Vocabulary Flashcards
peremptory
(especially of a person’s manner or actions) insisting on immediate attention or obedience, especially in a brusquely imperious way.
““Just do it!” came the peremptory reply”
Origin
late Middle English (as a legal term): via Anglo-Norman French from Latin peremptorius ‘deadly, decisive’, from perempt- ‘destroyed, cut off’, from the verb perimere, from per- ‘completely’ + emere ‘take, buy’.
coquetting
behave flirtatiously; flirt.
“from the day I first met you I felt that you were coquetting with me”
early 17th century (as adjective in sense ‘amorous’): from French coqueter (see coquetry).
rheumatism
any disease marked by inflammation and pain in the joints, muscles, or fibrous tissue, especially rheumatoid arthritis.
late 17th century: from French rhumatisme, or via Latin from Greek rheumatismos, from rheumatizein ‘to snuffle’, from rheuma ‘stream’: the disease was originally supposed to be caused by the internal flow of ‘watery’ humors.
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo (French: [viktɔʁ maʁi yɡo] (listen); 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the greatest French writers of all time.
His most famous works are the novels The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and Les Misérables (1862). In France, Hugo is renowned for his poetry collections, such as Les Contemplations (The Contemplations) and La Légende des siècles (The Legend of the Ages). Hugo was at the forefront of the Romantic literary movement with his play Cromwell and drama Hernani. Many of his works have inspired music, both during his lifetime and after his death, including the opera Rigoletto and the musicals Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris. He produced more than 4,000 drawings in his lifetime, and campaigned for social causes such as the abolition of capital punishment.
Though he was a committed royalist when young, Hugo’s views changed as the decades passed, and he became a passionate supporter of republicanism serving in politics as both deputy and senator. His work touched upon most of the political and social issues and the artistic trends of his time. His opposition to absolutism and his literary stature established him as a national hero. He was honoured by interment in the Panthéon.
planchette
/planˈSHet/
a small board supported on casters, typically heart-shaped and fitted with a vertical pencil, used for automatic writing and in seances.
“the planchette jerked and skittered to the upper left-hand corner of the paper”
mid 19th century: from French, literally ‘small plank’, diminutive of planche .
sten gun
The STEN (or Sten gun) is a family of British submachine guns chambered in 9×19mm which were used extensively by British and Commonwealth forces throughout World War II and the Korean War. They had a simple design and very low production cost, making them effective insurgency weapons for resistance groups, and they continue to see usage to this day by irregular military forces. The Sten served as the basis for the Sterling submachine gun, which replaced the Sten in British service until the 1990s, when it, and all other submachine guns, were replaced by the SA80.
The Sten is a select fire, blowback-operated weapon which mounts its magazine on the left. Sten is an acronym, from the names of the weapon’s chief designers, Major Reginald V. Shepherd and Harold J. Turpin, and “En” for the Enfield factory.[9][b] Over four million Stens in various versions were made in the 1940s, making it the second most produced submachine gun of the Second World War, after the Soviet PPSh-41.
Unitarian
Unitarianism (from Latin unitas “unity, oneness”, from unus “one”) is a nontrinitarian branch of Christian theology. Most other branches of Christianity and the major Churches accept the doctrine of the Trinity which states that there is one God who exists in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons:[1][2] God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit. Unitarian Christians believe that Jesus was inspired by God in his moral teachings and that he is a savior,[3][4] but not God himself.[3][5]
Unitarianism was established in order to restore “primitive Christianity before [what Unitarians saw as] later corruptions setting in”;[6] Unitarians generally reject the doctrine of original sin.[7][8] The churchmanship of Unitarianism may include liberal denominations or Unitarian Christian denominations that are more conservative, with the latter being known as biblical Unitarians.[9][10]
The movement is proximate to the radical reformation, beginning almost simultaneously among the protestant[11] Polish Brethren in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and in Transylvania in the mid-16th century; the Christian denomination that emerged is known as the Unitarian Church of Transylvania. Among the adherents were a significant number of Italians who took refuge in Poland.[12][13] In the 17th century, significant repression in Poland led many Unitarians to flee or be killed for their faith[citation needed], notably Katarzyna Weiglowa. From the 16th to 18th centuries, Unitarians in Britain often faced significant political persecution, including John Biddle, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Theophilus Lindsey. In England, the first Unitarian Church was established in 1774 on Essex Street, London,[14] where today’s British Unitarian headquarters is still located.[15]
As is typical of dissenters, Unitarianism does not constitute one single Christian denomination; rather, it refers to a collection of both existing and extinct Christian groups (whether historically related to each other or not) that share a common theological concept of the unitary nature of God. Unitarian communities have developed in Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Central Europe, India, Canada, the United States, Jamaica, Nigeria, and Japan.
In the United States, different schools of Unitarian theology first spread in New England and the mid-Atlantic states. The first official acceptance of the Unitarian faith on the part of a congregation in America was by King’s Chapel in Boston, from where James Freeman began teaching Unitarian doctrine in 1784 and was appointed rector. Later in 1786, he revised the Book of Common Prayer according to Unitarian doctrines.[16]
knacker
A knacker (/ˈnækər/), knackerman or knacker man is a person who removes and clears animal carcasses (dead, dying, injured) from private farms or public highways and renders the collected carcasses into by-products such as fats, tallow (yellow grease), glue, gelatin, bone meal, bone char, sal ammoniac,[1] soap, bleach and animal feed. A knacker’s yard or a knackery is different from a slaughterhouse or abattoir, where animals are slaughtered for human consumption. Since the Middle Ages, the occupation of “knacker man” was frequently considered a disreputable occupation. Knackers were often also commissioned by the courts as public executioners.
impertinence
lack of respect; rudeness.
“they gasped at the impertinence of the suggestion”
Batu Caves
Batu Caves (Tamil: பத்து மலை : Pathumalai) is a mogote (a type of karst landform) that has a series of caves and cave temples in Gombak, Selangor, Malaysia. It takes its name from the Malay word batu, meaning ‘rock’.[1] The hill was originally known as Kapal Tanggang from the legend of Si Tanggang.[2] The town nearby is named after the Batu Caves limestone formation.
The cave is one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside India, and is dedicated to Lord Murugan. It is the focal point of the Tamil festival of Thaipusam in Malaysia.
Batu Caves in short also referred as 10th Caves or Hill for Lord Murugan as there are six important holy shrines in India and four more in Malaysia. The three others in Malaysia are Kallumalai Temple in Ipoh, Tanneermalai Temple in Penang and Sannasimalai Temple in Malacca.
Krishna
Krishna (/ˈkrɪʃnə/;[12] Sanskrit: कृष्ण IAST: Kṛṣṇa [ˈkr̩ʂɳɐ]) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and also as the Supreme god in his own right.[13] He is the god of protection, compassion, tenderness, and love;[14][1] and is one of the most popular and widely revered among Indian divinities.[15] Krishna’s birthday is celebrated every year by Hindus on Krishna Janmashtami according to the lunisolar Hindu calendar, which falls in late August or early September of the Gregorian calendar.[16][17]
The anecdotes and narratives of Krishna’s life are generally titled as Krishna Leela. He is a central character in the Mahabharata, the Bhagavata Purana, the Brahma Vaivarta Purana, and the Bhagavad Gita, and is mentioned in many Hindu philosophical, theological, and mythological texts.[18] They portray him in various perspectives: as a god-child, a prankster, a model lover, a divine hero, and the universal supreme being.[19] His iconography reflects these legends, and shows him in different stages of his life, such as an infant eating butter, a young boy playing a flute, a young boy with Radha or surrounded by female devotees; or a friendly charioteer giving counsel to Arjuna.[20]
The name and synonyms of Krishna have been traced to 1st millennium BCE literature and cults.[21] In some sub-traditions, Krishna is worshipped as Svayam Bhagavan (the Supreme God), and it is sometimes known as Krishnaism. These sub-traditions arose in the context of the medieval era Bhakti movement.[22][23] Krishna-related literature has inspired numerous performance arts such as Bharatanatyam, Kathakali, Kuchipudi, Odissi, and Manipuri dance.[24][25] He is a pan-Hindu god, but is particularly revered in some locations, such as Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh,[26] Dwarka and Junagadh in Gujarat; the Jagannatha aspect in Odisha, Mayapur in West Bengal;[22][27][28] in the form of Vithoba in Pandharpur, Maharashtra, Shrinathji at Nathdwara in Rajasthan,[22][29] Udupi Krishna in Karnataka,[30] Parthasarathy in Tamil Nadu, Parthasarathy in Aranmula, Kerala and Guruvayoorappan in Guruvayoor in Kerala.[31] Since the 1960s, the worship of Krishna has also spread to the Western world and to Africa, largely due to the work of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).[32]
expectoration
[ek-spek″to-ra´shun]
1. the coughing up and spitting out of material from the lungs, bronchi, and trachea.
joss sticks
/ˈjäs stik/
a thin stick consisting of a substance that burns slowly and with a fragrant smell, used as incense.
zareba
/zəˈrēbə/
a protective enclosure of thorn bushes or stakes surrounding a campsite or village in northeastern Africa.
a cattle corral.
rake-off
a commission or share of the profits from a deal, especially one that is disreputable.
“corrupt officials have more chance of a rake-off when expensive goods are involved”
midge
/mij/
1.
a small two-winged fly that is often seen in swarms near water or marshy areas where it breeds.
any of a number of small flies whose larvae can be pests of plants, typically producing galls or damaging leaves.
Germanic origin; related to Dutch mug and German Mücke, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin musca and Greek muia ‘fly’.
dowdy
/ˈdoudē/
(of a person or their clothes) unfashionable and without style in appearance (typically used of a woman).
“she could achieve the kind of casual chic that made every other woman around her look dowdy”
garret
a top-floor or attic room, especially a small dismal one (traditionally inhabited by an artist).
“the solitary genius starving in a cold garret”
Middle English (in the sense ‘watchtower’): from Old French garite, from garir (see garrison).
macintosh
a full-length waterproof coat.
mid 19th century: named after Charles Macintosh (1766–1843), the Scottish inventor who patented the cloth.
The Mackintosh or raincoat (abbreviated as mac) is a form of waterproof raincoat, first sold in 1824, made of rubberised fabric.[2]
Mackintosh
Type
Subsidiary
Industry
Textile industry
Founded
Glasgow, 1846s
Headquarters
Cumbernauld, Scotland
Key people
Charles Macintosh, Founder
Products
Rubberised coats and accessories
Owner
Yagi Tsusho[1]
Website
mackintosh.com
The Mackintosh is named after its Scottish inventor Charles Macintosh, although many writers added a letter k. The variant spelling of “Mackintosh” is now standard.[3]
Although the Mackintosh coat style has become generic, a genuine Mackintosh coat is made from rubberised or rubber laminated material.
It has been claimed that the material was invented by the surgeon James Syme, but then copied and patented by Charles Macintosh;[4] Syme’s method of creating the solvent from coal tar was published in Thomson’s Annals of Philosophy in 1818;[5] this paper also describes the dissolution of natural rubber in naphtha.
However, a detailed history of the invention of the Mackintosh was published by Schurer.[6] The essence of Macintosh’s process was the sandwiching of an impermeable layer of a solution of rubber in naphtha between two layers of fabric. The naphtha was distilled from coal tar, with the Bonnington Chemical Works being a major supplier.[7] Syme did not propose the sandwich idea, and his paper did not mention waterproofing. Waterproofing garments with rubber was an old idea and was practised in pre-Columbian times by the Aztecs, who impregnated fabric with latex. Later French scientists made balloons gas-tight (and incidentally, impermeable) by impregnating fabric with rubber dissolved in turpentine, but this solvent was not satisfactory for making apparel.
In 1830 Macintosh’s company merged with the clothing company of Thomas Hancock in Manchester. Hancock had also been experimenting with rubber coated fabrics since 1819. Production of rubberised coats soon spread across the UK. All kinds of coats were produced with rubberized material, including riding coats and coats supplied to the British Army, British railways, and UK police forces.
Early coats had problems with poor smell, stiffness, and a tendency to melt in hot weather. Hancock improved his waterproof fabrics, patenting a method for vulcanising rubber in 1843, solving many of the problems.[8]
Mackintosh Store, 104 Mount St, Mayfair, London.
Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the company continued to make waterproof clothing. In 1925 the company was taken over by Dunlop Rubber.[9]
mauve
/mōv,môv/
- a pale purple color.
“a few pale streaks of mauve were all that remained of the sunset” - HISTORICAL
a pale purple aniline dye prepared by William H. Perkin in 1856. It was the first synthetic dyestuff.
mid 19th century: from French, literally ‘mallow’, from Latin malva
scoured
clean or brighten the surface of (something) by rubbing it hard, typically with an abrasive or detergent.
“he scoured the bathtub”
Middle English: from Middle Dutch, Middle Low German schūren, from Old French escurer, from late Latin excurare ‘clean (off)’, from ex- ‘away’ + curare ‘to clean’.
Cophetua
“The King and the Beggar-maid” is a 16th-century broadside ballad[1] that tells the story of an African king, Cophetua, and his love for the beggar Penelophon (Shakespearean Zenelophon). The story has been widely referenced and King Cophetua has become a byword for “a man who falls in love with a woman instantly and proposes marriage immediately”.
Cophetua is an African king known for his lack of sexual attraction to women. One day, looking out of a palace window, he witnesses a young beggar, Penelophon, “clad all in grey”.[2] Struck by love at first sight, Cophetua decides that he will either have the beggar as his wife or commit suicide.
Walking out into the street, he scatters coins for the beggars to gather and when Penelophon comes forward, he tells her that she is to be his wife. She agrees and becomes queen, and soon loses all trace of her former poverty and low class. The couple lives “a quiet life during their princely reign”[3] and are much loved by their people. Eventually they die and are buried in the same tomb.
parquet
/pärˈkā/
flooring composed of wooden blocks arranged in a geometric pattern.
“do not lay parquet over old vinyl flooring”
claret
/ˈklerət/
a red wine from Bordeaux, or wine of a similar character made elsewhere.
“a passable bottle of claret”
a deep purplish-red color.
late Middle English (originally denoting a light red or yellowish wine, as distinct from a red or white): from Old French ( vin) claret and medieval Latin claratum (vinum) ‘clarified (wine)’, from Latin clarus ‘clear’.
cretonne
/ˈkrētän,krəˈtän/
a heavy cotton fabric, typically with a floral pattern printed on one or both sides, used for upholstery.
Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson FRS (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria’s reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor’s Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his first pieces, “Timbuktu”. He published his first solo collection of poems, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, in 1830. “Claribel” and “Mariana”, which remain some of Tennyson’s most celebrated poems, were included in this volume. Although described by some critics as overly sentimental, his verse soon proved popular and brought Tennyson to the attention of well-known writers of the day, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Tennyson’s early poetry, with its medievalism and powerful visual imagery, was a major influence on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
Tennyson also excelled at short lyrics, such as “Break, Break, Break”, “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, “Tears, Idle Tears”, and “Crossing the Bar”. Much of his verse was based on classical mythological themes, such as “Ulysses”. “In Memoriam A.H.H.” was written to commemorate his friend Arthur Hallam, a fellow poet and student at Trinity College, Cambridge, after he died of a stroke at the age of 22.[2] Tennyson also wrote some notable blank verse including Idylls of the King, “Ulysses”, and “Tithonus”. During his career, Tennyson attempted drama, but his plays enjoyed little success.
A number of phrases from Tennyson’s work have become commonplace in the English language, including “Nature, red in tooth and claw” (“In Memoriam A.H.H.”), “‘Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all”, “Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die”, “My strength is as the strength of ten, / Because my heart is pure”, “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”, “Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers”, and “The old order changeth, yielding place to new”. He is the ninth most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.[3]
The Charge of the Light Brigade
“The Charge of the Light Brigade” is an 1854 narrative poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson about the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. He wrote the original version on 2 December 1854, and it was published on 9 December 1854 in The Examiner. He was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom at the time. The poem was subsequently revised and expanded for inclusion in Maud and Other Poems (1855).
I
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
II
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
III
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred.
IV
Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.
V
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell.
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
VI
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
prim
stiffly formal and respectable; feeling or showing disapproval of anything regarded as improper.
“a very prim and proper lady”
late 17th century (as a verb): probably ultimately from Old French prin, Provençal prim ‘excellent, delicate’, from Latin primus ‘first’.
chintz
/CHin(t)s/
printed multicolored cotton fabric with a glazed finish, used especially for curtains and upholstery.
“floral chintz curtains”
early 17th century (as chints, plural of chint, denoting a stained or painted calico cloth imported from India): from Hindi chīṃṭ ‘spattering, stain’.
Loire
The Loire (/lwɑːr/, also US: /luˈɑːr/; French pronunciation: [lwaʁ] (listen); Occitan: Léger, Occitan pronunciation: [ˈled͡ʒe]; Latin: Liger) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world.[4] With a length of 1,006 kilometres (625 mi),[2] it drains 117,054 km2 (45,195 sq mi), more than a fifth of France’s land,[1] while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhône.
It rises in the southeastern quarter of the French Massif Central in the Cévennes range (in the department of Ardèche) at 1,350 m (4,430 ft) near Mont Gerbier de Jonc; it flows north through Nevers to Orléans, then west through Tours and Nantes until it reaches the Bay of Biscay (Atlantic Ocean) at Saint-Nazaire. Its main tributaries include the rivers Nièvre, Maine and the Erdre on its right bank, and the rivers Allier, Cher, Indre, Vienne, and the Sèvre Nantaise on the left bank.
The Loire gives its name to six departments: Loire, Haute-Loire, Loire-Atlantique, Indre-et-Loire, Maine-et-Loire, and Saône-et-Loire. The lower-central swathe of its valley straddling the Pays de la Loire and Centre-Val de Loire regions was added to the World Heritage Sites list of UNESCO on December 2, 2000. Vineyards and châteaux are found along the banks of the river throughout this section and are a major tourist attraction.
The human history of the Loire river valley is thought by some to begin with the Middle Palaeolithic period of 90–40 kya (thousand years ago), followed by modern humans (about 30 kya), succeeded by the Neolithic period (6,000 to 4,500 BC), all of the recent Stone Age in Europe. Then came the Gauls, the local tribes during the Iron Age period of 1500 to 500 BC. They used the Loire as a key trading route by 600 BC, using pack horses to link its trade, such as the metals of the Armorican Massif, with Phoenicia and Ancient Greece via Lyon on the Rhône. Gallic rule ended in the valley in 56 BC when Julius Caesar conquered the adjacent provinces for Rome. Christianity was introduced into this valley from the 3rd century AD, as missionaries (many later recognized as saints), converted the pagans. In this period, settlers established vineyards and began producing wines.[5]
The Loire Valley has been called the “Garden of France” and is studded with over a thousand châteaux, each with distinct architectural embellishments covering a wide range of variations,[6] from the early medieval to the late Renaissance periods.[5] They were originally created as feudal strongholds, over centuries past, in the strategic divide between southern and northern France; now many are privately owned.[7]
Dorset
Dorset (/ˈdɔːrsɪt/ DOR-sit; archaically: Dorsetshire /ˈdɔːrsɪt.ʃɪər, -ʃər/ DOR-sit-sheer, -shər) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of 2,653 square kilometres (1,024 sq mi), Dorset borders Devon to the west, Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north-east, and Hampshire to the east. The county town is Dorchester, in the south. After the reorganisation of local government in 1974, the county border was extended eastward to incorporate the Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch. Around half of the population lives in the South East Dorset conurbation, while the rest of the county is largely rural with a low population density.
The county has a long history of human settlement stretching back to the Neolithic era. The Romans conquered Dorset’s indigenous Celtic tribe, and during the Early Middle Ages, the Saxons settled the area and made Dorset a shire in the 7th century. The first recorded Viking raid on the British Isles occurred in Dorset during the eighth century, and the Black Death entered England at Melcombe Regis in 1348. Dorset has seen much civil unrest: in the English Civil War, an uprising of vigilantes was crushed by Oliver Cromwell’s forces in a pitched battle near Shaftesbury; the doomed Monmouth Rebellion began at Lyme Regis; and a group of farm labourers from Tolpuddle were instrumental in the formation of the trade union movement. During the Second World War, Dorset was heavily involved in the preparations for the invasion of Normandy, and the large harbours of Portland and Poole were two of the main embarkation points. The former was the sailing venue in the 2012 Summer Olympics, and both have clubs or hire venues for sailing, Cornish pilot gig rowing, sea kayaking and powerboating.
Dorset has a varied landscape featuring broad elevated chalk downs, steep limestone ridges and low-lying clay valleys. Over half the county is designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Three-quarters of its coastline is part of the Jurassic Coast Natural World Heritage Site due to its geological and palaeontologic significance. It features notable landforms such as Lulworth Cove, the Isle of Portland, Chesil Beach and Durdle Door. Agriculture was traditionally the major industry of Dorset but is now in decline and tourism has become increasingly important to the economy. There are no motorways in Dorset but a network of A roads cross the county and two railway main lines connect to London. Dorset has ports at Poole, Weymouth and Portland, and an international airport near Bournemouth. The county has a variety of museums, theatres and festivals, and is host to the Great Dorset Steam Fair, one of the biggest events of its kind in Europe. It is the birthplace of Thomas Hardy, who used the county as the principal setting of his novels, and William Barnes, whose poetry celebrates the ancient Dorset dialect.
bilious
/ˈbilyəs/
affected by or associated with nausea or vomiting.
“I had eaten something that didn’t agree with me and I was a little bilious”
mid 16th century (in the sense ‘biliary’): from Latin biliosus, from bilis ‘bile’.
Antipodes
/anˈtipədēz/
Australia and New Zealand (used by inhabitants of the northern hemisphere).
“there were plants from the Antipodes, including eucalyptuses and acacias”
2.the direct opposite of something.
