, the second Chinese battalion commenced its assault, surprising the Rangers and driving them from the peak of Hill 581. Queen counterattacked and retook the hill by 05:00. At 06:45, the Chinese gave up the attack, having been severely mauled. In the unsuccessful attempt to take Hill 581, Chinese losses amounted to at least 120 killed and several hundred injured. The Rangers, having relied on tight interlocking crossfire and well dug-in positions, suffered only 10 wounded in the battle. Commanders in the 7th Infantry Division were stunned by the 2nd Ranger Company's effectiveness in the fight, and as a result of the action, the company came to be considered a model unit.
The 2nd Ranger Company then moved east to help relieve the 7th Marines, which was reeling from Chinese attacks. In three days of intermittent fighting, the company conducted a number of search and destroy missions. This culminated in an attack on Hill 545, where an estimated company of Chinese troops, who had previously pushed the Marines back, were themselves surprised by the Rangers and forced to withdraw, losing 15 killed to the Rangers' two wounded.
### Final battles and disbandment
In June 1951, with peace talks underway in Panmunjom, the Ranger company was employed aggressively in offensive roles as a means to secure a better position for the UN at the bargaining table. After a number of operations north of the 38th parallel with the 7th Division, on 8 June the Rangers were moved to attack Hill 772, an operation crafted by Allen to win a strategically advantageous high ground position along the front line. That morning, the company, with support from 7th Division artillery, advanced on the hill, which was first blanketed with napalm strikes from U.S. Air Force P-51 Mustangs. Chinese forces resisted sporadically but withdrew at the end of the day having lost eight men killed and another thirty wounded. Against this the Rangers had lost only seven wounded. On 11 July, the Rangers continued the attack, backed by the 31st RCT who seized high ground near Sanying-ni and forced Chinese troops to retreat further. In this attack, one Ranger was killed and eight were wounded.
Following this, another lull in fighting along the 38th parallel occurred, during which both sides took time to fortify their positions and conduct fewer patrols. As the need for offensive action diminished, on 10 July, the U.S. Army ordered the deactivation of all of its Ranger companies. In doing so, the Army noted that the establishment of the Ranger companies had only been a trial directed by The Pentagon, which had been completed. The decision was further clarified in relation to the 2nd Ranger Company, with the Army stating that "racial differences" had prevented the company from being used effectively in offensive operations.
As a result of the decision to disband the Ranger units, the 2nd Ranger Company was deactivated on 1 August 1951 while it was still in Korea. Like many of the other Ranger units, most of the 2nd Ranger Company veterans were folded into the 187th RCT. As an airborne unit, it was believed that by sending the men to the 187th, their airborne skills could be used. Nevertheless, in the end it turned out that Operation Tomahawk was the last airborne jump of the war and as a result, the former Rangers did not get a chance to exercise these skills again.
## Awards and decorations
The 2nd Ranger Infantry Company was awarded four campaign streamers for its service in the Korean War. In 1955, the unit was again designated A Company of the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, and that unit carries on the 2nd Ranger Company's lineage.
Rangers of the company also received numerous individual decorations. Nine Rangers received Silver Star Medals and 11 received Bronze Star Medals. A total of 103 Purple Heart Medals were awarded to 84 members of the company, with 11 Rangers receiving two Purple Hearts and four Rangers receiving three.
## Analysis
The 2nd Ranger Infantry Company was one of sixteen Ranger companies formed in 1950, and one of seven to see combat in Korea. Subsequent military science studies of the Korean War Rangers have analyzed their economy of force, focusing on how well the U.S. military employed the Rangers as special forces. In a thorough analysis of the operations of all Ranger units in the Korean War, Major Chelsea Y. Chae proposed in a 1996 thesis to the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College that Rangers in Korea were misused and ineffective. Chae contended that the Ranger formations' lack of support personnel made them a logistical and administrative liability, as they had to be attached to conventional units for support. Furthermore, Chae argued that the small size of the Ranger units meant they lacked the manpower to conduct basic tactical maneuvers, and their employment with divisional elements meant they did not have the necessary intelligence information to conduct effective infiltration operations. He concluded that these problems were due to "lack of understanding of Ranger capabilities, limitations inherent in Rangers' force structure, and basic distrust of elite forces."
In his own 2003 thesis, Lieutenant Colonel Victor J. Bond said the 2nd Ranger Company's performance in Korea had been exemplary, in spite of racial discrimination against it. The troops, who had already been well trained members of airborne units before joining the company, quickly gained cohesion and were exceptional soldiers. Bond also contended that the Rangers did not properly receive credit for their actions in Korea, noting the company did not receive the Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation or the U.S. Presidential Unit Citation even though units to which they were attached were decorated. Bond also said many of the accomplishments of the company were attributed to white units, due in part to the command climate precipitated by Almond.
## Finnigan's War
The 2nd Ranger Infantry Company was honored in the 2013 Korean War documentary "Finnigan's War" directed by Conor Timmis. Members of the 2nd Ranger Infantry Company interviewed in the film include Herculano Dias, Donald Allen and Paul T. Lyles. Ranger Herculano Dias recalls the unit's unique combat accomplishments. Ranger Paul T. Lyles recalls his harrowing encounter with a North Korean tree sniper. Ranger Donald Allen recalls caring for a wounded white soldier and ends his interview with the line "when the bullets start to fly, everyone is the same color". |
55,074,803 | Type 1936C destroyer | 1,122,276,823 | Planned class of destroyers, for the Kriegsmarine | [
"Proposed ships of Germany",
"Type 1936 destroyers",
"World War II destroyers of Germany"
]
| The Type 1936C destroyer was a planned class of destroyer for the Kriegsmarine. The class was intended to consist of five ships, Z46, Z47, Z48, Z49 and Z50. They were designed to be an improvement of Type 1936A and B destroyers. Only two of the five ships, Z46 and Z47, were ever laid down, and work was halted for a year between 1942 and 1943. Construction was constantly interrupted by numerous problems, dominantly due to air raids, material supply delays and a shortage of copper. The two ships that were laid down, Z46 and Z47, were blown up by Allied troops in 1945.
## Characteristics
The Type 1936C destroyers were to be 121.5 metres (399 ft) long at waterline, and 126.2 metres (414 ft) long overall. They were to have a breadth of 12.2 metres (40 ft), and a depth of 6.65 metres (21.8 ft). They were to have a draught of 3.62 metres (11.9 ft) at standard load, 3.88 metres (12.7 ft) at design load, and 4.45 metres (14.6 ft) at full load. They were to displace 2,636 tonnes (2,594 long tons; 2,906 short tons) at standard load, 3,071 tonnes (3,022 long tons; 3,385 short tons) at design load, and 3,683 tonnes (3,625 long tons; 4,060 short tons) at full load. They were to have a complement of 320, and carry one motor pinnace, one motor yawl, one torpedo cutter and one dinghy.
The Type 1936C destroyers were to be armed with six 12.8-centimetre (5.0 in) quick firing guns with 720 rounds of ammunition, with a speed of 20 rounds per minute, which had a range of 19 kilometres (12 mi), to be placed in three LC.41 twin turrets, one forward and two aft. An advanced radar-controllable fire control system was placed upon the two aft turrets; six 3.7-centimetre (1.5 in) anti-aircraft guns with 12,000 rounds of ammunition, placed in three LM/42 twin mountings, one forward and two aft; eight to 14 2-centimetre (0.8 in) anti-aircraft guns with 16,000–28,000 rounds of ammunition, placed in LM/44 mountings; two quadruple 53.3-centimetre (21.0 in) torpedo tubes (8–12 rounds); and 60 mines with four depth charge launchers.
Their propulsion systems were to consist of six Wagner boilers feeding high-pressure superheated steam (at 70 atm (1,029 psi; 7,093 kPa) and 450 °C (842 °F)) to two sets of Wagner geared steam turbines, which were 3.35 metres (11.0 ft) in diameter. They were to have one electricity plant with one 200 kilowatts (270 hp) turbo-generator and four 80 kilowatts (110 hp) diesel generators, for a total output of 520 kilowatts (700 hp) at 220 electronvolts (35 aJ). They were to have 70,000 shaft horsepower (52,000 kW) at 390 revs per minute, giving them a top speed of 37.5 knots (69.5 km/h; 43.2 mph). They were to carry 822 tonnes (809 long tons; 906 short tons) of oil, giving them a range of 2,500 nautical miles (4,600 km; 2,900 mi) at 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph).
## Development
The Type 1936C was intended as an improvement of both the Type 1936A and B destroyers. The Type 1936C was very similar in basic hull and identical in machinery to the Type 1936A, with the major difference between the two being the Type 1936C's use of turbines originally intended for use by the Spähkreuzers, and their heavier firepower.
The first two ships of the class, Z46 and Z47, were ordered on 8 October 1941, and laid down at a later date. Construction was halted in 1942 due to lack of material, but was restarted again in 1943. The construction of the two ships was constantly delayed due to damage from aircraft raids, material supply delays and shortages of copper, among other problems, resulting in very slow progress. The two ships were blown up in 1945 by Allied troops. The other three ships: Z48, Z49, and Z50 were ordered on 12 June 1943, but never laid down.
## Ships |
32,060,230 | 1978 FA Charity Shield | 1,170,649,899 | 1978 football match in London, England | [
"1978 sports events in London",
"1978–79 in English football",
"August 1978 sports events in the United Kingdom",
"Events at Wembley Stadium",
"FA Community Shield",
"Ipswich Town F.C. matches",
"Nottingham Forest F.C. matches"
]
| The 1978 FA Charity Shield was the 56th FA Charity Shield, an annual football match played between the winners of the previous season's Football League and FA Cup competitions. The match took place on 12 August 1978 at Wembley Stadium and was played between 1977–78 Football League champions Nottingham Forest and FA Cup winners Ipswich Town. Watched by a crowd of 68,000, the match ended in a 5–0 victory for Nottingham Forest.
This was both Ipswich and Nottingham Forest's second appearance in the Charity Shield. Ipswich were unable to field four of the previous season's FA Cup-winning team through injury with Tommy Parkin making his debut. Nottingham Forest took the lead in the tenth minute through Martin O'Neill and doubled their advantage with a Peter Withe goal. Forest's lead was further extended through second-half goals from Larry Lloyd, O'Neill and John Robertson.
## Background and pre-match
The FA Charity Shield was founded in 1908 as a successor to the Sheriff of London Charity Shield. It was a contest between the respective champions of the Football League and Southern League, and then by 1913 teams of amateur and professional players. In 1921, it was played by the Football League champions and FA Cup winners for the first time. This was the fifth year that Wembley Stadium played host to the Shield.
Nottingham Forest had won the league in the previous season, seven points clear of Liverpool and having been undefeated at home at the City Ground. Despite finishing 18th in the league the previous season, Ipswich Town had beaten Arsenal at Wembley in the FA Cup final three months earlier, the only goal coming from Roger Osborne midway through the second half of the match.
Forest had lost in their only previous Charity Shield final in 1959, beaten 3–1 by Wolverhampton Wanderers; Ipswich had played in the 1962 FA Charity Shield, a game in which they also conceded five goals, that time against 1962 FA Cup final winners Tottenham Hotspur. As of 2023, neither Ipswich Town nor Nottingham Forest have played in a Charity Shield match since 1978.
## Match
### Summary
Ipswich were playing without FA Cup winners and international central defenders Kevin Beattie and Allan Hunter, who were replaced by John Wark and Russell Osman. Roger Osborne and David Geddis were also absent from the side, and Tommy Parkin was called upon to make his full professional debut at Wembley. With eight minutes gone, a volley from Parkin was turned behind by Forest goalkeeper Peter Shilton for a corner. Two minutes later however, Martin O'Neill scored in the tenth minute after a number of Ipswich defenders failed to clear a Robertson cross. According to Ronald Atkin of The Observer, Shilton made another "stunning" save to deny Brian Talbot before Peter Withe doubled Forest's lead on 27 minutes. Robertson cut in from the left and turned the ball back to Colin Barrett whose cross Withe headed past Paul Cooper in the Ipswich goal, sending Forest into half-time with a 2–0 lead.
The second half saw Forest increase their lead, with Lloyd scoring from a Robertson free kick after Wark had fouled Withe. Ipswich's Trevor Whymark was substituted off for Robin Turner on 66 minutes, but Forest scored a fourth from an O'Neill strike following a Robertson cross. O'Neill was then immediately substituted by Forest manager Brian Clough for David Needham before he could complete his hat-trick. Just three minutes before full-time, Robertson scored Forest's fifth and final goal. Ipswich's George Burley waited too long for a pass from Osman to reach him and let Robertson steal in to take the ball and strike it past Cooper from the edge of the area. Ipswich had no reply, and the game ended 5–0, a winning margin that, as of 2023, remains unbeaten. It was also the largest winning margin in the Charity Shield since the 1968 match where Manchester City had beaten West Bromwich Albion 6–1.
### Details
## Post-match
The shield was presented to the Nottingham Forest captain by former England international and 1966 FIFA World Cup-winning captain Bobby Moore, and Clough transgressed protocol by following his team up the steps to receive the trophy.
Nottingham Forest went on to finish as First Division runners-up in the 1978–79 season, once again undefeated at home, finishing eight points behind Liverpool. Ipswich finished sixth in the division.
## See also
- 1977–78 Football League
- 1977–78 FA Cup |
34,447,242 | John Dundas (RAF officer) | 1,152,945,880 | British aviator | [
"1915 births",
"1940 deaths",
"1940s missing person cases",
"Aerial disappearances of military personnel in action",
"Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford",
"Aviators killed by being shot down",
"British World War II flying aces",
"Military personnel from Yorkshire",
"Missing in action of World War II",
"People educated at Stowe School",
"People lost at sea",
"Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United Kingdom)",
"Royal Air Force officers",
"Royal Air Force personnel killed in World War II",
"Royal Air Force pilots of World War II",
"The Few"
]
| John Charles Dundas, DFC & Bar (19 August 1915 – 28 November 1940) was a Royal Air Force fighter pilot and flying ace of the Second World War credited with 12 victories.
Born in West Yorkshire as the son of an aristocrat, Dundas was an able student and academic. After graduating from Christ Church, Oxford, he became a journalist and joined a newspaper in his home county. After two years, Dundas tired of life as a reporter and joined the Royal Auxiliary Air Force (RAuxAF) in July 1938, being commissioned as pilot officer in No. 609 (West Riding) Squadron and trained as a pilot at his own expense.
In May 1940 his squadron took part in the Battle of France, during which Dundas claimed his first two victories. Dundas remained with his squadron throughout the Battle of Britain, claiming nine German aircraft shot down. On 9 October he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) for 10 victories. At the time of his last battle Dundas had been credited with 12 aircraft destroyed, two shared destroyed, four probably destroyed and five damaged. During a battle over the English Channel on 28 November 1940, Dundas is believed to have engaged and shot down Helmut Wick, the highest-scoring ace of the Luftwaffe at that time. Moments later Dundas was also shot down into the sea. Both pilots vanished and remain missing in action.
## Early life
John Charles Dundas was born in West Yorkshire in 1915. He was related to two aristocratic families in the region; he was the grandson of the Scottish Liberal politician John Dundas and the great-grandson of Lawrence Dundas, 1st Earl of Zetland. Dundas was also related to the House of Halifax.
Dundas won a scholarship to Stowe School at the age of 12. At the age of 17 he won a second scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford. Dundas graduated with a first class degree in Modern History before winning a further award that allowed him to study at both Sorbonne and the University of Heidelberg.
Dundas subsequently became a journalist for the Yorkshire Post and its editorial staff. Another who worked on the paper at the time, Richard Pape, recalled him as a man indifferent to his personal appearance, who wore frayed trousers, frequently had ink-stained hands and would spill beer over himself when drinking, yet who was also popular with the newspaper's younger, female staff members.
The newspaper sent him to Czechoslovakia during the Munich Crisis as a part of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's entourage in 1938 before travelling to Rome to report on a meeting between Benito Mussolini, Chamberlain and Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, to whom Dundas was related.
In July 1938, at the age of 23, Dundas was commissioned as a pilot officer in No. 609 Squadron RAF, a Royal Auxiliary Air Force squadron. Hugh and John's godfather had set up the unit. At that time, the squadron was manned by part-time civilians and was equipped with Hawker Hind bombers.
John Dundas was well respected by his peers and he frequently flew his commanding officer's Hind. However, on 18 June 1939, Dundas was flying this aircraft when it suffered an engine failure on take-off. Without the power to get airborne, it crashed through the airfield fence and finished up in the garden of a neighbouring house. It was subsequently written off.
The squadron was converted from a bomber to a fighter aircraft squadron and later, in August 1939, re-equipped with the Supermarine Spitfire. Dundas' younger brother Hugh was also a fighter pilot. Hugh was wounded in August 1940 but recovered and eventually rose to the rank of group captain. He survived the war and died in 1995.
## Second World War
### Battle of France
Dundas was promoted to the rank of flying officer in January 1940. 609 Squadron was positioned on the south coast of England in May 1940, and was part of RAF Fighter Command operations to provide air cover for the Royal Navy and civilian vessels that were taking part in the Dunkirk evacuation.
On 30 May, he flew his first patrol. The following day his squadron was put on 30 minutes readiness at RAF North Weald from 12:30 pm. At 14:00 His squadron took off, headed for Dunkirk at 20,000 feet (6,100 m) and engaged the enemy for the first time. In the next patrol, flying L1096, Dundas engaged a German bomber formation and destroyed a Heinkel He 111 and a Dornier Do 17. Dundas did not score again during the Battle of France.
On 11 June, Dundas flew one of nine Spitfires that escorted a plane flying Winston Churchill to France, on a mission to try and convince the French to keep fighting.
### Battle of Britain
Over the next few weeks 609 Squadron had moved from RAF Northolt to RAF Middle Wallop. It was from here Dundas gained his first victory of the Battle of Britain, in a phase known as the Kanalkampf. On 13 July, as section leader, Dundas led a patrol over a convoy. Failing to find the convoy the Spitfires engaged German aircraft at 15,000 feet (4,600 m) near Portland, England. Flying in R6634 Dundas led a diving attack out of the sun against Messerschmitt Bf 110s. Dundas claimed a Bf 110 destroyed though the damaged aircraft and its wounded pilot, Leutnant Krebitz, made it back to France, where the Bf 110 was severely damaged in a crash-landing. In late July while night-flying Dundas narrowly escaped with his life; coming into land, his wing struck an artillery emplacement. He landed without injury.
Over the next few days, Dundas fought continuous battles with German formations. He noted the growing intensity of the air battles and assumed responsibility for the unit's war diary in August. In this diary he remarked;
> So far as 609 was concerned, the Nazi blitz began on the 8th August...Four pilots engaged and accounted for five huns.
On 11 August 1940 Dundas flew R6769. Taking off at 09:45 am he led yellow section out to sea near the Isle of Wight at 24,000 feet (7,300 m). Dundas and two other Spitfires (including his wingman) lost contact with his squadron. He saw nine Hawker Hurricanes below and in mid-Channel but also noticed contrails above and climbed up to investigate. The aircraft were Bf 110s, with Messerschmitt Bf 109s providing top cover. Dundas led an attack, but lost the other Spitfires and attacked alone. He shot down a Bf 110 but received hits from German rear gunners. It is likely that the Bf 110 was from I./Zerstörergeschwader 2 ("destroyer wing 2").
On 12 August the battle was repeated against Bf 109s and Bf 110s over the same area. Dundas shot down another Bf 110. Shaking off a Bf 109, he damaged another but was forced to disengage as more German fighters closed in and fuel and ammunition had run low. His fifth victory now made him a flying ace.
A major effort was made by the Luftwaffe on 13 August 1940. Christened Adlertag ("eagle day"), the Germans began a series of heavy air attacks. At 15:30 No. 609 Squadron was scrambled, with Dundas flying in R6690 as number four in red section. At 10,000 feet (3,000 m) he spotted German fighters. Red leader could not see the enemy and instructed Dundas to take the lead. Climbing into the sun at 18,000 feet (5,500 m), Dundas saw Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers below him. Attacking he shot down one of the Ju 87s from Sturzkampfgeschwader 2 ("dive bombing wing 2"). Dundas damaged another before being hit. He made a "dead-stick" landing at RAF Warmwell. The German unit that 609 attacked was badly hit. One Staffel ("squadron") of II./StG 2 lost six out of nine Ju 87s.
The following day, 14 August 609 was patrolling Boscombe Down at 15,000 feet (4,600 m). Flying Spitfire R6961, Dundas damaged a Bf 110 before it escaped into cloud. Directed onto a formation of Do 17s soon after he damaged one bomber before taking hits from defensive fire. Returning to base, Dundas spotted a He 111 with its wheels down and made a brief attack that caused it to crash 5 miles (8 km) south-west of his airfield. The machine belonged to the Stabsstaffel from Kampfgeschwader 55 ("bomber wing 55").
Dundas did not make another claim until 15 September, a date known as Battle of Britain Day. In the morning, piloting R6922, he damaged a Do 17, knocking out one of its engines. Flying another Spitfire, X4107, he shared a Do 17 with his wingmen, Pilot Officer Mike Appleby, and the American pilot Vernon Keogh. On 24 September, he damaged a Do 17 while destroying a Bf 110 in X4472. In the same Spitfire Dundas claimed a Bf 109 shot down on 26 September and damaged another Do 17. The following day he claimed a Bf 110 destroyed near Bristol.
Eleven days later Dundas claimed a probable victory against a Bf 110, after a battle with German aircraft six miles north of RAF Warmwell at 16:30. Despite firing a 12–14 second burst at the enemy fighter, he did not see it crash. During the battle Dundas was hit in the leg when a cannon round exploded in his cockpit, but flew again the next day. The Spitfire Dundas flew that day, R6915, still exists, having been preserved by the Imperial War Museum. By 9 October 1940, his score stood at 10 and he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
A week later, on 15 October 1940, Dundas destroyed another Bf 110 in P9503 at 14,000 feet (4,300 m) over Christchurch, Dorset. Evading a Bf 109 attack, Dundas' radio failed and he was unable to re-group his section. Noticing Bf 110s above at 18,000–20,000 feet (5,500–6,100 m) he climbed to attack; his victim crashed at Bournemouth. He was then chased by a pair of Bf 109s but evaded them. His victory was 609's 99th aerial victory.
### Channel Front and last battle
By now Dundas was recognised as the highest scoring pilot of the unit, he was highly regarded by his comrades and was well-liked. He passed on experience to younger pilots and was always willing to discuss tactics, particularly with Squadron Leader Michael Robinson. Dundas, even by this early stage in the war, was the only member of the original 'A' (Auxiliary) pilots still with 609. Dundas lamented the few who remained were the "sole champions of the Auxiliary attitude".
On 27 November, a Ju 88 was reported near Southampton. Dundas asked permission to intercept but was refused. Approaching his squadron leader, Dundas asked to take his section up for a practice flight; Robinson did not expect anything untoward and gave permission. At 22,000 feet (6,700 m) Dundas' section made contact, chasing the German over the Isle of Wight at full throttle – reaching 2,600 revs. The Ju 88 had a healthy head start. But Dundas closed with it and got to within 400 yards (370 m), 15 miles (24 km) off Cherbourg, France. Dundas fired X4586's guns for five seconds while the German gunners put up a determined defence. The Ju 88's port engine caught fire and it dived down steeply, out of control. Now in sight of an airfield filled with Bf 109s, Dundas decided to retreat. He was credited with a probable victory upon his return.
The next day, 28 November, was busy for 609 Squadron. Several scrambles and alerts came through against Bf 109s. The last came at approximately 15:30 Greenwich Mean Time. Dundas was once again piloting X4586. Two squadrons, 152 Squadron and 609 made contact with Bf 109s from Jagdgeschwader 2 ("fighter wing 2"), led by the most successful German ace of the war thus far — Helmut Wick. Minutes after contact had been made and the battle joined, Flight Lieutenant Fieldsend heard the familiar voice of Dundas shout "I've finished a 109—Whoopee!". Squadron Leader Robinson congratulated Dundas but nothing was heard from Dundas, or his wingman Pilot Officer Paul A. Baillon, flying R6631.
It is believed Wick had shot down Baillon in a diving attack for his 56th aerial victory. Baillon managed to bail out, but was never recovered. Momentarily distracted, Wick flew across Dundas' path. Dundas fired a short burst, hitting Wick's Bf 109 at around 17:00 German time, over the sea near the Isle of Wight. It has also been suggested that Wick fell victim to Pilot Officer Eric Marrs, who also made a claim in the battle. Wick was seen to bail out of his aircraft, but he was not rescued and his body was never found. Moments later Dundas was probably shot down by Wick's wingman, Rudolf Pflanz who claimed a victory and saw the Spitfire crash into the sea with the pilot still inside. Like Wick, Dundas' body was never found. On 24 December 1940, Dundas was posthumously awarded a second DFC. It was announced on 7 January 1941 in the London Gazette with the citation:
> Flight Lieutenant Dundas has continued to engage the enemy with outstanding success and has now destroyed at least twelve of their aircraft and damaged many more. On one occasion he pursued an enemy aircraft from Winchester to Cherbourg, finally destroying it. He has shown a magnificent fighting spirit which has inspired the other members of his flight.
### Memorial and R6915
As an airman who has no known grave, he is commemorated on the Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede (Panel 4).
A small memorial to Dundas is on a cliff-top path east of Freshwater Bay on the Isle of Wight, close to the point where his final battle took place. It was installed in November 2000, on the 60th anniversary of his death.
One of the aircraft Dundas flew in combat, Supermarine Spitfire number R6915, still exists and is preserved in the Imperial War Museum in London. In this aircraft, he claimed a probable kill over a Bf 110 on 7 October 1940.
## List of victories
A list of Dundas' claims from 31 May – 28 November 1940.
## See also
- List of people who disappeared mysteriously at sea |
33,272,875 | Vatos | 1,163,081,893 | null | [
"2010 American television episodes",
"Television episodes directed by Johan Renck",
"The Walking Dead (season 1) episodes"
]
| "Vatos" is the fourth episode of the first season of the post-apocalyptic horror television series The Walking Dead. It originally aired on AMC in the United States on November 21, 2010. The episode was written by Robert Kirkman and directed by Johan Renck. In the episode, Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus), Theodore "T-Dog" Douglas (IronE Singleton), and Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun) return to downtown Atlanta in search of Daryl's brother, Merle. The group are later targeted by a Latino gang, whose leader threatens to kill them if they do not relinquish their weapons. Meanwhile, Lori Grimes (Sarah Wayne Callies) and Shane Walsh (Jon Bernthal)'s relationship begins to crumble.
Major events in "Vatos" include the deaths of several recurring characters, including Amy (Emma Bell) and Ed Peletier (Adam Minarovich). This episode was filmed in several locations in Atlanta, Georgia, including the Goat Farm Arts Center. "Vatos" was lauded by television commentators, who praised its storyline progression and character development. Upon initial airing, it attained 4.75 million viewers and a 2.4/6 rating in the 18-49 demographic, according to Nielsen ratings. The episode became the highest-rated cable program of the day, as well as the ninth most-watched cable program of the week.
## Plot
The episode opens as sisters Andrea and Amy are fishing for the survivors in a nearby quarry lake, discussing their childhood and hopes that Florida, where their parents live, was not hit as hard by the zombie epidemic.
In Atlanta, Rick Grimes, Daryl, Glenn, and T-Dog have discovered the severed hand of Merle Dixon, Daryl's brother, where Rick had handcuffed him on the roof of a store. They follow a trail of blood to show Merle had killed some walkers and managed to cauterize the stump of his hand before finding out that he escaped the building, resulting in the trail going cold.
At the survivors' camp, Jim begins digging holes, refusing to explain why. As the survivors press him, he lashes back at them, forcing Shane Walsh to restrain Jim. Jim breaks down, explaining how he lost his family to walkers, and that a dream inspired him to dig the holes. Jim warns Lori Grimes to keep her son Carl safe.
In Atlanta, Rick's group comes into conflict with the Vatos, a group of Latinos that kidnap Glenn and demand they exchange Rick's bag of weapons for his return. When they face-off at the Vatos' base, they discover it is a hidden nursing home, and the Vatos are only trying to protect their own family. Rick leaves some of his weapons and ammo for the Vatos, and Glenn is returned unharmed. Rick's group finds their vehicle missing, and suspect Merle took it seeking vengeance on the survivors', and they start to race on foot back to the camp.
At the camp, the other survivors are enjoying dinner when a horde of walkers suddenly appear, biting several of the members including Amy and Ed Peletier. Rick and the others arrive in time to quell the walkers. Amy dies in Andrea's arms, and as the others stand around in shock, Jim recalls why he had dug those holes.
## Production
"Vatos" was directed by Johan Renck and written by Robert Kirkman; this episode became Kirkman's first writing credit for the series. "I was pretty happy that the first death in the show was in an episode that I got to write," he stated. "That was kind of cool." The episode's script was heavily modified by Kirkman and series creator Frank Darabont prior to airing. Neil Brown, Jr. initially collaborated with producers on directing the episode but eventually pulled out of the project.
Principal photography for the episode transpired at the Goat Farm Arts Center in the West Midtown neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia. "Vatos" features a sequence near the conclusion of the episode, in which a horde of walkers invades and attacks the campgrounds. The scene was written by Robert Kirkman, who based it closely on a similar sequence in the comics. Kirkman stated that he was very excited to develop the sequence and added that it was a familiar task for him:
> It was very exciting. I got to write the attack at the end of the episode—which was very much something that happened in the comic book series—so I knew I would be revisiting something I had already written. But as we were in the writers' room, when things started shifting which led to all this new stuff that wasn't in the comic book series, I thought that was great because it wasn't me writing the same-old same-old or rewriting something I had already done and trying to make it interesting for myself. It was really an entirely new story: getting the gang members in there and getting to write Daryl [...] which is one of my favorite characters on the show, despite the fact that he’s not in the comic book. It was a blast.
Alongside the main cast, the episode introduced Vatos band, composed by Neil Brown Jr. as Guillermo, Noel G. as Felipe, Anthony Guajardo as Miguel, Gina Morelli as Abuela, and James Gonzaba as Jorge. The rest of the gang is formed by Roger Herrera and Timothy Douglas Perez. This episode marked the last regular appearance of Emma Bell (Amy), whose character was killed off in the conclusion of the installment. Her death is considered one of the twentieth most shocking deaths in the series. Greg Nicotero, the show's production designer, enacted the walker who bites Amy. Bell stated that Nicotero placed a skin-colored prosthetic around her neck, which consisted of a layer of red viscous liquid and a hose. Once it was bitten into, the prosthetic exploded and resembled a severe flesh wound. Kirkman expressed that it was difficult for him to remove Bell from the cast but was thankful that she understood she would only be limited to a certain number of episodes; he stated:
> It's something that's very difficult for me. Because it is lines on paper when I do it in the comic book series. It's like, 'Oh, okay, Charlie Adlard [...] doesn’t have to draw that arrangement of lines anymore, that person is dead.' But it's very uncomfortable for me to be on set, because I see these actors that are there and, in the source material, I have killed all but two of them. I walk through the set and I'm like, 'Yep, killed that one, killed that one, killed that one.' And it is firing those people. I feel really bad for Emma Bell, just because she was great and I would have liked to have had her in the show. But, you know, this is The Walking Dead, characters have got to die. Thankfully, Emma was brought onto the show with the understanding that she was only going to be in a certain number of episodes and she knew that she was going to die from the very beginning. But it doesn’t really make it any easier. When they were shooting those scenes, I had to fly to Comic-Con and so I wasn’t actually there for when she died. But it was very emotional on set and I know that she was very upset about having to leave the crew and the actors. You kind of become a family when you're doing a TV show and it’s a little upsetting to have to get rid of somebody.
A deleted scene shows Rick and crew revisiting the Vatos, but finds everyone dead, including the old people. Another gang had overrun the Vatos, killed everyone inside, and stolen their food and supplies
## Reception
### Ratings
"Vatos" originally aired on November 21, 2010 in the United States on AMC. The episode attained 4.75 million viewers upon airing, and garnered a 2.7/4 HH rating. Additionally, it received a 2.4/6 rating in the 18-49 demographic, according to Nielsen ratings. "Vatos" became the highest-rated cable program of the night, and the ninth most-watched cable program of the week. Ratings and total viewership for the episode moderately declined from the preceding installment, "Tell It to the Frogs", which was watched by 5.07 million viewers and a 2.5/7 rating in the 18-49 demographic. In the United Kingdom, the episode received 467,000 viewers and became the highest-rated cable program on FX of the week dated November 28.
### Critical response
"Vatos" attained general acclaim from television critics. James Poniewozik of TIME asserted that the episode successfully made the viewers experience the daily life of the show's characters, and HitFix's Alan Sepinwall felt that "Vatos" was the strongest episode since the series' pilot episode. In his 7.9 out of 10 star review, Josh Jackson of Paste wrote: "The whole spectrum of human nature is on view when civilization is stripped away—the bigger the immediate threat, the more varied the response. And it’s this balance between action/horror and personal drama that makes The Walking Dead so compelling." Los Angeles Times writer Gina McIntyre felt that Kirkman "seemed right at home adapting his characters for the screen."
John Griffiths, writing for Us Weekly, felt the installment was haunting enough to "make viewers leave their lights on afterward", and opined that the character development and the progression of the storylines served as the episode's highlights. John Serba of The Grand Rapids Press stated that "Vatos" was the most emotionally poignant episode of The Walking Dead so far. Expressing similar sentiments, IGN's Eric Goldman evaluated the episode as "strong", ultimately giving it a nine out of ten, signifying an "amazing" rating. Leonard Pierce of The A.V. Club, who issued the episode a B grade, was less enthusiastic than the general consensus. Pierce felt that the bulk of the episode was "mushy" and concluded that it "didn't solve anything involving the ongoing plot and introduced a bunch of arbitrary, needless complications that had no payoff, [and] bogged it down quite a bit."
Critics praised the interactions between Amy and Andrea. Serba asserted that Kirkman effectively set up Amy's death at the beginning of the episode, and added that it established a sisterly bond. Serba also acclaimed Laurie Holden's performance; he stated that she "powerfully conveys her grief and despair." Pierce avouched that the opening sequence was likable, while Michelle Kung of The Wall Street Journal summated that the concluding scene was "an emotional release after a tense build-up."
Critics were divided about Rick Grimes' return to Atlanta, as well as his stand off with Guillermo and his gang. Scott Meslow of The Atlantic compared Grimes to Mad Men's Don Draper, and questioned his character development: "So far, every decision Rick has made has been both within his code and consequence-free," he said. Pierce opined: "Dramatically, this whole sequence plays out pretty hokily. Guillermo's dialogue is ridiculous, and the entire storyline plays like something out of an episodic social-lesson-of-the-week show. Since nothing ends up coming of it from a plot standpoint [...], it's hard not to think of it as one of those comics where two superheros [sic] have a big fight scene that turns out to be mistaken identity." |
1,705,108 | Newbury Park tube station | 1,150,389,351 | London Underground station | [
"Central line (London Underground) stations",
"Former Great Eastern Railway stations",
"Grade II listed buildings in the London Borough of Redbridge",
"Grade II listed railway stations",
"London Underground Night Tube stations",
"Oliver Hill (architect) buildings",
"Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1903",
"Tube stations in the London Borough of Redbridge",
"William Neville Ashbee railway stations"
]
| Newbury Park is a London Underground station in Newbury Park, Ilford, East London. It is between Barkingside and Gants Hill stations on the Hainault loop of the Central line, in Travelcard Zone 4. The station was initially opened by the Great Eastern Railway on 1 May 1903 and subsequently transferred its services to the London & North Eastern Railway due to the amalgamation. Underground trains only started serving the station on 14 December 1947, operating via the Gants Hill tunnel. The line was extended to Hainault on 31 May 1948. The Grade II listed bus shelter designed by Oliver Hill opened on 6 July 1949. Lifts were fully installed at Newbury Park in November 2018 to provide step-free access to the station, approximately 10 years after TfL abandoned the project.
## Geography
Newbury Park station is located in Newbury Park (in 1903 known as the Horns) of northeastern Ilford in the London Borough of Redbridge. It was built to serve the growing neighbourhood of Newbury Park where the earliest settlement, Birkbeck Estate, dates back to the 1880s. When Eastern Avenue was completed through Newbury Park as a bypass in 1920, development sprung-up around the area. Nearby landmarks include Oaks Park High School, Aldborough Primary School, St. Theresa Roman Catholic Church, Ilford War Memorial Gardens and Holiday Inn Express Hotel.
Newbury Park station has two car parks; one connects to King George Avenue and the other to Eastern Avenue. Entrance to the station is via the bus shelter.
## History
Newbury Park originally opened on 1 May 1903, as part of a Great Eastern Railway (GER) branch line from Woodford to Ilford via Hainault, known as the Fairlop Loop (now known as Hainault loop). This line, designed to stimulate suburban growth, had chequered success. In the 1920s, only areas such as Newbury Park were decently populated. As a consequence of the Railways Act 1921, the GER was merged with other railway companies in 1923 to become part of the London & North Eastern Railway (LNER). A new station building was built by the LNER which replaced the original GER building.
As part of the 1935–1940 "New Works Programme" of the London Passenger Transport Board, the majority of the loop, including the station, was to be transferred to form part of the eastern extensions of the Central line. Although work commenced in 1938, it was suspended upon the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 and work only recommenced in 1945. This involved the construction of a new tube tunnel from Leytonstone via Redbridge which surfaced at Newbury Park to connect with the lines of the existing Ilford to Woodford branch. During the war, a part of the constructed tunnel system was used as an underground aircraft munitions factory, and was used as an air raid shelter.
Steam train services serving Newbury Park were permanently suspended after 29 November 1947. Electrified Central line passenger services to Central London via Gants Hill finally commenced on 14 December 1947. Lord Ashfield, former chairman of the London Passenger Transport Board, and local dignitaries attended the opening ceremony of the extension. A train crew depot was established on 30 November 1947 but closed on 2 November 1953. In addition, the line beyond, to the new Hainault depot, was electrified for empty train movements. The station ceased to be the temporary terminus of the Central line on 31 May 1948 with passenger services to Hainault station reopened. The surface tracks from Newbury Park to Ilford were severed by the expansion of Ilford Carriage Sheds in 1947, whilst those to Seven Kings were severed in 1956. The former alignment was in a cutting which was filled in and subsequently provided land for allotment gardens and housing. Three road bridges (Vicarage Lane, Benton Road and Wards Road) spanning an apparently missing alignment are the only clues to the old railway.
Goods services used to run from the station via Woodford to Temple Mills, reversed via a turn-back siding south of the station until 1965, and by Underground engineering trains until 1992 when it was finally abandoned. An unelectrified track existed next to the 9 sidings which was a reception track to Barkingside goods yard. With the freight yard closed on 4 October 1965, these were demolished on 12 October 1969.
North of the station, the tracks were rearranged upon transfer to London Underground such that the existing tracks were separated further apart, where the former through eastbound track became a reversing siding, though retaining the connection towards Barkingside, whilst through trains use a track formerly part of the sidings and freight yard built to the west of the running lines. The northern end of the platforms were truncated to facilitate insertion of the points-work for the re-arrangement. Nine stabling sidings were added to the northwest of the station, connected to the westbound track via a flat crossing and another reversing siding in between the through tracks in autumn 1947. These did not last: The Hainault depot having fully opened in 1948, seven sidings were abandoned on 25 September 1949, and were closed and demolished on 30 January 1955. The remaining two were abandoned on 24 January 1966 and demolished on 12 October 1969.
## Station features
Newbury Park's most prominent feature is the bus shelter connected to the station entrance, designed by Oliver Hill in 1937, and opened on 6 July 1949. Distinguished by a copper-covered barrel-vaulted roof, the structure is a Grade II listed building and won a Festival of Britain architectural award in 1951. The award was marked by a plaque by the side of the shelter. The LNER station building, which looked very similar to Chigwell (further north on the Loop), was demolished in 1956 to facilitate widening of the adjacent A12 Eastern Avenue. The station features GER insignia just beneath the platform canopies, and has a London Transport canteen adjoining the entrance.
## Step-free access
In 2009, because of financial constraints, TfL decided to stop work on a project to provide step-free access at Newbury Park and five other stations, on the grounds that these are relatively quiet stations and some are already one or two stops away from an existing step-free station. £4.6 million was spent on Newbury Park before the project was halted. In 2017, as part of the Mayor of London's plan to increase the number of step-free stations, work recommenced on the project to install a lift to both platforms, with the project scheduled for completion in spring 2019. The lifts' installation works were completed ahead of schedule and became operational in November 2018.
## Services and connections
### Services
Newbury Park is served by the Central line on the Hainault Loop. The next station westbound is Gants Hill and the next station eastbound is Barkingside. Train frequencies vary throughout the day but generally run every 5 minutes westbound between 05:20 and 23:54 and eastbound between 06:28 and 01:05.
Trains generally run between Hainault and Ealing Broadway, although during service disruptions, trains can also run to West Ruislip. The typical off-peak service, in trains per hour as of 2018 is:
- 9tph westbound to Ealing Broadway
- 3tph westbound to White City
- 9tph eastbound to Hainault, 3 of which continue to Woodford
Trains also terminate here from White City 3 times an hour and use the crossover and siding to re-enter service westbound to White City. The siding is to the north of Newbury Park, accessible from both tracks near the station. Another crossover connects to the northbound track at the other end of the siding.
Night Tube operates through this station on Friday and Saturday nights since August 2016. The typical Night tube service, in trains per hour as of 2018 is:
- 3tph eastbound to Hainault
- 3tph westbound to White City
### Connections
London Buses routes 66, 296 and 396 serve the station directly. Route 296 operates 24 hours on Friday and Saturday nights. |
2,530,681 | Lingbao School | 1,141,404,415 | Daoist school | [
"Taoist schools"
]
| The Lingbao School (simplified Chinese: 灵宝派; traditional Chinese: 靈寶派; pinyin: Líng Bǎo Pài), also known as the School of the Sacred Jewel or the School of Numinous Treasure, was an important Daoist school that emerged in China in between the Jin dynasty and the Liu Song dynasty in the early fifth century CE. It lasted for about two hundred years until it was absorbed into the Shangqing and Zhengyi currents during the Tang dynasty. The Lingbao School is a synthesis of religious ideas based on Shangqing texts, the rituals of the Celestial Masters, and Buddhist practices.
The Lingbao School borrowed many concepts from Buddhism, including the concept of reincarnation, and also some cosmological elements. Although reincarnation was an important concept in the Lingbao School, the earlier Daoist belief in attaining immortality remained. The school's pantheon is similar to Shangqing and Celestial Master Daoism, with one of its most important gods being the deified form of Laozi. Other gods also existed, some of whom were in charge of preparing spirits for reincarnation. Lingbao ritual was initially in individual practice, but later went through a transformation that put more emphasis on collective rites. The most important scripture in the Lingbao School is known as the Five Talismans (Wufujing), which was compiled by Ge Chaofu and based on Ge Hong's earlier alchemical works.
Although Lingbao no longer exists as a distinct movement, it has left influences on all subsequent branches of Taoism. The "yinyang masters" popular in contemporary northern China are defined as Zhengyi Taoist priests following the Lingbao scriptural tradition.
## History
The Lingbao School began in around 400 CE when the Lingbao scriptures were revealed to Ge Chaofu, the grandnephew of Ge Hong. Ge Chaofu claimed that the scriptures came to him in a line of transmission going back to Ge Hong's great-uncle, Ge Xuan (164–244). Ge Chaofu transmitted the scriptures to two of his disciples, and the scriptures quickly gained immense popularity. In 471, Lu Xiujing (406–477) compiled a catalogue of all the Lingbao texts, and also was responsible for reorganizing and standardizing Lingbao ritual. This organization of texts and ritual provided a solid foundation on which the Lingbao School prospered in the subsequent centuries. During the Tang dynasty, the influence of the Lingbao School declined and another school of Daoism, the Shangqing School, became prominent. Borrowing many Lingbao practices, it was well accepted by the aristocracy and established an influence in court.
## Beliefs
Some early Lingbao scriptures borrowed so many Buddhist terminological, stylistic and conceptual elements that Zürcher describes them as "Buddho-Taoist hybrids".
### Rebirth
Many Lingbao beliefs are borrowed from Buddhism. The names of the many different deities and heavens were often given titles based on phonetic transcriptions of Sanskrit. Many Sanskrit terms were borrowed phonetically, but given completely different meanings. One significant concept borrowed from Buddhism was that of reincarnation.
Both Buddhism and the Lingbao School share the idea of the Five Paths of Rebirth (Gati). People were reborn into earth prisons, as a hungry ghost, as an animal, as a man, or as a celestial being. After death, the body would be alchemically refined in the Palace of Supreme Darkness located in the north, and the Southern Palace in the south. The transmutation of the body consisted of two steps; the yin components of the person were refined in the Palace of Supreme Darkness, followed by the yang components in the Southern Palace. The Lingbao concept of rebirth is a Chinese adaptation of Buddhism, mixing traditional Chinese concepts with newly arrived Buddhist ideas.
### Cosmology
Lingbao cosmology also borrows heavily from Buddhism. Unlike previous Daoist cosmological systems which were divided into four to nine regions, Lingbao cosmology supposed that there were ten regions, an idea borrowed from Buddhism. In addition to the cosmological regions, there were 32 heavens divided into four sectors, each with eight heavens that were placed horizontally on the periphery of the celestial disc. Each of the four sectors was ruled by an emperor and populated by denizens of an earlier cosmic age (kalpa). Like Buddhism, the heavens were divided into the "three worlds" of desire, form, and formlessness. Lingbao cosmology deviated from Buddhist beliefs by proposing that the heavens rotated around a huge mountain known as the Jade Capital, which was the residence of the Celestial Worthy, the Daoist version of the Buddha, and the primordial deity.
Certain traditional Daoist ideas were retained in Lingbao cosmology, such as the idea that the world originated from a type of primordial qi known as yuanqi, and then was divided into heaven and earth. Furthermore, the yuanqi is subdivided into three types of qi that correspond to three deities: the lords of the Celestial Treasure, of the Sacred Treasure and of the Divine Treasure. These three deities later introduced the teachings of the Dongzhen (Perfect Grotto), the Dongxuan (Mysterious Grotto), and of the Dongshen (Divine Grotto). These three teachings form the basis for the later classification of texts in the Daozang.
Apocalyptic notions that appeared in Shangqing Daoism were first developed fully by the Lingbao School. Lingbao cosmology supposed that time was divided into cosmic cycles, which correlated with the Five Phases. At the end of a cosmic era, the god of the colour associated with that era would descend onto earth and reveal a teaching that would save a fixed number of people from death. There were two types of cosmic eras, short ones that were characterized by an excess of yin energy, and long ones that were characterized by an excess of yang energy. At the end of a short cosmic era, the moon was prophesied to produce a flood that would erode the mountains, renew the qi of the universe, and change the rankings of the members of the celestial bureaucracy. At the end of a long cosmic era, evil creatures were unleashed, heaven and earth were turned upside down, and metals and stones melted together. The people who followed the correct teaching revealed by the god of the colour would be gathered up by the Queen Mother of the West and transported to a "land of bliss" that would not be affected by the apocalypse.
### Pantheon
In addition to borrowing deities from the Celestial Masters and the Shangqing School, the Lingbao School also developed its own gods. The supreme god of Lingbao Daoists is known as the Yuanshi Tianzun or the Celestial Worthy of the Original Beginning, who played a similar role to the deified Laozi in the Celestial Masters. According to the scriptures, this god went through a series of kalpa cycles that were given names similar to dynastic names, until emerging at the beginning of the Kaihuang period. The next most important god was Laojun, the deified form of Laozi, who was the Celestial Worthy's chief disciple. Below these two main gods in the celestial hierarchy were those deities associated with the Southern Palace, where spirits went after death to prepare for rebirth. The head of this group of gods was known as the Perfected of the Southern Extremities. Beneath him was the Director of the Equerry, who was in charge of the life records of the spirits, and Lord Han, who controlled Fengdu, the city of the dead. Below these principal gods in the Lingbao hierarchy were other deities such as the Five Old Men, the Dragon Kings, and the Demon Kings.
Deities were present not only in the heavens, but also in the human body itself. They were responsible for maintaining the body's five viscera, guarding the registers of life, and regulating the souls. There were five internal deities that were particularly important in Lingbao Daoism. The Great Unity lived in the head, along with Lordling and White Prime, who could descend into the liver and lungs. The Director of Destinies lived in the heart and sexual organs, and finally, the Peach Child lived in the lower dantian. Normally these deities resided in the heavens, but they could be activated by scriptural recitations to descend into the body.
## Practices
### Immortality techniques
Despite a belief in reincarnation, the Lingbao School maintained the traditional Daoist idea that certain techniques could allow an adherent to achieve immortality. One technique was to ingest the essence of the sun and the moon. Practitioners would expose themselves to the celestial bodies at certain times of the month. Closing their eyes, they would visualize that the essences would solidify and enter their bodies. Once in the body, the sun's essence was matched to the heart and visualized as red, while the moon's was matched with the kidneys and seen as black. Besides interior meditation practices, immortality could be achieved through the ingestion of potions or talismans.
### Rituals
Early Lingbao ritual was mostly done on an individual basis, either in a meditation chamber, or the courtyard of a house. Early practitioners were not professional priests, but rather 'students of the Dao'. Later on, as the Lingbao movement developed religious institutions and an established clergy, ritual practice became more of a communal rite.
Lingbao ritual shares a great deal with ritual in other Daoist traditions. Like other traditions, Lingbao rituals had a theatrical quality that involved accompanying music, dances, and chants. Lingbao Daoism also shared the multidimensional aspect of Daoist ritual, meaning that it was carried on at several different levels simultaneously. For example, while a ritual was being performed, the priest would repeat the ritual within himself through interior meditation.
There are three categories of ritual in Lingbao Daoism. The first is known as the heavenly Golden Register of Rituals, and is carried out to prevent natural disasters. During the Tang dynasty, this ritual was carried out in honour of the imperial family, but later it could be performed by anyone. The earthly Yellow Register ritual was performed to ensure the dead was at rest. The final type of ritual, which has not survived, was the human Jade Register, which was performed to ensure the salvation of mankind. Of the rituals that have survived, the Golden Register has assumed the role of the Jade register, ensuring salvation and preventing bad weather.
## Canon
Lingbao scriptures arose as a direct result of the success of earlier Shangqing texts. Lingbao scriptures are all based on a text known as the Text of the Five Talismans (Wufujing), which was compiled by Ge Chaofu between 397 and 402 and borrowed from the work of Ge Hong, his great uncle. Being the most ancient Lingbao text, the Five Talismans provided the framework of the remainder of the Lingbao canon, which was based on the five directions. Because all Lingbao texts descended from the Five Talismans, it was believed that they had been revealed to Ge Xuan, presumably the original owner of the Five Talismans. Ge Xuan is purported to have transmitted the Lingbao texts first to his disciple Zheng Siyuan, who then transmitted it to Ge's grandnephew Ge Hong (284–364), who is well known for his alchemical innovations. The claim that the Lingbao texts derive from Ge Xuan, however, was likely a way of legitimizing them through the exaggeration of their antiquity. In reality, they were likely assembled by Ge Chaofu himself. Within a few years of the texts' dissemination, they had become extremely popular.
The canon itself is a mix of previous Daoist traditions, combining features from the Shangqing School and the Celestial Masters, along with other ancient texts and even some Buddhist ideas. The two most important texts of the canon besides the Wufujing are the Red Book of Five Writings (Chi shu wupian) and the Scripture of Upper Chapters on Limitless Salvation (Wuliang Duren Shangpin). According to Lu Xiujing, who edited the Lingbao Canon, there were a total of 34 texts in the canon, of which three have been lost.
## Legacy
While the Lingbao school did not survive as a distinct entity, its ritual apparatus did, and it forms the basis for present-day Daoist ritual practice. In addition, many of the innovations introduced by the Lingbao School have survived to the present, including its division of the Daozang into three sections corresponding to different teachings, with the Dongzhen corresponding to the Shangqing School, the Dongxuan to the Lingbao School, and the Dongshen to the Sanhuang teaching. The integration of Buddhism within Lingbao practices and beliefs ensured that Buddhist elements would remain an important aspect of later Daoism, and also aided in integrating Buddhism into all levels of society in China. |
18,185,590 | UEFA Euro 1980 final | 1,161,551,130 | Final game of the UEFA Euro 1980 | [
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"Belgium at UEFA Euro 1980",
"Belgium national football team matches",
"Belgium–Germany relations",
"Football in Rome",
"Germany national football team matches",
"June 1980 sports events in Europe",
"Sports competitions in Rome",
"UEFA Euro 1980",
"UEFA European Championship finals",
"West Germany at UEFA Euro 1980"
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| The UEFA Euro 1980 Final was the final match of UEFA Euro 1980, the sixth UEFA European Football Championship, UEFA's top football competition for national teams. The match was played at Stadio Olimpico in Rome, Italy, on 22 June 1980 and was contested by Belgium and West Germany. En route to the final, Belgium finished top of UEFA Euro 1980 qualifying Group 2 before qualifying for the final as winners of UEFA Euro 1980 Group 2 which included Italy, England and Spain. West Germany, who had ended the previous European Championship as runners-up, won UEFA Euro 1980 qualifying Group 7 and went on to secure qualification for the final after finishing top of UEFA Euro 1980 Group 1 which included Greece, Czechoslovakia and the Netherlands.
The final took place in front of 47,860 spectators with Nicolae Rainea from Romania acting as the referee. West Germany took the lead in the tenth minute through Horst Hrubesch. Bernd Schuster chipped the ball over Eric Gerets to Hrubesch who controlled it with his chest before striking it on the half-volley into the far corner of the Belgium goal. Ten minutes into the second half, West Germany were forced to make a substitution when Hans-Peter Briegel injured his left ankle in a tackle with René Vandereycken and was replaced by Bernhard Cullmann. In the 75th minute, Schuster lost possession 10 yards (9 m) inside his own half and Manfred Kaltz inadvertently played the ball to François Van der Elst who headed it goalbound and was fouled by Uli Stielike. The referee awarded a penalty which Vandereycken scored, with the West Germany goalkeeper Toni Schumacher diving the wrong way. With 90 seconds of the match remaining, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge's corner found Hrubesch who had made a late run into the Belgium penalty area and he headed the ball into the Belgium goal from close range to secure a 2–1 victory for West Germany, and their second European Championship in three attempts.
## Background
UEFA Euro 1980 was the sixth edition of the UEFA European Football Championship, UEFA's football competition for national teams. Qualifying rounds were played on a home-and-away round-robin tournament basis prior to the final tournament taking place in Italy, between 11 and 22 June 1980. There, the eight qualified teams were divided into two groups of four with each team playing one another once. The winners of each group then faced each other in the final with the runners-up of each group participating in a third-place play-off match.
In the previous international tournament, the 1978 FIFA World Cup, West Germany were knocked out in the second group stage, placing third behind the Netherlands and Italy. Belgium had failed to progress past the first qualifying stage as they ended second in group 4, five points behind the Netherlands. The UEFA Euro 1980 Final was the fifteenth meeting between West Germany and Belgium, with ten of those matches being won by West Germany, the remainder by Belgium. They had last faced each other in a competitive game eight years prior, in UEFA Euro 1972, when West Germany had won 2–1 in the semi-final.
## Route to the final
### West Germany
West Germany began their UEFA Euro 1980 campaign in qualifying group 7 where their opponents were Turkey, Wales and Malta. After playing each team both home and away, West Germany had won four matches and drawn the other two, to finish top of the group, three points ahead of Turkey, to qualify for the final tournament in Belgium.
There, they were drawn in group 1 alongside Czechoslovakia, Greece and the Netherlands. The first match was against the reigning European Championship winners, Czechoslovakia, and held on 11 June 1980 at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome with 11,059 spectators, in a repeat of the 1976 final. Jupp Derwall, the West Germany manager, selected a defensive line-up after Herbert Zimmerman was injured on the morning of the match. Author Jonathan O'Brien described the West Germany team as "playing like Eintracht Frankfurt reserves on a bad night", Uli Stielike's curling shot went over the Czechoslovakia crossbar before Ladislav Vízek beat two West Germany defenders before rolling his shot along the goal-line. In the 57th minute, Hansi Müller played in a cross to the far post where Karl-Heinz Rummenigge out-jumped Czechoslovakia's goalkeeper Jaroslav Netolička to score with a header. West Germany had further chances to score but Netolička saved from Hans-Peter Briegel before Müller shot wide, and the game ended 1–0.
West Germany's second group match saw them face the Netherlands at the Stadio San Paolo in Naples on 14 June 1980. Klaus Allofs gave West Germany the lead midway through the first half, scoring after Bernd Schuster's shot rebounded off the Netherlands goal post. Horst Hrubesch saw his header cleared off the Netherlands goal-line and although Michel van de Korput brought down Rummenigge in the Netherlands penalty area, the referee did not award a penalty kick. After a number of ill-tempered challenges between the sides, West Germany doubled their lead fifteen minutes into the second half. Schuster won the ball from Arie Haan before playing it to Müller; he passed to Allofs who scored his and West Germany's second goal. Six minutes later, Allofs completed his hat-trick, scoring with his knee from a Schuster cross. Dick Nanninga and Hann then went close to scoring for the Netherlands and with ten minutes remaining, they were awarded a penalty after Lothar Matthäus was adjudged to have fouled Ben Wijnstekers inside the West Germany penalty area. Johnny Rep scored from the penalty spot to make it 3–1. Five minutes later, Willy van de Kerkhof struck a low shot past Toni Schumacher into the West Germany goal to make it 3–2 which remained the score at the final whistle.
The final group stage match for West Germany was against Greece at the Stadio Comunale in Turin on 17 June 1980. Derwall once again adopted a defensive approach to the game and rested Schuster, Allofs and Bernard Dietz, all of whom had been booked earlier in the tournament. In the first half, Rummenigge's header was saved by Eleftherios Poupakis, the Greece goalkeeper, while Hrubesch sent a headed shot over the Greece crossbar. Briegel then beat four Greece defenders but his shot was straight at Popuakis. After half-time, Rummenigge's lob went over Poupakis but bounced wide of the Greece goalpost. In the 80th minute, Christos Ardizoglou's shot from 25 yards (23 m) hit the West Germany post but the match ended goalless. West Germany ended the group stage at the top of the table with five points, two ahead of Czechoslovakia and the Netherlands, and qualified for their third consecutive UEFA European Championship final.
### Belgium
Belgium's UEFA Euro 1980 campaign started in qualifying group 2 where they faced Austria, Portugal, Scotland and Norway. Each team met one another both at home and away, after which Belgium had won four and drawn four of their matches to finish top of the group, one point ahead of Austria, to qualify for the final tournament.
Belgium were place in group 2 which consisted of Italy, England and Spain. The first match was against England and took place at the Stadio Comunale in Turin on 12 June 1980. Midway through the first half, Ray Wilkins took possession of the ball from a Walter Meeuws headed clearance, chipped it over two Belgium defenders before lobbing it into the goal over Belgium goalkeeper Jean-Marie Pfaff. Minutes later, England failed to Wilfried Van Moer's corner and it fell to Jan Ceulemans who scored. Fighting in the crowd then broke out and the game was suspended for five minutes as England's goalkeeper Ray Clemence needed treatment for the effects of tear gas which the local police had deployed to quell the violence. In the second half, Tony Woodcock put the ball into Belgium's net but the goal was disallowed as Kenny Sansom was adjudged to have been offside, and the game ended without further goals in a 1–1 draw.
Belgium's second group match saw them face Spain at the San Siro in Milan on 15 June 1980. Seventeen minutes into the game, Eric Gerets played a one-two with Meeuws and his weak shot beat Luis Arconada, the Spain goalkeeper, to give Belgium a 1–0 lead. François Van der Elst and Erwin Vandenbergh both missed opportunities to score before Spain equalised after Quini headed the ball past Pfaff from a Juanito free kick. Spain's Juan Manuel Asensi was then forced to leave the pitch with an injury after which Belgium dominated the game, including a René Vandereycken free kick which was saved by Arconada. In the second half, both Quini and Jesús María Satrústegui missed chances to score for Spain and, in the 65th minute, Julien Cools scored, converting Ceulemans' cross which had deflected off Vicente del Bosque, to ensure a 2–1 victory for Belgium.
The final group match for Belgium was against hosts Italy at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome on 18 June 1980. According to O'Brien, "Belgium made the hosts drink their own rancid medicine", a reference to the quarter-final of the 1972 tournament. He continued that "their massed defence and midfield grimly suffocated the life out of Italy". It was an ill-tempered game in which five players were booked. Pfaff made a double-save in the second half from Francesco Graziani before Italy's appeals for a penalty when Meeuws appeared to handle the ball were rejected by the referee. The match ended in a 0–0 draw. Belgium finished the group stage tied on four points and level on goal difference with Italy but having scored more goals, and so progressed to the tournament final.
### Summary
## Match
### Pre-match
West Germany recalled Dietz, Schuster and Allofs to their team, while Belgium's starting line-up was unchanged from their last group match against Italy, although a number of players had to cancel family holidays they had booked in anticipation that they would not have progressed so far in the tournament.
### Summary
The final took place at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome on 21 June 1980 in front of 47,864 spectators and was refereed by Nicolae Rainea from Romania. In the fourth minute, Müller took control of the ball after Gerets headed it clear and shot from the edge of the penalty area but his strike was pushed around the post by Pfaff. West Germany took the lead in the tenth minute through Hrubesch. Schuster played a one-two with Alloffs before chipping the ball over Gerets to Hrubesch who controlled it with his chest before striking it on the half-volley into the far corner of the Belgium goal. Van der Elst then had the opportunity to equalise almost immediately: Schuster conceded possession to Ceulemans whose pass sent Van der Elst through on goal but his shot went high over the crossbar as Schumacher charged out. Ceulemans made a weak connection with a scissor kick from a Cools cross, but Schumacher saved the shot. Schuster's strike from 25 yards (23 m) was kept out by Pfaff before Alloffs drew another save from the Belgium goalkeeper.
Ten minutes into the second half, West Germany were forced to make a substitution when Briegel injured his left ankle in a tackle with Vandereycken and was replaced by Bernhard Cullmann. Both Geets and Meeuws saw their shots fly wide of the West Germany goal, before Vandereycken's strike in the 60th minute from a Raymond Mommens pass was saved by Schumacher. In the 75th minute, Schuster lost possession 10 yards (9 m) inside his own half and Manfred Kaltz inadvertently played the ball to Van der Elst who headed it goalbound and was fouled by Stielike. Although the initial contact appeared to have been outside West Germany's penalty area, the referee awarded a penalty that Vandereycken scored, with Schumacher diving the wrong way. Michel Renquin then blocked Müller's shot after Rummenigge had played in a cross, before Gerets prevented Rummenigge from scoring. Pfaff was forced to make a save after Dietz's shot was deflected off two defenders and fell to Schuster. With 90 seconds of the match remaining, Rummenigge's corner found Hrubesch who had made a late run into the penalty area and he headed the ball into the Belgium goal from close range to secure a 2–1 victory for West Germany, and their second European Championship in three attempts.
### Details
## Post-match
All but four of UEFA's team of the tournament had featured in the final, including one Belgium and six West Germany players. Rummenigge was awarded the 1980 Ballon d'Or. Hrubesch later said, "We wouldn't have made it in extra time because it would have been too much ... It was very hot that day and I recall being so tired after the game that it was hard to lift the trophy."
In the following international tournament, the 1982 FIFA World Cup, West Germany were beaten in the final 3–1 by Italy. Belgium, in contrast, failed to progress past the second qualifying round, finishing bottom of the group with losses against both the Soviet Union and Poland.
## See also
- Belgium at the UEFA European Championship
- Germany at the UEFA European Championship |
3,034,345 | Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within | 1,161,523,679 | 1998 video game | [
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"Agetec games",
"Clock Tower (series)",
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"Point-and-click adventure games",
"Single-player video games",
"Video games developed in Japan",
"Video games featuring female protagonists",
"Video games set in California",
"Video games set in Osaka"
]
| Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within, known in Japan as is a horror-themed adventure game developed by Human Entertainment and released for the PlayStation in 1998. It is the third game in the Clock Tower series. The story follows 17-year-old Alyssa Hale who occasionally is possessed by an alter ego named Mr. Bates. The player must guide Alyssa through various environments, altering between her normal and twisted personality, to uncover the secrets of her and her family's past.
Clock Tower II was met with negative reviews. Journalists heavily criticized the gameplay which they found to be poor due to its slow and dated point-and-click interface, as well as its reliance on trial-and-error mechanics. The story was criticized by some but found to be mature and creepy by others. Critics ultimately did not recommend the game except to those looking for an experience similar to Clock Tower (1996) and those looking for a game that, like a cult film, is flawed conventionally but redeemed by its willingness to stray from the mainstream.
## Gameplay
Following its predecessors, Clock Tower II is a point-and-click adventure game with 3D graphics and survival horror elements. The player can use either a standard PlayStation controller or the PlayStation mouse to control the protagonist, Alyssa Hale, through the game. The cursor changes shape when placed over certain objects, which the player can click to interact with. Clicking on any location guides Alyssa in that direction. Moving the cursor to the top of the screen reveals the player's inventory. Clicking on an item and then clicking on an object on the screen uses the item on that object or in that location.
Alyssa starts the game with an amulet which keeps her alter ego, Mr. Bates, from emerging and controlling her. However, the amulet can be placed within cases or other containers. Without the amulet, Alyssa will become Mr. Bates if provoked with fear. To revert to Alyssa, the player needs to simply retrieve the amulet back. Some events can only be cleared as Mr. Bates and likewise some only as Alyssa. The choices the player makes as both Alyssa and Mr. Bates change the scenario development and lead to one of 13 possible endings.
When Alyssa is being chased or is in danger, the cursor will flash red. During this panic mode, the player must rapidly tap a button to escape. When escaping enemies, click points will appear on items or objects that Alyssa can use to fight back or hide from the enemy. Escape mode will not end until the enemy is repulsed or successfully evaded. If playing as Mr. Bates, the player may use weapons such as pistols and shotguns against the enemies. When equipped with a weapon, the cursor becomes a crosshair used to aim and shoot. The cursor changes color during panic mode from white, to yellow, and finally red to indicate Alyssa's stamina. First aid kits can be used to improve stamina by one level. If Alyssa's stamina reaches zero or the player fails a panic scenario, the screen will read "game over" and provide the player the option to restart from the last room they entered with one extra stamina level.
## Plot
Clock Tower II moves away from the story and setting in the two previous Clock Tower titles, and therefore was not a numbered title in Japan and is considered a spin-off. In the Japanese release, the game is set in Osaka. This was changed to California for the North American release.
Alyssa Hale is a 17-year-old high school girl who, during the spring of 1999, is on her way to a distant town to visit her father's friend Phillip Tate. Previously, it was discovered that another person resides in Alyssa's soul named Bates. Alyssa underwent intense therapy because she lost control of him. Along the way to Phillip's home, Alyssa looks at her amulet, which she believes has some sort of power over her. As she stares at it, she realizes that it must somehow be related to Bates, as she remembers not having it when she awoke from Bates' invasion of her psyche. Meanwhile, at the house, Philip and his wife Kathryn hear a noise at the door, Kathryn goes to see if it is Ashley. Philip says something about the "Maxwell Curse", before Kathryn screams and he rushes over to see what is happening. When Alyssa arrives at the Tate's residence that night, no one appears to be home. She comes across her cousin's bedroom to find her cousin Ashley decapitated. Her other cousin Stephanie attacks her with a knife and stalks her around the house. She hears a series of odd noises through the home and eventually finds Philip, who requests that she burn a statue related to the Maxwell Curse. Stephanie tries to stop her but Alyssa turns into Bates and stabs her. Alyssa manages to throw the statue into a fireplace but loses consciousness.
She wakes up in a zombie-infested hospital and meets a detective named Alex Corey, who saved Alyssa from the house. She is later overrun by zombies as she tries to escape and faints. When she awakens again, she finds that Alex took her to a pharmaceutical lab. She soon finds a man armed with a hatchet and wearing an oni mask named George Maxwell, who begins to stalk her. She also finds her adoptive father, Allen. He explains that Alyssa is not his daughter, but rather, the daughter of George. The Maxwell Curse states that every few generations, cursed children with a cruel alter-ego are born into the Maxwell line. To protect their family, they must be buried beneath the Maxwell tree as soon as they are born and left to die. Allen, jealous of George's wealth, dug up the child with Philip to spite him. George tries to attack Alyssa, but Allen shoots him. He then requests Alyssa to go, explaining that the building is about to explode. Alyssa escapes and watches the building burn from the hillside. Alyssa mourns her father's death, claiming that she should have died instead.
## Development and release
Clock Tower II was the last Clock Tower game developed by Human Entertainment. It was also the first in the series not directed by series creator Hifumi Kono. Kono was asked by Human to make a sequel to the first two games, but he felt he was out of material and could not make it. Yutaka Hirata stepped in and offered to direct the game. It was not given a numbered title in Japan because it moves away from the story and setting in the two previous Clock Tower titles. The game supports enhanced rumble features in DualShock controllers.
The game was released on March 12, 1998 in Japan, and on November 3, 1999 in North America. A drama CD based on the game was released in 1998. The game was re-released on the PlayStation Store in Japan on May 9, 2012.
## Reception
According to review aggregator Metacritic, Clock Tower II was met with "generally unfavorable" reviews. The game is generally considered to be the worst in the entire Clock Tower series of games. The gameplay was found to be flawed due to the dual personality mechanic and poor storytelling methods. Joe Fielder of GameSpot described the puzzles as counter-intuitive, like being stuck on a Rubik's Cube and coming back later to find the cube solved. In the same vein, he noted how sometimes events are triggered or areas become accessible only after spending time exploring other unrelated areas. Mark MacDonald writing for Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine shared these sentiments, saying the player spends most of their time wandering around, hoping to trigger the next event. The point-and-click interface was also criticized as slow and inaccurate.
Fielder criticized the graphics as "pure first-generation PlayStation" and believed the sound design was also poor. Marc Nix of IGN argued the sound design was good and the graphics were clear and sharp but the scenery was ultimately lifeless. The story was criticized by some, but MacDonald found it to be more adult and "out there-spooky" than any other PlayStation title yet. Mark Kanarick of AllGame heavily criticized the voice acting, describing it as the worst aspect of the game.
Ultimately, Fielder could not recommend Clock Tower II as an adventure or horror game, saying "leave this one for the antique collectors". Nix felt the game fell considerably short of its potential. He found the rumble feature the "sole perfect feature of the game". MacDonald called the game "seriously flawed, but unique". He described it as a terrible game in a conventional sense, but like a cult film, it is redeemed by its willingness to take risks and stand apart from the mainstream and therefore is "strictly for hardcore niche gamers". Kanarick called it a poor attempt at a survival horror game, but that fans of Clock Tower (1996) may enjoy it.
The Electric Playground presented Clock Tower II with its 1999 "Console Adventure Game of the Year" award. The editors called it "decidedly the best of the few challengers" in its field, despite competition from the PlayStation release of Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror. |
13,238,914 | The Last Dog on Earth | 1,173,463,822 | 2003 book by Daniel Ehrenhaft | [
"2003 American novels",
"2003 children's books",
"American children's novels",
"American thriller novels",
"American young adult novels",
"Children's novels about dogs",
"Novels set in Oregon"
]
| The Last Dog on Earth is a 2003 young adult novel written by Daniel Ehrenhaft. It follows Logan, a lonely 14-year-old boy who adopts a dog from an animal shelter and names her Jack. The pair's relationship is soon threatened by an incurable prion disease spreading across the nation. Infected dogs become unnaturally violent and bloodthirsty, culminating in the deaths of several people. As public fear heightens and the government intervenes to control the outbreak, Logan struggles to reform his life and remain with Jack.
The Last Dog on Earth largely focuses on the impact of disease and both public and governmental panic. Society is ravaged by fear over the epidemic, endangering Logan and Jack despite the two being uninfected. Additionally, the novel presents a coming of age story in which Logan, a troubled youth, matures through his relationship with Jack, his only friend.
Despite 17th Street Productions holding the rights to The Last Dog on Earth, Dell Publishing gained permission to publish it. The company released the novel in hardcover in 2003 and in paperback in 2004. Throughout 2009, the book was published on various e-book readers, including the Nook, Kindle, and several Apple Inc. products. The Last Dog on Earth was a winner of the Texas Lone Star Reading List and recognized by YALSA on a 2006 book list for young adults. The novel garnered mixed feedback from critics, who generally felt that the plot held appeal, but that Ehrenhaft tended to rely on coincidence.
## Plot
Logan Moore is a troubled 14-year-old boy living with his mother Marianne and stepfather Robert in Newburg, Oregon. Logan does not get along well with Robert or his mother, and holds a grudge against his biological father for leaving when he was young. After an incident at a barbecue, Robert decides to purchase a Labrador Retriever in order to teach Logan responsibility. Eager to rebel against his stepfather, Logan convinces his mother to adopt a dog from an animal shelter. He plans to choose an ugly dog and teach it destructive behavior. At the shelter, Logan encounters a young female mutt who immediately takes a liking to him. Logan adopts the dog and names her Jack after Robert's former dog.
Meanwhile, a new prion disease named Psychotic Outburst Syndrome (or POS) is affecting dogs, causing friendly pets to become violent. Officials struggle to control the disease and immediately terminate any dogs that catch it. Humans soon begin to contract the disease.
Logan quickly bonds with Jack and values her as his only friend. After getting into trouble while attempting to protect her, Logan is sent to boot camp while Jack remains at home. Both he and Jack manage to escape, find each other, and begin traveling together. During their journey, they encounter another dog called White Paws: Jack's brother who has become infected with POS. White Paws attacks Jack and severely wounds her before dying. Logan worries that Jack may have contracted the disease through contact with White Paws. The pair continue their journey until they reach the town of Dayville. Logan faintly remembers that his biological father lives in the town and decides to find his father and confront him.
While Logan is stealing food from a local shop, Jack is found by three men who, fearing that she may be infected, beat her. Logan is arrested and manages to find his father's address at the police station before escaping. He returns to find Jack nearly dead and carries her, attempting to find his father's house, until he faints from exhaustion. He awakens in the house of his biological father, Dr. Craig Westerly, who had found Logan unconscious by his car. Logan learns from Craig that he had not abandoned him and his mother, but that Marianne had divorced him. Logan fears for Jack's life, afraid that she is infected or will be euthanized. Craig runs tests on the dog and learns that Jack, despite having been in contact with POS, isn't infected: she is immune.
Craig decides to take Jack to a doctor so that a vaccine can be created. During the meeting, Rudy Stagg, a man infected with POS who had been killing dogs in order to contain the outbreak, stumbles into their room. Rudy ignores pleas to spare Jack and shoots at her, but Logan dives in front of the dog and is shot instead. Logan suffers a collapsed lung and falls into a coma. He awakens weeks later and learns that Jack is on life support. He says a final goodbye to Jack before her life support is turned off. Jack's immunity to POS leads to the creation of a vaccine and cure, and Logan is finally able to reconcile with Robert, Craig, and Devon Wallace—a childhood enemy whose dog died due to POS. The novel's epilogue, written as a newspaper article, reveals Logan and his family hold a private ceremony to honor Jack.
## Themes and style
Ehrenhaft deals with several themes over the course of The Last Dog on Earth. Kirkus Reviews commented on the "backdrop of rising governmental and public panic" that interfere with Jack and Logan; despite escaping the disease, they are unable to escape the panic. Rachel Seftel, author of a Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy review, also commented on the "mass hysteria" that arose due to POS and noted the novel's core theme of a troubled youth being taught "valuable lessons until an external force threatens to tear them apart."
In order to track particular events and plot points related to POS, Ehrenhaft inserts various messages, faxes, and articles throughout the novel.
## Publication history
17th Street Productions, a branch of Alloy Entertainment, holds the rights to The Last Dog on Earth. Dell Publishing (a division of the larger publisher Random House) made arrangements with 17th Street to have it released under their name. On February 11, 2003, the novel was released in hardcover, and was later reprinted in paperback under Dell's Yearling book imprint on June 8, 2004. In January 2009, the novel received a Barnes & Noble Nook release in the United States, enabling it to be read on the Nook e-book readers. The listed file size of The Last Dog on Earth is 2224 KB for the brand. On January 21, 2009, the book was released for the Kindle, Amazon.com's online e-book reader. Its listed file size is 448 KB. On February 3, 2010, The Last Dog on Earth was released on Apple Inc.'s iTunes. It is listed as being compatible with the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. Later, on February 25, 2009, the novel was released digitally with EPUB and mobile-specific file types for the Borders Group e-book app.
## Reception and influence
The Last Dog on Earth has been nominated for several awards. The novel was recognized and listed on the Texas Library Association's 2004–2005 Texas Lone Star Reading List. The book was also a nominee for the 2005 Mark Twain Award and 2007 Minnesota Young Reader Award. The Last Dog on Earth was named on "Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults 2006", a list created by YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association), a division of the American Library Association. The list is conceived by a committee and compiles various novels that hold appeal to teen readers. The Last Dog on Earth was included in the "What Ails You?" category, comprising literature "about how diseases, disorders, and other general health related symptoms affect our lives". In a 2005 interview, Daniel Ehrenhaft mentioned that a school in Chicago created an extracurricular activity wherein "kids designed games and gadgets", having been inspired by Logan's hobby of inventing devices.
The Last Dog on Earth has received mixed reception from critics, who have praised the plot, but criticized the heavy use of coincidences to advance the plot. Kirkus Reviews commented that "happenstance plays a large role in the plot" and thought Ehrenhaft had "a tendency to trot in typecast characters, then summarily drop them", but wrote that it would appeal to "disaster-tale fans with a taste for the lurid". Within the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Volume 47, Rachel Seftel reviewed the novel. She felt that The Last Dog on Earth'''s main strength was the "well-developed and sympathetic protagonist" Logan, but noted that the "memos and several subplots" interspersed between chapters and Ehrenhaft's "[somewhat] heavy-handed" attempts to foreshadow were drawbacks. Seftel concluded that, despite Ehrenhaft's "reach at times [exceeding] his grasp," The Last Dog on Earth was "an interesting and absorbing variation" of the slightly conventional "boy-and-his-dog story."
## See also
- Countdown novel series
- Drawing a Blank'' |
15,278,908 | Tsugaru clan | 1,132,181,091 | Japanese samurai clan | [
"Japanese clans",
"Tsugaru clan"
]
| The Tsugaru clan (津軽氏, Tsugaru-shi) was a Japanese samurai clan who ruled the northwestern half of what is now Aomori Prefecture in the Tōhoku region of Japan under the Edo period Tokugawa shogunate. The Tsugaru were daimyō of Hirosaki Domain and its semi-subsidiary, Kuroishi Domain. The Tsugaru were in constant conflict with their former overlords, the Nanbu clan of adjoining Morioka Domain. During the Boshin War of 1868-69, the Tsugaru clan fought mostly on the pro-imperial side, although it did briefly join the Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei. In the Meiji period, the former daimyō became part of the kazoku peerage, with Tsugaru Tsuguakira receiving the title of hakushaku (Count). The main Tsugaru line is now extinct.
## Origins
Much about the ancestry of the Tsugaru clan is uncertain. Ōura Tamenobu was born in 1550, as the adopted son and heir of Ōura Tamenori, a retainer of the Nanbu clan, based at Sannohe Castle. He succeeded his father in 1567 or 1568 as castellan of Ōura Castle, located in what is now part of the city of Hirosaki. According to later Tsugaru clan records, the clan was descendant from the noble Fujiwara clan and had an ancient claim to ownership of the Tsugaru region of northwestern Honshu; however, according to the records of their rivals, the Nanbu clan, Tamenobu was born as either Nanbu Tamenobu or Kuji Tamenobu, from a minor branch house of the Nanbu clan and was driven from the clan due to discord with his elder brother.
The Ōura served as hereditary vice-district magistrate (郡代補佐, gundai hosa) under the Nanbu clan's local magistrate Ishikawa Takanobu; however, in 1571 Tamenobu attacked and killed Ishikawa and began taking the Nanbu clan's castles in the Tsugaru region one after another. He captured castles at Ishikawa, Daikoji and Aburakawa, and soon gathered support of many former Nanbu retainers in the region. Tamenobu later attacked Kitabatake Akimura (another local power figure) and took his castle at Namioka.
In 1582, with the death of Nanbu Harumasa, the Nanbu clan collapsed into numerous competing factions. The 25th hereditary clan chieftain, Nanbu Harutsugu, was a boy of 13 and soon died under uncertain circumstances, and the Kunohe branch of the Nanbu clan under the warlord Kunohe Masazane began to expand its influence over the Sannohe main branch. This provided an opportunity for Ōura Tamenobu to declare that the western Nanbu territories under his control would henceforth be independent of Nanbu rule. Proclaimed a traitor by the Nanbu clan, rivals Nanbu Nobunao and Kunohe Masazane both called for Tamenobu's death. Tamenobu, realizing that he would need to solicit outside help, approached the Mogami clan for an introduction to the regime of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Tamenobu initially departed by boat from Ajigasawa, but inclement winds blew the boat north as far as Matsumae. He made attempts to reach Hideyoshi overland in 1586, 1587 and 1588, but was blocked each time by hostile forces in the territories to the south of Tsugaru.
In 1590, Tamenobu pledged fealty to Toyotomi Hideyoshi; Hideyoshi confirmed Tamenobu in his holdings. As the Ōura fief had been in the Tsugaru region on the northern tip of Honshū, the family then changed its name to Tsugaru.
## The Tsugaru clan in the Edo era
The Tsugaru clan sided with Tokugawa Ieyasu during the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, although Tsugaru Tamenobu's eldest son, Nobutake, was serving Toyotomi Hideyori as a page in Osaka Castle.
After the Tokugawa victory at Sekigahara, the Tsugaru clan remained somewhat “suspect” in the eyes of the fledgling Tokugawa shogunate as Tsugaru Tamenobu granted refuge to Ishida Mitsunari’s son and arranged for Ishida Mitsunari's daughter to marry his third son and heir, Tsugaru Nobuhira. As a result, the clan was confirmed in its original territory with only a nominal increase in kokudaka to 47,000 koku. Tsugaru Tamenobu further fueled concerns by reconstructing Hirosaki Castle on a massive scale disproportionate to the size of his territories.
The early years of the Edo era were marked by a series of major O-Ie Sōdō disturbances over the succession to the clan chieftainship. Tsugaru Nobuhira's accession was disputed by supporters of the son of Tsugaru Nobutake in the Tsugaru Disturbance (津軽騒動, Tsugaru-sōdō) of 1607. Further troubles arose in the Kōsaka Kurando's Riot (高坂蔵人の乱, Kōsaka Kurando no ran) of 1612, the Funabashi Disturbance (船橋騒動, Funabashi-sōdō) of 1634, and the Shōhō Disturbance (正保騒動, Shōhō-sōdō) of 1647.
Tsugaru Nobuhira was forced to reduce his wife to concubine status and marry a niece of Tokugawa Ieyasu to strength his political ties to the shogunate. However, he named the son by his first wife, Tsugaru Nobuyoshi as heir. His son by the niece of Tokugawa Ieyasu was made head of a subsidiary hatamoto household based in Kuroishi.
Nobuyoshi was forced to retire in 1655 for alleged misgovernment, and was replaced by his son, Tsugaru Nobumasa, who was a reformer who developed the resources of the domain. Nobumasa's son Tsugaru Nobuhisa developed the arts and cultural level of the domain, but was beset by numerous natural disasters, including bad weather and repeated eruptions of Mount Iwaki. He continued to rule from behind-the scenes during the tenure of his grandson, Tsugaru Nobuaki and great-grandson Tsugaru Nobuyasu as the domain fell further and further into debt. Nobuyasu's son, Tsugaru Nobuakira attempted reforms, but was vexed by corrupt officials and died under suspicious circumstances in 1791 without heir.
Tsugaru Yasuchika, son of the 5th Lord of Kuroishi, was appointed daimyō of Hirosaki to succeed Nobuakira. Under his tenure, the official kokudaka of the domain was raised from 47,000 to 70,000 and then to 100,000 koku to cover the expenses of dispatching military forces to Ezo to protect Japan's northern borders. Also under Yasuchika's tenure, Kuroishi was raised in status to become Kuroishi Domain, In 1821, during his sankin kōtai journey to Edo, he survived an assassination attempt by Sōma Daisaku, a former retainer of the Nanbu clan. Although Yasuchika was a noted reformer who attempted to strength the domain, he spent a tremendous amount of money attempting to arrange prestigious marriages for his incompetent son, Tsugaru Nobuyuki, which again plunged the domain into financial crisis. Nobuyuki was eventually forced out of office in 1839 and a complete outsider, the 7th son of rōjū Matsudaira Nobuakira, lord of Yoshida Domain in Mikawa Province was adopted into the Tsugaru clan as Tsugaru Yukitsugu. Yukitsugu managed to restore order and prosperity to the domain and modernized its military forces through increased implementation of rangaku studies.
## The Tsugaru clan in the Boshin War
During the Boshin War of 1868-69, the Tsugaru clan under its final daimyō, Tsugaru Tsuguakira, first sided with the imperial government, and attacked the forces of the nearby Shōnai Domain. However, it soon switched course, and was briefly a signatory to the pact that created the Ōuetsu Reppan Dōmei, before backing out, once again in favor of the imperial government. It did not take part in any of the major military action against the imperial army. The Kuroishi branch joined the Hirosaki-Tsugaru in siding with the imperial government. As a result, the clan was able to evade the punishment meted out by the government on the northern domains. After northern Honshū was pacified, Tsugaru forces joined the imperial army in attacking the Republic of Ezo at Hakodate. In return for its assistance, the Meiji government granted the Tsugaru family of Hirosaki a 10,000 koku increase. Both branches of Tsugaru daimyo were made imperial governors (藩知事, han chiji) of their domains in 1869. Two years later, as with all other daimyo, both Tsugaru lines were relieved of their offices by the abolition of the han system.
## Meiji and beyond
In the Meiji era, Tsugaru Tsuguakira, was ennobled with the title of count (hakushaku) under the kazoku peerage system. Tsugaru Tsugumichi, the last daimyō of the Kuroishi-Tsugaru, became a viscount (shishaku). He later worked as a director of the Number 15 National Bank (第十五国立銀行, Dai jūgo kokuritsu ginkō), and Tsugumichi became a member of the House of Peers in 1890.
Tsugaru Tsuguakira had no son, and adopted the younger son of the court noble Konoe Tadafusa, who took the name of Tsugaru Hidemaru (津軽英麿, 1872–1919) to be his heir. Hidemaru was educated in Germany, graduating from the University of Bonn, Humboldt University of Berlin and University of Geneva and after his return to Japan served in under the Japanese Resident-General of Korea from 1907-1914, and in the Ministry of the Imperial Household from 1914-1918. In 1918, he was appointed to the House of Peers.
Hidemaru was succeeded by Tsugaru Yoshitaka (津軽義孝, 1907-1994), who was born as the second son of a branch of the Owari Tokugawa clan. As his mother was the daughter of Tsugaru Tsuguakira, he was adopted by Hidemaru as heir, becoming Count and chieftain of the clan in 1919. A noted equestrian, he was involved with the creation of the Japan Racing Association.
Yoshitaka's fourth daughter, Hanako, married Prince Hitachi, the younger son of Emperor Showa.
The main Tsugaru clan temple in Hirosaki is Chōshō-ji.
## Family heads
### Main line (Hirosaki)
(as Ōura clan)
- Ōura Norinobu
- Ōura Motonobu
- Ōura Mitsunobu (1460–1526)
- Ōura Morinobu (1483–1538)
- Ōura Masanobu (1497–1541)
- Ōura Tamenori (1520–1567)
(as Tsugaru clan)
- Tsugaru Tamenobu (1550–1608)
- Tsugaru Nobuhira (1586–1631)
- Tsugaru Nobuyoshi (1619–1655)
- Tsugaru Nobumasa (1646–1710)
- Tsugaru Nobuhisa (1669–1746)
- Tsugaru Nobuaki (1719–1744)
(Tsugaru continued)
- Tsugaru Nobuyasu (1739–1784)
- Tsugaru Nobuakira (1762–1791)
- Tsugaru Yasuchika (1765–1833)
- Tsugaru Nobuyuki (1800–1862)
- Tsugaru Yukitsugu (1800–1865)
- Tsugaru Tsuguakira (1840–1916)
- Tsugaru Hidemaro (1872–1919)
- Tsugaru Yoshitaka (1907-1994)
- Tsugaru Masuo
### Branch line (Kuroishi)
As hatamoto
- Tsugaru Nobufusa (1620–1662)
- Tsugaru Nobutoshi (1646–1683)
- Tsugaru Masatake (1667–1743)
- Tsugaru Hisayo (1699–1758)
- Tsugaru Akitaka (1724–1778)
- Tsugaru Yasuchika (1765–1833)
- Tsugaru Tsunetoshi (1787–1805)
As tozama daimyō
- Tsugaru Chikatari (1788–1849, promoted to daimyō)
- Tsugaru Yukinori (1800–1865)
- Tsugaru Tsuguyasu (1821–1851)
- Tsugaru Tsugumichi (1840–1903)
## Notable retainers
### Hirosaki
- Tsugaru Takehiro
- Numata Sukemitsu (d. c. 1612)
- Morioka Nobumoto (1546–1600)
- Kanehira Tsunanori
- Ogasawara Nobukiyo
- Hattori Yasunari
- Sugiyama Gengo (c. 1589 – c. 1641; 2nd son of Ishida Mitsunari)
- Daidōji Naohide (1552–1642)
- Daidōji Naohide (2nd) (d. 1636)
- Mitugu Nyui(1712 - 1792)
- Shibue Chūsai (1805–1858)
## See also
- Hirosaki Domain
- Kuroishi Domain
- Nanbu clan
- Fujishiro Gozen |
165,530 | Bournemouth | 1,172,722,565 | Town in Dorset, England | [
"1810 establishments in England",
"Beaches of Dorset",
"Bournemouth",
"Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole",
"Former boroughs in England",
"Former civil parishes in Dorset",
"Former non-metropolitan districts of Dorset",
"Local government in Bournemouth",
"Local government in Dorset",
"Populated coastal places in Dorset",
"Populated places established in 1810",
"Seaside resorts in England",
"Surfing locations in England",
"Towns in Dorset",
"Unitary authority districts of England",
"Unparished areas in Dorset"
]
| Bournemouth (/ˈbɔːrnməθ/ ) is a coastal resort town on the south coast in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole borough of Dorset, England. The town's urban subdivision had a population of 187,503 at the 2011 census making it the largest town in the county; the town is part of the South East Dorset conurbation, which has a population of 465,000.
Founded in 1810 by Lewis Tregonwell, in an area of deserted heathland occasionally visited by fishermen and smugglers, as a health resort, Bournemouth became a town in 1870, with growth from the arrival of the railway. Bournemouth lies in the historic county of Hampshire. Following the local government reorganisation in 1974 the town was transferred to the county of Dorset, governed by Dorset County Council. Although the borough gained unitary authority in 1997, it retained Dorset's ceremonial county functions and emergency services. In April 2019, the borough was replaced by the current borough, also with unitary authority status, governing the town, Poole, Christchurch and surrounding areas.
Victorian architecture is notable in town centre. The 202-foot (62 m) spire of St Peter's Church, one of three Grade I listed churches in the borough, is a local landmark. The town's location has made it a popular destination for tourists, attracting over five million visitors annually with its beaches and popular nightlife. It is also a regional centre of business, home of the Bournemouth International Centre (BIC) and a financial sector that is worth more than £1 billion in gross value added.
## Toponymy
The first mention of Bournemouth comes in the Christchurch cartulary of 1406, where a monk describes how a large fish ("uni magno piscis"), 18 feet (5.5 metres) long, was washed up at "La Bournemothe" in October of that year and taken to the Manor of Wick; six days later, a portion of the fish was collected by a canon from Christchurch Priory and taken away as tithe. "La Bournemowthe", however, was purely a geographic reference to the uninhabited area around the mouth of the small river which, in turn, drained the heathland between the towns of Poole and Christchurch. The word bourne, meaning a small stream, is a derivative of burna, old English for a brook. From the latter half of the 16th century "Bourne Mouth" seems to be preferred, being recorded as such in surveys and reports of the period, but this appears to have been shortened to "Bourne" after the area had started to develop. A travel guide published in 1831 calls the place "Bourne Cliffe" or "Tregonwell's Bourne" after its founder. The Spas of England, published ten years later, calls it simply "Bourne" as does an 1838 edition of the Hampshire Advertiser. In the late 19th century "Bournemouth" became predominant, although its two-word form appears to have remained in use up until at least the early 20th century, turning up on a 1909 ordnance map. The Coat of arms of Bournemouth was first granted on 24 March 1891.
## History
In the 12th century the region around the mouth of the River Bourne was part of the Hundred of Holdenhurst. The hundred later became the Liberty of Westover when it was extended to include the settlements of North Ashley, Muscliff, Muccleshell, Throop, Iford, Pokesdown, Tuckton and Wick, and incorporated into the Manor of Christchurch. Although the Dorset and Hampshire region surrounding it had been the site of human settlement for thousands of years, Westover was largely a remote and barren heathland before 1800. In 1574 the Earl of Southampton noted that the area was "Devoid of all habitation", and as late as 1795 the Duke of Rutland recorded that "... on this barren and uncultivated heath there was not a human to direct us".
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the Borough of Bournemouth would grow to encompass a number of ancient settlements along the River Stour, including Longham where a skull thought to be 5,500 years old was found in 1932. Bronze Age burials near Moordown, and the discovery of Iron Age pottery on the East Cliff in 1969, suggest there may have been settlements there during that period. Hengistbury Head, added to the borough in 1932, was the site of a much older Palaeolithic encampment. During the latter half of the 16th century James Blount, 6th Baron Mountjoy, began mining for alum in the area, and at one time part of the heath was used for hunting, although by the late 18th century little evidence of either event remained. No-one lived at the mouth of the Bourne river and the only regular visitors to the area before the 19th century were a few fishermen, turf cutters and gangs of smugglers.
Prior to the Christchurch Inclosures Act 1802, more than 70% of the Westover area was common land. The act, together with the Inclosure Commissioners' Award of 1805, transferred 5,000 acres (2,000 ha) into the hands of five private owners, including James Harris, 1st Earl of Malmesbury, and Sir George Ivison Tapps. In 1809 the Tapps Arms public house appeared on the heath. A few years later, in 1812, the first official residents, retired army officer Lewis Tregonwell and his wife, moved into their new home built on land purchased from Tapps. The area was well known to Tregonwell who, during the Napoleonic Wars, spent much of his time searching the heath and coastline for French invaders and smugglers.
Anticipating that people would come to the area to indulge in the newly fashionable pastime of sea-bathing, an activity with perceived health benefits, Tregonwell built a series of villas on his land between 1816 and 1822, which he hoped to let out. The common belief that pine-scented air was good for lung conditions, and in particular tuberculosis, prompted Tregonwell and Tapps to plant hundreds of pine trees. These early attempts to promote the town as a health resort meant that by the time Tregonwell died in 1832, Bournemouth had grown into a small community with a scattering of houses, villas and cottages. The town would ultimately grow up around the scattered pines and tree-lined walk to the beach, later to become known as the Invalids' Walk.
After the death of Tapps in 1835, his son Sir George William Tapps-Gervis inherited his father's estate. He hired the young local architect Benjamin Ferrey to develop Bournemouth Gardens along the coastal area on the east side of the stream. Bournemouth's first hotel, later to become part of the Royal Bath Hotel, opened in 1838 and is one of the few buildings designed by Ferrey still standing and operating. Bournemouth grew at a faster rate as Tapps-Gervis began developing the area similarly to the south coast resorts of Weymouth and Brighton. Despite enormous investment, the town's share of the market remained modest. In 1841 Tapps-Gervis invited the physician and writer Augustus Granville to stay. Granville was the author of The Spas of England, which described health resorts around the country, and as a result of his visit, he included a chapter on Bournemouth in the second edition of his book. The publication of the book, and the increase in visitors seeking the medicinal use of seawater and the pine-scented air, helped the town to grow and establish itself as an early tourist destination.
In the 1840s Benjamin Ferrey was replaced by Decimus Burton, whose plans for Bournemouth included the construction of Bournemouth Gardens alongside the Bourne stream, an idea first mooted by Granville. The fields south of the road crossing (later Bournemouth Square) were drained and laid out with shrubberies and walks. Many of these paths, including the Invalids' Walk, remain in the town today. A second suggestion of Granville's, a sanatorium, was completed in 1855 and greatly raised Bournemouth's profile as a place for recuperation.
At a time when the most convenient way to arrive in the town was by sea, a pier was considered to be a necessity. Holdenhurst Parish Council was reluctant to find the money, and an attempt to raise funds privately in 1847 had only succeeded in financing a small 100-foot (30 m) jetty. The Bournemouth Improvement Act of 1856 granted greater financial autonomy to the town and a pier was approved that year. A number of wooden structures were built before an 838 feet (255 m) cast iron design by Eugenius Birch was completed in 1880. Under the Act, a board of 13 Commissioners was established to build and organise the expanding infrastructure of the town, such as paving, sewers, drainage, street lighting and street cleaning.
The arrival of the railways in 1870 precipitated a massive growth in seaside and summer visitors to the town, especially from the Midlands and London. In 1880 the town had a population of 17,000, but by 1900, when railway connections to Bournemouth were at their most developed, the town's population had risen to 60,000 and it had become a favourite location for visiting artists and writers. The town was improved greatly during this period through the efforts of Sir Merton Russell-Cotes, the town's mayor and a local philanthropist, who helped to establish the town's first library and museum. The Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum was housed in his mansion, and after his death, it was given to the town. Bournemouth became a municipal borough in 1890 and a county borough in 1900.
As Bournemouth's growth increased in the early 20th century, the town centre spawned theatres, cafés, two art deco cinemas, and more hotels. Bournemouth Corporation Tramways was established in 1902, becoming the towns first public transport system. In 1908, a deadly tram crash in the town gardens killed 7 people. Other new buildings constructed included the war memorial in 1921 and the Bournemouth Pavilion, the town's concert hall and grand theatre, finished in 1925.
The Bournemouth Blitz saw heavy damage to the town during the Second World War despite initially escaping heavy bombing. A raid by German fighter bombers on 23 May 1943 killed 131 people and damaged 3,359 buildings, with two large hotels being completely destroyed. It is believed that the large number of RAF airmen billeted in the town may have been the reason for the attack. The seafront incurred damage when it was fortified against invasion. The cast iron lampposts and benches along the front were removed and melted down for munitions, as was much of the superstructure from both Bournemouth and Boscombe piers before they were breached to prevent their use by enemy ships. The large amounts of barbed wire and anti-tank obstacles along the beach, and the mines at the foot of the chines, took two years to remove when peace was finally achieved.
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution stationed an inshore lifeboat at Bournemouth between 1965 and 1972. Coverage for the area has otherwise been provided from Poole Lifeboat Station. The Bournemouth International Centre (BIC), a large conference and exhibition centre, was constructed near the seafront in 1984, and in the following year Bournemouth became the first town in the United Kingdom to introduce and use CCTV cameras for public street-based surveillance.
In 1993, the IRA orchestrated a terrorist attack in the town centre. The only injuries sustained were minor ones but over £1 million in damage was caused.
From 2000-2001 the Tesco bomb campaign hit the town with a plot to extort money from Supermarket giant Tesco. Visitors to the town plummeted during the campaign, especially after a bomb exploded at an elderly woman’s home after she opened a letter sent by the bomber. During the eight months, over seven bombs were found by Dorset Police, ranging from small letter bombs, to pipe bombs and parcel bombs. The culprit was found to be Robert Edward Dyer, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
The Waterfront complex, which was intended to hold an IMAX cinema, was constructed on the seafront in 1998. The 19-metre-high (62-foot) concrete and smoked glass building featured a wavy roof design, but was despised by residents and visitors alike because it blocked views of the bay and the Isle of Purbeck. In 2005 it was voted the most hated building in England in a 10,000-person poll conducted by the Channel 4 programme Demolition, and was pulled down in spring 2013. The site is now used as an outdoor event arena. The council has recently completed a larger redevelopment of the site and adjoining council land.
In 2010, Bournemouth celebrated its bicentenary. In 2012 Bournemouth was unsuccessful in its bid for city status, losing out to Chelmsford, Essex in competition with 26 other towns to commemorate Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee. Bournemouth sought city status once again for the Platinum Jubilee Civic Honours but was unsuccessful.
On 31 May, two people died and eight others were injured in an incident at Bournemouth beach.
## Governance
Historically Bournemouth was part of Hampshire, with neighbouring Poole, just to the west of the border, in Dorset. At the time of the 1974 local government re-organisation, it was considered desirable that the whole of the Poole/Bournemouth urban area should be part of the same county. Bournemouth, therefore, became part of the non-metropolitan county of Dorset on 1 April 1974. On 1 April 1997, Bournemouth became a unitary authority, independent from Dorset County Council. For local elections the district was divided into 18 wards, with the Bournemouth Borough Council elected every four years. In the 2011 local elections the Conservatives held overall control, winning 45 of the available 51 seats. The Council elects a mayor and deputy mayor annually. The Mayor of Bournemouth for 2019-20 was Councillor Susan Phillips.
As from April 2019, the nine councils of Dorset were merged into two and Bournemouth became part of a unitary authority with Christchurch and Poole (known as BCP). For the purposes of the Lieutenancy it remains part of the ceremonial county of Dorset. BCP held its first elections in 2019, which resulted in the Conservatives as the largest party, but with No Overall Control; A Unity Alliance Administration of other groups subsequently formed. The next elections are due to occur in 2024.
Bournemouth is represented by two parliamentary constituencies in the House of Commons; Bournemouth East and Bournemouth West. In the 2017 general election, the former was held for the Conservatives by Tobias Ellwood with 51.9% of the vote, while the latter was also held for the Conservatives by Conor Burns with 53.5%. However, the seats saw some of the largest increases in Labour vote share in the country, with increases of over 18% in each. In 2022, both of the towns Conservative MPs, Conor Burns and Tobias Ellwood had the whip withdrawn forcing them to sit as Independents.
## Geography
Bournemouth is about 94 miles (151 km) southwest of London. The town borders the neighbouring towns of Poole and Christchurch to the west and east respectively. Poole Bay lies to the south. The River Stour forms a natural boundary to the north and east, terminating at Christchurch Harbour; while the River Bourne rises in Poole and flows through the middle of Bournemouth town centre, into the English Channel. The towns of Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch form the South East Dorset conurbation with a combined population of over 400,000. Bournemouth is both a retail and commercial centre. Areas within Bournemouth include: Boscombe, Kinson, Southbourne, Springbourne, Throop, Westbourne, Winton and Pokesdown.
The area's geology has little variety, comprising almost entirely of Eocene clays which, prior to urbanisation, supported a heathland environment. Patches of the original heath still remain, notably Turbary Common, a 36-hectare (89-acre; 0.14 sq mi; 0.36 km<sup>2</sup>) site, much of which is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest. This heathland habitat is home to all six species of native reptile, the Dartford warbler and some important flora such as sundew and bog asphodel. Small populations of Exmoor pony and Shetland cattle help to maintain the area. Bournemouth is directly north of Old Harry Rocks, the easternmost end of the Jurassic Coast, 96 miles (155 km) of coastline designated a World Heritage Site in 2001. Bournemouth's own coastline stretches from Sandbanks to Christchurch Harbour and comprises mainly sandy beaches backed by gravel and sandy clay cliffs. These cliffs are cut by a number of chines which provide natural access to the shore. At the easternmost point lies Hengistbury Head, a narrow peninsula that forms the southern shore of Christchurch Harbour. It is a local nature reserve and the site of a Bronze Age settlement.
### Climate
Like all of the UK, Bournemouth has a temperate oceanic climate with moderate variation in annual and daily temperatures, mild summers, and cool winters. From 1991 to 2020 the annual mean temperature was 10 to 11 °C (50 to 52 °F). The warmest months are July and August, which have an average temperature range of 12 to 22 °C (54 to 72 °F), while the coolest months are January and February, which have an average temperature range of 2 to 9 °C (36 to 48 °F). Average rainfall in Bournemouth is around 34.4 inches (875 mm) annually, well below the national average of 45.8 inches (1,163 mm). It records both higher and lower temperatures than would be expected for its coastal location. Since 1960, temperature extremes as measured at Bournemouth Hurn Airport have ranged from 34.1 °C (93.4 °F) in August 1990, down to −13.4 °C (7.9 °F) in January 1963. The lowest temperature recorded in recent years was −10.4 °C (13.3 °F) in December 2010. The February record high was broken in 2019, with a new record temperature of 17.8C.
### Green belt
Bournemouth lies at the centre of a green belt region that extends into the wider surrounding counties. It is in place to reduce urban sprawl, prevent the towns in the South East Dorset conurbation from further convergence, protect the identity of outlying communities, and preserve nearby countryside. This is achieved by restricting inappropriate development within the designated areas, and imposing stricter conditions on permitted building.
Bournemouth has small areas of green belt within its district to the north and east, mostly along the fringes of the shared border with the Christchurch and East Dorset districts. These cover landscape features and greenfield facilities including the River Stour, Stour Valley Way, Millhams Mead and Stour Valley nature reserves and arboretum, Hengistbury Head, and the small communities of Throop and Holdenhurst. Turbary Park is a heathland which is a protected Site of Special Scientific Interest.
## Demography
The 2011 census records the population of Bournemouth as 183,491, comprising 91,386 males and 92,105 females, which equates to 49.8% and 50.2% of the population respectively. The mean average age of all persons is 40 years. With 4,000 residents per square kilometre, Bournemouth has the highest population density of any authority in the South-West region, and is the eighth most populated.
Much of the population, 83.8%, describe their ethnicity as 'White British' while other white groups account for a further 8.1%. Asian groups; Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Chinese and other Asian, make up 3.9%. Black British, Black African, Black Caribbean and other Black groups form 1.0% of the population, Those who are Mixed race make up 2.3% of the population, and 0.9% are from other ethnic groups.
Christians made up 57.1% of the population but 30% of residents said they had no religion and 7.8% declined to say whether they were religious or not. Muslims were 1.8%, Buddhists, Hindus and Jews each had a 0.7% share, Sikhs were 0.1%. and other religions made up 0.7%.
Of all Bournemouth residents aged 16 or over, 19.1% had no qualifications at all, although 35% said they had between one and four O-levels, CSEs, GCSEs or equivalent, and 36.5% have more than five O-level equivalents (grade C and above), an A-level or two to three AS-levels. Those with an NVQ level 1 comprise 8.0% of the population while 15.2% have a level 2 NVQ, a City and Guilds craft certificate, BTEC or general diploma. Just over 20% of residents had two or more A-levels, four or more AS-Levels or an advanced diploma while 15.8% possessed a degree, such as a BA or BSc or a higher degree such as an MA or PhD. An NVQ level 4 or 5, HNC, HND, higher BTEC or higher diploma, is held by 4.2% and a professional qualification is held by 13.9% of residents. An apprenticeship has been completed by 6.3% of the population while 16.9% have some other work-related or vocational qualification and 8.3% hold a foreign qualification.
Historically Bournemouth has suffered from negative rates of natural increase and has relied on immigration to maintain population growth. In 2007 however, births exceeded deaths for the first time, and this trend has continued through to 2011. This, coupled with a substantial increase in people moving into the area, has led to a sharp rise in the resident population since 2001. Of the total population, 3.3% are 85 or over, compared to 2.2% nationally; however the largest group of people moving into the area are students in the 16-24-year age group, and 9% of the current population are between 20 and 24. In England this age group accounts for only 7%. According to the Centre for Cities in 2016, Bournemouth's population had the third highest average age among 63 large towns and cities in the UK, at 42.8 years.
## Economy
Similarly to the rest of Dorset, Bournemouth's economy is primarily in the service sector, which employed 95% of the workforce in 2010. This was 10% higher than the average employment in the service sector for Great Britain and 11% higher than the South West. Of particular importance are the financial and public service sectors which through 2011 continued to show sustained growth. Compared to the rest of the country, Bournemouth performed well in these two areas but under performed in transport and communications.
The smallest geographical region for which gross value added information is available is the NUTS3 area, Bournemouth and Poole. The latest figures, as of 2012, are for the year 2009 which showed that the Bournemouth and Poole area enjoyed the strongest annualised growth in the South-West region. In 2009 the South West Regional Accounts showed that the Financial Services sector in Bournemouth was worth £1,031.8 million in Gross Value Added. Important employers in this sector include JPMorgan, Nationwide Building Society, and the Liverpool Victoria, Tata Consultancy Services (formerly Unisys), and RIAS insurance companies. The manufacturing sector is predominantly based in neighbouring Poole, but still employed 2% of the workforce in 2010 and 2.6% in 2011. Notable employers in this sector include Escor Toys and Parvalux.
Tourism is also important to the local economy. In 2011, domestic and overseas visitors made more than 5.6 million trips to the town and spent over £460 million between them. The equivalent of 8,531 full-time jobs exist as a result which accounts for 15% of all employment in the town. Bournemouth seafront is one of the UK's biggest attractions with 4.5 million visitors in 2011. RNLI lifeguards provide seasonal coverage of Bournemouth's beaches.
With a third of all town centre businesses in the leisure industry, Bournemouth has a booming nightlife economy and is a popular destination for stag and hen parties. These party-goers contribute £125 million a year to the economy and support 4,000 jobs. In 2010 the town was awarded a Purple Flag for providing a wide variety of night-time activities while maintaining the safety of both residents and visitors. An independent report published in 2012 indicates there has been a rise in antisocial behaviour which it attributes to the increase in nightlife.
Those of working age make up approximately 65% of Bournemouth's population and of these, 74.6% are economically active although not necessarily employed within the Bournemouth area. Industry in Bournemouth employed more than 76,400 people in 2011 but not all of these were Bournemouth residents. Of those employed in Bournemouth based industries, 29.32% were employed in the public administration, education and health sector. This compares favourably with Dorset, the South-West region, and the country as a whole, as do the other large sectors; distribution, hotels & restaurants (29.06%), and banking, finance and insurance (24.48%). 37.2% of Bournemouth's resident population are employed full-time while 13.3% are employed part-time. An additional 7.1% full-time workers are self-employed, 3.1% are self-employed part-time. Full-time students with jobs account for 5.3% and 3.8% are unemployed.
The shopping streets are mostly pedestrianised with modern shopping malls, Victorian arcades and a large selection of bars, clubs, and cafés. North of the centre there is an out-of-town shopping complex called Castlepoint. The 41-acre (17 ha) site has 40 units and was the largest shopping centre in the UK when it opened it 2003. Other major shopping areas are situated in the districts of Westbourne and Boscombe.
## Culture
Bournemouth is a tourist and regional centre for leisure, entertainment, culture and recreation. Local author and former mayor, Keith Rawlings, suggests that Bournemouth has a thriving youth culture due to its large university population and many language school students. In recent years, Bournemouth has become a popular nightlife destination with UK visitors and many clubs, bars and restaurants are located within the town centre. In a 2007 survey by First Direct, Bournemouth was found to be the happiest place in the UK, with 82% of people questioned saying they were happy with their lives.
Major venues for concerts include BIC, Pavilion Theatre and O2 Academy. Built in 1984, the BIC is also a popular place for party political conferences and has been used by all three major political parties. Its four auditoria make it the largest venue on the south coast. The O2 and Pavilion are older and are both Grade II listed buildings. The O2, which opened in 1895 as the Grand Pavilion Theatre, was initially used as a circus and later for music hall theatre. The Pavilion opened in 1929 as concert hall and tea room while also providing a venue for the municipal orchestra. It continues to provide traditional entertainment today, presenting West End stage shows, ballet and operas. Bournemouth has more than 200 listed buildings, mainly from the Victorian and Edwardian eras, including three grade I churches; St Peter's, St Clement's and St Stephen's.
The Russell-Cotes Museum is a Grade II\* listed, villa completed in 1901. It houses artefacts and paintings collected by the Victorian philanthropist Merton Russell-Cotes and his wife during their extensive travels around the world. The four art galleries display paintings by William Powell Frith, Edwin Landseer, Edwin Long, William Orchardson, Arthur Hughes, Albert Moore and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It was Russell-Cotes who successfully campaigned to have a promenade built; it runs continuously along the Bournemouth and Poole shoreline.
The Lower, Central and Upper Gardens are Grade II\* public parks, leading for several miles down the valley of the River Bourne through the centre of the town to the sea. Bournemouth has a further 425 acres (172 ha) of parkland. Initially serving to compensate for the loss of common rights after common land was enclosed in 1802, it was held in trust until 1889 when ownership passed to Bournemouth Corporation and the land became five public parks: King's Park, Queen's Park, Meyrick Park, Seafield Gardens and Redhill Common.
The detailed Land Use Survey by the Office for National Statistics in 2005 noted that the local authority area of Bournemouth had the third-highest proportion of land taken up by domestic gardens, 34.6%, of the 326 districts in England; narrowly less than the London Boroughs of Harrow and Sutton at the time with 34.7% and 35.1%.
One of Bournemouth's most noted cultural institutions is Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra which was formed in 1893 under Dan Godfrey. It became the first municipal orchestra in the country when in 1896, Bournemouth Borough Council took control and Godfrey was appointed musical director and head of the town's entertainments. Originally playing three concerts a day during the summer season, in the great glass palm house known as the Winter Gardens; the orchestra is now based in Poole and performs around 130 concerts a year across Southern England.
Bournemouth is currently host to a number of festivals. Bournemouth Food and Drink Festival is a ten-day event which combines a market with live cookery demonstrations. The Arts by the Sea Festival is a mix of dance, film, theatre, literature, and music which was launched in 2012 by the local university, the Arts University Bournemouth, and is set to become an annual event. The Bourne Free carnival is held in the town each year during the summer. Initially a gay pride festival, it has become a celebration of diversity and inclusion. Since 2008, Bournemouth has held its own air festival over four days in August. This has featured displays from the Red Arrows as well as appearances from the Yakovlevs, Blades, Team Guinot Wing-Walkers, Battle of Britain Memorial Flight including Lancaster, Hurricane, Spitfire and also the last flying Vulcan. The festival has also seen appearances from modern aircraft such as the Eurofighter Typhoon. The air festival attracts up to a million people over the four-day event. Bournemouth 7s Festival is a sports and music festival taking place in May each year. Hosting rugby, netball, hockey, dodgeball and volleyball tournaments, the event is a celebration of team sports in a festival atmosphere and was launched in 2008.
The town was especially rich in literary associations during the late 19th century and earlier years of the 20th century. P. C. Wren author of Beau Geste, Frederick E. Smith, writer of the 633 Squadron books, and Beatrice Webb, later Potter, all lived in the town. Paul Verlaine taught at Bournemouth a preparatory school and the writer J. R. R. Tolkien, spent 30 years taking holidays in Bournemouth, staying in the same room at the Hotel Miramar. He eventually retired to the area in the 1960s with his wife Edith, where they lived close to Branksome Chine. Tolkien died in September 1973 at his home in Bournemouth but was buried in Oxfordshire. The house was demolished in 2008.
Sir Percy Shelley, 3rd Baronet, lived at Boscombe Manor, a house he had built for his mother, Mary Shelley, the writer and author of the Gothic horror novel Frankenstein. Mary died before the house was completed but she was buried in Bournemouth, in accordance with her wishes. The family plot in St Peter's churchyard also contains her parents William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and the heart of her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and most of his novel Kidnapped from his house "Skerryvore" on the west cliff, Westbourne. A novel of Stevenson's life while residing in Westbourne was written by Adelaide A. Boodle, who had met him there. Henry James, already acquainted with Stevenson through correspondence, and residing in Bournemouth in 1885 in large part because his invalid sister Alice lived there, visited Stevenson most evenings.
Vladimir Chertkov established a Tolstoyan publishing house with other Russian exiles at Tuckton, and under the 'Free Age Press' imprint, published the first edition of several works by Leo Tolstoy. Author Bill Bryson worked for a time with the Bournemouth Echo newspaper and wrote about the town in his 1995 work Notes from a Small Island.
## Landmarks
Bournemouth has many historic landmarks, mainly dating from the Victorian and Edwardian era. Bournemouth has three Grade I listed churches, St Peter's and St Stephen's in the town centre and St Clement's in Boscombe. St Peter's was the town's first church, completed in 1879 and designed by George Edmund Street. In his book, England's Thousand Best Churches, Simon Jenkins describes the chancel as "one of the richest Gothic Revival interiors in England", while the 202 feet (62 m) spire dominates the surrounding skyline. When the architect, John Loughborough Pearson, designed St Stephen's his aim was to "bring people to their knees". It has a high stone groined roof, twin aisles and a triforium gallery, although the tower lacks a spire. Other listed churches include the Victorian St Mark's Church in the historic Talbot Village and the 12th-century St. Andrew's Church in Kinson.
The borough has two piers: Bournemouth Pier, close to the town centre, and the shorter but architecturally more important Boscombe Pier. Designed by the architect Archibald Smith, Boscombe Pier opened in 1889 as a 600 feet (180 m) structure which was extended to 750 feet (230 m) in 1927 when a new head was constructed. Added in 1958, the boomerang-shaped entrance kiosk and overhanging concrete roof is now a Grade II listed building. In 1961 a theatre was added but this was demolished in 2008 when the rest of the pier was renovated. In 2009, fashion designer Wayne Hemingway described Boscombe Pier as "Britain's coolest pier". It was also voted Pier of the Year 2010 by the National Piers Society.
In 1856, Bournemouth Pier was a simple, wooden jetty. This was replaced by a longer, wooden pier five years later, and a cast-iron structure in 1880. Two extensions to the pier in 1894 and 1905, brought the total length to 305 metres (1,001 feet). After World War II, the structure was strengthened to allow for the addition of a Pier Theatre, finally constructed in 1960. This survived until the 2000s when it was turned into a climbing adventure centre. Between 1979 and 1981, a £1.7 million redevelopment programme, saw a great deal of reconstruction work, and the addition of a large two-storey, octagonal-shaped entrance building.
Built as the Mont Dore Hotel in 1881, Bournemouth Town Hall was designated a Grade II listed building in 2001. Designed by Alfred Bedborough in the French, Italian and neo-classical styles, the foundation stone was laid by King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway and the hotel opened in 1885. The buff brick exterior features Bath stone dressings and terracotta friezes. The main entrance is sited within a projected façade that reaches to the eaves and is topped with a pediment, while above sits a belvedere with turrets and a pavilion roof. During the First World War the hotel was used as a hospital for British and Indian soldiers and after as a convalescent home. It never opened as a hotel again and was purchased by Bournemouth Borough Council in 1919. Other Victorian hotels in Bournemouth include the Royal Bath Hotel in the Town Centre and the Norfolk Royale Hotel in Richmond Hill.
Built in the Art Deco style in 1929, situated close to the seafront, the Pavilion Theatre was at the time considered to be the greatest ever municipal enterprise for the benefit of entertainment. Built from brick and stone, the frontage features square Corinthian columns. Still a popular venue, it is today a Grade II listed building.
The Bournemouth Eye was a helium-filled balloon attached to a steel cable in the town's lower gardens. The spherical balloon was 69 metres (226 feet) in circumference and carried an enclosed, steel gondola. Rising to a height of 150 metres (490 feet), it provided a panoramic view of the surrounding area for up to 28 passengers.
` After the balloon suffered damage in 2016, the Bournemouth Borough Council, Lower Central Gardens Trust and S&D Leisure announced in 2017 that the contract for operating the Bournemouth Eye would not be renewed due to "increased operating costs."`
Bournemouth is known for having only one "street". This is Orchard Street, now a small alley between Commercial Road and Terrace Road. Originally named because it led to an orchard, it pre-dates the build up of the modern town. The 19th century developers thought that names such as Road, Avenue and Drive would be more suitable names, with Street associated with poorer areas of existing towns and cities.
## Sport
The town has a professional football club, AFC Bournemouth, known as the Cherries, which play in the Premier League. AFC Bournemouth play at Dean Court near Boscombe in Kings' Park, 2 miles (3 km) east of the town centre.
Bournemouth Rugby Club, which competes in the National League Division Two South, has its home at Bournemouth Sports Club. The sports club is next to Bournemouth Airport, and hosts an annual Bournemouth 7s Festival, the world's largest sport and music festival, combining Rugby sevens, netball, hockey, dodgeball and crossfit tournaments with festival entertainment. Oakmeadians RFC is the oldest RFU Accredited Rugby Club in Bournemouth, established in 1963.They train and play at Meyrick Park competing in the South West Division. Bournemouth Cricket Club also plays at Bournemouth Sports Club and is reported to be one of the biggest cricket clubs in the country. Its first team plays in the Southern Premier League. Dean Park is a former county cricket ground, once home to Hampshire County Cricket Club and later Dorset County Cricket Club. Today it is a venue for university cricket.
The BIC has become a venue for a round of the Premier League Darts Championship organised by the Professional Darts Corporation.
The Bournemouth Rowing Club, is the town's coastal rowing club. Established in 1865 as Westover and Bournemouth Rowing Club, it is reported to be the oldest sporting association in the county. The club regularly competes in regattas organised by the Hants and Dorset Amateur Rowing Association which take place on the South Coast of England between May and September.
Other watersports popular in Poole Bay include sailing and surfing, and there are a number of local schools for the beginner to learn either sport. Bournemouth has the third largest community of surfers in the UK and in 2009 an artificial surf reef, one of only four in the world, was constructed there. The reef failed to deliver the promised grade 5 wave, suffered a series of delays and ran over budget, finally costing £3.2 million.
## Transport
### Road
The principal route to the town centre is the A338 spur road, a dual carriageway that connects to the A31 close to the Hampshire border. The A31 joins the M27 at Cadnam and from there the M3 to London and the A34 to the Midlands and the North can be accessed. The main road west is the A35 to Honiton in Devon which runs through the South East Dorset Conurbation and continues east as far as Southampton, albeit as a non-primary route. The A350 in the neighbouring borough of Poole provides the only northern route out of the conurbation. National Express coaches serve Bournemouth Travel Interchange & Bournemouth University. There are frequent departures to London Victoria Coach Station and Heathrow and Gatwick Airports. Local buses are provided mainly by two companies, Wilts & Dorset, the former National Bus Company subsidiary and now owned by the Go-Ahead Group, and until they ceased operating on 4 August 2022 Yellow Buses, the former Bournemouth Council-owned company and successors to Bournemouth Corporation Transport, which began operating trams in 1902. Other operators serving the town include Damory Coaches, also owned by Go-Ahead Group and the Shaftesbury & District bus company.
### Rail
There are two stations in the town, Bournemouth railway station and Pokesdown railway station to the east. Parts of western Bournemouth can also be reached from Branksome station. All three stations lie on the South West Main Line from Weymouth to London Waterloo. South Western Railway operates a comprehensive service along this line, which also serves Southampton, Winchester and Basingstoke to the east, and Poole, Wareham, and Dorchester South to the west. Before its closure in 1966, Bournemouth was also served by the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway which provided direct access to Somerset and the Midlands.
### Air
Originally an RAF airfield, Bournemouth Airport was transferred to the Civil Aviation Authority in 1944 and was the UK's only intercontinental airport before the opening of Heathrow Airport in 1946. Acquired by the Manchester Airports Group in 2001, the airport underwent a £45 million phased expansion programme between 2007 and 2011. Situated near the village of Hurn in Christchurch, Dorset, the airport is 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) from Bournemouth town centre and serves around 600,000 passengers annually. There are direct flights to 23 international destinations in nine countries: Cyprus, Finland, Greece (3 destinations), Italy (4), Malta, Portugal, Spain (10), Switzerland and Turkey.
## Education
The Bournemouth local education authority was first set up in 1903 and remained in existence until local government was reorganised in 1974 when Bournemouth lost its County Borough status and became part of the county of Dorset. Under the later reforms of 1997, Bournemouth became a unitary authority and the Bournemouth local education authority was re-established.
The local council operates a two-tier comprehensive system whereby pupils attend one of the 26 primary schools in the borough before completing their education at secondary school. Bournemouth is one of the minority of local authorities in England still to maintain selective education, with two grammar schools (one for boys, one for girls) and ten secondary modern/comprehensive schools. There are also a small number of independent schools in the town, and a further education college. Bournemouth has two universities: Bournemouth University and Arts University Bournemouth, both of which are located across the boundary in neighbouring Poole. They are also home to AECC University College (formally known as Anglo European College of Chiropractic), which is located on Parkwood Road in Bournemouth. In 2012, 60.7% of the borough's school leavers gained 5 GCSEs of grade C or above. This was slightly better than the national average of 59.4% and above the average for the rest of Dorset, with 58.8% of pupils from the local authority of Poole, and 54.1% from the remainder of the county, managing to do likewise.
## Religion
The 2011 census revealed that 57.1% of the borough's population are Christian. With all other religions combined only totalling 4.7%, Christianity is by far the largest religious group. 40% of the borough falls within the Church of England Diocese of Salisbury. The remainder, to the east, belongs to the Diocese of Winchester. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth incorporates most of Bournemouth with the exception of two small parishes to the west which are covered by the Diocese of Plymouth.
The borough has several notable examples of Victorian church architecture including the previously mentioned St. Peter's, the churchyard of which contains the grave of the author Mary Shelley; St Stephen's Church, completed in 1898 for services under the influence of the Oxford Movement and St Clement's, one of the first churches to be designed by John Dando Sedding, built in Boscombe in 1871. To serve a rapidly expanding population a third church was built in the town centre in 1891. St Augustin's church was commissioned by Henry Twells who was 'priest-in-charge' there until 1900. The largest church in the town is the Richmond Hill St Andrew's Church, part of the United Reformed Church. Built in 1865 and enlarged in 1891, it has a seating capacity of 1,100 and is unusually ornate for a non-conformist church.
Holy Trinity Church was built, at 161, Old Christchurch Road, in 1868-9 (tower added 1878) in Italian Romanesque style, designed by Cory & Ferguson of Carlisle; it was deconsecrated in 1973, and burnt down in 1979. The site now contains a modern office building named "Trinity".
Few purpose-built places of worship exist in the borough for faiths other than Christianity, although with a higher proportion of Jewish residents than the national average, there are three synagogues. Chabad-Lubavitch of Bournemouth is a branch of the worldwide movement. The Bournemouth Reform Synagogue, formerly known as Bournemouth New Synagogue, is a Reform Jewish synagogue with over 700 members. There is also the architecturally notable Bournemouth Hebrew Congregation synagogue built in 1911 with an Art Nouveau take on the Moorish Revival style. There are also two Christadelphian meeting halls in the town.
The Bournemouth Islamic Centre provides information, support and a place of worship for the Islamic community. There is also a mosque in the town.
## Naming conventions
The word 'Bournemouth' is often used loosely to describe the South East Dorset conurbation, which also contains the neighbouring towns of Poole, Christchurch, Wimborne Minster, and Verwood. As a result, "Bournemouth" is used in the following terms:
- Although it has a significant presence in Bournemouth town centre, Bournemouth University's main campus is located in Poole, on the boundary with Bournemouth.
- Bournemouth Airport is located near Hurn in the borough of Christchurch, and was originally named RAF Hurn.
- "Bournemouth Bay" is sometimes used for Poole Bay
- The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra is now based in Poole.
## Notable people
A number of famous people came from Bournemouth. Tony Hancock lived for most of his early life in hotels in Bournemouth run by his parents.
A number of actors came from Bournemouth, including Juliette Kaplan from the BBC comedy Last of the Summer Wine, Ray Lonnen from the series The Sandbaggers (1978–80), Alison Newman, actress who played Hazel Bailey in Footballers' Wives and DI Samantha Keeble in EastEnders. Jack Donnelly (born 1985) actor, played the role of Jason in the BBC series Atlantis and Sophie Rundle (born 1988) actress, portrayed Ada Shelby in the BBC One series Peaky Blinders and Ben Hardy (born 1991) actor, played Peter Beale in EastEnders. Renowned Hollywood actors Christian Bale and Millie Bobby Brown both lived in Bournemouth for parts of their childhood.
Authors Radclyffe Hall (1880–1943) poet and author, who wrote The Well of Loneliness a groundbreaking work in lesbian literature came from Bournemouth and Dilys Powell (1901–1995) journalist, film critic of The Sunday Times for over fifty years went to school there. Patrick Ensor (1946–2007) editor of Guardian Weekly from 1993 to 2007 also came from Bournemouth.
Bournemouth has been home to a number of musicians, including Andy Summers, the renowned musician from the globally acclaimed band, The Police, who was born on December 31, 1942, and spent his formative years in Bournemouth. Summers discovered his passion for music there and honed his skills on the guitar playing with local bands. His musical journey led him to The Police, where his intricate guitar work became iconic. Additionally, Summers enjoyed a successful solo career, blending rock, jazz, and world music in his critically acclaimed solo albums. Collaborations with fellow Bournemouth native Robert Fripp showcased his virtuosity and artistic prowess that also spans other artistic disciplines - film composing, writing, film making, and photography. Max Bygraves (1922–2012) comedian, singer, actor and variety performer. The composer Sir Hubert Parry (1848-1918) was born in Bournemouth. One of Britain's most prolific composers of choral music he is probably best known for his setting to William Blake's words of Jerusalem. Alex James, best known as the bassist of the rock band Blur, attended Bournemouth School before moving to London. The rock band King Crimson included many musicians from Bournemouth including brothers Michael Giles (drums) and Peter Giles (bass).
Bournemouth has been the home of sporting world champions: Freddie Mills (1919–1965), who won the World Light Heavyweight title in 1948. Another famous sportsman, the athlete Charles Bennett (1870–1948), lived in the town after he retired. Bennett, was the first British track and field athlete to become Olympic Champion, winning two gold medals and a silver at the Paris Games in 1900. The tennis player and Wimbledon Championships winner Virginia Wade was born in Bournemouth. Colonel Edmond Cotter, a runner-up player for the Royal Engineers team in the inaugural 1872 FA Cup Final, and later in life an Irish Republican, died at Bournemouth in 1934.
Three recipients of the Victoria Cross (VC) came from Bournemouth. Frederick Charles Riggs (1888–1918), Cecil Noble (1891–1915), and Lieutenant Colonel Derek Anthony Seagrim (1903–1943), In addition five recipients of the VC died in Bournemouth - General Sir Reginald Hart (1848-1931), Royal Navy Staff-Surgeon William Job Maillard (1863-1903), Second-Lieutenant Alfred Oliver Pollard (1893-1960), Joseph John Davies (1889-1976) and James Welch (1889-1978).
A distinguished resident of Bournemouth was Sir Donald Coleman Bailey, (1901–1985) a civil engineer who invented the Bailey bridge. Bailey was knighted in 1946 for his bridge design when he was living in Southbourne in Bournemouth.
The heart of Percy Bysshe Shelley, together with Mary Shelley and her mother Mary Wollstonecraft and father William Godwin, are all buried at St Peter's Church, Bournemouth. Percy's and Mary's son, Sir Percy Shelley, 3rd Baronet, lived at Boscombe Manor, now the Shelley Manor Medical Centre, and is also buried in the same vault at St Peter's.
## Twin towns
Bournemouth is twinned with:
- Netanya, Israel
- Lucerne, Switzerland
## Freedom of the Borough
The following people and military units have received the Freedom of the Borough of Bournemouth.
### Individuals
- Lord Roberts of Kandahar: 7 October 1902.
- Sir Winston Churchill.
- Sir Geoffrey Hurst.
- Sir Christopher Hoy.
- Bob Geldof.
- Eddie Howe: 5 March 2019.
### Military Units
- The Royal Hampshire Regiment: 13 September 1945.
## See also
- List of beaches in Dorset
- Coastline of the United Kingdom |
12,057,232 | 1549–1550 papal conclave | 1,153,746,678 | Election of Pope Julius III | [
"1549 in Europe",
"1549 in politics",
"1549 in the Papal States",
"1550 in Europe",
"1550 in politics",
"1550 in the Papal States",
"16th-century Catholicism",
"16th-century elections",
"Papal conclaves"
]
| The 1549–50 papal conclave (November 29 – February 7), convened after the death of Pope Paul III and eventually elected Cardinal Giovanni del Monte as Pope Julius III. It was the second-longest papal conclave of the 16th century, and, at the time, the largest papal conclave in history in terms of the number of cardinal electors. The cardinal electors (who at one point totaled 51) were roughly divided between the factions of Henry II of France, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and Alessandro Farnese, the cardinal-nephew of Paul III.
Noted for the extensive interference of European powers, the conclave was to determine whether and on what terms the Council of Trent would reconvene (supported by Charles V and opposed by Henry II) and the fate of the Duchies of Parma and Piacenza (claimed by both Charles V and the House of Farnese). Although the conclave nearly elected Reginald Pole, the late arrival of additional French cardinals pushed the conclave back into deadlock, and eventually Giovanni del Monte was elected Pope Julius III as a compromise candidate.
The French hoped that Julius III would be hostile to the interests of the Holy Roman Empire. Nevertheless, tensions between him and the French boiled over when he reconvened the Council of Trent in November 1550, culminating in the threat of schism in August 1551 and the brief War of Parma fought between French troops allied with Ottavio Farnese and a papal-imperial army. French prelates did not attend the 1551–1552 sessions of the Council of Trent and were slow to accept its reforms; because Henry II would not allow any French cardinals to reside in Rome, many missed the election of Pope Marcellus II, arriving in Rome just in time to elect Marcellus II's successor, Pope Paul IV, after Marcellus II's brief reign.
## Cardinal-electors
Pope Paul III had enlarged the College of Cardinals to an unprecedented 54, and the length of the conclave allowed many of the foreign cardinals to arrive, bringing the number of cardinal electors at one point to 51, although two died and several fell ill during the conclave, reducing their number to 44 by the final scrutiny (ballot).
According to the tally of Cardinal Charles de Lorraine-Guise in his letter to Henry II, once the twelve participating French cardinals reached Rome, 23 cardinals were aligned in the French faction, 22 in the Imperial faction, and four neutral; thus Guise judged it impossible for either faction to garner the necessary two-thirds simply by persuading neutral cardinals. In addition, eleven Italian cardinals that Guise counted among the French faction were only likely to vote for a fellow Italian, making the three favorites of Henry II—Louis de Bourbon de Vendôme, Jean de Lorraine, and Georges d'Amboise infeasible. The non-French cardinal protector of France, Ippolito II d'Este, would then have been the choice of Henry II; Catherine de' Medici preferred her cousin Giovanni Salviati, who was unacceptable to Charles V and the Farnese.
In contrast, Charles V favored Juan Álvarez de Toledo followed by Reginald Pole, and found unacceptable all of the French cardinals as well as Salviati, Nicolò Ridolfi, and the two prelates responsible for the transfer of the Council of Trent to Bologna (Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte and Marcello Cervini degli Spannochi). A second imperial faction, led by Ercole Gonzaga and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, that opposed Charles's preferred candidates, supported the candidacy of Gonzaga and Salviati.
Absent were three cardinals, the Frenchmen Claude de Longwy de Givry, Bishop of Poitiers, and Jacques d'Annebaut, Bishop of Lisieux, and Henrique de Portugal, Archbishop of Evora.
## Procedure
The rules of the conclave, as laid out in Ubi periculum and codified into canon law were nominally observed, but also blatantly disregarded, especially with respect to the rules prohibiting communication with the outside world. Some unauthorized persons are known to have been present in the conclave, leaving through the small door left open (per portulam ostio conclavis relictam). Portuguese Cardinal Miguel de Silva, irked by the presence of ambassadors from both Charles V and Henry II, complained to Dean de Cupis that the conclave was "more open than closed" (non conclusum sed patens conclave). By January 14, with the arrival of Louis de Bourbon, there were approximately 400 people in the conclave, only 48 of whom were cardinals—including the brothers of some cardinals, the representatives of secular rulers, and those whose only purpose was to inform the outside world on the proceedings.
On November 27, the twelve cardinals who had arrived in Rome by then, joined the twenty-nine who had been in Rome at the death of Paul III in drawing lots of the assignment of cells during the conclave; however, those who were already ill were given preferential cell placement without having to draw lots. The conclavists decided to proceed with "closed" ballots (ut vota secreto darentur) on December 3, having read and sworn to adhere to the bull of Pope Julius II against simoniacal election, Contra simoniacos, and Pope Gregory X's bull establishing the conclave, Ubi periculum on December 1. On January 31, a reform committee—composed of Carafa, Bourbon, Pacheco, Waldburg, de Silva, and Pole—decided on thirteen new rules: limiting each cardinal to three conclavists, preventing cardinals from enlarging or switching assigned cells, prohibiting private meetings of more than three cardinals, banning eating together or sharing food, and confining the cardinals to their cells between 10:30 p.m. and dawn; physicians and barbers were each limited to three Italians, and one each of France, Germany, and Spain.
## Balloting
The first scrutiny was held on December 3, the fifth day of the conclave, in the Cappella Paolina (not the Sistine Chapel, which had been divided into nineteen cells for infirm cardinals). Because it took ten days for the news of Pope Paul III's death to reach the French court, at the start of the conclave almost all the cardinals aligned with the Holy Roman Empire were in Rome, while only two of the fourteen French cardinals were in Italy (one was Antoine du Meudon, who had been vacationing in Farnese territory); because one clause of the Concordat of Bologna allowed the pope to fill French benefices if the French prelate died in Rome, Henry II exhorted his cardinals to remain in France, and relied on his non-French allies (in particular, Ippolito II d'Este) to act as his go-between with the Roman Curia. d'Este had done his best to delay the start of the conclave to allow the French cardinals to arrive, using his influence to schedule the papal funerary rite (which was, by law, nine days long) to begin an unusual nine days after Paul III's death.
At the start of the conclave, Alessandro Farnese, the cardinal-nephew of Paul III, and his faction of four or five cardinals (including Ranuccio Farnese and Guido Ascanio Sforza), whom Guise had counted among the French faction, began supporting the second choice of the Holy Roman Emperor, Reginald Pole, apparently having received assurances that Ottavio Farnese's claim to the Duchy of Parma would be supported by Charles V. On December 5, Pole received twenty-six votes, only two short of the requisite two-thirds majority, prompting French ambassador Claude d'Urfé to rush to the door of the conclave, demanding that the conclave wait for the French cardinals, whom he claimed were in Corsica, and threatening that the election of a pope in their absence would be likely to cause a schism.
Whether or not Urfé's warning had any effect on the conclavists, from December 7, when the French cardinals landed south of Genoa, to the end of the conclave, Pole polled no more twenty-four or twenty-three votes. On December 11, four French cardinals—Guise, Charles de Bourbon, Odet de Coligny de Châtillon, and Jean du Bellay—arrived, bringing the requisite supermajority to thirty-one. Henry II bankrolled Guise with a sum of 150,000 écus, likely for bribes, and additional French cardinals began to trickle into the conclave: Georges d'Amboise and Philippe de la Chambre on December 28; Jean de Lorraine on December 31; and (the extremely elderly) Louis de Bourbon on January 14.
By the end of January, Pole had dropped to twenty-one votes, but the French faction remained split between Carafa, de Bourbon, Lorraine, and Salviati; Este's candidacy, though desired by many in the French College, had not yet been put forward, perhaps having been held back in hopes that he would be more acceptable as the conclave dragged on. Toward the end of January, in accordance with traditional efforts to counter dilatory cardinals, the amenities and rations of the conclave were decreased and the upper story windows were closed to reduce the natural lighting and fresh air. Soon afterwards, Ridolfi—the French candidate most acceptable to Farnese—died amid accusations of poisoning on January 31.
A letter dated February 6 from Henry II, advising Guise to support a neutral candidate, never reached the conclave before its conclusion. Although Del Monte had originally been opposed by both the Imperial faction (for his role in moving the Council of Trent) and the French faction (for his plebeian genealogy and alleged personal indiscretions), he obtained the support of the French for his perceived past hostility to the Empire, the support of Farnese for his pledge to support the claim of Ottavio Farnese in Parma, and the support of a few Imperialists, having not been specifically excluded in Charles V's last letter. On February 7, on the sixty-first scrutiny of the conclave, Del Monte was "unanimously" elected and took the name Pope Julius III (forty-one cardinals had previously acquiesced to his candidacy, although the more fervent of the Imperialists had not until it was already inevitable).
## Primary sources
The main sources for the proceedings and vote-counts of the conclave come from the accounts Enrico Dandolo of Venice, Simon Renard (the Imperial ambassador to France), and Diego de Mendoza (ambassador to Charles V), the correspondences between Henry II and Guise and d'Este, and the diaries of the various conclavists. In particular, Angelo Massarelli, the secretary of Marcello Cervini, devotes his entire fifth diary to the conclave.
### The papabili
Before and during the conclave, many Roman bankers offered betting spreads on the papabili (cardinals likely to be elected). According to Dandolo, "it is more than clear that the merchants are very well informed about the state of the poll, and that the cardinals' attendants in Conclave go partners with them in wagers, which thus causes many tens of thousands of crowns to change hands" (an early example of insider trading).
Cardinal del Monte (who was eventually elected Julius III) had started out as the favorite at 1 to 5, trailed by Salviati, Ridolfi, and Pole, but Pole was the favorite three days later at 1 to 4. By December 5, Pole's odds had risen to 95 to 100. With the arrival of four additional French cardinals on December 11, Pole's odds fell to 2 to 5. On January 22, the odds quoted against the conclave finishing during January were 9 to 10, against February: 1 to 2, against March: 1 to 5, and never: 1 to 10. |
65,334,654 | Van Sickle Island | 1,073,741,582 | Island in California | [
"Islands of Northern California",
"Islands of Solano County, California",
"Islands of Suisun Bay",
"Islands of the San Francisco Bay Area"
]
| Van Sickle Island is an approximately 10,000-acre (4,000 ha) island in Suisun Bay, California. It is part of Solano County, and administered by Reclamation District 1607. Its coordinates are , and in 1981 the United States Geological Survey recorded its elevation as 0 ft (0 m). The island's land is divided into 22 privately-owned parcels, used primarily for duck clubs and private residences. A railroad bridge constructed in 1913 once connected it to Montezuma and Chipps Island, from which a ferry connected to Mallard Island and Pittsburg. The rail service was discontinued and the bridges no longer exist; currently, the island is accessible by water, as well as by road on bridges from Hammond Island and Wheeler Island.
## Geography and ecology
Van Sickle Island is located in Suisun Bay, an embayment of San Francisco Bay in Northern California. It is on the eastern edge of Suisun Marsh, at the terminus of Montezuma Slough, among a number of marsh islands separated primarily by creeks and sloughs. Van Sickle Island contains 2,400 acres (970 ha) of managed wetlands. It is within the Grizzly Island Unit of the primary management area defined in 1976 by the San Francisco Bay Conversation and Development Commission's Suisun Marsh Protection Plan, which says that "despite the private nature of this use and the restricted number with access to the Marsh, club owners provide a public benefit in the maintenance of the waterfowl and wildlife habitat".
It is bordered on the north by Hammond Island (across Roaring River Slough), on the northwest by Wheeler Island, on the west by Honker Bay (itself an embayment of Suisun Bay), on the southwest by Chipps Island (across Spoonbill Creek), on the south and southeast by Suisun Bay, on the east by Montezuma (across Montezuma Slough), and on the northeast by Spinner Island.
One bridge connects the levee road at the northeast corner of Van Sickle Island to the levee road on Hammond Island, which can be reached by automobile from mainland via Grizzly Island. Another two connect to Wheeler Island on the northwest corner, both to the same road; the southern end of this road travels west across Wheeler Island and eventually recedes into the water, while the northern end connects to Hammond Island. On the eastern tip of Van Sickle Island, two levee roads connect to Spinner Island (which has no mainland road access).
By 2009, 22 people lived on Van Sickle Island, which was divided among 22 parcels; in 2017, it was home to "around 20" duck clubs. A 2009 report prepared for the Solano Local Agency Formation Commission said that there were "no expectations for growth or development of the island".
## History
Like many islands and tracts of land in Suisun Bay and the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, Van Sickle Island was reclaimed in the mid-19th century by dredging sloughs and using the material to construct levees. Water inside the levees was then drained, resulting in a large tract of fertile land that was used for raising cattle, as well as farming beans and tules.
The cost of levee maintenance, however, gradually increased to the point of making farming unprofitable; subsequently, the area "became a haven for waterfowl hunting and recreation".
The island, historically, was referred to by a number of names, including "Jones Island", "Van Sickle Island", "Van Sickles Island" and "Van Sickle's Island". It is shown as "Jones Island" on an 1850 survey map of the San Francisco Bay area made by Cadwalader Ringgold, as well as an 1854 map made by Henry Lange. However, an 1891 decision by the Board on Geographic Names Decisions established its name as Van Sickle Island.
### Reclamation district
On November 25, 1914, Reclamation District 1607 was established to handle drainage, irrigation, and levee maintenance. The island was subdivided into several parcels, upon which landowners pay assessments to fund District operations. The district is governed by a five-member Board of Trustees, elected by the landowners to serve 4-year terms. The Board meets several times per year, and members are not compensated for their roles. In addition to Board members, the district has two part-time employees: a secretary who performs some routine levee inspections, and another who coordinates various levee maintenance activities.
In the 21st century, the reclamation district generates its revenue primarily from assessments, in which landowners pay an annual fee of \$10 per acre (\$2,471 per square kilometre), and grants from other governmental agencies, including the California Department of Water Resources. In 2008 the district reached an agreement with Venoco, a company which operates several natural gas wells on the island, in which Venoco pays \$50,000 per year for the right to drive service equipment on the island's levees.
In 2018, an effort remained ongoing to find a buyer for the island; negotiations had stalled with the Department of Water Resources, and several private equity firms had signed nondisclosure agreements but not made offers.
In August 2019, the reclamation district had not raised its assessment fees since 1998.
In September 2018, several owners of duck clubs on the island were attempting to negotiate for access to their properties; the owner of the Four G Ranch Duck Club had erected a gate and "[would] not let anyone through". Attorney Garrett Deal said that there would be a combination lock on the fence, and that the club owner would give the combination to all clubs' owners and members who signed a Right of Entry and Release of All Claims Agreement (RERACA) furnished by the club owner's attorney, George Kammerer. In October, the Board of Trustees claimed that the club owner had failed to provide access to the roads in question pursuant to the agreement, and had dumped loads of gravel on the road to make it inaccessible (even for vital tasks such as levee maintenance); they then made a resolution to enter a lawsuit with the affected landowners to restore their access to the road, and selected secretary Chris Lanzafame to work with Deal in the case. In November 2019, the attempt to acquire an easement over club owner's road was ongoing, and the Wreck Slough Club had begun allowing club members locked out of the road to use their property for ATV parking. By May 2020, the Reclamation District had started an eminent domain action to obtain the easement.
### Levees
There are 12 miles of levees surrounding Van Sickle Island; in 2009, there were three pumping stations used to drain the island of water, both due to deliberate flooding (performed for waterfowl management) and unintentional flooding (due to extreme wind or tidal fluctuations). Of these pumps, one was owned by RD 1607, and two were owned privately.
The levees on Van Sickle Island have been overrun and breached numerous times; in 1914, 2,500 acres (1,000 ha) of grain were ruined when the levees broke.
In December 1983, levee breaches were responsible for multiple floods in the Delta, including Bradford Island; Van Sickle Island was inundated completely.
In January 1997, severe storms in California caused a major disaster declaration on January 4; Reclamation District 1607 submitted Damage Survey Reports to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for \$46,788 of levee repair and other associated tasks. FEMA declined the request, and a February 1998 appeal from the district, citing their failure to meet a 1991 Hazard Mitigation Plan compliance deadline. A second appeal, in December 1998, said that the compliance deadline had not been met due to subsoil instability; this appeal was declined as well.
In January 2005, a winter storm subjected parts of the San Francisco Bay Area to winds of nearly sixty miles per hour (97 km/h); this wind combined with heavy rain to cause a levee breach on Van Sickle Island on January 7.
In January 2017, a king tide was caused by the syzygy of the Sun, Earth and Moon; 20 to 30 miles (32 to 48 km) of levees in the Suisun Marsh sustained heavy damage as a result. Steve Chappell, the executive director of the Suisun Resource Conservation District, described the damage to Van Sickle Island's levees as "the worst" affected; on January 12, one large breach overran 1,000 feet (300 m) of them, and the island flooded within hours.
In February 2019, water overtopped several levees, but this did not lead to major levee failure.
In September 2020, the Board authorized \$40,000 to be spent on repairing levees adjacent to the Sacramento River, \$22,400 on a pump project at the River Dog Retreat, and \$24,500 for a canal gate replacement near the Hit & Miss Club. Up to \$40,000 was also approved for repairs on the Honker Bay levee, which sustained heavy damage in the 2017 floods and had not been repaired since.
### Sacramento Northern Railway
The Oakland, Antioch and Eastern railway, incorporated in 1913, constructed an electrified railroad from Oakland to Sacramento. While a bridge was planned to cross Suisun Bay, this plan never materialized; a wooden ferry "Bridgit" was constructed in 1913 (and replaced by an all-steel ferry "Ramon" in 1915), which moved trains between West Pittburg and Chipps Island. Directly to the north, trains crossed Van Sickle Island on a long trestle between Chipps and the Montezuma stop. The railway would later be absorbed into the Sacramento Northern Railway, which continued to operate on the route passing through Van Sickle Island.
Passenger service would continue until 1941, and freight service would continue to pass through Van Sickle Island until April 7, 1954, when the "Ramon" ferry was decommissioned. Trains to Sacramento were subsequently routed through the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway from Pittsburg to Stockton. Today, the vast majority of Sacramento Northern railway lies dormant, including the trackage on Van Sickle Island; the rail bridges connecting it to Montezuma and Chipps Island no longer exist. |
41,043,335 | Hajji Ebrahim Shirazi | 1,173,548,408 | First Grand vizier of Qajar Iran | [
"1745 births",
"1801 deaths",
"18th-century Iranian politicians",
"Executed Iranian people",
"Iranian people of Jewish descent",
"People executed by Qajar Iran",
"People from Shiraz",
"Prime Ministers of Iran",
"Qavam family",
"Viziers",
"Zand governors of Shiraz"
]
| Hajji Ebrahim Shirazi (Persian: حاجی ابراهیم شیرازی; 1745–1801), who is also known by his honorific title E'temad ol-Dowleh (Persian: اعتماد الدوله), was an Iranian statesman who served as the kalantar (lord mayor) of the city of Shiraz during the late Zand era and later as the first grand vizier of Qajar Iran.
Ebrahim inherited his father's title, kadkhoda (warden) of the Balakaft quarter of Shiraz, and later became kadkhoda-bashi (chief warden) of all of the city's areas adjacent to Balakaft. In 1781, Ali-Morad Khan Zand captured Shiraz; to prevent riots, he dismissed all kadkhodas including Hajji Ebrahim, and sent them to Isfahan and fined them 40,000 tomans. To reclaim his titles, Ebrahim helped Jafar Khan Zand capture Shiraz in 1785 and the new Shah appointed him kalantar of Shiraz. When Jafar was assassinated in his palace in 1789, Ebrahim took side of his son Lotf Ali Khan by arresting Sayed Morad Khan and declaring Lotf Ali as the king. After a dispute with Lotf Ali Khan in 1790, Ebrahim changed sides and swore allegiance to Agha Mohammad Khan.
In 1791, when Lotf Ali Khan was marching to Kerman, Ebrahim took control of Shiraz and ordered the arrest of all Zand generals. Lotf Ali Khan abandoned his campaigning and returned; he went to the south of Fars, where he clashed with Ebrahim's forces, which resulted in defeat, then marched on and camped Kazerun. Ebrahim requested help from Agha Mohammad Khan, who at the time was conquering Azerbaijan. Agha Mohammad Khan went to Shiraz and appointed Ebrahim as governor of the province. In 1792 Lotf Ali Khan again fought to seize Shiraz but he was defeated and fled to Tabas.
In 1794, Lotf Ali Khan was arrested and killed, Agha Mohammad Khan became the new Shah of Iran and Ebrahim became his grand vizier. In this time, Ebrahim became engaged in internal and administrative affairs, and was one of Agha Mohammad Khan's major advisors. In 1795, Ebrahim proposed a coronation ceremony for Mohammad Khan, at which he placed the crown on the king. Ebrahim was present when Agha Mohammad Khan was assassinated in Shusha; he quickly returned to Tehran and proclaimed Fath-Ali, the nephew of the late Shah, the new king, preventing a civil war. Ebrahim remained grand vizier until 1801, when he was killed at the behest of Fath-Ali Shah, who was afraid of Ebrahim's powerful position. Most of Ebrahim's family, with the exception of one of his sons Ali Akbar and his daughter Mahbanu Khanum, were also subsequently killed. Ebrahim's descendants later formed the Qavam family, who became influential in the mid-to-late Qajar period. Some of his descendants like Mirza Abolhassan Khan Ilchi had important roles and were powerful in the royal court.
Hajji Ebrahim Shirazi's role in ending the succession war of Karim Khan Zand and transitioning power from Zands to the Qajars, as well as enthroning four kings, made him known as a kingmaker, and marks him as one of the most remarkable politicians in modern Iranian history.
## Background
### Iran in the 18th century
According to the modern historian, Roger Stevens: "The eighteenth century is a horrible period in Iranian history–horrible to read about, horrible to disentangle, horrible to have tried to live in." An era filled with revolts, famine, disasters and general misery, it is estimated that the population of the country fell from 9 million in the beginning to 6m at the end. After the fall of the Safavid Empire in 1722, it was expected that Iran might disappear altogether, but the emergence of a former general called Nader Quli Beg–later known as Nader Shah– saved it from collapse. His Afsharid Empire, however, soon fell into civil war after his untimely death in 1747. By end of the century, the only remaining ruling member of his dynasty was his grandson, Shahrokh Shah, who ruled the Greater Khorasan in the eastern Iran.
In the central Iran, Karim Khan of Zand tribe established himself and his dynasty as the absolute sovereigns over the vast majority of Iran's today's borders (excluding Khorasan). Karim Khan's greatest rival was Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar, chief of the Qajar Turkomans who dwelt in northern Iran and the city of Astrabad. Karim Khan defeated and killed Mohammad Hassan in 1759. His death was by no means the end of insurgencies in northern Iran. In February 1769, His son, Hossein Qoli Khan Qajar took up arms against the Zand government and sought revenge for his father's death. Hossein Qoli's rebellion lasted for seven years; in 1777, he was eventually killed by some Yomut Turkmens whom he quarreled with.
Thus, Agha Mohammad Khan, Mohammad Hassan's eldest son and a eunuch who spent years in Karim Khan's custody in Shiraz, became the new leader of the Qajar tribe. After Karim Khan's death on 1 March 1779, Agha Mohammad Khan fled from Shiraz to Mazandaran and there staged a new rebellion against the Zands.
### Ebrahim's Familial history
Hajji Ebrahim Shirazi's family were originally from Qazvin but in the mid-13th century, due to persecution of Jews, one of his ancestors immigrated to Shiraz, where he married the daughter of Qavam al-Din Hassan Shirazi, the minister of the ruling Muzaffarid dynasty. Through this marriage, Ebrahim's family inherited estates in Shiraz and gradually became kadkhodas (wardens). Ebrahim's grandfather Asher was a famous merchant who converted to Islam and renamed himself Mahmoud. Mahmoud built a maktab named Hashemieh and granted it to Agha Vali, Imam Jom'a of Shiraz.
Mahmoud's son Mohammad Hashem was kadkhoda of the Balakaft quarter in the city's southeast. The quarter, owing to its remnant gardens from the Safavid era and the establishment of a trade center by Karim Khan, became one of the richest parts of Shiraz next to the Darb-e Shahzade quarter, which included royal palaces. Due to his family's Jewish background, Mohammad became kadkhoda-bashi (chief warden) of all Jewish parts of the city. In 1747, during the revolt of governor of Fars Qiaqali Charchi Bashi, Nader Shah recaptured Shiraz and Charchi Bashi killed himself. The shah ordered the blinding of Fars' treasurer Mirza Baqer, Shiraz's kalantar Mirza Ismail, and some of the kadkhodas, including Mohammad. With the mediation of the merchants, Nader Shah forgave Mohammad and blinded only one of his eyes.