“voting and violence are antipodes”
late Middle English: via French or late Latin from Greek antipodes ‘having the feet opposite’, from anti ‘against, opposite’ + pous, pod- ‘foot’. The term originally denoted the inhabitants of opposite sides of the earth.
suborned
/səˈbôrn/
bribe or otherwise induce (someone) to commit an unlawful act such as perjury.
“he was accused of conspiring to suborn witnesses”
mid 16th century: from Latin subornare ‘incite secretly’, from sub- ‘secretly’ + ornare ‘equip’.
gaunt
/ɡônt/
(of a person) lean and haggard, especially because of suffering, hunger, or age.
“a tall, gaunt woman in black”
(of a building or place) grim or desolate in appearance.
“gaunt tenement blocks”
Chianti
A Chianti wine (/kiˈænti/, also US: /-ˈɑːn-/, Italian: [ˈkjanti]) is any wine produced in the Chianti region of central Tuscany. It was historically associated with a squat bottle enclosed in a straw basket, called a fiasco (“flask”; pl. fiaschi). However, the fiasco is only used by a few makers of the wine as most Chianti is now bottled in more standard shaped wine bottles. In the mid-late 19th century, Baron Bettino Ricasoli (later Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Italy) helped establish Sangiovese as the blend’s dominant grape variety, creating the blueprint for today’s Chianti wines.[1]
The first definition of a wine area called Chianti was made in 1716. It described the area near the villages of Gaiole, Castellina and Radda; the so-called Lega del Chianti and later Provincia del Chianti (Chianti province). In 1932 the Chianti area was completely redrawn and divided into seven sub-areas: Classico, Colli Aretini, Colli Fiorentini, Colline Pisane, Colli Senesi, Montalbano and Rùfina. Most of the villages that in 1932 were added to the newly defined Chianti Classico region added in Chianti to their names, for example Greve in Chianti, which amended its name in 1972. Wines labelled Chianti Classico come from the largest sub-area of Chianti, which includes the original Chianti heartland. Only Chianti from this sub-zone may display the black rooster (gallo nero) seal on the neck of the bottle, which indicates that the producer of the wine is a member of the Chianti Classico Consortium, the local association of producers.[2][3] Other variants, with the exception of Rufina north-east of Florence and Montalbano south of Pistoia, originate in the named provinces: Siena for the Colli Senesi, Florence for the Colli Fiorentini, Arezzo for the Colli Aretini and Pisa for the Colline Pisane. In 1996 part of the Colli Fiorentini sub-area was renamed Montespertoli.
During the 1970s producers started to reduce the quantity of white grapes in Chianti. In 1995 it became legal to produce a Chianti with 100% Sangiovese. For a wine to retain the name of Chianti it must be produced with at least 80% Sangiovese grapes.[4] Aged Chianti (38 months instead of 4–7) may be labelled as Riserva. Chianti that meets more stringent requirements (lower yield, higher alcohol content and dry extract) may be labelled as Chianti Superiore, although Chianti from the Classico sub-area is not allowed in any event to be labelled as Superiore.
sacrament
.
(in the Christian Church) a religious ceremony or ritual regarded as imparting divine grace, such as baptism, the Eucharist and (in the Roman Catholic and many Orthodox Churches) penance and the anointing of the sick.
2.
(in Roman Catholic use) the consecrated elements of the Eucharist, especially the bread or Host.
“he heard Mass and received the sacrament”
3.
a thing of mysterious and sacred significance; a religious symbol.
“they used peyote as a sacrament”
Middle English: from Old French sacrement, from Latin sacramentum ‘solemn oath’ (from sacrare ‘to hallow’, from sacer ‘sacred’), used in Christian Latin as a translation of Greek mustērion ‘mystery’.
Cairns
Cairns (/ˈkɛərnz/, locally /ˈkænz/ (listen)) [note 1] is a city in Queensland, Australia,[4] on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. The population in June 2019 was 153,952, having grown on average 1.02% annually over the preceding five years.[1][5][6] The city is the 5th-most-populous in Queensland, and 15th in Australia.[citation needed]
The city was founded in 1876 and named after Sir William Wellington Cairns, following the discovery of gold in the Hodgkinson river.[7] Throughout the late 19th century, Cairns prospered from the settlement of Chinese immigrants who helped develop the region’s agriculture. Cairns also served as a port for blackbirding ships, bringing slaves and indentured labourers to the sugar plantations of Innisfail.[8] During World War II, the city became a staging ground for the Allied Forces in the Battle of the Coral Sea. By the late 20th century the city had become a centre of international tourism, and in the early 21st century has developed into a major metropolitan city.
Cairns is a popular tourist destination because of its tropical climate and access to tropical rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef, one of the seven natural wonders of the world.
Torquemada
Tomás de Torquemada[a] OP (14 October 1420 – 16 September 1498), also anglicized as Thomas of Torquemada, was a Castilian Dominican friar and first Grand Inquisitor of the Tribunal of the Holy Office (otherwise known as the Spanish Inquisition), a body created in 1478 to uphold Catholic religious orthodoxy across the jurisdictions of Castile and Aragon.
Mainly because of persecution, Muslims and Jews in Castile and Aragon at that time found it socially, politically, and economically expedient to convert to Catholicism (see Converso, Morisco, and Marrano).[1] The existence of superficial converts from Judaism (i.e., Crypto-Jews)[2] was perceived by the Catholic Monarchs as a threat to the religious and social life in their realms.[3] This led Torquemada, who himself had converso ancestors,[4] to be one of the chief supporters of the Alhambra Decree that expelled the Jews from the Crowns of Castile and Aragon in 1492.
Owing to his widespread use of torture to extract confessions, and advocacy of burning at the stake those deemed guilty, Torquemada’s name has become synonymous with cruelty, religious intolerance and fanaticism.[5]
charwoman
a woman employed to clean houses or offices.
late 16th century: from obsolete char or chare ‘a turn of work, an odd job, chore’ (obscurely related to chore) + woman.
foppish
concerned with one’s clothes and appearance in an affected and excessive way (typically used of a man).
Athena
Athena[b] or Athene,[c] often given the epithet Pallas,[d] is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft[1] who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva.[4] Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of various cities across Greece, particularly the city of Athens, from which she most likely received her name.[5] The Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens is dedicated to her. Her major symbols include owls, olive trees, snakes, and the Gorgoneion. In art, she is generally depicted wearing a helmet and holding a spear.
From her origin as an Aegean palace goddess, Athena was closely associated with the city. She was known as Polias and Poliouchos (both derived from polis, meaning “city-state”), and her temples were usually located atop the fortified acropolis in the central part of the city. The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis is dedicated to her, along with numerous other temples and monuments. As the patron of craft and weaving, Athena was known as Ergane. She was also a warrior goddess, and was believed to lead soldiers into battle as Athena Promachos. Her main festival in Athens was the Panathenaia, which was celebrated during the month of Hekatombaion in midsummer and was the most important festival on the Athenian calendar.
In Greek mythology, Athena was believed to have been born from the forehead of her father Zeus. In some versions of the story, Athena has no mother and is born from Zeus’ forehead by parthenogenesis. In others, such as Hesiod’s Theogony, Zeus swallows his consort Metis, who was pregnant with Athena; in this version, Athena is first born within Zeus and then escapes from his body through his forehead. In the founding myth of Athens, Athena bested Poseidon in a competition over patronage of the city by creating the first olive tree. She was known as Athena Parthenos “Athena the Virgin,” but in one archaic Attic myth, the god Hephaestus tried and failed to rape her, resulting in Gaia giving birth to Erichthonius, an important Athenian founding hero. Athena was the patron goddess of heroic endeavor; she was believed to have aided the heroes Perseus, Heracles, Bellerophon, and Jason. Along with Aphrodite and Hera, Athena was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War.
She plays an active role in the Iliad, in which she assists the Achaeans and, in the Odyssey, she is the divine counselor to Odysseus. In the later writings of the Roman poet Ovid, Athena was said to have competed against the mortal Arachne in a weaving competition, afterward transforming Arachne into the first spider; Ovid also describes how she transformed Medusa into a Gorgon after witnessing her being raped by Poseidon in her temple. Since the Renaissance, Athena has become an international symbol of wisdom, the arts, and classical learning. Western artists and allegorists have often used Athena as a symbol of freedom and democracy.
oxytocin
a hormone released by the pituitary gland that causes increased contraction of the uterus during labor and stimulates the ejection of milk into the ducts of the breasts.
1920s: from Greek oxutokia ‘sudden delivery’ (from oxus ‘sharp’ + tokos ‘childbirth’) + -in1.
gramophone
old-fashioned term for record player.
late 19th century: formed by inversion of elements of phonogram ‘sound recording’.
Szechuan
: of, relating to, or being a style of Chinese cooking that is spicy, oily, and especially peppery
harmattan
/ˌhärməˈtän/
a very dry, dusty easterly or northeasterly wind on the West African coast, occurring from December to February.
late 17th century: from Akan haramata .
cassava
Manihot esculenta, commonly called cassava (/kəˈsɑːvə/), manioc,[2] or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America. Although a perennial plant, cassava is extensively cultivated as an annual crop in tropical and subtropical regions for its edible starchy tuberous root, a major source of carbohydrates. Though it is often called yuca in parts of Spanish America and in the United States, it is not related to yucca, a shrub in the family Asparagaceae. Cassava is predominantly consumed in boiled form, but substantial quantities are used to extract cassava starch, called tapioca, which is used for food, animal feed, and industrial purposes. The Brazilian farinha, and the related garri of West Africa, is an edible coarse flour obtained by grating cassava roots, pressing moisture off the obtained grated pulp, and finally drying it (and roasting both in the case of farinha and garri).
Cassava is the third-largest source of food carbohydrates in the tropics, after rice and maize.[3][4][5] Cassava is a major staple food in the developing world, providing a basic diet for over half a billion people.[6] It is one of the most drought-tolerant crops, capable of growing on marginal soils. Nigeria is the world’s largest producer of cassava, while Thailand is the largest exporter of cassava starch.
Cassava is classified as either sweet or bitter. Like other roots and tubers, both bitter and sweet varieties of cassava contain antinutritional factors and toxins, with the bitter varieties containing much larger amounts.[7] It must be properly prepared before consumption, as improper preparation of cassava can leave enough residual cyanide to cause acute cyanide intoxication,[8][9] goiters, and even ataxia, partial paralysis, or death.[10][11] The more toxic varieties of cassava have been used in some places as famine food during times of food insecurity.[8][7] Farmers often prefer the bitter varieties because they deter pests, animals, and thieves.[12]
calabash
/ˈkaləˌbaSH/
an evergreen tropical American tree which bears fruit in the form of large woody gourds.
a gourd from the calabash tree.
a water container, tobacco pipe, or other object made from the dried shell of a calabash or a similar gourd.
mid 17th century: from French calebasse, from Spanish calabaza, perhaps from Persian ḵarbuz ‘melon’.
griots
/ɡrēˌō,ˌɡrēō/
a member of a class of traveling poets, musicians, and storytellers who maintain a tradition of oral history in parts of West Africa.
French, earlier guiriot, perhaps from Portuguese criado .
Arecibo
The Arecibo Observatory, also known as the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) and formerly known as the Arecibo Ionosphere Observatory, is an observatory in Barrio Esperanza, Arecibo, Puerto Rico owned by the US National Science Foundation (NSF).
The observatory’s main instrument was the Arecibo Telescope, a 305 m (1,000 ft) spherical reflector dish built into a natural sinkhole, with a cable-mount steerable receiver and several radar transmitters for emitting signals mounted 150 m (492 ft) above the dish. Completed in 1963, it was the world’s largest single-aperture telescope for 53 years, surpassed in July 2016 by the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in China. Following two breaks in cables supporting the receiver platform in mid-2020, the NSF decommissioned the telescope. A partial collapse of the telescope occurred on December 1, 2020, before controlled demolition could be conducted. In 2022, the NSF announced the telescope will not be rebuilt, with an educational facility to be established on the site.
The observatory also includes a smaller radio telescope, a LIDAR facility, and a visitor center, which remain operational after the telescope’s collapse.[3][4] The asteroid 4337 Arecibo is named after the observatory by Steven J. Ostro, in recognition of the observatory’s contributions to the characterization of Solar System bodies.[5]
Fermi Paradox
The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life and the apparently high a priori likelihood of its existence, and by extension of obtaining such evidence.[1][2] As a 2015 article put it, “If life is so easy, someone from somewhere must have come calling by now.”[3]
Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi’s name is associated with the paradox because of a casual conversation in the summer of 1950 with fellow physicists Edward Teller, Herbert York, and Emil Konopinski. While walking to lunch, the men discussed recent UFO reports and the possibility of faster-than-light travel. The conversation moved on to other topics, until during lunch Fermi blurted out, “But where is everybody?” (although the exact quote is uncertain).[3][4]
There have been many attempts to resolve the Fermi paradox,[5][6] such as suggesting that intelligent extraterrestrial beings are extremely rare, that the lifetime of such civilizations is short, or that they exist but (for various reasons) humans see no evidence.
puffin
Puffins are any of three species of small alcids (auks) in the bird genus Fratercula. These are pelagic seabirds that feed primarily by diving in the water. They breed in large colonies on coastal cliffs or offshore islands, nesting in crevices among rocks or in burrows in the soil. Two species, the tufted puffin and horned puffin, are found in the North Pacific Ocean, while the Atlantic puffin is found in the North Atlantic Ocean.
All puffin species have predominantly black or black and white plumage, a stocky build, and large beaks that get brightly colored during the breeding season. They shed the colorful outer parts of their bills after the breeding season, leaving a smaller and duller beak. Their short wings are adapted for swimming with a flying technique underwater. In the air, they beat their wings rapidly (up to 400 times per minute)[1] in swift flight, often flying low over the ocean’s surface.
Trier
Trier (/trɪər/ TREER,[3][4] German: [tʁiːɐ̯] (listen); Luxembourgish: Tréier [ˈtʀəɪɐ] (listen)), formerly known in English as Trèves (/trɛv/ TREV;[5][6]) and Triers (see also names in other languages), is a city on the banks of the Moselle in Germany. It lies in a valley between low vine-covered hills of red sandstone in the west of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, near the border with Luxembourg and within the important Moselle wine region.
Founded by the Celts in the late 4th century BC as Treuorum and conquered 300 years later by the Romans, who renamed it Augusta Treverorum (“The City of Augustus among the Treveri”), Trier is considered Germany’s oldest city.[7][8] It is also the oldest seat of a bishop north of the Alps. Trier was one of the four capitals of the Roman Empire during the Tetrarchy period in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries.[9] In the Middle Ages, the archbishop-elector of Trier was an important prince of the Church who controlled land from the French border to the Rhine. The archbishop-elector of Trier also had great significance as one of the seven electors of the Holy Roman Empire. Because of its significance during the Roman and Holy Roman empires, several monuments and cathedrals within Trier are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[9]
With an approximate population of 110,000, Trier is the fourth-largest city in its state, after Mainz, Ludwigshafen, and Koblenz.[10] The nearest major cities are Luxembourg (50 km or 31 mi to the southwest), Saarbrücken (80 kilometres or 50 miles southeast), and Koblenz (100 km or 62 mi northeast).
The University of Trier, the administration of the Trier-Saarburg district and the seat of the ADD (Aufsichts- und Dienstleistungsdirektion), which until 1999 was the borough authority of Trier, and the Academy of European Law (ERA) are all based in Trier. It is one of the five “central places” of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Along with Luxembourg, Metz and Saarbrücken, fellow constituent members of the QuattroPole union of cities, it is central to the greater region encompassing Saar-Lor-Lux (Saarland, Lorraine and Luxembourg), Rhineland-Palatinate, and Wallonia.
Atacama
The Atacama Desert (Spanish: Desierto de Atacama) is a desert plateau in South America covering a 1,600 km (990 mi) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes Mountains. The Atacama Desert is the driest nonpolar desert in the world, and the second driest overall, just behind some very specific spots within the McMurdo Dry Valleys[2][3][4][5] as well as the only hot true desert to receive less precipitation than the polar deserts, and the largest fog desert in the world. Both regions have been used as experimentation sites on Earth for Mars expedition simulations. The Atacama Desert occupies 105,000 km2 (41,000 sq mi),[6] or 128,000 km2 (49,000 sq mi) if the barren lower slopes of the Andes are included.[7] Most of the desert is composed of stony terrain, salt lakes (salares), sand, and felsic lava that flows towards the Andes.
The desert owes its extreme aridity to a constant temperature inversion due to the cool north-flowing Humboldt ocean current and to the presence of the strong Pacific anticyclone.[8] The most arid region of the Atacama Desert is situated between two mountain chains (the Andes and the Chilean Coast Range) of sufficient height to prevent moisture advection from either the Pacific or the Atlantic Ocean, a two-sided rain shadow.[9]
Despite modern views of the Atacama Desert as fully devoid of vegetation, in pre-Columbian and colonial times a large flatland area there known as Pampa del Tamarugal was a woodland, but demand for firewood associated with silver and saltpeter mining in the 18th and 19th centuries resulted in widespread deforestation.[10][A]
abalone
Abalone (/ˈæbəˌloʊni/ (listen) or /ˌæbəˈloʊni/; via Spanish abulón, from Rumsen aulón) is a common name for any of a group of small to very large marine gastropod molluscs in the family Haliotidae.[4] Other common names are ear shells, sea ears, and, rarely, muttonfish or muttonshells in parts of Australia, ormer in the UK, perlemoen in South Africa, and paua in New Zealand.[5] Abalones are marine snails. Their taxonomy puts them in the family Haliotidae, which contains only one genus, Haliotis, which once contained six subgenera. These subgenera have become alternate representations of Haliotis.[4] The number of species recognized worldwide ranges between 30[6] and 130[7] with over 230 species-level taxa described. The most comprehensive treatment of the family considers 56 species valid, with 18 additional subspecies.[8] The shells of abalones have a low, open spiral structure, and are characterized by several open respiratory pores in a row near the shell’s outer edge. The thick inner layer of the shell is composed of nacre (mother-of-pearl), which in many species is highly iridescent, giving rise to a range of strong, changeable colors which make the shells attractive to humans as decorative objects, jewelry, and as a source of colorful mother-of-pearl.
The flesh of abalones is widely considered to be a desirable food, and is consumed raw or cooked by a variety of cultures.
recumbent
/rəˈkəmbənt/
(especially of a person or human figure) lying down.
“recumbent statues”
mid 17th century: from Latin recumbent- ‘reclining’, from the verb recumbere, from re- ‘back’ + a verb related to cubare ‘to lie’.
provenance
the place of origin or earliest known history of something.
“an orange rug of Iranian provenance”
late 18th century: from French, from the verb provenir ‘come or stem from’, from Latin provenire, from pro- ‘forth’ + venire ‘come’.
inveigled
/inˈvāɡəl/
persuade (someone) to do something by means of deception or flattery.
“we cannot inveigle him into putting pen to paper”
late 15th century (in the sense ‘beguile, deceive’; formerly also as enveigle ): from Anglo-Norman French envegler, alteration of Old French aveugler ‘to blind’, from aveugle ‘blind’.
saccharine
/ˈsak(ə)rən/
excessively sweet or sentimental.
“saccharine music”
insouciance
/inˈso͞osēəns,inˈso͞oSHəns/
casual lack of concern; indifference.
“an impression of boyish insouciance”
late 18th century: French, from insouciant, from in- ‘not’ + souciant ‘worrying’ (present participle of soucier ).
merinos
/məˈrēnō/
a soft woolen or wool-and-cotton material resembling cashmere, originally of merino wool.
a fine woolen yarn.
Saxony
Saxony (German: Sachsen [ˈzaksn̩] (listen); Upper Saxon: Saggsn; Upper Sorbian: Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (German: Freistaat Sachsen [ˈfʁaɪʃtaːt ˈzaksn̩]; Upper Saxon: Freischdaad Saggsn; Upper Sorbian: Swobodny stat Sakska), is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and its largest city is Leipzig. Saxony is the tenth largest of Germany’s sixteen states, with an area of 18,413 square kilometres (7,109 sq mi), and the sixth most populous, with more than 4 million inhabitants.
The term Saxony has been in use for more than a millennium. It was used for the medieval Duchy of Saxony, the Electorate of Saxony of the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Saxony, and twice for a republic. The first Free State of Saxony was established in 1918 as a constituent state of the Weimar Republic. After World War II, it was under Soviet occupation before it became part of the communist East Germany and was abolished by the government in 1952. Following German reunification, the Free State of Saxony was reconstituted with enlarged borders in 1990 and became one of the five new states of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The area of the modern state of Saxony should not be confused with Old Saxony, the area inhabited by Saxons. Old Saxony corresponds roughly to the modern German states of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and the Westphalian part of North Rhine-Westphalia.
oeuvre
/ˈəvrə,ˈo͞ovrə/
the works of a painter, composer, or author regarded collectively.
“the complete oeuvre of Mozart”
a work of art, music, or literature.
“an early oeuvre”
late 19th century: French, literally ‘work’
trundle
/ˈtrəndl/
(with reference to a wheeled vehicle or its occupants) move or cause to move slowly and heavily, typically in a noisy or uneven way.
“ten vintage cars trundled past”
(of a person) move slowly or heavily.
“she could hear him coughing as he trundled out”
mid 16th century (denoting a small wheel or roller): a parallel formation to obsolete or dialect trendle, trindle ‘revolve’; related to trend.
Lipizzaner
The Lipizzan or Lipizzaner (Croatian: Lipicanac, Czech: Lipicán, Hungarian: Lipicai, Italian: Lipizzano, Slovene: Lipicanec), is a horse breed named for the Lipizza Stud of the Habsburg monarchy. Generally gray in color, the Lipizzan is a breed of Baroque type that is powerful, matures slowly, and noted for longevity. The breed is closely associated with the Spanish Riding School of Vienna, Austria, where the horses demonstrate the haute école or “high school” movements of classical dressage, including the highly controlled, stylized jumps and other movements known as the “airs above the ground”. The horses at the Spanish Riding School are primarily selected from those bred at the Piber Federal Stud, near Graz, Austria, and trained using traditional methods that date back hundreds of years, based on the principles of classical dressage.
The Lipizzan breed dates back to the 16th century. Its name derives from one of the earliest stud farms established, which was located near Lipica (spelled “Lipizza” in Italian), then part of Austria-Hungary and today a village in Slovenia and where Lipizzans are still bred. The breed has been endangered numerous times by warfare sweeping Europe, including during the War of the First Coalition, World War I, and World War II. The rescue of the Lipizzans during World War II by American troops was made famous by the Disney movie Miracle of the White Stallions.
Today, eight stallions are recognized as the classic foundation bloodstock of the breed, all foaled in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. All modern Lipizzans trace their bloodlines to these eight stallions, and all breeding stallions have included in their name the name of the foundation sire of their bloodline. Also classic mare lines are known, with up to 35 recognized by various breed registries. The majority of horses are registered through the member organizations of the Lipizzan International Federation, which covers almost 11,000 horses in 19 countries and at 9 state studs in Europe. Most Lipizzans reside in Europe, with smaller numbers in the Americas, South Africa, and Australia.
gateaux
/ɡəˈtō,ɡaˈtō/
a rich cake, typically one containing layers of cream or fruit.
“a chocolate gateau”
mid 19th century: from French gâteau ‘cake’.
Vindobona
Vindobona (from Gaulish windo- “white” and bona “base/bottom”) was a Roman military camp on the site of the modern city of Vienna in Austria. The settlement area took on a new name in the 13th century, being changed to Berghof, or now simply known as Alter Berghof (the Old Berghof).[1]
Around 15 BC, the kingdom of Noricum was included in the Roman Empire. Henceforth, the Danube marked the border of the empire, and the Romans built fortifications and settlements on the banks of the Danube, including Vindobona with an estimated population of 15,000 to 20,000.[2][3]
burghers
a citizen of a town or city, typically a member of the wealthy bourgeoisie.
Middle English: from burgh, reinforced by Dutch burger, from burg ‘castle’ (see borough).
bishopric
/ˈbiSHəprik/
the office or rank of a bishop.
a district under a bishop’s control; a diocese.
tibia
/ˈtibēə/
the inner and typically larger of the two bones between the knee and the ankle (or the equivalent joints in other terrestrial vertebrates), parallel with the fibula.
late Middle English: from Latin, ‘shin bone’.
lineaments
/ˈlinēəmənt/
a distinctive feature or characteristic, especially of the face.
“I recognized those haggard lineaments”
late Middle English: from Latin lineamentum, from lineare ‘make straight’, from linea ‘a line’ (see line1).
gadfly
a fly that bites livestock, especially a horsefly, warble fly, or botfly.
an annoying person, especially one who provokes others into action by criticism.
“always a gadfly, he attacked intellectual orthodoxies”
late 16th century: from gad, or obsolete gad ‘goad, spike’, from Old Norse gaddr, of Germanic origin; related to yard1.
blithe
showing a casual and cheerful indifference considered to be callous or improper.
“a blithe disregard for the rules of the road”
Old English blīthe, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch blijde, also to bliss.
gad
go around from one place to another, in the pursuit of pleasure or entertainment.
“help out around the house and not be gadding about the countryside”
late Middle English: back-formation from obsolete gadling ‘wanderer, vagabond’, (earlier) ‘companion’, of Germanic origin.
vermilion
a brilliant red pigment made from mercury sulfide (cinnabar).
a brilliant red color.
“a lateral stripe of vermilion”
Middle English: from Old French vermeillon, from vermeil, from Latin vermiculus, diminutive of vermis ‘worm’.
sculpins
A sculpin is a type of fish that belongs to the superfamily Cottoidea in the order Scorpaeniformes.[1] As of 2006, this superfamily contains 11 families, 149 genera, and 756 species.[2]
Sculpins occur in many types of habitat, including ocean and freshwater zones. They live in rivers, submarine canyons, kelp forests, and shallow littoral habitat types, such as tidepools.[1]
Sculpins are benthic fish, dwelling on the bottoms of water bodies. Their pectoral fins are smooth on the upper edge and webbed with sharp rays along the lower edge, a modification that makes them specialized for gripping the substrate. This adaptation helps the fish anchor in fast-flowing water.[1] The sculpin normally grows to about four inches long.[3]
dole
benefit paid by the government to the unemployed.
“she is drawing on the dole”
Old English dāl ‘division, portion, or share’, of Germanic origin; related to deal1. The sense ‘distribution of charitable gifts’ dates from Middle English; the sense ‘unemployment benefit’ dates from the early 20th century.
patois
/ˈpaˌtwä,ˈpäˌtwä,ˌpaˈtwä,ˌpəˈtwä/
the dialect of the common people of a region, differing in various respects from the standard language of the rest of the country.
“the nurse talked to me in a patois that even Italians would have had difficulty in understanding”
mid 17th century: French, literally ‘rough speech’, perhaps from Old French patoier ‘treat roughly’, from patte ‘paw’.
puerile
/ˈpyo͝orəl,ˈpyo͝orˌīl/
childishly silly and trivial.
“you’re making puerile excuses”
late 16th century (in the sense ‘like a boy’): from French puéril or Latin puerilis, from puer ‘boy’.
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1913) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1876, where he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor’s Dilemma, and Caesar and Cleopatra.
Shaw’s expressed views were often contentious; he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform, and opposed vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances had no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist; the inter-war years saw a series of often ambitious plays, which achieved varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 he provided the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he received an Academy Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remained undiminished; by the late 1920s, he had largely renounced Fabian Society gradualism, and often wrote and spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right and left—he expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his life, he made fewer public statements but continued to write prolifically until shortly before his death, aged ninety-four, having refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946.
Since Shaw’s death scholarly and critical opinion about his works has varied, but he has regularly been rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare; analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. The word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw’s ideas and his means of expressing them.
ByteDance
ByteDance Ltd. (Chinese: 字节跳动; pinyin: Zìjié Tiàodòng) is a Chinese internet technology company headquartered in Beijing and incorporated in the Cayman Islands.[2]
Founded by Zhang Yiming, Liang Rubo and a team of others in 2012, ByteDance developed the video-sharing social networking services and apps TikTok and Chinese-specific counterpart Douyin. The company is also the developer of the news platform Toutiao. As of June 2021, ByteDance hosts 1.9 billion monthly active users across all of its platforms.[7][needs update]
ByteDance has garnered public attention over surveillance[8] and privacy[9] concerns as well as allegations that it worked with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to censor content pertaining to the ongoing Uyghur genocide and other topics deemed sensitive by the CCP.[10][11][12][13]
Château Lafite
Château Lafite Rothschild is a French wine estate of Bordeaux wine, located in Pauillac in France, owned by members of the Rothschild family since the 19th century, and rated as a First Growth under the 1855 Bordeaux Classification.
Lafite was one of five wine-producing châteaux of Bordeaux originally awarded First Growth status in the 1855 Classification. Since then, it has been a consistent producer of one of the world’s most expensive red wines. A bottle of 1869 Château Lafite Rothschild holds the world record for the most expensive bottle of wine sold at auction for $233,973 in 2010.[1]
welter
/ˈweltər/
move in a turbulent fashion.
“the streams foam and welter”
Middle English (in the sense ‘writhe, wallow’): from Middle Dutch, Middle Low German welteren .
ballast
heavy material, such as gravel, sand, iron, or lead, placed low in a vessel to improve its stability.
“the hull had insufficient ballast”
Gurkhas
The Gurkhas or Gorkhas (/ˈɡɜːrkə, ˈɡʊər-/), with endonym Gorkhali [ɡorkʰali]), are soldiers native to the Indian Subcontinent, chiefly residing within Nepal and some parts of Northeast India.[1][2]
The Gurkha units are composed of Nepalis and Indian Gorkhas and are recruited for the Nepali Army (96000),[3] Indian Army (42000), British Army (4010),[4] Gurkha Contingent Singapore, Gurkha Reserve Unit Brunei, UN peacekeeping forces and in war zones around the world.[5] Gurkhas are closely associated with the khukuri, a forward-curving knife, and have a reputation for military prowess. Former Indian Army Chief of Staff Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw once stated that: “If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or he is a Gurkha.”[6]
Lozenge
/ˈläzənj/
a rhombus or diamond shape.
“lozenge patterns”
Middle English: from Old French losenge, probably derived from the base of Spanish losa, Portuguese lousa ‘slab’, late Latin lausiae (lapides ) ‘stone slabs’.
Sunda shelf
Geologically, the Sunda Shelf /ˈsʊndə/ is a south-eastern extension of the continental shelf of Mainland Southeast Asia. Major landmasses on the shelf include the Bali, Borneo, Java, Madura, and Sumatra, as well as their surrounding smaller islands.[1] It covers an area of approximately 1.85 million km2.[2] Sea depths over the shelf rarely exceed 50 metres and extensive areas are less than 20 metres resulting in strong bottom friction and strong tidal friction.[3] Steep undersea gradients separate the Sunda Shelf from the Philippines, Sulawesi, and the Lesser Sunda Islands.
Candelabras
/ˌkandəˈläbrəm,ˌkandəˈlabrəm/
a large branched candlestick or holder for several candles or lamps.
“candles in iron candelabra shed some light”
early 19th century: from Latin, from candela (see candle).
Hintha Gon Pagoda
The Hinthagon Pagoda (Burmese: ဟင်္သာကုန်းဘုရား) is a shrine in Bago, Myanmar.[1] It is a popular tourist destination as it was named after the mythological Hintha bird,[2] a symbol of the Mon people.[3][4]
The monastery is situated on top of a hill that, according to Myanmar legend, was the only point rising from the sea where the Hintha bird could land.[5] Paintings and carvings of the Hamsa are visible throughout the temple.[6]
The Shwemawdaw Pagoda (tallest pagoda in Myanmar) can be viewed to the east, making it a popular view point.
soubriquets
/ˈsōbrəˌkā,ˈsōbrəˌket/
a person’s nickname.
“she was a vast and haughty person who answered to the sobriquet “Duchesse””
mid 17th century: French, originally in the sense ‘tap under the chin’, of unknown origin.
redoubt
/rəˈdout/
a temporary or supplementary fortification, typically square or polygonal and without flanking defenses.
“the British stormed the rebel redoubt”
early 17th century: from French redoute, from obsolete Italian ridotta and medieval Latin reductus ‘refuge’, from Latin reducere ‘withdraw’. The -b- was added by association with doubt.
Saturn (God)
Saturn (Latin: Sāturnus [saːˈtʊrnʊs]) was a god in ancient Roman religion, and a character in Roman mythology. He was described as a god of time, generation, dissolution, abundance, wealth, agriculture, periodic renewal and liberation. Saturn’s mythological reign was depicted as a Golden Age of abundance and peace. After the Roman conquest of Greece, he was conflated with the Greek Titan Cronus. Saturn’s consort was his sister Ops, with whom he fathered Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, Juno, Ceres and Vesta.
Saturn was especially celebrated during the festival of Saturnalia each December, perhaps the most famous of the Roman festivals, a time of feasting, role reversals, free speech, gift-giving and revelry. The Temple of Saturn in the Roman Forum housed the state treasury and archives (aerarium) of the Roman Republic and the early Roman Empire. The planet Saturn and the day of the week Saturday are both named after and were associated with him.
bricolage
/ˈbrikəläZH/
(in art or literature) construction or creation from a diverse range of available things.
“the chaotic bricolage of the novel is brought together in a unifying gesture”
dais
/ˈdāəs,ˈdīəs/
a low platform for a lectern, seats of honor, or a throne.
Middle English (originally denoting a raised table for distinguished guests): from Old French deis, from Latin discus ‘disk or dish’ (later ‘table’). Little used after the Middle English period, the word was revived by antiquarians in the early 19th century with the disyllabic pronunciation.
dervishes
a member of a Muslim (specifically Sufi) religious order who has taken vows of poverty and austerity. Dervishes first appeared in the 12th century; they were noted for their wild or ecstatic rituals and were known as dancing, whirling, or howling dervishes according to the practice of their order.
from Turkish derviş, from Persian darvīš ‘poor’, (as a noun) ‘religious mendicant’.
scullion
/ˈskəlyən/
a servant assigned the most menial kitchen tasks.
late 15th century: of unknown origin but perhaps influenced by scullery.
flotsam
/ˈflätsəm/
the wreckage of a ship or its cargo found floating on or washed up by the sea.
early 17th century: from Anglo-Norman French floteson, from floter ‘to float’.
fulgent
/ˈfəljənt/
shining brightly.
late Middle English: from Latin fulgent- ‘shining’, from the verb fulgere .
Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe (/ˈtaɪkoʊ ˈbrɑː(h)i, -(h)ə)/ TY-koh BRAH-(h)ee, -(h)ə); born Tyge Ottesen Brahe;[a] 14 December 1546 – 24 October 1601) was a Danish astronomer, known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical observations. Born in Scania, which became part of Sweden in the next century, Tycho was well known in his lifetime as an astronomer, astrologer, and alchemist. He has been described as “the first competent mind in modern astronomy to feel ardently the passion for exact empirical facts”.[3] His observations are generally considered to be the most accurate of his time.
An heir to several of Denmark’s principal noble families, Tycho received a comprehensive education. He took an interest in astronomy and in the creation of more accurate instruments of measurement. As an astronomer, Tycho worked to combine what he saw as the geometrical benefits of Copernican heliocentrism with the philosophical benefits of the Ptolemaic system into his own model of the universe, the Tychonic system. His system saw the Sun as orbiting Earth, and the planets as orbiting the Sun, and is mathematically equivalent to the Copernican system. Furthermore, he was the last of the major astronomers to work without telescopes. In his De nova stella (On the New Star) of 1573, he refuted the Aristotelian belief in an unchanging celestial realm. His precise measurements indicated that “new stars” (stellae novae, now called supernovae), in particular that of 1572 (SN 1572), lacked the parallax expected in sublunar phenomena and were therefore not tail-less comets in the atmosphere, as previously believed, but were above the atmosphere and beyond the Moon. Using similar measurements, he showed that comets were also not atmospheric phenomena, as previously thought, and must pass through the supposedly immutable celestial spheres.
King Frederick II granted Tycho an estate on the island of Hven and the money to build Uraniborg, an early research institute, where he built large astronomical instruments and took many careful measurements. He later worked underground at Stjerneborg, where he discovered that his instruments in Uraniborg were not sufficiently steady. On the island (whose other residents he treated as if he were an autocrat) he founded manufactories, such as a paper mill, to provide material for printing his results. After disagreements with the new Danish king, Christian IV, in 1597, Tycho went into exile. He was invited by the Bohemian king and Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II to Prague, where he became the official imperial astronomer. He built an observatory at Benátky nad Jizerou. There, from 1600 until his death in 1601, he was assisted by Johannes Kepler, who later used Tycho’s astronomical data to develop his three laws of planetary motion.
Tycho’s body has been exhumed twice, in 1901 and 2010, to examine the circumstances of his death and to identify the material from which his artificial nose was made. The conclusion was that his death was probably caused by uremia—not by poisoning, as had been suggested—and that his artificial nose was more likely made of brass rather than silver or gold, as some had believed in his time.
cabbalists
/kəˈbäləst,ˈkabələst/
a follower of the ancient Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah.
“I wonder what the ancient Kabbalists would say about the modern world”
henbane
/ˈhenˌbān/
a coarse and poisonous Eurasian plant of the nightshade family, with sticky hairy leaves and an unpleasant smell.
a psychoactive drink prepared from the henbane plant.
Magdeburg
Magdeburg (German: [ˈmakdəbʊʁk] (listen); Low Saxon: Meideborg [ˈmaˑɪdebɔɐ̯x]) is the capital and second-largest city of the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, after Halle (Saale). It is situated on the Elbe River.[3]
Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the archbishopric of Magdeburg, was buried in the city’s cathedral after his death.[3] Magdeburg’s version of German town law, known as Magdeburg rights, spread throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Until 1631, Magdeburg was one of the largest and most prosperous German cities and a notable member of the Hanseatic League.
Magdeburg has been destroyed twice in its history. The Catholic League sacked Magdeburg in 1631,[3] resulting in the death of 25,000 non-combatants, the largest loss of the Thirty Years’ War. The Allies bombed the city in 1945, destroying much of it. In 2005 Magdeburg celebrated its 1,200th anniversary. In June 2013 the city was hit by record breaking flooding.[4]
Today, Magdeburg is the site of two universities, the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg and the Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences.[5] Magdeburg is situated on autobahn route 2 and autobahn route 14, and hence is at the connection point of the East (Berlin and beyond) with the West of Europe, as well as the North and South of Germany. As a modern manufacturing centre, the production of chemical products, steel, paper, and textiles are of particular economic significance, along with mechanical engineering and plant engineering, ecotechnology and life-cycle management, health management and logistics.
tonsure
/ˈtän(t)SHər/
a part of a monk’s or priest’s head left bare on top by shaving off the hair.
“his hair is thinning up there—soon he’ll have a tonsure like a monk’s”
late Middle English: from Old French, or from Latin tonsura, from tondere ‘shear, clip’.
In modern times, tonsure refers to cutting or shaving hair by monks or religious devotees. Ridding of your hair serves as a symbol of renunciation of worldly ego and fashion. In Buddhism, shaving your head (and face) is part of Pabbajja.
semiotics
/ˌsemēˈädiks/
the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation.
late 19th century: from Greek sēmeiotikos ‘of signs’, from sēmeioun ‘interpret as a sign’.
proscenium
/prəˈsēnēəm/
the part of a theater stage in front of the curtain.
early 17th century: via Latin from Greek proskēnion, from pro ‘before’ + skēnē ‘stage’.
Order of the Golden Fleece
The Distinguished Order of the Golden Fleece (Spanish: Insigne Orden del Toisón de Oro,[1] German: Orden vom Goldenen Vlies) is a Catholic order of chivalry founded in Bruges by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, in 1430,[2] to celebrate his marriage to Isabella of Portugal. Today, two branches of the order exist, namely the Spanish and the Austrian Fleece; the current grand masters are Felipe VI, King of Spain and Karl von Habsburg, head of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, respectively. The Grand Chaplain of the Austrian branch is Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna.
The separation of the two existing branches took place as a result of the War of the Spanish Succession. The grand master of the order, Charles II of Spain (a Habsburg) had died childless in 1700, and so the succession to the throne of Spain and the Golden Fleece initiated a global conflict. On one hand, Charles, brother of the Holy Roman Emperor, claimed the crown as an agnatic member of the House of Habsburg, which had held the throne for almost two centuries. However, the late king had named Philip of Bourbon, his sister’s grandchild, as his successor in his will. After the conclusion of the war in 1714, Philip was recognized as king of Spain but the hitherto Spanish Netherlands - the old Burgundian territories, fell to the Austrian Habsburgs. Thus, the two dynasties, namely the Bourbons of Spain and the Habsburgs of Austria, have ever since continued granting the separate versions of the Golden Fleece.
The Golden Fleece has been referred to as the most prestigious and historic order of chivalry in the world.[3][4] De Bourgoing wrote in 1789 that “the number of knights of the Golden Fleece is very limited in Spain, and this is the order, which of all those in Europe, has best preserved its ancient splendour”.[5] Each collar is solid gold and is estimated to be worth around €50,000 as of 2018, making it the most expensive chivalrous order.[6] Current knights of the order include Emperor Akihito of Japan, former Tsar Simeon of Bulgaria, and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, amongst 13 others. Knights of the Austrian branch include 33 noblemen and princes of small territories in Central Europe, most of them of German or Austrian origin.
Kempelen’s Turk
The Turk, also known as the Mechanical Turk or Automaton Chess Player (German: Schachtürke, lit. ’chess Turk’; Hungarian: A Török), was a fraudulent chess-playing machine constructed in the late 18th century. From 1770 until its destruction by fire in 1854 it was exhibited by various owners as an automaton, though it was eventually revealed to be an elaborate hoax.[2] Constructed and unveiled in 1770 by Wolfgang von Kempelen (1734–1804) to impress Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, the mechanism appeared to be able to play a strong game of chess against a human opponent, as well as perform the knight’s tour, a puzzle that requires the player to move a knight to occupy every square of a chessboard exactly once.
The Turk was in fact a mechanical illusion that allowed a human chess master hiding inside to operate the machine. With a skilled operator, the Turk won most of the games played during its demonstrations around Europe and the Americas for nearly 84 years, playing and defeating many challengers including statesmen such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. The device was later purchased in 1804 and exhibited by Johann Nepomuk Mälzel. The chess masters who secretly operated it included Johann Allgaier, Boncourt, Aaron Alexandre, William Lewis, Jacques Mouret, and William Schlumberger, but the operators within the mechanism during Kempelen’s original tour remain a mystery.
kaftans
/ˈkaftən,ˈkafˌtan/
a man’s long belted tunic, worn in countries of the Near East.
a woman’s long loose dress.
a loose shirt or top.
late 16th century: from Turkish, from Persian ḵaftān, partly influenced by French cafetan .
curios
/ˈkyo͝orēˌō/
a rare, unusual, or intriguing object.
“they had such fun over the wonderful box of curios that Jack had sent from India”
mid 19th century: abbreviation of curiosity.
boudoir
/ˈbo͞oˌdwär/
a woman’s bedroom or private room.
late 18th century: French, literally ‘sulking-place’, from bouder ‘pout, sulk’.
demagoguery
political activity or practices that seek support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than by using rational argument.
“the demagoguery of political opportunists”
disport
/dəˈspôrt/
enjoy oneself unrestrainedly; frolic.
“a painting of ladies disporting themselves by a lake”
late Middle English: from Old French desporter, from des- ‘away’ + porter ‘carry’ (from Latin portare ).
corvette
/kôrˈvet/
a small warship designed for convoy escort duty.
mid 17th century: from French, from Dutch korf, denoting a kind of ship, + the diminutive suffix -ette .
plebiscites
/ˈplebəˌsīt/
the direct vote of all the members of an electorate on an important public question such as a change in the constitution.