### Early life
Ebrahim was born in 1745 in Shiraz as the third son of Mohammad Hassan Shirazi. He inherited his father's title kadkhoda In the middle years of Karim Khan's reign and allied with a kadkhoda named Mirza Mohammad Kalantar, a mentor and influential figure for young Ebrahim's political outlook. Ebrahim lived through Karim Khan's administration and with Mirza Mohammad's sponsorship, forged acquaintanceships with the remnants of the Safavid bureaucracy such as Mirza Hossein Vafa of the Farahani family. At this time, Ebrahim bought some estates in the neighboring quarters, eventually becoming kadkhoda of all of them.
After Karim Khan's death and the civil war between the Zand princes that followed, Ebrahim found an opportunity to increase his influence in Shiraz and to prevent the destruction of his property. In 1779, when Sadeq Khan Zand invaded Shiraz and overthrew Abol-Fath Khan, he blinded or killed those who were in power during Zaki Khan's reign. This purge included some important political and economic figures of Shiraz. A power vacuum emerged from the deaths of these figures, which gave Ebrahim a chance to further increase his authority. In 1780, Sadeq Khan's army, under the command of his son Jafar Khan, clashed with Ali-Morad Khan Zand over Isfahan. Sadeq borrowed 20,000 tomans from Ebrahim to finance his army and granted him Bagh-e Jahan Nama, a 14th-century Iranian garden. In 1781, Jafar Khan was defeated in Isfahan and retreated to Shiraz. Sadeq's forces were also defeated in several areas, such as Abadeh and Hezar; as a result, Ali-Morad Khan reached and besieged Shiraz in the same year. The siege lasted until February, when the city fell and Sadeq Khan surrendered. On the orders of Ali-Morad Khan, the former king and all of his sons except Jafar, who had escaped, were blinded and later killed. Abol-Fath Khan was also blinded.
Ali-Morad Khan, who was unpopular in Shiraz, decided to move the capital to Isfahan. He fined all officials, including Ebrahim, 40,000 Tomans and forced them to move to the new capital. While he was living in Isfahan, Ebrahim made a pilgrimage to Mecca, and maintained his influence over trade centers of Shiraz. In 1785, Jafar Khan raised an army and marched towards Isfahan while Ali-Morad Khan died from an illness in Murcheh Khvort. When news of Ali-Morad's death reached Isfahan, Ebrahim led a revolt against Baqir Khan kalantar of Isfahan and arrested him. When Jafar Khan arrived in Isfahan, Ebrahim greeted him ahead of the rest of the officials, and declared him king and the rightful successor to Karim Khan.
## Kalantar of Shiraz
### Jafar Khan's reign
Jafar Khan knew Ebrahim was a powerful and popular figure whose help he needed to gain legitimacy. In 1785, Jafar Khan granted Ebrahim the title kalantar of Shiraz. After two months, Jafar Khan was informed Agha Mohammad Khan was marching towards Isfahan. He quickly provided an army to counter Agha Mohammad Khan, but for unknown reason, withdrew to Qom. Another army led by Jafar Khan was defeated near Kashan and he retreated to Shiraz. Jafar's wars caused high taxation in Shiraz, which provoked protests among bazaars, farmers, and merchants. Ebrahim maintained his position; he connected with British merchants in Basra and made a deal with them in which they covered the economic losses in Shiraz and in return they had the right to trade. He knew he must collaborate with important urban bases to consolidate his role as kalantar; alongside Bazzar, there were Lutis, Qashqai, and Bakhtiari tribes and the clergy. These social groups were influential over the core of the city and opposed Jafar Khan's wars; for this reason, Ebrahim organized a meeting and discussed with the representatives of these groups, and gained support for Jafar Khan from most of them.
This did not stop the revolt of 1786 led by Mohammad Khan Zand, one of Zaki Khan's sons, who had planned a revolt since 1782, when his youngest brother Akbar Khan was killed by Jafar Khan. Akbar Khan gathered an army of Qashqais and marched towards Shiraz while Jafar Khan was on his way to Isfahan. Ebrahim sent troops under the leadership of Abdullah Khan Zand to fight Mohammad Khan Zand; two armies fought near Shiraz; in the battle, the latter was defeated and killed.
Jafar Khan's repeated defeats against Agha Mohammad Khan led to a conspiracy against him. Jafar Khan became aware of this and suspected the leader of the conspiracy was Sayed Morad Khan so he imprisoned Sayed Morad and his two brothers in Arg of Karim Khan. On the night of January 23, 1789, Morad Khan and his supporters escaped from the Arg and attacked Delgosha Garden. Jafar Khan, who was weak because of illness, was killed after some resistance. Sayed Murad Khan beheaded Jafar Khan, went to the streets of Shiraz, and proclaimed himself the new king. An uprising against Morad Khan broke out and was instantly suppressed. Ebrahim was loyal to Jafar Khan but did not participate in this revolt; instead, he wrote a letter to Lotf Ali Khan and informed him of the situation.
### Coup against Sayed Morad Khan
Ebrahim knew Lotf Ali Khan was more popular than Sayed Morad Khan among the people, officials and khans of Fars. In correspondence with Lotf Ali, Ebrahim expressed his support and assured him he would help him regain the throne. Lotf Ali Khan went to Bushehr to form an army and asked the governor Sheikh Nasr for help. Nasr could only gave Lotf Ali Khan 300 men so Lotf Ali Khan quickly left for Shiraz.
After the news of Lotf Ali Khan's departure reached Sayed Morad Khan, he sent Shah Morad Khan Zand with an army that had been preparing for seven days to confront Lotf Ali Khan. But ten miles from Bushehr, two of Lotf Ali's supporters, Fazl Ali Khan and Naqd Ali Khan, arrested him and waited for Lotf Ali Khan to arrive in Dalaki. Shah Murad Khan was murdered and his army was handed over to Lotf Ali, who now was marching towards Shiraz with more troops.
When Ebrahim learned of Lotf Ali Khan's condition, he plotted a coup against Sayed Morad Khan. On May 8, 1789, Ebrahim and plotters, rushed into Arg and arrested Sayed Morad Khan, and executed many of those loyal to him. After learning of these events, Lotf Ali arrived in Shiraz overnight. He ordered that Sayed Morad Khan be blinded and killed and was crowned king on 23 January 1789.
### Conflict with Lotf Ali Khan
Since the coronation, the young king and Ebrahim had disputes, one of which was about the trial of Mirza Mahdi. Lotf Ali Khan punished his father's killers at the first opportunity but through the mediation of Ebrahim, he forgave one of the perpetrators, Mirza Mehdi, who was a relative of Ebrahim, but Lotf Ali Khan soon afterwards killed Mirza Mehdi at the instigation of his mother. Ebrahim considered this act a threat to his power and began to avoid the young king. Ebrahim kept his allegiance until May 1790, when Lotf Ali Khan left Shiraz for southern Fars during a siege by Agha Mohammad Khan and set out to conquer Kerman. Lotf Ali appointed his younger son (or according to some sources his younger brother) Khosrow Khan as governor of Fars and Ebrahim as his regent. Lotf Ali Khan did not trust Ebrahim but could not remove him because Ebrahim was a popular figure whose support was crucial in stabilization of his new-found throne, so he took Ebrahim's eldest son Mirza Mohammad as a hostage. At this Ebrahim realized Lotf Ali Khan was against him, and he decided to break his bond with the Zand dynasty that had been established since the Karim Khan era, and to turn his allegiance to Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar.
At the time Ebrahim was involved in a power struggle with Zand chiefs and generals who controlled the Arg. Arg of Karim Khan was one of the strategically important areas of Shiraz, so that the rulers of this building had the main power in Shiraz. Knowing this fact, Ebrahim knew that he had to conquer the Arg, in order to take control of the city by purging those loyal to Lotf Ali Khan. Thus not long after Lotf Ali Khan's leaving, Ebrahim rushed into the Arg with a militia force of Lutis under the command of his brother Mohammad Hossein, arrested all Zand generals and then sent a message to his brothers Abdul Rahim Khan and Mohammad Ali, who commanded two regiments of Lotf Ali Khan's infantry, to revolt and arrest him. Although Lotf Ali Khan survived the uprising, his troops were dispersed and he retreated to Shiraz with 200 men. But on his return to Shiraz, the gates of the city did not open for him. The commanders of his army had been separated from the young king by Ebrahim, who had informed them that if they did not abandon Lotf Ali Khan, their families inside the city would be harmed.
Lotf Ali Khan, now with fewer men, fled to southern Fars. At first, he wanted to go to his old ally Sheikh Nasser Khan, the governor of Bushehr, but after Sheikh Nasser refused to give him refuge, Lotf Ali Khan went north. Ebrahim, with the help of Reza Qoli Khan Kazeruni, chief of the Qashqais, provided a united army of tribes near Shiraz and set out to possibly arrest Lotf Ali Khan. Ebrahim's army clashed with those of Lotf Ali Khan near Kazerun, ending with a victory for the latter, who successfully conquered the city. Lotf Ali Khan ordered the blinding of Reza Qoli Khan and his son. It was at this time Sultan Ali Khan Zand, one of the Zand princes who had escaped from Shiraz, arrived at Lotf Ali's camp with seventy men. When news of the conquest of Kazerun reached Ebrahim, knowing he might lose to Lotf Ali Khan, Ebrahim wrote a letter to Agha Mohammad Khan, pledged him his (and peoples of Fars') allegiance and offered him 3,000 mares as an additional gift. Agha Mohammad Khan accepted this offer, appointed Ebrahim as governor of Fars, and granted him the title Khan.
## Siding with Agha Mohammad Khan
### Siege of Shiraz
At the end of 1791, Lotf Ali Khan with 3,000 men went to Shiraz from Kazerun and besieged the city. The leaders of Shiraz expected another member of the Zand dynasty would be enthroned after the removal of Lotf Ali Khan and since this was no longer possible, they intended to ally with Lotf Ali and open the gates. Aware of this, Ebrahim invited the tribal forces to receive their monthly salary then disarmed them and drove them out of the city. These forces, numbering 3,000, joined Lotf Ali Khan outside the city. Because they were unarmed, however, they were not very effective. Lotf Ali Khan besieged the city; his situation outside the city became more stable because he dominated almost all the suburbs of Shiraz. Lotf Ali tried to negotiate with Ebrahim and tried to persuade him to surrender the city and seek refuge with the Ottoman Empire or the Mughal Empire with his family but Ebrahim rejected the offer.
Ebrahim wrote a letter to Agha Mohammad Khan and asked him for help. In response, Agha Mohammad Khan sent Baba Khan from Isfahan to Shiraz with an army and ordered Mustafa Khan Davalu to camp in the gardens around Hafeziyeh. At the same time, Ebrahim tried to assassinate Lotf Ali Khan, forcing several Shiraz merchants to write a letter stating they would open one of the city gates on a certain night so the Zand forces could enter Shiraz. When the proposed night came, Lotf Ali and 300 of his companions marched towards the gate then the Qajar forces began to attack. Mustafa Khan rushed to Lotf Ali Khan and on his way, killed one of the latter's commanders, Sultan Ali Khan. Lotf Ali quickly returned from Shiraz to his camp with the rest of his men.
Shortly afterwards, the second wave of Qajar Forces, 5,000 men under command of Mohammad Khan and Reza Qoli Khan, camped near Shiraz. Lotf Ali Khan tried to ambush them but failed. Mustafa Khan and his men joined the new forces and in early 1792, they clashed with Lotf Ali Khan's forces around Shiraz, which ended in a decisive victory of the Zand Khan. At this time, the situation in Shiraz was unstable. The city was in a food shortage, and Ebrahim feared his opponents and supporters of Lotf Ali Khan would mount a coup against him. Ebrahim wrote a letter telling Agha Mohammad Khan of the situation. Agha Mohammad Khan set out for Shiraz and settled a few miles away in Abarj. Lotf Ali Khan, who was unable to confront this large army, ambushed them at night and killed a large group of Agha Mohammad Khan's troops. It was thought Agha Mohammad Khan had been defeated but as dawn broke, his defeated armies gathered and soon organized. Lotf Ali Khan, who knew he could not resist, was forced to flee. Agha Mohammad Khan entered the city on July 21, 1792; he visited the hostage family of Lotf Ali and sent them to Tehran.
### Governor of Fars
In early 1793, Agha Mohammad Khan informed Ebrahim his army would camp near Shiraz, and all notables and Ebrahim himself should visit his camp. Ebrahim hand no choice but to greet Agha Mohammad Khan when he arrived in Shiraz. Agha Mohammad Khan rewarded his supporters, chief among them being Ebrahim, but also took drastic measures regarding the city's population, especially against those who were not royal to him. On his orders, the Nobles of Shiraz, including Ebrahim, were ordered to surrender their wives and children as hostages. To avenge Karim Khan, Agha Mohommad ordered the exhumation of Karim and his bones to be buried in the stairs to his palace. To prevent a revolt from the city's residents, he ordered the destruction of the Arg. When Agha Mohammad Khan left Fars, Lotf Ali Khan, who had been in Tabas for some time, rushed to Fars. When Ebrahim became aware of this, he informed the agents of Agha Mohammad Khan. Mohammad Hussein Khan, Ebrahim's brother, was assigned to confront Lotf Ali Khan with the aid of Agha Mohammad Khan's army. The battle happened in Darian and ended with Lotf Ali Khan's flight to Bam.
In 1794, Ebrahim went to Tehran with his tribal army to join Agha Mohammad Khan and besiege Kerman. In October 1794, Kerman was conquered, Lotf Ali Khan was arrested and, at the instigation of Ebrahim, blinded and executed at the age of 26. Ebrahim's time as Governor ended when in November 1794 when Agha Mohammad Khan returned victorious to Shiraz, where he appointed his heir Baba Khan as the governor. Agha Mohammad Khan ordered a banquet to be held for his victory, in which "the fountains of Shiraz be filled with wine".
## Grand vizierate
### Grand vizierate under Agha Mohammad Khan
Agha Mohammad appointed Ebrahim as his first and only vazir-e a'zam (grand vizier) and in imitation of the Safavid kings gave him the title of E'temad ol-Dowleh. The same year, Agha Mohammad Khan invaded Azerbaijan to take control of the lands between the Aras and Kura rivers. On Ebrahim's advice, Agha Mohammad Khan divided his army into three when he reached Aras. The army under the command of Ebrahim and his brothers captured Yerevan. Agha Mohammad Khan and his army went to Karabakh and after a long siege came to an agreement in which he was not allowed to enter Shushi but Karabakh became subordinate. in August, Ebrahim joined Agha Mohammad Khan in the conquest of Georgia.
In 1795, after the victory in Krtsanisi, Agha Mohammad Khan and his company, including Ebrahim, camped in Mugan plain, where in 1736, Nader Shah, in front of notables of Iran, proclaimed himself king. Ebrahim, who saw an uncrowned king as a motive for claimants, took the opportunity to offer Agha Mohammad Khan a coronation. Until that day, Agha Mohammad Khan had refused to accept the title of Shah, out of respect for Sultan Mohammad Mirza, a claimant member of the Safavid dynasty, who was present in Qajar Khan's camp, and because he had not yet united all of Iran. Ebrahim, in a letter to Shrine of Sheikh Safi al-Din, ordered the sending of the sword of Ismail I to Mughan. Astrologers found Nowruz of 1796 auspicious for the ceremony. On the appointed day, Agha Mohammad Khan wore a silken robe and sat on a marble throne; he wore the diamond Daria-i-Noor, which he had taken from Lotf Ali Khan, and tied the sword of Ismail I around his waist. Ebrahim placed the pearl-adorned crown of Kiani on Agha Mohammad Khan's head and proclaimed him the Shah of Iran. Agha Mohammad Khan then marched to Mashhad to subdue Shahrokh Afshar while Ebrahim went to Tehran.
While Agha Mohammad Khan was traveling to Khorasan, a few revolts took place in the realm for vengeance of Lotf Ali Khan; the most important rebellion was led by Yaqub Khan Zand in Shiraz. Yaqub Khan was grandson of Sadeq Khan who survived Sayed Morad Khan's purge. Ebrahim took command of an army and went to Shiraz because he was interested in meeting Yaqub Khan. The rebels were defeated after a quick battle and the Zand pretender was captured. After talking to Yaqub Khan for a while, Ebrahim exiled him to the Ottoman Empire. To prevent further revolts from the Zands, and to organize a central administration in Tehran, Ebrahim recruited former officials who were in Zand service. In the same year, French diplomats Jean-Guillem Brugesire and Guillem Antonin Olivier visited Tehran and met with Ebrahim. Their aim was to persuade Agha Mohammad Khan to abandon his rule over Georgia, and also wanted to establish a link with Europe through Mingrelia. Ebrahim, however, told them Iranian rule over Georgia was legitimate and based on the 1618 Treaty of Serav, during which Shah Abbas I annexed Georgia.
#### Rivalry with Mirza Shafi Mazandarani
In 1796, while Russians were marching to Georgia and Transcaucasia, Agha Mohammad Khan in Tehran appointed Mirza Shafi Mazandarani as kalantar of Tehran and then left with an army to fight Valerian Zubov. Agha Mohammad Khan appointed him after Mirza Shafi accompanied him in the invasion of Khorasan. In Mashhad, by Mirza Shafi's advice, Shahrokh Shah, the grandson of Nader Shah, was tortured to expose his grandfather's royal jewels. Mirza Shafi did not trust Ebrahim, whom he saw as a traitor to Lotf Ali Khan and believed he would do the same to Agha Mohammad Khan. Mirza Shafi was also ambitious; he sought to discredit Ebrahim with Agha Mohammad Khan so with his removal, he would become the grand vizier. A rivalry arose between the two, in which both sought to persuade Agha Mohammad Khan to dismiss the other.
Agha Mohammad Khan established a bureaucratic system all powerful Qajar Grand Viziers would try to replace in later years. Under this system, the rulers of each region would only answer to the king and would ignore Grand Viziers. Ebrahim, who had strengthened his influence in some areas such as Shiraz, had the Crown Prince and Governor of Fars, Baba Khan report anything to him and address him with respect. The situation in Tehran was different since Mirza Shafi did not inform Ebrahim of any issues, including taxes and the internal situation of the city. There was also the issue of dealing with peasants' cases, and complaints and court rulings. Ebrahim dealt with the demands and complaints of the peasants every day, and Mirza Shafi accepted the complaints because he was kalantar of Tehran. To resolve this dispute, Tehran officials divided the city into two parts, leaving one part to the Grand Vizier and the other to the kalantar of Tehran. though neither man accepted the suggestion.
Ebrahim knew the Qajar King would not oust Mirza Shafi for the time being so Ebrahim decided to appoint his ally Mirza Mohammad Davalu as a co-kalantar for him. Agha Mohammad Khan immediately accepted the offer because since the murder of his brother Jafar Qolli Khan on his orders, Agha Mohammad Khan's relationship with his tribe had been cold and he needed their support. Empowering one of his relatives would restore the Qajars trust in him. The duties of the municipality were divided between the two kalantars; administrative affairs passed to Mirza Mohammad and responsibility for military defense of the capital passed to Mirza Shafi. In reality, Mirza Mohammad's share and wages went to Ebrahim; Mirza Shafi was dissatisfied with this issue and continued to deal with financial and judicial affairs, and ignored Mirza Mohammad. The dispute between the kalantar of Tehran and the Grand Vizier was growing but neither of them dared to complain to Agha Mohammad Khan, who was at war, so they endured the situation.
### Assassination of Agha Mohammad Khan
In 1797, Ebrahim joined Agha Mohammad Khan on a march to Shusha, where Agha Mohammad Khan was assassinated by his servants. The day after, when officials learned of Agha Mohammad Khan's death, Ebrahim ordered the formation of an emergency council, which included Sadeq Khan Shaqaqi, Hussein Qoli Khan (the brother of Baba Khan), Suleiman Khan Qajar Qowanlu, and the governor of Azerbaijan. At this meeting, it was decided Agha Mohammad Khan's death should remain a secret for the time being so the army would not disintegrate and the situation in the realm would not become chaotic. Sadeq Khan forbade entry and exit to the camp, and ordered the army commanders to be careful of the city's gates and to not let anyone who knew about the death leave the city. Ebrahim suspected the assassination plot had been ordered by Sadeq Khan, and now Sadeq Khan had taken control of the city, he might try to kill Ebrahim. Ebrahim gathered a large part of Agha Mohammad Khan's disintegrated army then went to Tehran via Ardabil.
#### Rebellion of Sadeq Khan Shaqaqi
As soon as Sadeq Khan was informed of Ebrahim's departure to Tehran, he set out to conquer the capital and usurp the throne. Sadeq Khan stopped for two days in Sarab and handed over 2,000 of his troops to his brother Mohammad Ali Sultan, and sent him to conquer Tabriz. Sadeq Khan then continued his attack with 23,000 soldiers, and confronted and defeated Hussein Qoli Khan in Chaharbagh. Sadeq Khan thought Tehran was a defenseless city that would be quickly conquered but when he arrived in Tehran, he realized the city gates were closed and only the muleteers were allowed to enter. Sadeq Khan wrote a letter to Mirza Shafi the kalantar of Tehran, assuring him he would make Mirza Shafi his grand vizier if the city gates were opened. Mirza Shafi objected and replied the city gates would only be opened only to the Crown Prince Baba Khan. Sadeq Khan besieged the city for three days but with supplies lowering, he had to retreat to Qazvin. In Qazvin, he announced this city, which was the capital of Ismail I, would be his capital too, though Qazvin was the capital of Tahmasp I. Sadeq Khan wanted to capture Tehran but his army was in a weak position so he asked his brothers Jafar Qoli Khan, the Governor of Ahar, and Mohammad Ali Sultan, who had conquered Tabriz, to invade the city. At the same time, Ebrahim wrote a letter telling the Crown Prince in Shiraz of the situation, then prepared with his brothers to organize an army to retake the conquered areas. Mirza Shafi, who saw more profit in helping the grand vizier, gave Ebrahim several cannons. Ebrahim did not know Qazvin was under Sadeq Khan's control so in September that year, he set out for Tabriz.
Ebrahim defeated Sadeq Khan's brothers in several battles and pushed them back to Zanjan. On September 27, Baba Khan arrived in Tehran with an army of about 30,000 men. Baba Khan wrote a letter to Ebrahim asking him to combine the two armies. The news that Sadeq Khan had camped in Qazvin reached Tehran and Baba Khan's army marched towards the city in October 12. When Sadeq Khan realized Baba Khan's army was moving towards Qazvin, he decided to join his brothers, and left the city with 23,000 soldiers. On October 14, Baba Khan conquered Qazvin without bloodshed, then pursued Sadeq Khan and fought and defeated him in Khakali near Qazvin. Ebrahim defeated the rest of the rebels in Zanjan by the end of October. Sadeq Khan was forgiven and became the ruler of Sarab and Mianeh but Baba Khan kept Sadeq Khan's wife and daughter-in-law in prison, and ordered their torture. Sadeq Khan once again tried to revolt but was arrested and imprisoned in a room by Ebrahim, who later ordered his execution by stoning.
### Grand vizierate under Fath-Ali Shah
When Baba Khan ascended the throne as Fath-Ali Shah, he allowed Ebrahim to remain Grand Vizier. Under his tact and foresight, the early turbulence of the new shah's reign ended quickly. The most important revolt after Sadiq Khan's was that of Fath-Ali Sha's brother Hussein Qoli Khan, governor of Fars. In 1798, Hussein Qoli Khan blinded several officials of Shiraz, including Ebrahim's brother Mohammad Zaman, then set out to conquer Tehran. Hussein Qoli Khan's army fought with Fath-Ali Shah, who was accompanied by Ebrahim, in Saruq; before the battle, Ebrahim sent a courier to Hussein Qoli Khan with false messages concealed in one of his boots, addressed to Hussein Qoli's army chiefs, asking them to leave the governor and joining the Shah. The courier was arrested and the false messages revealed, leading Hussein Qoli to become uncertain of his chief's loyalty, abandoned his revolt, and surrendered to Fath-Ali Shah. After this incident, Fath Ali Shah's trust in Ebrahim increased; Ebrahim used this trust to divert the young king from state affairs and increase his influence. Gradually, Ebrahim appointed his siblings as Governors across the realm and wedded his daughter to Mirza Mohammad-Ali Khan, a respected figure in court, to gain an alliance against his rival Mirza Shafi, who was now leader of the opposition. Around this time, Ebrahim put Mirza Shafi in house arrest and made Mirza Mohammad the sole kalantar of Tehran.
During Ebrahim's lifetime, the East India Company began to court cooperation from Iran. In 1799, Zaman Shah Durrani emerged as a threat to the British colony in India; the East India Company sent an ambassador named Mahdi Ali Khan Bahadour to Tehran to urge Fath Ali Shah to invade the Durrani Empire. In Tehran, Mehdi Ali Khan negotiated with Ebrahim, who refused to invade Afghanistan, not wishing to start another conflict following years of civil war and the conquests of Agha Mohammad Khan. The following year, another ambassador, John Malcolm, arrived in Iran, meeting first in Shiraz and then in Tehran. Malcolm asked Ebrahim to protect the Lahore Shiites from the Sunni Afghan tribes but Ebrahim replied the government's political concerns are separate from its religious beliefs. Malcolm persuaded Ebrahim to sign a trade agreement with Britain, which allowed British traders to trade in Iranian ports in the south.
### Death
Ebrahim's opponents gradually grew and secretly made a pact with Mirza Shafi, and began plotting against Ebrahim. Their provocations and the growing fear of the power of Ebrahim's family led Fath Ali Shah to decide to oust and kill him. There is a view the British ambassadors were also involved in this conspiracy. Ebrahim was affected by the lack of a strong alliance with the Shah's mother because in the opinion of Fath Ali Shah, Ebrahim was an obstacle to a life of pleasure and prosperity the new shah intended to lead, even though earlier, Ebrahim pushed the Shah out of internal matters of the realm, and as was later the case with the other Qajar kings, Fath Ali Shah trusted only his mother completely, and if his mother was a supporter of Ebrahim, he would also support him. Ebrahim suspected a conspiracy was being hatched against him, and in March 1801, he told John Malcolm he was worried about his safety. Malcolm tried to make peace between Ebrahim and the opposition, and advised Ebrahim to deal with the shah in a better temper. Ebrahim replied that he could not change his forthright nature and even if he did, it would not deescalate his opponents' hostility towards him.
On April 14, 1801, Ebrahim was summoned to the shah and accused of plotting against him. Ebrahim denied all of the charges. After a short time, he was taken to Taleghan, blinded, had his tongue cut out, and killed. On Shah's orders, Ebrahim's family was purged; all of the adult males were arrested and Ebrahim's three brothers—Abdol-Rahim, governor of Isfahan, Mohammad Zaman, the blind kalantar of Shiraz, and Mohammad Hassan the governor of Kohgiluyeh—along with his eldest son Mirza Mohammad were executed. Asadollah, another of his sons, was also blinded. Mirza Ali Reza, one of his young sons, was castrated. Only his youngest son Ali Akbar and his daughter Mahbanu Khanum, survived the purge.
## Family
Ebrahim had only one wife, Gulab Khanum, the daughter of Samuel Khan, a famous Jewish merchant of Shiraz. This marriage took place in 1782, when Ebrahim was still the kalantar of Shiraz. They had five children, four boys and a girl:
- Mirza Mohammad Khan, his eldest son and beglerbegi of Fars, who was executed in the 1801 purge.
- Asadollah Khan (1783-1863), In 1793, although he was still a child, Agha Mohammad Khan took him into his custody, sent him to Qazvin with the intention of taking him hostage. In the early days of Fath Ali Shah, when Asadollah was 16 years old or younger, he became the governor of Kashan for a short time. Asadollah was blinded in the 1801 purge. He died at the age of 83 in Shiraz.
- Mahbanu Khanum, married with Mirza Mohammad-Ali and gave birth to Mirza Abolhassan Khan Ilchi.
- Ali Reza; because of his youth, Ali Reza was spared but was castrated, and became a eunuch in the royal harem.
- Ali Akbar, was also to be castrated but was spared because of his illness, from which he was expected to die. Years later for appeasement, he was given the title Qawam al-Mulk and his family lands in Fars were returned to him. His children formed the Qavam family. Ali Akbar also organized the Khamseh tribal confederacy.
The Qavam family remained powerless for a short time after Ebrahim's death but restored their wealth and gained alliances in court that protected them from schemes against them. They were the architects of the modern Shiraz, having built over twenty palace and gardens there, the best-known of them being Qavam House.
## Religious beliefs
Qajar historians generally identified Ebrahim as a Jew, although he may have been Muslim. Some historians, such as Mahmud Mahmud, have referred to him as an anús; in the time of Ebrahim, synagogues were opened in Shiraz and Tehran, but before that, Jews had to read the Torah in a low voice in their houses. Another evidence is his desire for monogamism, since at that time, it was customary for high-ranking officials to have several wives and several concubines whereas Ebrahim had only one wife.
Ebrahim never drank wine in public and tried to present himself as a religious person. He went to Hajj and preferred people to refer to him as "Hajji". He also had a lot of respect for the mullahs of Shiraz and always paid his zakat. Ebrahim was a supporter of Usuli Mujtahids and was an ally to Agha Mohammad-Ali Behbahani, and thus an enemy of the Ni'matullāhī Sufi order.
## Historiography and legacy
Hajji Ebrahim Shirazi is considered a controversial figure in the modern history of Iran; some historians describe him as a "traitor" to Lotf Ali Khan while some admire his genius. Mahmoud Mahmoud praised Ebrahim's tact and called him a "kingmaker". According to Abbas Amanat, Ebrahim is "the least understood statesman of modern Persian history", and Amanat adds John Malcolm's opinion: "Malcolm, who was on intimate terms with him, praised him as a 'truly a great man,' a genius, and one of the best statesmen Persia has ever had". Modern historian Ebrahim Al Davood, however, describes Ebrahim as a politician whose ignorance of world affairs at the time meant he could not exploit conflicts between European governments in favor of Iran, and as one who inflicted heavy losses on the realm's interests. Hossein Ahmadi sees Ebrahim as a politician who, when the country was in crisis, was forced to turn against Lotf Ali Khan to end it. According to Ahmadi, despite Ebrahim's efforts to strengthen his position alongside the Zand and Qajar dynasties, he never gained the trust of powerful circles in a period in which the bureaucracy was weak, and met the same fate of Nizam al-Mulk and Rashid al-Din Hamadani, that would also befall Abol-Qasem Qa'em-Maqam and Amir Kabir.
The demonization of Ebrahim partly comes from a heroic portrayal of Lotf Ali Khan as a saviour of Iran who was defeated by the kalantar's deception. Ebrahim's reputation was sullied by Qajar historians who had to portray him negatively to avoid depecting Fath-Ali Shah's punishment of Ebrahim and his family as an injustice. Regarding his action towards Lotf Ali Khan, it is likely that Ebrahim initially aspired to create a confederation of semi-autonomous tribes and Free cities rather than to dethrone Lotf Ali in favour of Agha Mohammad Khan. The plan failed because Ebrahim had to surrender Fars to the Qajars but his wish was later realized by his son Ali Akbar, who formed the Khamseh tribal confederation. Ebrahim had once told John Malcolm that he only turned to the Qajars because it was "desire to save his country from the continual petty wars".
Ebrahim was the main figure in ending the war of succession for the throne of Karim Khan. Ebrahim's support for Agha Mohammad Khan stabilized Iran and his support for Fath-Ali Shah strengthened the power of the Qajars. Ebrahim also influenced the later Qajar grand viziers such as Mirza Aqa Khan Nuri, who looked at his administration with admiration. Ebrahim's downfall, which denoted the weakness of the ministers' autonomy toward the authoritarian power of the kings, and along with the death of Qa'em-Maqam and Amir Kabir, became a main concern for early intellectuals of the Iranian Enlightenment, whose wish for freedom of speech eventually resulted in the Constitutional Revolution. |
32,088,045 | Nikita Mears | 1,150,834,144 | Fictional character in Nikita | [
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"Fictional career criminals",
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| Nikita Mears is the primary protagonist and eponymous character of Nikita, an American action drama television series, which debuted in September 2010 on The CW. She is played by American actress Maggie Q. The series follows Nikita's efforts in bringing down Division, a secret agency that trained her into becoming an agent and assassin, but betrayed her by killing Daniel Monroe, a civilian she fell in love with. She recruits Alexandra Udinov (Lyndsy Fonseca) into helping her destroy Division from within.
Q was in talks to appear on the series as the title character in February 2010, and it was her first time working on a television series. She was chosen for the role because series creator Craig Silverstein believed Q had qualities that would fit the character: "beautiful, who could fight," and be believable with a gun. The actress meanwhile was intrigued by the original Nikita film and Luc Besson's creation of a flawed female character. The series also deals with Nikita and Michael's romantic tension, then relationship, described by the fans as "Mikita." The character and Q's portrayal garnered mostly positive reactions from critics. Q performs her own stunts in the series.
## Character arc
Orphaned as a teenager, Nikita turns to drugs and crime. She comes across a halfway house run by Carla Bennett (Erica Gimpel) and temporarily gets clean until she relapses and murders a police officer. Nikita is arrested and sentenced to death. She attracts the attention of Division, a secret American agency that recruits young criminals by faking their deaths and then train them to become assassins. For three years, Nikita was trained under Michael (Shane West), and committed assassinations. After she begins a relationship with civilian Daniel Monroe (Sebastien Roberts), Nikita learns that Division has become corrupt under the leadership of Percy (Xander Berkeley). In one mission, Nikita is part of a team to assassinate a family of Russian oligarchs; the Udinov family. Nikita defies Division by saving the life of the daughter, Alexandra. After Division kills Daniel as it is against their policy for agents have relationships, she becomes a rogue agent intent on stopping Division, tracks down Alexandra (Lyndsy Fonseca), who had since become a drug addict and sex slave, and saves and trains her. Nikita arranges Alex to be arrested for murdering a man Division was targeting. Inside, Alex helps Nikita stop Division's illegal missions.
During the first season, Nikita gains some allies to aid in her fight against Division, including Owen Elliot (Devon Sawa), a guardian to one of Division's several black boxes; hard drives contain files of Division's missions, until Percy tried to have him killed, CIA analyst Ryan Fletcher (Noah Bean) who was investigating black operations invisible to the United States government, and eventually her trainer Michael, after he learns Percy was responsible for the deaths of his wife and daughter. The two would be in a relationship for the rest of the series' run. By the first-season finale, Alex learns that Nikita killed her father and leaves her to become a free agent for Amanda (Melinda Clarke), Division's psychologist who overthrew Percy to lead Division with the help of Oversight, a group of American politicians who ensure that Division's existence remains secret from the public (Alex would later return to fight along with Nikita again midway through season two). Michael is discovered to be working with Nikita and the two end up on the run together with a black box.
In the second season, Nikita and Michael team up with Seymour Birkhoff (Aaron Stanford), a Division computer programmer who left the agency to avoid Amanda. In "Looking Glass", Nikita learns that during an operation, Michael impregnated his asset, Cassandra Ovechkin (Helena Mattsson) and eventually tells him he has a son. The couple's relationship faces some tension due to that development, but they appear to reconcile after Michael decides to put Cassandra and his son Max (who calls her "The Gun Lady") behind him. In the meantime, Nikita learns about the existence of Oversight, and reunites with Carla Bennett, who is revealed to be one of the founders of Division, until her death. "Wrath" explores Nikita's dark side when she is captured and tortured by Nicholas Brandt, an arms dealer Nikita tortured during her days in Division. Nikita confesses to Michael that "there is evil" in her, but Michael assures her it is only a part of her. After the two are rescued, the ordeal brings Michael and Nikita closer. The two eventually sneak into Division and kill Percy after he has regained control of it.
In the third season, Ryan takes charge of Division to clean up its own mess by recalling all the agents at which point President Kathleen Spencer (Michelle Nolden) will grant the agents freedom (as all were recruited against their will). However, Nikita later learns the President will have Division terminated should they fail. Nikita and others work to find rogue agents who refused the recall order, nicknamed the "Dirty Thirty", until her efforts are focused on Amanda, who is also on the run and later working with a company nicknamed "The Shop", who developed sophisticated technologies, some of which was used by Division. Michael and Nikita become engaged, but their relationship faces further tension after Nikita cuts off his right hand to save his life. An advanced prosthetic is eventually discovered, but it is later revealed to have been laced with nano-cells that would kill Michael unless Nikita assassinates Spencer. When Michael lies to her that a cure has been found, Nikita stands down. However Spencer shoots herself in the head (she is later revealed to be a double by The Shop; the real Spencer was captured and imprisoned). Framed for her death, Nikita becomes that most wanted person in the United States. She goes on the run, but leaves Michael behind.
## Characterization
### Creation and casting
The CW was looking to create a female-driven action series. Creator Craig Silverstein discussed with Warner Bros. about the previous incarnations of Nikita (the original 1990 film, and La Femme Nikita) and wished to make the current television series look fresh. Silverstein wanted to follow Nikita after she left the agency, as that chapter was yet to be told in the previous incarnations. He also believed it would have done the original story justice. Also, he wanted to include a highlight of Nikita's original story in the pilot to earn the title, and then move on from there. Silverstein described Nikita's transition in a Collider interview; "It's a dark fairytale. This girl is taken from one life, her identity is erased, she's put in another life and she's transformed. It's like Alice in Wonderland. She's told, "Eat this, drink that, steal this, kill that," and she's not told why. And, she begins to find her own identity through that. It's just a great story."
On February 2010 it was announced that Maggie Q was in talks to play the title character of Nikita. Q's casting would mark the highest-profile series role for an Asian actress on a broadcast drama series. Q was drawn to the series because she was intrigued by the original film and Luc Besson's creation of an incredibly flawed female. According to the actress the process of her casting took about four to five days. In describing Q's casting, Silverstein stated:
> Before we knew who Nikita was going to be, we all talked about how impossible it was going to be to cast this role. It had to be someone who was beautiful, who could fight, who you could believe holding a gun and who you believed was smart, in order to plan everything that she was doing. You'd think those things would be easy to find in an actor, and they're not. We had actors come in and these girls would be gorgeous and smart, but you'd put a gun in their hands and it didn't work. The second we heard Maggie's name, Danny Cannon, our director, and I looked at each other and were like, "Yes!" It was really early on in the process.
Appearing on Nikita would be Q's first television role. During an interview with IGN, Q explained that she had not been on television before "not because I didn't want to. I just never thought about it," adding "When this came up, everything just felt right. I knew McG and when Wonderland came on he was like, 'This is you, we're not doing this without you.' and I went 'That's very sweet!' So it felt right."
### Development
Because the CW is a fashion-orientated network, there were times Nikita had to be dressed in a certain way to get her noticed by her targets. Q liked the idea, but at the same time wanted Nikita's dress sense to be "toned down a bit" because she is an assassin. In one scene in particular Q had to wear a red bikini in the pilot, which "mortified" her. She added "that red bikini was the bane of my existence. You're not going to see me in a bikini again, that's for sure. [...] I was like, 'Danny, can you put me in a one-piece?,' and he gave me that red bikini. I was like, 'That's not a one-piece. That's a two-piece with a string.'" However, Q did not have to cover her tattoos like she had to in the films, as it was in keeping with who the character is; a hardcore, street kid.
Q performs her own stunts in the series. The actress liked to have her character "be able to do her own thing," as it is an action series where females play lead roles; during her film career, she noted "but in movies, alongside big action men, we've always got to take a step back and let the men shine. And in this, it's about the women who know what they're doing." At some point Q set up a three-week long training period for the rest of the cast to make their fight scenes in the series believable; she had her partner, an action director, bring his stunt team to train them. In filming the stunts she was already used to working in an environment where filming in television would be faster than in American films, because of her time starring in films in Asia, which usually took two to six weeks.
One of the more prominent aspects of Nikita's character development since the beginning of the series is her relationship with Michael, and has been dubbed by fans as "Mikita". Unlike other works on film and television, Silverstein did not play the traditional "Will They/Won't They?" game between the two characters. Co-star Shane West stated "It's not hard to bring Michael and Nikita together," but it is "really hard to keep them apart...We're barely into the season yet, so why not keep teasing?" When the first season started airing, West also expected that their romance would come, citing Michael and Nikita's past relationship while she was working with Division. Now that the two are together by the end of the first season, in the second season Silverstein wanted something to happen to get in their way, saying that no new tension would make the relationship boring, adding "I don't think you can just have them happy and in love, kicking ass together forever."
## Reception
Nikita and Maggie Q's portrayal of the character was met with generally positive reactions from television critics. Nikita was included in TV Guide's lists of "TV's Sexiest Crime Fighters" and "TV's Toughest Ladies". Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times felt that Q was suited for the role, stating "she has a solemn, exotic beauty and hauteur that echo the heroine's self-possession and cool relentlessness," adding "Nikita is noticeably more hard-boiled and less girlish than the undercover agent played by Jennifer Garner on Alias, or the C.I.A. rookie that Piper Perabo plays on Covert Affairs." Troy Patterson of Slate felt that "Ms. Q's Nikita is only half so crush-worthy as Bionic Woman's Jaime Sommers or Dollhouse's what's-her-name, but her predicament is no less tasty." Robert Bianco of USA Today believed Q's performance was "a fairly sizable incentive" to watch the show, adding she "combines stunt-fighting chops and lithe beauty with an unusual-for-the-genre air of somber intelligence. Her Nikita is not above cracking a joke, but it's clear from Q's eyes and bearing that she has suffered at the hands of evil men, and she's not going to take it anymore." Alan Sepinwall of HitFix believed that Q "carries herself in a way that makes it believable she could be a hard-core killer, and she has the requisite dramatic chops and charisma for the part." Maureen Ryan of AOL TV said "Maggie Q, has real charisma and presence; she invests Nikita's drive to bring down the secretive Division with potent energy. You have to believe that Nikita would devote her life to wreaking vengeance on the people she views as her former captors, and you also have to buy her as a butt-kicking, gun-toting action heroine who also looks great in a cocktail gown. Maggie Q makes all those things look easy."
Some other critics however, did not react so warmly towards Q's Nikita. Chris Conaton of PopMatters felt that Q "seems to be a good choice for the title role," but noted that the pilot did not call attention to the character's background. That said Conaton stated "it's still something of a novelty to build a TV series around an Asian American lead—though plenty of recent ensemble and reality TV shows have featured prominent cast members of Asian descent." Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe felt that Q was "too much of a sad sack," adding "Q doesn't seem able to layer any other emotions over her cold resolve," and compares the character to "a little bit like [Saturday Night Live character] Debbie Downer." Mary McNamara of The Los Angeles Times believed that while Nikita "provides some sizzle," her emotions "run that famous distance from A to B, as do virtually [every other character]."
Before the show started airing, Q posed for several billboard posters. However, they were met with some controversy for being revealing, and several locations across the United States, including in areas of Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, refused to allow them to be put up, as they were located near churches and schools. Rick Haskins, the marketing executive for the CW, stated "we've been down this road a few times with some of our campaigns." |
5,550,252 | Stupendemys | 1,135,282,855 | Extinct genus of turtles | [
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"Fossil taxa described in 1976",
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"Pliocene Venezuela",
"Pliocene extinctions",
"Pliocene reptiles of South America",
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]
| Stupendemys is an extinct genus of freshwater side-necked turtle, belonging to the family Podocnemididae. It is the largest freshwater turtle known to have existed, with a carapace over 2 meters long. Its fossils have been found in northern South America, in rocks dating from the Middle Miocene to the very start of the Pliocene, about 13 to 5 million years ago. Male specimens are known to have possessed bony horns growing from the front edges of the shell and the discovery of the fossil of a young adult shows that the carapace of these turtles flattens with age. A fossil skull described in 2021 indicates that Stupendemys was a generalist feeder.
## History and naming
Stupendemys was first named in 1976 by Roger C. Wood based on specimen MCNC-244, the medial portion of a large sized carapace with associated left femur, scapulacoracoid and a cervical vertebra. Wood also described several other specimens he referred to Stupendemys, which includes MCZ(P)-4376. This specimen preserves much of the carapace alongside a fragmented plastron and various other bones. The fossils were unearthed by a paleontological excavation of the Harvard University in Venezuela in 1972. In 2006 a second species, Stupendemys souzai was described by Bocquentin and Melo based on material from the Solimões Formation in Acre State in Brazil, also home to the giant Caninemys. In February 2020, Cadena and colleagues published a paper describing material discovered during the routine excavations in the Urumaco Formation, which have been ongoing since 1994. The material includes a relatively complete carapace that set a new maximum size for the genus and was designated as the allotype, meaning the specimen is of the opposite sex of the holotype. Venezuela also yielded fossils of a lower jaw, which has been used to lump Caninemys into Stupendemys in the 2020 study. The authors likewise consider S. souzai to be synonymous with S. geographica. However, more fossils were discovered in the Colombian Tatacoa Desert and formally described by Cadena and colleagues in 2021, including the first definitive skull remains as well as the first remains of a juvenile or early adult specimen (carapace length under 1 meter). The La Victoria Formation also yielded the remains of an adult female as well as more fossils of Caninemys. With definitive skull remains of Stupendemys known in association with a carapace and new fossils of Caninemys, the referral of Caninemys skull to Stupendemys was contested and the former was re-established as a valid genus.
The name Stupendemys is a combination of "stupendous", meaning extremely impressive, and the Latin word "emys" for freshwater turtle. The species name meanwhile honors the National Geographic Society. However, the name Stupendemys geographicus, as coined by Wood, is grammatically incorrect, as Stupendemys constitutes a feminine generic name. The name was eventually corrected to Stupendemys geographica in 2021 in accordance with the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN).
## Description
The skull of Stupendemys is roughly triangular in top view and the edges of the jaws converge at the front of the snout in a straight edge. The skull is dorsally extremely inflated by the prefrontals that make up a large area of the front region of the skull, forming a vertical wall above the bony nostril. Following the prefrontals and orbits the skull slopes down drastically before ascending again through the parietals. The orbits are relatively small and oriented to the sides. When viewed from below the premaxillae bear a deep concavity at their center. In this view the premaxillae form most of the anteromedial edge of the skull, meeting each other towards the middle of the skull and narrowing just before the deep concavity. In front view, the premaxillae form the bottom margin of the bony nostrils, tapering as they move down.
The carapace of adult Stupendemys can reach a straight midline length of greater than 2 meters with a low-arched profile. The nodular contours on the surface are irregular and the frontal margin of the shell is characterized by a deep notch flanked by large horns in male specimens. These horns are deeply grooved, suggesting that they were covered by a keratinous sheath. In addition to these horns, the front margin of the nuchal-peripheral bones is notably thickened and upturned. The surface is smooth to striated or lightly pitted. The margins of the posterior peripheral bones are moderately scalloped. The costal scutes of the carapace are relatively thin. In overall shape the carapace of Stupendemys is longer than it is wide.
### Size
Stupendemys is the largest known species of freshwater turtle currently known to science, with several specimens reaching a carapace length exceeding 2 meters. The largest specimen of Stupendemys is CIAAP-2002-01, an almost complete carapace with a parasagittal length of 2.86 meters. This exceeds the size of the Vienna-specimen of the Cretaceous sea turtle Archelon, the largest known turtle, (carapace length 2.20 meters).
The weight of Stupendemys was estimated based on the straight carapace length, with calculations indicating a weight of 871 kg for CIAAP-2002-01 and 744 kg for MCZ(P)-4376, the former largest known specimen of Stupendemys. However, these estimates do not compensate for the large embayment present at the front of the shell. A more precise body mass estimate might be achieved by calculating the average between the results of weight estimates based on midline length and parasagittal length. Applying this method yields a weight of 1,145 kg for the largest Stupendemys specimen.
The evolution of such an enormous size may have been multi-facetted and caused by a combination of factors including pressure from predators, habitat size and favorable climatic conditions, although Stupendemys temporal range indicates that it managed to survive through times of global cooling following the middle Miocene climatic transition (MMCT). Lastly, the giant size could have a phylogenetic link and be ancestral to Stupendemys, with several other related forms being known to have possessed gigantic proportions.
## Phylogeny
Although initially believed to be a pelomedusid by Wood, later studies consistently recovered Stupendemys as a podocnemidid turtle instead. In 2020 Stupendemys was recovered as a basal member of Erymnochelyinae. However, this position was influenced by the inclusion of material belonging to Caninemys. In their 2021 publication, Cadena and colleagues again attempted to determine the relationship between Stupendemys and other pan-pleurodiran turtles using the morphological characters established previously by Joyce and colleagues (2021), 268 characters across 104 species of turtles. The analysis was run once with all taxa and once with a focus on Podocnemidoidae, removing all other taxa safe for Proganochelys quenstedti, Notoemys laticentralis, and Platychelys oberndorferi. The single most parsimonious tree resulting from the second analysis recovered Stupendemys as an early branching member of a clade with Peltocephalus dumerilianus at its base. Caninemys, now recognized as a distinct taxon, nested at the base of Erymnochelyinae. A modified version of this tree, excluding the outgroups, is depicted below: }}
## Paleobiology
### Paleoecology
Following the 2021 research of Cadena and colleagues, the Pebas Mega-Wetlands housed at least two species of giant side-necked turtles: Stupendemys and Caninemys. Despite their similar size (both sporting a carapace length greater than 2 meters), they vary greatly in skull morphology, with Caninemys proposed to have been deploying a vacuum feeding strategy combined with a strong bite supported by tooth-like structures of the maxilla, while a more durophagous-omnivorous diet has been suggested for Stupendemys. This difference in diet and feeding strategy would be in accordance with Gause's Law, by which two species competing for the same ecological niche cannot coexist with one another for a long period of time without either differentiating or one dominating over the other in the long run. In addition to the different skull morphology, the two taxa may have also been able to coexist due to the sheer size of the Pebas Mega-Wetlands they inhabited, as this ecosystem stretched over most of northern South America during the Middle Miocene. This reason may also prevent the two taxa from being in direct competition over nesting grounds and basking spaces.
The diet of Stupendemys may have been very diverse and broad, possibly including molluscs and other hard shelled prey as well as vertebrate prey as suggested by Meylan and colleagues for Caninemys. At its size it would have been easily capable of consuming various fish, snakes and small crocodilians. A broad dietary width would have helped Stupendemys in maintaining its large body size. Furthermore, Cadena and colleagues also highlight the role of turtles as seed-dispersers in modern-day Amazonia, consuming fruit of palms for example (Arecaceae), seasonally sometimes in great quantities, even if they are not typically part of their standard diet. With its wide gape, Stupendemys would qualify as a megafaunal frugivore and seed disperser.
### Sexual dimorphism
The absence of horns on most Stupendemys specimens indicates that they were not used as a defense mechanism. However, their forward-facing position on the carapace may indicate that they were used in intraspecific combat. Cadena and colleagues hypothesize that the horns may have been a sexually dimorphic trait exclusively found in males, suggesting them to have been used similar to the horns and antlers found in artiodactyls. Among extant turtles similar behavior can be found in snapping turtles, some of the largest freshwater turtles alive, which are known to fight for dominance in overlapping territories. This hypothesis is supported by the presence of a deep, elongated scar along the left horn of CIAAP-2002-01, which could have been left by the horn of a rival male that engaged it in combat. The authors further suggest that in Stupendemys the males may have been the larger sex, similar to the condition seen in the modern podocnemids. However other traditionally sexually dimorphic traits of the turtle shell, such as a deeper anal notch or a xiphiplastral concavity, have not yet been observed in Stupendemys fossils.
### Ontogeny
Prior to the 2021 study of Cadena and colleagues, only adult specimens of Stupendemys had been described. The discovery of a specimen with a carapace length smaller than 1 meter gives an insight into the changes the animal undergoes while reaching maturity. In addition to its small size, the animal is identified as a juvenile to young adult based on the absence of large horns and shallow anal notch. The inner nuchal notch, anterior expansion of the peripherals 1 and 2, irregular nodular contours, inner contact between the 7th and 8th costals and the relative size of the plastral lobes and their arrangement (except for the pectorals) remains relatively consistent with size.
One of the most significant changes of the carapace of Stupendemys is its height. With age the shell of the turtle grows significantly flatter, while the nuchal region develops a pronounced upturn of its anterior margin and peripheral 1, creating a wide and deep anteromedial embayment of the carapace. The 2nd and 3rd vertebral scutes grow narrower as the animal matures from juvenile to adult, similar to the extant Podocnemis, Erymnochelys and Peltocephalus. The 5th vertebral scute meanwhile belongs the longest and widest of the series in adults while keeping its trapezoid shape. This ontogenetic change of the vertebral scutes means that phylogenetic coding using the width of the vertebral scutes in relation to the pleural scutes should be treated with care due to the variable nature of these features as shown by Stupendemys.
## Paleoenvironment
During the Middle Miocene, the area inhabited by Stupendemys was part of an interconnected series of lakes, rivers, swamps and marshes that drained into the Caribbean known as the Pebas Mega-Wetlands, which included the Colombian La Victoria Formation. The Wetlands provided favorable conditions to the native reptilian fauna, with several lineages of crocodilians reaching enormous sizes during the Mid to Late Miocene and also diversifying in ecology. Some of the enormous crocodilians that coexisted with Stupendemys included the enormous caimain Purussaurus, the bizarre Mourasuchus and large-bodied gharials of the genus Gryposuchus, some species of which reaching lengths of over 10 meters. Some of these crocodilians may have played a role in the evolution of Stupendemys large body-size, putting pressure on the animal through predation. Bite marks have been found on Colombian and Venezuelan specimens and an isolated tooth was found attached to the ventral surface of CIAAP-2002-01.
As the Pebas System began to disappear with the onset of the transcontinental Amazon Drainage, Stupendemys persisted in the wetlands of the northern Urumaco Formation and the Solimões Formation in Acre State, Brazil, into the Late Miocene before eventually dying out during the Early Pliocene like much of the large crocodilian fauna of the Miocene wetlands. Besides the aforementioned reptiles the waterways of Late Miocene South America were also inhabited by fish, including catfish such as Phractocephalus and Callichthyidae, characids such as Acregoliath rancii and the tambaqui (Colossoma macropomum), the South American lungfish (Lepidosiren paradoxa), trahiras (e.g. Paleohoplias assisbrasiliensis) and freshwater rays and sharks. Other turtles and tortoises found in the same deposits are Chelus columbiana (a fossil relative of the mata mata) and Chelonoidis. Further aquatic vertebrates included river dolphins and the large darter "Anhinga" fraileyi. At least within the Solimões Formation Stupendemys would have inhabited a floodplain or lacustrine environment with savannahs and gallery forests.
## See also
- Drazinderetes, a giant prehistoric softshell turtle
- Archelon, a giant sea turtle of the Cretaceous
- Largest prehistoric animals |
1,815,577 | Brian Adams (wrestler) | 1,173,166,474 | American professional wrestler (1964–2007) | [
"1964 births",
"2007 deaths",
"20th-century professional wrestlers",
"21st-century professional wrestlers",
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"American male professional wrestlers",
"American people convicted of drug offenses",
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"Expatriate professional wrestlers in Japan",
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"WCW World Tag Team Champions",
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]
| Brian Keith Adams (April 14, 1964 – August 13, 2007) was an American professional wrestler. Adams is known for his time with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), under the name Crush, and for World Championship Wrestling (WCW) under his real name Brian Adams. Trained in Japan by Antonio Inoki, he was a two-time WCW World Tag Team Champion, a one-time WWF Tag Team Champion and a one-time AJPW World Tag Team Champion, among other accomplishments. He was a challenger for various singles titles in the WWF and WCW, including the WWF Championship. In 2002, he briefly tried a career in boxing until retiring due to back and shoulder injuries.
## Early life
Brian Adams was born in Kona, Hawaii and was raised in Kealakekua, Hawaii and attended Konawaena High School. After graduating from high school, Adams joined the US Air Force, where he began boxing. It was during his time in the USAF, while stationed in Japan, that he was also exposed to wrestling. Adams was trained in wrestling by famed Japanese wrestler and mixed martial artist Antonio Inoki.
## Professional wrestling career
### New Japan Pro-Wrestling (1986–1987)
Brian Adams made his debut for New Japan Pro-Wrestling in 1986. However, his work visa expired after a tour in September 1987, forcing him to return to the United States.
### Pacific Northwest Wrestling and return to NJPW (1987–1988)
In November 1987, Adams joined the NWA Pacific Northwest Wrestling (PNW) promotion, where he was given the nickname "the American Ninja". Upon arrival, he feuded with Super Ninja, which culminated in a loser-leaves-town match, which Adams won. Adams left PNW in February 1988 to return to NJPW for a tour, this time under the masked persona, The Midnight Soldier. The NJPW tour lasted from February 29 to March 19.
### Continental Wrestling Association and All Japan Pro Wrestling (1988–1989)
Upon returning to Portland, he did not return to PNW, but instead joined Billy Jack Haynes' short-lived Oregon Wrestling Federation. After OWF quickly folded, Adams wrestled throughout the independent circuit in Portland, until November 1988, when he joined Mike Miller in Memphis, to wrestle for Continental Wrestling Association. Later that same month, he wrestled a match for World Championship Wrestling teaming with Jerry Price losing to Lex Luger and Sting. In January 1989, Adams and Miller went to wrestle a tour for All Japan Pro Wrestling. The AJPW tour lasted from January 2 to 28.
### Return to PNW (1989–1990)
In March 1989, Adams finally returned to PNW, where he aligned with Lord Jonathan Boyd and Carl Styles, feuding with The Grappler, The Barbarian, and Buddy Rose. In April 1989, Adams revived the masked Midnight Soldier persona, which led to The Grappler to offer a \$5000 bounty for the mask. In September 1989, Adams unmasked and turned heel, and joined forces with The Grappler in a tag team called "The Wrecking Crew". Adams and Grappler were the Pacific Northwest Tag Team Champions for a time and worked a feud with the Southern Rockers, Steve Doll and Rex King. In May 1988, he took part in Billy Jack Haynes' short-lived Oregon Wrestling Federation. In 1990, he won the Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Championship after winning a tournament final match against Larry Oliver in Portland on April 21, 1990, for the vacant title. He lost the title to Scott Norton on May 12, 1990, in Portland.
### World Wrestling Federation (1989, 1990–1991)
Adams appeared in a dark match on August 9, 1989, defeating Barry Horowitz on WWF Wrestling Challenge.
In June 1990, while still working for the PNW, Adams debuted in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) as "Crush", the third member of the Tag Team Champions Demolition. With Adams joining Demolition, the trio exercised the Freebird Rule allowing any combination of the three to defend the tag team title, which allowed Crush to become a Tag Team Champion. He was brought in as a substitute for Ax to defend the titles with Smash. Crush debuted at a live event on June 5, where he and Smash successfully defended the titles against The Rockers. Crush made his televised debut with Demolition on the June 23 episode of Superstars, teaming with Smash in a quick victory over Paul Diamond and Joe Champ. On the July 28 episode of Saturday Night's Main Event XXVII, Crush and Smash retained the titles against The Rockers, after Ax (who was the illegal man) clotheslined and pinned Shawn Michaels. At the SummerSlam pay-per-view, Demolition, with new member Crush, lost the title to The Hart Foundation in a two out of three falls match with Crush getting pinned for the final fall to lose the title. After SummerSlam, Demolition shifted focus from the belts to their already incipient feud with The Legion of Doom which had intensified after the latter team interfered in the title change match. Adams continued to perform as part of Demolition until after WrestleMania VII where he and Smash lost to Genichiro Tenryu and Koji Kitao. After WrestleMania, the WWF decided to disband Demolition as a team, although Demolition continue to team until September 1991.
### Second return to PNW (1991–1992)
Upon his departure from the WWF, Adams, who continued to use the Crush gimmick, returned to PNW. He quickly turned fan favorite upon his return and was portrayed as a dominant wrestler, winning both the Pacific Northwest Tag Team Championship and the Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Championship. Adams received the first of these two championships during this stint in the PNW while teaming with previous rival Steve Doll and defeating The Bruise Brothers for the Tag Team Championship on July 27, 1991, in Portland, Oregon. They remained the champions until September 1, 1991, when they lost the title to The Grappler and Don Harris. A little more than a month later, Adams received his second Pacific Northwest Heavyweight title, on October 12, 1991, in Portland after he defeated Rip Oliver via submission to the Full Nelson hold. Adams was the champion for just over three months, losing the title to Ron Harris at a show in Portland, on January 18, 1992.
### Return to WWF
#### Kona Crush (1992–1993)
On the back of his success in PNW, Adams went back to work for the WWF in 1992, retaining the Crush name and still a fan favorite but using a new character of an easygoing surfing Hawaiian who wore bright neon tights and utilized a new two-handed skull vice finisher called the Cranium Crunch. Crush made his televised debut in WWF under his new character on May 9, 1992, episode of Superstars, defeating Kato. The two would continue to work at house shows that month. Crush made his first pay-per-view appearance under the gimmick with a win over Repo Man (Barry Darsow, who also played Crush's former Demolition partner, Smash) at SummerSlam. Crush then engaged in a feud with Doink the Clown, after he was attacked with a loaded prosthetic arm while confronting the clown about his cruel pranks on children at ringside, which caused Crush to miss the 1993 Royal Rumble. The feud culminated at WrestleMania IX, where Crush lost after a second, identical Doink appeared from underneath the ring and struck Crush with the prosthetic arm. At the first King of the Ring pay-per-view, Crush challenged Shawn Michaels for the Intercontinental Championship, but lost the match after a distraction by Doink.
On July 4, Crush injured his back in the Stars and Stripes Challenge trying to bodyslam the WWF Champion Yokozuna, who at the time had a billed weight of 580 lb (260 kg). The bodyslam challenge took place on the US Navy Aircraft carrier USS Intrepid. Crush, generally considered to have the best chance of those present, was the first wrestler to actually get Yokozuna off his feet, but his back gave out forcing him to stop. Lex Luger won the challenge. On the July 12 episode of Monday Night Raw, Crush unsuccessfully challenged Yokozuna for the WWF Championship. After the match, Yokozuna sent a message to Luger by performing several Banzai Drops to Crush. This angle was used to write Crush off television to recover from his back injury; he returned that following October.
#### Alliance with Mr. Fuji and Tribal Crush (1993–1995)
Crush returned to WWF on the October 18 episode of Monday Night Raw and attacked his on-screen friend Randy Savage, because Savage had encouraged him to enter the Body Slam Challenge, and had failed to contact him during recuperation. He ended up cutting Randy’s tongue. Crush then allied himself with Yokozuna and Mr. Fuji, becoming a villain. Gorilla Monsoon called the gimmick the 'Native Hawaiian'. The new Native Chief gimmick included: growing a goatee, using a new face paint design different from his Demolition character, and wearing a darker color scheme than the purple and orange Kona Crush character. He also was billed as being from Kona, Hawaii (Hometown) & Polynesia and sometimes Japan. At Survivor Series, Crush headlined the event as part of Foreign Fanatics (Yokozuna, Ludvig Borga and Quebecer Jacques) against All-Americans (Lex Luger, The Undertaker and The Steiner Brothers). This rivalry led to a falls count anywhere match against Savage at WrestleMania X, which he lost.
Crush would become a hired gun for his manager Mr. Fuji, helping his new client Jeff Jarrett win a King of the Ring qualifying match against Lex Luger on the May 21 episode of Superstars by attacking Luger outside the ring, causing him to lose by count-out. In retaliation, Luger cost Crush a King of the Ring qualifying lumberjack match against Tatanka on the June 6 episode of Raw. As a result, the pair began a short program. During the rivalry, Crush formed a tag team with Fuji's client Yokozuna called "Revenge of the Ancient Tribal Chieftains", challenging The Headshrinkers for the Tag Team Championship at King of the Ring. They lost the match after Luger distracted Crush. Their rivalry culminated in a match on the August 21 episode of Sunday Night Slam, which Luger won after Ted DiBiase distracted Crush. Afterwards, Crush lost a series of non-televised matches to The Undertaker in Europe in early September, and then subsequently left the WWF.
In 1995, Crush returned to the WWF at Royal Rumble and took part in the Royal Rumble match as the 30th entrant. He played a main role in the match by eliminating Billy Gunn, Bart Gunn, Adam Bomb, and Headshrinker Fatu and getting one of the final four wrestlers in the ring alongside Lex Luger, Shawn Michaels and British Bulldog. After eliminating Luger via Michaels' aid, he tried to hit his body press slam on Shawn. However, Shawn Michaels scratched his eyes and Bulldog clotheslined him out of the ring. The Royal Rumble was the only wrestling appearance for Adams in 1995 for the WWF. On March 13, while home in Hawaii, he was arrested and subsequently jailed for purchasing steroids and possessing an illegal hand gun. Following this, Todd Pettengill announced on the March 25, 1995 episode of WWF Mania that Crush was arrested and fired (a public termination from WWF)
#### Nation of Domination and Disciples of Apocalypse (1996–1997)
After a brief stint in jail, Adams was brought back to the WWF in July 1996 with a new biker look at the beginning of the Monday Night Wars, with his real-life incarceration being referenced as part of a storyline on Raw. To play along with the storyline the fans would chant jailbird during his matches. He made his surprise return to WWF on the August 12, 1996 episode of Monday Night Raw, with Clarence Mason, his (kayfabe) lawyer as his manager. He defeated Savio Vega with a full nelson and began using the heart punch as his new finishing move. At Survivor Series, Crush was paired with Goldust, Jerry Lawler and Hunter Hearst Helmsley against Marc Mero, Jake Roberts, Rocky Maivia and Barry Windham in a Survivor Series match. Crush's team was on the losing end. In the fall of 1996, Crush began a rivalry with Vega, during which, he and Clarence Mason joined Nation of Domination (NOD) under the leadership of Faarooq, another client of Mason.
Crush's rivalry with Vega ended when he joined the Nation in early 1997. Crush aided Faarooq in his feud with Ahmed Johnson. After his loss to Goldust at King of the Ring, Crush argued with Savio Vega, during Faarooq's WWF Championship title shot, which distracted Faarooq, causing him to lose the match. The following night on Raw is War, Crush and Vega, along with the rest of Nation were fired by Faarooq, turning Crush face for the first time since 1993. As a result, Crush began feuding with Faarooq and formed his own biker faction called Disciples of Apocalypse, which was introduced on the June 23 episode of Raw is War.
Crush led the DOA into a gang war against Faarooq's Nation of Domination and Savio Vega's Los Boricuas throughout the late 1997, thus turning into a fan favorite. The three leaders fought in a triple threat match at Ground Zero, which Vega won. The DOA traded wins with Los Boricuas at SummerSlam, Badd Blood: In Your House and the November 22 episode of Shotgun Saturday Night. DOA had their next rivalry with The Truth Commission, which culminated in a Survivor Series match between the two teams at Survivor Series, which Truth Commission won.
Adams left the WWF in the fall of 1997, partially in protest to the Montreal Screwjob. His absence was explained by a storyline injury sustained during a brawl with Kane on the November 24 episode of Raw is War. Crush's last appearance was on the November 29 episode of Shotgun Saturday Night, where DOA defeated enhancement talents Steve Corino, Marty Garner, Jason Ahrndt, and Mike Hollow.
### World Championship Wrestling
#### New World Order (1998–1999)
Adams signed with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and made his debut on the February 16, 1998 episode of Nitro as a heel by attacking Bret Hart, revealing himself as the newest member of the New World Order (nWo). Adams made his in-ring debut on the February 19 episode of Thunder in a tag team match with nWo teammate Curt Hennig against Davey Boy Smith and Jim Neidhart, with the match resulting in a double disqualification. The nWo split in April 1998 and Adams chose to join Hollywood Hogan's nWo Hollywood faction. Adams made his pay-per-view (PPV) debut at Slamboree against Lex Luger in a losing effort.
Adams received a shot for the World Heavyweight Championship against Goldberg on the July 27 episode of Nitro, but failed to win the title. He lost to Steve McMichael at Road Wild and pulled out an upset win over Eddie Guerrero on the August 30 episode of Monday Nitro, only after Guerrero laid down for Adams on purpose due to his protest with WCW management.
Adams became a lower card performer, he often tag-teamed with the likes of Scott Norton and Stevie Ray, occasionally losing matches against smaller and lesser known wrestlers. However, he also gained quick victories over enhancement talents in singles competition. He was usually used by the nWo as a henchman due to his big size. Adams and Norton defeated Fit Finlay and Jerry Flynn in Adams' debut at Starrcade.
In 1999, Adams was put into nWo Black and White or nWo B-Team, a group of mid-card nWo wrestlers of the nWo Reunion after both nWo factions united. Adams was put into a partnership with Horace Hogan and the two participated in a tournament to crown the new World Tag Team Champions. They ousted Billy Kidman and Chavo Guerrero Jr. and Faces of Fear before losing to Curt Henning and Barry Windham and Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko in semi-final matches.
#### The Demon and KroniK (1999–2001)
Afterwards, he was chosen to portray the KISS-themed wrestler "The Demon" after walking out on the New World Order and entering a limo that supposedly had the band inside. He played the character for its debut on the August 23 episode of Nitro in which KISS also played a live concert. He would play it one more time to come out and have a staredown with Vampiro and abandoned it afterwards without wrestling. The Demon mantle was subsequently passed to Dale Torborg with no explanation given. Adams switched back to competing under his given name and returned for a title shot for the United States Heavyweight Championship against Sid Vicious on the October 4 episode of Nitro, where he lost. After defeating Horace Hogan on the October 13 episode of Thunder, Adams took a hiatus.
In the spring of 2000, Adams received the biggest push of his WCW career when he was put into a tag team with Bryan Clark called KroniK. The team debuted at Spring Stampede as Vince Russo's mercenaries in the New Blood stable, helping Shane Douglas and Buff Bagwell to beat Ric Flair and Lex Luger to win the World Tag Team Championship by delivering a High Times to Luger.
However, KroniK switched allegiances to The Millionaire's Club after Russo betrayed them and they defeated Douglas and The Wall to win the World Tag Team Championship for the first time on the May 15 episode of Nitro, thus turning faces. KroniK dropped the belts to New Blood members Perfect Event on the May 31 episode of Thunder. At The Great American Bash, KroniK defeated The Mamalukes to earn a title shot at the tag team titles and began their second reign by beating Perfect Event at Bash at the Beach. KroniK then entered a rivalry with the entire Natural Born Thrillers faction, and retained the tag team titles against the Thrillers and Misfits in Action in a Four Corners match before losing them to Vampiro and The Great Muta at New Blood Rising.
Following the title loss, KroniK lost a first blood chain match to The Harris Brothers at Fall Brawl. In the fall of 2000, KroniK began working as "hired muscles", based on WWF's tag team Acolytes Protection Agency. On the October 2 episode of Nitro, KroniK turned heels after Vince Russo managed to bribe them in order to have them attack Goldberg, resulting in a handicap elimination match at Halloween Havoc, which Goldberg won.
KroniK helped The Boogie Knights battle The Filthy Animals in subsequent matches at Mayhem and Millennium Final. As the year ended, KroniK were hired by their former enemies, the Natural Born Thrillers, during which they helped them at the Starrcade event, by facing Reno and Big Vito in a tag team match, during which Reno turned on Vito and had been revealed as the one who had paid KroniK to assault Vito in the previous weeks. A month later, at Sin, KroniK turned faces by ending their association with Thrillers, as they turned on Thrillers leader Mike Sanders by helping Ernest Miller beat Sanders to become the WCW Commissioner. The following month, at SuperBrawl Revenge, KroniK made their final pay-per-view appearance, where they were scheduled to face Totally Buffed (Lex Luger and Buff Bagwell), in a \#1 contender's match for the tag team titles. Clark was injured by Mike Awesome before the match, leaving Adams to face them in a handicap match, which he lost. KroniK remained with WCW until the company was purchased by WWF on March 23, 2001.
### Third return to WWF (2001)
After the WWF's purchase of WCW, KroniK appeared in WWF as part of the Alliance storyline. During their time in WWF, they were managed by Steven Richards and were placed in a short feud with The Brothers of Destruction (The Undertaker and Kane). Adams and Clark faced, and lost to, the duo at the 2001 Unforgiven pay-per-view. Adams was sent down to Heartland Wrestling Association, a development territory of WWF, however he was released in November 2001 when his contract was bought out.
### World Wrestling All-Stars and Japan (2001–2003)
Adams and Clark briefly worked for World Wrestling All-Stars (WWA) in early 2002. They then traveled to Japan to work for All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW). On July 17, 2002, at an AJPW pay-per-view, Adams and Clark defeated Keiji Mutoh and Taiyō Kea for the World Tag Team Championship. Adams and Clark remained champions until October 2002 when AJPW declared the title vacant, because Adams had left the promotion to pursue a boxing career.
After recovering from his shoulder injury that occurred during his boxing training, Adams returned to wrestling for "Wrestle 1", a pay-per-view for the Japanese promotion W-1, which was a promotion with close ties to AJPW and held at the Tokyo Dome. In January 2003, he made his last in-ring appearance, teaming with Bryan Clark, and facing Bill Goldberg and Keiji Mutoh in a losing effort. He suffered a spinal injury in this match that forced him into retirement.
## Boxing career
Adams, who had success as an amateur boxer in the United States Air Force, was scheduled to have his first professional boxing match against Rick Zufall on November 16, 2002, at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada with professional wrestler Randy Savage in his corner. This bout was to air on the Never Surrender boxing pay-per-view, but while training, Adams sustained a shoulder injury which forced him to pull out of the bout.
## Personal life
On March 13, 1995, Adams was arrested at his home in Kona, Hawaii, after narcotics officers searched his home and discovered 500 units of anabolic steroids without prescriptions and several unregistered automatic firearms. He was released on \$10,275 bail. On October 28, 1995, he was sentenced to five years probation after pleading no-contest to 11 counts of drug and weapons charges.
In 1996, Adams had an uncredited role in the Bollywood movie Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi. In the movie, he played "Crush" and was killed by "The Undertaker" (played by Brian Lee) in a wrestling match.
Adams had surgery to attempt to correct his spinal injury, but it left him unfit to continue to wrestle. Following his retirement, Adams became a bodyguard for his longtime friend, wrestler-turned-rapper Randy Savage, who was touring to promote his CD, Be a Man. It was reported that Adams was living on income from a Lloyd's of London insurance policy. Adams expressed interest in opening a health club in Tampa, Florida, which was to be a franchise of fellow wrestler Marc Mero's "Body Slam" training center. Adams and his wife had two children together.
He was very good friends with Mark Calaway better known in the WWE as The Undertaker.
## Death
On August 13, 2007, Adams was found dead by his wife at their Tampa, Florida home. The medical examiner concluded that the cause of death was a result of mixing the painkiller buprenorphine with the muscle relaxant carisoprodol and the sedatives chlordiazepoxide and alprazolam. The coroner determined the drugs in his system were individually at therapeutic levels, but their combination impeded his respiratory system enough to kill him. He was 43 years old.
## Championships and accomplishments
- All Japan Pro Wrestling
- World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Bryan Clark
- Oregon Wrestling Federation
- OWF Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Mike Miller
- Pacific Northwest Wrestling
- NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
- NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with The Grappler (1) and Steve Doll (1)
- Salem City Tournament (1988)
- Pro Wrestling Illustrated
- Ranked No. 35 of the 500 best singles wrestlers of the year in the PWI 500 in 1993
- Ranked No. 289 of the top 500 singles wrestlers of the "PWI Years" in 2003
- Ranked No. 59 of the 100 best tag teams during the PWI Years with Smash and Ax in 2003
- World Championship Wrestling
- WCW World Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Bryan Clark
- World Wrestling Federation/WWF
- WWF World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Smash and Ax
- Wrestling Observer Newsletter
- Worst Worked Match of the Year (2001) with Bryan Clark vs. The Undertaker and Kane at Unforgiven
- Worst Feud of the Year (1997) vs. Los Boricuas
- Worst Tag Team (2000, 2001) with Bryan Clark
## See also
- List of premature professional wrestling deaths |
12,869,260 | Greysia Polii | 1,173,467,602 | Indonesian badminton player | [
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| Greysia Polii (; born 11 August 1987) is an Indonesian former badminton player specializing in doubles. She won gold medals in the women's doubles at the 2014 Asian Games, at the 2019 SEA Games and at the 2020 Summer Olympics. She also won three bronze medals at the World Championships in 2015, 2018, and 2019. Polii is a member of BWF Athletes' Commission to represent the needs and views of athletes to the BWF council and committees from 2013 to 2017 and 2021 to 2025.
Having started her career at the Jaya Raya in Jakarta, she later was selected to join the national team in 2003. Polii represented her country in the 2012, 2016 and at the 2020 Summer Olympics. She also featured in the Indonesian women's winning team at the 2007 SEA Games. She reached a career high of world number 2 in the BWF women's doubles rankings alongside Nitya Krishinda Maheswari.
Polii's achievements began when she was paired with Jo Novita, winning a Grand Prix title, two silver medals at the SEA Games in 2005 and 2007, and a bronze in the 2005 Asian Championships. Together with Maheswari, she collected 2 Superseries titles, 3 Grand Prix titles, a gold at the 2014 Asian Games, a silver at the 2013 SEA Games, and bronze medals at the 2015 World and 2016 Asian Championships. She made a new partnership with the youngster Apriyani Rahayu in 2017. Together with Rahayu, she won her first women's doubles gold at the SEA Games in 2019, her first title on home soil at the 2020 Indonesia Masters, and Indonesia's first ever women's doubles gold at the 2020 Summer Olympics.
## Early life
Greysia Polii was born in Jakarta to Willy Polii and Evie Pakasi, both of Minahasa descent native to North Sulawesi. She is the third of five siblings. She lived in Jakarta until her dad died when she was only 2, and moved to Manado, where she spent her childhood. She was influenced to play badminton by her sister, and by former national player Deyana Lomban. Her talent was already apparent by the time she was six years old. Recognizing her talent, she and her mother moved back to Jakarta in 1995 for better training and a chance to develop her career as a badminton player, joining the Jaya Raya Jakarta club. She idolized Susi Susanti and Zhang Ning.
At the club, her coach Retno Kustijah noticed her talent as a doubles player, and when Polii was 14, she made the decision to switch from singles to doubles. She made it to the national team in 2003.
## Career
### 2003–2005: Early career and National Championships title
Starting her career as a women's and mixed doubles player, Polii began to show her abilities at the age of 16. Partnered with Heni Budiman, she reached the semi-final stage in the 2003 Malaysia Satellite tournament. As a national team player, she won her first National Championships title with Budiman. The duo defeated East Kalimantan pair Indarti Issolina and Angeline de Pauw 8–15, 15–8, 15–7.
In 2004, Polii helped the national junior team win the girls' team bronze at the Asian Junior Badminton Championships and mixed team bronze at the World Junior Championships. She also claimed the World Junior silver in the mixed doubles with Muhammad Rijal, and the bronze medal in the girls' doubles with Budiman. She made her debut with the national team at the Uber Cup in 2004, where the team made the quarter-finals. Her best achievements in individual events during the year were reaching the quarter-finals at the Chinese Taipei Open and the Malaysia Open.
In 2005, Polii won bronze medals at the Asian Junior Championships in the girls' team and doubles (with Heni Budiman). In March, she and Budiman finished as the semi-finalists in the Swiss Open. Due to the hip injury suffered by Budiman at the Swiss Open, Polii made a new partnership with her senior Jo Novita in the beginning of 2005, and the duo won the bronze at the Asian Championships, as well as silver at the SEA Games. At the World Grand Prix event, the Polii-Novita partnership were semi-finalists at the Singapore and Hong Kong Open. Polii helped Indonesia reach the final stage of the Sudirman Cup, but the team lost 0–3 to China.
### 2006–2008: World Grand Prix title
In 2006, Polii began her season competing at the All England Open. Together with Jo Novita, she lost in the second round to the third seeds from China, Yang Wei and Zhang Jiewen, in straight games. In May, Polii won her first IBF World Grand Prix title at the 2006 Philippines Open partnered with Novita. In the final they beat their compatriots Endang Nursugianti and Rani Mundiasti in straight games 21–16, 21–13. She also paired with Muhammad Rijal in the mixed doubles, losing in the semi-finals to the eventual champions from Thailand, Sudket Prapakamol and Saralee Thungthongkam. At the Indonesia Open held in Surabaya, Polii's run was ended by a partnership featuring Zhao Tingting in both the women's and mixed doubles. In June, Polii reached the semi-finals in the mixed doubles and quarter-finals in the women's doubles at the Singapore Open. On the East Asian tour held in July–August, her best achievement was being a finalist at the Korea Open - she and Novita were defeated by Yang Wei and Zhang Jiewen by a score of 10–21, 11–21. Together with Novita, she qualified to compete at the World Championships held in Madrid. The duo were defeated in the third round to first seeds and eventual champions from China Gao Ling and Huang Sui. Ranked as world number 10 in the women's doubles with Novita, Polii was ousted in the second round of the Japan Open both in the women's and mixed doubles. In the mixed doubles with Rijal, they lost to two-times Olympic champion Zhang Jun and Gao Ling in a rubber game 16–21, 22–20, 7–21. In November, the second seeded Polii-Novita reached the semi-finals of the Denmark Open before being defeated by Polish pair Kamila Augustyn and Nadieżda Kostiuczyk in a close rubber game 13–21, 21–19, 19–21. In December, she represented her country at the 2006 Doha Asian Games, but failed to contribute any points to the team, where Indonesia women's team fell in the repechage to the semi-finals stage. Due to an injury suffered by Novita during the matches against Malaysia in the group stage, Polii was paired with Pia Zebadiah Bernadet in the individual event, but they were upset in the second round by Japanese pair Miyuki Maeda and Satoko Suetsuna. She ended the 2006 season standing as world number 9 in the women's doubles.
Polii opened the 2007 season by playing at the Malaysia Open with new partner Vita Marissa. The duo advanced to the final, but were unable to defeat the three times World Champion Gao Ling and Huang Sui, although they forced the Chinese pair to play a deciding game. Seeing that this new couple had good prospects, the women's doubles coach Aryono Miranat continued their partnership. In the following tournaments, although they did not win a title, the pair managed to become semi-finalists at the Swiss Open and quarter-finalists at the All England and Singapore Open. In Switzerland, Polii also finished as the finalist in the mixed doubles with Muhammad Rijal. In June, she helped Indonesia finish second to China in the Sudirman Cup. In July, after Jo Novita recovered from an injury, the duo teamed up again and participated in the Thailand Open, China Masters, and Philippines Open. Their best results were when she and Novita reached the semi-finals in the Philippines. In the quarter-finals, they were able to beat the third seeds from China, Yang Wei and Zhao Tingting, in two close games 25–23, 24–22.
In August, Polii played at the World Championships in the women's and mixed doubles. In the second round of the women's doubles, she had to retire from the tournament due to an injury to her right knee ligament. On the European tour in October–November, her best result was a semi-final appearance in the French Open. At the National Championships held in Solo, teamed up with Novita, Polii successfully defended the title she won two years ago with Heni Budiman. In December, she featured in the Indonesian women's winning team at the SEA Games in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, and won her second women's doubles silver at the Games.
In the first half of the 2008 season, together with her partners Jo Novita and Muhammad Rijal, Polii did not have satisfactory results, as her best achievements were being a women's doubles quarter-finalist in the German, All England, Indonesia, and Asian Championships. She was also a mixed doubles quarter-finalist in Korea, Germany, and India. In May, Polii helped Indonesia reach the final of the Uber Cup held in Jakarta, where the team finished as the runner-up. Polii later teamed up with Nitya Krishinda Maheswari in the women's doubles and with Flandy Limpele in the mixed doubles. Her best results with her new partner was as a women's doubles semi-finalist in the Denmark Open, defeating the 7th seeds Cheng Shu and Zhao Yunlei in the second round, and finishing as a mixed doubles quarter-finalist in the Japan Open and China Masters. Despite not being paired-up with Novita in the remaining 2008 tournaments, they were qualified to compete at the inaugural Superseries Masters Finals held in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. The duo reached the semi-finals, where they were defeated by their compatriots Liliyana Natsir and Vita Marissa in straight games 19–21, 17–21.
### 2009–2012: National Championships double crowned, Olympic Games black card
In 2009, Polii focused on one discipline, playing only in the women's doubles with Nitya Krishinda Maheswari. Even though she fell in the early stages of two Europe tour events, the All England and Swiss Open, she reached the finals of Singapore Open. She and her partner beat the world number one Chin Eei Hui and Wong Pei Tty from Malaysia in the quarter-finals, followed by ninth-placed Lena Frier Kristiansen and Kamilla Rytter Juhl from Denmark in the semi-finals. In May, she was part of the Indonesia team who finished as semi-finalists in Sudirman Cup held in Guangzhou. Polii and Maheswari played at the World Championships in Hyderabad, India, as 13th seeds. Their journey at the championships stopped in the third round with defeat to the 2008 Olympic gold medalists, the 5th seeded Du Jing and Yu Yang in straight games 20–22, 12–21. She later managed to reach the semi-finals in the Japan and French Open, but was beaten by Chinese pair Ma Jin and Wang Xiaoli in both tournaments. In December, Polii participated at the SEA Games in Vientiane, Laos. She won the silver medal in the women's team, and as second seeds in the individual women's doubles event, she and Maheswari had a bye in the first round, but their progress was stopped by young Thai pair Savitree Amitrapai and Vacharaporn Munkit in the quarter-finals. As a pair with Maheswari, she spent time inside the top 10 of the BWF rankings.
In January 2010, Polii was crowned a double champion at the 2009 National Championships, winning the women's doubles with Meiliana Jauhari, and the mixed doubles with Tontowi Ahmad. As a new pair, the Polii–Jauhari partnership were considered successful at the Super Series stage, they were the semi-finalists in the Singapore Open; quarter-finalists in All England, Indonesia Open, and China Masters. The pair were also the finalists in the Macau and Indonesia Grand Prix Gold. She also was a quarter-finalist at the Asian Championships both in the women's doubles with Jauhari and the mixed doubles with Ahmad, and part of the national team that won the bronze medal at the Uber Cup and Asian Games. At the end of the season, she was ranked as women's doubles world number 9 in the BWF World ranking, and number 8 in the Super Series ranking, made her able to compete at the Super Series Finals in Taipei, though she did not advance to the semi-final, after placed third in the group stage.
In 2011, Polii alongside Meiliana Jauhari was not able to win a title. Her best results at the Super Series event was the semi-finals in the India Open; she was also a quarter-finalist in Singapore and Indonesia Open. In the second round of the Indonesia Open, a Super Series Premier event, Polii received a yellow card from the umpire, for taking too much time during a close match against Ma Jin and Pan Pan. At the Grand Prix event, she was a finalist in the Chinese Taipei Open; semi-finalist in Malaysia and Swiss Open. In the final of the Chinese Taipei Open against Korean pair Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung, Polii had to retire in the third game, and undergo treatment at the hospital, after sustaining a right shoulder injury in the second game. The injury then made Polii often struggled with the backhand serve.
In August, Polii and Jauhari competed at the World Championships in London. The duo lost in the quarter-finals to Miyuki Maeda and Satoko Suetsuna, worsening their head-to-head record against that pair to 0–4. Polii was part of the national team that won the bronze medal at the Sudirman Cup, where Indonesia lost in the semi-finals to Denmark by a score of 1–3.
In 2012, Polii started the season by making the quarter-finals in the Korea Open Super Series Premier with her partner Meiliana Jauhari. She later was defeated in the early rounds of some tournaments, including the Super Series event of Malaysia, All England, and the India Open. In June, she reached the semi-finals of Indonesia and the Singapore Open. She managed to reduce her head-to-head deficit against the Japanese pair Miyuki Maeda and Satoko Suetsuna to 1–4, after she and Jauhari beat them in quarter-finals of the Indonesia Open.
At the 2012 Summer Olympics, Polii and her partner Meiliana Jauhari, along with Jung Kyung-eun and Kim Ha-na, Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung of South Korea, and Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang of China were disqualified from the competition for "not using one's best efforts to win a match" and "conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport" following matches the previous evening during which they threw the match. Greysia Polii and her partner Meiliana Jauhari played against South Korea's Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung. Indonesia filed an appeal to the case, but it was withdrawn.
### 2013–2015: First Grand Prix Gold, Super Series, and Asian Games champion
In 2013, Polii started the season with Meiliana Jauhari, but was defeated in the initial round of Korea and Malaysia Open. Polii later paired with youngster Anggia Shitta Awanda, a silver medalist at the 2011 World Junior Championships. The Polii-Awanda partnership did not last long, with their best result in four tournaments being the quarter-finals of the New Zealand Open. In March, Polii was elected to serve a four-year term as a member of BWF Athletes' Commission to represent the needs and views of athletes to the BWF council and committees.
In preparation for Indonesia's participation in the Sudirman Cup in Kuala Lumpur, Polii resumed her partnership with Nitya Krishinda Maheswari. In their first game back together in Kuala Lumpur, the pair managed to contribute one point for Indonesia against India. At the second tournament for Polii and Maheswari after four years separated, she finally won her first Grand Prix Gold title in the Thailand Open. She and Maheswari beat Japanese pair Yuriko Miki and Koharu Yonemoto in the final with the score of 21–7, 21–13. At the Super Series event, they later finished as semi-finalists in Singapore and the French Open; also quarter-finalists in Indonesia Open and China Masters. In the French Open, she and Maheswari beat the world number one and first seeded pairing from China, Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang in a close rubber game, 21–17, 14–21, 23–21. In December, she won her third women's doubles silver medal at the SEA Games held in Myanmar.
In 2014, Polii began the season as a semi-finalist in the Korea Open and quarter-finalist in the Malaysia Open with Nitya Krishinda Maheswari. In March, she became a finalist in the Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold after beating the first seeded Christinna Pedersen and Kamilla Rytter Juhl in the quarter-finals and the 7th seeded Luo Ying and Luo Yu in the semi-finals. Later she and Maheswari were defeated by the 2nd seeded Bao Yixin and Tang Jinhua 21–19, 16–21, 13–21. In four meetings against Bao and Tang, each match had ended with a rubber game, and after the loss in Switzerland, the head-to-head record between the pairs stood at 0–4. At the quarter-finals of the Singapore Open, she and Maheswari were defeated for fifth time by Bao and Tang, this time losing in two close games 20–22, 20–22. In May, she participated at the Uber Cup held in New Delhi, but the team were eliminated in the quarter-finals. In June, she competed in the Indonesia Open in the women's doubles with Maheswari and mixed doubles with Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo. In both events, she lost in the second round, but in the mixed doubles, she and Sukamuljo were able to upset the defending champions and world number one Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei in the first round with the score of 15–21, 21–18, 23–21.
In July 2014, Polii claimed her second BWF Grand Prix Gold title with Nitya Krishinda Maheswari in the Chinese Taipei Open, beating Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang in the final. She qualified to compete in the World Championships in Copenhagen, but lost to Reika Kakiiwa and Miyuki Maeda in the quarter-finals. In September, Polii won the women's doubles gold medal at the Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea, partnered with Maheswari. En route to the gold medal, she and Maheswari beat 3rd seeds Kakiiwa and Maeda in the quarter-finals, 2nd seeds Tian Qing and Zhao Yunlei in the semi-finals, and 1st seeds Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahashi in the final. After finishing as quarter-finalists in the China Open, and semi-finalists in the Hong Kong Open, she and Maheswari played in the Dubai World Superseries Finals, but had to retire from the competition due to an injury suffered by Maheswari in the opening match against Kakiiwa and Maeda.
In 2015, Polii opened the season as a quarter-finalist in the Malaysia Masters partnered with Nitya Krishinda Maheswari. She and her partner were also eliminated in the quarter-finals of All England, Malaysia, and Australia Open. In May, she was part of the Indonesia team that won the bronze medal of Sudirman Cup in Dongguan, China. In June, she and Maheswari made it to the final of the Indonesia Open, but they were not able to win the title after losing to Tian Qing and Tang Jinhua in the final. Polii and Maheswari managed to retain their title in the Chinese Taipei Open after beating world number one Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahashi in the semi-finals, and the second seeded world number 3 Luo Ying and Luo Yu in the final.
In August, Polii and Maheswari won a bronze medal in the World Championships in Jakarta. A month later, they then captured their first Super Series title in the Korea Open. At several Super Series tournaments at the end of 2015, she finished as a semi-finalist in French, Hong Kong, and Dubai World Superseries Finals, and as a finalist in a Grand Prix Gold event, the Indonesian Masters. She and Maheswari ended the season as world number 3 in the BWF World rankings.
### 2016: World number 2, and Rio Olympics
In January, Polii and Nitya Krishinda Maheswari reached a career high as world number 2 in the women's doubles. She and Maheswari started the season in March, and finished as semi finalists in the German Open, losing in the final to Thai pair Puttita Supajirakul and Sapsiree Taerattanachai in a close rubber game. In April, the duo also reached the semi-finals in India and the Malaysia Open, and then they won their second Super Series title together in the Singapore Open without stepping on court, after their opponents Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahashi withdrew from the final match due to an injury suffered by Matsutomo in the semi-finals. Polii and Maheswasi won the bronze medal in Asian Championships held in Wuhan, losing in the semi-finals to Naoko Fukuman and Kurumi Yonao in a close rubber game by the score of 21–13, 19–21, 22–24. The match lasted two hours, 41 minutes, setting a record for the longest badminton match ever. In May, she alongside the Indonesian women's team competed in the Uber Cup in Kunshan, China, but the team lost in the quarter-finals to South Korea. In June, Polii and Maheswari finished as runners-up in the Australian Open, defeated by Bao Yixin and Chen Qingchen.
She made her second appearance at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this time with Maheswari. The duo won three matches in the group stage and advanced to the knocked-out stage. In the quarter-finals, they lost to Chinese pair Tang Yuanting and Yu Yang in straight games 11–21, 14–21. At the European tour in October, she and her partner reached the semi-finals in Denmark and quarter-finals in the French Open. The duo were qualified for the BWF Superseries Finals. However, they withdrew from the tournament due to Maheswari's scheduled knee surgery and their position was taken by Vivian Hoo and Woon Khe Wei.
### 2017: New partner, French Open and second Thailand Open title
Due to an injury suffered by Maheswari, Polii tried partnerships with Rosyita Eka Putri Sari and Rizki Amelia Pradipta. Together with Putri Sari, she reached the semi-finals in the Thailand Masters, losing to Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan, while with Pradipta, the duo lost in the second round of the European tour in the German, All England and Swiss Open. In May, Polii partnered with Apriyani Rahayu, and they competed as a new pair at the Sudirman Cup in Gold Coast, Australia. Even though they had only been paired for about a month, the duo won their first title in the Thailand Open after defeating the home pair Chayanit Chaladchalam and Phataimas Muenwong in straight games 21–12, 21–12 in the final. They also won the Superseries title at the French Open, just five months into their partnership. Other achievements by Polii and Rahayu in 2017 were runner-up in Hong Kong, semi-finalists in New Zealand, and quarter-finalists in Korea Open. Polii also helped the Indonesia women's team win the bronze medal at the SEA Games held in Kuala Lumpur, unfortunately, in the individual women's doubles event, she and Rahayu lost in the first round to eventual champion Jongkolphan Kititharakul and Rawinda Prajongjai of Thailand. The Polii and Rahayu partnership, first paired in May, reached a career high as world number 10 in the BWF World rankings in November.
### 2018: India Open and third Thailand Open title
In January, Polii and Apriyani Rahayu began the season by finishing as runners-up in the Indonesia Masters, losing to second seeded Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahashi in the final. A month later, the duo played as the third seeds in the India Open and won the title after beating the first-seeded Christinna Pedersen and Kamilla Rytter Juhl in the semi-finals, and the second-seeded Jongkolphan Kititharakul and Rawinda Prajongjai in the final. She featured in the Indonesian women's team that won bronze at the Asia Team Championships held in Alor Setar and were quarter-finalists in the Uber Cup in Bangkok. In July, she and her partner lost in the quarter-finals of the Indonesia Open to Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota, but a week later, she won her third Thailand Open title, as she and Rahayu defended the title they had won in Thailand the previous year, when the event was known as the Grand Prix. In August, the duo won the bronze medal at the World Championships in Nanjing, and further bronze medals at the Asian Games in the women's doubles and team events. In the remainder of the 2018 tour, she and Rahayu only reached the semi-finals in Japan, China, Denmark, French, Hong Kong, and quarter-finals in the Fuzhou China Open. The duo achieved their career high as world number 3 in the BWF rankings in September.
### 2019–2022: Second India Open, first SEA Games, home soil title and Olympic Games gold medal
Polii opened the 2019 season as a finalist in the Malaysia Masters with Apriyani Rahayu. In the semi-finals, they beat their arch-rivals Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahashi in a close rubber game, improving their head-to-head record against the Japanese pair to 2–8. A week later, they again lost to Matsutomo and Takahashi in the Indonesia Masters. They led 18–10 in the first game, but lost it 20–22, eventually losing the match in a close rubber game. In March, she and Rahayu lost in the quarter-finals of both the German and All England Open. Polii and Rahayu then clinched their second India Open title defeating Chow Mei Kuan and Lee Meng Yean in the final. In May, she alongside the Indonesia team finished as semi-finalists in the Sudirman Cup in Nanning, settling for the bronze medal. In June, she and Rahayu advanced to the semi-finals of the Australian Open after beating the first seeded, world number one Mayu Matsumoto and Wakana Nagahara in the quarter-finals, but the duo were beaten by Chinese pair Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan, the fifth defeat in seven meetings between them. At the World Championships in Basel, Switzerland, she and her partner won the bronze medal, after defeat in the semi-finals to eventual champions Matsumoto and Nagahara. After the World Championships, her coach, Eng Hian, evaluated that she and Rahayu had fallen short of their previous standard. In the end of 2019 season, their best results were only the semi-finalists in Chinese Taipei Open, after that, they often lost in the initial stage. She finally won her first women's doubles gold medal at the SEA Games, having made her debut at the Games 14 years ago. She and Rahayu defeated Chayanit Chaladchalam and Phataimas Muenwong of Thailand 21–3, 21–18.
In 2020, Polii and Apriyani Rahayu who ranked as world number eight started their tour in the Malaysia Masters. At that tournament, they finished as semi-finalists defeated by Chinese pair Li Wenmei and Zheng Yu in a rubber game. A week later in the Indonesia Masters, Polii won her first ever international title in Indonesia, after she and Rahayu triumphed in a thrilling match against Maiken Fruergaard and Sara Thygesen of Denmark. In February, she won her second title of the year by winning the Barcelona Spain Masters. In the final, she and Rahayu defeated Gabriela and Stefani Stoeva of Bulgaria in a rubber game. In March All England Open, she and her partner lost in the first round to Korean pair Chang Ye-na and Kim Hye-rin in straight games. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous tournaments on the 2020 BWF World Tour were either cancelled or rescheduled for later in the year. In June, Polii then took part at the PBSI home tournament partnered with Febby Valencia Dwijayanti Gani. The duo finished third at that tournament. Polii returned in the international competitions at the 2020 Asian Leg tournament in January 2021. Together with Rahayu, she won her first ever BWF Super 1000 tournament, the Yonex Thailand Open. She dedicated the title to her elder brother, Rickettsia, a father-figure to her ever since their father's death when she was a child, who died after Polii's wedding in December 2020. A week later in the semi-finals of the Toyota Thailand Open, Polii and Rahayu fell in two games to Lee So-hee and Shin Seung-chan of South Korea. The duo then played at the World Tour Finals, but was eliminated in the group stage.
In 2021, Polii scheduled to participating at the All England Open, but later Indonesia team were forced to withdraw from the competition by BWF after the team members will self-isolate for 10 days from the date of their inbound flight after an anonym person traveling onboard tested positive for COVID-19.
Polii qualified to compete in the women's doubles event at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics. She competed in her third straight Summer Olympics with debutant Apriyani Rahayu. In the final, they defeated the 2017 World Champions Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan in two straight games, 21–19, and 21–15. Polii and Rahayu became the first unseeded pair to win the gold medal in women's doubles. This was Indonesia's first Olympic Games gold in women's doubles. At 33 years and 356 days, Polii is the oldest female badminton player to win a gold medal at the Olympics. With this win, Indonesia became just the second country after China to have won gold medals in all five disciplines of badminton at the Summer Olympics. After her Olympic success, the Student Sports Training Center in Jakarta was named after Polii and fellow olympian Apriyani Rahayu.
In December 2021, Polii was elected as BWF Athletes' Commission, and has been appointed as the chair of the commission in February 2022. Polii officially announced her retirement from the international badminton tournament at the Istora Senayan on 12 June 2022.
## Awards and nominations
## Achievements
### Olympic Games
Women's doubles
### BWF World Championships
Women's doubles
### Asian Games
Women's doubles
### Asian Championships
Women's doubles
### SEA Games
Women's doubles
### IBF World Junior Championships
Girls' doubles
Mixed doubles
### Asian Junior Championships
Girls' doubles
### BWF World Tour (6 titles, 3 runners-up)
The BWF World Tour, which was announced on 19 March 2017 and implemented in 2018, is a series of elite badminton tournaments sanctioned by the Badminton World Federation (BWF). The BWF World Tour is divided into levels of World Tour Finals, Super 1000, Super 750, Super 500, Super 300 (part of the HSBC World Tour), and the BWF Tour Super 100.
Women's doubles
### BWF Superseries (3 titles, 6 runners-up)
The BWF Superseries, which was launched on 14 December 2006 and implemented in 2007, was a series of elite badminton tournaments, sanctioned by the Badminton World Federation (BWF). BWF Superseries levels were Superseries and Superseries Premier. A season of Superseries consisted of twelve tournaments around the world that had been introduced since 2011. Successful players were invited to the Superseries Finals, which were held at the end of each year.
Women's doubles
Mixed doubles
BWF Superseries Finals tournament
BWF Superseries Premier tournament
BWF Superseries tournament
### BWF Grand Prix (5 titles, 6 runners-up)
The BWF Grand Prix had two levels, the Grand Prix and Grand Prix Gold. It was a series of badminton tournaments sanctioned by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) and played between 2007 and 2017. The World Badminton Grand Prix was sanctioned by the International Badminton Federation from 1983 to 2006.
Women's doubles
BWF Grand Prix Gold tournament
BWF & IBF Grand Prix tournament
## Performance timeline
### National team
- Junior level
- Senior level
### Individual competitions
#### Junior level
In the junior international tournament, Polii won bronze medals in the girls' doubles at the 2004 World, 2005 Asian Junior Championships and also a silver medal in the mixed at the 2004 World Junior Championships.
Girls' doubles
Mixed doubles
#### Senior level
In the senior level tournament, Polii won gold medals in the 2014 Asian Games, 2019 SEA Games, and at the 2020 Summer Olympics. She also won 14 individual titles in the BWF tour equivalent events.
##### Women's doubles
##### Mixed doubles
## Record against selected opponents
Record against year-end Finals finalists, World Championships semi-finalists, and Olympic quarter-finalists.
### Nitya Krishinda Maheswari
### Meiliana Jauhari
### Apriyani Rahayu |
3,035,318 | '03 Bonnie & Clyde | 1,170,636,395 | 2002 song by American rapper Jay-Z | [
"2002 singles",
"Beyoncé songs",
"Jay-Z songs",
"Kanye West songs",
"Music videos directed by Chris Robinson (director)",
"Number-one singles in Switzerland",
"Roc-A-Fella Records singles",
"Song recordings produced by Kanye West",
"Songs about Bonnie and Clyde",
"Songs written by Jay-Z",
"Songs written by Kanye West",
"Songs written by Prince (musician)"
]
| "03 Bonnie & Clyde" is a song recorded by American rapper Jay-Z featuring his then-girlfriend, now wife, American singer Beyoncé. It was released on October 10, 2002. It was composed by Jay-Z, Kanye West, Prince, Tupac Shakur, Darryl Harper, Ricky Rouse and Tyrone Wrice for Jay-Z's seventh studio album The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse (2002). The song was released as the album's lead single on October 10, 2002. "03 Bonnie & Clyde" sampled its beat from American rapper Tupac Shakur's 1996 song "Me and My Girlfriend", paraphrasing its chorus, and was inspired by the crime film Bonnie and Clyde. The instrumentation is based on programmed drums, bass instruments, and a flamenco guitar.
"03 Bonnie & Clyde" was generally received with favorable reviews by music critics, who complimented the combination of Jay-Z's and Beyoncé's musical styles, their collaboration and the song's production. The single reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Jay-Z's second top ten single and Beyoncé's first as a solo artist. It charted at number one in Switzerland, number two in the United Kingdom and peaked in the top twenty in other European territories. "03 Bonnie & Clyde" was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA).
The accompanying music video was directed by Chris Robinson, and features Jay-Z and Beyoncé playing a modern-day version of the 1920s bank robbers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. It was nominated for Best Hip-Hop Video at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards. "03 Bonnie & Clyde" spawned a feud with American recording artist Toni Braxton, who had also sampled "Me and My Girlfriend" in her 2002 song "Me & My Boyfriend". She accused West and Jay-Z of stealing the idea of using the song as a sample, which was later denied by both of them. "03 Bonnie & Clyde" was performed by Jay-Z and Beyoncé on several television shows and was later included on the set list of their concert performances and tours, most notably on their co-headlining On the Run and On the Run II tours.
## Production and release
"03 Bonnie & Clyde" marked the first collaboration between rapper Jay-Z and R&B singer Beyoncé Knowles. While listening to Shakur's The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory, producer Kanye West suggested that American rapper Tupac Shakur's song "Me and My Girlfriend" would make a good sample to use on Jay-Z's duet with Knowles. West told MTV News that Jay-Z had asked him on the telephone for a duet for him and Knowles: "We got this joint, it has to be the best beat you ever made." He continued:
> So I went home and called my dog, E Base, who plays a lot of instruments up at Baseline [studio] for me and [producer] Just Blaze. [E] came through. I programmed the drums in 10 minutes, and then he played all the different parts. This version is all live bass, live guitars, [live] chords on it. I brought it to Hov that night, he heard it, he thought of the video treatment before he thought of the rap. He just knew it was gonna be the one.
Tensions arose during the conception of "03 Bonnie & Clyde" over the sampling of "Me and My Girlfriend". Senior Vice President of A&R Tina Davis commented on the issue, "We only had one day to clear the [Tupac Shakur] sample [from 'Me and my Girlfriend'] that was used on "03 Bonnie and Clyde" last year with Jay-Z and Knowles [Beyoncé]. We were back and forth with Afeni Shakur all day until we got the clearance. And then it's a hit."
"03 Bonnie & Clyde" was released on October 10, 2002, as the lead single from Jay-Z's album The Blueprint 2: The Gift & the Curse. Knowles later included the song as a bonus track on international editions of her 2003 debut solo album Dangerously in Love. In 2003, Now That's What I Call Music! included "03 Bonnie & Clyde" as the opening track of the 12th volume of the US release and the fifteenth track of the 54th volume of the UK release. The song's release was the first indication of Jay-Z's and Knowles' romantic status, spawning rumors about a burgeoning relationship. Their relationship was not made public until Jay-Z featured on Knowles' songs "Crazy In Love" (2003) and "Déjà Vu" (2006). The former's release also marked the debut of the solo career of Knowles, leaving Destiny's Child on hiatus.
## Composition
"03 Bonnie & Clyde" features drums and live instrumentation such as bass instruments and guitar chords. It also consists of a beat sampled from "Me and My Girlfriend". The song was inspired by the 1967 American crime film Bonnie and Clyde as Jay-Z and Beyoncé proclaim themselves as the current version of the criminal duo. Ethan Brown of New York magazine noted that its patina of flamenco guitar was reminiscent of that in Jay-Z's 2001 collaboration with R. Kelly on "Fiesta." Beyoncé mimics the hook of "Me and My Girlfriend" on the chorus as she sings, "Down to ride to the very end, me and my boyfriend".
Some lyrics sung by Beyoncé were sampled from "If I Was Your Girlfriend" by American recording artist Prince. On the second verse, Jay-Z references the relationship between Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston, and the American television comedy-drama series Sex and the City as he raps: "She riiides wit' me / The new Bobby and Whitney / Only time we don't speak is during 'Sex and the City' / Put us together, how they gon' stop both of us? / When I'm off track, Mommy is keeping me focused". The verse then continues: "Let's lock this down like it's supposed to be/ The new '03 Bonnie and Clyde, Hov and B".
## Critical reception
"03 Bonnie & Clyde" was received favorably by critics, who commended the use of different samples, and commented on the relationship between Jay-Z and Beyoncé. Chris Ryan of Spin magazine described "03 Bonnie & Clyde" as a highlight on The Blueprint 2: The Gift & the Curse, stating that it consists of "a house party in a crib as big as the Georgia Dome." John Bush from AllMusic included the song as a highlight on the album, further describing it as "a slick R&B crossover with Beyoncé Knowles". Marc L. Hill of PopMatters viewed it as the "obligatory radio song" of the album. Awarding the song a rating of eight out of ten possible points, Dele Fadele of NME complimented it as "a cool duet" between Jay-Z and Beyoncé. John Robinson of the same publication wrote that as the couple describe their life, it is not all "Lexus and sipping Cris". He added, "A similarly relaxed production makes for a behind-the-diamante-net-curtains classic".
Ethan Brown of New York magazine named "03 Bonnie & Clyde" as a follow-up to the previous "Bonnie & Clyde Part II" by Jay-Z featuring rapper Foxy Brown. Erik Parker, music editor of Vibe magazine, was divided on the song's sample, writing that it was "tasteless but well-executed", and complimented West's production as "impeccable". Margena A. Christian of Jet magazine praised Jay-Z's and Beyoncé's collaboration, favoring the former's "dropping lyrics" and the latter's "cooing silky vocals". Chuck Taylor of Billboard magazine wrote that though it was unclear at the time whether the couple were together or not, but they created good music together. Taylor praised the song's ability to showcase what each artist does best: Jay-Z "spitting" verses of praise, and Beyoncé's sweets coos and hooks. Taylor noted that the sampled acoustic guitar "added spice to the track, setting it up for future success". In a more negative review, Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club described the song as "terrible" and different from the other songs on The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse.
Rap-Up credited "03 Bonnie & Clyde" for giving Beyoncé a "little street-credit". The staff members of Vibe magazine placed the song at number two on a list of the best Bonnie and Clyde inspired songs. On a list of the 10 Best Jay-Z Songs, Dean Silfenv of AOL placed "03 Bonnie & Clyde" at number six. Popjustice listed "03 Bonnie & Clyde" at number 66 on its list of the best singles of 2003. It was nominated for the Best Collaboration at the 2003 BET Awards, but lost to Snoop Dogg's song "Beautiful". In a 2013 list of Jay-Z's 20 Biggest Billboard Hits, "03 Bonnie & Clyde" was ranked at number 6. Elijah Watson and Erika Ramirez of Billboard magazine noted that the song proved the couple was "unstoppable from jump".
## Chart performance
"03 Bonnie & Clyde" reached the top ten on music charts in six European countries. It peaked at number six on the Norway Singles Chart and on the Danish Singles Chart, number eight on the Italian Singles Chart, and topped the Swiss Singles Charts. In Canada, the song peaked at number four and became Jay-Z's highest-charting single until it was surpassed by his 2009 Alicia Keys-assisted song "Empire State of Mind", which peaked at number three. In the United Kingdom, "03 Bonnie & Clyde" peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart. At the time, it became his highest-charting single in Britain since "Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)" achieved the same feat in November 1998. It peaked at number four on the New Zealand Singles Chart, becoming his highest-charting single in that territory. The song also became Jay-Z's highest-charting single in Australia, where it peaked at number two. "03 Bonnie & Clyde" was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), denoting shipment of 70,000 copies.
"03 Bonnie & Clyde" broke into the top five of the Billboard Hot 100 at number four; it became the highest-charting single that references the famous bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde. The record was previously held by Georgie Fame's 1967 single "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde." Following the performance of "03 Bonnie & Clyde" on Saturday Night Live (SNL) on November 2, 2002, its radio audience increased by 12%, allowing the song to advance into the top ten of the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, at number seven. This gave Jay-Z his 12th top 10 single, tying him with rapper P. Diddy, who had the same number of top 10 singles on that chart. "03 Bonnie & Clyde" was his first top 10 since his 2001 single "Girls, Girls, Girls". It was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting sales of 500,000 copies.The song sold over 1 million copies in US.
## Music video
Chris Robinson directed the song's accompanying music video and filmed in Mexico, during October 2002. June Ambrose was hired as the personal stylist, and Johnathon Schaech and Lance Reddick appear in the video as the police officers on their tail. Jay-Z and Beyoncé play a modern-day version of the 1930s bank robbers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. The video is loosely based on the American 1993 romance crime film True Romance, which stars Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette as two lovers on the run from cocaine dealers. The choreography used in the clip suggests a relationship beyond screen, as Jay-Z wraps his arm around Beyoncé while singing his part of the chorus. The video also marked a departure for the "clean-cut Beyoncé" and created a symbiotic relationship between her and Jay-Z, allowing them to exchange audiences. The video was premiered on MTV on November 8, 2002.
The music video begins as police officers and Reddick discuss the criminal duo and ways to catch them. As the song begins, Jay-Z is seen driving a gunmetal grey Aston Martin Vanquish while Beyoncé sits in the passenger seat. As they drive through the sepia sands of Mexico, clips of the police from the beginning of the video are cut into the scene. As Jay-Z and Beyoncé pull over to a hotel, they cover the car to avoid notice from the police. As Beyoncé and Jay-Z count money in the bedroom, the police discover their hiding place and go upstairs only to find that the two have fled the scene in their car. Scenes of Beyoncé and Jay-Z at a Mexican bar are inter-cut with scenes of an intimate time in a phone-booth; behind the phone booth, spray-painted onto a wall is a tribute to Tupac Shakur. The duo again elude the police who are following one step behind. After Beyoncé performs her verse in an empty pool, the police form a blockade on the highway in an attempt to catch her and Jay-Z, only to be stumped again as two gas station attendant decoys are found driving the car. The video ends as Beyoncé and Jay-Z light a bonfire on the beach and drive away in a different car.
Corey Moss of MTV News noted that the end of the video does not reveal how the "real" Bonnie and Clyde met their end. The story continues in the 2004 video for Jay-Z's song "99 Problems". The music video for "03 Bonnie & Clyde" was nominated for Best Hip-Hop Video at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards. In the official top 20 countdown of Jay-Z music videos, MTV UK listed the clip at number 10.
## Controversy
On October 8, 2002, Toni Braxton and her team released a statement claiming that Jay-Z's song "03 Bonnie & Clyde" had stolen Braxton's idea to sample the 1996 Tupac Shakur song "Me and My Girlfriend". Braxton sampled Shakur's song on the track "Me & My Boyfriend", included on Braxton's album, More Than a Woman (2002). In a call to a New York radio station, hosted by Wendy Williams, Braxton stated that "Jay-Z and Beyoncé are messing with my money. They're trying to steal my mojo". Braxton said her song was recorded over the summer of 2002, and alleged that Jay-Z only decided to do "03 Bonnie & Clyde" after she played her version of the song for Def Jam Recordings.
Kanye West responded to Braxton's claim in an interview for MTV News, "I had no idea about Toni Braxton's [song]. She can't act like ain't nobody ever heard 'Me and My Girlfriend' before. People hear the song all the time. I can [understand her complaint] if it [was] an original song." West defended the song's sample, stating that the idea came to him after listening to a friend's Makaveli album one night. Roc-A-Fella Records' Co-CEO Damon Dash responded to Braxton's claims:
> Jay is a talented dude. I don't think he would steal anything intentionally. It's an ill coincidence, and things happen for a reason. We'll see what happens behind it... I read it in the paper, and Jay and I were talking about it this morning and it was a little funny. I know he didn't intentionally make the same record she made. I don't think he even heard it. [My] reaction is, 'Sorry, it wasn't intentional.' Jay makes records and puts them out. This [sh--] is music. It's just music. We don't sit around and have a blueprint to [f---] anybody's life up. The music business has been good to us. I'm not getting into any beef or nothing over music.
Speaking for MTV News, Jay-Z responded to Braxton's claims: "I wouldn't want to take it from her. I don't even think like that. My first thought would be, 'Maybe I could call her up, maybe I could get on that record.' The most obvious [explanation] is it's neither one of our records. It's not like you made an original idea. She's not in hip-hop, but it happens in hip-hop often. We go to sample the same thing and my record came out first. I'm sorry. What can I do?" He went on saying that if he had known they were both planning to sample the same Tupac song, he would have arranged a duet with her.
## Live performances
On November 2, 2002, Jay-Z and Beyoncé performed the song together at Saturday Night Live (SNL). Later, on November 21, 2002, they appeared on MTV's TRL for Spankin' New Music Week where they also performed the song. In 2009, Beyoncé performed an abbreviated version of "03 Bonnie & Clyde" during her I Am... Yours revue, held at the Encore Las Vegas Theatre in July and August. The song was later included on the 2009 live album I Am... Yours: An Intimate Performance at Wynn Las Vegas which was chronicling the revue. In August 2011, Beyoncé performed "03 Bonnie & Clyde" again during her revue 4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé and included the song on the DVD Live at Roseland: Elements of 4 released in November 2011. During the concerts, Beyoncé announced the song by saying, "It's 2002... I started to feel a little lonely till one day...". "03 Bonnie & Clyde" was included on Jay-Z's live album Live in Brooklyn released on October 11, 2012, after he performed the song during eight shows in Brooklyn. In 2013, Jay-Z included the song on the set list of his Legends of the Summer Stadium Tour.
"03 Bonnie & Clyde" was part of the set list of Beyoncé and Jay-Z's co-headlining On the Run Tour (2014) where the shows were opened with the performance of the song. A black-and-white video was shown on the screen accompanied by sirens as the duo appeared onstage surrounded by smoke. They started performing the song with Beyoncé wearing a see-through fishnet mask and Jay-Z wearing black sunglasses, a star-speckled shirt, black jacket and gold chains. The song was in line with the show's overall criminalistic theme. d /54
## Formats and track listings
- Digital EP
1. "03 Bonnie & Clyde" (Radio Edit, Hey Arnold!: The Movie Version) – 3:27
2. "03 Bonnie & Clyde" (Explicit) – 3:26
3. "U Don't Know" (Remix) (Jay-Z & M.O.P.) – 4:28
- CD single
1. "03 Bonnie & Clyde" (Radio Edit) – 3:28
2. "U Don't Know" (Remix) – 4:27
3. "03 Bonnie & Clyde" (Instrumental) – 3:27
## Credits and personnel
Adapted from The Blueprint 2: The Gift & the Curse's liner notes.
- E-Base – bass, guitar, instrumentation, Keyboards
- Shawn Carter – vocals (rap), composer
- Jason Goldstein – mixing
- D. Harper – composer
- Gimel "Young Guru" Katon – engineer, mixing
- Beyoncé Knowles – vocals
- Prince Nelson – additional writing from sample
- R. Rouse – composer
- Tupac Shakur – additional writing from sample
- Kanye West – composer, producer
- Shane "Bermy" Woodley – engineer
- Tyrone Wrice – composer
## Charts and certifications
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
### Certifications
## See also
- "'97 Bonnie & Clyde," 1998 song by Eminem |
6,225,891 | Arab–Khazar wars | 1,173,433,211 | Series of wars between the Arabs and Khazars over control of the Caucasus | [
"7th-century conflicts",
"8th-century conflicts",
"Arab–Khazar wars",
"Medieval history of the Caucasus"
]
| The Arab–Khazar wars were a series of conflicts fought between the armies of the Khazar Khaganate and the Rashidun, Umayyad, and Abbasid caliphates and their respective vassals. Historians usually distinguish two major periods of conflict, the First Arab–Khazar War (c. 642–652) and Second Arab–Khazar War (c. 722–737); the wars also involved sporadic raids and isolated clashes from the mid-seventh century to the end of the eighth century.
The wars were a result of attempts by the nascent Caliphate to secure control of the South Caucasus (Transcaucasia) and North Caucasus, where the Khazars were already established since the late 6th century. The first Arab invasion began in 642 with the capture of Derbent and continued with a series of minor raids, ending with the defeat of a large Arab force led by Abd al-Rahman ibn Rabi'a outside the Khazar town of Balanjar in 652. Large-scale hostilities then ceased, apart from raids by the Khazars and the North Caucasian Huns on the autonomous Transcaucasian principalities during the 660s and 680s. The conflict between the Khazars and the Arabs (now under the Umayyad Caliphate) resumed after 707 with occasional raids back and forth across the Caucasus Mountains, intensifying after 721 into a full-scale war. Led by distinguished generals al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah and Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik, the Arabs recaptured Derbent and the southern Khazar capital of Balanjar; these successes had little impact on the nomadic Khazars, however, who continued to launch devastating raids deep into Transcaucasia. In a major 730 invasion, the Khazars decisively defeated Umayyad forces at the Battle of Ardabil (killing al-Jarrah); in turn, they were defeated the following year and pushed back north. Maslama then recovered Derbent, which became a major Arab military outpost and colony, before he was replaced by Marwan ibn Muhammad (the future caliph Marwan II) in 732. A period of relatively-localized warfare followed until 737, when Marwan led a massive expedition north to the Khazar capital Atil on the Volga. After securing submission by the khagan, the Arabs withdrew.
The 737 campaign marked the end of large-scale warfare between the two powers, establishing Derbent as the northernmost Muslim outpost and securing Muslim dominance of Transcaucasia, but leaving the North Caucasus in Khazar hands. At the same time, continuing warfare weakened the Umayyad army and contributed to the fall of the Umayyad dynasty in 750, as a result of the Abbasid Revolution. Relations between the Muslims of the Caucasus and the Khazars remained largely peaceful thereafter and the Caucasus became an avenue of trade linking the Middle East to Eastern Europe; peace was interrupted by two Khazar raids in the 760s and in 799 resulting from failed efforts to secure an alliance through marriage between the Arab governors (or local princes) of the Caucasus and the Khazar khagan. Occasional small-scale warfare continued in the region between the Khazars and the Muslim principalities of the Caucasus until the collapse of the Khazar state in the late 10th century, but the great eighth-century wars were never repeated.
## Background and motives
### The Caucasus as a frontier of civilizations
The Arab–Khazar wars were part of a long series of military conflicts between the nomadic peoples of the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the more settled regions south of the Caucasus. The two primary routes over the mountains, the Darial Pass (Alan Gates) in the centre and the Pass of Derbent (Caspian Gates) in the east along the Caspian Sea, have been used as invasion routes since classical antiquity. Consequently, defence of the Caucasus frontier against destructive raids by steppe peoples such as the Scythians and the Huns came to be regarded as one of the chief duties of imperial regimes of the Near East. This is reflected in the popular belief in Middle Eastern cultures that Alexander the Great had barred the Caucasus with divine assistance against the hordes of Gog and Magog. According to historian Gerald Mako, the latter were stereotypical "northern barbarians" as conceived by the settled civilizations of Eurasia: "uncivilized savages who drank blood, who ate children, and whose greed and bestiality knew no limits"; if Alexander's barrier failed and Gog and Magog broke through, the Apocalypse would follow.
Starting with Peroz I (r. 457–484), the shahs of the Sasanian Empire built a line of stone fortifications to protect the vulnerable frontier on the Caspian shore; when completed under Khosrow I (r. 531–579), this stretched over 45 kilometres (28 mi) from the eastern foothills of the Caucasus to the Caspian Sea. The fortress of Derbent was the strategically crucial centre point of this fortification complex, as seen in its Persian name Dar-band, lit. 'Knot of the Gates'. The Turkic Khazars appeared in the area of present-day Dagestan in the second half of the sixth century, initially as subjects of the First Turkic Khaganate; after the latter's collapse, they emerged as an independent, dominant power in the northern Caucasus by the seventh century. As the most recent steppe power in the region, early medieval writers came to identify the Khazars with Gog and Magog and the Sasanian fortifications at Derbent as Alexander's wall.
The Khazars first campaigned in Transcaucasia during the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 as subjects of the Western Turkic Khaganate, who allied with the Byzantines in the Third Perso-Turkic War. The Turks sacked Derbent in 627, broke through the local Sasanian defences, and joined the Byzantines in their siege of Tiflis. 40,000 Khazars or Turks joined the Byzantine emperor Heraclius (r. 602–641) in his 628 invasion of Persia proper, which proved decisive, ending the war in a Byzantine victory. For several years afterwards, as Sasanian power collapsed, the Khazars or Western Turks exercised some control over Caucasian Iberia (approximately present-day Georgia), Caucasian Albania (the modern Republic of Azerbaijan) and Adharbayjan (modern Iranian Azerbaijan); Armenia, the western half of Transcaucasia, was in Byzantine hands. However, after the death of the Khazar or Western Turkic ruler in an internal conflict c. 630 – c. 632, Khazar activity in eastern Transcaucasia ceased. Tong Yabghu, the Western Turkic khagan, was assassinated by a rival faction around 630; the extension of Turkic-Khazar control into Transcaucasia was abandoned, and the region returned to Sasanian influence by 632.
### Opposing armies
The eastern Caucasus became the main theatre of the Arab–Khazar conflict, with the Arab armies aiming to gain control of Derbent (Arabic Bab al-Abwab, 'Gate of Gates') and the Khazar cities of Balanjar and Samandar. Their locations have yet to be established with certainty by modern researchers, but both cities are referred to as Khazar capitals by Arab writers and may have been winter and summer capitals, respectively. Due to Arab attacks, the Khazars later moved their capital further north to Atil (Arabic al-Bayda) in the Volga Delta.
#### Arabs
Like other Near Eastern peoples, the Arabs were familiar with the legend of Gog and Magog, who appear in the Quran (Yaʾjuj wa-Maʾjuj). After the early Muslim conquests, their perceptions incorporated many of the cultural concepts of their new subjects. The nascent Muslim caliphate regarded itself as heir to the Sasanian—and, to a lesser extent, Byzantine—tradition and worldview. The Arab caliphs also adopted the notion that, according to Mako, it was their duty "to protect the settled, i.e. the civilized world from the northern barbarian". This imperative was reinforced by the Muslim division of the world into the House of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the House of War (Dar al-Harb), to which pagan Turkic steppe peoples such as the Khazars were consigned.
While their Byzantine and Sasanian predecessors simply sought to contain the steppe peoples through fortifications and political alliances, historian David Wasserstein writes that the Arabs were "expansionists interested in conquest"; their northward thrust threatened the survival of the Khazars as an independent polity. Historian Khalid Yahya Blankinship agrees, emphasizing that "the early Muslim caliphate was an ideological state" dedicated to the doctrine of jihad, "the struggle to establish God's rule in the earth through a continuous military effort against the non-Muslims". The early Muslim state was geared toward expansion, with all able-bodied adult male Muslims subject to conscription. Its manpower pool was accordingly enormous, with historian Hugh N. Kennedy estimating that 250,000 to 300,000 men were inscribed as soldiers (muqatila) in the provincial army registers c. 700.
Arab armies of the early Muslim conquests contained sizeable contingents of light and heavy cavalry, but relied primarily on their infantry; Arab cavalry was often limited to skirmishing early in a battle before dismounting and fighting on foot. The Arab armies resisted cavalry charges by digging trenches and forming a spear wall behind them. This tactic indicates the discipline of the Arab armies, particularly the elite Syrian troops which were a de facto professional, standing army. According to Kennedy, against nomadic peoples such as the Khazars, the Arabs' high degree of training and discipline "gave them the advantage over their enthusiastic but disorganised enemies".
In the 8th century, Arab armies were often accompanied by local forces provided by the various local potentates, who not only were under Arab suzerainty, but often enough had suffered themselves by Khazar raids. Thus in 732 the presiding prince of Armenia, Ashot III Bagratuni, is known to have renewed an agreement for the employment of Armenian cavalry with the Arab army for three years, in exchange for 100,000 silver dirhams per year.
#### Khazars
The Khazars followed a strategy common to their nomadic predecessors; their raids might reach deep into Transcaucasia Mesopotamia and Anatolia but they were, according to historian Peter B. Golden, not aimed at conquest. Rather, Golden writes, they were "typical of nomads testing the defenses of their sedentary neighbors" and a means of gathering booty, the acquisition and distribution of which was fundamental to tribal coalitions. According to Golden, for the Khazars the strategic stake of the conflict was control of the Caucasus passes. Albania was probably regarded by the Khazars as rightfully theirs, a legacy of the last Byzantine–Sasanian war. According to historian Bori Zhivkov, "It is no surprise that they fought fiercely with the Arabs precisely for these lands up to the 730s".
The sources do not provide details of the composition or tactics of Khazar armies, and the names of Khazar commanders are rarely recorded. Although the Khazars adopted elements of the civilizations to their south and possessed towns, they remained a tribal, semi-nomadic power. Like other steppe societies originating in Central Asia, they practised a mobile form of warfare and relied on skilled, hardy cavalry. The rapid movements and sudden attacks and counterattacks of the Khazar cavalry are emphasized in the sources; in the few detailed descriptions of pitched battles, the Khazar cavalry launched the opening attacks. Heavy (cataphract) cavalry is not recorded, but archaeological evidence attests to the use of heavy armour for riders and (possibly) horses. The presence of Khazar infantry must be assumed (especially during siege operations), although it is not explicitly mentioned. Modern historians point to the use of advanced siege machines to indicate that Khazar military sophistication was equal to that of other contemporary armies. The less-rigidly-organized, semi-nomadic nature of the Khazar state also worked to their advantage against the Arabs; they lacked a permanent administrative centre, whose loss would paralyze the government and force them to surrender.
The Khazar army was composed of Khazar troops and those of vassal princes and allies. Its overall size is unclear, and references to 300,000 men in the invasion of 730 are clearly exaggerated. Historian Igor Semyonov observes that the Khazars "never entered into battle without having a numerical advantage" over their Arab opponents, which often forced the latter to withdraw. According to Semyonov, this attests to the Khazars' skill in logistics and their ability to gather accurate information about their opponents' movements, the layout of the country, and the condition of roads.
### Connection with the Arab–Byzantine conflict
To an extent, the Arab–Khazar wars were also linked to the long-lasting struggle of the Caliphate against the Byzantine Empire along the eastern fringes of Anatolia (a theatre of war which adjoined the Caucasus). The Byzantine emperors pursued close relations with the Khazars which amounted to an alliance for most of the period in question, including the marriage of emperor Justinian II (r. 685–695, 705–711) to a Khazar princess in 705. The possibility of the Khazars linking with the Byzantines through Armenia was a grave threat to the Caliphate, especially given its proximity to the Umayyad Caliphate's metropolitan province of Syria. This did not materialize; Armenia was left largely quiet, with the Umayyads granting it wide-ranging autonomy and the Byzantines refraining from actively campaigning there. Given the common threat of the Khazar raids, the Umayyads found the Armenians (and the neighbouring Georgians) willing allies against the Khazars.
The 20th-century Byzantinist Dimitri Obolensky suggested that the Arab expansion against the Khazars was motivated by a desire to outflank the Byzantine defences from the north and envelop the Byzantine Empire in a pincer movement, but this idea is rejected as far-fetched by more recent scholars. As Wasserstein says, Obolensky's proposition is a scheme of extraordinary ambition which "requires us to accept that Byzantium had succeeded already at this primary stage in persuading the Muslims that it could not be conquered" and the Muslims possessed "a far greater knowledge and understanding of the geography of Europe" than can be demonstrated for the time in question. Mako agrees that such a grand strategic plan is not borne out by the rather limited nature of the Arab–Khazar conflict until the 720s. It is more likely that the northward expansion of the Arabs beyond the Caucasus was, at least initially, the result of the onward momentum of the early Muslim conquests. Local Arab commanders of the period often exploited opportunities haphazardly and without an overall plan, sometimes pursuing expansion even against direct caliphal orders. From a strategic perspective, it is more probable that the Byzantines encouraged the Khazars to attack the Caliphate to relieve mounting pressure on their eastern frontier in the early eighth century. Byzantium profited from the diversion of Muslim armies northwards during the 720s and 730s, and the Byzantine–Khazar entente resulted in another marriage alliance between future emperor Constantine V (r. 741–775) and Khazar princess Tzitzak in 733. Gaining control of the northern branch of the Silk Road by the Caliphate has been suggested as a further motive for the conflict. Mako disputes this claim, pointing out that warfare declined precisely at the time of greatest Silk Road expansion, after the mid-eighth century.
## First war and aftermath
### First Arab invasions
The Khazars and the Arabs came into conflict as a result of the first phase of Muslim expansion; by 640, following their conquest of Byzantine Syria and Upper Mesopotamia, the Arabs had reached Armenia. Arabic and Armenian sources differ considerably on the details and chronology of the Arab conquest of Armenia. In 652, apparently, the Armenian princes submitted to the Arabs; by 655, the Byzantine and Persian halves of Armenia had been subjugated. Arab rule was overthrown during the First Muslim Civil War (656–661), but after its end the Armenian princes returned to their tributary status in the newly established Umayyad Caliphate. The Principality of Iberia concluded a similar treaty with the Arabs, and only Lazica (on the Black Sea coast) remained under Byzantine influence. Neighbouring Adharbayjan was conquered in 639–643; raids were launched into Arran (Caucasian Albania) under Salman ibn Rabi'a and Habib ibn Maslama during the early 640s, leading to the submission of its cities. As in Armenia, firm Arab rule was not established there until after the First Muslim Civil War.
According to Arab chroniclers, the first attack on Derbent was launched in 642 under Suraqa ibn Amr; Abd al-Rahman ibn Rabi'a commanded his vanguard. Al-Tabari's History of the Prophets and Kings reports that Shahrbaraz, the Persian governor of Derbent, offered to surrender the fortress to the Arabs and aid them against the unruly Caucasian peoples if he and his followers were relieved of the jizya tax. Shahrbaraz' proposal was accepted and ratified by Caliph Umar (r. 634–644). Al-Tabari reports that the first Arab advance into Khazar lands occurred after the capture of Derbent. Abd al-Rahman ibn Rabi'a reached Balanjar with no losses, and his cavalry advanced up to 200 parasangs—about 800 kilometres (500 mi)—north as far as al-Bayda on the Volga, the future Khazar capital. This dating, and the improbable claim that the Arabs suffered no casualties, have been disputed by modern scholars. Based at Derbent, Abd al-Rahman launched frequent small-scale raids against the Khazars and local tribes over the following years; nothing of note, however, is recorded in the sources.
Disregarding the caliph's instructions for caution and restraint, Abd al-Rahman or (according to Baladhuri and Ya'qubi) his brother Salman led a large army north in 652, aiming to take Balanjar. The town was besieged for several days, with both sides using catapults, until the arrival of a Khazar relief force and a sortie by the besieged forces ended in a decisive defeat for the Arabs. Abd al-Rahman and 4,000 Muslim troops were left dead on the field, and the rest fled to Derbent or Gilan in northern present-day Iran.
### Khazar and Hunnic raids into Transcaucasia
Due to the First Muslim Civil War and priorities on other fronts, the Arabs did not again attack the Khazars until the early eighth century. Despite the re-establishment of Arab suzerainty after the end of the civil war, the tributary Transcaucasian principalities were not yet firmly under Arab rule and their resistance (encouraged by Byzantium) could not be overcome. For several decades after the initial Arab conquest, considerable autonomy was left to local rulers; Arab governors worked with them, and they had small forces of their own. The Khazars refrained from large-scale interventions in the south; pleas for assistance by Yazdegerd III (r. 632–651), the last Sasanian shah, were unanswered. After the Arab attacks, the Khazars abandoned Balanjar and moved their capital further north in an attempt to evade the Arab armies. However, Khazar auxiliaries and Abkhazian and Alan troops are recorded as fighting alongside the Byzantines in 655.
The only recorded hostilities in the second half of the century were a few Khazar raids into the Transcaucasian principalities which were loosely under Muslim dominion, primarily in search of plunder. In a raid into Albania in 661–62, they were defeated by the local prince. A large-scale raid across Transcaucasia in 683 or 685 (also a time of civil war in the Muslim world) was more successful, capturing much booty and many prisoners and killing the presiding princes of Iberia (Adarnase II) and Armenia (Grigor I Mamikonian). At the same time, the North Caucasian Huns also launched attacks on Albania in 664 and 680. In the first incursion, Prince Juansher was obliged to marry the daughter of the Hunnic king. Modern scholars debate whether the Huns acted independently or as Khazar proxies, but several historians consider Hunnic ruler Alp Iluetuer a Khazar vassal; if so, Albania was under a form of indirect Khazar rule during the 680s. The Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680) tried to counter Khazar influence by inviting Juansher to Damascus twice, and the 683/685 Khazar raid may have been a reaction to those invitations. According to the historian Thomas S. Noonan, on the other hand, the "cautious nature of Khazar policy in the Southern Caucasus" made them avoid direct confrontation with the Umayyads and intervene only during times of civil war. Noonan writes that this caution was because the Khazars were themselves preoccupied with consolidating their rule of the Pontic–Caspian steppe, and were satisfied with the "limited goal of bringing Albania into the Khazar sphere of influence".
## Second war
Relations between the two powers remained relatively quiet until the early eighth century, when the stage for a new and more intense round of conflict was set. At the turn of the century, Byzantine political authority was marginalized in the Caucasus: the civil war in the Caliphate ended in 693, and the Umayyads were able to inflict significant defeats on the Byzantines, who descended into a long period of turmoil. The Arabs began a sustained offensive against Byzantium that would eventually culminate in the great assault on the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, in 717–718. In the same period, the Caliphate tightened its grip on the Christian principalities of Transacaucasia. After the suppression of a large-scale Armenian rebellion in 705, Armenia, Iberia and Albania finally came under direct Arab rule as the province of Arminiya. Only western Transcaucasia (present-day Georgia) remained free from direct control by either of the two rival powers, who now confronted each other for control of the Caucasus.
The first Arab advance came as early a 692/93, with an expedition to secure the pass of Derbent; but the Arab forces were soon forced to withdraw. The conflict resumed in 707, with a campaign by Umayyad general Maslama, a son of Caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705), in Adharbayjan and up to Derbent. Further attacks on Derbent are reported by different sources in 708 by Muhammad ibn Marwan, and the following year by Maslama, but the most likely date for Derbent's recovery by the Arabs is Maslama's 713/14 expedition.
The eighth-century Armenian historian Łewond reports that Derbent was in the hands of the Huns at that time; the 16th-century chronicle Derbent-nameh says that it was defended by 3,000 Khazars, and Maslama captured it only after a resident showed him a secret underground passage. Łewond also says that the Arabs, realizing that they could not hold the fortress, razed its walls. Maslama then drove deeper into Khazar territory, trying to subdue the North Caucasian Huns (who were Khazar vassals). The Khazar khagan confronted the Arabs at the city of Tarku but, apart from a series of single combats by champions, the two armies did not engage for several days. The imminent arrival of Khazar reinforcements under the general Alp' forced Maslama to quickly abandon his campaign and retreat to Iberia, leaving his camp with all its equipment behind as a ruse. At about the same time, 80,000 Khazars are reported to have raided Albania.
In response, in 709 or c. 715, the Khazars invaded and raided Albania with an army claimed to be 80,000 strong. In 717, the Khazars raided Adharbayjan in force. With the bulk of the Umayyad army occupied at the siege of Constantinople, Caliph Umar II (r. 717–720) reportedly could only spare 4,000 men to confront 20,000 invaders. The Arab commander Hatim ibn al-Nu'man nevertheless defeated and drove back the Khazars. Hatim returned to the caliph with fifty Khazar prisoners, the first such event recorded in the sources.
### Escalation of the conflict
In 721/22, the main phase of the war began. Thirty thousand Khazars invaded Armenia that winter, and decisively defeated the mostly-Syrian army of local governor Ma'laq ibn Saffar al-Bahrani at Marj al-Hijara (Rocky Meadow) in February and March 722.
Caliph Yazid II (r. 720–724) sent al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah, one of his most celebrated generals, north with 25,000 Syrian troops in response. The Khazars retreated to the area of Derbent (whose Muslim garrison was still holding out) at the news of his approach. Learning that the local Lezgin chief was in contact with the Khazars, al-Jarrah set up camp on the river Rubas and announced that the army would remain there for several days. Instead, he arrived at Derbent in a night march and entered it without resistance. From there, al-Jarrah launched raiding columns into Khazar territory ahead of the bulk of his army. His army met a Khazar army at the river al-Ran, one day's march north of Derbent, after joining the columns. According to the Derbent-nameh, al-Jarrah had 10,000 men (of whom 4,000 were vassal princes); al-Tabari cites the Arab strength as 25,000. The Khazars, commanded by Barjik (one of the Khazar khagan's sons), reportedly numbered 40,000. The Arabs were victorious, losing 4,000 men to the Khazars' 7,000. Advancing north, the Arab army captured the settlements of Khamzin and Targhu and resettled their inhabitants elsewhere.
Finally, the Arab army reached Balanjar. The city had had strong fortifications during the first Muslim attacks in the mid-seventh century, but apparently they had been neglected; the Khazars defended their capital by surrounding the citadel with a wagon fort of 300 wagons tied together with ropes, a common tactic among nomads. The Arabs broke through, storming the city on 21 August 722. Most of Balanjar's inhabitants were killed or enslaved, but a few (including its governor) fled north. The booty seized by the Arabs was so large that each of the 30,000 horsemen—clearly an exaggeration by later historians—in the Arab army reportedly received 300 gold dinars. Al-Jarrah is said to have ransomed the wife and children of Balanjar's governor, and the governor began informing him about Khazar movements. Muslim sources also say that the governor accepted an offer to recover all his belongings (and Balanjar) if he submitted to Muslim rule, but this is probably false. At that time, so many Khazar prisoners were taken that al-Jarrah ordered some of them drowned in the Balanjar River.
Al-Jarrah's army also reduced the neighbouring fortresses, and continued their march north. The strongly-garrisoned fortress city of Wabandar, with 40,000 households reported by the 13th-century historian Ibn al-Athir, capitulated in exchange for tribute. Al-Jarrah intended to advance to Samandar, the next major Khazar settlement, but cut his campaign short when he learned that the Khazars were gathering large forces there. The Arabs had not yet defeated the main Khazar army, which (like all nomad forces) did not depend on cities for supplies. The presence of this force near Samandar and reports of rebellions among the mountain tribes in their rear forced the Arabs to retreat to Warthan, south of the Caucasus. On his return, al-Jarrah reported on his campaign to the caliph and requested additional troops to defeat the Khazars. This is an indication of the severity of the fighting and, according to Blankinship, that the campaign was not necessarily the resounding success portrayed in Muslim sources. As Noonan comments, "though the [caliph] sent his best wishes, no further forces were dispatched" to the Caucasus front.
In 723, al-Jarrah reportedly led another campaign into Alania via the Darial Pass. Sources say that he marched "beyond Balanjar", conquering several fortresses and capturing much loot, but offer few details. However, modern scholars consider this to probably be an echo (or, possibly, the actual date) of the 722 Balanjar campaign. The Khazars raided south of the Caucasus in response, but in February 724, al-Jarrah decisively defeated them in a days-long battle between the rivers Cyrus and Araxes. The new caliph, Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (r. 724–743), promised to send reinforcements but failed to do so. In 724, al-Jarrah captured Tiflis and brought Caucasian Iberia and the lands of the Alans under Muslim suzerainty. These campaigns made al-Jarrah the first Muslim commander to cross the Darial Pass, secured the Muslim flank against a possible Khazar attack through the pass, and gave the Arabs a second invasion route into Khazar territory.
In 725, the caliph replaced al-Jarrah with his own half-brother Maslama, governor of the Jazira. Maslama's appointment is considered by modern historians to attest to the importance placed by the caliph on the Khazar front, since he was one of the most distinguished generals of the Umayyad empire. Nevertheless, Maslama remained in the Jazira for the time being, more concerned with operations against the Byzantines. In his stead, he sent al-Harith ibn Amr al-Ta'i to the Caucasus front. Al-Harith spent his first year consolidating Muslim rule in Caucasian Albania: he campaigned along the Cyrus against the regions of al-Lakz and Khasmadan, and was probably also preoccupied with supervising that year's census. The following year, Barjik launched a major invasion of Albania and Adharbayjan. The Khazars laid siege to Warthan with mangonels. Al-Harith defeated them on the Araxes and drove them north of the river, but the Arab position was clearly precarious.
Maslama assumed personal command of the Khazar front in 727. The Arab commander was faced for the first time with the khagan himself, as both sides escalated the conflict. Maslama took the offensive, probably reinforced with Syrian and Jaziran troops. He recovered the Darial Pass (which had been apparently lost after al-Jarrah's 724 expedition) and pushed into Khazar territory, campaigning there until the onset of winter forced him to return to Adharbayjan. His second invasion, the following year, was less successful; Blankinship calls it a "near disaster". Arab sources report that the Umayyad troops fought for thirty or forty days in the mud, with continuous rain, before defeating the khagan on 17 September 728. The impact of their victory is questionable, however, as Maslama was ambushed by the Khazars upon his return, and the Arabs abandoned their baggage train and fled through the Darial Pass to safety. After this campaign, Maslama was replaced yet again by al-Jarrah. Despite his energy, Maslama's campaigns failed to produce the desired results; by 729, the Arabs had lost control of northeastern Transcaucasia and were again on the defensive, with al-Jarrah having to defend Adharbayjan against a Khazar invasion.
### Battle of Ardabil and Arab reaction
In 729/30, al-Jarrah returned to the offensive through Tiflis and the Darial Pass. Ibn al-Athir reports that he reached the Khazar capital, al-Bayda on the lower Volga, but no other source mentions this; modern historians generally consider this improbable, possibly resulting from confusion with other events. Al-Jarrah's attacks were followed by a massive Khazar invasion (reportedly 300,000 men), which forced the Arabs to again retreat south of the Caucasus and defend Albania.
It is unclear whether the Khazar invasion was through the Darial Pass, the Caspian Gates, or both. Different commanders are mentioned for the Khazar forces; Arab sources say that the invasion was led by Barjik (the khagan's son), and Łewond identifies Tar'mach as the Khazar commander. Al-Jarrah apparently dispersed some of his forces, withdrawing his main army to Bardha'a and then to Ardabil. Ardabil was the capital of Adharbayjan, and most of the Muslim settlers and their families (about 30,000) lived within its walls. Informed of Arab movements by the prince of Iberia, the Khazars moved around al-Jarrah and attacked Warthan. Al-Jarrah rushed to assist the town; he is next recorded as being at Ardabil again, however, confronting the main Khazar army.
After a three-day battle from 7 to 9 December 730, al-Jarrah's 25,000-man army was all but annihilated by the Khazars. Al-Jarrah was among the fallen; command passed to his brother, al-Hajjaj, who could not prevent the sacking of Ardabil. The 10th-century historian Agapius of Hierapolis reports that the Khazars took as many as 40,000 prisoners from the city, al-Jarrah's army, and the surrounding countryside. The Khazars raided the province at will, sacking Ganza and attacking other settlements. Some detachments reached Mosul in the northern Jazira, adjacent to the Umayyad heartlands in Syria.
The defeat at Ardabil—news of which spread even to Byzantium—was a shock to the Muslims, who faced an army penetrating deep into the Caliphate for the first time. Caliph Hisham again appointed Maslama to fight the Khazars as governor of Armenia and Adharbayjan. Until Maslama could assemble enough forces, veteran military leader Sa'id ibn Amr al-Harashi was sent to stem the Khazar invasion. With a lance reportedly used at the Battle of Badr as a standard for his army and with 100,000 dirhams to recruit men, Sa'id went to Raqqa. The forces he could muster immediately were apparently small, but he set out to meet the Khazars (possibly disobeying orders to maintain a defensive stance). Sa'id encountered refugees from Ardabil along the way and enlisted them into his army, paying each recruit ten gold dinars as inducement.
Sa'id was fortunate. The Khazars had dispersed in small detachments after their victory at Ardabil, plundering the countryside, and the Arabs defeated them one by one. Sa'id recovered Akhlat on Lake Van, then moved northeast to Bardha'a and south to relieve the siege of Warthan. He encountered a 10,000-strong Khazar army near Bajarwan and defeated it in a surprise night attack, killing most of the Khazars and rescuing their 5,000 Muslim prisoners (who included al-Jarrah's daughter). The surviving Khazars fled north, with Sa'id in pursuit. Muslim sources record a number of other, heavily embellished attacks by Sa'id on improbably-large Khazar armies; in one, Barjik was reportedly killed in single combat with the Umayyad general. Generally considered "romance rather than history", according to British orientalist Douglas M. Dunlop, they may be contemporary, but imaginative, retellings of Sa'id's campaign against the Khazars. According to Blankinship, "The various battles fought and rescues of Muslim prisoners achieved by Sa'id in these sources seem to all go back to a single battle near Bajarwan".
Sa'id's unexpected success angered Maslama; Łewond writes that Sa'id had won the war and received what glory (and booty) there was to be had. Sa'id was relieved of his command in early 731 by Maslama and imprisoned at Qabala and Bardha'a, charged with endangering the army by disobeying orders, and was released (and rewarded) only after the caliph intervened on his behalf. Noonan points out that the jealousies between the Arab commanders, and their rapid turnover, adversely impacted their war effort, as it "inhibited the development and execution of a long-term strategy for dealing with the Khazar problem".
### Garrisoning of Derbent
Maslama took command of a large army, and immediately took the offensive. He restored the provinces of Albania to Muslim allegiance (after punishing the inhabitants of Khaydhan who resisted him) and reached Derbent, where he found a Khazar garrison of 1,000 men and their families. Leaving al-Harith ibn Amr al-Ta'i at Derbent, Maslama advanced north. Although details of this campaign may be conflated in the sources with the 728 campaign, he apparently took Khamzin, Balanjar, and Samandar before being forced to retreat after a confrontation with the main Khazar army under the khagan. Leaving their campfires burning, the Arabs withdrew in the middle of the night and quickly reached Derbent in a series of forced marches. The Khazars shadowed Maslama's march south and attacked him near Derbent, but the Arab army (augmented by local levies) resisted until a small, elite force attacked the khagan's tent and wounded him. The Muslims, encouraged, then defeated the Khazars. The Khazar commander Barjik may have been killed in this battle or campaign.
Taking advantage of his victory, Maslama poisoned the water supply of Derbent to drive the Khazar garrison out. He re-established the city as an Arab military colony, restoring its fortifications and garrisoning it with 24,000 troops, mostly from Syria, divided into quarters by their district (jund) of origin. Leaving his relative Marwan ibn Muhammad (later the last Umayyad caliph, from 744 to 750) in command at Derbent, Maslama returned with the rest of his army (primarily the favoured Jaziran and Qinnasrini contingents) south of the Caucasus for the winter; the Khazars returned to their abandoned towns. Maslama's record (despite the capture of Derbent) was apparently unsatisfactory to Hisham, who replaced his brother in March 732 with Marwan ibn Muhammad.
That summer, Marwan led 40,000 men north into Khazar lands. Accounts of this campaign are confused. Ibn A'tham records that he reached Balanjar and returned to Derbent with much captured livestock, but the campaign also experienced heavy rain and mud. Reminiscent of descriptions of Maslama's 728 and 731 expeditions, the veracity of Ibn A'tham's account is doubtful. Ibn Khayyat reports that Marwan led a far more limited campaign on the region just north of Derbent, retiring there for the winter. Marwan was more active in the south, appointing Ashot III Bagratuni presiding prince of Armenia; this effectively gave the country broad autonomy in exchange for the service of its soldiers in the Caliphate's armies. According to Blankinship, this unique concession indicates the Caliphate's worsening manpower crisis. Around this time, the Khazars and Byzantines strengthened their ties and formalized their alliance against the Arabs with the marriage of Constantine V to the Khazar princess Tzitzak.
### Marwan's invasion of Khazaria and end of the war
After Marwan's 732 expedition, a period of quiet began. Sa'id al-Harashi replaced Marwan as governor of Armenia and Adharbayjan in spring 733, but undertook no campaigns during the two years of his governorship. Blankinship attributes this inactivity to the exhaustion of the Arab armies and draws a parallel with the 732–734 quiet phase in Transoxiana, where the Arabs had also experienced a series of costly defeats at the hands of the Türgesh (another Turkic steppe power). Marwan reportedly criticised the policy followed in the Caucasus to Caliph Hisham, recommending that he be sent to deal with the Khazars with an army of 120,000 men. When Sa'id asked to be relieved due to failing eyesight, Hisham appointed Marwan to replace him.
Marwan returned to the Caucasus c. 735, determined to launch a decisive blow against the Khazars, but was apparently unable to launch anything but local expeditions for some time. He established a new base of operations at Kasak, about twenty parsangs (roughly 120 km or 75 mi) from Tiflis and forty from Bardha'a, and his initial expeditions were against minor local potentates. Agapius of Hierapolis and the 12th-century historian Michael the Syrian record that the Arabs and Khazars concluded a peace during this period, which Muslim sources ignore or explain as a short-lived ruse by Marwan to buy time for preparations and mislead the Khazars about his intentions.
In the meantime, Marwan consolidated his rear. In 735, the Umayyad general captured three fortresses in Alania (near the Darial Pass) and Tuman Shah, the ruler of a North Caucasian principality who was restored to his lands by the caliph as a client. Marwan campaigned the following year against Wartanis, another local prince, whose castle was seized and its defenders killed despite their surrender; Wartanis tried to flee, but was captured and executed by the inhabitants of Khamzin. Marwan also subdued the Armenian factions who were hostile to the Arabs and Ashot, their client. He then pushed into Iberia, driving its ruler to seek refuge in the fortress of Anakopia on the Black Sea coast in the Byzantine protectorate of Abkhazia. Marwan besieged Anakopia, but was forced to retire due to an outbreak of dysentery in his army. His cruelty during the invasion of Iberia earned him the epithet "the Deaf" from the Iberians.
Marwan prepared a massive strike against the Khazars for 737 to end the war. He apparently went to Damascus to ask Hisham for support; the 10th-century historian Bal'ami says that his army numbered 150,000 men, including regular forces from Syria and the Jazira, jihad volunteers, Armenian troops under Ashot Bagratuni, and armed camp followers and servants. Whatever the size of Marwan's army, it was the largest ever sent against the Khazars. He attacked simultaneously from two directions. Thirty thousand men (including most of the levies from the Caucasian principalities) under Derbent governor Asid ibn Zafir al-Sulami advanced north along the Caspian coast, and Marwan crossed the Darial Pass with the bulk of his forces. The invasion met little resistance; Arab sources report that Marwan had detained the Khazar envoy and only released him (with a declaration of war) when he was deep in Khazar territory. The two Arab armies converged on Samandar, where a review was held; according to Ibn A'tham, the troops were issued new white clothing—the Umayyad dynastic colour—and new spears. Marwan then advanced, according to some Arab sources, to the Khazar capital of al-Bayda on the Volga. The khagan withdrew towards the Ural Mountains, but left a considerable force to protect the capital. This was a "spectacularly deep penetration", according to Blankinship, but of little strategic value; the 10th-century travellers Ibn Fadlan and Istakhri describe the Khazar capital as little more than a large encampment, and there is no evidence that it had been larger or more urbanized in the past.
The subsequent course of the campaign is only chronicled by Ibn A'tham and other sources drawing from his work. According to this account, Marwan ignored al-Bayda and pursued the khagan north along the west bank of the Volga; the Khazar army, under the tarkhan (a high-ranking dignitary in Turkic states), shadowed the Arab advance from the east bank. The Arabs attacked the Burtas, whose territory extended to that of the Volga Bulgars and who were Khazar subjects, taking 20,000 families (40,000 people in other accounts) captive. The Khazars avoided battle, and Marwan sent a detachment of 40,000 troops across the Volga under al-Kawthar ibn al-Aswad al-Anbari. The Khazars were surprised in a swamp; ten thousand Khazars were killed in the ensuing battle (including the tarkhan), and 7,000 were captured.
This appears to have been the only fighting of the campaign between the Arabs and Khazars, and the Khazar khagan soon requested peace. Marwan reportedly offered "Islam or the sword", and the khagan agreed to convert to Islam. Two faqihs (experts in Islamic law) were sent to instruct him on the details of religious observance; the prohibition of wine, pork, and unclean meat is especially noted. Marwan also brought a large number of Slav and Khazar captives south, whom he resettled in the eastern Caucasus; al-Baladhuri reports that about 20,000 Slavs were settled at Kakheti, and the Khazars were resettled at al-Lakz. The Slavs soon killed their appointed governor and fled north, and Marwan pursued and killed them.