“the administration will hold a plebiscite for the approval of constitutional reforms”
mid 16th century (referring to Roman history): from French plébiscite, from Latin plebiscitum, from plebs, pleb- ‘the common people’ + scitum ‘decree’ (from sciscere ‘vote for’). The sense ‘direct vote of the whole electorate’ dates from the mid 19th century.
Nahuatl
/ˈnäˌwätl/
a member of a group of peoples native to southern Mexico and Central America, including the Aztecs.
2.
the Uto-Aztecan language of the Nahuatl.
obsequies
/ˈäbsəkwēz/
funeral rites.
late Middle English: plural of obsolete obsequy, from Anglo-Norman French obsequie, from the medieval Latin plural obsequiae (from Latin exsequiae ‘funeral rites’, influenced by obsequium ‘dutiful service’).
Emil Holub
Emil Holub (7 October 1847 – 21 February 1902) was a Czech physician, explorer, cartographer, and ethnographer in Africa.
Holub was born in Holice in eastern Bohemia (then within the Austrian Empire, now the Czech Republic), to the family of a municipal doctor. After studying at a German-language grammar school in Žatec (Saaz), he was admitted at Prague University where he obtained a degree as a doctor of medicine (1872).
Inspired to visit Africa by the diaries of David Livingstone, Holub travelled to Cape Town, South Africa, shortly after graduation and eventually settled in Dutoitspan near Kimberley to practise medicine. After eight months, Holub set out in a convoy of local hunters on a two-month experimental expedition, or “scientific safari”, where he began to assemble a large natural history collection.
In 1873, Holub set out on his second scientific safari, devoting his attention to the collection of ethnographic material. On his third expedition in 1875, he ventured all the way to the Zambezi river and made the first detailed map of the region surrounding Victoria Falls. Holub also wrote and published the first book account of the Victoria Falls published in English in Grahamstown in 1879.
After returning to Prague for several years, Holub made plans for a bold African expedition. In 1883, Holub, along with his new wife Rosa (1865–1958) and six European guides, set out to do what no one had done before: explore the entire length of Africa from Cape Town all the way to Egypt. However, the expedition was troubled by illness and the uncooperative Ila tribesmen and Holub’s team was forced to turn back in 1886.
Holub mounted two exhibitions, highly attended but ending up in financial loss, in 1891 in Vienna and in 1892 in Prague. Frustrated that he was unable to find a permanent home for his large collection of artefacts, he gradually sold or gave away parts of it to museums, scientific institutions and schools.
Later Holub published a series of documents, contributing to papers and magazines, and delivering lectures. His early death came in Vienna on 21 February 1902, from lingering complications of malaria and other diseases he had acquired while in Africa.
Oscar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka CBE (1 March 1886 – 22 February 1980) was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright, and teacher best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the Viennese Expressionist movement.
perfunctory
/pərˈfəNG(k)t(ə)rē/
(of an action or gesture) carried out with a minimum of effort or reflection.
“he gave a perfunctory nod”
late 16th century: from late Latin perfunctorius ‘careless’, from Latin perfunct- ‘done with, discharged’, from the verb perfungi .
Lothario
/ləˈTHerēō,ləˈTHärēˌō,lōˈTHerēō,lōˈTHärēˌō/
a man who behaves selfishly and irresponsibly in his sexual relationships with women.
“they are seduced by a handsome Lothario who gains control of their financial affairs”
from a character in Rowe’s Fair Penitent (1703).
herringbone pattern
The herringbone pattern is an arrangement of rectangles used for floor tilings and road pavement, so named for a fancied resemblance to the bones of a fish such as a herring.
The blocks can be rectangles or parallelograms. The block edge length ratios are usually 2:1, and sometimes 3:1, but need not be even ratios.
The herringbone pattern has a symmetry of wallpaper group pgg, as long as the blocks are not of different color (i.e., considering the borders alone).
Herringbone patterns can be found in wallpaper, mosaics, seating, cloth and clothing (herringbone cloth), shoe tread, security printing, herringbone gears, jewellery, sculpture, and elsewhere.
libretto
/ləˈbredō/
the text of an opera or other long vocal work.
mid 18th century: from Italian, diminutive of libro ‘book’, from Latin liber .
Kapellmeister
/kəˈpelˌmīstər/
the leader or conductor of an orchestra or choir.
mid 19th century: German, from Kapelle ‘court orchestra’ (from medieval Latin capella ‘chapel’) + Meister ‘master’.
Augsburg
Augsburg (German: [ˈaʊksbʊʁk] (listen); Swabian German: Augschburg, UK: /ˈaʊɡzbɜːrɡ/ OWGZ-burg,[3] US: /ˈɔːɡz-/ AWGZ-[4]) is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, around 50 kilometres (31 mi) west of Bavarian capital Munich. It is a university town and regional seat of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben with an impressive Altstadt (historical city centre). Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is the third-largest city in Bavaria (after Munich and Nuremberg) with a population of 300,000 inhabitants, with 885,000 in its metropolitan area.[5]
After Neuss, Trier, Cologne and Xanten, Augsburg is one of Germany’s oldest cities, founded in 15 BC by the Romans as Augusta Vindelicorum, named after the Roman emperor Augustus. It was a Free Imperial City from 1276 to 1803 and the home of the patrician Fugger and Welser families that dominated European banking in the 16th century. According to Behringer, in the sixteenth century, it became “the dominant centre of early capitalism”, having benefitted from being part of the Kaiserliche Reichspost system as “the location of the most important post office within the Holy Roman Empire” and the city’s close connection to Maximilian I.[6] The city played a leading role in the Reformation as the site of the 1530 Augsburg Confession and 1555 Peace of Augsburg. The Fuggerei, the oldest social housing complex in the world, was founded in 1513 by Jakob Fugger.
In 2019, UNESCO recognized the Water Management System of Augsburg as a World Heritage Site because of its unique medieval canals and water towers and its testimony to the development of hydraulic engineering.[7][8]
Epochal
/ˈepəkəl/
forming or characterizing an epoch; epoch-making.
“the epochal scale of change in the East”
counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour.[1] It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradition, strongly developing during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period, especially in the Baroque period. The term originates from the Latin punctus contra punctum meaning “point against point”, i.e. “note against note”.
In Western pedagogy, counterpoint is taught through a system of species (see below).
There are several different forms of counterpoint, including imitative counterpoint and free counterpoint. Imitative counterpoint involves the repetition of a main melodic idea across different vocal parts, with or without variation. Compositions written in free counterpoint often incorporate non-traditional harmonies and chords, chromaticism and dissonance.
Sonata
/səˈnädə/
a composition for an instrumental soloist, often with a piano accompaniment, typically in several movements with one or more in sonata form.
late 17th century: Italian, literally ‘sounded’ (originally as distinct from ‘sung’), feminine past participle of sonare .
fugue
/fyo͞oɡ/
a contrapuntal composition in which a short melody or phrase (the subject) is introduced by one part and successively taken up by others and developed by interweaving the parts.
late 16th century: from French, or from Italian fuga, from Latin fuga ‘flight’, related to fugere ‘flee’.
Concertos
A concerto (/kənˈtʃɛərtoʊ/; plural concertos, or concerti from the Italian plural) is, from the late Baroque era, mostly understood as an instrumental composition, written for one or more soloists accompanied by an orchestra or other ensemble. The typical three-movement structure, a slow movement (e.g., lento or adagio) preceded and followed by fast movements (e.g. presto or allegro), became a standard from the early 18th century.
The concerto originated as a genre of vocal music in the late 16th century: the instrumental variant appeared around a century later, when Italians such as Giuseppe Torelli started to publish their concertos. A few decades later, Venetian composers, such as Antonio Vivaldi, had written hundreds of violin concertos, while also producing solo concertos for other instruments such as a cello or a woodwind instrument, and concerti grossi for a group of soloists. The first keyboard concertos, such as George Frideric Handel’s organ concertos and Johann Sebastian Bach’s harpsichord concertos were written around the same time.
In the second half of the 18th century, the piano became the most used keyboard instrument, and composers of the Classical Era such as Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven each wrote several piano concertos, and, to a lesser extent, violin concertos, and concertos for other instruments. In the Romantic Era, many composers, including Niccolò Paganini, Felix Mendelssohn, Frédéric Chopin, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff, continued to write solo concertos, and, more exceptionally, concertos for more than one instrument; 19th century concertos for instruments other than the Piano, Violin and Cello remained comparatively rare however. In the first half of the 20th century, concertos were written by, among others, Maurice Ravel, Edward Elgar, Richard Strauss, Sergei Prokofiev, George Gershwin, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Joaquín Rodrigo and Béla Bartók, the latter also composing a concerto for orchestra, that is without soloist. During the 20th century concertos appeared by major composers for orchestral instruments which had been neglected in the 19th century such as the Clarinet, Viola and French Horn.
In the second half of the 20th century and onwards into the 21st a great many composers have continued to write concertos, including Alfred Schnittke, György Ligeti, Dimitri Shostakovich, Philip Glass and James MacMillan among many others. An interesting feature of this period is the proliferation of concerti for less usual instruments, including orchestral ones such as the Double Bass (by composers like Eduard Tubin or Peter Maxwell Davies) and Cor Anglais (like those by MacMillan and Aaron Jay Kernis), but also folk instruments (such as Tubin’s concerto for Balalaika or the concertos for Harmonica by Villa-Lobos and Malcolm Arnold), and even Deep Purple’s Concerto for Group and Orchestra, a concerto for a rock band.
Concertos from previous ages have remained a conspicuous part of the repertoire for concert performances and recordings. Less common has been the previously common practice of the composition of concertos by a performer to performed personally, though the practice has continued via international competitions for instrumentalists such as the Van Cliburn Piano Competition and the Queen Elisabeth Competition, both requiring performances of concertos by the competitors.
dialectic
/ˌdīəˈlektik/
the art of investigating or discussing the truth of opinions.
late Middle English: from Old French dialectique or Latin dialectica, from Greek dialektikē (tekhnē) ‘(art) of debate’, from dialegesthai ‘converse with’ (see dialogue).
gallimaufry
/ˌɡaləˈmôfrē/
a confused jumble or medley of things.
“a glorious gallimaufry of childhood perceptions”
mid 16th century: from archaic French galimafrée ‘unappetizing dish’, perhaps from Old French galer ‘have fun’ + Picard mafrer ‘eat copious quantities’.
caravanserai
A caravanserai (or caravansary; /kærəˈvænsəˌraɪ/)[1] was a roadside inn where travelers (caravaners) could rest and recover from the day’s journey.[2] Caravanserais supported the flow of commerce, information and people across the network of trade routes covering Asia, North Africa and Southeast Europe, most notably the Silk Road.[3][4] Often located along rural roads in the countryside, urban versions of caravanserais were also historically common in cities throughout the Islamic world, and were often called other names such as khan, wikala, or funduq.[5]
unction
/ˈəNG(k)SHən/
the action of anointing someone with oil or ointment as a religious rite or as a symbol of investiture as a monarch.
late Middle English: from Latin unctio(n- ), from unguere ‘anoint’. unction (sense 3) arises from the link between religious fervor and ‘anointing’ with the Holy Spirit.
unctuous
/ˈəNG(k)(t)SH(o͞o)əs/
(of a person) excessively or ingratiatingly flattering; oily.
“he seemed anxious to please but not in an unctuous way”
late Middle English (in the sense ‘greasy’): from medieval Latin unctuosus, from Latin unctus ‘anointing’, from unguere ‘anoint’.
oboes
The oboe (/ˈoʊboʊ/ OH-boh) is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range.
A soprano oboe measures roughly 65 cm (25+1⁄2 in) long, with metal keys, a conical bore and a flared bell. Sound is produced by blowing into the reed at a sufficient air pressure, causing it to vibrate with the air column.[1] The distinctive tone is versatile and has been described as “bright”.[2] When the word oboe is used alone, it is generally taken to mean the treble instrument rather than other instruments of the family, such as the bass oboe, the cor anglais (English horn), or oboe d’amore.
Today, the oboe is commonly used as orchestral or solo instrument in symphony orchestras, concert bands and chamber ensembles. The oboe is especially used in classical music, film music, some genres of folk music, and is occasionally heard in jazz, rock, pop, and popular music. The oboe is widely recognized as the instrument that tunes the orchestra with its distinctive ‘A’.[3]
roulades
A roulade is an elaborate embellishment of several notes sung to one syllable. It is most associated with (but not restricted to) the operatic coloratura vocal style. It consists of a single phrase, or could even be part of a longer phrase. It is more extended than ornaments such as a trill, mordent or turn, but not to the extent that it could be called a cadenza (which is usually more than one phrase and is extended enough to be considered a musical section in itself). It is usually performed in a rhythmically free style, either by use of rubato or over a musical pause and it is in this way that it is distinguished from a melisma. Examples are in the operatic works of Bellini and Donizetti and the Nocturnes of Chopin. Extended embellishments found in modern-day Gospel vocalisations could be said to be roulades.
limn
/lim/
depict or describe in painting or words.
“Miss Read limns a gentler world in her novels”
suffuse or highlight (something) with a bright color or light.
“a crescent moon limned each shred with white gold”
late Middle English (in the sense ‘illuminate a manuscript’): alteration of obsolete lumine ‘illuminate’, via Old French luminer from Latin luminare ‘make light’.
rector
/ˈrektər/
.
1. (in the Episcopal Church) a member of the clergy who has charge of a parish.
(in the Roman Catholic Church) a priest in charge of a church or of a religious institution.
(in the Church of England) the incumbent of a parish where all tithes formerly passed to the incumbent.
- the head of certain universities, colleges, and schools.
late Middle English: from Latin rector ‘ruler’, from rect- ‘ruled’, from the verb regere .
hidebound
/ˈhīdˌbound/
unwilling or unable to change because of tradition or convention.
“you are hidebound by your petty laws”
mid 16th century (as a noun denoting a malnourished condition of cattle): from hide2 + bound4. The earliest sense of the adjective (referring to cattle) was extended to emaciated human beings, and then applied figuratively in the sense ‘narrow in outlook’.
timpani
Timpani (/ˈtɪmpəni/;[2] Italian pronunciation: [ˈtimpani]) or kettledrums (also informally called timps)[2] are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. Thus timpani are an example of kettle drums, also known as vessel drums and semispherical drums, whose body is similar to a section of a sphere whose cut conforms the head. Most modern timpani are pedal timpani and can be tuned quickly and accurately to specific pitches by skilled players through the use of a movable foot-pedal. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet. Timpani evolved from military drums to become a staple of the classical orchestra by the last third of the 18th century. Today, they are used in many types of ensembles, including concert bands, marching bands, orchestras, and even in some rock bands.
Timpani is an Italian plural, the singular of which is timpano. However, in English the term timpano is only widely in use by practitioners: several are more typically referred to collectively as kettledrums, timpani, temple drums, or timps. They are also often incorrectly termed timpanis. A musician who plays timpani is a timpanist.
cassations
/kəˈsāSH(ə)n/
an informal instrumental composition of the 18th century, similar to a divertimento and originally often for outdoor performance.
late 19th century: from German Kassation ‘serenade’, from Italian cassazione .
ken
one’s range of knowledge or sight.
“such determination is beyond my ken”
Old English cennan ‘tell, make known’, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch and German kennen ‘know, be acquainted with’, from an Indo-European root shared by can1 and know. Current senses of the verb date from Middle English; the noun from the mid 16th century.
Lent
Lent (Latin: Quadragesima,[1] ‘Fortieth’) is a solemn religious observance in the liturgical calendar commemorating the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, before beginning his public ministry.[2][3] Lent is observed in the Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist, Moravian, Oriental Orthodox, Persian, United Protestant and Roman Catholic traditions.[4][5] Some Anabaptist, Baptist, Reformed (including certain Continental Reformed, Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches), and nondenominational Christian churches also observe Lent, although many churches in these traditions do not.[6][7][8][9][10][11]
Which days are enumerated as being part of Lent differs between denominations (see below), although in all of them Lent is described as lasting for a total duration of 40 days. In Lent-observing Western Churches, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends approximately six weeks later; depending on the Christian denomination and local custom, Lent concludes either on the evening of Maundy Thursday,[12] or at sundown on Holy Saturday, when the Easter Vigil is celebrated,[13] though in either case, Lenten fasting observances are maintained until the evening of Holy Saturday.[14] Sundays may or may not be excluded, depending on the denomination. In Eastern Churches (whether Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Lutheran, or Eastern Catholic), Lent is observed continuously without interruption for 40 days starting on Clean Monday and ending on Lazarus Saturday before Holy Week.[15][16]
Lent is a period of grief that necessarily ends with a great celebration of Easter. Thus, it is known in Eastern Orthodox circles as the season of “bright sadness” (Greek: χαρμολύπη, romanized: charmolypê).[17] The purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer for Easter through prayer, mortifying the flesh, repentance of sins, almsgiving, simple living, and self-denial.[18] In Lent, many Christians commit to fasting, as well as giving up certain luxuries in imitation of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice during his journey into the desert for 40 days;[19][20][21] this is known as one’s Lenten sacrifice.[22]
Many Lent-observing Christians also add a Lenten spiritual discipline, such as reading a daily devotional or praying through a Lenten calendar, to draw themselves near to God.[23][24] Often observed are the Stations of the Cross, a devotional commemoration of Christ’s carrying the Cross and crucifixion. Many churches remove flowers from their altars and veil crucifixes, religious statues that show the triumphant Christ, and other elaborate religious symbols in violet fabrics in solemn observance of the event. The custom of veiling is typically practiced the last two weeks, beginning on the Sunday Judica which is therefore in the vernacular called Passion Sunday until Good Friday, when the cross is unveiled solemnly in the liturgy.
In most Lent-observing denominations, the last week of Lent coincides with Holy Week, starting with Palm Sunday. Following the New Testament narrative, Jesus’ crucifixion is commemorated on Good Friday, and at the beginning of the next week the joyful celebration of Easter Sunday, the start of the Easter season, which recalls the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. In some Christian denominations, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday form the Easter Triduum.[25]
Harlequin
Harlequin (/ˈhɑːrləkwɪn/; Italian: Arlecchino [arlekˈkiːno]; Lombard: Arlechin, Bergamasque pronunciation [arleˈki]) is the best-known of the zanni or comic servant characters from the Italian commedia dell’arte, associated with the city of Bergamo. The role is traditionally believed to have been introduced by Zan Ganassa in the late 16th century,[2] was definitively popularized by the Italian actor Tristano Martinelli in Paris in 1584–1585,[3] and became a stock character after Martinelli’s death in 1630.
The Harlequin is characterized by his checkered costume. His role is that of a light-hearted, nimble, and astute servant, often acting to thwart the plans of his master, and pursuing his own love interest, Columbina, with wit and resourcefulness, often competing with the sterner and melancholic Pierrot. He later develops into a prototype of the romantic hero. Harlequin inherits his physical agility and his trickster qualities, as well as his name, from a mischievous “devil” character in medieval passion plays.
The Harlequin character first appeared in England early in the 17th century and took centre stage in the derived genre of the Harlequinade, developed in the early 18th century by John Rich.[4] As the Harlequinade portion of the English dramatic genre pantomime developed, Harlequin was routinely paired with the character Clown. As developed by Joseph Grimaldi around 1800, Clown became the mischievous and brutish foil for the more sophisticated Harlequin, who became more of a romantic character. The most influential portrayers of the Harlequin character in Victorian England were William Payne and his sons the Payne Brothers, the latter active during the 1860s and 1870s.
Farinelli
Farinelli (Italian pronunciation: [fariˈnɛlli]; 24 January 1705 – 16 September 1782)[a] was the stage name of Carlo Maria Michelangelo Nicola Broschi (pronounced [ˈkarlo ˈbrɔski]), a celebrated Italian castrato singer of the 18th century and one of the greatest singers in the history of opera.[1] Farinelli has been described as having had soprano vocal range and as having sung the highest note customary at the time, C6.
Metastasio
Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi (3 January 1698 – 12 April 1782), better known by his pseudonym of Pietro Metastasio (Italian pronunciation: [ˈpjɛːtro metaˈstaːzjo]), was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti.
Metastasio was born in Rome, where his father, Felice Trapassi, a native of Assisi, had taken service in the Corsican regiment of the papal forces. Felice married a Bolognese woman, Francesca Galasti, and became a grocer in the Via dei Cappellari. The couple had two sons and two daughters; Pietro was the younger son.
Pietro, while still a child, is said to have attracted crowds by reciting impromptu verses on a given subject. On one such occasion in 1709, two men of distinction stopped to listen: Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina, famous for legal and literary erudition as well as his directorship of the Arcadian Academy, and Lorenzini, a critic of some note. Gravina was attracted by the boy’s poetic talent and personal charm, and made Pietro his protégé; in the course of a few weeks he adopted him. Felice Trapassi was glad to give his son the chance of a good education and introduction into society.
Gravina hellenized the boy’s name Trapassi into Metastasio, and intended his adopted son to be a jurist like himself. He therefore made the boy learn Latin and law. At the same time he cultivated his literary gifts, and displayed the youthful prodigy both at his own house and in the Roman coteries. Metastasio soon found himself competing with the most celebrated improvvisatori of his time in Italy. However, his days full of study and evenings devoted to improvising poetry took a toll on Pietro’s health.
Gravina, making a business trip to Calabria, exhibited Metastasio in the literary circles of Naples, then placed him in the care of his kinsman Gregorio Caroprese at Scaléa. In country air and the quiet of the southern seashore Metastasio’s health revived. Gravina decided that he should never improvise again, but should be reserved for nobler efforts, when, having completed his education, he might enter into competition with the greatest poets.
Metastasio responded to his patron’s wishes. At the age of twelve he translated the Iliad into octave stanzas; and two years later he composed a Senecan tragedy on a subject from Gian Giorgio Trissino’s Italia liberata – Gravina’s favourite epic. It was called Giustino, and was printed in 1713; forty-two years later, Metastasio told his publisher that he would willingly suppress this juvenilia.