Marwan's 737 expedition was the climax of the Arab–Khazar wars, but its results were meagre. Although the Arab campaigns after Ardabil may have discouraged the Khazars from further warfare, recognition of Islam or Arab supremacy by the khagan was evidently based on the presence of Arab troops deep in Khazar territory, which was unsustainable. The withdrawal of the Arab armies, followed by the Muslim civil wars of the740s and the subsequent collapse of the Umayyad regime in the Abbasid Revolution certainly "left little political pressure to remain Muslim", according to Golden. Even the credibility of the khagan's conversion to Islam is disputed by modern scholars; al-Baladhuri's account, which is probably closest to the original sources, suggests that it was not the khagan but a minor lord who converted to Islam and was placed in charge of the Khazars at al-Lakz. Blankinship cites this as indicating the implausibility of the khagan's conversion, since those Khazars who actually converted to Islam had to be moved to safety in Umayyad territory.
The khagan's conversion is also contradicted by the fact that the Khazar court is known to have embraced Judaism as its faith. Dunlop placed this as early as c. 740, but the process is not well documented and was apparently gradual; it was certainly underway in the last decades of the eighth century, according to historical sources, and numismatic evidence indicates that it was probably complete by the 830s. The conversion was primarily confined to the Khazar elites, and Christianity, Islam, and paganism remained widespread among the Khazar subjects, and even members of the royal house are known to have professed Islam—and thus been barred from ascending the throne. Many modern scholars believe that the Khazar elites' conversion to Judaism was a means of stressing their own identity as separate from (and avoiding assimilation by) the Christian Byzantine and Muslim Arab empires with which they were in contact, and was a direct result of the 737 events.
### Aftermath and impact
Whatever the real events of Marwan's campaigns, warfare between the Khazars and the Arabs ceased for more than two decades after 737. Arab military activity in the Caucasus continued until 741, with Marwan launching repeated expeditions against minor principalities in the area of present-day Dagestan. Blankinship says that these campaigns more closely resembled raids, designed to seize plunder and extract tribute to ensure the upkeep of the Arab army, than attempts at permanent conquest. Dunlop on the other hand writes that Marwan came "within an ace of succeeding" in his conquest of Khazaria, and suggests that the Arab commander "apparently intended to resume operations against the khagan at a later date" which never materialized.
Despite the Umayyad establishment of a more-or-less stable frontier anchored at Derbent, they could not advance any further (despite repeated efforts) in the face of Khazar resistance. Dunlop drew parallels between the Umayyad–Khazar confrontation in the Caucasus and that between the Umayyads and the Franks at roughly the same time across the Pyrenees, which ended with the Battle of Tours; according to Dunlop, like the Franks in the west, the Khazars played a crucial role in stemming the tide of early Muslim conquest. This view was also shared by the Soviet historian and Khazar expert Mikhail Artamonov, as well as by Golden. According to Golden, during the long conflict the Arabs "had been able to maintain their hold over much of Transcaucasia"; despite occasional Khazar raids, this "had never really been seriously threatened". In their failure to push the border north of Derbent, however, the Arabs were clearly "reaching the outer limits of their imperial drive".
Blankinship considers the Caliphate's limited gains in the second war as disproportionate to the resources expended; Arab control was limited to the lowlands and coast, and the land was too poor to replenish the Umayyad treasury. The large garrison at Derbent further depleted the already-overstretched Syro-Jaziran army, the main pillar of the Umayyad regime. The weakening of the Syrian army by its dispersion across the Caliphate's fronts was eventually the major factor in the fall of the Umayyad dynasty during the Muslim civil wars of the 740s and the subsequent Abbasid Revolution.
Balanjar was no longer mentioned after the Arab–Khazar wars, but a people known as "Baranjar" was later recorded as living in Volga Bulgaria—probably descendants of the original tribe which gave the town its name and resettled there as a result of the wars. Soviet and Russian archaeologists and historians such as Murad Magomedov [ru] and Svetlana Pletnyova consider the eighth-century emergence of the Saltovo-Mayaki culture in the steppe region between the Don and Dnieper Rivers as resulting from the Arab–Khazar conflict, since Alans from the North Caucasus were resettled there by the Khazars.
## Later conflicts
The Khazars resumed their raids on Muslim territory after the Abbasid succession in 750, reaching deep into Transcaucasia. Although the Khazars had re-consolidated control of Dagestan almost to Derbent by the ninth century, they never seriously attempted to challenge Muslim control of the southern Caucasus. At the same time, the new Abbasid dynasty's hold on its empire was too tenuous for a resumption of the ambitious Umayyad offensives. In Noonan's judgment, "[T]he Khazar-Arab Wars ended in a stalemate", followed by a gradual rapprochement that encouraged the growth of trade between the two empires: hoards of Arab coins in Eastern Europe suggest that the second half of the 8th century marks the start of the trade routes linking the Baltic and Eastern Europe, with the Caucasus and the Middle East.
The first conflict between the Khazars and the Abbasids resulted from a diplomatic manoeuvre by Caliph al-Mansur (r. 754–775). Attempting to strengthen the Caliphate's ties with the Khazars, he ordered governor of Armenia Yazid al-Sulami to marry a daughter of the khagan Baghatur c. 760. The marriage took place, but she and her child died in childbirth two years later. The khagan, suspecting the Muslims of poisoning his daughter, raided south of the Caucasus from 762 to 764. Led by the Khwarezmian tarkhan Ras, the Khazars devastated Albania, Armenia and Iberia, and captured Tiflis. Yazid escaped capture, but the Khazars returned north with thousands of captives and much booty. When the deposed Iberian ruler Nerse tried to induce the Khazars to campaign against the Abbasids and restore him to his throne in 780, the khagan refused. This was probably the result of brief anti-Byzantine Khazar foreign policy resulting from disputes in the Crimea; at this time, the Khazars helped Leon II of Abkhazia throw off Byzantine rule.
Peace reigned in the Caucasus between the Arabs and Khazars until 799, and the last major Khazar attack into Transcaucasia. Chroniclers again attribute the attack to a failed marriage alliance. Georgian sources say that the khagan wanted to marry Shushan, the beautiful daughter of Prince Archil of Kakheti (r. 736–786), and sent his general Bulchan to invade Iberia and capture her. Most of central K'art'li was occupied, and Prince Juansher (r. 786–807) was taken captive for several years. Shushan committed suicide rather than be captured, and the furious khagan had Bulchan executed. Arab chroniclers attribute the conflict to plans by the Abbasid governor al-Fadl ibn Yahya (a Barmakid) to marry one of the khagan's daughters, who died on the journey south. A completely different story is reported by al-Tabari; the Khazars were invited to attack by a local Arab magnate in retaliation for the execution of his father, the governor of Derbent, by the general Sa'id ibn Salm. According to the Arab sources, the Khazars raided as far as the Araxes against troops led by Yazid ibn Mazyad (the new governor of Transcaucasia) and reserve forces led by Khuzayma ibn Khazim.
Arabs and Khazars continued to clash sporadically in the North Caucasus during the ninth and tenth centuries, but the warfare was localized and far less intense than the eighth-century wars. The Ottoman historian Münejjim Bashi records a period of warfare from c. 901 to 912, perhaps linked to the Caspian raids of the Rus' (whom the Khazars permitted to cross their lands unhindered) at about the same time. For the Khazars, peace on the southern border became more important as new threats to their hegemony emerged in the steppes. The Khazar threat receded with the progressive collapse of their authority in the 10th century and defeats by the Rus' and other Turkic nomads such as the Oghuz Turks. The Khazar realm contracted to its core around the lower Volga, removed from the reach of the Muslim principalities of the Caucasus; Ibn al-Athir's reports of a war between the Shaddadids of Ganja with the "Khazars" in 1030 probably refers, instead, to the Georgians. The last Khazars found refuge among their former enemies; Münejjim Bashi records that in 1064, "the remnants of the Khazars, consisting of three thousand households, arrived in Qahtan [somewhere in Dagestan] from the Khazar territory. They rebuilt it and settled in it". |
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| Tomb Raider is a 1996 action-adventure video game developed by Core Design and published by Eidos Interactive. It was first released on the Sega Saturn, followed shortly by versions for MS-DOS and the PlayStation. Later releases came for Mac OS (1999), Pocket PC (2002), N-Gage (2003), iOS (2013) and Android (2015). It is the debut entry in the Tomb Raider media franchise. The game follows archaeologist-adventurer Lara Croft, who is hired by businesswoman Jacqueline Natla to find an artefact called the Scion of Atlantis. Gameplay features Lara navigating levels split into multiple areas and room complexes while fighting enemies and solving puzzles to progress.
The initial concept was created by Toby Gard, who is credited as Lara's creator and worked as lead artist on the project. Production began in 1994 and took 18 months, with a budget of £440,000. The character of Lara was based on several influences, including Tank Girl, Indiana Jones and Hard Boiled. The 3D grid-based level design, innovative for its time, was inspired by the structure of Egyptian tombs. The music was composed by Nathan McCree, who took inspiration from English classical music. Originally announced in 1995, the title went on to receive extensive press attention and heavy promotion from Eidos Interactive.
Reception of the game was very positive, with praise for its innovative 3D graphics, controls, and gameplay, and it went on to win several industry awards. The game is one of the best-selling video games for the PlayStation, with seven million units sold worldwide, and it remained the best-selling title in the Tomb Raider franchise until the release of the 2013 reboot. Lara Croft herself became a cultural icon, rising to prominence as one of gaming's most recognisable characters. Following the game's success, numerous sequels were released, beginning with Tomb Raider II in 1997. A remake set in a new continuity, Tomb Raider: Anniversary, was developed by Crystal Dynamics and released in 2007.
## Gameplay
Tomb Raider is an action-adventure video game in which the player assumes the role of archaeologist-adventurer Lara Croft, who navigates through a series of ancient ruins and tombs in search of an ancient artefact. The game is split into four zones: Peru, Greece, Egypt and the lost continent of Atlantis. A training level set in Lara's home of Croft Manor can be accessed from the start menu. The game is presented in third person perspective. Lara is always visible, and the camera follows the action by focusing on Lara's shoulders by default, but the player can take manual control of the camera to get a better look at an area. The game automatically switches to a different camera view at key points, either to give the player a wider look at a new area or to add a cinematic effect. In the Sega Saturn and PlayStation versions, players save their progress in a level using Save Crystals, while in the PC versions the player can save at any point. If Lara is killed, the player must restart from a previous save.
The object of Tomb Raider is to guide Lara through a series of tombs and other locations in search of treasures and artefacts. On the way, she must kill dangerous animals and creatures while collecting objects and solving puzzles. The emphasis lies on exploring, solving puzzles, and navigating Lara's surroundings to complete each level. Movement in the game is varied and allows for complex interactions with the environment. In addition to standard movement using tank controls, Lara can walk, jump over gaps, shimmy along ledges, roll, and swim through bodies of water. Certain button combinations allow Lara to either perform a handstand from a hanging position or execute a swandive.
Lara has two basic stances: one with weapons drawn and one with her hands-free. When her weapons are drawn, she automatically locks on to any nearby targets. Locking onto nearby targets prevents her from performing other actions which require her hands, such as grabbing onto ledges to prevent falling. By default, she carries two pistols with infinite ammo. Additional weapons include a shotgun, dual magnums, and dual Uzis. A general action button is used to perform a wide range of movements, such as picking up items, pulling switches, firing guns, pushing or pulling blocks, and grabbing onto ledges. Items to pick up include ammo, small and large medi-packs, keys, and artefacts required to complete a stage. Any item that is collected is held onto in Lara's inventory until it is used. Throughout each stage, one or more secrets may be located. Discovering these secrets is optional, and when the player finds one a tune plays. The locations of these secrets vary in difficulty to reach. The player is usually rewarded with extra items.
## Plot
Archaeologist-adventurer Lara Croft is approached by a mercenary named Larson, who is working for businesswoman Jacqueline Natla. Natla hires Lara to acquire the Scion, a mysterious artefact buried in the tomb of Qualopec within the mountains of Peru. After recovering the Scion from Qualopec's tomb, Lara is ambushed by Larson, who reveals after his defeat that she is holding merely a piece of the artefact, and Natla has sent rival treasure hunter Pierre DuPont to retrieve the other pieces. Breaking into Natla's offices to find out Pierre's whereabouts, Lara discovers a medieval monk's diary, and learns that the Scion is a powerful artefact composed of three pieces, which were divided between the three rulers of the ancient continent of Atlantis, and one of these pieces is buried alongside former Atlantean ruler Tihocan, beneath an ancient monastery, St. Francis' Folly, in Greece.
Navigating the monastery, and following several firefights with Pierre, Lara locates the tomb of Tihocan, where she finally kills Pierre and recovers the second piece of the Scion he had taken. From a mural, she learns that Tihocan unsuccessfully tried to resurrect Atlantis after a catastrophe struck the original continent. After combining both pieces of the Scion, Lara is shown a vision that reveals the third and final piece of the Scion was hidden in Egypt after the third Atlantean ruler, a traitor who used the artefact to create a breed of monsters, was captured and imprisoned by Tihocan and Qualopec. Making her way through Egypt to the lost city of Khamoon, Lara kills Larson and recovers the third Scion piece.
Emerging from the caves, Lara is ambushed by Natla and her three henchmen, who take the Scion. Lara escapes and stows away aboard Natla's yacht, which takes her to a volcanic island holding an Atlantean pyramid filled with monsters. After dispatching Natla's henchmen and making her way through the pyramid, Lara finds the Scion and sees the rest of the vision, revealing Natla to be the betrayer. Lara faces Natla, who reveals that she intends to use her army to push forward humanity's evolution, as she believes both Atlantis and current civilisation are too soft to withstand disaster. Lara decides to destroy the Scion, and Natla's attempt to stop her sends her into a crevasse. After fighting a large legless monster, Lara shoots the Scion, setting off a chain reaction that begins to destroy the pyramid. Lara kills a winged Natla and escapes the exploding island.
## Development
The initial concept for Tomb Raider was created by Toby Gard, who worked for Core Design, a game development studio based in Derby, England, that had established itself developing titles for home computers and Sega consoles. It was proposed by Gard to company head Jeremy Heath-Smith during a 1994 brainstorming session for game concepts for then-upcoming PlayStation console. The entire staff approved, and Heath-Smith gave Gard permission to start the project once he finished work on BC Racers for the Sega CD. The game concept was created before anything else, with the main hooks being its cinematic presentation and being a 3D character-driven experience.
The initial team was Gard and Paul Douglas who worked on design and pre-production for six months, before the team expanded to six people including programmers Gavin Rummery and Jason Gosling, and level designers/artists Neal Boyd and Heather Gibson. The team wanted to mix the adventuring style of Ultima Underworld and the 3D characters shown off in Virtua Fighter. The development budget for the game at the time was approximately £440,000. The production atmosphere was fairly informal. Development began in 1994 and lasted eighteen months. The team endured excessive overtime and crunch during the last stages. During production, Core Design was sold to CentreGold, which in turn was purchased by Eidos Interactive in May 1996, who became publisher for the title.
When Gard first presented the idea for the game, the concept art featured a male lead who strongly resembled Indiana Jones. Heath-Smith asked for a change for legal reasons. When Gard created the initial design document, he decided to give the player a choice of genders and created a female adventurer alongside the male character. Once he realized creating and animating two playable characters would require double the design work, he decided to slim back down to one. The female character, originally named Laura Cruz, was his favorite, so he discarded the male character before development work began. After Eidos became the game's publisher, they unsuccessfully lobbied for a selectable male lead. Speaking about his approach to the concept, Gard noted that he deliberately went against publisher trends when designing both the character and the gameplay. Laura went through several changes before the developers settled on the final version, including a name change to Lara Croft after Eidos executives in America objected to the original name. The inspirations for the character of Lara Croft included the character Tank Girl, the Indiana Jones series' titular lead, and the John Woo film Hard Boiled. Lara's notably exaggerated physical proportions were a deliberate choice by Gard, as he wanted a caricatured personification of women who could be an action icon for the younger generation. Lara's movements were hand-animated and coordinated rather than created using motion capture. The reason for this was that the team wanted uniformity in her movement, which was not possible with motion capture technology of the time.
From the game's earliest stages, the team wanted the title to involve tombs and pyramids. In the early story draft, Lara would be confronted by a rival group called the "Chaos Raiders". During the Greece levels, Lara and Pierre were to have been less hostile rivals, helping each other with puzzles in the first level. Larson evolved from an Afrikaans character called Lars Kruger, who shared a similar role in the original plot. The script itself was written by Vicky Arnold, who joined in 1995 and would work on later Tomb Raider titles. Gard and Douglas created the basic story draft alongside the initial game design, then Arnold turned it into a script after joining the project. It was Arnold's job to write the dialogue, and create a cohesive narrative around the locations selected by the team members. While Lara's character design and Gard's initial concept were present, much of the additional detail was worked out by Arnold.
The team kept the project deliberately simple and comparatively modest in scope. The platforming design drew extensively from Prince of Persia, with the Doppelgänger enemy during the Atlantis section being an homage to the Shadow Prince from that game. The high number of animal enemies was meant to ground players in the world before the more fantastical elements appeared, in addition to being easier to animate and program than human enemies. The staff were also uncomfortable with Lara killing that many humans. The initial concept gave combat prominence, but as production began the focus shifted to platforming and puzzle-solving. A plan that made it into the final product was using enemy placement to shift the atmosphere from pure action-adventure to a horror-like tone. The team consciously set the story in real archaeological locations representing several cultures. Boyd and Gibson immersed themselves in literature and history about each culture for the first three areas, respectively inspired by the Inca Empire, Classical Greece and Ancient Egypt. The Greece levels were put in after planned levels in Angkor Wat, Cambodia were dropped. The Croft Manor training level was built by Gard over a weekend. Its design was based on pictures of Georgian manor houses taken from an unspecified reference book.
### Design and platforms
The title was developed for Sega Saturn, MS-DOS personal computers (PC), and PlayStation, with all three versions in development simultaneously. Gosling led programming for the Saturn version. Douglas described the game code for each title as identical, with an additional layer of specific coding to tailor the game for each platform. While Sony Europe approved the game early on, making Tomb Raider one of the earliest approved third-party products for the PlayStation, Sony America initially rejected the game's concept and asked for more and better content. Douglas blamed the response on Core Design submitting Tomb Raider too early in production. In response the development team made several changes to the game design documentation and produced a version on Sony hardware which would lead to worldwide approval by Sony. For the Saturn version, Sega negotiated a timed exclusivity deal in Europe, meaning the Saturn version was released in that region ahead of other versions. Core Design and Sega made the deal during the last few months of development, so the team had to finish up the Saturn version six weeks earlier than they had planned, forcing them to work even longer hours.
Following the release of the Saturn version, a number of bugs were discovered that affected all versions of the game; because of the timed exclusivity, the development team fixed these bugs for the PlayStation and PC versions. Two notable surviving bugs in all versions were the "corner bug", which allowed players to scale architecture by jumping repeatedly against a corner; and a bug which caused the game to not recognise the collection of a secret in the final level. In 1997 Core Design opened negotiations with Nintendo to release a Nintendo 64 version of the game and started work on the port in anticipation of the negotiations being successful. The planning took place between 1996 and 1997, with Douglas wanting to redesign the game mechanics to incorporate the platform's analogue stick controls. The team never received Nintendo 64 development kits, and the port was scrapped when Sony finalised a deal to keep subsequent Tomb Raider games exclusive to PlayStation until the year 2000.
A third-person 3D action-adventure like Tomb Raider was unprecedented at the time, and the development team took several months to find a way to make Gard's vision for the game work on the hardware of the time, in particular getting the player character to interact with freeform environments. Tomb Raider used a custom-built game engine, as did many games of the era. The engine was designed and built by Douglas with assistance from Rummery. Rummery created the level editor, which allowed for "seamless" creation of levels. According to Rummery, the decision to build the game levels on a grid was the key breakthrough in making the game possible. It is Core Design's contention that, prior to the development of Tomb Raider, they were "struggling somewhat" with 32-bit development.
The level editor program was designed so that developers could make rapid adjustments to specific areas with ease. Another noted aspect was the multi-layered levels, as compared to equivalent 3D action-adventure games of the time which were mostly limited to a flat-floor system with little verticality. The interlinking room design was inspired by Egyptian multi-roomed tombs, particularly the tomb of Tutankhamun. The grid-based pattern was a necessity due to the d-pad-based tank controls and the Saturn's quad polygon-based rendering technology. Levels were first designed using a wireframe construction, with each area at this stage having only links to other areas of a level and walls. The team then added architecture and gameplay elements like traps and enemies, then implemented the different lighting values. Due to time and technical limitations, planned outdoor areas had to be cut.
The choice of a third-person perspective was influenced by the team's opinion that the game type was under-represented when compared to first-person shooters such as Doom. The third-person view meant multiple elements were difficult to implement, including the character and camera control. The camera had four pre-set angles, which seamlessly switched depending on the character's position and the level progress. For standard navigation and combat, the camera was fixed on a particular point and oriented around Lara while focusing on that object. Lara's twin pistol set-up was in place from the early prototypes. The aiming system was designed so that each gun arm had an aiming axis, with a shared "sweetspot" where both guns fired at the same target. For underwater environments, the effects were created using gouraud shading to create real-time ripple and lighting effects.
### Audio
The music for Tomb Raider was composed by Nathan McCree, who at the time was an in-house composer for Core Design. The main inspiration behind the score for McCree was English Classical music. This approach was directly influenced by his conversations with Gard about Lara's character. Based on this, he kept the main theme simple and melodic. The main theme used a four-note motif, which continues to appear through the series. The piece "Where The Depths Unfold", used when Lara is swimming underwater, was a choral work. They did not have the space or budget for live music recording, which was challenging for McCree as he needed to create the whole thing using synthesisers. To make the choir sound realistic, he inserted recordings of himself breathing at the right points so it sounded like an actual choir. For each track, McCree got a basic description of where the music would be used, then was left to create it. There was no time for rewrites, so each track was included in the game as first composed.
Unlike most other games of the time, there was not a musical track playing constantly throughout the game; instead, limited musical cues would play only during specially-selected moments to produce a dramatic effect. For the majority of the game, the only audio heard is action-based effects, atmospheric sounds, and Lara's own grunts and sighs, all of which were enhanced because they did not have to compete with music. According to McCree, the game was scored this way because he was allotted very little time for the job, forcing him to quickly write pieces without any thought to where they would go in the game. When the soundtrack was finally applied, the developers found that the tunes worked best when applied to specific places. The symphonic sounds were created using Roland Corporation's Orchestral Expansion board for their JV series keyboards.
English voice actress Shelley Blond provided the voice of Lara. She was given the job after her agent called and had her record some audition lines onto tape. She felt under a lot of pressure at the time, as Core Design had spent three months searching for the right voice. She recalled: "I was asked to perform her voice in a very plain non-emotive manner and in a 'female Bond' type of way. I would have added more inflection, tone and emotion to my voice but they wanted to keep it how they felt it should sound, which was quite right. My job was to bring their character to life".
According to Blond, she spent four to five hours recording the voice for Lara including the grunts, cries and other effort and death sounds. A different account attributes these sounds to Gibson, Core Design's PR Manager Suzie Hamilton, and sound designer Martin Iveson whose voice pitch was made higher. Blond would not return for any subsequent entries. In a 2011 interview Blond stated that her departure was due to disagreeing with "some things" within Core Design and Eidos, but five years later she said that she was asked to reprise her role but had to decline due to other commitments. She gave permission for her effort voice work to be reused while the character's dialogue would be voiced by Judith Gibbins.
## Release and versions
Tomb Raider was first confirmed in 1995, although details were kept scarce by the developers. There was little attention from the press until a demo was run at the 1996 Electronic Entertainment Expo, causing the press and public to pay more attention. There was a huge amount of publicity, much of which did not involve the Core Design team at all, which prompted mixed feelings. While the scale of the game's eventual popularity was not in the team's minds, its strong reception at gaming events hinted that it would be a success. To help promote the game, Eidos hired models to portray Lara Croft at trade events. They first hired Natalie Cook, but apparently due to her unsuitability with Eidos's cross-media plans for the character, she was replaced with Rhona Mitra in 1997. Mitra served as Lara's model until 1998.
The game was first released for Saturn in Europe on 25 October 1996. In North America, the Saturn, PlayStation and MS-DOS versions were released simultaneously on 14 November. In Europe, the PlayStation and MS-DOS versions were released on 22 November. Future PC patches allowed the game to work on Windows 95. The PC version was released on Steam on 29 November 2012. The PlayStation and Saturn versions were also published in Japan in 1997 by Victor Interactive Software under the name Tomb Raiders. The Saturn version was released on 14 January, while the PlayStation version came on 14 February. The PlayStation version was re-released for the PlayStation Network in North America in August 2009, and in Europe in August 2010. An attempt was made by Realtech VR to remaster the first three Tomb Raider titles for Windows, but due to not having asked permission from then-franchise owner Square Enix first, the project was cancelled.
In 1997, four new levels were released in an expansion pack for the Windows version, known under the title Tomb Raider: Unfinished Business. The expansion pack also came with promotional materials for the game's sequel Tomb Raider II. In 1998, the levels were made available as downloadable content for the Windows release, and a budget version was released on 20 March containing both the original game and the additional levels under the title Tomb Raider Gold. Production on these new levels was led by Phil Campbell, a newcomer who was transferred to Core Design after another project was cancelled. The two new areas were dubbed "Unfinished Business", set within the ruins of the Atlantean pyramid; and "Shadow of the Cat", which saw Lara exploring a temple in Egypt dedicated to the goddess Bastet. "Unfinished Business" was intended as an alternate, more difficult finale to the game featuring more mutant enemies and a focus on complex platforming. The concept for "Shadow of the Cat" was born from a cat statue used in the Khamoon level, with the levels being themed after a cat's nine lives. Due to licensing issues, several later re-releases excluded the Gold content.
The game was released for Mac OS on 16 March 1999. It was ported to the platform by Aspyr and based on Tomb Raider Gold. A port to the Pocket PC was published by Handango in July 2002. It was released on the N-Gage in October 2003. Both ports were developed by Ideaworks3D. Tomb Raider was ported to iOS devices, developed and published by Square Enix. The port was released on 17 December 2013, and includes the additional levels of the Gold release. This version was released on Android devices in April 2015.
### Nude Raider
An infamous part of Tomb Raider's history is a fan-made software patch dubbed Nude Raider. The patch, when added to an existing PC copy of a Tomb Raider game, caused Lara to appear naked. In 1999, Core Design considered taking legal action against websites that hosted nude pictures of Lara Croft, stating that "we have a large number of young fans and we don't want them stumbling across the pictures when they do a general search for Tomb Raider". Eidos sent cease and desist letters to the owners of the "nuderaider.com" URL that hosted the patch to enforce its copyright of Tomb Raider. Sites depicting nude images of Lara Croft have been sent cease and desist notices and shut down, and Eidos Interactive was awarded the rights to the Nude Raider domain name. A rumor stated that the game has a cheat code for Lara's nudity. Management did suggest adding it to developers, but they refused. As a response to the controversy, Core Design included a secret code in the sequel; allegedly a similar nude code, it in fact blows Lara up.
## Reception
Upon its release in 1996, the game was widely praised by video game magazines for its variety and depth of control, revolutionary graphics, intriguing environments, and use of occasional combat to maintain an atmosphere of tension. Ryan MacDonald of GameSpot described the game having the puzzle solving from Resident Evil, the gory action of Loaded, and the ability to have a 360-degree freedom in the gameplay. The game tied with the Saturn version of Street Fighter Alpha 2 for Electronic Gaming Monthly's "Game of the Month", with their review team saying it stood out from other titles and was the PlayStation's best release at the time. Next Generation called it "a thought-provoking, riveting action-adventure easily on par in intensity with any of Hollywood's finest efforts", citing it as a landmark title and potential trend setter for that console generation.
Some critics rated the PlayStation version better than the Saturn version. MacDonald wrote that its graphics were sharper and GamePro scored it half a point higher than the Saturn version in every category despite noting the former's "solid showing". However, Next Generation said that it would not bother to review the PlayStation version because the differences between it and the Saturn version were negligible. Similarly, Electronic Gaming Monthly only reviewed the PlayStation version, and stated in a feature on the game that both versions were playable and enjoyable, while also having identical graphics. A retrospective analysis of the game by Digital Foundry referred to the Saturn version as the least enjoyable versions due to lower frame rate and poorer audio compared to other versions. Next Generation reviewed the PC version of Tomb Raider Gold, rated it three stars out of five, and wrote that it was a suitable purchase for series newcomers, with old players being more likely to download the levels from the game website.
Tomb Raider was Computer Games Strategy Plus's 1996 overall game of the year and won the magazine's award for the year's best "3D Action" game as well. It was a finalist for CNET Gamecenter's 1996 "Best Action Game" award, which went to Quake. Electronic Gaming Monthly named Tomb Raider a runner-up for both "PlayStation Game of the Year" (behind Tekken 2) and "Saturn Game of the Year" (behind Dragon Force), commenting that both versions had been designed to take optimum advantage of each console's capabilities. They named it runner-up for both "Action Game of the Year" (behind Die Hard Trilogy) and "Adventure Game of the Year" (behind Super Mario 64), as well as "Game of the Year" (again behind Super Mario 64). It won "Best Animation" in the 1996 Spotlight Awards.
Less than a year after its release, Electronic Gaming Monthly ranked the PlayStation version of Tomb Raider the 54th-best console video game of all time, particularly citing its vast and compelling areas to explore. In 1998, PC Gamer declared it the 47th-best computer game released, and the editors called it "tremendous fun to play and a legitimate piece of post-modern gaming history". In 2001 Game Informer ranked it the 86th-best game ever made. They praised it for Lara's appeal to gamers and non-gamers alike.
### Sales and accolades
At release, Tomb Raider topped the British charts a record three times, and contributed substantially to the success of the PlayStation. In the previous year, Eidos Interactive had recorded a nearly \$2.6 million pre-tax loss. The success of the game turned this loss into a \$14.5 million profit in a year. As one of the top-selling games of the PlayStation console, it was one of the first to be released on PlayStation's 'Platinum' series, and its success made Tomb Raider II the most anticipated game of 1997. By 1997, 2.5 million units had been sold worldwide.
In August 1998, the game's computer version received a "Platinum" sales award from the Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland (VUD), while its PlayStation release took "Gold". These prizes indicate sales of 200,000 and 100,000 units, respectively, across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. During the first three months of 1997, Tomb Raider was the ninth-best-selling console game in the United States, with sales of 143,000 units. This made it the country's highest-selling PlayStation title for the period. Tomb Raider sold over 7 million copies worldwide. Tomb Raider, along with its successor, Tomb Raider II, were the two best-selling games in the franchise prior to the 2013 reboot.
In 1999, Next Generation listed Tomb Raider as number 22 on its "Top 50 Games of All Time", commenting that the level design and art direction enabled a real feeling of exploration and accomplishment. In 2001, GameSpot listed Tomb Raider on its "15 Most Influential Games of All Time", saying it served as a template for many 3D action-adventure games that would follow and helped drive the market for 3D accelerator cards for PCs. In 2004, the Official UK PlayStation Magazine chose Tomb Raider as the fourth-best game of all time.
It won a multitude of Game of the Year awards from leading industry publications. In 1998, Tomb Raider won the Origins Award for Best Action Computer Game of 1997. In 1999, Toby Gard and Paul Douglas won the Berners-Lee Interactive BAFTA Award for best contribution to the industry for their work creating the franchise. In 2018, The Strong National Museum of Play inducted Tomb Raider to its World Video Game Hall of Fame.
## Legacy
The sequel to the game, Tomb Raider II, was in the concept stage as production of Tomb Raider was wrapping up. Under pressure from Eidos Interactive, Core Design would develop a new Tomb Raider annually between 1997 and 2000, putting considerable strain on the team. Their struggles culminated in the troubled development of Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness for PlayStation 2. Releasing to poor critical reception and lackluster sales, Eidos Interactive transferred the franchise to another development studio they owned, Crystal Dynamics, who would reboot the series in 2006 with Tomb Raider: Legend.
Following the release of Tomb Raider, Lara Croft herself became a gaming icon, seeing unprecedented media cross promotion. These included commercials for cars and foodstuffs, an appearance on the cover of The Face, and requests for sponsorship from outside companies. The level of sophistication Tomb Raider reached by combining state-of-the-art graphics, an atmospheric soundtrack, and a cinematic approach to gameplay was at the time unprecedented.
While Gard enjoyed working at Core Design, he wished to have greater creative control, and disliked Eidos's treatment of Lara Croft in promotional material, which focused on her sexuality at the expense of her in-game characterisation. Gard and Douglas left Core Design in 1997 to found their own studio, Confounding Factor. This prompted mixed feelings from remaining Core Design staff, who were already at work on the next title in the series. Speaking in 2004, Gard said he would have liked to produce a sequel, but noted that Lara had changed from his original concepts for her, leaving him unsure of how he would handle her. Gard would eventually return to the franchise with Tomb Raider: Legend.
After the release of Legend, Crystal Dynamics created a remake of Tomb Raider using the Legend engine and continuity. Gard acted as one of the story designers, fleshing out both the main narrative and Lara's characterisation. The remake was co-developed by Crystal Dynamics and Buzz Monkey Software. Titled Tomb Raider: Anniversary, the game released worldwide in 2007 for PlayStation 2, Windows, PlayStation Portable, Xbox 360 and Wii.
Fan interest in the game has continued since its original release. In 2016, developer Timur "XProger" Gagiev began work on OpenLara, an open source port of the original Tomb Raider engine. The further development of this project enabled Tomb Raider to be ported to many modern and legacy systems, such as the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, the Xbox, iPhone, and the Nintendo 3DS. In January 2022, a version for the Game Boy Advance was released, which attracted attention from several media outlets. |
13,532,625 | Newton House, Llandeilo | 1,144,853,158 | Grade II listed country house in Wales | [
"Country houses in Carmarthenshire",
"Grade II* listed buildings in Carmarthenshire",
"Grade II* listed houses in Wales",
"Historic house museums in Wales",
"Llandeilo",
"Museums in Carmarthenshire",
"National Trust properties in Wales",
"Registered historic parks and gardens in Carmarthenshire",
"Reportedly haunted locations in Wales"
]
| Newton House is a Grade II\* listed country house situated just to the west of the market town of Llandeilo in Carmarthenshire, Wales. It is partially owned and maintained by the National Trust and lies within Dinefwr Park (sometimes anglicised as "Dynevor") and the grounds of Dinefwr Castle. The park and gardens are listed on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales. The original house was built during the Medieval period on a site which has been occupied for at least two millennia. The current house was built by Edward Rice in the Jacobean style in 1660, though extensive changes were made in the 1850s in the Venetian Gothic style. The house played a role in the Rebecca Riots of 1843, when the occupant of the house at the time, Colonel George Rice, received a death threat with an empty grave dug in the ground. After 1956 the property fell into turbulent times when two owners died within the space of a few years. It was sold in 1974, and later fell into disrepair; it was occupied by squatters and thieves who removed beams and furniture.
The house, along with Dinefwr Castle, have since been restored by the National Trust and Cadw respectively. It is a three-storey castellated structure, built from grey stone, with four tall towers in each corner, with sloping slate roofs. The front features a grand central porch. Two rooms are open to the public, including a tearoom and exhibition in the basement and ground floor which contain numerous displays related to the history of the estate and occupants. The deer park which surrounds the property was landscaped by Capability Brown in 1775. The surrounding woodland consists mainly of oak and wych elm. Newton House is cited as one of the most haunted houses in Wales, noted in particular for its ghost of Walter the Butler, a former employee whose tobacco smoke purportedly wafts through the air.
## History
Dinefwr Park has a history of occupation spanning at least two millennia. A polished stone axe dated to the Neolithic period was unearthed on the site in 1976, and during the Iron Age, a farm existed on the property. The Romans later built a pair of forts here, with one partly overlying the other. There are traces of Roman roads and tracks, some of which may have been part of the Carmarthen–Llandovery Roman road. A Roman milestone and a Roman coin hoard were unearthed near Dinefwr Castle, and pieces of amphorae and Samian items have been excavated near Dinefwr Farm.
During the 12th century, Dinefwr Castle was built by Lord Rhys, Prince of Wales. The castle and grounds were seized by Henry VIII in 1531, and the estate owners, who changed their family surname to Rice, subsequently had to buy back their property from the Crown. The family were elevated to the peerage of Great Britain as Baron Dynevor. Mary I is documented to have restored some of the land back to the Rhys family, but it was not until the reign of Charles I that the family fully regained their properties.
Newton House was originally built during the medieval period at some distance from the castle. It is documented to have been later modified in 1595 and 1603. The current Newton House was completed in 1660 under the command of Edward Rice. In the late 1700s, George Rice and his wife Cecil began the construction of a landscape garden, and hired eminent architect Capability Brown in 1775 to assume responsibility for the development. Turrets and battlements were added between 1760 and 1780, giving the property a more romanticised appearance. During the Rebecca Riots of 1843, Colonel George Rice was awoken one night in September and found an empty grave dug in the grounds, warning him that he would be buried in it by October 10.
Newton House fell into a turbulent period after the death of the 7th Baron Dynevor in 1956. His son Charles Arthur Uryan, the 8th Baron, died just six years later, and most of the estate and a number of family's assets had to be sold off to pay duties. In 1974, the property was sold by the current Baron Dynevor, and later fell into disrepair: it was occupied by squatters and thieves who removed beams and furniture. The house, along with Dinefwr Castle, have since been restored by Cadw and the National Trust respectively. The National Trust acquired the deer park in 1987 and Newton House three years later.
## Architecture
Edward Rice ordered the construction of a Jacobean house on the site of an earlier medieval mansion in 1659, and it was completed the following year. Turrets and battlements were added between 1760 and 1780. Though the property remains Jacobean, around 1856, there were significant changes made in the Venetian Gothic style, which today emanate the ambiance of the Victorian period. The tower was added, and alterations were made by R. K. Penson of Oswestry. The National Trust writes of it: "Most of what you see of the grand building today dates back to the 1850s, when it was given a fashionable Gothic facelift, with stone cladding and four impressive turrets". A limestone refacing occurred at the same time. Newton House is a Grade II\* listed property, as are its summer house and the inner and outer courtyard ranges. The nearby dairy cottage, ha-ha, dovecote, fountain, deer abattoir, icehouse, home farmhouse, corn barn and byre/stable range are Grade II listed in their own right.
Newton House is a three-storey castellated structure, built from grey stone, with four tall towers in each corner, with sloping slate roofs. The front features a grand central porch. The authors of Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion consider the heavily decorated late 17th-century ceilings of the house to be "the finest single architectural legacy among the country houses of the region". As in Plas Taliaris and several other country houses in the county, the ceilings are panelled, with "thick moulded beams and wreaths in the panels and winged cherubs' heads in the corners". The entrance hall contains a columned Doric screen with a 19th-century ribbed and bossed ceiling. The old dining room to the right of this features a coffered ceiling dated to the 17th century, containing "low plaster relief mouldings including guilloché, acanthus and egg and dart". The chimney piece has been removed. The drawing room to rear of the property also features a richly adorned coffered ceiling with "frieze bearing rosette bands" and a "centre oval with bay leaf design". The 17th-century staircase features thick balusters and prominent finials, with foliage patterns ingrained in the plasterwork of the handrail. A billiard room was added to the house in 1896. A strongroom with 18-inch-thick (46 cm) walls and heavy steel fire-proof doors was added in 1914, for the Dynevors to keep their important documents and valuables. On the upper floors are rooms with 18th-century fittings, including "panelled dados, lugged architraves, low relief plaster ceilings and closets within angled turrets". The bedroom on the northeast of the house features a particularly detailed coffered ceiling with floral patterns.
The house contains several paintings of note, including William Powell Frith's Mary, Queen of Scots Bidding Farewell to France (1561) and Godfrey Kneller's portrait of the Bishop of Salisbury, William Talbot, dated to 1718. Two showrooms at the house are open to the public. Aside from the tearoom, the exhibition in the basement and ground floor contains numerous displays related to the Rhys family, the history of the estate and World War II, and is designed as if the year is 1912.
## Park and garden
The house is surrounded by a deer park which was landscaped by Capability Brown from 1775. He established a winding path, known as Capability Brown path, through the park and planted deciduous trees in key places to frame the house and castle. The deer park contains notable herds of rare White Park cattle and fallow deer. A small garden behind the house, overlooking the deer park, Moorish in style with a central fountain, has been restored to its former glory. Brown's beech clumps survive in the present day. The park is registered at Grade I on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales.
Writing in 1862, Benjamin Clarje considered the park to exhibit "perhaps a richer display of varied landscape than any spot of similar size in the kingdom". He notes that the surface in the upper area of the park is "diversified by gentle undulations and has been planted with great judgment and taste" and that the River Towy flows in the vicinity. The Wildlife Trust West Wales acquired the nearby woodland in 1979.
The BBC's Peter Crawford wrote of it in his book, The Living Isles: "The woodland is primarily oak and wych elm," he writes. "The shrubs and ground cover are outstanding with cherry, holly, spindle, dog violet and the parasitic toothwort. Lichen communities are of importance and include the rare lungwort. Overlooked by the romantic Castle of Dinefwr the fine old parkland has a herd of fallow deer. The mature trees attract woodpecker, common redstarts and pied flycatchers. In winter, the water meadows draw large numbers of ducks".
## Haunting
The National Trust states that Newton House is "thought to be one of the most haunted houses in Britain", and Wales Online cites it as one of the most notable ghostly houses of Wales. Over the years, many ghost sightings or paranormal activity have been allegedly witnessed at the house. The servants' basement is one of the purported centres of activity, with numerous sightings, particularly of a ghost known as Walter the Butler who worked at the house.
People have reported smelling his tobacco smoke in the room, muffled voices and lights eerily turning on and off on their own accord. Visitors have reported feeling as if they are being choked when walking up and down the cantilever staircase; this is believed to be related to the strangling of Lady Elinor Cavendish, the cousin of the lady of Newton House in the 1720s, by a lover whom she had rejected.
The alleged hauntings at the property began to be investigated by television journalists in the 1980s, and on one occasion crewmen mysteriously fell ill one after the other while shooting there. During one investigation, the spectre of a young, beautiful girl was said to have glided across the room and disappeared through the cupboard door. The house was later the subject of an investigation in the 11th and 15th series of the Most Haunted programme.
## See also
- Cadw
- National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
- List of National Trust properties in Wales
- Grade II\* listed buildings in Carmarthenshire |
23,260,413 | Stylianos Zaoutzes | 1,054,045,270 | Byzantine statesman | [
"899 deaths",
"9th-century Byzantine people",
"9th-century births",
"Byzantine people of Armenian descent",
"Byzantine regents",
"Logothetai tou dromou",
"Macedonian dynasty",
"Medieval Thrace",
"Patricii"
]
| Stylianos Zaoutzes (Greek: Στυλιανὸς Ζαούτζης, but Ζαουντζᾶς in Skylitzes) was a high Byzantine official of Armenian origin. Rising to high rank under Byzantine emperor Basil I (reigned 867–886), he then rose further to prominence under Basil's successor Emperor Leo VI the Wise (r. 886–912), who had a close friendship and possibly an affair with Stylianos's daughter Zoe Zaoutzaina. Stylianos Zaoutzes was Leo's leading minister during the first half of his reign, and was awarded the unique title of basileopator. His standing and influence declined after 895, but in 898, he became Leo's father-in-law when the Byzantine emperor married Zoe. He died in 899, in the same year as Zoe. Following an attempted coup by his relatives, the Zaoutzes clan was deprived of the considerable power it had amassed under Stylianos's tutelage.
## Biography
### Origins and early career
Zaoutzes was of Armenian descent, and was born in the thema of Macedonia. It has been theorized by the historian Nicholas Adontz that Zaoutzes might be the son of a contemporary strategos of Macedonia named Tzantzes, the name also of Zaoutzes's son, but the connection is ultimately impossible to prove. According to Steven Runciman, the surname Zaoutzes derives from the Armenian word Zaoutch, "negro", reflecting Zaoutzes's particularly dark complexion. In the same vein, Zaoutzes was known among Byzantines as "the Ethiopian". Whatever his exact ancestry, he shared ethnic and geographical origin with the Emperor Basil I the Macedonian, a factor that probably played an important role in his ascent to high office during the latter's reign.
In late 882, the young Leo, Basil's second son and heir after the death of his elder brother Constantine in 879, was wedded to Theophano, a member of the Martinakes family. The bride was the choice of empress Eudokia Ingerina, and did not please Leo, who instead preferred the company of Zoe Zaoutzaina, the beautiful daughter of Stylianos Zaoutzes. Whether Zoe was actually his mistress is uncertain; Leo himself strenuously denied this in later accounts. At that point, Zaoutzes held the post of mikros hetaireiarches, i.e. commander of the junior regiment of the Byzantine emperor's mercenary bodyguard, the hetaireia. Leo's relations with his father Basil were always strained, and when Theophano informed him of this affair, Basil reportedly became enraged, beat Leo until he bled, and married Zoe off to one Theodore Gouzouniates. Furthermore, in 883, Leo was denounced as plotting against Basil and was imprisoned; it was only through the intervention of patriarch Photios and Stylianos Zaoutzes that he was not also blinded. This affair does not seem to have hurt Zaoutzes's own standing with Basil or his career, for by the end of Basil's reign he was protospatharios and megas hetaireiarches (senior commander of the hetaireia).
### Rise to prominence
Leo spent three years in prison, until released and restored to his rank in late July 886. Here too Zaoutzes played a major role, as he personally pleaded with the Byzantine emperor to secure Leo's release. By that time, Basil was ailing, and on August 12, 886, he was gravely wounded during a hunt. Zaoutzes's participation in the hunt raised suspicions of a conspiracy, but his complicity is generally rejected, as Basil survived for nine days, during which he did not punish Zaoutzes. Upon Basil's death, Leo was crowned emperor, but Zaoutzes, who was awarded the titles of patrikios and magistros and the office of logothetes tou dromou, effectively assumed control of the government, directing state policy. One tradition, based on the Vita Euthymii (the hagiography of Patriarch Euthymios I), holds that Basil himself appointed Zaoutzes as regent (epitropos), but other sources indicate that his ascent to power was more gradual. It is indicative of his authority that most of Leo's ordinances (novels) are directed to him in person, and in 893, he succeeded in getting his protégé, Antony Kauleas, elected as Patriarch of Constantinople. In the same period (between 886 and 893), Emperor Leo VI himself delivered a homily on a church built on Zaoutzes's orders in Constantinople.
Zaoutzes's rise to prominence was consolidated in 891–893, when he was given the newly created title of basileopator ("father of the emperor"). His promotion to this new and enigmatic title has been a subject of controversy, as neither the reasons for the creation of the title nor its exact functions are known. The early date of his elevation precludes a relation to the eventual rise of his daughter Zoe to the imperial throne as Leo's empress. Gratitude for Zaoutzes's support against Basil may have played a role, and a common theory is that the office implied some form of tutorship over the emperor. The office certainly confirmed Zaoutzes as the senior secular official of the Byzantine Empire. However, although Zaoutzes has traditionally been regarded as an all-powerful regent over a weak emperor, in no small part due to the account provided in the Vita Euthymii, the actual relationship between the two may have been quite different. A more careful evaluation of the source material has led modern scholarship to conclude that Leo was actively involved in government, and that Zaoutzes as chief minister was loyal and obsequious to his master.
An assessment of his record as the Byzantine Empire's first minister is difficult. Of the few available sources on his career, the Vita Euthymii, compiled years after Zaoutzes's death, is extremely hostile, seeking to pin the responsibility for several of the reign's failures or unpopular decisions on him, and thus preserve Leo from blame. The account of the Vita is further colored by the fierce rivalry between Zaoutzes and Euthymios, then a synkellos and Leo's spiritual father, over influence on the Byzantine emperor. Thus the Vita accuses Zaoutzes of being responsible for the sacking of the successful general Nikephoros Phokas the Elder from the army, as well as for the outbreak of hostilities with Bulgaria in 893: allegedly, two of his protégés moved the main market for Bulgarian goods from Constantinople to Thessalonica and then proceeded to extract exorbitant fees from the Bulgarian merchants. When Leo, at the behest of Zaoutzes, rejected the merchants' protests, the Bulgarian Tsar Simeon I found a pretext to attack Byzantium. It has, however, been recently suggested by the scholar Paul Magdalino that the transfer was in fact Leo's initiative, aiming to enrich Thessalonica, whose patron saint, Saint Demetrius, he showed special favor to.
### Fall from favor and death
Nevertheless, all this has led to the enduring image of an ineffectual leadership in foreign and military affairs under Zaoutzes. This may explain why, despite the resumption of Leo's affair with Zoe, the relationship between Zaoutzes and the emperor became strained: tales of an alleged plot by Zaoutzes's son to murder Leo in 894/895 indicate a rift between the two, and although Zaoutzes himself was not involved, a major quarrel between them ensued shortly after. Although they were reconciled, Zaoutzes's standing seems to have declined further thereafter, as two of his protégés, found guilty of accepting bribes, were punished by Leo. Nevertheless, in late summer 898, following the death of Theophano on 10 November 897, and of Zoe's first husband Gouzouniates in early 898, Leo at last married Zoe, raising her to Augusta. In the next year, however, both Zoe and Stylianos died. Following their deaths, Leo proposed to marry yet again, choosing Eudokia Baïana as his wife. Zaoutzes's numerous relatives, who had benefited from his patronage, were fearful of losing their positions to the new Empress's relations, and conspired to overthrow Leo. Chief among them was Basil, Zoe's nephew. The plot, however, was betrayed by the eunuch servant Samonas, and the conspiracy suppressed. The Zaoutzes relatives were exiled or confined to monasteries, and the clan's power broken. Samonas himself was richly rewarded: he was taken into the imperial service and rapidly promoted, becoming parakoimomenos by 908, before he too fell from favor. |
25,391,603 | Sir James Shaw, 1st Baronet | 1,154,194,971 | Lord Mayor of London | [
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"1843 deaths",
"19th-century English politicians",
"19th-century lord mayors of London",
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"Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies",
"People from Riccarton, East Ayrshire",
"Sheriffs of the City of London",
"UK MPs 1806–1807",
"UK MPs 1807–1812",
"UK MPs 1812–1818"
]
| Sir James Shaw, 1st Baronet (26 August 1764 – 22 October 1843), became Lord Mayor of London in 1805. From humble beginnings in a farming family in Ayrshire, he became a successful merchant and politician; he was a relation of Robert Burns and used his wealth to support Burns's orphaned children. As Lord Mayor of London, he led the funeral procession of Lord Nelson in 1806, having established his right to do so and was created baronet twice, in 1809 and 1813. While later Chamberlain of London, he almost lost his own fortune due to injudicious investments, and died, exonerated, in 1843.
## Early life and career
Shaw was born on 26 August 1764, in Riccarton, Kilmarnock, Scotland, the son of a "respectable farmer", John Shaw, whose family had farmed the area of Mosshead for over 300 years, and Hellen Sellars. On the death of his father, the family moved to Kilmarnock, and Shaw studied at the local grammar school.
At the age of 17, he followed his elder brother to America to seek work, returning after three years to take up a position in the same company's London offices and becoming a junior partner in the firm. He became a wealthy merchant and financially assisted the children of Robert Burns after Burns's death in 1796. He was elected alderman for Portsoken in 1798 and became Sheriff of London and Middlesex in 1803.
## Lord Mayor of London
Shaw had developed a reputation as a "gentleman and a citizen" and was sponsored for the office of Lord Mayor of London by the Scriveners' Company, and became only the second member of that guild to achieve that honour.
Having taken office in 1805, Shaw determined to re-establish the tradition whereby the Lord Mayor took precedence in public processions within the City of London over all except the reigning monarch, and took the opportunity of the funeral of Lord Nelson in 1806 to do so. According to one account, Shaw discussed the matter with the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, who was aware that the Prince Regent would be attending the funeral, but did not seem willing to take action. Shaw then offered to visit the King himself at Windsor Castle to resolve the matter, and Liverpool said that he would see what could be done. By the following day, the Royal Warrant of Precedence had been granted, and Shaw duly led the procession.
## Baronetcy and later career
Shaw was created Baronet, of Kilmarnock, in the County of Ayr by George III in 1809, and re-created in 1813 by a second patent to include a future interest for his nephew. As such, he was appointed a Member of Parliament for London until 1818, but thereafter sat as an alderman until he resigned in May 1843. In 1831 he was also appointed Chamberlain of London, and was almost ruined as he inadvertently invested £40,000, then a huge sum, of city funds in fake Exchequer bills. On discovering his error, he began to liquidate all his property to repay the sum, but was cleared by a commission of enquiry. Shaw resigned all his positions in 1843 due to long-term illness and died some six months later on 22 October. Shaw was unmarried, and normally his baronetcy would have become extinct on his death, but because of the second patent, the title passed to his nephew, John Shaw.
Shaw was also President of St Bartholomew's Hospital from 1806 to 1831 and President of the Honourable Artillery Company from 1829 to 1843.
## Legacy
Shaw is commemorated in Kilmarnock town centre by a statue of Carrara marble, about 17 feet tall, on a base of Aberdeen granite, executed by sculptor James Fillans (1808–52). The cost was defrayed by public subscription, which raised almost £1000. It was unveiled on 4 August 1848 and was originally located at the Kilmarnock Cross. On 28 March 1929 the statue was moved to the area of The Dick Institute just off the London Road because of the increase in traffic around the centre of the town.
It was described as
> ... a noble work of art, worthy of the creative genius of the sculptor, Mr. Fillans, and no less worthy of the venerable baronet whom it commemorates, and of whom, we believe, it is a faithful likeness. In symmetry of form it is truly admirable. The mild, benevolent features of Sir James are finely developed ; and, as a whole, it is replete with that seeming animation and intellectual expression which mark the superior powers of the sculptor, and give to the object itself a high and permanent interest.
His portrait (pictured above) is also shown in the Guildhall, London.
## See also
- Shaw Baronets |
264,141 | Roman Lyashenko | 1,173,900,618 | Russian ice hockey player | [
"1979 births",
"2003 deaths",
"2003 suicides",
"Dallas Stars draft picks",
"Dallas Stars players",
"Hartford Wolf Pack players",
"Kalamazoo Wings (1974–2000) players",
"Lokomotiv Yaroslavl players",
"New York Rangers players",
"Russian ice hockey centres",
"Sportspeople from Murmansk",
"Suicides by hanging in Turkey",
"Utah Grizzlies (AHL) players",
"Utah Grizzlies (IHL) players"
]
| Roman Yurievich Lyashenko (Russian: Роман Юрьевич Ляшенко; May 1, 1979 – July 5, 2003) was a Russian ice hockey player. He played professionally in North America for the Dallas Stars and New York Rangers of the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1999 to 2002, and also spent time with affiliate teams in the American Hockey League (Utah Grizzlies and Hartford Wolfpack) and the now-defunct International Hockey League (Michigan K-Wings). Lyashenko also played professionally in Russia for Torpedo Yaroslavl before joining the Stars. He was drafted by the Stars in the second round (52nd overall) of the 1997 NHL Entry Draft.
Lyashenko represented Russia internationally at both the junior and senior levels, capturing three medals (gold, silver and bronze) at the World Junior Championships and a silver medal at the World Championships. Lyashenko committed suicide while on vacation with his family on July 5, 2003.
## Playing career
Lyashenko spent three seasons playing with Torpedo Yaroslavl in his home country of Russia. In 130 games, he recorded 22 goals and 22 assists for 44 points. While playing with Yaroslavl, he was selected in the second round (52nd overall) of the 1997 NHL Entry Draft by the Dallas Stars. Leading up to the draft, scouts described him as a defensive forward with good character and leadership skills. He was considered an atypical Russian prospect due to his attention to defensive play. One source had him ranked as a first round prospect. He signed with the Stars in July 1999.
Lyashenko made his NHL debut with the Dallas Stars during the 1999–2000 season, seeing action in 58 games, while recording six goals and six assists. He also spent time with the Stars' International Hockey League (IHL) affiliate Michigan K-Wings, notching five points in nine games. During his rookie season in the NHL, Lyashenko played center on the Stars second line, earning praise from coach Ken Hitchcock, "His game has risen beyond his years. He's 20 years old in age only. He looks like a real good fit for us." The Stars went to the Stanley Cup Finals that season, but lost to the New Jersey Devils. In the Stars' first round playoff series against the Edmonton Oilers, Lyashenko scored the winning goal in the first game of the series. During the 2000 Western Conference final against the Colorado Avalanche, Lyashenko scored the series clinching goal in game seven. Lyashenko played in 16 playoff games for the Stars. During the playoffs in his rookie season, Hitchcock was happy with Lyashenko's play, saying, "He's an exceptional defensive player -- his offensive skills have improved as the season's gone on."
During the 2000–2001 season, Lyashenko again split time between the Stars and the Utah Grizzlies, who were the Stars' new IHL affiliate. At the end of the season, Lyashenko had played 60 games with the Stars and recorded nine points. At the IHL level, he played in six games and had one assist. Lyashenko was popular with his teammates in Dallas, at one point his teammates lobbied Hitchcock to get him more playing time.
On March 12, 2002, Lyashenko and Martin Rucinsky were traded to the New York Rangers for Manny Malhotra and Barrett Heisten. During the 2001–2002 season, Lyashenko played for four different teams, the Stars and Rangers at the NHL level as well as the IHL's Grizzlies, and the Hartford Wolfpack of the American Hockey League (AHL). In his last season of professional hockey, Lyashenko played two games with the Rangers, and 71 with the Wolfpack. He put up the best numbers of his career in North America, with 23 goals and 35 assists. He played in the 2003 AHL All-Star Game, despite having asked for a release midway through the season to return to Russia. The request was denied by the Rangers, but his agent, Todd Diamond, said there were other teams interested in the forward's services; "Several teams were interested in him because they knew he wasn't a fourth-line guy."
## International play
Lyashenko represented Russia internationally at both the junior and senior levels. His first experience with Russia's junior team was at the 1997 World Junior Championships, recording three points in six games as Russia defeated the Czech Republic for the bronze medal. At the 1998 World Junior championships, Lyashenko again represented Russia, as the team captured a silver medal. In seven games at the tournament, he recorded three assists. Lyashenko captained Russia's team at the 1999 World Junior Championships, which were held in Winnipeg. The Russian team captured the gold medal, defeating Canada in overtime. Lyashenko scored three goals and added two assists in seven games. With the gold medal, Lyashenko and teammate Mikhail Donika became the only two players to win a medal of each colour (gold, silver and bronze) at the World Junior Ice Hockey Championships.
Lyashenko played in a single tournament at the senior international level, representing Russia at the 2002 World Championships. He left his AHL team, the Hartford Wolf Pack, during their playoff run to join Russia at the tournament. Wolf Pack general manager Al Coates was disappointed to lose Lyashenko from his club, but understood the decision: "Everyone wants to play for his country, and he shouldn't be portrayed as a bad guy. He's a good guy and a good player." In nine games, he recorded two assists and 14 penalty minutes. Russia captured a silver medal at the tournament after a shocking loss to Slovakia in the final.
## Death
While on vacation in Antalya, Turkey with his mother and sister, Lyashenko was found dead in his hotel room the morning of July 6, 2003. His death was initially reported to be a suicide. Reports by Turkish police confirmed this, stating that Lyashenko had left a suicide note and attempted to cut his arms and wrists before hanging himself. A Turkish police officer, speaking anonymously, said that Lyashenko apologized for killing himself in the note. New York Rangers general manager Glen Sather said of Lyashenko, "Roman was a quality individual who had a positive impact on everyone he touched, both on and off the ice." Dallas Stars general manager Doug Armstrong expressed similar sentiments: "Roman was a quality young man who we were privileged to have in our organization for three years." Lyashenko was buried in Yaroslavl on July 12, 2003.
## Career statistics
### Regular season and playoffs
### International
## See also
- List of ice hockey players who died during their playing careers |
6,511,226 | Fannie Salter | 1,172,436,269 | American lighthouse keeper (1882–1966) | [
"1882 births",
"1966 deaths",
"Female United States Coast Guard personnel",
"People from Cecil County, Maryland",
"People from Mathews County, Virginia",
"United States Lighthouse Service personnel",
"Women lighthouse keepers"
]
| Fannie May Hudgins Salter (May 20, 1882 – March 11, 1966) was an American lighthouse keeper and the last lighthouse keeper at Turkey Point Light in Maryland. She served from 1925 until she retired in 1947, at which point the station became fully automated. From 1922 to 1925, she worked at the lighthouse along with her husband, fully taking over the duties after his death.
For a time, Salter was the only female employed by the United States Coast Guard and was the last civilian female lighthouse keeper in the U.S. She was one of four female lighthouse keepers who served at Turkey Point between 1844 and 1947, covering 86 of its 114 years of service.
## Early life
Born Frances May Hudgins to Isaac Hudgins and Indiana Jarvis on May 20, 1882, she married Clarence Winfield Salter, also from Mathews County, Virginia, on May 24, 1904. They had three children together: Mabel, Jessie Olga, and Charles.
For a brief time during the 1920s, she and her husband lived in Franktown, Virginia, where their son was born.
## Career
Fannie assisted her husband in maintaining and servicing several lighthouses in the Chesapeake Bay area: York Spit Light (1904–1908), Old Plantation Flats Light (1908–1912), Cherrystone Bar Light (1912–1913), Hog Island Light (1915–1922), and Turkey Point Light (1922–1947). All of the lighthouses the family was stationed at prior to 1922 were in Virginia.
### Turkey Point Light Station
Beginning in 1922, C. W. Salter served as the station keeper of Turkey Point Light, with Fannie once again assisting him with the day-to-day tasks. C. W. died suddenly on February 11, 1925, following an acute attack of appendicitis. Upon his death, Fannie fully took over her husband's duties at the age of 43 and officially applied for his position shortly after. It was customary at the time for the family of the keeper to continue operating the station. The Salters had been preceded by three female keepers: Elizabeth Lusby 1862, and Rebecca Crouch 1895, who both took over following their husbands' deaths and served until their own deaths; Rebecca Crouch's daughter, Georgiana Brumfield, wanting to follow in her footsteps, took over the duties from 1895 to 1919, retiring after spending 54 years on the homestead.
Despite over 20 years of assisting with day-to-day operations of a lighthouse, she was initially denied the role by the Civil Service, who cited her age as preventing her from being able to perform the necessary tasks. Salter petitioned Senator Ovington Weller to appeal the decision. Weller then asked President Calvin Coolidge, who overruled the Civil Service's decision and personally appointed her as official keeper at Turkey Point. Though U.S. presidents had appointed keepers in the past, Salter was the first female keeper with a presidential appointment to that point or since.
#### United States Lighthouse Service
After her official appointment, Salter was issued a manual and learned how to use a radiotelephone. She was on duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and received a salary of \$1,140 her first year in service, . Prior to being retrofit for electricity, three brass oil lamps were cleaned and filled daily. At dusk, Fannie would fill one of the lamps with fuel, climb the 35-foot (11 m) tower, trim and light the wick, and place the lamp within the lens. She would recheck it about one hour later, and again at 10 pm before going to bed. Her bedroom in the keeper's quarters faced the tower, so she could ensure the light was functioning properly. If the light extinguished in the middle of the night, she would immediately wake up and have it reignited or replaced by one of the emergency lamps kept onsite.
In 1928, the United States Lighthouse Service (USLHS) authorized \$25 per month () for a laborer to go to the station and manually wind the fog bell striking mechanism. This charge was reduced to \$15 per month in 1932 (). Once, during a particularly foggy day, the fog bell mechanism failed, and Salter had to manually strike the fog bell four times per minute for nearly an hour to help a steamer safely navigate the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. During this time, she missed the phone call from her son-in-law announcing the birth of her first granddaughter.
#### United States Coast Guard
The U.S. Coast Guard absorbed the USLHS in July 1939, making all keepers, including Salter—the only woman employed by the USLHS at the time—civilian members of the Coast Guard. During World War II, the Coast Guard had shortwave radio systems installed in a number of lighthouses on the east coast to listen for U-boat activity. Salter learned to maintain radio watch in addition to her other duties. They also had existing lighthouses electrified in place of the oil or kerosene used in the past, with Turkey Point being upgraded in 1943. This upgrade meant that Salter could just flip a switch to power a 100-watt bulb that, in combination with the lens, could produce 680 candlepower of light, though a kerosene backup was maintained at all times in the event of a power outage. Still, there was work to be done, as each lens needed to be cleaned daily and polished at least once per week to be able to maintain the 13-mile (21 km) visual clearance needed for vessels to safely navigate the area.
## Additional duties
According to Turkey Point Light historian Mike Duvall, Turkey Point was an isolated station. The nearest city that could supply the station at the time was Havre de Grace, Maryland, 8 miles (13 km) across the Chesapeake; the nearest town that could be reached without a boat was North East, Maryland, 12 miles (19 km) from the station.
In the years before highways and mass automotive transit, this meant that, along with her duties as keeper, Fannie and her entire family would need to provide for themselves much of the time. Adjacent to the living quarters was a farm where the Salters tended to a garden, as well as several kinds of livestock, including sheep, cows, and turkeys.
When supplies were received, they most often came by boat. A steep, 137-step stairway led down the 100-foot (30 m) bluff to the Elk River floating dock. A chute with a windlass was installed next to the stairway; the winch would need to be manually operated, but it allowed for heavy supply crates to be hauled up to the station.
## Retirement and later years
Salter retired on October 1, 1947, at age 65, after 22 years of service. Her ending salary was \$2,229 per year, . During an interview around the time of her retirement, she stated, "Oh, it was an easy-like chore, but my feet got tired, and climbing the tower has given me fallen arches." Shortly after her retirement, the light was fixed on automatic control, eliminating the need for a keeper and making Fannie Salter the last civilian female lighthouse keeper in the United States.
She had her retirement home built only 6 mi (10 km) from the tower where she had spent so many years, commenting that, at night, she could still see the beam from her new home.
Fannie May Salter died of natural causes on March 11, 1966, in Baltimore, Maryland. She and her husband are buried side-by-side in St. Paul's Methodist Church Cemetery, in Susan, Virginia. |
29,219,605 | British Alpine Hannibal Expedition | 1,173,848,721 | 1959 experiment carrying an Asian elephant across the Alps | [
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"1959 in the United Kingdom",
"Elephants in culture",
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| The British Alpine Hannibal Expedition was an experimental archeology event that took place in 1959. British engineer John Hoyte led an expedition that tried to reenact aspects of Hannibal's legendary crossing of the Alps during the Second Punic War in 218 BCE. The group successfully took the female Asian elephant Jumbo, provided by a zoo in Turin, from France over the Col du Mont Cenis into Italy.
## Background
After the Carthaginian defeat in the First Punic War of 264–241 BCE, Hamilcar Barca secured an extensive territory in the Iberian peninsula for Carthage. At the beginning of the Second Punic War in 218 BCE, his son Hannibal took an army of perhaps 50,000 men and 37 war elephants from Hispania (modern-day Spain) to Italy, where he led a 15-year campaign against Rome. Hannibal avoided the coastal route, and took his army over the Alps. His march has been described by ancient historians Polybius and Livy. The exact route, however, has been subject of long but inconclusive scholarly discourse. In his 1955 book Alps and elephants: Hannibal's march, Gavin de Beer lists 12 possible candidates from 30 different books.
## The expedition
In 1955, The Times published a debate about the route Hannibal might have taken over the Alps. This debate came to the attention of John Hoyte, then an engineering student at Cambridge University. Hoyte had an interest in both history and mountain climbing, and spent the summer of 1956 with friends hiking the Alps and comparing possible routes to the ancient descriptions. The group came to the conclusion that the Col de Clapier was the most likely pass, an opinion still supported by some modern historians.
A few years later, a friend suggested testing this theory with an actual elephant. Hoyte wrote letters to the British consuls in Lyon, France, Geneva, Switzerland, and Turin, enquiring about the possibility of obtaining an elephant for the experiment, but without a serious expectation of success. However, the Turin Zoo had just acquired a female Asian elephant, Jumbo, who was trained as a circus animal. The owner of the zoo volunteered Jumbo and became the first sponsor of the expedition. Hoyte put together a team of 8 people, including Richard Jolly as the expedition secretary and Colonel John Hickman, Lecturer (later Reader) in Veterinary Surgery at the University of Cambridge Veterinary School, who had gained experience with elephants during World War II in Burma. The group obtained insurance for Jumbo from Lloyd's of London and further sponsorship from Life magazine, which later published a 7-page photo report.
The expedition started in late July 1959 in Montmelian, France. It followed the valley of the Arc river and then ascended towards the Col de Clapier. However, the route up to the pass had become narrowed and dangerous due to rockfall. The group retreated down into the valley and crossed the Col du Mont Cenis, another pass suggested for Hannibal's route by none less than French emperor Napoleon. After 10 days of travel, the expedition successfully "invaded" Susa in Italy.
The members of the expedition originally planned to call the 5,700 pound (2.6 t) elephant Hannibella, however, the animal could not be made to respond to the new name and thus remained Jumbo. Jumbo was 11 years old and equipped with leather boots and knee pads for the most treacherous passages. A specially made coat was provided to keep her warm. Despite a diet consisting of 150 pounds (68 kg) of hay, 50 pounds (23 kg) of apples, 40 pounds (18 kg) of bread, 20 pounds (9.1 kg) of carrots, and a vitamin B supplement per day, she lost an estimated 300 pounds (140 kg) during the first 4 days of the trip, and nearly 500 pounds (230 kg) in total. On arrival in Italy, she consumed cake and a Magnum bottle of Chianti.
In 1960, Hoyte published a report on the expedition as Trunk Road for Hannibal: With an Elephant Over the Alps. Expedition member Cynthia Pilkington published the book "Elephant Over the Alps" in 1961, telling the story of the expedition. |
14,054,248 | Ōyama Sutematsu | 1,107,454,768 | First Japanese woman to receive a college degree | [
"1860 births",
"1919 deaths",
"Deaths from Spanish flu",
"Japanese socialites",
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"Vassar College alumni"
]
| Princess Ōyama Sutematsu (大山 捨松, February 24, 1860 – February 18, 1919), born Yamakawa Sakiko (山川 咲子), was a prominent figure in the Meiji era, and the first Japanese woman to receive a college degree. She was born into a traditional samurai household which supported the Tokugawa shogunate during the Boshin War. As a child, she survived the monthlong siege known as the Battle of Aizu in 1868, and lived briefly as a refugee.
In 1871, Yamakawa was one of five girls chosen to accompany the Iwakura Mission to America and spend ten years receiving an American education. At this time, her name was changed to Yamakawa Sutematsu (山川 捨松), or, when she wrote in English, Stematz Yamakawa. Yamakawa lived in the household of Leonard Bacon in New Haven, Connecticut, becoming particularly close with his youngest daughter Alice Mabel Bacon. She learned English and graduated from Hillhouse High School, then attended Vassar College, the first nonwhite student at that fledgling women's university. She graduated with the Vassar College class of 1882, earning a B.A., magna cum laude. After graduation, she remained a few more months to study nursing, and finally returned to Japan in October 1882.
When she first returned to Japan, Yamakawa looked for educational or government work, but her options were limited, especially because she could not read or write Japanese. In April 1882, she accepted a marriage proposal from Ōyama Iwao, a wealthy and important general, despite the fact that he had fought on the opposing side of the Battle of Aizu. As her husband was promoted, she was elevated in rank to become Countess, Marchioness, and finally Princess Ōyama in 1905. She was a prominent figure in Rokumeikan society, advising the Empress on Western customs. She also used her social position as a philanthropist to advocate for women's education and volunteer nursing. She assisted in the founding of the Peeresses' School for high-ranking ladies, and the Women's Home School of English, which would later become Tsuda University. She died in 1919 when the 1918 flu pandemic reached Tokyo.
## Early life
Yamakawa Sakiko was born on February 24, 1860, in Aizu, an isolated and mountainous region in what is now the Fukushima Prefecture. She was the youngest daughter of Shigekata (重固), a karō (senior retainer) of the lord of Aizu, and his wife Tōi of another karō family, the Saigō (西郷). Yamakawa had five siblings: three sisters—Futaba (二葉, 1844–1909), Misao, and Tokiwa; and two brothers, Hiroshi (浩, 1845–1898) and Kenjirō (健次郎, 1854–1931).
Yamakawa was raised in a traditional samurai household in the town of Wakamatsu, in a several-acre compound near the northern gate of Tsuruga Castle. She did not attend school, but was taught to read and write at home, as part of a rigorous education in etiquette and obedience based on the eighteenth-century neo-Confucian text Onna Daigaku (Greater Learning for Women).
### Battle of Aizu
In 1868–1869, Yamakawa's family was on the losing side of the Boshin War. The Boshin War was a civil war at the end of Japan's bakumatsu ("end of military government"), in which pro-shogunate forces resisted the new imperial rule that began with the 1867 Meiji Restoration. The conflict reached Yamakawa's hometown with the Battle of Aizu in late 1868. On October 8, 1868, when Yamakawa was eight, imperial forces invaded and burned her hometown of Wakamatsu. Yamakawa took shelter within the walls of Tsuruga Castle with her mother and sisters. Several hundred people from other samurai families instead committed ritual suicide, in what would become a famous instance of mass suicide. This invasion marked the beginning of a monthlong siege, which came to be a symbol of "heroic and desperate resistance." It was during the Battle of Aizu that the Byakkotai (White Tiger Brigade), a group of teenage fighters, famously committed mass suicide under the mistaken belief that the castle had fallen.
The 600 women and children inside the castle, led by Matsudaira Teru, formed workgroups to cook, clean, and make gun cartridges, as well as nursing nearly 1,500 wounded soldiers. One of Yamakawa's sisters attempted to join Nakano Takeko's Shōshitai (娘子隊, "Girls' Army"), but on her mother's orders remained inside the castle making gun cartridges. Yamakawa herself, age eight, carried supplies for the cartridge makers. Toward the end of the siege, Yamakawa's mother sent her and other girls to fly kites as a gesture of defiance while imperial cannons bombarded the castle and the women smothered the shells with wet quilts. One shell which was not smothered in time exploded near her, wounding Yamakawa's neck with shrapnel, and killing her sister-in-law Toseko.
### After the battle
The siege ended with the castle's surrender on November 7, 1868. Yamakawa was taken to a nearby prisoner camp with her mother and sisters, where they were held for a year. In the spring of 1870, they were exiled to the newly created Tonami District (an area that is now part of the Toyama Prefecture). The 17,000 refugees exiled there had no experience of farming, and the winter saw shortages of food, shelter, and firewood which threatened Yamakawa's family with starvation. Yamakawa, turning eleven, spread night soil on the fields and scavenged for shellfish.
In the spring of 1871, Yamakawa was sent to Hakodate, without her family, where she was lodged with Takuma Sawabe [ja] and then with French missionaries.
## Education in America
### Departure with the Iwakura Mission
In December 1871, when she was eleven years old, Yamakawa was sent to the United States for study, as part of the Iwakura Mission. Yamakawa was one of five girls sent to spend ten years studying Western ways for the benefit of Japan, after which she was to return and pass on her knowledge to other Japanese women and to her children, in accordance with the Meiji philosophy of "Good Wife, Wise Mother". The other girls were Yoshimasu Ryo (age 14), Ueda Tei (14), Nagai Shige (10) and Tsuda Ume (6). All five girls were from samurai families on the losing side of the Boshin War. The initiative was a "pet project" of Kiyotaka Kuroda, who initially received no applicants in response to his recruitment efforts, despite the generous funding offered: all the girls' living expenses would be paid for the decade, plus a generous stipend. In response to Kuroda's second call for girls to be educated in America, Yamakawa's eldest brother Hiroshi, acting as head of the household, nominated her. Hiroshi was familiar with Kuroda, since his and Yamakawa's brother Kenjiro had recently left for his own education in America in January 1871, with Kuroda's assistance. Hiroshi may have nominated his sister due to her independent spirit and academic strengths, or out of simple financial need. The five girls chosen were the only applicants.
At this time, Yamakawa's mother changed her given name from Sakiko (咲子) ("little blossom") to Sutematsu (捨松). The meaning of the new name could indicate disappointment that Yamakawa was being sent away from Japan, with the first character meaning discard (捨, sute), as if Yamakawa had been thrown away. But the name could also indicate a positive hope: pine (松, matsu) is one of the Three Friends of Winter which flourish even in harsh conditions, and it sounds like "to wait" (待つ, matsu), suggesting that her mother gave up (捨, sute) her youngest daughter to the government mission while awaiting her safe return.
Before leaving Japan, Yamakawa and the others were the first samurai-class girls to be granted an audience with the Empress Haruko, on November 9, 1871. They departed with the rest of the Iwakura Mission on December 23, 1871 aboard the steamship America, chaperoned by Elida DeLong (wife of the American diplomat Charles E. DeLong), who spoke no Japanese). After a stormy and difficult journey, they arrived in San Francisco on January 15, 1872. Yamakawa and the other girls spent two weeks in San Francisco, largely solitary in their hotel room but the subjects of intense newspaper coverage. Americans typically spelled her name as Stemats Yamagawa, and referred to her and the other girls as "Japanese princesses". After two weeks in San Francisco, the Iwakura Mission embarked on a monthlong cross-country train tour, arriving in Washington, DC on February 29, where Charles Lanman (secretary to Arinori Mori) took custody of the girls. Yamakawa lived briefly with Mrs. Lanman's sister, a Mrs. Hepburn, then in May 1872 all five girls were moved to their own house with a governess, to study English and piano.
By October, however, they had separated: Yoshimasu and Ueda returned to Japan, Tsuda moved in with the Lanmans, and on October 31, 1872 Nagai and Yamakawa were moved to New Haven, Connecticut. In New Haven, Yamakawa's elder brother Kenjirō was studying at Yale University. To ensure that Nagai and Yamakawa practiced their English, they were placed in separate households, Nagai living with the minister John S. C. Abbott and Yamakawa living with the minister Leonard Bacon. Yamakawa would spend the next ten years as part of the Bacon family, growing particularly close with his youngest daughter of fourteen children, Alice Mabel Bacon. Likely due to the Bacons' influence, Yamakawa converted to Christianity.
Yamakawa attended Grove Hall Seminary, a primary school for girls, with Alice Bacon. In 1875, Yamakawa passed the entrance exam for Hillhouse High School, a prestigious public school, and began her studies there. She attended the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia with both Nagai and Tsuda, a rare reunion. In April 1877, Yamakawa graduated from Hillhouse High School.
### Vassar
Yamakawa began her studies at Vassar College in September 1878, the fourteenth year of the still-new women's college. To her regret, the Bacons couldn't afford to send Alice to college, but she was reunited with Nagai. The two of them were the first nonwhite students at the school, and the first Japanese women to enroll in any college. Nagai enrolled as a special student in the music department, while Yamakawa pursued a full four-year bachelor's degree.
While at school, Yamakawa began styling her name as Stematz Yamakawa, using the American name order and a spelling which matched the pronunciation of her name. Her teachers included Henry Van Ingen and Maria Mitchell. During her time at Vassar, she studied Latin, German, Greek, math, natural history, composition, literature, drawing, chemistry, geology, history, and philosophy. She also mastered chess and whist. Yamakawa was a reserved and ambitious student, whose marks were among the highest in the class. She was also well-liked by her classmates. Around this time, Yamakawa's sister Misao moved from Japan to Russia; Misao wrote letters in French to Yamakawa, which Yamakawa's classmates translated and helped her reply to. Yamakawa was elected class president for 1879, and invited to join the literary club of the Shakespeare Society, which was "reserved for students of formidable intellect." In 1880, she was a marshal for the college's Founder's Day celebration. In June 1881, Nagai returned to Japan. The ten-year period of the girls' educational mission had ended, but Yamakawa extended her stay to complete her degree. In her senior year, she was named president of the Philalethean Society, the largest social organization at Vassar.
Yamakawa graduated from Vassar College with a B.A., magna cum laude, on June 14, 1882. Her thesis was on "British Foreign Policy Toward Japan," and she was chosen to give a commencement speech on the topic at her class's graduation. After graduation, Yamakawa studied nursing at the Connecticut Training School For Nurses in New Haven in July and August. She and Tsuda (who had also extended her stay, to complete a high school degree) finally departed for Japan in October 1882. They travelled by rail to San Francisco, whence they left aboard the steamship Arabic on October 31. After a rough three-week journey across the Pacific, Yamakawa arrived in Yokohama on November 20, 1882.
## Marriage and family
When she first returned to Japan, Yamakawa looked for educational or government work, but her options were limited, especially because she could not read or write Japanese. Yamakawa initially expressed in her letters a resolution to remain unmarried and pursue an intellectual life, turning down at least three proposals. As she struggled to find work, however, she wrote that Japanese culture made marriage necessary, and gave more serious consideration to her suitors.
In January 1882, Yamakawa wrote to Alice Bacon that one of the marriage proposals she had declined was from someone "I might have married for money and position but I resisted the temptation," whom she later revealed to have been Ōyama Iwao. At this time, Ōyama was 40 years old, with three young daughters from a first marriage which had just ended with his wife's death in childbirth. He was also a wealthy and important general in the Imperial Japanese Army who had lived in Europe for three years, spoke French, and sought an intelligent and cosmopolitan wife. As a former Satsuma retainer, his military activity included serving as an artilleryman during the bombardment of Yamakawa's hometown of Aizu. He later liked to joke that Yamakawa had made the bullet which struck him during that battle.
In February 1882, Yamakawa played Portia in an amateur production of the final two acts of The Merchant of Venice at a large party, which inspired Iwao to repeat his proposal. This time, he sent a formal request to her brothers, who were shocked. They immediately rejected him on Yamakawa's behalf because, as a Satsuma man, he was an enemy of Yamakawa's Aizu family. After several personal visits from Tsugumichi Saigo, a ranking Satsuma leader, Yamakawa's brothers were persuaded to let her decide. In April 1882, Yamakawa decided to accept him. They married in a small ceremony on November 8, 1883. At her marriage, Yamakawa became known as Ōyama Sutematsu or Madame Ōyama.
Ōyama Iwao left Japan to study Prussian military systems early in 1884, relieving Ōyama Sutematsu of the social duties of a minister's wife for the year he was away. In July 1884, the Peerage Act of 1884 made them Count and Countess Ōyama. Ōyama Iwao left Japan again in 1894, at the head of Japan's Second Army, for the First Sino-Japanese War. When the war concluded eight months later, the American press credited Ōyama Sutematsu's influence for Japan's superiority to China. After the war, Ōyama Iwao was promoted, and the couple became Marquess and Marchioness Ōyama. Ōyama Iwao served again in the Russo-Japanese War beginning in 1904, commanding troops in Manchuria. At the end of the war in 1905, his rank was raised again, to Prince, and Ōyama Sutematsu finally became the "Japanese princess" which the American newspapers had once mistakenly called her, with her title becoming Princess Ōyama. In 1915, the Ōyamas attended the enthronement of Emperor Taishō and received a memorial badge as guests to the ceremony of accession.
During the Ōyamas' marriage, they had two daughters, Hisako (born November 1884, later Baroness Ida Hisako) and Nagako (born prematurely in 1887, lived only two days), and two sons, Takashi (winter 1886 – April 1908) and Kashiwa (born June 1889). Ōyama Sutematsu was also a step-mother to Ōyama Iwao's three daughters from his first marriage: Nobuko (c. 1876 – May 1896) and two younger girls. Despite the fact that Ōyama Sutematsu was not motivated by love when she accepted Ōyama Iwao's proposal, her biographer Janice P. Nimura calls their marriage "unusually happy," with Ōyama Sutematsu as the intellectual equal and helpmeet of her husband.
### Depiction in The Cuckoo
Beginning in 1898, a personal tragedy in Ōyama's household became the subject of a bestselling novel, in which Ōyama was depicted as a wicked stepmother. Author Kenjirō Tokutomi's novel The Cuckoo (不如帰, Hototogisu), or Nami-ko, written under the pen name Rōka Tokutomi, is based on the marriage and death of Ōyama Nobuko, one of Ōyama Iwao's daughters with his first wife. Ōyama Nobuko married Mishima Yatarō in 1893, a love match which also united two powerful families. The winter after their marriage, Nobuko became ill with tuberculosis. Mishima's mother insisted that he divorce her, although he felt it was wrong, on the grounds that Nobuko would no longer be healthy enough to bear the heir which was necessary for an only son. While Nobuko was being nursed in the countryside, her parents agreed to a divorce, and the marriage was dissolved in the fall of 1895. Nobuko was moved back to her parents' house in Tokyo, where they built a new wing of their house for her to prevent transmission of the illness. Ōyama Sutematsu was the subject of unsympathetic gossip for isolating her stepdaughter, which was seen as a punishing exile. Nobuko died in May 1896, age twenty.
Tokutomi published his story based on these events in the newspaper Kokumin shinbun from November 1898 to May 1899. Tokutomi revised the story, and published it as a standalone book in 1900, which is when it became one of the most successful novels at the time, a major bestseller popular across many social groups for its elegant language and tear-jerking scenes. The novel is "most often remembered as a novel that protests the victimization of women, particularly the victimization of young brides," blaming the Meiji era family system known as ie for the tragedy. In presenting this moral, the novel depicts the young couple in idealized terms, and is moderately sympathetic toward the character based on Ōyama Iwao, but demonizes the characters based on Mishima's mother and on Ōyama Sutematsu. Ōyama Sutematsu's character is presented as jealous of her own stepdaughter, and a corrupting Western influence in her family.
## Promotion of women's education and nursing
After her marriage, Ōyama took on the social responsibilities of a government official's wife, and advised the Empress on western customs, holding the official title of "Advisor on Westernization in the Court." She also advocated for women's education and encouraged upper-class Japanese women to volunteer as nurses. She frequently hosted American visitors to advance Japanese-American relations, including Alice Bacon, the geographer Ellen Churchill Semple and the novelist Fannie Caldwell Macaulay. In 1888, Ōyama was the subject of negative press from Japanese conservatives, and withdrew somewhat from public life. Positive press in 1895, at the conclusion of the First Sino-Japanese War (in which her husband had military victories and she had philanthropic success), returned her to the public eye.
### Education
Ōyama assisted Tsuda and Hirobumi Ito in establishing the Peeresses' School in Tokyo for high-ranking ladies, which opened on October 5, 1885. It was overseen by the new minister of education, Arinori Mori, who had frequently met with the girls of the Iwakura Mission while in America. In its first years, the school was a relatively conservative institution, where aristocratic students dressed in formal court dress and studied Japanese, Chinese literature, English or French, and history alongside the less academic subjects of morals, calligraphy, drawing, sewing, tea ceremony, flower arrangement, household management, and formal etiquette. From 1888–1889, Alice Bacon joined the school as an English teacher. At this point, the school began requiring Western dress for students.
In 1900, she was a co-founder with Bacon and Tsuda Ume of the Women's Home School of English (or Joshi Eigaku Juku), to teach advanced studies and progressive Western ideals in English. At that time, women's only option for advanced study was the Women's Higher Normal School in Tokyo, which taught in Japanese and provided a more conservative curriculum. While Tsuda and Bacon worked as teachers, Ōyama served as a patron of the school.
### Philanthropy
Ōyama also promoted the idea of philanthropy (not a typical part of aristocratic Japanese life) to high-ranking Japanese ladies. In 1884, she hosted the first charity bazaar in Japan, raising funds for Tokyo's new Charity Hospital. Despite skepticism of the concept in the Japanese press, and suggestions that the activity was not ladylike, the bazaar was a financial success and became an annual event.
In addition to promoting monetary charity, Ōyama was active in volunteer nursing. She was Director of the Ladies Relief Association and the Ladies Volunteer Nursing Association, President of the Ladies Patriotic Association, and Chairman of the Japanese Red Cross Society. At the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894, she formed a committee of sixty aristocratic ladies to raise funds and gather supplies for the troops. Ōyama herself rolled bandages for the Red Cross during this war, and worked again as a volunteer nurse during the Russo-Japanese War from 1904 to 1905.
## Death
At Ōyama Iwao's death on December 10, 1916, Ōyama Sutematsu made her final retreat from public life, retiring to live in their son Kashiwa's household. She was not involved with the Red Cross during World War I. When the 1918 flu pandemic reached Tokyo in early 1919, Ōyama sent her family to the countryside in Nasushiobara, but remained in Tokyo herself to oversee the Women's Home School of English (Joshi Eigaku Juku) and seek a replacement president after Tsuda's retirement. She fell ill on February 6, and died of related pneumonia on February 18, 1919.
## Gallery |
36,942,919 | Parasola auricoma | 1,012,922,330 | Species of fungus | [
"Fungi described in 1886",
"Fungi of Asia",
"Fungi of Europe",
"Fungi of North America",
"Psathyrellaceae"
]
| Parasola auricoma is a species of agaric fungus in the family Psathyrellaceae. First described scientifically in 1886, the species is found in Europe, Japan, and North America. The mushroom was reported in February 2019 in Colombia, in the city of Bogota by the mycologist Juan Camilo Rodriguez Martinez. The small, umbrella-shaped fruit bodies (mushrooms) of the fungus grow in grass or woodchips and are short-lived, usually collapsing with age in a few hours. The caps are up to 6 cm (2.4 in) wide, initially elliptical before flattening out, and colored reddish-brown to greyish, depending on their age and hydration. They are pleated with radial grooves extending from the center to the edge of the cap. The slender, whitish stems are up to 12 cm (4.7 in) long and a few millimeters thick. Microscopically, P. auricoma is characterized by the presence of setae (thick-walled bristles) in its cap cuticle. This characteristic, in addition to the relatively large, ellipsoid spores can be used to distinguish it from other morphologically similar Parasola species.
## Taxonomy
The species was first described in 1886 by French mycologist Narcisse Théophile Patouillard as Coprinus auricomus. It was transferred to Parasola in 2001 when molecular phylogenetics was used to sort the coprinoid genera (i.e., Coprinus and the segregate genera Coprinopsis, Coprinellus, and Parasola) into natural monophyletic groups. According to the nomenclatural database MycoBank, Parasola hansenii, described by Jakob Emanuel Lange in 1915 and named in honor of Danish mycologist Emil Christian Hansen, is a facultative synonym (based on a different type). Although this synonymy is accepted by several authorities, P.D. Orton and Roy Watling disagree, suggesting that C. hansenii is a forgotten species that requires reanalysis.
In a 2010 study of the type material of several coprinoid taxa, Laszlo Nagy and colleagues assigned Patouillard's plate 453 (containing the original description) as the lectotype for P. auricoma, as they believed it to be "sufficiently diagnostic for a clear-cut definition of this taxon." They also determined that Pseudocoprinus besseyi and Coprinus elongatipes (both species were described in a 1946 publication by Alexander H. Smith and Lexemuel Ray Hesler) were conspecific with P. auricoma.
The placement of P. auricoma within Parasola is somewhat controversial. It has often been classified in the section Auricomi, a grouping of species characterized by the absence of a veil, and the occasional presence of caulocystidia (cystidia on the stem), pileocystidia (cystidia on the cap surface), or dark setae-like elements. Several molecular phylogenetics studies have confirmed its inclusion in the Parasola clade, but its relationship to other members of the group have not been fully resolved due to limited sampling. A recent analysis suggests that in the phylogenetic tree of Parasola, P. auricoma and P. conopilus form a tritomy with the crown Parasola species.
## Description
The fungus produces fruit bodies with caps that are initially egg-shaped with margins curled inward; as the cap expands, it becomes conical and eventually flat or slightly depressed in the center, ultimately reaching a diameter of 6 cm (2.4 in). The fruit bodies are hygrophanous, and so will change color depending on their state of hydration. When the fruit bodies are young and fresh, the caps are reddish brown and can glisten, especially if wet. As the mushroom matures, the outer edge of the cap turn a greyish color while the center remains reddish brown. Radial grooves extend from the center of the cap to the margins. The caps have minute hairs (setae) that are visible through a hand lens.
The gills are free from attachment to the stem, and have a width of 0.2–0.4 cm (0.08–0.16 in). They are initially whitish before turning greyish brown, and eventually become blackish with a dark margin as the spores mature. Unlike some other coprinoid mushrooms, the gills do not deliquesce—a process whereby the gills dissolve into an inky black mass as they release their spores. The whitish stem is up to 12 cm (4.7 in) long and 0.4 cm (0.16 in) thick, hollow, and fragile. Young fruit bodies can have abundant, thick-walled hairs at the base of the stem, but these typically disappear as the mushroom matures. The flesh is thin, fragile, yellowish to brownish, and lacks any appreciable odor or taste. The spore print is brownish-black. The edibility of P. auricoma is not known with certainty, but the fruit bodies are small and insubstantial.
The spores are ellipsoid, have a central germ pore, and measure 10–14 by 5.75–8 μm. The basidia (spore-bearing cells) are club-shaped and four-spored. The colorless pleurocystidia (cystidia on the gill face) measure 70–140 by 20–45 μm, and are roughly elliptical to flask-shaped, while the similarly shaped cheilocystidia (found on the gill edge) measure 50–95 by 15–25 μm. Clamp connections are present in the hyphae of all tissues of P. auricoma. The cap cuticle comprises a layer of club-shaped, thin-walled cells measuring 25–40 by 10–30 μm interspersed with long, dark, thick-walled setae. Yellowish-brown setae are plentiful on the cap surface, and consist of an elongated, hair-like segment up to 315 μm long, attached to the surface by a bulbous base that is 3–9 μm wide.
### Similar species
Several characters serve to help distinguish Parasola auricoma from similar coprinoid mushrooms that grow in woodchips, including a lack of deliquescence, and the lack of a veil. Microscopically, it is characterized by the long, gold-pigmented, thick-walled setae on the cap, and ellipsoid spores with a germ pore. The distinctly grooved and pleated cap margin indicates that it is allied with the coprinoid species and not with the genus Psathyrella. Similar Parasola species include the common and widespread P. plicatilis, P. leiocephala, P. lilatincta, and P. kuehneri. Only microscopy will definitively separate these from P. auricoma—none of them have setae on the cap.
## Habitat and distribution
Parasola auricoma is a saprobic species, and so obtains nutrients by breaking down organic matter into simpler molecules. The fruit bodies grow either singly or in groups, often in large numbers, at road sides in deciduous forests, or on grassy areas. The mushrooms are short-lived, usually lasting only for a few hours before collapsing. Common in Europe and North America (including Hawaii), it has also been recorded from Japan. In Europe, fruit bodies appear most commonly in spring and summer months, while in North America, fruiting is more common in the late summer and autumn, after rains. The mushroom was reported in Bogotá, Colombia by Mycologist Juan Camilo Rodríguez Martínez. |
20,540,021 | U-48-class submarine | 1,134,926,014 | Planned Austro-Hungarian Navy submarines during WWI | [
"Submarine classes",
"Submarines of the Austro-Hungarian Navy"
]
| The U-48 class was a class of four submarines or U-boats planned for the Austro-Hungarian Navy (German: Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine or German: K.u.K. Kriegsmarine) during World War I. The design of the boats was based on plans purchased from the German firm AG Weser in January 1916. The Navy authorized Cantiere Navale Triestino to begin construction of the submarines in Pola in September 1916. Only two of the planned four boats were laid down, but neither of them was launched or completed. Both incomplete submarines were scrapped after the war ended.
## Design
Austria-Hungary's U-boat fleet was largely obsolete at the outbreak of World War I, and over the first two years of the war the Austro-Hungarian Navy focused its efforts on building a U-boat fleet for local defense within the Adriatic. With boats to fill that need either under construction or purchased from Germany, efforts were focused on building submarines for operation in the wider Mediterranean, outside the Adriatic.
In January 1916 Cantiere Navale Triestino (CNT) purchased plans for an 800-tonne (880-short-ton) submarine from the German firm AG Weser of Bremen. Austro-Hungarian Navy modifications to the plans resulted in a submarine that displaced 818 t (902 short tons) surfaced and 1,184 t (1,305 short tons) submerged. The boats were to be 240 feet 4 inches (73.25 m) long with a beam of 21 feet 11 inches (6.68 m) and a draft of 10 feet 10 inches (3.30 m). For propulsion, the design featured two shafts, with twin diesel engines of 2,400 bhp (1,800 kW) (total) for surface running at up to 16.25 knots (30.10 km/h), and twin electric motors of 1,200 shp (890 kW) (total) for submerged travel at up to 8.5 knots (15.7 km/h). The U-48 class boats were designed for a crew of 32 men.
The U-48 design called for six 45 cm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes—four bow tubes and two stern tubes—and carried a complement of nine torpedoes. The original design specified two 90 mm/35 (3.5 in) deck guns, which were superseded by two 120 mm/35 (4.7 in) deck guns in plans for the third and fourth boats.
## Construction
In September 1916, Cantiere Navale Triestino (CNT) received authorization to build two boats of the class, U-48 and U-49, with the proviso that the boats be built in Budapest with final assembly at the Pola Navy Yard. These first two boats, which comprised one-third of the six submarines under construction in 1916, were followed by orders for U-58 and U-59 before the war's end.
Although CNT had secured fully complete plans from Weser, the Austro-Hungarian design modifications delayed the start of construction. Additional changes after construction had begun slowed the boats' progress. Compounding this were shortages of both material and skilled shipyard workers, further slowing construction. As a result, neither of the first two boats was ever launched, much less completed, and the second pair was cancelled before either was laid down. U-48 was 70% complete at the war's end, while U-49 was only 55% complete. Both boats were scrapped in place in 1920. |
200,421 | Little owl | 1,141,248,180 | Species of owl | [
"Athene (bird)",
"Birds described in 1769",
"Birds of Eurasia",
"Birds of North Africa",
"Birds of prey of Africa",
"Symbols of Athena"
]
| The little owl (Athene noctua), also known as the owl of Athena or owl of Minerva, is a bird that inhabits much of the temperate and warmer parts of Europe, the Palearctic east to Korea, and North Africa. It was introduced into Britain at the end of the 19th century and into the South Island of New Zealand in the early 20th century.
This owl is a member of the typical or true owl family Strigidae, which contains most species of owl, the other grouping being the barn owls, Tytonidae. It is a small, cryptically coloured, mainly nocturnal species and is found in a range of habitats including farmland, woodland fringes, steppes and semi-deserts. It feeds on insects, earthworms, other invertebrates and small vertebrates. Males hold territories which they defend against intruders. This owl is a cavity nester and a clutch of about four eggs is laid in spring. The female does the incubation and the male brings food to the nest, first for the female and later for the newly hatched young. As the chicks grow, both parents hunt and bring them food, and the chicks leave the nest at about seven weeks of age.
Being a common species with a wide range and large total population, the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed its conservation status as "least concern".
## Taxonomy
The little owl was formally described in 1769 by the Austrian naturalist Giovanni Antonio Scopoli under the binomial name Strix noctua. The little owl is now placed in the genus Athene that was introduced by the German zoologist Friedrich Boie in 1822. The owl was designated as the type species of the genus by George Robert Gray in 1841. The genus name, Athene, commemorates the goddess Athena, whose original role as a goddess of the night might explain the link to an owl. The species name noctua has, in effect, the same meaning, being the Latin name of an owl sacred to Minerva, Athena's Roman counterpart.
The little owl is probably most closely related to the spotted owlet (Athene brama). A number of variations occur over the bird's wide range and there is some dispute over their taxonomy. The most distinct is the pale grey-brown Middle Eastern type known as the Syrian little owl (A. n. lilith). A 2009 paper in the ornithological journal Dutch Birding (vol. 31: 35–37, 2009) has advocated splitting the southeastern races as a separate species, Lilith's owl (Athene glaux), with subspecies A. g. glaux, A. g. indigena, and A. g. lilith. DNA evidence and vocal patterns support this proposal.
Other forms include another pale race, the north African A. n. desertae, and three intermediate subspecies, A. n. indigena of southeast Europe and Asia Minor, A. n. glaux in north Africa and southwest Asia, and A. n. bactriana of central Asia. Differences in size of bird and length of toes, reasons put forward for splitting off A. n. spilogastra, seem inconclusive; A. n. plumipes has been claimed to differ genetically from other members of the species and further investigation is required. In general, the different varieties both overlap with the ranges of neighbouring groups and intergrade (hybridise) with them across their boundaries.
Thirteen subspecies are recognised:
- A. n. noctua (Scopoli, 1769) – central, south, southeast Europe to northwest Russia
- A. n. bactriana Blyth, 1847 – Iraq and Azerbaijan to Pakistan and northwest India
- A. n. glaux (Savigny, 1809) – coastal north Africa to southwest Israel
- A. n. impasta Bangs & Peters, JL, 1928 – west-central China
- A. n. indigena Brehm, CL, 1855 – Romania to Greece through Ukraine and Turkey east to south Russia
- A. n. lilith Hartert, E, 1913 – Cyprus, south Turkey to Iraq and the Sinai (Egypt)
- A. n. ludlowi Baker, ECS, 1926 – Himalayas
- A. n. orientalis Severtsov, 1873 – northeast Kazakhstan and northwest China
- A. n. plumipes Swinhoe, 1870 – Mongolia, south-central Siberia and northeast China
- A. n. saharae (Kleinschmidt, 1909) – Morocco to west Egypt and central Arabia
- A. n. somaliensis Reichenow, 1905 – east Ethiopia and Somalia
- A. n. spilogastra Heuglin, 1863 – east Sudan, Eritrea and northeast Ethiopia
- A. n. vidalii Brehm, AE, 1857 – west Europe
## Description
The little owl is a small owl with a flat-topped head, a plump, compact body and a short tail. The facial disc is flattened above the eyes giving the bird a frowning expression. The plumage is greyish-brown, spotted, streaked and barred with white. The underparts are pale and streaked with darker colour. It is usually 22 cm (8.7 in) in length with a wingspan of 56 cm (22 in) for both sexes, and weighs about 180 g (6.3 oz).
The adult little owl of the most widespread form, the nominate A. n. noctua, is white-speckled brown above, and brown-streaked white below. It has a large head, long legs, and yellow eyes, and its white "eyebrows" give it a stern expression. Juveniles are duller, and lack the adult's white crown spots. This species has a bounding flight like a woodpecker. Moult begins in July and continues to November, with the male starting before the female.
The call is a querulous kiew, kiew. Less frequently, various whistling or trilling calls are uttered. In the breeding season, other more modulated calls are made, and a pair may call in duet. Various yelping, chattering or barking sounds are made in the vicinity of the nest.
## Distribution and habitat
The little owl is widespread across Europe, Asia and North Africa. Its range in Eurasia extends from the Iberian Peninsula and Denmark eastwards to China and southwards to the Himalayas. In Africa it is present from Mauritania to Egypt, the Red Sea and Arabia. It was introduced to the United Kingdom in the 19th century, and has spread across much of England and the whole of Wales. It was introduced to Otago in New Zealand by the local acclimatisation society in 1906, and to Canterbury a little later, and is now widespread in the eastern and northern South Island; it is partially protected under Schedule 2 of New Zealand's Wildlife Act 1953, whereas most introduced birds explicitly have no protection or are game birds.
This is a sedentary species that is found in open countryside in a great range of habitats. These include agricultural land with hedgerows and trees, orchards, woodland verges, parks and gardens, as well as steppes and stony semi-deserts. It is also present in treeless areas such as dunes, and in the vicinity of ruins, quarries and rocky outcrops. It sometimes ventures into villages and suburbs. In the United Kingdom it is chiefly a bird of the lowlands, and usually occurs below 500 m (1,600 ft). In continental Europe and Asia it may be found at much higher elevations; one individual was recorded from 3,600 m (12,000 ft) in Tibet.
## Behaviour and ecology
This owl usually perches in an elevated position ready to swoop down on any small creature it notices. It feeds on prey such as insects and earthworms, as well as small vertebrates including amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. It may pursue prey on the ground and it caches surplus food in holes or other hiding places. A study of the pellets of indigestible material that the birds regurgitate found mammals formed 20 to 50% of the diet and insects 24 to 49%. Mammals taken included mice, rats, voles, shrews, moles and rabbits. The birds were mostly taken during the breeding season and were often fledglings, and including the chicks of game birds. The insects included Diptera, Dermaptera, Coleoptera, Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera. Some vegetable matter (up to 5%) was included in the diet and may have been ingested incidentally.
The little owl is territorial, the male normally remaining in one territory for life. However, the boundaries may expand and contract, being largest in the courtship season in spring. The home range, in which the bird actually hunts for food, varies with the type of habitat and time of year. Little owls with home-ranges that incorporate a high diversity of habitats are much smaller (\< 2 ha) than those which breed in monotonous farmland (with home-ranges over 12 ha). Larger home-ranges result in increased flight activity, longer foraging trips and fewer nest visits. If a male intrudes into the territory of another, the occupier approaches and emits its territorial calls. If the intruder persists, the occupier flies at him aggressively. If this is unsuccessful, the occupier repeats the attack, this time trying to make contact with his claws. In retreat, an owl often drops to the ground and makes a low-level escape. The territory is more actively defended against a strange male as compared to a known male from a neighbouring territory; it has been shown that the little owl can recognise familiar birds by voice.
The little owl is partly diurnal and often perches boldly and prominently during the day. If living in an area with a large amount of human activity, little owls may grow used to humans and will remain on their perch, often in full view, while people are around. The little owl has a life expectancy of about 16 years. However, many birds do not reach maturity; severe winters can take their toll and some birds are killed by road vehicles at night, so the average lifespan may be on the order of 3 years.
### Breeding
This owl becomes more vocal at night as the breeding season approaches in late spring. The nesting location varies with habitat, nests being found in holes in trees, in cliffs, quarries, walls, old buildings, river banks and rabbit burrows. A clutch of 3 to 5 eggs is laid (occasionally 2 to 8). The eggs are broadly elliptical, white and without gloss; they measure about 35.5 by 29.5 mm (1.40 by 1.16 in). They are incubated by the female who sometimes starts sitting after the first egg is laid. While she is incubating the eggs, the male brings food for her. The eggs hatch after 28 or 29 days. At first the chicks are brooded by the female and the male brings in food which she distributes to them. Later, both parents are involved in hunting and feeding them. The young leave the nest at about 7 weeks, and can fly a week or two later. Usually there is a single brood but when food is abundant, there may be two. The energy reserves that little owl chicks are able to build up when in the nest influences their post-fledgling survival, with birds in good physical condition having a much higher chance of survival than those in poor condition. When the young disperse, they seldom travel more than about 20 km (12 mi). Pairs of birds often remain together all year round and the bond may last until one partner dies.
## Status
A. noctua has an extremely large range. It has been estimated that there are between 560 thousand and 1.3 million breeding pairs in Europe, and as Europe equates to 25 to 49% of the global range, the world population may be between 5 million and 15 million birds. The population is believed to be stable, and for these reasons, the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed the bird's conservation status as being of "least concern".
## In human culture
Owls have often been depicted from the Upper Palaeolithic onwards, in forms from statuettes and drawings to pottery and wooden posts, but in the main they are generic rather than identifiable to species. The little owl is, however, closely associated with the Greek goddess Athena and the Roman goddess Minerva, and hence represents wisdom and knowledge. A little owl with an olive branch appears on a Greek tetradrachm coin from 500 BC (a copy of which appears on the modern Greek one-euro coin) and in a 5th-century B.C. bronze statue of Athena holding the bird in her hand. The call of a little owl was thought to have heralded the murder of Julius Caesar.
In Bulgarian and Romanian folklore, the little owl is said to be a harbinger of death. In 1992, the little owl appeared as a watermark on Jaap Drupsteen’s 100 guilder banknote for the Netherlands.
In 1843 several little owls that had been brought from Italy were released by the English naturalist Charles Waterton on his estate at Walton Hall in Yorkshire but these failed to establish themselves. Later successful introductions were made by Lord Lilford on his Lilford Hall estate near Oundle in Northamptonshire and by Edmund Meade-Waldo at Stonewall Park near Edenbridge, Kent. From these areas the birds spread and had become abundant by 1900. The owls acquired a bad reputation and were believed to prey on game bird chicks. They therefore became a concern to game breeders who tried to eliminate them. In 1935 the British Trust for Ornithology initiated a study into the little owl's diet led by the naturalist Alice Hibbert-Ware. The report showed that the owls feed almost entirely on insects, other invertebrates and small mammals and thus posed little threat to game birds.
There is evidence that from the 19th century little owls were occasionally kept as ornamental birds. In Italy, tamed and docked little owls were kept to hunt rodents and insects in the house and garden.
More common was keeping little owls to use them in so-called cottage hunting. This took advantage of the fact that many bird species react to owls with aggressive behaviour when they discover them during the day (mobbing). Such huntings, particularly with tawny owls, were practiced in Italy from 350 B.C. until the 20th century and in Germany from the 17th to the 20th century. In Italy, mainly skylarks were caught in this way. The main place of trade was Crespina, a small town near Pisa. Here, little owls were traditionally sold on 29 September, after being taken from their nests and raised in human care. Only since the 1990s has this trade been officially banned; however, because of the long cultural tradition for hunting with little owls, exemptions are still granted. Thus, there is still a breeding center for little owls near Crespina, which is maintained by hunters. |
38,858,846 | What Now (song) | 1,142,242,877 | null | [
"2010s ballads",
"2012 songs",
"2013 singles",
"Pop ballads",
"Rihanna songs",
"Song recordings produced by Kuk Harrell",
"Songs written by Livvi Franc",
"Songs written by Parker Ighile",
"Songs written by Rihanna"
]
| "What Now" is a song recorded by Barbadian singer Rihanna for her seventh studio album, Unapologetic (2012). It was written by Olivia Waithe, Parker Ighile, Maestro The Baker and Nathan Cassells alongside Rihanna, with production handled by Maestro The Baker, Ighile and Cassells. A remix collection was released exclusively to Beatport on August 29, 2013 and later via iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play on September 17, 2013. The single was serviced to US rhythmic radio on September 24, 2013, before impacting mainstream radio on October 1, 2013 as the fifth single from Unapologetic. Another remix collection was released to Beatport on October 29, 2013. The song is a mid-tempo piano ballad which incorporates sounds which resemble "sonic bombs" during the chorus and "crashing" drums.
"What Now" received generally positive reviews from music critics, with many calling it an emotional, stand-out song on the album and praising Rihanna's vocals. Following the release of Unapologetic, "What Now" made appearances on various charts around the world. Following its release as a single, the song re-peaked in multiple territories, having it also reach new peaks at number 25 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number 25 on the UK Singles Chart, while topping the US Dance Club Songs chart and attaining a top three peak on the UK Hip Hop and R&B Singles Chart.
The song's accompanying music video was directed by Jeff Nicholas, Jonathan Craven, and Darren Craig from Uprising Creativity. It portrays Rihanna having an "emotional breakdown" and performing exorcism-type dance moves. Critics complimented the video and compared it to Rihanna's 2008 video for the song "Disturbia". Rihanna promoted "What Now" on Alan Carr: Chatty Man and the song is included on the set list of her Diamonds World Tour (2013). British television network ITV used the song for their "Where Drama Lives" 2014 advertisement.
## Production and release
Rihanna began "working on the new sound" for her seventh studio album in March 2012, even though she had not yet begun recording. On September 12, 2012, Def Jam France announced via Twitter that Rihanna would release a new single the upcoming week while her seventh studio album was scheduled to be released in November 2012. On October 11, 2012, in one of her tweets revealed that the title of her new album is Unapologetic along with its cover.
"What Now" was written by British singer-songwriter Livvi Franc together with Rihanna, Parker Ighile, Maestro The Baker and Nathan Cassells. Ighile, Maestro and Cassells recorded the music for the track in Metropolis Studios located in London, United Kingdom, and provided all of the instrumentation and programming. Kuk Harrell provided the vocal production of the song and also recorded Rihanna's vocals together with Marcos Tovar at Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles, California. Blake Mares and Robert Cohen served as assistant vocal engineer of "What Now". It was mixed by Phil Tan at Ninja Club Studios in Atlanta, Georgia with Daniela Rivera serving as assistant mixing engineer.
"What Now" was released as the sixth single from the album Unapologetic. Ten remixes of the song were digitally released via Beatport on August 28, 2013 in the United States. The same remixes, were also added on the iTunes Store on September 17. "What Now" was serviced to rhythmic contemporary radio in the United States on September 24. It was later sent to contemporary hit radio on October 1. Via her Instagram account, Rihanna revealed the official artwork for the song on October 16. It features the singer dressed in black and "stares out with piercing eyes" while her name is written on chalkboard behind her. Jocelyn Vena of MTV News described Rihanna's style on the artwork as goth and noted that it is reminiscent of the behind-the-scenes shot she posted during filming the song's video.
## Composition
"What Now" is a piano-led mid tempo pop and R&B ballad which lasts four minutes and three seconds. According to Sony/ATV Music Publishing's digital sheet music for the song, it is composed in the key of G minor and set in compound duple meter ( time) with a moderately slow groove of 60 beats per minute. Rihanna's vocals span from the low note of A<sub>3</sub> to the high note of C<sub>5</sub>. "What Now" follows a chord progression of Gm–B2–F–Fsus4–F. The instrumental features "crashing" drums; Dean Martin of NME described it as a 'bonkers marriage of pianos and bass-pop'. According to Mesfin Fekadu of The Huffington Post, the song "builds nicely from its calming verse to its electrified hook."
The Urban Daily's Smokey D. Fountaine compared "What Now" to the works by singer Pink as according to him contains "yell-as-long-as-you-have-a-great-hook style". Its structure "flips" from verse to chorus "like they’re from two different planets", according to Michael Gallucci of PopCrush. Gallucci also felt that Rihanna's over-sings on the track, in contrast with Chris Younie of 4Music who said that Rihanna sounds "sweet". During the "roaring" chorus, sounds which resemble "sonic bombs" are included in the background.
## Critical reception
A Billboard reviewer praised "What Now" and called the song an "emotional highlight on an album filled with moments of resonance in its second half." Giovanny Caquias of Culture Blues wrote that the song feels like the first "candid" and "insightful" track on Unapologetic. He continued, "Rihanna gets a little introspective on What Now, and doesn't resort to being overtly sexual or defiantly callous (more on that later), which gave me the feeling that she stripped away her armor for a moment and actually allowed herself to be 'real'." Daily News Jim Farber wrote that the song shows a heft.
Brad Stern of MTV Buzzworthy praised Rihanna's vocals on the song and referred to it as a "most poignant offering on the record". The Star-Ledger's reviewer labelled the song as "staggering power ballad that makes all her other mid-tempo numbers sound featherweight by comparison." Andy Kellman of Allmusic praised "What Now" and called it a "massive, slamming, wailing power ballad". Jon Caramanica of The New York Times positively reviewed the song writing, "Rihanna is doing some of her most direct, ambitious singing here. It’s the album’s one real purge, and a sign of a pulse beneath the armor." Genevieve Koski for The A.V. Club criticised "What Now", writing that it (as well as "Stay") are the types of "milquetoast ballads" which have never been Rihanna's speciality.
## Commercial performance
Upon the release of Unapologetic, "What Now" charted in France and on two charts in the United Kingdom due to strong digital download sales. It debuted on the French Singles Chart at number 144 for the week dated December 1, 2012, and remained on the chart for one week. On July 13, 2013, it re-entered the chart at number 174; the song peaked at number 83 two weeks later. On December 2, 2012, it debuted at number 165 on the UK Singles Chart, and number 32 on the UK Hip Hop and R&B Singles Chart. "What Now" was later serviced to radio in Australia as the fourth single from the album. It debuted at number 37 on the ARIA Singles Chart on August 18, 2013, and peaked at number 21. According to IFPI, the song has sold 2 million copies worldwide.
## Music video
### Production and synopsis
Rihanna shot the music video for "What Now" inside a warehouse in Phuket, Thailand on September 17, 2013, during a tour stop of the Diamonds World Tour. It was directed by Jeff Nicholas, Jonathan Craven, and Darren Craig from Uprising Creativity. Nicholas and Craven previously worked on the video for Justin Timberlake's single "Tunnel Vision" from his third studio album The 20/20 Experience. According to Steven Gottlieb of VideoStatic the double-exposure body shots are a visible common similarity of the two videos. On November 13, Rihanna unveiled a behind-the-scenes video via her official Vevo account. During it she explained the concept of the video, "It's gonna be kind of eerie, very creepy because 'What Now' is one of those songs that you can get really boring with the visual. You can get really almost expected. Everybody's probably expecting narrative type of video, a love story of some sorts or something really soft and pretty" and then says, "It is pretty and kind of soft, but it's really a little demented." Prior to the video's release, Rihanna posted a sneak peek of the video on YouTube. The official music video was released to VEVO on November 15, 2013.
Rob Newman is the producer of the video, while Craven, Nicholas and Thananath Songchaikul executively produced the visual. Sing Howe Yam performed the direction of the photography while Clark Eddy is the editor. The video opens to Rihanna appearing on a static television screen in a simple nude gown and crucifix necklace. She then begins to sing whilst being in a darkened room with a black gown on and later appearing in a brightened room with a white gown on. The video switches between the creepy and the pretty Rihanna as she mopes in a sparse warehouse space, possessed by her loneliness.
### Reception
Jocelyn Vena of MTV compared the video to four of Rihanna's past videos, with "Disturbia" being one of the four, she says "both 'What Now' and 'Disturbia' have a dark, supernatural vibe about them. And in addition to sharing that similarity, the visuals' shots are layered, giving off a sort of 3-D effect." Other comparisons included were "Diamonds" and "Stay", which is also included on her 2012 Unapologetic, and "We Found Love". Even Rachel Brodsky of MTV's Buzzworthy Blog used seven comparisons of how the video relates to the 1996 film The Craft. Jason Lipshutz of Billboard says that Rihanna "dials it down" for the video after the "twerking, pole-dancing and general skin-showing" video she released for "Pour It Up" the month before. Other reviewers gave similar opinions, as an anonymous reviewer of The Huffington Post says "The clip shows the 25-year-old singer in a spooky place, writhing in a sparse room shot in a fashion similar to many horror movies."
## Live performances
On September 27, 2013, Rihanna performed the song on Channel 4's Alan Carr: Chatty Man. It is also included on the set list of her Diamonds World Tour (2013).
## Credits and personnel
Recording
- Recorded at Metropolis Studios, London, United Kingdom.
- Vocals recorded at Westlake Recording Studios, Los Angeles, California.
- Mixed at Ninja Club Studios, Atlanta, Georgia.
Personnel
- Songwriting – Olivia Waithe, Robyn Fenty, Parker Ighile, Nathan Cassells, Ifeoluwa Oladigbolu
- Production – Ighile, Cassells, Oladigbolu
- Recording engineers – Ighile, Cassells
- Assistant vocal engineer – Blake Mares, Robert Cohen
- Vocal recording – Kuk Harrell, Marcos Tovar
- Vocal production – Kuk Harrell
- Mixing – Phil Tan
- Additional/assistant engineering – Daniela Rivera
- Instruments and programming – Ighile, Cassells, Maestro The Baker
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Unapologetic, Def Jam Recordings, SRP Records.
## Track listing
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
## Certifications
## Release history
## See also
- List of Billboard Dance Club Songs number ones of 2013 |
16,995,787 | Cypriot nationality law | 1,171,008,131 | History and regulations of Cypriot citizenship | [
"Cyprus and the Commonwealth of Nations",
"Cyprus and the European Union",
"Foreign relations of Cyprus",
"Nationality in Cyprus",
"Nationality law"
]
| Cypriot nationality law details the conditions by which a person is a national of Cyprus. The primary law governing nationality regulations is the Republic of Cyprus Citizenship Law, 1967, which came into force on 28 July 1967. Regulations apply to the entire island of Cyprus, which includes the Republic of Cyprus itself and Northern Cyprus, a breakaway region that is diplomatically recognised only by Turkey as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).
Cyprus is a member state of the European Union (EU) and all Cypriot nationals are EU citizens. They have automatic and permanent permission to live and work in any EU or European Free Trade Association (EFTA) country and may vote in elections to the European Parliament.
Individuals born to at least one Cypriot parent automatically acquire citizenship at birth only if neither parent is considered an illegal migrant. Birth in Cyprus by itself does not make a child eligible for citizenship. Foreign nationals may become Cypriot citizens by naturalisation after completing a residence requirement (normally seven years).
Cyprus was previously a colony of the British Empire and local residents were British subjects. Although Cyprus gained independence in 1960 and Cypriot citizens no longer hold British nationality, they continue to have favoured status when residing in the United Kingdom; as Commonwealth citizens, they are eligible to vote in UK elections and serve in public office there.
## History
### Colonial-era policies
The island of Cyprus was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1570. Accordingly, Ottoman nationality law applied to the island. Cyprus was governed by the Ottomans for three centuries until it was leased to the British Empire in 1878. While the island remained under nominal Ottoman sovereignty, no authority on Cyprus existed to enforce Ottoman laws. Cypriot residents ostensibly remained Ottoman subjects but traveled using documents that labeled them as "natives of Cyprus" instead of Ottoman passports.
Britain fully annexed the island at the start of the First World War in 1914 after Ottoman entry into the war in support of the Central Powers and British nationality law became applicable to the island, as was the case elsewhere in the British Empire. Cypriots and all other imperial citizens were British subjects; any person born in Cyprus, the United Kingdom, or anywhere else within Crown dominions was a natural-born British subject.
Turkey formally relinquished all claims to Cyprus in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne and the island became a Crown colony in 1925. Ottoman/Turkish subjects who were ordinarily resident in Cyprus on 5 November 1914 automatically became British subjects on that date. However, any such person had the right to choose Turkish nationality within two years of the treaty's enforcement, provided that they permanently departed Cyprus for Turkey within 12 months of that choice. While about 9,000 Turkish Cypriots elected to become Turkish nationals, most either did not leave or subsequently returned to Cyprus due to poor economic conditions in Anatolia.
Colonial officials adhered to a policy of divide and rule, pitting the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities against each other to weaken opposition to their own authority. Beginning in 1926, further Turkish migration to Anatolia was restricted by the colonial government seeking to curb high levels of Muslim population outflow. To help retain a sizable Turkish community, the colonial government enacted a law in 1930 that allowed Cypriots who opted for Turkish nationality under Lausanne but had not left the island to regain British nationality. They further claimed that the Cypriots who had chosen Turkish nationality and had already departed for Turkey still remained British subjects (unless they otherwise naturalised) because the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne had not been implemented in domestic law.
Imperial nationality law was comprehensively reformed in 1948. The British Nationality Act 1948 redefined British subject to mean any citizen of the United Kingdom, its colonies, or other Commonwealth countries. Commonwealth citizen was first defined in this Act to have the same meaning. While previously all subjects of the Empire held a common status through allegiance to the Crown, each Commonwealth country under the reformed system became responsible for legislating their own nationality laws and would maintain a common status by voluntarily agreement among all the member states. British subjects under the previous meaning who held that status on 1 January 1949 because of a connection with the United Kingdom or a remaining colony (including Cyprus) became Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC).
### Independence and a tenuous republic
Greek Cypriots wanted enosis (union with Greece) while Turkish Cypriots vehemently opposed this and favoured taksim (partition of the island). Each of these communities holds a strong affinity to Greece or Turkey but no particular attachment to the idea of a Cyprus detached from either culture. Greek dissatisfaction with British rule led to open revolt in the 1950s during the Cyprus Emergency, which ultimately resulted in the 1959 London and Zürich Agreements and a multilateral accord between the UK, Greece, and Turkey on Cypriot independence in the following year.
Cyprus became an independent republic on 16 August 1960, although Britain retained control of two military bases in Akrotiri and Dhekelia. The Constitution of Cyprus specified that the requirements for holding Cypriot citizenship after independence would be determined by Annex D of the Treaty of Establishment. Any CUKC born in Cyprus automatically acquired Cypriot citizenship on that date if they were ordinarily resident in the country at any time within the five years immediately preceding independence, as well as any person born overseas to a father who also became a citizen. CUKCs of Cypriot origin who had not resided in Cyprus during the five years before independence did not become Cypriot citizens and retained CUKC status. Former Ottoman subjects of Cypriot origin who had not become British subjects in 1914 were entitled to Cypriot citizenship on application, as well as widowed or divorced women who otherwise would have been married to Cypriot citizens. The Republic of Cyprus Citizenship Law later enacted by the House of Representatives in 1967 provides a full framework detailing citizenship requirements after that point.
### Divided island
Tensions between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot political leadership led to a collapse of cooperative government in 1963 and triggered a period of sustained intercommunal violence that lasted until 1967. While the two communities were able to coexist in relative peace during the subsequent years, the military dictatorship of Greece successfully overthrew the Cypriot government in 1974. Consequently, Turkey invaded the northern part of Cyprus and divided the country, after which the Republic of Cyprus retained control over the southern two-thirds of the island.
While Turkish Cypriots remained citizens of the Republic, their access beyond the border was restricted by the government of the occupied territories, which limited their access to Cypriot citizenship documents. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was established in 1983 in the northern part of the island and Turkish Cypriots became eligible for TRNC passports. However, because the TRNC is not recognised by any country other than Turkey, these documents have very little practical use outside these two countries and Turkish Cypriots were more inclined to obtain Turkish passports instead. After travel restrictions between the two regions were reduced after introduction of the Annan Plan, TRNC residents more frequently sought to obtain Cypriot passports.
### Commonwealth citizenship
All British subjects/Commonwealth citizens under the reformed structure of nationality created in 1948 initially held an automatic right to settle in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Non-white immigration into the UK was systemically discouraged, but strong economic conditions in Britain following the Second World War attracted an unprecedented wave of colonial migration. In response, the British Parliament imposed immigration controls on any subjects originating from outside the British Islands with the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962. Ireland had continued to allow all British subjects free movement despite independence in 1922 as part of the Common Travel Area arrangement, but moved to mirror Britain's restriction in 1962 by limiting this ability only to people born on the islands of Great Britain or Ireland. Britain somewhat relaxed these measures in 1971 for patrials, subjects whose parents or grandparents were born in the United Kingdom, which gave effective preferential treatment to white Commonwealth citizens.
Following Cypriot independence in 1960, Commonwealth citizens of Cypriot descent have remained eligible for facilitated acquisition of citizenship; they may register as Cypriot citizens after 12 months of residence while other persons of Cypriot descent with non-Commonwealth nationality may only naturalise after living in the country for at least five years.
The UK updated its nationality law to reflect the more modest boundaries of its remaining territory and possessions with the British Nationality Act 1981, which redefined British subject to no longer also mean Commonwealth citizen. Cypriot citizens remain Commonwealth citizens in British law and continue to be eligible to vote and stand for public office in the UK. Individuals who did not acquire Cypriot citizenship at independence, retained CUKC status, and lacked right of abode in the United Kingdom became reclassified as British Overseas citizens as part of the 1981 reform.
### European integration
Cyprus joined the European Union as part of the EU's 2004 enlargement. Cypriot citizens have since been able to live and work in other EU/EFTA countries under freedom of movement for workers established by the 1957 Treaty of Rome and participated in their first European Parliament elections in 2004.
Before the UK's withdrawal from the EU in 2020, Cypriot citizens held a particularly favoured status there. While non-EU Commonwealth citizens continued to need a residence visa to live in the UK, Cypriot citizens were able to settle there and immediately hold full rights to political participation due to their status as both Commonwealth and EU citizens. Cypriot citizens (along with Irish and Maltese citizens) domiciled in the UK were able to vote in the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum while all other non-British EU citizens were not.
### Citizenship by investment
In 2013, a citizenship by investment pathway was created to attract foreign investment into the country. Through the Cyprus Investment Programme, a foreigner could acquire Cypriot citizenship after investing €2 million in real estate, infrastructure projects, local businesses, or domestic financial assets and maintaining that sum within the Republic for at least five years. Candidates needed to have a clean criminal record, must not have been denied naturalisation in any other EU member state, and were required to purchase a residence in the country valued at least €500,000 that must be retained permanently. A further donation of €150,000 became required in 2019, half of which would go to a scientific research fund and the other half dedicated towards financing affordable housing on the island.
Investors who successfully naturalised are subject to periodic checks that verify their continued ownership of real estate in Cyprus and are liable to have their citizenship revoked if discovered to have divested themselves of that property without a replacement residence. This stipulation was made in violation of Article 63 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which prohibits restrictions on the movement of capital.
The European Commission repeatedly condemned this citizenship pathway for its high risks in aiding money laundering, tax evasion, and corruption. A 2019 Reuters publication which reported that eight relatives and associates of Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen had acquired Cypriot citizenship by investment triggered a government investigation into the circumstances under which their citizenship was obtained. Following the release of a video recording showing Cypriot legislators offering to facilitate naturalisation for a fictional convicted investor, the programme was indefinitely suspended on 1 November 2020.
## Acquisition and loss of citizenship
### Entitlement by descent
A person born to at least one parent who is a Cypriot citizen usually automatically receives citizenship at birth regardless of birthplace. Citizenship is only granted automatically if neither parent is considered an illegal migrant. Otherwise, it may only be acquired by a Council of Ministers decision. In practice, this makes Cypriot citizenship difficult to obtain for children born to Turkish Cypriots married to Turkish nationals in Northern Cyprus.
### Registration by descent or marriage
British, Irish, and Commonwealth citizens of Cypriot descent are eligible to acquire Cypriot citizenship by registration after residing in the country for 12 months and submit a signed statement of loyalty to the state. They may also qualify to register as citizens if they are employed in Cypriot government service and either intend to live in the Republic or continue service.
Non-citizens who are married to Cypriot citizens may acquire citizenship by registration after three years of marriage and cohabitation. The residence requirement may be waived provided that the couple has been married for at least two years. Widowed spouses may still register for citizenship provided that the acquisition requirements were fulfilled before the Cypriot spouse's death. Underage children of a Cypriot citizen may be registered by their parent with no further requirements. Citizenship by registration is also conditional on legal residence; any person considered to be an illegal migrant is disqualified from registering as a Cypriot citizen.
### Naturalisation
Foreigners who are parents or children of Cypriot citizens may acquire citizenship by naturalisation after residing in the country for at least four of the previous seven years, with an additional 12 months of residence immediately preceding an application, a total of five years. The four-year residence requirement may be partially or completely fulfilled by time employed in government service, but this may not be done for the 12 months immediately preceding a naturalisation application. Individuals without Cypriot descent may naturalise after a total of seven years of residence. Persons who perform extraordinary acts of service to Cyprus may be exceptionally granted Cypriot citizenship without any requirements at the discretion of the Council of Ministers.
### Relinquishment and deprivation
Cypriot citizenship can be relinquished by submitting a declaration of renunciation. Citizenship may be involuntarily removed from naturalised or registered persons who: fraudulently acquired the status, committed an act of disloyalty against the state, aided an enemy nation with which Cyprus is at war, have been sentenced to incarceration for longer than 12 months within five years of acquiring citizenship, or lived overseas (other than those employed in government service) for a continuous period of seven years. After one of the these conditions is met, the Council of Ministers must determine that it is not in the national interest for such a person to retain citizenship before it can be stripped. |
29,017,852 | When It Rains, It Pours (30 Rock) | 1,154,263,813 | null | [
"2010 American television episodes",
"30 Rock (season 5) episodes"
]
| "When It Rains, It Pours" is the second episode of the fifth season of the American television comedy series 30 Rock, and the 82nd overall episode of the series. It was written by co-show runner and executive producer Robert Carlock and directed by series producer Don Scardino. "When It Rains, It Pours" originally aired on NBC in the United States on September 30, 2010. Guest stars in this episode include Joanna Adler, Ben Bailey, Elizabeth Banks, Craig Castaldo, Paul Giamatti, Andrea Mitchell, Chris Parnell, Sherri Shepherd, and Brian Williams.
In the episode, Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) uses her newfound confidence of men noticing her to solve Pete Hornberger's (Scott Adsit) problem with a difficult television editor named Ritchie (Paul Giamatti). Meanwhile, Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) decides to teach his unborn child with his girlfriend Avery Jessup (Elizabeth Banks) how to live. Elsewhere, Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) is determined to be with his wife Angie Jordan (Sherri Shepherd) when she gives birth, and a mysterious individual is making sure Kenneth Parcell's (Jack McBrayer) page duties at the fictitious show The Girlie Show with Tracy Jordan (TGS) at NBC are still getting done.
"When It Rains, It Pours" received generally positive reviews from television critics. According to the Nielsen Media Research, the episode was watched by 5.688 million households during its original broadcast, and received a 2.6 rating/8 share among viewers in the 18–49 demographic. For his work in the episode, Robert Carlock won the Writers Guild of America Award for Episodic Comedy.
The beginning of this episode features a construction worker played by Mike Carlsen, who was later retconned into being Carlsen's character Mikey Politano from Fey and Carlock's later show Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
## Plot
Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) is surprised that men have been noticing her, instead of resenting or ignoring her as they usually do. Her friend Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski) tells Liz that she is coming off as more confident since starting her relationship with her boyfriend Carol (Matt Damon). Liz decides to use her new-found confidence to help TGS with Tracy Jordan producer Pete Hornberger (Scott Adsit) with a problem he has had with a difficult television editor named Ritchie (Paul Giamatti). Liz visits him in the editing room and hopes to convince him to get TGS's show's opener footage finished as soon as possible in which she is successful after flirting with Ritchie. Later, Liz learns that Ritchie is spreading a rumor that the two are sleeping together. She confronts Ritchie about it, he admits to starting the rumor in order to get the attention of his assistant editor Donna (Joanna Adler). Later, Liz and Ritchie have a pretend break-up in front of Donna, and Donna becomes interested in Ritchie.
Meanwhile, Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) and his girlfriend CNBC host Avery Jessup (Elizabeth Banks) tell Liz that they are expecting a son. Liz congratulates them and tells the two that their son will have an old dad as Jack is in his early 50s. As a result of what Liz said, Jack fears that he will not be around so he decides to teach his unborn son how to live by recording a video containing advice for him. Later, Jack learns that he and Avery are in fact expecting a daughter and not a son. Jack realizes that he needs to make new tapes and in the tape he says to his unborn daughter "If you have the blondeness and self-esteem of your mother, you will need no advice."
At the same time, Tracy Jordan's (Tracy Morgan) wife, Angie Jordan (Sherri Shepherd), is going into labor. Tracy, who after missing the birth of his sons does not want to miss the birth of his daughter, has Grizz Griswold (Grizz Chapman) and "Dot Com" Slattery (Kevin Brown) guard him in his dressing room in the 30 Rock building so that he would not wander off. A fire drill occurs so everyone must exit the building. Outside, however, the two lose track of Tracy, who wanders around the city. He hails a cab to get to the hospital Angie is at, but realizes that he does not have money on him, however, the driver does not mind. Once inside the cab, the driver, Ben Bailey—the host of the game show Cash Cab—informs Tracy that he is a contestant. As part of the game, Tracy must answer questions to win money and reach his destination. As a result, Tracy answers all the questions correctly and arrives at the hospital in time to witness the birth of his daughter.
In addition, Liz and Jenna are surprised how smoothly everything is running in the TGS set without Kenneth Parcell (Jack McBrayer), a former NBC page. Unbeknownst to everyone, there is a "mystery man" going around TGS in a black cape completing all of the tasks that Kenneth would do. While Jack is recording a video, he catches Kenneth in his office, revealing that Kenneth has been the one completing all of his old tasks. Kenneth says that he is there because he knows how much he is needed, but Jack tells him that they do not need him and he must move on with his life. Hurt and bewildered, Kenneth leaves, and Jack says in the video for his unborn child that the exchange between him and Kenneth was really "tough love" and he had just sent Kenneth on a journey. Later, Kenneth gets a phone call from Angie, who is delirious on pain killers. At the same time, as Tracy is on the game show, Angie tells Kenneth to find Tracy. Unable to do so, Kenneth takes a cardboard cut-out of Tracy and pretends to be him as she is giving birth until Tracy comes in and pushes Kenneth out of the way. Later, Jack tells Kenneth that he is truly needed back at TGS and offers to talk to human resources to get his job back, but Kenneth refuses and says he will re-apply to the page program, following the proper procedures.
## Production
This episode of 30 Rock was written by co-show runner and executive producer Robert Carlock and directed by series producer Don Scardino. This was Carlock's sixteenth writing credit, and Scardino's twenty-eighth directed episode. "When It Rains, It Pours" originally aired in the United States on September 30, 2010, on NBC as the second episode of the show's fifth season and the 82nd overall episode of the series. This episode of 30 Rock was filmed on August 30, August 31, September 2, September 5, and September 8, 2010.
In August 2010, series creator, executive producer and lead actress Tina Fey revealed to Entertainment Weekly correspondent Michael Ausiello that actor Paul Giamatti would guest star in the upcoming season playing a "grouchy" television editor named Ritchie. Actress Elizabeth Banks returned as her 30 Rock character Avery Jessup, a CNBC television host and Jack Donaghy's girlfriend, in this episode, and reprised the Avery role for the eighth time. Comedian actress Sherri Shepherd reprised her role as Angie Jordan, the wife of Tracy Jordan, for the seventh time. Comedian actor Chris Parnell, who played Dr. Leo Spaceman, the doctor who assisted in the birth of Angie and Tracy's daughter in the episode, has appeared in the main cast of Saturday Night Live (SNL), a weekly sketch comedy series which airs on NBC in the United States. Tina Fey was the head writer on SNL from 1999 until 2006.
News anchors Brian Williams and Andrea Mitchell played themselves in the episode in which the two tease the Liz Lemon character of her supposed relationship with Giamatti's Ritchie. This was Williams' fourth appearance on the show, having appeared in the episodes "The Ones", "Audition Day", and "Future Husband", and Mitchell's first appearance on 30 Rock. Ben Bailey, the game show host of the Discovery Channel program Cash Cab played himself. In the beginning of the episode, several men hit on Liz, which surprises her, and one of those men who hits on her was credited as "Moonvest" and was played by Craig Castaldo, or known as Radio Man. Castaldo has made numerous appearances on the program.
## Reception
In its original American broadcast, "When It Rains, It Pours" drew in 5.688 million households, according to the Nielsen Media Research. The show claimed a 2.6 rating/8 share among viewers in the 18–49 demographic. This means that it was seen by 2.6 percent of all 18- to 49-year-olds, and 8 percent of all 18- to 49-year-olds watching television at the time of the broadcast. The rating/share was the same number as the previous week's season premiere episode, "The Fabian Strategy"; in the week that "When It Rains, It Pours" originally aired, 30 Rock was the only Thursday program whose ratings did not fall from its season premiere. In February 2011, Robert Carlock won the Writers Guild of America Award for Episodic Comedy for his work in this episode of 30 Rock.
Television columnist Alan Sepiwall for HitFix called this the best overall episode since season four's December 2009 episode "Dealbreakers Talk Show \#0001". He wrote that the episode had "some incredibly funny jokes", but noted that the "most hilarious moments" from "When It Rains, It Pours" came from the main characters themselves. Sepinwall enjoyed Jack's videos to his unborn son, noting it was "...the [Jack] I know and love best: supremely confident and ... oblivious to his own insanity." Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club liked that the series had moved on from making the Liz character "asexual and vaguely repellent" for men. In his recap, Rabin much enjoyed the episode and said "If the rest of the season is as good as the first two episodes, we could have a big-time comeback on our hands." Juli Weiner of Vanity Fair wrote that Paul Giamatti was a delight as his 30 Rock character. Entertainment Weekly contributor Annie Barrett was thrilled that the Tracy character was a contestant on Cash Cab, noting once the game began "everything felt so right". Samantha Urban of The Dallas Morning News preferred "When It Rains, It Pours" to the episodes of Community and The Office, which aired on NBC the same night. Brad Sanders of the Indiana Daily Student wrote that Giamatti played his part brilliantly, and that his involvement in the main plot was "well-written, well-organized, and by far the best thing about the episode".
Bob Sassone of AOL's TV Squad commented that Giamatti "seems like he could be an editor at NBC, so the guest role didn't irritate or grate". Sassone enjoyed Kenneth and Tracy's stories here, and was glad that Jack and Avery have remained a couple. Verne Gay of Newsday noted that this episode of 30 Rock was a "spectacular piece of television, and comedy writing, and acting". Scott Eidler of The Cornell Daily Sun called Tracy's plot "very believable", and opined that "any reservations I have had about this show being less than completely real are gone" after watching this episode. Meredith Blake of the Los Angeles Times deemed this a stellar episode, explaining that the Tracy, Liz, and Jack characters had storylines that allowed them "to strut their comedic stuff". Time contributor James Poniewozik reported that "When It Rains, It Pours" was a very good episode. He noted that Jack's storyline was the "simplest recipe for comedy: just turn on a camera and let Alec Baldwin be hilarious. But it came within the story of his accepting having a [child] assessing his mortality, and trying to distill what matters in his life". Poniewozik was positive towards Liz's plot with Giamatti, reporting that her plot "involved one of the best guest roles in a sometimes too guest-heavy role" and enjoyed the traits from Giamatti's Ritchie. |
16,762,650 | Simon Wormull | 1,167,233,548 | British footballer (born 1976) | [
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]
| Simon James Wormull (born 1 December 1976) is an English former footballer who is head coach of Isthmian League club Three Bridges.
As a junior, Wormull played for Tottenham Hotspur in the final of the 1995 FA Youth Cup and in the Intertoto Cup. Although he made a few appearances in the lower divisions of the Football League for Brentford and Rushden & Diamonds, the majority of his playing career was spent in non-league football in the south-east of England. He was capped seven times for the National Game XI, the team that represents England at semi-professional level.
After retirement as a player, Wormull joined the coaching staff of Isthmian League club Lewes, where he was first-team manager from January 2012 to the end of the 2012–13 season. He spent a few months as manager of Crawley Down Gatwick before returning to Three Bridges first as academy head, then as first-team coach.
## Playing career
### Early career
Wormull was born in Crawley, West Sussex, and played for the under-15 team at local club Three Bridges before beginning his football career as a schoolboy with Brighton & Hove Albion. He joined Tottenham Hotspur while still a junior, and at the age of 15 became one of the youngest players ever to appear for their reserve team. In 1995, he played in the final of the FA Youth Cup against Manchester United youth team, scoring the opening goal in the first leg, which Tottenham won 2–1. By the time the second leg went to a losing penalty shootout, Wormull had been substituted by Stephen Clemence. The closest he came to first-team football in six years at the club was in the Intertoto Cup, a competition in which Tottenham fielded extremely weak sides, including that which lost 8–0 to FC Cologne.
Released by Tottenham at the end of the 1996–97 season, Wormull joined Second Division club Brentford on a free transfer, marking his debut in the Football League by missing the best chance of the match. He fell out of favour, and following a trial in Brighton & Hove Albion's reserves, was given a month's contract by manager Brian Horton, who described the player as someone who "uses the ball well, ... gets forward and is quite aggressive". Injury prevented him playing for the first team during that period, or during another month at the start of the 1998–99 season; much to Horton's displeasure, Wormull rejected the offer of a further month, preferring to drop down to the Conference with Dover Athletic.
### Dover Athletic
He scored twice in 30 Conference games in his first season with Dover, and his performance earned him international selection, chosen for England's National Game XI for the first time in March 1999. He maintained the standard the following season; Dover's best player against rivals Rushden & Diamonds, he was eventually stretchered off with a damaged Achilles tendon after three opponents were booked for fouling him. Sidelined for a month due to injuries sustained in that match, Wormull returned to play 20 minutes as a substitute before joining Rushden for a fee of £50,000 later that same week. BBC Sport's 2000–01 Football Conference preview said that Dover would miss him, a view later echoed by then assistant manager Clive Walker, who described the 1999–2000 season as "a year when we had players like Simon Wormull, Joe Dunne and Dave Clarke in the team. In all honesty, we weren't far away from having a side good enough to win the division. We needed perhaps two more players to compete at the top – but sadly we ended up selling Dunne and Wormull halfway through the season."
### Rushden & Diamonds
He helped Rushden to runners-up spot in the Conference in 2000, and retained his place in England's semi-professional side. In the 2000–01 season, his appearances were infrequent, and in December 2000, Dover made an unsuccessful attempt to buy him back. He played his part in Rushden's Conference title, and consequent promotion to the Football League. After five games for the club in Division Three, manager Brian Talbot sold Wormull together with striker Jean-Michel Sigere to Conference club Stevenage Borough for "a five-figure sum".
### Stevenage Borough
Wormull helped Stevenage to reach the final of the FA Trophy in 2002, which they lost 2–0 to full-time professional club Yeovil Town. While with the club he won his seventh international cap, and maintained his reputation as a good crosser of the ball who was willing to shoot; in his first two seasons with the club he contributed more shots than any of his teammates, and in his second and third seasons he made most assists. Stevenage began to move towards full-time status before the 2002–03 season. At the end of that season, Wormull submitted a transfer request, because he was struggling to balance work and football commitments. Manager Graham Westley rejected the request, but in April 2004 his contract was cancelled by mutual consent, citing the player's injury record and his difficulties adjusting to the demands of full-time football.
### Hornchurch and Crawley Town
Home-town club Crawley Town's manager Francis Vines hoped to sign Wormull, describing him as a good all-round player who "can play in the middle or wide right and passes the ball well, as well as being useful with set-pieces. He is also good in the tackle", capable of strengthening an already strong midfield. They were unable to match the offer – believed to be £800 a week – from Conference South club Hornchurch, dubbed the "Chelsea of the Conference" because they had a well-paid full-time professional squad despite playing only in the sixth tier of English football. A back injury restricted his Hornchurch appearances, and he had not played for several weeks when, in November 2004, the owner's business collapsed, the players' pay cheques were stopped, and most of the squad left.
Wormull returned home to join Crawley, on much reduced wages, but he failed his medical examination; the club initially offered him a short-term deal while he proved his fitness. At the end of the 2004–05 season he agreed a two-year contract. He turned down offers of full-time football, preferring to stay near home and combine his playing role with running the club's new youth coaching scheme in local schools. A succession of managerial changes following the club's takeover resulted in Wormull acting as caretaker manager for four matches in November 2005, a role in which he made a positive start. During this period he agreed a new contract, but the offer was later withdrawn, and he was given permission to speak to other clubs. Unwilling to leave the Sussex area, he decided to stay with Crawley, but when the club halved the players' wages, thereby breaching their contracts and allowing them to leave on free transfers, Wormull chose to join Conference South club Lewes.
### Lewes
In his first full season with Lewes, Wormull was used in a number of different positions, but in 2007–08, he usually played in central midfield, and felt that the continuity helped his performance. He scored the winning goal against Sutton United in the third qualifying round of the FA Cup, and made an assist for one goal and was involved in the second in the fourth qualifying round, to take the club through to the first round proper for the second year running. Wormull contributed five goals from midfield towards his club winning the Conference South title, though an injured ankle meant he missed the last few weeks of the season.
Following the departure of manager Steve King, the vast majority of the title-winning side left the club. Despite new Lewes manager Kevin Keehan's view that "if I could have had only one player I could keep from last season, it would be Simon" being reflected in the club offering him better terms than did Eastbourne Borough, Wormull, together with teammate Jean-Michel Sigere, joined their local rivals in June 2008.
### Eastbourne Borough
Wormull and Sigere made their debuts in the opening-day defeat to former club Rushden & Diamonds, making Eastbourne the fifth club – following Rushden, Stevenage, Hornchurch and Lewes – where they played alongside each other. After just one season with the club, in which he scored six goals from 37 appearances in all competitions, Wormull's contract was cancelled by mutual consent. He did leave with a winners' medal, earned as an unused substitute in the Sussex Senior Cup final in May 2009, in which Eastbourne beat a Brighton & Hove Albion reserve team 1–0.
### Farnborough and after
Wormull promptly signed a two-year deal with Farnborough, where he linked up with Steve King, his former manager at Lewes, and, for the sixth time in his career, with Jean-Michel Sigere, though only briefly, as Sigere was released a few days later. Wormull helped Farnborough win the 2009–10 Southern League title, playing 39 games in all competitions (20 in the league), before cancelling his contract by mutual consent at the end of that first season. He rejoined Lewes a few days later, staying with them until December, when he joined Sussex County League side Three Bridges, preferring for family reasons to play for a club nearer his home. According to Three Bridges' manager, the club were "absolutely chuffed to pieces to have such a magnificent player playing for us". Wormull tore knee ligaments in April 2011, and retired from competitive football at the end of the season.
## Coaching career
Wormull then returned to Lewes, to join Steve King's management team in the role of under-18 team manager with support coaching involvement with the first team. When King was suspended by the club in January 2012, Wormull was "asked to assist with First Team Management duties". and the following week, after King's departure, he was appointed caretaker manager until the end of the season. He registered as a player, and made his third debut for Lewes from the substitutes' bench as his team lost 2–1 at home to Canvey Island in the Isthmian League Premier Division. In April, with Lewes on the verge of the play-offs, Wormull's appointment was made permanent. The club's directors said he had "impressed everybody with his combination of professionalism, diligence and approachability", and that "his new regime of training and insightful, value for money signings has transformed the team". In his second season, Lewes narrowly avoided relegation. The board's view was that "being involved in a relegation battle was extremely disappointing", and an experience that was "particularly difficult" in context of the club's hard work towards "creat[ing] a platform from which to start building again", and Wormull was dismissed at the end of the season. He was "devastated" by the decision, believing he had "buil[t] a good foundation" for the future, despite being "decimated with injuries" and working to what he described as "a huge reduction in the budget".
Wormull took over as manager of Isthmian League Division One South club Crawley Down Gatwick in June 2013. Wormull led the team to the top of the table with five wins and a draw from their first six matches, a performance that earned him the Isthmian South Manager of the Month award for August. They had fallen to sixth by early November, when he resigned his post for what were described as "personal and family reasons".
In February 2014, Wormull returned to football as head of the youth academy at one of his former employers, fellow Isthmian South club Three Bridges. At the end of the season, he was appointed head first-team coach, to work with manager Paul Faili.
## Honours
Tottenham Hotspur
- FA Youth Cup finalist: 1995
Rushden & Diamonds
- Football Conference: 2000–01
- Football Conference runners-up: 1999–2000
Stevenage Borough
- FA Trophy finalist: 2002
Lewes
- Conference South: 2007–08
Eastbourne Borough
- Sussex Senior Cup: 2008–09
Farnborough
- Southern League Premier Division: 2009–10 |
37,662,855 | Goldenheart | 1,162,613,701 | null | [
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]
| Goldenheart is the second studio album by American singer and songwriter Dawn Richard. It was released on January 15, 2013, by Our Dawn Entertainment. After her group Diddy – Dirty Money disbanded in 2012, Richard continued to develop her musical identity and worked with creative partner and manager Andrew "Druski" Scott, who co-wrote Goldenheart with her. It is the first in a trilogy of albums by Richard about love, loss, and redemption.
Goldenheart is an eccentric R&B album that draws on dream pop, alternative, and dance genres. Its mostly midtempo songs have strong grooves and feature synthesizers, string settings, vintage keyboards, and an array of percussive sounds. A post-breakup concept album, Richard's songwriting poses relationships and personal subjects as epic tales through magical, medieval imagery and allusions to high fantasy and science fiction tropes.
The album was released independently by Richard and promoted with the lead single "'86". It debuted at number 137 on the Billboard 200 chart and sold 3,000 copies in its first week. Upon its release, Goldenheart received universal acclaim from music critics, who praised its grand musical scope and Richard's theatrical personality.
## Background
During stints in different musical groups, Dawn Richard wanted to develop her musical identity and pursue a solo recording career. In 2011, Richard was promoting the album Last Train to Paris (2010) as a member of Sean Combs' musical project Diddy – Dirty Money and released a free mixtape, The Prelude to A Tell Tale Heart, which registered one million downloads within a month. After the group disbanded in 2012, she worked with producer, manager, and creative partner Andrew "Druski" Scott and released her EP Armor On, which sold 30,000 copies. Richard also marketed herself through social media and self-funded music videos on YouTube.
Goldenheart is the first release in a trilogy of albums by Richard about love, loss, and redemption, followed by Blackheart (2015) and Redemption (2016). She wrote songs for the albums over the course of six years. Some were written as ten-minute songs and instrumentals, but Richard edited them down to avoid being "long-winded" and "overwhelming".
## Music and production
Goldenheart has an eccentric, dreamy musical style that incorporates spare, reverberating beats, icy synthesizers, and dream pop textures. Allmusic's Andy Kellman characterizes its music as "largely pop-oriented contemporary R&B", while Jesse Cataldo from Slant Magazine finds it to be "aligned with an intensifying style of alternative R&B ... in which albums are intricately structured and thematic." Marcus Holmlund of Interview observes an "atmospheric aesthetic" that blends "alternative listens like Björk and Imogen Heap with 80s pop (à la Phil Collins and Prince)". Richard, who grew up listening to Collins, Prince, Genesis, Cyndi Lauper, and Peter Gabriel, cites the song "'86" as most exemplary of those influences on the album. Goldenheart also draws heavily on dance music. Its melodic urban contemporary sound incorporates elements of electro, house, and European dance-pop. The ambient, 2-step "In Your Eyes" and "Riot" both have euphoric house climaxes. "Pretty Wicked Things" features an industrialized, dubstep production, with jerky basslines and pitch-shifted vocals.
Andrew "Druski" Scott's production on Goldenheart incorporates synth pads, string settings, vintage keyboards, and varied beats. Music writers compare Scott's partnership with Richard on the album to producer Brian Eno's work with David Bowie during the latter's "Berlin" period; Jonathan Bogart of The Atlantic writes that Scott serves a similar role by "creating dense soundscapes for [Richard's] often electronically altered voice to glide over, wash through, soar in, and pierce with sudden emotion." The maximalist production of the opening song "In the Hearts Tonight" begins with 45 seconds of both staccato and tremolo strings, solo flute, and a ringing harpsichord line that coalesce with various self-harmonising voices. The album's closing title track, a meditation on nostalgia built around Claude Debussy's "Clair de Lune", is solely performed with electronically altered voice and piano. Richard's singing veers from restraint to expressions of yearning, with a quavering timbre. "Return of the Queen" posits Richard's virtuosic vocal undulations against trip hop and operatic flourishes.
The songs are mostly midtempo, have strong grooves, and occasionally emphasize drums, with various percussive sounds that include bass drums, handclaps, and timpanis. Beginning with an eerie music box loop, "Northern Lights" builds gradually over a drum machine beat and layered, stereo-panning handclaps. The handclaps and drum loop that are buried in the mix of "Gleaux" yield an urgent half-time tremor and obscure chamber strings. The drumming on Goldenheart has a tribal, African-influenced sound, which Richard attributes to the music of her native New Orleans: "It's that marching band, second-line music, that Creole-influence in the kick, and the snare that drives everything for me." The album is bookended by stately marches in "Return of a Queen" and "[300]". "In Your Eyes" was inspired by the Peter Gabriel song of the same name, which Richard felt had a calypso and South African vibe. Steven Hyden observes several "hallmarks of '70s prog and '80s soft rock" other than the influence of Gabriel's "art-school deconstructions of classic '60s soul", including Goldenheart's Roxy Music-esque album cover.
## Lyrics and themes
Goldenheart is a post-breakup concept album that explores themes of imagination and dreams. In discussing trials of relationships, it portrays personal subjects as epic tales of battle and salvation. Gerrick D. Kennedy of the Los Angeles Times writes that its stories of romantic and professional heartbreak are "tightly intertwined through Richard's imagery". Her lyrics employ religious imagery, battle motifs, and allusions to high fantasy and science fiction tropes, including heroic last stands, world-dominating empires, parted oceans, starflights, vampiric lovers, and military deployment, all used as metaphors for internal landscape and personal conflict. "Northern Lights" and "Frequency" feature space travel and cybernetic imagery, respectively, with the latter song featuring bandwidth references such as "your signal's found a home" and "stimulation makes it flow". Jesse Cataldo from Slant Magazine observes "a kind of feverish mysticism" on the album, which he views is "concerned with magical imagery and the self-restorative properties of the human heart." "'86" is titled after the slang term and is about ridding oneself of barriers.