Caroprese died in 1714, leaving Gravina his heir; and in 1718 Gravina also died. Metastasio inherited a fortune of 15,000 scudi. At a meeting of the Arcadian Academy, he recited an elegy to his patron, and then settled down to enjoy his wealth.
In the early summer of 1730, Metastasio settled at Vienna in an apartment in the so-called ‘Michaelerhaus’. This date marks a new period in his artistic activity. Between the years 1730 and 1740 his finest dramas, Adriano in Siria, Demetrio, Issipile, Demofoonte, Olimpiade, Clemenza di Tito, Achille in Sciro, Temistocle and Attilio Regolo, were produced for the imperial theatre. Some of them had to be composed for special occasions, with almost incredible rapidity: Achille in eighteen days, Ipermestra in nine. Poet, composer, musical copyist and singer did their work together in frantic haste. Metastasio understood the technique of his peculiar art in its minutest details. The experience gained at Naples and Rome, quickened by the excitement of his new career at Vienna, enabled him almost instinctively, and as it were by inspiration, to hit the exact mark aimed at in the opera.
The libretto Adriano in Siria was used by more than 60 other composers in the 18th and early 19th century: Antonio Caldara (1732), Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1734), Francesco Maria Veracini (1735), Baldassare Galuppi (1740), Carl Heinrich Graun (1746), Johann Adolph Hasse (1752), Johann Christian Bach (1765), Luigi Cherubini (1782) and in Adriano in Siria (Mysliveček) from (1776).
In Vienna Metastasio met with no marked social success. His plebeian birth excluded him from aristocratic circles. To make up in some measure for this comparative failure, he enjoyed the intimacy of the Countess Althann [it], sister-in-law of his old patroness the Princess Belmonte Pignatelli. She had lost her husband, and had some while occupied the post of chief favourite to the emperor. Metastasio’s liaison with her became so close that it was believed they had been privately married.
Bulgarelli tired of his absence, and asked Metastasio to get her an engagement at the court theatre. He was ashamed of her and tired of her, and wrote dissuading her from the projected visit. The tone of his letters alarmed and irritated her. She seems to have set out from Rome, but died suddenly upon the road. All we know is that she left him her fortune after her husband’s life interest in it had expired, and that Metastasio, overwhelmed with grief and remorse, immediately renounced the legacy. This disinterested act plunged the Bulgarelli-Metastasio household at Rome into confusion. Bulgarelli’s widower married again. Metastasio’s brother, Leopoldo Trapassi, and his father and sister, were thrown upon their own resources.
As time advanced, the life which Metastasio led at Vienna, together with the climate, told on his health and spirits. From about the year 1745 onward he wrote little, though the cantatas which belong to this period, and the canzonetta Ecco quel fiero istante, which he sent to his friend Farinelli, rank among the most popular of his productions. It was clear, as Vernon Lee has phrased it, that “what ailed him was mental and moral ennui”. In 1755 the Countess Althann died, and Metastasio’s social contacts were reduced to the gatherings round him in the bourgeois house of his friend Nicolo Martinez, the secretary to the papal Nuncio in Vienna. He sank rapidly into the habits of old age; and, though he lived till the year 1782, he was very inactive. He died on 12 April,[1] bequeathing his whole fortune of some 130,000 florins to the six children of Nicolo Martinez. He had survived all his Italian relatives.
Throughout the forty years of his career in Vienna, in the course of which Metastasio eventually outlived his own originality and creative powers, his fame went on increasing. In his library he counted as many as forty editions of his own works. They had been translated into French, English, German, Spanish, and modern Greek. They had been set to music over and over again by every composer of distinction. They had been sung by the best virtuosi in every capital, and there was not a literary academy of note which had not conferred on him the honour of membership. Strangers of distinction passing through Vienna made a point of paying their respects to the old poet at his lodgings in the Kohlmarkt Gasse.
But his poetry was intended for a certain style of music – for the music of omnipotent vocalists, of exceedingly skilled sopranos and castrati. When the operas of Christoph Willibald Gluck and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart—focusing more on psychology and less on virtuoso singing—came into vogue, a new style of libretto was needed. (Mozart did use an old Metastasio libretto for his renowned opera La clemenza di Tito, but, it was substantially re-written for the purpose.) The demise of castrato singing meant that Metastasio’s operas dropped out of the repertory.
Metastasio’s poetry is emotional, lyrical, and romantic. His chief dramatic situations are expressed by lyrics for two or three voices, embodying the several contending passions of the agents brought into conflict by the circumstances of the plot. The total result is not pure literature, but literature fit for musical effect. Language in Metastasio’s hands is musical, lucid, and songlike, perhaps due to his experience as an improvisatory poet. He was an admirer of Torquato Tasso, Giambattista Marino, Giovanni Battista Guarini, and Ovid.
impresario
/ˌimprəˈsärēˌō,ˌimprəˈserəˌō/
a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays, or operas.
mid 18th century: from Italian, from impresa ‘undertaking’.
clarion
/ˈklerēən/
a shrill narrow-tubed war trumpet.
Middle English: from medieval Latin clario(n- ), from Latin clarus ‘clear’.
assignations
/ˌasiɡˈnāSH(ə)n/
an appointment to meet someone in secret, typically one made by lovers.
“his assignation with an older woman”
late Middle English (in the senses ‘command, appointment to office, or allotment of revenue’): via Old French from Latin assignatio(n- ), from the verb assignare (see assign).
fusty
/ˈfəstē/
smelling stale, damp, or stuffy.
“the fusty odor of decay”
late 15th century: from Old French fuste ‘smelling of the cask’, from fust ‘cask, tree trunk’, from Latin fustis ‘cudgel’.
tarrying
/ˈterē/
stay longer than intended; delay leaving a place.
“she could tarry a bit and not get home until four”
jaundice
Jaundice, also known as icterus, is a yellowish or greenish pigmentation of the skin and sclera due to high bilirubin levels.[3][6] Jaundice in adults is typically a sign indicating the presence of underlying diseases involving abnormal heme metabolism, liver dysfunction, or biliary-tract obstruction.[7] The prevalence of jaundice in adults is rare, while jaundice in babies is common, with an estimated 80% affected during their first week of life.[8] The most commonly associated symptoms of jaundice are itchiness,[2] pale feces, and dark urine.[4]
Normal levels of bilirubin in blood are below 1.0 mg/dl (17 μmol/L), while levels over 2–3 mg/dl (34–51 μmol/L) typically result in jaundice.[4][9] High blood bilirubin is divided into two types – unconjugated and conjugated bilirubin.[10]
Causes of jaundice vary from relatively benign to potentially fatal.[10] High unconjugated bilirubin may be due to excess red blood cell breakdown, large bruises, genetic conditions such as Gilbert’s syndrome, not eating for a prolonged period of time, newborn jaundice, or thyroid problems.[4][10] High conjugated bilirubin may be due to liver diseases such as cirrhosis or hepatitis, infections, medications, or blockage of the bile duct,[4] due to factors including gallstones, cancer, or pancreatitis.[4] Other conditions can also cause yellowish skin, but are not jaundice, including carotenemia, which can develop from eating large amounts of foods containing carotene — or medications such as rifampin.[4]
Treatment of jaundice is typically determined by the underlying cause.[5] If a bile duct blockage is present, surgery is typically required; otherwise, management is medical.[5] Medical management may involve treating infectious causes and stopping medication that could be contributing to the jaundice.[5] Jaundice in newborns may be treated with phototherapy or exchanged transfusion depending on age and prematurity when the bilirubin is greater than 4–21 mg/dl (68–360 μmol/L).[9] The itchiness may be helped by draining the gallbladder, ursodeoxycholic acid, or opioid antagonists such as naltrexone.[2] The word “jaundice” is from the French jaunisse, meaning “yellow disease”.[11][12]
primo uomo
/ˌprēmō ˈwōmō/
the principal male singer in an opera or opera company.
Italian, literally ‘first man’.
stolid
/ˈstäləd/
(of a person) calm, dependable, and showing little emotion or animation.
“a stolid bourgeois gent”
late 16th century: from obsolete French stolide or Latin stolidus (perhaps related to stultus ‘foolish’).
dissolute
/ˈdisəˌlo͞ot/
lax in morals; licentious.
“a dissolute, drunken, disreputable rogue”
late Middle English: from Latin dissolutus ‘disconnected, loose’, from the verb dissolvere (see dissolve).
belvedere
/ˈbelvəˌdir/
a summerhouse or open-sided gallery, usually at rooftop level, commanding a fine view.
late 16th century: from Italian, literally ‘fair sight’, from bel ‘beautiful’ + vedere ‘to see’.
corselets
In women’s clothing, a corselet or corselette is a type of foundation garment, sharing elements of both bras and girdles. It extends from straps over the shoulders down the torso, and stops around the top of the legs. It may incorporate lace in front or in back. As an undergarment, a corselet can be open-style (with suspenders attached) or panty-style.
Historically, the term referred to a piece of plate armour covering the torso.
crag
/kraɡ/
a steep or rugged cliff or rock face.
Middle English: of Celtic origin. crag (sense 2 of the noun), dating from the mid 18th century, may have been a different word originally.
Andante
/änˈdänˌtā/
(especially as a direction) at a moderately slow tempo.
“the Rose Adagio was played andante
Italian, literally ‘going’, present participle of andare .
métier
/ˈmāˌtyā,māˈtyā/
a trade, profession, or occupation.
“those who work honestly at their métier”
late 18th century: French, based on Latin ministerium ‘service’.
mordant
/ˈmôrdnt/
(especially of humor) having or showing a sharp or critical quality; biting.
“a mordant sense of humor”
late 15th century: from French, present participle of mordre ‘to bite’, from Latin mordere .
bête noire
/ˌbet ˈnwär,ˌbāt ˈnwär/
a person or thing that one particularly dislikes.
“great-uncle Edward was my father’s bête noire”
French, literally ‘black beast’.
negligée
/ˌneɡləˈZHā/
a woman’s light dressing gown, typically made of a filmy, soft fabric.
“a black silk negligee”
mid 18th century (denoting a kind of loose gown worn by women): from French, literally ‘given little thought or attention’, feminine past participle of négliger ‘to neglect’.
contretemps
/ˈkäntrətäN/
a minor dispute or disagreement.
“she had occasional contretemps with her staff”
late 17th century (originally as a fencing term, denoting a thrust made at an inopportune moment): French, originally ‘motion out of time’, from contre- ‘against’ + temps ‘time’.
Exchequer
/iksˈCHekər/
BRITISH
the bank account into which tax receipts and other public monies are paid; the funds of the British government.
Middle English: from Old French eschequier, from medieval Latin scaccarium ‘chessboard’, from scaccus (see check1). The original sense was ‘chessboard’. Current senses derive from the Norman department of state dealing with the royal revenues, named Exchequer from the checkered tablecloth on which accounts were kept by means of counters. The spelling was influenced by Latin ex- ‘out’ (see ex1). Compare with chequer.
voluptuary
/vəˈləp(t)SHəˌwerē/
a person devoted to luxury and sensual pleasure.
early 17th century: from Latin volupt(u)arius, from voluptas ‘pleasure’.
It was also an occasion for voluptuary displays of tough-mindedness.
THE MEDIA’S PRO-TORTURE CHEERLEADERS|JEDEDIAH PURDY|DECEMBER 10, 2014|DAILY BEAST
But the loathsome death of this brutal voluptuary soon delivered the church from the most implacable of its foes.
THE CATACOMBS OF ROME|WILLIAM HENRY WITHROW
He was a voluptuary in Art, and no one enjoyed real masterpieces with more refinement, passion, and sensuousness than he did.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE, HIS LIFE|THOPHILE GAUTIER
This was lost upon an audience insufficiently familiar with the works of that great voluptuary.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, VOL. 152, MAY 16, 1917.|VARIOUS
haricot
/ˈherəˌkō/
an edible bean of a variety with small white seeds, used especially to make baked beans; a navy bean.
the variety of the common bean plant that yields haricot beans.
mid 17th century: French, perhaps from Aztec ayacotli .
billets
/ˈbilit/
a place, usually a civilian’s house or other nonmilitary facility, where soldiers are lodged temporarily.
“the sergeant gave them leave to rest while officers went in search of billets”
late Middle English (originally denoting a short written document): from Anglo-Norman French billette, diminutive of bille (see bill1). The verb is recorded in the late 16th century, and the noun sense, ‘a written order requiring a householder to lodge the bearer, usually a soldier’, from the mid 17th century; hence the current meaning.
Frisian
The Frisians are a Germanic ethnic group native to the coastal regions of the Netherlands and northwestern Germany.[8][9][10][11][12] They inhabit an area known as Frisia and are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany, East Frisia and North Frisia (which was a part of Denmark until 1864).[13] The Frisian languages are spoken by more than 500,000 people; West Frisian is officially recognised in the Netherlands (in Friesland), and North Frisian and Saterland Frisian are recognised as regional languages in Germany.
gangrene
Gangrene is a type of tissue death caused by a lack of blood supply.[4] Symptoms may include a change in skin color to red or black, numbness, swelling, pain, skin breakdown, and coolness.[1] The feet and hands are most commonly affected.[1] If the gangrene is caused by an infectious agent, it may present with a fever or sepsis.[1]
Risk factors include diabetes, peripheral arterial disease, smoking, major trauma, alcoholism, HIV/AIDS, frostbite, influenza, dengue fever, malaria, chickenpox, plague, hypernatremia, radiation injuries, meningococcal disease, Group B streptococcal infection and Raynaud’s syndrome.[3][4] It can be classified as dry gangrene, wet gangrene, gas gangrene, internal gangrene, and necrotizing fasciitis.[3] The diagnosis of gangrene is based on symptoms and supported by tests such as medical imaging.[6]
Treatment may involve surgery to remove the dead tissue, antibiotics to treat any infection, and efforts to address the underlying cause.[5] Surgical efforts may include debridement, amputation, or the use of maggot therapy.[5] Efforts to treat the underlying cause may include bypass surgery or angioplasty.[5] In certain cases, hyperbaric oxygen therapy may be useful.[5] How commonly the condition occurs is unknown.[2]
revile
/rəˈvīl/
criticize in an abusive or angrily insulting manner.
“he was now reviled by the party that he had helped to lead”
Middle English: from Old French reviler, based on vil ‘vile’.
indigent
/ˈindəjənt/
poor; needy.
“a charity for the relief of indigent artists”
late Middle English: via Old French from late Latin indigent- ‘lacking’, from the verb indigere, from indi- (strengthened form of in- ‘into’) + egere ‘to need’.
skat
Skat (German pronunciation: [ˈskaːt][a]), historically Scat, is a three-player trick-taking card game of the Ace-Ten family, devised around 1810 in Altenburg in the Duchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. It is the national game of Germany[1] and, along with Doppelkopf, it is the most popular card game in Germany and Silesia and one of the most popular in the rest of Poland. A variant of 19th-century Skat was once popular in the US. John McLeod considers it one of the best and most interesting card games for three players,[1][2] and Kelbet described it as “the king of German card games.”[3]
cloister
/ˈkloistər/
a covered walk in a convent, monastery, college, or cathedral, typically with a wall on one side and a colonnade open to a quadrangle on the other.
“the shadowed cloisters of the convent”
seclude or shut up in a convent or monastery.
“the monastery was where the Brothers would cloister themselves to meditate”
Middle English (in the sense ‘place of religious seclusion’): from Old French cloistre, from Latin claustrum, clostrum ‘lock, enclosed place’, from claudere, ‘to close’.
cur
/kər/
an aggressive dog or one that is in poor condition, especially a mongrel.
Middle English (in the general sense ‘dog’): probably originally in cur-dog, perhaps from Old Norse kurr ‘grumbling’.
quixotic
/kwikˈsädik/
exceedingly idealistic; unrealistic and impractical.
“a vast and perhaps quixotic project”
late 18th century: from Don Quixote + -ic.
prosy
/ˈprōzē/
(especially of speech or writing) showing no imagination; commonplace or dull.
“he junked most of the prosy script his handlers had written for him”
mantilla
A mantilla is a traditional Spanish and Latin American liturgical lace or silk veil or shawl worn over the head and shoulders, often over a high comb called a peineta, popular with women in Spain, as well as in Latin America.[1] It is also worn by Traditional Catholic and Plymouth Brethren women in various parts of the globe, Mennonite women in Argentina, and without the peineta by Eastern Orthodox women in Russia, often white, with the ends crossed over neck and draped over the opposite shoulder. For these denominations, the mantilla is worn as a Christian headcovering by women during church services, as well as during special occasions.[2][3] A smaller version of the mantilla is called a toquilla.[4]
colic
Colic is frequent, prolonged and intense crying or fussiness in a healthy infant. Colic can be particularly frustrating for parents because the baby’s distress occurs for no apparent reason and no amount of consoling seems to bring any relief. These episodes often occur in the evening, when parents themselves are often tired.
Episodes of colic usually peak when an infant is about 6 weeks old and decline significantly after 3 to 4 months of age. While the excessive crying will resolve with time, managing colic adds significant stress to caring for your newborn child.
Vitruvius
Vitruvius (/vɪˈtruːviəs/; c. 80–70 BC – after c. 15 BC) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work entitled De architectura.[1] He originated the idea that all buildings should have three attributes: firmitas, utilitas, and venustas (“strength”, “utility”, and “beauty”).[2] These principles were later widely adopted in Roman architecture. His discussion of perfect proportion in architecture and the human body led to the famous Renaissance drawing of the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci.
Little is known about Vitruvius’ life, but by his own description[3] he served as an artilleryman, the third class of arms in the Roman military offices. He probably served as a senior officer of artillery in charge of doctores ballistarum (artillery experts) and libratores who actually operated the machines.[4] As an army engineer he specialized in the construction of ballista and scorpio artillery war machines for sieges. It is possible that Vitruvius served with Julius Caesar’s chief engineer Lucius Cornelius Balbus.
Vitruvius’ De architectura was widely copied and survives in many dozens of manuscripts throughout the Middle Ages,[5] though in 1414 it was “rediscovered” by the Florentine humanist Poggio Bracciolini in the library of Saint Gall Abbey. Leon Battista Alberti published it in his seminal treatise on architecture, De re aedificatoria (c. 1450). The first known Latin printed edition was by Fra Giovanni Sulpitius in Rome in 1486. Translations followed in Italian, French, English, German, Spanish, and several other languages. Though the original illustrations have been lost, the first illustrated edition was published in Venice in 1511 by Fra Giovanni Giocondo, with woodcut illustrations based on descriptions in the text.
solipsists
Solipsism (/ˈsɒlɪpsɪzəm/ (listen); from Latin solus ‘alone’, and ipse ‘self’)[1] is the philosophical idea that only one’s mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one’s own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind. The words has Latino-Hebrewic Cross-over meaning ‘Zero Sun’ or ‘Less Sol (Sun, Spark Thought)’.
swivet
/ˌswivit/
a fluster or panic.
“the incomprehensible did not throw him into a swivet”
ethos
/ˈēTHäs/
the characteristic spirit of a culture, era, or community as manifested in its beliefs and aspirations.
“a challenge to the ethos of the 1960s”
mid 19th century: from modern Latin, from Greek ēthos ‘nature, disposition’, (plural) ‘customs’.
capons
A capon (from Latin: cāpō, genitive cāpōnem) is a cockerel (rooster) that has been castrated or neutered, either physically or chemically, to improve the quality of its flesh for food, and, in some countries like Spain, fattened by forced feeding.
brio
/ˈbrēō/
vigor or vivacity of style or performance.
“she told her story with some brio”
mid 18th century: from Italian.
peevishly
/ˈpēviSH/
easily irritated, especially by unimportant things.
“all this makes Steve fretful and peevish”
screeds
/skrēd/
a long speech or piece of writing, typically one regarded as tedious.
“her criticism appeared in the form of screeds in a local film magazine”
Middle English: probably a variant of the noun shred. The early sense was ‘fragment cut from a main piece’, then ‘torn strip’, whence (via the notion of a long roll or list) screed (sense 1 of the noun).
offal
Offal (/ˈɒfəl/), also called variety meats, pluck or organ meats, is the organs of a butchered animal. The word does not refer to a particular list of edible organs, which varies by culture and region, but usually excludes muscle.[citation needed] Offal may also refer to the by-products of milled grains, such as corn or wheat.[1]
Some cultures strongly consider offal as food to be taboo, while others use it as everyday food, or even as delicacies. Certain offal dishes—including foie gras, pâté, and haggis —are internationally regarded as gourmet food in the culinary arts. Others remain part of traditional regional cuisine and may be consumed especially in connection with holidays. This includes sweetbread, Jewish chopped liver, U.S. chitterlings, Mexican menudo, as well as many other dishes. On the other hand, intestines are traditionally used as casing for sausages.
Depending on the context, offal may refer only to those parts of an animal carcass discarded after butchering or skinning; offal not used directly for human or animal consumption is often processed in a rendering plant, producing material that is used for fertilizer or fuel; or in some cases, it may be added to commercially produced pet food.[citation needed] In earlier times, mobs sometimes threw offal and other rubbish at condemned criminals as a show of public disapproval.[2]
grotto
/ˈɡrädō/
a small picturesque cave, especially an artificial one in a park or garden.
early 17th century: from Italian grotta, via Latin from Greek kruptē (see crypt).
Stetson
The John B. Stetson Company, founded by John B. Stetson in 1865, was the maker of the Stetson cowboy hats, but ceased manufacturing in 1970.[1] Stetson hats are now being manufactured in Garland, Texas, by Hatco, Inc., who also produce Resistol and Charlie 1 Horse hats.[2]
Stetson resumed manufacturing in the 1980s, but the company went bankrupt in 1986.[3] The factory equipment and the license to manufacture Stetson hats was purchased by Hat Brands, a company owned by Irving Joel.
longshoremen
A stevedore (/ˈstiːvɪˌdɔːr/), also called a longshoreman, a docker or a dockworker, is a waterfront manual laborer who is involved in loading and unloading ships, trucks, trains or airplanes.
After the shipping container revolution of the 1960s, the number of dockworkers required declined by over 90%.[1]
Ponce de León
Juan Ponce de León (/ˌpɒns də ˈliːən/,[2] also UK: /ˌpɒnseɪ də leɪˈɒn/,[3] US: /ˌpɒns də liˈoʊn, ˌpɒns(ə) deɪ -/,[4][5] Spanish: [ˈxwam ˈponθe ðe leˈon]; 1474 – July 1521[6]) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador known for leading the first official European expedition to Florida and for serving as the first governor of Puerto Rico. He was born in Santervás de Campos, Valladolid, Spain in 1474. Though little is known about his family, he was of noble birth and served in the Spanish military from a young age. He first came to the Americas as a “gentleman volunteer” with Christopher Columbus’s second expedition in 1493.
By the early 1500s, Ponce de León was a top military official in the colonial government of Hispaniola, where he helped crush a rebellion of the native Taíno people. He was authorized to explore the neighboring island of Puerto Rico in 1508 and to take office as the first Governor of Puerto Rico by appointment of the Spanish crown in 1509. While Ponce de León grew quite wealthy from his plantations and mines, he faced an ongoing legal conflict with Diego Colón, the late Christopher Columbus’s son, over the right to govern Puerto Rico. After a long court battle, Columbus replaced Ponce de León as governor in 1511. Ponce de León decided to follow the advice of the sympathetic King Ferdinand and explore more of the Caribbean Sea.
In 1513, Ponce de León led the first known European expedition to La Florida, which he named during his first voyage to the area. He landed somewhere along Florida’s east coast, then charted the Atlantic coast down to the Florida Keys and north along the Gulf coast; historian John Reed Swanton believed that he sailed perhaps as far as Apalachee Bay on Florida’s western coast.[7] Though in popular culture he was supposedly searching for the Fountain of Youth, there is no contemporary evidence to support the story, which most modern historians consider a myth.[8]
Ponce de León returned to Spain in 1514 and was knighted by King Ferdinand, who also reinstated him as the governor of Puerto Rico and authorized him to settle Florida. He returned to the Caribbean in 1515, but plans to organize an expedition to Florida were delayed by the death of King Ferdinand in 1516, after which Ponce de León again traveled to Spain to defend his grants and titles. He would not return to Puerto Rico for two years.[9]
In March 1521, Ponce de León finally returned to southwest Florida with the first large-scale attempt to establish a Spanish colony in what is now the continental United States. However, the native Calusa people fiercely resisted the incursion, and Ponce de Léon was seriously wounded in a skirmish. The colonization attempt was abandoned, and he died from his wounds soon after returning to Cuba in early July. He was interred in Puerto Rico; his tomb is located inside the Cathedral of San Juan Bautista in San Juan.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (/ˈkoʊlərɪdʒ/;[1] 21 October 1772 – 25 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He also shared volumes and collaborated with Charles Lamb, Robert Southey, and Charles Lloyd. He wrote the poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as the major prose work Biographia Literaria. His critical work, especially on William Shakespeare, was highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking cultures. Coleridge coined many familiar words and phrases, including “suspension of disbelief”.[2] He had a major influence on Ralph Waldo Emerson and American transcendentalism.
Throughout his adult life, Coleridge had crippling bouts of anxiety and depression; it has been speculated that he had bipolar disorder, which had not been defined during his lifetime.[3] He was physically unhealthy, which may have stemmed from a bout of rheumatic fever and other childhood illnesses. He was treated for these conditions with laudanum, which fostered a lifelong opium addiction.
Kubla Khan (Poem)
Kubla Khan (/ˌkʊblə ˈkɑːn/) is a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, completed in 1797 and published in 1816. It is sometimes given the subtitles “A Vision in a Dream” and “A Fragment.” According to Coleridge’s preface to Kubla Khan, the poem was composed one night after he experienced an opium-influenced dream after reading a work describing Shangdu, the summer capital of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China founded by Kublai Khan (Emperor Shizu of Yuan). Upon waking, he set about writing lines of poetry that came to him from the dream until he was interrupted by “a person from Porlock”. The poem could not be completed according to its original 200–300 line plan as the interruption caused him to forget the lines. He left it unpublished and kept it for private readings for his friends until 1816 when, at the prompting of Lord Byron, it was published.
The poem is vastly different in style from other poems written by Coleridge. The first stanza of the poem describes Khan’s pleasure dome built alongside a sacred river fed by a powerful fountain. The second stanza of the poem is the narrator’s response to the power and effects of an Abyssinian maid’s song, which enraptures him but leaves him unable to act on her inspiration unless he could hear her once again. Together, they form a comparison of creative power that does not work with nature and creative power that is harmonious with nature. The third and final stanza shifts to a first-person perspective of the speaker detailing his sighting of a woman playing a dulcimer, and if he could revive her song, he could fill the pleasure dome with music. He concludes by describing a hypothetical audience’s reaction to the song in the language of religious ecstasy.
Some of Coleridge’s contemporaries denounced the poem and questioned his story of its origin. It was not until years later that critics began to openly admire the poem. Most modern critics now view Kubla Khan as one of Coleridge’s three great poems, along with The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel. The poem is considered one of the most famous examples of Romanticism in English poetry, and is one of the most frequently anthologized poems in the English language.[1] The manuscript is a permanent exhibit at the British Library in London.[2]
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Eugene V. Debs
Eugene Victor “Gene” Debs (November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) was an American socialist, political activist, trade unionist, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and five times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States.[1] Through his presidential candidacies as well as his work with labor movements, Debs eventually became one of the best-known socialists living in the United States.
Early in his political career, Debs was a member of the Democratic Party. He was elected as a Democrat to the Indiana General Assembly in 1884. After working with several smaller unions, including the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, Debs led his union in a major ten-month strike against the CB&Q Railroad in 1888. Debs was instrumental in the founding of the American Railway Union (ARU), one of the nation’s first industrial unions. After workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company organized a wildcat strike over pay cuts in the summer of 1894, Debs signed many into the ARU. He led a boycott by the ARU against handling trains with Pullman cars in what became the nationwide Pullman Strike, affecting most lines west of Detroit and more than 250,000 workers in 27 states. Purportedly to keep the mail running, President Grover Cleveland used the United States Army to break the strike. As a leader of the ARU, Debs was convicted of federal charges for defying a court injunction against the strike and served six months in prison.
In prison, Debs read various works of socialist theory and emerged six months later as a committed adherent of the international socialist movement. Debs was a founding member of the Social Democracy of America (1897), the Social Democratic Party of America (1898) and the Socialist Party of America (1901). Debs ran as a Socialist candidate for President of the United States five times, including 1900 (earning 0.6 percent of the popular vote), 1904 (3.0 percent), 1908 (2.8 percent), 1912 (6.0 percent), and 1920 (3.4 percent), the last time from a prison cell. He was also a candidate for United States Congress from his native state Indiana in 1916.
Debs was noted for his oratorical skills, and his speech denouncing American participation in World War I led to his second arrest in 1918. He was convicted under the Sedition Act of 1918 and sentenced to a ten-year term. President Warren G. Harding commuted his sentence in December 1921. Debs died in 1926, not long after being admitted to a sanatorium due to cardiovascular problems that developed during his time in prison.
attaché
/ˌadəˈSHā,ˌaˈtaSHā/
a person on the staff of an ambassador, typically with a specialized area of responsibility.
“military attachés”
early 19th century: from French, literally ‘attached’, past participle of attacher .
ursine
/ˈərˌsin/
relating to or resembling bears.
“ursine arteriosclerosis”
mid 16th century: from Latin ursinus, from ursus ‘bear’.
Typhoid fever
Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is a disease caused by Salmonella serotype Typhi bacteria.[2] Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure.[3][4] Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over several days.[3] This is commonly accompanied by weakness, abdominal pain, constipation, headaches, and mild vomiting.[4][5] Some people develop a skin rash with rose colored spots.[4] In severe cases, people may experience confusion.[5] Without treatment, symptoms may last weeks or months.[4] Diarrhea may be severe, but is uncommon.[5] Other people may carry the bacterium without being affected, but they are still able to spread the disease.[6] Typhoid fever is a type of enteric fever, along with paratyphoid fever.[2] S. enterica Typhi is believed to infect and replicate only within humans.[7]
Typhoid is caused by the bacterium Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Typhi growing in the intestines, peyers patches, mesenteric lymph nodes, spleen, liver, gallbladder, bone marrow and blood.[4][5] Typhoid is spread by eating or drinking food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person.[6] Risk factors include limited access to clean drinking water and poor sanitation.[2] Those who have not yet been exposed to the pathogen and ingest contaminated drinking water or food are most at risk for developing symptoms.[5] Only humans can be infected; there are no known animal reservoirs.[6]
Diagnosis is by culturing and identifying S. enterica Typhi from patient samples or detecting an immune response to the pathogen from blood samples.[4][2][8] Recently, new advances in large-scale data collection and analysis have allowed researchers to develop better diagnostics, such as detecting changing abundances of small molecules in the blood that may specifically indicate typhoid fever.[9] Diagnostic tools in regions where typhoid is most prevalent are quite limited in their accuracy and specificity, and the time required for a proper diagnosis, the increasing spread of antibiotic resistance, and the cost of testing are also hardships for under-resourced healthcare systems.[7]
A typhoid vaccine can prevent about 40% to 90% of cases during the first two years.[10] The vaccine may have some effect for up to seven years.[2] For those at high risk or people traveling to areas where the disease is common, vaccination is recommended.[6] Other efforts to prevent the disease include providing clean drinking water, good sanitation, and handwashing.[4][6] Until an infection is confirmed as cleared, the infected person should not prepare food for others.[4] Typhoid is treated with antibiotics such as azithromycin, fluoroquinolones, or third-generation cephalosporins.[2] Resistance to these antibiotics has been developing, which has made treatment more difficult.[2][11]
In 2015, 12.5 million new typhoid cases were reported.[12] The disease is most common in India.[2] Children are most commonly affected.[2][6] Typhoid decreased in the developed world in the 1940s as a result of improved sanitation and the use of antibiotics.[6] Every year about 400 cases are reported in the U.S. and an estimated 6,000 people have typhoid.[5][13] In 2015, it resulted in about 149,000 deaths worldwide – down from 181,000 in 1990.[14][15] Without treatment, the risk of death may be as high as 20%.[6] With treatment, it is between 1% and 4%.[2][6]
Typhus is a different disease.[16] Owing to their similar symptoms, they were not recognized as distinct diseases until the 1800s. “Typhoid” means “resembling typhus”.[17]
Bright’s disease
Bright’s disease is a historical classification of kidney diseases that are described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis.[1] It was characterized by swelling and the presence of albumin in the urine, and was frequently accompanied by high blood pressure and heart disease.[citation needed]
The symptoms and signs of Bright’s disease were first described in 1827 by the English physician Richard Bright, after whom the disease was named. In his Reports of Medical Cases,[2] he described 25 cases of dropsy (edema) which he attributed to kidney disease. Symptoms and signs included: inflammation of serous membranes, hemorrhages, apoplexy, convulsions, blindness and coma.[3][4] Many of these cases were found to have albumin in their urine (detected by the spoon and candle-heat coagulation), and showed striking morbid changes of the kidneys at autopsy.[5] The triad of dropsy, albumin in the urine, and kidney disease came to be regarded as characteristic of Bright’s disease.[3]
Subsequent work by Bright and others indicated an association with cardiac hypertrophy, which Bright attributed to stimulation of the heart. Frederick Akbar Mahomed showed that a rise in blood pressure could precede the appearance of albumin in the urine, and the rise in blood pressure and increased resistance to flow was believed to explain the cardiac hypertrophy.[4]
It is now known that Bright’s disease is caused by a wide and diverse range of kidney diseases;[1][5][6] thus, the term Bright’s disease is retained strictly for historical application.[7] The disease was diagnosed frequently in diabetic patients;[4] at least some of these cases would probably correspond to a modern diagnosis of diabetic nephropathy.
Bright’s disease was historically treated with warm baths, blood-letting, squill, digitalis, mercuric compounds, opium, diuretics, laxatives,[2][8] and dietary therapy, including abstinence from alcoholic drinks, cheese and red meat. Arnold Ehret was diagnosed with Bright’s disease and pronounced incurable by 24 of Europe’s most respected doctors; he designed The Mucusless Diet Healing System, which apparently cured his illness. William Howard Hay, MD had the illness and, it is claimed, cured himself using the Hay diet.[9] 1863 Boston Medical Journal pp 329–330. Milk diet to treat the dropsys (edema) related to this disease.
Adirondacks
The Adirondack Mountains (/ædɪˈrɒndæk/) form a massif in northeastern New York with boundaries that correspond roughly to those of Adirondack Park. They cover about 5,000 square miles (13,000 km2).[1] The mountains form a roughly circular dome, about 160 miles (260 km) in diameter and about 1 mile (1,600 m) high. The current relief owes much to glaciation. There are more than 200 lakes around the mountains, including Lake George, Lake Placid, and Lake Tear of the Clouds, which is the source of the Hudson River.[1] The Adirondack Region is also home to hundreds of mountain summits, with some reaching heights of 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) or more.
Gobi Desert
The Gobi Desert (Chinese: 戈壁 (沙漠), Mongolian: Говь (ᠭᠣᠪᠢ)) (/ˈɡoʊbi/) is a large desert or brushland region in East Asia,[1] and is the sixth largest desert in the world.[2]
The Gobi measures 1,600 km (1,000 mi) from southwest to northeast and 800 km (500 mi) from north to south. The desert is widest in the west, along the line joining the Lake Bosten and the Lop Nor (87°–89° east).[3] In 2007, it occupied an arc of land[4] in area.
In its broadest definition, the Gobi includes the long stretch of desert extending from the foot of the Pamirs (77° east) to the Greater Khingan Mountains, 116–118° east, on the border of Manchuria; and from the foothills of the Altay, Sayan, and Yablonoi mountain ranges[3] on the north to the Kunlun, Altyn-Tagh, and Qilian mountain ranges, which form the northern edges of the Tibetan Plateau, on the south.[5]
A relatively large area on the east side of the Greater Khingan range, between the upper waters of the Songhua (Sungari) and the upper waters of the Liao-ho, is reckoned to belong to the Gobi by conventional usage. Some geographers and ecologists prefer to regard the western area of the Gobi region (as defined above): the basin of the Tarim in Xinjiang and the desert basin of Lop Nor and Hami (Kumul), as forming a separate and independent desert, called the Taklamakan Desert.[3]
Much of the Gobi is not sandy, instead resembling exposed bare rock.
avoir-dupois
/ˌävərdəˈpoiz,ˌävərdəˈpwä/
a system of weights based on a pound of 16 ounces or 7,000 grains, widely used in English-speaking countries.
“avoirdupois weights”
Middle English (denoting merchandise sold by weight): from Old French aveir de peis ‘goods of weight’, from aveir ‘to have’ (infinitive used as a noun, from Latin habere ) + peis ‘weight’ (see poise1).
valise
/vəˈlēs/
a small traveling bag or suitcase.
early 17th century: from French, from Italian valigia ; compare with medieval Latin valesia, of unknown origin.
Livingstone
David Livingstone (/ˈlɪvɪŋstən/; 19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, and pioneer Christian missionary[2] with the London Missionary Society, an explorer in Africa, and one of the most popular British heroes of the late 19th-century Victorian era. David was the husband of Mary Moffat Livingstone, from the prominent 18th Century missionary family, Moffat.[3] He had a mythic status that operated on a number of interconnected levels: Protestant missionary martyr, working-class “rags-to-riches” inspirational story, scientific investigator and explorer, imperial reformer, anti-slavery crusader, and advocate of British commercial and colonial expansion.
Livingstone’s fame as an explorer and his obsession with learning the sources of the Nile River was founded on the belief that if he could solve that age-old mystery, his fame would give him the influence to end the East African Arab–Swahili slave trade. “The Nile sources”, he told a friend, “are valuable only as a means of opening my mouth with power among men. It is this power [with] which I hope to remedy an immense evil.”[4] His subsequent exploration of the central African watershed was the culmination of the classic period of European geographical discovery and colonial penetration of Africa. At the same time, his missionary travels, “disappearance”, and eventual death in Africa—and subsequent glorification as a posthumous national hero in 1874—led to the founding of several major central African Christian missionary initiatives carried forward in the era of the European “Scramble for Africa”.[5]
raconteur
/ˌräˌkänˈtər/
a person who tells anecdotes in a skillful and amusing way.
“a colorful raconteur”
early 19th century: French, from raconter ‘relate, recount’.
laity
/ˈlāədē/
- lay people, as distinct from the clergy.
- ordinary people, as distinct from professionals or experts.
late Middle English: from lay2 + -ity.
divan
/dəˈvan,ˈdīˌvan/
a long low sofa without a back or arms, typically placed against a wall.
late 16th century (in divan (sense 3 of the noun)): via French or Italian from Turkish dīvān, from Persian dīwān ‘anthology, register, court, or bench’; compare with diwan. As a piece of furniture, a divan was originally (early 18th century) a low bench or raised section of floor against an interior wall, used as a long seat and common in Middle Eastern countries; European imitation of this led to the sense ‘low flat sofa or bed’ (late 19th century).
bugle
The bugle is one of the simplest brass instruments, normally having no valves or other pitch-altering devices. All pitch control is done by varying the player’s embouchure.
The bugle developed from early musical or communication instruments made of animal horns,[1] with the word “bugle” itself coming from “buculus”, Latin for bullock (castrated bull).[2] The earliest bugles were shaped in a coil – typically a double coil, but also a single or triple coil – similar to the modern horn, and were used to communicate during hunts and as announcing instruments for coaches (somewhat akin to today’s automobile horn). Predecessors and relatives of the bugle included the post horn, the Pless horn (sometimes called the “Prince Pless horn”), the bugle horn, and the shofar, among others. The ancient Roman army used the buccina.
The first verifiable formal use of a brass bugle as a military signal device was the Halbmondbläser, or half-moon bugle, used in Hanover in 1758. It was crescent-shaped (hence its name) and comfortably carried by a shoulder strap attached at the mouthpiece and bell. It first spread to England in 1764 where it was gradually accepted widely in foot regiments. 18th-century cavalry did not normally use a standard bugle, but rather an early trumpet that might be mistaken for a bugle today, as it lacked keys or valves, but had a more gradual taper and a smaller bell, producing a sound more easily audible at close range but with less carrying power over distance.
bandolier
/ˌbandəˈlir/
a shoulder-belt with loops or pockets for cartridges.
late 16th century: from French bandoulière ; perhaps from Spanish bandolera (from banda ‘sash’), or from Catalan bandolera (from bandoler ‘bandit’).
manioc
Manihot esculenta, commonly called cassava (/kəˈsɑːvə/), manioc,[2] or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America. Although a perennial plant, cassava is extensively cultivated as an annual crop in tropical and subtropical regions for its edible starchy tuberous root, a major source of carbohydrates. Though it is often called yuca in parts of Spanish America and in the United States, it is not related to yucca, a shrub in the family Asparagaceae. Cassava is predominantly consumed in boiled form, but substantial quantities are used to extract cassava starch, called tapioca, which is used for food, animal feed, and industrial purposes. The Brazilian farinha, and the related garri of West Africa, is an edible coarse flour obtained by grating cassava roots, pressing moisture off the obtained grated pulp, and finally drying it (and roasting both in the case of farinha and garri).
Cassava is the third-largest source of food carbohydrates in the tropics, after rice and maize.[3][4][5] Cassava is a major staple food in the developing world, providing a basic diet for over half a billion people.[6] It is one of the most drought-tolerant crops, capable of growing on marginal soils. Nigeria is the world’s largest producer of cassava, while Thailand is the largest exporter of cassava starch.
Cassava is classified as either sweet or bitter. Like other roots and tubers, both bitter and sweet varieties of cassava contain antinutritional factors and toxins, with the bitter varieties containing much larger amounts.[7] It must be properly prepared before consumption, as improper preparation of cassava can leave enough residual cyanide to cause acute cyanide intoxication,[8][9] goiters, and even ataxia, partial paralysis, or death.[10][11] The more toxic varieties of cassava have been used in some places as famine food during times of food insecurity.[8][7] Farmers often prefer the bitter varieties because they deter pests, animals, and thieves.[12]
epiphytes
An epiphyte is an organism that grows on the surface of a plant and derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, water (in marine environments) or from debris accumulating around it. The plants on which epiphytes grow are called phorophytes. Epiphytes take part in nutrient cycles and add to both the diversity and biomass of the ecosystem in which they occur, like any other organism. They are an important source of food for many species. Typically, the older parts of a plant will have more epiphytes growing on them. Epiphytes differ from parasites in that they grow on other plants for physical support and do not necessarily affect the host negatively. An organism that grows on another organism that is not a plant may be called an epibiont.[1] Epiphytes are usually found in the temperate zone (e.g., many mosses, liverworts, lichens, and algae) or in the tropics (e.g., many ferns, cacti, orchids, and bromeliads).[2] Epiphyte species make good houseplants due to their minimal water and soil requirements.[3] Epiphytes provide a rich and diverse habitat for other organisms including animals, fungi, bacteria, and myxomycetes.[4]
Epiphyte is one of the subdivisions of the Raunkiær system. The term epiphytic derives from the Greek epi- (meaning ‘upon’) and phyton (meaning ‘plant’). Epiphytic plants are sometimes called “air plants” because they do not root in soil. However, there are many aquatic species of algae that are epiphytes on other aquatic plants (seaweeds or aquatic angiosperms).
friable
/ˈfrīəbəl/
easily crumbled.