Richard views the album as her take on medieval literature, but calls her lyrics less "literal" than contemporary pop music. Lyrically, she portrays herself as an embattled queen in acts of guarding, fighting, surrendering, and conquering. She murmurs in the intro to "Warfaire", "I fight a battle every day, against discouragement and fear ... I must forever be on guard." The track's misspelled title is taken from the television series Game of Thrones. On "Goliath", she declares, "I faced the Beast with my bare hands". "Gleaux" is an eccentric spelling of "glow", referring to what the narrator wants to do with her lover to see each other in the night. "Tug of War" concludes a conflicted quest for dominance at the expense of a lover's power. On the power ballad "Break of Dawn", Richard promises herself and a love interest that he will "never see the break of dawn". Richard, who wanted the album to end on a "hopeful" note, said that the title track "speaks of the fairytale. That naïveté. That moment where you felt anything is possible." According to Laurie Tuffrey of The Quietus, the song concludes Goldenheart's lyrical arc with a "wistful retrospect" on a relationship that began with Richard's declaring her "champion" on "In the Hearts Tonight" and shifted to "Tug of War", where she became "her own champion".
## Marketing and sales
Originally intended for release in October 2012, Richard delayed Goldenheart's release after signing a distribution deal with independent company Altavoz Distribution, which would release physical copies to retailers, and provide a wider marketing reach. The album's lead single, "'86", was released as a digital download on September 26.
Goldenheart was released in the United States on January 15, 2013. Richard released the album independently, as she felt record labels were "taking a bit longer than we want". It sold 3,000 copies in its first week and debuted at number 137 on the Billboard 200, number 2 on the Top Heatseekers Albums, and number 68 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. The album also reached the top of the iTunes Store's R&B chart, which prompted music retailer f.y.e. to preemptively release its physical CD.
## Critical reception
Goldenheart was met with widespread acclaim from critics, some of whom hailed Richard as one of the best new acts in pop and R&B. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 81, based on nine reviews.
Reviewing for The Guardian in January 2013, Alex Macpherson found Goldenheart "dazzling and imperious" because of how Richard's "array of sonic weapons matches her epic, elemental vision". Jason Gubbels of Spin praised her eclectic music and versatile singing, which he credited for "springing finely placed surprises on listeners lulled into reverie, navigating tricky spots just effortlessly enough to mask her mastery". Writing for NPR, Ann Powers found it altogether contemplative, joyful, and mythological. Jonathan Bogart of The Atlantic wrote that, with her Tolkien-inspired lyrics, Richard "remains true to the oldest and most important standards of R&B, which, more than any other musical genre, charts the uncountable intricacies of the human heart." Grantland critic Steven Hyden felt that the album blurs R&B conventions like Frank Ocean's Channel Orange (2012) and Janelle Monáe's The ArchAndroid (2010), and as "an ambitious, singular work", it demands repeated listens. AllMusic's Andy Kellman called Goldenheart "sumptuous and grand" with enough exceptional songs to compensate for its intensity and indulgence. Laurie Tuffrey from The Quietus said that Richard distinguishes herself from her R&B contemporaries with her exceptional creativity, while Pitchfork critic Andrew Ryce called her aptitude for theatricality "unparalleled" and wrote that her slightly "hammy" but "earnest personality both endears and empowers her work".
Some reviewers were more critical. Slant Magazine's Jesse Cataldo wrote that, despite its interesting "musical palette and tenacious personality", Richard "falls back on the same tired tropes that have made many conventional R&B acts feel so exhaustingly familiar." Ryan B. Patrick of Exclaim! found the album's lyrics uninspired and wrote that it "functions as a hypnotic aural distraction, but little more." Ben Ratliff of The New York Times characterized Goldenheart as "oddball R&B ... at times mawkish, plodding, self-obsessed, gothy, campy, filmic", and mused, "Is it good? I don't know about that. But it has the dissonant attraction of something ventured. And it's confident enough to sound normal." Critic Tom Hull said, "People I respect love this and hate this, but it's so even-keeled I can't do either."
## Track listing
All songs were produced by Andrew "Druski" Scott, except where noted.
- "Goldenheart" samples "Clair de lune", composed by Claude Debussy.
## Personnel
Credits adapted from Metacritic.
- Andrew "Druski" Scott – producer
- Dawn Richard – vocals
- Deonte – producer
- The Fisticuffs – producer
## Charts
## Release history |
60,300 | So Far, So Good... So What! | 1,169,982,120 | null | [
"1988 albums",
"Albums produced by Paul Lani",
"Capitol Records albums",
"Combat Records albums",
"Megadeth albums"
]
| So Far, So Good... So What! is the third studio album by American thrash metal band Megadeth, released on January 19, 1988, by Capitol Records. It was the band's only album recorded with drummer Chuck Behler and guitarist Jeff Young, both of whom were fired from the band in early 1989, several months after the completion of the album's world tour. So Far, So Good... So What! features music performed at fast tempos with technical ability; lyrically, frontman and guitarist Dave Mustaine addresses a variety of topics, including nuclear holocaust and freedom of speech.
So Far, So Good... So What! was well received by critics upon its release, although retrospective analysis has been less favorable. It managed to enter the top-thirty of the Billboard 200 (although it received no commercial radio play), and charted in several other countries as well. The album was eventually certified platinum by the RIAA, and indicated Megadeth's forthcoming emergence from the underground scene.
## Background and production
Guitarist Chris Poland and drummer Gar Samuelson had been both fired from the band following the conclusion of the Peace Sells tour for disruptive behavior, including Poland's habit of pawning band equipment to pay for drugs. Samuelson was immediately replaced by his drum technician, Chuck Behler (although Slayer's Dave Lombardo considered joining). However, a new guitarist would take longer to emerge. At first, the band hired guitarist Jay Reynolds from the band Malice, but Reynolds was not up to the task of recording, and was subsequently replaced by his guitar teacher, Jeff Young. Dave Mustaine has since stated his regret for the way he handled Reynolds's firing. Other guitarists considered included Slash from Guns N' Roses.
Work on the album started while Reynolds was in the band, but continued after the induction of Young. To mix the album, the label turned to Paul Lani, who had remixed the band's previous album, Peace Sells... but Who's Buying?. Mustaine was initially skeptical, but later became very irate with Lani's "eccentricities" and his way of handling things. To mix the album, Lani relocated himself and Mustaine to Bearsville Studios, near Woodstock, New York, ostensibly for the purpose of inspiration. Mustaine decided that he had his limits when he, having just awakened and made coffee, noticed Lani outside in his underwear feeding an apple to a deer. Mustaine flew back to Los Angeles later that day and fired Lani, who was replaced by Michael Wagener. Mustaine has since criticized Wagener's "pedestrian" mixing efforts, citing the album's "muddy feel", in particular. Mustaine was able to recruit Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones to perform guitar parts on "Anarchy in the U.K."
## Music and lyrics
According to music critic J. D. Considine of Spin, So Far, So Good... So What! displays music performed at "volumes approaching the threshold of pain". This was the first album where another band member other than Mustaine contributed to writing, with bassist David Ellefson contributing to either lyrics or music on half of the album's songs. The album features fast guitar solos, multiple tempo changes and technical dexterity. Mike Stagno of Sputnikmusic observed that the album offers the classic "take no prisoners" style which is commonly associated with Megadeth; however, he noted that the sound does not differ much from the other underground metal bands from that period. Jim Farber of Rolling Stone called Mustaine's vocals "bloodthirsty" and praised the musicianship for keeping rhythmic pace even at the "most anarchic moments". Los Angeles Times journalist Dennis Hunt noted that the music was filled with extensive and "torrid" instrumentals and described Mustaine's singing as a combination of extreme shrieking and screaming. Despite the positive overview, "Anarchy in the U.K." received some negative criticism, partially because it was perceived to lack the rebelliousness of the original version.
The lyrical themes on the album explore a variety of subjects, from nuclear holocaust ("Set the World Afire") to revisionism and censorship ("Hook in Mouth"). Still, the majority of the songs are accompanied by the same sentiment of disillusion and nihilism as their previous two albums. Unlike traditional topics related to heavy metal music, the song "In My Darkest Hour" contains emotional lyrics which deal with loneliness and isolation. Dave Mustaine revealed that he tried to write about subject matters that were in touch with reality, including social issues and taboo topics. The lyrics on Megadeth's cover of "Anarchy in the U.K." were slightly mistaken because Mustaine claimed he had heard them incorrectly.
## Songs
The album's first track, "Into the Lungs of Hell", is an instrumental composition which features synthesized horns, winds and percussion. "Set the World Afire" is the first song Dave Mustaine wrote for Megadeth after being fired from Metallica. He was a member of Metallica from 1981 to 1983, and was dismissed just before Metallica recorded its debut album Kill 'Em All. He later said that he wrote the lyrics during his journey home from the departure. Inspiration for the song came from a newspaper he read while on the bus back to California. The initial lyrics were written with a borrowed pencil on a cupcake wrapper, leading some fans to refer to "Set the World Afire" as "the cupcake song". The beginning of the song contains a sample of "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire", a 1941 song by The Ink Spots.
"Anarchy in the U.K." is a Sex Pistols cover, which quickly became a staple of the band's live set. Over the years, the song was dropped from the set list because of its [perceived] anti-Christian viewpoint. "Mary Jane" tells a story about a young witch buried alive by her father near the Loon Lake cemetery in Minnesota. According to the legend, anyone who dared to disturb her grave was doomed to a prompt death. The song features descending guitar lines and begins with Mustaine summoning her spirit during the introduction.
"502" is about breaking laws and driving fast cars. The title is a reference to the police code in California for drunk driving; Mustaine himself would be arrested for drunk driving in March the following year when he crashed into a police car. "In My Darkest Hour" was written by Mustaine shortly after the death of Metallica bassist Cliff Burton. Mustaine had found out through word of mouth, as his former bandmates never contacted him about the tragic event that occurred in Europe. He later recalled that he was extremely unhappy that day and wrote the song in one sitting. "Liar" is a diss song directed at past member Chris Poland, who Mustaine claimed was stealing guitars and selling them for heroin money. "Hook in Mouth" declaims censorship and the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC). Mustaine elaborated that the lyrics were aimed at those who were "fucking around with our constitutional rights and trying to take away our freedom of speech".
## Critical reception
The album received positive feedback from music critics at the time of its release. In a contemporary review, Holger Stratmann from Rock Hard hailed the album as "the new masterpiece of Megadeth" and asserted that the band had created a great follow-up to their highly acclaimed Peace Sells... but Who's Buying? Jim Farber of Rolling Stone also gave the album a favorable review, saying it propelled the group "right at the top of the thrash-rock heap". He concluded his review by saying, "amid today's narcoleptic pop scene, albums like So Far, So Good ... So What! offer a disruptive noise that's welcome indeed". Writing for Spin, J. D. Considine felt that the record showed a "genuine maturity" for the band. In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau reacted toward the album with tepid positivity, and wrote that Megadeth garnered "its modest portions of profit and respect" with their latest studio release. He praised "Anarchy in the U.K.", commenting that Mustaine covers the Sex Pistols "like a champ".
Retrospective reviews, however, tend to be more critical of the album. AllMusic's Steve Huey criticized the album for lacking "the conceptual unity and musical bite" of its predecessor. According to him, the album "wants to sound threatening but mostly comes off as forced and somewhat juvenile", citing the cover track as an example. Conversely, Adrien Begrand from MSN Music opined that the record was "somehow ignored" in the band's discography.
## Touring
The tour that followed the album's release was the first to feature new band members Chuck Behler and Jeff Young. Bassist David Ellefson said that previous members Gar Samuelson and Chris Poland were tired of constantly being on the road and their departure was inevitable. He further revealed that drummer Behler was appointed shortly before because the band feared that Samuelson would not be able to continue touring. However, some problems occurred during the Australian leg of the tour. The band was forced to cancel some of these shows because of drug issues. Mustaine claimed that the group returned home because guitarist Young "ran out of heroin", which Young denied, stating that it was Mustaine who wanted to go back to Los Angeles and seek rehabilitation. Both Young and Behler were eventually fired from the band in 1989.
Megadeth started performing the album's songs live before the record was released. During 1987 they toured with other thrash metal bands such as Kreator and Overkill at a number of European venues. The following year Megadeth appeared with more established heavy metal acts such as Dio and Savatage for some shows in North America. They also headlined a European tour, with support from Testament and Sanctuary. Later in 1988 the group made an appearance at the Monsters of Rock festival, but were dropped from the line-up after one show; Megadeth was replaced by Testament. Dave Mustaine explained that the band toured quite often because they were not receiving much media exposure: "We do a lot of shows and sell records by word-of-mouth". Los Angeles Times reported that So Far, So Good... So What! sold 400,000 copies one month after its release, becoming Megadeth's fastest selling album at that point. The record eventually went platinum and indicated Megadeth's forthcoming emergence from the underground scene.
## Track listing
All songs written and composed by Dave Mustaine, except where noted.
## Personnel
Production and performance credits are adapted from the album liner notes.
## Charts
## Certifications |
512,467 | Tetricus I | 1,157,468,727 | Gallic emperor from 271 to 274 AD | [
"3rd-century Romans",
"3rd-century monarchs in Europe",
"Gallic consuls",
"Gallic emperors",
"Imperial Roman consuls",
"Monarchs taken prisoner in wartime",
"Thirty Tyrants (Roman)",
"Year of birth unknown",
"Year of death unknown"
]
| Gaius Pius Esuvius Tetricus was the emperor of the Gallic Empire from 271 to 274 AD. He was originally the praeses (governor) of Gallia Aquitania and became emperor after the murder of Emperor Victorinus in 271, with the support of Victorinus's mother, Victoria. During his reign, he faced external pressure from Germanic raiders, who pillaged the eastern and northern parts of his empire, and the Roman Empire, from which the Gallic Empire had seceded. He also faced increasing internal pressure, which led him to declare his son, Tetricus II, caesar in 273 and possibly co-emperor in 274, although this is debated. The Roman emperor Aurelian invaded in 273 or 274, leading to the Battle of Châlons, at which Tetricus surrendered. Whether this capitulation was the result of a secret agreement between Tetricus and Aurelian or necessary after his defeat is debated. Aurelian spared Tetricus, and even made him a senator and corrector (governor) of Lucania et Bruttium. Tetricus died of natural causes a few years after 274.
## Background
The Gallic Empire is the historiographic name given to a state composed of the Roman provinces which made up Britannia, Hispania, and Gaul, which broke away from the Roman Empire during the reign of Emperor Gallienus. Gallienus had become emperor after his father, Emperor Valerian, was captured by the Sassanids in 260. Gallienus's rule occurred during the Crisis of the Third Century (235–284), a period of intense political and military power struggles. Gallienus was overwhelmed by numerous issues, including several usurpers, and barbarian attacks in the Balkans and along the Rhine — one attack by the Franks pushed as far as Tarraco (modern-day Tarragona) in Hispania. Because Gallienus was unable to prevent the raids, Postumus, a military commander on the Rhine frontier, rose up and declared himself emperor; at about the same time, he assassinated Saloninus, Gallenius's son and co-emperor, in Colonia (modern-day Cologne). Postumus focused on defending the Gallic Empire, and, in the words of ancient Roman historian Eutropius, "restored the almost exhausted provinces through his enormous vigour and moderation."
Gallienus attempted to invade the Gallic Empire twice but was repulsed both times, forcing him to acquiesce to the secession. Although he was unable to conquer the Gallic Empire, Gallienus did ensure that the Roman Empire was defended; he posted Aureolus, a military commander, in northern Italia, to prevent Postumus from crossing the Alps. Postumus was killed by his own soldiers in 269 in Mogontiacum (modern-day Mainz) while putting down a revolt by the usurper Laelianus, because he refused to allow them to sack the city. After the army killed Postumus, they elected Marcus Aurelius Marius, an officer, as Gallic Emperor. While some ancient sources hold that Marius reigned for only two days before being killed by Victorinus, who had served as praetorian prefect (commander of the praetorian guard) under Postumus, the number of coins issued by Marius indicate that he must have served for a longer time, a period of roughly three months. Victorinus declared himself emperor in mid-269 in Augusta Treverorum (modern-day Trier), two days after killing Marius. Victorinus's rule was recognized by the provinces of Britannia and Gaul, but not by those of Hispania.
## Life
Gaius Pius Esuvius Tetricus, commonly referred to as Tetricus I, was born in Gaul, on an unknown date, to a noble family of Gallic origin. Little of his early life is known, however he had become a senator and occupied the post of praeses provinciae (governor) of Gallia Aquitania, a province in the southwest of what is now France, by 271. In early 271, Emperor Victorinus was murdered in Colonia by Attitianus, an officer in the Gallic army, allegedly because he had seduced Attitianus's wife. Because the motivation for his assassination was personal, rather than political, Victorinus's mother, Victoria, was able to retain power within the empire; her power allowed her to appoint Tetricus as emperor after securing the support of the army through bribes. The army proclaimed Tetricus as Gallic emperor in spring of the same year at Burdigala (modern-day Bordeaux), although Tetricus was not present for the proclamation.
The Gallic Empire mirrored the Roman imperial administrative traditions, and as such each Gallic emperor adopted a Roman regnal title upon his accession; after becoming emperor, Tetricus's name was changed to Imperator Caesar Esuvius Tetricus Pius Felix Invictus Augustus Pontifex Maximus. The Gallic Empire also followed the Roman tradition of emperors appointing themselves as consul, with Tetricus appointing himself as consul in 271, 272, 273, and 274; the names of the other consuls for 271–273 are not known, but it is known that Tetricus's son, Tetricus II, served as his colleague in 274. Tetricus was also tribune from 271 to 274. Tetricus elevated Tetricus II as caesar in 273 to increase the legitimacy of his reign by founding a dynasty; he may have also elevated his son to co-emperor during the last days of his reign, but this is uncertain. The unreliable Historia Augusta, in its biography of Emperor Aurelian, states that Tetricus elevated his son at an unspecified date, however neither of the ancient historians Aurelius Victor or Eutropius mention such an event.
During Tetricus's reign, the main threats to the Gallic Empire came from the Roman Empire and Germanic tribes. Tetricus also had to contend with dissent within the army and government. Tetricus was recognized as emperor by all of Gaul — except Gallia Narbonensis, which had been partially reconquered by Placidianus, a general under Roman emperor Claudius Gothicus — and Britannia. He was not recognized by the province of Hispania, including Hispania Baetica, Lusitania, and Hispania Tarraconensis, which had earlier refused to recognize Victorinus as emperor, nor by the city of Argentoratum (modern-day Strasbourg) in Germania. The provinces that did not recognize Tetricus chose instead to recognize Roman Emperor Aurelian, who had been proclaimed emperor in September 270 at Sirmium in Pannonia. By the time of Tetricus's rule, the Germanic tribes had become increasingly aggressive, launching raids across the Rhine and along the coast. Tetricus moved the capital of the Gallic Empire from Colonia to Augusta Treverorum in late 271 in order to guard against the Germanic tribes. Tetricus attacked them with some success, mainly during the early part of his reign, even celebrating a triumph for one of his victories. Later in his reign, he was forced to withdraw troops and abandon forts, which allowed the border territories to be pillaged. Later Germanic raids were met with almost no opposition — one penetrated so far into Gallic territory that it reached the Loire. While Aurelian was focused on attacking the Palmyrene Empire, which had broken away from the Roman Empire in 270 under Empress Zenobia, Tetricus was able to recover Gallia Narbonensis and southeastern parts of Gallia Aquitania. During 273–274, Faustinus, provincial governor of Gallia Belgica, rebelled against Tetricus, however, his revolt was swiftly crushed. Around this time, Tetricus also held the quinquennalia, public games that took place every four years.
After Aurelian had succeeded in his reconquest of the Palmyrene Empire, he turned his attention to the Gallic Empire, beginning preparations for an invasion in 273. In early 274, Aurelian began to march into northern Gaul, while Tetricus led his troops southward from Augusta Treverorum to meet him. The armies of Aurelian and Tetricus met in February or March 274 at the Battle of Châlons, near modern-day Châlons. The army of Tetricus was soundly defeated, and Tetricus surrendered either directly after his defeat or later; the latest possible date for his surrender was March 274, when the Gallic mints switched from minting coins of Tetricus I and II to those of Aurelian. Ancient sources including Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, the Historia Augusta, and Orosius report that Tetricus had already made a deal with Aurelian, offering to surrender in exchange for an honourable defeat and no punishment, quoting Virgil: "eripe me his invicte malis" (rescue me undefeated from these troubles). However, this is believed by modern historians to be a product of Roman imperial propaganda; Aurelian, who was attempting to stabilise his fragile empire, benefited from the account that Tetricus had planned to betray his army, as his troops would then be less likely to rise up again.
Upon Tetricus's surrender, the Gallic Empire rejoined the Roman Empire, once more restored to its former borders, and Aurelian held a triumph in Rome involving many chariots; twenty elephants; two hundred beasts, including tigers, giraffes, and elk; eight hundred gladiators; and prisoners from various barbarian tribes. The leaders of the two secessionist states, Tetricus of the Gallic Empire and Zenobia of the Palmyrene Empire, were paraded during this triumph, along with Tetricus II; Tetricus and his son were not placed in chains for their march, but instead were made to wear braccae (Gallic trousers). Aurelian pardoned all three of them and made Tetricus a senator and corrector (governor) of either Lucania et Bruttium, a region of southern Italy, or all of Italy. The Historia Augusta states that he was made corrector Lucaniae (corrector of Lucania) in the biography of Tetricus, but states that he was made corrector totius Italiae (corrector of Italy) in the biography of Aurelian. Epigraphic evidence exists for correctores totius Italiae who predate Tetricus, whereas the first epigraphic evidence for a corrector of a smaller region comes in c. 283, ten years after Aurelian appointed Tetricus as corrector. Because of the contradictions within the Historia Augusta, the opinion of modern scholars is divided. Some, such as David Magie, who edited the Loeb edition of the Historia Augusta, favor Tetricus's having been made corrector totius Italiae, while others, such as Alaric Watson, support his having been made corrector Lucaniae. Tetricus died of natural causes several years later in Italia.
## Numismatics
The gold aurei issued during the reign of Tetricus fall into several types. Seven surviving coins feature his image on the obverse, with the reverses showing him riding a horse, a standing Aequitas, a standing Jupiter, a standing Laetitia, a standing Pax, him holding an olive branch and a scepter, or a standing Spes. One features his face on the obverse and a standing Hilaritas on the reverse. Another displays his head on the obverse and a depiction of the Roman goddess Victoria walking to the right on the reverse. There are two aureus types that depicted Tetricus I and Tetricus II together; both feature jugate images of them on the obverse, with one having a standing Aeternitas on the reverse and the other having a standing Felicitas. A rare quinarius (a silver coin) issued during his reign has a three-quarter facing image of Tetricus on the obverse and Victoria standing with her foot on a globe on the reverse.
Most of the coins minted during Tetricus's reign were of low quality; his antoninianus contained so little silver content that imitations were easy to make, leading to the market being flooded with fakes.
The coinage of the Gallic Empire does not give any evidence of public games or festivals, as was common in the Roman Empire, although it is believed that similar games and festivals were held. There are a number of issues of coins in which the emperor's head faces left, rather than the usual right, which are believed to have been used for donatives granted to soldiers upon the emperor's accession or consulships.
## Historiography
The ancient sources for the Gallic Empire are poor, made up largely of brief notes from late-fourth-century Latin authors who depended heavily on the theorised Enmannsche Kaisergeschichte, scattered references from the first book of the ancient Roman historian Zosimus, and information taken from the coinage minted by the Gallic emperors. While the lives of the Gallic emperors are covered within the Historia Augusta, this information is unreliable due to its interweaving of facts and invention. Tetricus is listed as one of the "Thirty Tyrants" in the Historia Augusta. The Historia Augusta states that Tetricus was recognized in Hispania, but modern historians have rejected this.
Epigraphic sources also provide some information, however, the usage of epigraphs was in decline during the period, and many are undated. Inscriptions bearing Tetricus' name are very common throughout Gaul, although these are broken into two regions by a vertical line of inscriptions bearing Aurelian's name, which were made after the surrender of Tetricus; no Tetrican inscriptions overlap with Aurelianic inscriptions. |
57,651,196 | Hurricane Bud (2018) | 1,165,419,164 | Category 4 Pacific hurricane in 2018 | [
"2018 Pacific hurricane season",
"2018 in Mexico",
"Baja California Peninsula",
"Category 4 Pacific hurricanes",
"Hurricanes in Arizona",
"Hurricanes in New Mexico",
"Pacific hurricanes in Mexico",
"Tropical cyclones in 2018"
]
| Hurricane Bud was a Category 4 hurricane that brought winds and severe flooding to Mexico throughout its existence as a tropical cyclone in June 2018. It was the second named storm, hurricane, and major hurricane of the 2018 Pacific hurricane season. Bud originated from a tropical wave that departed from Western Africa on May 29. It traveled across the Atlantic Ocean before entering the Northeast Pacific Ocean late on June 6. The system moved towards the northwest and steadily organized, becoming a tropical depression on June 9 and Tropical Storm Bud early the next day. Favorable upper-level winds, ample moisture aloft, and warm sea surface temperatures allowed the storm to rapidly intensify to a hurricane late on June 10, and further to a major hurricane on the following day. Bud ultimately peaked the next morning with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (230 km/h) and a minimum central pressure of 943 mbar (943 hPa; 27.8 inHg). Its track curved more northward while the storm rapidly succumbed to the effects of upwelling. Bud made landfall on Baja California Sur as a minimal tropical storm early on June 15. On the next day, land interaction and increasing wind shear caused Bud to degenerate into a post-tropical cyclone. It opened up into a trough of low-pressure on June 16. The remnants of Bud moved towards the Southwestern United States, bringing tropical moisture and gusty winds to the region.
Bud prompted the issuance of multiple watches and warnings for Baja California Sur and western and central Mexico. Bud caused two deaths in Mexico; one in Mexico City and another in Baja California Sur. Despite remaining offshore for most of its track, the hurricane caused torrential rainfall and severe flooding in several regions. A peak rainfall total of 6.50 in (165 mm) was recorded in San Lorenzo, Sinaloa. In Guadalajara, Jalisco, hundreds of vehicles were inundated and swept away. A canal overflowed in Guadalajara, causing damage to multiple stores in a mall. At least 100 additional structures were damaged in the city. In Guerrero, hundreds of businesses and homes were flooded. Over 100 businesses in Pie de la Cuesta were damaged by strong waves. More than 60 homes in Maruata, Michoacan, experienced flood or wind damage. Severe flooding along a street in Mexico City inundated dozens of vehicles, necessitating the rescue of their passengers. Rains from Bud's remnants brought relief to drought-stricken areas and slowed the growth of wildfires in Wyoming and Colorado. The influx of moisture prompted the issuance of flash flood watches for Colorado and New Mexico, and caused flooding near Cave Creek, Arizona.
## Meteorological history
Hurricane Bud started as a tropical wave that moved off Africa's west coast and into the Atlantic Ocean on May 29. During the next week, the wave propagated westward, before moving over northern South America and entering the Eastern Pacific Ocean on June 6. Over the next couple of days, atmospheric convection associated with the system significantly increased, before an area of low pressure developed on June 9. Later that day, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) initiated advisories on the system, as it had developed into a tropical depression, while located about 330 mi (530 km) south of Acapulco, Mexico. Six hours later, the depression intensified into a tropical storm, receiving the name Bud from the NHC, as banding features – significantly elongated, curved bands of rain clouds – wrapped into the system's center. Meanwhile, the storm was steered north-westwards around a high-pressure ridge.
Bud began a period of rapid intensification soon after, amid a favorable environment of very warm sea surface temperatures, high mid-level moisture, and low vertical wind shear. The storm developed a central dense overcast and an eye feature at its mid-levels as it quickly consolidated. By 18:00 UTC on June 10, Bud had strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane as a sporadic eye feature began to emerge on visible satellite imagery. The cyclone became a Category 3 major hurricane around 12:00 UTC on June 11. Bud reached its peak intensity as a Category 4 major hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (230 km/h) and a minimum central pressure of 943 mbar (27.85 inHg) at 00:00 UTC on June 12, while located 200 mi (320 km) southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico. Around this time, the cyclone's eye had warmed and become well-defined, but the central dense overcast had been thinning. The hurricane began to weaken soon after, with the northern eyewall of the storm decaying. Soon after, upwelling and cooler sea surface temperatures caused Bud to rapidly weaken. Around midnight UTC on June 13, the hurricane turned towards the north-northwest as it moved around the southern edge of a mid-level high-pressure system. At the same time, Bud had weakened to a minimal Category 2 hurricane. Its eye had dissipated and convection was decreasing in the northern half of the storm.
Bud weakened to a tropical storm by 12:00 UTC on June 13 as its core continued to decay. The storm's intensity soon leveled off, although convection continued to decrease; the remaining banding features were displaced 85 mi (140 km (87 mi)(165 km) from Bud's center. The storm made landfall in San Jose del Cabo, Baja California Sur, at 02:00 UTC on June 15 as a 45 mph (72 km/h) tropical storm. Although the cyclone had moved over sharply higher sea surface temperatures as it emerged into the Gulf of California about 9 hours later, interaction with the terrain of Baja California Sur and higher wind shear weakened the system further. The remaining convection was located in a region 115 mi (185 km) north of the center. The mid- and low-level circulations of Bud split apart, with the former traveling quickly to the northeast and the latter over the Gulf of California and northwestern Mexico. The storm lost all of its thunderstorm activity and became a post-tropical cyclone around 12:00 UTC on June 15 while located about 140 mi (230 km) south-southwest of Huatabampito, Mexico. The system continued to weaken and opened up into a trough of low-pressure by 00:00 UTC on June 16, about 35 mi (56 km) southwest of Huatabampito. The remnants of Bud continued northward, bringing moisture to the Southwestern United States.
## Preparations
The Government of Mexico issued various tropical cyclone watches and warnings in advance of the storm. A tropical storm warning was issued for the southwestern coast of Mexico from Manzanillo to Cabo Corrientes, Mexico, around 21:00 UTC on June 10. A tropical storm watch and warning were issued from Santa Fe to La Paz, Baja California Sur, on June 13. Additional tropical storm watches were issued at 21:00 UTC on June 14 from La Paz to San Evaristo in Baja California Sur and Altata to Huatabampito along the Sonoran coast. Green and yellow alerts, signifying low and moderate danger, respectively, were issued for portions of Sinaloa on June 15. A yellow alert was issued for Jalisco. A red alert, signifying the maximum level of danger, was issued for the Los Cabos Municipality. An orange alert, meaning high danger, was raised for La Paz Municipality. Red alerts were issued in the State of Mexico for the Iztapalapa and Cuajimalpa districts due to the threat of torrential, flooding rainfall. Six other districts had orange or yellow alerts.
Admiral Vidal Francisco Soberón Sanz of the Mexican Secretariat of the Navy activated the Prevention Phase of the Marine Plan, a military disaster preparation and relief plan, in the Mexican states of Baja California Sur, Colima, Jalisco, Sinaloa, Nayarit, Michoacán, and Guerrero. The port in Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán was closed to all naval traffic. Small craft were to remain docked at ports in San Carlos, Baja California Sur; Manzanillo, Colima; Acapulco, Zihuatanejo, and Puerto Marqués, Guerrero; and Mazatlán, Sinaloa. People were given until noon on June 13 to evacuate their ships from Cabo San Lucas to safer ports in other locations. In Baja California Sur, 280 shelters were established with a combined capacity of 83,500 people. Classes were suspended in Los Cabos and La Paz as a precautionary measure. Medical services were provided at shelters in the Los Cabos municipality by the Mexican and state governments. Numerous shelters were set up in Guerrero, where those affected by the storm could receive food and cleaning supplies. In total, 599 shelters were erected in Guerrero, with the ability to hold 150,000 people. At least 20 flights were canceled at the Los Cabos International Airport. Around 150 people were evacuated from coastal regions in Armería. The Carnival Splendor cruise ship, which was heading for Cabo San Lucas, was forced to divert to San Diego, California. At the Marquis Los Cabos hotel in San Jose del Cabo, employees anchored palm trees to the ground, reinforced windows with tarps, and stored outside furniture.
## Impact
Hurricane Bud produced widespread thunderstorms, causing heavy rainfall across much of Mexico. A peak rainfall total of 6.50 in (165 mm) occurred in San Lorenzo, Sinaloa. Approximately 6.20 in (157.6 mm) of rain was recorded in Andrew Weiss, Sinaloa, and 6.01 in (152.6 mm) fell in Alamos, Sonora.
### Jalisco and Colima
Bud caused severe flooding in the state of Jalisco. Rainfall from Bud flooded streets in northern Guadalajara, inundating and/or sweeping away at least 219 vehicles. The Canal de Patria overflowed, flooding streets, as well as the parking lot and first floor of the Plaza Patria mall. People in the mall climbed to higher floors to avoid the flooding. Approximately MX\$1,853,000 (US\$90,000) of merchandise was damaged and the Marti Sports store suffered over MX\$1,000,000 (US\$48,500) in infrastructural damage. A RadioShack lost over MX\$100,000 (US\$4,850) worth of products. Another store suffered MX\$500,000 (US\$24,250) in lost products. Total damage from the storm in the Plaza Patria mall is unknown. A sinkhole developed at an intersection on Patria Avenue, damaging power lines and traffic lights. The Avila Camacho and Laureles tunnel was closed to traffic after it flooded. At least 94 residences and 27 businesses were damaged by the storm. Water up to 16 ft (5 m) deep completely submerged a light-rail train after an electrical failure prevented the train from reversing. Ninety passengers had to be rescued from the train using lifejackets, surfboards, and boats. Two pumps designed to remove excess water failed due to a power outage. Cleaning operations commenced and one train was removed from the area a day after the flooding occurred; this allowed the station to resume normal traffic.
Plan DN-III-E, a disaster relief and rescue plan, was activated in the state by the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena). Sedena established shelters and performed cleanup operations in the state. The Mexican Army rescued people who had become entrapped in their vehicles. Several people in Zapopán had to swim through floodwaters in the streets and shopping centers to avoid drowning. A person sustained minor injuries as their vehicle was swept away by floodwaters. The person was rescued and transported to a medical facility for treatment. Personnel from the Parks and Gardens department used chainsaws to clear roads after multiple trees fell and blocked them. A federal highway collapsed in the state following heavy rainfall from Bud.
In Colima, waves swept away chairs, tables, and umbrellas from beaches. Twenty-five businesses that were located on El Paraíso beach in Armería were destroyed; 17 more were half destroyed. Debris accumulated on roads in Armería, causing damage. Power grids, as well as hydraulic and drainage systems, sustained damage. At the Pascuales beach in Tecomán, the front street and businesses flooded. In Manzanillo, street flooding occurred and sewer systems were obstructed. Collectively, four trees fell in the towns of Naranjo, Salagua, Santiago, and Nuevo Cuyutlán. Waves flooded shelters and umbrellas at the La Boquita Beach.
### Guerrero and Michoacan
In Guerrero, Bud damaged 317 grocery stores, flooded 121 homes in the Grande and Chica regions, and damaged six hotels in Acapulco. At least 12 more homes and 50 shelters were damaged elsewhere in the state. The state provided heavy machinery to use for the cleaning and reconstruction of homes and restaurants that had sustained damage during the storm. The Mexican Army initiated Plan DN-III-E to aid people in the Union of Montes de Oca Municipality. Floodwaters inundated residences in the town of Petalco. Soldiers helped citizens move appliances, mattresses, and pets from their homes. State police and the Mexican Army set up temporary shelters in Tecpan de Galeana and La Unión for 100 people who were forced to evacuate due to heavy rainfall and high waves.
Heavy rainfall from Bud caused the waters of the Laguna Negra of Puerto Marques to become contaminated with sewage, which in turn sparked a die-off of at least four fish species. Beaches and coastal towns were damaged by strong waves and torrential rainfall. Soldiers and local workforces cleaned up the debris from these areas. Businessmen in the resort town of Pie de la Cuesta requested that Fonden, the National Disaster Relief Fund, be activated due to the damage sustained as a result of the storm. Approximately 123 businesses suffered losses and infrastructural damage after strong waves compromised the stability of the sand the buildings were on. The waves swept away furniture and almost killed a family after short-circuiting electrical components.
Bud damaged at least 78 businesses along the Jardin, Eréndira, Chuquiapan, Playa Azul, Las Peñas and Caleta beaches in Michoacan. At least 20 palapas, which are open-sided dwellings with thatched roofs made of dried palm leaves, were destroyed at the Jardin and Eréndira beaches. Waves exceeding 13 ft (4 m) and high sea levels damaged the beaches and shelters. Reconstruction work in the area had begun by June 22. Bud washed away the Betula, a Norwegian tanker that had run ashore in 1993; the ship had been a tourist attraction since then. Restaurants located on the beach and homes in Aquila Municipality sustained damage after water from the ocean came 115 ft (35 m) inland. More than sixty homes in the town of Maruata were damaged by floodwaters and winds; the roofs of most were either partially or completely destroyed. People used tarps, plastic sheets, and coconut palm palapas in place of roofs in the months following the storm. A Firm Roof Program was established by the Aquila Municipal Government in the months after Bud to completely cover the costs of replacing all the roofs. The entirety of the ramadas on Maruata beach suffered infrastructural damage as a result of the storm.
### Elsewhere
Waves produced by Bud flooded several homes in Navolato, Sinaloa, causing one to collapse. A palapa near a housing complex sustained damage. Fourteen people had to be evacuated from their homes due to rising floodwaters. A dam in Culiacán reached maximum capacity, prompting authorities to discharge the excess water. Three people had to be rescued after their vehicle became trapped in a strong water current. Several hectare of chop suey crops in Mocorito spoiled after excessive rainfall.
The De la Olla and San Renovato dams overflowed due to excessive rainfall from Bud, causing extensive road flooding and damage throughout the historical district in Guanajuato City, Guanajuato.
In Mexico City, the Collective Transportation System Metro halted service to several stations on its A-Line after roads flooded. The line was fully operational by June 15 after the water was drained at one location by four stationary sump pumps, four mobile pumps, and two emergency teams. Another point was cleared by eight mobile pumps. Utility trucks helped to rescue metro passengers who were stranded in floods. Torrential rains caused flooding on Ermita Iztapalapa road until Ignacio Zaragoza road, inundating dozens of vehicles and entrapping the passengers. Local authorities rescued people from their vehicles. At the intersection of the two roads, a patch of flooding at least 330 ft (100 m) long and 1 ft (0.3 m) deep occurred after raw sewage overflowed from drains. Heavy rainfall from Bud generated currents that swept away a child who was crossing a road in the city.
Bud left behind mostly minor damage in Baja California Sur. The storm caused multiple landslides and flooding on a highway connecting La Paz and Cabo San Lucas. Multiple power outages occurred in La Paz. A traffic accident occurred during the storm, leaving one person dead and two more injured. The ports of San José del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas were closed on June 15, although airports in these cities had reopened.
The remnants of Bud sent a plume of moisture into the Southwestern United States, bringing much-needed rainfall to the drought-stricken region. Tucson, Arizona, reported its first precipitation since February 28, with 0.17 in (4.3 mm) of rain on June 15. Flash flood watches were issued for parts of New Mexico and southwestern Colorado. Around 2 in (51 mm) of rain fell near Cave Creek, Arizona, generating streams of water that crossed over and blocked roadways. Thunderstorms generated by Bud's remnants produced wind gusts up to 61 mph (98 km/h) at the Taos Regional Airport in New Mexico. Rain from Bud slowed the growth of the 416 Fire in southwestern Colorado and a fire in southern Wyoming.
## See also
- Weather of 2018
- Tropical cyclones in 2018
- List of Category 4 Pacific hurricanes
- Other tropical cyclones of the same name
- List of Baja California Peninsula hurricanes
- Hurricane Blanca (2015) |
25,485,654 | Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 | 1,173,308,261 | Last war between the Byzantine and Sasanian empires | [
"600s conflicts",
"600s in the Byzantine Empire",
"600s in the Sasanian Empire",
"602",
"610s conflicts",
"610s in the Byzantine Empire",
"610s in the Sasanian Empire",
"620s conflicts",
"620s in the Byzantine Empire",
"620s in the Sasanian Empire",
"628",
"7th century in Armenia",
"7th century in Asia",
"7th century in Byzantine Egypt",
"7th century in Egypt",
"7th century in Europe",
"7th century in Georgia (country)",
"7th century in Iran",
"Byzantine Anatolia",
"Byzantine Syria",
"Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628",
"History of the Aegean Sea",
"Military history of Armenia",
"Wars of Khosrow II"
]
| The Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 was the final and most devastating of the series of wars fought between the Byzantine / Roman Empire and the Sasanian Empire of Iran. The previous war between the two powers had ended in 591 after Emperor Maurice helped the Sasanian king Khosrow II regain his throne. In 602 Maurice was murdered by his political rival Phocas. Khosrow declared war, ostensibly to avenge the death of the deposed emperor Maurice. This became a decades-long conflict, the longest war in the series, and was fought throughout the Middle East: in Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus, Anatolia, Armenia, the Aegean Sea and before the walls of Constantinople itself.
While the Persians proved largely successful during the first stage of the war from 602 to 622, conquering much of the Levant, Egypt, several islands in the Aegean Sea and parts of Anatolia, the ascendancy of the emperor Heraclius in 610 led, despite initial setbacks, to a status quo ante bellum. Heraclius' campaigns in Iranian lands from 622 to 626 forced the Persians onto the defensive, allowing his forces to regain momentum. Allied with the Avars and Slavs, the Persians made a final attempt to take Constantinople in 626, but were defeated there. In 627, allied with Turks, Heraclius invaded the heartland of Persia. A civil war broke out in Persia, during which the Persians killed their king, and sued for peace.
By the end of the conflict, both sides had exhausted their human and material resources and achieved very little. Consequently, they were vulnerable to the sudden emergence of the Islamic Rashidun Caliphate, whose forces invaded both empires only a few years after the war. The Muslim armies swiftly conquered the entire Sasanian Empire as well as the Byzantine territories in the Levant, the Caucasus, Egypt, and North Africa. In the following centuries, the Byzantine and Arab forces would fight a series of wars for control of the Near East.
## Background
After decades of inconclusive fighting, Emperor Maurice ended the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 572–591 by helping the exiled Sasanian prince Khosrow, the future Khosrow II, to regain his throne from the usurper Bahrām Chobin. In return the Sasanians ceded to the Byzantines parts of northeastern Mesopotamia, much of Persian Armenia and Caucasian Iberia, though the exact details are not clear. More importantly for the Byzantine economy, they no longer had to pay tribute to the Sasanians. Emperor Maurice then began new campaigns in the Balkans to stop incursions by the Slavs and Avars.
The generosity and campaigns of emperor Tiberius II had eliminated the surplus in the treasury left from the time of Justin II. In order to generate a reserve in the treasury, Maurice instituted strict fiscal measures and cut army pay; which led to four mutinies. The final mutiny in 602 resulted from Maurice ordering his troops in the Balkans to live off the land during the winter. The army proclaimed Phocas, a Thracian centurion, as emperor. Maurice attempted to defend Constantinople by arming the Blues and the Greens – supporters of the two major chariot racing teams of the Hippodrome – but they proved ineffective. Maurice fled but was soon intercepted and killed by the soldiers of Phocas.
## Beginning of the conflict
Upon the murder of Maurice, Narses, governor of the Byzantine province of Mesopotamia, rebelled against Phocas and seized Edessa, a major city of the province. Emperor Phocas instructed general Germanus to besiege Edessa, prompting Narses to request help from the Persian king Khosrow II. Khosrow, who was only too willing to help avenge Maurice, his "friend and father-[in-law]", used Maurice's death as an excuse to attack the Byzantine Empire, trying to reconquer Armenia and Mesopotamia.
General Germanus died in battle against the Persians. An army sent by Phocas against Khosrow was defeated near Dara in Upper Mesopotamia, leading to the capture of that important fortress in 605. Narses escaped from Leontius, the eunuch appointed by Phocas to deal with him, but when Narses attempted to return to Constantinople to discuss peace terms, Phocas ordered him seized and burned alive. The death of Narses along with the failure to stop the Persians damaged the prestige of Phocas' military regime.
## Heraclius' rebellion
In 608, general Heraclius the Elder, Exarch of Africa, revolted, urged on by Priscus, the Count of the Excubitors and son-in-law of Phocas. Heraclius proclaimed himself and his namesake son as consuls—thereby implicitly claiming the imperial title—and minted coins with the two wearing the consular robes.
At about the same time rebellions began in Roman Syria and Palaestina Prima in the wake of Heraclius' revolt. In 609 or 610 the Patriarch of Antioch, Anastasius II, died. Many sources claim that the Jews were involved in the fighting, though it is unclear where they were members of factions and where they were opponents of Christians. Phocas responded by appointing Bonus as comes Orientis (Count of the East) to stop the violence. Bonus punished the Greens, a horse racing party, in Antioch for their role in the violence in 609.
Heraclius the Elder sent his nephew Nicetas to attack Egypt. Bonus went to Egypt to try to stop Nicetas, but was defeated by the latter outside Alexandria. In 610, Nicetas succeeded in capturing the province, establishing a power base there with the help of Patriarch John the Almsgiver, who was elected with the help of Nicetas.
The main rebel force was employed in a naval invasion of Constantinople, led by the younger Heraclius, who was to be the new emperor. Organized resistance against Heraclius soon collapsed, and Phocas was handed to him by the patrician Probos (Photius). Phocas was executed, though not before a celebrated exchange of comments between him and his successor:
> "Is it thus", asked Heraclius, "that you have governed the Empire?"
> "Will you," replied Phocas, with unexpected spirit, "govern it any better?"
The elder Heraclius disappears soon afterward from sources, supposedly dying, though the date is unknown.
After marrying his niece Martina and being crowned by the Patriarch, the 35-year-old Heraclius set out to perform his work as emperor. Phocas' brother, Comentiolus, commanded a sizable force in central Anatolia but was assassinated by the Armenian commander Justin, removing a major threat to Heraclius' reign. Still, transfer of the forces commanded by Comentiolus had been delayed, allowing the Persians to advance further in Anatolia. Trying to increase revenues and reduce costs, Heraclius limited the number of state-sponsored personnel of the Church in Constantinople by not paying new staff from the imperial fisc. He used ceremonies to legitimize his dynasty, and he secured a reputation for justice to strengthen his grip on power.
## Persian ascendancy
The Persians took advantage of this civil war in the Byzantine empire by conquering frontier towns in Armenia and Upper Mesopotamia. Along the Euphrates, in 609, they conquered Mardin and Amida (Diyarbakır). Edessa, which some Christians are said to have believed would be defended by Jesus himself on behalf of King Abgar V of Edessa against all enemies, fell in 610.
In Armenia, the strategically important city of Theodosiopolis (Erzurum) surrendered in 609 or 610 to Ashtat Yeztayar, because of the persuasion of a man who claimed to be Theodosius, the eldest son and co-emperor of Maurice, who had supposedly fled to the protection of Khosrow. In 608, the Persians under general Shahin launched a raid into Anatolia that reached Chalcedon, across the Bosphorus from Constantinople. The Persian conquest was a gradual process; by the time of Heraclius' accession the Persians had conquered all Roman cities east of the Euphrates and in Armenia before moving on to Cappadocia, where Shahin took Caesarea Mazaca. There, Phocas' son-in-law Priscus, who had encouraged Heraclius and his father to rebel, started a year-long siege to trap them inside the city.
Heraclius' accession as Emperor did little to reduce the Persian threat. Heraclius began his reign by attempting to make peace with the Persians, since Phocas, whose actions were the original casus belli, had been overthrown. The Persians rejected these overtures, however, since their armies were widely victorious. According to historian Walter Kaegi, it is conceivable that the Persians' goal was to restore or even surpass the boundaries of the Achaemenid Empire by destroying the Byzantine empire, though because of the loss of the royal Persian archives, no document survives to conclusively prove this.
Heraclius joined with his general Priscus' siege of the Persians at Caesarea Mazaca. Priscus pretended to be ill, however, and did not meet the emperor. This was a veiled insult to Heraclius, who hid his dislike of Priscus and returned to Constantinople in 612. Meanwhile, Shahin's troops escaped Priscus' blockade and burned Caesarea, much to Heraclius' displeasure. Priscus was soon removed from command, along with others who served under Phocas. Philippicus, an old general of Maurice's, was appointed as commander-in-chief, but he proved himself incompetent against the Persians, avoiding engagements in battle. Heraclius then appointed himself commander along with his brother Theodore to finally solidify command of the army.
Khosrow took advantage of the incompetence of Heraclius' generals to launch an attack on Byzantine Syria, under the leadership of the Persian general Shahrbaraz. Heraclius attempted to stop the invasion at Antioch, but despite the blessing of Saint Theodore of Sykeon, Byzantine forces under Heraclius and Nicetas suffered a serious defeat at the hands of Shahin. Details of the battle are not known. After this victory the Persians looted the city, slew the Patriarch of Antioch and deported many citizens. Roman forces lost again while attempting to defend the area north of Antioch at the Cilician Gates, despite some initial success. The Persians then captured Tarsus and the Cilician plain. This defeat cut the Byzantine empire in half, severing Constantinople and Anatolia's land link to Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and the Exarchate of Carthage.
## Persian dominance
### Capture of Jerusalem
Resistance to the Persians in Syria was not strong; although the locals constructed fortifications, they generally tried to negotiate with the Persians. The cities of Damascus, Apamea, and Emesa fell quickly in 613, giving the Sasanian army a chance to strike further south into Palaestina Prima. Nicetas continued to resist the Persians but was defeated at Adhri'at. He managed to win a small victory near Emesa, however, where both sides suffered heavy casualties—the total death count was 20,000. More seriously, the weakness of the resistance enabled the Persians and their Jewish allies to capture Jerusalem following a three weeks siege in 614. Ancient sources claim 57,000 or 66,500 people were slain there; another 35,000 were deported to Persia, including the Patriarch Zacharias.
Many churches in the city (including the Church of the Resurrection or Holy Sepulchre) were burned, and numerous relics, including the True Cross, the Holy Lance, and the Holy Sponge, were carried off to the Persian capital Ctesiphon. The loss of these relics was thought by many Christian Byzantines to be a clear mark of divine displeasure. Some blamed the Jews for this misfortune and for the loss of Syria in general. There were reports that Jews helped the Persians capture certain cities and that the Jews tried to slaughter Christians in cities that the Persians had already conquered but were found and foiled from doing so. These reports are likely to be greatly exaggerated and the result of general hysteria.
### Egypt
In 618 Shahrbaraz's forces invaded Egypt, a province that had been mostly untouched by war for three centuries. The Monophysites living in Egypt were unhappy with Chalcedonian orthodoxy and were not eager to aid Byzantine imperial forces. Afterward they were supported by Khosrow, but they did not resist imperial forces between 600 and 638, and many saw the Persian occupation in negative terms. Byzantine resistance in Alexandria was led by Nicetas. After a year-long siege, resistance in Alexandria collapsed, supposedly after a traitor told the Persians of an unused canal, allowing them to storm the city. Nicetas fled to Cyprus along with Patriarch John the Almsgiver, who was a major supporter of Nicetas in Egypt. The fate of Nicetas is unclear, since he disappears from records after this, but Heraclius was presumably deprived of a trusted commander. The loss of Egypt was a severe blow to the Byzantine empire, as Constantinople relied on grain shipments from fertile Egypt to feed the multitudes in the capital. The free grain ration in Constantinople, which echoed the earlier grain dole in Rome, was abolished in 618.
After conquering Egypt, Khosrow allegedly sent Heraclius the following letter:
> Khosrow, greatest of Gods, and master of the earth, to Heraclius, his vile and insensate slave. Why do you still refuse to submit to our rule, and call yourself a king? Have I not destroyed the Greeks? You say that you trust in your God. Why has he not delivered out of my hand Caesarea, Jerusalem, and Alexandria? And shall I not also destroy Constantinople? But I will pardon your faults if you submit to me, and come hither with your wife and children; and I will give you lands, vineyards, and olive groves, and look upon you with a kindly aspect. Do not deceive yourself with vain hope in that Christ, who was not able to save himself from the Jews, who killed him by nailing him to a cross. Even if you take refuge in the depths of the sea, I will stretch out my hand and take you, whether you will or no.
However, the genuineness of the letter has been denied by modern scholars.
### Anatolia
When the Sasanians reached Chalcedon in 615, it was at this point, according to Sebeos, that Heraclius had agreed to stand down and was about ready to allow the Byzantine Empire to become a Persian client state, even permitting Khosrow II to choose the emperor. Things began to look even more grim for the Byzantines when Chalcedon fell in 617 to Shahin, bringing the Persians within sight of Constantinople. Shahin courteously received a peace delegation but claimed that he did not have the authority to engage in peace talks, directing Heraclius to Khosrow, who rejected the peace offer - in retrospect, a major strategic blunder. Still, the Persian forces soon withdrew, probably to focus on their invasion of Egypt. Yet the Persians retained their advantage, capturing Ancyra, an important military base in central Anatolia, in 620 or 622. Rhodes and several other islands in the eastern Aegean fell in 622/3, threatening a naval assault on Constantinople. Such was the despair in Constantinople that Heraclius considered moving the government to Carthage in Africa.
## Byzantine resurgence
### Reorganization
Khosrow's letter did not cow Heraclius but prompted him to try a desperate strike against the Persians. He now reorganized the remainder of his empire to allow his forces to fight on. Already, in 615, a new, lighter (6.82 grams) silver imperial coin appeared with the usual image of Heraclius and his son Heraclius Constantine, but uniquely carried the inscription of Deus adiuta Romanis or "May God help the Romans"; Kaegi believes this shows the desperation of the empire at this time. The copper follis also dropped in weight from 11 grams to somewhere between 8 and 9 grams. Heraclius faced severely decreased revenues due to the loss of provinces; furthermore, a plague broke out in 619, which further damaged the tax base and also increased fears of divine retribution. The debasement of the coinage allowed the Byzantines to maintain expenditure in the face of declining revenues.
Heraclius now halved the pay of officials, enforced increased taxation, forced loans, and levied extreme fines on corrupt officials in order to finance his counter-offensive. Despite disagreements over the incestuous marriage of Heraclius to his niece Martina, the clergy of the Byzantine Empire strongly backed his efforts against the Persians by proclaiming the duty of all Christian men to fight and by offering to give him a war loan consisting of all the gold and silver-plated objects in Constantinople. Precious metals and bronze were stripped from monuments and even the Hagia Sophia. This military campaign has been seen as the first "crusade", or at least as an antecedent to the Crusades, by many historians, beginning with William of Tyre, but some, like Kaegi, disagree with this moniker because religion was just one component in the war. Thousands of volunteers were gathered and equipped with money from the church. Heraclius himself decided to command the army from the front lines. Thus, the Byzantine troops had been replenished, re-equipped, and were now led by a competent general— while maintaining a full treasury.
Historian George Ostrogorsky believed that volunteers were gathered through the reorganization of Anatolia into four themes, where the volunteers were given inalienable grants of land on the condition of hereditary military service. However, modern scholars generally discredit this theory, placing the creation of the themes later, under Heraclius' successor Constans II.
### Byzantine counter-offensive
By 622, Heraclius was ready to mount a counter-offensive. He left Constantinople the day after celebrating Easter on Sunday, 4 April 622. His young son, Heraclius Constantine, was left behind as regent under the charge of Patriarch Sergius and the patrician Bonus. He spent the summer training to improve the skills of his men and his own generalship. In the autumn, Heraclius threatened Persian communications from the Euphrates valley to Anatolia by marching to Cappadocia. This forced the Persian forces in Anatolia under Shahrbaraz to retreat from the front-lines of Bithynia and Galatia to eastern Anatolia in order to block his access to Iran.
What followed next is not entirely clear, but Heraclius certainly won a crushing victory over Shahrbaraz in the fall of 622. The key factor was Heraclius' discovery of Persian forces hidden in ambush and responding by feigning retreat during the battle. The Persians left their cover to chase the Byzantines, whereupon Heraclius' elite Optimatoi assaulted the pursuing Persians, causing them to flee. Thus he saved Anatolia from the Persians. Heraclius had to return to Constantinople, however, to deal with the threat posed to his Balkan domains by the Avars, so he left his army to winter in Pontus.
### Avar threat
While the Byzantines were occupied with the Persians, the Avars and Slavs poured into the Balkans, capturing several Byzantine cities, including Singidunum (Belgrade), Viminacium (Kostolac), Naissus (Niš), and Serdica (Sofia), while destroying Salona in 614. Isidore of Seville even claims that the Slavs took "Greece" from the Byzantines. The Avars also began to raid Thrace, threatening commerce and agriculture, even near the gates of Constantinople. However, numerous attempts by the Avars and Slavs to take Thessalonica, the most important Byzantine city in the Balkans after Constantinople, ended in failure, allowing the Empire to hold onto a vital stronghold in the region. Other minor cities on the Adriatic coast like Jadar (Zadar), Tragurium (Trogir), Butua (Budva), Scodra (Shkodër), and Lissus (Lezhë) also survived the invasions.
Because of the need to defend against these incursions, the Byzantines could not afford to use all their forces against the Persians. Heraclius sent an envoy to the Avar Khagan, saying that the Byzantines would pay a tribute in return for the Avars withdrawing north of the Danube. The Khagan replied by asking for a meeting on 5 June 623, at Heraclea in Thrace, where the Avar army was located; Heraclius agreed to this meeting, coming with his royal court. The Khagan, however, put horsemen en route to Heraclea to ambush and capture Heraclius, so they could hold him for ransom.
Heraclius was fortunately warned in time and managed to escape, chased by the Avars all the way to Constantinople. However, many members of his court, as well as an alleged 70,000 Thracian peasants who came to see their Emperor, were captured and killed by the Khagan's men. Despite this treachery, Heraclius was forced to give the Avars a subsidy of 200,000 solidi along with his illegitimate son John Athalarichos, his nephew Stephen, and the illegitimate son of the patrician Bonus as hostages in return for peace. This left him more able to focus his war effort completely on the Persians.
### Byzantine assault on Persia
Heraclius offered peace to Khosrow, presumably in 624, threatening otherwise to invade Iran, but Khosrow rejected the offer. On March 25, 624, Heraclius left Constantinople to attack the Persian heartland. He willingly abandoned any attempt to secure his rear or his communications with the sea, marching through Armenia and modern Azerbaijan to assault the core Persian lands directly. According to Walter Kaegi, Heraclius led an army of no more than 40,000, and most likely between 20,000–24,000. Before journeying to the Caucasus, he recovered Caesarea in Cappadocia, in defiance of the earlier letter that Khosrow had sent him.
Heraclius advanced along the Araxes River, destroying Persian-held Dvin, the capital of Armenia, and Nakhchivan. At Ganzaka, Heraclius met Khosrow's army, some 40,000 strong. With the help of loyal Arabs, he captured and killed some of Khosrow's guards, leading to the disintegration of the Persian army. Heraclius then destroyed Adur Gushnasp, the famous Zoroastrian fire temple at Takht-i-Suleiman. Heraclius' raids went as far as the Gayshawan, a residence of Khosrow in Adurbadagan.
Heraclius wintered in Caucasian Albania, gathering forces for the next year. Khosrow was not content to let Heraclius quietly rest in Albania. He sent three armies, commanded by Shahrbaraz, Shahin, and Shahraplakan, to try to trap and destroy Heraclius' forces. Shahraplakan retook lands up as far as Siwnik, aiming to capture the mountain passes. Shahrbaraz was sent to block Heraclius' retreat through Caucasian Iberia, and Shahin was sent to block the Bitlis Pass. Heraclius, planning to engage the Persian armies separately, spoke to his worried Lazic, Abasgian, and Iberian allies and soldiers, saying: "Do not let the number of our enemies disturb us. For, God willing, one will pursue ten thousand."
Two soldiers who feigned desertion were sent to Shahrbaraz, claiming that the Byzantines were fleeing before Shahin. Due to jealousy between the Persian commanders, Shahrbaraz hurried with his army to take part in the glory of the victory. Heraclius met them at Tigranakert and routed the forces of Shahraplakan and Shahin one after the other. Shahin lost his baggage train, and Shahraplakan (according to one source) was killed, though he re-appears later. After this victory, Heraclius crossed the Araxes and camped in the plains on the other side. Shahin, with the remnants of both his and Shahraplakan's armies, joined Shahrbaraz in the pursuit of Heraclius, but marshes slowed them down. At Aliovit, Shahrbaraz split his forces, sending some 6,000 troops to ambush Heraclius while the remainder of the troops stayed at Aliovit. Heraclius instead launched a surprise night attack on the Persian main camp in February 625, destroying it. Shahrbaraz only barely escaped, naked and alone, having lost his harem, baggage, and men.
Heraclius spent the rest of winter to the north of Lake Van. In 625, his forces attempted to push back towards the Euphrates. In a mere seven days, he bypassed Mount Ararat and the 200 miles along the Arsanias River to capture Amida and Martyropolis, important fortresses on the upper Tigris. Heraclius then carried on towards the Euphrates, pursued by Shahrbaraz. According to Arab sources, he was stopped at the Satidama or Batman Su River and defeated; Byzantine sources, however, do not mention this incident. There was then another minor skirmish between Heraclius and Shahrbaraz at the Sarus River near Adana. Shahrbaraz stationed his forces across the river from the Byzantines. A bridge spanned the river, and the Byzantines immediately charged across. Shahrbaraz feigned retreat to lead the Byzantines into an ambush, and the vanguard of Heraclius' army was destroyed within minutes. The Persians, however, had neglected to cover the bridge, and Heraclius charged across with the rearguard, unafraid of the arrows that the Persians fired, turning the tide of battle against the Persians. Shahrbaraz expressed his admiration at Heraclius to a renegade Greek: "See your Emperor! He fears these arrows and spears no more than would an anvil!" The Battle of Sarus was a successful retreat for the Byzantines that panegyrists magnified. In the aftermath of the battle, the Byzantine army wintered at Trebizond.
## Climax of the war
### Siege of Constantinople
Khosrow, seeing that a decisive counterattack was needed to defeat the Byzantines, recruited two new armies from all the able men, including foreigners. Shahin was entrusted with 50,000 men and stayed in Mesopotamia and Armenia to prevent Heraclius from invading Iran; a smaller army under Shahrbaraz slipped through Heraclius' flanks and bee-lined for Chalcedon, the Persian base across the Bosphorus from Constantinople. Khosrow also coordinated with the Khagan of the Avars so as to launch a coordinated attack on Constantinople from both European and Asiatic sides. The Persian army stationed themselves at Chalcedon, while the Avars placed themselves on the European side of Constantinople and destroyed the Aqueduct of Valens. Because of the Byzantine navy's control of the Bosphorus strait, however, the Persians could not send troops to the European side to aid their ally. This reduced the effectiveness of the siege, because the Persians were experts in siege warfare. Furthermore, the Persians and Avars had difficulties communicating across the guarded Bosphorus—though undoubtedly, there was some communication between the two forces.
The defense of Constantinople was under the command of Patriarch Sergius and the patrician Bonus. Upon hearing the news, Heraclius split his army into three parts; although he judged that the capital was relatively safe, he still sent some reinforcements to Constantinople to boost the morale of the defenders. Another part of the army was under the command of his brother Theodore and was sent to deal with Shahin, while the third and smallest part would remain under his own control, intending to raid the Persian heartland.
On 29 June 626, a coordinated assault on the walls began. Inside the walls, some 12,000 well-trained Byzantine cavalry troops (presumably dismounted) defended the city against the forces of some 80,000 Avars and Slavs. Despite continuous bombardment for a month, morale was high inside the walls of Constantinople because of Patriarch Sergius' religious fervor and his processions along the wall with the icon of the Virgin Mary, inspiring the belief that the Byzantines were under divine protection.
On 7 August, a fleet of Persian rafts ferrying troops across the Bosphorus were surrounded and destroyed by Byzantine ships. The Slavs under the Avars attempted to attack the sea walls from across the Golden Horn, while the main Avar host attacked the land walls. Patrician Bonus' galleys rammed and destroyed the Slavic boats; the Avar land assault from August 6 to the 7th also failed. With the news that Theodore had decisively triumphed over Shahin (supposedly leading Shahin to die from depression), the Avars retreated to the Balkan hinterland within two days, never to seriously threaten Constantinople again. Even though the army of Shahrbaraz was still encamped at Chalcedon, the threat to Constantinople was over. In thanks for the lifting of the siege and the supposed divine protection of the Virgin Mary, the celebrated Akathist Hymn was written by an unknown author, possibly Patriarch Sergius or George of Pisidia.
Furthermore, after the emperor showed Shahrbaraz intercepted letters from Khosrow ordering the Persian general's death, the latter switched to Heraclius' side. Shahrbaraz then moved his army to northern Syria, where he could easily decide to support either Khosrow or Heraclius at a moment's notice. Still, with the neutralization of Khosrow's most skilled general, Heraclius deprived his enemy of some of his best and most experienced troops, while securing his flanks prior to his invasion of Iran.
### Byzantine-Turkic alliance
During the siege of Constantinople, Heraclius formed an alliance with people Byzantine sources called the "Khazars", under Ziebel, now generally identified as the Western Turkic Khaganate of the Göktürks, led by Tong Yabghu, plying him with wondrous gifts and the promise of marriage to the porphyrogenita Eudoxia Epiphania. Earlier, in 568, the Turks under Istämi had turned to Byzantium when their relations with Iran soured over commerce issues. Istämi sent an embassy led by the Sogdian diplomat Maniah directly to Constantinople, which arrived in 568 and offered not only silk as a gift to Justin II, but also proposed an alliance against Sasanian Iran. Justin II agreed and sent an embassy to the Turkic Khaganate, ensuring the direct Chinese silk trade desired by the Sogdians.
In the East, in 625 CE, the Turks took advantage of the Sasanian weakness to occupy Bactria and Afghanistan as far as the Indus, and establish the Yabghus of Tokharistan.
The Turks, based in the Caucasus, responded to the alliance by sending 40,000 of their men to ravage the Iranian Empire in 626, marking the start of the Third Perso-Turkic War. Joint Byzantine and Göktürk operations were then focused on besieging Tiflis, where the Byzantines used traction trebuchets to breach the walls, one of the first known uses by the Byzantines. Khosrow sent 1,000 cavalry under Shahraplakan to reinforce the city, but it nevertheless fell, probably in late 628. Ziebel died by the end of that year, however, saving Epiphania from marriage to a barbarian. Whilst the siege proceeded, Heraclius worked to secure his base in the upper Tigris.
### Battle of Nineveh
In mid-September 627, Heraclius invaded the Iranian heartland in a surprising winter campaign, leaving Ziebel to continue the siege of Tiflis. Edward Luttwak describes the seasonal retreat of Heraclius for the winters of 624–626 followed by a change in 627 to threaten Ctesiphon as a "high-risk, relational maneuver on a theater-wide scale" because it habituated the Persians to strategically ineffective raids that caused them to decide not to recall border troops to defend the heartland. His army numbered between 25,000 and 50,000 Byzantine troops and 40,000 Göktürks that quickly deserted him because of the unfamiliar winter conditions and harassment from the Persians. He advanced quickly but was tailed by a Persian army under the Armenian Rhahzadh, who faced difficulties in provisioning his army due to the Byzantines taking most of the provisions as they moved south toward Assyria.
Towards the end of the year, near the ruins of Nineveh, Heraclius engaged Rhahzadh before reinforcements could reach the Persian commander. The Battle of Nineveh took place in the fog, reducing the Persian advantage in missile troops. Heraclius feigned retreat, leading the Persians to the plains, before reversing his troops to the surprise of the Persians. After eight hours of fighting, the Persians suddenly retreated to nearby foothills, but the battle did not become a rout. During the battle, approximately 6,000 Persians were killed. Patriarch Nikephoros' Brief History suggests that Rhahzadh challenged Heraclius to personal combat, and that Heraclius accepted and killed Rhahzadh in a single thrust; two other challengers fought against him and also lost. However, he received an injury to his lip.
### End of the war
With no Persian army left to oppose him, Heraclius' victorious army plundered Dastagird, which was a palace of Khosrow's, and gained tremendous riches while recovering 300 captured Byzantine flags. Khosrow had already fled to the mountains of Susiana to try to rally support for the defense of Ctesiphon. Heraclius then issued an ultimatum to Khosrow:
> I pursue and run after peace. I do not willingly burn Persia, but compelled by you. Let us now throw down our arms and embrace peace. Let us quench the fire before it burns up everything.
However, Heraclius could not attack Ctesiphon itself, as the Nahrawan Canal was blocked due to the collapse of a bridge leading over it, and he did not attempt to bypass the canal.
Regardless, the Persian army rebelled and overthrew Khosrow II, raising his son Kavadh II, also known as Siroes, in his stead. Khosrow was shut in a dungeon, where he suffered for five days on bare sustenance—he was shot to death slowly with arrows on the fifth day. Kavadh immediately sent peace offers to Heraclius. Heraclius did not impose harsh terms, knowing that his own empire was also near exhaustion. Under the terms of the peace treaty, the Byzantines regained all their lost territories, their captured soldiers, a war indemnity, and most importantly for them, the True Cross and other relics that were lost in Jerusalem in 614.
## Significance
### Short-term consequences
After some months of travel, Heraclius entered Constantinople in triumph and was met by the people of the city, his son Heraclius Constantine, and Patriarch Sergius, prostrating themselves in joy. His alliance with the Persians resulted in the recovery of the Holy Sponge which fastened to the True Cross in an elaborate ceremony on 14 September 629. The ceremonial parade went toward the Hagia Sophia. There, the True Cross was slowly raised up until it vertically towered over the high altar. To many, this was a sign that a new golden age was about to begin for the Byzantine Empire.
The conclusion of the war cemented Heraclius' position as one of history's most successful generals. He was hailed as "the new Scipio" for his six years of unbroken victories and for leading the Roman army where no Roman army had ever gone before. The triumphal raising of the True Cross in the Hagia Sophia was a crowning moment in his achievements. Had Heraclius died then, he would have been recorded in history, in the words of the historian Norman Davies, as "the greatest Roman general since Julius Caesar". Instead, he lived through the Arab invasions, losing battle after battle against their onslaught and tarnishing his reputation for victory. Lord Norwich succinctly described Heraclius as having "lived too long".
For their part, the Sasanians struggled to establish a stable government. When Kavadh II died only months after coming to the throne, Persia was plunged into several years of dynastic turmoil and civil war. Ardashir III, Heraclius' ally Shahrbaraz, and Khosrow's daughters Purandokht and Azarmidokht all succeeded to the throne within months of each other. Only when Yazdgerd III, a grandson of Khosrow II, succeeded to the throne in 632 was there stability, but by then it was too late to rescue the Sasanian kingdom.
### Long-term consequences
The devastating impact of the war of 602–628, along with the cumulative effects of a century of almost continuous Byzantine-Persian conflict, left both empires crippled. The Sasanians were further weakened by economic decline, heavy taxation to finance Khosrow II's campaigns, religious unrest, and the increasing power of the provincial landholders at the expense of the Shah. According to Howard-Johnston: "[Heraclius'] victories in the field over the following years and their political repercussions ... saved the main bastion of Christianity in the Near East and gravely weakened its old Zoroastrian rival. They may be shadowed by the even more extraordinary military achievements of the Arabs in the following two decades, but hindsight should not be allowed to dim their lustre."
However, the Byzantine Empire was also severely affected, with the Balkans now largely in the hands of the Slavs. Additionally, Anatolia had been devastated by repeated Persian invasions, and the empire's hold on its recently regained territories in the Caucasus, Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Egypt was loosened by years of Persian occupation. With their financial reserves exhausted, the Byzantines found difficulties paying veterans of the war with the Persians and recruiting new troops. Clive Foss called this war the "first stage in the process which marked the end of Antiquity in Asia Minor".
Neither empire was given much chance to recover, as within a few years they were struck by the onslaught of the Arabs, newly united by Islam, which Howard-Johnston likened to "a human tsunami". According to George Liska, the "unnecessarily prolonged Byzantine–Persian conflict opened the way for Islam". The Sasanian Empire rapidly succumbed to these attacks and was completely destroyed. During the Byzantine–Arab Wars, the exhausted Byzantine Empire's recently regained eastern and southern provinces of Syria, Armenia, Egypt, and North Africa were also lost, reducing the empire to a territorial core consisting of Anatolia and a scatter of islands and footholds in the Balkans and Italy. However, unlike Persia, the Byzantine Empire ultimately survived the Arab assault, holding onto its remaining territories and decisively repulsing two Arab sieges of its capital in 674–678 and 717–718. The Byzantine Empire also lost its territories in Crete and southern Italy to the Arabs in later conflicts, though these too were ultimately recovered. However, some losses were permanent, such as the loss of Spania, the remaining Byzantine holdings in the Iberian Peninsula, which was conquered by the Visigoths by 629. Similarly, Corsica was taken by the Lombards in the 8th century. The Balearic Islands, Sardinia and Sicily were captured by Arabs in the 10th century.
## Composition of the armies and strategy
The elite cavalry corps of the Persians was the Aswaran. The lance (kontos) was probably its preferred weapon, having the power to skewer two men simultaneously. Its horses along with their riders were covered in lamellar armor to protect them from enemy archers.
According to Emperor Maurice's Strategikon, a manual of war, the Persians made heavy use of archers that were the most "rapid, although not powerful archery" of all warlike nations, and they avoided weather that hampered their bows. It claims that they deployed so that their formation was equal in strength in the center and the flanks. They also apparently neutralized the charge of Roman lancers by using rough terrain since the latter preferred to avoid hand-to-hand combat. Thus, the Strategikon advised fighting on level terrain with rapid charges to avoid the Persian arrows. They were seen as skilled in laying siege and liked to "achieve their results by planning and generalship".
The most important arm of the Byzantine army was its cataphract cavalry, which became a symbol of Byzantium. They wore chain mail, had heavily armored horses, and used lances as their primary weapon. They had small shields mounted on their arms, could also use bows, and carried a broadsword and an axe. Heavy Byzantine infantry, or scutati/skoutatoi, carried large oval shields and wore lamellar or mail armor. They carried many weapons against enemy cavalry such as spears to ward off cavalry and axes to cut the legs off of horses. Light Byzantine infantry, or psiloi, primarily used bows and wore only leather armor. Byzantine infantry played a key role in stabilizing battle lines against enemy cavalry and also as an anchor to launch friendly cavalry attacks. According to Richard A. Gabriel, the Byzantine heavy infantry "combined the best capabilities of the Roman legion with the old Greek phalanx".
The Avars had mounted archers with composite bows that could double as heavy cavalry with lances. They were skilled in siegecraft and could construct trebuchets and siege towers. In their siege of Constantinople, they constructed walls of circumvallation to prevent easy counterattack and used mantelets or wooden frames covered with animal hides to protect against defending archers. Furthermore, like many nomads, they gathered other warriors such as Gepids and Slavs to assist them. However, since Avars depended on raiding the countryside for supplies, it was difficult for them to maintain long sieges, especially when considering their less mobile gathered allies.
According to Kaegi, the Byzantines had "an almost compulsive ... preference to avoid changing the essential elements of the status quo". They tried to secure allies and divide their enemies through diplomacy. Although they failed against Khosrow and the Avar Khagan, their ties with the Slavs, who would become the Serbs and Croats, and their decades-long negotiations with the Göktürks resulted in Slavs actively opposing the Avars in addition to a key alliance with the Göktürks.
As for any army, logistics were always a problem. In his initial campaigns in Byzantine territories, especially in Anatolia, Heraclius likely supplied his troops by requisitioning from his surroundings. During each of Heraclius' offensive raids into Persia, the harsh conditions of winter forced him to desist, partly because both his and the Persian horses needed stored fodder in winter quarters. Forcing his troops to campaign in the winter would have been risky as Maurice had been overthrown due to his poor treatment of his troops in winter. Edward Luttwak believes that the Göktürks with their "hardy horses (or ponies)" that could survive "in almost any terrain that had almost any vegetation" were essential in Heraclius' winter campaign in hilly northeast Iran in 627. During the campaign, they took their provisions from Persian lands. With the victory at Nineveh and the capture of Persian palaces, they no longer had issues with supplying their troops in foreign territory, even in winter conditions.
## Historiography
The sources for this war are mostly of Byzantine origin. Foremost among the contemporary Greek texts is the Chronicon Paschale by an unidentified author from around 630. George of Pisidia wrote many poems and other works that were contemporary. Theophylact Simocatta has surviving letters along with a history that gives the political outlook of the Byzantines, but that history only really covers from 582 to 602. Theodore the Synkellos has a surviving speech, which was made during the Siege of Constantinople in 626, that contains useful information for some events. There are some surviving papyri from Egypt from that period.
The Persian archives were lost so there are no contemporary Persian sources of this war. However, al-Tabari's History of the Prophets and Kings uses now lost sources and contains a history of the Sasanian dynasty. Non-Greek contemporary sources include the Chronicle of John of Nikiu, which was written in Coptic but only survives in Ethiopian translation, and the History attributed to Sebeos (there is controversy over the authorship). The latter is an Armenian compilation of various sources, arranged in only rough chronological order. This gives it an uneven coverage of the war. Furthermore, it was put together with the purpose of correlating Biblical prophecy and contemporary times, making it most certainly not objective. There are also some surviving Syriac materials from that period, which Dodgeon, Greatrex, and Lieu believe are the "most important" of the contemporary sources. These include the Chronicle of 724 by Thomas the Presbyter, composed in 640. The Chronicle of Guidi or Khuzistan Chronicle gives the perspective of a Nestorian Christian living in Persian territory.
Later Greek accounts include the Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor and the Brief History of Patriarch Nikephoros I. Theophanes' Chronicle is very useful in creating a framework of the war. It is usually supplemented by even later Syriac sources like the Chronicle of 1234 and the Chronicle by Michael the Syrian. However, these sources, excepting the Brief History by Nikephoros, and the Christian Arab Agapius of Hierapolis all likely drew their information from a common source, probably the 8th-century historian Theophilos of Edessa.
The 10th-century Armenian History of the House of Artsrunik by Thomas Artsruni probably have similar sources to the ones that the compiler of Sebeos used. Movses Kaghankatvatsi wrote the History of Aluank in the 10th century and has material from unidentified sources on the 620s. Howard-Johnston considered the histories of Movses and Sebeos as "the most important of extant non-Muslim sources". The history of the Patriarch Eutychius of Alexandria contains many errors, but is a useful source.
The Quran also provides some detail on the matter. The Ar-Rum sūrah tells how news of the ongoing war reached Mecca, with Muhammad and the early Muslims siding with the Monotheistic Greeks while the non-Muslim Meccans sided with the non-Monotheist Persians, each side regarding the victories of their favorites as proof of their own religious stance. The Quran also predicts the Romans being victorious in regaining the lost territories. Such prediction would've been considered ridiculous at the time of the chapter.
The Byzantine hagiographies (lives of saints) of Saints Theodore of Sykeon and Anastasios the Persian have proven to be helpful in understanding the era of the war. The Life of George of Khozeba gives an idea of the panic at the time of the Siege of Jerusalem. However, there are some doubts as to whether hagiographic texts may be corrupted from 8th or 9th century interpolations. Numismatics, the study of coins, has proven useful to dating. Sigillography, the study of seals, is also used for dating. Art and other archaeological findings are also of some use. Epigraphic sources or inscriptions are of limited use. Luttwak called the Strategikon of Maurice the "most complete Byzantine field manual"; it provides valuable insight into the military thinking and practices of the time. |
6,776 | Capybara | 1,168,239,157 | Species of giant rodent in the cavy family; largest rodent in the world | [
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| The capybara or greater capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) is a giant cavy rodent native to South America. It is the largest living rodent and a member of the genus Hydrochoerus. The only other extant member is the lesser capybara (Hydrochoerus isthmius). Its close relatives include guinea pigs and rock cavies, and it is more distantly related to the agouti, the chinchilla, and the nutria. The capybara inhabits savannas and dense forests, and lives near bodies of water. It is a highly social species and can be found in groups as large as 100 individuals, but usually live in groups of 10–20 individuals. The capybara is hunted for its meat and hide and also for grease from its thick fatty skin. It is not considered a threatened species.
## Etymology
Its common name is derived from Tupi ka'apiûaracode: tpw is deprecated , a complex agglutination of kaácode: tpw is deprecated (leaf) + píicode: tpw is deprecated (slender) + úcode: tpw is deprecated (eat) + aracode: tpw is deprecated (a suffix for agent nouns), meaning "one who eats slender leaves", or "grass-eater". The scientific name, both hydrochoerus and hydrochaeris, comes from Greek ὕδωρ (hydor "water") and χοῖρος (choiros "pig, hog").
## Classification and phylogeny
The capybara and the lesser capybara both belong to the subfamily Hydrochoerinae along with the rock cavies. The living capybaras and their extinct relatives were previously classified in their own family Hydrochoeridae. Since 2002, molecular phylogenetic studies have recognized a close relationship between Hydrochoerus and Kerodon, the rock cavies, supporting placement of both genera in a subfamily of Caviidae.
Paleontological classifications previously used Hydrochoeridae for all capybaras, while using Hydrochoerinae for the living genus and its closest fossil relatives, such as Neochoerus, but more recently have adopted the classification of Hydrochoerinae within Caviidae. The taxonomy of fossil hydrochoerines is also in a state of flux. In recent years, the diversity of fossil hydrochoerines has been substantially reduced. This is largely due to the recognition that capybara molar teeth show strong variation in shape over the life of an individual. In one instance, material once referred to four genera and seven species on the basis of differences in molar shape is now thought to represent differently aged individuals of a single species, Cardiatherium paranense. Among fossil species, the name "capybara" can refer to the many species of Hydrochoerinae that are more closely related to the modern Hydrochoerus than to the "cardiomyine" rodents like Cardiomys. The fossil genera Cardiatherium, Phugatherium, Hydrochoeropsis, and Neochoerus are all capybaras under that concept.
## Description
The capybara has a heavy, barrel-shaped body and short head, with reddish-brown fur on the upper part of its body that turns yellowish-brown underneath. Its sweat glands can be found in the surface of the hairy portions of its skin, an unusual trait among rodents. The animal lacks down hair, and its guard hair differs little from over hair.
Adult capybaras grow to 106 to 134 cm (3.48 to 4.40 ft) in length, stand 50 to 62 cm (20 to 24 in) tall at the withers, and typically weigh 35 to 66 kg (77 to 146 lb), with an average in the Venezuelan llanos of 48.9 kg (108 lb). Females are slightly heavier than males. The top recorded weights are 91 kg (201 lb) for a wild female from Brazil and 73.5 kg (162 lb) for a wild male from Uruguay. Also, an 81 kg individual was reported in São Paulo in 2001 or 2002. The dental formula is . Capybaras have slightly webbed feet and vestigial tails. Their hind legs are slightly longer than their forelegs; they have three toes on their rear feet and four toes on their front feet. Their muzzles are blunt, with nostrils, and the eyes and ears are near the top of their heads.
Its karyotype has 2n = 66 and FN = 102, meaning it has 66 chromosomes with a total of 102 arms.
## Ecology
Capybaras are semiaquatic mammals found throughout all countries of South America except Chile. They live in densely forested areas near bodies of water, such as lakes, rivers, swamps, ponds, and marshes, as well as flooded savannah and along rivers in the tropical rainforest. They are superb swimmers and can hold their breath underwater for up to five minutes at a time. Capybara have flourished in cattle ranches. They roam in home ranges averaging 10 hectares (25 acres) in high-density populations.
Many escapees from captivity can also be found in similar watery habitats around the world. Sightings are fairly common in Florida, although a breeding population has not yet been confirmed. In 2011, one specimen was spotted on the Central Coast of California. These escaped populations occur in areas where prehistoric capybaras inhabited; late Pleistocene capybaras inhabited Florida and Hydrochoerus hesperotiganites in California and Hydrochoerus gaylordi in Grenada, and feral capybaras in North America may actually fill the ecological niche of the Pleistocene species.
### Diet and predation
Capybaras are herbivores, grazing mainly on grasses and aquatic plants, as well as fruit and tree bark. They are very selective feeders and feed on the leaves of one species and disregard other species surrounding it. They eat a greater variety of plants during the dry season, as fewer plants are available. While they eat grass during the wet season, they have to switch to more abundant reeds during the dry season. Plants that capybaras eat during the summer lose their nutritional value in the winter, so they are not consumed at that time. The capybara's jaw hinge is not perpendicular, so they chew food by grinding back-and-forth rather than side-to-side. Capybaras are autocoprophagous, meaning they eat their own feces as a source of bacterial gut flora, to help digest the cellulose in the grass that forms their normal diet, and to extract the maximum protein and vitamins from their food. They also regurgitate food to masticate again, similar to cud-chewing by cattle. As is the case with other rodents, the front teeth of capybaras grow continually to compensate for the constant wear from eating grasses; their cheek teeth also grow continuously.
Like its relative the guinea pig, the capybara does not have the capacity to synthesize vitamin C, and capybaras not supplemented with vitamin C in captivity have been reported to develop gum disease as a sign of scurvy.
They can have a lifespan of 8–10 years, but tend to live less than four years in the wild due to predation from big cats like the jaguars and pumas and non-mammalian predators like eagles and the caimans. The capybara is also the preferred prey of the green anaconda.
## Social organization
Capybaras are known to be gregarious. While they sometimes live solitarily, they are more commonly found in groups of around 10–20 individuals, with two to four adult males, four to seven adult females, and the remainder juveniles. Capybara groups can consist of as many as 50 or 100 individuals during the dry season when the animals gather around available water sources. Males establish social bonds, dominance, or general group consensus. They can make dog-like barks when threatened or when females are herding young.
Capybaras have two types of scent glands: a morrillo, located on the snout, and anal glands. Both sexes have these glands, but males have much larger morrillos and use their anal glands more frequently. The anal glands of males are also lined with detachable hairs. A crystalline form of scent secretion is coated on these hairs and is released when in contact with objects such as plants. These hairs have a longer-lasting scent mark and are tasted by other capybaras. Capybaras scent-mark by rubbing their morrillos on objects, or by walking over scrub and marking it with their anal glands. Capybaras can spread their scent further by urinating; however, females usually mark without urinating and scent-mark less frequently than males overall. Females mark more often during the wet season when they are in estrus. In addition to objects, males also scent-mark females.
### Reproduction
When in estrus, the female's scent changes subtly and nearby males begin pursuit. In addition, a female alerts males she is in estrus by whistling through her nose. During mating, the female has the advantage and mating choice. Capybaras mate only in water, and if a female does not want to mate with a certain male, she either submerges or leaves the water. Dominant males are highly protective of the females, but they usually cannot prevent some of the subordinates from copulating. The larger the group, the harder it is for the male to watch all the females. Dominant males secure significantly more matings than each subordinate, but subordinate males, as a class, are responsible for more matings than each dominant male. The lifespan of the capybara's sperm is longer than that of other rodents.
Capybara gestation is 130–150 days, and produces a litter of four young on average, but may produce between one and eight in a single litter. Birth is on land and the female rejoins the group within a few hours of delivering the newborn capybaras, which join the group as soon as they are mobile. Within a week, the young can eat grass, but continue to suckle—from any female in the group—until weaned around 16 weeks. The young form a group within the main group. Alloparenting has been observed in this species. Breeding peaks between April and May in Venezuela and between October and November in Mato Grosso, Brazil.
### Activities
Though quite agile on land, capybaras are equally at home in the water. They are excellent swimmers, and can remain completely submerged for up to five minutes, an ability they use to evade predators. Capybaras can sleep in water, keeping only their noses out. As temperatures increase during the day, they wallow in water and then graze during the late afternoon and early evening. They also spend time wallowing in mud. They rest around midnight and then continue to graze before dawn.
## Conservation and human interaction
Capybaras are not considered a threatened species; their population is stable throughout most of their South American range, though in some areas hunting has reduced their numbers. Capybaras are hunted for their meat and pelts in some areas, and otherwise killed by humans who see their grazing as competition for livestock. In some areas, they are farmed, which has the effect of ensuring the wetland habitats are protected. Their survival is aided by their ability to breed rapidly.
Capybaras have adapted well to urbanization in South America. They can be found in many areas in zoos and parks, and may live for 12 years in captivity, more than double their wild lifespan. Capybaras are docile and usually allow humans to pet and hand-feed them, but physical contact is normally discouraged, as their ticks can be vectors to Rocky Mountain spotted fever. The European Association of Zoos and Aquaria asked Drusillas Park in Alfriston, Sussex, England, to keep the studbook for capybaras, to monitor captive populations in Europe. The studbook includes information about all births, deaths and movements of capybaras, as well as how they are related.
Capybaras are farmed for meat and skins in South America. The meat is considered unsuitable to eat in some areas, while in other areas it is considered an important source of protein. In parts of South America, especially in Venezuela, capybara meat is popular during Lent and Holy Week as the Catholic Church previously issued special dispensation to allow it to be eaten while other meats are generally forbidden. After several attempts a 1784 Papal bull was obtained that allowed the consumption of capybara during Lent. There is widespread perception in Venezuela that consumption of capybaras is exclusive to rural people.
Although it is illegal in some states, capybaras are occasionally kept as pets in the United States. The image of a capybara features on the 2-peso coin of Uruguay. In Japan, following the lead of Izu Shaboten Zoo in 1982, multiple establishments or zoos in Japan that raise capybaras have adopted the practice of having them relax in onsen during the winter. They are seen as an attraction by Japanese people. Capybaras became big in Japan due to the popular cartoon character Kapibara-san.
In August 2021, Argentine and international media reported that capybaras had been causing serious problems for residents of Nordelta, an affluent gated community north of Buenos Aires built atop wetland habitat. This inspired social media users to jokingly adopt the capybara as a symbol of class struggle and communism. Brazilian Lyme-like borreliosis likely involves capybaras as reservoirs and Amblyomma and Rhipicephalus ticks as vectors.
## Popularity and meme culture
In the early 2020s, capybaras became a growing figure of meme culture due to many factors, including the disturbances in Nordelta which led to them being comically postulated as figures of class struggle. Also, a common meme format includes capybaras in various situations with the song "After Party" by Don Toliver, leading to a tremendous growth in popularity. Due to a lyric in Toliver's song, capybaras are also associated with the phrase "Ok I pull up".
## See also
- Josephoartigasia monesi, an extinct species identified as the largest known rodent ever
- Kurloff cell, a type of cell found in capybaras and guinea pigs
- Capybara Walking, a historical animal locomotion film by Eadweard Muybridge
[tpw](Category:Lang_and_lang-xx_using_deprecated_ISO_639_codes "wikilink") [tpw](Category:Lang_and_lang-xx_using_deprecated_ISO_639_codes "wikilink") [tpw](Category:Lang_and_lang-xx_using_deprecated_ISO_639_codes "wikilink") [tpw](Category:Lang_and_lang-xx_using_deprecated_ISO_639_codes "wikilink") [tpw](Category:Lang_and_lang-xx_using_deprecated_ISO_639_codes "wikilink") |
16,737,720 | Washington State Route 243 | 1,146,477,081 | State highway in Grant County, Washington | [
"State highways in Washington (state)",
"Transportation in Grant County, Washington"
]
| State Route 243 (SR 243) is a state highway in Grant County, Washington. It travels north–south along the Columbia River for 28 miles (45 km), connecting SR 24 at the Vernita Bridge to SR 26 near Vantage. The highway travels through a predominantly rural and desert area, serving two hydroelectric dams and the communities of Desert Aire, Mattawa, and Beverly.
The highway was established as a branch of Secondary State Highway 7C (SSH 7C) in 1957, to be built uphill from the reservoir of the new Priest Rapids Dam. Construction was completed in the early 1960s and it was re-designated as SR 243 during the 1964 state highway renumbering.
## Route description
SR 243 begins at a junction with SR 24 at the north end of the Vernita Bridge, located in the Hanford Reach National Monument. Traffic continuing on SR 24 towards Othello is forced to turn east, while the highway continues northwest as SR 243. The highway turns west and follows the Columbia River upstream, passing a public boat launch and a campground within the Saddle Mountain National Wildlife Refuge. As the terrain transitions from brushland and sand dunes to irrigated farmland, SR 243 turns northwest and passes the Priest Rapids Dam and Wanapum Heritage Center at the south end of Desert Aire, a resort town with its own golf course and public airport.
The highway continues north through the vineyards of the western Wahluke Slope and passes a roundabout at the west end of Mattawa. North of Mattawa, the bluffs of the Saddle Mountains cause the river and its valley to narrow, leaving SR 243 to run directly on the eastern bank as it traverses the Sentinel Gap. Near Beverly, the highway passes under the Beverly Railroad Bridge, which carries the Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail, and moves away from the river bank to serve Wanapum Village near the Wanapum Dam. SR 243 continues north across the hills overlooking the dam's reservoir, passing through several rock cuts near the Sand Hollow Recreation Area, and descends to an intersection with SR 26, where the highway terminates. The junction is located one mile (1.6 km) south of an interchange with Interstate 90 (I-90) at the east end of the Vantage Bridge, where SR 26 itself terminates.
The highway is maintained by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), which conducts an annual survey of traffic volume on state routes, expressed in terms of average annual daily traffic. Average vehicle counts on SR 243 measured in 2016 ranged from a minimum of 2,800 vehicles near Beverly to a maximum of 4,600 vehicles between Desert Aire and Mattawa.
## History
A road following the un-dammed Columbia River from the Priest Rapids to Vantage was built by the early 1910s, roughly along the path of modern SR 243. The state legislature authorized construction of a new state highway between Vantage and the Vernita ferry in 1957 and designated it as a branch of Secondary State Highway 7C (SSH 7C). The highway was created to serve the under-construction Priest Rapids and Wanapum dams, the former of which would inundate a section of the old road with its new reservoir. Construction on the highway began later in the year and was completed in the early 1960s, shortly before the opening of the Vernita Bridge at its southern terminus with SSH 11A. During 1964 state highway renumbering, the Priest Rapids branch of SSH 7C was re-designated as SR 243, while the main route became SR 26.
The intersection with Road 24, a county road that serves as the main entry to Mattawa, had been the site of several major and fatal collisions in the late 2000s, prompting WSDOT to propose construction of a roundabout. The \$1.25 million roundabout was the first to be built in a rural area and was subject to opposition from local residents. After it was completed in 2014, the opposing residents apologized for their stance on the project, having adjusted to the change.
## Major intersections |
8,658,852 | 1936 Spanish general election | 1,171,340,697 | Legislative elections, held in Spain on 16 February 1936 | [
"1936 elections in Spain",
"1936 in Spain",
"February 1936 events",
"General elections in Spain"
]
| Legislative elections were held in Spain on 16 February 1936. At stake were all 473 seats in the unicameral Cortes Generales. The winners of the 1936 elections were the Popular Front, a left-wing coalition of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), Republican Left (Spain) (IR), Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), Republican Union (UR), Communist Party of Spain (PCE), Acció Catalana (AC), and other parties. Their coalition commanded a narrow lead over the divided opposition in terms of the popular vote, but a significant lead over the main opposition party, Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (CEDA), in terms of seats. The election had been prompted by a collapse of a government led by Alejandro Lerroux, and his Radical Republican Party. Manuel Azaña would replace Manuel Portela Valladares, caretaker, as prime minister.
The electoral process and the accuracy of the results have been historically disputed. Some of the causes of this controversy include the formation of a new cabinet before the results were clear, a lack of reliable electoral data, and the overestimation of election fraud in the official narrative that justified the coup d'état. The topic has been addressed in seminal studies by renowned authors such as Javier Tusell and Stanley G. Payne. A series of recent works has shifted the focus from the legitimacy of the election and the government to an analysis of the extent of irregularities. Whilst one of them suggests that the impact of fraud was higher than previously estimated when including new election datasets, the other disputes their relevance in the election result.
The elections were the last of three legislative elections held during the Spanish Second Republic, coming three years after the 1933 general election which had brought the first of Lerroux's governments to power. The uncontested victory of the political left in the elections of 1936 triggered a wave of Collectivisation, mainly in the south and west of the Iberian Peninsula, engaging up to three million people, which has been identified as a key cause of the July coup. The right-wing military coup initiated by Gens. Sanjurjo and Franco, the ensuing civil war, and the establishment of Franco's dictatorship ultimately brought about the end of parliamentary democracy in Spain until the 1977 general election.
## Background
After the 1933 election, the Radical Republican Party (RRP) led a series of governments, with Alejandro Lerroux as a moderate Prime Minister. On 26 September 1934, the CEDA announced it would no longer support the RRP's minority government, which was replaced by a RRP cabinet, led by Lerroux once more, that included three members of the CEDA. The concession of posts to CEDA prompted the Asturian miners' strike of 1934, which turned into an armed rebellion. Some time later, Robles once again prompted a cabinet collapse, and five ministries of Lerroux's new government were conceded to CEDA, including Robles himself. Since the 1933 elections, farm workers' wages had been halved, and the military purged of republican members and reformed; those loyal to Robles had been promoted. However, since CEDA's entry into the government, no constitutional amendments were ever made; no budget was ever passed.
In 1935, Manuel Azaña Díaz and Indalecio Prieto worked to unify the left and combat its extreme elements in what would become the Popular Front; this included staging of large, popular rallies,. Lerroux's Radical government collapsed after two significant scandals, including the Straperlo affair. However, president Niceto Alcalá Zamora did not allow the CEDA to form a government, and called elections. Zamora had become disenchanted with Robles's obvious desire to do away with the republic and establish a corporate state, and his air of pride. He was looking to strengthen a new center party in place of the Radicals, but the election system did not favour this. Manuel Portela Valladares was thus chosen to form a caretaker government in the meantime. The Republic had, as its opponents pointed out, faced twenty-six separate government crises. Portela failed to get the required support in the parliament to rule as a majority. The government was dissolved on 4 January; the date for elections would be 16 February.
As in the 1933 election, Spain was divided into multi-member constituencies; for example, Madrid was a single district electing 17 representatives. However, a voter could vote for fewer than that – in Madrid's case, 13. This favoured coalitions, as in Madrid in 1933 when the Socialists won 13 seats, and the right, with just 5,000 votes fewer, secured only the remaining four.
## Election
There was significant violence during the election campaign, most of which initiated by the political left, though a substantial minority was by the political right. In total, some thirty-seven people were killed in various incidents throughout the campaign, ten of which occurred on the election day itself. Certain press restrictions were lifted. The political right repeatedly warned of the risk of a 'red flag' – communism – over Spain; the Radical Republican Party, led by Lerroux, concentrated on besmirching the Centre Party. CEDA, which continued to be the main party of the political right, struggled to gain the support of the monarchists, but managed to. Posters, however, had a distinctly fascist appeal, showing leader Gil-Robles alongside various autocratic slogans and he allowed his followers to acclaim him with cries of "Jefe!" (Spanish for "Chief!") in an imitation of "Duce!" or "Führer!". Whilst few campaign promises were made, a return to autocratic government was implied. Funded by considerable donations from large landowners, industrialists and the Catholic Church – which had suffered under the previous Socialist administration – the Right printed millions of leaflets, promising a 'great Spain'. In terms of manifesto, the Popular Front proposed going back to the sort of reforms its previous administration had advocated, including important agrarian reforms, and reforms relating to strikes. It would also release political prisoners, including those from the Asturian rebellion (though this provoked the right), helping to secure the votes of the CNT and FAI, although as organisations they remained outside the growing Popular Front; the Popular Front had the support of votes from anarchists. The Communist Party campaigned under a series of revolutionary slogans; however, they were strongly supportive of the Popular Front government. "Vote Communist to save Spain from Marxism" was a Socialist joke at the time. Devoid of strong areas of working class support, already taken by syndicalism and anarchism, they concentrated on their position within the Popular Front. The election campaign was heated; the possibility of compromise had been destroyed by the left's Asturian rebellion and its cruel repression by the security forces. Both sides used apocalyptic language, declaring that if the other side won, civil war would follow.
34,000 members of the Civil Guards and 17,000 Assault Guards enforced security on election day, many freed from their regular posts by the carabineros. The balloting on the 16th of February ended with a draw between the left and right, with the center effectively obliterated. In six provinces left-wing groups apparently interfered with registrations or ballots, augmenting leftist results or invalidating rightist pluralities or majorities. In Galicia, in north-west Spain, and orchestrated by the incumbent government; there also, in A Coruña, by the political left. The voting in Granada was forcibly (and unfairly) dominated by the government. In some villages, the police stopped anyone not wearing a collar from voting. Wherever the Socialists were poorly organised, farm workers continued to vote how they were told by their bosses or caciques. Similarly, some right-wing voters were put off from voting in strongly socialist areas. However, such instances were comparatively rare. By the evening, it looked like the Popular Front might win and as a result in some cases crowds broke into prisons to free revolutionaries detained there.
## Outcome
Just under 10 million people voted, with an abstention rate of 28 per cent, a level of apathy higher than might be suggested by the ongoing political violence. A small number of coerced voters and anarchists formed part of the abstainers. The elections of 1936 were narrowly won by the Popular Front, with vastly smaller resources than the political right, who followed Nazi propaganda techniques. The exact numbers of votes differ among historians; Brenan assigns the Popular Front 4,700,000 votes, the Right around 4,000,000 and the centre 450,000, while Antony Beevor argues the Left won by just 150,000 votes. Stanley Payne reports that, of the 9,864,763 votes cast, the Popular Front and its allies won 4,654,116 votes (47.2%), while the right and its allies won 4,503,505 votes (45.7%), however this was heavily divided between the right and the centre-right. The remaining 526,615 votes (5.4%) were won by the centre and Basque nationalists. It was a comparatively narrow victory in terms of votes, but Paul Preston describes it as a 'triumph of power in the Cortes' – the Popular Front won 267 deputies and the Right only 132, and the imbalance caused by the nature of Spain's electoral system since the 1932 election law came into force. The same system had benefited the political right in 1933. However, Stanley Payne argues that the leftist victory may not have been legitimate; Payne says that in the evening of the day of the elections leftist mobs started to interfere in the balloting and in the registration of votes distorting the results; Payne also argues that President Zamora appointed Manuel Azaña Díaz as head of the new government following the Popular Front's early victory even though the election process was incomplete. As a result, the Popular Front was able to register its own victory at the polls and Payne alleges it manipulated its victory to gain extra seats it should not have won. According to Payne, this augmented the Popular Front's victory into one that gave them control of over two-thirds of the seats, allowing it to amend the constitution as it desired. Payne thus argues that the democratic process had ceased to exist. Roberto García and Manuel Tardío also argue that the Popular Front manipulated the results, though this has been contested by Eduardo Calleja and Francisco Pérez, who question the charges of electoral irregularity and argue that the Popular Front would still have won a slight electoral majority even if all of the charges were true.
The political centre did badly. Lerroux's Radicals, incumbent until his government's collapse, were electorally devastated; many of their supporters had been pushed to the right by the increasing instability in Spain. Portela Valladares had formed the Centre Party, but had not had time to build it up. Worried about the problems of a minority party losing out due to the electoral system, he made a pact with the right, but this was not enough to ensure success. Leaders of the centre, Lerroux, Cambó and Melquíades Álvarez, failed to win seats. The Falangist party, under José Antonio Primo de Rivera received only 46,000 votes, a very small fraction of the total cast. This seemed to show little appetite for a takeover of that sort. The allocation of seats between coalition members was a matter of agreement between them. The official results (Spanish: escrutinio) were recorded on 20 February. The Basque Party, who had not at the time of the election been part of the Popular Front, would go on to join it. In 20 seats, no alliance or party had secured 40% of the vote; 17 were decided by a second vote on 3 March. In these runoffs, the Popular Front won 8, the Basques 5, the Right 5 and the Centre 2. In May, elections were reheld in two areas of Granada where the new government alleged there had been fraud; both seats were taken from the national Right victory in February by the Left.
Because, unusually, the first round produced an outright majority of deputies elected on a single list of campaign pledges, the results were treated as granting an unprecedented mandate to the winning coalition: some socialists took to the streets to free political prisoners, without waiting for the government to do so officially; similarly, the caretaker government quickly resigned on the grounds that waiting a month for the parliamentary resumption was now unnecessary. In the thirty-six hours following the election, sixteen people were killed (mostly by police officers attempting to maintain order or intervene in violent clashes) and thirty-nine were seriously injured, while fifty churches and seventy conservative political centres were attacked or set ablaze. Almost immediately after the results were known, a group of monarchists asked Robles to lead a coup but he refused. He did, however, ask prime minister Manuel Portela Valladares to declare a state of war before the revolutionary masses rushed into the streets. Franco also approached Valladares to propose the declaration of martial law and calling out of the army. It has been claimed that this was not a coup attempt but more of a "police action" akin to Asturias, Valladares resigned, even before a new government could be formed. However, the Popular Front, which had proved an effective election tool, did not translate into a Popular Front government. Largo Caballero and other elements of the political left were not prepared to work with the republicans, although they did agree to support much of the proposed reforms. Manuel Azaña Díaz was called upon to form a government, but would shortly replace Zamora as president. The right reacted as if radical communists had taken control, despite the new cabinet's moderate composition, abandoned the parliamentary option and began to conspire as to how to best overthrow the republic, rather than taking control of it. The military coup in Spain was triggered by the so-called ‘Spanish Revolution’, a spontaneous popular wave of collectivisation and cooperativism, engaging up to three million people, which was ignited by the victory of the left in the general election of 1936, a wave described by historian James Woodcock as “the last and largest of the world's major anarchist movements”.
## Results
\|- ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:left;vertical-align:top;" colspan="2"\| ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:left;vertical-align:top;" \|Party ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" \|Abbr. ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" \|Votes ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" \|% \|- \|style="background-color:red" rowspan="3"\| \|style="background-color:#E75480"\| \| style="text-align:left;" \| Popular Front (Frente Popular) \| style="text-align:right;" \|FP \| style="text-align:right;" \|3,750,900 \| style="text-align:right;" \|39.63 \|- \|style="background-color:orange"\| \| style="text-align:left;" \| Left Front (Front d’Esquerres) \| style="text-align:right;" \|FE \| style="text-align:right;" \|700,400 \| style="text-align:right;" \|7.40 \|- \|style="background-color:red"\| \| style="text-align:right;" colspan=2 \|Total Popular Front: \|4,451,300 \|47.03 \|- \|style="background-color:blue" rowspan="9"\| \|style="background-color:#0000C8"\| \| style="text-align:left;" \| Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups and right \| style="text-align:right;" \|CEDA-RE \| style="text-align:right;" \|1,709,200 \| style="text-align:right;" \|18.06 \|- \|style="background-color:#0000C8"\| \| style="text-align:left;" \| Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups and Radical Republican Party \| style="text-align:right;" \|CEDA-PRR \| style="text-align:right;" \|943,400 \| style="text-align:right;" \|9.97 \|- \|style="background-color:#0000C8"\| \| style="text-align:left;" \| Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups and centre \| style="text-align:right;" \|CEDA-PCNR \| style="text-align:right;" \|584,300 \| style="text-align:right;" \|6.17 \|- \|style="background-color:#008080"\| \| style="text-align:left;" \| Front Català d'Ordre - Lliga Catalana \| style="text-align:right;" \|LR \| style="text-align:right;" \|483,700 \| style="text-align:right;" \|5.11 \|- \|style="background-color:#0000C8"\| \| style="text-align:left;" \| Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups and Progressive Republican Party \| style="text-align:right;" \|CEDA-PRP \| style="text-align:right;" \|307,500 \| style="text-align:right;" \|3.25 \|- \|style="background-color:#0000C8"\| \| style="text-align:left;" \| Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups and Conservative Republican Party \| style="text-align:right;" \|CEDA-PRC \| style="text-align:right;" \|189,100 \| style="text-align:right;" \|2.00 \|- \|style="background-color:#0000C8"\| \| style="text-align:left;" \| Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups and Liberal Democrat Republican Party \| style="text-align:right;" \|CEDA-PRLD \| style="text-align:right;" \|150,900 \| style="text-align:right;" \|1.59 \|- \|style="background-color:#808000"\| \| style="text-align:left;" \| Spanish Agrarian Party (Partido Agrario Español) \| style="text-align:right;" \|PAE \| style="text-align:right;" \|30,900 \| style="text-align:right;" \|0.33 \|- \|style="background-color:blue"\| \| style="text-align:right;" colspan=2 \|Total National Bloc: \|4,375,800 \|46.48 \|- \|style="background-color:#3CB371" colspan=2\| \| style="text-align:left;" \| Party of the Democratic Centre (Partido del Centro Democrático) \| style="text-align:right;" \| PCD \| style="text-align:right;" \|333,200 \| style="text-align:right;" \|3.51 \|- \|style="background-color:#008000" colspan=2\| \| style="text-align:left;" \| Basque Nationalist Party (Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea-Partido Nacionalista Vasco) \| style="text-align:right;" \|EAJ-PNV \| style="text-align:right;" \|150,100 \| style="text-align:right;" \|1.59 \|- \|style="background-color:#DC143C" colspan=2\| \| style="text-align:left;" \| Radical Republican Party (Partido Republicano Radical) \| style="text-align:right;" \|PRR \| style="text-align:right;" \|124,700 \| style="text-align:right;" \|1.32 \|- \|style="background-color:#0038A8" colspan=2\| \| style="text-align:left;" \| Conservative Republican Party (Partido Republicano Conservador) \| style="text-align:right;" \|PRC \| style="text-align:right;" \|23,000 \| style="text-align:right;" \|0.24 \|- \|style="background-color:#0073CF" colspan=2\| \| style="text-align:left;" \| Progressive Republican Party (Partido Republicano Progresista) \| style="text-align:right;" \|PRP \| style="text-align:right;" \|10,500 \| style="text-align:right;" \|0.11 \|- \|style="background-color:#92000A" colspan=2\| \| style="text-align:left;" \| Falange Española de las J.O.N.S. \| style="text-align:right;" \| \| style="text-align:right;" \|6,800 \| style="text-align:right;" \|0.07 \|- \| style="text-align:left;" colspan=4 \|Total \| style="text-align:right;" \|9,465,600 \| style="text-align:right;" \|100 \|-
### Seats |
65,558,637 | Codman Carriage House and Stable | 1,125,613,080 | Historic building | [
"Buildings and structures completed in 1907",
"District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites",
"Dupont Circle",
"Second Empire architecture in Washington, D.C.",
"Stables in the United States"
]
| The Codman Carriage House and Stable is a historic building located at 1415 22nd Street NW (also listed as 1413-1415 22nd Street NW) in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The industrial building was constructed in 1907 as a carriage house and stable for socialite and art collector Martha Catherine Codman, who lived a few blocks north in her home, later known as the Codman–Davis House. She commissioned her cousin, Ogden Codman Jr., an architect and prominent interior decorator who also designed her home. He designed it in a Second Empire style.
This building served as a carriage house and stable for ten years before it was converted into a garage. In addition to housing horses and later cars, the building contained living quarters for two of Codman's employees and their families. Codman later married and sold the building in 1940. It was expanded and remodeled as office space. For more than 25 years, the building housed a Goodyear store before the space was converted into a bar and restaurant. The building was nearly demolished in the early 1980s, but the plan was canceled. A gay bar, Badlands, opened in 1983 and was later renamed Apex. After Apex closed in 2011, the longtime Capitol Hill lesbian bar Phase 1 opened a second location in this building. The bar closed in 2013. The building was renovated and restored a few years later, and it now serves again as office space.
The Codman Carriage House and Stable was added to the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites in 1995. It was designated as a contributing property to the Dupont Circle Historic District when the district's boundary was expanded in 2005. It is one of three former stables in the immediate area that are designated historic landmarks.
## History
### Industrial use
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Dupont Circle neighborhood in Washington, D.C. was an area of a large number of elegant and impressive homes owned by businesspeople, politicians, and other members of high society. Their residential properties often included a carriage house or stable located behind their houses or in a nearby alley. Some of these industrial buildings were designed by prominent architects and featured elaborate architectural details. On the west side of the neighborhood, three such buildings were constructed in the early 1900s.
The Walsh Stable, located in an alley bounded by 21st Street, 22nd Street, P Street, and Massachusetts Avenue NW, was built in 1903 for millionaire miner Thomas Walsh. The stable was erected a few hundred feet from his mansion, the Walsh-McLean House. In 1905 the Spencer Carriage House and Stable was constructed in the Twining Court alley, bounded by 21st Street, 22nd Street, O Street, and P Street NW. It was built for railroad executive Samuel Spencer, who lived two blocks away at 2012 Massachusetts Avenue NW.
In 1906 Martha Codman (1856–1948) had a large house built in Washington, D.C., to serve as her winter residence. She was a wealthy socialite, philanthropist, and art collector, who had inherited a large amount of money from her parents, Martha Pickman Rogers and John Amory Codman, a businessman who earned his fortune in the clipper ship trade. Like many wealthy people of the period, Codman split her time between winter and summer residences; the latter was in Newport, Rhode Island. In 1907, she chose her cousin, architect Ogden Codman Jr., to design the new house. The Classical Revival mansion he designed for her, the Codman–Davis House, was built at 2145 Decatur Place NW, on the edge of the Dupont Circle and Sheridan-Kalorama neighborhoods.
The following year Karolik commissioned Codman Jr. to design a two-story, brick and stucco carriage house and stable at 1415 22nd Street NW, a few blocks south of her home.
On April 17, 1907, two permits were filed to construct the building. Permit \#3267 was filed to build the carriage house at an estimated cost of \$15,000, and permit \#3268 was filed to build the adjoining stable, estimated to cost \$4,000. John F. DeBaun, a builder from New York who oversaw the construction of Karolik's house, was hired for the project. Despite the carriage house and stable being constructed simultaneously, they were two separate buildings designed to give the impression of being one large building. The carriage house, which fronted 22nd Street, was the larger of the two. The rear portion housed the stables. The property included a telephone that was directly connected to the house.
In addition to housing Codman's carriages, the front building also included living space. Codman's coachman and later chauffeur, John J. Conner, lived in the building with his wife Sophie from 1910 to the mid-1930s. Her butler, Thomas King, also lived there with his wife, Anna, and their children Charlotte and Julia.
As the popularity of automobile ownership increased, Codman no longer needed a carriage house and stable. To convert the buildings into a garage, city regulations required her to have approval from at least 75% of the property owners that were within 200 feet (61 m) of the property. She collected the signatures, and on December 19, 1917, a permit was issued to being the renovations. The doors of the carriage house were replaced to accommodate an automobile. The new garage still had living space included in the layout. Conner and his wife moved out of the building in 1936.
Codman had entertained in her Washington, D.C. house for many years during the winter season. In 1928 she married the Russian opera singer Maxim Karolik, who was 30 years younger. After that, she rarely spent time in Washington, D.C., as the couple lived mostly in Europe and Newport. Codman Karolik sold the house in 1938 and sold the garage two years later.
### Commercial use
In 1940, new owner Benzalim Coran hired Renato Corte to design a one-story rear brick addition that was built by L.F. Collier. The estimated cost for the project was \$2,000. The property was converted into commercial space and rented to various tenants for the next decade. A newspaper advertisement in 1941 listed the property as 8,600 square feet (799 sq m), and available to rent for \$500 a month. An ad in 1949 marketed the property as a possible headquarters for a national organization, automobile showroom, or store space. It said the space included a garage for six vehicles, around twelve offices on the second floor, and an open floor plan on the first floor.
The following year a Goodyear service store moved from Connecticut Avenue and N Street into the property. The business remained there until the 1970s, during which time a one-story concrete addition was built onto the front of the store. By 1976 the property was home to the Last Hurrah (also known as the Last Hurrah Supper Club), a heterosexual nightclub that was also popular with the local gay community. In 1981 the owners of the property attempted to have the building demolished and replaced with a residential building. The local Advisory Neighborhood Commission supported the plan, but the project was later cancelled. That same year a restaurant called the African Room opened in the rear portion of the building, facing Twining Court.
The Last Hurrah continued operating until 1983 when Glen Thompson opened Badlands, a gay bar, later that year. Thompson had previously opened a gay bar in 1976, the Fraternity House, in the former Spencer Carriage House and Stable that shared the alley with Badlands. The area surrounding Badlands was also home to gay bar, Mr. P's, that had opened at 2147 P Street NW in 1976.
Soon after Badlands opened in May 1983, its practice of carding (asking for several forms of identification) African Americans or telling them the bar was full to prevent them from entering resulted in protests. Local activists filed complaints with the city's Commission on Human Rights, and Badlands management paid a settlement of \$5,000. The bar became one of the most popular gay clubs in Washington, D.C., and remained open for 28 years. It was renamed Apex in 2002 and closed unexpectedly in 2011 when the property owner sold the building. After Apex closed, local businessman Allen Carroll purchased the building and opened a second location of the Capitol Hill lesbian bar, Phase 1, in February 2012. Phase One of Dupont never attracted large crowds, and the bar closed the following year.
While the building was still operating as Badlands, local historic preservationists with the Dupont Circle Citizens Association, Dupont Circle Conservancy, and DC Preservation League submitted an application to have the building designated a historic landmark, citing its significance as a surviving carriage house and stable, along with its connection to Codman and her architect cousin, Codman Jr. The building was added to the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites as the Codman Carriage House and Stable on December 19, 1995.
When the Dupont Circle Historic District boundary was expanded in 2005, the building was one of 70 contributing properties, including designated historic landmarks, that were added to the historic district. The other landmarks were The Cairo, Spencer Carriage House and Stable, Walsh Stable, 2225 N Street Apartment Building, and Embassy Gulf Service Station, which is sited across the street. The building is one of 101 alley structures in the historic district.
In 2015 the building was sold to Rock Creek Property Group for \$2.75 million. The following year the company announced an extensive restoration and renovation process would begin to transform the building into office space: "Our goal with this property is to bring it back to life. After years of neglect, the original grandeur of the architecture was lost." OTJ Architects and Eichberg Construction were hired for the project.
Due to the building's historic landmark status and location in proximity to Rock Creek Park, the renovations had to be approved by the United States Commission of Fine Arts and city's Historic Preservation Review Board. The project, which included adding a roof deck and skylights, window and facade restoration, and replication of the original carriage house doors, was completed in 2018.
## Building
### Architect
Ogden Codman Jr. (1863–1951) was a successful architect and interior designer from New England. A few years before designing his cousin Martha Codman's buildings, Codman Jr. married wealthy widow Leila Griswold Webb. He was gay. His wife died a few years after their marriage, and Codman Jr. inherited a large sum of money. He continued his work until moving to France in 1920, where he later retired.
Although he had success as an architect, Codman Jr. is most known for his interior decorating skills. His notable clients included Edith Wharton, who coauthored with Codman Jr. the interior design manual The Decoration of Houses. Another was John D. Rockefeller Jr., who hired Codman Jr. to design the interiors of his Kykuit mansion. Codman Jr. was also hired by members of the Vanderbilt family. He decorated more than a dozen rooms at Cornelius Vanderbilt II's mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, The Breakers, and rooms at Frederick William Vanderbilt's mansion in New York.
### Location and design
The Codman Carriage House and Stable is sited on Square 68, Lot 34-36, fronting 22nd Street NW in Dupont Circle. There is a small alley on the south face of the building. The north and east faces are on Twining Court, an alley located between 21st Street, 22nd Street, O Street, and P Street NW. The lots' proximity and easy access to Rock Creek Park and Dupont Circle were integral to Codman's choosing this site for the support building.
The 9,604 square foot (892 sq m) building is an example of Second Empire architecture and features a mansard roof. At the time the carriage house and stable were constructed, 2,200 city residents owned automobiles. Codman Jr. may have chosen the Second Empire style, which was considered dated at the time, rather than the Classical Revival style of Codman's residence, reflect the more traditional use of the building.
The original portion of the building has a concrete foundation, and the walls are made of brick and stucco. The one-story west addition is made of concrete, and the one-story east addition is made of brick and concrete. The original portion measures 115 feet by 55 feet (47.2 m by 16.8 m) and includes a second floor. The central portion and west end originally housed the carriage house and the east end housed the stable. The central portion features three bays and a window on each side of the pedimented carriage entry. Above this are two dormer windows on each side of a circular window. The east and west ends of the original portion extend from the central portion. They feature windows on the first floor and dormer windows on the second floors. |
50,499,633 | 2016 Women's Cricket Super League | 1,142,190,390 | None | [
"2016 in English women's cricket",
"August 2016 events in the United Kingdom",
"July 2016 events in the United Kingdom",
"Women's Cricket Super League seasons"
]
| The 2016 Women's Cricket Super League, or 2016 Kia Super League for sponsorship reasons, was the first season of the Women's Cricket Super League (WCSL), a semi-professional women's cricket competition in England and Wales. The competition, run by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), consisted of six franchise teams playing in a Twenty20 format. Each team featured three or four players contracted to the England women's cricket team and three overseas international players. Three teams qualified from the league stage of the competition; the Southern Vipers went directly into the final, while the Loughborough Lightning and Western Storm met in a semi-final.
The Southern Vipers became the first WCSL champions, defeating Western Storm by seven wickets in the final. Stafanie Taylor, a West Indian overseas player for the Western Storm, was named as player of the tournament, after she finished as both the leading run-scorer and leading wicket-taker in the competition.
## Competition format
Six teams competed for the T20 title which took place between 30 July and 21 August 2016. The six teams played each other once in a round robin format; followed by a finals day at the County Cricket Ground, Chelmsford. The team that finished top of the table during the group stage qualified directly for the final, while the teams in second and third qualified for a semi-final. Both the semi-final and the final were played on the same day at the same ground. This was a change in format from the original proposal, in which the top four team qualified for the semi-finals. During the group stage, teams scored two points for a win, but gained an additional bonus point if they scored at a run rate 1.25 or more times that of their opponent.
## Teams
Each team named a squad of 15 players, which included three overseas players and three or four England team players. The remaining squad positions comprised England academy players and a selection of other English domestic cricketers. A number of changes were made to the squads; before they were even officially announced, the Lancashire Thunder had to find a replacement for Jess Jonassen, who withdrew due to injury. In June, a month and a half before the tournament started, two further overseas players withdrew from the tournament. Megan Schutt was unable to play for the Southern Vipers due to a knee injury, and was replaced in the team by the New Zealand international Morna Nielsen, while Sarah Coyte withdrew for personal reasons, and was replaced in the Lancashire Thunder side by Amy Satterthwaite. The Lancashire Thunder suffered further disruption in the weeks leading up to the competition, when Sarah Taylor, who was initially named as their captain, confirmed that she would not take part in the tournament while she took a break from cricket to deal with anxiety and panic attacks. Amy Satterthwaite was named as captain in her place. Another late change was necessitated by a shoulder injury to Meg Lanning, with Lea Tahuhu replacing her in the Surrey Stars squad.
## Tournament summary
### League stage
The tournament began on 30 July at Headingley in Leeds, where the Loughborough Lightning faced the Yorkshire Diamonds. The Lightning batted first and scored 128 for nine, led by 52 runs from their New Zealand international, Sophie Devine. The Diamonds began their response well, and their captain, Lauren Winfield scored 23 runs from just 13 balls before she was run out. There was some controversy regarding the dismissal; Winfield felt that she had been impeded by the bowler, but the umpires upheld the dismissal. Regular wickets and miserly bowling from the Lightning attack restricted Yorkshire's batsmen, and they were eventually all out for 85, giving the Lightning a 43-run victory. The following day saw two low-scoring matches; the Surrey Stars were restricted to 85 runs from their 20 overs by an economic Southern Vipers bowling attack. Nat Sciver managed to score 36 runs for the Stars late in the innings, but the Vipers scored 66 runs from their opening partnership, including 41 runs from 43 balls for Georgia Adams to help them towards their target. They won with six wickets and 28 balls to spare. In the other fixture that day, the Lancashire Thunder reached 65 for four, but then a spell of bowling from Heather Knight and Stafanie Taylor for the Western Storm saw the Thunder dismissed all out for 83 runs. Taylor finished with four wickets, while Knight took three. In their batting response, Knight and Taylor were again the best performers; Knight scored 23 and Taylor 14 as the Storm chased down the total with 27 balls remaining.
The Lancashire Thunder took on the Loughborough Lightning in the fourth match of the tournament, and the two teams combined to score over 300 runs. Amy Satterthwaite scored a rapid 52 runs from 32 balls for the Thunder to help them reach 164 for eight. A combination of good bowling from the Thunder bowlers, and some poor run outs hindered the Lightning's batting. Sophie Ecclestone took three wickets with her spin bowling as the Lightning collapsed to 77 for eight. A partnership of 69 runs between Thea Brookes and Paige Scholfield gave Loughborough a chance at chasing down the total, but late wickets for Hayley Matthews saw Lancashire win by six runs. The next day, Yorkshire batted first against Surrey and scored 134 for five, largely due to runs from Hollie Armitage (43) and Lauren Winfield (29). Surrey's Alex Hartley was the pick of the bowlers, taking two wickets and restricting the Diamonds to 18 runs from her four overs. In their reply, Tammy Beaumont, Bryony Smith and Nat Sciver all made good starts to help their side chase down the total and give the Stars a six wicket victory with 11 balls remaining. Lancashire Thunder hosted the Southern Vipers in their third match of the tournament. The Vipers batted first and scored 132 for 4, helped by a score of 54 not out from Sara McGlashan. The Thunder lost Matthews from the fourth ball of their batting innings, but then recovered with a 57-run second wicket partnership between Satterthwaite and Emma Lamb. The pair were dismissed two overs apart, and Lancashire failed to score the runs they needed, falling 11 runs short of the Vipers' total.
A fourth-wicket partnership of 83 runs between Amy Jones and Ellyse Perry rescued Loughborough from 31 for three against the Western Storm, and they posted 158 for eight. Storm's captain, Heather Knight, scored 74 runs in the chase, but received little batting support from her teammates. After Knight was run out, the Storm faltered to eventually lose the game by five runs. Western Storm were in action again two days later, when they hosted the Stars in Bristol. The Stars batted first and scored 161 for six, propelled by an innings of 90 not out from Nat Sciver. In their chase, Stafanie Taylor scored 74 not out, and Lizelle Lee got 53 to help the Storm to victory. In Southampton the next day, the Southern Vipers beat the Diamonds by 54 runs; Suzie Bates and Arran Brindle each scored 45 runs for the hosts, and Linsey Smith then took four wickets to help bowl the Diamonds out for 64. Only Beth Mooney reached double figures for the Diamonds. A strong bowling performance from Alex Hartley and Marizanne Kapp helped Surrey to limit Lancashire to 102 for nine in the next match, with the pair both bowling economically and taking five wickets between them. The Stars chased down the target with more than four overs remaining; Tammy Beaumont scored 45, and Bryony Smith made 30.
In the penultimate round of matches, Dane van Niekerk made the highest score of the competition, 91 runs, to propel the Loughborough Lightning to 168 for 6, the highest team total of the tournament. During the Surrey Stars' response, van Niekerk was also one of three bowlers to take two wickets to help limit the Stars to 134 runs, and secure the Lightning a place at finals days. The Vipers travelled to Taunton unbeaten before their match against the Western Storm. Batting first, the Vipers reached 137 for 3; Suzie Bates scored 57 runs and Charlotte Edwards got 30. In their reply, the Western Storm lost Rachel Priest early, but two big partnership involving Stafanie Taylor, who scored 78 not out, helped them to victory with 13 balls remaining. The final match of the day pitted the two northern sides against each other in the women's 'Roses' match. Yorkshire batted first in Manchester and scored 166; Alex Blackwell got 59 runs, and a slow over-rate meant that Yorkshire received six additional runs before the final over. In Lancashire's chase, Danielle Hazell took four wickets, and Katherine Brunt took a hat-trick to bowl the Thunder out for 71 runs. That meant that Yorkshire and Lancashire had each won once during the tournament, and irrespective of results in the last round of group matches, neither could qualify for finals day; both the Southern Vipers and Western Storm would join the Loughborough Lightning.
The last round of matches, featuring all three of the teams that had qualified for finals day, determined who went directly to the final, and who would face off first in the semi-final. The Southern Vipers faced the Loughborough Lightning, and batting first a team effort saw them reach 156 for 4; Bates scored 38, Sara McGlashan got 34\* and Lydia Greenway 29. Despite scores in the thirties from Perry and Evelyn Jones, a strong bowling performance from the Vipers, in which Linsey Smith and Brindle each took three wickets, saw them to victory by 59 runs. That victory guaranteed the Vipers a place in the final, while the Loughborough Lightning had to face Western Storm in a semi-final. The result of the other match that day was of no consequence to the tournament; Beth Mooney scored 56 runs for the Yorkshire Diamonds, who scored 118 runs. Anya Shrubsole finished the match with five wickets for the Western Storm, taking a four–wicket maiden in the final over of the match. Storm opening batsmen Taylor and Priest shared a 101-run partnership to take their side to the brink of victory before being dismissed from subsequent deliveries, but despite two further wickets, the Storm won by six wickets with 21 balls remaining.
### Semi-final
The first match of the women's finals day, the Western Storm won the toss and decided to bowl first against the Loughborough Lightning. The Lightning scored 21 runs from the first four overs, before Stafanie Taylor struck twice in the fifth over, dismissing both openers; van Niekerk for 14, and Georgia Elwiss for 6. A 58-run partnership between Ellyse Perry and Sophie Devine ensued, though neither scored that quickly. The scoring-rate slowed further after Devine's dismissal for 21 runs, but a late surge from Perry and Thea Brookes helped Loughborough reach 124 for seven. Taylor finished the innings with three wickets, while Shrubsole and Dibble were both relatively economical, both going for five-runs per over or less. Beginning their chase, the Storm lost Priest early, bowled by van Niekerk for four runs. Taylor and Knight then shared a 57-run partnership before van Niekerk took the wicket of Taylor for 34. Knight remained in place, reaching a half-century before being dismissed in the final over, with the scores level. Georgia Hennessy came in, and struck four runs from her only ball to secure the victory, and a place in the final, for the Western Storm.
### Final
Played at Chelmsford after the semi-final, Vipers' captain Charlotte Edwards won the toss and elected to bowl first. The Western Storm opening batsmen, Stafanie Taylor and Rachel Priest started well, propelling the score to 71 without loss after ten overs. In the subsequent over, Arran Brindle dismissed Taylor for 35, and her miserly bowling helped to slow the Storm's scoring. Heather Knight and Priest got out soon after one another, scoring 6 and 57 respectively, before the Storm's middle-order batsmen; Fran Wilson (16\*), Lizelle Lee (6), Sophie Luff (2) and Georgia Hennessy (9\*), added a few more runs to bring their total to 140 from 20 overs. Brindle and Tash Farrant were the pick of the bowlers, both conceding less than five runs per over.
In their response, the Vipers' openers put on 78 runs together in just under 10 overs, before Edwards was dismissed for 24, bowled by Jodie Dibble. Suzie Bates was run out by Fran Wilson soon after for 52 from 46 balls. Georgia Adams added 15 runs before she was also run out, by Anya Shrubsole. Another good partnership, between Sara McGlashan (21\*) and Lydia Greenway (17\*), took the Vipers to their target with seven balls to spare. Taylor, who was named as player of the tournament, was the most effective bowler for the Storm, but even she could only limit the Vipers to six runs per over.
## Results
### League stage
Notes:
Team marked qualified directly for the final.
Teams marked qualified for the semi-final.
### Semi-final
### Final
## Statistics
- Highest score by a team: Loughborough Lightning – 168/6 (20 overs) v Surrey Stars (12 August).
- Lowest score by a team: Yorkshire Diamonds – 64 (16.3 overs) v Southern Vipers (8 August).
- Top score by an individual: Dane van Niekerk – 91 (64) v Surrey Stars (12 August).
- Best bowling figures by an individual: Anya Shrubsole – 5/23 (4 overs) v Yorkshire Diamonds (14 August).
### Most runs
Source: ESPNCricinfo
### Most wickets
Source: ESPNCricinfo |
192,207 | Ned Flanders | 1,172,604,050 | Fictional character from The Simpsons franchise | [
"Animated human characters",
"Characters created by Matt Groening",
"Christianity in television",
"Comedy film characters",
"Evangelicalism in popular culture",
"Fictional Christians",
"Fictional Republicans (United States)",
"Fictional characters from New York (state)",
"Fictional foster carers",
"Fictional religious workers",
"Fictional schoolteachers",
"Fictional shopkeepers",
"Male characters in animated series",
"Male characters in television",
"Television characters introduced in 1989",
"The Simpsons characters"
]
| Nedward "Ned" Flanders Jr., commonly referred to by his surname, is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons, voiced by Harry Shearer and first appearing in the series premiere episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire." He is the good-natured, cheery next-door neighbor to the Simpson family and is generally loathed by Homer Simpson, though there are numerous instances where the two are portrayed as good friends. A scrupulous and devout Evangelical Christian, he is among the friendliest and most compassionate of Springfield's residents and is generally considered a pillar of the Springfield community.
He was one of the first characters outside the immediate Simpson family to appear on the show, and has since been central to several episodes, the first being season two's "Dead Putting Society". As the series progressed, Flanders's religious fanaticism increased immensely, prompting the coining of the term "Flanderization". His last name comes from Flanders Street in Portland, Oregon, the hometown of Simpsons creator Matt Groening.
## Characterization
### Creation
Ned Flanders, who was designed by Rich Moore, first appeared in the season one episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". The episode was the series premiere, but not the first episode produced. The first episode in which Flanders and his family were prominent is season two's "Dead Putting Society", which also contained the first appearance of Maude and Rod Flanders. The character was named after Flanders Street in Portland, Oregon, the hometown of Simpsons creator Matt Groening. Groening described the inspiration for Flanders as "just a guy who was truly nice, that Homer had no justifiable reason to loathe, but then did". It was not until after the first few episodes that it was decided Flanders would be a faithful Christian. Mike Scully noted that Flanders is "everything Homer would love to be, although he'll never admit it". Flanders had been meant to be just a neighbor that Homer was jealous of, but Harry Shearer used "such a sweet voice" and Flanders was broadened to become a Christian and a sweet guy that someone would prefer to live next to over Homer. Flanders is known for his nonsensical jabbering, such as "Hi-diddly-ho, neighborino" (meaning "Hi, neighbor"). His first use of the word "diddly" was in "The Call of the Simpsons".
### Development
Ned Flanders' religion was not mentioned in his first few appearances and in the first few seasons he was only mildly religious and his primary role was to be so "cloyingly perfect as to annoy and shame the Simpsons", whereas Homer Simpson has always hated Ned Flanders and always tries to undermine him. There has been a consistent effort among the show's writers to make him not just a "goody good and an unsympathetic person". In the later seasons, Flanders has become more of a caricature of the Christian right, and his role as a "perfect neighbor" has been lessened. For example, in some recent episodes Flanders has appeared to show rather prejudiced attitudes towards homosexuals and people of religions other than Christianity. Though he only ever showed homophobic signs in non-canon episodes, notably "Frinkenstein" where he said "I'm running to find a cure for homosexuality".
Ned's store the Leftorium first appeared in "When Flanders Failed". It was suggested by George Meyer, who had had a friend who had owned a left-handed specialty store which failed.
There have been at least two occasions where Ned was not voiced by Harry Shearer. In "Bart of Darkness", Flanders's high pitched scream was performed by Tress MacNeille and in "Homer to the Max", Flanders comments about cartoons being easily able to change voice actors and on that occasion he was voiced by Karl Wiedergott.
### The Adventures of Ned Flanders
The Adventures of Ned Flanders was a "series" of shorts starring Flanders, but only one episode, "Love that God", was produced. It appears at the end of the fourth season episode "The Front" because the episode was too short and the producers had already tried "every trick in the book" to lengthen it. Although the episode was scripted by Adam I. Lapidus, "Love That God" was written by Mike Reiss, Al Jean and Sam Simon. In the 34-second-long segment, which comes complete with its own theme song, Ned walks into Rod and Todd's room as they are praying and tells them it is time for church. He is upset when Todd replies that they are not going, until Todd reminds him it is Saturday, and Ned laughs at his mistake.
Most fans were confused by the short, but Bill Oakley and several other writers loved it so much that they wanted to do more. Later, Oakley and Josh Weinstein decided to produce an entire episode that was nothing but loosely associated shorts, which became the season seven episode "22 Short Films About Springfield". The Flanders/Lovejoy segment of that episode was written by David X. Cohen. "22 Short Films about Springfield" in turn inspired the Futurama episode "Three Hundred Big Boys".
## Role in The Simpsons
Ned is very honest and sincere in carrying out the Christian doctrines of charity, kindness, and compassion. He is frequently shown doing volunteer work, and is rigorously honest and upright, even going so far as to spend an entire day tracking down a Leftorium customer in order to give him the extra change that he had forgotten to hand over.
In "Homer's Triple Bypass", he donates a kidney and a lung out of the goodness of his heart to whoever needs them first. He also is a good neighbor to the Simpsons, regularly offering his assistance. Ned's dogged friendship inspires the loyalty of others; when his Leftorium shop appeared on the verge of bankruptcy shortly after it opened, Homer arranged a bailout with the help of many people in Springfield. Despite a meek outward appearance, Ned hides an exceptionally well-toned physique. In the episode "Alone Again, Natura-Diddily", it is implied that Ned's penis goes down to just above his knee.
### The Simpsons' good neighbor
In the early years of The Simpsons, Homer Simpson generally loathed Ned, because Ned's family, job, health and self-discipline are of higher quality than he could ever hope to attain himself. Homer is often shown "borrowing" (stealing) items from Flanders, such as a weather vane, a camcorder, a diploma, a toothbrush and an air conditioning unit. Even the Simpsons' couch came from "the curb outside Flanders' house". Homer has since come to have a love-hate relationship with Ned, sometimes being his best friend, partly due to Ned's selfless tolerance of him, and other times treating Ned with complete disregard. Homer seems to genuinely care for Ned, despite still expressing and often acting on feelings of loathing. Nowadays Homer seems to regard Ned as more of a nuisance. An early running joke was that Marge considers Flanders to be a perfect neighbor, and usually sides with him instead of her husband, which always enrages Homer. In "Left Behind," Homer succinctly states, "[Flanders] makes me feel so damn guilty!"
### Religiosity
Ned Flanders is a genuinely well-meaning good-natured person and is one of the few in Springfield to whom that description applies. Firmly religious, he can be timid and something of a pushover. He is a Republican and a devout Evangelical Christian who strictly follows the Bible literally and is easily shocked when challenged on any point of dogma. This causes frequent calls to Reverend Lovejoy, even over minuscule things, to the point that Lovejoy has stopped caring and has even suggested that Flanders try a different religion. This was a running joke in the early seasons, but has been used less in the later episodes. In the eighth season, the episode "In Marge We Trust" would examine the relationship between Lovejoy and Flanders, and shows the history of their relationship and how Lovejoy became increasingly uninterested in Flanders' problems. Flanders is shown to have a room in his house filled with memorabilia of The Beatles. He claims that this is because they were "bigger than Jesus".
### Family and job
Ned is a widower, having been married to the equally religious Maude. They had two children together; the sheltered and naive Rod and Todd Flanders. In the eleventh season episode "Alone Again, Natura-Diddily", Maude died an untimely death in a freak accident involving a T-shirt cannon, leaving Flanders alone and grieving. While still married to Maude, Ned married Ginger, while on a drunken bender in Las Vegas. Ginger came to live with Ned and his sons for a brief period following Maude's death in a later episode, but she quickly grew tired of the Flanders' sickly-sweet personalities and fled. Despite his outward nerdishness, Flanders has also been connected romantically with a beautiful Christian-rock singer, Rachel Jordan, movie star Sara Sloane and eventually marrying local teacher Edna Krabappel until she died as well.
Ned got his diploma from Oral Roberts University in an unspecified field and worked as a salesman in the pharmaceuticals industry for the bulk of his adult life. Having saved much of his earnings, Flanders decided to quit his job and invested his family's life savings into a store in the Springfield mall called the Leftorium specializing in products for left-handed people. In the fifth season episode, "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song", Superintendent Chalmers fires Ned Flanders, who has become principal after Skinner being sacked, only because he freely expresses his religious views in the school. However in the Season 29 episode "Left Behind", owing to declining sales, the Leftorium had been downsized from an outlet to a kiosk, eventually going out of business alongside the Sears outlet at Springfield Mall. Leaving Flanders unemployed, he returned to Springfield Elementary School, finding a new job as Bart Simpson's new teacher and substituting the void left by his deceased second wife Edna Krabappel, as well as honoring her life dream. Flanders remained Bart's teacher until the Season 33 episode "My Octopus and a Teacher", at which point the role was assumed by Rayshelle Peyton.
In the episode "Hurricane Neddy" a flashback to 30 years earlier shows Ned as a young child despite the fact that he later said to the church congregation that he was actually 60 years old, attributing his youthful appearance to his conformity to the "three Cs"—"clean living, chewing thoroughly, and a daily dose of vitamin church". Ned grew up in New York City and was the son of "freaky beatniks" who did not discipline Ned (as they did not think it was right) and let him run wild. Eventually they took him to Dr. Foster, a psychiatrist, who put the young Ned through the University of Minnesota Spankalogical Protocol, which involved eight months of continuous spanking. The treatment worked so well that it rendered Flanders unable to express any anger at all and resulted in his trademark nonsensical jabbering at moments when he was particularly close to losing his temper, causing Ned to unknowingly repress his anger.
## Reception
Although in more recent seasons Flanders has become a caricature of the Christian right, he is still a favorite of many Christian viewers. Dr. Rowan Williams, a former archbishop of Canterbury, is a confessed Simpsons fan, and likes Flanders. Ned's "unbearable piousness" has been described as The Simpsons' sharpest critique of organized religion: "The show's implicit argument seems to be that humorless obsessives like Ned have hijacked religious institutions, removing them from the center of society to a place where only those who know their brides of Beth Chedruharazzeb from their wells of Zohassadar can seek solace." Steve Goddard of the website Ship of Fools said, "Ned is an innocent abroad in a world of cynicism and compromise. We love him because we know what it's like to be classed as a nerd – and to come out smiling at the end of it." The February 5, 2001 edition of Billy Graham's Christianity Today, titled Saint Flanders, featured Flanders, along with Homer and Marge, on the cover and described him as "the most visible evangelical to many Americans."
### Cultural impact
Flanders has been described as "The United States' most well-known evangelical". According to Christianity Today in 2001, "on American college and high school campuses, the name most associated with the word Christian—other than Jesus—is not the Pope or Mother Teresa or even Billy Graham. Instead, it's a goofy-looking guy named Ned Flanders on the animated sitcom known as The Simpsons. The mustache, thick glasses, green sweater, and irrepressibly cheerful demeanor of Ned Flanders, Homer Simpson's next-door neighbor, have made him an indelible figure, the evangelical known most intimately to nonevangelicals." In 2001 and 2002, the Greenbelt Festival, a British Christian music and arts fest, held a special "Ned Flanders Night". The 2001 event featured a look-alike contest, as well as the tribute band "Ned Zeppelin". It was held in a 500-seat venue that was filled to capacity, and an extra 1500 people were turned away at the door. A second event was held in 2002, with Ned Zeppelin reappearing. In 2017, after then-president Donald Trump insulted anchor Mika Brzezinski on Twitter, Orrin Hatch responded and said, "Every once in a while you get a dipsy-doodle," as Ned Flanders' term. In 2019, Trevor Noah on The Daily Show compared Mike Pence to Flanders when discussing the Ukraine scandal. Aaron Stonehouse, Western Australia's first Liberal Democrat MP, made a comparison between the McGowan government and Ned Flanders' wife, Maude Flanders, a devout Christian who died after being knocked off a grandstand in a T-shirt cannon accident on The Simpsons. In 2022, Relevant claimed that Flanders was "unapologetically not cool" as a Christian, but overall "decent".
Professional ice hockey goaltender Peter Budaj was known for having Ned Flanders painted on his mask during his hockey career. Another tribute band, Okilly Dokilly, plays heavy metal music. In 2018, MadeinTYO released a rap song about Flanders. The Ned Flanders Crossing, a pedestrian and bicycle bridge over Interstate 405 in Portland, Oregon, was named for the character in 2021. It connects two sections of Northwest Flanders Street, for whom the character is named.
### Controversy
Flanders' significant evolution of his Christian fanaticism has led to the term dubbed "Flanderization", which refers to the increasingly exaggerated characterization of any character throughout a TV or a film series. The specific case of Flanders attracts special attention. Debate exists over whether Flanders is a consistently flanderized character or whether he later returned to a more complex, dynamic portrayal. The appropriateness of the term "flanderization" has also been disputed, as many characters in The Simpsons have undergone the caricaturizing process, and Flanders himself may not be the most extreme case. Flanders' shifting portrayal has also been controversial as representative of a shift in media portrayals of religious people. As both the primary representative of Christianity on The Simpsons and as one of the most significant Christian fictional characters in the real world, the simplification of Flanders as a character has been the subject of criticism, study, and reinterpretation.
### Merchandise
Flanders has been included in The Simpsons merchandise. In 2008, the Flanders' Book of Faith, part of the Simpsons Library of Wisdom, was released by HarperCollins. The book takes a look at Flanders' life and his ever enduring faith. In 2021, Flanders got a sneaker line from Adidas. |
1,681,575 | John Vanbiesbrouck | 1,168,886,588 | American ice hockey player | [
"1963 births",
"American men's ice hockey goaltenders",
"American people of Flemish descent",
"American people of Italian descent",
"Florida Panthers players",
"Ice hockey coaches from Michigan",
"Ice hockey people from Detroit",
"Ice hockey people from Michigan",
"Ice hockey players at the 1998 Winter Olympics",
"Living people",
"National Hockey League All-Stars",
"National Hockey League broadcasters",
"New Jersey Devils players",
"New York Islanders players",
"New York Rangers draft picks",
"New York Rangers players",
"Olympic ice hockey players for the United States",
"Philadelphia Flyers players",
"Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds coaches",
"Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds players",
"Sportspeople from Detroit",
"Sportspeople from Moorestown, New Jersey",
"Tulsa Oilers (1964–1984) players",
"United States Hockey Hall of Fame inductees",
"Vezina Trophy winners"
]
| John Vanbiesbrouck (born September 4, 1963), nicknamed "the Beezer" and "JVB", is an American professional ice hockey executive and former player. As a goaltender, he was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in 2007. Vanbiesbrouck played in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the New York Rangers, Florida Panthers, Philadelphia Flyers, New York Islanders and New Jersey Devils. He began his career playing major junior hockey for the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL). Following a successful season with the Greyhounds, he was drafted by the New York Rangers in the fourth round, 72nd overall, in the 1981 NHL Draft. After his junior career ended, he played for the Rangers minor league affiliate, the Tulsa Oilers of the Central Hockey League. Despite the team's near collapses due to financial concerns, Vanbiesbrouck led the Oilers to a league championship and shared the league's MVP honors.
Vanbiesbrouck began playing full-time with the Rangers in the 1984–85 season. He won the Vezina Trophy as the league's top goaltender and was named a First Team NHL All-Star the following season. After playing in parts of 11 seasons with the Rangers, he was selected in the 1993 NHL Expansion Draft by the Florida Panthers. In Florida, Vanbiesbrouck was a three-time All-Star and led the Panthers to their first Stanley Cup Finals appearance, in 1996. While in Florida, he recorded his 300th career victory, becoming the 15th goaltender and only the second American goalie in NHL history to do so. During his career, Vanbiesbrouck compiled a record of 374 wins, 346 losses, 119 ties and 40 shutouts, making him, at the time, the winningest American-born goaltender, and also at the time, tying Frank Brimsek for most career shutouts by an American-born goaltender. Both records have since been broken by Ryan Miller of the Anaheim Ducks and Jonathan Quick of the Los Angeles Kings respectively.
Internationally, Vanbiesbrouck has represented the United States on several occasions. He played in the 1982 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships as well as four IIHF World Championships. He was named to the second All-Star team at the 1985 World Ice Hockey Championships. He also played in two Canada Cup tournaments, registering the lowest goals against average (GAA) in 1987 and was a back-up goaltender during the Americans' second-place finish in 1991. He represented Team USA for the final time in 1998, serving as the back-up on the Olympic ice hockey team.
Following his playing career, he took over as the head coach and general manager of the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. However, after using a racial slur referencing team captain Trevor Daley, he resigned. Vanbiesbrouck worked as a broadcaster and in hockey-related businesses. In 2013, Vanbiesbrouck was named the general manager of the Muskegon Lumberjacks in the Tier I junior United States Hockey League (USHL). In 2018, he was hired by USA Hockey as the assistant executive director of hockey operations and would be involved with selecting players for the US national teams. In late 2021 Vanbiesbrouck was named General Manager of the U.S. Olympics Men's hockey team.
## Early life
Vanbiesbrouck was born in Detroit, Michigan, he is the youngest of three boys born to a Belgian immigrant bricklayer, Robert Vanbiesbrouck, and an Italian immigrant Sara. He grew up with two older brothers; the oldest, Frank, who was also a goaltender in youth hockey. He inspired Vanbiesbrouck to play goaltender. John later noted that he learned more about goaltending just from watching Frank than any coaching could, adding that no one ever helped him more to become the player he was.
## Playing career
### Junior and minor leagues
While playing midget level hockey, Vanbiesbrouck joined the Little Caesars hockey club, a travel ice hockey team in Detroit. During a tournament in Toronto, Vanbiesbrouck lost his jersey and was forced to wear a teammate's uniform. He played well in the tournament with junior scouts in attendance. Since Vanbiesbrouck wore another player's jersey, he went undrafted in the midget draft, while the player whose jersey he wore was drafted in the fourth round. After being unclaimed in the draft, Vanbiesbrouck was offered a try-out with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, members of the Ontario Major Junior Hockey League (OMJHL), which later became the Ontario Hockey League (OHL). At the try-out, he made the team over several other players, and became the starting goaltender for the Greyhounds. Vanbiesbrouck played in 56 games and compiled a 31–16–1 record during his first season in Sault Ste. Marie. Following the 1980–81 season, he was drafted in the fourth round, 72nd overall, of the NHL Draft by the New York Rangers.
On December 5, 1981, just months after being drafted, Vanbiesbrouck made his professional debut with the Rangers as an emergency call-up. He helped defeat the Colorado Rockies 2–1. Despite only allowing one goal and earning his first NHL win, the Rangers decided to return him to Sault Ste. Marie, a move intended to aid his development. He finished the year with a 12–12–2 record for the Greyhounds and made his first international appearance, representing the United States at the 1982 World Junior Championships. He played one more season for the Greyhounds, playing 62 games winning 39 of them and being named to OHL second All-Star team.
Following his career with the Greyhounds, Vanbiesbrouck moved on to the minor leagues, joining the Central Hockey League's (CHL) Tulsa Oilers. During the 1983–84 season, his first with the Oilers, the ownership group was unable to sustain the team. They went bankrupt, were taken over by the league, and forced to play their remaining games on the road. After losing their home rink the team was housed in Denver, Colorado where they shared a practice facility with the University of Denver and fellow CHL team the Colorado Flames. The lack of ice time often forced the Oilers to practice in a shopping mall where they were not allowed to shoot pucks. For extra practice, Vanbiesbrouck had tennis balls hit at him in the parking lot. Despite all the adversity, the Oilers won the Adams Cup as league champions. Meanwhile, Vanbiesbrouck won the Terry Sawchuk Award, with back-up Ron Scott, for fewest goals against in the league and shared CHL MVP honors with Bruce Affleck by winning the Tommy Ivan Trophy.
### New York Rangers
Vanbiesbrouck made the Rangers full-time in the 1984–85 season, playing in 42 games and posted a 4.20 goals against average (GAA). The following year, Vanbiesbrouck played in 61 games, winning a career high 31. The 31 victories accounted for all but five of the Rangers' regular season total. His success continued over to the post-season, where he led the Rangers to an upset over the Philadelphia Flyers in the opening round. He then followed it by defeating a Washington Capitals team that registered 107 points in the regular season. The Rangers lost in the Conference Finals to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Montreal Canadiens. In the off-season, Vanbiesbrouck was named a First Team NHL All-Star, won the Vezina Trophy as the league's top goaltender, and signed a new three-year contract with the Rangers. He was unable to repeat his success in the next season, with 18 wins and 20 losses in 50 games.
Prior to the 1987–88 season, Vanbiesbrouck was hit by a puck under his mask in practice, which caused a non-displaced fracture of his lower jaw and a broken tooth. Fortunately for him, the injury did not require his jaw to be wired shut, and he was able to return to practice the next day. He showed no ill effects from the injury, playing in 56 games, winning 27. On June 13, 1988 Vanbiesbrouck suffered nerve damage to his left wrist after a glass coffee table he was sitting on collapsed and broken glass lacerated his ulnar nerve and three tendons. He was sitting on the table assembling video equipment in anticipation of the birth of his first child. The glass broke beneath him, and as he braced for the fall, his wrist was cut by the glass. Vanbiesbrouck required five hours of microsurgery to remove glass from his wrist and repair the nerve and tendon damage. He was initially expected to miss four-to-six months, but he recovered in time to attend the Rangers pre-season training camp just three months later. Again he played in 56 games, and increased his win total to 28.
Vanbiesbrouck began the 1989–90 season as the Rangers' starting goaltender, but after the Rangers struggled in early January, he began to share the duties with the recently called-up Mike Richter. During the playoffs, head coach Roger Neilson employed a rotation system between the two goaltenders. The Rangers won their first round match-up against the New York Islanders, but lost to the Washington Capitals in the second round. For his part, Vanbiesbrouck posted a 2–3 record with a 3.02 GAA and a .902 save percentage.
The following season, the two goaltenders formed the best duo in the NHL. The duo remained together even after Vanbiesbrouck had a chance to leave via free agency in 1992. A new collective bargaining agreement established him as a group 2 free agent, allowing the Rangers to match any offer from another team or to claim draft choices as compensation if he were to sign with another team. After not receiving much interest from other clubs, Vanbiesbrouck re-signed with the Rangers, signing a two-year deal with an option for the third averaging \$1 million per season. At the end of the 1992–93 season, the decision was made to trade Vanbiesbrouck. With the upcoming expansion draft, the Rangers would only be able to protect one goaltender. Faced with the prospect of losing one of their two goaltenders, the Rangers decided to protect Richter and traded the "equally talented" but older Vanbiesbrouck to the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for future considerations (ultimately, Doug Lidster).
### Florida Panthers
Vancouver made the trade not with the intention of keeping Vanbiesbrouck, but rather in an attempt to keep other players on their roster from being drafted. Rules of the 1993 NHL Expansion Draft allowed teams to protect one goaltender, nine forwards and five defensemen. Additional rules stated that teams could only lose one goaltender in the draft and prevented teams from losing both a defenseman and a goaltender. Prior to the draft, Florida Panthers general manager Bobby Clarke won a coin-toss giving them the first pick in the draft. Thus, with their first selection, the Panthers picked Vanbiesbrouck to be the number one goaltender for their team. Upon his arrival in Florida, Vanbiesbrouck went on a "mall tour" to help elevate the visibility of the franchise and made an informative video explaining ice hockey terms for Blockbuster, then owners of the franchise. In January 1994, he made his return to Madison Square Garden. In his first game back to his former home venue, Vanbiesbrouck made 51 saves, ultimately losing the game 3–2. During the season, he was also named to the All-Star game as the Panthers' sole representative. In the game, Vanbiesbrouck played the third period, made six saves and was credited with the win. At the completion of his first season in Florida, he played in 57 games posting a 21–25–11 record, registering a 2.53 GAA, and his career best save percentage of .924 ranked him second in the league. Vanbiesbrouck was named a Second Team NHL All-Star and was shortlisted for the Hart and Vezina Trophies. His 21 wins tied the Minnesota North Stars' Cesare Maniago's record for the most by an expansion goaltender. The record was later passed by Ron Tugnutt during the Columbus Blue Jackets' inaugural season. The Panthers finished the season with 83 points, one point behind the New York Islanders, for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. The following season was shortened due to the 1994–95 NHL lockout. Consequently, Vanbiesbrouck played in just 37 games registering a 14–15–4 record. He lowered his GAA from the previous year to 2.47 and increased his shutout total from one to four. However, his save percentage dropped to .914. The Panthers again fell a point short of making the playoffs.