“the soil was friable between her fingers”
mid 16th century: from French, or from Latin friabilis, from friare ‘to crumble’.
tapirs
Tapirs (/ˈteɪpər/ TAY-pər)[1] are large, herbivorous mammals belonging to the family Tapiridae. They are similar in shape to a pig, with a short, prehensile nose trunk. Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South and Central America, with one species inhabiting Southeast Asia. They are one of three extant branches of Perissodactyla (odd-toed ungulates), alongside equines and rhinoceros. Only a single genus, Tapirus is currently extant. Tapirs migrated into South America during the Pleistocene epoch from North America after the formation of the Isthmus of Panama as part of the Great American Interchange.[2] Tapirs were once widespread in North America until the arrival of humans at the end of the Late Pleistocene, around 12,000 years ago.
peccaries
A peccary (also javelina or skunk pig) is a medium-sized, pig-like hoofed mammal of the family Tayassuidae (New World pigs). They are found throughout Central and South America, Trinidad in the Caribbean, and in the southwestern area of North America. They usually measure between 90 and 130 cm (2 ft 11 in and 4 ft 3 in) in length, and a full-grown adult usually weighs about 20 to 40 kg (44 to 88 lb). They represent the closest relatives of the family Suidae, which contains pigs and relatives. Together Tayassuidae and Suidae are grouped in the Suina within the Artiodactyla (even toed ungulates).
Peccaries are social creatures that live in herds. They eat roots, grubs, and a variety of foods. They can identify each other by their strong odors. A group of peccaries that travel and live together is called a “squadron”. A squadron of peccaries averages between six and nine members.[1]
Peccaries first appeared in North America during the Miocene, and migrated into South America during the Pliocene-Pleistocene as part of the Great American Interchange.
They are often confused[2] with feral domestic pigs, commonly known as “razorback” hogs in many parts of the United States,[3] when the two occur in the wild in similar ranges.
Mayans kept herds of peccaries, using them in rituals and for food.[4] They are kept as pets in many countries, in addition to being raised on farms as a source of food.[5]
trousseau
/ˌtro͞oˈsō,ˈtro͞oˌsō/
the clothes, household linen, and other belongings collected by a bride for her marriage.
mid 19th century: from French, diminutive of trousse ‘bundle’ (a sense also found in Middle English).
corduroy road
A corduroy road or log road is a type of road or timber trackway made by placing logs, perpendicular to the direction of the road over a low or swampy area. The result is an improvement over impassable mud or dirt roads, yet rough in the best of conditions and a hazard to horses due to shifting loose logs.
Corduroy roads can also be built as a foundation for other surfacing. If the logs are buried in wet, acidic, anaerobic soils such as peat or muskeg, they decay very slowly. A few corduroy road foundations that date back to the early 20th century still exist in North America. One example is the Alaska Highway between Burwash Landing and Koidern, Yukon, Canada, which was rebuilt in 1943, less than a year after the original route was graded on thin soil and vegetation over permafrost, by using corduroy, then building a gravel road on top. During the 1980s, the gravel was covered with a chip-seal. The late 1990s saw replacement of this road with modern road construction, including rerouting of the entire highway.
In World War II they were used by both German and Soviet forces on the Eastern Front.[1]
In slang use, corduroy road can also refer to a road in ill repair, having many potholes, ruts, or surface swellings. This should not be confused with a washboard road.
John Muir
John Muir (/mjʊər/ MURE; April 21, 1838 – December 24, 1914),[1] also known as “John of the Mountains” and “Father of the National Parks”,[2][3] was an influential Scottish-American[4][5]: 42 naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States of America.
His letters, essays, and books describing his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada, have been read by millions. His activism helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park, and his example has served as an inspiration for the preservation of many other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he co-founded, is a prominent American conservation organization. In his later life, Muir devoted most of his time to the preservation of the Western forests. As part of the campaign to make Yosemite a national park, Muir published two landmark articles on wilderness preservation in The Century Magazine, “The Treasures of the Yosemite” and “Features of the Proposed Yosemite National Park”; this helped support the push for U.S. Congress to pass a bill in 1890 establishing Yosemite National Park.[6] The spiritual quality and enthusiasm toward nature expressed in his writings has inspired readers, including presidents and congressmen, to take action to help preserve large nature areas.[7]
John Muir has been considered “an inspiration to both Scots and Americans”.[8] Muir’s biographer, Steven J. Holmes, believes that Muir has become “one of the patron saints of twentieth-century American environmental activity”, both political and recreational. As a result, his writings are commonly discussed in books and journals, and he has often been quoted by nature photographers such as Ansel Adams.[9] “Muir has profoundly shaped the very categories through which Americans understand and envision their relationships with the natural world”, writes Holmes.[10]
Muir was noted for being an ecological thinker, political spokesman, and religious prophet, whose writings became a personal guide into nature for many people, making his name “almost ubiquitous” in the modern environmental consciousness. According to author William Anderson, Muir exemplified “the archetype of our oneness with the earth”,[11] while biographer Donald Worster says he believed his mission was “saving the American soul from total surrender to materialism”.[12]: 403 On April 21, 2013, the first John Muir Day was celebrated in Scotland, which marked the 175th anniversary of his birth, paying homage to the conservationist.
blight
/blīt/
a plant disease, typically one caused by fungi such as mildews, rusts, and smuts.
“the vines suffered blight and disease”
mid 16th century (denoting inflammation of the skin): of unknown origin.
pince-nez
/paNsˈnā/
Pince-nez (/ˈpɑːnsneɪ/ or /ˈpɪnsneɪ/, plural form same as singular;[1] French pronunciation: [pɛ̃sˈne]) is a style of glasses, popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that are supported without earpieces, by pinching the bridge of the nose. The name comes from French pincer, “to pinch”, and nez, “nose”.
Although pince-nez were used in Europe since the late 14th century, modern ones appeared in the 1840s and reached their peak popularity around 1880 to 1900. Because they did not always stay on the nose when placed, and because of the stigma sometimes attached to the constant wearing of eyeglasses, pince-nez were often connected to the wearer’s clothing or ear via a suspension chain, cord, or ribbon so that they could be easily removed and not lost.
Mennonites
Mennonites are members of certain Christian groups belonging to the church communities of Anabaptist denominations named after Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings, Simons articulated and formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss founders, with the early teachings of the Mennonites founded on the belief in both the mission and ministry of Jesus, which the original Anabaptist followers held with great conviction, despite persecution by various Roman Catholic and Protestant states. Mennonite beliefs were codified in the Dordrecht Confession of Faith in 1632,[4] which affirmed “the baptism of believers only, the washing of the feet as a symbol of servanthood, church discipline, the shunning of the excommunicated, the non-swearing of oaths, marriage within the same church, strict nonresistance, and in general, more emphasis on true Christianity involving being Christian and obeying Christ”.[5]
The majority of the early Mennonite followers, rather than fighting, survived by fleeing to neighboring states where ruling families were tolerant of their belief in believer’s baptism. Over the years, Mennonites have become known as one of the historic peace churches, due to their commitment to pacifism.[6]
Congregations worldwide embody the full scope of Mennonite practice, from Old Order Mennonites (who practice a lifestyle without certain elements of modern technology) to Conservative Mennonites (who hold to traditional theological distinctives, wear plain dress and use modern conveniences) to mainline Mennonites (those who are indistinguishable in dress and appearance from the general population).[7] Mennonites can be found in communities in 87 countries on six continents.[8] Seven ordinances have been taught in many traditional Mennonite churches, which include “baptism, communion, footwashing, marriage, anointing with oil, the holy kiss, and the prayer covering.”[5] The largest populations of Mennonites are found in Canada, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, and the United States.[8] There are Mennonite colonies in Argentina, Belize, Bolivia,[9] Brazil, Mexico, Peru,[10] Uruguay,[11] Paraguay,[12] and Colombia.[13] Today, fewer than 500 Mennonites remain in Ukraine.[14] The relatively small Mennonite Church in the Netherlands still continues where Simons was born.[15]
Though Mennonites are a global denomination with church membership from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, certain Mennonite communities that are descended from émigrés with origins in Switzerland and Russia bear the designation of ethnic Mennonites.[16]
macaws
Macaws are a group of New World parrots that are long-tailed and often colorful.[1] They are popular in aviculture or as companion parrots, although there are conservation concerns about several species in the wild.
lianas
/lēˈänə,lēˈanə/
a woody climbing plant that hangs from trees, especially in tropical rainforests.
the free-hanging stem of a liana.
late 18th century: from French liane ‘clematis, liana’, of unknown origin.
Sword of Damocles
Damocles[a] is a character who appears in an (likely apocryphal) anecdote commonly referred to as “the sword of Damocles”,[1][2] an allusion to the imminent and ever-present peril faced by those in positions of power. Damocles was a courtier in the court of Dionysius II of Syracuse, a 4th-century BC ruler of Syracuse, Sicily
According to the story, Damocles was pandering to his king, Dionysius, exclaiming that Dionysius was truly fortunate as a great man of power and authority without peer, surrounded by magnificence. In response, Dionysius offered to switch places with Damocles for one day so that Damocles could taste that very fortune firsthand. Damocles quickly and eagerly accepted the king’s proposal. Damocles sat on the king’s throne, surrounded by countless luxuries. There were beautifully embroidered rugs, fragrant perfumes and the most select of foods, piles of silver and gold, and the service of attendants unparalleled in their beauty, surrounding Damocles with riches and excess. But Dionysius, who had made many enemies during his reign, arranged that a sword should hang above the throne, held at the pommel only by a single hair of a horse’s tail to evoke the sense of what it is like to be king: though having much fortune, always having to watch in fear and anxiety against dangers that might try to overtake him. Damocles finally begged the king that he be allowed to depart because he no longer wanted to be so fortunate, realizing that with great power comes great responsibility.[2]
King Dionysius effectively conveyed the sense of constant fear in which a person with great power may live. Dionysius committed many cruelties in his rise to power, such that he could never go on to rule justly because that would make him vulnerable to his enemies. Cicero used this story as the last in a series of contrasting examples for reaching the conclusion in his fifth Disputation, in which the theme is that having virtue is sufficient for living a happy life.[4][5]
Pelagic
pəˈlajik
relating to the open sea.
“the kittiwakes return from their pelagic winter wanderings”
(chiefly of fish) inhabiting the upper layers of the open sea.
“there are very few pelagic fish to be seen”
mid 17th century: via Latin from Greek pelagikos, from pelagios ‘of the sea’ (from pelagos ‘level surface of the sea’).
syncretized
ˈsiNGkrəˌtīz
attempt to amalgamate or reconcile (differing things, especially religious beliefs, cultural elements, or schools of thought).
“the Amish communities of today have syncretized many traditional elements of their material culture with elements in the New World”
Cultural syncretism is the creation of a new culture by combining aspects of multiple cultures that have been adopted by a community. Cultural syncretism is a phenomenon that occurs everywhere in the world. Examples of cultural syncretism include nachos, Roman temples, and the Ghost Dance
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Early Life
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on the 27th of February in 1807, in Portland, Maine. He was the bright son of Stephen Longfellow, a lawyer, while her mother, Zilpah Longfellow, was the daughter of a revolutionary war hero. Henry was named after his paternal uncle who died in the battle of Tripoli. His early years were filled with love and the pleasures of family life. His passionate mother encouraged his enthusiasm for learning and introduced him to literature and classics such as Don Quixote and Robinson Cruise at a very young age. These early experiences set the grounds for most of his writings he wrote in his later years.
Education
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow started his educational journey at the age of three from a dame school and later, at six, he was enrolled at the private Portland Academy. During these years, he became fluent in Latin. His interest in literature was also nurtured with the successful publication, “The Battle of Lovell’s Pond.” After spending quality time at Portland Academy, he attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, in 1822. There, he met and developed a cordial relationship with Nathanial Hawthorne who further helped him pursuing his literary goals. His father’s book collection also provided him with various literary models to follow. After encouragement from one of his professors, Thomas Cogswell Upham, he sent various literary pieces to newspapers and magazines for publication.
Personal Life and Tragedy
Longfellow married twice in life. First, he married his childhood friend, Mary Storer Potter in 1831. Unfortunately, Mary died after four years of marriage. Later, during his trip to Switzerland in 1838, Longfellow met Boston industrialist, Nathan Appleton, and his family. His meeting with Nathen’s daughter, Frances, lit a spark of love in his heart but she was not interested to develop any kind of relationship with Henry. Being deeply in love with the lady, Longfellow waited patiently for her positive gesture. Finally, after seven years of intense wait, Frances (Fanny) sent him a letter and expressed her feelings for him. The couple got married in 1843 and had six children together. Fanny’s dress caught fire in 1861 and she did not survive the tragic fire accident. However, her death brought a great loss to the family; Longfellow was devastated and never recovered from this great loss.
Some Important Facts of His Life
He published his first piece of writing, “The Battle of Lovell’s Pond” at the age of twelve.
He died on the 24th of March in 1882, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
He became the first American whose bust was placed in Westminster Abbey, England after his death.
Some Important Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Best Poems: He was an outstanding writer and poet, some of his best poems include “The Children’s Hour”, “The Psalm of Life”, “The Landlord’s Tale: Paul Revere’s Ride”, “The Wreck of the Hesperus” and “The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls.”
Other Works: Besides writing poetry, he tried his hands on other areas too. Some of them include Coplas de Don Jorge Manrique (Translation from Spanish), Dante’s Divine Comedy (Translation), The Waif, Poems of Places and Poets, and Poetry of Europe.
His Career
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow started expressing his feelings on paper at a very young age and earned a lot of respect and praise not only from the audiences and readers but also the notable literary figures of his age. Although his father wanted him to follow his footsteps, yet his love for literature provided him with the reason to express himself. He began his literary career by writing for magazines and newspapers. He published Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea, his travel sketches but the publication did not earn the desired respect. Later, in 1839, he came up with another collection, Voices of the Night, which contained his forever green poems like “The Psalm of Life,”, “Hymn to the Night,” and “The Light of the Stars.” This book earned him immediate success and the same year he published his romantic novel, Hyperion. His other publications include Ballads and the Other Poems, The Divine Tragedy, and The Spanish Student.
His Style
Henry is considered as one of the leading Americans to pen down his emotions and thoughts, using a unique style. Instead of writing in straightforward and plain words, he preferred using various styles and forms in his poetry including free verse and hexameter. His published works exhibit great versatility; he wrote epic poems, sonnets, and ballads using heroic couplets, trochaic forms, blank verse, and other literary elements. In most of his early works, he worked on the principle of didacticism. However, his later works deal with religious beliefs, moral and cultural values. He also used allegory in his writings. Regarding literary devices, Henry often turns toward imagery, similes, metaphors, internal dialogues, and sound devices. The recurring themes in most of his writings are a man and the natural world, life and death, art and culture, and sufferings.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Impact on Future Literature
Henry Longfellow, with his unique abilities, left profound impacts on global literature. After many years of his demise, his works still gains the same prestigious attention. His unique ideas along with distinct literary qualities won appreciation from his readers, critics, and other fellow writers like Edgar Allan Poe, who was highly inspired by his works and considered him an important literary American figure.
Famous Quotes
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.” (A Psalm of Life)
“Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;
So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,
Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.” (The Theologian’s Tale)
“Ah, how wonderful is the advent of spring! — the great annual miracle of the blossoming of Aaron’s rod, repeated on myriads and myriads of branches! — the gentle progression and growth of herbs, flowers, trees, — gentle and yet irrepressible, — which no force can stay, no violence restrain, like love, that wins its way and cannot be withstood by any human power, because itself is divine power. If spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change! But now the silent succession suggests nothing but necessity.” (Kavanagh: A Tale)
Brunswick
Brunswick is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States. The population was 21,756 at the 2020 United States Census.[3] Part of the Portland-South Portland-Biddeford metropolitan area, Brunswick is home to Bowdoin College, the Bowdoin International Music Festival, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum, and the Maine State Music Theatre. It was formerly home to the U.S. Naval Air Station Brunswick, which was permanently closed on May 31, 2011, and has since been partially released to redevelopment as “Brunswick Landing”.
Settled in 1628 by Thomas Purchase and other fishermen, the area was called by its Indian name, Pejepscot, meaning “the long, rocky rapids part [of the river]”. In 1639, Purchase placed his settlement under protection of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. During King Philip’s War in 1676, Pejepscot was burned and abandoned, although a garrison called Fort Andros was built on the ruins during King William’s War. During the war, in Major Benjamin Church’s second expedition a year later, he arrived on September 11, 1690, with 300 men at Casco Bay. He went up the Androscoggin River to Fort Pejepscot (present day Brunswick, Maine).[4] From there he went 40 miles (64 km) up-river and attacked a native village. Three or four native men were shot in retreat; when Church discovered five captive settlers in the wigwams, six or seven prisoners were butchered as an example;[5] and nine prisoners were taken. A few days later, in retaliation, the natives attacked Church at Cape Elizabeth on Purpooduc Point, killing seven of his men and wounding 24 others.[6] On September 26, Church returned to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
The 1713 Treaty of Portsmouth brought peace to the region between the Abenaki Indians and the English colonists.[7]
In 1714, a consortium from Boston and Portsmouth bought the land, thereafter called the Pejepscot Purchase. The Massachusetts General Court constituted the township in 1717, naming it “Brunswick” in honor of the House of Brunswick and its scion, King George I. A stone fort called Fort George was built in 1715 near the falls. But during Dummer’s War on July 13, 1722, Abenaki warriors from Norridgewock burned the village. Consequently, Governor Samuel Shute declared war on the Abenakis. In 1724, 208 English colonial militia left Fort Richmond and sacked Norridgewock during Dummer’s War. Brunswick was rebuilt again in 1727, and in 1739 incorporated as a town. It became a prosperous seaport, where Bowdoin College was chartered in 1794.[7]
The Androscoggin River falls in three successive stages for a total vertical drop of 41 feet (12 m), providing water power for industry. Brunswick became a major producer of lumber, with as many as 25 sawmills. Some of the lumber went into shipbuilding. Other firms produced paper, soap, flour, marble and granite work, carriages and harness, plows, furniture, shoes and confections. The town was site of the first cotton mill in Maine, the Brunswick Cotton Manufactory Company, built in 1809 to make yarn. Purchased in 1812, the mill was enlarged by the Maine Cotton & Woolen Factory Company.[8] In 1857, the Cabot Manufacturing Company was established to make cotton textiles. It bought the failed Worumbo Mill and expanded the brick factory along the falls. Needing even more room, the company in 1890 persuaded the town to move Maine Street.[9]
Today, Brunswick has a number of historic districts recognized on the National Register of Historic Places, including the Pennellville Historic District preserving shipbuilders’ and sea captains’ mansions built in the Federal, Greek Revival and Italianate architectural styles. Principal employers for Brunswick include L.L. Bean, Bath Iron Works, as well as companies that produce fiberglass construction material and electrical switches. A number of health services providers serving Maine’s mid-coast area are located in Brunswick.[10] The former Naval Air Station Brunswick was a major employer in Brunswick prior to its closure.
Ships Passing in the Night
Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another, Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.
Battle of Tripoli
The Second Battle of Tripoli Harbor was a naval action that occurred during the American naval blockade which took place in Tripoli Harbor on July 14, 1804. The battle was part of the First Barbary War between forces of the United States and the forces of the Eyalet of Tripolitania.
Commodore Edward Preble had assumed command of the U.S. Mediterranean Squadron in 1803. By October of that year Preble had begun a blockade of Tripoli harbor. The first significant action of the blockade came on October 31, when USS Philadelphia ran aground on an uncharted coral reef and the Tripolitan Navy was able to capture the ship along with its crew and Captain William Bainbridge. Philadelphia was turned against the Americans and anchored in the harbor as a gun battery.
On the night of February 16, 1804, a small contingent of U.S. Marines in a captured Tripolitan ketch rechristened USS Intrepid and led by Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, Jr. were able to deceive the guards on board Philadelphia and float close enough to board the captured ship. Decatur’s men stormed the vessel and decimated the Tripolitan sailors standing guard. To complete the daring raid, Decatur’s party set fire to Philadelphia, denying her use to the enemy. Decatur’s bravery in action made him one of the first American military heroes since the Revolutionary War. The British Admiral Horatio Nelson, himself known as a man of action and bravery, is said to have called this “the most bold and daring act of the age.”[2][3] Even Pope Pius VII stated, “The United States, though in their infancy, have done more to humble the anti-Christian barbarians on the African coast than all the European states had done…“[4]
Preble attacked Tripoli outright on July 14, 1804, in a series of inconclusive battles, including a courageous but unsuccessful attack by the fire ship USS Intrepid under Master Commandant Richard Somers. Intrepid, packed with explosives, was to enter Tripoli harbor and destroy itself and the enemy fleet; it was destroyed, perhaps by enemy guns, before achieving that goal, killing Somers and his crew.
The actions against Tripoli harbor continued to prove indecisive until September when Commodore Samuel Barron assumed command of the Mediterranean Squadron and focused the fleet’s attention on supporting William Eaton’s attack on Derne, which ended in a victory.
Derna, Libya
Derna (/ˈdɜːrnə/; Arabic: درنة Darnah) is a port city in eastern Libya. It has a population of 85,000[1]–90,000.[2] It was the seat of one of the wealthiest provinces in the Barbary States, and remains the capital of the Derna District, with a much smaller area. Derna has a unique environment among Libyan cities, as it lies between green mountains, the Mediterranean Sea, and the desert. The city is also home to people of mixed origins.
The city was also the location of the famous Battle of Derna (1805), the first victory achieved by the United States Military on foreign soil. Occurring during the First Barbary War, the battle was fought between a force of roughly 500 US Marines and Mediterranean mercenaries and 4,000 or 5,000 Barbary troops.
Parts of the city were taken over by Islamic State (IS) militants in October 2014.[5] In June 2015 Shura Council of Mujahideen in Derna defeated IS and took control over the town, before being expelled themselves by the Libyan National Army in the Battle of Derna (2018–2019).