In the 1995–96 season, Vanbiesbrouck was named to the All-Star Game. In the game, he played the second period and gave up three goals on seven shots. The Panthers were in playoff position for more than half of the season, but faltered late in the season and were close to falling out of the playoff race. Late in the season, Vanbiesbrouck shutout the New Jersey Devils putting Florida into the playoffs. At the end of the regular season, he played in 57 games posting a 21–25–11 with two shutouts. His games played ranked him tenth in the league while his GAA of 2.68 was ninth. In the first round, Florida defeated the Boston Bruins in five games. Their second round match-up was against the heavily favored Philadelphia Flyers. Vanbiesbrouck posted a shutout in the first game of the series, the third post-season shutout of his career and the first in Panthers playoff history. During the series, Vanbiesbrouck held the Flyers scoreless for 116:46 straight minutes as Florida upset Philadelphia, winning four games to two. In the Conference Finals, the Panthers were again huge underdogs to the Pittsburgh Penguins, a team that featured the league's two top scorers in Mario Lemieux and Jaromír Jágr. The Penguins took a 3–2 series lead, but the Panthers won Game 6, 4–3, to force Game 7. In Game 7, Vanbiesbrouck made 39 saves in a 3–1 Panthers victory, winning the Eastern Conference and putting them in the Stanley Cup Finals. The Panthers fell behind the Colorado Avalanche 3–0 in the series. Game 4 was considered one of the classic games in finals' history. The game was a 0–0 tie entering the third overtime period. Early in the period, a long shot from Colorado's Uwe Krupp eluded Vanbiesbrouck, giving the Avalanche a 1–0 win and the Stanley Cup. Vanbiesbrouck made 55 saves in the loss and even though his team was swept in the finals, he still finished third in voting for the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.
During the 1996–97 season, Vanbiesbrouck was elected by the fans to the All-Star Game as the starting goaltender. Vanbiesbrouck' 200,457 votes led the Eastern Conference. By season's end, Vanbiesbrouck finished in the top ten in the NHL for save percentage (6), GAA (5) and tied for 11 in wins (27). The Panthers finished fourth in the Eastern Conference and faced the Rangers in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Vanbiesbrouck made 34 saves in Game 1, shutting-out the Rangers 3–0. It was the only game the Panthers won as the Rangers defeated them 4–1 in the series. The following season, Vanbiesbrouck reached a personal milestone. On December 27, 1997, the Panthers defeated the New York Islanders 6–2 at Nassau Coliseum. The win marked the 300th of his career, making him the 15th goaltender, and second American, in NHL history to reach the mark. Despite his personal milestone, Vanbiesbrouck suffered through his worst statistical season with the Panthers. The team fared no better as they finished the season in 12th place in the Eastern Conference and out of the playoffs.
### Post-Panthers career
During the off-season, Vanbiesbrouck signed a two-year, \$7.25 million contract, with an option for a third year, with the Philadelphia Flyers. His first season with Philadelphia was successful, as he posted a career best 2.18 GAA, notching six shutouts, playing in a career high 62 games and registering a 27–18–15 record. However, he struggled in the playoffs. Despite posting good individual numbers (.938 save pct and 1.46 GAA), Vanbiesbrouck let in goals that many Flyers fans perceived to be "soft" that cost the Flyers games. However, what ostensibly cost the Flyers the games was their inability to score timely goals for their goaltender—they scored just 11 goals in 6 games while Vanbiesbrouck allowed just nine goals in six games. Philadelphia was eliminated in the first round by the Toronto Maple Leafs in six games. He continued to be "shaky" at the beginning of the 1999–2000 season. As a result, rookie Brian Boucher began playing more. Vanbiesbrouck reached another milestone during the season, becoming the 8th goaltender in NHL history to play in 800 games. Vanbiesbrouck played 50 games during the season, registering a 25–15–9 record, but in the playoffs, the Flyers opted for Boucher.
During the 2000 NHL Entry Draft, Philadelphia traded Vanbiesbrouck to the New York Islanders in exchange for a fourth-round draft pick. The Islanders made the trade with the intention of having Vanbiesbrouck mentor first overall draft pick Rick DiPietro. He played in 44 games for the Islanders winning 10 of them and recording a shutout. On the eve of the NHL trade deadline, the Islanders traded Vanbiesbrouck to the New Jersey Devils for Chris Terreri and a ninth-round pick. New Jersey made the deal with the intent to give starting goaltender Martin Brodeur some rest prior to the playoffs. With Terreri struggling, they felt it best to bring in someone who had played regularly throughout the year. Vanbiesbrouck played in four games for the Devils, winning them all, and recorded his 40th career shutout. The shutout tied him with Frank Brimsek for the most shutouts by an American-born goaltender in NHL history. Vanbiesbrouck did not play during the playoffs, but the Devils advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals, where they played the Colorado Avalanche and lost in seven games. Vanbiesbrouck retired immediately after Game 7 on June 10, 2001. He stated that "it's time" and he wanted to leave the game healthy. He was retired for only eight months before he agreed to terms with the Devils to come out of retirement. He posted a 2–3–0 record as the Devils back up, finishing his career with 374 wins. His win total was the most by an American-born goaltender in NHL history at the time. He again did not play in the playoffs as the Devils were eliminated in the first round by the eventual Eastern Conference champion Carolina Hurricanes. Vanbiesbrouck retired for the second and final time on May 24, 2002.
Following his playing career, Vanbiesbrouck earned several accolades. The Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds retired his number (1). NHL named him the best player to wear jersey number 34, and on October 12, 2007, Vanbiesbrouck was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame. He is 16th in NHL history in wins. However, he is also sixth all-time in losses.
## International play
Vanbiesbrouck made his international debut in 1982 representing the United States at the World Junior Championship. In five games he posted a 1–3–0 record with a 5.70 GAA, as the Americans finished in sixth place. The next year he again participated in the World Junior Championship. He appeared in five games and lowered his GAA to 3.64, helping the American team improve to fifth place.
In 1985 he played for Team USA at the IIHF World Championships. Vanbiesbrouck posted a 6–3–0 record, defeating three of three top ranked teams in the world (Canada, Czech Republic and Sweden). He later noted that those three victories gave him the confidence to be successful at the NHL level. The Americans were the second seed following the preliminary round. However, they failed to win a single game in the championship round and finished the tournament in fourth place. Individually Vanbiesbrouck was named to the second All-Star team. Two years later, he played in his second World Championship. He was unable to duplicate his prior success posting a 2–5–0 record, as Team USA finished in seventh place one position away from being relegated to Division I. During 1987 Vanbiesbrouck also participated in the Canada Cup, registering a 2–2–0 record with a 2.25 GAA. He registered the lowest GAA in the tournament, but the United States finished in fifth place. He played in two more World Championships in 1989 and 1991 going 1–2–1 and 3–4–2 respectively, as the US improved to sixth place in 1989 and finished just short of winning a medal in 1991 placing fourth. Vanbiesbrouck was named to the Canada Cup team in 1991, but spent the tournament as Mike Richter's back-up. He played only one game in the tournament, defeating Finland 4–3. The United States finished the Canada Cup in second place losing the best of three championship to Canada 2–0. He was named to the 1996 World Cup of Hockey team but missed the Americans' victory due to a small cartilage tear in his right shoulder that required off-season surgery to repair.
Prior to the 1998 Winter Olympics, an announcement was made that NHL would shut down for two-and-a-half weeks to allow its players to participate in the international tournament for the first time. Vanbiesbrouck was named to the United States team, but spent the majority of the tournament on the bench, playing in one game for only one minute. As a team, the Americans finished in a "disappointing" sixth place.
## Playing style
Vanbiesbrouck was a hybrid goaltender who combined the butterfly style and the more traditional stand-up style. He was strong at playing his angles and challenged shooters well. Small for a goaltender, standing only 5' 8", he relied on his quickness to regain his feet after making saves or to make additional saves in goalmouth scrambles. Vanbiesbrouck was aggressive when it came to playing the puck, which helped him tie the Rangers single season record for assists by a goaltender and set the Rangers career record as well.(Since broken by Henrik Lundqvist). Vanbiesbrouck is the Rangers all-time leader in penalty minutes by a goaltender, with 212.
## Retirement
### Racism against Trevor Daley
When he retired from the NHL, Vanbiesbrouck took over as the head coach and director of hockey operations for the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. In February 2003, the team had a record of 18–24–4–3. One month later, on March 7, the Greyhounds lost 6–1 to the Guelph Storm. After the game, Vanbiesbrouck used a racial slur in expressing his anger with Trevor Daley, a black player and Greyhounds' team captain, to two of Daley's white teammates. Daley was told of the remarks by his teammates and was advised to leave the team by his agent Bobby Orr. Daley returned home to Toronto and informed the commissioner of the OHL about the remarks.
The day after Daley left the team, Vanbiesbrouck resigned his positions as head coach and general manager and sold his ownership stake in the team. In his apology, Vanbiesbrouck stated, "I used the 'N' word instead of calling him Trevor, I used it just not thinking. It's a mistake and consequences have to be paid by me, I've embarrassed everybody and my family by this one comment. It's not what they represent and it's not what the Sault Greyhounds organization represents." He added, "I told Trev this is an old wound with me, I grew up with it. I'm as sorry as anybody that it's stuck with me." Daley returned to the team three days after leaving, but Vanbiesbrouck never returned to a coaching position.
### Broadcasting and management career
After leaving the Greyhounds, Vanbiesbrouck spent some time as a broadcaster, working as an analyst for Versus network as well as hockey broadcasts on HDNet. In 2010, Vanbiesbrouck, along with Steve Goldstein, formed the broadcast team for Westwood One's radio coverage of the Winter Olympic hockey games. In 2013, Vanbiesbrouck was named the general manager and director of hockey operations for the United States Hockey League's (USHL) Muskegon Lumberjacks.
## Personal life
Vanbiesbrouck grew up as the youngest of three brothers. His oldest brother, Frank, was a goaltender who played three seasons of junior-A hockey from 1974 until 1977. His other brother, Julian, played left wing for the University of Michigan and briefly played in the International Hockey League as a member of the Toledo Goaldiggers. When Vanbiesbrouck was with the Rangers, his brother Frank showed signs of severe depression and suicidal tendencies. During this time, John attempted to reach out to Frank, occasionally flying separately from the team on road trips to check in on his brother, and talking to him every day. Despite his efforts, Frank committed suicide in 1993. Vanbiesbrouck called Frank's death "devastating", and that he "felt very empty" when Frank died, adding that his Christian faith and the Bible helped him through the difficult time.
While playing with the Flyers, Vanbiesbrouck and his family lived in Moorestown, New Jersey. He and his wife, Rosalinde, have four sons. Their oldest son was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) when he was five years old. As a result, Vanbiesbrouck started the Vanbiesbrouck Foundation for children with Attention Deficit Disorder to increase awareness of and raise money for children with ADD. However, when he left Florida via free agency, the foundation was dissolved and the mission of the program went into an information service based in South Florida. Vanbiesbrouck is also the celebrity sponsor of a golf event in support of The Alan T. Brown Foundation to Cure Paralysis. He returned to his home state of Michigan following his playing days.
## Awards and honors
- F. W. "Dinty" Moore Trophy (OHL – best rookie goals against average) winner in 1981.
- Selected to the OHL second All-Star team in 1983.
- Selected to the CHL first All-Star team in 1984.
- Terry Sawchuk Trophy winner in 1984 (shared with Ron Scott).
- Tommy Ivan Trophy (CHL Most valuable Player) winner in 1984 (shared with Bruce Affleck).
- Selected to the NHL first All-Star team in 1986.
- Vezina Trophy Winner in 1986.
- Steven McDonald Extra Effort Award winner in 1990 (shared with Kelly Kisio).
- Selected to the NHL second All-Star team in 1994.
- Played in 1994, 1996, and 1997 National Hockey League All-Star Games.
- Became the 15th, and the 2nd American, goaltender in NHL history to record 300 career wins.
- Inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in October 2007.
- In the 2009 book 100 Ranger Greats, was ranked No. 31 all-time of the 901 New York Rangers who had played during the team's first 82 seasons
- Vanbiesbrouck appears on the NHL 97 cover.
### Records
- Holds New York Rangers all-time franchise record for most assists in a single season by a goaltender (5) (shared).
- Holds New York Rangers all-time franchise record for most career assists by a goaltender (25).
- Holds NHL all-time record for second most victories among American-born goaltenders (374).
## Career statistics
Bolded numbers indicate league leader.
### Regular season and playoffs
### International
## See also
- Rat trick |
67,235,739 | Kirkcudbright Tolbooth | 1,137,151,734 | Historic municipal building in Scotland | [
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"Art museums and galleries in Dumfries and Galloway",
"Category A listed buildings in Dumfries and Galloway",
"History of Dumfries and Galloway",
"Kirkcudbright",
"Prisons in Scotland",
"Visitor centres in Scotland",
"Witchcraft in Scotland"
]
| Kirkcudbright Tolbooth is a historic municipal building in Kirkcudbright in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Built between 1627 and 1629 to serve the town as a centre of commercial administration, a meeting place for the council, and a prison, it was used for all these roles until the late eighteenth century when the council moved much of its business to new, larger premises they had constructed across the street; the tolbooth remained in use as a prison until the early nineteenth century, after which it remained in council ownership and was put to a variety of uses.
Amongst the people incarcerated in the tolbooth during its use as a prison were people accused of witchcraft, and as late as 1805 it was used to imprison a woman convicted of pretending to be a witch. It was also used to imprison Covenanters during the Killing Time of 1679–1688; in 1684 a crowd stormed the building, killing a guard and freeing the Covenanters held within. American naval hero John Paul Jones was held in the tolbooth in 1770, following his arrest on suspicion of homicide after a sailor under his command died following a flogging Jones had ordered.
Kirkcudbright Tolbooth was designated a Category A listed building in 1971. It was renovated in the 1990s, and is currently used as a visitor centre and art gallery.
## Original function
In Scottish towns from the medieval period to the nineteenth century, tolbooths were the centre of local government and law enforcement. From the twelfth century, royal burghs were allowed to hold markets and conduct international trade, and to levy tolls and customs on these commercial activities; the word tolbooth derives from the role the buildings played as the centre of that commercial administration. Their most important functions were as a place for councils and courts to convene, for ceremonial civic functions, and as prisons for debtors and criminals. They usually had bells, which were used to mark the start of the working day, of curfew, and of public events, and from the seventeenth century it was obligatory for them to house a clock; the steeple of the tolbooth's clock tower was considered a mark of civic pride, and of the authority of the council.
From the seventeenth century onwards the word became increasingly synonymous with 'prison', and from the eighteenth century town councils started to erect larger and more commodious buildings, known as town houses or council houses, from which to conduct council business, while maintaining the tolhouse as a place of incarceration.
## Description
Kirkcudbright Tolbooth is a large building, roughly church-like in appearance, sitting at the corner of Kirkcudbright's right-angled High Street. It has a long, three-storey block running roughly east-west, measuring 22.1 metres (73 ft) by 6.6 metres (22 ft), with a square tower at the east end. The main block and the lower portion of the tower, which would originally have been harled, are made of rubble with red sandstone dressings. The upper stages of the tower, which bear a nineteenth-century clockface, are of ashlar, and are surmounted by a corbeled parapet which is drained by stone spouts. There are obelisks on each of the corners of the parapet, and in the centre is a conical stone spire topped by a boat-shaped weathervane.
Beneath the tower on the north face of the building is an ashlar forestair, added in the eighteenth century and blocking a door to the prison at the base of the tower. The town's mercat cross now stands on the landing of the forestair; it has a carved base, a 1.95-metre (6.4 ft) chamfered stone shaft, and a triangular finial carved with the date 1610 and the initials EME. At the base of the forestair is a well, with lead spouts and a bolection moulded frame with an inscription which reads:
> THIS FOUNT – NOT RICHES – LIFE SUPPLIES,
>
> ART GIVES WHAT NATURE HERE DENIES;
>
> POSTERITY MUST SURELY BLESS
>
> SAINT CUTHBERT'S SONS WHO PURCHAS'D THIS.
>
> WATER INTRODUCED 23D MARCH 1763.
Attached to the wall of the tolbooth are two surviving sets of iron jougs, one at the north-west corner of the building about 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) above the level of the street, and one at the top of the forestair. Secured around the neck, these were used to restrain and publicly shame people convicted of misdemeanours.
Hanging within the steeple are two bells. The principal bell, cast in the Netherlands in 1646, measures 52 centimetres (20 in) in height and 61 centimetres (24 in) in diameter, and carries the inscription "SOLI DEO GLORIA MICHAEL BVRGERHVYS ME FECIT ANNO 1646" (Glory to God alone. Michael Burgerhyvs made me in the year 1646). The smaller bell in the steeple was made in London in 1841 by Thomas Mears. A third bell, known as 'the toun's litle bell', is displayed within the tolbooth. It measures 34 centimetres (13 in) in height and 44 centimetres (17 in) in diameter, and was cast in Rotterdam. It is inscribed with "QUIRfN DE VISSER ME FECIT 1724" (Quirfn de Visser made me, 1724). There is also a clock, which was installed in 1897; the tower's original clock, of a single-hand design and probably made in the Netherlands prior to 1580, is on display in the nearby Stewartry Museum.
The interior features of the building are mostly modern; even before its refurbishment in the 1990s, most of the internal partitions were modern, probably due to rearrangements necessitated by frequent changes in the building's use in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is now used as an art gallery and visitor centre: most of the upper part of the building is gallery space, with a small reception area and a giftshop and café on the ground floor.
## History
At least two buildings served as the tolbooth for the royal burgh of Kirkcudbright prior to the construction of the surviving building. The whereabouts of the original medieval tolbooth are uncertain; the site and its building materials were sold by the burgh council a few years after they acquired a former church to replace it in 1570. The church, which stood a short distance to the east of the current building, was converted for use as a tolbooth and maintained, but by 1625 the councilors were complaining about the condition of the building, and declared their intention to construct a new building that would serve the needs of the town. Funds were raised from local landowners, by giving over a portion of the fines collected by local magistrates to the council, and by selling rights to the booths that would be available in the new building; Sir John Gordon of Lochinvar also provided a loan of £2000. Construction began in 1627, and the building was completed in 1629.
The converted church initially continued to house the town's clock and bell, but in 1642 the council declared "the necessity of ane steple and bellhouse to keep their knok (clock) and bell quhilk (which) is a special ornament belonging to every burgh, and which they are bound by the ancient laws of this kingdom to maintain and uphold". A tax was raised to pay for construction, and work started on the new tower, which by 1644 was ready to receive the bell and clock from the church; the church's bell would shortly afterwards be replaced by the 1646 bell currently hanging in the steeple.
In the years that followed, numerous repairs, alterations and extensions were made to the building. Extensive repairs were needed in the 1720s after a fire broke out in the steeple, and the forestair was added in 1742. Further repairs to the roof were needed in the 1740s and 1750s. In 1763, the forestair was modified to accommodate a fresh water pump. By the later eighteenth century the council decided that a larger building was needed, since the tolbooth had no storage space for records, and the council chambers were too small for county meetings and elections; it was decided to build a new town house, on the other side of the high street. This was completed in 1788, and the council offices and courthouse were moved over to the new building, but the tolbooth remained in use as a prison. It also continued to be used for some time to host public events; when a memorial stone was being laid to mark the construction of new public buildings in the town in 1878, a local dignitary commented:
> Of old, balls and concerts took place in the highest room of the Old Tolbooth, now occupied by the Rifle Company; and I have conversed with persons who told me that they had frequently tripped 'the light fantastic toe' there, over the heads of the miserable debtors and criminals in the prison below. How the ladies dressed out in all their feathers and war paint, with hoops or trains made the ascent of the horrid stairs, I know not...
In the early nineteenth century, the tolbooth had four cells: two for debtors, and two for criminals. Between 1815 and 1816, a new block with seventeen cells was built adjoining the new courthouse at 85 High Street, making the tolbooth redundant as a prison. The new courthouse was itself rebuilt in 1868, and was succeeded by the County Buildings, which became the meeting place for the newly formed Kirkcudbrightshire County Council in 1890.
The town council retained ownership of the tolbooth, and the town's mercat cross was moved to the top of the forestair. Over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the building was put to a number of different purposes, including a coastguard station, offices for a volunteer rifle company and, for a time, a glove factory.
In 1971 the tolbooth, along with the fountain in its forestair and the mercat cross, were designated a Category A listed building. In 1993 it was renovated by the council, and re-opened by Queen Elizabeth II as an art centre.
## Notable prisoners
### Witchcraft
Kirkcudbright Tolbooth was used at several times in its history to imprison people convicted of practising witchcraft or, in later years, of pretending to do so.
In the summer of 1671, five women were accused of casting charms on animals and of attempting to cure children and adults using witchcraft. Bessie Paine, Janet Hewat, Grissall McNae (or Rae), Margaret McGuffok and Margaret Fleming were arrested in Dumfries, bound, and transported to Kirkcudbright to be imprisoned in the "dark dungeon" of the tolbooth. They were held in "a most miserable conditione being alwayes at the point of starving having nothing of ther own nor nothing allowed them for ther sustenance", and in the winter of that year Paine died "through cold, hunger [and] other inconveniences of the prison". The other women were found to have been "maliciously misrepresented as guiltie of the most horrid crymes", and were released in the summer of 1672.
Elspeth McEwen, from Balmaclellan, also known as the 'old wife of Bogha', was imprisoned in the tolbooth from 1696 to 1698, accused of bewitching animals. The harsh conditions during her incarceration eventually led her to wish to die, and she confessed to the crimes; she was executed and burned on 24 August 1698.
By 1735, lawmakers had come around to the idea that the practice of witchcraft, as traditionally understood, was not a real-world possibility. As such, the 1735 Witchcraft Act was introduced in both England and Scotland, making it impossible to apply penalties to someone for actually practising witchcraft, but allowing for people to be convicted for the pretence of witchcraft; penalties could be applied to people who gained financially by claiming to have supernatural powers. Those who still believed that witchcraft was a real threat had no option but to prosecute those whom they suspected of practising it under this new law. In 1805 Jean Maxwell, who was believed by her community to be a witch, was sentenced to a year's incarceration at the Kirkcudbright Tolbooth for "pretending to exercise witchcraft, sorcery, inchantment, conjuration, &c."
### Covenanters
The tolbooth was used to imprison a number of Covenanters in the period after the 1660 Restoration of Charles II, when adherence to the Covenant was abandoned by the Church of Scotland and outlawed. John Neilson of Corsock was held at the tolbooth, having been arrested for allowing ministers loyal to the Covenant to preach in his house. He was fined 2,000 pounds Scots and released, but was later captured at the Battle of Rullion Green and hanged at Edinburgh.
In late 1684, during the Killing Time of 1679–1688, a band of over 100 Covenanters mounted a raid on the tolbooth, and successfully freed some of their brethren; the attack resulted in the death of one of the tolbooth's guards, and John Graham of Claverhouse pursued the attackers. In an engagement at Auchencloy several days afterwards, Graham captured a number of people including William Hunter and Robert Smith, who were taken to the tolbooth and held there until their trial and execution.
### John Paul Jones
John Paul Jones, who would go on to become a hero of the American Revolutionary War, was charged in 1770 over the death of a ship's carpenter, Mungo Maxwell. Jones had ordered Maxwell flogged while they were both serving on the brig John. He later died of yellow fever while serving on another ship, the Barcelona Packet, and Maxwell's father complained that the wounds from the flogging had contributed to his death. Jones was arrested and incarcerated at Kirkcudbright Tolbooth. He was freed on bail, and ultimately acquitted when testimony from the master of the Barcelona Packet indicated that Maxwell had been in good health when he joined its crew.
## In art and literature
Kirkcudbright Tolbooth has been the subject of paintings by a number of notable artists. Examples include William Hanna Clarke's painting 'The Tolbooth, Kirkcudbright', which is in the collection of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, and William Stewart MacGeorge's painting of the same name, which is held by the Gracefield Arts Centre in Dumfries.
The building is believed to have been Walter Scott's model for the dungeon of Freeport, featured in his novel Guy Mannering. |
58,091,894 | Alto's Odyssey | 1,171,515,863 | 2018 video game | [
"2018 video games",
"Android (operating system) games",
"Apple Design Awards recipients",
"Endless runner games",
"IOS games",
"Indie games",
"Nintendo Switch games",
"Noodlecake Games games",
"PlayStation 4 games",
"Single-player video games",
"Snowboarding video games",
"Video game sequels",
"Video games developed in Canada",
"Video games with gender-selectable protagonists",
"Windows games",
"Xbox One games"
]
| Alto's Odyssey is an endless runner and a sandboarding video game developed by Team Alto and published by Snowman (iOS) and Noodlecake Studios (Android). The player controls Alto as he explores the endless desert across different biomes, each with unique traversal mechanics and challenges. Developed over a year and a half, it was released in 2018 for iOS and Android. It is the sequel to Alto's Adventure (2015).
## Gameplay
Alto's Odyssey keeps the same basic gameplay of its predecessor, Alto's Adventure. The player chooses between a cast of characters, each with different characteristics ranging from a higher jump to the ability to speed through rocks. At its core the game remains a side-scrolling endless runner, in which the player character now sandboards through a desert setting, instead of snowboarding as in the original game. The player can jump by tapping the screen and do tricks by holding down on it. By doing tricks the player can increase their score which is uploaded to an online leaderboard at the end of their run. The desert features three biomes that the player can unlock, each focusing on different mechanics.
At the beginning of the game, the player starts in the dunes, which features rolling hills and rocks for the player to avoid. Another biome is the canyons, requiring the new wall-riding mechanic, which allows the player to climb up canyon walls by holding down on the screen. The final biome is the temples, featuring vines which the player can ride on and waterfalls that can speed the player up. Later in the game it is possible to unlock a compass which allows the player to travel between biomes for a fixed cost in coins.
In addition to wall-riding, the game adds new features, such as water physics, tornadoes, falling platforms, an invulnerability power up, balloon bouncing; alongside mechanics returning from the first installment such as a day-night cycle, weather, and the wingsuit. Like its predecessor, in addition to its original game mode, it also has a Zen mode, in which the player is invulnerable and can get up after hitting obstacles.
The game also retains the challenge system of the first game, where completing challenges allows the player to level up and unlock new characters. In Odyssey's "Workshop", the player can spend coins they collected in order to upgrade power-ups or unlock new abilities and features.
## Development
Snowman and Nesbitt (dubbed "Team Alto") announced the sequel in December 2016. It was originally supposed to launch in the summer of 2017, but was delayed until early 2018, "to make it perfect", according to the studio. On February 12, 2018, Team Alto announced the official release date with a trailer on their YouTube channel. Ten days before, the game was given a release date of February 22, 2018 for iOS.The game was intended to be a successor to Alto's Adventure, rather than a game that rethought the mechanics of the series. Other mechanics such as a grappling hook were considered, but were axed because they complicated the one-touch gameplay. Wall-riding and balloon bouncing were added in order to build more verticality into environments as Team Alto felt the game world was too static in Adventure. The new biomes expanded the scope of the game a great deal, with one developer commenting "That approach required us to virtually triple the amount of assets we were producing, and item zones we were creating to place content in the environment". Each area was designed to feel distinct to play, instead of being a purely visual change. The ruins in particular were inspired by the worlds of games like Journey and Ico. Code from the original game was used in Odyssey, but was significantly modified. Odyssey uses the Metal API on iOS, which the developers switched to for better performance and stability over OpenGL. The game aims for a 60 frames per second target, and uses lower quality shaders for weaker hardware in order to maintain performance. Odyssey takes advantage of Apple's Haptic engine in order to give feedback for landing a trick or when the player interacts with the game world.
Alto's Odyssey was initially launched only on iOS, with an Android release slated for a later date. On February 21, 2018, the game was released on the App Store at a price of US \$4.99. On June 4 of that year, the game was awarded with an Apple Design Award. Later in July it was released on the Android platform as a free-to-play game. In an interview with Team Alto, they cited disappointing revenue for premium games on Android as the reason for turning to a free-to-play model.
On August 4, 2019, Team Alto announced that Alto's Odyssey, alongside Alto's Adventure, would be released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on August 13, 2020, as part of The Alto's Collection. A MacOS port came out on February 19, 2020, and a Nintendo Switch version was released on November 26, 2020. A version for Apple Arcade with an additional city area was set for release on July 16, 2021, under the title, Alto’s Odyssey: The Lost City.
## Reception
Alto's Odyssey received "generally favorable reviews" according to review aggregator, Metacritic.
Computer Games Magazine's Alex Handziuk praised the sound design of the game, writing that the game was "immensely calming" and "full of lush piano motifs and swelling crescendos that do a superb job of invoking emotion in the player". He also enjoyed the game's Zen mode, saying that " I genuinely felt a feeling of relaxation while playing the mode and it works surprisingly well as a form of meditation".
Pocket Gamer thought that Alto's Odyssey's visuals improved over its predecessor, remarking "Alto’s Odyssey manages to one-up Adventure in terms of creating a gorgeous atmosphere". However, the outlet criticized the game for sticking too close to the first game, making the game feel familiar.
Carter Dotson of TouchArcade liked the new biomes as he thought they gave more variety to each run. Dotson criticized the amount of coins required to unlock new items, saying that the game "becomes about the grind to get more coins".
The game was nominated for the A-Train Award for Best Mobile Game at the New York Game Awards; "Mobile Game of the Year" at the SXSW Gaming Awards; "Excellence in Visual Art" and "Excellence in Audio" at the Independent Games Festival Awards; "Best Mobile Game" at the Game Developers Choice Awards; "Mobile Game" at the 15th British Academy Games Awards, and "Best Mobile Game" at the Italian Video Game Awards. |
40,989,981 | Ontario Highway 44 | 1,015,343,421 | Former Ontario provincial highway | [
"Ontario provincial highways"
]
| King's Highway 44, commonly referred to as Highway 44, was a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. The 15.9-kilometre (9.9 mi)-long route began at Highway 15 in the town of Almonte and travelled eastward through Lanark County towards Ottawa, ending at Highway 17. Highway 44 was assumed by the province in 1938 along existing unimproved roadway. A significant portion of the highway was incorporated into a new routing of Highway 17 in 1966. The highway alignment remained generally unchanged for the next three decades until it was decommissioned in 1997 and transferred to Lanark County and what is now the City of Ottawa. The road has since been redesignated as Lanark County Road 49 and Ottawa Road 49.
## Route description
Highway 44 began at Highway 15 in Almonte and proceeded east for 15.9 km (9.9 mi) to Highway 17 southwest of Carp. Within Almonte, the road was known as Ottawa Street and Main Street; east of there it became March Road. Today, the route is known as Lanark County Road 49 and Ottawa Road 49.
At the time of its decommissioning, Highway 44 began at a junction with Highway 15 (Christian Street) on the west side of Almonte. It crossed the Mississippi River, where it became Main Street and passed through the central portion of the town. In the eastern edge of Almonte, it was known Ottawa Street until Appleton Sideroad, where it became March Road and continued eastward in a straight line through farmland in the Ottawa Valley. It also passed through several forests as well as south of Greensmere Golf and Country Club before meeting what was then Highway 17 at an intersection but is now an interchange with Highway 417 (Exit 155).
## History
Highway 44 was established by the Department of Highways, predecessor to the Ministry of Transportation, on April 13, 1938, by assuming ownership of existing county road between Almonte and Carp. When Highway 44 was assumed, the highway between Carleton Place and Arnprior was known as Highway 29. From the junction of these two highways, the route was paved eastward into Almonte already, but remained a gravel road elsewhere. On November 9, 1965, the new Carp Bypass – a portion of Highway 17 designed to replace the old meandering route (now known as Donald B. Munro Drive) through Carp, Marathon and Antrim – opened. As a result, the eastern end of Highway 44 was truncated by approximately 7 km (4.3 mi) to the new bypass Highway 44 remained generally unchanged until March 31, 1997, when the entire route was decommissioned and transferred to Lanark County and the Regional Municipality of Ottawa–Carleton, which later became the City of Ottawa. It has since been known as Lanark County Road 49 and Ottawa Road 49.
## Major intersections |
34,644,011 | No Surrender (2005) | 1,160,504,548 | 2005 Total Nonstop Action Wrestling pay-per-view event | [
"2005 Total Nonstop Action Wrestling pay-per-view events",
"Impact Wrestling No Surrender",
"July 2005 events in the United States"
]
| The 2005 No Surrender was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) promotion, which took place on July 17, 2005 at the Impact Zone in Orlando, Florida. It was the first under the No Surrender chronology and the seventh event in the 2005 TNA PPV schedule. Nine professional wrestling matches and one pre-show match were featured on the card.
The main event was a No Surrender Dog Collar match for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, in which then-champion Raven defended the title against Abyss. Raven won the match, thus retaining the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. The TNA X Division Championship was defended by Christopher Daniels against Petey Williams. Daniels retained the championship in the encounter. On the undercard, A.J. Styles defeated Sean Waltman with Jerry Lynn as the Special Guest Referee. Monty Brown and The Outlaw defeated the 3Live Kru (Konnan and Ron Killings) in a Tag Team Street Fight also on the card.
No Surrender is marked by the debut of Rhino in TNA. Jason Clevett of the professional wrestling section of the Canadian Online Explorer rated the show an 8 out of 10, equal with the 2006 event's ranking of 8 out of 10 also by Clevett.
In October 2017, with the launch of the Global Wrestling Network, the event became available to stream on demand.
## Production
### Background
TNA announced in late-April 2005 that they were planning to host a PPV titled No Surrender on July 17 at the TNA Impact! Zone in Orlando, Florida. Prior to No Surrender, TNA's television contract with Fox Sports Net ended. This left TNA without a broadcaster for several weeks. As a result, TNA began airing weekly episodes of their television program TNA Impact! on their official website in order to build storylines and promote the No Surrender PPV event. In an article by TNA columnist Bill Banks, it was reported that some "new talent" could debut at No Surrender. TNA released a poster promoting the event featuring A.J. Styles, Chris Harris, Christopher Daniels, and Jeff Jarrett at some point beforehand.
### Storylines
No Surrender featured nine professional wrestling matches and one pre-show match that involved wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines portraying villains, heroes, or less distinguishable characters; these scripted events built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.
The main event at No Surrender was a No Surrender Dog Collar match for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship between then-champion Raven and the challenger Abyss. On the June 24 episode of Impact!, James Mitchell returned to the promotion in a backstage segment with Abyss. Mitchell propositioned Abyss on the idea of an NWA World Heavyweight Championship match, which Abyss agreed to, creating a partnership between the two. With Mitchell as Abyss' new manager, Abyss attacked Raven later during the show, setting up a match between the two at the PPV. Raven challenged Abyss to a Dog Collar match with "No Surrender" rules in which the only way to win was by pinfall at No Surrender on the July 1 episode of Impact!, which was accepted. During the July 15 episode of Impact!, Cassidy Reilly pledged his allegiance to Raven for past experiences in which Raven had saved him, going on to state he would be there to help Raven anytime he needed it.
The TNA X Division Championship was defended in another high profiled match on the card. Then-champion Christopher Daniels was pitted against Petey Williams in the contest. On the July 1 episode of Impact!, Terry Taylor held an interview with Daniels. During this time, Daniels announced he had defeated the best Mexican Luchador in Shocker and the best American wrestlers in Chris Sabin and Michael Shane to retain the X Division Championship. At this time, Canadian wrestler Petey Williams entered and challenged Daniels to a title defense at No Surrender, which Daniels accepted.
A.J. Styles challenged Sean Waltman with Jerry Lynn as the Special Guest Referee in another encounter promoted for No Surrender. At TNA's previous PPV event Slammiversary on June 19, then-champion Styles defended the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in a King of the Mountain match against Abyss, Monty Brown, Raven, and Waltman. Waltman and Styles created an alliance during the match, which ended when Waltman turned on Styles, costing him the championship as Raven went on to win the match. Styles and Waltman had a confrontation on the July 1 episode of Impact!, which was stopped by Lynn. Styles asked for a match against Waltman from NWA Championship Committee member Larry Zbyszko on the July 8 episode of Impact!. Zbyszko granted Styles his request only after making Lynn the Special Guest Referee.
A Tag Team Street Fight pitting the 3 Live Kru (Konnan and Ron Killings) against the team of Monty Brown and The Outlaw was promoted for the undercard. On the June 24 episode of Impact!, Brown and The Outlaw attacked Konnan and Killings during an interview with TNA commentator Mike Tenay. Brown and The Outlaw proceeded to parody Konnan, Killings, and 3Live Kru member B.G. James leading up to No Surrender. Following a fight between Konnan, Killings, Brown, and The Outlaw on the July 15 episode of Impact!, Tenay announced the two teams were scheduled for a Street Fight at No Surrender.
## Event
### Pre-Show
TNA held a thirty-minute pre-show prior to the event, during which Shocker was pitted against Jerrelle Clark. Shocker won the bout at 4 minutes and 16 seconds with a roll-up pin.
### Miscellaneous
No Surrender featured employees other than the wrestlers involved in the matches. Mike Tenay and Don West were the commentators for the telecast. Jeremy Borash, for main event only, and David Penzer were ring announcers for the event. Andrew Thomas, Rudy Charles, and Mark "Slick" Johnson participated as referees for the encounters. Shane Douglas handled the interview duties for the event. Besides employees who appeared in a wrestling role, Jeff Jarrett, Jimmy Hart, Traci, James Mitchell, and Rhino all appeared on camera, either in backstage or in ringside segments.
### Preliminary matches
The event opened with a tag team match between America's Most Wanted (Chris Harris and James Storm; AMW) and the team of Alex Shelley and Michael Shane, who were accompanied by Traci. The duration of the bout was 11 minutes and 47 seconds. At one point, Storm lifted up Shane, so Harris could dive off the top rope and bash him in the chest with his forearm. Later, Storm was thrown out of the ring but held on to the top rope. He attempted to pull himself back in, however, Shelley dropkicked him from inside the ring, knocking him to the outside. AMW won the match after Storm pinned Shelley following a kick to the chin.
TNA held a Four Way match for the last spot in the 2005 TNA Super X Cup Tournament between Elix Skipper, Mikey Batts, Shark Boy, and Sonjay Dutt. The competition lasted 8 minutes and 22 seconds. Elix Skipper performed his signature maneuver the Sudden Death on Batts near the end. He attempted a cover but was stopped by Shark Boy. Shark Boy then went for a cover, who was stopped by Dutt. Dutt then performed his signature aerial maneuver the Hindu Press, landing on Batts to gain the victory and enter the 2005 TNA Super X Cup Tournament.
David Young and Simon Diamond fought Apolo and Sonny Siaki in the third encounter. It lasted 5 minutes and 32 seconds. Close to the end, Davidlifted up and slammed Siaki back-first into the mat with a Spinebuster. The referee refused to count the pin, deeming that David was not the eligible man. This allowed Apolo to lift up and slam David face-first into the mat to win the match.
In the fourth match, Samoa Joe was pitted against Chris Sabin. Joe performed his signature Muscle Buster maneuver and then placed Sabin in his signature submission hold the Coquina Clutch. Instead of submitting, Sabin instead passed out in storyline, with the referee lifting and raising his arm three times before giving the victory to Joe at 14 minutes and 2 seconds.
A Six Man Tag Team match between Team Canada (A-1, Bobby Roode, and Eric Young) and the team of Lance Hoyt and The Naturals (Andy Douglas and Chase Stevens), who were accompanied by Jimmy Hart, was next. The match duration was 14 minutes and 44 seconds. Douglas scored a near-fall after Hoyt slammed Eric back-first to the mat. The Naturals set up for their Natural Disaster tag team maneuver on Eric, however, Roode entered and bashed Douglas and Stevens with a megaphone. Eric then covered Douglas for the win.
### Main event matches
The sixth contest was a Tag Team Street Fight pitting the team of Monty Brown and The Outlaw against the 3Live Kru (Konnan and Ron Killings). A Street Fight is fought under no disqualification rules, which is won either by a pinfall or submission. The Outlaw requested to be called by a new name before the contest, Kip James. The Outlaw was busted open during the bout. Multiple referees had to be replaced for the match, due to reoccurring attacks on them by The Outlaw. Brown won the encounter after performing his signature Pounce maneuver on Killings, knocking him across the ring onto the mat, at 5 minutes and 20 seconds. After the contest, B.G. James entered the ring where The Outlaw offered James a chair to hit Konnan with, which James declined.
Jerry Lynn was Special Guest Referee for the next encounter between A.J. Styles and Sean Waltman. Styles bleed from the nose during the match. Styles gained a near-fall on Waltman after performing his signature Styles Clash maneuver and slamming Waltman face-first into the mat. Waltman also gained a near-fall following his signature X-Factor maneuver and forcing Styles face-first into the mat. Later, Styles jumped from the ring apron over the top rope and Waltman in a sunset flip. Waltman held onto the ropes, trying to prevent a pin attempt, until Lynn kicked his hands off the top rope. Styles then rolled through and lifted Waltman up to perform the Styles Clash at 14 minutes and 37 seconds to win the competition.
The TNA X Division Championship was defended by Christopher Daniels against Petey Williams, who was accompanied by A-1. The duration was 16 minutes and 24 seconds. During the match, Williams put Daniels in his Sharpshooter submission hold, which Williams was forced to release when Daniels grabbed the bottom rope. A-1 tossed Williams a chain to bash Daniels with. However, Daniels had his own chain which he used to punch Williams with and followed by performing his signature Best Moonsault Ever maneuver, splashing onto Williams, to retain the championship.
The main event was a No Surrender Dog Collar match for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship between then-champion Raven and the challenger Abyss, who was accompanied by James Mitchell. The encounter lasted 19 minutes and 17 seconds. In a Dog Collar match, both competitors are tied together at the neck by a long steel chain that is attached to a dog collar. The match is fought under no disqualification rules; in this case the only way to win was by pinfall. Abyss crashed through a table at ringside after Raven pushed him off the stage. Abyss removed the collar during the match and retrieved a bag of thumbtacks. He then poured them over the mat and ripped Raven's shirt off, before attempting to slam him into them. Cassidy Reilly interfered in the contest stopping Abyss. Later, Cassidy was shoved off the ring apron by Abyss and he crashed through a table. Raven followed by slamming Abyss back-first into the tacks with a powerbomb and covered for a near-fall. Abyss also gained a near-fall on Raven after slamming him into the mat back-first with his signature Black Hole Slam maneuver. Raven finally won the contest following forcing Abyss head-first into thumbtacks with his signature Raven Effect DDT maneuver to retain the championship. Following the bout, a segment took place between Raven and Jeff Jarrett, which ended when Rhino made his TNA debut and tackled Raven with his signature Gore maneuver.
## Reception
A total of 775 people attended No Surrender. Canadian Online Explorer writer Jason Clevett rated the entire event an 8 out of 10, which was equal with the 8 of 10 given to the 2006 No Surrender by Clevett. No Surrender's rating was higher than TNA's previous event Slammiversary, which was given a 7 out of 10 by Clevett. Compared to rival World Wrestling Entertainment's The Great American Bash PPV event held on July 24, No Surrender was rated higher, as Bob Kapur gave The Great American Bash a 5 out of 10. Clevett felt that No Surrender proved that "when everything clicks they [TNA] can put on a fantastic show that gives fans their money's worth." A.J. Styles versus Sean Waltman, Samoa Joe versus Chris Sabin, and the X Division Championship match were signaled out by Clevett as three "fantastic matches on a solid undercard." Clevett gave his highest match rating of 9 out of 10 in his review to the Joe versus Sabin bout. He gave his lowest rating of 3 out of 10 to the Tag Team Street Fight. The main event, Styles versus Waltman, and the X Division Championship matches were all given an 8 out of 10 by Clevett. Regarding the Dog Collar match, Clevett thought it was a "bloody and violent encounter, as one would expect with those two in the ring." When commenting on the Styles versus Waltman encounter, Clevett thought it "was undoubtable Waltman's best match in years".
Wade Keller of the Pro Wrestling Torch rated the main event, Styles versus Waltman, and Joe versus Sabin all 3 and a half stars out of 5. However, the X Division Championship match received a 3 and a three-fourths stars out of 5, his highest rating of the review. He gave the lowest ranking to the Tag Team Street Fight, at a half of a star. Keller commented on the main event as being "what you'd expect, and that's not a bad thing". Keller thought the Styles versus Waltman bout was a "very good match, the best from Waltman in years". James Caldwell, also of the Pro Wrestling Torch, published a review of the show. In his review he stated that the main event was a "good car wreck match", which "told a good story based on the storyline entering the match". Regarding the X Division Championship bout, Caldwell thought that "both men worked a solid match". "A good wrestling match that showed Waltman still has it.", said Caldwell as he commented on the Styles versus Waltman encounter. Caldwell believed that Joe versus Sabin was a "damn good match". TNA released a DVD counting down the top 50 moments in their history in 2007, with Rhino's debut listed at number 36.
## Aftermath
Following No Surrender, Raven went on to feud with Jeff Jarrett and Rhino. Jarrett and Rhino attacked Raven on the July 22 episode of Impact!, claiming he had no allies to help him. On the July 29 episode of Impact!, Jarrett and Rhino attacked Cassidy Riley as well, until Raven announced he had chosen a partner to team with him in a Tag Team match to face Jarrett and Rhino at TNA's next PPV event Sacrifice on August 14. Sabu then appeared attacking Jarrett and Rhino with Raven. At Sacrifice, NWA Championship Committee member Larry Zbyszko added a stipulation to the encounter, in which if Jarrett pinned Raven he would earn a future NWA World Heavyweight Championship match, however, if Raven pinned Jarrett then he would not garner one for an entire year. The team of Jarrett and Rhino won the contest at the event, with Rhino gaining the pinfall victory.
Abyss began a feud with Lance Hoyt after No Surrender, when Abyss attacked Hoyt on the July 22 episode of Impact!. In return Hoyt attacked Abyss on the August 5 episode of Impact!, setting up a match between the two at Sacrifice. Abyss won the match at the event.
TNA held the 2005 TNA Super X Cup Tournament in the weeks following No Surrender leading up to Sacrifice. It was a single-elimination tournament which involved eight men, A.J. Styles, Alex Shelley, Chris Sabin, Michael Shane, Petey Williams, Samoa Joe, Shocker, and Sonjay Dutt. The winner of the tournament would become number one contender to the TNA X Division Championship held by Christopher Daniels. Daniels provided commentary to each of the encounters on the July 22, July 29, August 5, and August 10 episodes of Impact!, as well as the Finals at Sacrifice. Daniels unofficially named the tournament the Christopher Daniels Invitational. The tournament came down to Joe and Styles in the Finals at Sacrifice, which Joe won after interference from Daniels.
Sean Waltman and Jerry Lynn sparked a rivalry after No Surrender due to Lynn's interference in Waltman's bout against Styles, with the two facing at Sacrifice. The storyline revolving around this match began on the July 22 episode of Impact!, where Waltman accused Lynn of trying to steal his spotlight in a backstage segment, while Lynn took credit for Waltman's success in the industry for helping Waltman get his start. Lynn defeated Waltman at the event.
The 3Live Kru (Konnan and Ron Killings) and the team of Monty Brown and The Outlaw fought at Sacrifice, this time with B.G. James as Special Guest Referee. Due to The Outlaw attacking several referees during the Street Fight at No Surrender, TNA officials refused to referee a rematch between the two teams at Sacrifice. As such, this forced Zbyszko to name B.G. as the Special Guest Referee on the July 29 episode of Impact!. The 3Live Kru were the victors at Sacrifice.
## Results
## See also
- 2005 in professional wrestling |
129,194 | Brian Epstein | 1,173,863,951 | British personal manager and impresario (1934–1967) | [
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| Brian Samuel Epstein (/ˈɛpstaɪn/; 19 September 1934 – 27 August 1967) was an English music entrepreneur who managed the Beatles from 1962 until his death in 1967.
Epstein was born into a family of successful retailers in Liverpool, who put him in charge of their music shop, where he displayed a gift for talent-spotting. He first met the Beatles in 1961 at a lunchtime concert at Liverpool's Cavern Club. Although he had no experience of artist management, Epstein put them under contract and insisted that they abandon their scruffy image in favour of a new clean-cut style. He also attempted to get the Beatles a recording contract, eventually securing a deal with EMI's Parlophone label.
Within months, the Beatles were international stars. Some of Epstein's other young discoveries had also prospered under his management. They included Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, Tommy Quickly, Cilla Black and The Big Three. In 1967, he died of a combined alcohol and barbiturate overdose, ruled as accidental, at the age of 32.
## Ancestry
Epstein's grandfather, Isaac Epstein, was Lithuanian-Jewish, arriving in Britain in the 1890s from what was then part of the Russian Empire at the age of eighteen. His grandmother Dinah was the daughter of Joseph, a draper, and Esther Hyman, who had emigrated from Russia to Britain (circa 1871/72) with their eldest son Jacob. The Hymans had six other children.
Isaac Epstein married Dinah Hyman in Manchester in 1900. In 1901, Isaac and Dinah were living at 80 Walton Road, Liverpool, with Isaac's sister Rachael Epstein, above the furniture dealership that he founded. Dinah and Isaac's third child, Harry Epstein, would become Brian Epstein's father.
Eventually the family moved to a larger home in the Anfield area of Liverpool at 27 Anfield Road. After Harry and his brother Leslie had joined the family firm, Isaac Epstein founded Epstein and Sons. He then enlarged the furniture business by taking over adjacent shops at 62/72 Walton Road to sell a range of other goods, such as musical instruments and household appliances. They called the expanding business NEMS (North End Music Stores), which offered lenient credit terms. Paul McCartney's father once bought a piano from them. Epstein's mother Malka (nicknamed "Queenie" by her family, as Malka means "queen" in Hebrew) was also involved in the Hyman furniture business, which also owned the Sheffield Veneering Company. Harry and Queenie married in 1933.
In 2003, the family home on Anfield Road was converted into a Beatles-themed hotel called Epstein House.
## Early life
Brian Epstein was born on 19 September 1934 in 4 Rodney Street, Liverpool. Harry and Queenie also had another son named Clive, who was born 22 months after his older brother. During World War II the Epsteins moved to Southport, where two schools expelled Epstein for laziness and poor performance, but returned to Liverpool in 1945. The Epsteins lived at 197 Queens Drive, Childwall in Liverpool, and remained there for the next 30 years. The family was aided by a live-in nanny.
Epstein's parents moved him from one boarding school to another, including Clayesmore School in Dorset, Liverpool College, and a Jewish school in Kent. He spent two years at Wrekin College in Wellington, Shropshire, where he was taught the violin. At Wrekin, Epstein suffered from the strict culture, possibly in part as a result of his suppressed homosexuality. Epstein fell in love with the arts, particularly theatre, and it was his one consistently successful school subject. His favourite book as a child was Pamela Brown's The Swish of the Curtain. Shortly before his 16th birthday he sent a long letter to his father stating that he wanted to become a dress designer, but Harry Epstein was adamantly opposed, and after serving a six months' apprenticeship at another company his son finally had to "report for duty" at the family's furniture shop on a £5 per week wage.
In December 1952, Epstein was conscripted to do his national service as a data entry clerk into the Royal Army Service Corps, and was posted to the Albany Street Barracks near Regent's Park in London in spring 1953, where he was often reprimanded for not collecting his army pay. Epstein used this posting to explore London's high culture for the first time and also visited local relatives. By January 1954, Epstein had seen numerous Army psychiatrists, who recommended an early medical discharge.
After returning to Liverpool, he was put in charge of the Clarendon Furnishing shop in Hoylake and in 1955 was made a director of NEMS. In September 1956, he took a trip to London to meet a friend but after being there for only one day, was robbed of his passport, birth certificate, chequebook, wristwatch, and all the money he had in his possession. He did not want his parents to find out, so he worked as a department store clerk until he had earned enough money to buy a train ticket back to Liverpool. On returning home he confessed his homosexuality to a psychiatrist—a friend of the Epstein family—who suggested to Harry Epstein that his son should leave Liverpool as soon as possible. During the sessions, Epstein revealed his ambition of becoming an actor, so his parents allowed him to go to London to study.
In autumn 1956, Epstein enrolled in a two-year course at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. His RADA classmates included actors Susannah York, Albert Finney, and Peter O'Toole, but Epstein dropped out after the third term, saying that he had become "too much of a businessman to enjoy being a student, and I didn't like being a student at all." He said in 1964 that he "felt like an old man at the age of 21". He also revealed that he would have liked to produce a theatre play, or even act, "in something by Chekhov", or a "straight drama" by John Osborne.
In late April 1957, while a RADA student, Epstein was arrested for soliciting an undercover police officer for sex near the Swiss Cottage tube station. (Homosexual sex was illegal in Britain at this time.) He appeared in a Marylebone courthouse the next day and pleaded not guilty. He was sentenced to two years probation. While still serving probation in May 1958, he was assaulted by a casual sex partner in Liverpool and extorted for hush money. Epstein reported the encounter to the police, forcing him to testify in court and reveal his sexual orientation to his family. The court barred the press from revealing Epstein's identity during the trial. His assailant was sentenced to serve 2 years in jail, and Epstein was not charged.
After his withdrawal from RADA, Epstein returned to Liverpool, where his father put his son in charge of the record department of the family's newly opened NEMS music store on Great Charlotte Street. Epstein worked "day and night" at the store to make it a success, and it became one of the biggest musical retail outlets in Northern England. The Epsteins opened a second store at 12–14 Whitechapel, and Epstein was put in charge of the entire operation. He often walked across the road to the Lewis's department store (which also had a music section) where Peter Brown was employed. He watched Brown's sales technique and was impressed enough to lure him to work for NEMS with the offer of a higher salary and a commission on sales. Through his tireless work in the record department at NEMS, Epstein gained considerable knowledge of the pop music business.
## The Beatles
Epstein first noticed the Beatles in issues of Mersey Beat and on numerous posters around Liverpool created by his commercial artist associate Tony Booth, before he asked Mersey Beat editor Bill Harry who they were. Harry had previously convinced Epstein to sell the magazine at NEMS, with the Beatles featured on the front page of its second issue. The Beatles had recorded the "My Bonnie" single with Tony Sheridan in Germany, and some months after its release Epstein asked his personal assistant Alistair Taylor about it in NEMS. Epstein's version of the story was that customer Raymond Jones walked into the NEMS shop and asked him for the "My Bonnie" single, which made Epstein curious about the group. Taylor later claimed that he had used the name of Jones (a regular customer) to order the single and paid the deposit, knowing that Epstein would notice it and order further copies. Harry and McCartney later repudiated Epstein's story, as Harry had been talking to Epstein for a long time about the Beatles—the group that he promoted the most in Mersey Beat—with McCartney saying, "Brian knew perfectly well who the Beatles were; they were on the front page of the second issue of Mersey Beat". On 3 August 1961, Epstein started a regular music column in the Mersey Beat called "Stop the World—And Listen To Everything in It: Brian Epstein of NEMS".
The Beatles were due to perform a lunchtime concert at The Cavern Club on 9 November 1961. According to club owner Sytner, Epstein had visited the club quite a few times previously on Saturday nights, once asking Sytner to book a group for his twenty-first birthday party. Epstein asked Harry to arrange for Epstein and his assistant Taylor to watch the Beatles perform. The club allowed Epstein and Taylor to enter without queuing. They bypassed the line of fans at the door and heard Bob Wooler, the resident disc jockey, announce a welcome message over the club's public address system: "We have someone rather famous in the audience today. Mr Brian Epstein, the owner of NEMS ..." Epstein later talked about the performance: "I was immediately struck by their music, their beat and their sense of humour on stage—and, even afterwards, when I met them, I was struck again by their personal charm. And it was there that, really, it all started".
After the performance, Epstein and Taylor went into the dressing room (which he later described as being "as big as a broom cupboard") to talk to the group. The Beatles, all regular NEMS customers, immediately recognised Epstein, but before he could congratulate them on their performance George Harrison said, "And what brings Mr Epstein here?" Epstein replied with, "We just popped in to say hello. I enjoyed your performance." He introduced Taylor, who merely nodded a greeting, said, "Well done, then, goodbye" and left. Epstein and Taylor went to Peacock's restaurant in Hackins Hey for lunch, and during the meal Epstein asked Taylor what he thought about the group. Taylor replied that he honestly thought they were "absolutely awful", but there was something "remarkable" about them. Epstein sat there smiling for a long time before exclaiming, "I think they're tremendous!" Later, when Epstein was paying the bill, he grabbed Taylor's arm and said, "Do you think I should manage them?"
The Beatles played at The Cavern Club over the next three weeks, and Epstein was always there to watch them. He contacted Allan Williams (their previous promoter/manager) to confirm that Williams no longer had any ties to the group, but Williams advised Epstein "not to touch them with a fucking barge pole" because of a Hamburg concert percentage that the group had refused to pay.
### Management contract
In an afternoon meeting with the group at NEMS on 3 December 1961, Epstein proposed the idea of managing the Beatles. John Lennon, George Harrison, and Pete Best arrived late for the meeting, as they had been drinking at The Grapes pub in Mathew Street. McCartney also did not arrive on time because he had just got up and was "taking a bath", as Harrison explained. Epstein was upset, but Harrison placated him by saying, "He may be late, but he'll be very clean." Lennon had invited Wooler to be at the meeting so that he could give his opinion of Epstein, but he introduced Wooler by saying, "This is me dad." Epstein was reticent throughout the short meeting, only asking if they had a manager. After learning that they had not, he said, "It seems to me that with everything going on, someone ought to be looking after you." He had further meetings with the group on 6 and 10 December 1961.
McCartney, Harrison, and Best were under 21 and therefore needed the consent of their parents to enter into a contract. Best and his mother—Mona Best, owner of the Casbah Coffee Club—were impressed with Epstein's professional image as were the other Beatles, because he was a businessman, wore expensive suits, and owned a large car. Best's mother said that Epstein "could be good for them [the Beatles]". McCartney's father was sceptical about a Jewish manager and warned his son to be careful about finances. Lennon's aunt and guardian, Mimi Smith, was against the idea, believing that Epstein would lose interest when something attracted his attention, but Lennon, who had just turned 21, ignored his aunt's advice.
The Beatles signed a five-year contract with Epstein on 24 January 1962 giving Epstein 10 to 15 per cent of their income. They signed a new contract in October 1962 which gave Epstein 15, 20, or 25 per cent of revenues, depending on how much he helped the band earn. The Beatles would then share any income after various expenses had been deducted. Epstein then formed a management company, NEMS Enterprises, telling his parents that managing the group was only a part-time occupation and would not interfere with the family business.
The Beatles signed Epstein's first management contract, but Epstein did not. He later told Taylor, "Well, if they ever want to tear it up, they can hold me but I can't hold them". (Note: English law would have enforced the contract through the doctrine of part performance.) The contract stated that Epstein would receive a management commission of 25 per cent of the group's gross income after a certain financial threshold had been reached. The Beatles argued for a smaller percentage, but Epstein pointed out that he had been paying their expenses for months without receiving anything in return. On 1 October 1962, four days before the release of "Love Me Do", Epstein signed Lennon and McCartney to a three-year NEMS publishing contract.
In 1963, Epstein advised the creation of Northern Songs, a publishing company that would control the copyrights of all Lennon–McCartney compositions recorded between 1963 and 1973. Music publisher Dick James and his partner Charles Silver owned 51 per cent of the company, Lennon and McCartney 20 per cent each, and Epstein 9 per cent. By 1969, Lennon and McCartney had lost control of all publishing rights to ATV Music Publishing. Epstein's death in 1967 marked the beginning of the group's dissolution and had a profound effect on each Beatle.
### The Beatles' appearance on stage
Epstein had no prior experience of artist management, yet he had a strong influence on the band's early dress code and stage demeanour. They had previously worn blue jeans and leather jackets, and they would stop and start songs when they felt like it or when an audience member requested a certain song. David Pomerran Szatmary states that when Epstein first saw them at the Cavern Club he thought, "They were a scruffy crowd in leather, and they were not very tidy and not very clean. They smoked as they played and they ate and talked and pretended to hit each other." Epstein encouraged them to wear suits and ties, insisted that they stop swearing, smoking, drinking, or eating on stage, and also suggested the famous synchronised bow at the end of their performances. McCartney was the first to agree with Epstein's suggestions, believing that they reflected Epstein's RADA training. Epstein explained that the process from leather jackets and jeans to suits took some time: "I encouraged them, at first, to get out of the leather jackets and jeans, and I wouldn't allow them to appear in jeans after a short time, and then, after that step, I got them to wear sweaters on stage, and then, very reluctantly, eventually, suits." Epstein took the group to Wirral to see his friend, master tailor Beno Dorn, who made them their first suits based on a design they had previously seen, which Epstein approved: "I thought it was an excellent design at the time."
Lennon resisted wearing suits and ties, but later said, "I'll wear a suit; I'll wear a bloody balloon if somebody's going to pay me." Epstein began seeking publicity by "charming and smarming ... the newspaper people", as Lennon said in 1972. According to McCartney, "The gigs went up in stature and though the pay went up only a little bit, it did go up"; they were "now playing better places". The group was now far more organised, having one single diary in which to record bookings, rather than using whoever's diary was at hand. The group usually called Epstein "Mr. Epstein" or "Brian" in interviews, but in private the group abbreviated his name to "Eppy" or "Bri".
### Record contract
Starting shortly after he met the Beatles, Epstein made numerous trips to London to visit record companies in the hope of securing a record contract, but many rejected him, including Columbia, Pye, Philips, Oriole, and most notoriously Decca. On 13 December 1961, at Epstein's invitation, Mike Smith of Decca travelled from London to Liverpool to watch the group at the Cavern, which led to an audition in London on 1 January 1962 (see The Beatles' Decca audition). Decca informed Epstein one month later that the audition tapes had been rejected. The Beatles later found out that Epstein had paid Decca producer Tony Meehan (ex-drummer of the Shadows) to produce the studio recordings. While Epstein was negotiating with Decca he also approached Ron White, an EMI marketing executive with whom he had a business relationship. White told Epstein he would play the Beatles' recording of "My Bonnie" the band made in Germany with Tony Sheridan for EMI's four A&R directors. However, White only played it for two of them—Wally Ridley and Norman Newell.
In early February 1962, Epstein visited the HMV store (owned by EMI) in 363 Oxford Street, London to have the Decca tape transferred to 78 rpm acetates. An HMV disc-cutter named Jim Foy liked the recordings, suggesting that Epstein should contact Sid Colman, the head of EMI's record publishing division, which controlled the publishing company Ardmore & Beechwood. Colman and his colleague Kim Bennett liked the Beatles' recording of "Like Dreamers Do" and sought to have EMI record Lennon–McCartney original songs, with Ardmore & Beechwood retaining the publishing rights; they sent Epstein to George Martin, the A&R manager of EMI's Parlophone label. Epstein met Martin on 13 February, where he played the acetates of the Decca audition. Epstein left the meeting optimistic, but Martin "wasn't knocked out at all" by the "lousy tape".
Martin later claimed that Epstein's conviction that the Beatles would become internationally famous finally convinced him to offer a recording contract. In fact, however, EMI managing director L. G. ("Len") Wood instructed Martin to sign the Beatles in May 1962, largely to appease the continued interest of Ardmore & Beechwood in Lennon–McCartney song publishing. Martin met with Epstein again on 9 May and offered him a standard EMI recording contract for the Beatles to record six "sides" (equivalent to three two-sided single releases) in their first year. Upon signing the contract, Epstein immediately sent a telegram to the Beatles (who were in Hamburg) and to the Mersey Beat music journal in Liverpool.
The recording contract gave the Beatles one penny (1d) for each record sold, which was split among the four members, meaning that each earned one farthing per copy. The royalty rate was further reduced for singles sold outside the UK; the group received half of one penny per single, which was again split amongst the whole group. Martin scheduled the first recording session to be on 6 June 1962 at Abbey Road Studios. Epstein later renegotiated EMI's royalty rate and, on 27 January 1967 the Beatles signed a new nine-year contract with EMI. The contract stipulated that 25 per cent would be paid to NEMS for the full nine years even if the Beatles decided not to renew their management contract with Epstein, which was up for renewal later that year.
### Dismissal of Pete Best
By early 1962, the Beatles had played several gigs with Ringo Starr on occasions when Pete Best was ill, and they had performed at a recording session with Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison in Hamburg. The Beatles enjoyed Ringo's drumming style and social demeanor with the band, whereas Best rarely socialized with the other band members after gigs. Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison had also long believed Best to be a stylistically limited drummer. McCartney later remarked, "It had got to the stage that Pete was holding us back. What were we gonna do—pretend he was a wonderful drummer?"
After the group's first recording session on 6 June 1962, George Martin felt that using an experienced studio session drummer rather than Best would improve the recording (this was in accordance with normal practice at the time). Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison decided Best needed to be replaced and, uncomfortable with sacking him themselves, asked Epstein to sack Best so that Starr could join the band. Epstein was aware the Beatles had discussed replacing Pete but hoped it would not happen, as he was not yet fond of Starr. Epstein agonised about the decision, asking the Cavern's disc jockey Bob Wooler if it were a good idea. Wooler replied that Best was "very popular with the fans," who would not like it at all. Despite his reservations, Epstein accepted the Beatles' decision: "They liked Ringo, and I trusted the boys' judgment. If they were happy, so was I."
Epstein's task of sacking Best was complicated by the fact that he was under contract to provide management to all four members of the Beatles. Epstein thus had to secure paid work for Best if he was to leave the group. Epstein consulted a lawyer, who informed him that the Beatles could not simply expel Best under the terms of their contract; they could only legally disband and then re-form with Starr. Epstein planned to have Best become the drummer for the Merseybeats as an alternative that would satisfy his commitment to provide Best work.
In the meantime, Starr was playing with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, the resident group at Butlins' holiday complex in Skegness. Epstein searched for drummers who could temporarily fill in for Best until Starr was available to join the Beatles, such as Joe Brown's drummer, Bobby Graham. He also offered the position to Johnny Hutchinson of the Big Three, a group that Epstein managed at that time as well. Hutchinson turned down the offer, saying, "Pete Best is a very good friend of mine. I couldn't do the dirty on him"—although Hutchinson did play for The Beatles at short notice when Best did not turn up on the evening of his dismissal and for two subsequent bookings, until Starr was able to join.
Epstein finally dismissed Best on 16 August, more than two months after the first recording session at EMI Studios. He called Best and Neil Aspinall to his office on Whitechapel Street, where he informed Best that the Beatles would replace him with Starr. When Best asked why, Epstein told him, "Mainly because they think you're not a good enough drummer. And also because at EMI Studios, George Martin said, 'the drummer isn't good enough'."
With the band's lineup now solidified, Epstein had his solicitor draw up a new management contract for the Beatles.
### Beatles last official live appearance in the UK
The Beatles made their last official live appearance in Britain on 1 May 1966, at the NME Annual Poll-Winners' All-Star Concert at the Empire Pool, Wembley Park. Although the concert was televised, the cameras were switched off while the Beatles played, because Brian Epstein and ABC TV had failed to agree over terms. They were filmed receiving their awards, however.
### After Candlestick Park
The Beatles' hectic schedule kept Epstein very busy between 1963 and 1965 with touring plus television and film work. Their last live concert was at Candlestick Park in San Francisco on 29 August 1966, and Epstein's management duties then changed to reflect the changing nature of their career. He pressured them to continue touring, but they steadfastly refused.
## Business dealings
Epstein once offered all four Beatles a fixed wage of £50 a week for life (). Harrison remembered that he was earning £25 a week at the time (), which was more than the £10 a week that his father was earning (). The group declined Epstein's offer, believing that they were worth much more than £50 a week.
NEMS had a staff of twenty-five at the time of its move from Liverpool to London in 1964. NEMS booked the Beatles' concerts, and it also presented groups as an opening act. It accrued money as promoter, booking agent, and manager for all concerts. The Beatles were constantly in demand by concert promoters, and Epstein took advantage of the situation to avoid paying some taxes by accepting "hidden" fees on the night of a performance, which he always kept in a brown paper bag.
Epstein also successfully managed Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas (who had four hits with Lennon–McCartney songs), the Fourmost (Lennon wrote their first two singles), the Cyrkle (Epstein's first American group), and Cilla Black (who was Epstein's only female artist), as well as Tommy Quickly and Sounds Incorporated (later known as Sounds Inc.). He sent his roster of artists on "package tours" around the UK, a common practice at the time. This involved short sets by each act, alternating with a compère or a comedian. Epstein once revealed that even though he was entitled to be reimbursed by acts for expenses incurred, he paid for his own flights to and from the United States, as he did not see himself as being part of a touring group. Photographs, transport, and international telephone calls were paid from his own 25 percent share in profits.
The Beatles toured the Philippines in July 1966, playing two shows at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium in Manila. Epstein unintentionally snubbed the nation's first lady Imelda Marcos when presented with an invitation to a breakfast party. He had politely declined on behalf of the group, as it was their policy never to accept such official invitations. The Beatles and their entourage were ejected from their hotel on the same day and given a police escort to the airport, even though Epstein had publicly apologised for the misunderstanding in a televised statement, which was not seen or heard because of static. The entourage boarded the plane for home, but Epstein and Beatles' assistant Mal Evans were ordered off, both believing that they would not be allowed back on the plane. Epstein was forced to give the tax authorities £6,800 worth of Philippine peso notes earned from the Manila shows and to sign a tax bond verifying the exchange before being allowed back on the plane with Evans.
Epstein added the Vic Lewis Organisation to NEMS in 1966, and later brought impresario Robert Stigwood in as a manager. He once offered to sell the control of NEMS to Stigwood, without telling any of his artists about the offer. McCartney was taking a more active interest in NEMS' finances, as it became known that some artists with more ruthless managers claimed to be benefiting from more commercially advantageous terms, such as the Rolling Stones under the management of Allen Klein. After Epstein's death, Clive Epstein assumed control of NEMS as the company's second-largest shareholder. Stigwood then tried to take over management of NEMS but all four Beatles vigorously objected, with Lennon saying, "We don't know you. Why would we do this?"
McCartney admitted that they had always signed all the contracts that Epstein presented to them without reading them first, but after Epstein's death Lennon complained, "Well, he was alright. I've found out since, of course, that he wasn't quite as honest to us as he made out." Despite this, other interviews with Lennon report him as being loyal to Epstein's memory: "We had complete faith in him when he was running us. To us, he was the expert." When asked in 1964 about his standing as a manager or businessman, Epstein replied, "Fair, as a businessman, fair. I've got a business background, and probably a reasonable business brain. I'm no, sort of, genius [laughter]." Asked about his deficiencies, Epstein replied, "I'm probably too conscious of ideas, rather than finance behind ideas."
### Merchandising
Before the Beatles achieved nationwide success in Britain, Epstein had permitted a company (run by his cousins and initially catering to fan club members), to produce Beatles sweaters for 30 shillings (£1.50) and badges for 6 pence (6d) (21⁄2p). It sold 15,000 sweaters and 50,000 badges as the group's popularity grew. When Beatlemania swept the UK in November 1963, Epstein was besieged by novelty-goods companies desperate to use the Beatles name on plastic guitars, drums, disc racks, badges, belts and other merchandise. Epstein refused to allow the Beatles to endorse any product directly, but through NEMS Enterprises he granted discretionary licences to companies who were able to produce good-quality products at a fair price, even though many companies were already selling products without a licence.
During the first Beatles trip to the United States, merchandisers pitched many products to Epstein, including Beatles clocks, pens, cigarette lighters, plastic wigs, bracelets, games, etc., but he rejected them all. This was because he had already allowed David Jacobs, the lawyer for NEMS, to give away 90 per cent of merchandising rights to one Nicky Byrne, in the UK. This was later deemed to be a disastrous mistake, as it left only 10 per cent for Epstein, NEMS and the Beatles, but David Jacobs subsequently renegotiated the royalty rate to 49% at Epstein's behest in August 1964. Byrne then took over Epstein's Stramsact merchandising in the UK and set up Seltaeb (Beatles spelled backwards) in the United States. While the Beatles were ensconced in the Plaza Hotel in New York City, Epstein was further besieged by calls and visits from promoters, retailers, television commentators and hustlers.
Mindful of the number of records the group was selling in the United States, Capitol Records sent a well-spoken Yorkshire woman, Wendy Hanson, to the Plaza Hotel to act as Epstein's secretary and to filter his calls. Hanson later worked solely with Epstein in his Albemarle Street office in London, which was separate from the NEMS office. Lennon later said, "On the business end he [Epstein] ripped us off on the Seltaeb thing." McCartney said years later, "He [Epstein] looked to his dad for business advice, and his dad knew how to run a furniture store in Liverpool."
### Lenmac
Epstein asked chartered accountant James Trevor Isherwood to set up a company to collect Lennon and McCartney's PRS payments—called Lenmac—which he did on 12 May 1964. When he first visited Epstein's office, Isherwood was surprised to learn that Epstein took 25 per cent of the gross income, and not the 10 per cent that he believed most other managers received at that time. All of Epstein's expenses were deducted from his artists' gross income, including office rental, staff wages, travel, telephone costs, and entertaining expenses. Before his death, Epstein knew that the renegotiation of his management contract (up for renewal on 30 September 1967) would lower his management fee from 25 to 10 per cent, and that NEMS would no longer receive a share of the Beatles' performance fees, reducing its revenues still further.
### Publishing
The Beatles entered into a publishing agreement with Dick James Music (DJM), so James set up a company called Northern Songs. James and his financial partner and accountant, Charles Silver, would each receive 25 per cent of the shares. Lennon and McCartney received 20 per cent each, with Epstein receiving the remaining 10 per cent. The Beatles' PRS income increased rapidly, so Epstein asked Isherwood to devise a way of avoiding the tax that Lennon and McCartney would owe. Isherwood suggested a stock market flotation for Northern Songs. He also suggested to Epstein that during the flotation Lennon and McCartney should move to houses near Isherwood's own in Esher. Lennon, Harrison and Starr agreed, while Epstein and McCartney remained in London.
### Promoter and presenter
After settling in London in 1965, Epstein rented an office in Monmouth Street, and later bought the lease of the Saville Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue. He promoted new works by writers such as Arnold Wesker in productions that occasionally fell foul of the Lord Chamberlain for including "obscene" content or nudity. In 1966 Epstein reinvented it as a music venue featuring various US acts. On 20 February 1967 Epstein sacked the manager of the theatre, Michael Bullock, for lowering the safety curtain the previous day shortly before the end of a Chuck Berry concert that Epstein was attending with Lennon and Starr. Two fans had climbed onto the stage to dance, the curtain came down, and they were pushed from the stage. Although Bullock had not given the order, he was held responsible.
In the wake of the Beatles' success Epstein was asked to appear on several music-based TV programmes in Britain. He also hosted a regular part of the US television show Hullabaloo, filming his appearances in the UK.
## Personal life
Throughout Epstein's life he was known to be kind and caring to his family, friends of his family, and business colleagues. When Lennon married Cynthia Powell, on 23 August 1962, Epstein served as best man and paid for the couple's celebratory lunch afterwards. During Cynthia's pregnancy Epstein paid for a private room in a hospital and offered the Lennons the sole use of his flat at 36 Falkner Street, Liverpool, when they needed a home. He also agreed to be godfather to Lennon's son Julian.
### Sexual orientation
Epstein's homosexuality was not publicly known until some years after his death, although it had been an open secret among his friends and business associates.
While Epstein was in the British Army, he commissioned a tailor to make him an officer's uniform. He wore the uniform when cruising the bars of London, but was arrested one night at the Army and Navy Club in Piccadilly by the military police for impersonating an officer. Epstein managed to avoid a court martial by agreeing to see an army psychiatrist, who learned of Epstein's sexuality. After ten months he was discharged from the army on medical grounds for being "emotionally and mentally unfit". Epstein later stated that his first homosexual experience was when he returned to Liverpool after being discharged.
Epstein spent a year studying acting at RADA, but dropped out shortly after his arrest for "persistent importuning" outside a men's public toilet in Swiss Cottage, London. Cottaging, as it was called, was one of the few public ways that gay and bisexual men could meet at the time, especially if they were closeted. When Epstein first saw the Beatles perform he noticed their stage attire first, saying, "They were rather scruffily dressed, in the nicest possible way, or I should say in the most attractive way—black leather jackets, jeans, long hair of course." McCartney said that when Epstein started to manage the Beatles they knew that he was homosexual but did not care, because he encouraged them professionally and offered them access to previously "off-limits" social circles.
Although the group, Lennon in particular, often made sarcastic comments about Epstein's homosexuality to friends and to Epstein personally, no one outside the group's inner circle was allowed to comment. Ian Sharp, one of Lennon's art-school friends, once made a sarcastic remark about Epstein, saying, "Which one of you [Beatles] does he fancy?" Sharp was sent a letter by Epstein's office within 48 hours that demanded a complete apology. Sharp apologised, but was then completely ostracised. McCartney sent him a letter directing him to have no contact with any of them in the future. Epstein went on holiday to places such as Amsterdam, Torremolinos and Barcelona or Manchester at weekends, as the attitude towards homosexuals there was more tolerant than in Liverpool, even though Liverpool did have several gay bars.
In his autobiography, Pete Best stated that Epstein drove them both to Blackpool one evening where Epstein expressed his "very fond admiration." Epstein then supposedly said, "Would you find it embarrassing if I ask you to stay in a hotel overnight?" Best replied that he was not interested, and the two never mentioned the incident again. There were reports of a brief sexual encounter between Lennon and Epstein during a four-day holiday in Barcelona in April 1963. Lennon always denied the rumours, telling Playboy in 1980: "Well, it was almost a love affair, but not quite. It was never consummated ... but we did have a pretty intense relationship." Lennon's first wife Cynthia also maintained that Lennon's relationship with Epstein was platonic. A fictionalised account of the Spanish holiday is featured in the 1991 film The Hours and Times.
### Drug use
After the start of his management career, Epstein started taking stimulants, usually Preludin, which did not require a prescription at the time. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr had also taken it since their days in Hamburg. Epstein explained his use of the drug as the only means of staying awake at night during numerous concert tours. In 1964, Peter Brown suspected that Epstein was taking too many pills, as he would often cough at parties, which Brown realised was Epstein's way of secretly putting pills into his mouth without anyone noticing. McCartney often met Epstein at late night clubs in London, and remembered that Epstein would often grind his jaws (possibly due to bruxism), once saying to him, "Ugghhh, the pills". Epstein also developed dependencies on the drug carbromal, a barbiturate-like sedative/hypnotic drug.
In 1964, after having been introduced to cannabis by Bob Dylan in New York, Epstein was observed by McCartney standing in front of a mirror, pointing at himself and repeatedly saying "Jew!", while laughing loudly, which McCartney found hilarious and "very liberating". Epstein later became heavily involved in the 1960s drug scene. During the four months when the Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper was being recorded, Epstein spent time on holiday, or at the Priory Clinic in Putney, where he tried unsuccessfully to curb his drug use. He left the Priory to attend the Sgt. Pepper launch party at his house on 24 Chapel Street, but returned to the Priory immediately after.
Epstein added his name to an advertisement that appeared in The Times on 24 July 1967, which called for the legalisation of cannabis, the release of all prisoners imprisoned because of possession, and research into marijuana's medical uses. The advertisement was sponsored by a group called Soma and was signed by sixty-five people, including the Beatles, Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing, sixteen doctors, and two members of parliament. Epstein responded to questions about the advertisement by saying, "My opinion is that pot smoking is definitely less harmful than drinking alcohol. I am not addicted to either, but I have been very drunk and very 'high'." In June 1967, after McCartney had admitted to LSD use, Epstein defended him to the media, stating that he too had taken the drug.
### Gambling
In August 1965, the Beatles and Epstein visited Elvis Presley at his house in Perugia Way in Los Angeles, where Elvis's manager, Colonel Tom Parker, set up a roulette wheel and several packs of playing cards. Epstein immediately asked to play, as he was known for his love of gambling. McCartney frequently visited gambling clubs in London, such as Epstein's favourite club Curzon House, where he often ran into Epstein. He once saw Epstein put a Dunhill lighter worth £100 () on the table, then lose it during a game of cards. Epstein often lost thousands of pounds by playing baccarat or chemin de fer (the original version of baccarat when it was introduced in France), but would stay at Curzon House the whole evening, eating an expensive meal and drinking fine wines. The club never presented Epstein with a bill, as they knew he lost so much in the casino.
## Death
Epstein attended a traditional shiva in Liverpool after his father died, having just come out of the Priory Clinic where he had been trying to cure his acute insomnia and addiction to amphetamines. A few days before his death he made his last visit to a Beatles recording session on 23 August 1967, at the Chappell Recording Studios on Maddox Street in Mayfair, London.
On 24 August, Epstein asked Peter Brown and Geoffrey Ellis down to Kingsley Hill for the bank holiday weekend. Approximately 50 miles (80 km) from his home in Chapel Street, Kingsley Hill was Epstein's country home in Warbleton, Sussex. After they arrived, Epstein decided to drive back to London alone because an expected group of friends he had invited failed to arrive, although they did turn up after Epstein left. Epstein phoned Brown at 5 p.m. the next day from his Chapel Street house in London. Brown thought that Epstein sounded "very groggy" and suggested he take a train back down to the nearest railway station, in Uckfield, instead of driving under the influence of Tuinal. Epstein replied that he would eat something, read his mail, and watch Juke Box Jury before phoning Brown to tell him which train to meet. He never called again.
Epstein died of an overdose of Carbrital, a hypnotic preparation combining the barbiturate pentobarbital with the bromide carbromal, in his locked bedroom on 27 August 1967. He was discovered after his butler who, having been unable to rouse Epstein via his locked bedroom door, called Epstein's PA, Joanne Petersen. She arrived, failed to rouse him, and called his doctor who, with the butler, broke down the door and found Epstein in his bed, appearing to be asleep, an open book near his hand and some digestive biscuits on the nightstand. When they realised that he was dead, staff swept the house for contraband and then called the police. Epstein was found on a single bed, dressed in pyjamas, with various correspondence spread over a second single bed. At the statutory inquest his death was officially ruled an accident, caused by a gradual buildup of Carbrital combined with alcohol in his system. It was revealed that he had taken six Carbrital pills to sleep, which was probably normal for him, but in combination with alcohol they reduced his tolerance.
The Beatles were on a retreat in Bangor in North Wales at the time, with the Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Epstein had previously agreed to travel to Bangor after the August Bank Holiday. The second of two shows by Jimi Hendrix at Epstein's Saville Theatre was cancelled on the evening of Epstein's death.
Peter Brown wrote in his memoir, The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles, that he had once found a suicide note written by Epstein and had spoken with him about it. According to Brown the note read in part, "This is all too much and I can't take it any more." Brown had also found a will in which Epstein left his house and money to his mother and his brother, with Brown also being named as a minor beneficiary. When confronted with the notes, Epstein told Brown that he would be grateful if Brown did not tell anyone, and that he was sorry he had made Brown worry. He explained that when he wrote the note and composed the will he had simply taken one pill too many, and that he had no intention of overdosing, promising to be more careful in the future. Brown later wrote that he wondered if he had done the right thing by not showing the note to Epstein's doctor, Norman Cowan, who would have stopped prescribing drugs. The coroner, Gavin Thurston, told the Westminster inquest that Epstein's death was caused by an overdose of Carbrital and ruled it as an accidental death. The pathologist, Donald Teare, stated that Epstein had been taking bromide in the form of Carbrital for some time, and that the barbiturate level in Epstein's blood was a "low fatal level".
The Beatles did not attend Epstein's funeral, both to allow his family some privacy and to avoid attracting fans and the media. According to Geoffrey Ellis, chief executive of NEMS Enterprises, the day before the funeral George Harrison had given Nat Weiss, Epstein's good friend and confidant, a single flower (Ellis remembers it as a chrysanthemum) wrapped in a newspaper on behalf of all four Beatles, with instructions to place the flower on Brian's coffin as a final farewell. However, flowers are forbidden at Jewish funerals and burials. Weiss and Ellis discussed this dilemma while walking back to the grave, where they observed two men beginning to shovel dirt onto the casket. Ellis later wrote: "Nat, who himself was Jewish, cast the newspaper package unopened onto Brian's coffin, where it was swiftly covered by earth." Epstein was buried in section A grave H12, in the Long Lane Jewish Cemetery, Aintree, Liverpool. The service at the graveside was held by Rabbi Norman Solomon, who said, disparagingly, that Epstein was "a symbol of the malaise of our generation". A few weeks later, on 17 October, all four Beatles attended a memorial service for Epstein at the New London Synagogue in St John's Wood (near Abbey Road Studios), which was officiated by Rabbi Louis Jacobs. The Bee Gees' 1968 song "In the Summer of His Years" was written and recorded as a tribute to Epstein.
## Legacy
Epstein was upset that he was not honoured along with Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr when they received the MBE in 1965, though Harrison once said that the MBE stood for "Mister Brian Epstein"; The Beatles were among the earliest entrants into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but Epstein was not included in the Hall's "Non-Performers' Section" until 2014, and not without controversy as he was inducted alongside Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham who refused to attend, in part in protest at what he perceived as the indignity of a joint induction. Martin Lewis, previously Taylor's assistant, created the official Brian Epstein website, which included a petition that Epstein be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Lewis also organised the 1998 re-publication, in the United States, of Epstein's 1964 autobiography A Cellarful of Noise.
McCartney summarised the importance of Epstein when he was interviewed in 1997 for a BBC documentary about Epstein, saying: "If anyone was the Fifth Beatle, it was Brian." In his 1970 Rolling Stone interview, Lennon commented that Epstein's death marked the beginning of the end for the group: "I knew that we were in trouble then ... I thought, 'We've fucking had it now.'" In 2006, Cynthia Lennon said: "I think Brian's one of the forgotten people. It's almost as if he's been written out of the [Beatles] story. I don't think they'd have got anywhere without Brian." The first contract between the Beatles and Epstein was auctioned in London in 2008, fetching £240,000.
Epstein's influence on the Beatles and his complicated personal life continue to provoke controversy. In 2013, author Vivek Tiwary released the graphic novel The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story. A film of the same name was scheduled for release in 2014, originally to be produced by Bruce Cohen and directed by Peyton Reed. Tiwary said about that project that the film would "be less a music bio and more of an inspirational human-interest story about an outsider". Tiwary and named co-producers Stuart Ford and Simon Cowell originally set the film for release in 2016, but in March 2016 it was announced that the project would be a television series.
Epstein was once asked about the future of the Beatles and their "fresh honesty" (as he put it), which the interviewer thought could be "corrupted by time". He replied by saying, "I think they will go in the reverse direction, and become more honest."
On 27 August 2022, the 55th anniversary of his death, a bronze statue of Brian Epstein was unveiled near the former site of his family's NEMS record shop in Liverpool. "NEMS" is short for North End Music Stores. One of the statue's sculptors, Jane Robbins, is a cousin of Paul McCartney. |
39,927,481 | Gate to the Northwest Passage | 1,167,906,585 | Sculpture by Alan Chung Hung in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada | [
"1980 establishments in British Columbia",
"1980 sculptures",
"Kitsilano",
"Monuments and memorials in Vancouver",
"Outdoor sculptures in Vancouver",
"Steel sculptures in Canada"
]
| Gate to the Northwest Passage is a 1980 sculpture by Alan Chung Hung, located adjacent to the Vancouver Maritime Museum in Vanier Park in the Kitsilano neighborhood of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The 4.6-metre (15 ft) sculpture of a square, cut and twisted "like a paper clip" to form an arch, is composed of weathered Corten steel that rusts to provide a protective layer. The work was installed in 1980 to commemorate the arrival of Captain George Vancouver in Burrard Inlet, following a competition sponsored by Parks Canada one year prior. Gate to the Northwest Passage received an adverse reaction initially, but reception has improved over time. The sculpture has been included in walking tours of the surrounding neighborhoods as a highlight of Vanier Park.
## Background
Gate to the Northwest Passage was designed by Alan Chung Hung (1946–1994), who was born in Canton, China, moved to Vancouver in 1969, and studied at the Vancouver School of Art. Chung Hung's other works displayed in Vancouver include Spring (1981) and Clouds (1991).
In 1979, Parks Canada sponsored a competition for a permanent work to commemorate Captain George Vancouver, the first European to enter Burrard Inlet, in 1792. Guidelines for the competition required the use of permanent materials other than wood and that the work should "not be in the likeness of a man". Hugh Faulkner, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development during 1977–1979, offered the opportunity for the sculpture, and the project was recommended by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada. Gate to the Northwest Passage was selected by a five-person jury, led by former parks superintendent Stuart Lefeaux, then confirmed by the Parks Board. The work was originally to be installed at Stanley Park's Ferguson Point, but was sited in Vanier Park adjacent to the Vancouver Maritime Museum in 1980.
The 4.6-metre (15 ft) sculpture of a square, cut and twisted "like a paper clip" to form an arch, is composed of weathered Corten steel. Each of the square's sides measure 0.9 metres (3.0 ft) x 0.9 metres (3.0 ft). The Corten steel rusts, forming a protective layer at the surface. The work, sited on a plaza of paving stones that measures 7.9 metres (26 ft) x 8.5 metres (28 ft), frames views of English Bay, the North Shore Mountains and the city. In their guide for public art in Vancouver, John Steil and Aileen Stalker suggested two sources for the sculpture's design: Chung Hung's training as a civil engineer, and the shapes of plane tables and quadrants, both navigational instruments used by George Vancouver. According to Chung Hung: "The objective of the sculpture is to create a symbolic image with definite visual expression, awakening an awareness in Captain George Vancouver's contribution to the world, his remarkable and meticulous surveys which included the north Pacific coast." The sculpture is owned by the City of Vancouver, with Parks Canada serving as the sponsoring organization.
## Reception
According to the City of Vancouver Public Art Registry, the sculpture initially received an adverse reaction from local residents. Michael Duncan, then chief curator of the Vancouver Maritime Museum, called it "a bloody monstrosity". One member of the five-person jury responded to the criticism: "If people think Hung's sculpture is a poor catch, they should have seen the ones that got away."
A 1983 article published in The Globe and Mail referred to the sculpture as the "world's largest paper clip". The same article included a statement from the city planning study: "Vancouver's peerless natural setting is a permanent gift from nature. So massive and close are the North Shore mountains that no amount of human folly can ever obliterate them."
Reception of the work, which has become a familiar landmark, has improved over time. One travel guide by Eyewitness Books referred to Gate to the Northwest Passage as an "imposing giant red steel" sculpture. Frommer's includes the sculpture in walking tours for Vancouver as a highlight of Vanier Park.
In 2006, the work was mentioned in a Sunday serial thriller for The Province by author Daniel Kalla. In the series, the sculpture is described as a "massive Greek letter pi", and later a character is found dead, hanging from the sculpture.
## See also
- 1980 in art
- Canadian art
- Northwest Passage |
54,231,589 | Susan Catania | 1,147,287,318 | Former Illinois state representative | [
"1941 births",
"21st-century American women",
"Living people",
"Northwestern University alumni",
"Politicians from Chicago",
"Republican Party members of the Illinois House of Representatives",
"Saint Xavier University alumni",
"Women state legislators in Illinois"
]
| Susan Catania ( Kmetty; born December 10, 1941) is an American former politician who served as a Republican member of the Illinois House of Representatives from 1973 to 1983. She was involved in women's rights issues, and led the unsuccessful effort to get the federal Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) ratified by the Illinois General Assembly. Catania also served as chairperson of the Illinois Commission on the Status of Women. A representative from Chicago, she was described as a liberal, feminist, and maverick member of the Republican legislative caucus.
Catania was born in Chicago, and received a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Saint Xavier University. She then worked for a chemical research firm before being elected to the House of Representatives. She represented a heavily African American and Democratic district, but a Republican could still represent the district under the state's cumulative voting system. In the House, Catania introduced gay rights bills and the Freedom of Information Act, but both efforts were unsuccessful. During her tenure, she sponsored over 50 bills that became law, including the Crime Victim Compensation Act and a bill that designated Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a state holiday, both of which were enacted in 1973.
Cumulative voting was abolished by the Cutback Amendment in 1981, and Catania lost any chance to retain her seat in the House going forward. During the 1982 elections, she ran for lieutenant governor, but lost the Republican primary, which was seen as a referendum on ratification of the ERA. Afterward, she served on committees for the Chicago 1992 World's Fair. Her political career continued in a variety of capacities, including as a fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics in 1983, and a delegate to the 1984 Republican National Convention. She ran for Cook County Board of Commissioners in 1986, and Cook County Recorder of Deeds in 1992, but lost both elections. She later worked for the state's Department of Children and Family Services and Department of Human Services.
## Early years and personal life
Born in Chicago on December 10, 1941, Susan Kmetty grew up in the city's South Side. She attended Catholic schools, including Mother McAuley High School. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry from Saint Xavier University, and later did one year of graduate studies in chemistry at Northwestern University.
Kmetty's education, and the fact that both of her parents worked, motivated her to work full time in an era when many men assumed women were to stay at home. She worked as an information director for a chemical research firm in Chicago. She hired a babysitter, and lived near her workplace, allowing her to nurse her baby during her break. She quit that job, and filed a sex discrimination lawsuit, after her employer hired a man with less experience but offered him twice the pay.
She was married to Anthony E. Catania for 58 years before his death in 2022. They had seven children, three of whom were born during her tenure as a state representative.
## Illinois House of Representatives
Catania became involved in politics when advocating against provisions in the state's unemployment law that she claimed discriminated against women. In 1972, she won election to the Illinois House of Representatives. She held the Republican seat in her district that was available under the state's cumulative voting system, in which each district elected three members. Her district was predominantly African American and Democratic. Catania has been described as a liberal, feminist, and maverick. She often defied her party's leadership, supporting gun control and abortion, but faced few repercussions as there is no Republican organization in the South Side of Chicago.
She joined a small group of women legislators who focused on women's rights issues in the 1970s, and served as chairperson of the Illinois Commission on the Status of Women for eight years. In 1974, she shocked male legislators by bringing her infant daughter to the House floor and nursing her baby in the women's restroom.
She credited disposable diapers with helping her care for her babies while traveling for legislative business. Catania supported the federal Displaced Homemakers Act, which addressed women seeking to enter or re-enter the workforce. She testified at hearings of a US House subcommittee in 1976, and a US Senate subcommittee in 1977. Catania was chief sponsor of the unsuccessful effort to get the federal Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) ratified by the General Assembly, breaking with Speaker George Ryan, who opposed the ERA. Ryan later declined to reappoint her to the Commission on the Status of Women.
In 1979, Catania proposed an amendment to the Illinois Human Rights Act, which had passed the Senate with the sponsorship of Senator Harold Washington. Catania's amendment, which would have allowed women guarantees in the use of credit cards, passed the House but was not accepted by the Senate. As Catania refused to back down, the bill deadlocked, and the General Assembly adjourned at the end of June. After additional negotiations, the act was re-introduced in November without Catania's amendment, and the bill became law in December. That same year, she won an award named after Susan B. Anthony for her legislative leadership on women's issues.
In January 1973, Catania introduced a bill that designated Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a state holiday. She was joined as sponsors by Washington (then a state representative) and Peggy Smith Martin, and the bill was signed in September of the same year by Governor Dan Walker. Catania introduced gay rights bills as early as 1976, partnering with legislators Robert E. Mann and Leland H. Rayson. Catania and Elroy Sundquist, a fellow Republican in the House, also sponsored bills to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. However, in 1977 the legislation was overwhelmingly defeated, with a vote of 38–114. In 1974, Catania was the first to sponsor the Freedom of Information Act. Chicago-based Democrats in the General Assembly often opposed freedom of information initiatives in the mid-1970s, referring the matters back to legislative committees to avoid consideration. Catania also sponsored the Crime Victim Compensation Act, which passed in 1973.
Catania encouraged voters to support Republican U.S. Senator Charles H. Percy. She also rallied constituents against Edward Hanrahan, the Democratic state's attorney for Cook County, for playing a controversial role in the killing of Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. In 1980, Catania supported John B. Anderson during the Republican Party presidential primaries. Shortly after the 1980 presidential election, she criticized Ronald Reagan's military defense policies.
Cumulative voting was abolished by the Cutback Amendment in 1981, and Catania lost any chance to retain her seat in the House going forward. Throughout her tenure, she sponsored over 50 bills that became law, addressing topics that included domestic violence, child support, joint custody, school bus safety, grandparents' visitation rights, state income tax reform, and a rape shield law.
## Post-House political career
Catania ran for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor in 1982. It was also a form of retaliation against George Ryan, who had opposed her reappointment to the Commission on the Status of Women and was also running for lieutenant governor. As the only candidate to openly support the ERA, Catania collected donations from feminists nationwide who were hoping to get Illinois to ratify the amendment. At the time, Illinois was the only northern industrial state that had not ratified, and national ERA leaders viewed the election as a potential referendum on the amendment. The National Organization for Women supported Catania, while Phyllis Schlafly, an ERA opponent, recognized the importance of the race and opposed her. Governor James R. Thompson backed Ryan in the race, and mainstream Republicans in Illinois regarded Catania "as radical as Leon Trotsky". Catania lost the primary, coming in second place to Ryan. Afterwards, she continued lobbying on women's rights issues.
Starting in December 1982, Catania was a member of the women's committee of the Chicago 1992 World's Fair. She also served on the advisory committee, formed in July 1983, of Harold Washington, who by then had been elected mayor of Chicago. In spring 1983, Catania was a fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics for six months, studying women in politics. On June 7, 1984, she testified before the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations during a hearing regarding the role of women in the economic development of the Third World. During the 1984 Republican National Convention, Catania gained national attention as the only delegate who refused to support the Reagan–Bush slate. In 1986, she ran in the at-large election to be a member of the Cook County Board of Commissioners representing Chicago, succeeding in the primary to be one of ten Republican nominees, but losing the general election. During Chicago's mayoral election in 1987, she was mentioned as a potential candidate for the Republican primary.
By 1992, Catania ran her own consulting firm. She helped open a daycare center for state employees in Chicago. During the 1992 elections in Cook County, she was the Republican nominee for recorder of deeds, losing the election to Democratic nominee Jesse White.
## Later life
By 1995, Catania worked for the Department of Children and Family Services. As the Cook County family development coordinator, she was responsible for establishing foster-care homes. By 1998, she worked for the Department of Human Services, overseeing the state's program for preventing and responding to sexual assault.
In 2016, Catania supported Democratic nominee Tammy Duckworth for the United States Senate election in Illinois, and also Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for the presidential election. As of 2018, she lived in Buffalo Grove, Illinois.
## Electoral history
### Illinois House of Representatives elections
### Later elections |
2,305,561 | WVPX-TV | 1,167,048,403 | Ion Television station in Akron, Ohio | [
"1953 establishments in Ohio",
"Defy TV affiliates",
"Grit (TV network) affiliates",
"Ion Mystery affiliates",
"Ion Television affiliates",
"Scripps News affiliates",
"Television channels and stations established in 1953",
"Television stations in Cleveland"
]
| WVPX-TV (channel 23) is a television station licensed to Akron, Ohio, United States, serving the Cleveland area as an affiliate of Ion Television. Owned by Inyo Broadcast Holdings, it is jointly operated with Canton-licensed Bounce TV affiliate WDLI-TV (channel 17), which transmits using WVPX-TV's full-power spectrum via a channel sharing agreement.
Built and signed on by S. Bernard Berk's Summit Radio Corporation, this station originally was WAKR-TV—the television extension of WAKR—and positioned itself with a focus primarily on Akron even as it also covered the Greater Cleveland television market. From their 1953 establishment until 1996, the station was one of two primary ABC-TV affiliates within the Cleveland market, current primary affiliate WEWS-TV being the other. Denied what would have originally been a VHF license, WAKR-TV's competitiveness was negatively impacted throughout this era by financial shortfalls and continuous ratings issues, even with a move from channel 49 to channel 23 in 1967, and eventual market-wide carriage on cable systems. Becoming WAKC-TV in 1986 after WAKR was sold, the station remained in the hands of the Berk family until 1994, when it was sold to home-shopping broadcast chain ValueVision, but retained the ABC affiliation and local programming. A subsequent sale to Paxson Communications (now Ion Media) resulted in all newscast production ceasing immediately upon consummation on February 28, 1996, and disaffiliation from ABC at years' end; these moves made Akron the largest city in Ohio without a traditional television network affiliate or commercial television newscast.
Renamed WVPX-TV, the station has been an affiliate of Ion Television since it launched under the Pax TV name on August 31, 1998, and was owned and operated by the network until 2021. WKYC owner Gannett operated the station from 2001 until 2005, producing a daily half-hour Akron newscast during this period. WVPX-TV and WDLI-TV currently share studios on Renaissance Parkway in Warrensville Heights and transmitter facilities on Ohio SR 261 in Norton, Ohio.
## WAKR-TV (1953–1986)
### Frozen out of VHF
In early December 1947, Summit Radio Corporation, the family-owned business of S. Bernard Berk and owners of WAKR (1590 AM) and WAKR-FM (97.5)—and Allen Simmons, owner of radio station WADC (1350 AM)—filed competing applications with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for what was initially seen as the lone television channel assigned to Akron, originally intended as a VHF license on channel 11. The applications were filed at the same time WEWS-TV had commenced operations as the first television station in Ohio. Both applications remained under review and went before a commission hearing on July 15, 1948, and WAKR had gone so far as to make a purchase order for VHF transmitting equipment from RCA, before the FCC implemented a freeze on any additional television licenses that September 30, while it studied the possibility of adding additional channels via the UHF band.
After the release of the FCC's Sixth Report and Order lifted the freeze in 1952, the Commission reassigned the proposed Akron license from a VHF signal to one of two potential UHF signals, as channel 11 was no longer available in order to protect what would become WTOL in Toledo and WIIC-TV (now WPXI) in Pittsburgh. Moreover, the Commission collapsed both Akron and Canton into the Cleveland market and now limited the combined market to three existing VHF signals—channels 3, 5 and 8 (changed from 4, 5 and 9). Summit Radio was awarded the permit for WAKR-TV on channel 49 by September 4, 1952; a coin flip determined the winning bid between Summit and WADC as the other frequency available, channel 65, was not considered operable at the time.
With WAKR already housed at the First Central Tower in the city's downtown, a UHF mast was affixed to the top of the building to much fanfare, with onlookers watching from the ground level during the multi-day process, and pictures of the tower installation published on the front page of the Akron Beacon Journal several times. Test transmissions began on June 7, 1953 (1953-06-07), that consisted solely of a test pattern card featuring the call sign and an illustration of the tower, while appliance stores in the city ran advertisements promoting either new television sets—or converter equipment to upgrade existing sets—concurrently promoting the station's upcoming launch. These signal tests continued on a regular set schedule until WAKR-TV formally signed on the air on July 19, 1953 (1953-07-19).
In contrast to the tower construction, the studio operations at the First Central Tower were temporary, as Summit Radio had acquired the former Copley Theatre as a permanent home for the WAKR stations; the building operated as a theater between March 1947 and October 1952. As part of the renovations of the theater, a second floor was added solely for office space, while one of the two TV studios featured a large steel turntable floor for set changing purposes; at the time, it was the only such turntable custom-built for a television studio. S. Bernard Berk's wife, Viola Berk, drafted the architectural plans for the new studios, scrapping plans drawn by a professional architect as being "pretty, but not practical". Formally opened that December as the "WAKR Television Center", the complex boasted an ultra-modern front lobby and interior designed by Viola Berk, and a second floor viewing room with windows where advertisers could watch programs being produced in the studios below.
### Focused on Akron
WAKR-TV became an ABC-TV affiliate when they signed on, owing to WAKR radio's existing ABC Radio affiliation; Berk attributed the recent merger with United Paramount Theaters to create American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres as a determining factor for the affiliation. At the same time, ABC-TV was in an aggressive push to sign up as many affiliates as possible to compensate for their lack of competitiveness against CBS-TV, NBC-TV and DuMont. When WAKR-TV launched, ABC-TV had only secondary affiliations in the Cleveland market on both WXEL (channel 9; later channel 8), then a primary DuMont affiliate, and WEWS-TV (channel 5), then a primary CBS-TV affiliate. WXEL attained the market's CBS affiliation on March 1, 1955, resulting in WEWS becoming a primary ABC-TV affiliate alongside WAKR-TV.
Due to both the station's permanent studios still being under construction and ABC not yet programming on a full-time basis, WAKR-TV acquired a film package consisting of high-profile Republic Pictures and United Artists releases to fill airtime via a nightly "double-feature" showcase. WAKR-TV itself was able to join ABC officially on September 15, 1953, after Ohio Bell Telephone Company technicians completed the installation of receivers for the Bell System-operated relay network. An additional film package of 20th Century-Fox, Columbia Pictures and David O. Selznick releases was purchased by the station in 1956 and utilized in afternoons and prime time as an early form of counterprogramming against television network fare; owing to WAKR-TV's flexible schedule, these movies usually ran in complete form, with minimal edits for time. Milton F. Komito, a director for WMAL-TV in Washington, D.C., who also had produced and directed programs on NBC-TV and ABC-TV, was hired to direct all local productions for the station. Komito left in 1955 for a management role at WTAP-TV in Parkersburg, West Virginia, eventually returning to the WAKR stations in 1963 as sales manager. Robert I. Bostian, who replaced Komito as production director, was promoted to program director two months after having joined; Bostian would remain a part of WAKR-TV and Summit Radio management through the late 1980s as station vice president and once summed up the station's purpose by saying, "Our local programming is geared to giving Akron what it wants—news, advertising, announcements and local shows all about Akron."
From the beginning, WAKR-TV eschewed the Cleveland market proper in favor of Akron and Canton, boasting the only television newscast that focused specifically on both cities, sharing resources with WAKR, which had earned the distinction of being one of the first radio stations in the United States to house an active news department at its 1940 establishment. WAKR personalities began appearing on the television side, including long-time radio staffers Jack Fitzgibbons, Bill Murphy and Bob Wylie; indeed, the first live programs over WAKR-TV were a local newscast anchored by Bill Murphy, followed by a Bob Wylie-headlined sportscast. Jack Fitzgibbons would become the station's lead anchorman and news director alongside his daily radio news reports, positions he held until leaving broadcasting in 1969 to become Akron's deputy mayor. Future progressive rock radio personality Scott Muni, who was WAKR's evening host from 1956 to 1958, presented the nightly weather report at 6:55 p.m. on WAKR-TV featuring a unique setup allowing him to write the forecast on a pane of glass, then reversed by a mirrored camera, this would directly lead in to his radio program that started at 7:15 pm. Long-time WAKR midday host Jack Ryan—despite having no background in meteorology—later served as WAKR-TV's lead weatherman throughout the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s.
Live events and sports coverage heard on WAKR would find itself shown on WAKR-TV. Six days after the station's launch, the station's first live telecast of an outdoor event occurred with coverage of Akron's Sesquicentennial Parade. The following week, the station broadcast film of the 1953 Beacon Journal Soap Box Derby and All-American Finals in prime time, with Bob Wylie providing play-by-play. Wylie in particular soon became known as the "Voice of the Zips", thanks to the station's broadcasts of Akron Zips football and basketball. WAKR-TV also touted itself as having broken news of the armistice agreement which formally suspended the Korean War well before any of the Cleveland market stations reported the news. Another alliance existed with the Akron Beacon Journal, as publisher Knight Newspapers—a forerunner of Knight Ridder—held a minority stake in Summit Radio from 1946 to 1977.
### Local music, variety and children's shows
In addition to local news and sports, the station tried producing different programs characteristic of the era, continuing to utilize talent from the radio station. WAKR morning host Torey Southwick became the emcee of an early-evening children's television program on WAKR-TV titled The Hinky-Dinks, which debuted on December 14, 1953, as part of an expansion of the station's broadcast day. Placing an emphasis on participation among the youngsters in the studio audience, The Hinky-Dinks featured puppetry, pet parades, birthday parties and a circus act on Fridays, in addition to Santa Claus reading letters throughout the month of December. Eventually with ABC-TV's The Mickey Mouse Club as a lead-in, the program ended on December 16, 1955, when Southwick left Akron to host mornings at KMBC (980 AM) in Kansas City, Missouri; Southwick later presided over similar children's shows in Kansas City on KMBC-TV and KCIT-TV.
A weekly local music and dance program titled The Hop aired on the station beginning in 1957 with a succession of WAKR air talent as host; this included Scott Muni, Jack Ryan and Rick (Hudak) Shaw. Originally a cross-promotional vehicle for WAKR's Top 40 format, The Hop became popular with teenage viewers as a local version of American Bandstand, which WAKR-TV also carried; dropped from the schedule at the end of 1961, it was temporarily revived in 1962 thanks to viewer demand. WAKR-TV also launched Akron Tonight—a late-evening variety show featuring local musical acts and Akron news headlines—on March 30, 1959; the show was briefly reworked the following February into a weekly program presented by WAKR's Charlie Greer. Greer had previously hosted a limited-run dance program devoted to big band music over WAKR-TV in 1958. One of the more successful local shows on WAKR-TV was another early-evening children's television program hosted by Jack Boigegrain (known on air as Jack Bennett) under the "Professor Jack" persona, which debuted on February 25, 1963. Bennett also presented weather reports in the late evenings, billed as the "Weather Profit". The program ended on April 1, 1966, after Bennett was denied a raise by station management; this followed a potential hiring by KYW-TV as a replacement for Linn Sheldon falling through due to a subsequent court-ordered ownership change.
Starting with the 1963–64 television season, WAKR-TV began carrying the entire ABC-TV lineup in pattern with occasional deviations for high school sports and Akron Zips sports coverage; this followed a change in FCC policy that also allowed affiliates to preempt or reschedule network shows at their discretion. Following this, much of the station's local productions were curtailed, with one of the last local prime time shows being Bob Lee Playhouse, a limited-run weekly variety show in the spring of 1963 hosted by WAKR's Bob Lee. Carrying the ABC lineup in pattern also resulted in WAKR-TV's broadcast schedule largely mirroring fellow ABC primary affiliate WEWS's schedule, although WEWS more freely preempted or rescheduled weaker offerings from the network. While WEWS had the larger measured audience by a commanding margin throughout, both stations would continue to fight for each other's viewership. One last attempt at a local variety/talk show occurred in the early 1970s with WAKR morning personality and WAKR-TV evening sportscaster Jerry Healey as host. The Jerry Healey Show launched on November 27, 1972, at 11 a.m. weekdays and aired until Healey left the stations at the end of 1973; Healey then hosted TGIF Party, a weekly WAKR-TV program on Friday nights throughout the summer of 1974.
### Technical issues and move to channel 23
In promoting the station's sign-on, UHF signals were touted as not being any different from VHF signals in a technical sense, and S. Bernard Berk provided optimistic words that "about 99.44/100% of the Akron area will receive (WAKR-TV) without difficulty." Such sentiment was supported by a study one month after the station launched, showing almost one-third of television sets in the city had been converted to receive UHF, figures much higher than expected for a market serviced by VHF channels. Despite this initial optimism, the station immediately ran into issues with poor reception, transmission issues relating to inclement weather conditions, and a lack of adequate UHF channel tuners.
Even with passage of the All-Channel Receiver Act, these problems which would not be totally resolved until Summit Radio successfully petitioned the FCC to amend channel allocations between Canton and Akron, allowing WAKR-TV to move to a reassigned channel 23 allocation at higher power. As part of the petition, Summit Radio disclosed that WAKR-TV had amassed a "seven-figure" operating deficit dating back to 1953. This was not exactly new: in a 1961 request to the FCC that Akron should be at the "highest priority" for future potential VHF allocations, Summit Radio declared that channel 49 had "suffered very substantial operating losses" from the beginning. The change from channels 49 to 23 took place on December 1, 1967. Despite the move, WAKR-TV still lost significant amounts of money for the majority of its existence, relying on profits from WAKR to remain solvent. The former channel 49 allocation would be reassigned for educational use as PBS member station WEAO, using the same transmitter equipment on top of the First Central Tower at their launch.
The changes at WAKR-TV were not just technical: founder S. Bernard Berk died on July 11, 1966, at age 69. His widow Viola Berk initially assumed control over Summit Radio then transferred control over in 1970 to son Roger G. Berk, who had been actively involved with the TV station since its establishment.
### Geographical disadvantages
While WAKR thrived throughout the 1970s and 1980s, WAKR-TV continued to struggle. Even with the move to channel 23, the Akron and Cleveland markets were collapsed into one, forcing the station to operate in the shadows of the three high-profile VHF stations in the Cleveland market. As one of two ABC affiliates broadcasting in the same market, WAKR-TV continued to clear the network's lineup in pattern with next to no deviations. Most notably, this included running Good Morning America in its entirety from the program's 1975 launch; WEWS did not carry GMA until 1978, and until September 1994 only aired the first hour, opting out at 8 a.m. for The Morning Exchange. At the same time, the carriage of ABC's lineup in its entirety was occasionally seen as a liability for channel 23 whenever WEWS opted to preempt lower-rated or weaker programming. WAKR-TV, however, did have success carrying a steady amount of paid local and national religious programming, including The 700 Club, which was added to the schedule in 1975. By 1979, the station aired religious fare for 32 hours every week, Roger G. Berk having chalked it up to viewer demand.
WAKR-TV's audience was often outranked by WEWS in Arbitron and Nielsen ratings diary reports, even in Summit County. Arbitron estimated in 1976 that one percent of all television sets in Summit County were tuned in to the station's 6 p.m. news. By 1991, the ratings service put the estimate at 3 percent for channel 23's 6 p.m. news, and 1 percent for their 11 p.m. news. Station management and ownership were frequently critical of how the surveys were set up, with Roger G. Berk stating that Arbitron never had given the station a fair share, while WAKR-TV never formally subscribed to the service, preventing Arbitron from more intently measuring the county; Roger's son Roger G. Berk, Jr. would refer to the ratings as "statistically invalid." Station manager Robert Bostian once raised the possibility of Akron viewers confusing WEWS for WAKR-TV based on informal phone surveys, and also claimed that ratings sampling procedures underestimated the station's overall audience; these allegations would persist into the 1990s.
A legitimate geographical disadvantage existed for the station. Summit County accounted for 14 percent of the Cleveland area of dominant influence (ADI)—as defined by Arbitron in 1991—and Summit County and the surrounding four counties accounted for one-third of the Cleveland ADI. Later analysis by Beacon Journal columnist Bob Dyer suggested that the newspaper's five-county circulation area would have resulted in the 50th biggest television market in the country, and the Akron metropolitan statistical area itself could have been the 100th largest television market, on par with El Paso and Savannah's MSAs. The ratings issues for channel 23, in turn, were reflected in advertising rates for the newscasts that were a fraction of what Cleveland stations would charge for. In 1976, a typical commercial spot on channel 23 only cost \$150 for an advertiser compared to \$300 for the same spot load on a Cleveland station; by the mid-1990s, channel 23 charged \$200 while the Cleveland stations charged anywhere between \$1,500 to \$2,000. Management referred to the revenue disparity that resulted as a "Catch-23," preventing the station from acquiring any high-profile syndicated programming and having to resort to less-desirable off-network reruns like McHale's Navy and I Dream of Jeannie.
The station successfully fought to be excluded from market limitations for syndicated programming in 1974 for two years, and after cable television was introduced to the Akron market in 1974, WAKR-TV was placed at the channel 4 position by Warner Cable, a move later attributed for helping the station turn a profit in 1977. When a report came out in late 1977 that FCC chairman Charles D. Ferris was reconsidering cable television network nonduplication rules if a significantly viewed station were to seek an exemption from blackouts, Roger G. Berk responded with a letter of concern, disclosing that Summit/Group One had invested more than \$2 million into WAKR-TV and suffered losses of over \$5 million. As the station approached its 25th anniversary in 1978, Robert Bostian told the Beacon Journal that the station would have ceased operations early on had the Berks not absorbed a significant amount of said losses.
### Becoming a training ground
Even with the numerous limitations facing the station, local newscast production remained consistent. Fred Anthony joined WAKR as a reporter in 1969, then became news director for both the radio and television stations, and lead anchor for WAKR-TV's 6 p.m. newscast. The station won the 1973 Ohio Associated Press award for best regularly scheduled news program, with Anthony receiving credit for helping instill "a renewed sense of pride" among the staffers. WAKR-TV was able to add an 11 p.m. newscast on September 20, 1976, and while Anthony gradually left his on-air position, he remained active in channel 23's operations into the mid-1980s and at WAKR until 1992. Under Anthony, the news department attained a reputation for hard work and scrappiness, competing against the Cleveland stations with a smaller staff, fewer resources and sometimes equipment shortages; at one point, the news department only had one camera capable of recording sound. Such shortages were not unique. The station ceased telecasting Akron Zips basketball games after the 1968–69 season when their remote unit used for the games—which only functioned in black-and-white—was donated to the university, and a replacement color remote unit was cost-prohibitive.
Similar to the reputation WAKR developed in the 1940s and 1950s as a "stepping stone" for future famous radio and television announcers, WAKR-TV became a training ground for future broadcasters. Long-time anchorman Ted Henry began his career as a reporter for both WAKR and WAKR-TV in 1965, as did veteran Cleveland news anchor and reporter Dick Russ in 1976. Future CNN anchor Carol Costello, a Minerva native, got her start at the WAKR stations in 1984 as a reporter, covering the Akron police beat and multiple court trials. Sportscaster Jeff Phelps began his broadcast career in 1981 co-hosting a weekly program with Kent State Golden Flashes football coach Ed Chlebek on WAKR-TV, in addition to being a color commentator for Kent State football broadcasts on WAKR. Denny Schreiner was WAKR and WAKR-TV's sports director prior to joining ESPN as lead play-by-play voice for their PBA Tour coverage. Future WKYC meteorologist Mark Nolan and future WEWS chief meteorologist Mark Johnson worked together at the station, with Johnson training Nolan. Eventual lead anchor and news director Mark Williamson started his tenure with channel 23 in 1979; one of the first major stories he covered while doing helicopter-based traffic reports for the WAKR stations was the August 2, 1979, plane crash that killed Thurman Munson.
One bright spot for the TV station came when WAKR personality Billy Soule became a video jockey on WAKR-TV in 1984, first hosting 23 Nite Videos, a Saturday night music video program; this show eventually became 23 Music Magazine, a daily program that aired both in late afternoons via tape and was broadcast live in the prime time access hour of 7:00 pm, itself compensating for the station's continued inability to acquire syndicated programming. The weeknight program ended in early 1989, but Soule continued hosting 23 Nite Videos on weekend overnights into the following decade, and won the 1993 Billboard Music Video Award for best pop/adult contemporary regional video program. A screenshot taken from a promo for 23 Music Magazine would later be used at the beginning and end of a music video for The Black Keys' 2019 single "Lo/Hi" in an apparent tribute to the show.
## WAKC-TV (1986–1998)
### Separated from radio
Summit Radio sold off WAKR, WONE-FM, and their radio stations in Dayton, Dallas and Denver—held under the "Group One Broadcasting" subsidiary—to DKM Broadcasting for approximately \$60–65 million on July 15, 1986. Negotiations between Summit and DKM had been underway for six months prior, and was later attributed as a deal made at the height of the mid-late 1980s junk bond frenzy. WAKR-TV was retained by the Berk family and placed under the "Group One" subsidiary, while Roger G. Berk vowed to take Group One into the field of television production and consulting with their Creative Technologies, Inc. firm. Roger G. Berk would retire in 1988 and was succeeded by his son, Roger G. Berk, Jr. Summit Radio had previously filed a trademark for WAKR (since expired) that was transferred to DKM, resulting in WAKR-TV changing its callsign to WAKC-TV that November 3; Roger Berk, Jr. chose the calls to allude to the previous identity and to recognize "Akron/Canton" as their area of influence.
The terms of the radio station sale called for WAKR and WONE-FM to be moved out of the Copley Road studios, as Summit/Group One retained ownership of the building, both radio stations left the following year. A co-op agreement was also established between the radio stations and WAKC; one WAKR reporter was notably fired due to his displeasure over having to record a video segment for a public affairs program jointly aired on both radio and television. WAKR and WAKC also continued co-production of Civic Forum of the Air in coordination with the Jewish Community Center of Akron; this weekly public affairs program, which aired on Sunday mornings on WAKC throughout this time, debuted on both radio and television on June 4, 1961, and remains on the WAKR schedule to the present day as Forum 360. Staff were eventually separated, however. Tim Daugherty—who had been hired by Summit/Group One as part of WONE-FM's initial airstaff following its conversion from WAEZ on January 1, 1985—was retained by WAKC as their lead weatherman, despite minimal on-camera experience and, like Jack Ryan before him, no meteorological background. Meanwhile, Carol Costello briefly stayed with the radio stations after WAKC did not offer her a substantial on-air position, ultimately leaving the market altogether.
While the Berks had initially invested the profits from the radio station divestitures into WAKC, the economic and financial struggles which had impacted the station throughout its existence never improved. WAKC attracted some negative attention for pre-recording their 11 p.m. newscast earlier in the evenings as a cost-saving measure, but that was reversed by 1990. The newscast production never evolved from its "no-frills" approach to journalism and began to be seen as an anachronism compared to flashy graphics, "happy talk" and tabloid journalism elements seen on the Cleveland stations, all of which regularly beat WAKC in the ratings in the Akron area by sizable margins. Some investments had been made, including teleprompters for the studio cameras and an electronic weather map system, but these had already been put into use by the Cleveland stations years earlier. A June 17, 1991, incident later recounted in the Akron Beacon Journal detailed anchor Jim Kambrich—who himself would serve as an anchor at WNYT in Albany, New York, from 1994 to 2020—concluding his 11 p.m. newscast on set, only to find a reporter and two interns in the newsroom instead watching WJW's newscast, which focused on lead anchor Robin Swoboda's departure from that station.
### ValueVision ownership
On November 20, 1993, the Akron Beacon Journal reported that Summit/Group One was in talks to sell off WAKC to a then-undisclosed home shopping network. Three days later, Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based ValueVision announced their \$6 million purchase of the station; the deal ended 40 years of continuous ownership by the Berk family. As ValueVision was a company specializing in home shopping programming and infomercials, the sale immediately raised concerns in local media that WAKC would drop their ABC affiliation and potentially cancel its newscasts; prior to the sale, three newsroom staffers told the Beacon Journal "everyone in the newsroom has been making tapes" for other prospective employers. After the sale was announced, ValueVision made a public pledge to keep and expand WAKC's news department, while an ABC affiliate representative said they were not notified of the sale beyond existing newspaper articles and that no effort had been made to communicate with them. Roger G. Berk, Jr. took public exception to the speculation over WAKC's future, saying that ValueVision would be able to retain a news operation because it would own the station, as opposed to affiliates in other markets that had different owners. In addition, city councils in Akron and Barberton approved public resolutions that opposed the sale.
By mid-December, two ValueVision representatives visited the station and made multiple pledges to the staff, including no reduction in newscast output, no layoffs, and that WAKC would not become a 24-hour home shopping channel; other promises even included the establishment of a news bureau in Washington, D.C. Despite the assurances, Beacon Journal TV columnist Bob Dyer questioned the company's motives based on their prospectus, suggesting that WAKC was bought to help get their home shopping programming on cable thanks to the FCC's "must-carry" regulations for full-power television stations that apply to all cable systems. One of those representatives, vice president of broadcast operations Mike Jones, took over as WAKC's vice president and general manager when the deal closed on April 18, 1994; concurrently, ValueVision and ABC came to an agreement on a new affiliate contract for WAKC, effectively keeping the home shopping programming off of the station entirely.
This sudden change again attracted the ire of Bob Dyer, who openly asked in his June 22, 1994, column why their initial plans for WAKC becoming a home shopping outlet of some sort—all of which were publicly announced to investors, the FCC and the Securities and Exchange Commission—had been abandoned with no explanation. It was later revealed that ABC automatically renewed the affiliation once ValueVision took over via a clause in the existing contract, leaving the new owners with little choice but to continue running the station as an ABC affiliate. The ownership change had one definitive casualty: 23 Nite Videos ended production in early June 1994 after ten years, and aired in reruns throughout the summer. Billy Soule later admitted that Nite Videos was cancelled because Mike Jones "did not want me on the air, period", and was reassigned to off-air duties that included public affairs. Likewise, Tim Daugherty left during the transition to return to WONE-FM and WAKR on a full-time basis.
As part of the promised revamp of the news operations, veteran broadcaster Bob Tayek was hired as vice president of news, while existing news director/lead anchor Mark Williamson was also appointed to head a new investigative reporting unit. Rebranded as "The NorthOhio NewsStation" despite retaining a focus on Akron and Canton, WAKC's 6 p.m. newscast was expanded to one hour on October 31, 1994. That change, however, took longer than expected to implement and came at the expense of their weekend 11 p.m. newscasts, which were canceled and never reinstated. Questions still persisted among the staff about the new owners' commitment to news, while Tayek had assumed most of Mark Williamson's administrative duties. Despite the changes, viewership remained minimal and the quality was uneven at best; general manager Mike Jones even sent a memo to the staff calling one August 1995 newscast he had viewed "the worst newscast ever produced in the history of broadcasting." Bob Dyer later likened Jones unfavorably to then-Browns head coach Bill Belichick in his newspaper column, saying that Jones was "the perfect illustration of why people in places like Akron loathe most of what resides inside the Beltway," owing to his weekend commutes to a Washington, D.C., residence.
### Paxson takeover
Faced with operating a station that they could not use for their own programming, ValueVision announced the sale of WAKC on August 25, 1995, to West Palm Beach, Florida-based Paxson Communications, along with WHAI-TV in Bridgeport, Connecticut, for a combined \$40 million in cash; Paxson was already closing in on the purchase of WOAC (channel 67) in Canton, with their chief financial officer having called that station "our entrée to Cleveland." Paxson was another company that specialized in home shopping, albeit of the infomercial variety, and whose founder co-founded the Home Shopping Network, but planned to retain WAKC's local operations and the ABC affiliation. Those intentions had credibility: Paxson had previously acquired WPBF, ABC's West Palm Beach affiliate, and gradually invested into that station's operations while Lowell "Bud" Paxson personally came to the studio promising staffers he would "sink more money" into the station's infrastructure. One month after the Paxson sale was announced, on September 25, 1995, WAKC launched an additional hourlong newscast at 5 p.m. titled Your News, which focused on lifestyle topics and stories with a "news you can use" theme.
Hours after the transaction closed on February 28, 1996, Paxson Communications president Dean Goodman entered the newsroom at 1:40 p.m. and tersely said to the staff, "News ceases at this moment." Anchor Mark Williamson and videographer Tim Coffey were at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Cuyahoga Falls preparing a series on Mormonism; Williamson called the station only to hear an after-hours voicemail greeting, and by the time they returned to the station, fellow employees notified him and Coffey, not the new management. Reporter Steve Litz, later with Dayton's WHIO-TV and Miami's WTVJ, was told by executives while in a hallway, "we're firing you and your co-workers. Go around the place and pass the word to your friends that we won't be needing you people anymore." Earlier in the day, Williamson admitted to attendees at a senior center that "the station was in turmoil" due to the pending ownership change. Dean Goodman later gave a brief interview to other media outlets in the station's lobby, while two armed security guards were already stationed at the entrance, preventing access to the building for any former employees. One videographer who was the station's current "employee of the month" was notified of his firing over the telephone as his 13-month-old daughter was at a hospital being treated for rheumatoid arthritis.
No public on-air notice was given, nor were any newscast promos or "NorthOhio News Station" station identifications removed, resulting in some viewers expressing surprise over the syndicated Today's Health airing in place of the 6 p.m. news. Williamson expressed regret over not being able to break the news of the news department's shutdown, saying, "I was looking at that ugly building with that awful decor and thinking how I've been there almost every day for 17 years. And I was just crying my eyes out because I knew I'd never see it like that again." Williamson's wife, Beacon Journal columnist Mary Ethridge, disclosed that he was one of several employees that was offered a severance package described as "decent" but not extended to all the fired staffers. Then-Akron mayor Don Plusquellic, who subsequently hired Williamson as the communications director for the Akron Public Schools, compared the shuttering of WAKC's news operations to the closure of the O'Neil's department store seven years earlier, musing "people said it was such a shame, and I asked, 'when was the last time you shopped there?'", alluding to the low ratings that had plagued the newscasts throughout. Akron's City Council, however, unanimously passed a resolution critical of the firings and the city's loss of local TV newscasts, with one councilman urging a boycott against channel 23.
The total number of WAKC's 70 employees who were dismissed varied significantly. Paxson management said it was as low as 15, while former staffers said it was between 50 and 60. Later accounts had estimated the firings at 30 on-air and news production people. Williamson claimed that the only people left were "the ones that plug the station in in the morning and make sure the batteries didn't die overnight". Among the fired staffers was operations manager Elwood Edwards, who ValueVision promptly rehired as general manager for KVVV-TV in Houston. Edwards' voice was coincidentally starting to become recognizable as the (then uncredited) "You've Got Mail" voice for America Online's email service. Ultimately, five staffers were retained by Paxson to keep the station operational and to continue with any remaining commercial and public affairs productions, with one staffer tasked to remove any signage relating to "WAKC" throughout the building. Billy Soule was also retained and returned to on-camera work fronting a nightly interview program titled Community News, but resigned on June 28, 1996, in order to meet a deadline Paxson had for remaining staffers that wanted a severance package. Soule said about his last day at the station, "After 18 years, there was no one there to say thanks... I felt I had so much more to offer, and nobody wanted it."
### Moving out of Akron
Dean Goodman and WAKC acting general manager Terry Hanson defended the dissolution of the news department. Hanson said, "we decided this is not the news we want to put on" and were re-evaluating many things but promised more locally produced public affairs shows would air in place of the local newscasts. Goodman stated it would take several months to decide if newscasts could be reinstated, or if WAKC would remain an ABC affiliate. Former viewers called the station and the Beacon Journal to lodge complaints, with one call likening the cancellation of local news to the Cleveland Browns moving to Baltimore. Goodman and Hanson publicly made intentions to move WAKC to "a more modern facility", as the current studios were not deemed proper; subsequent general manager Glenn Schiller described the Copley Road studios as "not nice at all... an old, run-down building." Paxson had consulted Akron officials about replacement sites for both WAKC and WOAC within the city before ultimately filing an application to Warrensville Heights' planning commission on June 21, seeking to rent space next to the studios of WCLV (95.5 FM) in the Cleveland suburb, with WCLV's tower being used as a studio-to-transmitter link. Schiller also disclosed with the announcement that Paxson had no plans to revive a news operation for WAKC.
News of the station's move to Warrensville Heights upset residents and business owners in the West Akron neighborhood, with city officials worried about the building's vacancy potentially harming plans for the neighborhood's economic redevelopment. Indeed, the former studios were used as storage; a onetime employee broke in to the building several times throughout 1997 to steal \$75,000 worth of equipment once used by the news department for resale, only to be discovered by former colleagues who managed a Tallmadge electronics store. The Good Shepherd Baptist Church purchased the building in 1998 after their prior sanctuary across the street was destroyed in a fire, but moved out in 2014 after prolonged flooding and water damage to the building. Vacant from that point until the building was demolished in April 2022, signage bearing the "WAKC" name was never fully removed and still graced the building's entrance. WAKC's news tape archive held a better fate: Schiller arranged for the remaining tapes to be loaned to NBC for conversion to digital, then donated to the Summit County Historical Society at no cost.
In the fall of 1996, the station began branding itself as "ABC 23" and added some additional, newly-purchased syndicated programs to its schedule. Despite this, Paxson decided to end WAKC's affiliation at 12:01 a.m. on January 1, 1997, a decision that even surprised Schiller, who intended to continue operating WAKC as an ABC affiliate from the new Warrensville Heights facility even without local newscasts. The remainder of their general programming inventory was also dropped on December 31 in favor of Paxson's infomercial service inTV (or the Infomall Television Network). WEWS general manager Gary Robinson expressed relief at no longer having to compete against WAKC for the same audience, a distinction no other Cleveland station had even as WAKC's prime time ratings were minimal by comparison. Having become largely superfluous, Paxson sold off managerial control of WOAC to Global Broadcasting Services in April 1997 for \$23 million, but the deal was delayed after Global entered bankruptcy and was purchased by Shop at Home Network, who completed the transaction, while WOAC's operations remained in Warrensville Heights.
Bolstered by a Supreme Court decision affirming the "must-carry" FCC regulations, Paxson began developing plans for a network anchored by their chain of UHF stations, including WAKC, announcing the creation of Pax TV on November 18, 1997, following the acquisition of multiple off-network rerun packages. Consequently, WAKC assumed its current WVPX-TV callsign on January 13, 1998, to reinforce the Pax TV branding, while it was also seen as a symbolic severing of the station's last remaining connection to Akron. Positioned as a "family-friendly" network consisting mostly of high-profile off-network reruns, Pax TV launched on August 31, 1998, with WVPX as a charter owned-and-operated station, carrying the network's entire schedule.
## WVPX-TV (1998–present)
### Attempts at local news
While WAKC's operations was the only such television news department wholly based in Akron, WKYC, WEWS and WJW each have maintained staffed news bureaus in the city. WEWS notably entered into a news sharing partnership with the Akron Beacon Journal, invested in a tower camera from the University of Akron's Bulger Hall to assist with skyline shoots in the event of breaking news coverage, and promised to increase staffing in their bureau. Despite this, multiple community and government officials in Akron had repeatedly expressed their public disappointment in the city no longer having a nightly television newscast devoted to the city. Channel 23's closure of local operations and disaffiliation from ABC had given Akron the dubious distinction of being the largest city in Ohio—and one of the largest cities in the United States after Newark, New Jersey—to not have a commercial television newscast or a traditional "Big Three" network affiliate. Conversely, WOIO general manager Tony Ballew likened this newfound demand to "Captain Kangaroo Syndrome" when people complained after CBS canceled the long-running children's television show, while the network had made the move due to low ratings, a fate largely similar to WAKC's newscasts. Several attempts were made to fill the void. Former channel 23 sports anchor Phil Ferguson attempted a time-brokered Akron-centered nightly sports show on WAKC titled In The Zone; the program only lasted two weeks due to a lack of advertisers. Canal Communications, a for-profit group led by the Rev. Raymond Burgess that consisted solely of volunteers, was established to produce Akron-centered news content on cable-access television with hopes of attaining a low-power television license, but it had little in the way of financial backing. WAOH-LP (channel 29), a low-power television station with a Cleveland simulcast, started rebroadcasting WOIO and co-owned WUAB's newscasts on an hour tape-delay and promised five-minute Akron-centered segments. PBS member stations WNEO/WEAO initially considered starting a nightly newscast but deemed it financially impossible after estimates placed the annual cost for such a venture at a minimum of \$1.5 million. WNEO/WEAO instead launched NewsNight Akron, a weekly news and panel discussion program that was subsidized by existing funds provided to the stations; it aired from 1998 to 2013. Former WJW news director and general manager Virgil Dominic even proposed a possible news operation that his Twinsburg-based video production company was willing to produce for broadcast on television or cable, but was solely dependent on securing funding for an extended period. University of Akron Zips football and basketball highlights, however, were still shown over channel 23 via block programming produced by the university's athletic department.
When Paxson submitted a zoning request to the Akron City Council on November 15, 1999, for a replacement 963-foot (294 m) high-definition television tower for WVPX—and several other FM stations that used an adjacent tower—the council used the request as leverage, and threatened to deny the permit unless news production was reinstated on the station or an investment would be made into a television news product. The existing transmitter for WVPX was nearing the end of its lifespan, with the station having suffered multiple over-the-air signal outages throughout December 1999 and January 2000, at one point having been off-the-air for three times in one week for prolonged periods. The council issued the permit after Paxson agreed to make a one-time only payment of \$300,000 to the city for local news and public affairs productions. WVPX used this tower until the FCC's spectrum auction, when the station moved to the transmitter of WDLI-TV on September 26, 2018, following the purchase of WDLI-TV's license in a channel sharing agreement.
### WKYC alliance and Pax 23 News
NBC acquired a 32 percent stake in Paxson Communications on September 16, 1999, worth \$412 million in convertible stock; the deal was envisioned on a national scale as NBC potentially utilizing Pax TV as a second television network. As part of the deal, NBC began to encourage the owners of their affiliates to enter into management alliances with Pax TV stations; in promoting the new transmission tower for WVPX, Paxson executive Dean Thatcher spoke of a forthcoming agreement between WVPX and WKYC's parent company Gannett, which was initially downplayed by WKYC management. A joint sales agreement was announced between Gannett and Paxson that October 12, the terms of which allowed for WKYC's evening newscasts to be replayed later in the evening, and for WKYC to program an additional hour of airtime for WVPX.
WKYC subsequently announced on March 28, 2001, the launch of a new newscast produced for WVPX by WKYC's news department but focused on Akron stories, and based at an expanded Akron bureau. Launched on June 13, 2001, under the Pax 23 News banner, the program was anchored by WKYC's Akron bureau chief Eric Mansfield, with sports and weather provided by Jim Donovan and Mark Nolan, respectively; both Mansfield and Nolan previously worked at WAKC in the early 1990s. The \$300,000 payment provided by Paxson was envisioned by the city of Akron as potential "seed money" for a new television news operation; a seven-member board to manage the funds was considered by Akron mayor Don Plusquellic, but the positions were never filled. However, those funds—along with an additional \$200,000 in taxpayer funds from both the city and county governments—were provided by the city of Akron to help finance construction of a new facility for WKYC and Pax 23 News at the United Building in the city's downtown. Former WAKC anchor Mark Williamson, in his position as a spokesperson for the city, likened his involvement on the WKYC alliance to "planning your ex-wife's next wedding." While ratings for the 6:30 p.m. broadcast were relatively small, production of a 10 p.m. newscast began in January 2003, and WKYC general manager Brooke Spectorsky made known at launch that the station was fully committed to Pax 23 News for the long-term.
Paxson formally withdrew the joint sales agreement between WKYC and WVPX on March 25, 2005, ending that June 30. This action came as NBC and Paxson were engaged in litigation against each other, NBC having filed for a redemption of what was now a \$549 million investment in Paxson. Pax TV also had reportedly lost approximately \$76 million in 2003, and rumors began to surface that the company could be sold. After negotiations between different groups, WKYC reached an agreement with Time Warner Cable to produce the newscasts for the cable company's public access channel, which coincidentally held the "23" position; Time Warner Cable also agreed to provide space for WKYC's WeatherPlus digital subchannel. What became Akron/Canton News aired on the cable system until May 30, 2008, when insufficient ad revenue and low ratings made the newscast cost-prohibitive.
Concurrent with the termination of the joint sales agreement with WKYC, Pax TV was rebranded as i, then as Ion Television the following year, with WVPX carrying the network schedule in pattern with no deviations.
### Sale to Scripps and resale to Inyo
Ion Media agreed to be acquired by the E. W. Scripps Company—founding owner of onetime competing ABC affiliate WEWS-TV—in a \$2.65 billion deal announced on September 24, 2020, with financing provided by Berkshire Hathaway. In order to meet regulatory approval on both local and national levels, Scripps concurrently agreed to spin off WVPX and WDLI-TV to Inyo Broadcast Holdings in a \$45 million deal that concluded WVPX's status as an owned-and-operated network station. As part of the divestiture agreement, Inyo agreed to continue Ion network affiliations for at least seven years, while Ion was subsequently combined with Scripps' Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of digital multicasting networks. Both the sale to Scripps and divestitures to Inyo were completed on January 7, 2021.
Following the acquisition, Scripps announced the March 1, 2021, closure of several digital multicast networks operated by Ion Media—Ion Plus, Ion Shop and Qubo—in favor of existing Katz Broadcasting networks. On February 27, WVPX's 23.2 and 23.3 subchannels switched from Qubo and Ion Shop to Grit and Ion Mystery (the latter re-mapped to 23.4) and co-owned WDLI-TV concurrently switched from Ion Plus to Court TV; WVPX 23.5 changed from HSN to Defy TV on July 1. WDLI-TV assumed the Bounce TV affiliation on January 1, 2023, in a further subchannel realignment, while Ion Mystery is currently duplicated on WQHS-DT's 61.4 subchannel.
## Notable alumni
- Carol Costello
- Elwood Edwards
- Lauren Glassberg
- Ted Henry
- Scott Muni
- Jeff Phelps
## Technical information
### Subchannels
WVPX-TV presents seven subchannels on their multiplexed digital signal shared with WDLI-TV:
On April 20, 2010, WVPX started broadcasting Ion Television programming on the station's main channel (23.1) in high definition.
### Analog-to-digital conversion
WVPX-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 23, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 59, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to its analog-era UHF channel 23.
## Documentaries |
15,140,280 | Clara Clemens | 1,134,609,026 | American; daughter of Mark Twain; opera singer | [
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"Converts to Christian Science from Presbyterianism",
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| Clara Langhorne Clemens Samossoud, formerly Clara Langhorne Clemens Gabrilowitsch (June 8, 1874 – November 19, 1962), was a daughter of Samuel Clemens, who wrote as Mark Twain. She was a contralto concert singer and she managed his estate and guarded his legacy after his death as his only surviving child. She was married first to Ossip Gabrilowitsch, then to Jacques Samossoud after Gabrilowitsch's death. She wrote biographies of Gabrilowitsch and of her father. In her later life, she became a Christian Scientist.
## Childhood
Clara was the second of three daughters born to Samuel Clemens and his wife Olivia Langdon Clemens in Elmira, New York. Her older sister Susy died when Clara was 22. Her brother Langdon died as an infant before she was born. Her younger sister was Jean. Clara had a serious accident as a child while riding a toboggan; she was hurled into a tree, resulting in a severe leg injury that almost led to amputation.
## Early career
Clara lived in Vienna with her parents from September 1897 to May 1899 where she cultivated her voice for the concert stage. Contemporaries characterized her voice as unusually sweet and attractive. She also studied piano in 1899 under Theodor Leschetizky, who had been a pupil of Carl Czerny. In December 1900, she was invited by the people of Hartford to perform at a grand concert given by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She studied for several years under masters in Europe before making her professional debut in Florence. She made her American debut as a contralto concert singer on the evening of September 22, 1906, at the Norfolk Gymnasium in Norfolk, Connecticut, assisted by violinist Marie Nichols. She rented Edgewood there in 1905, and she used the proceeds from the concert to purchase a memorial window for her mother in the Norfolk Church of the Transfiguration. Charles Edmund Wark (1876-1954) was a classical pianist from Cobourg, Ontario, and he became Clemens' piano accompanist from the winter of 1906 to late in 1908. Clemens and Nichols also continued to perform together, including a series of concerts in London and Paris in 1908. On May 30, Clemens debuted in London at a benefit concert, raising money for American girls to attend Oxford and Cambridge Universities.
## Marriage and inheritance
Clemens went for a sleigh ride on December 20, 1908, with Russian concert pianist Ossip Gabrilowitsch who was staying with her father at his residence "Innocence at Home" in Redding, Connecticut. The horse was frightened by a flapping newspaper and it bolted, causing Gabrilowitsch to lose control. The sleigh overturned at the top of a hill near a 50-foot (15 m) drop, throwing Clemens out. Gabrilowitsch saved both her and the horse from plunging over the edge, spraining an ankle in his exertions. He returned Clemens home unharmed except for the shock of the accident. Twain biographer Michael Shelden doubts the truth of this heroic tale and suggests that the story was planted in the press to quiet rumors that Clara was having an affair with Charles Wark, her former accompanist and a married man.
Theodor Leschetizky was training Gabrilowitsch in Vienna in 1899, and he introduced him to Clemens. They were married on October 6, 1909, in the drawing room at Stormfield, the Clemens home, with her father's friend Rev. Joseph Twichell presiding.) Her father said that the engagement was not new, having been "made and dissolved twice six years ago". He also said that the marriage was sudden because Gabrilowitsch had just recovered from a surgical operation which he had undergone in the summer and they were about to head off to their new house in Berlin where he would begin his European season.
Samuel Clemens died on April 21, 1910, leaving his estate to be equally divided between his surviving daughters in a will dated August 17, 1909. His daughter Jean Clemens drowned in the bathtub on December 24, 1909, after having an epileptic seizure. Clara inherited the entire estate, which provided quarterly payments of interest to keep it "free from any control or interference from any husband she may have." On July 9, Clara announced that she was donating her father's library to the Mark Twain Free Library, consisting of nearly 2,500 books.
On August 19, 1910, Clara's only child Nina was born at Stormfield. Nina Gabrilowitsch (1910–1966) was Twain's last descendant, and she died January 16, 1966, in a Los Angeles hotel. She had been a heavy drinker, and bottles of pills and alcohol were found in her room.
## Later life
On April 23, 1926, Clara played the title role in a dramatization of Twain's 1896 novel Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc at Walter Hampden's Broadway theater. This adaptation and her performance were not very well received by critics.
It was again produced in 1927, opening on April 12 for a series of special morning and afternoon performances at the Edyth Totten Theatre.
Gabrilowitsch was conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra from 1918 until 1935, when he fell ill. He entered the Henry Ford Hospital on March 25, 1935, where he stayed until he was released to his home to convalesce on September 28. He died at home on September 14, 1936, age 58. Clara married Jacques Samossoud on May 11, 1944, a Russian-born symphony conductor 20 years her junior. They were married in her Hollywood home.
Clara explored eastern religions for several years before embracing Christian Science, although there is some question as to her seriousness and commitment to it. She wrote Awake to a Perfect Day on the subject, published in 1956. She also published biographies of her father (My Father, Mark Twain in 1931) and of her first husband (My Husband: Gabrilowitsch in 1938).
She objected in 1939 to the release of her father's Letters from the Earth, but she changed her stance and allowed them to be published shortly before her death on November 20, 1962. She prevented Charles Neider from including certain of her father's dictations from June 1906 (the 19th, 20th, 22nd, 23rd, and 25th) in the version of The Autobiography of Mark Twain that was in preparation into 1958. |
8,795,385 | Talitha Cumi (The X-Files) | 1,168,139,402 | null | [
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| "Talitha Cumi" is the twenty-fourth episode and the season finale of the third season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on May 17, 1996, in the United States. The teleplay was written by series creator Chris Carter, based on a story he developed with lead actor David Duchovny and was directed by R. W. Goodwin. The episode is one of several that explored the series' overarching mythology. "Talitha Cumi" achieved a Nielsen household rating of 11.2, being watched by 17.86 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mostly positive reviews from critics.
The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. In this episode, Mulder and Scully search for a man who seems to possess strange powers, who may have information about Mulder's family and the Syndicate. "Talitha Cumi" is the first part of a two-part episode, initiating the plot that is finalized in the fourth-season premiere, "Herrenvolk".
The basic premise of "Talitha Cumi", most notably the scene featuring Jeremiah Smith's interrogation by The Smoking Man (William B. Davis), was heavily influenced by "The Grand Inquisitor"—a chapter in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov—on the suggestion of Duchovny. The title "Talitha Cumi" is Aramaic for "Little girl, get up," and alludes to the biblical story of the raising of Jairus' daughter".
## Plot
At a fast food restaurant in Arlington, Virginia, a man draws a gun and shoots three people before he is shot by police snipers outside. An older man revives the gunman and his victims by touching them with the palms of his hands.
Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) arrive to investigate. They interview the victims and gunman, finding that the mysterious healer, Jeremiah Smith (Roy Thinnes), disappeared while being interviewed by a detective. Meanwhile, The Smoking Man (William B. Davis) meets with Mulder's mother Teena (Rebecca Toolan), and the two argue as someone photographs them from a distance. Later, Assistant Director Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) notifies Mulder that Teena has suffered a stroke. At the hospital, Teena writes the word "PALM" on a notepad, which Mulder takes to mean her stroke is connected to Jeremiah Smith.
Mulder finds footage of Smith being interviewed, and sees that someone else appears in Smith's place when the detective looks away. Meanwhile, Smith is at his place of work at the Social Security Administration (SSA) when he is captured by the Smoking Man, and taken to a high-security prison. Mulder heads to his mother's home and encounters X (Steven Williams), who shows him his photos of Teena and the Smoking Man. Mulder searches the house and realizes that "PALM" was Teena's attempt to write "LAMP". He then finds an alien stiletto weapon inside one of the lamps—the same kind used by the Alien Bounty Hunter in previous episodes.
At FBI headquarters, Scully meets a man who appears to be Smith, who has come to turn himself in. During an interview with Scully and Skinner, he claims to have no memory of the shooting or of healing anyone. Meanwhile, the Smoking Man interrogates the real Smith, who has lost faith in the Syndicate's project. He shapeshifts into Deep Throat (Jerry Hardin) and Bill Mulder (Peter Donat) to unnerve his captor. Finally, Smith reveals that the Smoking Man is dying of lung cancer.
Mulder blames the Smoking Man for his mother's condition. When he learns about the statement given by "Smith", Mulder goes to the SSA to bring him in for questioning. "Smith" initially complies but flees into a crowd, shapeshifting into someone else. The impostor—a Bounty Hunter—arrives at Smith's cell to kill him, finding it empty. Mulder visits Teena at the hospital, but encounters the Smoking Man and threatens him with a gun. The Smoking Man says that Teena met with him about the whereabouts of his sister, Samantha. In the parking garage, Mulder is confronted by X, who demands the alien stiletto. When Mulder refuses to hand it over, the two grapple to a stalemate.
Scully finds other identical "Jeremiah Smiths" working at SSA offices across the country. She is later met by Smith, who reveals she had met an imposter. Smith promises more information, and he and Scully meet Mulder at an abandoned site. Mulder wants to take Smith to see his mother, but the Bounty Hunter arrives seconds later.
## Production
### Conception and writing
This episode, per David Duchovny's suggestions, was heavily influenced by "The Grand Inquisitor", a chapter in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov. This was particularly evident in the scenes in the prison between The Smoking Man and Jeremiah Smith. In addition, this reference is woven into the story, in Smith healing the shooter and the shooting victims in the episode's teaser, in the title of the restaurant—"The Brothers K"—and the episode's title, originally from Mark 5:41, in which Jesus heals the daughter of Jairus and quotes the Aramaic phrase meaning, "Little girl, get up!" but which also figures in The Brothers Karamazov. These references were originally suggested by David Duchovny for the episodes "Colony" and "End Game" but never made their way into those episodes and were used here.
As Carter was writing "Talitha Cumi," he decided that the episode's main theme would be loyalty. It was decided that the commitment Mulder felt towards the X-Files would be tested by seeing if he would be willing to sacrifice those he cared about, most notably his mother, Scully, and the quest to find his sister, Samantha. In addition, the Smoking Man's allegiances are in that he must decide whether or not to heal himself of cancer using the power of Jeremiah Smith. Ultimately, Mulder's loyalties prove altruistic, whereas the Smoking Man chooses self-interest over The Syndicate's cause.
### Casting
Hrothgar Mathews was chosen as the suicidal gunman out of several actors, one of whom had even brought a fake gun to his audition. During his audition, he tried out the test reading several ways, including a style that had a "messianic quality". Mathews was chosen for the role and told by Chris Carter that, despite his character's life-changing event, he was "still a lunatic".
Roy Thinnes, who portrayed the alien healer Jeremiah Smith, was suggested to Chris Carter by David Duchovny, after the latter had met and spoken to Thinnes on an airplane flight. Carter had seen Thinnes' television work before, and had been a fan of his appearance on the 1967–68 television series The Invaders. Early on in pre-production, the writers decided to have Smith morph into various characters that the Smoking Man had, either personally or involuntarily, killed, including Deep Throat, Bill Mulder, and Melissa Scully. Melinda McGraw, who portrayed Melissa Scully during the second season, was unavailable for filming, so her scene was cut. In addition, a photo-double was brought in for Jerry Hardin, who played Deep Throat, because he was unavailable on one of the filming days. Frank Spotnitz later called the prison sequence the scene with "the biggest cast ever."
Gillian Anderson's stand-in, Bonnie Hay, was cast as the main hospital nurse, marking her fifth appearance as a character in the show. She had previously portrayed a nurse in the earlier third-season episode "D.P.O." and the two-part second season episodes "Colony" and "End Game."
### Filming and post-production
The fight between Mulder and X was heavily edited by Fox's broadcast standards department. Despite the fact that most of the action was done by stunt doubles, Steven Williams was injured during the filming of the fight scene. The opening scene with the restaurant shooting was filmed mostly on two handheld cameras, with director R. W. Goodwin using a variety of short shots and rapid cuts to different perspectives. This was done to create a chaotic scene which would contrast with how the character of Thinnes' character Jeremiah Smith was presented—shots focused on him were filmed using a Steadicam to allow the character to seem "rock steady". The film used was also overcranked, where the frame rate of the recording is much higher than that which will be played back, slowing down the footage when it is played at a normal frame rate. This gave a slow motion effect to Thinnes' movements, in order to aid the "Godlike" impression Goodwin wanted.
The "Grand Inquisitor" scene between Jeremiah Smith and The Smoking Man involved several instances of morphing from one character to another. The morph involving Smith assuming the guise of Peter Donat's character Bill Mulder was simply achieved by using static cameras, allowing Thinnes to leave the set and Donat to take his place, with the morphing effect bridging the change in actors. However, Jerry Hardin, who was involved in another morph to his character Deep Throat, was unavailable on the day this was shot, as he was filming for a movie elsewhere. The sections of the morph involving Thinnes were recorded, and the set was reconstructed later when Hardin was available, with the actors matched up based on footage and photography to recreate the same positions, which producer Paul Rabwin has described as "backwards" and "very difficult".
## Broadcast and reception
<div class="quotebox pullquote floatright " style="
width:28em;
;
background-color:
#c6dbf7;
">
> There's always something vaguely Freudian about conspiracy theories, isn't there? Powerful figures with impenetrable motives controlling the lives of the innocent--well, from a certain skewed angle, that's pretty much what parents do. Believing in conspiracy is believing that there's someone out there, somewhere, who can make everything make sense. And of course you have to stop them, because you want to make your own kind of sense.
<cite class="left-aligned" style="">—The A.V. Club'''s Zack Handlen</cite>
</div>
"Talitha Cumi" premiered on the Fox network on May 17, 1996, and was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on September 3, 1997. The episode earned a Nielsen household rating of 11.2 with a 21 share, meaning that roughly 11.2 percent of all television-equipped households, and 21 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. A total of 17.86 million viewers watched this episode during its original airing.
In an overview of the third season in Entertainment Weekly, "Talitha Cumi" was rated an "A−". The review called the episode a "frustratingly provocative cliff-hanger", calling the interrogation scene of Jeremiah Smith "a tour de force". Chris Carter has also noted that the interrogation 'is really a summation of my feelings about science ... that it has definitely usurped religion and can explain everything now". Writing for The A.V. Club'', Zack Handlen rated the episode an "A", praising its cliffhanger ending and "good storytelling". Handlen felt that the episode dealt with themes familiar to the series, but in a manner which did not appear repetitive; and again noted Jeremiah Smith's confrontation with The Smoking Man as a highlight. |
1,865,789 | Hurricane Belle | 1,173,366,537 | Category 3 Atlantic hurricane in 1976 | [
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| Hurricane Belle was a strong tropical cyclone that caused moderate damage across the East Coast of the United States in August 1976. In late July, a tropical wave emerged off the west coast of Africa. Traversing the Atlantic Ocean for more than a week, the system eventually consolidated into a tropical depression near the Bahamas on August 6. Remaining nearly stationary for a day, the depression strengthened into a tropical storm on August 7 and a hurricane later that day as it acquired a northwest motion. Formation of an eye accompanied quick intensification and Belle reached its peak the following day with winds of 120 mph (190 km/h). The hurricane subsequently turned north and accelerated, skirting the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Early on August 10, Belle made landfall on Long Island, New York, as a minimal hurricane crossing Long Island Sound and hitting the central coast of Connecticut as a strong tropical storm. Thereafter, Belle transitioned into an extratropical cyclone over New England before moving over Atlantic Canada. The system turned east while over the North Atlantic and ultimately dissipated on August 15 to the south of Iceland.
Threatening much of the East Coast of the United States, hurricane warnings were issued from Georgia to Maine. An estimated 500,000 people evacuated coastal areas accordingly. Overall, impacts from Belle were less than expected and mainly attributed to flooding across New England. Hundreds of thousands of residents lost power due to high winds. A total of 12 people lost their lives, mostly incidents indirectly related to the hurricane, and damage reached an estimated \$100 million. Portions of New Jersey, New York, and Vermont were later declared major disaster areas by then-President Gerald Ford. Some damage also took place in New Brunswick, Canada, from heavy rain.
## Meteorological history
On July 28, 1976, a tropical wave emerged off the west coast of Africa. An unusually well-organized system for the time of year and location, considerable deep convection accompanied it. A possible low-level circulation consolidated within the system by July 31 as it raced west across the Atlantic Ocean. As it approached the Lesser Antilles in early August, convection separated from the system and moved north of the islands while the wave itself continued into the Caribbean. The northern portion of the system eventually reached a point north of the Bahamas on August 5 and grew increasingly organized. Well-defined upper-level outflow became established that evening. A low-level center formed early on August 6 and became a tropical depression by 06:00 UTC while situated roughly 290 mi (470 km) east-northeast of Nassau, Bahamas. Over the next 24 hours, the system remained almost stationary and executed a small counter-clockwise loop. Early on August 7, the depression acquired gale-force winds and became a tropical storm. Accordingly, it was assigned the name Belle. Acquiring a slow northwest trajectory, Belle steadily intensified on August 7. Reconnaissance aircraft investigating the storm revealed the system to have achieved hurricane strength by 18:00 UTC as its pressure fell to 985 mbar (hPa; 29.09 inHg). Additionally, a well-defined eye was present by this time.
The cyclone turned northward and accelerated on August 8 while reaching major hurricane status that evening. Early on August 9, Belle achieved its peak intensity with maximum estimated surface winds of 120 mph (190 km/h) and a minimum pressure of 957 mbar (957 hPa; 28.3 inHg). At higher altitudes within the storm, recon reported winds up to 150 mph (240 km/h). Turning to just east of due north, Belle began weakening shortly thereafter with its eye becoming obscured. Late on August 9, the hurricane passed within 60 mi (97 km) of Hatteras Island, North Carolina. Contrary to most storms which threaten the northeastern states, Belle did not accelerate tremendously as it neared land. Accordingly, it weakened quickly in response to cooler waters in the region. Around 05:00 UTC on August 10, Belle made landfall as a minimal hurricane with 75 mph (121 km/h) winds along Jones Beach, Long Island, New York. Briefly crossing Long Island Sound, Belle made a second landfall as a strong tropical storm near Bridgeport, Connecticut. Once inland over New England, the system transitioned into an extratropical cyclone while traversing New Hampshire. The remnants accelerated northeast and later due east across Atlantic Canada before emerging over the Labrador Sea on August 12. While situated between the Azores and Greenland, ex-Belle turned north-northeast and ultimately dissipated south of Iceland on August 15.
## Preparations
Owing to Hurricane Belle's proximity to many states along the Eastern Seaboard, hurricane watches and warnings were issued for the entire coast from Georgia to Maine. Accordingly, evacuations took place in numerous states with an estimated 500,000 people evacuating overall.
Officials advised residents near the coastline to evacuate to safer areas further inland. Approximately 40,000 vacationing in the Outer Banks evacuated; however, roughly 2,500 residents decided to ride out the storm in their homes. In Kitty Hawk and Nags Head, volunteer firefighters traveled door-to-door urging residents to leave. Schools and hotels across the areas were utilized as shelters for tourists. National Parks across the Outer Banks closed for the duration of the storm. Aircraft at the Marine Corps Camp Lejeune were relocated inland and helicopters were moved to hangars; some helicopters remained available for emergency rescue operations. An estimated 6,200 residents evacuated to Red Cross shelters in the state.
The majority of evacuations in the country were in New Jersey, with 250,000 residents and tourists relocating. Of this total, 65,000 were from Long Beach Island and 12,000 on the Barnegat Peninsula. With Hurricane Belle expected to make landfall around high tide and a full moon, the forecast storm tide was expected to rival that of Hurricane Donna in 1960. This placed roughly 500,000 people in danger and officials in New York immediately began preparations. Police officers handed out sandbags to residents in low-lying areas and National Guard armories and some public schools were used as evacuation centers. Approximately 30,000 evacuated in New York City and Suffolk County, 11,000 of whom utilized the aforementioned shelters. In Staten Island, 225 patients in a local hospital were relocated to a second facility. A flood watch was issued for the Hudson Valley in southern New York ahead of the hurricane on August 8. Advisories from the National Hurricane Center emphasized the flood risk as well. Numerous flights in and out of New York were cancelled, Wall Street was closed, and the United Nations postponed a meeting. Summer tourists evacuated from most beaches but many residents decided to stay. In Connecticut, 52 helicopters and 100 pilots from the National Guard were placed on standby for possible relief missions following the storm.
Farther north in Rhode Island, 10,000 people fled from the coast. Despite evacuation orders, nearly half of the residents in Narragansett, Rhode Island, refused to leave their homes and as a result martial law was implemented to get people to leave. The Red Cross reported that about 2,300 people evacuated Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and thousands of tourists left the area. About 70 flights to and from Boston's Logan International Airport were canceled. Flood warnings were raised across western portions of the state.
## Impact
Across the Eastern United States, the effects of Belle were less than anticipated. A total of 12 people lost their lives, mostly due to traffic accidents, and damage amounted to \$100 million.
Hurricane Belle produced a swath of light to moderate, and locally heavy, rain extending from North Carolina into New England. The highest totals were confined to areas closer to the storm's center, with accumulations of 3 to 5 in (76 to 127 mm) common along its track. Notable state maximums included 6.8 in (170 mm) in Massachusetts, 6.68 in (170 mm) in Maryland, 5.85 in (149 mm) in Maine, 5.77 in (147 mm) in New York, 5.66 in (144 mm) in New Jersey, 5.37 in (136 mm) in Connecticut, and 5.3 in (130 mm) in Virginia. Although on the weaker side of the storm, New Jersey saw the highest winds from Belle, with an estimated peak gust of 90 mph (140 km/h) in Ship Bottom. A similar gust was estimated to have occurred in Jones Beach, New York, where Belle made landfall. Hurricane-force gusts also affected portions of Connecticut, New York, and North Carolina. LaGuardia Airport, near New York City, saw sustained winds of 52 mph (84 km/h) with gusts to 63 mph (101 km/h), while Bridgeport, Connecticut has gusts to 77 mph. Tides of 3–4 ft (0.91–1.22 m) above normal were common from North Carolina to Rhode Island. Atlantic City, New Jersey saw the greatest tides at 8.85 ft (2.70 m) above mean low-tide, while Battery Park in lower Manhattan saw a peak value of 7.2 ft (2.2 m) above mean low tide.
North Carolina escaped relatively unscathed from the hurricane, with only a few reports of wind damage in the Outer Banks. Windows at a hotel in Nags Head were blown out. Along the North Carolina–Virginia border, five people lost their lives in a car accident on a rain-slicked highway. Minor damage took place in Maryland. Although on the weaker side of the storm, gusty winds knocked down numerous power lines in New Jersey, leaving 10,000 people in the dark and setting off 75 fire alarms, one of which was a relatively large fire forcing the evacuation of a nursing home. Roughly 500 ft (150 m) of the Atlantic City boardwalk was damaged or destroyed, with repairs estimated to reach \$5 million. Damage to properties in Monmouth and Ocean counties amounted to \$3.6 million and \$1 million, respectively. On August 21, then-President Gerald Ford issued a major disaster declaration for Atlantic, Cape May, Monmouth, and Ocean counties, allowing them to receive federal funding.
The high winds knocked down trees and power lines across Long Island, New York, leaving roughly 170,000 residents without electricity. Power crews from Pennsylvania were called in to assist in restoring electricity. Damage across the island reached \$8 million, of which \$3 million stemmed from erosion at Rockaway Beach. One person was killed in New York when a branch snapped off a tree due to high winds and fell on her. An estimated 36,000 residents in the lower Hudson Valley lost power. President Ford later declared Nassau, Suffolk, and Rensselaer counties major disaster areas. Effects were similar in Connecticut where approximately 247,000 people lost electricity. Commuter train service along Conrail's New York–New Haven line was canceled due to power outages, and Amtrak service between Boston and New York was disrupted for two days. A portion of the Merritt Parkway was closed due to downed trees. High winds in Bridgeport toppled many trees and power lines, shattered windows, and sparked two house fires. Five boats in the city's harbor sustained damage. Flooding in and around Danbury prompted evacuations of an apartment complex and motel. One fatality took place in Barkhamsted due to slippery roads. Overall damage in Connecticut was far less than expected, according to state police, with losses reaching \$7.1 million and mostly stemming from Fairfield and New Haven counties. Power companies brought in additional personnel to expedite the restoration process, though many remained in the dark days after the storm. A couple and their two dogs in Vernon died from carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator on August 14.
Owing to heavy rains that preceded the hurricane, widespread small stream flooding took place in New England, particularly in Vermont where then-governor Thomas P. Salmon declared a state of emergency. Flooding in the state was reported as the worst in 30 years, with southern areas of the state seeing the greatest damage. Hardest hit was the town of Chester where 35 of its 85 roads flooded and 5 bridges were washed out. Otter Creek crested at 5 ft (1.5 m) above flood stage. Significant damage also took place in Jamaica, Ludlow, and Londonderry. Two people died in Huntington after the footbridge they were crossing collapsed into the Huntington River. Portions of Route 100 were washed out. Property damage in the state reached \$5–10 million. The overall scale of flooding was regarded as a 1-in-10 to 1-in-25 year event. Immediately following the hurricane, a statewide ban on drinking water was imposed with an order to boil it first. This was later lifted on August 23. Salt accumulation along power lines in Rhode Island cut electricity to 8,000 residents on Aquidneck Island. Along the Saint John River in Aroostook County, Maine, flooding caused \$2.5 million worth of damage to crops and buildings.
Heavy rains across New Brunswick, Canada, amounting to 7 in (180 mm) in Edundston, triggered flooding that damaged crops, homes, and roads. Losses from the event were estimated to be at least \$1 million.
## See also
- List of New England hurricanes
- Hurricane Bob (1991) -the most recent hurricane to strike New England
- Hurricane Gloria (1985)
- List of New York hurricanes
- Hurricane Irene (2011)– The most recent tropical cyclone to make landfall in New York state
- Hurricane Sandy (2012)
- List of North Carolina hurricanes (1950–1979) |
1,910,134 | Sonic Gems Collection | 1,170,396,127 | 2005 compilation video game by Sega | [
"2005 video games",
"GameCube games",
"Multiplayer and single-player video games",
"PlayStation 2 games",
"Sega video game compilations",
"Sonic Team games",
"Sonic the Hedgehog video games",
"Video games developed in Japan",
"Video games scored by Naofumi Hataya",
"Video games scored by Takenobu Mitsuyoshi",
"Video games scored by Tatsuyuki Maeda",
"Video games scored by Tomonori Sawada",
"Windows games"
]
| Sonic Gems Collection is a 2005 compilation of Sega video games, primarily those in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. The emulated games span multiple genres and consoles—from the Sega Genesis to the Sega Saturn—and retain the features and errors of their initial releases with minimal edits. Player progress is rewarded with demos of other Sonic games, videos, and promotional artwork spanning the history of the Sonic franchise. While its 2002 predecessor, Sonic Mega Collection, comprises popular Sonic games, Gems Collection focuses on more obscure games, such as Sonic CD (1993) and Sonic the Fighters (1996). Other non-Sonic games are included, but some, such as the Streets of Rage trilogy, are omitted in the Western localization.
Developer Sonic Team conceived the compilation to introduce younger players to older Sonic games. One game they wished to include, SegaSonic the Hedgehog (1993), was excluded due to emulation difficulties. Sega released Gems Collection for the GameCube and PlayStation 2 in August 2005. Reviews were mixed or average; critics were divided over whether the package would satisfy players. They preferred Sonic CD and Vectorman, but found Sonic the Fighters and Sonic R mediocre, and disliked the Game Gear games. Some were disappointed by the absence of the Streets of Rage games in the International version and other Sonic games like Knuckles' Chaotix and Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure.
## Games
Sonic Gems Collection is a compilation of obscure video games published by Sega for various consoles, such as the Sega CD, Sega Saturn, and Game Gear. It primarily focuses on Sonic the Hedgehog games, such as Sonic CD (1993), Sonic the Fighters (1996), and Sonic R (1997). It also includes six of the twelve Sonic games released for the Game Gear, with the other six having been included in the previous compilation release, Sonic Mega Collection Plus. These games encompass various genres, such as platforming, fighting, pinball, and puzzle. Additionally, players can unlock several Sega Genesis games unrelated to Sonic, including the two Vectorman games (1995 and 1996). Four games, Bonanza Bros. (1990) and the Streets of Rage trilogy (1991–1994), only appear in the Japanese version and are not included in any international releases. Each game is mostly identical to its initial release, but some were changed; for example, Sonic R runs at a higher frame rate. Players can view scans of the original instruction manuals for each game, along with hints and cheat codes.
The compilation features an extensive museum section in which players can view content—such as promotional artwork, videos, screenshots, and remixed music—unlocked after obtaining achievements. Time-limited demos of the Genesis Sonic games and the other six Game Gear games can also be unlocked. In each demo, the player begins in the respective game's final level and can play until the time limit is met.
## Development
Sonic Gems Collection was developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega for the GameCube and PlayStation 2. According to Sonic Team director Yojiro Ogawa, the compilation (and its 2002 predecessor Sonic Mega Collection) was conceived to introduce young players to older games in the Sonic franchise. While Sonic Mega Collection focused on the original Genesis games to showcase what made the franchise a success, Sonic Gems Collection focused on games Sega considered rare and obscure. Although Sonic Team was responsible for Sonic Gems Collection's creation, they had limited involvement in the development of the games included on the compilation; for example, Sega AM2 made Sonic the Fighters, and Sonic R was primarily developed by Traveller's Tales. Most of the games included are emulated, but Sonic the Fighters is a port.
At the beginning of Gems Collection's development, Sonic Team made a list of the most wanted games for the compilation. The team considered the games they felt were high quality in graphics, gameplay, and overall nature. Sonic CD and Vectorman were considered for inclusion in Mega Collection, but were deferred to Gems Collection. Producer Yuji Naka said storage constraints prevented Sonic CD from inclusion in Mega Collection. AM3's SegaSonic the Hedgehog (1993) was omitted due to problems emulating its trackball controls. AM2 assisted in porting Sonic the Fighters, marking its first release on a home console. The Windows versions of Sonic CD and Sonic R were used in Sonic Gems Collection. Both games received visual upgrades: Sonic CD's opening sequence is presented in fullscreen and Sonic R has higher resolution textures.
During development, Sonic Team hoped that each region's version of Sonic Gems Collection would be identical in content. However, the Streets of Rage games and Bonanza Bros. had to be omitted from the Western localization, due to fears of a "Teen" rating from the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). The team also wished to include both the Japanese and North American Sonic CD soundtracks, but storage and licensing problems resulted in Japan only receiving its respective soundtrack and all other regions using the North American version. Sonic Gems Collection was announced in May 2005, and was playable at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). It was released on August 11, 2005 in Japan, August 16, 2005 in North America, and September 30, 2005 in Europe. The PlayStation 2 version was not released in North America. Those who ordered the game through Sega's online store Sega Direct received an exclusive Sonic-themed yo-yo.
## Reception
According to Metacritic, a video game review aggregator, Sonic Gems Collection received "mixed or average" reviews. By November 22, 2005, the compilation sold 200,000 copies outside Japan. In 2006, the GameCube version was branded a Player's Choice game, indicating it sold a million units.
Reviewers considered Sonic CD the compilation's strongest feature, so much that Nintendo Power's Steve T. and Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) said it was worth buying for Sonic CD alone. Juan Castro (IGN) found that Sonic CD "still holds its own against modern platformers", praising its unique, time-travel oriented gameplay, level design, visuals, and sound. Castro called it one of the best games in the Sonic series and was no less fun than its original release. Ryan Davis (GameSpot) found Sonic CD superior to the other games in the compilation, and Tom Bramwell (Eurogamer) declared "rejoice for Sonic CD... Just don't rejoice for anything else, because it's mostly rubbish". Many reviewers were also pleased by the inclusion of the Vectorman games. Castro called it "the pinnacle of 16-bit gaming", praising its melding of boss fights, action, and platforming and saying it aged well. Bramwell and Phil Theobald (GameSpy) agreed.
Critics generally felt Sonic R and Sonic the Fighters were mediocre. Castro, Theobald, and Davis compared Sonic the Fighters unfavorably to the Virtua Fighter games, with Davis calling it dated and simplistic. Jeuxvideo.com's Superpanda, in a negative review of the compilation, argued that Sonic the Fighters was too short and had control issues, but that Sonic R was on par with Sonic CD in terms of quality, praising the game's graphics and claiming that it was the compilation's most beautiful game. Castro was less positive: he found its ideas clever and considered it an interesting departure from normal racing games, but thought the ideas were poorly implemented and the controls were awkward. However, he still thought the game was enjoyable and that its soundtrack was unique. Theobald voiced a similar opinion, considering it "a concept that works better in theory than in practice". Conversely, Davis said Sonic R's "laughably bad soundtrack" was its "only redeeming quality". Bramwell considered it too odd and short to be worth the player's time.
The six Game Gear Sonic games were criticized for their uneven quality and poor emulation. Theobald liked that the games were available from the start, but was puzzled why the other six games were left out. He also considered the selection random ("why Sonic 2, but no Sonic?"). Castro was intrigued that they were all on one disc, but thought their screen displays were bad and said "you'd probably be better off dusting your old [Game Gear] and finding those old games" rather than playing them on Sonic Gems Collection. Of the Game Gear games, Davis preferred Sonic 2, Sonic Triple Trouble, and Tails Skypatrol, but disliked the rest. He heavily criticized their emulation quality, noting their frequent frame rate drops. Bramwell joked they were present on the disc for "educational" purposes. He lambasted their resolutions and encouraged readers to ignore them entirely.
Some reviewers found the compilation incomplete. Davis and Theobald both criticized the exclusion of the Streets of Rage games in the North American version. Davis stated he preferred them over Vectorman and Theobald said Sega should have just let the compilation get a Teen rating from the ESRB. Theobald was also disappointed that the compilation lacked SegaSonic the Hedgehog, Knuckles' Chaotix, and the other Game Gear games. Jeremy Parish (1UP.com) said even combining Sonic Mega Collection and Sonic Gems Collection would provide players an incomplete Sonic collection, lambasting the exclusion of Knuckles' Chaotix and Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure and feeling the Master System Sonic games should have been included, not the Game Gear ones. Superpanda said he would have preferred Knuckles' Chaotix over the Game Gear games and also considered its exclusion of the Saturn version of Sonic 3D Blast a disappointment.
Reviewers were generally divided over whether Sonic Gems Collection would leave players satisfied. EGM summed it up as a "woefully uneven mix", but one Sonic fans should check out if they wanted Sonic CD. Castro said the compilation was "decent" and worth its price tag, but was not as solid as Sonic Mega Collection. Theobald found it weak and that only Sonic CD and Vectorman would appeal to casual gamers. Bramwell was sarcastic: "if this sort of thing matters to you, if you still can't bear to unplug your Dreamcast, and you do own Virtua Fighter 4 and all the others and think they're brilliant, this is for you". When Famitsu named the best games of 2005, it ranked Sonic Gems Collection among the bottom of the PlayStation 2 and GameCube releases. |
61,330,842 | Mississippi Highway 389 | 1,107,912,494 | Highway in Mississippi | [
"State highways in Mississippi",
"Transportation in Chickasaw County, Mississippi",
"Transportation in Clay County, Mississippi",
"Transportation in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi"
]
| Mississippi Highway 389 (MS 389) is a state highway that runs from south to north in the U.S. State of Mississippi. MS 389 currently exists in two sections. The southern section begins at MS 182 in Starkville. The road travels north out of the city, and crosses U.S. Route 82 (US 82) and MS 15. North of Starkville, the route continues northwestwards and ends at the Oktibbeha–Clay county line south of Pheba. The northern section starts at MS 46 west of Montpelier, and it travels north to cross the Natchez Trace Parkway in Chickasaw County. MS 389 ends at MS 8 in Houston.
MS 389 was designated in two segments around 1957, one from US 82 in Starkville to MS 50 in Pheba, and another from MS 46 west of Montpelier to MS 8 south of Houston. The route was realigned to connect directly to Houston ten years later. The route was fully paved in asphalt by 1971. The two sections were connected together by 1992, when the route was between MS 46 and MS 50. The same portion of the route was returned to county maintenance by 2000, along with the portion from the Oktibbeha–Clay County line to MS 50, leaving MS 389 in two segments again.
## Route description
MS 389 is split in two segments, with one located in northern Oktibbeha, and the other in northwestern Clay and southern Chickasaw counties. The route is legally defined in Mississippi Code § 65-3-3, and it is maintained by the Mississippi Department of Transportation as part of the Mississippi State Highway System.
MS 389 starts at its intersection with MS 182, also known as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, and Jackson Street near downtown Starkville. The route, continuing as Jackson Street, travels north into the suburbs around the city, and intersects the entrance to Montcrief Park. MS 389 then intersects Hospital Road, which leads to several medical facilities, including the Oktibbeha County Hospital. The road turns northwest at Garrard Road, traveling into the outskirts of Starkville. The road then crosses US 82 and MS 25 at a diamond interchange, and exits the city limits of Starkville. Traveling through rural areas of Oktibbeha County, the route crosses Trim Cane Creek near Sun Creek Road, which travels to the unincorporated area of Plairs. MS 389 turns westward at Bells and continues in that direction until it reaches County Lake Road. At Maben Bell Schoolhouse Road, it resumes traveling north. The road crosses the Clay–Oktibbeha county line at Six Mile Creek, and state maintenance ends north of the bridge. The road continues as Pheba–Beasley Road, which travels through Pheba and ends at MS 46 in Beasley.
The northern segment starts at a T-intersection with MS 46 west of Montpelier in Clay County, and it travels north-northwestwards from that point. The road intersects Hill Circle Road before entering Chickasaw County. Once inside the county, the route meets County Road 419 (CR 419) at Sparta. MS 389 turns north at CR 83, and crosses Cane Creek and its tributary, Chewawah Creek. Continuing across farmland, the road turns northwest near CR 85, and crosses over the Natchez Trace Parkway at a quadrant roadway intersection. MS 389 turns north at CR 80, and it travels through the community of Sonora near CR 93. The route passes by CR 108, which connects to MS 15. MS 389 enters the city limits of Houston near CR 106. Inside the city, the road is known as West Point Road, and it travels towards the center of the town. At its five-way intersection with McWhorter Street, South Jackson Street, and Woodland Circle, the route continues northward along South Jackson Street. MS 389 travels northwards and ends at MS 8 at the center of Houston. The road continues as North Jackson Street, which travels to MS 15 north of Houston.
## History
In May 1955, a project was announced to construct culverts and a temporary 3.458-mile (5.565 km) gravel road from Houston to Montpelier, with the road given the designation of MS 389. A surfacing project began in November 1956 for the same section. Around 1957, the MS 389 designation appeared along two roads in eastern Mississippi; one from US 82 and MS 25 in Starkville to MS 10 in Pheba, and another from MS 46 near Montpelier to MS 15 south of Houston. The sections near Pheba and in Chickasaw County were paved in asphalt, and the remaining sections were laid with gravel. MS 10 was renumbered to MS 50 by 1960, and projects to construct three bridges and for grading, drainage, and gravel surfacing along 3.4-mile (5.5 km) section of MS 389 in Oktibbeha County began. A section of Natchez Trace Parkway was constructed through MS 389 by 1962. The southern segment from Starkville to Pheba was paved by 1965, after the \$435,607 () project was announced in the previous year.
Two years later, the road was rerouted into Houston, and a small section near Montpelier was paved. The entire route was paved in asphalt by 1971. The two segments were connected by 1992 with a new route between MS 50 and MS 46. In May 2000, the section from the Clay–Oktibbeha county line to Montpelier was removed from the state highway system, and it was turned over to the Board of Supervisors of Clay County. By 2004, a bypass around Starkville was completed, and US 82 and MS 25 were rerouted onto the new highway. A new interchange was built at MS 389 as a result, and the southern terminus of the southern segment was changed to MS 182.
## Major intersections |
28,356,371 | Alex Hewit | 1,154,526,737 | Lacrosse player | [
"1985 births",
"American lacrosse players",
"Delbarton School alumni",
"Lacrosse goaltenders",
"Lacrosse players from New Jersey",
"Living people",
"Major League Lacrosse players",
"New Jersey Pride players",
"Place of birth missing (living people)",
"Princeton Tigers men's lacrosse players",
"Sportspeople from Morris County, New Jersey"
]
| Alexander G. Hewit (born November 8, 1985) is a retired lacrosse goaltender. He led his high school to three New Jersey state championships and was one of the most sought after high school lacrosse players in the United States. He starred as a member of the Princeton Tigers men's lacrosse team from 2005 through 2008. He was recognized as a three-time United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA) All-American (first team once) and a three-time second team All-Ivy League performer. He was the 2006 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) goaltender of the year and 2008 Princeton co-captain. During his college career, Princeton lacrosse earned an Ivy League championship and two NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship invitations.
## Background
Hewit is the son of Russell and Nan Hewit, and his siblings are Grant, Meghan and Rusty. Born November 8, 1985, and raised in Chatham, New Jersey, Hewit began playing lacrosse as a youth. Both of his older brothers played and introduced him to the sport. Hewit started playing lacrosse in fourth grade in a local recreational league in his hometown. By sixth grade he was converted from an attackman to a goalie, but not until the coaches convinced his mother's that her concern for her son's safety were unwarranted. He met his middle school, high school and college teammate Dan Cocoziello taking an entrance exam for the Delbarton School in sixth grade. On the seventh and eighth grade team and the freshman team at the Delbarton School he also played goalie. In eighth grade, he made a New Jersey state eighth-grade all-star team along with Cocoziello that competed against all-stars from other states. He made the varsity team as a sophomore and helped lead the team to a cumulative 63–4 record and three high school lacrosse state championships. He was an all-state and all-conference goalie who made the headmaster's list as a student. According to Inside Lacrosse, he was the fifth-best high school lacrosse recruit in the nation in 2003. Since his older brother Grant was at Princeton, the college was on his short list along with Johns Hopkins, Duke, Harvard and Dartmouth. Grant later became captain of the 2006 Tigers lacrosse team.
## College career
Hewit played in six games for Princeton and started three as a freshman in 2005. He became the starting goalie late in his freshman year. He was first team USILA All-American Team selection in 2006, a second team selection in 2007 and an honorable mention selection in 2008. He was a 2006, 2007 & 2008 second team All-Ivy League selection. Hewit was a mild-mannered goalie who never celebrated after making saves. His goaltending style of taking away the high and tight shots altered the way opposing teams approached scoring. During the 2006 season, he held the three highest scoring teams in the country (Virginia, Hofstra and Cornell) to 20 goals, which was half of their combined average. He was given the Ensign C. Markland Kelly, Jr. Award in 2006 in recognition of being the best National Collegiate Athletic Association lacrosse goaltender. The 2006 team was Ivy League co-champion with Cornell. In 2007, he entered the season with a lower goals against average (6.45) than the NCAA Division I career record and was a preseason first team All-American according to Inside Lacrosse. He served as co-captain of the 2008 team. After a 5–7 2005 year, Princeton qualified for the NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship in 2006 & 2007.
## Professional career
Hewit took a job with Lehman Brothers after graduating from Princeton. He was signed by New Jersey Pride for the 2008 MLL season, but he appeared in no games. |
40,386,346 | Pycnoporellus alboluteus | 1,068,784,473 | Species of fungus | [
"Fomitopsidaceae",
"Fungi described in 1895",
"Fungi of Europe",
"Fungi of North America"
]
| Pycnoporellus alboluteus, commonly known as the orange sponge polypore, is a species of polypore fungus in the family Fomitopsidaceae. Distributed throughout the boreal conifer zone, the fungus is found in mountainous regions of western North America, and in Europe. It causes a brown cubical rot of conifer wood, especially spruce, but also fir and poplar. The soft, spongy orange fruit bodies grow spread out on the surface of fallen logs. Mature specimens have tooth-like or jagged pore edges. A snowbank mushroom, P. alboluteus can often be found growing on logs or stumps protruding through melting snow. Although the edibility of the fungus and its usage for human culinary purposes are unknown, several species of beetles use the fungus as a food source.
## Taxonomy
The species was originally described as Fomes alboluteus by Job Bicknell Ellis and Benjamin Matlack Everhart in 1895. Collected by botanist Charles Spencer Crandall, the type specimens were found growing on the charred trunks of Abies subalpina in the mountains of Colorado, at an elevation of 10,000 feet (3,000 m). In its taxonomic history, it has been transferred to several genera. The original authors moved it to Polyporus in 1898, considering it allied to Polyporus leucospongia. They also noted that the pores developed teeth-like elongations like those of genus Irpex. Other generic transfers include Scindalma by Otto Kuntze in the same year, Aurantiporellus by William Alphonso Murrill in 1895, Aurantiporus by Murrill in 1905, Phaeolus by Albert Pilát in 1937, and Hapalopilus by Appollinaris Semenovich Bondartsev and Rolf Singer in 1943. It was given its current name in 1963 when Czech mycologists František Kotlaba and Zdeněk Pouzar placed it in Pycnoporellus.
The generic name Pycnoporellus is Ancient Greek for "with countless pores". The specific epithet alboluteus is a combination of the Latin words for "white" and "yellow". Curtis Gates Lloyd did not approve of the name, opining: "I hardly see how Ellis could have given it a worse name if he had tried, for it is neither "white" nor "yellow", but orange as Ellis described it. The young growth may possibly be white, but not when developed." The fungus is commonly known as the "orange sponge polypore".
## Description
The fruit bodies of P. alboluteus are annual, and are resupinate; they can be spread out on the substrate surface for up to 1 m (3+1⁄4 ft). Fresh fruit bodies are bright orange, finely grooved, and have a soft and spongy upper surface. The pore surface is orange with angular pores that are usually larger than 1 mm in diameter. It features thin partitions that split to form a teeth-like layer. The flesh is soft and pale orange, up to 2 mm thick, with a felt-like texture. The tubes are the same color as the pores, and continuous with the flesh, measuring up to 2 cm (3⁄4 in) thick. Bruised pores sometimes turn black. All tissues of the fungus turn bright red if a drop of dilute potassium hydroxide is applied. Fresh fruit bodies retain considerable moisture and can be squeezed of liquid like a sponge. The fruit body can be readily removed in large sheets from the wood it grows on. The edibility of the fruit body is unknown. It has a fragrant odor.
In deposit, the spores are white. The spores are cylindrical, smooth, hyaline (translucent), inamyloid, and measure 9–12 by 3–3.5 μm. Pycnoporellus alboluteus has a monomitic hyphal system, meaning it is made of generative hyphae, which are thin-walled, branched, and narrow. Hyphae in the flesh layer are thin- to thick-walled, frequently branched, and measure 2–10 μm in diameter, while those of the pores are roughly similar in morphology, but measure 3–5 μm. Both forms have a thin incrustation on their walls that gives them a rough appearance when viewed with a light microscope. The hymenium (spore-bearing tissue layer) is 40–60 μm thick, and has abundant cystidia, which are hyaline, and measure 7–9 μm in diameter. They are cylindrical, thin-walled to moderately thick-walled, hyaline, have a septum at the base, and measure 60–120 by 5–10 μm. The basidia (spore-bearing cells) are club-shaped, four-spored, and have dimensions of 25–35 by 6–7 μm.
### Similar species
Field characteristics used to identify Pycnoporellus alboluteus include its orange color, toothlike pore edges, and the soft texture of its flesh. Other reddish-colored polypores with which Pycnoporellus alboluteus can be confused include Polyporus alboluteus, P. fibrillosus, and P. cinnabarinus. They can be distinguished by the size of their pores: P. alboluteus has pores that measure 1–3 mm, those of P. fibrillosus are 1–2 per mm, while those of P. cinnabarinus are 2–4 per mm. The shelf-like fruit bodies of Pycnoporellus fulgens have distinct caps, smaller pores measuring 0.3–0.5 mm, and less tendency to be pulled away from the substrate in sheets. Oligoporus leucospongia is another snowbank fungus that prefers downed conifer logs. It can be distinguished from P. alboluteus by its whitish cottony upper surface. Another orange fungus, Ceriporia spissa, is tightly appressed to the wood substrate, with a soft, gelatinous body texture.
## Ecology, habitat and distribution
Pycnoporellus alboluteus causes a brown cubical rot on fallen logs of coniferous trees. The fruit bodies usually grow on the underside of the log, and may start developing while still immersed in snow. Although new fruit bodies usually begin growing in the spring, they may persist throughout the year. In Europe, it usually grows on Picea species, but also on Abies. In North America, it also grows on Populus. The fungus has a circumpolar distribution, and is found in the boreal conifer zone, particularly in the montane zone, 8,000–10,000 feet (2,400–3,000 m). In North America, the fruit bodies begin growth under snow in the spring, continuing until midsummer, while in Europe, it is usually encountered in autumn. It is abundant in the Rocky Mountain region of North America, but rare in the eastern United States and Canada. As a timberline fungus subject to high altitudes, the fruit bodies are subjected to bright light, high winds, and low relative humidity, all of which have a drying effect. They counteract these extremes by absorbing water quickly, and drying slowly.
In Europe, it is one of 32 threatened species proposed for protection under the Bern Convention. It has been recorded from Czechoslovakia, and Poland, where it is mostly found in old-growth forests. It is rare in northern Europe, where it has been found in Finland growing on Picea abies and Alnus incana, and in Sweden.
In North America, the fruit bodies of the fungus serve as a food source for the rove beetle species Scaphisoma castaneum, the pleasing fungus beetle species Dacne cyclochilus, and minute tree-fungus beetles, including Octotemnus laevis. |
5,667 | Chlorine | 1,173,103,131 | null | [
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"Chemical hazards",
"Chlorine",
"Diatomic nonmetals",
"Gases with color",
"Halogens",
"Hazardous air pollutants",
"Industrial gases",
"Oxidizing agents",
"Pulmonary agents",
"Reactive nonmetals",
"Swimming pool equipment"
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| Chlorine is a chemical element with the symbol Cl and atomic number 17. The second-lightest of the halogens, it appears between fluorine and bromine in the periodic table and its properties are mostly intermediate between them. Chlorine is a yellow-green gas at room temperature. It is an extremely reactive element and a strong oxidising agent: among the elements, it has the highest electron affinity and the third-highest electronegativity on the revised Pauling scale, behind only oxygen and fluorine.
Chlorine played an important role in the experiments conducted by medieval alchemists, which commonly involved the heating of chloride salts like ammonium chloride (sal ammoniac) and sodium chloride (common salt), producing various chemical substances containing chlorine such as hydrogen chloride, mercury(II) chloride (corrosive sublimate), and hydrochloric acid (in the form of aqua regia). However, the nature of free chlorine gas as a separate substance was only recognised around 1630 by Jan Baptist van Helmont. Carl Wilhelm Scheele wrote a description of chlorine gas in 1774, supposing it to be an oxide of a new element. In 1809, chemists suggested that the gas might be a pure element, and this was confirmed by Sir Humphry Davy in 1810, who named it after the Ancient Greek χλωρός (khlōrós, "pale green") because of its colour.
Because of its great reactivity, all chlorine in the Earth's crust is in the form of ionic chloride compounds, which includes table salt. It is the second-most abundant halogen (after fluorine) and twenty-first most abundant chemical element in Earth's crust. These crustal deposits are nevertheless dwarfed by the huge reserves of chloride in seawater.
Elemental chlorine is commercially produced from brine by electrolysis, predominantly in the chlor-alkali process. The high oxidising potential of elemental chlorine led to the development of commercial bleaches and disinfectants, and a reagent for many processes in the chemical industry. Chlorine is used in the manufacture of a wide range of consumer products, about two-thirds of them organic chemicals such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC), many intermediates for the production of plastics, and other end products which do not contain the element. As a common disinfectant, elemental chlorine and chlorine-generating compounds are used more directly in swimming pools to keep them sanitary. Elemental chlorine at high concentration is extremely dangerous, and poisonous to most living organisms. As a chemical warfare agent, chlorine was first used in World War I as a poison gas weapon.
In the form of chloride ions, chlorine is necessary to all known species of life. Other types of chlorine compounds are rare in living organisms, and artificially produced chlorinated organics range from inert to toxic. In the upper atmosphere, chlorine-containing organic molecules such as chlorofluorocarbons have been implicated in ozone depletion. Small quantities of elemental chlorine are generated by oxidation of chloride ions in neutrophils as part of an immune system response against bacteria.
## History
The most common compound of chlorine, sodium chloride, has been known since ancient times; archaeologists have found evidence that rock salt was used as early as 3000 BC and brine as early as 6000 BC.
### Early discoveries
Around 900, the authors of the Arabic writings attributed to Jabir ibn Hayyan (Latin: Geber) and the Persian physician and alchemist Abu Bakr al-Razi (c. 865–925, Latin: Rhazes) were experimenting with sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride), which when it was distilled together with vitriol (hydrated sulfates of various metals) produced hydrogen chloride. However, it appears that in these early experiments with chloride salts, the gaseous products were discarded, and hydrogen chloride may have been produced many times before it was discovered that it can be put to chemical use. One of the first such uses was the synthesis of mercury(II) chloride (corrosive sublimate), whose production from the heating of mercury either with alum and ammonium chloride or with vitriol and sodium chloride was first described in the De aluminibus et salibus ("On Alums and Salts", an eleventh- or twelfth century Arabic text falsely attributed to Abu Bakr al-Razi and translated into Latin in the second half of the twelfth century by Gerard of Cremona, 1144–1187). Another important development was the discovery by pseudo-Geber (in the De inventione veritatis, "On the Discovery of Truth", after c. 1300) that by adding ammonium chloride to nitric acid, a strong solvent capable of dissolving gold (i.e., aqua regia) could be produced. Although aqua regia is an unstable mixture that continually gives off fumes containing free chlorine gas, this chlorine gas appears to have been ignored until c. 1630, when its nature as a separate gaseous substance was recognised by the Brabantian chemist and physician Jan Baptist van Helmont.
### Isolation
The element was first studied in detail in 1774 by Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele, and he is credited with the discovery. Scheele produced chlorine by reacting MnO<sub>2</sub> (as the mineral pyrolusite) with HCl:
4 HCl + MnO<sub>2</sub> → MnCl<sub>2</sub> + 2 H<sub>2</sub>O + Cl<sub>2</sub>
Scheele observed several of the properties of chlorine: the bleaching effect on litmus, the deadly effect on insects, the yellow-green color, and the smell similar to aqua regia. He called it "dephlogisticated muriatic acid air" since it is a gas (then called "airs") and it came from hydrochloric acid (then known as "muriatic acid"). He failed to establish chlorine as an element.
Common chemical theory at that time held that an acid is a compound that contains oxygen (remnants of this survive in the German and Dutch names of oxygen: sauerstoff or zuurstof, both translating into English as acid substance), so a number of chemists, including Claude Berthollet, suggested that Scheele's dephlogisticated muriatic acid air must be a combination of oxygen and the yet undiscovered element, muriaticum.
In 1809, Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Louis-Jacques Thénard tried to decompose dephlogisticated muriatic acid air by reacting it with charcoal to release the free element muriaticum (and carbon dioxide). They did not succeed and published a report in which they considered the possibility that dephlogisticated muriatic acid air is an element, but were not convinced.
In 1810, Sir Humphry Davy tried the same experiment again, and concluded that the substance was an element, and not a compound. He announced his results to the Royal Society on 15 November that year. At that time, he named this new element "chlorine", from the Greek word χλωρος (chlōros, "green-yellow"), in reference to its color. The name "halogen", meaning "salt producer", was originally used for chlorine in 1811 by Johann Salomo Christoph Schweigger. This term was later used as a generic term to describe all the elements in the chlorine family (fluorine, bromine, iodine), after a suggestion by Jöns Jakob Berzelius in 1826. In 1823, Michael Faraday liquefied chlorine for the first time, and demonstrated that what was then known as "solid chlorine" had a structure of chlorine hydrate (Cl<sub>2</sub>·H<sub>2</sub>O).
### Later uses
Chlorine gas was first used by French chemist Claude Berthollet to bleach textiles in 1785. Modern bleaches resulted from further work by Berthollet, who first produced sodium hypochlorite in 1789 in his laboratory in the town of Javel (now part of Paris, France), by passing chlorine gas through a solution of sodium carbonate. The resulting liquid, known as "Eau de Javel" ("Javel water"), was a weak solution of sodium hypochlorite. This process was not very efficient, and alternative production methods were sought. Scottish chemist and industrialist Charles Tennant first produced a solution of calcium hypochlorite ("chlorinated lime"), then solid calcium hypochlorite (bleaching powder). These compounds produced low levels of elemental chlorine and could be more efficiently transported than sodium hypochlorite, which remained as dilute solutions because when purified to eliminate water, it became a dangerously powerful and unstable oxidizer. Near the end of the nineteenth century, E. S. Smith patented a method of sodium hypochlorite production involving electrolysis of brine to produce sodium hydroxide and chlorine gas, which then mixed to form sodium hypochlorite. This is known as the chloralkali process, first introduced on an industrial scale in 1892, and now the source of most elemental chlorine and sodium hydroxide. In 1884 Chemischen Fabrik Griesheim of Germany developed another chloralkali process which entered commercial production in 1888.
Elemental chlorine solutions dissolved in chemically basic water (sodium and calcium hypochlorite) were first used as anti-putrefaction agents and disinfectants in the 1820s, in France, long before the establishment of the germ theory of disease. This practice was pioneered by Antoine-Germain Labarraque, who adapted Berthollet's "Javel water" bleach and other chlorine preparations (for a more complete history, see below). Elemental chlorine has since served a continuous function in topical antisepsis (wound irrigation solutions and the like) and public sanitation, particularly in swimming and drinking water.
Chlorine gas was first used as a weapon on April 22, 1915, at Ypres by the German Army. The effect on the allies was devastating because the existing gas masks were difficult to deploy and had not been broadly distributed.
## Properties
Chlorine is the second halogen, being a nonmetal in group 17 of the periodic table. Its properties are thus similar to fluorine, bromine, and iodine, and are largely intermediate between those of the first two. Chlorine has the electron configuration [Ne]3s<sup>2</sup>3p<sup>5</sup>, with the seven electrons in the third and outermost shell acting as its valence electrons. Like all halogens, it is thus one electron short of a full octet, and is hence a strong oxidising agent, reacting with many elements in order to complete its outer shell. Corresponding to periodic trends, it is intermediate in electronegativity between fluorine and bromine (F: 3.98, Cl: 3.16, Br: 2.96, I: 2.66), and is less reactive than fluorine and more reactive than bromine. It is also a weaker oxidising agent than fluorine, but a stronger one than bromine. Conversely, the chloride ion is a weaker reducing agent than bromide, but a stronger one than fluoride. It is intermediate in atomic radius between fluorine and bromine, and this leads to many of its atomic properties similarly continuing the trend from iodine to bromine upward, such as first ionisation energy, electron affinity, enthalpy of dissociation of the X<sub>2</sub> molecule (X = Cl, Br, I), ionic radius, and X–X bond length. (Fluorine is anomalous due to its small size.)
All four stable halogens experience intermolecular van der Waals forces of attraction, and their strength increases together with the number of electrons among all homonuclear diatomic halogen molecules. Thus, the melting and boiling points of chlorine are intermediate between those of fluorine and bromine: chlorine melts at −101.0 °C and boils at −34.0 °C. As a result of the increasing molecular weight of the halogens down the group, the density and heats of fusion and vaporisation of chlorine are again intermediate between those of bromine and fluorine, although all their heats of vaporisation are fairly low (leading to high volatility) thanks to their diatomic molecular structure. The halogens darken in colour as the group is descended: thus, while fluorine is a pale yellow gas, chlorine is distinctly yellow-green. This trend occurs because the wavelengths of visible light absorbed by the halogens increase down the group. Specifically, the colour of a halogen, such as chlorine, results from the electron transition between the highest occupied antibonding π<sub>g</sub> molecular orbital and the lowest vacant antibonding σ<sub>u</sub> molecular orbital. The colour fades at low temperatures, so that solid chlorine at −195 °C is almost colourless.
Like solid bromine and iodine, solid chlorine crystallises in the orthorhombic crystal system, in a layered lattice of Cl<sub>2</sub> molecules. The Cl–Cl distance is 198 pm (close to the gaseous Cl–Cl distance of 199 pm) and the Cl···Cl distance between molecules is 332 pm within a layer and 382 pm between layers (compare the van der Waals radius of chlorine, 180 pm). This structure means that chlorine is a very poor conductor of electricity, and indeed its conductivity is so low as to be practically unmeasurable.
### Isotopes
Chlorine has two stable isotopes, <sup>35</sup>Cl and <sup>37</sup>Cl. These are its only two natural isotopes occurring in quantity, with <sup>35</sup>Cl making up 76% of natural chlorine and <sup>37</sup>Cl making up the remaining 24%. Both are synthesised in stars in the oxygen-burning and silicon-burning processes. Both have nuclear spin 3/2+ and thus may be used for nuclear magnetic resonance, although the spin magnitude being greater than 1/2 results in non-spherical nuclear charge distribution and thus resonance broadening as a result of a nonzero nuclear quadrupole moment and resultant quadrupolar relaxation. The other chlorine isotopes are all radioactive, with half-lives too short to occur in nature primordially. Of these, the most commonly used in the laboratory are <sup>36</sup>Cl (t<sub>1/2</sub> = 3.0×10<sup>5</sup> y) and <sup>38</sup>Cl (t<sub>1/2</sub> = 37.2 min), which may be produced from the neutron activation of natural chlorine.
The most stable chlorine radioisotope is <sup>36</sup>Cl. The primary decay mode of isotopes lighter than <sup>35</sup>Cl is electron capture to isotopes of sulfur; that of isotopes heavier than <sup>37</sup>Cl is beta decay to isotopes of argon; and <sup>36</sup>Cl may decay by either mode to stable <sup>36</sup>S or <sup>36</sup>Ar. <sup>36</sup>Cl occurs in trace quantities in nature as a cosmogenic nuclide in a ratio of about (7–10) × 10<sup>−13</sup> to 1 with stable chlorine isotopes: it is produced in the atmosphere by spallation of <sup>36</sup>Ar by interactions with cosmic ray protons. In the top meter of the lithosphere, <sup>36</sup>Cl is generated primarily by thermal neutron activation of <sup>35</sup>Cl and spallation of <sup>39</sup>K and <sup>40</sup>Ca. In the subsurface environment, muon capture by <sup>40</sup>Ca becomes more important as a way to generate <sup>36</sup>Cl.
## Chemistry and compounds
Chlorine is intermediate in reactivity between fluorine and bromine, and is one of the most reactive elements. Chlorine is a weaker oxidising agent than fluorine but a stronger one than bromine or iodine. This can be seen from the standard electrode potentials of the X<sub>2</sub>/X<sup>−</sup> couples (F, +2.866 V; Cl, +1.395 V; Br, +1.087 V; I, +0.615 V; At, approximately +0.3 V). However, this trend is not shown in the bond energies because fluorine is singular due to its small size, low polarisability, and inability to show hypervalence. As another difference, chlorine has a significant chemistry in positive oxidation states while fluorine does not. Chlorination often leads to higher oxidation states than bromination or iodination but lower oxidation states than fluorination. Chlorine tends to react with compounds including M–M, M–H, or M–C bonds to form M–Cl bonds.
Given that E°(1/2O<sub>2</sub>/H<sub>2</sub>O) = +1.229 V, which is less than +1.395 V, it would be expected that chlorine should be able to oxidise water to oxygen and hydrochloric acid. However, the kinetics of this reaction are unfavorable, and there is also a bubble overpotential effect to consider, so that electrolysis of aqueous chloride solutions evolves chlorine gas and not oxygen gas, a fact that is very useful for the industrial production of chlorine.
### Hydrogen chloride
The simplest chlorine compound is hydrogen chloride, HCl, a major chemical in industry as well as in the laboratory, both as a gas and dissolved in water as hydrochloric acid. It is often produced by burning hydrogen gas in chlorine gas, or as a byproduct of chlorinating hydrocarbons. Another approach is to treat sodium chloride with concentrated sulfuric acid to produce hydrochloric acid, also known as the "salt-cake" process:
NaCl + H<sub>2</sub>SO<sub>4</sub> NaHSO<sub>4</sub> + HCl
NaCl + NaHSO<sub>4</sub> Na<sub>2</sub>SO<sub>4</sub> + HCl
In the laboratory, hydrogen chloride gas may be made by drying the acid with concentrated sulfuric acid. Deuterium chloride, DCl, may be produced by reacting benzoyl chloride with heavy water (D<sub>2</sub>O).
At room temperature, hydrogen chloride is a colourless gas, like all the hydrogen halides apart from hydrogen fluoride, since hydrogen cannot form strong hydrogen bonds to the larger electronegative chlorine atom; however, weak hydrogen bonding is present in solid crystalline hydrogen chloride at low temperatures, similar to the hydrogen fluoride structure, before disorder begins to prevail as the temperature is raised. Hydrochloric acid is a strong acid (pK<sub>a</sub> = −7) because the hydrogen bonds to chlorine are too weak to inhibit dissociation. The HCl/H<sub>2</sub>O system has many hydrates HCl·nH<sub>2</sub>O for n = 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. Beyond a 1:1 mixture of HCl and H<sub>2</sub>O, the system separates completely into two separate liquid phases. Hydrochloric acid forms an azeotrope with boiling point 108.58 °C at 20.22 g HCl per 100 g solution; thus hydrochloric acid cannot be concentrated beyond this point by distillation.
Unlike hydrogen fluoride, anhydrous liquid hydrogen chloride is difficult to work with as a solvent, because its boiling point is low, it has a small liquid range, its dielectric constant is low and it does not dissociate appreciably into H<sub>2</sub>Cl<sup>+</sup> and HCl<sup>−</sup>
<sub>2</sub> ions – the latter, in any case, are much less stable than the bifluoride ions (HF<sup>−</sup>
<sub>2</sub>) due to the very weak hydrogen bonding between hydrogen and chlorine, though its salts with very large and weakly polarising cations such as Cs<sup>+</sup> and NR<sup>+</sup>
<sub>4</sub> (R = Me, Et, Bu<sup>n</sup>) may still be isolated. Anhydrous hydrogen chloride is a poor solvent, only able to dissolve small molecular compounds such as nitrosyl chloride and phenol, or salts with very low lattice energies such as tetraalkylammonium halides. It readily protonates electrophiles containing lone-pairs or π bonds. Solvolysis, ligand replacement reactions, and oxidations are well-characterised in hydrogen chloride solution:
Ph<sub>3</sub>SnCl + HCl ⟶ Ph<sub>2</sub>SnCl<sub>2</sub> + PhH (solvolysis)
Ph<sub>3</sub>COH + 3 HCl ⟶ Ph
<sub>3</sub>C<sup>+</sup>
HCl<sup>−</sup>
<sub>2</sub> + H<sub>3</sub>O<sup>+</sup>Cl<sup>−</sup> (solvolysis)
Me
<sub>4</sub>N<sup>+</sup>
HCl<sup>−</sup>
<sub>2</sub> + BCl<sub>3</sub> ⟶ Me
<sub>4</sub>N<sup>+</sup>
BCl<sup>−</sup>
<sub>4</sub> + HCl (ligand replacement)
PCl<sub>3</sub> + Cl<sub>2</sub> + HCl ⟶ PCl<sup>+</sup>
<sub>4</sub>HCl<sup>−</sup>
<sub>2</sub> (oxidation)
### Other binary chlorides
Nearly all elements in the periodic table form binary chlorides. The exceptions are decidedly in the minority and stem in each case from one of three causes: extreme inertness and reluctance to participate in chemical reactions (the noble gases, with the exception of xenon in the highly unstable XeCl<sub>2</sub> and XeCl<sub>4</sub>); extreme nuclear instability hampering chemical investigation before decay and transmutation (many of the heaviest elements beyond bismuth); and having an electronegativity higher than chlorine's (oxygen and fluorine) so that the resultant binary compounds are formally not chlorides but rather oxides or fluorides of chlorine. Even though nitrogen in NCl<sub>3</sub> is bearing a negative charge, the compound is usually called nitrogen trichloride.
Chlorination of metals with Cl<sub>2</sub> usually leads to a higher oxidation state than bromination with Br<sub>2</sub> when multiple oxidation states are available, such as in MoCl<sub>5</sub> and MoBr<sub>3</sub>. Chlorides can be made by reaction of an element or its oxide, hydroxide, or carbonate with hydrochloric acid, and then dehydrated by mildly high temperatures combined with either low pressure or anhydrous hydrogen chloride gas. These methods work best when the chloride product is stable to hydrolysis; otherwise, the possibilities include high-temperature oxidative chlorination of the element with chlorine or hydrogen chloride, high-temperature chlorination of a metal oxide or other halide by chlorine, a volatile metal chloride, carbon tetrachloride, or an organic chloride. For instance, zirconium dioxide reacts with chlorine at standard conditions to produce zirconium tetrachloride, and uranium trioxide reacts with hexachloropropene when heated under reflux to give uranium tetrachloride. The second example also involves a reduction in oxidation state, which can also be achieved by reducing a higher chloride using hydrogen or a metal as a reducing agent. This may also be achieved by thermal decomposition or disproportionation as follows:
EuCl<sub>3</sub> + 1/2 H<sub>2</sub> ⟶ EuCl<sub>2</sub> + HCl
ReCl<sub>5</sub> ReCl<sub>3</sub> + Cl<sub>2</sub>
AuCl<sub>3</sub> AuCl + Cl<sub>2</sub>
Most metal chlorides with the metal in low oxidation states (+1 to +3) are ionic. Nonmetals tend to form covalent molecular chlorides, as do metals in high oxidation states from +3 and above. Both ionic and covalent chlorides are known for metals in oxidation state +3 (e.g. scandium chloride is mostly ionic, but aluminium chloride is not). Silver chloride is very insoluble in water and is thus often used as a qualitative test for chlorine.
### Polychlorine compounds
Although dichlorine is a strong oxidising agent with a high first ionisation energy, it may be oxidised under extreme conditions to form the [Cl<sub>2</sub>]<sup>+</sup> cation. This is very unstable and has only been characterised by its electronic band spectrum when produced in a low-pressure discharge tube. The yellow [Cl<sub>3</sub>]<sup>+</sup> cation is more stable and may be produced as follows:
Cl<sub>2</sub> + ClF + AsF<sub>5</sub> [Cl<sub>3</sub>]<sup>+</sup>[AsF<sub>6</sub>]<sup>−</sup>
This reaction is conducted in the oxidising solvent arsenic pentafluoride. The trichloride anion, [Cl<sub>3</sub>]<sup>−</sup>, has also been characterised; it is analogous to triiodide.
### Chlorine fluorides
The three fluorides of chlorine form a subset of the interhalogen compounds, all of which are diamagnetic. Some cationic and anionic derivatives are known, such as ClF<sup>−</sup>
<sub>2</sub>, ClF<sup>−</sup>
<sub>4</sub>, ClF<sup>+</sup>
<sub>2</sub>, and Cl<sub>2</sub>F<sup>+</sup>. Some pseudohalides of chlorine are also known, such as cyanogen chloride (ClCN, linear), chlorine cyanate (ClNCO), chlorine thiocyanate (ClSCN, unlike its oxygen counterpart), and chlorine azide (ClN<sub>3</sub>).
Chlorine monofluoride (ClF) is extremely thermally stable, and is sold commercially in 500-gram steel lecture bottles. It is a colourless gas that melts at −155.6 °C and boils at −100.1 °C. It may be produced by the direction of its elements at 225 °C, though it must then be separated and purified from chlorine trifluoride and its reactants. Its properties are mostly intermediate between those of chlorine and fluorine. It will react with many metals and nonmetals from room temperature and above, fluorinating them and liberating chlorine. It will also act as a chlorofluorinating agent, adding chlorine and fluorine across a multiple bond or by oxidation: for example, it will attack carbon monoxide to form carbonyl chlorofluoride, COFCl. It will react analogously with hexafluoroacetone, (CF<sub>3</sub>)<sub>2</sub>CO, with a potassium fluoride catalyst to produce heptafluoroisopropyl hypochlorite, (CF<sub>3</sub>)<sub>2</sub>CFOCl; with nitriles RCN to produce RCF<sub>2</sub>NCl<sub>2</sub>; and with the sulfur oxides SO<sub>2</sub> and SO<sub>3</sub> to produce ClSO<sub>2</sub>F and ClOSO<sub>2</sub>F respectively. It will also react exothermically with compounds containing –OH and –NH groups, such as water:
H<sub>2</sub>O + 2 ClF ⟶ 2 HF + Cl<sub>2</sub>O
Chlorine trifluoride (ClF<sub>3</sub>) is a volatile colourless molecular liquid which melts at −76.3 °C and boils at 11.8 °C. It may be formed by directly fluorinating gaseous chlorine or chlorine monofluoride at 200–300 °C. One of the most reactive chemical compounds known, the list of elements it sets on fire is diverse, containing hydrogen, potassium, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, sulfur, selenium, tellurium, bromine, iodine, and powdered molybdenum, tungsten, rhodium, iridium, and iron. It will also ignite water, along with many substances which in ordinary circumstances would be considered chemically inert such as asbestos, concrete, glass, and sand. When heated, it will even corrode noble metals as palladium, platinum, and gold, and even the noble gases xenon and radon do not escape fluorination. An impermeable fluoride layer is formed by sodium, magnesium, aluminium, zinc, tin, and silver, which may be removed by heating. Nickel, copper, and steel containers are usually used due to their great resistance to attack by chlorine trifluoride, stemming from the formation of an unreactive layer of metal fluoride. Its reaction with hydrazine to form hydrogen fluoride, nitrogen, and chlorine gases was used in experimental rocket engine, but has problems largely stemming from its extreme hypergolicity resulting in ignition without any measurable delay. Today, it is mostly used in nuclear fuel processing, to oxidise uranium to uranium hexafluoride for its enriching and to separate it from plutonium, as well as in the semiconductor industry, where it is used to clean chemical vapor deposition chambers. It can act as a fluoride ion donor or acceptor (Lewis base or acid), although it does not dissociate appreciably into ClF<sup>+</sup>
<sub>2</sub> and ClF<sup>−</sup>
<sub>4</sub> ions.
Chlorine pentafluoride (ClF<sub>5</sub>) is made on a large scale by direct fluorination of chlorine with excess fluorine gas at 350 °C and 250 atm, and on a small scale by reacting metal chlorides with fluorine gas at 100–300 °C. It melts at −103 °C and boils at −13.1 °C. It is a very strong fluorinating agent, although it is still not as effective as chlorine trifluoride. Only a few specific stoichiometric reactions have been characterised. Arsenic pentafluoride and antimony pentafluoride form ionic adducts of the form [ClF<sub>4</sub>]<sup>+</sup>[MF<sub>6</sub>]<sup>−</sup> (M = As, Sb) and water reacts vigorously as follows:
2 H<sub>2</sub>O + ClF<sub>5</sub> ⟶ 4 HF + FClO<sub>2</sub>
The product, chloryl fluoride, is one of the five known chlorine oxide fluorides. These range from the thermally unstable FClO to the chemically unreactive perchloryl fluoride (FClO<sub>3</sub>), the other three being FClO<sub>2</sub>, F<sub>3</sub>ClO, and F<sub>3</sub>ClO<sub>2</sub>. All five behave similarly to the chlorine fluorides, both structurally and chemically, and may act as Lewis acids or bases by gaining or losing fluoride ions respectively or as very strong oxidising and fluorinating agents.
### Chlorine oxides
The chlorine oxides are well-studied in spite of their instability (all of them are endothermic compounds). They are important because they are produced when chlorofluorocarbons undergo photolysis in the upper atmosphere and cause the destruction of the ozone layer. None of them can be made from directly reacting the elements.
Dichlorine monoxide (Cl<sub>2</sub>O) is a brownish-yellow gas (red-brown when solid or liquid) which may be obtained by reacting chlorine gas with yellow mercury(II) oxide. It is very soluble in water, in which it is in equilibrium with hypochlorous acid (HOCl), of which it is the anhydride. It is thus an effective bleach and is mostly used to make hypochlorites. It explodes on heating or sparking or in the presence of ammonia gas.
Chlorine dioxide (ClO<sub>2</sub>) was the first chlorine oxide to be discovered in 1811 by Humphry Davy. It is a yellow paramagnetic gas (deep-red as a solid or liquid), as expected from its having an odd number of electrons: it is stable towards dimerisation due to the delocalisation of the unpaired electron. It explodes above −40 °C as a liquid and under pressure as a gas and therefore must be made at low concentrations for wood-pulp bleaching and water treatment. It is usually prepared by reducing a chlorate as follows:
ClO<sup>−</sup>
<sub>3</sub> + Cl<sup>−</sup> + 2 H<sup>+</sup> ⟶ ClO<sub>2</sub> + 1/2 Cl<sub>2</sub> + H<sub>2</sub>O
Its production is thus intimately linked to the redox reactions of the chlorine oxoacids. It is a strong oxidising agent, reacting with sulfur, phosphorus, phosphorus halides, and potassium borohydride. It dissolves exothermically in water to form dark-green solutions that very slowly decompose in the dark. Crystalline clathrate hydrates ClO<sub>2</sub>·nH<sub>2</sub>O (n ≈ 6–10) separate out at low temperatures. However, in the presence of light, these solutions rapidly photodecompose to form a mixture of chloric and hydrochloric acids. Photolysis of individual ClO<sub>2</sub> molecules result in the radicals ClO and ClOO, while at room temperature mostly chlorine, oxygen, and some ClO<sub>3</sub> and Cl<sub>2</sub>O<sub>6</sub> are produced. Cl<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> is also produced when photolysing the solid at −78 °C: it is a dark brown solid that explodes below 0 °C. The ClO radical leads to the depletion of atmospheric ozone and is thus environmentally important as follows:
Cl• + O<sub>3</sub> ⟶ ClO• + O<sub>2</sub>
ClO• + O• ⟶ Cl• + O<sub>2</sub>
Chlorine perchlorate (ClOClO<sub>3</sub>) is a pale yellow liquid that is less stable than ClO<sub>2</sub> and decomposes at room temperature to form chlorine, oxygen, and dichlorine hexoxide (Cl<sub>2</sub>O<sub>6</sub>). Chlorine perchlorate may also be considered a chlorine derivative of perchloric acid (HOClO<sub>3</sub>), similar to the thermally unstable chlorine derivatives of other oxoacids: examples include chlorine nitrate (ClONO<sub>2</sub>, vigorously reactive and explosive), and chlorine fluorosulfate (ClOSO<sub>2</sub>F, more stable but still moisture-sensitive and highly reactive). Dichlorine hexoxide is a dark-red liquid that freezes to form a solid which turns yellow at −180 °C: it is usually made by reaction of chlorine dioxide with oxygen. Despite attempts to rationalise it as the dimer of ClO<sub>3</sub>, it reacts more as though it were chloryl perchlorate, [ClO<sub>2</sub>]<sup>+</sup>[ClO<sub>4</sub>]<sup>−</sup>, which has been confirmed to be the correct structure of the solid. It hydrolyses in water to give a mixture of chloric and perchloric acids: the analogous reaction with anhydrous hydrogen fluoride does not proceed to completion.
Dichlorine heptoxide (Cl<sub>2</sub>O<sub>7</sub>) is the anhydride of perchloric acid (HClO<sub>4</sub>) and can readily be obtained from it by dehydrating it with phosphoric acid at −10 °C and then distilling the product at −35 °C and 1 mmHg. It is a shock-sensitive, colourless oily liquid. It is the least reactive of the chlorine oxides, being the only one to not set organic materials on fire at room temperature. It may be dissolved in water to regenerate perchloric acid or in aqueous alkalis to regenerate perchlorates. However, it thermally decomposes explosively by breaking one of the central Cl–O bonds, producing the radicals ClO<sub>3</sub> and ClO<sub>4</sub> which immediately decompose to the elements through intermediate oxides.
### Chlorine oxoacids and oxyanions
Chlorine forms four oxoacids: hypochlorous acid (HOCl), chlorous acid (HOClO), chloric acid (HOClO<sub>2</sub>), and perchloric acid (HOClO<sub>3</sub>). As can be seen from the redox potentials given in the adjacent table, chlorine is much more stable towards disproportionation in acidic solutions than in alkaline solutions:
{\|
\|- \| Cl<sub>2</sub> + H<sub>2</sub>O \|\| HOCl + H<sup>+</sup> + Cl<sup>−</sup> \|\| K<sub>ac</sub> = 4.2 × 10<sup>−4</sup> mol<sup>2</sup> l<sup>−2</sup> \|- \| Cl<sub>2</sub> + 2 OH<sup>−</sup> \|\| OCl<sup>−</sup> + H<sub>2</sub>O + Cl<sup>−</sup> \|\| K<sub>alk</sub> = 7.5 × 10<sup>15</sup> mol<sup>−1</sup> l
The hypochlorite ions also disproportionate further to produce chloride and chlorate (3 ClO<sup>−</sup> 2 Cl<sup>−</sup> + ClO<sup>−</sup>
<sub>3</sub>) but this reaction is quite slow at temperatures below 70 °C in spite of the very favourable equilibrium constant of 10<sup>27</sup>. The chlorate ions may themselves disproportionate to form chloride and perchlorate (4 ClO<sup>−</sup>
<sub>3</sub> Cl<sup>−</sup> + 3 ClO<sup>−</sup>
<sub>4</sub>) but this is still very slow even at 100 °C despite the very favourable equilibrium constant of 10<sup>20</sup>. The rates of reaction for the chlorine oxyanions increases as the oxidation state of chlorine decreases. The strengths of the chlorine oxyacids increase very quickly as the oxidation state of chlorine increases due to the increasing delocalisation of charge over more and more oxygen atoms in their conjugate bases.
Most of the chlorine oxoacids may be produced by exploiting these disproportionation reactions. Hypochlorous acid (HOCl) is highly reactive and quite unstable; its salts are mostly used for their bleaching and sterilising abilities. They are very strong oxidising agents, transferring an oxygen atom to most inorganic species. Chlorous acid (HOClO) is even more unstable and cannot be isolated or concentrated without decomposition: it is known from the decomposition of aqueous chlorine dioxide. However, sodium chlorite is a stable salt and is useful for bleaching and stripping textiles, as an oxidising agent, and as a source of chlorine dioxide. Chloric acid (HOClO<sub>2</sub>) is a strong acid that is quite stable in cold water up to 30% concentration, but on warming gives chlorine and chlorine dioxide. Evaporation under reduced pressure allows it to be concentrated further to about 40%, but then it decomposes to perchloric acid, chlorine, oxygen, water, and chlorine dioxide. Its most important salt is sodium chlorate, mostly used to make chlorine dioxide to bleach paper pulp. The decomposition of chlorate to chloride and oxygen is a common way to produce oxygen in the laboratory on a small scale. Chloride and chlorate may comproportionate to form chlorine as follows:
ClO<sup>−</sup>
<sub>3</sub> + 5 Cl<sup>−</sup> + 6 H<sup>+</sup> ⟶ 3 Cl<sub>2</sub> + 3 H<sub>2</sub>O
Perchlorates and perchloric acid (HOClO<sub>3</sub>) are the most stable oxo-compounds of chlorine, in keeping with the fact that chlorine compounds are most stable when the chlorine atom is in its lowest (−1) or highest (+7) possible oxidation states. Perchloric acid and aqueous perchlorates are vigorous and sometimes violent oxidising agents when heated, in stark contrast to their mostly inactive nature at room temperature due to the high activation energies for these reactions for kinetic reasons. Perchlorates are made by electrolytically oxidising sodium chlorate, and perchloric acid is made by reacting anhydrous sodium perchlorate or barium perchlorate with concentrated hydrochloric acid, filtering away the chloride precipitated and distilling the filtrate to concentrate it. Anhydrous perchloric acid is a colourless mobile liquid that is sensitive to shock that explodes on contact with most organic compounds, sets hydrogen iodide and thionyl chloride on fire and even oxidises silver and gold. Although it is a weak ligand, weaker than water, a few compounds involving coordinated ClO<sup>−</sup>
<sub>4</sub> are known.
### Organochlorine compounds
Like the other carbon–halogen bonds, the C–Cl bond is a common functional group that forms part of core organic chemistry. Formally, compounds with this functional group may be considered organic derivatives of the chloride anion. Due to the difference of electronegativity between chlorine (3.16) and carbon (2.55), the carbon in a C–Cl bond is electron-deficient and thus electrophilic. Chlorination modifies the physical properties of hydrocarbons in several ways: chlorocarbons are typically denser than water due to the higher atomic weight of chlorine versus hydrogen, and aliphatic organochlorides are alkylating agents because chloride is a leaving group.
Alkanes and aryl alkanes may be chlorinated under free-radical conditions, with UV light. However, the extent of chlorination is difficult to control: the reaction is not regioselective and often results in a mixture of various isomers with different degrees of chlorination, though this may be permissible if the products are easily separated. Aryl chlorides may be prepared by the Friedel-Crafts halogenation, using chlorine and a Lewis acid catalyst. The haloform reaction, using chlorine and sodium hydroxide, is also able to generate alkyl halides from methyl ketones, and related compounds. Chlorine adds to the multiple bonds on alkenes and alkynes as well, giving di- or tetra-chloro compounds. However, due to the expense and reactivity of chlorine, organochlorine compounds are more commonly produced by using hydrogen chloride, or with chlorinating agents such as phosphorus pentachloride (PCl<sub>5</sub>) or thionyl chloride (SOCl<sub>2</sub>). The last is very convenient in the laboratory because all side products are gaseous and do not have to be distilled out.
Many organochlorine compounds have been isolated from natural sources ranging from bacteria to humans. Chlorinated organic compounds are found in nearly every class of biomolecules including alkaloids, terpenes, amino acids, flavonoids, steroids, and fatty acids. Organochlorides, including dioxins, are produced in the high temperature environment of forest fires, and dioxins have been found in the preserved ashes of lightning-ignited fires that predate synthetic dioxins. In addition, a variety of simple chlorinated hydrocarbons including dichloromethane, chloroform, and carbon tetrachloride have been isolated from marine algae. A majority of the chloromethane in the environment is produced naturally by biological decomposition, forest fires, and volcanoes.
Some types of organochlorides, though not all, have significant toxicity to plants or animals, including humans. Dioxins, produced when organic matter is burned in the presence of chlorine, and some insecticides, such as DDT, are persistent organic pollutants which pose dangers when they are released into the environment. For example, DDT, which was widely used to control insects in the mid 20th century, also accumulates in food chains, and causes reproductive problems (e.g., eggshell thinning) in certain bird species. Due to the ready homolytic fission of the C–Cl bond to create chlorine radicals in the upper atmosphere, chlorofluorocarbons have been phased out due to the harm they do to the ozone layer.
## Occurrence and production
Chlorine is too reactive to occur as the free element in nature but is very abundant in the form of its chloride salts. It is the twenty-first most abundant element in Earth's crust and makes up 126 parts per million of it, through the large deposits of chloride minerals, especially sodium chloride, that have been evaporated from water bodies. All of these pale in comparison to the reserves of chloride ions in seawater: smaller amounts at higher concentrations occur in some inland seas and underground brine wells, such as the Great Salt Lake in Utah and the Dead Sea in Israel.
Small batches of chlorine gas are prepared in the laboratory by combining hydrochloric acid and manganese dioxide, but the need rarely arises due to its ready availability. In industry, elemental chlorine is usually produced by the electrolysis of sodium chloride dissolved in water. This method, the chloralkali process industrialized in 1892, now provides most industrial chlorine gas. Along with chlorine, the method yields hydrogen gas and sodium hydroxide, which is the most valuable product. The process proceeds according to the following chemical equation:
2 NaCl + 2 H<sub>2</sub>O → Cl<sub>2</sub> + H<sub>2</sub> + 2 NaOH
The electrolysis of chloride solutions all proceed according to the following equations:
Cathode: 2 H<sub>2</sub>O + 2 e<sup>−</sup> → H<sub>2</sub> + 2 OH<sup>−</sup>
Anode: 2 Cl<sup>−</sup> → Cl<sub>2</sub> + 2 e<sup>−</sup>
In diaphragm cell electrolysis, an asbestos (or polymer-fiber) diaphragm separates a cathode and an anode, preventing the chlorine forming at the anode from re-mixing with the sodium hydroxide and the hydrogen formed at the cathode. The salt solution (brine) is continuously fed to the anode compartment and flows through the diaphragm to the cathode compartment, where the caustic alkali is produced and the brine is partially depleted. Diaphragm methods produce dilute and slightly impure alkali, but they are not burdened with the problem of mercury disposal and they are more energy efficient.
Membrane cell electrolysis employs permeable membrane as an ion exchanger. Saturated sodium (or potassium) chloride solution is passed through the anode compartment, leaving at a lower concentration. This method also produces very pure sodium (or potassium) hydroxide but has the disadvantage of requiring very pure brine at high concentrations.
In the Deacon process, hydrogen chloride recovered from the production of organochlorine compounds is recovered as chlorine. The process relies on oxidation using oxygen:
4 HCl + O<sub>2</sub> → 2 Cl<sub>2</sub> + 2 H<sub>2</sub>O
The reaction requires a catalyst. As introduced by Deacon, early catalysts were based on copper. Commercial processes, such as the Mitsui MT-Chlorine Process, have switched to chromium and ruthenium-based catalysts. The chlorine produced is available in cylinders from sizes ranging from 450 g to 70 kg, as well as drums (865 kg), tank wagons (15 tonnes on roads; 27–90 tonnes by rail), and barges (600–1200 tonnes).
## Applications
Sodium chloride is the most common chlorine compound, and is the main source of chlorine for the demand by the chemical industry. About 15000 chlorine-containing compounds are commercially traded, including such diverse compounds as chlorinated methane, ethanes, vinyl chloride, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), aluminium trichloride for catalysis, the chlorides of magnesium, titanium, zirconium, and hafnium which are the precursors for producing the pure form of those elements.
Quantitatively, of all elemental chlorine produced, about 63% is used in the manufacture of organic compounds, and 18% in the manufacture of inorganic chlorine compounds. About 15,000 chlorine compounds are used commercially. The remaining 19% of chlorine produced is used for bleaches and disinfection products. The most significant of organic compounds in terms of production volume are 1,2-dichloroethane and vinyl chloride, intermediates in the production of PVC. Other particularly important organochlorines are methyl chloride, methylene chloride, chloroform, vinylidene chloride, trichloroethylene, perchloroethylene, allyl chloride, epichlorohydrin, chlorobenzene, dichlorobenzenes, and trichlorobenzenes. The major inorganic compounds include HCl, Cl<sub>2</sub>O, HOCl, NaClO<sub>3</sub>, chlorinated isocyanurates, AlCl<sub>3</sub>, SiCl<sub>4</sub>, SnCl<sub>4</sub>, PCl<sub>3</sub>, PCl<sub>5</sub>, POCl<sub>3</sub>, AsCl<sub>3</sub>, SbCl<sub>3</sub>, SbCl<sub>5</sub>, BiCl<sub>3</sub>, and ZnCl<sub>2</sub>.
### Sanitation, disinfection, and antisepsis
#### Combating putrefaction
In France (as elsewhere), animal intestines were processed to make musical instrument strings, Goldbeater's skin and other products. This was done in "gut factories" (boyauderies), and it was an odiferous and unhealthy process. In or about 1820, the Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale offered a prize for the discovery of a method, chemical or mechanical, for separating the peritoneal membrane of animal intestines without putrefaction. The prize was won by Antoine-Germain Labarraque, a 44-year-old French chemist and pharmacist who had discovered that Berthollet's chlorinated bleaching solutions ("Eau de Javel") not only destroyed the smell of putrefaction of animal tissue decomposition, but also actually retarded the decomposition.
Labarraque's research resulted in the use of chlorides and hypochlorites of lime (calcium hypochlorite) and of sodium (sodium hypochlorite) in the boyauderies. The same chemicals were found to be useful in the routine disinfection and deodorization of latrines, sewers, markets, abattoirs, anatomical theatres, and morgues. They were successful in hospitals, lazarets, prisons, infirmaries (both on land and at sea), magnaneries, stables, cattle-sheds, etc.; and they were beneficial during exhumations, embalming, outbreaks of epidemic disease, fever, and blackleg in cattle.
#### Disinfection
Labarraque's chlorinated lime and soda solutions have been advocated since 1828 to prevent infection (called "contagious infection", presumed to be transmitted by "miasmas"), and to treat putrefaction of existing wounds, including septic wounds. In his 1828 work, Labarraque recommended that doctors breathe chlorine, wash their hands in chlorinated lime, and even sprinkle chlorinated lime about the patients' beds in cases of "contagious infection". In 1828, the contagion of infections was well known, even though the agency of the microbe was not discovered until more than half a century later.
During the Paris cholera outbreak of 1832, large quantities of so-called chloride of lime were used to disinfect the capital. This was not simply modern calcium chloride, but chlorine gas dissolved in lime-water (dilute calcium hydroxide) to form calcium hypochlorite (chlorinated lime). Labarraque's discovery helped to remove the terrible stench of decay from hospitals and dissecting rooms, and by doing so, effectively deodorised the Latin Quarter of Paris. These "putrid miasmas" were thought by many to cause the spread of "contagion" and "infection" – both words used before the germ theory of infection. Chloride of lime was used for destroying odors and "putrid matter". One source claims chloride of lime was used by Dr. John Snow to disinfect water from the cholera-contaminated well that was feeding the Broad Street pump in 1854 London, though three other reputable sources that describe that famous cholera epidemic do not mention the incident. One reference makes it clear that chloride of lime was used to disinfect the offal and filth in the streets surrounding the Broad Street pump – a common practice in mid-nineteenth century England.
#### Semmelweis and experiments with antisepsis
Perhaps the most famous application of Labarraque's chlorine and chemical base solutions was in 1847, when Ignaz Semmelweis used chlorine-water (chlorine dissolved in pure water, which was cheaper than chlorinated lime solutions) to disinfect the hands of Austrian doctors, which Semmelweis noticed still carried the stench of decomposition from the dissection rooms to the patient examination rooms. Long before the germ theory of disease, Semmelweis theorized that "cadaveric particles" were transmitting decay from fresh medical cadavers to living patients, and he used the well-known "Labarraque's solutions" as the only known method to remove the smell of decay and tissue decomposition (which he found that soap did not). The solutions proved to be far more effective antiseptics than soap (Semmelweis was also aware of their greater efficacy, but not the reason), and this resulted in Semmelweis's celebrated success in stopping the transmission of childbed fever ("puerperal fever") in the maternity wards of Vienna General Hospital in Austria in 1847.
Much later, during World War I in 1916, a standardized and diluted modification of Labarraque's solution containing hypochlorite (0.5%) and boric acid as an acidic stabilizer was developed by Henry Drysdale Dakin (who gave full credit to Labarraque's prior work in this area). Called Dakin's solution, the method of wound irrigation with chlorinated solutions allowed antiseptic treatment of a wide variety of open wounds, long before the modern antibiotic era. A modified version of this solution continues to be employed in wound irrigation in modern times, where it remains effective against bacteria that are resistant to multiple antibiotics (see Century Pharmaceuticals).
#### Public sanitation
The first continuous application of chlorination to drinking U.S. water was installed in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1908. By 1918, the US Department of Treasury called for all drinking water to be disinfected with chlorine. Chlorine is presently an important chemical for water purification (such as in water treatment plants), in disinfectants, and in bleach. Even small water supplies are now routinely chlorinated.
Chlorine is usually used (in the form of hypochlorous acid) to kill bacteria and other microbes in drinking water supplies and public swimming pools. In most private swimming pools, chlorine itself is not used, but rather sodium hypochlorite, formed from chlorine and sodium hydroxide, or solid tablets of chlorinated isocyanurates. The drawback of using chlorine in swimming pools is that the chlorine reacts with the amino acids in proteins in human hair and skin. Contrary to popular belief, the distinctive "chlorine aroma" associated with swimming pools is not the result of elemental chlorine itself, but of chloramine, a chemical compound produced by the reaction of free dissolved chlorine with amines in organic substances including those in urine and sweat. As a disinfectant in water, chlorine is more than three times as effective against Escherichia coli as bromine, and more than six times as effective as iodine. Increasingly, monochloramine itself is being directly added to drinking water for purposes of disinfection, a process known as chloramination.
It is often impractical to store and use poisonous chlorine gas for water treatment, so alternative methods of adding chlorine are used. These include hypochlorite solutions, which gradually release chlorine into the water, and compounds like sodium dichloro-s-triazinetrione (dihydrate or anhydrous), sometimes referred to as "dichlor", and trichloro-s-triazinetrione, sometimes referred to as "trichlor". These compounds are stable while solid and may be used in powdered, granular, or tablet form. When added in small amounts to pool water or industrial water systems, the chlorine atoms hydrolyze from the rest of the molecule, forming hypochlorous acid (HOCl), which acts as a general biocide, killing germs, microorganisms, algae, and so on.
### Use as a weapon
#### World War I
Chlorine gas, also known as bertholite, was first used as a weapon in World War I by Germany on April 22, 1915, in the Second Battle of Ypres. As described by the soldiers, it had the distinctive smell of a mixture of pepper and pineapple. It also tasted metallic and stung the back of the throat and chest. Chlorine reacts with water in the mucosa of the lungs to form hydrochloric acid, destructive to living tissue and potentially lethal. Human respiratory systems can be protected from chlorine gas by gas masks with activated charcoal or other filters, which makes chlorine gas much less lethal than other chemical weapons. It was pioneered by a German scientist later to be a Nobel laureate, Fritz Haber of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, in collaboration with the German chemical conglomerate IG Farben, which developed methods for discharging chlorine gas against an entrenched enemy. After its first use, both sides in the conflict used chlorine as a chemical weapon, but it was soon replaced by the more deadly phosgene and mustard gas.
#### Middle east
Chlorine gas was also used during the Iraq War in Anbar Province in 2007, with insurgents packing truck bombs with mortar shells and chlorine tanks. The attacks killed two people from the explosives and sickened more than 350. Most of the deaths were caused by the force of the explosions rather than the effects of chlorine since the toxic gas is readily dispersed and diluted in the atmosphere by the blast. In some bombings, over a hundred civilians were hospitalized due to breathing difficulties. The Iraqi authorities tightened security for elemental chlorine, which is essential for providing safe drinking water to the population.
On 23 October 2014, it was reported that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant had used chlorine gas in the town of Duluiyah, Iraq. Laboratory analysis of clothing and soil samples confirmed the use of chlorine gas against Kurdish Peshmerga Forces in a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attack on 23 January 2015 at the Highway 47 Kiske Junction near Mosul.
Another country in the middle east, Syria, has used chlorine as a chemical weapon delivered from barrel bombs and rockets. In 2016, the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism concluded that the Syrian government used chlorine as a chemical weapon in three separate attacks. Later investigations from the OPCW's Investigation and Identification Team concluded that the Syrian Air Force was responsible for chlorine attacks in 2017 and 2018.
## Biological role
The chloride anion is an essential nutrient for metabolism. Chlorine is needed for the production of hydrochloric acid in the stomach and in cellular pump functions. The main dietary source is table salt, or sodium chloride. Overly low or high concentrations of chloride in the blood are examples of electrolyte disturbances. Hypochloremia (having too little chloride) rarely occurs in the absence of other abnormalities. It is sometimes associated with hypoventilation. It can be associated with chronic respiratory acidosis. Hyperchloremia (having too much chloride) usually does not produce symptoms. When symptoms do occur, they tend to resemble those of hypernatremia (having too much sodium). Reduction in blood chloride leads to cerebral dehydration; symptoms are most often caused by rapid rehydration which results in cerebral edema. Hyperchloremia can affect oxygen transport.
## Hazards
Chlorine is a toxic gas that attacks the respiratory system, eyes, and skin. Because it is denser than air, it tends to accumulate at the bottom of poorly ventilated spaces. Chlorine gas is a strong oxidizer, which may react with flammable materials.
Chlorine is detectable with measuring devices in concentrations as low as 0.2 parts per million (ppm), and by smell at 3 ppm. Coughing and vomiting may occur at 30 ppm and lung damage at 60 ppm. About 1000 ppm can be fatal after a few deep breaths of the gas. The IDLH (immediately dangerous to life and health) concentration is 10 ppm. Breathing lower concentrations can aggravate the respiratory system and exposure to the gas can irritate the eyes. When chlorine is inhaled at concentrations greater than 30 ppm, it reacts with water within the lungs, producing hydrochloric acid (HCl) and hypochlorous acid (HClO).
When used at specified levels for water disinfection, the reaction of chlorine with water is not a major concern for human health. Other materials present in the water may generate disinfection by-products that are associated with negative effects on human health.
In the United States, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has set the permissible exposure limit for elemental chlorine at 1 ppm, or 3 mg/m<sup>3</sup>. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has designated a recommended exposure limit of 0.5 ppm over 15 minutes.
In the home, accidents occur when hypochlorite bleach solutions come into contact with certain acidic drain-cleaners to produce chlorine gas. Hypochlorite bleach (a popular laundry additive) combined with ammonia (another popular laundry additive) produces chloramines, another toxic group of chemicals.
### Chlorine-induced cracking in structural materials
Chlorine is widely used for purifying water, especially potable water supplies and water used in swimming pools. Several catastrophic collapses of swimming pool ceilings have occurred from chlorine-induced stress corrosion cracking of stainless steel suspension rods. Some polymers are also sensitive to attack, including acetal resin and polybutene. Both materials were used in hot and cold water domestic plumbing, and stress corrosion cracking caused widespread failures in the US in the 1980s and 1990s.
### Chlorine-iron fire
The element iron can combine with chlorine at high temperatures in a strong exothermic reaction, creating a chlorine-iron fire. Chlorine-iron fires are a risk in chemical process plants, where much of the pipework that carries chlorine gas is made of steel.
## See also
- Chlorine cycle
- Chlorine gas poisoning
- Industrial gas
- Polymer degradation
- Reductive dechlorination
## Explanatory notes
## General bibliography |
47,226,218 | Farthest-first traversal | 1,135,804,443 | Sequence of points far from previous points | [
"Approximation algorithms",
"Cluster analysis",
"Computational geometry"
]
| In computational geometry, the farthest-first traversal of a compact metric space is a sequence of points in the space, where the first point is selected arbitrarily and each successive point is as far as possible from the set of previously-selected points. The same concept can also be applied to a finite set of geometric points, by restricting the selected points to belong to the set or equivalently by considering the finite metric space generated by these points. For a finite metric space or finite set of geometric points, the resulting sequence forms a permutation of the points, also known as the greedy permutation.
Every prefix of a farthest-first traversal provides a set of points that is widely spaced and close to all remaining points. More precisely, no other set of equally many points can be spaced more than twice as widely, and no other set of equally many points can be less than half as far to its farthest remaining point. In part because of these properties, farthest-point traversals have many applications, including the approximation of the traveling salesman problem and the metric k-center problem. They may be constructed in polynomial time, or (for low-dimensional Euclidean spaces) approximated in near-linear time.
## Definition and properties
A farthest-first traversal is a sequence of points in a compact metric space, with each point appearing at most once. If the space is finite, each point appears exactly once, and the traversal is a permutation of all of the points in the space. The first point of the sequence may be any point in the space. Each point p after the first must have the maximum possible distance to the set of points earlier than p in the sequence, where the distance from a point to a set is defined as the minimum of the pairwise distances to points in the set. A given space may have many different farthest-first traversals, depending both on the choice of the first point in the sequence (which may be any point in the space) and on ties for the maximum distance among later choices.
Farthest-point traversals may be characterized by the following properties. Fix a number k, and consider the prefix formed by the first k points of the farthest-first traversal of any metric space. Let r be the distance between the final point of the prefix and the other points in the prefix. Then this subset has the following two properties:
- All pairs of the selected points are at distance at least r from each other, and
- All points of the metric space are at distance at most r from the subset.
Conversely any sequence having these properties, for all choices of k, must be a farthest-first traversal. These are the two defining properties of a Delone set, so each prefix of the farthest-first traversal forms a Delone set.
## Applications
`used the farthest-first traversal to define the farthest-insertion heuristic for the travelling salesman problem. This heuristic finds approximate solutions to the travelling salesman problem by building up a tour on a subset of points, adding one point at a time to the tour in the ordering given by a farthest-first traversal. To add each point to the tour, one edge of the previous tour is broken and replaced by a pair of edges through the added point, in the cheapest possible way. Although Rosenkrantz et al. prove only a logarithmic approximation ratio for this method, they show that in practice it often works better than other insertion methods with better provable approximation ratios.`
Later, the same sequence of points was popularized by , who used it as part of greedy approximation algorithms for two problems in clustering, in which the goal is to partition a set of points into k clusters. One of the two problems that Gonzalez solve in this way seeks to minimize the maximum diameter of a cluster, while the other, known as the metric k-center problem, seeks to minimize the maximum radius, the distance from a chosen central point of a cluster to the farthest point from it in the same cluster. For instance, the k-center problem can be used to model the placement of fire stations within a city, in order to ensure that every address within the city can be reached quickly by a fire truck. For both clustering problems, Gonzalez chooses a set of k cluster centers by selecting the first k points of a farthest-first traversal, and then creates clusters by assigning each input point to the nearest cluster center. If r is the distance from the set of k selected centers to the next point at position k + 1 in the traversal, then with this clustering every point is within distance r of its center and every cluster has diameter at most 2r. However, the subset of k centers together with the next point are all at distance at least r from each other, and any k-clustering would put some two of these points into a single cluster, with one of them at distance at least r/2 from its center and with diameter at least r. Thus, Gonzalez's heuristic gives an approximation ratio of 2 for both clustering problems.
Gonzalez's heuristic was independently rediscovered for the metric k-center problem by , who applied it more generally to weighted k-center problems. Another paper on the k-center problem from the same time, , achieves the same approximation ratio of 2, but its techniques are different. Nevertheless, Gonzalez's heuristic, and the name "farthest-first traversal", are often incorrectly attributed to Hochbaum and Shmoys. For both the min-max diameter clustering problem and the metric k-center problem, these approximations are optimal: the existence of a polynomial-time heuristic with any constant approximation ratio less than 2 would imply that P = NP.
As well as for clustering, the farthest-first traversal can also be used in another type of facility location problem, the max-min facility dispersion problem, in which the goal is to choose the locations of k different facilities so that they are as far apart from each other as possible. More precisely, the goal in this problem is to choose k points from a given metric space or a given set of candidate points, in such a way as to maximize the minimum pairwise distance between the selected points. Again, this can be approximated by choosing the first k points of a farthest-first traversal. If r denotes the distance of the kth point from all previous points, then every point of the metric space or the candidate set is within distance r of the first k − 1 points. By the pigeonhole principle, some two points of the optimal solution (whatever it is) must both be within distance r of the same point among these first k − 1 chosen points, and (by the triangle inequality) within distance 2r of each other. Therefore, the heuristic solution given by the farthest-first traversal is within a factor of two of optimal.
Other applications of the farthest-first traversal include color quantization (clustering the colors in an image to a smaller set of representative colors), progressive scanning of images (choosing an order to display the pixels of an image so that prefixes of the ordering produce good lower-resolution versions of the whole image rather than filling in the image from top to bottom), point selection in the probabilistic roadmap method for motion planning, simplification of point clouds, generating masks for halftone images, hierarchical clustering, finding the similarities between polygon meshes of similar surfaces, choosing diverse and high-value observation targets for underwater robot exploration, fault detection in sensor networks, modeling phylogenetic diversity, matching vehicles in a heterogenous fleet to customer delivery requests, uniform distribution of geodetic observatories on the Earth's surface or of other types of sensor network, generation of virtual point lights in the instant radiosity computer graphics rendering method, and geometric range searching data structures.
## Algorithms
### Greedy exact algorithm
The farthest-first traversal of a finite point set may be computed by a greedy algorithm that maintains the distance of each point from the previously selected points, performing the following steps:
- Initialize the sequence of selected points to the empty sequence, and the distances of each point to the selected points to infinity.
- While not all points have been selected, repeat the following steps:
- Scan the list of not-yet-selected points to find a point p that has the maximum distance from the selected points.
- Remove p from the not-yet-selected points and add it to the end of the sequence of selected points.
- For each remaining not-yet-selected point q, replace the distance stored for q by the minimum of its old value and the distance from p to q.
For a set of n points, this algorithm takes O(n<sup>2</sup>) steps and O(n<sup>2</sup>) distance computations.
### Approximations
A faster approximation algorithm, given by , applies to any subset of points in a metric space with bounded doubling dimension, a class of spaces that include the Euclidean spaces of bounded dimension. Their algorithm finds a sequence of points in which each successive point has distance within a 1 − ε factor of the farthest distance from the previously-selected point, where ε can be chosen to be any positive number. It takes time $O(n\log n)$.
The results for bounded doubling dimension do not apply to high-dimensional Euclidean spaces, because the constant factor in the big O notation for these algorithms depends on the dimension. Instead, a different approximation method based on the Johnson–Lindenstrauss lemma and locality-sensitive hashing has running time $O(\varepsilon^{-2} n^{1+1/(1+\varepsilon)^2+o(1)}).$ For metrics defined by shortest paths on weighted undirected graphs, a randomized incremental construction based on Dijkstra's algorithm achieves time $O(\varepsilon^{-1} m\log n\log\tfrac{n}{\varepsilon})$, where n and m are the numbers of vertices and edges of the input graph, respectively.
### Incremental Voronoi insertion
For selecting points from a continuous space such as the Euclidean plane, rather than from a finite set of candidate points, these methods will not work directly, because there would be an infinite number of distances to maintain. Instead, each new point should be selected as the center of the largest empty circle defined by the previously-selected point set. This center will always lie on a vertex of the Voronoi diagram of the already selected points, or at a point where an edge of the Voronoi diagram crosses the domain boundary. In this formulation the method for constructing farthest-first traversals has also been called incremental Voronoi insertion. It is similar to Delaunay refinement for finite element mesh generation, but differs in the choice of which Voronoi vertex to insert at each step.
## See also
- Lloyd's algorithm, a different method for generating evenly spaced points in geometric spaces |
557,040 | Milan Baroš | 1,171,502,660 | Czech footballer | [
"1981 births",
"2006 FIFA World Cup players",
"Antalyaspor footballers",
"Aston Villa F.C. players",
"Czech First League players",
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"Czech Republic men's youth international footballers",
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"Czech expatriate sportspeople in France",
"Czech expatriate sportspeople in Turkey",
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"Expatriate men's footballers in England",
"Expatriate men's footballers in France",
"Expatriate men's footballers in Turkey",
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"Romani footballers",
"Süper Lig players",
"UEFA Champions League winning players",
"UEFA Euro 2004 players",
"UEFA Euro 2008 players",
"UEFA Euro 2012 players"
]
| Milan Baroš (; born 28 October 1981) is a Czech professional footballer who plays as a striker for FK Vigantice.
In 2005, he was part of the Liverpool team which won the UEFA Champions League. He went on to win Ligue 1 with Lyon in 2007, the FA Cup with Portsmouth in 2008 and the Süper Lig with Galatasaray in 2012. He also had spells with Baník Ostrava, where he started his career, and English club Aston Villa, before retiring from professional football in 2020 following the fourth spell at Baník Ostrava.
Born in Valašské Meziříčí, Baroš represented the Czech Republic international team in 93 matches, scoring on 41 occasions. He won the Golden Boot as top scorer of the Euro 2004 tournament, where his nation reached the semi-finals. He went on to play in three more major international tournaments. His 41 goals for the Czech Republic is second behind only Jan Koller.
## Club career
### Early career
As a boy, Baroš played for youth clubs in Vigantice and Rožnov pod Radhoštěm before joining the youth team of Baník Ostrava at the age of 12. In 1998, he made his debut for the club in the Czech First League, the top division of Czech football, becoming a regular over the next few seasons. In 2000, he won the Talent of the Year award at the Czech Footballer of the Year awards. He was described by the Czech News Agency in the 2000–01 season as "perhaps the biggest star of the [Czech] football league". He played his last game for the club on 2 December 2001, in a 1–0 loss at Viktoria Žižkov. During his time in Ostrava, he scored 23 league goals in 76 appearances.
### Liverpool
Baroš joined Liverpool in 2002 in a transfer worth £3.2 million, although he did not move straight away due to delays in obtaining a work permit for him. He made his club debut in a UEFA Champions League tie away to Barcelona on 13 March; he played the last 16 minutes in place of Emile Heskey as the match finished goalless. It was his only appearance of the 2001–02 season.
In the 2002–03 season, Baroš scored twice on his Premiership debut away to Bolton Wanderers on 14 September 2002, as Liverpool won 3–2 away. Baroš was a substitute in the 2003 Football League Cup Final against Manchester United. He entered the game in the second half, but did not play to the end of the game, being substituted himself a minute before the end of the game. Liverpool won the game 2–0 to win the cup, the first major trophy of Baroš' career. Towards the end of the season, he scored twice in a 6–0 away win over already-relegated West Bromwich Albion in April 2003. He ended his first season in the Premiership with 12 goals for the club.
Baroš broke his ankle in a September 2003 match against Blackburn Rovers, a match which also saw teammate Jamie Carragher sustain a broken leg. Baroš subsequently missed five months of football and scored just two goals in the 2003–04 season. His first goal came in a league match against Leeds United in February 2004, while his other goal was in March in a 1–1 Champions League draw against Marseille. Baroš would later claim that had manager Gérard Houllier stayed at the club after the summer of 2004, he would have put in a transfer request. As it was, Houllier left the club and was replaced by Rafael Benítez.
Baroš entered the 2004–05 season having been the top goalscorer in the summer's Euro 2004 tournament. With Michael Owen and Emile Heskey having been sold and new signing Djibril Cissé out with a long-term injury, Baroš was now Liverpool's only senior striker. Despite being the club's joint top scorer with 13 goals, including a hat-trick against Crystal Palace, Spaniard Fernando Morientes was preferred to Baroš in Liverpool's starting lineup for the League Cup Final, a match they lost to Chelsea. However, he did start the 2005 Champions League Final, being substituted after 85 minutes as the game finished 3–3 in normal time. Liverpool went on to win the match on penalties. Baroš reportedly dropped the trophy during the team's celebration, leaving a dent, but Liverpool decided not to mend it because it "added to the character" of the trophy. He finished the season with 13 goals, becoming the joint-top scorer for the club. Baroš also received his first red card during the campaign, being sent off for a high challenge on Everton's Alan Stubbs in the Merseyside derby on 20 March.
In June 2005, former manager Gérard Houllier, then with French club Lyon, made an approach to sign Baroš. The player rejected the approach, but only made two substitute appearances for Liverpool in the 2005–06 season before leaving the club. He left Liverpool with league figures of 19 goals in 68 appearances.
### Aston Villa
Baroš moved to Premiership side Aston Villa for a fee of £6.5 million in August 2005, signing a four-year contract. He was given the number 10 shirt. Just ten minutes into his Aston Villa debut, he scored the only goal in his new team's league victory over Blackburn. He played a crucial role in Villa's League Cup second round victory against Wycombe Wanderers in September. With Villa trailing 3–1 at half time, Baroš scored shortly after the beginning of the second half and won a penalty, which Gareth Barry converted. He also provided the cross for Barry's second goal of the game as Villa scored seven goals in the second half, resulting in a final score of 8–3, their biggest win in over 40 years. He set up the first Aston Villa goal in a November match against Sunderland in dubious circumstances; back-heeling the ball, which "looked to have gone out of play" to Aaron Hughes. Hughes' pass found Kevin Phillips, who opened the scoring against his old club. He later scored a goal himself in the same game, which ended 3–1 to Villa.
In the Boxing Day match against Everton, Baroš was involved thoroughly in the proceedings. He opened the scoring in the 35th minute, having handled the ball immediately beforehand. This was not punished and the referee awarded a goal. Baroš subsequently celebrated in front of the travelling Everton fans, making a gesture as if to listen to them. A number of missiles from the crowd were subsequently thrown in Baroš' direction. The goal was just his third in what Glenn Moore of The Independent described as "an indifferent season" for Baroš. He went on to score his second goal of the game, and Villa's fourth, earning him man of the match honours. Baroš scored twice in January 2006's fourth round FA Cup win against Port Vale, and added another in the following round's 1–1 draw with Manchester City. Late in the season, he scored two goals in the Second City derby against Birmingham City at Villa Park, marking his 11th and 12th goals of the season and winning another man of the match award. He would score no further goals that season.
Baroš failed to score at the start of the 2006–07 season, leading new manager Martin O'Neill to challenge him in October to prove himself before the January transfer window. He subsequently scored his first goal of the season in December 2006, eight months since scoring his last one, with a close-range equaliser against Sheffield United in a 2–2 draw. Although he also managed to score for Aston Villa in a 2–1 loss to Manchester United in the FA Cup, he left the club in January 2007, having scored just once in 17 league matches that season.
### Lyon
On 22 January 2007, Baroš signed with French side Lyon, signing a three-and-a-half year contract and reuniting with former manager Gérard Houllier from his time at Liverpool. The deal swapped Baroš with Lyon striker John Carew, who joined Aston Villa on a three-and-a-half-year deal. Just two days after joining the club, he made his Lyon debut in a league match against Bordeaux. He appeared as a substitute, as league leaders Lyon lost 2–1 for their first home defeat of the season. Baroš took part in that year's Champions League, featuring as a substitute in a 0–0 draw in Rome against Roma. He played no further part in that season's Champions League campaign, as he remained on the bench in the return leg as Lyon were eliminated.
In May 2007, Baroš was accused of making a racist gesture towards his Cameroonian opponent Stéphane Mbia during Lyon's match against Rennes on 18 April. After having been fouled by Mbia several times, Baroš held his nose in front of Mbia and waved his hand as if to waft away an unpleasant smell. In the ensuing controversy, Baroš insisted that his gesture was not intended to be racist in any way, and he was only trying to tell Mbia to get out of his face and leave him alone. Baroš and Mbia were brought before an official disciplinary hearing of the Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP), which ruled that Baroš was innocent of racist behaviour, but he was nevertheless suspended for the remaining three games of the season for unsportsmanlike conduct. The end of the season saw Lyon win the league title, but nonetheless manager Houllier left the club.
Baroš scored in Lyon's opening game of the 2007–08 season as his club won 2–0 against Auxerre. However, he played significantly less under new manager Alain Perrin, making just six starts and scoring a total of three league goals. In mid-November, Baroš revealed a break down in his relationship with Perrin and hinted at a move to another club.
### Portsmouth
Baroš joined Premier League side Portsmouth on loan from Lyon in January 2008 until the end of the season, with the option of making the move permanent at the end of the loan. Baroš played a significant role in the club winning the 2008 FA Cup. He won Portsmouth's match-winning penalty kick in the quarter-final at Manchester United and assisted Nwankwo Kanu's deciding goal in the semi-final match against West Bromwich Albion with a suspected handball that went unnoticed by both the referee and his assistant. The final match of Baroš' loan spell was the 2008 FA Cup Final victory over Cardiff City at Wembley Stadium, where he appeared as an 87th-minute substitute for Kanu. By the end of the season, Baroš had played 16 matches for Portsmouth, including seven as a substitute, although he failed to score. He was one of a number of Portsmouth players to be absent at the team parade after the club won the FA Cup, leading to speculation he could have played his last game for the club. At the end of the season, Baroš returned to Lyon.
### Galatasaray
In August 2008, Baroš joined Turkish champions Galatasaray from Lyon for a fee of €4.7 million. He made his first appearance against Kayserispor, playing the last 15 minutes. Baroš scored his first two goals for the club in the UEFA Cup first round, first leg game against Bellinzona. Three days later, in his first league start, he once again scored two goals against Kocaelispor, with Galatasaray going on to win the match 4–1. On 21 December 2008, Baroš scored a hat-trick in the 4–2 Süper Lig derby win against Beşiktaş, converting two penalties and scoring one from open play. He scored another hat-trick later in the season against Hacettepe. He finished the 2008–09 season as the Süper Lig top scorer with 20 goals.
Baroš scored his first goal of the 2009–10 season in his third league game when he scored twice in a 4–1 win against Kayserispor. His next two goals came on 13 September where Galatasaray played rivals Beşiktaş. Galatasaray won the match 3–0, with Baroš scoring his third and fourth goals of the season. He scored a total of five times in ten matches before breaking his left foot in two places after a tackle by Emre Belözoğlu in the Fenerbahçe–Galatasaray derby on 25 October 2009. He returned to action four and a half months later on 14 March 2010 for a game against Ankaragücü, scoring a goal on his comeback. During the season, he scored his third hat-trick for the club in a match against Diyarbakirspor. He finished the season with league figures of 11 goals in 17 matches.
In August 2010, a week before the start of the 2010–11 Süper Lig, he extended his contract with Galatasaray for two seasons, keeping him contracted to the club until the end of the 2012–13 season. Although he had been injured during pre-season training, Baroš appeared as a substitute in his club's UEFA Europa League qualification match against Karpaty Lviv, scoring twice as Galatasaray returned from 2–0 down to draw the match. At the end of September, he scored his fourth hat-trick for the club against Istanbul Büyükşehir Belediyespor, although he failed to complete the game due to an injury. He scored two more goals in a 4–2 loss against Ankaragücü on 17 October, but was injured again. Baroš was suspended for three matches in March 2011 after insulting referee Fırat Aydınus in a match against Beşiktaş. By the end of the season, Baroš had appeared in 17 league games and scored 9 goals.
Galatasaray started the 2011–12 season well and were top of the league in January, having won eight consecutive league matches. Baroš did not start a match for his club for four weeks, but scored an important goal against Samsunspor in the eighth match of the streak. The club won a ninth-straight game, with Baroš scoring his seventh goal of the season, in the 5–1 win against Kardemir Karabükspor, although he left the game with an injury. He returned from injury in a February match against Antalyaspor, coming on as a substitute, but was on the field of play just 15 minutes before receiving a red card. His dismissal resulted in a three-match suspension. Baroš scored his last goal for the club in April 2012 in the last match of the regular season against Manisaspor.
In 2012, Baroš was told by then-coach Fatih Terim that he would not play for the club any more. He played no competitive football after Euro 2012 and finally left the club in February 2013.
### Return to Baník Ostrava
On 18 February 2013, Czech club Baník Ostrava announced that Baroš had rejoined the club where he started his career, signing a one-and-a-half-year contract. Under the terms of the contract, his salary was donated to support the youth club of the team. Having not played a competitive match since 21 June of the previous year, he played his first match of the season on 23 February, coming on as a substitute in the 0–0 home draw with Dynamo České Budějovice. He scored a hat-trick in Ostrava's 3–0 league victory against Hradec Králové on 9 March 2013, his first hat-trick in the top flight of Czech football.
### Antalyaspor
On 16 July 2013, Baroš agreed a one-year contract with Turkish club Antalyaspor. He made his club debut in August, appearing as a substitute in a 0–0 Süper Lig draw against Kayseri Erciyesspor. He scored his first goal for Antalyaspor against Bursaspor in August, then his second against Rizespor in October. He suffered damage to his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in December 2013, ruling him out of action for the rest of the season. Baroš returned to the Czech Republic for treatment in January 2014.
### Return to the Czech league
24 September 2014 saw Baroš re-join Ostrava; he signed a contract until the end of the 2014–15 season. Following the end of the 2014–15 season, Baroš left Ostrava and signed a two-year contract with Mladá Boleslav. Following the end of the 2015–16 season, Baroš left Mladá Boleslav and signed a two-year contract with Slovan Liberec. He only spent one of the two years at Liberec before returning to Baník Ostrava in 2017. On 3 July 2020, 38-year-old Baroš announced that he would retire from professional football at the end of the Czech season, due to persistent injuries.
## International career
Baroš started representing the Czech Republic in 1997, at under-15 level. Over the next three years he moved up to play at higher age groups, specifically under-16, 17 and 18. Baroš played in the 2000 Olympic tournament, making three appearances for the team. He took part in two other major tournaments at junior level: the 2000 UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship, at which the Czech Republic placed second, and the 2002 UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship, which the Czech Republic won.
Baroš made his first appearance for the senior national side on 25 April 2001 in a friendly match against Belgium, scoring on his debut. Baroš and national teammate Pavel Nedvěd were both shown the red card in a November 2001 qualification match for the following year's World Cup, as the Czech Republic were eliminated by Belgium.
At UEFA Euro 2004, Baroš scored the first goal for the Czech Republic in their first game of the tournament, a come-from-behind 2–1 victory over Latvia. With the goal he became the youngest goalscorer at the European Championships for the Czech Republic. His second goal of the tournament came against the Netherlands; the Dutch team had taken a two-goal lead over the Czechs before Jan Koller scored from a Baroš pass. Baroš then scored before Vladimír Šmicer completed the scoring, as the Czechs won the game 3–2. The third group match saw the Czech Republic make nine changes to their starting lineup, having already qualified for the quarter-finals. Baroš appeared as a substitute and scored the winning goal, as opponents Germany failed to advance to the next stage of the tournament. Baroš added two goals in two minutes of the second half of the Czechs' quarter-final win over Denmark, and finished as the tournament's Golden Boot winner with five goals.
In qualification for the 2006 World Cup, Baroš scored five goals for his country, including four in consecutive matches in 2005. An injury to his foot, picked up in a match on 3 June, kept him out of 2006 FIFA World Cup games against the United States and Ghana. He did appear in the Czechs' final group game against Italy, but appeared unfit and left the game after 64 minutes to be replaced by David Jarolím.
In the run up to UEFA Euro 2008, Baroš had not scored an international goal since March 2007. He started the Czech Republic's second group game against Portugal, but Portugal won 3–1 and Baroš failed to score. Jan Koller was preferred to Baroš in the starting lineup for the next match, against Turkey. Despite neither playing in the match nor even being on the pitch, Baroš suffered the indignity of receiving a yellow card during stoppage time at the end of the match.
Baroš was banned indefinitely from playing for his national side in April 2009 after a breach of discipline, having attended a bar late at night. However, he was recalled to the national side after the appointment of Ivan Hašek as head coach. On 12 August 2009, he marked his return to international duty with a goal from the penalty spot in the 3–1 home win against Belgium in a friendly match. The following month, Baroš scored a career high of four goals against San Marino, in a World Cup qualifier which the Czech Republic won 7–0. In doing so, he became only the second player from the Czech Republic to score four goals in an international match. He was selected as part of the squad for Euro 2012. After the tournament, during which he failed to score, Baroš announced his retirement from international football, having scored a total of 41 international goals in 93 matches. His total of 41 international goals for his country is second only to strike partner Jan Koller, who holds the record with 55.
## Style of play
Baroš gained the nickname "the Ostravan Maradona" in his native Czech Republic due to perceived similarities with the Argentine footballer of the same name. He was noted particularly for being a quick player with good dribbling skill.
## Personal life
Baroš was born in the Czech town of Valašské Meziříčí. He is of partial Romani descent. He grew up in the village of Vigantice. In 2009, he married Tereza Franková, whom he started dating in 2005. Their son Patrik was born on 1 September 2009.
On 1 November 2007, Baroš was arrested in France while driving at 271 km/h (168 mph) in his black Ferrari F430, on a freeway limited to 130 km/h (81 mph). Stopped by French police between Lyon and Geneva in the region of Ain, the local authorities said the radar reading of 271 km/h was the fastest speed ever recorded in the region, surpassing the previous mark of 248 km/h (154 mph) set by a motorcyclist in 2000. As a result, Baroš had his car and licence confiscated and had to return to Lyon in a taxi.
## Career statistics
### Club
Source: League matches;
Cup and League Cup matches;
Liverpool European matches;
European club matches from 2006
### International
Baroš made his debut opposed to Belgium in April 2001, netting his first goal as the match ended in a 1–1 draw. Baroš has only scored a hat-trick once, which came against San Marino in a 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification match in September 2009, where he accomplished a career mark by scoring four times.
Czech Republic score listed first, score column indicates score after each Baroš goal. Updated as of final match played 21 June 2012.
Source:
## Honours
Liverpool
- FA Community Shield runner-up: 2002
- Football League Cup: 2002–03; runner-up 2004-05
- UEFA Champions League: 2004–05
Olympique Lyon
- Ligue 1: 2006–07, 2007–08
- Trophée des Champions: 2007
Portsmouth
- FA Cup: 2007–08
Galatasaray
- Süper Lig: 2011–12
Mladá Boleslav
- Czech Cup: 2015–16
Czech Republic Youth
- UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship: 2002
Individual
- UEFA European Championship Golden Boot: 2004
- UEFA European Champions Team of the Tournament: 2004
- Süper Lig top scorer: 2008–09 (20 goals) |
42,937,429 | The Madness of King Scar | 1,167,447,204 | 1997 song for the musical The Lion King | [
"1997 songs",
"Songs about fictional male characters",
"Songs about kings",
"Songs about mammals",
"Songs about mental health",
"Songs from The Lion King (franchise)",
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"Songs with music by Elton John"
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| "The Madness of King Scar" is a song written by English musician Elton John and lyricist Tim Rice, which premiered in the musical The Lion King, a stage adaptation of Disney's 1994 animated feature film of the same name. "The Madness of King Scar" had been added to the musical along with two other songs. It is one of two tracks that more prominently features vocals from the character Nala. The title is a reference to the 1994 film The Madness of King George.
Opening the musical's second act, "The Madness of King Scar" primarily consists of dialogue between Scar, Nala, Zazu, and the hyenas Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed following Scar's rise to power due to his brother Mufasa's death. The lyrics revolve around Scar's paranoia, specifically his anxiety on the comparisons between himself and Mufasa, and his plan to produce an heir for his kingdom with Nala. Scholars had various interpretations of the song's lyrics and composition, who felt it used stream-of-consciousness to portray Scar as a Shakespearean character or interpreted the instrumental as a tango underscoring Scar's behaviour towards Nala. For later productions of the musical, "The Madness of King Scar" was made shorter in length, before it was removed completely. Despite this, the song was included on the cast album for the original production, with John Vickery portraying Scar. It was also put on the records for the Mexican and Madrid productions.
"The Madness of King Scar" primarily earned positive reviews from music critics, who believed it added more depth to the character of Scar. However, some commentators had more mixed to negative responses; some felt uncertain about the decision to add new material not found in the film to the musical, while others disagreed with the song's explicit content. In 2014, animator Eduardo Quintana created an animated sequence for the song for the 20th anniversary of the animated film. The video received positive reviews from media outlets, who found the animation quality to be on a professional level.
## Background
"The Madness of King Scar" is one of three original songs that Elton John and Tim Rice had added for the musical adaptation of Disney's 1994 animated film The Lion King. John had composed the music while Rice wrote the lyrics; the title is a reference to the 1994 film The Madness of King George. Created to further elaborate the storyline, it is one of two new tracks that feature the character Nala, along with "Shadowland". In the original film, she had only performed in a supporting role in the song "Can You Feel the Love Tonight".
The song was inspired by a planned reprise of "Be Prepared" that was storyboarded for the original film, but was ultimately cut from the final version. Smosh's Mikey McCollor wrote that it was removed from the film for being "so creepy", primarily due to Scar's sexual comments toward Nala. Echoing McCollor's comments, io9's Lauren Davis described Scar's interactions with Nala as creepy, and Moviepilot's Olivia van der Will attributed the exclusion of the song to its lyrics' reference to sexuality. Matthew Roulette of TheFW believes that the scene was abandoned because of the characters' significant age difference.
In later productions of the musical, "The Madness of King Scar" was cut down to a shorter length, before it was fully removed altogether. However it was included on the cast album for the musical, which was released on 1 January 1997. The song included the show's original members Heather Headley, Geoff Hoyle, Tracy Nicole Chapman, Stanley Wayne Mathis, Kevin Cahoon, and John Vickery; Vickery had played the role of Scar for the official recording. The song was also featured on albums for the musical's Mexican and Madrid productions.
## Context and composition
Part of the opening to the show's second act, "The Madness of King Scar" takes place entirely in Scar's cave, and involves Scar, Zazu, Nala, and the hyenas Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed. The lead vocal for "The Madness of King Scar" spans between Eb4 to G5, with the instrumental including a piano and chords. An "extended character song for the dissatisfied lion monarch", the lyrics revolve around Scar's "paranoid pursuit of the lion throne". The song is primarily composed of dialogue rather than singing, with Rice describing it, along with "Chow Down", as "just potboilers". The Buffalo News''' Heather Violanti summarised the performance as "five minutes of painful rumination by the evil Scar and his hyena henchmen after Scar's usurpation of the throne".
During the song, the hyenas express their discontent with Scar for his inability to deal with a drought affecting the Pride Lands, begging for him to give them a "fix of flesh" to satisfy their "needs". Through the course of the lyrics, Scar becomes increasingly paranoid about comparisons to his deceased brother Mufasa. After fixating on a plan to produce an heir for his kingdom, Scar makes sexual advances to Nala, who explicitly refuses him. Some of Scar's comments to Nala include: "She's got those assets feminine, I have to make her mine!" and "Nala, my, my, how you have grown."
Scholars had various interpretations of the song's lyrics and composition. In their book The Disney Song Encyclopedia, Thomas S. Hischak and Mark A. Robinson described the composition as a "stream-of-consciousness number alternat[ing] between buffoonish comedy and cold-blooded evil". Alfredo Michel Modenessi wrote, in his article "Disney's 'War Efforts': The Lion King and Education for Death; or Shakespeare Made Easy for Your Apocalyptic Convenience" that the song drew close parallels between Scar and a Shakespearean character, and further develops his relationship with the hyenas following his assumption of power. Modenessi identified "The Madness of King Scar" as taking on qualities of a tango. Connecting Scar's behaviour with the Argentine tango, Modenessi described his attempts to approach Nala as occurring to "the beat of that stereotyped 'music of seduction'".
## Reception and impact
"The Madness of King Scar" received primarily positive reviews from music critics. Ben Hewis of WhatsOnStage.com included the song in his list of his top five favourite show tunes, writing that it "shin[ed] a humanising light on the thought process of Scar is brilliantly effective storytelling". Hewis found the track to be an interesting exploration of Scar, and felt its removal from current productions of the musical was disappointing. Featuring it as an example of why Scar was one of the "15 most terrifying musical theater villains", Backstage's KC Wright described it as a "snarling signature song". Megan Green of Australian Stage wrote that "The Madness of King Scar" was an example of one of the "new, and equally memorable, songs" created for the musicals. James MacKillop of The Syracuse New Times'' described "The Madness of King Scar" and "Be Prepared" as the show's standouts.
Some commentators had more mixed to negative responses to the song. Brandon Jones of The Global Dispatch criticised "The Madness of King Scar" and "Chow Down" as "a bit too tedious", and felt that the beginning of the second act was too long. Heather Violanti was critical of the song's content, writing that its "disgusting jokes about intestinal worms may drive you mad yourself", and negatively compared it to the Lebo M-written "One by One".
### Fan-made animation
In 2014, animator Eduardo Quintana released an original sequence using a portion of Vickery's version of "The Madness of King Scar". Created as a "tribute" to the musical and the 20th anniversary of the animated film, Quintana had spent roughly two years completing the animation for the video. Focused on the dialogue between Scar and Nala, the scene begins with Scar chewing on a bone before progressing to his sexual propositions to Nala. Released on Quintana's official YouTube account, the video reached over two and a half million views as of 23 November 2016.
Critical response to the video has been positive. Mikey McCollor praised the animation, writing that he had initially believed it was done by Walt Disney Animation Studios animators. Van der Will wrote that Quintana's animation was "seriously out of this world!" Christophe Foltzer of the website Ecranlarge.com also praised Quintana, emphasising the amount of animation that he did as the video's sole animator. Foltzer wrote that he wanted to see further work from Quintana. |
53,169,141 | Battle of Rejaf | 1,161,620,368 | 1897 battle in Rejaf, South Sudan | [
"19th century in Africa",
"African resistance to colonialism",
"Battles of the Mahdist War",
"Belgian colonisation in Africa",
"Congo Free State",
"Former Belgian colonies",
"Former colonies in Africa",
"History of Central Africa",
"Lado Enclave",
"Wars involving Sudan",
"Wars involving the states and peoples of Africa"
]
| The Battle of Rejaf, or the Battle of Bedden, was fought on 17 February 1897 between the Belgian-led forces of the Congo Free State and Mahdist rebels in South Sudan. The battle resulted in a Congolese victory and the permanent expulsion of the Mahdists from the Lado Enclave, as well as the establishment of a Belgian outpost along the Nile.
King Leopold II, the Belgian king and ruler of the Congo Free State, acquired the Lado Enclave in South Sudan from Britain in 1894 as part of a territory exchange which gave the British a strip of land along the eastern Congo for Belgian access to the navigable Nile. However, the territory was overrun with Mahdist rebels who had established their stronghold at the town of Rejaf, which occupied a valuable position for trade along the Nile river. After a wave of new funding from the Belgian government in 1895, King Leopold ordered an expedition to be led into the Lado Enclave to expel the Mahdists and fortify Rejaf as a strategic military and trading outpost.
The Belgian expedition, led by Commandant Louis-Napoléon Chaltin, reached the position after a month-long advance north-east towards the Mahdist stronghold. The rebels, numbering two thousand, had established a two-mile line across a range of hills, giving their numerically superior forces a tactical advantage over Chaltin's eight hundred men. After a failed flanking maneuver by the Mahdists, Chaltin's forces stormed the heights and dislodged the rebel defenders. The Congolese companies pursued the retreating Mahdists back towards the town of Rejaf, where a final defense was made and similarly defeated.
The victory, achieved at relatively little cost, cleared the Lado Enclave of Mahdist rebels and secured Rejaf as a Belgian base for future operations in the surrounding territories and along the Nile. Rejaf became the seat of government within the Lado Enclave, and remained thus when the British eventually reclaimed the territory in 1910.
## Origins
In 1894, King Leopold II and Great Britain signed the 1894 Anglo-Congolese treaty, which resulted in the exchange of a long strip of land on the eastern side of the Congo for the Lado Enclave, leased to Leopold II for the duration of his reign. This aided the British in pursuing the Cape to Cairo railway, as well as preventing the French from achieving an east-west line by putting the Belgians in their path. With the Lado Enclave, King Leopold gained direct access to Rejaf, the last outpost on the navigable Nile. Although the outbreak of the Mahdist War (1881–1899) had disrupted trade up and down the Nile river, Leopold hoped to gain Rejaf in preparation for its reopening once the Mahdist threat had been addressed.
Since 1888, when Mahdist rebels forced the evacuation of then governor Emin Pasha, the Lado Enclave had been occupied by rebels under the leadership of Emir Arabi Dafalla. Rejaf was their strongest fortified position in the area, and it was there Arabi Dafalla stationed his equipment and soldiers. The establishment of Mahdist Sudan had provided the context for European powers to commence the invasion and colonization of the Sudan, in which King Leopold desperately wanted to take part in order to expand his Congolese empire. However, a direct military campaign into the area was not an option; Leopold would not have been able to get permission from either the French or the British according to the rules laid out in the 1884 Berlin Conference, especially considering both nations were looking to annex the Sudan themselves. King Leopold II therefore decided to disguise his campaign into the Sudan as an expeditionary force sent to reclaim the Lado Enclave from the Mahdists, although he intended to give his commanders covert orders to continue their advance far past the boundaries of Belgian territory, first to Fashoda and then on to Khartoum. After receiving a new loan of 6.5 million francs from the Belgian government in 1895, Leopold ordered preparations to be made for the execution of his plan.
The expedition was split into two parts. The first group, composed of around eight hundred colonial troops and led by Commandant Louis-Napoléon Chaltin, was to take the main road towards Rejaf and engage the rebels openly. The second, under Belgian war hero Baron Dhanis, was a much larger force of over three thousand men, mostly natives from the Tetela ethnic group, and was to take a treacherous path through the jungle to the north. Both expeditions left for the Lado Enclave in December 1896.
### Batetela mutiny
After being underfed and forced into long, grueling marches through rough terrain for nearly two months, the Batetela in Dhanis' column mutinied against their officers in February 1897. The mutiny broke out in the advance guard, which had been pushed the hardest of those in the expedition, but soon spread to the main army, where the massively outnumbered Belgian officers were detained by their men and killed. Dhanis himself escaped the massacre by hiding in the forest, although his brother was among those killed. The now-disbanded army went on to rampage throughout the immediate area, terrorizing the northern Congo and causing great consternation among the Belgian officials whose jobs it was to keep the peace.
This left Chaltin's expedition as the spearhead for Leopold's northern campaign, and the commandant continued his mission despite the grave loss of Dhanis' forces. Chaltin had in his column eight companies, each containing one hundred Congolese soldiers led by a Belgian lieutenant. He was accompanied by a contingent of five hundred Azande under chiefs Renzi and Bafuka. The expedition reached the Nile on 14 February 1897, where a small party of Mahdists from Rejaf exchanged fire with Chaltin's scouts. After two days of waiting for the supply train and rear guard to arrive, a Mahdist force approached the Belgian camp in the evening of 16 February, and prepared to attack. Chaltin ordered his artillery to fire at the Mahdists, causing the assembled rebels to flee under the barrage. The next day, at six o'clock in the morning, Chaltin took to the offensive and began to advance on Rejaf.
## Battle
Chaltin's column advanced north with the Nile river protecting his right flank and the Azande cavalry contingent on his left. At seven o'clock, Belgian scouts sighted the two-thousand-strong Mahdist force assembled along a two-mile line that spanned a range of hills between the Nile and a parallel river. There was one clear path through the hills, which was especially well defended. Commandant Chaltin brought forward five companies for the attack, leaving his remaining three in reserve.
The Mahdists immediately opened fire upon the Free State force, who remained in cover behind a rocky outcropping some ways from the Mahdist line. For half an hour the Mahdists continued to fire at Chaltin's companies to little effect, their shots passing harmlessly above the rocks. Meanwhile, Free State soldiers moved a Krupp gun into position which, under Sergeant Cajot, fired several shells into the Mahdists' ranks.
After wasting their ammunition in this preliminary action, the Mahdist force began a flanking maneuver against the Belgians. The Mahdists' right flank, situated along the river parallel to the Nile, advanced rapidly trying to pin Chaltin with his back to the river. Chaltin, who by this time had advanced within two hundred meters of the Mahdists and begun a more effective barrage of his own, replied to the threat by ordering the sudden advance of his reserve companies. The move checked the advancing Mahdists, avoiding the unfavorable position and causing the rebels to falter. Sensing that victory was near, Chaltin ordered the Azande to charge the Mahdists to separate the advanced right wing from the rest of the line. The charge was successful, and the now considerably damaged Mahdist flanking force was completely cut off and surrounded by Free State soldiers. Chaltin's main companies then attacked, pressing the Mahdist defenses as they forced their way into the hills. Three of the companies attacked the well-defended path through the hills, while two others charged the hilltops. After a fierce contest for the heights, the demoralized and weakened Mahdist line broke and its remaining defenders fled to the north towards Rejaf, leaving ammunition and weapons. The action was finished by eight-thirty that morning.
The Mahdists withdrew to the fortified town of Rejaf, while Chaltin's column marched in pursuit for seventeen miles until the occupied town was sighted at about one-thirty in the afternoon. A battery of artillery pieces fired on the Belgians as they came within range, but the effect was negligible. As the Belgians approached, a hidden force of Mahdists emerged from a ravine near the bank of the Nile and attacked Chaltin's flank. The commandant realized the threat in time and repulsed the attack without much loss. Chaltin's companies then turned to begin the attack on the town. For several hours Chaltin's companies pushed through the streets and houses of Rejaf, forcing the Mahdists back until by seven o'clock they had been nearly expelled entirely. Only the citadel remained occupied, but by dawn the next morning the remaining Mahdist forces retreated, leaving behind their weapons and munitions.
## Aftermath
Although concrete casualty numbers are unavailable for either side, sources agree that Belgian-Congolese losses were relatively light, while several hundred Mahdist soldiers were killed in the two actions.
Commandant Chaltin recovered three cannons, over seven hundred rifles, and a considerable supply of provisions from the Mahdist post at Rejaf. Three thousand Congolese regulars were garrisoned at the town, and a gunboat was brought up the Nile to defend its ports. After securing Rejaf, Chaltin and his column marched to the northernmost point of the Lado Enclave in order to establish a Belgian presence in the area and prevent Mahdist reentry. A serious assault on the post at Rejaf occurred in June 1898, when Mahdists forced their way through Free State defenses before being finally defeated near the town.
The Emir who had commanded the Mahdist army at Rejaf, Arabi Dafalla, withdrew with what remained of his army northwest into Mahdist Sudan. He was ridiculed by his superiors for the defeat at Rejaf, and he later surrendered his army to Sultan Ali Dinar of Darfur after a failed attack on a French outpost in 1902.
As for King Leopold II's original designs for turning the expedition into a campaign into Sudan, the mutiny of Baron Dhanis' column had severely reduced the expedition's fighting power and made such a campaign impossible. Instead, Leopold's conquest of the Lado Enclave pleased the British government, at least initially, which welcomed any aid in their ongoing war with Mahdist Sudan. But frequent raids outside of Lado territory by Belgian forces based in Rejaf caused alarm and suspicion among British and French officials wary of Leopold's imperial ambitions. In 1910, following the death of the Belgian king in December 1909, British authorities reclaimed the Lado Enclave as per the Anglo-Congolese treaty signed in 1894, and added the territory to Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. |
23,996,291 | My Man (Jade Ewen song) | 1,164,313,383 | null | [
"2009 singles",
"2009 songs",
"Jade Ewen songs",
"Polydor Records singles",
"Songs written by Ina Wroldsen"
]
| "My Man" is a song by English singer Jade Ewen. It was written by Ina Wroldsen, Harry Sommerdahl and Kalle Engstrom, with production by Kage Sigurth, Wroldsen and Engstrom for Ewen's debut studio album. The song was released as a digital download in the United Kingdom on 17 September 2009. Musically, "My Man" is a pop and contemporary R&B and song backed by electro and R&B beats and a synthesizer. It is notably different from her previous single "It's My Time", which was composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber for the Eurovision Song Contest 2009.
"My Man" was positively reviewed by critics, who praised the chorus and Ewen's vocals. The song peaked at number 35 on the UK Singles Chart and number 13 on the UK R&B Chart. The accompanying music video for "My Man" was directed by Urban Strom and filmed in July 2009 in Beverly Hills, near Los Angeles, California. It features Ewen's love interest using a torch to search for her in a mansion. Short after the release of the video and some live performances, Ewen announced she would be joining the Sugababes, replacing founding member Keisha Buchanan and putting her solo career on hold.
## Background and development
In January 2009, Ewen participated in the UK national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest 2009. She was eventually selected to represent the UK with the song "It's My Time", composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber who accompanied her on piano onstage. Ewen was placed fifth on the contest, which was the highest placing for the UK since 2002. Having already signed with Polydor Records before the Eurovision selection, Ewen began working on her debut album. "My Man" was written by Ina Wroldsen, and produced by Harry Sommerdahl and Kalle Engstrom.
In September 2009, it was reported that Sugababes member Amelle Berrabah had left the group and Ewen would be replacing her position in the band. Further suspicion arose amid an announcement that Ewen was "taking time off from all promotional activity for the foreseeable future". However, it was announced on 21 September 2009 that founding Sugababes member Keisha Buchanan had left the band.
## Composition and lyrics
"My Man" is a pop and R&B song with influences of electro. described by Nick Levine of Digital Spy as a "sassy R&B club banger". The song is notably different from her previous ballad, "It's My Time", featuring a more contemporary R&B sound than the latter. Speaking upon the change in musical direction, Ewen clarified: "What I'm now doing now is really me, [sic] so if people don't like it I'm going to take it more personally." "My Man" opens with electro and bass-driven R&B beats, synthesizers that are reminiscent of those featured in "Yeah!" by Usher, and later develops into "a pop/R&B stormer". The lyrical content of "My Man" is about a woman who "pledges devotion to a man who sounds almost too good to be true". Ewen stated that the lyrics were not directed at any man in particular.
## Reception
### Critical
"My Man" received positive reviews from critics. Nick Levine of Digital Spy gave the song a four out of five star rating and called it "very good contemporary pop" and a "complete U-turn" from "It's My Time". Philip Ellwood of Entertainment Focus praised the song's chorus, in addition to Ewen's vocal performance. He also wrote that the end result is "a monster hit waiting to happen and a single that is better than it has any right to be". Oikotimes.com commended the song as "instantly catchy and memorable". Vicki Lutas of BBC described "My Man" as "sexy, strong and ferocious". She applauded the chorus, but admitted that the song "sounds a bit generic" and "lacks Jade's sparkle".
### Commercial
"My Man" debuted and peaked at number 35 on the UK Singles Chart for the issue dated 3 October 2009, and became Ewen's second consecutive top forty single after "It's My Time", which peaked at number 27 earlier in the year. On the UK R&B Chart, "My Man" peaked at number 13.
## Promotion
### Music video
The music video for "My Man" was directed by Urban Strom and produced by Danny Germaine in July 2009 under the production company Fountain of Youth Entertainment. It was shot in a mansion in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California. For the video, the singer wore a "clingy" white vest and hotpants. It begins with showing a man who is in bed and cannot sleep. Ewen is later shown in the mansion which prompts the man to turn on the light of a torch, leave the bed and search for her. Ewen then begins dancing on the wall as the torch is being flashed at her by the man. During the second verse, she is shown singing on a couch, again with the torch being flashed. When the song's bridge begins, Ewen is shown dancing outside on the porch where the man is watching her. As the video ends, it is revealed that the man was dreaming, in which Ewen appears near the room's curtains.
The video was well received by critics. A writer from the website Female First described the video as "glamorous".
### Live performances
Ewen first performed "My Man" on BBC Switch on 8 July 2009. She wore a white-coloured shirt, blue jeans and pink high heels. Soon after Ewen joined the Sugababes; she clarified that her solo career would be "put to one side", saying: "The Sugababes is my main project".
## Formats and track listings
- Digital single
1. "My Man" (Single Version) – 3:04
2. "My Man" (Cahill Radio Edit) – 3:22
- Extended play (EP)
1. "My Man" (Single Version) – 3:05
2. "My Man" (Cahill Radio Edit) – 3:22
3. "My Man" (feat. Bashy) – 3:05
4. "My Man" (Perempay Radio Edit) – 2:59
5. "My Man" (Perempay Club Mix) – 6:57
## Charts
## Release history |
66,000,005 | 2020 Missouri Amendment 2 | 1,173,126,127 | Ballot initiative to expand Medicaid | [
"2020 Missouri elections",
"2020 ballot measures",
"Affordable Care Act",
"Constitution of Missouri",
"Healthcare ballot measures in the United States",
"Medicare and Medicaid (United States)",
"Missouri ballot measures"
]
| 2020 Missouri Amendment 2, also known as the Medicaid Expansion Initiative, was a ballot measure to amend the Constitution of Missouri to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. The initiative was on the August 4, 2020, primary ballot and passed with 53.27% of the vote. Following similar successful ballot initiatives in other states, Republican lawmakers added work requirements to Medicaid expansions, which supporters aimed to prevent by proposing state constitutional amendments for future Medicaid expansions. Opponents sued to prevent the measure from being voted on, but courts ruled in the measure's favor. The measure was supported most in urban areas and opposed in rural areas. After a delay due to a lack of funding and resulting litigation, the initiative was implemented in October 2021, albeit slowly. Republican lawmakers attempted to roll back the program and add a work requirement through a state constitutional amendment, which failed after the United States Supreme Court did not grant certiorari to similar cases.
## Background
The Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010, initially required states to expand Medicaid coverage to continue receiving federal Medicaid funding, but the Supreme Court ruled in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius that it would be unconstitutional to remove Medicaid funding from states which did not wish to opt-in to the expansion.
In 2018, the Fairness Project supported successful ballot initiatives to expand Medicaid in conservative-leaning states, such as Nebraska, Utah, and Idaho, where Republican leaders were unwilling to. However, Nebraska and Utah added a work requirement despite such a requirement not being part of the ballot initiative. Due to such resistance from Republican lawmakers, Medicaid expansion supporters began supporting constitutional amendment proposals to prevent similar restrictions from being implemented.
After a petition gained 346,000 signatures, Governor Mike Parson scheduled the initiative to appear on the August primary ballot. Conservative organizations United for Missouri and Americans for Prosperity's Missouri branch filed lawsuits to prevent the expansion from appearing on the ballot, arguing the initiative violated a constitutional requirement to cite a funding source in ballot initiatives. The Cole County Circuit Court ruled in favor of the proposal, stating the initiative itself does not fund anything. The organizations appealed the decision, additionally arguing that it violated a constitutional requirement that all petitions for ballot initiatives must contain the initiative's full text. On June 8, 2020, the Western District Missouri Court of Appeals unanimously upheld the lower court's ruling, allowing the initiative to remain on the ballot.
## Contents
The amendment appeared on the ballot as follows:
> Do you want to amend the Missouri Constitution to:
>
> - adopt Medicaid Expansion for persons 19 to 64 years old with an income level at or below 133% of the federal poverty level, as set forth in the Affordable Care Act;
> - prohibit placing greater or additional burdens on eligibility or enrollment standards, methodologies or practices on persons covered under Medicaid Expansion than on any other population eligible for Medicaid; and
> - require state agencies to take all actions necessary to maximize federal financial participation in funding medical assistance under Medicaid Expansion?
>
> State government entities are estimated to have one-time costs of approximately \$6.4 million and an unknown annual net fiscal impact by 2026 ranging from increased costs of at least \$200 million to savings of \$1 billion. Local governments expect costs to decrease by an unknown amount.
The deadline for the state to implement the specified Medicaid expansion was to be July 1, 2021.
## Campaigns
The initiative was campaigned for by YES on 2, which was supported by the Missouri Chamber of Commerce, the Missouri Hospital Association, the NAACP, the AARP, the AFL-CIO, and Catholic Charities of St. Louis, among others. The YES on 2 campaign rarely mentioned the Affordable Care Act, a law unpopular in the state, and some campaign material did not refer to a "Medicaid expansion". Instead, supporters noted the federal funding rural hospitals would receive as a result of the proposal's passage and stated it would prevent more hospitals from closing, as 15 in Missouri had done since 2014. Supporters said most hospital closures were in states which did not opt into the Medicaid expansion.
No on 2 in August campaigned against the initiative. The initiative was opposed by Republican politicians such as Governor Mike Parson, who said that the state could not afford its share of the Medicaid expansion's cost. Other groups opposing the initiative included Missouri Right to Life, the Missouri Farm Bureau, and Americans for Prosperity. Missouri State House Budget Chair Cody Smith said that at the time, Medicaid had taken up 40% of Missouri's budget and noted that the state requires its budget to be balanced, so the cost of the expansion would need to come from other state programs such as education. Prior to the vote, No on 2 in August mailed campaign material suggesting illegal immigrants would come to Missouri looking for Medicaid coverage, despite them not being eligible for Medicaid.
Democrats accused Governor Parson of scheduling the vote for the August primary elections instead of the higher-turnout general election to prevent the proposal from passing. Parson said he scheduled it in August to allow the state to understand, as soon as possible, whether it would need to account for extra spending in its budget assuming the initiative passes.
## Results
The measure was approved with just over 53% of the vote. Support was most heavily concentrated in urban areas such as Columbia, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Springfield, while conservative voters in rural areas voted against the measure, including in counties with large numbers of uninsured residents. The amendment has been cited as an example of the popularity of expanding Medicaid, occurring weeks following the success of a similar ballot initiative in Oklahoma.
## Aftermath
The year following the measure's passage, lawmakers in the House Budget Committee voted against funding the expansion. Following the budget's passage, Governor Parson announced the state would be unable to expand its Medicaid program before the July 1 deadline. The state was then sued for not complying with the results of the ballot initiative. The initiative itself was ruled unconstitutional by a Cole County Circuit Court judge before being appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court, which overturned the lower court's ruling and required the state to implement the expansion in a 7–0 decision.
Enrollment in the Medicaid expansion began in October 2021, with Missouri becoming the 38th state to opt-in. Implementation was slow, with only 7% of newly-eligible Missourians enrolling in the expansion's first month, compared to about 50% in Idaho and Montana. The state's outreach efforts regarding the expansion had been much slower than in other states such as Oklahoma. The state was also slow at processing applications, taking an average of 70 days in early 2022, even though federal law mandated wait times be under 45 days.
In 2022, Republican lawmakers proposed a constitutional amendment to allow the state legislature to decide how much it could fund the expansion and to implement a work requirement for it, claiming increases in the state's Medicaid budget following the passage of the initiative would be unsustainable. After the United States Supreme Court refused to grant certiorari to other cases involving state healthcare programs with a work requirement, Republicans gave up on the proposed amendment. The following year, Republican lawmakers proposed requiring that 60% of voters approve of any future state constitutional amendment to make it more difficult for them to pass. As of May 2023, no similar amendment has passed in the Missouri Senate.
## See also
- List of Missouri ballot measures
- 2020 Missouri elections |
2,462,890 | Battle of Antioch (218) | 1,159,230,402 | Roman battle between rivals for the throne | [
"210s conflicts",
"210s in the Roman Empire",
"218",
"Ancient Antioch",
"Battles involving the Roman Empire"
]
| The Battle of Antioch (8 June 218) was fought between the Roman army of the Emperor Macrinus and his rival Elagabalus, whose troops were commanded by General Gannys, probably a short distance from Antioch. Gannys' victory over Macrinus led to the downfall of the emperor and his replacement by Elagabalus.
Macrinus' predecessor, Caracalla, was murdered by a disaffected soldier during a campaign against Parthia on 8 April 217. Macrinus himself may have had a hand in the murder of Caracalla. Within days of Caracalla's death, Macrinus was proclaimed emperor with the support of the army. At the time of his accession he inherited all of the problems that Caracalla had left for Rome—war against Parthia, threats from Armenia and Dacia, and extensive fiscal expenditures. Macrinus successfully concluded a peace with Parthia, but it came at considerable cost to Rome. Finally, his policies to reduce monetary expenditures only stoked discontent within the military.
Caracalla's aunt, Julia Maesa, his mother's sister, took advantage of the discontent of the soldiers and spent from her wealth to champion her grandson Elagabalus as the rightful heir to the empire. Elagabalus, chief priest of the god Elagabal, was proclaimed emperor by the soldiers of Legio III Gallica (Gallic Third Legion) at their camp in Raphanea on 16 May 218. In response, Macrinus sent one of his generals, Ulpius Julianus, with a small cavalry force to quell the rebellious soldiers. The cavalry defected and killed Ulpius Julianus, sending his head back to Macrinus in Antioch. The decisive battle took place less than a month later.
While Gannys had the numerical advantage, in the opening stages of the battle Macrinus' Praetorian Guards broke through Gannys' lines, and the latter's troops began to flee. In response, Elagabalus' mother and grandmother joined the battle and rallied the troops while Gannys led his own charge. Gannys' troops turned and renewed the assault, causing Macrinus to flee the battle in fear and return to Antioch. He sent his son and co-emperor, Diadumenian, to Parthia and tried to return to Rome. Both he and his son were caught en route and executed. Elagabalus entered Antioch as the new emperor of Rome, and with Macrinus dead, the Senate had no choice but to acknowledge the ascension of Elagabalus. By March 222, Elagabalus was himself killed by the disgruntled Praetorian Guard, declared an enemy of Rome and subjected to a damnatio memoriae.
## Background
### Death of Caracalla and rise of Macrinus
Macrinus' predecessor Caracalla was murdered on April 8, 217, during a period of war with the Parthians, near Carrhae while traveling en route to visit a temple. His murderer was Justin Martialus, a soldier who was incensed after being declined the rank of centurion. Martialus was himself cut down by Caracalla's German Guards immediately afterwards, a convenient fact for Macrinus, at the time a praetorian prefect, who was involved in the assassination. One reason for Macrinus to have intrigued against Caracalla was out of fear for his own life. A story documented by the Roman writer Herodian and supported by some later historians details the events leading to Caracalla's death. The story goes that Macrinus, in the course of his employment, was often tasked with reading dispatches sent to Caracalla for him. One such dispatch detailed a prophecy, perhaps fabricated, from the oracle at Delphi suggesting that Macrinus was destined to kill Caracalla and succeed him as emperor.
In the immediate aftermath of Caracalla's death, Adventus was selected to serve as emperor, but he declined the position due to his old age. The army then chose Macrinus; they had no feelings of 'love or esteem' towards him, but there was no one else competing for the position. The army proclaimed Macrinus as emperor three days after the death of Caracalla, and named him Augustus.
The results were applauded by the Senate at first, who were glad to be rid of the former emperor. But tradition held that the emperor could only be selected from among the Senate; moreover, Macrinus was a member of the equestrian class, the lower of the two aristocratic classes. These disadvantages led the Senate to severely scrutinize his every action. Their opposition, however, was not backed by any actual power. The military at the time was concentrated against the Parthians in the area around Edessa (modern Şanlıurfa, Turkey), so there was no force anywhere in the Empire that could contest the status of Macrinus.
As the new emperor, Macrinus had to deal with the major threat of the Parthians, with whom Rome were currently at war. An indecisive battle at Nisibis is cited as a reason for the opening of peace negotiations. Negotiations may have been favourable for both sides; Rome was being threatened by Armenia and Dacia, and the Parthians were far from home and low on supplies. The settlement, however, was viewed by many people as being unfavourable to Rome. The Roman historian Cassius Dio wrote that a concession of 200 million Sesterces was rendered to the Parthians in exchange for peace. Historian Andrew Scott doubts the credibility of this high figure, noting that Dio's records are frequently unreliable on finances. Regardless, the prevailing opinion accuses Macrinus of being cowardly and weak during negotiations.
With the peace treaty concluded, Macrinus took measures to control the expenditures of Rome, by reversing Caracalla's changes and thus effectively reinstating the fiscal policies of Septimius Severus. This included a reduction in pay and benefits for legionaries, which was not popular with the army who had placed him in command. These policies applied only to new recruits, but the enlisted soldiers saw this as setting precedent for further changes to the fiscal policies brought in by Caracalla. The sullen behaviour of new recruits, who entered service committing to greater labour for less payment, only furthered discontent among the soldiers. Edward Gibbon suggests that from here only a small spark was required to ignite a rebellion.
### Rise of Elagabalus
Following the death of Caracalla, Macrinus allowed Caracalla's mother, Julia Domna, and his aunt, Julia Maesa, to settle in their home town of Emesa. Julia Domna, who was working in Antioch at the time of Caracalla's death, attempted suicide and eventually succeeded by starving herself. Her sister Julia Maesa, however, returned to Emesa with her family finances intact.
Julia's suspicions regarding Macrinus' involvement in the death of Caracalla led to her championing the case of her grandson, Elagabalus, as the rightful emperor. At the time Elagabalus was the chief priest of the Phoenician god Elagabal in Emesa. The soldiers nearby frequently visited the temple where Elagabalus was chief priest, to watch him perform his rituals and ceremonies. At one of these visits, Julia Maesa took the opportunity to inform the soldiers, it is not known whether truthfully, that Elagabalus was Caracalla's son. Simultaneously, she may have seen the opportunity to use her family's wealth and prestige to set in motion her plot.
On the night of 15 May 218, Elagabalus was taken, by either Julia Maesa or Gannys, to the camp of the Legio III Gallica at Raphanea and presented to the soldiers stationed there. In one account of the events, Elegabalus was saluted as Antoninus by the soldiers, after his supposed father Caracalla whose official name was Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Enticed by Julia's bribes, the legion proclaimed Elagabalus the rightful Emperor of Rome on 16 May 218. In Gibbon's opinion, Macrinus might have been able to stop the rebellion in this early stage, but failed to contain it because he was unable to decide on an appropriate course of action and instead remained at Antioch.
### Rebellion
With the support of an entire legion, other legionaries, prompted by discontent over pay, deserted Macrinus and joined Elagabalus' ranks as well. In response to the growing threat, Macrinus sent out a cavalry force under the command of Ulpius Julianus to try to regain control of the rebel soldiers. Rather than capturing the rebel forces, the cavalry instead killed Ulpius and defected to Elagabalus.
Following these events, Macrinus traveled to Apamea to ensure the loyalty of Legio II Parthica before setting off to march against Emesa. According to Dio, Macrinus appointed his son Diadumenian to the position of Imperator, and promised the soldiers 20,000 Sesterces each, with 4,000 of these to be paid on the spot. Dio further comments that Macrinus hosted a dinner for the residents of Apamea in honour of Diadumenian. At the dinner, Macrinus was supposedly presented with the head of Ulpius Julianus who had been killed by his soldiers. In response, Macrinus left Apamea headed south.
Macrinus' and Elagabalus' troops met somewhere near the border of Syria Coele and Syria Phoenice. Despite Macrinus' efforts to quell the rebellion at this engagement, his whole legion defected to Elagabalus forcing Macrinus to retire to Antioch. Elagabus took to the offensive and marched on Antioch.
### Senatorial response
By the early third century, the balance of power had shifted from the Senate to the army, and the position of the Senate was considerably weakened. The emperor of Rome was appointed by the support of the military, while the Senate existed solely to officiate state affairs without any real authority. Both Macrinus and later Elagabalus secured the support of the military while generally disregarding the opinion of the Senate. Macrinus was in dire circumstances after Elagabalus' rebellion and had no other choice but to turn to the Senate for assistance. While in Antioch, Macrinus made one final attempt at securing support, this time from Rome. A combination of distrust from the Senate, insufficient funds, and Elagabalus' impending approach, however, forced Macrinus to face Elagabalus' approaching legions with only his Praetorian Guard. Had more time had been available, the Urban Prefect of Rome, Marius Maximus, might have been able to muster troops to send as reinforcements to assist Macrinus. Despite their relative powerlessness, the Senate still declared war against the usurper and his family.
## Battle
Descriptions of the battle differ, and its location is debated. The decisive and perhaps sole engagement took place on 8 June 218; Dio places it at a defile outside of a village believed to be Immae, approximately twenty-four miles or so by road between Antioch and Beroea. Herodian challenges this assertion, suggesting that the battle took place closer to the borders of Syria Coele and Syria Phoenice, possibly near Emesa. Downey then suggests that two battles took place: an initial engagement matching the one described by Herodian, and a later battle near Antioch, which Downey agrees was the decisive point in the rebellion. Other historians either support Dio's suggested site near Antioch or make no claim with regards to the location of the engagement.
Elagabalus' armies, commanded by the inexperienced but determined Gannys, engaged Macrinus' Praetorian Guard in a narrowly fought pitched battle. Gannys commanded at least two full legions and held numerical superiority over the fewer levies that Macrinus had been able to raise. Nonetheless, the engagement began in Macrinus' favour. According to Dio, Macrinus had ordered the Praetorian Guard to set aside their scale armour breastplates and grooved shields in favour of lighter oval shields prior to the battle. This made them lighter and more manoeuvrable and negated any advantage the legionary lanciarii (javelin-armed light infantry) had. The Praetorian Guards broke through the lines of Gannys' force, which turned to flee. During the retreat, however, Julia Maesa and Soaemias Bassiana (Elagabalus' mother) joined the fray to rally the forces while Gannys charged on horseback headlong into the enemy. These actions effectively ended the retreat; the troops resumed the assault with renewed morale, turning the tide of battle. Fearing defeat, Macrinus fled back to the city of Antioch. Both Downey and Gibbon suggest that had Macrinus not fled, he might have eventually gained victory and secured his position as emperor.
## Aftermath
After his defeat, Macrinus sent his son Diadumenian to Artabanus V of Parthia, while he himself returned to Antioch, proclaiming himself victorious over Elagabalus in battle. News of Macrinus' defeat spread and many civilians who had supported him were slain in the city and on the roads. Macrinus shaved off his beard and hair to disguise himself as a member of the military police. Fleeing the city at night on horseback, he reached Cilicia with a few companions, masquerading as a military courier, and secured a carriage to drive to Eribolon, near Nicomedia. From there he set sail for Chalcedon.
Macrinus travelled through Cappadocia, Galatia and Bithynia before arriving in Chalcedon. Here he was arrested, his guise revealed after he had sent requests for money. Men dispatched by Elagabalus apprehended Macrinus and brought him to Cappadocia. Diadumenian was captured elsewhere on his journey to Parthia, and killed by the centurion Cladius Pollio in Zeugma. French author Jean-Baptiste Crevier comments that Macrinus threw himself out of the carriage at Cappadocia after receiving the news of the death of his son, breaking his shoulder in the act. Macrinus was executed in Archelais in Cappadocia after attempting to escape; Dio mentions that the centurion Marcianus Taurus was responsible for his execution. Thus, the reign of Macrinus as emperor of Rome ended after nearly fourteen months.
In the meantime, Elagabalus had entered Antioch and declared himself the new ruler of Rome in a message to the Roman Senate and people. Once again, as they had done with Macrinus, the Senate were forced to recognize Elagabalus as the new emperor. Elagabalus' claim was not uncontested, as several others made their own bids for the imperial purple. These included Verus, the commander of Legio III Gallica and Gellius Maximus, the commander of Legio IV Scythica. History professor and author Martijn Icks notes the irony of Verus' claim as his legion had been the first to proclaim Elagabalus as the rightful emperor of Rome. These rebellions were quashed and their instigators executed. By March 222 AD, Elagabalus was himself murdered by the Praetorian Guard, his body dumped in the river Tiber and his memory condemned by damnatio memoriae ordered by the senate. |
60,098,834 | Friedrichshafen FF.19 | 1,166,132,053 | WW1 German maritime reconnaissance floatplane | [
"Floatplanes",
"Friedrichshafen aircraft"
]
| The Friedrichshafen FF.19 was an unarmed maritime reconnaissance floatplane built for the Imperial German Navy's (Kaiserliche Marine) Naval Air Service (Marine-Fliegerabteilung) that was produced by Flugzeugbau Friedrichshafen. Built in small numbers, the aircraft first flew in 1914 and saw service during the early months of World War I, mostly conducting maritime patrols over the North Sea, although they did attack British ships participating in the Raid on Cuxhaven at the end of the year.
## Background and description
The German Naval Air Service was impressed by a demonstration of the British Avro 503 single-engined floatplane in 1913 and bought the prototype. It then ordered a batch of five aircraft, plus one airframe for static testing, of similar performance and configuration in February 1914. The first airframe completed passed the static load requirement on 2 May when its wing failed at a loading of 7.02 times the force of gravity (g)s.
The FF.19 was a two-seat biplane with a water-cooled 100 PS (74 kW) Mercedes D.I straight-six engine mounted at the front of the fuselage. The two forward floats were attached to the fuselage by four pairs of V-shaped struts while the third float was connected directly to the tail structure. The wings were connected with six sets of interplane struts that gave the aircraft a three-bay configuration. It was unarmed, although some small bombs could be stored in the observer's cockpit.
## Operational history
The first batch of aircraft were delivered in May–June 1914 and the FF.19 became the first German aircraft to conduct successful tests with wireless telegraphy. When World War I began in August, the five Friedrichshafens and three AGO floatplanes were the only combat-worthy aircraft in the Naval Air Service. A batch of 10 more floatplanes was ordered shortly after the start of the war and were delivered beginning in September through November. The FF.19's activities during the war are not well documented, but one aircraft was interned by the Dutch after it was forced to make an emergency landing near the island of Schiermonnikoog on 14 August.
Several months later the British made their second attempt to attack the Zeppelin sheds that the Royal Navy believed to be at Cuxhaven on 24 November. Unlike the attempt the previous month which had been cancelled because of foul weather, the aerial attack on the Zeppelin base by the aircraft of the seaplane carriers of the Harwich Force was intended to bait the High Seas Fleet to sortie into the North Sea where they could be destroyed by the waiting Grand Fleet. The British ships had departed their bases on 23 November, but the aerial portion of the operation was cancelled on the evening of 23/24 November because the German battlecruisers were in the German Bight and the three seaplane carriers returned to port. The other ships continued on their mission with the Grand Fleet covering the Harwich Force as it sailed within visual distance of the island of Heligoland. Two seaplanes based on the island took off in response, although one was forced to return with engine trouble; the other aircraft, a FF.19, unsuccessfully attacked the light cruiser HMS Liverpool with five bombs before the British returned to base.
The British returned for another try the following month with the carriers to be in a position north-east of Heligoland to hoist out their floatplanes on the morning of 25 December. The Germans had been alerted to the possibility of an imminent attack on their North Sea ports and were launching Zeppelins to search for any attackers that morning. A FF.19 on patrol spotted the Harwich Force after they had begun to move westward and had to return to Heligoland to deliver its report since it lacked a radio. The base alerted L.6 via searchlight to the presence of the British ships. As the Zeppelin attempted to close the range on the British, the carrier Empress, the slowest of the carriers, was lagging behind. It was unsuccessfully attacked by a FF.19 with six 4.5-kilogram (9.9 lb) bombs from an altitude of about 2,000 feet (610 m) and then by a Friedrichshafen FF.29 with two 10-kilogram (22 lb) bombs that landed closer, but failed to inflict any damage before the airship could attack.
Later that morning, after the carrier Riviera had recovered the only aircraft to return to the carriers, the Harwich Force was again attacked by FF.19s from Heligoland. One aircraft dropped five bombs on destroyers and the other attacked a cruiser with two bombs, none of which hit their targets. During this operation one FF.19 remained airborne for five hours and 52 minutes.
## Operators
German Empire
- Imperial German Navy
## Specifications
## See also |
38,266,945 | 1926 Louisiana hurricane | 1,170,502,106 | Category 3 Atlantic hurricane in 1926 | [
"1926 Atlantic hurricane season",
"1926 in Louisiana",
"1926 meteorology",
"1926 natural disasters in the United States",
"Category 3 Atlantic hurricanes",
"Hurricanes in Louisiana"
]
| The 1926 Louisiana hurricane caused widespread devastation to the United States Gulf Coast, particularly in Louisiana. The third tropical cyclone and hurricane of the 1926 Atlantic hurricane season, it formed from a broad area of low pressure in the central Caribbean Sea on August 20. Moving to the northwest, the storm slowly intensified, reaching tropical storm strength on August 21 and subsequently attaining hurricane strength after passing through the Yucatán Channel. The hurricane steadily intensified as it recurved northwards in the Gulf of Mexico, before reaching peak intensity just prior to landfall near Houma, Louisiana on August 25 with winds of 115 mph (185 km/h). After moving inland, the tropical cyclone moved to the west and quickly weakened, before dissipating on August 27.
The hurricane's strong storm surge at landfall caused extensive damage to coastal regions, especially lighthouses. Strong winds caused severe infrastructural and crop damage, destroying homes and disrupting communications. Heavy rainfall, peaking at 14.5 in (370 mm) in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, also helped to damage crops. Widespread power outages also occurred in areas along the Gulf Coast. 25 deaths were reported as a result of the hurricane, with damages estimates totaling \$6 million.
## Meteorological history
A tropical depression first formed on August 20 in the central Caribbean Sea from a broad area of low pressure, based on weather reports from weather stations and ships in the vicinity. Moving steadily to the west-northwest towards the western Caribbean, the disturbance slowly intensified, attaining tropical storm strength by 1200 UTC the next day. Prior to the Atlantic hurricane reanalysis project, however, the system was analyzed to be an open trough up until August 22. The tropical storm began to move more towards the west in the Gulf of Mexico after clipping the Guanahacabibes Peninsula—the westernmost region of Cuba—late on August 22.
Once in the Gulf of Mexico on August 22, the tropical storm continued to intensify, reaching hurricane strength early the next day north of the Yucatán Peninsula. A ship in the hurricane's vicinity reported a barometric pressure of 994 mbar (994 hPa; 29.4 inHg), and other ships also reported similarly low pressures. Beginning on August 24, the system began to curve northwards towards the Louisiana coast in response to a nearby cold front. The hurricane continued to intensify as it moved northwards, reaching Category 2 hurricane intensity the same day and subsequently the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane on August 25. A ship reported an eye associated with the system, observing 100 mph (160 km/h) winds with a pressure of 959 mbar (959 hPa; 28.3 inHg) at 2100 UTC that day.
The major hurricane intensified up until making landfall near Houma, Louisiana at 2300 UTC late on August 25, with winds estimated at 115 mph (185 km/h) and an estimated minimum barometric pressure of 955 mbar (955 hPa; 28.2 inHg), based on a pressure report of 959 mbar (959 hPa; 28.3 inHg) in Houma. Maximum sustained winds extended 23 mi (37 km) from the hurricane's center. Once over land, however, the hurricane rapidly weakened. By 1200 UTC on August 26, the system had already degenerated to a tropical storm, while still located over Louisiana near Baton Rouge. The next day, the storm weakened further to tropical depression strength as it moved towards the west, before degenerating into an open trough of low pressure near Hillsboro, Texas by 1800 UTC on August 27.
## Preparations
In preparation for the oncoming hurricane, the weather forecast office in New Orleans began to issue tropical cyclone warnings and watches and advisories for the storm on August 23. The first storm warnings were issued for areas of the United States Gulf Coast between New Orleans and Matagorda, Texas at 10:30 p.m CDT (0430 UTC) that day, indicating an approaching system with considerable intensity. As the hurricane unexpectedly recurved to the north the next day, the previously issued storm warning was shifted eastward to include areas from Morgan City, Louisiana to Galveston, Texas, while a hurricane warning was issued by the weather forecast office for areas between Morgan City and Mobile, Alabama at 10:00 p.m. CDT (0400 UTC). A storm warning was also placed for areas east of Mobile to Apalachicola, Florida. After the hurricane rapidly weakened over land, warnings and advisories from the New Orleans weather office related to the storm were discontinued by 9:00 p.m. (0500 UTC) on August 25. The warnings were communicated to potentially affected areas via mail, telegraph, and other forms of communication. During the time that the hurricane was approaching the coast, the United States Weather Bureau also began experimentally transmitting surface weather analysis maps to ships by radio. Small craft offshore of Mobile were recalled to the Port of Mobile, while floating dock property was removed in New Orleans. Due to the potential effects of the hurricane on the cotton industry, cotton stock markets reported gains of eight to fifteen points from the first trades, with stock prices closing with a net gain as high as 24 points.
## Impact
A storm surge of 15 ft (4.6 m) was reported in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. At Timbalier Bay, tides were 10 ft (3.0 m) above average. The New Canal Light was damaged by the strong wind and waves. Previously damaged by the 1915 New Orleans hurricane, the new damage instigated a project to raise the lighthouse by 3 ft (0.91 m). The third Timbalier Bay lighthouse was also damaged by the hurricane. Several small fishing schooners were lost during the storm after failing to evacuate to ports prior to the storm. Upstream of the Mississippi River near Donaldsonville, Louisiana, a boat sank.
Strong hurricane force winds were reported along the Louisiana coast at landfall. Grand Isle reported sustained winds of 100 mph (160 km/h), while gusts in Thibodaux and Napoleonville were estimated at 120 mph (190 km/h). Three churches, a warehouse, and ten stores were destroyed in Thibodaux. A weather station in New Orleans observed a peak wind gust of 52 mph (84 km/h). Severe damage was reported between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, which included uprooted trees and displaced barns. Roads were also blocked by debris. Window damage caused by strong winds was reported in New Orleans. Baton Rouge was affected by a power outage, resulting in \$20,000 in losses to the local electric company. Communication wires were downed in Morgan City, preventing communication with other cities. Houses were also unroofed in the city by strong winds. A ferry was also wrecked by the hurricane offshore of Morgan Point. In Houma, an estimated 90% of sugar cane was lost due to the hurricane. The city's sugarhouse was also destroyed, along with an Episcopal church. Three passenger trains along the Southern Pacific Railroad were detained in Avondale, Louisiana after winds were determined to be too unsafe for rail operations. The strong winds and rain also caused a mail plane to crash. In Tulane University, a chemistry building was destroyed by a fire during the hurricane. Several other fires were reported in various areas of New Orleans.
The hurricane also dropped heavy rains along the coast, which were increased by atmospheric instability in the region just prior to the storm's landfall. Rainfall peaked in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, where 14.5 in (370 mm) of rain was reported in a 24–hour period from August 25 to the 26th. 24–hour rainfall records were set in 11 locations, including Donaldsonville. The rains destroyed a pecan orchard in Schriever, Louisiana, and damaged crops in Crowley, Louisiana. Other rainfall amounts of at least 3 in (76 mm) were widespread across the coast. Outside of Louisiana, rainfall peaked at 10 in (250 mm) in the Florida Panhandle, with localized rainfall measurements of at least 5 in (130 mm) The hurricane caused 25 deaths and an estimated \$6 million in damages, of which \$4 million were attributed to infrastructural damage. After the storm, the American Red Cross sent relief to Houma, Louisiana and other affected regions to assist in rehabilitation work.
## See also
- 1915 New Orleans hurricane
- 1909 Grand Isle hurricane
- 1906 Mississippi hurricane |
67,499,930 | The Bomber Mafia | 1,134,344,848 | 2021 book by Malcolm Gladwell | [
"2021 non-fiction books",
"English-language books",
"Little, Brown and Company books",
"Works by Malcolm Gladwell"
]
| The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War is a 2021 book by Malcolm Gladwell that examines the US Bomber Mafia of World War II, which advocated precision aerial bombing as a means to win a war. Gladwell stated the audiobook for The Bomber Mafia came about as an expansion of material from his podcast Revisionist History, and that the print book originated from the audiobook. The book follows the Bomber Mafia, especially Major General Haywood S. Hansell, and the development of a high-altitude precision aerial bombardment strategy in World War II as a means to limit casualties. After difficulties in applying the Bomber Mafia's theoretical strategy, Major General Hansell was replaced by Major General Curtis LeMay, who utilized tactical changes such as attacking Japanese population centers with napalm to ensure a Japanese surrender. Upon release, The Bomber Mafia was met with mixed reviews, with reviewers praising its audiobook version but criticizing the book for a lack of accuracy and for being light on details.
## Author
The author of the book is Malcolm Gladwell, an English-born Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. In 2016, Gladwell started Revisionist History, a history-focused podcast that "re-examines something from the past – an event, a person, an idea, even a song – and asks whether we got it right the first time". He devoted four episodes of the fifth season of Revisionist History to air power in World War II, and stated the audiobook served as an expansion of material from the podcast. The Bomber Mafia began as an audiobook, and later transitioned into a print book.
## Content
The book follows the story of the Bomber Mafia, a group of American military officers, especially Major General Haywood S. Hansell, as they developed a military doctrine of daylight strategic bombing as a means to defeat an enemy with precision high-altitude aerial bombardment. This could lead to a minimum of war-time casualties with new technology such as the Norden bombsight. In that regard, this was at odds with Britain's Royal Air Force' doctrine of area bombing under the command of Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Harris.
When the United States entered World War II, the Bomber Mafia's doctrine proved of little military use and costly in implementation with the realities of current technology under real-world combat conditions. This especially applied with the aerial bombardment of Japan where previously unaccounted atmospheric conditions such as the jet stream seriously interfered with operations under Hansell's command. The book examines Hansell's replacement by Major General Curtis LeMay, who implemented a series of tactical changes such as ordering bombing at a dramatically lower altitude to avoid the jet stream, removal of most of the bombers' defensive weaponry to increase bomb payload and wholesale nighttime fire bombing with incendiaries like napalm to devastate many of the population centers of Japan. The result furthered the Allies' military objectives leading to Japan's surrender, such as with the Bombing of Tokyo on March 10, 1945 with Operation Meetinghouse.
After the 1991 Gulf War, David L. Goldfein states that by then bombs could hit, with precision, a specific wing of a building. At the time the book was released, a modern B-2 Stealth Bomber could approach a target without being detected on radar from 40,000 feet in altitude. The book concludes that "LeMay won the battle. [...] Hansell won the war".
## Reception
The book was met with mixed reviews upon release, with four mixed reviews, one positive review, three pan reviews, and two rave reviews as of November 14, 2021 according to review aggregator Book Marks. In The Wall Street Journal, Yale professor Paul Kennedy praised the audiobook version of The Bomber Mafia as "remarkable" and a "work of art"; similarly, in The Times, reviewer Gerard DeGroot said "The Bomber Mafia remind[ed] [him] of a really good podcast – a fascinating story is appealingly delivered", and historian Diana Preston of The Washington Post called the audiobook "innovative" for its inclusion of archival clips, music, and sound effects. James McConnachie of The Times stated "for a book that is not a war story, this one is brilliantly, brilliantly told". In The New York Times Book Review, Thomas E. Ricks called the book "a conversational work" which he enjoyed, but noted that "when Gladwell leaps to provide superlative assessments, or draws broad lessons of history from isolated incidents, he makes me wary". Writing for the Los Angeles Review of Books, professors David Fedman and Cary Karacas state "[a]s a piece of writing, The Bomber Mafia is engaging. As a work of history, it borders on reckless".
Several reviewers criticized the book for its accuracy, and for being light on details. Kennedy stated there were "gaps in [Gladwell's] account", and cites the RAF Bomber Command's attempt at careful bombing as an example. In The Daily Telegraph, military historian Saul David called the book "error prone" and "bedevilled by the same oversimplification of the world into a single Big Idea that is characteristic of his other work", and gave the book two out of five stars. DeGroot said "the subject demands more depth than this volume provides", and stated Gladwell boiled down the bombing strategy's evolution to personality clashes between Hansell and LeMay while ignoring other major factors, such as how the morality and acceptance of bombing evolved. Publishers Weekly stated "this history feels more tossed off than fully fledged", though Gladwell "provide[d] plenty of colorful details and pose[d] intriguing questions about the morality of warfare". Professors Fedman and Karacas stated that errors "pile up to the point where it becomes clear that a book that has received so much attention ought to have received more fact-checking".
Writing for The Baffler, Noah Kulwin criticized the book as "an attempt to retcon the history of American aerial warfare by arguing that developing the capacity to explode anything, anywhere in the world has made America and, indeed, the rest of the globe, unequivocally safer" and stated "by taking up military history, Gladwell's half-witted didacticism threatens to convince millions of people that the only solution to American butchery is to continue shelling out for sharper and larger knives." Fedman and Karacas state "[w]ittingly or not, [Gladwell] omits or downplays evidence that undermines the very premise of the book. Hansell was not the moral opposite of LeMay. To frame the book in this simplistic binary is to misconstrue the doctrines of both precision and area bombing".
A reviewer in Kirkus Reviews stated Gladwell "[delivered] a fairly flattering portrait of LeMay". Ricks calls LeMay an "unexpected hero" of the story, while McConnachie cites Hansell as Gladwell's hero. The book debuted and peaked at number two on The New York Times Best Seller list for hardcover nonfiction on May 16, 2021. |
22,705 | Ottawa Senators | 1,171,023,195 | National Hockey League team in Ontario | [
"1992 establishments in Ontario",
"Atlantic Division (NHL)",
"Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2003",
"Ice hockey clubs established in 1992",
"Ice hockey teams in Ottawa",
"National Hockey League in Ontario",
"National Hockey League teams",
"National Hockey League teams based in Canada",
"Ottawa Senators"
]
| The Ottawa Senators (French: Sénateurs d'Ottawa), officially the Ottawa Senators Hockey Club and colloquially known as the Sens, are a professional ice hockey team based in Ottawa. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference, and play their home games at the 18,652-seat Canadian Tire Centre, which opened in 1996 as the Palladium.
Founded and established by Ottawa real estate developer Bruce Firestone, the team is the second NHL franchise to use the Ottawa Senators name. The original Ottawa Senators, founded in 1883, had a famed history, winning the Stanley Cup 11 times, playing in the NHL from 1917 until 1934. On December 6, 1990, after a two-year public campaign by Firestone, the NHL awarded a new franchise, which began play in the 1992–93 season. The Senators have made 16 playoff appearances, won four division titles, and won the 2003 Presidents' Trophy. They made an appearance in the 2007 Stanley Cup Finals, but lost to the Anaheim Ducks in five games.
## History
Ottawa had been home to the original Senators, a founding NHL franchise and 11-time Stanley Cup champions. After the NHL expanded to the United States in the late 1920s, the original Senators' eventual financial losses forced the franchise to move to St. Louis in 1934 operating as the Eagles while a Senators senior amateur team took over the Senators' place in Ottawa. The NHL team was unsuccessful in St. Louis and planned to return to Ottawa, but the NHL decided instead to suspend the franchise and transfer the players to other NHL teams.
Fifty-four years later, after the NHL announced plans to expand, Ottawa real estate developer Bruce Firestone decided along with colleagues Cyril Leeder and Randy Sexton that Ottawa was now able to support an NHL franchise, and the group proceeded to put a bid together. His firm, Terrace Investments, did not have the liquid assets to finance the expansion fee and the team, but the group conceived a strategy to leverage land development. In 1989, after finding a suitable site on farmland just west of Ottawa in Kanata on which to construct a new arena, Terrace announced its intention to win a franchise and launched a successful "Bring Back the Senators" campaign to both woo the public and persuade the NHL that the city could support an NHL franchise. Public support was high and the group would secure over 11,000 season ticket pledges. On December 12, 1990, the NHL approved a new franchise for Firestone's group, to start play in the 1992–93 season.
### Early years (1992–1996)
The new team hired former NHL player Mel Bridgman, who had no previous NHL management experience, as its first general manager in 1992. The team was initially interested in hiring former Jack Adams Award winner Brian Sutter as its first head coach, but Sutter came with a high price tag and was reluctant to be a part of an expansion team. When Sutter was eventually signed to coach the Boston Bruins, Ottawa signed Rick Bowness, the man Sutter replaced in Boston. The new Senators were placed in the Adams Division of the Wales Conference and played their first game on October 8, 1992, in the Ottawa Civic Centre against the Montreal Canadiens with much pre-game spectacle. The Senators defeated the Canadiens 5–3 in one of the few highlights that season. Following the initial excitement of the opening night victory, the club floundered badly and eventually tied the San Jose Sharks for the worst record in the league, winning only 10 games with 70 losses and four ties for 24 points, three points better than the NHL record for futility. The Senators had aimed low and considered the 1992–93 season a small success, as Firestone had set a goal for the season of not setting a new NHL record for fewest points in a season. The long-term plan was to finish low in the standings for its first few years in order to secure high draft picks and eventually contend for the Stanley Cup.
Off-ice, Terrace needed a partner to make the final franchise payment to the NHL. Firestone sold 50% of Terrace to Rod Bryden, a technology executive and entrepreneur. A limited partnership was set up to own the hockey team and a new company, Palladium Corp., which was charged with building the new arena. The partnership included local high-tech executives and singer Paul Anka, who was born in Ottawa. Bryden would become the sole owner of Terrace and majority owner of the Senators in August 1993, buying out Firestone.
Bridgman was fired after one season and Team President Randy Sexton took over the general manager duties. The strategy of aiming low and securing a high draft position did not change. The Senators finished last overall for the next three seasons. For the 1993–94 season, the team now played in the Eastern Conference's Northeast Division. Although 1993 first overall draft choice Alexandre Daigle wound up being one of the greatest draft busts in NHL history, they chose Radek Bonk in 1994, Bryan Berard (traded for Wade Redden) in 1995, Chris Phillips in 1996 and Marian Hossa in 1997, all of whom would become solid NHL players and formed a strong core of players in years to come. Alexei Yashin, the team's first-ever draft selection from 1992, emerged as one of the NHL's brightest young stars. The team traded many of their better veteran players of the era, including 1992–93 leading scorer Norm Maciver and fan favourites Mike Peluso and Bob Kudelski in an effort to stockpile prospects and draft picks.
As the 1995–96 season began, star centre Alexei Yashin refused to honour his contract and did not play. In December, after three straight last-place finishes and a team which was ridiculed throughout the league, fans began to grow restless waiting for the team's long-term plan to yield results, and arena attendance began to decline. Rick Bowness was fired in late 1995 and was replaced by the Prince Edward Island Senators' head coach Dave Allison. Allison would fare no better than his predecessor, and the team would stumble to a 2–22–3 record under him. Sexton himself was fired and replaced by Pierre Gauthier, the former assistant GM of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim team. Before the end of January 1996, Gauthier had resolved the team's most pressing issues by settling star player Alexei Yashin's contract dispute, and hiring the highly regarded Jacques Martin as head coach. While Ottawa finished last-overall once again, the season ended with renewed optimism, due in part to the upgraded management and coaching, and also to the emergence of an unheralded rookie from Sweden named Daniel Alfredsson, who would win the Calder Memorial Trophy as NHL Rookie of the Year in 1996.
### Jacques Martin era (1996–2004)
Martin would impose a "strong defence first" philosophy that led to the team qualifying for the playoffs every season that he coached, but he was criticized for the team's lack of success in the playoffs, notably losing four straight series against the provincial rival Toronto Maple Leafs.
In 1996–97, his first season, the club qualified for the playoffs in the last game of the season and nearly defeated the Buffalo Sabres in the first round. In 1997–98, the club finished with their first winning record and upset the heavily favoured New Jersey Devils to win their first playoff series. In 1998–99, the Senators jumped from fourteenth overall in the previous season to third, with 103 points—the first 100-point season in club history, only to be swept in the first round by the Sabres. In 1999–2000 despite the holdout of team captain Alexei Yashin, Martin guided the team to the playoffs, only to lose to the Maple Leafs in the first Battle of Ontario series. Yashin returned for 2000–01 and the team improved to win their division and place second in the Eastern Conference. Yashin played poorly in another first-round playoff loss and on the day of the 2001 NHL Entry Draft, he was traded to the New York Islanders in exchange for Zdeno Chara, Bill Muckalt and the second overall selection in the draft, which Ottawa used to select centre Jason Spezza.
The 2001–02 Senators regular season points total dropped, but in the playoffs, they upset the Philadelphia Flyers for the franchise's second playoff series win. The Sens would go on to push their second-round series to seven games, but they were ultimately once again defeated by the Maple Leafs. Despite speculation that Martin would be fired, it was GM Marshall Johnston who left, retiring from the team. He was replaced by John Muckler, the Senators' first with previous management experience.
Although the Senators were bankrupt, they continued to play in the 2002–03 season after getting emergency financing. Despite the off-ice problems, Ottawa had an outstanding season, placing first overall in the NHL to win the Presidents' Trophy. In the playoffs, they came within one game of making it into the Stanley Cup Finals, losing to the eventual Stanley Cup champion New Jersey Devils. In 2003–04, Martin would guide the team to another good regular season but again would lose in the first round of the playoffs to the Maple Leafs, leading to Martin's dismissal as management felt that a new coach was required for playoff success.
#### Bankruptcy and sale to Eugene Melnyk
In 2000, owner Bryden publicly appealed for tax relief from the Government of Canada for all Canadian NHL teams, coping with a large drop in the Canadian dollar. His appeal was first met with a plan for tax relief, but the tax relief program was cancelled. Bryden then announced the sale of the club outright to a limited partnership in 2002 for million, which would include creditors and Bryden himself. After its principal creditor Ogden Entertainment failed, the Senators entered bankruptcy protection in January 2003, owing million for the club and million for the arena. The deal fell through in 2003 when American investor Nelson Peltz declined to get involved.
In August 2003, pharmaceutical billionaire Eugene Melnyk purchased the club for a reported million. Melnyk, principal shareholder of Biovail Pharmaceuticals, chose to finance half of the purchase price for the club and arena with debt. Share values of Biovail were depressed, and he did not want to sell them at the lower price.
### Bryan Murray era (2004–2016)
After the playoff loss, owner Melnyk promised that changes were coming and they came quickly. In June 2004, Anaheim Ducks GM Bryan Murray of nearby Shawville, became the head coach. That summer, the team also made substantial personnel changes, trading long-time players Patrick Lalime and Radek Bonk, and signing free agent goaltender Dominik Hasek. The team would not be able to show its new line-up for a year, as the 2004–05 NHL lock-out intervened and most players played in Europe or in the minors. In a final change, just before the 2005–06 season, the team traded long-time player Marian Hossa for Dany Heatley.
The media predicted the Senators to be Stanley Cup contenders in 2005–06, as they had a strong core of players returning, played an up-tempo style fitting the new rule changes and Hasek was expected to provide top-notch goaltending. The team rushed out of the gate, winning 19 of the first 22 games, in the end winning 52 games and 113 points, placing first in the conference, and second overall. The newly formed 'CASH' line of Alfredsson, Spezza and newly acquired Dany Heatley established itself as one of the league's top offensive lines. Hasek played well until he was injured during the 2006 Winter Olympics, forcing the team to enter the playoffs with rookie netminder Ray Emery as their starter. Without Hasek, the club bowed out in a second-round loss to the Buffalo Sabres.
In 2006–07, the Senators reached the Stanley Cup Finals after qualifying for the playoffs in nine consecutive seasons. The Senators had a high turn-over of personnel and the disappointment of 2006 to overcome and started the season poorly. Trade rumours swirled around Daniel Alfredsson for most of the last months of 2006. The team lifted itself out of last place in the division to nearly catch the Buffalo Sabres by season's end, placing fourth in the Eastern Conference. The team finished with 105 points, their fourth consecutive 100-point season and sixth in the last eight. In the playoffs, Ottawa continued its good play. Led by the 'CASH' line, goaltender Ray Emery, and the strong defence of Chris Phillips and Anton Volchenkov, the club defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins, the second-ranked New Jersey Devils and the top-ranked Sabres to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals.
The 2006–07 Senators thus became the first Ottawa team to be in a Stanley Cup Finals since 1927 and the city was swept up in the excitement. Businesses along all of the main streets posted large hand-drawn "Go Sens Go" signs, residents put up large displays in front of their homes or decorated their cars. A large Ottawa Senators flag was draped on the City Hall, along with a large video screen showing the games. A six-storey likeness of Daniel Alfredsson was hung on the Corel building. Rallies were held outside of City Hall, car rallies of decorated cars paraded through town and a section of downtown, dubbed the "Sens Mile", was closed off to traffic during and after games for fans to congregate.
In the Final, the Senators faced the Anaheim Ducks, considered a favourite since the start of the season, a team the Senators had last played in 2006, and a team known for its strong defence. The Ducks won the first two games in Anaheim 3–2 and 1–0. Returning home, the Senators won game three 5–3, but lost game four 3–2. The Ducks won game five 6–2 in Anaheim to clinch the series and their first Stanley Cup championship. The Ducks had played outstanding defence, shutting down the 'CASH' line, forcing Murray to split up the line. The Ducks scored timely goals and Ducks' goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere out-played Emery.
In the off-season after the Stanley Cup Finals, Bryan Murray's contract was expiring, while General Manager (GM) John Muckler had one season remaining, at which he was expected to retire. Murray, who had previously been a GM for other NHL clubs, was expected to take over the GM position, although no public timetable was given. Owner Melnyk decided to offer Muckler another position in the organization and give the GM position to Murray. Muckler declined the offer and was relieved from his position. Melnyk publicly justified the move, saying that he expected to lose Murray if his contract ran out. Murray then elevated John Paddock, the assistant coach, to head coach of the Senators. Under Paddock, the team came out to a record start to the 2007–08 season. However, team play declined to a .500 level and the team looked to be falling out of the playoffs. Paddock was fired by Murray, who took over coaching on an interim basis. The club managed to qualify for the playoffs by a tie-breaker but was swept in the first round of the playoffs by the Pittsburgh Penguins. In June, the club bought-out goaltender Ray Emery, who had become notorious for off-ice events in Ottawa and lateness to several team practices.
For 2008–09, Murray hired Craig Hartsburg to coach the Senators. Under Hartsburg's style, the Senators struggled and played under .500. Uneven goaltending with Martin Gerber and Alex Auld meant the team played cautiously to protect the goaltender. Murray's patience ran out in February 2009, with the team well out of playoff contention and Hartsburg was fired, although he had two years left on his contract, and the team also had Paddock under contract. Cory Clouston was elevated from the Binghamton coaching position. The team played above .500 under Clouston and rookie goaltender Brian Elliott, who had been promoted from Binghamton. Gerber was waived from the team at the trading deadline and the team traded for goaltender Pascal Leclaire, although he would not play due to injury. The team failed to make the playoffs for the first time in 12 seasons. Auld would be traded in the off-season to make room. Clouston's coaching had caused a rift with top player Dany Heatley (although unspecified "personal issues" were also noted by Heatley) and after Clouston was given a contract to continue coaching, Heatley made a trade demand and was traded just before the start of the 2009–10 season.
In 2009–10, the Senators were a .500 team, until going on a team-record 11-game winning streak in January. The streak propelled the team to the top of the Northeast Division standings and a top-three placing for the playoffs. The team was unable to hold off the Sabres for the division lead but qualified for the playoffs in the fifth position. For the third season in four, the Senators played off against the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round. A highlight for the Senators was winning a triple-overtime fifth game in Pittsburgh, but the team was unable to win a playoff game on home ice, losing the series in six games.
The Senators had a much poorer than expected 2010–11 campaign, resulting in constant rumours of a shakeup right through until December. The rumours were heightened in January after the team went on a lengthy losing streak. January was a dismal month for the Senators, winning only one game all month. Media speculated on the imminent firing of Clouston, Murray or both. Owner Melynk cleared the air in an article in the edition of January 22, 2011, of the Ottawa Sun. Melnyk stated that he would not fire either Clouston or Murray, but that he had given up on this season and was in the process of developing a plan for the future. On Monday, January 24, The Globe and Mail reported that the plan included hiring a new general manager before the June entry draft and that Murray would be retained as an advisor to the team. A decision on whether to retain Clouston would be made by the new general manager. The article by Roy MacGregor, a long-time reporter of the Ottawa Senators, stated that former assistant coach Pierre McGuire had already been interviewed. Murray, in a press conference that day, stated that he wished to stay on as the team's general manager. He also stated that Melnyk was allowing him to continue as the general manager without restraint. Murray said that the players were now to be judged by their play until the February 28 trade deadline. Murray would attempt to move "a couple, at least" of the players for draft picks or prospects at that time if the Senators remained out of playoff contention.
True to his word, Murray made a flurry of trades. He started his overhaul with the trading of Mike Fisher to the Nashville Predators. Fisher already had a home in Nashville with his wife Carrie Underwood. The trading of Fisher, a fan favourite in Ottawa, led to a small anti-Underwood backlash with the banning of her songs from the playlists of some local radio stations. Murray next traded veterans Chris Kelly, and Jarkko Ruutu. A swap of goaltenders was made with the Colorado Avalanche which brought Craig Anderson to Ottawa in exchange for Brian Elliott, both goalies having sub-par years. Next, under-achieving forward Alex Kovalev was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins. On trade deadline day, Ottawa picked up goaltender Curtis McElhinney on waivers and traded Chris Campoli with a seventh-round pick to the Chicago Blackhawks for a second-round pick and Ryan Potulny. Goaltender Anderson played very well down the stretch for Ottawa, and the team quickly signed the soon-to-be unrestricted free agent to a four-year contract. After media speculation on the future of Murray within the organization, Murray was re-signed as general manager on April 8 to a three-year extension. On April 9, Head coach Cory Clouston and assistants Greg Carvel and Brad Lauer were dismissed from their positions. Murray said that the decision was made based on the fact that the team entered the season believing it was a contender, but finished with a 32–40–10 record. Former Detroit Red Wings' assistant coach Paul MacLean was hired as Clouston's replacement on June 14, 2011.
As the 2011–12 season began, many hockey writers and commentators were convinced that the Senators would finish at or near the bottom of the NHL standings. In the midst of rebuilding, the Ottawa line-up contained many rookies and inexperienced players. The team struggled out of the gate, losing five of their first six games before a reversal of fortunes saw them win six games in a row. In December 2011, the team acquired forward Kyle Turris from the Phoenix Coyotes in exchange for highly-regarded prospect David Rundblad and a draft pick. The team improved its play afterwards and moved into a playoff position before the All-Star Game. For the first time in Senators' history, the All-Star Game was held in Ottawa, and it was considered a great success. Five Senators were voted in or named to the event, including Daniel Alfredsson, who was named the captain of one team. The team continued its playoff push after the break. After starting goalie Craig Anderson injured his hand in a kitchen accident at home, the Senators called up Robin Lehner from Binghamton and acquired highly-regarded goaltender Ben Bishop from the St. Louis Blues. While Anderson recovered, the team continued its solid play and finished as the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference, drawing a first-round playoff matchup against the Conference champion New York Rangers. Ultimately, Ottawa lost the series in seven games.
The next season, Ottawa would be challenged to repeat the success they had in 2011–12, due to long-term injuries to key players such as Erik Karlsson, Jason Spezza, Milan Michalek and Craig Anderson. Despite these injuries, the Senators would finish seventh in the Eastern Conference and head coach Paul MacLean would go on to win the Jack Adams Award as the NHL's coach of the year. In a rivalry series, Ottawa defeated the second-seeded Montreal Canadiens in the first round of the playoffs in five games, blowing out Montreal 6–1 in games three and five. This was the first Montreal-Ottawa playoff series since Ottawa joined the league and the first between the cities' teams since the original Senators played the Canadiens in 1927. The Senators could not repeat the upset, losing to the top-seeded Pittsburgh Penguins in five games in the second round.
July 5, 2013, would be a day of mixed emotions for the city and fans, as long-time captain Daniel Alfredsson signed a one-year contract with the Detroit Red Wings, leaving Ottawa after 17 seasons with the Senators and 14 as captain after a contract dispute. The signing shocked numerous fans across the city and many within the Senators organization. The day finished optimistically, however, as Murray acquired star forward Bobby Ryan from the Anaheim Ducks, hoping Ryan could replace Alfredsson on the top line with Jason Spezza. Murray would also sign free-agent forward Clarke MacArthur to a two-year contract that same day and bring back former defenceman Joe Corvo to a one-year contract three days later on July 8, 2013.
For the 2013–14 season, the league realigned and Ottawa was assigned to the new Atlantic Division along with the rest of the old Northeast Division and the Detroit Red Wings, formerly of the Western Conference. The re-alignment brought increased competition to qualify for the playoffs, as there were now 16 teams in the Eastern Conference fighting for eight playoff spots. The season began with a changing of leadership, as on September 14, 2013, the Ottawa Senators named Jason Spezza their eighth captain in franchise history. While new addition Clarke MacArthur had a career year, Ryan and Spezza struggled to find chemistry, and Ryan was moved to a line with MacArthur and Kyle Turris. Corvo lost his place in the line-up and was waived. The team outside of a playoff position, Murray bolstered the club with a trade for flashy right-winger Ales Hemsky from the Edmonton Oilers. The club, however, was eliminated from playoff contention in the last week of the season, finishing five points short. Further disappointment ensued as the team lost Hemsky to free agency and Spezza requested a trade out of Ottawa, ending the era of the stars of the 2007 Stanley Cup Finals team. Spezza agreed to be traded to the Dallas Stars and was sent with Ludwig Karlsson, for Alex Chiasson, Nick Paul, Alex Guptill and a 2015 second-round pick.
At the beginning of the 2014–15 season, Karlsson was named the franchise's ninth captain and the club signed Ryan to a seven-year extension. Unhappy with an 11–11–5 record after 27 games, the Senators fired head coach Paul MacLean and replaced him with assistant coach Dave Cameron. The change turned the season around for the Senators, who won 32 of their last 55 games. Goaltender Andrew Hammond, aka 'The Hamburglar', would compile a record of 20–1–2, a goals-against average of 1.79, and a save percentage of .941 to get the team back into playoff position. The Senators became the first team in modern NHL history to overcome a 14-point deficit at any juncture of the season to qualify for the playoffs. However, the Senators lost to the Canadiens in six games in the first round of the playoffs.
During the 2014–15 season, it was announced that Murray had cancer. Taking regular treatment, Murray chose to stay on as GM through the 2015–16 season. Despite posting the best record of any Canadian team in the league, the Senators failed to make the playoffs in what was considered a disappointing season (all seven Canadian teams missed the playoffs). Murray made one 'blockbuster' nine-player trade that brought Toronto Maple Leafs' captain Dion Phaneuf to the Senators before the trade deadline. The Senators were outside of a playoff position at the time of the deal, and played well until the end of the season, but fell just short, placing fifth in the division.
### Pierre Dorion era (2016–present)
On April 10, 2016, the day after the final game of the 2015–16 season, Murray announced his resignation as general manager and that he would continue in an advisory role with the club. Assistant general manager Pierre Dorion was promoted to the general manager position. On April 12, 2016, the Senators fired head coach Dave Cameron. On May 8, 2016, the Senators hired former Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Guy Boucher as their new head coach. On the following day, Marc Crawford was announced as associate coach. On June 13, 2016, the Senators hired Daniel Alfredsson as the senior advisor of hockey operations. In June 2016, the Senators hired Rob Cookson as an assistant coach, who had worked with both Boucher and Crawford in Switzerland, and Pierre Groulx as a goaltending coach.
The Senators finished second in the Atlantic Division during the 2016–17 season and faced the Boston Bruins in the first round of the playoffs, winning that series in six games. In the second round, they defeated the New York Rangers in six games. During the second game of that series, Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored four goals, including the game-winning goal in double overtime. The Senators would come within one game of the Stanley Cup Finals, but lost in double overtime of the seventh game of their Eastern Conference Final series against the Pittsburgh Penguins, who went on to win their second consecutive Stanley Cup.
Following their appearance in the Eastern Conference Final the previous season, the Senators lost defenceman Marc Methot to the 2017 NHL Expansion Draft. On November 5, 2017, the Senators conducted a blockbuster trade with the Colorado Avalanche, bringing in star-forward Matt Duchene from the Avalanche in exchange for Kyle Turris, Shane Bowers, Andrew Hammond, a conditional first-round pick in 2018 or 2019 and a third-round pick in 2019. Following the trade, however, the Senators' season began to fall apart with a disastrous November road trip. A season highlight was hosting the NHL 100 Classic game outdoors at the TD Place Stadium football field versus the Montreal Canadiens. The game marked the centennial of the first Montreal-Ottawa game in the NHL. The Senators won the game 3–0, but the festival atmosphere was somewhat marred by owner Melnyk's controversial comments to the press about attendance levels and selling or moving the team. Out of the playoff picture, the Senators chose to trade away veteran players. Forward Derick Brassard and defenceman Dion Phaneuf were dealt at the trade deadline to the Pittsburgh Penguins and Los Angeles Kings, respectively. The Senators finished the year second-to-last in the league with a 28–43–11 record and 67 points, their fourth-worst season since entering the league.
During the 2018 off-season, the Senators began what would end up being a complete rebuild. They traded forward Mike Hoffman to the San Jose Sharks, who later that day flipped him to the Florida Panthers. The Senators ended up with the fourth-overall pick in the 2018 NHL Entry Draft as a result of their poor record. Under the conditions of the Matt Duchene trade, they either had to give up the pick to the Avalanche or wait a year and surrender their 2019 first-round pick instead. The Senators elected to keep the pick and selected forward Brady Tkachuk fourth overall. Just before the regular season started, the Senators traded their captain Erik Karlsson to the San Jose Sharks for a large package of players and draft picks.
After a miserable start to the 2018–19 season, the Senators were unable to re-sign star forwards Matt Duchene, Mark Stone and Ryan Dzingel before the trade deadline. In an attempt to create optimism, owner Melnyk famously stated: "The Senators will be all-in again for a five-year run of unparalleled success–where the team will plan to spend close to the NHL's salary cap every year from 2021 to 2025. The Senators' current rebuild is a blueprint on how to bring the Stanley Cup home to its rightful place in Ottawa." All three players were subsequently traded prior to the 2019 trade deadline. Duchene and Dzingel were traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets in exchange for draft picks, prospects and Anthony Duclair while fan favourite Mark Stone was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights in exchange for prospect Erik Brannstrom and a second-round pick. Just days after trading away the team's three leading scorers, it was announced that the plans for a new downtown arena on the open land at Lebreton Flats had fallen through. The Ottawa Citizen called it "one of the gloomiest weeks in the history of the Ottawa Senators." The 2018–19 season saw the team finish last in the NHL without their own first-round draft pick. This marked the first time since 1995–96 that the Senators missed back-to-back playoff appearances.
Prior to the 2019–20 season, D.J. Smith was hired as the new head coach while the organization shifted its focus to developing its young players. The season was ultimately cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Senators finished second last in the NHL with 62 points in 71 games. In contrast, Ottawa's farm team the Belleville Senators put together a very impressive, albeit-shortened season led by Ottawa's top prospects which included Josh Norris, Drake Batherson, Alex Formenton and Erik Brannstrom among others. Meanwhile, the San Jose Sharks suffered an unexpected collapse that year which significantly benefited the Senators who had acquired their first-round draft pick in the Erik Karlsson trade. Ottawa found themselves with the third and fifth picks in the 2020 NHL draft and used them to select highly touted prospects Tim Stuetzle and Jake Sanderson.
The Senators would miss the playoffs again for the 2020–21 season, a season overshadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The young team played an all-Canadian shortened season, during which they had a poor record to start the season but finished the season with a strong stretch of play, inspiring some optimism for the future. The Senators again traded away veterans at the trade deadline for draft picks.
Before the 2021–22 season, general manager Pierre Dorion's contract was extended until 2025. He proceeded to declare: "The rebuild is done. Now we're stepping into another zone." His claims however did not materialize as the Senators got off to a slow start and were quickly out of the playoff picture. On October 17, 2021, Brady Tkachuk signed a seven-year deal after a dramatic contract holdout. Just under three weeks later, he was named the tenth captain in franchise history at just 22 years of age. Tkachuk was at the time the franchise's youngest-ever captain.
Ahead of the 2022–23 season, the team was aggressive in their efforts to exit their rebuild, drastically retooling the team through the acquisitions of forwards Alex DeBrincat and Claude Giroux and goaltender Cam Talbot. In addition, the team signed Josh Norris and Tim Stuetzle to eight-year contract extensions.
### Death of owner Eugene Melnyk and sale
Owner Eugene Melnyk died in March 2022 due to an unspecified illness. In statements in recent years, Melnyk had said that he planned to leave the team to his two daughters Olivia and Anna when he had been asked if he intended to sell the team, although there had been speculation about ownership changes. The team added an 'EM' patch on the jersey for the rest of the season. In November 2022, the team engaged a New York City investment banker to facilitate a sale of the team. The Senators confirmed the planned sale in a press release on November 5, with a condition of sale being that the team remain in Ottawa. On June 13, 2023, the Senators announced that a purchase agreement had been signed with a group of investors headed by Michael Andlauer, a Toronto businessman and part-owner of the Montreal Canadiens. The sale is expected to be finalized in September 2023.
## Home rinks
### Ottawa Civic Centre
The Senators' first home arena was the Ottawa Civic Centre (now TD Place Arena), located on Bank Street in Ottawa, where they played from the 1992–93 season to January of the 1995–96 season. The arena, used by the junior Ottawa 67's, was renovated for the Senators, including adding press boxes and luxury boxes. They played their first home game on October 8, 1992, against the Montreal Canadiens with much pre-game spectacle. The Senators would defeat the Canadiens 5–3. Their last game in the arena was on December 31, 1995, versus the Tampa Bay Lightning.
### Canadian Tire Centre
As part of its bid to land an NHL franchise for Ottawa, Terrace Corporation unveiled the original proposal for the arena development at a press conference in September 1989. The proposal included a hotel and 20,500-seat arena, named The Palladium, on 100 acres (0.40 km<sup>2</sup>), surrounded by a 500-acre (2.0 km<sup>2</sup>) mini-city, named "West Terrace." The site itself, 600 acres (2.4 km<sup>2</sup>) of farmland, on the western border of Kanata, had been acquired in May 1987 from farmer Cyril Bennett for million, and flipped to Terrace for million in 1989. Rezoning approval was granted by the Ontario Municipal Board on August 28, 1991, with conditions. The conditions imposed by the board included a scaling down of the arena to 18,500 seats, a moratorium on development outside the initial 100-acre (0.40 km<sup>2</sup>) arena site, and that the cost of the highway interchange with Highway 417 be paid by Terrace. A two-year period was spent seeking financing for the site and interchange by Terrace Corporation. The corporation received a million grant from the Government of Canada but needed to borrow to pay for the rest of the costs of construction. A ground-breaking ceremony was held in June 1992 but actual construction did not start until July 7, 1994. Actual construction took 18 months, finishing in January 1996.
The Palladium opened on January 15, 1996, with a concert by Canadian rocker Bryan Adams. The Senators played their first game in their new arena two days later, falling 3–0 to the Montreal Canadiens. On February 17, 1996, the name 'Palladium' was changed to 'Corel Centre' when Corel Corporation, an Ottawa software company, signed a twenty-year deal for the naming rights.
When mortgage holder Covanta Energy (the former Ogden Entertainment) went into receivership in 2001, Terrace was expected to pay off its debt to Covanta in full. The ownership was not able to refinance the arena, eventually leading Terrace itself to declare bankruptcy in 2002. On August 26, 2003, billionaire businessman Eugene Melnyk finalized the purchase of the Senators and the arena. The arena and club became solely owned by Melnyk through a new company, Capital Sports & Entertainment.
In 2004, the ownership applied to expand its seating and the City of Ottawa amended its by-laws for the venue, increasing its seating capacity in 2005 to 19,153 and total attendance capacity to 20,500 including standing room.
On January 19, 2006, the arena became known as 'Scotiabank Place' after Melnyk reached a new 15-year naming agreement with Canadian bank Scotiabank on January 11, 2006, ending the 20-year contract with Corel. Scotiabank had been an advertising partner with the club for several years and a financial partner with owner Melnyk, and signed a million over 15-years deal; a slight increase over Corel's contract. While Corel was no longer the arena name sponsor, it continued as an advertising sponsor.
In 2011, in time for the Senators hosting the NHL All-Star Game, the team installed a new video scoreboard, known as the 'Bell HD' screen, made by Panasonic. The new scoreboard increased the video display from 700 square feet (65 m<sup>2</sup>) to 2,170 square feet (202 m<sup>2</sup>) and added LED rings.
On June 18, 2013, the Senators and Scotiabank ended the naming rights deal after seven years. The Ottawa Senators announced a marketing agreement with the Canadian Tire retail store chain, and as a result, the arena was renamed Canadian Tire Centre on July 1, 2013.
### Downtown arena proposal
In 2015, the National Capital Commission (NCC) put out a request for proposals to redevelop the LeBreton Flats area in downtown Ottawa, a longtime vacant former industrial area. In 2016, the NCC settled on the proposal presented by Senators owner Eugene Melnyk and the RendezVous LeBreton Group partnership with Trinity Developments. The proposal included housing units, park space, a recreation facility, a library and a new arena for the Ottawa Senators.
The plan to build a new arena downtown came apart in late 2018 after it was revealed that the Senators were suing Trinity for million in damages. Trinity was developing a site adjacent to the LeBreton Flats site and the Senators felt this was inappropriate competition. Trinity responded with a billion lawsuit, accusing the Senators of being unwilling to contribute any money to the project. The NCC announced the cancellation of the partnership's bid to develop the site but gave the sides an extension when the two parties agreed to mediation. On February 27, 2019, it was announced that mediation between the parties had failed to come to an agreement and that the NCC would explore other options for the site's redevelopment.
The NCC resumed the process to redevelop the overall site, reserving the site of the arena and asking for preliminary bids on the arena site separately. After a February 2022 deadline to submit bids, the NCC announced that it had received several bids for the site. Local media speculated that the Senators were actively pursuing a bid, authorized by Melnyk shortly before his death. On June 23, 2022, the NCC announced that the Senators proposal had been chosen for the site, with a lease agreement expected to be put in place by autumn of 2023. In related business, the outstanding lawsuits around the previous LeBreton bid were settled out of court in December 2022.
### Practice facility
The Senators practice facility is known as the Bell Sensplex, a million joint venture with the City of Ottawa. Located southeast of the Canadian Tire Centre, the facility has three NHL-sized rinks, an Olympics-size rink and a fieldhouse that opened in 2004. It is used for Senators' practices, minor hockey and it is also the home of the annual minor hockey league Bell Capital Cup tournament.
## Team identity
The Senators organization is located in a bilingual marketplace and operates in both English and French. Ottawa is officially bilingual, and the Ottawa-Gatineau census metropolitan area is a mix of anglophones and francophones. Longstanding Senators policy calls for providing services and marketing in both English and French to its bilingual fanbase. A bilingual version of the Canadian anthem is sung before home games and all announcements are in both languages. It has been estimated that 40 per cent of season ticket holders are francophone. Senators games are broadcast on both the English-language TSN and the French-language RDS networks, in a long-standing agreement with Bell Media.
### Logo and jersey design
The team colours are black, red and white with gold trim. Except for the gold, the colours match the colours of the original Senators. The team's home jersey is black with red trim, while the away jersey is white with black and red trim. The club's logo is the head of a Roman general, a member of the Senate of the Roman Republic in a gold semi-circle. The original logo, unveiled on May 23, 1991, described the general as a "centurion figure, strong and prominent" according to its designer, Tony Milchard.
From 1992 to 1995, the Senators' primary road jerseys were black with red stripes. The numbers were red for the first season but switched to white afterwards. White stripes were added to the uniform in 1995. The white uniforms, which were worn on home games until 2003 and on road games until 2007, featured black sleeves and tail stripes with red accents, and black lettering. In 1997, the Senators unveiled a red third jersey. It featured the first iteration of the "forward-facing" centurion logo, designed by Kevin Caradonna, head of the team's graphic design department, who also designed the mascot "Spartacat". The jersey became the team's primary dark jersey starting in 1999. From 2000 to 2007, the Senators also wore a black alternate jersey with gold, red and white accents.
A new jersey design was unveiled on August 22, 2007, in conjunction with the league-wide adoption of the Rbk EDGE jerseys by Reebok for the 2007–08 season. The jersey incorporates the original Senators' 'O' logo as a shoulder patch. At the same time, the team updated its logos and switched its usage. The primary logo, which according to team owner Eugene Melnyk, "represents strength and determination" is an update of the old secondary logo.
Prior to the 2008–09 season, the Senators unveiled a new black third jersey, featuring the shortened "SENS" moniker in front. The centurion logo adorns the shoulders and the striping was inspired by the team's original black jerseys.
In 2011, the Senators introduced a throwback-inspired third jersey design. Mostly black, the jersey incorporated horizontal striping intended to be reminiscent of the original Senators' 'barber-pole' designs. Shield-type patches were added to the shoulders. The design of the shield-type patches was intended to be similar to the shield patches that the original Senators added to their jerseys after each Stanley Cup championship win. The patches spell the team name, one in English, and one in French. The design was a collaborative effort between the Senators and a fan in Gatineau, Quebec who had been circulating a version of it on the internet since 2009. The black third jerseys served as the basis of the Senators' 2014 Heritage Classic jerseys, which used cream as the base colour.
In 2017, the Senators' jerseys received a slight makeover when Adidas replaced Reebok as the NHL's uniform provider. The number font was changed to match those of their recent third jerseys, which were retired after the 2016–17 season. Prior to the 2018–19 season, the Senators brought back the red jerseys worn during the NHL 100 Classic as a third jersey. The design featured a silver "O" in front with black trim amid horizontal black, silver and white stripes.
In 2020, the Senators reintroduced its 1997–2007 logo with the jersey set used from 1992 to 1995. The updated logo uses a gold outline as opposed to red. The new uniforms, while largely resembling the originals from the 1990s, retained the lettering font used since the Adidas takeover, while the white uniforms retained only the black and red stripes along the upper arm sleeves. Both the home and away uniforms include a red band across the very bottom of the jerseys. In addition, the Senators unveiled a "Reverse Retro" alternate uniform; the design was of the original 1992–93 uniform but with red as the base colour. In the 2022–23 season, the Senators wore "Reverse Retro" uniforms based on the alternates they wore from 1997 to 2007, but with the current 2-D logo in front, black as the base colour and less white elements.
### Arena entertainment
At many home games, the fans are entertained both outside and inside Canadian Tire Centre with myriad entertainers – live music, DJs, giveaways and promotions. The live music includes the traditional Scottish music of the 'Sons of Scotland Pipe Band' of Ottawa along with highland dancers. Before and during games, entertainment is hosted by Spartacat, the official mascot of the Senators, an anthropomorphic lion. He made his debut on the Senators' opening night: October 8, 1992. During intermissions, the entertainment varies with on-ice contests, youth games, t-shirt giveaways, live bands and DJs. At each game, a selected fan rides one of the on-ice resurfacers ("Zambonis"). After each Senators' goal, the team sounds an Airchime M3H horn from a retired VIA Rail train. The team initially used it in the Civic Centre. At each game, the Senators spotlight a Canadian veteran soldier.
Like other NHL arenas in Canada, O Canada is sung prior to faceoff, along with The Star-Spangled Banner if an American team is visiting. O Canada is sung in both English and French with the first half of the first stanza and chorus sung in English and the second half of the first stanza sung in French. From 1994 until 2016, the national anthems were sung by former Ontario Provincial Police Constable Lyndon Slewidge. Currently, the team has no regular singer, alternating with various singers. During O Canada, a large Canadian flag is unfurled and passed from fan to fan in the lower bowl section.
The Senators have their own theme song titled Trumpeters Cry which is played as the team comes on the ice and is also used in Sens TV web videos. The song was written by Ottawa singer-songwriter Andres del Castillo, who was formerly of the band Eight Seconds. The song is available in MP3 format at the nhl.com website. A ten-hour version is available on YouTube.
### Attendance, revenue and ownership
On April 18, 2008, the club announced its final attendance figures for 2007–08. The club had 40 sell-outs out of 41 home dates, a total attendance of 812,665 during the regular season, placing the club third in attendance in the NHL. The number of sell-outs and the total attendance were both club records. The previous attendance records were set during the 2005–06 with a season total of 798,453 and 33 sell-outs. In the 2006–07 regular season, total attendance was 794,271, with 31 sell-outs out of 41 home dates or an average attendance of 19,372. In the 2007 playoffs, the Senators played nine games with nine sell-outs and an attendance of 181,272 for an average of 20,141, the highest in team history. Until recent seasons, the club was regularly represented in the top half in attendance in the NHL. In 2018–19, the Senators average attendance was 14,553, 27th in the league. Attendance dropped further in the 2019–20 season, dropping to an average of 12,618, the lowest in the league.
The most recent valuation by Forbes magazine valued the Senators at million. Forbes estimated the debt/value ratio at 25% and that the team earned million in 2020–21 on revenue of million. Owned by the Estate of Eugene Melynk, Melnyk bought the team and arena for million in 2003 out of bankruptcy. It was previously owned by founder Terrace Investments, majority owned by Rod Bryden, until it declared bankruptcy in 2002. Terrace Investments won the bid for an NHL franchise in 1990. The team is currently for sale, put up for sale by Eugene Melnyk's heirs after his death.
### Sens Army
The fans of the Senators are known as the Sens Army. Like most hockey fanatics, they are known to dress up for games; some in Roman legionary clothing. For the 2006–2007 playoff run, more fans than ever before would wear red, and fan activities included 'Red Rallies' of decorated cars, fan rallies at Ottawa City Hall Plaza and the 'Sens Mile' along Elgin Street where fans would congregate.
#### Sens Mile
Much like the Red Mile in Calgary during the Flames' 2004 cup run and the Copper Kilometre in Edmonton during the Edmonton Oilers' 2006 cup run, Ottawa Senators fans took to the streets to celebrate their team's success during the 2007 playoffs. The idea to have a 'Sens Mile' on downtown Elgin Street, a street with numerous restaurants and pubs, began as a grassroots campaign on Facebook by Ottawa residents before game four of the Ottawa-Buffalo Eastern Conference Finals series. After the game five win, Ottawa residents closed the street to traffic for a spontaneous celebration. The City of Ottawa then closed Elgin Street for each game of the Final.
## Broadcasting
Ottawa Senators games are broadcast locally in both the English and French languages. As of the 2014–15 season, regional television rights to the Senators' regular season games not broadcast nationally by Sportsnet, TVA Sports, or Hockey Night in Canada are owned by Bell Media under a 12-year contract, with games airing in English on TSN5, and in French on RDS. Regional broadcasts are available within the team's designated region (shared with the Montreal Canadiens), which includes the Ottawa River valley, Eastern Ontario (portions are shared with the Toronto Maple Leafs), along with Quebec, the Maritime provinces and Newfoundland and Labrador.
On radio, all home and away games are broadcast on a five-station network stretching across Eastern Ontario, including one American station, WQTK in Ogdensburg, New York. The flagship radio station is CFGO in Ottawa. Radio broadcasts on CFGO began in 1997–98; the contract has since been extended through the 2025–2026 as part of Bell Media's rights deal with the team. The Senators are broadcast on radio in French through Intersport Production and CJFO-FM in Ottawa. Nicolas St. Pierre provides play-by-play, with Alain Sanscartier as colour commentator.
Sportsnet East held English regional rights to the Sens prior to the 2014–15 season. In April 2014, Dean Brown, who had called play-by-play for Senators games since the team's inception, stated that it was "extremely unlikely" that he would move to TSN and continue his role. He noted that the network already had four commentators among its personalities – including Gord Miller, Chris Cuthbert, Rod Black, and Paul Romanuk (who was, however, picked up by Rogers for its national NHL coverage in June 2014), who were likely candidates to serve as the new voices of the Senators. Brown ultimately moved to the Senators' radio broadcasts alongside Gord Wilson. Both Miller and Cuthbert, along with Ray Ferraro and Jamie McLennan, became the Senators' TV voices on TSN from 2014 to 2020. After Cuthbert joined Sportsnet in 2020, former Canucks radio voice Jon Abbott took over as the secondary play-by-play commentator in games where Miller is assigned to call the Maple Leafs. Mike Johnson, who concurrently works colour commentary for the Canadiens and Maple Leafs on TSN, replaced Ferraro as an alternate to McLennan.
During the 2006–07 and 2007–08 seasons, several games were only available in video on pay-per-view or at local movie theatres in the Ottawa area. The "Sens TV" service was suspended indefinitely as of September 24, 2008. In 2010, Sportsnet launched a secondary channel for selected Senators games as part of its Sportsnet One service. Selected broadcasts of Senators games in the French language were broadcast by RDS and TVA Sports. On the RDS network, Félix Séguin and former Senators goaltender Patrick Lalime were the announcers from the 2011–12 season to the 2013–14 season, and Michel Y. Lacroix and Norman Flynn starting in the 2014–15 season. The TVA Sports broadcast team consisted of Michel Langevin, Yvon Pedneault and Enrico Ciccone.
## Players and personnel
### Current roster
### Team captains
- Laurie Boschman, 1992–1993
- Mark Lamb and Brad Shaw, 1993–1994 (co-captains)
- Gord Dineen, 1994
- Randy Cunneyworth, 1995–1998
- Alexei Yashin, 1998–1999
- Daniel Alfredsson, 1999–2013
- Jason Spezza, 2013–2014
- Erik Karlsson, 2014–2018
- Brady Tkachuk, 2021–present
### Head coaches
Statistics are accurate through the hiring of D.J. Smith.
### General managers
Source: Ottawa Senators 2009–10 Media Guide, p. 206.
### Honoured members
#### Hall of Famers
- Roger Neilson – Senators' assistant coach and head coach (2001–2003) was inducted (as a Builder) on November 4, 2002, for his career in coaching.
- Dominik Hasek – Senators' goaltender (2005–2006) was inducted in 2014 for his career as a goalie.
- Marian Hossa – Senators' winger (1998–2004) was inducted in 2020 (ceremony held in 2021) for his career as a forward.
- Daniel Alfredsson – Senators winger (1995–2013) was inducted in 2022 for his career as a forward.
#### Retired numbers
- <sup>1</sup> Finnigan was honoured for his play from 1923 through 1934 for the original Ottawa Senators (playing right wing, 1923–1931 and 1932–1934). He was the last surviving Senator from the Stanley Cup winners of 1927 and participated in the 'Bring Back the Senators' campaign.
- The NHL retired Wayne Gretzky's No. 99 for all its member teams at the 2000 NHL All-Star Game.
#### Ring of Honour
- Bryan Murray – Senators' head coach (2005–2008) and general manager (2007–2016).
- Wade Redden – Senators' defenceman (1996–2008) and alternate captain (1999–2008).
### All-time players
## Team record
### Season-by-season record
This is a partial list of the last five seasons completed by the Senators. For the full season-by-season history, see List of Ottawa Senators seasons
Note: GP = Games Played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, OTL = Overtime Losses, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against, PIM = Penalties in minutes
### Team scoring leaders
These are the top-ten regular season point-scorers in franchise history. Figures are updated after each completed NHL regular season.
Note: Pos = Position; GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; P/G = Points per game average;
- – current Senators player
Source: Ottawa Senators Media Guide
### NHL awards and trophies
Prince of Wales Trophy
- 2006–07
Presidents' Trophy
- 2002–03
Calder Memorial Trophy
- Daniel Alfredsson: 1995–96
NHL Plus-Minus Award
- Wade Redden: 2005–06 (shared with Michal Rozsival of the New York Rangers)
Jack Adams Award
- Jacques Martin: 1998–99
- Paul MacLean: 2012–13
James Norris Memorial Trophy
- Erik Karlsson: 2011–12, 2014–15
King Clancy Memorial Trophy
- Daniel Alfredsson: 2011–12
Mark Messier Leadership Award
- Daniel Alfredsson: 2012–13
Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy
- Craig Anderson: 2016–17
- Bobby Ryan: 2019–20
NHL All-Rookie Team
- Daniel Alfredsson: 1995–96
- Sami Salo: 1998–99
- Marian Hossa: 1998–99
- Martin Havlat: 2000–01
- Andrej Meszaros: 2005–06
- Mark Stone: 2014–15
- Brady Tkachuk: 2018–19
- Josh Norris: 2020–21
- Jake Sanderson: 2022–23
NHL first All-Star team
- Zdeno Chara: 2003–04
- Dany Heatley: 2006–07
- Erik Karlsson: 2011–12, 2014–15, 2015–16, 2016–17
NHL second All-Star team
- Alexei Yashin: 1998–99
- Dany Heatley: 2005–06
- Daniel Alfredsson: 2005–06
- Zdeno Chara: 2005–06
### Team records
Source: Ottawa Senators.
## See also
- Bell Sensplex
- List of Ottawa Senators draft picks
- List of NHL players
- List of NHL seasons
- List of ice hockey teams in Ontario
- Lyndon Slewidge |
988,753 | Yoga nidra | 1,170,137,762 | State of consciousness between waking and sleeping induced by a guided meditation | [
"Sleep",
"Yoga as therapy"
]
| Yoga nidra (Sanskrit: योग निद्रा, ) or yogic sleep in modern usage is a state of consciousness between waking and sleeping, typically induced by a guided meditation.
A state called yoga nidra is mentioned in the Upanishads and the Mahabharata, while a goddess named Yoganidrā appears in the Devīmāhātmya. Yoga nidra is linked to meditation in Shaiva and Buddhist tantras, while some medieval hatha yoga texts use "yoganidra" as a synonym for the deep meditative state of samadhi. These texts however offer no precedent for the modern technique of guided meditation. That derives from 19th and 20th century Western "proprioceptive relaxation" as described by practitioners such as Annie Payson Call and Edmund Jacobson.
The modern form of the technique, pioneered by Dennis Boyes in 1973, made widely known by Satyananda Saraswati in 1976, and then by Swami Rama, Richard Miller, and others has spread worldwide. It is applied by the US Army to assist soldiers to recover from post-traumatic stress disorder. There is limited scientific evidence that the technique helps relieve stress.
## Historical usage
### Ancient times
The Hindu epic Mahabharata, completed by the 3rd century CE, mentions a state called "yoganidra", and associates it with Lord Vishnu:
> [The Ocean] becomes the bed of the lotus-naveled Vishnu when at the termination of every Yuga that deity of immeasurable power enjoys yoga-nidra, the deep sleep under the spell of spiritual meditation.
The Devīmāhātmya, written around the 6th century CE, mentions a goddess whose name is Yoganidrā. The god Brahma asks Yoganidrā to wake up Vishnu to go and fight the Asuras or demigods named Madhu and Kaitabha. These early mentions do not define any yoga technique or practice, but describe the god Vishnu's transcendental sleep in between the Yugas, the cycles of the universe, and the manifestation of the goddess as sleep itself.
### Medieval practices
Yoganidra is first linked to meditation in Shaiva and Buddhist tantras. In the Shaiva text Ciñcinīmatasārasamuccaya (7.164), yoganidra is called "peace beyond words"; in the Mahāmāyātantra (2.19ab) it is named as a state in which perfected Buddhas may access secret knowledge. In the 11th or 12th century, yoganidra is first used in Hatha yoga and Raja yoga texts as a synonym for samadhi, a deep state of meditative consciousness where the yogi no longer thinks, moves, or breathes. The Amanaska (2.64) asserts that "Just as someone who has suddenly arisen from sleep becomes aware of sense objects, so the yogin wakes up from that [world of sense objects] at the end of his yogic sleep."
By the 14th century, the Yogatārāvalī (24–26) gives a more detailed description, stating that yoganidra "removes all thought of the world of multiplicity" in the advanced yogi who has completely uprooted his "network of Karma". He then enters the "fourth state", namely turiya or samadhi, beyond the usual states of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep, "that special thoughtless sleep, which consists of [just] consciousness." The 15th century Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā goes further, stating (4.49) that "One should practice Khecarī Mudrā until one is asleep in yoga. For one who has achieved Yoganidrā, death never occurs." Khecarī Mudrā is the Hatha yoga practice of folding the tongue back so that it reaches inside the nasal cavity, where it can enable the yogi to reach samadhi. In the 17th century Haṭha Ratnāvalī (3.70), Yoganidrasana is first described. It is an asana or yoga pose where the legs are wrapped around the back of the neck. The text says that the yogi should sleep in this position, which "bestows bliss". These texts view yoganidra as a state, not a practice in itself.
## Modern usage
### Western "relaxationism"
The yoga scholar Mark Singleton states that while relaxation is a primary feature of modern Western yoga, its relaxation techniques "have no precedent in the pre-modern yoga tradition", but derive mostly from 19th and 20th century Western "proprioceptive relaxation". This prescriptive approach was described by authors such as the "relaxationist" Annie Payson Call in her 1891 book Power through Repose, and the Chicago psychiatrist Edmund Jacobson, the creator of progressive muscle relaxation and biofeedback, in his 1934 book You Must Relax!.
> Once on the floor, give way to it as far as possible. Every day you will become more sensitive to tension, and every day you will be better able to drop it. While you are flat on your backs, if you can find some one to "prove" your relaxation, so much the better. Let your friend lift an arm, bending it at the different joints, and then carefully lay it down. See if you can give its weight entirely to the other person, so that it seems to be no part of you, but as separate as if it were three bags of sand, fastened loosely at the wrist, the elbow, and the shoulder; it will then be full of life without tension.
### Dennis Boyes
In 1973, Dennis Boyes published his book Le Yoga du sommeil éveillé; méthode de relaxation, yoga nidra ("The Yoga of Waking Sleep: method of relaxation, yoga nidra") in Paris, France. This is the first known usage of "yoga nidra" in a modern sense. In the book, Boyes makes use of relaxation techniques including the direction of attention to each part of the body:
> Dirigez votre attention dans le front de votre visage... Sentez bien le front... Descendez un peu jusqu'à l’œil droit... Guidez votre attention dans l’œil... Eprouvez la forme sphéroïde du globe oculaire... Essayez de bien sentir, doucement... directement, sans utiliser la pensée ou l'image mentale... Direct your attention into your forehead... Feel the forehead well... Go down a little to the right eye... Guide your attention into the eye... Experience the spheroidal shape of the eyeball... Try to feel it well, softly... directly, without using thought or a mental image...
The French journal Revue 3<sup>e</sup> Millénaire, reviewing Boyes's approach in 1984, writes that Boyes proposes relaxation in order to "reach the state of emptiness". The person thus imperceptibly moves to a stage where relaxation becomes meditation, and can remain there once the mind's obsession with external objects or thoughts is removed.
### Satyananda
In modern times, Satyananda Saraswati claimed to have experienced yoga nidra when he was living with his guru Sivananda Saraswati in Rishikesh. In 1976, he constructed a system of relaxation through guided meditation, which he popularized in the mid-20th century. He explained yoga nidra as a state of mind between wakefulness and sleep that opened deep phases of the mind, suggesting a connection with the ancient tantric practice called nyasa, whereby Sanskrit mantras are mentally placed within specific body parts, while meditating on each part (of the bodymind). The form of practice taught by Satyananda includes eight stages (internalisation, resolve (sankalpa), rotation of consciousness, breath awareness, manifestation of opposites, creative visualization, repeated resolve (sankalpa) and externalisation). Satyananda used this technique, along with suggestion, on the child who was to become his successor, Niranjanananda Saraswati, from the age of four. He claimed to have taught him several languages by this method.
Satyananda's multi-stage yoga nidra technique is not found in ancient or medieval texts. However, the yoga scholars Jason Birch and Jacqueline Hargreaves note that there are analogues for several of his yoga nidra activities.
Yoga nidra in this modern sense is a state in which the body is completely relaxed, and the practitioner becomes systematically and increasingly aware of the inner world by following a set of verbal instructions. This state of consciousness is different from meditation, in which concentration on a single focus is required. In yoga nidra the practitioner remains in a state of light withdrawal of the 5 senses (pratyahara) with four senses internalised, that is, withdrawn, and only hearing still connects to any instructions given.
### Swami Rama
Swami Rama taught a form of yoga nidra (in a broad sense) which involves an exercise called shavayatra, "inner pilgrimage [through the body]", which directs the attention around "61 sacred points of the body" during relaxation in shavasana, corpse pose. A second exercise, shithali karana, is said to induce "a very deep state of relaxation", and is described as a preliminary for yoga nidra (in a narrow sense). It too is performed in shavasana, involving exhalations imagined as directed from the crown of the head to different points around the body, each repeated 5 or 10 times. The yoga nidra exercise itself involves directed breathing lying on the left side, then the right side, then in shavasana. When in shavasana, the attention is directed in turn to the eyebrow, throat, and heart centres or chakras.
### Richard Miller
The western pioneer of yoga as therapy, Richard Miller, has developed the use of yoga nidra for rehabilitating soldiers in pain, using the Integrative Restoration (iRest) methodology. Miller worked with Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the United States Department of Defense studying the efficacy of the approach. According to Yoga Journal, "Miller is responsible for bringing the practice to a remarkable variety of nontraditional settings" which includes "military bases and in veterans' clinics, homeless shelters, Montessori schools, Head Start programs, hospitals, hospices, chemical dependency centers, and jails." The iRest protocol was used with soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The Surgeon General of the United States Army endorsed Yoga Nidra as a complementary alternative medicine (CAM) for chronic pain in 2010.
### Post-lineage yoga nidra
In 2021, the yoga teachers Uma Dinsmore-Tuli and Nirlipta Tuli jointly published a "declaration of independence for Yoga Nidrā Shakti". In it they stated that yoga nidra had become commodified and promoted by commercial organisations for profit; that abuse had taken place within those organisations; and that the organisations had propagated origin stories for yoga nidra "that privilege their own founders" and exclude or neglect older roots of the practice. They state their shock at abuses by Satyananda, Swami Rama, Amrit Desai, and Richard Miller. They invite practitioners and teachers to learn about the history of yoga nidra outside organisational boundaries, and to work without "trademarked versions" of the practice.
## Reception
The Mindful Yoga teacher Anne Cushman states that "This body-sensing journey [that I teach in Mindful Yoga] ... is one variation of the ancient practice of Yoga nidra ... and of the body-scan technique commonly used in the Buddhist Vipassana tradition."
The cultural historian Alistair Shearer writes that the name yoga nidra is an umbrella term for different systems of "progressive relaxation or 'guided meditation'." He comments that Satyananda promoted his version of yoga nidra, claiming it was ancient, when its connections to ancient texts "seem vague at best". Shearer writes that other teachers have defined yoga nidra as "the state of conscious sleep" in which inner awareness is maintained, without reference to Satyananda's method of progressive relaxation by directing attention to different parts of the body. Shearer attributes this "inner lucidity" to the buddhi (intellect, literally "wakefulness") of Sankhya philosophy. He compares buddhi to the "intellect" discussed by Saint Augustine and the Apostolic Fathers at about the same time as Patanjali's Yoga Sutra.
## Scientific evidence
Scientific evidence for the action of yoga nidra is patchy. Parker (2019) conducted a single-observation study of a famous yogi; in it, Swami Rama demonstrated conscious entry into NREM delta wave sleep through yoga nidra, while a disciple produced delta and theta waves even with eyes open and talking. A therapeutic model was developed by Datta and Colleagues (2017) and the same appeared to be useful for insomnia patients. Datta and colleagues (2022) report a beneficial effect of yoga nidra on the sleep of 45 male athletes, noting that sportsmen often have sleep problems. Their small randomised controlled trial found improvements in subjective sleep onset latency, time in bed, and sleep efficiency with 4 weeks of yoga nidra compared to progressive muscular relaxation (used as the control).
Primary research, sometimes on a small scale, has been conducted on various aspects of yoga nidra. One found an association of yoga nidra meditation with increased endogenous dopamine release in the ventral striatum of the brain. The reduced desire for action in the state is associated with the reduced flow of blood in parts of the brain connected with controlling actions, the prefrontal cortex, the cerebellum and the subcortex. Another study reported that yoga nidra improves heart rate variability, a measure of balance in the autonomic nervous system, whether or not it is preceded by a session of hatha yoga asanas.
Informal studies have suggested possible benefits of yoga nidra, without the large scale or strictly controlled trials that would be required to demonstrate medical benefit. A study suggested that regular practice of yoga relaxation could reduce tension and anxiety, while autonomic symptoms of high anxiety such as headache, giddiness, chest pain, palpitations, sweating and abdominal pain appeared to respond well. The approach has been used to help soldiers from war cope with posttraumatic stress disorder. A 2019 study suggests that yoga nidra can alleviate stress and improve self-esteem of university students.
## See also
- Dream yoga |
34,992,141 | Strang School District No. 36 | 1,067,335,118 | null | [
"1929 establishments in Nebraska",
"National Register of Historic Places in Fillmore County, Nebraska",
"School buildings completed in 1929",
"School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Nebraska",
"Schools in Fillmore County, Nebraska"
]
| Strang School District No. 36, or the Strang Public School, is a historic school located in Fillmore County, Nebraska, in the village of Strang. The school is one of the two sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the village of Strang. The school building is a small, two-story, brick public schoolhouse, which was built to replace the schoolhouse that was previously located on that site. The schoolhouse was built between 1929 and 1930, and replaced the previous schoolhouse, which burned down in 1928. The schoolhouse still retains all original building materials. The school served high school students from 1930 to 1951, and still functions as a school today, serving grades K–8. The NRHP listing also includes a flagpole located outside the schoolhouse, and five pieces of playground equipment.
## History and education
In October 1928 a fire destroyed the small school that had previously been located in Strang. Classes were held in two local churches and the Belle Prairie Township Hall for the remainder of that year, while the townspeople held a series of meetings to discuss the construction of a new schoolhouse. Later in 1928, plans for the new schoolhouse were drawn up and approved, and construction on the new Strang Public School began in 1929. The majority of the people that worked on constructing the school were local townspeople. The first classes in the new school were held in February 1930. The schoolhouse was constructed in a "fireproof" fashion, as to prevent another accident. The new schoolhouse was constructed to hold students from first through twelfth grades, from Strang and the surrounding communities. Primary students attending classes were located on the second floor and secondary students classes were held on the first floor. Since construction, there have been no projects undertaken to refurbish or restore the original building, as to protect its historical importance. In 1951, due to a decline in enrollment, the school reduced to serving just students in grades K through 8, and has remained this way since. In fall of 2001, the school had an enrollment of just eight students. By the fall of 2004 (the last published figures available), that number had fallen to just five.
## Architecture
The Strang Public School is a near perfect example of what is considered a typical twentieth-century "fireproof" schoolhouse in Nebraska, and is constructed somewhat symmetrically. The school was constructed in a simplified version of the Renaissance Revival style, consisting of two stories, with a flat roof.
### Exterior
The building is constructed in a rectangular shape, symmetrical on the exterior, and measures 32 feet (9.8 m) by 66 feet (20 m). The approximate height measurements are not provided by the Register. Large, six over six paned windows are located in the front and the back of the building on both floors. Similar windows are also located on the south side of the building, but only on the top floor. There are no windows located on the north side. The entire exterior of the building is constructed from brick. The roof is flat and constructed of roofing cement, with a parapet located around it, with a section of a chimney that sticks out of the south end of the roof. The most prominent feature of the exterior of the building is the large, central pavilion, with a stepped gable parapet wall.
### Interior
The first level of the building contains two classrooms, both of which have a cloakroom, a set of three swivel doors, and a large slate chalkboard that covers one of the walls. The first story also contains two bathrooms, four small storage closets, and a central hall, as well as a large stairwell leading up to the second floor. The second story contains three classrooms, with the same features as those downstairs, along with an office and three small storage rooms. A metal fire escape door is located in the center of the west wall of the second story. The schoolhouse also has a partial basement, which contains a large storage room, a coal room, and a disused coal furnace.
## Geography and facilities
The Strang Public School is positioned at the intersection of Main Street and Sharon Street, on the southern edge of Strang, originally planned as a convenient location for the teachers and students coming from surrounding communities. The campus consists of the main schoolhouse, five historic pieces of playground equipment, a flagpole located in front of the building, a basketball/tennis court located north of the school building, and a large playing field west of the schoolhouse. The entire property is contained inside a 300 by 300 foot square plot of land.
A flagpole is located outside the main entrance to the school building, and is included in the NRHP listing as a contributing feature. A set of gym bars, a tether ball pole, a swing set, a "slippery slide", and a merry-go-round are located on the south and west sides of the property, and are all listed as contributing features. A fenced tennis and basketball court is located on the north side of the property, and a large track and playing field are located on the west side of the property, but none of these features are included in the listing.
## Significance
Strang School District No. 36 was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 25, 1992. On its nomination, Strang School District No. 36 was cited as being significant under criteria C, with the statement: "as a multi-story, brick, "fireproof" school building, an example of a type, period, and method of construction representative of school buildings constructed in many communities in Nebraska, particularly in Fillmore County, during the first quarter of the twentieth century". The school's listed year of significance was 1930, the year it was constructed. The school is considered significant to the surrounding community by Fillmore County, due to its importance to education an historic qualities, being one of the oldest buildings in the area.
## See also
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Fillmore County, Nebraska |
50,362,699 | The Door (Game of Thrones) | 1,167,893,855 | null | [
"2016 American television episodes",
"Game of Thrones (season 6) episodes",
"Television episodes about time travel",
"Television episodes directed by Jack Bender",
"Television episodes written by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss"
]
| "The Door" is the fifth episode of the sixth season of HBO's fantasy television series Game of Thrones, and the 55th overall. The episode was written by series co-creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, and directed by Jack Bender.
Bran Stark learns the origin of the White Walkers, Jon Snow plans to unite the north against the Boltons, Euron Greyjoy reveals his return to the Iron Islands at the Kingsmoot, Tyrion Lannister meets with the Red Priestess Kinvara, and Daenerys Targaryen sees the depths of Jorah Mormont's devotion to her.
"The Door" received universal acclaim from critics, who found the episode to be emotional with effective action sequences involving the White Walkers and Hodor, in addition to providing "important answers regarding [the show]'s mythos." The adaptation of the Kingsmoot as well as Daenerys's farewell to Jorah were also listed as high points of the episode. Hodor's origin story was presented to the series co-creators by George R. R. Martin. In the United States, the episode achieved a viewership of 7.89 million in its initial broadcast. For the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards, Jack Bender was nominated for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series, among the episode's five nominations.
This episode marks the final appearance for Kristian Nairn (Hodor) and Max von Sydow (the Three Eyed Raven).
## Plot
### In Braavos
Jaqen offers Arya the assignment of killing an actress named Lady Crane, who is playing Cersei in a play recounting the War of the Five Kings.
### In The Dothraki Sea
Jorah reveals his greyscale to Daenerys. He admits his love for her, and Daenerys orders him to find a cure and return to her so he can be by her side when she conquers Westeros.
### In Meereen
Tyrion summons the red priestess Kinvara, who agrees to preach to the people that Daenerys is the chosen one of the Lord of Light. She also claims to know what originally happened to Varys and why, unnerving the eunuch.
### On the Iron Islands
The members of House Greyjoy argue over the Salt Throne, with Euron being chosen as King. He intends to sail to Slaver's Bay, bring Daenerys Targaryen back to Westeros as his wife, and conquer the Seven Kingdoms with their combined forces. Theon and Yara, realizing Euron will have them put to death, flee with the best ships of the Iron Fleet. Euron orders the Ironborn to begin construction of a new, better fleet.
### At The Wall
Sansa confronts Littlefinger about his decision to marry her to Ramsay. Littlefinger reveals that her great-uncle, the Blackfish, has retaken Riverrun with the Tully army. Sansa orders Brienne to go and recruit the Blackfish for their cause. At a war meeting at Castle Black, Sansa and Jon discuss which of the Northern houses they can rely on to support them. As the Karstarks and Umbers have already sided with House Bolton, Ser Davos suggests asking House Manderly. When Jon decides to rally the two dozen houses still loyal to the Starks, Sansa informs him they can add House Tully to the list, but lies about how she acquired the information.
Jon, Sansa and Davos plan their attack on Winterfell.
### Beyond the Wall
Bran's visions give him new insight into the Night King and the White Walkers. During one of his visions, Bran is shown the darkest secret of the Children: they long ago created the White Walkers from captured First Men. While in a vision of Winterfell, Bran hears the cries of Meera, who is trying to save Bran's body while the Children hold back the wights. Bran splits his consciousness by remaining in the vision of the past while simultaneously controlling Hodor in the present. The Night King kills the Three-Eyed Raven, while the Children and Bran's direwolf Summer are eventually killed by the wights. Hodor closes the hideout's door behind them, keeping the wights inside while Meera escapes with Bran. Meera repeatedly orders Hodor to "hold the door" shut while they flee, which results in the wights tearing him apart. In the vision, Bran becomes overwhelmed by the split consciousness and unintentionally enters the mind of Wylis in the vision, forging a connection between the past and the present. With Bran's consciousness inside his head, Wylis suffers a seizure after hearing the echoes of Meera's orders and seeing visions of his own violent death (unknowingly) through Bran, which traumatise him. He begins to repeatedly shout the words "hold the door" while convulsing on the ground, slurring the words together until they become "Hodor." Bran watches on in shock and sadness, finally knowing the sad truth behind what made Hodor the way he was while also being confronted with the grim reality of his gruesome death.
## Production
### Writing
"The Door" was written by the series' creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. After the episode aired, in the "Inside the Episode" featurette released by HBO for "The Door", David Benioff and D. B. Weiss revealed that the closing scene involving Hodor's name origin and subsequent death was an idea that was presented to them directly from George R. R. Martin. Benioff stated, "We had this meeting with George Martin where we're trying to get as much information as possible out of him, and probably the most shocking revelation he had for us was when he told us the origin of Hodor and how that name came about. I just remember Dan and I looking at each other when he said that and just being like, 'Holy shit.'" Weiss continued, "It was just one of the saddest and most affecting things. Even sitting in a hotel room having someone tell you this was going to happen in the abstract in some way and that 'hold the door' was the origin of the name Hodor, we just thought that was a really, really heart-breaking idea."
In regards to the White Walkers' origin, David Benioff stated "No one's innocent really in this world, and there was just something really beautifully right about the idea that the great nemesis of mankind were created to protect the Children of the Forest from mankind." D. B. Weiss noted, "The Night King, who's sort of the embodiment of absolute evil, what you're watching is the creation of that absolute evil, so the absolute evil isn't absolute after all." Benioff also alluded to the many references and foreshadowing throughout the series that preceded the reveal of the Children creating the White Walkers, saying, "There are certain symbols and patterns that recur throughout the show. The first time we saw that was one of the first scenes in the pilot, when Will the ranger sees the Wildling body parts in an odd pattern displayed by the White Walkers. We see it again north of the Wall with the dead horses displayed in a spiral pattern, and then you see it again here and see where these patterns come from, that they're ancient symbols of the Children of the Forest used in their rituals, and the Children of the Forest created the White Walkers."
Ellie Kendrick, who portrays Meera Reed, spoke about the writing of the episode following its airing, and revealed that she was surprised by the scene, saying "When I was reading the episode, I completely forgot that I was a character in the show. I was reading it with such excitement, because this is a real story unfolding, with so many mysteries and quantum leaps and Inception-style traveling between the past and the present. I found it very exciting. So the first time I read it, I was just reading it for enjoyment, really, because it was so well-written and exciting. Once I picked my jaw up off the floor, I was really keen to get started working on it, because it's such an epic sequence."
### Casting
"The Door" marks the final appearance of Kristian Nairn as Hodor, a role Nairn has played since the series pilot. Nairn, who was cast to play Hodor from previously knowing Game of Thrones''' casting director from an audition he did for the film Hot Fuzz, admitted in an interview that he was at first unaware of his impending death in the show. He stated, "First I heard from friends, people who had read the script, some other cast members. I think I said laughingly, "So did I survive?" They just gave me a look, and I was like, "Whaat?" Then I had the call from David and Dan, the fateful call everyone gets when your number's up. Then I read the script – which I loved. I loved the scene. I can't think of a better way to go, really. He doesn't give up. He never lets go of that door. For all costs, he's going to stop them from getting to Bran." Reflecting on playing the role, Nairn also went on to note, "People always joke, "Oh you've got the easiest role, you don't have any lines to learn." Anyone who knows anything about acting has been like, "You actually have one of the hardest roles." Because you have to articulate so much without words."
In the Braavos scene, several actors were cast to portray actors participating in a play titled "The Bloody Hand" that re-created the history of the beginning of the series, from an altered point of view. One of the actors that was cast included Richard E. Grant, who portrayed the leader of the theatre troupe, Izembaro. Kevin Eldon, who played the role of Eddard Stark, was also cast, and Essie Davis as the lead actress Lady Crane, among others. The Icelandic band Of Monsters and Men appeared in this episode in a cameo as stage musicians for the stage play.
Israeli actress Ania Bukstein was also introduced in the series as the High Priestess Kinvara, who is brought to Meereen to spread propaganda about Daenerys Targaryen's supposed success at eliminating the problem with the Sons of the Harpy. In an interview with Bukstein she said, "Yes, it's very exciting, but let's calm down. It's not like I'm the new Khaleesi. Game of Thrones came after a ton of hard work. I filmed a lot of audition tapes in front of a white wall at home. I've paid my dues for years." Bukstein also stated that she had previously sent in an audition tape to the series when it was first casting its first season, saying, "A few years ago, when they had only begun to cast the first season of Game of Thrones, I sent an audition tape. I didn't really know for which role, and I mainly didn't know—and neither did the world—what a hit the series was about to become. But I remember that even then, the scenes excited me and I completely went with the style."
### Filming
"The Door" was directed by Jack Bender, a first time director for Game of Thrones. Bender had been previously approached to direct for the series, but declined due to the extensive time commitment involved in shooting, which Bender noted in an interview as having to commit to "four-and-a-half to six months because of the enormity of the episodes."
Shortly after the airing of "The Door", HBO released a featurette titled "Anatomy of a Scene" which went into greater detail about the creation of the final scene at the weirwood cave. Bender was interviewed for the segment, and stated "I knew it was going to be a lot of stunts, a lot of CGI, how were we going to do it? My goal was to make it realistic, make it terrifying, and make Hodor's sacrifice incredibly moving." Most of the exterior shots with the White Walkers and their army took place at Magheramorne, a small hamlet in County Antrim, Northern Ireland near where Castle Black is also filmed. With input from David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, Bender, as well as visual effects supervisor Joe Bauer, also incorporated a transposing of scenes with Wights also crawling on the ceiling and the walls, which Bender hoped would result in the scene being even more "creepy."
In the conclusion of the segment Bender stated, "The big climactic cave sequence was hugely complex, and although it's very scary that this really terrifying thing is happening to our characters, at the end of the day I think the emotion from what we are experiencing is hopefully going to be the shock that people will stay with," referring to Hodor's implied death. In an interview with Kristian Nairn (Hodor), he described filming the scene, "It was a really heavy day — you’ve got these 100-mile-per-hour winds being blown into your face with false snow. I was really holding the door — there were like eight people pushing from the other side and I was really holding them back. It’s definitely Method acting. It was a very intense day but one of the nice things was they let Isaac wrap me. He got to come over and say "Mr. Nairn, that’s a wrap." It was very emotional. It's always been a little group of us together and it felt like our little group was breaking up." Ellie Kendrick (Meera Reed) spoke about the filming of her part of the sequence, saying "A lot of what's happening in that scene, in Meera's head, comes down to adrenaline. There's just no way she can stop and consider logically what's happening. If you have an army of the undead chasing after you, you're only going to be thinking one thing: "Run!" It was interesting, having the challenge of creating that adrenaline and fear and sadness of Hodor, but not being able to process it at all. Having to recreate that feeling of immediacy, in a stuffy studio at 4 p.m. on a Thursday when you've been filming the same scene for a couple of days, it was difficult. But it was an exciting challenge, to constantly inject the energy those characters must be feeling in that moment."
Prosthetic designer Barrie Gower was also interviewed for the "Anatomy of a Scene" segment and noted "At any one time during the cave, we had so many characters which were going to be in prosthetics. We had the Night King, three White Walkers, six Children of the Forest including the hero, Leaf, and countless Wights." Gower went on to describe the process involved with creating the Children, "The Children of the Forest are fully covered from head to toe, they're glued completely into these prosthetics all over their body." Kae Alexander, the actress who played Leaf stated that it took between 9 and 10 hours to get the full body prosthetic ready for filming, a process which Bender described as challenging.
In order to create the Night King, according to Barrie Gower, it is primarily practical prosthetic, but also incorporates some VFX to create a more icy look and feel, saying about the eyes, "The effects department alters the eyes in post-production. They give them that blue-glowy hue to them, which we can't really achieve with contact lenses." In regards to the overall prosthetic, "they've added this sort of icy layer over the top of him to create this — it's something incredibly difficult to achieve practically, prosthetics are cast in a translucent rubber, which can only give you so much of that icy quality, so visual effects help augment it a little bit further to give it more dimension." Prior to the sixth season, the Night King was portrayed by Richard Brake, with a head mold of Brake being created in order to accurately mold the prosthetic to his face. In the sixth season he was portrayed by Vladimir Furdik. The White Walker army was first shot in front of a green screen in Magheramorne quarry, and according to a piece in The Hollywood Reporter "A scan was taken from a drone and used as the basis for a CG model of the location, which was augmented with VFX and joined with volcanic hills that were photographed in Iceland." Crowd replication was used to create the 1,000-man army, with special effects supervisor Joe Bauer saying "It's scans of those actors in the makeup and costumes, with variations we used to make a digital army that extends up onto the hills." Bauer also noted that VFX were used to create the weather conditions in the scene, noting "It's wind, mist, fog and heavy atmosphere that you'd get in a marine layer. The dramatic value is to say something's wrong; it's a mystery what they are facing. The temperature drops, and our characters can see their breath. The weather obscures their vision." Spain-based El Ranchito, one of several special effects companies used by Game of Thrones, was responsible for the White Walker army shots.
Pilou Asbæk, who was cast to play Euron Greyjoy, spoke in an interview about the filming of the Kingsmoot saying "We spent two days on the Kingsmoot itself, and then two days on the montage. We shot it chronologically, which helped. The water was freezing cold. We shot the drowning many, many times. I remember looking down the shore, after I had been there for five or six hours, and I saw two smiling faces, in the form of Gemma Whelan and Alfie Allen. They were just smiling their asses off, because they weren't cold! They just had to run to the boat." In regards to stunts, Asbæk continued, "I got a little bit of help, but not much. I think 95 percent of it was me. I like to do all of it when I can, because then I can feel it with the character."
Iain Glen, who has portrayed Jorah Mormont since the beginning of the series, also spoke about his participation in the episode, with his farewell to Daenerys Targaryen, noting "They've got a worried actor on their hands. For any actor on the show, most of the time we're just thinking, "Please keep me alive!" I've been very lucky to be a part of the show, right back to the pilot. If I go out in the madness of greyscale, then I'll have thought I've done very well. It's been a complete treat to be a part of the show. They're a lovely group of people. But the greyscale has definitely got this actor worried, I'll be honest about that."
## Reception
### Ratings
"The Door" was viewed by 7.89 million American households on its initial viewing, on May 22, which was slightly more than the previous week's rating of 7.82 million viewers for the episode "Book of the Stranger". The episode also acquired a 4.0 rating in the 18–49 demographic, making it the highest rated show on cable television of the night.
### Critical reception
"The Door" received universal praise from critics, with many citing the emotional revelation involving Hodor, the action scenes with the White Walkers, as well as the Kingsmoot and Daenerys Targaryen's farewell to Jorah Mormont as high points for the episode. It has received a 98% rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes from 60 reviews with an average score of 9.08/10. The site's consensus reads "An exquisitely crafted episode, "The Door" culminates in a gut-wrenching revelation that makes the loss of a beloved character all the more poignant."
Matt Fowler of IGN wrote in his review of the episode, ""The Door," directed by Lost's main director, Jack Bender, gave us one of the most emotional deaths on the show to date. Mostly because the scene itself was paired with a big origin-style reveal and a newly opened avenue of time travel mysticism. And it came at the end of a very effective action sequence involving zombies, White Walkers, and the Night King." He gave the episode a 9 out of 10. Emily VanDerWerff of Vox noted, ""The Door", continues last week's trend of feeling as if it's offering up some major, important answers regarding [the show]'s mythos. And many of those revelations impact some of the show's most major characters." Michael Calia of Wall Street Journal wrote in his review of the episode; "The show delivers one of its most heartbreaking, spectacular and mind-blowing episodes."
Jeremy Egner of The New York Times wrote in his review of the episode; "As with many epic sagas, the story and action in “Game of Thrones” are driven largely by characters moving toward and eventually becoming the people they are supposed to be. While we tend to focus on the big-ticket destinies, whether it's Daenerys Targaryen emerging triumphantly from the flames last week or Jon Snow rising from the dead to fight again, the smaller figures have their own slots to fill." James Hunt of What Culture noted, "The Door ... delivered not only the best episode of the season to date, but one that is likely to go down as an all-time favourite." Tim Surette of TV.com wrote in his review, "The Door was BRUTAL in its final minutes, and you're still crying over it, admit it." Lauren O'Callaghan of SFX Magazine'' wrote in her review, "The Door, was the midseason episode. No way we were getting through that without taking some serious damage to our delicate hope-filled hearts." She gave the episode a 4.5 out of 5.
### Accolades
## Leak
The episode was accidentally released 24 hours early by HBO Nordic. The episode was eventually taken down, but the pirated copy was released to torrent websites. Reacting to the leak, an official HBO spokesperson said, "This past Sunday's episode was made available early on the HBO Nordic platform temporarily due to a technical issue, at which time it seems to have been copied. Upon learning of the incident, we used the available means to limit further access to the episode." |
58,520,814 | Soviet destroyer Gnevny (1936) | 1,173,302,038 | Soviet Navy's Gnevny-class destroyer | [
"1936 ships",
"Destroyers sunk by aircraft",
"Gnevny-class destroyers",
"Ships built at Severnaya Verf",
"Ships sunk by German aircraft",
"World War II shipwrecks in the Baltic Sea"
]
| Gnevny (Russian: Гневный, lit. 'Angry') was the lead ship of her class (officially known as Project 7) of 29 destroyers built for the Soviet Navy during the late 1930s. Completed in 1938, she was assigned to the Baltic Fleet and played a minor role in the 1939–1940 Winter War when the Soviet Union invaded Finland. A few days after the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) in June 1941, the ship struck a German mine and was badly damaged. After taking off the survivors, the Soviets failed to sink Gnevny with gunfire before they withdrew and the abandoned wreck drifted until she was sunk by German bombers three days later.
## Design and description
Having decided to build the large and expensive 40-knot (74 km/h; 46 mph) Leningrad-class destroyer leaders, the Soviet Navy sought Italian assistance in designing smaller and cheaper destroyers. They licensed the plans for the Folgore class and, in modifying it for their purposes, made a marginally stable design top heavy.
The Gnevnys had an overall length of 112.8 meters (370 ft 1 in), a beam of 10.2 meters (33 ft 6 in), and a draft of 4.8 meters (15 ft 9 in) at deep load. The ships were significantly overweight, almost 200 metric tons (197 long tons) heavier than designed, displacing 1,612 metric tons (1,587 long tons) at standard load and 2,039 metric tons (2,007 long tons) at deep load. Their crew numbered 197 officers and sailors in peacetime and 236 in wartime. The ships had a pair of geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller, rated to produce 48,000 shaft horsepower (36,000 kW) using steam from three water-tube boilers which was intended to give them a maximum speed of 37 knots (69 km/h; 43 mph). The designers had been conservative in rating the turbines and many, but not all, of the ships handily exceeded their designed speed during their sea trials. Others fell considerably short of it. Gnevny reached 39.4 knots (73.0 km/h; 45.3 mph) from 53,000 shp (40,000 kW) during her trials. Variations in fuel oil capacity meant that the range of the Gnevnys varied between 1,670 to 3,145 nautical miles (3,093 to 5,825 km; 1,922 to 3,619 mi) at 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph). Gnevny herself demonstrated a range of 2,720 nmi (5,040 km; 3,130 mi) at that speed.
As built, the Gnevny-class ships mounted four 130-millimeter (5.1 in) B-13 guns in two pairs of superfiring single mounts fore and aft of the superstructure. Anti-aircraft defense was provided by a pair of 76.2-millimeter (3 in) 34-K AA guns in single mounts and a pair of 45-millimeter (1.8 in) 21-K AA guns as well as two 12.7-millimeter (0.50 in) DK or DShK machine guns. They carried six 533 mm (21.0 in) torpedo tubes in two rotating triple mounts amidships; each tube was provided with a reload. The ships could also carry a maximum of either 60 or 95 mines and 25 depth charges. They were fitted with a set of Mars hydrophones for anti-submarine work, although they were useless at speeds over 3 knots (5.6 km/h; 3.5 mph). The ships were equipped with two K-1 paravanes intended to destroy mines and a pair of depth-charge throwers.
## Construction and service
Built in Leningrad's Shipyard No. 190 (Zhdanov) with the yard number 501, Gnevny was laid down on 8 December 1935, launched on 13 July 1936, and entered service with the Baltic Fleet on 23 December 1938. She bombarded Finnish fortifications on Utö in Åland on 14 December 1939 during the Winter War. On 23 June 1941, a day after Operation Barbarossa began, Gnevny was tasked with covering minelaying operations at the mouth of the Gulf of Finland along with the rest of the 1st Division of the Baltic Fleet's Light Forces Detachment – the light cruiser Maxim Gorky and her sisters Gordy and Steregushchy. She ran into a German minefield 16 to 18 nautical miles (30 to 33 km; 18 to 21 mi) northwest of Tahkuna Lighthouse and had her bow blown off by a mine, killing 20 men and wounding 23 others. Her crew, ordered to abandon ship after the commander of the force received a report of periscopes, was taken aboard Gordy. The accompanying ships unsuccessfully attempted to sink Gnevny with gunfire. Two days later, the abandoned hulk was spotted by three German Junkers Ju 88 bombers, who bombed and sank her. The destroyer was removed from the Navy List on 27 July. |
53,326,917 | Snow camouflage | 1,168,184,565 | Camouflage coloration for winter snow | [
"Animal coat colors",
"Camouflage",
"Military camouflage"
]
| Snow camouflage is the use of a coloration or pattern for effective camouflage in winter, often combined with a different summer camouflage. Summer patterns are typically disruptively patterned combinations of shades of browns and greys, up to black, while winter patterns are dominated by white to match snowy landscapes.
Among animals, variable snow camouflage is a type of seasonal polyphenism with a distinct winter plumage or pelage. It is found in birds such as the rock ptarmigan, lagomorphs such as the Arctic hare, mustelids such as the stoat, and one canid, the Arctic fox. Since these have evolved separately, the similar appearance is due to convergent evolution. This was used as early evidence for natural selection. Some high Arctic species like the snowy owl and polar bear however remain white all year round.
In military usage, soldiers often either exchange their disruptively-patterned summer uniforms for thicker snow camouflage uniforms printed with mainly-white versions of camouflage patterns in winter, or they wear white overalls over their uniforms. Some armies have made use of reversible uniforms, printed in different seasonal patterns on their two sides. Vehicles and guns are often simply repainted in white. Occasionally, aircraft too are repainted in snow camouflage patterns.
## Among animals
### White as camouflage
Charles Darwin mentioned the white winter coloration of the ptarmigan in his 1859 Origin of Species:
> When we see ... the alpine ptarmigan white in winter, the red-grouse the colour of heather, and the black-grouse that of peaty earth, we must believe that these tints are of service to these birds ... in preserving them from danger.
The white protective coloration of arctic animals was noted by an early student of camouflage, the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, in his 1889 book Darwinism; he listed the polar bear, the American polar hare, the snowy owl and the gyr falcon as remaining white all year, while the arctic fox, arctic hare, ermine and ptarmigan change their colour, and observed "the obvious explanation", that it was for concealment, at a time when Darwinism was at a low ebb. Later zoologists such as Hugh B. Cott have echoed his observations, adding that other animals of the Arctic such as musk ox, moose, reindeer, wolverine and raven never become white "even in the coldest parts of their range". Cott noted that both animals that hunt, like polar bear and stoat, and prey animals like ptarmigan and mountain hare, require camouflage to hide from prey or from predators respectively. There is little experimental evidence for the adaptiveness of white as camouflage, though the ornithologist W. L. N. Tickell, reviewing proposed explanations of white plumage in birds, writes that in the ptarmigan "it is difficult to escape the conclusion that cryptic brown summer plumage becomes a liability in snow, and white plumage is therefore another cryptic adaptation." All the same, he notes, "in spite of winter plumage, many Ptarmigan in NE Iceland are killed by Gyrfalcons throughout the winter."
### Seasonal polyphenism
Some animals of the far north, like the snowshoe and Arctic hares, Arctic fox, stoat, and rock ptarmigan change their coat colour (by moulting and growing new fur or feathers) from brown or grey summer camouflage to white in the winter; the Arctic fox is the only species in the dog family to do so. However, Arctic hares which live in the far north of Canada, where summer is very short, remain white year-round. Since these animals in widely separated groups have evolved separately, the similarity of coloration is due to convergent evolution, on the presumption that natural selection favours a particular coloration in a particular environment.
The seasonal polyphenism in willow grouse differs between Scottish and Scandinavian populations. In Scotland, grouse have two plumages (breeding and non-breeding), while in Scandinavia there is a third plumage, a white winter morph. The genetic basis for this is not in the melanin pigment system, and is probably due to regulatory changes. The behaviour of moulting females in springtime depends on their plumage state: they tend to sit on snow while they are mainly white, but choose the border between bare ground and snow when they have more dark feathers. They seem to be choosing the best compromise between camouflage and food quality.
The effects of climate change can lead to a mismatch between the seasonal coat coloration of arctic animals such as snowshoe hares with the increasingly snow-free landscape.
## Military usage
The principle of varying coloration with the changing seasons has military applications.
### First World War
In the First World War, firing and observation positions were hand-painted in disruptive patterns by artists known as camoufleurs, and they sometimes varied their patterns seasonally. Uniforms were largely of a single colour, such as the British khaki; but snow camouflage clothes came into use in some armies by 1917. For example, Austro-Hungarian troops on the Italian front used skis and wore snow camouflage smocks and overtrousers over their uniforms, and improvised white cloths over their uniform caps.
### Second World War
Several armies in the Second World War in Northern European countries preferred separate winter uniforms rather than oversuits. The Waffen-SS went a step further, developing reversible uniforms with separate schemes for summer and autumn, as well as white winter oversuits. Other German units fighting in Eastern Europe were at first poorly equipped for winter, having to make do with ordinary summer uniforms, but in the winter of 1942 to 1943 new white two-piece hooded oversuits with long mitten gauntlets started to arrive. American troops in Europe in the winter of 1944 to 1945 improvised snow capes and helmet covers from white cloth such as bed linen.
The Red Army issued a report, "Tactical and Technical trends, No. 17" in January 1943 on the camouflage of tanks in winter. It advised either all-white using zinc white or titanium white paint for level, open country, or disruptive two-colour winter camouflage for areas with more variety including "forests, underbrush, small settlements, thawed patches of earth". The two colours could be achieved either by leaving around a quarter to a third of the vehicle's summer camouflage uncovered, or by repainting the whole vehicle in white with dark gray or gray-brown spots. Units were advised not to paint all their vehicles identically, but to have some tanks all white, some in white with green stripes, and some in white and gray or gray-brown. Winter camouflage was not limited to paint: tracks left in the snow were to be obliterated, vehicles parked in cover, headlights covered with white fabric, shelters constructed, or else vehicles covered with white fabric, or dark fabric scattered with snow.
### Post-war
Later in the 20th century, as disruptively patterned uniforms became widespread, winter variants of patterns such as Flecktarn were developed, the background colour (such as green) being replaced with white to form a Schneetarn (snow camouflage pattern). Aircraft deployed in winter have sometimes been snow camouflaged, as with Sepecat Jaguars on exercise in Norway. |
64,086,573 | Cher Winters | 1,173,780,454 | Fictional character from Hollyoaks | [
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| Cher McQueen (also Winters) is a fictional character from the Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks, played by Bethannie Hare. Cher is introduced as the estranged daughter of Sylver McQueen (David Tag) and is welcomed into the established McQueen family unit. Hare described her character as someone with attitude and strong family values, likening Cher to other McQueens on the soap. Portraying the role of Cher is Hare's first professional acting role and she admitted that she was initially nervous to join the cast of Hollyoaks, but accredited her co-stars with easing her nerves. She made her debut appearance as Cher on 1 June 2020. Her storylines in the seriew have included the revelation that she killed her younger sister, her tumultuous relationship with her stepmother Mercedes McQueen (Jennifer Metcalfe), her romantic relationship with Romeo Nightingale (Owen Warner), learning that Romeo and Mercedes have been having an affair, a suicide attempt due to feeling isolated, and dealing with the death of her father Sylver in an explosion.
Cher is introduced as having a secret, which is later revealed to be her accidentally having killed her half-sister Liza. Hare expressed shock at the secret but felt that knowing more about Cher's backstory allowed her to feel connected to her character. After Mercedes exposes Cher's secret to everybody in the village, Cher begins taking revenge on her in a long-running storyline that sees her "embrace her dark side". Some of her actions include framing Mercedes for taking drugs, pouring baby oil on the floor for her to trip over, leaking a sex tape she features, sending her anonymous online hate comments, tricking her into believing she is pregnant and framing her for kidnap. Stephen Patterson of the Metro felt that Cher "made one heck of an entrance" and she was subsequently nominated for Best Newcomer at the I Talk Telly Awards. Patterson described Cher as cruel following her actions to Mercedes, but praised both Hare and the character following Cher's suicide attempt. Hare has defended her character, stating that she is not evil and is instead lonely.
On 3 February 2022, Cher departs the village in Hare's final scenes, which were previously unannounced. Cher's exit sees her decide to mend her relationship with her mother, Kelly Winters (Jenny Wickham), due to the impact that Sylver's death had on her. Hare had planned to appear on the soap for two years from the beginning of her tenure and she told the producers in advance so that they could prepare her character's exit, which she felt was apt for Cher. She was proud of the journey that her character had been on in her two years on Hollyoaks and stated that her favourite storyline to film was Cher's suicide attempt, which she worked with the Samaritans on. Patterson wrote that she would be missed and felt that she "became part of the show's very fabric" in her time on the soap.
## Casting
The character and Bethannie Hare's casting details were announced on 12 April 2020. Hare was with her mother when she learned that she had received the part, and exclaimed aloud: "oh my God I've got a part in Hollyoaks!" She admitted that she was nervous to join Hollyoaks, but the support from the cast members helped to ease her nerves. She described the cast as a family and stated that she learns new things from her co-stars daily. In a video for the Hollyoaks social media channels, Hare stated that the response to her casting announcement was positive, which made her excited to film upcoming storylines. Prior to her arrival, there was a scene that implies that Sylver had only had sex with Mercedes McQueen (Jennifer Metcalfe). This led viewers to assume that Cher could be Mercedes' daughter. Justin Harp of Digital Spy explained that Sylver also had sex with a prison guard and that she is Cher's mother. A month into Hare's time on the soap, filming was suspended due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on television. In an interview with Duncan Lindsay for the Metro newsletter, she stated that she feels lucky to have secured the role of Cher, particularly due to the impact of the pandemic.
## Development
### Characterisation
Cher is introduced as the long-lost daughter of Sylver McQueen (David Tag). Chris Edwards from Digital Spy stated that Cher is an aspiring hairdresser and beautician and that her arrival would bring fun and energy into the fictional village. He billed her as a fun and energetic character with strong family values. Edwards also confirmed that Cher's motive for moving to the village was to find out more about her father, since the only piece of information she knows prior to meeting him is that he is a convicted murderer. On her character, Hare stated that Cher has an attitude, but is also caring, family-orientated and that she will always be there for somebody if they need her, comparing her to the other McQueen family members, a family she was excited to join.
James Sutton, who portrays John Paul McQueen, described Cher as gobby, confident and outgoing. He stated that she "even dresses like a McQueen", and likened her to Mercedes. Tag expressed his joy at the creation of Cher, as it could add longevity to his own character. He described Cher as "beautiful, ballsy, bolshy and a bit of a diva", labelling her a "classic McQueen" and joking that he would not want to get on the wrong side of Cher. He added that there is depth to the character, since "there is a vulnerability" inside of her.
### Introduction and secret
Cher arrives in Hollyoaks village to find her biological father, Sylver. She crashes his vow renewal with wife Mercedes and blurts out in front of the guests that she is Sylver's daughter. He initially does not believe Cher and agrees to pay her to leave. Cher's mother Kelly (Jenny Wickham) later arrives and disowns her, leaving her in the care of Sylver and Mercedes. Kelly implies that Cher is harbouring a secret that led to the breakdown of their relationship. Speaking to Daniel Kilkelly of Digital Spy about the secret, Hare stated that despite Cher's sassy attitude, she keeps a lot to herself and keeps a front up, and noted that she especially does it with Sylver and love interest Romeo Nightingale (Owen Warner). She said that Cher is holding onto the secret in fear that if people discover the truth, they may dislike her. Hare did not reveal what the secret was but hinted that it may be revealed in forthcoming scenes, which would cause people to treat Cher differently. Hare added that the secret is always in the back of Cher's mind, making her feel unsafe and as though she cannot form close relationships with others. When asked if she knew of the long-term plans for her character, Hare replied that she knows a little bit, but that she discovers the majority of character information in each script she receives. She added that she was nervous but excited for her storylines, stating: "I just want to make sure I do a good job for all the viewers and everyone at Hollyoaks".
In scenes aired in October 2020, it was revealed that Cher had accidentally killed her half-sister Liza prior to her arrival in the village. Hare was shocked to discover her secret but found that the tragedy of her backstory allowed her to feel connected to her character, feeling lucky to be involved in the storyline. Hare confirmed that Cher killing Liza was an accident and hoped that the viewers would sympathise with Cher. The McQueen family are blackmailed and the anonymous blackmailer threatens to reveal Cher's secret to the village if they do not pay a large sum of money. Not wanting to pay the money, Mercedes reveals the secret herself. Mercedes' actions leave Cher in "utter shock" and she "totally loses it". The reveal of her secret leaves Cher distraught and leads her to turn to alcohol, with Hare stating that Cher spends all day and night drinking. The actress explained that Cher does not drink in a self pitying way, but that she "feels like she deserves to be damaged and deserves to pay for everything that has happened". When Cher is in a vulnerable state, she comes into contact with Silas Blissett (Jeff Rawle), the blackmailer. Since Cher does not know who Silas is, Hare states that she does not know the amount of danger she's in. Hare admitted that due to her age and not regularly watching Hollyoaks during his tenure, she was not aware of Silas and who he was. To prepare for filming the scenes, she watched old footage, which she found chilling. She expressed her excitement at being able to work with Rawle, since she recognised him from the Harry Potter film series. She stated that since Silas hates young women being "scantily clad and drinking heavily", Cher will be on his radar.
### Relationship with Romeo Nightingale
Prior to her arrival, Tag hinted that Cher may form a romantic relationship with Romeo. He stated that Cher "catches the eye of local lad Romeo" and joked that Romeo should watch out due to Sylver being protective of his daughter. Upon her arrival, she flirts with Romeo to gain access to her estranged father's wedding reception. After the pair continue to interact, Goldie McQueen (Chelsee Healey) and Joel Dexter (Rory Douglas-Speed) set the pair up on a date. However, Cher treats him as a friend, which leaves him feeling secretly disappointed. Hare told Kilkelly that the pair like each other, but that they are too stubborn to admit it. She explained that Cher is embarrassed when Goldie tries to ask her about her romantic feelings, since she is her adoptive aunt, and hence does not want to tell her how she feels about Romeo. Hare went on to say that her character wants to play hard to get because she " loves the chase". Cher does not want to let Romeo in since she is worried that he will discover she killed Liza. Despite this, Hare opined that they are a good match. She commented: "You've got Romeo with his poetry and then Cher loves her magazines! They'd work well together, even though they're complete opposites". She said that due to having a similar upbringing, this similarity could bring them together and added that she enjoys working with Warner. The pair plan an illegal rave together, and Hare hinted that the outcome of the event would be that it might be what they need to finally bring them together. After Romeo reveals to Mercedes and Sylver that she took their credit card, she lashes out at him, comparing his lack of support to the death of his ex-girlfriend Lily McQueen (Lauren McQueen). She then attempts to apologise, but Mercedes suggests that she should win Romeo back through "the power of seduction". However, Romeo becomes unsure about their relationship as he begins to develop feelings for someone else. This person is revealed to be Mercedes, who he has sex with. Hare said that when the secret comes out, Cher realises she has lost the person she loves most to the person she is most jealous of, which makes her feel "as if she'll never be good enough".
### Targeting Mercedes McQueen and online trolling
After Mercedes announces that Cher killed her half-sister, tension begins to rise between the pair. Hare stated that viewers should not underestimate Cher and that a tougher side to her will emerge, which she felt would surprise viewers. Hare expressed her joy at Cher's personality being explored, since she felt it made her role more exciting to play. She also hinted that Cher has a "journey to go on". A revenge plot was later announced, in which Cher has "fully embraced her dark side".
After Mercedes takes the attention away from Cher's birthday, Hare states that Cher is upset because it is the first birthday she has been able to spend with Sylver. She states that Cher wants to spend her day with Sylver and does not care about anyone else being there. When he leaves to be with Mercedes, she describes it as "a punch in the face" for Cher and it makes her realise that Mercedes will always come first to him. After she learns that Mercedes is a recovering drug addict, Cher sources cocaine from a friend of Oliver Morgan's (Gabriel Clark) and plants it in Mercedes' bag to destroy her relationship with Sylver. When Mercedes discovers that Cher planted the drugs in her bag, she excuses it since she feels bad for ruining her birthday party. Mercedes states that it is not as bad as physically hurting her, but warns Cher that if she strikes again, she will not be as understanding. Sylver arranges another party for Cher, which "much to Cher's fury", Mercedes also becomes the centre of attention at. This leaves her furious with her stepmother, "driving her to do something so reckless that it puts [Mercedes] in serious danger". Cher pours baby oil across the floor which Mercedes slips over, as Cher is "watching in the wings with a gleeful smile". She then takes the credit card belonging to Mercedes' pub and goes shopping with it.
Cher continues her revenge plan by burning Mercedes with a pair of hair straighteners and purposely leaking a video of Mercedes having sex. Hare doubted that Cher had planned to burn her with the straighteners and that it instead happened in a "moment of explosion". She stated: "She's young, she's 19, she's gone through a lot and all of this has been building." Despite her behaviour, Hare stated that she does not view Cher as a villain. She admitted that Cher's actions are not right, but felt that there are reasons behind her behaviour. Cher feels betrayed by Mercedes revealing her secret regarding Liza and has not been able to look at Mercedes the same way since. Cher also wants to form a close bond with Sylver, but since Mercedes gets in the way, Cher wants her gone. Hare was asked by Kilkelly (Digital Spy) if Cher harboured the potential to kill Mercedes, drawing on her experience with killing Liza. She replied that she does not see Cher as a killer, due to being a family-focused person. Although she stated Cher has a vendetta against her, Hare did not think she was capable of killing her.
After trolling Mercedes online, Cher makes an anti-trolling video to appear supportive of her. However, her post leads real trolls to target Cher instead. She then makes another video to address the hate she is receiving. The producers of Hollyoaks confirmed that these scenes had formed the start of a "trolling ordeal" for Cher. Mercedes attempts to comfort Cher and put the trolling to a stop with an online post, but she unknowingly makes it worse for Cher, with online trolls comparing their appearances in favour of Mercedes'. In retaliation to her being trolled even more, Cher commits her "most vile act yet". She orders numerous baby products in Mercedes' name after learning that Mercedes suffered from a stillbirth years ago, then persuades Sylver to make Mercedes a cot. Cher spies an opportunity for revenge and performs "her most twisted act to date" by dressing up as Mercedes and destroying the cot on camera.
Cher's online comments repeatedly mention a birthmark on her body, which leads her to feel insecure. She sources bleaching cream and applies it to the birthmark, which she has an adverse reaction to. Romeo pleads with nurse Peri Lomax (Ruby O'Donnell) to get Cher medication for the burns, who agrees due to dating his sister Juliet (Niamh Blackshaw). In her final act of vengeance against Mercedes, Cher kidnaps a newborn Eva Hutchinson and plants her with Mercedes. Peri Lomax (Ruby O'Donnell) discovers what she has done and threatens to expose her, but Cher insists that she will expose Peri for getting medication if she does. Mercedes checks herself into a rehabilitation centre due to believing she is mentally unwell, but upon her release, Peri accidentally exposes Cher to her. On the secret coming out, Hare told Inside Soap that it is the worst moment of Cher's life since she fears she could lose her newly found family. The reason for all of her actions is wanting to be close to Sylver and she becomes petrified by the thought of losing him due to a plan she never intended to become so dark. Mercedes confronts her, but after realising that all of Cher's actions stem from not having a family growing up, she agrees to forgive Cher.
### Suicide attempt, grief and departure
In September 2021, Hollyoaks announced that Cher would be the focus of an issue-based storyline involving a suicide attempt. Metro described the scenes as Cher hitting "rock bottom". After being rejected by both Sylver and Romeo for her actions, she tries to flirt with Warren Fox (Jamie Lomas) as an attempt for attention. He rejects her and she runs away in the rain; she posts a status online stating that she wishes she had somebody to talk to. Bobby Costello (Jayden Fox) sees the post and shows Sylver, who rushes to find Cher. He sees her standing over the local dock, but before Sylver can reach her, Cher jumps in. She is admitted to hospital where Sylver leaves her; doctor Misbah Maalik (Harvey Virdi) gets her to accept help. Hare spoke to the Samaritans and people who had attempted suicide prior to filming the storyline, as she wanted the scenes to be honest and accurate. She felt pressure to portray the topic accurately and was proud with the outcome, feeling that if she had helped at least one person, that would be amazing. In January 2022, it was confirmed that Cher and members of her family would be involved in a stunt that would see at least one death. When the Salon de Thé explodes, Cher becomes trapped under the rubble and Mercedes, who is also in the building, struggles to retrieve her from underneath. Sylver finds the pair and helps to save them, but later returns inside to save Bobby, where Sylver dies. After his death, Cher comforts everybody in the family and Hare noted that by distracting herself with others, Cher does not allow herself time to grieve. The grief also leads her to "get caught up in certain situations that she ends up regretting", including kissing a married Tom Cunningham (Ellis Hollins).
After attending Sylver's funeral, Cher announces her surprise decision to mend her relationship with her mother due to realising that life is too short to not have close family relationships. She leaves the village and this marked Hare's previously unannounced exit from Hollyoaks. Hare was emotional to leave the soap but knew from the moment she was cast as Cher that she wanted to stay on the series for around two years, a decision she told the producers in advance. She appreciated the way her exit was written, feeling that Cher's decision was apt due to her character growth over her time in the village. Hare was asked if she would have preferred for Cher to die in the stunt, but she felt that the canon ending was better due to the viewers being able to see her growth after her father's death. Hare's favourite storyline in her time on the series was Cher's suicide attempt; she felt that it was a turning point for Cher and allowed the viewers to "understand why she was doing what she was doing, and they realised that her mental health wasn't great". She hoped that following her exit, viewers would remember the evolved Cher rather than earlier versions, such as being there for her family and holding the McQueens together. On Cher's journey, Hare said: "she's s a young girl who has just completely grown. It's so sad what happened at the end [with Sylver's death], but you see how far she's come, and what an amazing person [she is] – with all the stuff she’s gone through in her life, and she’s still being there for everyone else."
## Reception
Stephen Patterson of the Metro wrote that Cher's introduction on the series was a "proper McQueen welcome" and that she had "made one heck of an entrance". For her portrayal of Cher, Hare was nominated for Best Soap Newcomer at the 2020 I Talk Telly Awards. On Cher's secret being revealed, Hare anticipated that the audience would start to hate Cher for being a killer, but stated that the reaction has been nice. She expressed her gratitude that people can see that Cher did not intend to murder Liza and was thankful that "the guilt is coming across" to the viewers. After Cher's actions to Mercedes, she was described as "cruel" by Patterson. Eden-Olivia Lord, writing for Closer, was grateful when "Cher's evil ways" were exposed to Mercedes.
Hare noted that the reaction to Cher during the gaslighting storyline was negative and that she was seen as the villain of the soap. However, as the storyline progressed, fans noticed Cher's poor mental health and the reasons for her behaviour, which she accredited to making fans eventually love Cher. Patterson described Cher's suicide attempt as "emotional" and branded Hare's performance as "superb" for her part in the storyline. Following the news of Hare's departure, Patterson labelled her one of the "finest" characters and felt that in her time on Hollyoaks, she "became part of the show's very fabric".
## See also
- List of Hollyoaks characters (2020)
- List of soap opera villains |
30,429,563 | Christopher Tanev | 1,170,187,969 | Canadian ice hockey player | [
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| Christopher Tanev (born December 20, 1989) is a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman and alternate captain for the Calgary Flames of the National Hockey League (NHL). He previously played for the Vancouver Canucks.
Unselected in the NHL Entry Draft, he was signed by the Canucks as a free agent after his freshman year with the Rochester Institute of Technology Tigers. In his only college season, he was named Atlantic Hockey's Rookie of the Year, in addition to receiving All-Tournament and Third All-Star Team honours, while helping the Tigers to a conference championship. Prior to college, he played three seasons in the Ontario Provincial Junior Hockey League.
## Early life
Tanev was born in East York, Ontario, to Sophie Meredith and Mike "Misho" Tanev. He has two brothers, Brandon (who plays left wing for the Seattle Kraken) and Kyle, and is of Macedonian descent. Playing minor hockey within the Greater Toronto Hockey League, he competed with the Toronto Red Wings. After being cut from seven midget-level teams at age 16 due to a lack of size (he was barely five feet and roughly 120 pounds at the time), Tanev resorted to playing for his high school's team and took up roller hockey in the summer. After graduating from high school at the East York Collegiate Institute, he enrolled in the Rochester Institute of Technology as a finance major while playing college hockey.
## Playing career
### Junior and college
Tanev played in the Ontario Provincial Junior Hockey League (OPJHL) for three seasons. Starting off with the Durham Fury in 2006–07, he recorded no goals and nine assists over 40 games. He split the following season between Durham, the Stouffville Spirit and the Markham Waxers renamed Markham Royals, combining for 17 points (2 goals and 15 assists) over 49 games between the three teams. Playing the 2008–09 campaign with Markham, he led all team defencemen in scoring with 41 points in 50 games, while serving as an alternate captain; he was named the team's top defenceman at the end of the season.
In 2009–10, he joined the NCAA Division I ranks with the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) Tigers of the Atlantic Hockey Conference. Placed on the team's top defensive pairing with team captain Dan Ringwald, he recorded 10 goals and 28 points over 41 games, while leading his team with a +33 plus-minus rating. After being named Atlantic Hockey Rookie of the Week on three occasions during the season, he received Rookie of the Year honours and was named to the conference's All-Rookie and Third All-Star Teams. In the 2010 playoffs, Tanev helped the Tigers to a conference championship, defeating the Sacred Heart Pioneers in the final. He was named to the All-Tournament Team. Advancing to the NCAA tournament, RIT was eliminated in the national semifinal by the Wisconsin Badgers. Tigers head coach Wayne Wilson described him during his freshman year as a "late bloomer", having grown six inches in his final year of junior, while praising his offensive skills.
### Vancouver Canucks
During the NCAA tournament, Tanev was scouted by Vancouver Canucks director of player development Dave Gagner, who was previously acquainted with Tanev as his childhood roller hockey coach. The Canucks scouting staff collectively identified him as "the smartest player on the ice" in the East Regional segment of the tournament. On May 31, 2010, Tanev signed as an undrafted free agent with the Canucks, foregoing his final three years of college hockey eligibility. He had received interest from at least three other teams, including the San Jose Sharks, Ottawa Senators and Columbus Blue Jackets, but ultimately chose Vancouver.
Beginning the 2010–11 season with the Canucks' minor league affiliate, the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League (AHL), he scored his first professional goal against the Rochester Americans on November 13, 2010. He received his first call-up to Vancouver on January 16, 2011, after injuries to Canucks defencemen Andrew Alberts and Aaron Rome. Making his Canucks debut two days later against the Colorado Avalanche, he became the first RIT alumnus to play in the NHL. He later recorded his first NHL point on January 24, a second assist on a Dan Hamhuis powerplay goal, the final Canucks tally in a 7–1 win against the Dallas Stars. He remained with the NHL team for an extended period as Canucks defencemen continued to suffer injuries.
On March 31, 2011, Tanev had to be helped off the ice during a game against the Los Angeles Kings after opposing forward Kyle Clifford pushed him head-first into the end-boards. While recovering from the upper-body injury, he was returned to the Moose on April 7, as several regular defencemen returned to the Canucks line-up from injury at that time. Averaging 13 minutes of ice time per game over 29 NHL contests with one assist, Tanev was commended by Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault for being "very dependable...making the high-percentage plays." Vigneault also added that he had a good chance of playing with the Canucks "on a regular basis down the road." Completing the 2010–11 regular season with the Moose, he finished with 1 goal and 8 assists over 39 AHL games. Tanev added a goal and 2 assists in 14 playoff games as the Moose were defeated in the second round. Following Manitoba's elimination, he was called up to the Canucks for their playoff run as a reserve. In the Canucks' Game 3 contest against the San Jose Sharks in the third round, defencemen Christian Ehrhoff and Aaron Rome were both injured. Tanev was inserted into the line-up for the following game and made his NHL playoff debut on May 22, 2011. As the Canucks moved on to the Stanley Cup Finals against the Boston Bruins, Ehrhoff and Rome returned to action, temporarily sending Tanev back to the sidelines. Following injuries to Dan Hamhuis and Rome's suspension, Tanev played in the final three contests of the series, which the Canucks lost in seven games.
Following his professional rookie season, Tanev trained in the off-season particularly to increase his strength. Entering the Canucks' training camp with an added 10 pounds, he made the Canucks' opening line-up for the 2011–12 season. After dressing for three of the team's first five games, he was reassigned to the Chicago Wolves, Vancouver's new AHL affiliate (the Moose were relocated to St. John's, Newfoundland, after the Winnipeg Jets returned to the NHL). Vigneault explained that the organization wanted Tanev receiving more ice time than he could receive in Vancouver while competing for the "No. 5 to No. 8 spots on [the] team." In his first game with the Wolves, he injured an oblique muscle after receiving a hit and was sidelined for a month. After returning, he formed a top defensive pairing on the team with Kevin Connauton. In late-January 2012, he was called up by the Canucks for one game, then again in mid-February until the end of the season. In 25 NHL games, he recorded two assists, while also recording 14 assists over 34 AHL games in 2011–12. Tanev also competed in all five of the Canucks' playoff games in 2012 without registering a point.
His first NHL goal was scored on February 4, 2013, in an overtime win against Devan Dubnyk of the Edmonton Oilers. On March 24, 2015 Tanev signed a 5-year contract extension with the Canucks.
Tanev scored 11 seconds into overtime on August 7, 2020 as the Canucks advanced to the Western Conference First Round, beating the Minnesota Wild 5–4 for a 3–1 Qualifying Round series victory. It is tied for the second-fastest goal to start overtime in Stanley Cup playoff history, tying J. P. Parisé (1975) and former Canucks teammate Alex Burrows (2011), with only Brian Skrudland's 9 seconds in 1986 being faster.
### Calgary Flames
On October 9, 2020, Tanev left the Canucks as a free agent after 10 seasons and signed a four-year, \$18 million contract with fellow Western Canadian club, the Calgary Flames.
## International play
Tanev played a major role in the 2016 IIHF World Championships team which captured gold against Finland. He was praised for his composure and defensive play by Team Canada head coach Bill Peters, and was named the best player of the game in Canada's 7-1 victory over Hungary. In the tournament semifinal versus the United States, Tanev robbed a scoring chance from the Americans late in the third period, which would have resulted in the tying goal. After accidentally breaking his stick in the American zone, he raced back to the Canadian end, intercepting a pass and blocking a shot without the use of his stick.
Tanev's biggest moment came in the tournament final against Finland, playing 21:38 in ice time, including a team-high 8:37 in the third period as Canada defended their one-goal lead. Team Canada held on to win the gold medal for a second consecutive year.
According to many observers, including Ray Ferraro and teammates Brendan Gallagher and Connor McDavid, Tanev was perhaps the best defenceman in the tournament in terms of his defensive play - he and his defence partner, Morgan Rielly, were not on the ice for a single goal against at even-strength. Tanev also played a major role on Canada's tournament-best penalty kill that allowed just two goals against in 29 opportunities. He registered one assist during the tournament.
## Playing style
Tanev is a defenceman lauded for his "hockey sense" and puck-moving ability. Upon being scouted out of college by Canucks personnel, his style of play was compared to offensive defenceman Christian Ehrhoff. Not aggressive, Tanev relies primarily on his positioning to check players. Following his performance in Game 5 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals, teammate Kevin Bieksa also highlighted his calm on-ice demeanor, quipping that "he could have played with a cigarette in his mouth."
## Career statistics
### Regular season and playoffs
### International
## Awards |
44,488,575 | Marriage Charter of Empress Theophanu | 1,163,568,658 | 972 dower document for Byzantine princess Theophanu | [
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"Theophanu"
]
| The Marriage Charter of Empress Theophanu (State Archives of Wolfenbüttel, 6 Urk 11) is the dower document for the Byzantine princess Theophanu. Written in Latin, the document was created after the marriage of Theophanu to Emperor Otto II in 972, which made her the empress of the Holy Roman Empire. The document was prepared by Otto II and exemplifies an instance of political and cultural contact between the Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire.
It serves as an example of Ottonian Renaissance art, and the calligraphy of the manuscript has led it to be regarded as one of the most beautiful diplomatic documents of the Middle Ages. In 2005, the document was proposed for inclusion in the Memory of the World Register, but was not included.
## Historical context
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire (in modern times also called the Byzantine Empire) was the sole successor of the Roman Empire. Charlemagne's imperial coronation in 800 put strain on Western relations with the Byzantine Empire ruled from Constantinople. When Otto I became emperor in February 962, there was contention between him and the Byzantine Empire, and this issue revived in 967 between Otto and Nikephoros II Phokas over the dominion of Italy. On 25 December 967, Pope John XIII anointed Otto II as Otto I's co-emperor.
In autumn 968, battles between the Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire commenced in the Principality of Capua, in the Duchy of Benevento and Apulia, and hostilities continued until 970. Both sides of the conflict made many attempts to find a diplomatic solution. Otto I intended to receive recognition of his title in Byzantium, and to clarify the borders of Western and Eastern allegiances in southern Italy. He wanted this agreement to be ratified by the marriage of his son, Otto II, to a member of the Byzantine imperial family. Anna, daughter of the deceased Emperor Romanos II, was considered a possible bride. However, Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas was unwilling to marry off a purple-born princess (i.e. a child born to a reigning emperor). After tough negotiations with Nikephoros II Phokas' successor John I Tzimiskes, Archbishop of Cologne Gero secured the marriage of Otto II with Theophanu, a member of the Byzantine imperial family who was not, however, born to the purple.
The Marriage Charter acts as the reference document for the wedding of the 17-year-old Otto II and the 12-year-old Theophanu. The wedding took place on 14 April 972 in St. Peter's Basilica and was officiated by Pope John XIII. Politically, the marriage marked the recognition of the Ottonian Empire by the Byzantine Empire. In this document, Otto II granted Theophanu the right to an extensive dower for personal use throughout her life (legitima dos), as well as her entry into a consortium imperii with Otto II, meaning that both would share imperial authority over the Holy Roman Empire.
It is likely that Theophanu kept the document until October 989, when she left for her journey to Italy and Rome, at which time it is believed she placed it in Gandersheim Abbey to preserve the document. It was discovered and published in 1700 by writer and historian Johann Georg Leuckfeld. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was among the first to recognise the historical significance of this document, and reports on it in History of Welf. After the secularisation of Gandersheim Abbey in 1811, the document was transferred to the Göttingen State and University Library. On 4 May 1820, the archives from the abbey were delivered to the treasury of the duchy of Brunswick. In 1835, the document was transferred to the State Archives of Wolfenbüttel, where it remains.
This document outlines the revenue and profits that Theophanu would receive from this marriage, and it begins with a speech similar to sermons held at weddings. The document describes what Theophanu will receive from Otto II: rights to the revenues from Istria, Pescara; Walcheren, Wichelen, Nivelles Abbey with 14000 belonging farms; and farms in Boppard, Tiel, Herford, Kyffhaeuser, and Nordhausen.
## Description
The document is a 144.5 by 39.5 cm (56.9 by 15.6 in) scroll consisting of three pieces of parchment glued together and rolled, and is believed to have been created in the Fulda monastery. A scientific study of the purple parchment took place in Munich in 1966, which showed that minium (red lead) and madder were used for staining the document, indicating that it was created in the Holy Roman Empire, rather than in the Byzantine Empire, where the Murex shell for making Tyrian purple was tightly controlled. This document is one of the oldest surviving examples of madder being used in the Middle Ages. The purple background was made from Byzantine silk woven with fourteen circular medallions and two half medallions. The medallions contain representations of animals fighting, inspired by Near Eastern art.
The writing field is surrounded by a narrow gold trim decorated with blue and white acanthus leaves. The top edge is decorated with animals and vegetation, along with medallions containing half-figures, such as Jesus flanked by Mary and John the Baptist with four Evangelists. Between the medallions at the top are six pairs of animals. It was the first marriage document to be illuminated.
The text is written in gold in Carolingian minuscule calligraphy, and the gold ink was obtained from an alloy of silver and gold leaf. A few lines or words stand out as they are written in rustic capitals. Over time, the parchment has slightly warped, and there is a fold in the middle of the document. It is presented in a permanent exhibition of the State Archives of Lower Saxony in a dimly lit room.
Imperial purple was a colour reserved for emperors, kings and bishops, and purple parchment was rarely used for writing. This document is regarded as one of the most luxurious and beautiful examples of the use of purple parchment.
## Authenticity
The authenticity of this document remains a matter of debate. Hans K. Schulze and Hans Goetting believe that the document was presented by Otto II at their wedding feast, and then given to Theophanu. Walter Deeters (1972) says that the separations in the text act as reading aids, showing that the document was intended to be read. Diplomats Theodor von Sickel and Carlrichard Brühl believe that the document is not the original as it lacks a seal and the lines are unusually shaped.
## See also
- Cultural depictions of Theophanu |
196,472 | Rio (Duran Duran album) | 1,171,108,153 | 1982 studio album by Duran Duran | [
"1982 albums",
"Albums produced by Colin Thurston",
"Albums recorded at AIR Studios",
"Capitol Records albums",
"Duran Duran albums",
"EMI Records albums"
]
| Rio is the second studio album by the English new wave band Duran Duran, released on 10 May 1982 through EMI. Produced by Colin Thurston, the band wrote and demoed most of the material before recording the album at AIR Studios in London from January to March 1982. The band utilised more experimentation compared to their debut album, from vibraphone and marimba to the sound of a cigarette being lit and cracking ice cubes. Andy Hamilton played a saxophone solo on "Rio".
A new wave album with musical elements such as dance and synth-pop, Rio is mostly composed of fast, upbeat numbers, with a couple slower synthesiser-based ballads. Lead vocalist Simon Le Bon's obtuse lyrics cover topics from chasing one's dreams to pursuing a love interest. Bassist John Taylor conceived the title, which the band felt represented the optimistic and exotic tone of the album. The cover artwork, painted by Patrick Nagel and designed by Malcolm Garrett to resemble 1950s cigar packaging, is considered one of the greatest of all time.
Duran Duran shot music videos for many of the album's tracks, all of which helped spearhead the 1980s MTV revolution. Accompanied by three worldwide hit singles, Rio peaked at number two in the United Kingdom and remained in the chart for 110 weeks. Initially unsuccessful in the United States, the album was remixed by Capitol Records to better match American radio at the time; the remixed album spent 129 weeks on the Billboard chart, reaching number six. The band toured the US and Europe throughout the latter half of 1982.
Rio initially received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics, who commended the melodies but disparaged the lyrics. Retrospective reviewers consider Rio timeless and the band's best work, praising its instrumentation and band performances. With the album, Duran Duran were forerunners in the Second British Invasion of the 1980s, helping ensure the success of other English artists throughout the decade. It has since made appearances on best-of lists and has been reissued several times.
## Background and development
Duran Duran released their self-titled debut album in June 1981. Aided by the album's highly successful third single "Girls on Film", the album peaked at number three in the UK and remained in the charts for over two years. With the album, Duran Duran had established themselves as one of the biggest new pop groups of 1981. Around July, they began writing songs for their second studio album, spending time at their resident nightclub the Rum Runner in Birmingham like their debut. The band's label, EMI Records, doubled their budget for the new record. Feeling pressure in England, the band briefly withdrew to a secluded château in France to continue writing. Keyboardist Nick Rhodes later stated:
> When we went into the rest of the writing to prepare the Rio album, we hadn't really had time to think about the success that we'd achieved with the first album. We'd already moved on, and we'd got some songs that we thought were as good, if not better, than some of the songs on the first album already.
On 28 August 1981, Duran Duran recorded demos of several songs that would appear on their next album, including "Last Chance on the Stairway", "My Own Way", "New Religion" and "Like an Angel", at the basement studio of EMI's Manchester Square building. According to bassist John Taylor, the demo of "Last Chance on the Stairway" was identical to the final album version, while "My Own Way" and "New Religion" both had different arrangements. This version of "My Own Way" was dance-inspired and featured bursts of electric guitar, a different bassline and pattering percussion. Dissatisfied with this version, the band rerecorded the song during the official sessions. An early version of "The Chauffeur" was also taped with German sound engineer Renate Blauel.
Both "Hungry Like the Wolf" and "Save a Prayer" were the result of collaborations between Rhodes and guitarist Andy Taylor; Rhodes began on synthesiser, which Andy fashioned into guitar riffs. The latter commented, "When we wrote 'Hungry', I knew we had the album right." The band taped demos of "Save a Prayer" and "Lonely in Your Nightmare" at engineer Bob Lamb's home studio in Birmingham. The band used this material for reference during the proper sessions, particularly for the sequenced-based tracks "Save a Prayer" and "The Chauffeur".
Duran Duran continued promotional appearances and live performances throughout September and October 1981, including their first American tour. EMI wanted a new single, so the band returned to England and taped a new version of "My Own Way", boasting disco and American R&B-influenced production, with "Like an Angel" as the B-side. Released on 16 November 1981 in England only, the single spent 11 weeks on the chart, hitting number 14. Rhodes disliked the single-only release: "It was the only time we actually sat down and said, 'Ok, we've got to write a hit single now'." The band underwent the Careless Memories tour in December, featuring 17 sold-out dates, before taking a holiday break.
## Recording
The recording sessions for Rio commenced in January 1982 at London's AIR Studios and lasted six to eight weeks. The members rented apartments in close vicinity to the studio during the duration of the sessions. Colin Thurston returned from the debut as producer and engineer. The band were excited to record at AIR, having previously demoed "Girls on Film" there in July 1980. Founded by former Beatles producer George Martin, the studio boasted high-tech equipment that Rhodes, in particular, was eager to experiment with. The keyboardist devoted time learning production techniques with Thurston and was purportedly the first to arrive and last to leave every day.
According to John, all of the songs, except for "The Chauffeur", were fully arranged before recording began; "Rio" had been played during multiple sound checks. Recording followed the same template as the debut: the bass, drums and synthesiser parts were recorded first, followed by guitar, keyboard overdubs and vocals. The band recalled recording going by relatively easily. Drummer Roger Taylor recorded his parts quickly and returned to Birmingham with his girlfriend, while John and Andy dwelled at the Embassy Club on Old Bond Street throughout the sessions. At AIR, Paul and Linda McCartney, who were recording the former's Tug of War LP in the adjacent studio, stopped by on occasion to say good night, a gesture Rhodes described as "very surreal"; John also listened back to a mix of the finished Rio album with Paul.
Having defined the majority of the arrangements before recording began, the band sharpened their individual performances and experimented with different sounds. John played fretless bass on "Lonely in Your Nightmare", while lead vocalist Simon Le Bon added vibraphone and marimba to "New Religion" and "Last Chance on the Stairway", respectively. Rhodes added the sound of a cigarette being lit and clinking glasses to the latter, while "Hungry Like the Wolf" opens with a giggle from his then-girlfriend Cheryl. With Thurston, Roger melded accents from his Simmons' electronic drum kit to multiple tracks, hooking up the electronic tom-toms to his acoustic set. He said in 2021: "I'd play an acoustic drum kit and just lay the Simmons over the top. [...] And I'm glad that we did that. ...it was great to have something modern coming through as part of the kit, but it didn't completely dominate the sound."
Saxophonist Andy Hamilton played the solo on "Rio". Hamilton had previously contributed to the "night version" of Duran Duran's "Planet Earth" and performed with Duran Duran on their 1981 European tour dates. He mostly improvised his part, basing most of the solo on two chords. Rhodes oversaw Hamilton's part, which he later described as "more of an integral melody within the song rather than a solo", leading it to be played the same way during concert performances. The track's opening was created when Rhodes dropped metal rods onto the strings of the studio's grand piano and flipped the tape over, reversing the sound.
"The Chauffeur" was created on the spot in the studio. During downtime, Rhodes retreated to an auxiliary studio room with Blauel, their tape operator, and crafted a track using keyboards, synthesisers, the sound of an ice cube cracking and a conversation about nature for extra effects. Le Bon accompanied him and brought lyrics inspired by a 1979 visit to a kibbutz in Israel, further adding a melody on an ocarina. The final track features no contributions from the three Taylors. An acoustic version was recorded without Rhodes, which appeared as a B-side to "Rio". The keyboardist later quipped, "I guess that was my punishment for have created an entirely electronic track."
### Mixing
The band were contracted to finish mixing the album by the end of March 1982 and were due to fly to Sri Lanka to film music videos before their tour of Australia commenced in mid-April. With the record still unfinished, Le Bon, John and Roger flew to Sri Lanka while Rhodes and Andy stayed in London with Thurston to make some last-minute tweaks; according to biographer Steve Malins, the trio worked for 48 hours straight. Once completed, Rhodes and Andy flew to Sri Lanka, the former listening to and analysing Rio the entire ride.
## Music and lyrics
Musically, Rio is a new wave album that contains elements of dance, post-punk, rock, disco, synth-pop and gothic rock. According to author Stephen Davis, EMI wanted the band to change direction from their debut, desiring more of a rock-edged dance groove, telling Thurston: "Think Led Zeppelin and Talking Heads having a baby and calling it Duran Duran." The band's influences at the time included Roxy Music, David Bowie, Japan, pre-Dare Human League and 1970s UK guitar rock. AllMusic's Donald A. Guarisco retrospectively compared the title track's instrumental to the Roxy Music releases Flesh and Blood (1980) and Avalon (1982), even associating Hamilton's saxophone solo to Andy Mackay's contributions to Roxy Music. Rhodes later described the album's sound as "elegant punk".
Of the album's nine tracks, the first seven ("Rio" to "Last Chance on the Stairway") are faster and more upbeat numbers, while the last two ("Save a Prayer" and "The Chauffeur") are slower and atmospheric synthesiser-based ballads. In Ultimate Classic Rock, writer Annie Zaleski described the rhythm section of John and Roger as "formidable" and "locked into grooves with nimble precision", with Rhodes's synthesisers adding "artsy textures" and Andy's "blazing guitar acrobatics" bringing "ferocity and heft" to the tracks; Malins highlights "Hungry Like the Wolf" and "New Religion" as showcasing Andy's guitar. The album's production is sparser than that of the debut, although Rhodes felt its bouts of studio experimentation made Rio definitively theirs: "It sounds like us – I don't think it sounds like anybody else."
Le Bon turned to his experiences on their first American tour for inspiration in writing the lyrics. In a nod to artists such as Joy Division and the Doors' Jim Morrison, the lyrics of Rio touch on topics from chasing one's dreams and finding one's place in the world, to pursuing a love interest and providing solace to a friend—mainly using dark and poetic words. The title track paints a picture of a girl with a "cherry ice cream smile" that is "too lovely to resist"; "Save a Prayer" concerns a couple's love affair that ends too soon; and "The Chauffeur" conveys images of restless driving and attractive women. Malins says that Le Bon's lyrics are sometimes full of the "most obtuse tongue-twisters", with "New Religion" being presented as "a dialogue between the ego and the alter ego", but he does find the line "no time to worry cause we're on the roam again" in "Hold Back the Rain" perfectly encapsulates the album's "high spirits". Guarisco argued that Le Bon's "stream-of-consciousness" lyrics on tracks like "Rio" and "The Chauffeur" primarily add to the tracks' personalities rather than mean anything "in the literal sense".
## Title and packaging
John came up with the album's title in 1981 during the band's worldwide tour supporting their debut. Taylor, who had never left England before, was taken by the glamour and excitement of the road which included stops in Los Angeles, New York City, Paris and Berlin. While visiting Brazil, he was fascinated with the idea of exotica, stating in his memoir: "Rio [de Janeiro], to me, was shorthand for the truly foreign, the exotic, a cornucopia of earthly delights, a party that would never stop." The other band members liked the title, feeling it encapsulated the "more optimistic" tone of the entire album. Le Bon later said: "The word looks great, sounds great and makes people think of parties, rivers – it's Spanish for river! – foreign places and sunshine."
Duran Duran themselves do not appear on the front cover of Rio, which was a stylistic departure from their debut and most albums at the time; the band felt that photographs and the music videos would suffice. Instead, the cover artwork is a portrait of a woman with striking make-up, a large smile and black hair. It was painted by artist Patrick Nagel, who was commissioned by the band after co-manager Paul Berrow discovered his work while browsing a Playboy magazine; Nagel was a regular contributor to the magazine at the time. Creating what became known as the artist's trademark style, Nagel presented two options: a woman with a flower in her hair sitting sideways and the chosen shot of a woman smiling. Rhodes recalled, "We all said instantly: 'Yes, that's it. That's the cover." Author Elena G. Millie described her as the "quintessential" 1980s woman: "elegant and sophisticated, alluring but cool, stark but sensual, mysterious, contradictory and utterly contemporary".
Malcolm Garrett, who had designed the cover artworks for the band's singles and first album, had "no more than a week" to complete the final sleeve design. Garrett, who had yet to hear the title track, stated that Rio "made me think of cigars and cigar packaging. The whole idea of something Latin and something Cuban and South American." Disliking album sleeves at the time having a plain image on the front and nothing on the back, he wrapped the painting around the front and back of the sleeve, later saying it was a conceptual choice: "You've got to go through the picture to get to the album." Like cigar packaging, initial pressings had a physical sticker sealing the LP shut, a design choice that was pasted directly onto the sleeve for later reissues. For the title's typeface, Garrett used a retro style that was also evocative of 1950s cigar packaging. He received credit on the sleeve itself with "Assorted Images" integrated into the design. Duran Duran loved the finished design, with Rhodes stating that "it just seemed to represent everything we wanted at that point". Duran Duran became closely associated with the sleeve's image over the course of their career. The original drawing hung at Paul Berrow's office at the Rum Runner before the band stole it on their way to appear on Top of the Pops, after which the members each took turns hanging it in their respective houses or apartments.
Garrett used the sleeve to establish a distinctive system of visual elements that provided "conceptual continuity" across Rio's advertising, tour materials, merchandise and singles, which he also supervised. He stated in 2000: "What we were doing with music then was always about creating and defining a visual world in which the fans operated and could come to understand." In a mix-up between the band and the Japanese label, Nagel's second rejected image was used for the Japanese single release of "My Own Way", issued months ahead of Rio. Rhodes later quipped: "No one had told the Japanese label that we hadn't actually bought that one."
A lyric sheet and a band portrait appears in the LP liner. Deliberately incongruous to the album title, Duran Duran were photographed on the top of the British Petroleum Building, the tallest building in London at the time, against a modern nighttime skyline. They wore Antony Price suits, which they used for the subsequent music videos. Photographer Andy Earl recalled: "Because their music was so electronic, I wanted to try and create that energy in the picture. Just before the end of the exposure, I kicked the tripod, and that's what gives it this fizzy, electronic and glamorous look. Which, to me, captured the music and what they were all about."
## Promotion
### Music videos
Music videos were shot for six of Rio's nine tracks. Russell Mulcahy, who had directed the video for "Planet Earth", worked with Duran Duran on videos for "Hungry Like the Wolf", "Save a Prayer" and "Lonely in Your Nightmare" in Sri Lanka, one for "Rio" in Antigua and one for "The Chauffeur" in London without the band's involvement; another video was commissioned for the single version of "My Own Way". Former film student Marcello Anciano acted as storyboard artist and art director for all the videos. The Sri Lanka videos emphasised the exotic location; "Hungry Like the Wolf" saw Le Bon cast as an Indiana Jones-type character, while "Save a Prayer" utilised elephants and found the band atop a mountain inspecting stone temples. While there, Rhodes and John were homesick, while Andy contracted a fever from the water, requiring his hospitalisation on his return to England. The guitarist was "very run-down" for the subsequent Australian and Japanese tours throughout the second half of April 1982 and had an oxygen mask at the side of the stage for the shows. He fully recovered for the "Rio" shoot, which found the band sailing aboard yachts.
Duran Duran earned a large advance from EMI to film the videos, particularly the Sri Lanka ones, said to range between £30,000 and £55,000. The label had strong faith in the group and wanted videos prepared in advance before Rio's release. Both the band and EMI had ambitious plans for promotion and devised the release of a full-length video album consisting of the best songs from both Duran Duran (1981) and Rio. Le Bon had declared the medium's importance in an interview with Smash Hits earlier in the year, stating, "I take video very seriously. I see it as an artform. Most people see it as a promotional device. [...] Videos are the 'talking pictures' of today's music industry." Rhodes and Roger also spoke about it to the Associated Press later in the year. Other band members were more reserved, particularly John.
Although video albums originated as early as 1979, EMI's parent corporation, Thorn, intended for the proposed Duran Duran album to sell exquisitely in the VHS and home video markets. At the time, Britain saw the significance of music videos and, with programmes such as Top of the Pops, audiences were accustomed to watching bands perform on television. In America, music videos played a lesser role in promotion, as labels felt they were insignificant compared to radio. MTV, which launched in August 1981, soon provided a shift in this perspective, primarily due to the videos of British bands played on the channel. One of MTV's original VJs, Alan Hunter, later stated that while American artists took more literal approaches when producing videos, "the music of the young New Wave romantics [such as Duran Duran] lent itself better to a more ephemeral interpretation, or a little looser interpretation." Commenting on the more stylised British videos at the time, MTV co-founder John Sykes said:
> [English videos] looked like television commercials—highly styled television commercials, because [English bands] understood the platform. And that's why when Duran Duran came over, they basically paved the way for other artists, because they really set a tone and painted a picture that no one had ever seen before in this country.
### Release
EMI issued "Hungry Like the Wolf" as the lead single from the album on 4 May 1982; Duran Duran mimed to the song on Top of the Pops nine days later. Entering the UK Singles Chart at number 35, it reached the top ten by the end of May, and peaked at number five in late June. Its accompanying video received frequent rotation on MTV by early July.
Shortly after the lead single, EMI issued Rio on 10 May 1982. It debuted at number four and reached number two by 22 May, behind the Madness greatest hits compilation Complete Madness. Rio remained in the UK chart for 110 weeks, including 96 consecutive weeks until March 1984. A tour EP generated publicity in Australia, leading "Hungry Like the Wolf" and Rio both reaching the top ten. In interviews, Duran Duran disassociated themselves with New Romanticism, as the band wanted to set themselves apart from "any broader movement", drawing comparisons to Spandau Ballet and Ultravox.
Initial European tour dates were delayed to September 1982 due to Andy falling ill. Instead, the band toured the US throughout July, attracting their largest audiences to date, later opening for Blondie in August. "Save a Prayer" was released in England as the second single on 9 August 1982, backed by a remix of "Hold Back the Rain", which charted at number two in the UK. Shortly before the European tour began, EMI issued interviews Le Bon made with Smash Hits and The Face as a 7" picture single, titled An interview with Simon Le Bon. John injured his hand during the tour but fully recovered before a month-long UK tour that commenced on 30 October. Two days later, "Rio" appeared as a single in England and America, reaching number nine in the former; it failed to chart in the US as a single until 1985 as part of the live album Arena.
### American remix
Rio's success in the UK, Australia and Japan initially went unmatched in the US. The first American release through Capitol-subsidiary Harvest Records debuted at number 164 on Billboard's Top LPs & Tape chart before stalling at number 122. Capitol executives attributed geography, size and what they viewed as zero hit singles to the low performance. One executive even claimed that radio was the only way to achieve success in the country.
With dwindling fortunes, Capitol promised more promotion if Duran Duran remixed Rio to better align with American radio. With staff producer David Kershenbaum, the band remixed four songs: Rio's "Hold Back the Rain", "My Own Way", "Hungry Like the Wolf" and Duran Duran's "Girls on Film". According to Davis, Kershenbaum's goal was to "make Duran Duran sound like Van Halen on an American pickup truck radio". Andy states in his memoir that the new mix gave the album "a smoother, cleaner sound" for US audiences, who were used to more polished feel than what was developed in the UK. John was unhappy with the remix, believing it represented the death of the band's original vision: "That was the end of Duran Duran, our original idea—an underground club band." Due to a lack of notice and a financial falling out with Paul Berrow, Thurston parted ways with the band, making Rio his final work with the group.
Capitol collected the remixes and released them as an EP in late September 1982 called Carnival. Packaged with band photos and liner notes, Carnival earned Duran Duran radio play throughout the US, hitting number 98 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart in early October. Following the successful remixes, Capitol rebranded Duran Duran as a dance band and commissioned Kershenbaum to remix the entire first side of the Rio album. In November, Capitol issued the remixed Rio and "Hungry Like the Wolf" single in the US, the latter charting at number three by Christmas. With the music videos garnering heavy airplay on MTV and nationwide chart success, marketing executives pushed radio DJs to refer to Duran Duran as "the Fab Five". The remixed Rio charted at number six on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart in March 1983 and spent 129 weeks on the chart.
## Critical reception
Rio received mixed-to-negative reviews on release. Critics commended the melodies but ridiculed the lyrics. Robin Denselow, in particular, mused in The Guardian: "Why do bands with no lyrical skill insist on printing their ghastly efforts on inside record sleeves?" He deemed the music "melodic, disposable pop to a best-selling formula". A writer for Record Mirror bluntly described Rio as "thoroughly competent and yet bereft of the soul, passion and wit that makes a great record". Allentown, Pennsylvania newspaper The Morning Call was also negative, finding the album "a pain in the butt to sit through". NME's Paul Du Noyer found a lack of artistic differentiation from their debut, stating, "What they've done is spin out the formula, quite efficiently." Deeming Rio "a sweet, lumpy pudding of a noise", he concluded: "In its own blandly unambitious way, I guess, it's a perfect record. In other ways, it's boring as hell." In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau deemed the LP "Anglodisco at its most solemnly expedient", feeling that "it lacks even the forced cheerfulness" of Haircut 100, and that "if it had as many hooks as A Flock of Seagulls (not bloody likely) it still wouldn't be silly enough to be any fun". By late 1983, The New York Times had dismissed Duran Duran as soulless, musically derivative and typical of the "frivolous dance-oriented synthesizer pop made by [British] fashion-conscious groups" that MTV had helped to popularise.
Other reviewers were warmer to the record. Writing for Smash Hits, Fred Dellar gave praise to the first three tracks, commenting that they "had me jotting down theories about the new golden age of pop", but by the LP's end, it turned into "yet another well-dressed but not totally satisfying album". In The Philadelphia Inquirer, Jack Lloyd wrote that Rio "indicates a strong feel for the pop market" and gave positive mentions to the instrumentation and accessible music. A writer for Billboard agreed, finding Rio "catchy, melodic and accessible", with tunes hewing toward "bright and sassy pop". A particularly positive review came from Melody Maker, wherein Steve Sutherland proclaimed Rio "the true culmination of the much-misunderstood New Romanticism – energetic, proud, enthusiastic, joyous; something to escape FULLY into". He expressed excitement in seeing where the band would go next. Ira Robbins was also positive in Trouser Press, finding the music showcased the young band as an emerging and creative talent: "Even when Duran Duran aims for the b.p.m. crowd, they display enough musical perspicacity to avoid tedium."
## Influence and legacy
The success of Rio electrified the already-rising Second British Invasion. With their contemporaries the Human League, A Flock of Seagulls, Culture Club and Thomas Dolby, Duran Duran dominated the American pop charts throughout 1983 and led to the rise of other would-be successful British acts, including Tears for Fears, Eurythmics, Naked Eyes and the Rhodes-discovered Kajagoogoo. With Culture Club and Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran created a teen frenzy similar to Beatlemania during the first British Invasion of the 1960s. Additional UK acts, including Wham!, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Pet Shop Boys and Dead or Alive, found American success in the ensuing years, alongside other bands who originated in small clubs like Duran Duran—the Cure, Depeche Mode, the Psychedelic Furs and Echo & the Bunnymen. Bowie, Duran Duran's idol, also found massive commercial success in 1983 with Let's Dance.
According to Zaleski, Rio's "sonic approach—blasing electric guitars blended with moody synthesisers—became the dominant template for mainstream 1980s rock"; bands such as INXS used Duran Duran and Rio as a basis for their edgier and funkier sound. Discussing the album's impact, Yahoo! Music's Lyndsey Parker pondered: "Was there ever any album that embodied all things grand and glamorous about the escapist, excessive, exotic, erotic, aspirational '80s more than Duran Duran's Rio?" Beyond the 1980s, artists who have replicated Rio's sound include the Killers, Mark Ronson and the AFI/No Doubt supergroup Dreamcar.
Three decades after its release, John Taylor still held Rio in high regard, calling the songwriting "fantastic" and "essential Duran Duran". He also had high praise for the band's musicianship, arguing that each member was performing at their peaks. Rhodes admitted in 2022 that Rio was tough to top: "It's something that's been a double-edged sword for us, because it was such a powerful record, and perhaps the images from the videos stuck in people's minds. Then it came to the end of the 1980s, and people wanted to close the door on us." John felt Rio helped the band establish longevity beyond the 1980s, leading to a career spanning 15 albums and more than 100 million record sales. Speaking to Yahoo! Music, he proclaimed: "This is the album that put us on the map — and has kept us there."
### Retrospective appraisal
Critics have retrospectively declared Rio Duran Duran's finest work. Beyond the 2000s, commentators agreed the album has aged well, with AllMusic's Ned Raggett asserting that "its fusion of style and substance ensures that even two decades after its release it remains as listenable and danceable as ever". Zaleski argued that the band's use of basic instrumentation ensured Rio sounded more timeless than other albums of the time. In The Quietus, John Freeman concluded that over 30 years after its release, Rio "encompasses all anyone needs to know about Duran Duran". In 2015, Record Collector's Mark Elliot deemed it a "seminal 80s classic" and a record that displays a band figuring out their sound, growing in confidence and "setting to conquer the world". Chris Ingalls of PopMatters agreed, referring to it as "an iconic statement of its times" and one that rewards repeated listens.
Other reviewers have given praise to the band, with Zaleski arguing that "Rio was a testament to the band's chemistry and ambition, and how quickly they evolved as musicians." Writing for Q magazine, Paul Moody viewed Rio as reinitiating Duran Duran's status as "a national pop treasure". Pitchfork's Tom Ewing, who gave negative assessments to their debut and their follow-up studio album Seven and the Ragged Tiger (1983), stated that Rio "is where the band's hunger for success really catalyzed its mix of rock, disco, and heartthrob pop". Uncut magazine's Wyndham Wallace found the album "confirms [the band] packed a significant punch", while Robbins wrote in Trouser Press:
> Rio fulfills the band's potential and its pinnacle, displaying stronger songwriting and far more intricate arrangements. The music's clearly danceable, but brilliantly listenable as well. Le Bon handles tantalizing melodies and obtuse lyrics with confidence, while honestly proficient musicianship by the other four defines each song's character differently. There isn't anything less than good, and "Rio", "Last Chance on the Stairway" and "New Religion" are startling in their melodic excellence.
The band members' performances and instrumentation have been highlighted, with Raggett stating that "the quintet integrates [their] sound near-perfectly throughout". PopMatters' John Bergstrom observed that "not even nearly 30 years of cultural change have been able to budge the careful juxtaposition between Andy Taylor's power riffing and Simon Le Bon's willfully artful lyrics and vocals, or the brilliant interplay between the awesome, seriously funky rhythm section of John Taylor and Roger Taylor, and Nick Rhodes' atmospheric, arpeggiated synthesizer framework. Together, it all created all kinds of energy and just the right amount of camp." Despite its praise, several commentators have taken issue with Le Bon's lyrics, arguing they lack literal meaning and range from "absurd" and "sublime", but agree that the singer's confident vocal performances offer bouts of connotation.
Rio's cover artwork has been deemed iconic and one of the greatest of all time by VH1 and Billboard. In 2006, Ernest Simpson of Treblezine wrote that with the Clash's London Calling (1979), "rarely does an album cover truly fit the style and attitude within" and Rio's "not only encapsulated the slick new wave of the stylish band, but also the early '80s in general". Reflecting on the artwork in his 2021 book Please Please Tell Me Now, Davis states that the decline of the "classic album art" era began following the release of Rio.
### Rankings
Rio has made appearances on several best-of lists. In 2000, Q magazine placed Rio at number 98 in their list of the 100 Greatest British Albums ever, while The Word ranked it number 24 is a similar list of the 50 best British albums in 2008. Pitchfork named it the 95th best album of the 1980s in 2002. A year later, NME ranked Rio the 65th greatest album of all time. A decade later in 2013, BBC Radio 2 placed it at number three in a list compiling their "Top 100 Favourite Albums of All Time". In lists compiling the best new wave albums, Ultimate Classic Rock and Paste placed it at numbers 4 and 24, respectively. Despite its acclaim, Malins finds that Rio is often not as highly revered as other records of the time, such as ABC's The Lexicon of Love, the Human League's Dare and Simple Minds' New Gold Dream (81–82–83–84).
The album was included in the 2018 edition of Robert Dimery's book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
## Reissues
Rio was first released on CD in early 1984 and was one of the first CDs issued by EMI in the UK and the US. The album's first major reissue by EMI was released on 3 July 2001. This release contained Enhanced CD material featuring the music videos for "Rio", "Hungry Like the Wolf" and "Save a Prayer", plus memorabilia and a link to the band's official website. The European limited-edition booklet cover used an alternate version of the Nagel cover painting. The original CD version was used rather than the original LP version, with EMI claiming that it was due to master tape research issues as a result of there being several different versions of the album.
Rio was again reissued as a two-disc Collector's Edition on 7 September 2009 in the UK, and 6 October 2009 in the US. This edition includes the original LP release tracks and the US Kershenbaum remixes, along with several other tracks that were either previously unavailable officially on CD, or were only available on Singles Box Set 1981–1985 (2003). The release was packaged with the Live at Hammersmith '82 DVD, which Record Collector's Joel McIver felt was superior to Rio. This reissue received mixed reviews. Commentators felt the bonus tracks were mostly disposable and not worth the price tag, although some welcome the presence of several "night versions" and the US mixes. Ewing concluded: "The 2xCD package is probably best used as a way of recreating whichever version of Rio floats your nostalgia yacht." On 23 June 2015, Parlophone repackaged this edition as a two-disc set, featuring the US album mixes, demos, assorted B-sides and five remixes.
## Track listing
All songs written and arranged by Simon Le Bon, Andy Taylor, John Taylor, Roger Taylor and Nick Rhodes.
## Personnel
Album credits adapted from AllMusic:
Duran Duran
- Simon Le Bon – lead vocals, vibraphone on "New Religion", ocarina on "The Chauffeur", marimba on "Last Chance on the Stairway"
- Nick Rhodes – keyboards, synthesizers, sound effects, backing vocals on "Last Chance on the Stairway"
- John Taylor – bass guitar, backing vocals
- Andy Taylor – guitars, backing vocals
- Roger Taylor – drums, percussion
Additional musicians
- Andy Hamilton – tenor saxophone on "Rio"
Production and artwork
- Colin Thurston – production and engineering
- Renate – technician
- Malcolm Garrett – sleeve design
- Patrick Nagel – illustration
- Andy Earl – photography
- David Kershenbaum – remixing (tracks 1–5 on US LP reissue)
- Nick Webb – mastering (UK LP)
- Wally Traugott – mastering (original US LP)
- Stephen Marcussen – mastering (US LP reissue)
- Tony Cousins – remastering (2001 Enhanced CD reissue)
- Steve Rooke – remastering (2009 2-CD Collectors Edition)
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
## Certifications |
61,247,747 | History of Cincinnati Union Terminal | 1,170,760,651 | History of Cincinnati, Ohio's rail terminal | [
"Cincinnati Union Terminal",
"History of Cincinnati",
"History of buildings and structures"
]
| Cincinnati Union Terminal is an intercity train station and museum center in the Queensgate neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. The terminal is served by Amtrak's Cardinal line, passing through Cincinnati three times weekly. The building's largest tenants are the Cincinnati Museum Center, a group of three museums, a library, and a theater, as well as the Holocaust & Humanity Center.
The terminal was developed throughout the 1920s as a solution for Cincinnati's five train stations serving seven railroads. The cramped stations were close to the Ohio River, which created regular flooding issues. The Great Flood of 1884, one of the largest floods at that time, particularly prompted efforts to consolidate services in a new terminal. Numerous committees developed plans between 1908 and 1923, but construction only started in 1928. The project involved creation of viaducts, mail and express buildings, and utility structures: a power plant, water treatment facility, and roundhouse. The station building's site necessitated demolishing numerous structures and relandscaping and repurposing Lincoln Park. While construction was taking place, the design plans evolved. The architectural firm Fellheimer & Wagner originally conceived a conservative design, though the terminal's development company urged the firm to hire Paul Philippe Cret in 1930, and the terminal's Art Deco design is credited to him. The design, more modern and cheerful, came along with cost savings over the originally-planned intricate designs.
The station opened on March 19, 1933, and initially was not well utilized, as the Great Depression led to declined passenger travel. At the onset of World War II, passenger traffic increased significantly, and three United Service Organizations recreation centers opened for troops to use within the terminal. In the next two decades after the war, passenger use declined significantly, as Americans had taken to affordable individual automobiles and airplanes for long-distance travel. A science museum opened in 1968, offsetting some of the building's maintenance costs until it closed in 1970. Amtrak, the national railroad service, was formed in 1971 to rescue declining railroad companies. Amtrak recognized significant operating costs and moved its Cincinnati services to stop at the smaller, new River Road station in 1972. The station's concourse, platforms, and tracks were sold to the Southern Railway for freight operations. The company tore down the terminal's concourse in 1974, after giving the community time to save its artwork. Starting in 1978, a shopping mall was built within the terminal, opening in 1980, though the last tenant left by 1985. Around this time, the Cincinnati Historical Society and Cincinnati Museum of Natural History were looking for new museum space, and led the county to approve funding to transform the building into a museum. The renovation restored some original spaces and included creation of the museum's Omnimax theater. The museum center officially opened in 1991, and its renovations spurred Amtrak to return service to the terminal that year. In 1998, the Cinergy Children's Museum joined the Cincinnati Museum Center. In 2016, the county funded an extensive renovation throughout the building, also supported by grants, donations, and tax credits. The two-year renovation cleaned and repaired artwork, the main exterior clock, the plaza and fountain, walls, and roofs. Following reopening, in early 2019, the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust and Humanity Center became an additional museum tenant at Union Terminal.
## Background
Cincinnati was a major center of railroad traffic in the late 19th and early 20th century, especially as an interchange point between railroads serving the Northeastern and Midwestern states with railroads serving the South. The city's stations were not effective for interchanges: only one of Cincinnati's seven railroads operated through the city; for all the others Cincinnati was a terminal point. For travelers passing through the city by rail, they would often have to travel between two of the city's five stations, forcing them to navigate local transit themselves. It also required companies like the Louisville and Nashville Railroad to split its operations between two stations. Additionally, the stations were cramped, because they were not large enough to support the city's passenger traffic. Cincinnati's stations were also located close to the Ohio River, which was prone to flooding and would frequently render the buildings useless. After the Great Flood of 1884, railroad presidents began seeking one major terminal located far from the river.
Committees of railroad executives formed to discuss the topic on numerous occasions between 1908 and 1923. Charles A. Wilson was hired by the railroad companies to plan the terminal; he created several schematics between 1912 and 1923. In 1923, the Cincinnati Railroad Development Company was created to spur creation of the terminal and assess its feasibility; former Philip Carey Company president George Dent Crabbs became its president. During the midst of planning, the Depression of 1920–21 and World War I interrupted efforts to create the union station. A final agreement for a union station among the seven railroads that served Cincinnati and the city itself was not achieved until July 1927, after intense lobbying and negotiations, led by Crabbs. The seven railroads–the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad; Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad; New York Central Railroad (through its subsidiary, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway, or "the Big Four"); Louisville and Nashville Railroad; Norfolk and Western Railway; Pennsylvania Railroad; and the Southern Railway–selected a site for their new station in the West End, near the Mill Creek. Four of the seven railroads already utilized the Mill Creek Valley, which naturally lent itself as a good site for a terminal. At the time, the Southern Railway had a train yard and local freight terminal at the site. Henry M. Waite, Chief Engineer, and Charles Wilson, Consulting Engineer, organized about 100 engineers and assistants, and came up with seven studies, labeled A through H, of different track and building layouts in the Mill Creek valley. These ranged from the most costly, at \$55.6 million, to the cheapest and chosen option, H, at \$39.5 million.
## Design considerations and Art Deco origins
After a limited architectural competition, the firm Fellheimer & Wagner was commissioned to design the terminal in June 1928, shortly after completing their work on Buffalo Central Terminal. The firm first released plans for the terminal in June 1929. The sketches showed a conservative design, utilizing large Gothic arches, vaulted ceilings, and conventional benches in long rows. The originally proposed shape of the rotunda and concourse were the same as the finished product, though the details of the design more closely resembled the architects' Buffalo Central Terminal. The main exterior facade was presented in a similar way to the final product, however somewhat less modern in its details. At this point, most other details of the structure were the same: the semi-circular bus, taxi, and streetcar ramps, the relandscaping of Lincoln Park, and the relative locations of all the rooms in the building. The building was then estimated to cost \$8 million, with the total project costing \$40.6 million.
There were persistent changes in the blueprints between 1931 and 1932, indicating the involvement of an architect outside the firm's regular staff, like Paul Philippe Cret, employed as an aesthetic advisor. He is attributed with the terminal's Art Deco design due to his similar-style designs of other buildings at the time. His submission of a plan for the Chrysler Exhibition Building, in the 1933 Century of Progress world's fair, has numerous similarities to the terminal's final plan and design.
The new Art Deco design was approved with its proposed cost savings in mind; an issue the terminal company valued as the Great Depression continued on. Henry Waite said that the first Neoclassical plan would have been cold and costly, and that the new structure was plain, but brightened with color along lines of modern decoration and art. The architects first tried a moderate color scheme, which had a depressing effect. They then decided the terminal should be bright and cheery, like the flowers and birds of the open country. They reported that the effect was joyous and stimulating.
Pierre Bourdelle may have been considered to design all art in the terminal, as he made sketches for art throughout the entire terminal. Winold Reiss, who may have been introduced to the project by Paul Philippe Cret, used his source material more faithfully. That may have been significant in Reiss's selection for the final works. Reiss ended up designing nearly all of the terminal's artwork, including over 18,150 square feet (1,686 m<sup>2</sup>) of mosaic murals.
## Construction
The Union Terminal Company was created on July 14, 1927 to build the terminal, railroad lines in and out, and other related transportation improvements. Construction began in 1928 with the regrading of the east flood plain of the Mill Creek to a point nearly level with the surrounding city, an effort that required 5.5 million cubic yards (4.2 million cubic metres) of landfill. Elevation was a serious concern, as all older stations in Cincinnati had experienced regular flooding from the Ohio River. The new terminal's main level was to be built at 522 feet above sea level. The terminal company purchased a hill nearby, locally known as Bald Knob, for the landfill. Material at Bald Knob was discovered to be thin strata of fossil limestone, imbedded with clay and weak shale, which did not consolidate properly. This led the terminal company to abandon the site and to use material from a gravel pit in Miamitown.
Other work included the construction of mail and express terminals, an engine terminal, power house, coach yard, viaducts over the Mill Creek, and the railroad approaches to Union Terminal. The new viaducts the Union Terminal Company created to cross the Mill Creek Valley included the Waldvogel Viaduct and the well-built Western Hills Viaduct [de]. Out of all structures built for the complex, the Western Hills Viaduct was considered only second to the terminal building in its design.
Construction on the terminal building itself began in August 1929, shortly before the Great Depression started. At the time, much of its site was used for yard tracks, a public dump, houses, grain silos, an ice warehouse, and a city park, Lincoln Park. The terminal company transformed the park, which had a sunken garden, lake and island, into the terminal's lush entrance drive. The Lincoln Park Grounds or Union Grounds was an adjacent baseball field, removed for installation of the terminal and plaza. The terminal company also bought multiple lots, many unoccupied, and altered or tore down many buildings in order to construct tracks, reportedly numbering 276. The project involved widening the streets around the station, in anticipation of increased traffic. Buildings were also demolished to widen the principal street, first known as Laurel Street, renamed Terminal Approach or Terminal Parkway in 1932, renamed Lincoln Park Drive by 1935, and given its current name, Ezzard Charles Drive, in 1976. Laurel Street Park was constructed along the street in 1931 in exchange for the loss of Lincoln Park. The park is now known simply as Laurel Park, potentially due to the street's name changing.
The cornerstone was laid on November 20, 1931, with Cincinnati mayor Russell Wilson laying mortar for it with a silver trowel. Construction was finished six months ahead of schedule, in March 1933 instead of September. The final cost of the project was \$41.5 million. The terminal was put into emergency operation on March 19, 1933, because of another Ohio River flood, which created the need for emergency supplies and workers, and forced the closure of four of the five existing Cincinnati stations. The five existing stations in Cincinnati were forced to close. The first train to utilize the station was Southern Railroad Engine 6455 on March 19, headed for Chattanooga, Tennessee.
The official opening of the station was on March 31, 1933, and Mayor Wilson dedicated the building, opening the doors ceremoniously with a gold key presented by the Union Terminal Company president H. A. Worcester. It was estimated that 50,000 people attended the event, including the architects, former mayor Murray Seasongood, Governor George White, chief engineer Henry M. Waite, and terminal company vice president George Dent Crabbs. The event included a public viewing of the terminal, a concert, and other ceremonial events, and was followed with a large public banquet at the Netherland Plaza's Hall of Mirrors. At this event, B&O director John J. Cornwell notably stated that passenger stations were declining in use, and that the building's completion came after its need had passed.
The terminal's opening prompted the abandonment of Cincinnati's five older train stations; four of the seven railroads already had rerouted their track to Union Terminal.
## Operation and decline
Union Terminal opened during the Great Depression, a time of decline in train travel. Its early years therefore experienced relatively low passenger traffic.
In 1937, another Ohio River flood affected the city for about a month, and river gauge levels peaked at 80 feet (24 m), the highest level in the city's history. The terminal was built to withstand the flooding and was relatively undamaged. The lower levels of the building flooded, though passenger spaces, tracks, and platforms remained above the water level. The streets around it were flooded, including Hopkins and Kenner streets and Freeman Avenue. At the flood's peak, the Southern Railway was still operating out of the terminal, utilizing generators for lights and switches. Three railroads closed service to Cincinnati, though they still operated their suburban stations. The C&O, L&N, and the Norfolk & Western had to stop all trains.
By 1939, local newspapers were already describing the station as a white elephant. It had a brief revival in the 1940s, because of World War II. During the war, the terminal acted as a regional center for the United Service Organizations (USO), providing recreational services to troops. Trains carrying soldiers would regularly stop at Union Terminal, and around August 1941, the Rookwood tea parlor began use as one of three USO centers in the terminal; it was used for reading books and magazines and writing letters. The terminal was planned to handle 17,000 passengers, though a world war was not envisioned. During the height of the war, the number of people traveling through the terminal averaged 34,000 per day.
Passenger traffic declined through the 1950s into the 1960s, quickly shifting as air travel became more affordable and the Interstate Highway System was developing. Construction of Interstate 75 in the 1950s, directly in front of the Union Terminal grounds, cut off the terminal and its surroundings from downtown Cincinnati. Train service decreased from 51 per day in 1953 to 24 per day in 1962. Thus beginning in the late 1950s the Union Terminal Company searched for other uses for the building, including offering to lease space to the city for \$1 per year. In June 1963, eight proposals for the space were made public: a railroad museum; transportation center for air, bus and rail lines; court building; convention center; Air Force museum; museum of science and industry; private industry; and a shopping center.
In 1968, the Cincinnati Science Center opened in Union Terminal. The museum installed its exhibits on the south side of the train concourse, allowing the north side to be used for rail passengers. Due to financial difficulties, the museum closed in 1970.
## Abandonment and partial demolition
Extensive restructuring took place in the railroad industry in the mid-to-late 20th century. Amtrak, the national rail service, was formed to acquire failing railroads as their ridership dropped. It took over most passenger service at Union Terminal in 1971, and cut back service to just two routes a day, both of which originated at the terminal–the Washington/Newport News-bound George Washington and the Chicago-bound James Whitcomb Riley. Those trains were subsequently integrated into a single long-distance Chicago-Washington/Newport News train, known as the George Washington eastbound and the James Whitcomb Riley westbound. However, due to the two trains having been inherited from separate railroads–the C&O and Penn Central, respectively–the merged train needed a half-hour delay to perform a slow turn on a balloon loop north of Union Terminal in order to face the train in the correct direction.
The two total trains, with fewer than 30 boardings and detrainings per day, did not even begin to justify such a large station. As a result, Union Terminal was scheduled to close in October 1972, after 18 months of Amtrak service. It would be the first major station Amtrak abandoned in favor of a new station. The terminal's fate was uncertain after its scheduled closure, spurring multiple efforts to bring the topic to public attention in mid-to-late October. The Save and Revive Union Terminal Committee, department of art history at the University of Cincinnati (UC), and the Cincinnati Art Museum backed several projects. Northwestern professor Carl W. Condit lectured on the stations of Cincinnati at UC, and the train concourse's large industrial murals were illuminated for public viewing on October 22 to 29. An exhibit at the Contemporary Arts Center showed original photographs, drawings, and slides pertaining to the terminal's artworks, while an exhibit at UC's student center showed proposals for the terminal's future.
By October 11, the Ohio Historical Society submitted a nomination for the terminal to the National Register of Historic Places. The society noted the emergency as its owner planned to demolish the terminal at the time, and noted that the building did not meet the 50-year standard for acceptance to the register. Nonetheless, the terminal was added to the National Register 20 days later. With Amtrak planning to abandon the station, the Union Terminal Company would be left owning an empty building, having no income, and significant debt. On October 26, it sold the train concourse, platforms, and rail yard to Southern Railway, which was expanding its freight operations. The railroad turned the passenger yard into a freight yard, and planned on removing the 450-foot (140 m) long passenger train concourse to allow for unimpeded use of double-height and piggyback train cars. The railway announced its plans and allowed interested parties time to remove the concourse's murals. On the same day as the sale, mayor Tom Luken announced a 23-person task force to preserve the terminal.
The last passenger train to depart the terminal was an eastbound George Washington, which left for Washington/Newport News on October 28. Amtrak opened a smaller station at River Road, less than a mile from Union Terminal, on the following day. Of the replacement, it was said "you can put the new station in the men's room of the old station" (the current Amtrak waiting room). The terminal was seen as far too costly for Amtrak. Besides the limited service and patronage, it had enormous heating and maintenance costs, taxes, and \$10 million in debentures due in 1974. The daily operating cost of River Road station was \$500 to \$1,000, while the terminal's daily cost was \$2,000 to \$3,000. The terminal was kept open to the public to attend showings at the Terminal Theater, which still held film classics during the period of closure.
Art historian Gabriel P. Weisberg largely attributes the work of University of Cincinnati graduate students in saving the terminal. Student reports, theses, newspaper editorials, and gallery exhibitions proved the significance of the terminal, at a time where many Cincinnati residents still viewed the building as a white elephant. In January 1973, the Revive Union Terminal Committee picketed a Southern Railway board member's house, the city commissioner refused to issue a wrecking permit for the terminal, and further public events were planned. At this time, the Contemporary Arts Center, Tangeman Art Gallery, and UC's Administration Building all were exhibiting art, architecture, artifacts, and works inspired by Union Terminal. An open house reopened the terminal for free public viewing on January 17. On May 15, 1973 the Cincinnati City Council's Urban Development and Planning Committee voted 3–1 in favor of designating Union Terminal for preservation as a local historic landmark, preventing Southern Railway from destroying the entire building. By September 1974, the Southern Railway tore down most of the train concourse. Before this, the city removed the fourteen Reiss mosaic murals depicting important Cincinnati industries; Besl Transfer Company transported and installed them at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. A grassroots campaign named "Save the Terminal" raised the \$400,000 needed to save the works, though it could not raise sufficient funds to save the map mural at the west wall of the concourse, which was destroyed.
## Further plans and mall development
Several plans were floated for reuse of the building in the 1970s, including a plan to locate a Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority transit hub and the School for Creative and Performing Arts in the building, but these did not materialize.
In August 1975, the City of Cincinnati purchased the remaining terminal building and its 15-acre property from the Union Terminal Company for \$1 million. Seeking tenants, they heard plans from three developers. The city government chose the Joseph Skilken Organization, a Columbus-based real estate developer. The company was run by Steve Skilken, its 27-year-old president. The Skilken Organization initially proposed "Oz" or the "Land of Oz", a shopping mall with an ice skating rink and bowling alley. The ice skating and bowling never materialized, but the shopping center's retail and restaurants began installation in 1978. The city offered a 30-year lease, at \$1 per year. Skilken invested about \$20 million in renovating the terminal, including repairing the fountains and clock, replacing windows, repainting the rotunda ceiling, professionally cleaning the interior murals, installing air conditioning, renovating the automobile ramps for pedestrian use, and resurfacing and adding additional parking lots, replacing park space.
In 1977, the terminal was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark.
On August 4, 1980, the mall had its opening celebration, with 40 tenants. At its peak, the mall had 7,800 to 8,000 visitors per day and 54 vendors. The recession of the early 1980s negatively affected the mall; interest rates quickly grew from 6 to 22 percent. In 1981, the first tenant moved out and by 1982 the number of tenants had fallen to 21. In August of that year, the Cincinnati Museum of Health, Science and Industry opened in the terminal. Oz closed in 1984, however, Loehmann's Department Store, located in the center of the rotunda, remained open until 1985. For several years, a weekend flea market was held on the taxi and bus ramps that ran under the rotunda.
## Museum operation and rail service
Beginning in the early 1980s, the Cincinnati Historical Society and Cincinnati Museum of Natural History were searching for larger spaces. Both had their origins in the early-mid 1800s, and the historical society was interested in creating a museum. The most favorable options in their studies were to join together in occupying space in Union Terminal. In May 1986, the voters of the surrounding county approved \$33 million in funding to transform the building into museum space. The state of Ohio provided \$8 million, the city provided \$3 million, while about 3,000 individuals, corporations, and foundations also donated to the effort. Talk show host and then-Cincinnati mayor Jerry Springer was one of the major proponents of saving the building and transforming it into a museum. The terminal's 200,000 square feet of underground space, then used as parking space, as well as its taxi and bus ramps, were renovated into exhibition space. The main concourse was restored, retail space was refurbished, and the theater was restored. The entrance to the train concourse was renovated into the Omnimax theater, and the men's lounge became Amtrak's waiting room and ticket counter.
In 1986, the Union Terminal Association (UTA) was created to facilitate long-term preservation of the terminal. The organization included community members and city and county officials. The UTA leased the building from the city and searched for tenants. The UTA joined the Historical Society and Museum of Natural History in creating the Heritage Center at Union Terminal.
The museum opened on November 10, 1990, though it had its "grand opening day" on November 2, 1991, with the two museum's first permanent exhibits there. The original members of the museum center were the Cincinnati Historical Society Library, Cincinnati History Museum, Cincinnati Museum of Natural History, and the Robert D. Lindner Family Omnimax Theater. The museum center opened with the largest display of robotic dinosaurs, the largest World War II commemorative exhibit, and one of fourteen Omnimax theaters in the United States. Museum center officials were unsure if people would travel to the new museums as predicted, though the center became the fourth-largest attraction in the area, behind the Cincinnati Reds, Kings Island, and the Cincinnati Zoo.
The museum center renovations also allowed Amtrak to restore service to Union Terminal via the tri-weekly Cardinal train–successor of the Riley and George Washington. Train service first returned to Union Terminal on July 29, 1991 with a Chicago-bound train. The renovations included the installation of the Grand E.M. Skinner Concert Organ. In 1995, the entities officially merged to create the Cincinnati Museum Center, also joined by the Cinergy Children's Museum in October 1998.
In 2004, the county again approved an operating levy for the building's operating costs and capital repairs. The Cincinnati Museum Center developed a master plan for restoring the terminal in 2007. This included a pilot project, Project 1, which focused on the southwest wing of the building. The project included replacing exterior walls and windows, repairing the structure, a new HVAC system, and conserving and restoring interior designs, including four dining rooms. The southwest wing's roof was also replaced with a green roof. The project demonstrated the use of sustainable technologies in restoration of historic buildings, while abiding by its alteration restrictions as a National Historic Landmark. It revealed difficulties in assessing whether sustainable conservation methods were allowable, and prompted the museum center to explore renewable energy for the entire site, without impacting architectural, cultural, or historical elements.
In 2009, county residents approved an extension of the 2004 levy for further repairs. The museum center hosted a workshop in 2011 to discuss and debate renovation issues, attended by people in sustainability, architecture, design, preservation, and other academic fields.
In June 2014, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named Union Terminal as one of the 11 most endangered historic places in the country due to deterioration.
## Renovation and reopening
From July 2016 until November 2018, the museum was shut down in order to complete a \$228 million renovation throughout the entire building, in addition to restoring numerous rooms original to the building. The renovation was approved by Hamilton County voters through an increased sales tax, bringing \$176 million, and was also funded by \$5 million in state grants, \$7.5 million in donations, and \$39 million in federal historic tax credits. It was the first full renovation of the building, after two smaller renovations that made the Land of Oz shopping center and the Cincinnati Museum Center operable.
Due to the building's flat roofs, water damage caused the walls and roofs to rot. Original plans called for leaving the Duke Energy Children's Museum and the Cincinnati History Museum open, but it was decided to shutter the entire building after water damage proved to be more extensive than previously thought. During the closure, items located in the museum were stored in the Geier Center, the museum's research and storage facility, and in various traveling exhibits across the country. Amtrak services moved to a temporary annex on Kenner Street, just north of Union Terminal.
The renovation included cleaning and repairing the building. The clock face, hands, and mechanism were removed and repaired, and the mosaic murals and canvas paintings were cleaned. One of the most significant projects was the replacement of the building's westernmost wall, built after the concourse was demolished. The wall was not braced properly, was not built to expand or contract with weather conditions, and was failing. The wall, 20 feet above ground, and 40 feet tall and 100 feet wide, was difficult to replace, especially with the active freight line 15 feet behind it. Workers also dismantled the entire fountain and front plaza. The children's museum and mezzanine lie directly beneath the fountain, and the roof had experienced leaking. The waterproofing was as old as the terminal, and thus was replaced. The fountain was reinstalled with the same specifications, and a new concrete and terrazzo basin, and repolished brass fixtures. The plaza concrete was replaced, adding colored stripes as was original to the design.
In July 2018, Amtrak de-staffed 15 of its stations, including Cincinnati. Two Union Terminal ticket agents were replaced by a part-time contracted caretaker, and Amtrak eliminated the ability to check baggage, purchase tickets in-person, and for unaccompanied minors to board or disembark in Cincinnati. Since the completion of the renovation project, the station remains without dedicated staff, and all tickets to and from Cincinnati must be purchased in advance; there are no Quik-Trak ticket kiosks. Baggage service is self-serve; passengers can check bags trainside after obtaining baggage checking supplies in the station and attaching them to their baggage. In May 2020, following a new law passed by Congress, Amtrak began the hiring process for new CUT station agents, along with those for other stations cut in 2018.
The building and museum center had their reopening ceremony on November 17, 2018. The terminal expanded its foodservice contract from 2014 for operation of three dining rooms on the main concourse, two on the lower level, a retail shop, and other rotating operations. The main level operation Cup and Pint now serves pizzas, coffee, and draft beer, while Nourish 513 serves sandwiches, salads, and fast food. The Rookwood Tea Room reopened as a Graeter's location. In January 2019, the terminal gained another museum as a tenant, the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust and Humanity Center, in the former space of the History Library. |
26,675,803 | Professor Popper's Problem | 1,171,966,376 | 1975 British children's science fiction comedy film | [
"1970s British films",
"1970s English-language films",
"1970s children's comedy films",
"1970s science fiction comedy films",
"1975 films",
"British children's comedy films",
"British science fiction comedy films",
"Children's Film Foundation",
"Children's science fiction films",
"Film serials",
"Films directed by Gerry O'Hara",
"Films set in London",
"Films set in schools",
"Films shot at EMI-Elstree Studios",
"Mad scientist films"
]
| Professor Popper's Problem is a 1975 British children's science fiction comedy film directed by Gerry O'Hara, starring Charlie Drake in the titular role. Featuring a number of child actors, Todd Carty, Milo O'Shea, and Sydney Bromley also appear. The serial picture was produced for the Children's Film Foundation (CFF) by Roy Simpson of Mersey Film Productions, presenting a screenplay by Leo Maguire and soundtrack by Kenneth V. Jones. The story concerns an eccentric science teacher named Professor P. Popper, miniaturised with a group of pupils after accidentally consuming shrinking pills. A student apart from the group volunteers her help, as, separately, does a colleague of Popper's. As they search for an antidote, Popper and his entourage must see off multiple dangers, including criminals determined to steal his shrinking formula.
Filmed at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire, Professor Popper's Problem was serialised into six 14 to 16 minute episodes for television viewing. Akin to other CFF features of the 1970s, the film broke with the Foundation's earlier releases by accurately representing aspects of working-class Britain, albeit through a science fiction narrative. Though restricted by a small budget, props and special effects defined the film; in this respect, O'Hara praised Tom Howard for his work on the picture. Reviews have been few and mixed from its release on 1 January 1975. Upon immediate showings, the film was characterised as unpretentious entertainment. Conversely, the picture has since been appraised as a low-point in Drake's career, simply by his agreeing to act in something perceived as so small. These criticisms have nevertheless been matched by retrospective assessments approving of the film's realistic depictions of 1970s Britain, in addition to Drake's subsequent theatrical roles.
## Plot
In a British suburban community, groundskeeper Crickle prepares for a school's re-opening after the holidays. One of its staff, Professor P. Popper, is a diminutive and bespectacled science teacher who is extremely eccentric. Amid brewing potions and a crowded chalkboard, he is accompanied in his jumbled workspace by a talking bird and an affectionate dog. Popper exhibits forgetful and repetitive behaviours, misremembering names and intermittently singing a ditty about Napoleon. In an elaborate bid to eradicate world hunger, he invents a shrinking powder, which when sprayed on vast food stocks facilitates a size reduction that allows for transportation by a single airplane. An antidote would also be provided, restoring the aid to its original dimensions once deployed. Popper and his pupil protégé, Simon, accidentally consume the powder in pill-form after it finds its way into their mugs of tea. A wider group of Popper's student assistants—Terry, Angus, Carol, and Peter—mistakenly join the pair in their predicament after searching for them. However, Liz, another of the Professor's tutees, avoids the fate of her classmates and is consequently tasked with helping them in their plight. Initially confined to Popper's chaotic laboratory, the affected group are now two inches tall, each the size of an insect. Their environment is greatly altered as a result; a book is now like a cliff edge, the rotary dial resembles a carousel, pennies are the size of hula hoops and a cat's paw is as large as a Ford Transit.
Unconcerned, the Professor is happy to sing to his students about the benefits of their newfound scale. Popper's colleague, Professor Crabbit (dressed in the attire of Sherlock Holmes), meanwhile sets about investigating what has happened to the cohort, arousing the suspicion of local man Rollins. Having misplaced the antidote to his formula, Popper's shrinking powder further becomes a prime target of theft. Covert Russian operatives bent on industrial espionage and a London gang, the latter sporting two crooks sent to miniaturise the Bank of England and sell it to the United States in a suitcase, initiate their pursuits. The danger is eventually supplemented by the Professor's group being chased by an enlarged tarantula, as well as a perilous roller skate ride through the capital. Still, the formula is protected by Popper through this trepidation, and all the villains' plans are ultimately thwarted. Having finally discovered an antidote, normality resumes for the schoolchildren and their teacher.
## Cast
The film's cast comprises:
- Charlie Drake as Professor P. Popper
- Adam Richens as Simon
- Debra Collins as Liz
- Philip da Costa as Terry
- Todd Carty as Angus
- Karen Saunders as Carol
- Eric Holloway as Peter
- Milo O'Shea as Professor Crabitt
- Sydney Bromley as Crickle
- Richard Caldicot as headmaster
- Alan Curtis as Grainger
- Leo Maguire as Rollins
- Keith Smith as Police Constable Whitby
- Ruth Kettlewell as meter maid
## Production
### Development and direction
Filmed in 1974 at Elstree Studios in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, Professor Popper's Problem was serialised into six colour episodes suitable for television. Eventually bought by the BBC in 1984, each run between 14 and 16 minutes for a total viewing time of 91 minutes. The picture was made by Mersey Film Productions for the Children's Film Foundation (CFF), with Roy Simpson as producer, Roy Parkinson as associate producer, and Peter Woodley as production executive. Assisted by David Bracknell, Gerry O'Hara directed, likely re-hired by the CFF owing to his success on their earlier project Paganini Strikes Again (1973). One of O'Hara's chief responsibilities was to oversee Charlie Drake's well-being throughout production, recalling a daily routine that involved driving to Elstree and back from Drake's flat near Leicester Square and lunching with him. The picture turned out to be the entertainer's last, as well as the only one which he did not write or co-write while holding a major role. Released on 1 January 1975, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) deemed the film "Universal" (U) and thus suitable for all viewers. The Motion Picture Association's (MPA) film rating system, however, has not yet classified the film, and it is therefore listed as Not Rated (NR).
### Screenplay and visuals
The screenplay was written by Leo Maguire, based on an original story by Richard Loncraine. Maguire previously worked with producer Simpson on CFF film Kadoyng (1972), "demonstrating the Foundation's preference for familiar faces". Ian Millsted of Infinity magazine notes that CFF screenplays of the 1970s—including Professor Popper's Problem—remedied critiques of its features of the 1950s and 60s, which suggested "that they seemed to be set on an alien world where all the children spoke the Queen’s English [...], behaved with impeccable morals and were routinely smarter than any adult". According to Millsted, this was achieved by deploying "noticeably more regional accents and working class characters", relegating science-fiction elements to jovial plot points rather than intrinsic storylines. Notwithstanding, "gadgets and gimmicks became the order of the day". In this Professor Popper's Problem was typical, using special effects by Tom Howard and deliberately oversized props on a "very small budget" of £250,000. O'Hara remarked that many props were borrowed since "nobody minded really as it was a CFF film", also praising Howard, "who was really talented at making the money go a long way". Edited by James Needs, Ken Hodges was responsible for the picture's photography, joined by George Provis as art director and Tony Hart on title design.
### Music
The film's music was organised by Kenneth V. Jones, providing audio alongside sound recorder Laurie Clarkson. Drake sang the film's theme, "I'm Big Enough for Me", opined by writers Ian Jones and Graham Kibble-White to be a quintessential "celebrity sing-a-long [...] the blessing of a star-led knees up". The lead "affected his best nasal upper-class vibrato", they observe, "cementing an otherwise unremarkable theme in the heads of a generation of viewers". The song was also significant insofar as it became the B-side to Drake's track "You Never Know", released on 21 November 1975, notably featuring backing vocals by Peter Gabriel. Sandy Denny also sang a section in this latter tune, with instrumentals by Robert Fripp, Keith Tippett, Phil Collins, and Percy Jones.
## Response
Leading up to release, Associated Television's Clapperboard, a children's cinema program, covered the film in November 1974. This was followed in 1975 by two appearances on BBC quiz show Screen Test. Most journalistic assessments in the 1970s and 80s presented it as an amiable comedy without profundity. Sidney Williams, Show Business Reporter for the Daily Mirror in May 1974, wrote that "[Drake] expresses the modest hope that audiences will be reduced only to laughter. In short, it's fun". Come February 1980, the pseudonymous "Professor Bullseye" had a similar view in the Acton Gazette & Post, simply recommending the film as "good entertainment". In a balanced retrospective review, AllMovie's Sandra Brennan awarded Professor Popper's Problem 2.5/5 stars without extra comment.
More modern reviews have been somewhat sceptical. TV Cream affords a cynical synopsis: "[Drake] notes a worrying hole in his pension plan and promptly accedes to star in this tatty affair". Indeed, most commentary on the picture has focused on the seemingly waning career of Drake as a result of his participation. A popular entertainer in Britain throughout the 1960s, he was perhaps best known for starring in the original run of ITV series The Worker (1965–70). Williams noted accordingly that Professor Popper's Problem was, while a "minor peak" for Drake, "without question the smallest thing he ha[d] ever done". Media historians Brian McFarlane and Anthony Slide, listing the feature, disapprove of Drake's venture into films more generally: "short of stature, outrageous of demeanour and bizarre of accent, he is clearly an acquired taste; cinema audiences never acquired it in great numbers".
Conversely, in an interview piece with Drake issued in April 1984, the Liverpool Echo opined the supposed triviality of the film to be a "red herring", the actor having targeted more theatrical roles. Drake nonetheless defended the movie's sincerity: "Popper is a serious character, not really a comedy man. It is a serious subject, although in a comedy setting". In this vein, film scholar Robert Shail favours Professor Popper's Problem for compensating unsubtle humour with "settings around council estates and comprehensive schools [that] were often realistically observed and facilitated audience identification", also commending the inclusion of "authentic working-class accents". |
4,891,050 | Worle railway station | 1,126,462,956 | Railway station in Weston-super-Mare, England | [
"DfT Category F1 stations",
"Former Great Western Railway stations",
"Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1922",
"Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1884",
"Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1990",
"Railway stations in Weston-super-Mare",
"Railway stations opened by British Rail",
"Railway stations served by Great Western Railway"
]
| Worle railway station, on the Bristol to Exeter line, serves the Worle, West Wick and St Georges suburbs of Weston-super-Mare in North Somerset, England. It is 16 miles (26 km) west of Bristol Temple Meads railway station, and 134 miles (216 km) from London Paddington. Its three-letter station code is WOR. It was opened in 1990 by British Rail. The station, which has two platforms, is managed by Great Western Railway, the seventh company to be responsible for the station, and the third franchise since privatisation in 1997. They provide all train services at the station, mainly half hourly services between Severn Beach and Weston-super-Mare, and between Cardiff Central and Taunton. The station's car park was significantly expanded in 2013.
The line through Worle is not electrified, but there is significant local support for it to be electrified as part of the 21st-century modernisation of the Great Western Main Line, partly motivated by worries that unless the line is electrified, Weston-super-Mare will lose direct services to London.
## Description
Worle railway station is located in the east of Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset serving the suburbs of Worle, West Wick and St Georges. The surrounding area is primarily residential, but with several commercial developments, including the Worle Parkway office development next to the station. The station is located just off the B3440 Bristol Road, near the M5 motorway junction 21 and the A370. There is a car park on the north, east and south sides of the station. The station is on the Bristol to Exeter line, 16 miles 11 chains (16.14 mi; 26.0 km) from Bristol Temple Meads and 134 miles 42 chains (134.53 mi; 216.5 km) from London Paddington (via Chippenham). It is the fifth station along the line from Bristol Temple Meads. The station is oriented along an axis at 57 degrees to the meridian.
There are two platforms, on either side of the two tracks through the station. The southern platform, platform 1, serves westbound trains (towards Weston-super-Mare and Taunton); the northern platform, platform 2, serves eastbound trains (towards Bristol). Both platforms are 100 metres (110 yd) long. The line through the station has a speed limit of 100 miles per hour (160 km/h), and is not electrified. Access between the platforms is via an open footbridge with long, sloped ramps for step-free access. Ticket machines are available, and a small ticket office operates during the weekday morning peak, but the station is otherwise unstaffed. Help points are provided, allowing travellers to ask questions of a call centre. There are metal and glass waiting shelters on both platforms – two on the eastbound platform and one on the westbound. Most recently, improved lighting and CCTV has been provided and for the first time since construction, electronic train arrival boards with automated voice announcements have been provided on both platforms and also a silent, less detailed digital arrivals / departures board adjacent to the ticket office.
Forty-nine chains (0.61 mi; 0.99 km) west of the station is Worle Junction, where the single-track loop line to Weston-super-Mare diverges from the main line towards Taunton. The next station west along the loop is Weston Milton, the next station west on the main line is Highbridge & Burnham. The next station east of Worle is Yatton.
## Services
The station is managed by Great Western Railway, who operate all rail services from the station. The basic service consists of two trains in each direction per hour: one is the Severn Beach to Weston-super-Mare service, calling at all stations; the second is the faster Cardiff Central to Taunton service, non-stop between Bristol Temple Meads and Nailsea & Backwell, Worle and Weston-super-Mare. Some westbound services are extended to Exeter St Davids or Plymouth. The typical journey time to Bristol Temple Meads is 25 minutes, to Weston-super-Mare is 8 minutes.
Services between London Paddington and Weston-super-Mare call at Worle in the early morning and evening, running non-stop between Bristol Temple Meads and Nailsea & Backwell. From Monday to Friday there are four morning services and one evening service to London, with seven services from London, all in the evening. One service from London is extended to Taunton, and another to Penzance. Saturday sees two services to London, all in the morning, and three services from London, all in the evening – one is extended to Exeter St Davids, another to Plymouth. There are five services to and six from London on Sundays, spread throughout the day, with one service extended to Taunton and another to Exeter. All trains call at Weston-super-Mare westbound, and at Yatton and Nailsea & Backwell, but not all stop at Weston Milton. The typical journey time to London is 2 hours 15 minutes.
The local services described above are formed using , , and diesel multiple-unit trains. Services to and from London are formed of Class 800s, which are longer than the station, so passengers in the front carriages have to move to a different carriage to get out. Passengers are prevented from getting out onto the tracks by a selective door-opening system.
CrossCountry services pass through the station throughout the day, operating services between Cornwall and Scotland, but do not stop. Occasional Great Western Railway intercity services between London and Weston-super-Mare or Taunton and Exeter also pass through non-stop.
\|- style="text-align: center;" \| rowspan="4" \| Yatton \| rowspan="4" style="background:#;" \| \| Great Western Railway
(Severn Beach – Weston-super-Mare) \| rowspan="4" style="background:#;" \| \| Weston Milton \|- style="text-align: center;" \| Great Western Railway
(Cardiff Central – Penzance) \| Weston-super-Mare \|- style="text-align: center;" \| rowspan="2" \| Great Western Railway
(London Paddington – Taunton) \| Weston Milton \|- style="text-align: center;" \| Weston-super-Mare
## History
The line through Worle saw its first use on 14 June 1841, when the first section of the Bristol and Exeter Railway's (B&ER) main line between Bristol and Bridgwater was opened. The line, engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was built as broad-gauge but was reconstructed as a mixed-gauge line to accommodate local -gauge traffic by 1 June 1875. Services were operated by the Great Western Railway (GWR) on behalf of the B&ER until 1 May 1849. The B&ER then took over its own workings until the company was amalgamated into the GWR on 1 January 1876. Broad-gauge trains ceased operation on 20 May 1892. When the railways were nationalised by the Transport Act 1947, the line became part of the Western Region of British Railways.
The modern Worle railway station is the fourth station to serve Worle. The first station, 47 chains (0.59 mi; 0.95 km) east of the modern station, was opened in 1841 as Banwell and was known as Worle from 1869 to 1884, then as Puxton and Worle from 1922 until closure in 1964. From 1884 to 1922, there was a station called Worle on the loop line to Weston-super-Mare, 60 chains (0.75 mi; 1.2 km) west of the modern station. There was also a station on the nearby Weston, Clevedon and Portishead Light Railway, which was known as Worle from 1897 to 1913, then as Worle (Moor Lane) until 1917, and as Worle Town until closure in 1940.
The station at Worle was developed as a joint initiative between British Rail and Avon County Council. It cost £700,000 and was built using lightweight construction materials due to being sited on marshy ground. The station was opened on 24 September 1990 by Councillor Betty Perry, the chair of Avon Council. The first train was a westbound Regional Railways service, operated by Sprinter DMU 150270. All services were local ones – no scheduled intercity services would call at Worle until 2007.
Upon the privatisation of British Rail in 1997, services were franchised to Wales & West, which was in turn succeeded in 2001 by Wessex Trains, an arm of National Express. The Wessex franchise was amalgamated with the Great Western franchise into the Greater Western franchise from 2006, and responsibility passed to First Great Western, a subsidiary company of FirstGroup, which was later rebranded Great Western Railway. Great Western Railway services to and from London Paddington started calling at Worle in 2007. Due to the trains being longer than the platforms, a selective door opening system was used to prevent passengers opening doors which were not adjacent to the platform.
In 2012, plans to enhance the station's facilities were approved by the Department for Transport. The works, part of a large transport scheme called the Weston Package, included construction of a new council run car park containing 320 spaces on the South side of the station, better facilities for cyclists and motorcyclists, and a bus interchange. A bus link to the nearby Queensway retail park was also included in the scheme. The expansion took over unused land to the east and south of the station, and required the removal of slowworms and grass snakes to a nature reserve in Cheddar. The work, which started in April 2013, was completed later the same year with the new car park opening on 3 September 2013.
Worle has had a large number of incidents of railway vandalism and antisocial behaviour, and the stretch of line through Worle is considered one of the most vandalised in the United Kingdom – obstructions have been left on the line and stones have being thrown at railway staff. There have been several incidents of train guards being attacked by passengers who refused to pay their fares, including one incident where the guard was dragged from the train and knocked to the ground. Vandals have also damaged the station's ticket machines, attacked passengers and slashed the tyres of cars parked at the station.
## Future
Worle is on the Weston-super-Mare/Yate corridor, one of the main axes of the Greater Bristol Metro, a rail transport plan which aims to enhance transport capacity in the Bristol area. The group Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways supports the electrification of the line through Nailsea & Backwell, as does MP for Weston-super-Mare John Penrose. |
38,696,653 | Brainard Homestead State Park | 1,168,171,092 | State park in Middlesex County, Connecticut | [
"East Haddam, Connecticut",
"Parks in Middlesex County, Connecticut",
"State parks of Connecticut"
]
| Brainard Homestead State Park, and alternatively Brainerd Homestead State Park, is a 25-acre (10 ha) undeveloped state park located in the town of East Haddam, Connecticut, United States. A farmhouse was built on the site by Timothy Green in 1842 before being purchased by Selden Tyler Brainerd in March 1854. The ownership of the property was willed to Geraldine W. Hayden. Upon her death in 1929, the property was willed to the State of Connecticut with the condition that William Brainerd be able to use the property for life. William Brainerd died in 1936, the buildings were later dismantled, but the Brainard Homestead State Park was established prior to May 1, 1932. The undeveloped park is said to offer bird watching, sports fields and hiking according to the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. As of 2012, the fields were noted to be farmed and there were no established trails for hiking.
## History
The known history of Brainard Homestead State Park begins in 1842 when Timothy Green constructed a farmhouse on the property. Green never lived in the farmhouse, but leased it to Jonathan Morgan. In March 1854, the property was sold to Selden Tyler Brainerd. Brainerd with his wife, Harriet, raised five children in the 30 feet (9.1 m) by 25 feet (7.6 m) farmhouse. At some point ownership of the property was transferred to Geraldine W. Hayden in a will. In March 1929, Hayden died and willed the property to the State of Connecticut so that the homestead could be utilized as a memorial to her grandfather. A report by the Connecticut State Park and Forest Commission noted that it was not an ideal situation due to the concerns about identifying a proposed site in advance and establishing the adaptability of the land for public use. The report also notes that Mrs. Hayden was unknown to the commissioners and despite the land having significant liabilities was waiting to become a state park by 1930. The delay in its transformation stemmed from a request that William Brainerd, one of Selden and Harriet's sons, have life use of the property. William Brainerd died in 1936 and the terms of the will were completed. At a later date, the State of Connecticut dismantled the buildings and established the Brainard Homestead State Park.
Land use records show that two fields on the farm were once leased and used by Mortimer Gelston, but the fields surrounding or on the Brainard Homestead State Park continue to be actively farmed. Leary writes that the park preserves the Brainard Homestead and notes that the foundations and cellar pits are visible and provides a picture of the fieldstone foundation.
The establishment date of the Brainard Homestead State Park is unknown, but it predates the death of William Brainard. The 1934 State of Connecticut Register and Manual lists the Brainard Homestead State Park as the 39th State Park and consists of 25 acres. Though it is unspecific, the 1932 State of Connecticut Register and Manual notes that there were 40 state parks as of May 1, 1932.
## Activities
The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection website highlights three activities for Brainard Homestead State Park: bird watching, field sports and hiking. In 2004, Leary noted that the open fields were perfect for field sports and picnics. Use of field for sports seem to have ended soon after because a geocache placed within Brainard Homestead State Park and referenced on the Geocaching website notes that the fields were used for farming. In 2012, the "A to Z of CT State Parks" Tumblr website noted that the fields were unusable and were currently being farmed. The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection website continues to note the park's "field sports" use as of 2014. Also "The A to Z of CT State Parks" states that there were no established trails for hiking. Leary writes that there are limited views of the Connecticut River in winter, but the foliage in summer "precludes much of a vista." Al Braden writes in his book that the park provides access to the Salmon River with parking, boat ramp and docks, but this is the "Salmon River Boat Launch East Haddam" and not a part of the state park. |
27,119 | Silver | 1,173,491,923 | null | [
"Chemical elements",
"Chemical elements with face-centered cubic structure",
"Cubic minerals",
"E-number additives",
"Electrical conductors",
"Minerals in space group 225",
"Native element minerals",
"Noble metals",
"Precious metals",
"Silver",
"Transition metals"
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| Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (, derived from the Proto-Indo-European h2erǵ 'shiny, white') and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. The metal is found in the Earth's crust in the pure, free elemental form ("native silver"), as an alloy with gold and other metals, and in minerals such as argentite and chlorargyrite. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, and zinc refining.
Silver has long been valued as a precious metal. Silver metal is used in many bullion coins, sometimes alongside gold: while it is more abundant than gold, it is much less abundant as a native metal. Its purity is typically measured on a per-mille basis; a 94%-pure alloy is described as "0.940 fine". As one of the seven metals of antiquity, silver has had an enduring role in most human cultures.
Other than in currency and as an investment medium (coins and bullion), silver is used in solar panels, water filtration, jewellery, ornaments, high-value tableware and utensils (hence the term "silverware"), in electrical contacts and conductors, in specialized mirrors, window coatings, in catalysis of chemical reactions, as a colorant in stained glass, and in specialized confectionery. Its compounds are used in photographic and X-ray film. Dilute solutions of silver nitrate and other silver compounds are used as disinfectants and microbiocides (oligodynamic effect), added to bandages, wound-dressings, catheters, and other medical instruments.
## Characteristics
Silver is similar in its physical and chemical properties to its two vertical neighbours in group 11 of the periodic table: copper, and gold. Its 47 electrons are arranged in the configuration [Kr]4d<sup>10</sup>5s<sup>1</sup>, similarly to copper ([Ar]3d<sup>10</sup>4s<sup>1</sup>) and gold ([Xe]4f<sup>14</sup>5d<sup>10</sup>6s<sup>1</sup>); group 11 is one of the few groups in the d-block which has a completely consistent set of electron configurations. This distinctive electron configuration, with a single electron in the highest occupied s subshell over a filled d subshell, accounts for many of the singular properties of metallic silver.
Silver is a relatively soft and extremely ductile and malleable transition metal, though it is slightly less malleable than gold. Silver crystallizes in a face-centered cubic lattice with bulk coordination number 12, where only the single 5s electron is delocalized, similarly to copper and gold. Unlike metals with incomplete d-shells, metallic bonds in silver are lacking a covalent character and are relatively weak. This observation explains the low hardness and high ductility of single crystals of silver.
Silver has a brilliant, white, metallic luster that can take a high polish, and which is so characteristic that the name of the metal itself has become a colour name. Protected silver has greater optical reflectivity than aluminium at all wavelengths longer than \~450 nm. At wavelengths shorter than 450 nm, silver's reflectivity is inferior to that of aluminium and drops to zero near 310 nm.
Very high electrical and thermal conductivity are common to the elements in group 11, because their single s electron is free and does not interact with the filled d subshell, as such interactions (which occur in the preceding transition metals) lower electron mobility. The thermal conductivity of silver is among the highest of all materials, although the thermal conductivity of carbon (in the diamond allotrope) and superfluid helium-4 are higher. The electrical conductivity of silver is the highest of all metals, greater even than copper. Silver also has the lowest contact resistance of any metal. Silver is rarely used for its electrical conductivity, due to its high cost, although an exception is in radio-frequency engineering, particularly at VHF and higher frequencies where silver plating improves electrical conductivity because those currents tend to flow on the surface of conductors rather than through the interior. During World War II in the US, tons of silver were used for the electromagnets in calutrons for enriching uranium, mainly because of the wartime shortage of copper.
Silver readily forms alloys with copper, gold, and zinc. Zinc-silver alloys with low zinc concentration may be considered as face-centred cubic solid solutions of zinc in silver, as the structure of the silver is largely unchanged while the electron concentration rises as more zinc is added. Increasing the electron concentration further leads to body-centred cubic (electron concentration 1.5), complex cubic (1.615), and hexagonal close-packed phases (1.75).
### Isotopes
Naturally occurring silver is composed of two stable isotopes, <sup>107</sup>Ag and <sup>109</sup>Ag, with <sup>107</sup>Ag being slightly more abundant (51.839% natural abundance). This almost equal abundance is rare in the periodic table. The atomic weight is 107.8682(2) u; this value is very important because of the importance of silver compounds, particularly halides, in gravimetric analysis. Both isotopes of silver are produced in stars via the s-process (slow neutron capture), as well as in supernovas via the r-process (rapid neutron capture).
Twenty-eight radioisotopes have been characterized, the most stable being <sup>105</sup>Ag with a half-life of 41.29 days, <sup>111</sup>Ag with a half-life of 7.45 days, and <sup>112</sup>Ag with a half-life of 3.13 hours. Silver has numerous nuclear isomers, the most stable being <sup>108m</sup>Ag (t<sub>1/2</sub> = 418 years), <sup>110m</sup>Ag (t<sub>1/2</sub> = 249.79 days) and <sup>106m</sup>Ag (t<sub>1/2</sub> = 8.28 days). All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives of less than an hour, and the majority of these have half-lives of less than three minutes.
Isotopes of silver range in relative atomic mass from 92.950 u (<sup>93</sup>Ag) to 129.950 u (<sup>130</sup>Ag); the primary decay mode before the most abundant stable isotope, <sup>107</sup>Ag, is electron capture and the primary mode after is beta decay. The primary decay products before <sup>107</sup>Ag are palladium (element 46) isotopes, and the primary products after are cadmium (element 48) isotopes.
The palladium isotope <sup>107</sup>Pd decays by beta emission to <sup>107</sup>Ag with a half-life of 6.5 million years. Iron meteorites are the only objects with a high-enough palladium-to-silver ratio to yield measurable variations in <sup>107</sup>Ag abundance. Radiogenic <sup>107</sup>Ag was first discovered in the Santa Clara meteorite in 1978. <sup>107</sup>Pd–<sup>107</sup>Ag correlations observed in bodies that have clearly been melted since the accretion of the Solar System must reflect the presence of unstable nuclides in the early Solar System.
## Chemistry
Silver is a rather unreactive metal. This is because its filled 4d shell is not very effective in shielding the electrostatic forces of attraction from the nucleus to the outermost 5s electron, and hence silver is near the bottom of the electrochemical series (E<sup>0</sup>(Ag<sup>+</sup>/Ag) = +0.799 V). In group 11, silver has the lowest first ionization energy (showing the instability of the 5s orbital), but has higher second and third ionization energies than copper and gold (showing the stability of the 4d orbitals), so that the chemistry of silver is predominantly that of the +1 oxidation state, reflecting the increasingly limited range of oxidation states along the transition series as the d-orbitals fill and stabilize. Unlike copper, for which the larger hydration energy of Cu<sup>2+</sup> as compared to Cu<sup>+</sup> is the reason why the former is the more stable in aqueous solution and solids despite lacking the stable filled d-subshell of the latter, with silver this effect is swamped by its larger second ionisation energy. Hence, Ag<sup>+</sup> is the stable species in aqueous solution and solids, with Ag<sup>2+</sup> being much less stable as it oxidizes water.
Most silver compounds have significant covalent character due to the small size and high first ionization energy (730.8 kJ/mol) of silver. Furthermore, silver's Pauling electronegativity of 1.93 is higher than that of lead (1.87), and its electron affinity of 125.6 kJ/mol is much higher than that of hydrogen (72.8 kJ/mol) and not much less than that of oxygen (141.0 kJ/mol). Due to its full d-subshell, silver in its main +1 oxidation state exhibits relatively few properties of the transition metals proper from groups 4 to 10, forming rather unstable organometallic compounds, forming linear complexes showing very low coordination numbers like 2, and forming an amphoteric oxide as well as Zintl phases like the post-transition metals. Unlike the preceding transition metals, the +1 oxidation state of silver is stable even in the absence of π-acceptor ligands.
Silver does not react with air, even at red heat, and thus was considered by alchemists as a noble metal, along with gold. Its reactivity is intermediate between that of copper (which forms copper(I) oxide when heated in air to red heat) and gold. Like copper, silver reacts with sulfur and its compounds; in their presence, silver tarnishes in air to form the black silver sulfide (copper forms the green sulfate instead, while gold does not react). Unlike copper, silver will not react with the halogens, with the exception of fluorine gas, with which it forms the difluoride. While silver is not attacked by non-oxidizing acids, the metal dissolves readily in hot concentrated sulfuric acid, as well as dilute or concentrated nitric acid. In the presence of air, and especially in the presence of hydrogen peroxide, silver dissolves readily in aqueous solutions of cyanide.
The three main forms of deterioration in historical silver artifacts are tarnishing, formation of silver chloride due to long-term immersion in salt water, as well as reaction with nitrate ions or oxygen. Fresh silver chloride is pale yellow, becoming purplish on exposure to light; it projects slightly from the surface of the artifact or coin. The precipitation of copper in ancient silver can be used to date artifacts, as copper is nearly always a constituent of silver alloys.
Silver metal is attacked by strong oxidizers such as potassium permanganate (KMnO
<sub>4</sub>) and potassium dichromate (K
<sub>2</sub>Cr
<sub>2</sub>O
<sub>7</sub>), and in the presence of potassium bromide (KBr). These compounds are used in photography to bleach silver images, converting them to silver bromide that can either be fixed with thiosulfate or redeveloped to intensify the original image. Silver forms cyanide complexes (silver cyanide) that are soluble in water in the presence of an excess of cyanide ions. Silver cyanide solutions are used in electroplating of silver.
The common oxidation states of silver are (in order of commonness): +1 (the most stable state; for example, silver nitrate, AgNO<sub>3</sub>); +2 (highly oxidising; for example, silver(II) fluoride, AgF<sub>2</sub>); and even very rarely +3 (extreme oxidising; for example, potassium tetrafluoroargentate(III), KAgF<sub>4</sub>). The +3 state requires very strong oxidising agents to attain, such as fluorine or peroxodisulfate, and some silver(III) compounds react with atmospheric moisture and attack glass. Indeed, silver(III) fluoride is usually obtained by reacting silver or silver monofluoride with the strongest known oxidizing agent, krypton difluoride.
## Compounds
### Oxides and chalcogenides
Silver and gold have rather low chemical affinities for oxygen, lower than copper, and it is therefore expected that silver oxides are thermally quite unstable. Soluble silver(I) salts precipitate dark-brown silver(I) oxide, Ag<sub>2</sub>O, upon the addition of alkali. (The hydroxide AgOH exists only in solution; otherwise it spontaneously decomposes to the oxide.) Silver(I) oxide is very easily reduced to metallic silver, and decomposes to silver and oxygen above 160 °C. This and other silver(I) compounds may be oxidized by the strong oxidizing agent peroxodisulfate to black AgO, a mixed silver(I,III) oxide of formula Ag<sup>I</sup>Ag<sup>III</sup>O<sub>2</sub>. Some other mixed oxides with silver in non-integral oxidation states, namely Ag<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> and Ag<sub>3</sub>O<sub>4</sub>, are also known, as is Ag<sub>3</sub>O which behaves as a metallic conductor.
Silver(I) sulfide, Ag<sub>2</sub>S, is very readily formed from its constituent elements and is the cause of the black tarnish on some old silver objects. It may also be formed from the reaction of hydrogen sulfide with silver metal or aqueous Ag<sup>+</sup> ions. Many non-stoichiometric selenides and tellurides are known; in particular, AgTe<sub>\~3</sub> is a low-temperature superconductor.
### Halides
The only known dihalide of silver is the difluoride, AgF<sub>2</sub>, which can be obtained from the elements under heat. A strong yet thermally stable and therefore safe fluorinating agent, silver(II) fluoride is often used to synthesize hydrofluorocarbons.
In stark contrast to this, all four silver(I) halides are known. The fluoride, chloride, and bromide have the sodium chloride structure, but the iodide has three known stable forms at different temperatures; that at room temperature is the cubic zinc blende structure. They can all be obtained by the direct reaction of their respective elements. As the halogen group is descended, the silver halide gains more and more covalent character, solubility decreases, and the color changes from the white chloride to the yellow iodide as the energy required for ligand-metal charge transfer (X<sup>−</sup>Ag<sup>+</sup> → XAg) decreases. The fluoride is anomalous, as the fluoride ion is so small that it has a considerable solvation energy and hence is highly water-soluble and forms di- and tetrahydrates. The other three silver halides are highly insoluble in aqueous solutions and are very commonly used in gravimetric analytical methods. All four are photosensitive (though the monofluoride is so only to ultraviolet light), especially the bromide and iodide which photodecompose to silver metal, and thus were used in traditional photography. The reaction involved is:
X<sup>−</sup> + hν → X + e<sup>−</sup> (excitation of the halide ion, which gives up its extra electron into the conduction band)
Ag<sup>+</sup> + e<sup>−</sup> → Ag (liberation of a silver ion, which gains an electron to become a silver atom)
The process is not reversible because the silver atom liberated is typically found at a crystal defect or an impurity site, so that the electron's energy is lowered enough that it is "trapped".
### Other inorganic compounds
White silver nitrate, AgNO<sub>3</sub>, is a versatile precursor to many other silver compounds, especially the halides, and is much less sensitive to light. It was once called lunar caustic because silver was called luna by the ancient alchemists, who believed that silver was associated with the Moon. It is often used for gravimetric analysis, exploiting the insolubility of the heavier silver halides which it is a common precursor to. Silver nitrate is used in many ways in organic synthesis, e.g. for deprotection and oxidations. Ag<sup>+</sup> binds alkenes reversibly, and silver nitrate has been used to separate mixtures of alkenes by selective absorption. The resulting adduct can be decomposed with ammonia to release the free alkene.
Yellow silver carbonate, Ag<sub>2</sub>CO<sub>3</sub> can be easily prepared by reacting aqueous solutions of sodium carbonate with a deficiency of silver nitrate. Its principal use is for the production of silver powder for use in microelectronics. It is reduced with formaldehyde, producing silver free of alkali metals:
Ag<sub>2</sub>CO<sub>3</sub> + CH<sub>2</sub>O → 2 Ag + 2 CO<sub>2</sub> + H<sub>2</sub>
Silver carbonate is also used as a reagent in organic synthesis such as the Koenigs-Knorr reaction. In the Fétizon oxidation, silver carbonate on celite acts as an oxidising agent to form lactones from diols. It is also employed to convert alkyl bromides into alcohols.
Silver fulminate, AgCNO, a powerful, touch-sensitive explosive used in percussion caps, is made by reaction of silver metal with nitric acid in the presence of ethanol. Other dangerously explosive silver compounds are silver azide, AgN<sub>3</sub>, formed by reaction of silver nitrate with sodium azide, and silver acetylide, Ag<sub>2</sub>C<sub>2</sub>, formed when silver reacts with acetylene gas in ammonia solution. In its most characteristic reaction, silver azide decomposes explosively, releasing nitrogen gas: given the photosensitivity of silver salts, this behaviour may be induced by shining a light on its crystals.
2 AgN
<sub>3</sub> (s) → 3 N
<sub>2</sub> (g) + 2 Ag (s)
### Coordination compounds
Silver complexes tend to be similar to those of its lighter homologue copper. Silver(III) complexes tend to be rare and very easily reduced to the more stable lower oxidation states, though they are slightly more stable than those of copper(III). For instance, the square planar periodate [Ag(IO<sub>5</sub>OH)<sub>2</sub>]<sup>5−</sup> and tellurate [Ag{TeO<sub>4</sub>(OH)<sub>2</sub>}<sub>2</sub>]<sup>5−</sup> complexes may be prepared by oxidising silver(I) with alkaline peroxodisulfate. The yellow diamagnetic [AgF<sub>4</sub>]<sup>−</sup> is much less stable, fuming in moist air and reacting with glass.
Silver(II) complexes are more common. Like the valence isoelectronic copper(II) complexes, they are usually square planar and paramagnetic, which is increased by the greater field splitting for 4d electrons than for 3d electrons. Aqueous Ag<sup>2+</sup>, produced by oxidation of Ag<sup>+</sup> by ozone, is a very strong oxidising agent, even in acidic solutions: it is stabilized in phosphoric acid due to complex formation. Peroxodisulfate oxidation is generally necessary to give the more stable complexes with heterocyclic amines, such as [Ag(py)<sub>4</sub>]<sup>2+</sup> and [Ag(bipy)<sub>2</sub>]<sup>2+</sup>: these are stable provided the counterion cannot reduce the silver back to the +1 oxidation state. [AgF<sub>4</sub>]<sup>2−</sup> is also known in its violet barium salt, as are some silver(II) complexes with N- or O-donor ligands such as pyridine carboxylates.
By far the most important oxidation state for silver in complexes is +1. The Ag<sup>+</sup> cation is diamagnetic, like its homologues Cu<sup>+</sup> and Au<sup>+</sup>, as all three have closed-shell electron configurations with no unpaired electrons: its complexes are colourless provided the ligands are not too easily polarized such as I<sup>−</sup>. Ag<sup>+</sup> forms salts with most anions, but it is reluctant to coordinate to oxygen and thus most of these salts are insoluble in water: the exceptions are the nitrate, perchlorate, and fluoride. The tetracoordinate tetrahedral aqueous ion [Ag(H<sub>2</sub>O)<sub>4</sub>]<sup>+</sup> is known, but the characteristic geometry for the Ag<sup>+</sup> cation is 2-coordinate linear. For example, silver chloride dissolves readily in excess aqueous ammonia to form [Ag(NH<sub>3</sub>)<sub>2</sub>]<sup>+</sup>; silver salts are dissolved in photography due to the formation of the thiosulfate complex [Ag(S<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>)<sub>2</sub>]<sup>3−</sup>; and cyanide extraction for silver (and gold) works by the formation of the complex [Ag(CN)<sub>2</sub>]<sup>−</sup>. Silver cyanide forms the linear polymer {Ag–C≡N→Ag–C≡N→}; silver thiocyanate has a similar structure, but forms a zigzag instead because of the sp<sup>3</sup>-hybridized sulfur atom. Chelating ligands are unable to form linear complexes and thus silver(I) complexes with them tend to form polymers; a few exceptions exist, such as the near-tetrahedral diphosphine and diarsine complexes [Ag(L–L)<sub>2</sub>]<sup>+</sup>.
### Organometallic
Under standard conditions, silver does not form simple carbonyls, due to the weakness of the Ag–C bond. A few are known at very low temperatures around 6–15 K, such as the green, planar paramagnetic Ag(CO)<sub>3</sub>, which dimerizes at 25–30 K, probably by forming Ag–Ag bonds. Additionally, the silver carbonyl [Ag(CO)] [B(OTeF<sub>5</sub>)<sub>4</sub>] is known. Polymeric AgLX complexes with alkenes and alkynes are known, but their bonds are thermodynamically weaker than even those of the platinum complexes (though they are formed more readily than those of the analogous gold complexes): they are also quite unsymmetrical, showing the weak π bonding in group 11. Ag–C σ bonds may also be formed by silver(I), like copper(I) and gold(I), but the simple alkyls and aryls of silver(I) are even less stable than those of copper(I) (which tend to explode under ambient conditions). For example, poor thermal stability is reflected in the relative decomposition temperatures of AgMe (−50 °C) and CuMe (−15 °C) as well as those of PhAg (74 °C) and PhCu (100 °C).
The C–Ag bond is stabilized by perfluoroalkyl ligands, for example in AgCF(CF<sub>3</sub>)<sub>2</sub>. Alkenylsilver compounds are also more stable than their alkylsilver counterparts. Silver-NHC complexes are easily prepared, and are commonly used to prepare other NHC complexes by displacing labile ligands. For example, the reaction of the bis(NHC)silver(I) complex with bis(acetonitrile)palladium dichloride or chlorido(dimethyl sulfide)gold(I):
### Intermetallic
Silver forms alloys with most other elements on the periodic table. The elements from groups 1–3, except for hydrogen, lithium, and beryllium, are very miscible with silver in the condensed phase and form intermetallic compounds; those from groups 4–9 are only poorly miscible; the elements in groups 10–14 (except boron and carbon) have very complex Ag–M phase diagrams and form the most commercially important alloys; and the remaining elements on the periodic table have no consistency in their Ag–M phase diagrams. By far the most important such alloys are those with copper: most silver used for coinage and jewellery is in reality a silver–copper alloy, and the eutectic mixture is used in vacuum brazing. The two metals are completely miscible as liquids but not as solids; their importance in industry comes from the fact that their properties tend to be suitable over a wide range of variation in silver and copper concentration, although most useful alloys tend to be richer in silver than the eutectic mixture (71.9% silver and 28.1% copper by weight, and 60.1% silver and 28.1% copper by atom).
Most other binary alloys are of little use: for example, silver–gold alloys are too soft and silver–cadmium alloys too toxic. Ternary alloys have much greater importance: dental amalgams are usually silver–tin–mercury alloys, silver–copper–gold alloys are very important in jewellery (usually on the gold-rich side) and have a vast range of hardnesses and colours, silver–copper–zinc alloys are useful as low-melting brazing alloys, and silver–cadmium–indium (involving three adjacent elements on the periodic table) is useful in nuclear reactors because of its high thermal neutron capture cross-section, good conduction of heat, mechanical stability, and resistance to corrosion in hot water.
## Etymology
The word "silver" appears in Old English in various spellings, such as seolfor and siolfor. It is cognate with Old High German silabar; Gothic silubr; or Old Norse silfr, all ultimately deriving from Proto-Germanic \*silubra. The Balto-Slavic words for silver are rather similar to the Germanic ones (e.g. Russian серебро [serebró], Polish srebro, Lithuanian sidãbras), as is the Celtiberian form silabur. They may have a common Indo-European origin, although their morphology rather suggest a non-Indo-European Wanderwort. Some scholars have thus proposed a Paleo-Hispanic origin, pointing to the Basque form zilharr as an evidence.
The chemical symbol Ag is from the Latin word for "silver", argentum (compare Ancient Greek ἄργυρος, árgyros), from the Proto-Indo-European root \*h2erǵ- (formerly reconstructed as \*arǵ-), meaning "white" or "shining". This was the usual Proto-Indo-European word for the metal, whose reflexes are missing in Germanic and Balto-Slavic.
## History
Silver was one of the seven metals of antiquity that were known to prehistoric humans and whose discovery is thus lost to history. In particular, the three metals of group 11, copper, silver, and gold, occur in the elemental form in nature and were probably used as the first primitive forms of money as opposed to simple bartering. However, unlike copper, silver did not lead to the growth of metallurgy on account of its low structural strength, and was more often used ornamentally or as money. Since silver is more reactive than gold, supplies of native silver were much more limited than those of gold. For example, silver was more expensive than gold in Egypt until around the fifteenth century BC: the Egyptians are thought to have separated gold from silver by heating the metals with salt, and then reducing the silver chloride produced to the metal.
The situation changed with the discovery of cupellation, a technique that allowed silver metal to be extracted from its ores. While slag heaps found in Asia Minor and on the islands of the Aegean Sea indicate that silver was being separated from lead as early as the 4th millennium BC, and one of the earliest silver extraction centres in Europe was Sardinia in the early Chalcolithic period, these techniques did not spread widely until later, when it spread throughout the region and beyond. The origins of silver production in India, China, and Japan were almost certainly equally ancient, but are not well-documented due to their great age.
When the Phoenicians first came to what is now Spain, they obtained so much silver that they could not fit it all on their ships, and as a result used silver to weight their anchors instead of lead. By the time of the Greek and Roman civilizations, silver coins were a staple of the economy: the Greeks were already extracting silver from galena by the 7th century BC, and the rise of Athens was partly made possible by the nearby silver mines at Laurium, from which they extracted about 30 tonnes a year from 600 to 300 BC. The stability of the Roman currency relied to a high degree on the supply of silver bullion, mostly from Spain, which Roman miners produced on a scale unparalleled before the discovery of the New World. Reaching a peak production of 200 tonnes per year, an estimated silver stock of 10,000 tonnes circulated in the Roman economy in the middle of the second century AD, five to ten times larger than the combined amount of silver available to medieval Europe and the Abbasid Caliphate around AD 800. The Romans also recorded the extraction of silver in central and northern Europe in the same time period. This production came to a nearly complete halt with the fall of the Roman Empire, not to resume until the time of Charlemagne: by then, tens of thousands of tonnes of silver had already been extracted.
Central Europe became the centre of silver production during the Middle Ages, as the Mediterranean deposits exploited by the ancient civilisations had been exhausted. Silver mines were opened in Bohemia, Saxony, Alsace, the Lahn region, Siegerland, Silesia, Hungary, Norway, Steiermark, Schwaz, and the southern Black Forest. Most of these ores were quite rich in silver and could simply be separated by hand from the remaining rock and then smelted; some deposits of native silver were also encountered. Many of these mines were soon exhausted, but a few of them remained active until the Industrial Revolution, before which the world production of silver was around a meagre 50 tonnes per year. In the Americas, high temperature silver-lead cupellation technology was developed by pre-Inca civilizations as early as AD 60–120; silver deposits in India, China, Japan, and pre-Columbian America continued to be mined during this time.
With the discovery of America and the plundering of silver by the Spanish conquistadors, Central and South America became the dominant producers of silver until around the beginning of the 18th century, particularly Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina: the last of these countries later took its name from that of the metal that composed so much of its mineral wealth. The silver trade gave way to a global network of exchange. As one historian put it, silver "went round the world and made the world go round." Much of this silver ended up in the hands of the Chinese. A Portuguese merchant in 1621 noted that silver "wanders throughout all the world... before flocking to China, where it remains as if at its natural center." Still, much of it went to Spain, allowing Spanish rulers to pursue military and political ambitions in both Europe and the Americas. "New World mines", concluded several historians, "supported the Spanish empire."
In the 19th century, primary production of silver moved to North America, particularly Canada, Mexico, and Nevada in the United States: some secondary production from lead and zinc ores also took place in Europe, and deposits in Siberia and the Russian Far East as well as in Australia were mined. Poland emerged as an important producer during the 1970s after the discovery of copper deposits that were rich in silver, before the centre of production returned to the Americas the following decade. Today, Peru and Mexico are still among the primary silver producers, but the distribution of silver production around the world is quite balanced and about one-fifth of the silver supply comes from recycling instead of new production.
## Symbolic role
Silver plays a certain role in mythology and has found various usage as a metaphor and in folklore. The Greek poet Hesiod's Works and Days (lines 109–201) lists different ages of man named after metals like gold, silver, bronze and iron to account for successive ages of humanity. Ovid's Metamorphoses contains another retelling of the story, containing an illustration of silver's metaphorical use of signifying the second-best in a series, better than bronze but worse than gold:
> > But when good Saturn, banish'd from above, Was driv'n to Hell, the world was under Jove. Succeeding times a silver age behold, Excelling brass, but more excell'd by gold.
In folklore, silver was commonly thought to have mystic powers: for example, a bullet cast from silver is often supposed in such folklore the only weapon that is effective against a werewolf, witch, or other monsters. From this the idiom of a silver bullet developed into figuratively referring to any simple solution with very high effectiveness or almost miraculous results, as in the widely discussed software engineering paper "No Silver Bullet." Other powers attributed to silver include detection of poison and facilitation of passage into the mythical realm of fairies.
Silver production has also inspired figurative language. Clear references to cupellation occur throughout the Old Testament of the Bible, such as in Jeremiah's rebuke to Judah: "The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melteth in vain: for the wicked are not plucked away. Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them." (Jeremiah 6:19–20) Jeremiah was also aware of sheet silver, exemplifying the malleability and ductility of the metal: "Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the workman, and of the hands of the founder: blue and purple is their clothing: they are all the work of cunning men." (Jeremiah 10:9)
Silver also has more negative cultural meanings: the idiom thirty pieces of silver, referring to a reward for betrayal, references the bribe Judas Iscariot is said in the New Testament to have taken from Jewish leaders in Jerusalem to turn Jesus of Nazareth over to soldiers of the high priest Caiaphas. Ethically, silver also symbolizes greed and degradation of consciousness; this is the negative aspect, the perverting of its value.
## Occurrence and production
The abundance of silver in the Earth's crust is 0.08 parts per million, almost exactly the same as that of mercury. It mostly occurs in sulfide ores, especially acanthite and argentite, Ag<sub>2</sub>S. Argentite deposits sometimes also contain native silver when they occur in reducing environments, and when in contact with salt water they are converted to chlorargyrite (including horn silver), AgCl, which is prevalent in Chile and New South Wales. Most other silver minerals are silver pnictides or chalcogenides; they are generally lustrous semiconductors. Most true silver deposits, as opposed to argentiferous deposits of other metals, came from Tertiary period vulcanism.
The principal sources of silver are the ores of copper, copper-nickel, lead, and lead-zinc obtained from Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, China, Australia, Chile, Poland and Serbia. Peru, Bolivia and Mexico have been mining silver since 1546, and are still major world producers. Top silver-producing mines are Cannington (Australia), Fresnillo (Mexico), San Cristóbal (Bolivia), Antamina (Peru), Rudna (Poland), and Penasquito (Mexico). Top near-term mine development projects through 2015 are Pascua Lama (Chile), Navidad (Argentina), Jaunicipio (Mexico), Malku Khota (Bolivia), and Hackett River (Canada). In Central Asia, Tajikistan is known to have some of the largest silver deposits in the world.
Silver is usually found in nature combined with other metals, or in minerals that contain silver compounds, generally in the form of sulfides such as galena (lead sulfide) or cerussite (lead carbonate). So the primary production of silver requires the smelting and then cupellation of argentiferous lead ores, a historically important process. Lead melts at 327 °C, lead oxide at 888 °C and silver melts at 960 °C. To separate the silver, the alloy is melted again at the high temperature of 960 °C to 1000 °C in an oxidizing environment. The lead oxidises to lead monoxide, then known as litharge, which captures the oxygen from the other metals present. The liquid lead oxide is removed or absorbed by capillary action into the hearth linings.
Ag(s) + 2Pb(s) + O
<sub>2</sub>(g) → 2PbO(absorbed) + Ag(l)
Today, silver metal is primarily produced instead as a secondary byproduct of electrolytic refining of copper, lead, and zinc, and by application of the Parkes process on lead bullion from ore that also contains silver. In such processes, silver follows the non-ferrous metal in question through its concentration and smelting, and is later purified out. For example, in copper production, purified copper is electrolytically deposited on the cathode, while the less reactive precious metals such as silver and gold collect under the anode as the so-called "anode slime". This is then separated and purified of base metals by treatment with hot aerated dilute sulfuric acid and heating with lime or silica flux, before the silver is purified to over 99.9% purity via electrolysis in nitrate solution.
Commercial-grade fine silver is at least 99.9% pure, and purities greater than 99.999% are available. In 2022, Mexico was the top producer of silver (6,300 tonnes or 24.2% of the world's total of 26,000 t), followed by China (3,600 t) and Peru (3,100 t).
### In marine environments
Silver concentration is low in seawater (pmol/L). Levels vary by depth and between water bodies. Dissolved silver concentrations range from 0.3 pmol/L in coastal surface waters to 22.8 pmol/L in pelagic deep waters. Analyzing the presence and dynamics of silver in marine environments is difficult due to these particularly low concentrations and complex interactions in the environment. Although a rare trace metal, concentrations are greatly impacted by fluvial, aeolian, atmospheric, and upwelling inputs, as well as anthropogenic inputs via discharge, waste disposal, and emissions from industrial companies. Other internal processes such as decomposition of organic matter may be a source of dissolved silver in deeper waters, which feeds into some surface waters through upwelling and vertical mixing.
In the Atlantic and Pacific, silver concentrations are minimal at the surface but rise in deeper waters. Silver is taken up by plankton in the photic zone, remobilized with depth, and enriched in deep waters. Silver is transported from the Atlantic to the other oceanic water masses. In North Pacific waters, silver is remobilized at a slower rate and increasingly enriched compared to deep Atlantic waters. Silver has increasing concentrations that follow the major oceanic conveyor belt that cycles water and nutrients from the North Atlantic to the South Atlantic to the North Pacific.
There is not an extensive amount of data focused on how marine life is affected by silver despite the likely deleterious effects it could have on organisms through bioaccumulation, association with particulate matters, and sorption. Not until about 1984 did scientists begin to understand the chemical characteristics of silver and the potential toxicity. In fact, mercury is the only other trace metal that surpasses the toxic effects of silver; however, the full extent of silver toxicity is not expected in oceanic conditions because of its ability to transfer into nonreactive biological compounds.
In one study, the presence of excess ionic silver and silver nanoparticles caused bioaccumulation effects on zebrafish organs and altered the chemical pathways within their gills. In addition, very early experimental studies demonstrated how the toxic effects of silver fluctuate with salinity and other parameters, as well as between life stages and different species such as finfish, molluscs, and crustaceans. Another study found raised concentrations of silver in the muscles and liver of dolphins and whales, indicating pollution of this metal within recent decades. Silver is not an easy metal for an organism to eliminate and elevated concentrations can cause death.
## Monetary use
The earliest known coins were minted in the kingdom of Lydia in Asia Minor around 600 BC. The coins of Lydia were made of electrum, which is a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver, that was available within the territory of Lydia. Since that time, silver standards, in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed weight of silver, have been widespread throughout the world until the 20th century. Notable silver coins through the centuries include the Greek drachma, the Roman denarius, the Islamic dirham, the karshapana from ancient India and rupee from the time of the Mughal Empire (grouped with copper and gold coins to create a trimetallic standard), and the Spanish dollar.
The ratio between the amount of silver used for coinage and that used for other purposes has fluctuated greatly over time; for example, in wartime, more silver tends to have been used for coinage to finance the war.
Today, silver bullion has the ISO 4217 currency code XAG, one of only four precious metals to have one (the others being palladium, platinum, and gold). Silver coins are produced from cast rods or ingots, rolled to the correct thickness, heat-treated, and then used to cut blanks from. These blanks are then milled and minted in a coining press; modern coining presses can produce 8000 silver coins per hour.
### Price
Silver prices are normally quoted in troy ounces. One troy ounce is equal to 31.1034768 grams. The London silver fix is published every working day at noon London time. This price is determined by several major international banks and is used by London bullion market members for trading that day. Prices are most commonly shown as the United States dollar (USD), the Pound sterling (GBP), and the Euro (EUR).
## Applications
### Jewellery and silverware
The major use of silver besides coinage throughout most of history was in the manufacture of jewellery and other general-use items, and this continues to be a major use today. Examples include table silver for cutlery, for which silver is highly suited due to its antibacterial properties. Western concert flutes are usually plated with or made out of sterling silver; in fact, most silverware is only silver-plated rather than made out of pure silver; the silver is normally put in place by electroplating. Silver-plated glass (as opposed to metal) is used for mirrors, vacuum flasks, and Christmas tree decorations.
Because pure silver is very soft, most silver used for these purposes is alloyed with copper, with finenesses of 925/1000, 835/1000, and 800/1000 being common. One drawback is the easy tarnishing of silver in the presence of hydrogen sulfide and its derivatives. Including precious metals such as palladium, platinum, and gold gives resistance to tarnishing but is quite costly; base metals like zinc, cadmium, silicon, and germanium do not totally prevent corrosion and tend to affect the lustre and colour of the alloy. Electrolytically refined pure silver plating is effective at increasing resistance to tarnishing. The usual solutions for restoring the lustre of tarnished silver are dipping baths that reduce the silver sulfide surface to metallic silver, and cleaning off the layer of tarnish with a paste; the latter approach also has the welcome side effect of polishing the silver concurrently.
### Medicine
In medicine, silver is incorporated into wound dressings and used as an antibiotic coating in medical devices. Wound dressings containing silver sulfadiazine or silver nanomaterials are used to treat external infections. Silver is also used in some medical applications, such as urinary catheters (where tentative evidence indicates it reduces catheter-related urinary tract infections) and in endotracheal breathing tubes (where evidence suggests it reduces ventilator-associated pneumonia). The silver ion is bioactive and in sufficient concentration readily kills bacteria in vitro. Silver ions interfere with enzymes in the bacteria that transport nutrients, form structures, and synthesise cell walls; these ions also bond with the bacteria's genetic material. Silver and silver nanoparticles are used as an antimicrobial in a variety of industrial, healthcare, and domestic application: for example, infusing clothing with nanosilver particles thus allows them to stay odourless for longer. Bacteria can, however, develop resistance to the antimicrobial action of silver. Silver compounds are taken up by the body like mercury compounds, but lack the toxicity of the latter. Silver and its alloys are used in cranial surgery to replace bone, and silver–tin–mercury amalgams are used in dentistry. Silver diammine fluoride, the fluoride salt of a coordination complex with the formula [Ag(NH<sub>3</sub>)<sub>2</sub>]F, is a topical medicament (drug) used to treat and prevent dental caries (cavities) and relieve dentinal hypersensitivity.
### Electronics
Silver is very important in electronics for conductors and electrodes on account of its high electrical conductivity even when tarnished. Bulk silver and silver foils were used to make vacuum tubes, and continue to be used today in the manufacture of semiconductor devices, circuits, and their components. For example, silver is used in high quality connectors for RF, VHF, and higher frequencies, particularly in tuned circuits such as cavity filters where conductors cannot be scaled by more than 6%. Printed circuits and RFID antennas are made with silver paints, Powdered silver and its alloys are used in paste preparations for conductor layers and electrodes, ceramic capacitors, and other ceramic components.
### Brazing alloys
Silver-containing brazing alloys are used for brazing metallic materials, mostly cobalt, nickel, and copper-based alloys, tool steels, and precious metals. The basic components are silver and copper, with other elements selected according to the specific application desired: examples include zinc, tin, cadmium, palladium, manganese, and phosphorus. Silver provides increased workability and corrosion resistance during usage.
### Chemical equipment
Silver is useful in the manufacture of chemical equipment on account of its low chemical reactivity, high thermal conductivity, and being easily workable. Silver crucibles (alloyed with 0.15% nickel to avoid recrystallisation of the metal at red heat) are used for carrying out alkaline fusion. Copper and silver are also used when doing chemistry with fluorine. Equipment made to work at high temperatures is often silver-plated. Silver and its alloys with gold are used as wire or ring seals for oxygen compressors and vacuum equipment.
### Catalysis
Silver metal is a good catalyst for oxidation reactions; in fact it is somewhat too good for most purposes, as finely divided silver tends to result in complete oxidation of organic substances to carbon dioxide and water, and hence coarser-grained silver tends to be used instead. For instance, 15% silver supported on α-Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> or silicates is a catalyst for the oxidation of ethylene to ethylene oxide at 230–270 °C. Dehydrogenation of methanol to formaldehyde is conducted at 600–720 °C over silver gauze or crystals as the catalyst, as is dehydrogenation of isopropanol to acetone. In the gas phase, glycol yields glyoxal and ethanol yields acetaldehyde, while organic amines are dehydrated to nitriles.
### Photography
The photosensitivity of the silver halides allowed for their use in traditional photography, although digital photography, which does not use silver, is now dominant. The photosensitive emulsion used in black-and-white photography is a suspension of silver halide crystals in gelatin, possibly mixed in with some noble metal compounds for improved photosensitivity, developing, and . Colour photography requires the addition of special dye components and sensitisers, so that the initial black-and-white silver image couples with a different dye component. The original silver images are bleached off and the silver is then recovered and recycled. Silver nitrate is the starting material in all cases.
The use of silver nitrate and silver halides in photography has rapidly declined with the advent of digital technology. From the peak global demand for photographic silver in 1999 (267,000,000 troy ounces or 8,304.6 tonnes) the market contracted almost 70% by 2013.
### Nanoparticles
Nanosilver particles, between 10 and 100 nanometres in size, are used in many applications. They are used in conductive inks for printed electronics, and have a much lower melting point than larger silver particles of micrometre size. They are also used medicinally in antibacterials and antifungals in much the same way as larger silver particles. In addition, according to the European Union Observatory for Nanomaterials (EUON), silver nanoparticles are used both in pigments, as well as cosmetics.
### Miscellanea
Pure silver metal is used as a food colouring. It has the E174 designation and is approved in the European Union. Traditional Indian and Pakistani dishes sometimes include decorative silver foil known as vark, and in various other cultures, silver dragée are used to decorate cakes, cookies, and other dessert items.
Photochromic lenses include silver halides, so that ultraviolet light in natural daylight liberates metallic silver, darkening the lenses. The silver halides are reformed in lower light intensities. Colourless silver chloride films are used in radiation detectors. Zeolite sieves incorporating Ag<sup>+</sup> ions are used to desalinate seawater during rescues, using silver ions to precipitate chloride as silver chloride. Silver is also used for its antibacterial properties for water sanitisation, but the application of this is limited by limits on silver consumption. Colloidal silver is similarly used to disinfect closed swimming pools; while it has the advantage of not giving off a smell like hypochlorite treatments do, colloidal silver is not effective enough for more contaminated open swimming pools. Small silver iodide crystals are used in cloud seeding to cause rain.
The Texas Legislature designated silver the official precious metal of Texas in 2007.
## Precautions
Silver compounds have low toxicity compared to those of most other heavy metals, as they are poorly absorbed by the human body when ingested, and that which does get absorbed is rapidly converted to insoluble silver compounds or complexed by metallothionein. However, silver fluoride and silver nitrate are caustic and can cause tissue damage, resulting in gastroenteritis, diarrhoea, falling blood pressure, cramps, paralysis, and respiratory arrest. Animals repeatedly dosed with silver salts have been observed to experience anaemia, slowed growth, necrosis of the liver, and fatty degeneration of the liver and kidneys; rats implanted with silver foil or injected with colloidal silver have been observed to develop localised tumours. Parenterally admistered colloidal silver causes acute silver poisoning. Some waterborne species are particularly sensitive to silver salts and those of the other precious metals; in most situations, however, silver does not pose serious environmental hazards.
In large doses, silver and compounds containing it can be absorbed into the circulatory system and become deposited in various body tissues, leading to argyria, which results in a blue-grayish pigmentation of the skin, eyes, and mucous membranes. Argyria is rare, and so far as is known, does not otherwise harm a person's health, though it is disfiguring and usually permanent. Mild forms of argyria are sometimes mistaken for cyanosis, a blue tint on skin, caused by lack of oxygen.
Metallic silver, like copper, is an antibacterial agent, which was known to the ancients and first scientifically investigated and named the oligodynamic effect by Carl Nägeli. Silver ions damage the metabolism of bacteria even at such low concentrations as 0.01–0.1 milligrams per litre; metallic silver has a similar effect due to the formation of silver oxide. This effect is lost in the presence of sulfur due to the extreme insolubility of silver sulfide.
Some silver compounds are very explosive, such as the nitrogen compounds silver azide, silver amide, and silver fulminate, as well as silver acetylide, silver oxalate, and silver(II) oxide. They can explode on heating, force, drying, illumination, or sometimes spontaneously. To avoid the formation of such compounds, ammonia and acetylene should be kept away from silver equipment. Salts of silver with strongly oxidising acids such as silver chlorate and silver nitrate can explode on contact with materials that can be readily oxidised, such as organic compounds, sulfur and soot.
## See also
- Silver coin
- Silver medal
- Free silver
- List of countries by silver production
- List of silver compounds
- Silver as an investment
- Silverpoint drawing
## Cited sources |
43,420,330 | The Boat Race 1857 | 1,154,812,363 | null | [
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"April 1857 events",
"The Boat Race"
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| The 14th Boat Race took place on the River Thames on 4 April 1857. Held annually, The Boat Race is a side-by-side rowing race between crews from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Oxford rowed in a keel-less carvel-built boat, the first time in the history of the race that such a construction method was used for one of the vessels. Umpired by Joseph William Chitty, the race was won by Oxford who triumphed over Cambridge by 11 lengths.
## Background
The Boat Race is a side-by-side rowing competition between the University of Oxford (sometimes referred to as the "Dark Blues") and the University of Cambridge (sometimes referred to as the "Light Blues"). The race was first held in 1829, and since 1845 has taken place on the 4.2-mile (6.8 km) Championship Course on the River Thames in southwest London. Cambridge went into the race as reigning champions, having defeated Oxford by half-a-length in the previous year's race. They led overall with eight wins to Oxford's five.
It was the first race to feature a keel-less carvel-built boat. Purchased personally by Oxford boat club president Arthur Heywood-Lonsdale from Newcastle boat builder Matthew Taylor, the Oxford crew rowed a practice time of 19 minutes 50 seconds in it, considered "remarkable" in a boat with fixed seats. Lonsdale engaged Taylor to instruct Oxford how to "send his boat along as quickly as possible", avoiding connotations of professional coaching which was banned in the Boat Race. Cambridge rowed in a boat built by Salter of Wandsworth. It was also the first race in which both crews rowed with round loom oars.
Oxford "soon showed signs of good pace" in practice and set the course record with 19 minutes 50 seconds, a time which would remain unbeaten until the 1873 race. Cambridge began their practice rows "very late". The race was umpired by Joseph William Chitty who had rowed for Oxford twice in 1849 (in the March and December races) and the 1852 race.
## Crews
Oxford saw four crew members return from the 1856 race in Gurdon, Lonsdale, Thorley and the cox, Elers, while Cambridge welcomed back just two former Blues in Lloyd and Snow. Oxford were marginally the heavier crew at an average of just over 11 st 9 lb (73.8 kg) per rower, about 1 pound (0.5 kg) more on average than Cambridge. The Oxford president, Heywood-Lonsdale, rowed at number seven while his counterpart, R. Lloyd, rowed at six for the Light Blues.
## Race
Oxford won the toss and elected to start from the Middlesex station, leaving Cambridge with the Surrey station. Starting soon after 11 a.m., Oxford made a good start and at Searle's boathouse (originally home to the Leander Club) were clear of Cambridge. They increased their lead to a length by the time they had reached "The Crab Tree" pub. Despite Cambridge making a number of pushes to try to recover the deficit, Oxford continued to pull away and completed the course 32 seconds ahead of Cambridge, and eleven lengths clear. The winning time was 22 minutes 5 seconds. It was Oxford's fourth victory in the previous five races and represented the largest winning margin since the 1841 race. It was described in the Oxford Books' account as "without doubt ... about the most hollow beating ever given to Cambridge by Oxford." |
873,867 | Serpent (instrument) | 1,171,414,896 | Wooden S-shaped early brass instrument | [
"Baroque instruments",
"Basso continuo instruments",
"Brass instruments",
"Early musical instruments",
"Horns",
"Orchestral instruments"
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| The serpent is a low-pitched early wind instrument in the brass family developed in the Renaissance era. It has a trombone-like mouthpiece, with tone holes and fingering like a woodwind instrument. It is named for its long, conical bore bent into a snakelike shape, and unlike most brass instruments is made from wood with an outer covering of leather. A distant ancestor of the tuba, the serpent is related to the cornett and was used for bass parts from the 17th to the early 19th centuries.
In the early 19th century, several upright variants were developed and used, until they were superseded first by the ophicleide and ultimately by the valved tuba. After almost entirely disappearing from orchestras, the serpent experienced a renewed interest in historically informed performance practice in the mid-20th century. Several contemporary works have been commissioned and composed, and serpents are made by a small number of manufacturers. The sound of a serpent is somewhere between a bassoon and a euphonium, and it is typically played in a seated position, with the instrument resting upright between the player's knees.
## Construction
Although closely related to the cornett, the serpent has thinner walls, a more conical bore, and no thumb-hole. The original serpent was typically built from hardwood, usually walnut or other tonewoods like maple, cherry, or pear, or sometimes softer woods like poplar (a very small number were made entirely from copper or brass). The whole instrument is assembled from several curved tubular wooden segments, each made by gluing two hollowed halves together. These segments are then glued and bound with an outer covering of leather.
The instrument uses a mouthpiece about the same size as a tenor trombone mouthpiece, originally made from ivory, horn or wood, which fits into the bocal or crook, a small length of brass tubing that emerges from the top wooden segment.
The serpent has six tone holes, in two groups of three, fingered by each hand. It is difficult to play the instrument with correct intonation, due in large part to the positions of the tone holes. They were arranged largely to be accessible to the player's fingers, rather than in acoustically correct positions, which would have placed some of them out of reach. While early serpents were keyless, later instruments added keys for additional holes out of reach of the fingers to improve intonation, and extend range.
Modern replicas are made by several specialist instrument makers, employing acoustic analysis and modern fabrication materials and techniques to further improve the serpent's intonation. Some of these techniques include use of modern composite materials and polymers, 3D printing, and changing the placement of tone holes. Swiss serpent maker Stephan Berger in collaboration with French jazz musician Michel Godard has developed an improved serpent based on studying well-preserved museum instruments, and also makes a lightweight model from carbon fibre. English serpent player and musicologist Clifford Bevan remarks that Berger's instruments are much improved, finally allowing players to approach the serpent "in partnership rather than in combat".
### Sizes
The majority of surviving specimens in museums and private collections were built in 8′ C, thus having a total tubing length of about 8 feet (2.4 m). A few slightly smaller specimens were built in D, and military serpents could sometimes vary in pitch between D♭ and B♭.
#### Soprano serpent
A soprano serpent, or worm, was first built in the 1980s an octave higher in 4′ C as a novelty, by English early music specialist and instrument maker Christopher Monk. It has no historical repertoire.
#### Contrabass serpent
The contrabass serpent, built in 16′ C one octave below the serpent and nicknamed the anaconda, was an English invention of the mid-19th century with no historical repertoire. The prototype instrument was built c. 1840 by Joseph and Richard Wood in Huddersfield as a double-sized English military serpent, and survives in the University of Edinburgh museum collection. During the serpent's modern revival, two more contrabass serpents were built in the 1990s by Christopher Monk's workshop. Based on the original serpent ordinaire form, they were called "George" and "George II". The first, commissioned by musicologist and serpent player Philip Palmer, is now owned by American trombonist and serpent player Douglas Yeo and features in some of his serpent recordings.
## History
There is little direct material or documentary evidence for the exact origin of the serpent. French historian Jean Lebeuf claimed in his 1743 work Mémoires Concernant l'Histoire Ecclésiastique et Civile d’Auxerre that the serpent was invented in 1590 by Edmé Guillaume, a clergyman in Auxerre, France. Although this account is often accepted, some scholars suppose instead that the serpent evolved from the large, S-shaped bass cornetts that were in use in Italy in the 16th century. It was certainly used in France since the early 17th century to strengthen the cantus firmus and bass voices of choirs in plainchant. This original traditional serpent was known as the serpent ordinaire or serpent d'église (lit. 'ordinary serpent' or 'church serpent'). Around the middle of the 18th century, the serpent began to appear in chamber ensembles, and later in orchestras. Mozart used two serpents in the orchestra for his 1771 opera Ascanio in Alba.
### Military serpents
Towards the end of the 18th century, the increased popularity of the serpent in military bands drove the subsequent development of the instrument to accommodate marching or mounted players. In England, a distinct military serpent was developed which had a more compact shape with tighter curves, added extra keys to improve its intonation, and metal braces between the bends to increase its rigidity and durability. In France around the same time several makers produced a serpent militaire initially developed by Piffault (by whose name they are also known) that arranges the tubing vertically with an upward turned bell, reminiscent of a tenor saxophone.
### Upright serpents and bass horns
Several vertical configurations of the serpent, generally known as upright serpents (French: serpent droit) or bass horns, were developed in the early 19th century. Retaining the same six tone holes and fingering of the original serpent, these instruments resemble the bassoon, with jointed straight tubes that fit into a short U-shaped butt joint, and an upward-pointing bell.
#### Basson russe
Among the first of the upright serpents to appear was the basson russe, lit. 'Russian bassoon', although it was neither Russian nor a bassoon. The name is possibly a corruption of basson prusse since they were taken up by the Prussian army bands of the time. These instruments were built mostly in Lyon and often had the buccin-style decorative zoomorphic bells popular in France at the time, shaped and painted like a dragon or serpent head. Appearing around the same time in military bands was the serpent à pavillon (lit. 'bell serpent') which had a normal brass instrument bell, similar in flare to the later ophicleide.
#### English bass horn
The English bass horn, developed by French musician and inventor Louis Alexandre Frichot in London in 1799, had an all-metal V-shaped construction, described by German composer Felix Mendelssohn as resembling a watering can. He admired its sound however, and wrote for the instrument in several of his works, including his fifth symphony and the overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream. The bass horn was popular in civic and military bands in Britain and Ireland, and also spread back into orchestras in Europe, where it influenced the inventors of both the ophicleide and later the Baß-Tuba.
#### Early cimbasso
The serpent appears as serpentone in early 19th century Italian operatic scores by composers such as Spontini, Rossini, and Bellini. In Italy it was replaced by the cimbasso, a loose term that referred to several instruments; initially an upright serpent similar to the basson russe, then the ophicleide, early forms of valved tuba (pelittone, bombardone), and finally by the time of Verdi's opera Otello (1887), a valve contrabass trombone.
#### Other upright serpents
In Paris in 1823, Forveille invented his eponymous serpent Forveille, an upright serpent with an enlarged bell section influenced by the (then newly invented) ophicleide. It is distinguished by being made from wood, brass tubing being used only for the leadpipe and first bend. It became popular in bands for its improved intonation and sound quality. In 1828 Jean-Baptiste Coëffet patented his ophimonocleide ("snake with one key"), one of the last forms of the upright serpent. It solved a perennial problem of the serpent, its difficult and indistinct B♮ notes. The instrument is built a semitone lower in B♮ and adds a large open tone hole that keeps the instrument in C until its key is pressed, closing the tone hole and producing a clear and resonant B♮.
### Contemporary revival
The era of upright serpents was brief, spanning the first half of the 19th century from their invention to their replacement by the ophicleide and subsequent valved brass instruments. German opera composer Richard Wagner used a serpent as a third bassoon in his 1840 opera Rienzi, but by the 1869 première of his Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle he was writing his lowest brass parts for tuba and contrabass trombone. Consequently, the serpent had all but disappeared from ensembles by 1900.
The serpent has enjoyed a modern revival of interest and manufacture since the mid-20th century. Christopher Monk began building his own replica cornetts and serpents and playing them in historically informed performances. In 1968 he and a colleague devised a method of constructing them inexpensively from a composite wood-resin material, which helped to raise interest in these instruments and increase their availability. In 1976 he established the London Serpent Trio with English players Andrew van der Beek and Alan Lumsden, performing new works and historical arrangements, both serious and whimsical, throughout Europe and North America. At the same time in France, historical instrument specialist Bernard Fourtet and jazz musician Michel Godard began promoting use of the serpent and established an academy for young serpent players.
## Range and performance
There is no real standard for the serpent's range, which varies according to the instrument and the player, but it typically covers the three octaves from C<sub>2</sub> two octaves below middle C to C<sub>5</sub>. Good players can also extend the range downwards to A<sub>1</sub> or even F<sub>1</sub> by fingering the low C note with all holes covered, and "lipping" down with the embouchure.
## Repertoire
Serpents were originally used as an instrument to accompany church choral music, particularly in France. For this purpose, very little was specifically written for the serpent per se; the serpent player would simply play the cantus firmus, or bass line. The serpent began to be called for in orchestras by opera composers in the mid-to-late 18th century, and their subsequent adoption in military bands prompted the publication of several method books, fingering charts and etudes, including duets for student and teacher.
After disappearing almost entirely, the serpent began to reappear in the mid-20th century, in film scores and new period instrument chamber ensembles. American film composer Bernard Herrmann used a serpent in the scores of White Witch Doctor (1953) and Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), as did Jerry Goldsmith in his score for Alien (1979).
In jazz music, French musician and tubist Michel Godard has incorporated the serpent into his work.
Modern works for the instrument include a concerto for serpent and orchestra by English composer Simon Proctor, commissioned in 1987 to mark the first International Serpent Festival in South Carolina, where it was premièred by London Serpent Trio member Alan Lumsden in 1989. Also premièred at the festival was comic composer Peter Schickele's P.D.Q. Bach piece "O Serpent" written for the London Serpent Trio and an ensemble of vocalists. Douglas Yeo premièred "Temptation" for serpent and string quartet, written by his Boston Symphony Orchestra colleague, trombonist and composer Norman Bolter, at the 1999 International Trombone Festival in Potsdam, New York. Yeo also premièred a serpent concerto in 2008 by American composer Gordon W. Bowie entitled "Old Dances in New Shoes". Italian composer Luigi Morleo wrote "Diversità: NO LIMIT", a concerto for serpent and strings, which premièred in Monopoli, Italy in 2012.
## Players
- Clifford Bevan, musicologist, member of the London Serpent Trio
- Bernard Fourtet, French early music specialist
- Michel Godard, jazz musician, tubist, serpent player
- Phil Humphries, London Serpent Trio, New London Consort
- Alan Lumsden, London Serpent Trio
- Andrew van der Beek, London Serpent Trio
- Steve Wick, tubist, professor of Serpent at Royal Academy of Music, London Serpent Trio
- Douglas Yeo, Boston Symphony Orchestra (retired), bass trombonist, serpent and ophicleide player
## In popular culture
- The prop used for the titular horn in the 1956 British film The Case of the Mukkinese Battle-Horn was based on a serpent.
- Serpents appear in the music video for the 2000 single "Frontier Psychiatrist" from the album Since I Left You by Australian group The Avalanches. |
63,522 | Crohn's disease | 1,171,389,533 | Type of inflammatory bowel disease | [
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"Articles containing video clips",
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"Membrane transport protein disorders",
"Noninfective enteritis and colitis",
"Steroid-responsive inflammatory conditions",
"Wikipedia emergency medicine articles ready to translate",
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| Crohn's disease is a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that may affect any segment of the gastrointestinal tract. Symptoms often include abdominal pain, diarrhea (which may be bloody if inflammation is severe), fever, abdominal distension, and weight loss. Complications outside of the gastrointestinal tract may include anemia, skin rashes, arthritis, inflammation of the eye, and fatigue. The skin rashes may be due to infections as well as pyoderma gangrenosum or erythema nodosum. Bowel obstruction may occur as a complication of chronic inflammation, and those with the disease are at greater risk of colon cancer and small bowel cancer.
Although the precise causes of Crohn's disease (CD) are unknown, it is believed to be caused by a combination of environmental, immune, and bacterial factors in genetically susceptible individuals. It results in a chronic inflammatory disorder, in which the body's immune system defends the gastrointestinal tract, possibly targeting microbial antigens. While Crohn's is an immune-related disease, it does not appear to be an autoimmune disease (the immune system is not triggered by the body itself). The exact underlying immune problem is not clear; however, it may be an immunodeficiency state.
About half of the overall risk is related to genetics, with more than 70 genes involved. Tobacco smokers are twice as likely to develop Crohn's disease as nonsmokers. It often begins after gastroenteritis. Diagnosis is based on biopsy and appearance of the bowel wall, medical imaging, and description of the disease. Other conditions with similar symptoms include irritable bowel syndrome and Behçet's disease.
There is no known cure for Crohn's disease. Treatment options are intended to help with symptoms, maintain remission, and prevent relapse. In those newly diagnosed, a corticosteroid may be used for a brief period of time to rapidly improve symptoms, alongside another medication such as either methotrexate or a thiopurine used to prevent recurrence. Cessation of smoking is recommended for people with Crohn's disease. One in five people with the disease is admitted to the hospital each year, and half of those with the disease will require surgery at some point over a ten-year period. While surgery should be used as little as possible, it is necessary to address some abscesses, certain bowel obstructions, and cancers. Checking for bowel cancer via colonoscopy is recommended every few years, starting eight years after the disease has begun.
Crohn's disease affects about 3.2 per 1,000 people in Europe and North America, It is less common in Asia and Africa. It has historically been more common in the developed world. Rates have, however, been increasing, particularly in the developing world, since the 1970s. Inflammatory bowel disease resulted in 47,400 deaths in 2015, and those with Crohn's disease have a slightly reduced life expectancy. It tends to start in adolescence and young adulthood, though it can occur at any age. Males and females are equally affected.
## Name controversy
The disease was named after gastroenterologist Burrill Bernard Crohn, who in 1932, together with Leon Ginzburg (1898–1988) and Gordon D. Oppenheimer (1900–1974) at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, described a series of patients with inflammation of the terminal ileum of the small intestine, the area most commonly affected by the illness. Why the disease was named after Crohn has controversy around it. While Crohn in his memoir describes his original investigation of the disease, Ginzburg provided strong evidence how he and Oppenheimer were the first to study the disease.
## Signs and symptoms
### Gastrointestinal
Many people with Crohn's disease have symptoms for years before the diagnosis. The usual onset is in the teens and twenties, but can occur at any age. Because of the 'patchy' nature of the gastrointestinal disease and the depth of tissue involvement, initial symptoms can be more subtle than those of ulcerative colitis. People with Crohn's disease experience chronic recurring periods of flare-ups and remission. The symptoms experienced can change over time as inflammation increases and spreads. Symptoms can also be different depending on which organs are involved. It is generally thought that the presentation of Crohn's disease is different for each patient due to the high variability of symptoms, organ involvement, and initial presentation.
### Perianal
Perianal discomfort may also be prominent in Crohn's disease. Itchiness or pain around the anus may be suggestive of inflammation of the anus, or perianal complications such as anal fissures, fistulae, or abscesses around the anal area. Perianal skin tags are also common in Crohn's disease, and may appear with or without the presence of colorectal polyps. Fecal incontinence may accompany perianal Crohn's disease.
### Intestines
The intestines, especially the colon and terminal ileum, are the most commonly affected areas of the body. Abdominal pain is a common initial symptom of Crohn's disease, especially in the lower right abdomen. Flatulence, bloating, and abdominal distension are additional symptoms and may also add to the intestinal discomfort. Pain is often accompanied by diarrhea, which may or may not be bloody. Inflammation in different areas of the intestinal tract can affect the quality of the feces. Ileitis typically results in large-volume, watery feces, while colitis may result in a smaller volume of feces of higher frequency. Fecal consistency may range from solid to watery. In severe cases, an individual may have more than 20 bowel movements per day, and may need to awaken at night to defecate. Visible bleeding in the feces is less common in Crohn's disease than in ulcerative colitis, but is not unusual. Bloody bowel movements are usually intermittent, and may be bright red, dark maroon, or even black in color. The color of bloody stool depends on the location of the bleed. In severe Crohn's colitis, bleeding may be copious.
### Stomach and esophagus
The stomach is rarely the sole or predominant site of CD. To date there are only a few documented case reports of adults with isolated gastric CD and no reports in the pediatric population. Isolated stomach involvement is very unusual presentation accounting for less than 0.07% of all gastrointestinal CD. Rarely, the esophagus and stomach may be involved in Crohn's disease. These can cause symptoms including difficulty swallowing (dysphagia), upper abdominal pain, and vomiting.
### Oropharynx (mouth)
The mouth may be affected by recurrent sores (aphthous ulcers). Recurrent aphthous ulcers are common; however, it is not clear whether this is due to Crohn's disease or simply that they are common in the general population. Other findings may include diffuse or nodular swelling of the mouth, a cobblestone appearance inside the mouth, granulomatous ulcers, or pyostomatitis vegetans. Medications that are commonly prescribed to treat CD, such as anti-inflammatory and sulfa-containing drugs, may cause lichenoid drug reactions in the mouth. Fungal infection such as candidiasis is also common due to the immunosuppression required in the treatment of the disease. Signs of anemia such as pallor and angular cheilitis or glossitis are also common due to nutritional malabsorption.
People with Crohn's disease are also susceptible to angular stomatitis, an inflammation of the corners of the mouth, and pyostomatitis vegetans.
### Systemic
Like many other chronic, inflammatory diseases, Crohn's disease can cause a variety of systemic symptoms. Among children, growth failure is common. Many children are first diagnosed with Crohn's disease based on inability to maintain growth. As it may manifest at the time of the growth spurt in puberty, up to 30% of children with Crohn's disease may have retardation of growth. Fever may also be present, though fevers greater than 38.5 °C (101.3 °F) are uncommon unless there is a complication such as an abscess. Among older individuals, Crohn's disease may manifest as weight loss, usually related to decreased food intake, since individuals with intestinal symptoms from Crohn's disease often feel better when they do not eat and might lose their appetite. People with extensive small intestine disease may also have malabsorption of carbohydrates or lipids, which can further exacerbate weight loss.
### Extraintestinal
Crohn's disease can affect many organ systems beyond the gastrointestinal tract.
#### Visual
Inflammation of the interior portion of the eye, known as uveitis, can cause blurred vision and eye pain, especially when exposed to light (photophobia). Uveitis can lead to loss of vision if untreated.
Inflammation may also involve the white part of the eye (sclera) or the overlying connective tissue (episclera), which causes conditions called scleritis and episcleritis, respectively.
Other very rare ophthalmological manifestations include: conjunctivitis, glaucoma, and retinal vascular disease.
#### Gallbladder and liver
Crohn's disease that affects the ileum may result in an increased risk of gallstones. This is due to a decrease in bile acid resorption in the ileum, and the bile gets excreted in the stool. As a result, the cholesterol/bile ratio increases in the gallbladder, resulting in an increased risk for gallstones. Although the association is greater in the context of ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease may also be associated with primary sclerosing cholangitis, a type of inflammation of the bile ducts.
Liver involvement of Crohn's disease can include cirrhosis and steatosis. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis, NAFLD) are relatively common and can slowly progress to end-stage liver disease. NAFLD sensitizes the liver to injury and increases the risk of developing acute or chronic liver failure following another liver injury.
Other rare hepatobiliary manifestations of Crohn's disease include: cholangiocarcinoma, granulomatous hepatitis, cholelithiasis, autoimmune hepatitis, hepatic abscess, and pericholangitis.
#### Renal and urological
Nephrolithiasis, obstructive uropathy, and fistulization of the urinary tract directly result from the underlying disease process. Nephrolithiasis is due to calcium oxalate or uric acid stones. Calcium oxalate is due to hyperoxaluria typically associated with either distal ileal CD or ileal resection. Oxalate absorption increases in the presence of unabsorbed fatty acids in the colon. The fatty acids compete with oxalate to bind calcium, displacing the oxalate, which can then be absorbed as unbound sodium oxalate across colonocytes and excreted into the urine. Because sodium oxalate only is absorbed in the colon, calcium-oxalate stones form only in patients with an intact colon. Patients with an ileostomy are prone to formation of uric-acid stones because of frequent dehydration. The sudden onset of severe abdominal, back, or flank pain in patients with IBD, particularly if different from the usual discomfort, should lead to inclusion of a renal stone in the differential diagnosis.
Urological manifestations in patients with IBD may include ureteral calculi, enterovesical fistula, perivesical infection, perinephric abscess, and obstructive uropathy with hydronephrosis. Ureteral compression is associated with retroperitoneal extension of the phlegmonous inflammatory process involving the terminal ileum and cecum, and may result in hydronephrosis severe enough to cause hypertension.
Immune complex glomerulonephritis presenting with proteinuria and hematuria has been described in children and adults with CD or UC. Diagnosis is by renal biopsy, and treatment parallels the underlying IBD.
Amyloidosis (see endocrinological involvement) secondary to Crohn's disease has been described and is known to affect the kidneys.
#### Pancreatic
Pancreatitis may be associated with both UC and CD. The most common cause is iatrogenic and involves sensitivity to medications used to treat IBD (3% of patients), including sulfasalazine, mesalamine, 6-mercaptopurine, and azathioprine. Pancreatitis may present as symptomatic (in 2%) or more commonly asymptomatic (8–21%) disease in adults with IBD.
#### Cardiovascular and circulatory
Children and adults with IBD have been rarely (\<1%) reported developing pleuropericarditis either at initial presentation or during active or quiescent disease. The pathogenesis of pleuropericarditis is unknown, although certain medications (e.g., sulfasalazine and mesalamine derivatives) have been implicated in some cases. The clinical presentation may include chest pain, dyspnea, or in severe cases pericardial tamponade requiring rapid drainage. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs have been used as therapy, although this should be weighed against the hypothetical risk of exacerbating the underlying IBD.
In rare cases, cardiomyopathy, endocarditis, and myocarditis have been described.
Crohn's disease also increases the risk of blood clots; painful swelling of the lower legs can be a sign of deep venous thrombosis, while difficulty breathing may be a result of pulmonary embolism.
#### Respiratory
Laryngeal involvement in inflammatory bowel disease is extremely rare. Only 12 cases of laryngeal involvement in Crohn's disease have been reported as of 2019. Moreover, only one case of laryngeal manifestations in ulcerative colitis has been reported as of that date. 9 patients complained of difficulty in breathing due to edema and ulceration from the larynx to the hypopharynx Hoarseness, sore throat, and odynophagia are other symptoms of laryngeal involvement of Crohn's disease.
Considering extraintestinal manifestations of CD, those involving the lung are relatively rare. However, there is a wide array of lung manifestations, ranging from subclinical alterations, airway diseases and lung parenchymal diseases to pleural diseases and drug-related diseases. The most frequent manifestation is bronchial inflammation and suppuration with or without bronchiectasis. There are a number of mechanisms by which the lungs may become involved in CD. These include the same embryological origin of the lung and gastrointestinal tract by ancestral intestine, similar immune systems in the pulmonary and intestinal mucosa, the presence of circulating immune complexes and auto-antibodies, and the adverse pulmonary effects of some drugs. A complete list of known pulmonary manifestations include: Fibrosing alveolitis, Pulmonary vasculitis, Apical fibrosis, Bronchiectasis, Bronchitis, Bronchiolitis, Tracheal stenosis, Granulomatous lung disease, and Abnormal pulmonary function.
#### Musculoskeletal
Crohn's disease is associated with a type of rheumatologic disease known as seronegative spondyloarthropathy. This group of diseases is characterized by inflammation of one or more joints (arthritis) or muscle insertions (enthesitis). The arthritis in Crohn's disease can be divided into two types. The first type affects larger weight-bearing joints such as the knee (most common), hips, shoulders, wrists, or elbows. The second type symmetrically involves five or more of the small joints of the hands and feet. The arthritis may also involve the spine, leading to ankylosing spondylitis if the entire spine is involved, or simply sacroiliitis if only the sacroiliac joint is involved.
Crohn's disease increases the risk of osteoporosis or thinning of the bones. Individuals with osteoporosis are at increased risk of bone fractures.
#### Dermatological
Crohn's disease may also involve the skin, blood, and endocrine system. Erythema nodosum is the most common type of skin problem, occurring in around 8% of people with Crohn's disease, producing raised, tender red nodules usually appearing on the shins. Erythema nodosum is due to inflammation of the underlying subcutaneous tissue, and is characterized by septal panniculitis.
Pyoderma gangrenosum is a less common skin problem, occurring in under 2%, and is typically a painful ulcerating nodule.
Clubbing, a deformity of the ends of the fingers, may also be a result of Crohn's disease.
Other very rare dermatological manifestations include: Pyostomatitis vegetans, Psoriasis, Erythema multiforme, Epidermolysis bullosa acquista (described in a case report), and Metastatic CD (the spread of Crohn's inflammation to the skin). It is unknown if Sweet's Syndrome is connected to Crohn's disease.
#### Neurological
Crohn's disease can also cause neurological complications (reportedly in up to 15%). The most common of these are seizures, stroke, myopathy, peripheral neuropathy, headache, and depression.
Central and peripheral neurological disorders are described in patients with IBD and include peripheral neuropathies, myopathies, focal central nervous system defects, convulsions, confusional episodes, meningitis, syncope, optic neuritis, and sensorineural loss. Autoimmune mechanisms are proposed for involvement with IBD. Nutritional deficiencies associated with neurological manifestations, such as vitamin B<sub>12</sub> deficiency, should be investigated. Spinal abscess has been reported in both a child and an adult with initial complaints of severe back pain due to extension of a psoas abscess from the epidural space to the subarachnoid space.
#### Psychiatric and psychological
Crohn's disease is linked to many psychological disorders, including depression and anxiety, denial of your disease, the need for dependence or dependent behaviors, feeling overwhelmed, and having a poor self-image.
Many studies found that patients with IBD reported a higher frequency of depressive and anxiety disorders than the general population, and most studies confirm that women with IBD are more likely than men to develop affective disorders and show that up to 65% of them may have Depression disorder and Anxiety disorder.
#### Endocrinological or hematological
Autoimmune hemolytic anemia, a condition in which the immune system attacks the red blood cells, is also more common in Crohn's disease and may cause fatigue, a pale appearance, and other symptoms common in anemia.
Secondary amyloidosis (AA) is another rare but serious complication of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), generally seen in Crohn's disease. At least 1% of patients with Crohn's disease develop amyloidosis. In the literature, the time lapse between the onset of Crohn's disease and the diagnosis of amyloidosis has been reported to range from 1 to 21 years.
Leukocytosis and thrombocytopenia are usually due to immunosuppressant treatments or sulfasalazine. Plasma erythropoietin levels often are lower in patients with IBD than expected, in conjunction with severe anemia.
Thrombocytosis and thromboembolic events resulting from a hypercoagulable state in patients with IBD can lead to pulmonary embolism or thrombosis elsewhere in the body. Thrombosis has been reported in 1.8% of patients with UC and 3.1% of patients with CD. Thromboembolism and thrombosis are less frequently reported among pediatric patients, with three patients with UC and one with CD described in case reports.
In rare cases, hypercoagulation disorders and portal vein thrombosis have been described.
#### Malnutrition symptoms
People with Crohn's disease may develop anemia due to vitamin B<sub>12</sub>, folate, iron deficiency, or due to anemia of chronic disease. The most common is iron deficiency anemia from chronic blood loss, reduced dietary intake, and persistent inflammation leading to increased hepcidin levels, restricting iron absorption in the duodenum. As Crohn's disease most commonly affects the terminal ileum where the vitamin B<sub>12</sub>/intrinsic factor complex is absorbed, B<sub>12</sub> deficiency may be seen. This is particularly common after surgery to remove the ileum. Involvement of the duodenum and jejunum can impair the absorption of many other nutrients including folate. People with Crohn's often also have issues with small bowel bacterial overgrowth syndrome, which can produce micronutrient deficiencies.
### Complications
#### Intestinal damage
Crohn's disease can lead to several mechanical complications within the intestines, including obstruction, fistulae, and abscesses. Obstruction typically occurs from strictures or adhesions that narrow the lumen, blocking the passage of the intestinal contents. A fistula can develop between two loops of bowel, between the bowel and bladder, between the bowel and vagina, and between the bowel and skin. Abscesses are walled-off concentrations of infection, which can occur in the abdomen or in the perianal area. Crohn's is responsible for 10% of vesicoenteric fistulae, and is the most common cause of ileovesical fistulae.
Symptoms caused by intestinal stenosis, or the tightening and narrowing of the bowel, are also common in Crohn's disease. Abdominal pain is often most severe in areas of the bowel with stenosis. Persistent vomiting and nausea may indicate stenosis from small bowel obstruction or disease involving the stomach, pylorus, or duodenum.
Intestinal granulomas are a walled-off portions of the intestine by macrophages in order to isolate infections. Granuloma formation is more often seen in younger patients, and mainly in the severe, active penetrating disease. Granuloma is considered the hallmark of microscopic diagnosis in Crohn's disease (CD), but granulomas can be detected in only 21–60% of CD patients.
#### Cancer
Crohn's disease also increases the risk of cancer in the area of inflammation. For example, individuals with Crohn's disease involving the small bowel are at higher risk for small intestinal cancer. Similarly, people with Crohn's colitis have a relative risk of 5.6 for developing colon cancer. Screening for colon cancer with colonoscopy is recommended for anyone who has had Crohn's colitis for at least eight years.
Some studies suggest there is a role for chemoprotection in the prevention of colorectal cancer in Crohn's involving the colon; two agents have been suggested, folate and mesalamine preparations. Also, immunomodulators and biologic agents used to treat this disease may promote developing extra-intestinal cancers.
Some cancers, such as Acute Myelocytic Leukaemia have been described in cases of Crohn's disease. Hepatosplenic T-cell lymphoma (HSTCL) is a rare, lethal disease generally seen in young male patients with inflammatory bowel disease. TNF-α Inhibitor treatments (infliximab, adalimumab, certolizumab, natalizumab, and etanercept) are thought to be the cause of this rare disease.
#### Major complications
Major complications of Crohn's disease include bowel obstruction, abscesses, free perforation, and hemorrhage, which in rare cases may be fatal.
#### Other complications
Individuals with Crohn's disease are at risk of malnutrition for many reasons, including decreased food intake and malabsorption. The risk increases following resection of the small bowel. Such individuals may require oral supplements to increase their caloric intake, or in severe cases, total parenteral nutrition (TPN). Most people with moderate or severe Crohn's disease are referred to a dietitian for assistance in nutrition.
Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) is characterized by excessive proliferation of colonic bacterial species in the small bowel. Potential causes of SIBO include fistulae, strictures, or motility disturbances. Hence, patients with Crohn's disease are especially predisposed to develop SIBO. As result, CD patients may experience malabsorption and report symptoms such as weight loss, watery diarrhea, meteorism, flatulence, and abdominal pain, mimicking acute flare in these patients.
#### Pregnancy
Crohn's disease can be problematic during pregnancy, and some medications can cause adverse outcomes for the fetus or mother. Consultation with an obstetrician and gastroenterologist about Crohn's disease and all medications facilitates preventive measures. In some cases, remission occurs during pregnancy. Certain medications can also lower sperm count or otherwise adversely affect a man's fertility.
#### Ostomy-related complications
Common complications of an ostomy (a common surgery in Crohn's disease) are: Mucosal edema, Peristomal dermatitis, Retraction, Ostomy prolapse, Mucosal/skin detachment, Hematoma, Necrosis, Parastomal hernia, and Stenosis.
## Etiology
The etiology of Crohn's disease is unknown. Many theories have been disputed, with four main theories hypothesized to be the primary mechanism of Crohn's disease. In autoimmune diseases, antibodies and T lymphocytes are the primary mode of inflammation. These cells and bodies are part of the adaptive immune system, or the part of the immune system that learns to fight foreign bodies when first identified. Autoinflammatory diseases are diseases where the innate immune system, or the immune system we are genetically coded with, is designed to attack our own cells. Crohn's disease likely has involvement of both the adaptive and innate immune systems.
### Autoinflammatory theory
Crohn's disease can be described as a multifactorial autoinflammatory disease. The etiopathogenesis of Crohn's disease is still unknown. In any event, a loss of the regulatory capacity of the immune apparatus would be implicated in the onset of the disease. In this respect interestingly enough, as for Blau's disease (a monogenic autoinflammatory disease), the NOD2 gene mutations have been linked to Crohn's disease. However, in Crohn's disease, NOD2 mutations act as a risk factor, being more common among Crohn's disease patients than the background population, while in Blau's disease NOD2 mutations are linked directly to this syndrome, as it is an autosomal-dominant disease. All this new knowledge in the pathogenesis of Crohn's disease allows us to put this multifactorial disease in the group of autoinflammatory syndromes.
Some examples of how the innate immune system affects bowel inflammation have been described. A meta-analysis of CD genome-wide association studies revealed 71 distinct CD-susceptibility loci. Interestingly, three very important CD-susceptibility genes (the intracellular pathogen-recognition receptor, NOD2; the autophagy-related 16-like 1, ATG16L1 and the immunity-related GTPase M, IRGM) are involved in innate immune responses against gut microbiota, while one (the X-box binding protein 1) is involved in regulation of the [adaptive] immune pathway via MHC class II, resulting in autoinflammatory inflammation. Studies have also found that increased ILC3 can overexpress major histocompatibility complex (MHC) II. MHC class II can induce CD4+ T cell apoptosis, thus avoiding the T cell response to normal bowel micro bacteria. Further studies of IBD patients compared with non-IBD patients found that the expression of MHC II by ILC3 was significantly reduced in IBD patients, thus causing an immune reaction against intestinal cells or normal bowel bacteria and damaging the intestines. This can also make the intestines more susceptible to environmental factors, such as food or bacteria.
The thinking is, that because Crohn's disease has strong innate immune system involvement and has NOD2 mutations as a predisposition, Crohn's disease is more likely an autoinflammatory disease than an autoimmune disease.
### Immunodeficiency theory
A substantial body of data has emerged in recent years to suggest that the primary defect in Crohn's disease is actually one of relative immunodeficiency. This view has been bolstered recently by novel immunological and clinical studies that have confirmed gross aberrations in this early response, consistent with subsequent genetic studies that highlighted molecules important for innate immune function. The suggestion therefore is that Crohn's pathogenesis actually results from partial immunodeficiency, a theory that coincides with the frequent recognition of a virtually identical, non-infectious inflammatory bowel disease arising in patients with congenital monogenic disorders impairing phagocyte function.
## Risk factors
While the exact cause or causes are unknown, Crohn's disease seems to be due to a combination of environmental factors and genetic predisposition. Crohn's is the first genetically complex disease in which the relationship between genetic risk factors and the immune system is understood in considerable detail. Each individual risk mutation makes a small contribution to the overall risk of Crohn's (approximately 1:200). The genetic data, and direct assessment of immunity, indicates a malfunction in the innate immune system. In this view, the chronic inflammation of Crohn's is caused when the adaptive immune system tries to compensate for a deficient innate immune system.
### Genetics
Crohn's has a genetic component. Because of this, siblings of known people with Crohn's are 30 times more likely to develop Crohn's than the general population.
The first mutation found to be associated with Crohn's was a frameshift in the NOD2 gene (also known as the CARD15 gene), followed by the discovery of point mutations. Over 30 genes have been associated with Crohn's; a biological function is known for most of them. For example, one association is with mutations in the XBP1 gene, which is involved in the unfolded protein response pathway of the endoplasmic reticulum. The gene variants of NOD2/CARD15 seem to be related with small-bowel involvement. Other well documented genes which increase the risk of developing Crohn's disease are ATG16L1, IL23R, IRGM, and SLC11A1. There is considerable overlap between susceptibility loci for IBD and mycobacterial infections. Genome-wide association studies have shown that Crohn's disease is genetically linked to coeliac disease.
Crohn's has been linked to the gene LRRK2 with one variant potentially increasing the risk of developing the disease by 70%, while another lowers it by 25%. The gene is responsible for making a protein, which collects and eliminates waste product in cells, and is also associated with Parkinson's disease.
### Immune system
There was a prevailing view that Crohn's disease is a primary T cell autoimmune disorder; however, a newer theory hypothesizes that Crohn's results from an impaired innate immunity. The later hypothesis describes impaired cytokine secretion by macrophages, which contributes to impaired innate immunity and leads to a sustained microbial-induced inflammatory response in the colon, where the bacterial load is high. Another theory is that the inflammation of Crohn's was caused by an overactive T<sub>h</sub>1 and T<sub>h</sub>17 cytokine response.
In 2007, the ATG16L1 gene was implicated in Crohn's disease, which may induce autophagy and hinder the body's ability to attack invasive bacteria. Another study theorized that the human immune system traditionally evolved with the presence of parasites inside the body and that the lack thereof due to modern hygiene standards has weakened the immune system. Test subjects were reintroduced to harmless parasites, with positive responses.
### Microbes
It is hypothesized that maintenance of commensal microorganism growth in the GI tract is dysregulated, either as a result or cause of immune dysregulation.
There is an apparent connection between Crohn's disease, Mycobacterium, other pathogenic bacteria, and genetic markers. A number of studies have suggested a causal role for Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP), which causes a similar disease, Johne's disease, in cattle. In many individuals, genetic factors predispose individuals to Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis infection. This bacterium may produce certain compounds containing mannose, which may protect both itself and various other bacteria from phagocytosis, thereby possibly causing a variety of secondary infections.
NOD2 is a gene involved in Crohn's genetic susceptibility. It is associated with macrophages' diminished ability to phagocytize MAP. This same gene may reduce innate and adaptive immunity in gastrointestinal tissue and impair the ability to resist infection by the MAP bacterium. Macrophages that ingest the MAP bacterium are associated with high production of TNF-α.
Other studies have linked specific strains of enteroadherent E. coli to the disease. Adherent-invasive Escherichia coli (AIEC), more common in people with CD, have the ability to make strong biofilms compared to non-AIEC strains correlating with high adhesion and invasion indices of neutrophils and the ability to block autophagy at the autolysosomal step, which allows for intracellular survival of the bacteria and induction of inflammation. Inflammation drives the proliferation of AIEC and dysbiosis in the ileum, irrespective of genotype. AIEC strains replicate extensively inside macrophages inducing the secretion of very large amounts of TNF-α.
Mouse studies have suggested some symptoms of Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, and irritable bowel syndrome have the same underlying cause. Biopsy samples taken from the colons of all three patient groups were found to produce elevated levels of a serine protease. Experimental introduction of the serine protease into mice has been found to produce widespread pain associated with irritable bowel syndrome, as well as colitis, which is associated with all three diseases. Regional and temporal variations in those illnesses follow those associated with infection with the protozoan Blastocystis.
The "cold-chain" hypothesis is that psychrotrophic bacteria such as Yersinia and Listeria species contribute to the disease. A statistical correlation was found between the advent of the use of refrigeration in the United States and various parts of Europe and the rise of the disease.
There is also a tentative association between Candida colonization and Crohn's disease.
Still, these relationships between specific pathogens and Crohn's disease remain unclear.
### Environmental factors
The increased incidence of Crohn's in the industrialized world indicates an environmental component. Crohn's is associated with an increased intake of animal protein, milk protein, and an increased ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. Those who consume vegetable proteins appear to have a lower incidence of Crohn's disease. Consumption of fish protein has no association. Smoking increases the risk of the return of active disease (flares). The introduction of hormonal contraception in the United States in the 1960s is associated with a dramatic increase in incidence, and one hypothesis is that these drugs work on the digestive system in ways similar to smoking. Isotretinoin is associated with Crohn's.
Although stress is sometimes claimed to exacerbate Crohn's disease, there is no concrete evidence to support such claim. Still, it is well known that immune function is related to stress. Dietary microparticles, such as those found in toothpaste, have been studied as they produce effects on immunity, but they were not consumed in greater amounts in patients with Crohn's. The use of doxycycline has also been associated with increased risk of developing inflammatory bowel diseases. In one large retrospective study, patients who were prescribed doxycycline for their acne had a 2.25-fold greater risk of developing Crohn's disease.
## Pathophysiology
During a colonoscopy, biopsies of the colon are often taken to confirm the diagnosis. Certain characteristic features of the pathology seen point toward Crohn's disease; it shows a transmural pattern of inflammation, meaning the inflammation may span the entire depth of the intestinal wall.
Granulomas, aggregates of macrophage derivatives known as giant cells, are found in 50% of cases and are most specific for Crohn's disease. The granulomas of Crohn's disease do not show "caseation", a cheese-like appearance on microscopic examination characteristic of granulomas associated with infections, such as tuberculosis. Biopsies may also show chronic mucosal damage, as evidenced by blunting of the intestinal villi, atypical branching of the crypts, and a change in the tissue type (metaplasia). One example of such metaplasia, Paneth cell metaplasia, involves the development of Paneth cells (typically found in the small intestine and a key regulator of intestinal microbiota) in other parts of the gastrointestinal system.
## Diagnosis
The diagnosis of Crohn's disease can sometimes be challenging, and many tests are often required to assist the physician in making the diagnosis. Even with a full battery of tests, it may not be possible to diagnose Crohn's with complete certainty; a colonoscopy is approximately 70% effective in diagnosing the disease, with further tests being less effective. Disease in the small bowel is particularly difficult to diagnose, as a traditional colonoscopy allows access to only the colon and lower portions of the small intestines; introduction of the capsule endoscopy aids in endoscopic diagnosis. Giant (multinucleate) cells, a common finding in the lesions of Crohn's disease, are less common in the lesions of lichen nitidus.
### Classification
Crohn's disease is one type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). It typically manifests in the gastrointestinal tract and can be categorized by the specific tract region affected.
Gastroduodenal Crohn's disease causes inflammation in the stomach and the first part of the small intestine called the duodenum. Jejunoileitis causes spotty patches of inflammation in the top half of the small intestine, called the jejunum. The disease can attack any part of the digestive tract, from mouth to anus. However, individuals affected by the disease rarely fall outside these three classifications, with presentations in other areas.
Crohn's disease may also be categorized by the behavior of disease as it progresses. These categorizations formalized in the Vienna classification of the disease. There are three categories of disease presentation in Crohn's disease: stricturing, penetrating, and inflammatory. Stricturing disease causes narrowing of the bowel that may lead to bowel obstruction or changes in the caliber of the feces. Penetrating disease creates abnormal passageways (fistulae) between the bowel and other structures, such as the skin. Inflammatory disease (or nonstricturing, nonpenetrating disease) causes inflammation without causing strictures or fistulae.
### Endoscopy
A colonoscopy is the best test for making the diagnosis of Crohn's disease, as it allows direct visualization of the colon and the terminal ileum, identifying the pattern of disease involvement. On occasion, the colonoscope can travel past the terminal ileum, but it varies from person to person. During the procedure, the gastroenterologist can also perform a biopsy, taking small samples of tissue for laboratory analysis, which may help confirm a diagnosis. As 30% of Crohn's disease involves only the ileum, cannulation of the terminal ileum is required in making the diagnosis. Finding a patchy distribution of disease, with involvement of the colon or ileum, but not the rectum, is suggestive of Crohn's disease, as are other endoscopic stigmata. The utility of capsule endoscopy for this, however, is still uncertain.
### Radiologic tests
A small bowel follow-through may suggest the diagnosis of Crohn's disease and is useful when the disease involves only the small intestine. Because colonoscopy and gastroscopy allow direct visualization of only the terminal ileum and beginning of the duodenum, they cannot be used to evaluate the remainder of the small intestine. As a result, a barium follow-through X-ray, wherein barium sulfate suspension is ingested and fluoroscopic images of the bowel are taken over time, is useful for looking for inflammation and narrowing of the small bowel. Barium enemas, in which barium is inserted into the rectum and fluoroscopy is used to image the bowel, are rarely used in the work-up of Crohn's disease due to the advent of colonoscopy. They remain useful for identifying anatomical abnormalities when strictures of the colon are too small for a colonoscope to pass through, or in the detection of colonic fistulae (in this case contrast should be performed with iodate substances).
CT and MRI scans are useful for evaluating the small bowel with enteroclysis protocols. They are also useful for looking for intra-abdominal complications of Crohn's disease, such as abscesses, small bowel obstructions, or fistulae. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is another option for imaging the small bowel as well as looking for complications, though it is more expensive and less readily available. MRI techniques such as diffusion-weighted imaging and high-resolution imaging are more sensitive in detecting ulceration and inflammation compared to CT.
### Blood tests
A complete blood count may reveal anemia, which commonly is caused by blood loss leading to iron deficiency or by vitamin B deficiency, usually caused by ileal disease impairing vitamin B absorption. Rarely autoimmune hemolysis may occur. Ferritin levels help assess if iron deficiency is contributing to the anemia. Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein help assess the degree of inflammation, which is important as ferritin can also be raised in inflammation.
Other causes of anemia include medication used in treatment of inflammatory bowel disease, like azathioprine, which can lead to cytopenia, and sulfasalazine, which can also result in folate deficiency. Testing for Saccharomyces cerevisiae antibodies (ASCA) and antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA) has been evaluated to identify inflammatory diseases of the intestine and to differentiate Crohn's disease from ulcerative colitis. Furthermore, increasing amounts and levels of serological antibodies such as ASCA, antilaminaribioside [Glc(β1,3)Glb(β); ALCA], antichitobioside [GlcNAc(β1,4)GlcNAc(β); ACCA], antimannobioside [Man(α1,3)Man(α)AMCA], antiLaminarin [(Glc(β1,3))3n(Glc(β1,6))n; anti-L] and antichitin [GlcNAc(β1,4)n; anti-C] associate with disease behavior and surgery, and may aid in the prognosis of Crohn's disease.
Low serum levels of vitamin D are associated with Crohn's disease. Further studies are required to determine the significance of this association.
### Comparison with ulcerative colitis
The most common disease that mimics the symptoms of Crohn's disease is ulcerative colitis, as both are inflammatory bowel diseases that can affect the colon with similar symptoms. It is important to differentiate these diseases, since the course of the diseases and treatments may be different. In some cases, however, it may not be possible to tell the difference, in which case the disease is classified as indeterminate colitis.
### Differential diagnosis
Other conditions with similar symptoms as Crohn's disease includes intestinal tuberculosis, Behçet's disease, ulcerative colitis, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug enteropathy, irritable bowel syndrome and celiac disease. Irritable bowel syndrome is excluded when there are inflammatory changes. Celiac disease cannot be excluded if specific antibodies (anti-transglutaminase antibodies) are negative, nor in absence of intestinal villi atrophy.
## Management
There is no cure for Crohn's disease and remission may not be possible or prolonged if achieved. In cases where remission is possible, relapse can be prevented and symptoms controlled with medication, lifestyle and dietary changes, changes to eating habits (eating smaller amounts more often), reduction of stress, moderate activity, and exercise. Surgery is generally contraindicated and has not been shown to prevent relapse. Adequately controlled, Crohn's disease may not significantly restrict daily living. Treatment for Crohn's disease involves first treating the acute problem and its symptoms, then maintaining remission of the disease.
### Lifestyle changes
Certain lifestyle changes can reduce symptoms, including dietary adjustments, elemental diet, proper hydration, and smoking cessation. Patients with Crohn's disease are very interested in diet. Recent reviews underlined the importance to adopt diets that are best supported by evidence, even if little is known about the impact of diets on these patients. Diets that include higher levels of fiber and fruit are associated with reduced risk, while diets rich in total fats, polyunsaturated fatty acids, meat, and omega-6 fatty acids may increase the risk of Crohn's. Maintaining a balanced diet with proper portion control can help manage symptoms of the disease. Eating small meals frequently instead of big meals may also help with a low appetite. A food diary may help with identifying foods that trigger symptoms. Despite the recognized importance of dietary fiber for intestinal health, some people should follow a low residue diet to control acute symptoms especially if foods high in insoluble fiber cause symptoms, e.g., due to obstruction or irritation of the bowel. Some find relief in eliminating casein (a protein found in cow's milk) and gluten (a protein found in wheat, rye and barley) from their diets. They may have specific dietary intolerances (not allergies), for example, lactose. Fatigue can be helped with regular exercise, a healthy diet, and enough sleep, and for those with malabsorption of vitamin B<sub>12</sub> due to disease or surgical resection of the terminal ileum, cobalamin injections. Smoking may worsen symptoms and the course of the disease, and stopping is recommended. Alcohol consumption can also worsen symptoms, and moderation or cessation is advised.
### Medication
Acute treatment uses medications to treat any infection (normally antibiotics) and to reduce inflammation (normally aminosalicylate anti-inflammatory drugs and corticosteroids). When symptoms are in remission, treatment enters maintenance, with a goal of avoiding the recurrence of symptoms. Prolonged use of corticosteroids has significant side-effects; as a result, they are, in general, not used for long-term treatment. Alternatives include aminosalicylates alone, though only a minority are able to maintain the treatment, and many require immunosuppressive drugs. It has been also suggested that antibiotics change the enteric flora, and their continuous use may pose the risk of overgrowth with pathogens such as Clostridium difficile.
Medications used to treat the symptoms of Crohn's disease include 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA) formulations, prednisone, immunomodulators such as azathioprine (given as the prodrug for 6-mercaptopurine), methotrexate, and anti-TNF therapies and monoclonal antibodies, such as infliximab, adalimumab, certolizumab, vedolizumab, ustekinumab, natalizumab,risankizumab-rzaa, and upadacitinib Hydrocortisone should be used in severe attacks of Crohn's disease. Biological therapies are medications used to avoid long-term steroid use, decrease inflammation, and treat people who have fistulas with abscesses. The monoclonal antibody ustekinumab appears to be a safe treatment option, and may help people with moderate to severe active Crohn's disease. The long term safety and effectiveness of monoclonal antibody treatment is not known. The monoclonal antibody briakinumab is not effective for people with active Crohn's disease and it is no longer being manufactured.
The gradual loss of blood from the gastrointestinal tract, as well as chronic inflammation, often leads to anemia, and professional guidelines suggest routinely monitoring for this.
### Surgery
Crohn's cannot be cured by surgery, as the disease eventually recurs, though it is used in the case of partial or full blockage of the intestine. Surgery may also be required for complications such as obstructions, fistulas, or abscesses, or if the disease does not respond to drugs. After the first surgery, Crohn's usually comes back at the site where the diseased intestine was removed and the healthy ends were rejoined; it can also come back in other locations. After a resection, scar tissue builds up, which can cause strictures, which form when the intestines become too small to allow excrement to pass through easily, which can lead to a blockage. After the first resection, another resection may be necessary within five years. For patients with an obstruction due to a stricture, two options for treatment are strictureplasty and resection of that portion of bowel. There is no statistical significance between strictureplasty alone versus strictureplasty and resection in cases of duodenal involvement. In these cases, re-operation rates were 31% and 27%, respectively, indicating that strictureplasty is a safe and effective treatment for selected people with duodenal involvement.
Postsurgical recurrence of Crohn's disease is relatively common. Crohn's lesions are nearly always found at the site of the resected bowel. The join (or anastomosis) after surgery may be inspected, usually during a colonoscopy, and disease activity graded. The "Rutgeert's score" is an endoscopic scoring system for postoperative disease recurrence in Crohn's disease. Mild postsurgical recurrences of Crohn's disease are graded i1 and i2, moderate to severe recurrences are graded i3 and i4. Fewer lesions result in a lower grade. Based on the score, treatment plans can be designed to give the patient the best chance of managing the recurrence of the disease.
Short bowel syndrome (SBS, also short gut syndrome or simply short gut) is caused by the surgical removal of part of the small intestine. It usually develops in those patients who have had half or more of their small intestines removed. Diarrhea is the main symptom, but others may include weight loss, cramping, bloating, and heartburn. Short bowel syndrome is treated with changes in diet, intravenous feeding, vitamin and mineral supplements, and treatment with medications. In some cases of SBS, intestinal transplant surgery may be considered; though the number of transplant centres offering this procedure is quite small and it comes with a high risk due to the chance of infection and rejection of the transplanted intestine.
Bile acid diarrhea is another complication following surgery for Crohn's disease in which the terminal ileum has been removed. This leads to the development of excessive watery diarrhea. It is usually thought to be due to an inability of the ileum to reabsorb bile acids after resection of the terminal ileum and was the first type of bile acid malabsorption recognized.
### Microbiome modification
The use of oral probiotic supplements to modify the composition and behaviour of the gastrointestinal microbiome has been researched recently to understand whether it may help to improve remission rate in people with Crohn's disease. However only 2 controlled trials were available in 2020, with no clear overall evidence of higher remission nor lower adverse effects, in people with Crohn's disease receiving probiotic supplementation.
### Mental health
Crohn's may result in anxiety or mood disorders, especially in young people who may have stunted growth or embarrassment from fecal incontinence. Counselling as well as antidepressant or anxiolytic medication may help some people manage.
As of 2017 there is a small amount of research looking at mindfulness-based therapies, hypnotherapy, and cognitive behavioural therapy.
### Alternative medicine
It is common for people with Crohn's disease to try complementary or alternative therapy. These include diets, probiotics, fish oil, and other herbal and nutritional supplements.
- Acupuncture is used to treat inflammatory bowel disease in China, and is being used more frequently in Western society. At this time, evidence is insufficient to recommend the use of acupuncture.
- A 2006 survey in Germany found that about half of people with IBD used some form of alternative medicine, with the most common being homeopathy, and a study in France found that about 30% used alternative medicine. Homeopathic preparations are not proven with this or any other condition, with large-scale studies finding them to be no more effective than a placebo.
- There are contradicting studies regarding the effect of medical cannabis on inflammatory bowel disease, and its effects on management are uncertain.
## Prognosis
Crohn's disease is a chronic condition for which there is no known cure. It is characterised by periods of improvement followed by episodes when symptoms flare up. With treatment, most people achieve a healthy weight, and the mortality rate for the disease is relatively low. It can vary from being benign to very severe, and people with CD could experience just one episode or have continuous symptoms. It usually reoccurs, although some people can remain disease-free for years or decades. Up to 80% of people with Crohn's disease are hospitalized at some point during the course of their disease, with the highest rate occurring in the first year after diagnosis. Most people with Crohn's live a normal lifespan. However, Crohn's disease is associated with a small increase in risk of small bowel and colorectal carcinoma (bowel cancer).
## Epidemiology
The percentage of people with Crohn's disease has been determined in Norway and the United States and is similar at 6 to 7.1:100,000. The Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America cites this number as approx 149:100,000; NIH cites 28 to 199 per 100,000. Crohn's disease is more common in northern countries, and with higher rates still in the northern areas of these countries. The incidence of Crohn's disease is thought to be similar in Europe but lower in Asia and Africa. It also has a higher incidence in Ashkenazi Jews and smokers.
Crohn's disease begins most commonly in people in their teens and 20s, and people in their 50s through to their 70s. It is rarely diagnosed in early childhood. It usually affects female children more severely than males. However, only slightly more women than men have Crohn's disease. Parents, siblings or children of people with Crohn's disease are 3 to 20 times more likely to develop the disease. Twin studies find that if one has the disease there is a 55% chance the other will too.
The incidence of Crohn's disease is increasing in Europe and in newly industrialised countries. For example, in Brazil, there has been an annual increase of 11% in the incidence of Crohn's disease since 1990.
## History
Inflammatory bowel diseases were described by Giovanni Battista Morgagni (1682–1771) and by Scottish physician T Kennedy Dalziel in 1913.
Ileitis terminalis was first described by Polish surgeon Antoni Leśniowski in 1904, although it was not conclusively distinguished from intestinal tuberculosis. In Poland, it is still called Leśniowski-Crohn's disease (Polish: choroba Leśniowskiego-Crohna). Burrill Bernard Crohn, an American gastroenterologist at New York City's Mount Sinai Hospital, described fourteen cases in 1932, and submitted them to the American Medical Association under the rubric of "Terminal ileitis: A new clinical entity". Later that year, he, along with colleagues Leon Ginzburg and Gordon Oppenheimer, published the case series "Regional ileitis: a pathologic and clinical entity". However, due to the precedence of Crohn's name in the alphabet, it later became known in the worldwide literature as Crohn's disease. |
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