Tuscany
Tuscany (/ˈtʌskəni/ TUSK-ə-nee; Italian: Toscana [tosˈkaːna]) is a region in central Italy with an area of about 23,000 square kilometres (8,900 square miles) and a population of about 3.8 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence (Firenze).
Tuscany is known for its landscapes, history, artistic legacy, and its influence on high culture. It is regarded as the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance[5] and of the foundations of the Italian language. The prestige established by the Tuscan dialect’s use in literature by Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini led to its subsequent elaboration as the language of culture throughout Italy.[6] It has been home to many figures influential in the history of art and science, and contains well-known museums such as the Uffizi and the Palazzo Pitti. Tuscany is also known for its wines, including Chianti, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, Morellino di Scansano, Brunello di Montalcino and white Vernaccia di San Gimignano. Having a strong linguistic and cultural identity, it is sometimes considered “a nation within a nation”.[7]
Tuscany is the second most popular Italian region for travellers in Italy, after Veneto.[8] The main tourist spots are Florence, Castiglione della Pescaia, Pisa, San Gimignano, Lucca, Grosseto and Siena.[9] The town of Castiglione della Pescaia is the most visited seaside destination in the region,[9] with seaside tourism accounting for approximately 40% of tourist arrivals. The Maremma region, Siena, Lucca, the Chianti region, Versilia and Val d’Orcia are also internationally renowned and particularly popular spots among travellers.
Eight Tuscan localities have been designated World Heritage Sites: the historic Centre of Florence (1982); the Cathedral square of Pisa (1987); the historical centre of San Gimignano (1990); the historical centre of Siena (1995); the historical centre of Pienza (1996); the Val d’Orcia (2004), the Medici Villas and Gardens (2013), and Montecatini Terme as part of the Great Spa Towns of Europe (2021). Tuscany has over 120 protected nature reserves, making Tuscany and its capital Florence popular tourist destinations. In 2018, Florence alone had over 5 million arrivals, making it the world’s 51st most visited city.[10]
Victoria Falls
Victoria Falls (Lozi: Mosi-oa-Tunya, “The Smoke That Thunders”; Tonga: Shungu Namutitima, “Boiling Water”) is a waterfall on the Zambezi River in southern Africa, which provides habitat for several unique species of plants and animals. It is located on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe[1] and is one of the world’s largest waterfalls, with a width of 1,708 m (5,604 ft).
Archeological sites and oral history describe a long record of African knowledge of the site. Though known to some European geographers before the 19th century, Scottish missionary David Livingstone identified the falls in 1855, providing the English colonial name of Victoria Falls after Queen Victoria. Since the mid 20th century, the site has been an increasingly important source of tourism. Zambia and Zimbabwe both have national parks and tourism infrastructure at the site. Research in the late 2010s found that climate change caused precipitation variability is likely to change the character of the fall.
David Livingstone, the Scottish missionary and explorer, is the first European recorded to have viewed the falls on 16 November 1855, from what is now known as Livingstone Island, one of two land masses in the middle of the river, immediately upstream from the falls near the Zambian shore.[2] Livingstone named his sighting in honour of Queen Victoria, but the Sotho language name, Mosi-oa-Tunya—”The Smoke That Thunders”—continues in common usage. The World Heritage List officially recognises both names.[3] Livingstone also cited an older name, Seongo or Chongwe, which means “The Place of the Rainbow”, as a result of the constant spray.[4]
The nearby national park in Zambia is named Mosi-oa-Tunya, whereas the national park and town on the Zimbabwean shore are both named Victoria Falls.[5]
Pre-colonial history
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Early Stone Age Acheulean stone artefacts and Oldowan tools were excavated at archaeological sites around the falls, as well as Sangoan tools and Lupemban artefacts dating to the Middle Stone Age.[21]Early Iron Age pottery was excavated at a vlei site near Masuma Dam in the early 1960s.[22] Evidence for iron smelting was also found in a settlement dated to the late first millennium AD.[23]
The southern Tonga people known as the Batoka/Tokalea called the falls Shungu na mutitima. The Matabele, later arrivals, named them aManz’ aThunqayo, and the Batswana and Makololo (whose language is used by the Lozi people) call them Mosi-o-Tunya. All these names mean essentially “the smoke that thunders”.[24]
A map drawn by Nicolas de Fer in 1715 shows the fall clearly marked in the correct position. It also shows dotted lines denoting trade routes that David Livingstone followed 140 years later.[25] A map from c. 1750 drawn by Jacques Nicolas Bellin for Abbé Antoine François Prevost d’Exiles marks the falls as “cataractes” and notes a settlement to the north of the Zambezi as being friendly with the Portuguese at the time.[26]
19th century
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In November 1855, David Livingstone was the first European who saw the falls, when he travelled from the upper Zambezi to the mouth of the river between 1852 and 1856. The falls were well known to local tribes, and Voortrekker hunters may have known of them, as may the Arabs under a name equivalent to “the end of the world”. Europeans were sceptical of their reports, perhaps thinking that the lack of mountains and valleys on the plateau made a large falls unlikely.[27][28]
Livingstone had been told about the falls before he reached them from upriver and was paddled across to a small island that now bears the name Livingstone Island in Zambia. Livingstone had previously been impressed by the Ngonye Falls further upstream, but found the new falls much more impressive, and gave them their English name in honour of Queen Victoria. He wrote of the falls, “No one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed in England. It had never been seen before by European eyes; but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight.”[11]
In 1860, Livingstone returned to the area and made a detailed study of the falls with John Kirk. Other early European visitors included Portuguese explorer Serpa Pinto, Czech explorer Emil Holub, who made the first detailed plan of the falls and its surroundings in 1875 (published in 1880),[29] and British artist Thomas Baines, who executed some of the earliest paintings of the falls. Until the area was opened up by the building of the railway in 1905, though, the falls were seldom visited by other Europeans. Some writers believe that the Portuguese priest Gonçalo da Silveira was the first European to catch sight of the falls back in the sixteenth century.[30][31]
History since 1900
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Victoria Falls’ Second Gorge (with bridge) and Third Gorge (right). The peninsular cliffs are in Zambia, the outer cliffs in Zimbabwe. The cliffs are composed of Batoka Formation basalt flows. The breaks in slope with vegetation are brecciated amygdaloidal basalt zones separating six successive and massive lava flows with distinct vertical jointing.[20][4]: 391
Victoria Falls Bridge initiates tourism
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European settlement of the Victoria Falls area started around 1900 in response to the desire of Cecil Rhodes’ British South Africa Company for mineral rights and imperial rule north of the Zambezi, and the exploitation of other natural resources such as timber forests north-east of the falls, and ivory and animal skins. Before 1905, the river was crossed above the falls at the Old Drift, by dugout canoe or a barge towed across with a steel cable.[14] Rhodes’ vision of a Cape-Cairo railway drove plans for the first bridge across the Zambezi. He insisted it be built where the spray from the falls would fall on passing trains, so the site at the Second Gorge was chosen. (See the main article Victoria Falls Bridge for details.[11]) From 1905 the railway offered accessible travel from as far as the Cape in the south and from 1909, as far as the Belgian Congo in the north. In 1904 the Victoria Falls Hotel was opened to accommodate visitors arriving on the new railway. The falls became an increasingly popular attraction during British colonial rule of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), with the town of Victoria Falls becoming the main tourist centre.
During independence movements
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In 1964, Northern Rhodesia became the independent state of Zambia. The following year, Rhodesia unilaterally declared independence. This was not recognised by Zambia, the United Kingdom nor the vast majority of states and led to United Nations-mandated sanctions. In response to the emerging crisis, in 1966 Zambia restricted or stopped border crossings; it did not re-open the border completely until 1980. Guerrilla warfare arose on the southern side of the Zambezi from 1972: the Rhodesian Bush War. Visitor numbers began to drop, particularly on the Rhodesian side. The war affected Zambia through military incursions, causing the latter to impose security measures including the stationing of soldiers to restrict access to the gorges and some parts of the falls.
Zimbabwe’s internationally recognised independence in 1980 brought comparative peace, and the 1980s witnessed renewed levels of tourism and the development of the region as a centre for adventure sports. Activities that gained popularity in the area include whitewater rafting in the gorges, bungee jumping from the bridge, game fishing, horse riding, kayaking, and flights over the falls.[32]
Gourd
Gourds include the fruits of some flowering plant species in the family Cucurbitaceae, particularly Cucurbita and Lagenaria. The term refers to a number of species and subspecies, many with hard shells, and some without. One of the earliest domesticated types of plants, subspecies of the bottle gourd, Lagenaria siceraria, have been discovered in archaeological sites dating from as early as 13,000 BCE. Gourds have had numerous uses throughout history, including as tools, musical instruments, objects of art, film, and food.
Gourd is occasionally used to describe crop plants in the family Cucurbitaceae, like pumpkins, cucumbers, squash, luffa, and melons.[1] More specifically, gourd refers to the fruits of plants in the two Cucurbitaceae genera Lagenaria and Cucurbita,[2][3] or also to their hollow, dried-out shell.
There are many different gourds worldwide. The main plants referred to as gourds include several species from the genus Cucurbita (mostly native to North America, including the Malabar gourd and turban squash), Crescentia cujete (the tree gourd or calabash tree, native to the American tropics) and Lagenaria siceraria (bottle gourd, thought to be originally from Africa but present worldwide).[4][5]: 21 Other plants with gourd in their name include the luffa gourd (likely domesticated in Asia), which includes several species from the genus Luffa, as well as the wax gourd, snake gourd, teasel gourd, hedgehog gourd, buffalo gourd/coyote gourd. The bitter melon/balsam apple/balsam pear is also sometimes referred to as a gourd.[5]: 18–19, 21
L. siceraria or bottle gourd, are native to the Americas, being found in Peruvian archaeological sites dating from 13,000 to 11,000 BCE and Thailand sites from 11,000 to 6,000 BCE.[4] A study of bottle gourd DNA published in 2005 suggests that there are two distinct subspecies of bottle gourds, domesticated independently in Africa and Asia, the latter approximately 4,000 years earlier. The gourds found in the Americas appear to have come from the Asian subspecies very early in history, although a new study now indicates Africa.[6] The archaeological and DNA records show it is likely that the gourd was among the first domesticated species, in Asia between 12,000 and 13,000 years before present, and possibly the first domesticated plant species.[7]
Wild, poisonous gourds (Citrullus colocynthis) were unknowingly added to the company of prophets’ stew according to a story of Elisha in the Hebrew Bible. Elisha added flour to the stew in order to purify it.[8]
Gourds continued to be used throughout history in almost every culture throughout the world. European contact in North America found extensive gourd use, including the use of bottle gourds as birdhouses to attract purple martins, which provided bug control for agriculture. Almost every culture had musical instruments made of gourds, including drums, stringed instruments common to Africa and wind instruments, including the nose flutes of the Pacific.[5]: 23
Saturn Devouring his Son
Saturn Devouring His Son is a painting by Spanish artist Francisco Goya. It is traditionally interpreted as a depiction of the Greek myth of the Titan Cronus (known as Saturn in Roman mythology) eating one of his offspring. Fearing a prophecy foretold by Gaea that predicted he would be overthrown by one of his children, Saturn ate each one upon their birth.[a] The work is one of the 14 so-called Black Paintings that Goya painted directly on the walls of his house sometime between 1819 and 1823. It was transferred to canvas after Goya’s death and is now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.
In 1819, Goya purchased a house on the banks of Manzanares near Madrid called Quinta del Sordo (Villa of the Deaf Man). It was a two-story house which was named after a previous occupant who had been deaf, although the name was fitting for Goya too, who had been left deaf after contracting a fever in 1792. Between 1819 and 1823, when he left the house to move to Bordeaux, Goya produced a series of 14 paintings using mixed technique on the walls of the house.[2]
Although he initially decorated the rooms of the house with more inspiring images, in time he painted over them all with the intensely haunting pictures known today as the Black Paintings. Created without commission for private display, these paintings may reflect the artist’s state of mind late in a life that witnessed the violence of war and terror stoked by the Spanish Inquisition.[b][4]
Saturn Devouring His Son was one of six works Goya painted in the dining room. It is important to note that Goya never named the works he produced at Quinta del Sordo; the names were assigned by others after his death.[5] This interpretation of the painting sees it as a reference to the Roman myth (inspired by the original Greek myth), in which Terra (Gaea) foretold that one of the sons of Saturn would overthrow him, just as he had overthrown his father, Caelus (Uranus). To prevent this, Saturn ate his children moments after each was born, eating the gods Vesta (Hestia), Ceres (Demeter), Juno (Hera), Pluto (Hades), and Neptune (Poseidon). His wife Ops (Rhea) eventually hid his sixth child and third son, Jupiter (Zeus), on the island of Crete, deceiving Saturn by offering a stone wrapped in swaddling in his place. Unlike the painting, the myths usually portray Saturn/Kronos swallowing his children, and later vomiting them up alive after swallowing the stone, rather than chewing them up as in the painting.[citation needed] Jupiter eventually supplanted his father just as the prophecy had predicted.
Composition and interpretations
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External video
video icon smARThistory - Goya’s Saturn Devouring One of His Sons[6]
Goya depicts a large figure feasting on a human form. The figure’s head and part of the left arm have already been consumed. The right arm has probably been eaten too, though it could be folded in front of the body and held in place by the larger figure’s thumbs. The larger figure is on the point of taking another bite from the left arm; as he looms from the darkness, his mouth gapes and his eyes bulge widely. The only other brightness in the picture comes from the white flesh, the red blood of the corpse, and the white knuckles of the larger figure as he digs his fingers into the back of the body.
Various interpretations of the meaning of the picture have been offered: the conflict between youth and old age, time as the devourer of all things, the wrath of God and an allegory of the situation in Spain, where the fatherland consumed its own children in wars and revolution.[citation needed] There have been explanations rooted in Goya’s relationships with his own son, Xavier, the only of his six children to survive to adulthood, or with his live-in housekeeper and possible mistress, Leocadia Weiss; the sex of the body being consumed cannot be determined with certainty. If Goya made any notes on the picture, they have not survived, as he never intended the picture for public exhibition.
The mood of the painting is in stark contrast to Rubens’s Saturn, as the central figure is acting out of madness rather than calculating reason, and the consumed figure is completely lifeless rather than in clear pain. It is very likely Goya had seen Rubens’s Saturn in his life, but the degree to which inspiration was taken (if any) is unknown.[5]
Saturn devouring his sons, Goya, c. 1797, red chalk on laid paper
Goya made a chalk drawing of the same subject in 1796–97: it showed a figure biting on the leg of one person while he holds another to eat, with none of the gore or madness of the later work.[citation needed]
Goya scholar Fred Licht has raised doubts regarding the traditional title, stating that it may “very well be misleading.”[5] He notes that the traditional iconographical attributes associated with Saturn (such as his scythe or hourglass) are absent from the painting, and the body of the smaller figure does not resemble that of an infant, or even truly an anatomically accurate human at all. He states that much like the other Black Paintings, “one must take the title with a grain of salt.”[5] Licht offers the alternative explanation that the painting is an inversion of antisemitic artistic depictions of Jewish figures eating children, a reference to the alleged blood libel.[7] In this way, the larger figure represents the fears of Jews manifesting in real violence against them, as “real bestiality is born of imagined bestiality,” although he concedes this is impossible to prove and, like the Saturn interpretation, demonstrates the varied intent of Goya in the composition.[7] Additionally, he argues that the very act of naming the black paintings is an attempt to impose rationale on pictures which force one to contemplate chaos and nothingness, a primary theme in the black paintings.[8]
It has been questioned whether the consumed figure is male.[9]
The art historian John J. Ciofalo writes that “the victim appears to be an adult and, given the curvaceous buttocks and legs, a female.”[10] Moreover, in other versions, the sons are alive and struggling or at least have heads, so the viewer is able to identify or sympathize. The victim is not struggling in Saturn’s vice-like, blood-oozing grip, which literally cuts into her body, because she is dead, not to mention headless. She does not, to say the least, encourage identification. The identification flows toward Saturn. Ciofalo concludes: “The overwhelming feeling of the image is one of violent and insatiable lust, underscored, to put it mildly, by the livid and enormously engorged penis between his legs…utter male fury has hardly before or since been captured so vividly.”[11]
Girdle
A girdle is a form-fitting foundation garment that encircles the lower torso, extending below the hips, and worn often to shape or for support. It may be worn for aesthetic or medical reasons. In sports or medical treatment, a girdle may be worn as a compression garment. This form of women’s foundation replaced the corset in popularity, and was in turn to a larger extent surpassed by pantyhose in the 1960s.
During the 1890s, the silhouette and use of the corset began to change. It became longer and S shaped, with more emphasis on control for the waist and the top of the thighs. The newer foundation garment extended from the waist to the hips and stomach. The term girdle began to be used to identify this type of undergarment around the time of the First World War.[1] Around this time, rubberized elastic was introduced. Women now coaxed their bodies into two new types of foundations, the two-way stretch girdle and the cup-type brassiere, both more comfortable than their predecessor, the boned corset.[2]
Girdles were constructed of elasticized fabric and sometimes fastened with hook and eye closures. In the 1960s, the now traditional longer model did not suit the new styles. A more compact panty girdle was designed to work with the shorter skirts. Pantyhose were not only more comfortable than girdles, there was no need for suspender clips to hold up stockings.
By 1970, the girdle was generally supplanted by the wearing of pantyhose (called tights in British English). Pantyhose replaced girdles for most women who had used the girdle as a means of holding up stockings; however, many girdle wearers continued to use a brief style panty-girdle on top of tights/pantyhose for some figure control. By the late 1970s, those who wanted figure control had the option of “control top” pantyhose, where the top section of the pantyhose had a higher proportion of elastaine lycra to offer some figure control.
In 1968, at the feminist Miss America protest, protestors symbolically threw a number of feminine products into a “Freedom Trash Can”. These included girdles,[3] which were among items the protestors called “instruments of female torture”[4] and accoutrements of what they perceived to be enforced femininity.
Prehensile
prēˈhensəl,prēˈhensīl/
chiefly of an animal’s limb or tail) capable of grasping.
“many monkeys have long, prehensile tails which they use in swinging through the trees”
late 18th century: from French préhensile, from Latin prehens- ‘grasped’, from the verb prehendere, from prae ‘before’ + hendere ‘to grasp’.
Benthic Zone
The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or stream, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. The name comes from ancient Greek, βένθος (bénthos), meaning “the depths.”[1] Organisms living in this zone are called benthos and include microorganisms (e.g., bacteria and fungi)[2][3] as well as larger invertebrates, such as crustaceans and polychaetes.[4] Organisms here generally live in close relationship with the substrate and many are permanently attached to the bottom. The benthic boundary layer, which includes the bottom layer of water and the uppermost layer of sediment directly influenced by the overlying water, is an integral part of the benthic zone, as it greatly influences the biological activity that takes place there. Examples of contact soil layers include sand bottoms, rocky outcrops, coral, and bay mud.
Oceans
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The benthic region of the ocean begins at the shore line (intertidal or littoral zone) and extends downward along the surface of the continental shelf out to sea. Thus, the region incorporates a great variety of physical conditions differing in: depth, light penetration and pressure.[5] The continental shelf is a gently sloping benthic region that extends away from the land mass. At the continental shelf edge, usually about 200 metres (660 ft) deep, the gradient greatly increases and is known as the continental slope. The continental slope drops down to the deep sea floor. The deep-sea floor is called the abyssal plain and is usually about 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) deep. The ocean floor is not all flat but has submarine ridges and deep ocean trenches known as the hadal zone.[6]
For comparison, the pelagic zone is the descriptive term for the ecological region above the benthos, including the water column up to the surface. Depending on the water-body, the benthic zone may include areas that are only a few inches below water, such as a stream or shallow pond; at the other end of the spectrum, benthos of the deep ocean includes the bottom levels of the oceanic abyssal zone.[7]
For information on animals that live in the deeper areas of the oceans see aphotic zone. Generally, these include life forms that tolerate cool temperatures and low oxygen levels, but this depends on the depth of the water.[8]
Nightshade family
The Solanaceae /sɒləˈneɪʃiː/,[citation needed] or nightshades, are a family of flowering plants that ranges from annual and perennial herbs to vines, lianas, epiphytes, shrubs, and trees, and includes a number of agricultural crops, medicinal plants, spices, weeds, and ornamentals. Many members of the family contain potent alkaloids, and some are highly toxic, but many—including tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, bell and chili peppers—are used as food. The family belongs to the order Solanales, in the asterid group and class Magnoliopsida (dicotyledons).[2] The Solanaceae consists of about 98 genera and some 2,700 species,[3] with a great diversity of habitats, morphology and ecology.
The name Solanaceae derives from the genus Solanum. The etymology of the Latin word is unclear. The name may come from a perceived resemblance of certain solanaceous flowers to the sun and its rays. At least one species of Solanum is known as the “sunberry”. Alternatively, the name could originate from the Latin verb solare, meaning “to soothe”, presumably referring to the soothing pharmacological properties of some of the psychoactive species of the family.
This family has a worldwide distribution, being present on all continents except Antarctica. The greatest diversity in species is found in South America and Central America. In 2017, scientists reported on their discovery and analysis of a fossil species belonging to the living genus Physalis, Physalis infinemundi, found in the Patagonian region of Argentina, dated to 52 million years ago. The finding has pushed back the earliest appearance of the plant family Solanaceae.[4]
The Solanaceae family includes a number of commonly collected or cultivated species. The most economically important genus of the family is Solanum, which contains the potato (S. tuberosum, in fact, another common name of the family is the “potato family”), the tomato (S. lycopersicum), and the eggplant or aubergine (S. melongena). Another important genus, Capsicum, produces both chili peppers and bell peppers.
The genus Physalis produces the so-called groundcherries, as well as the tomatillo (Physalis philadelphica), Physalis peruviana (Cape gooseberry) and Physalis alkekengi (Chinese lantern). The genus Lycium contains the boxthorns and the goji berry, Lycium barbarum. Nicotiana contains, among other species, tobacco. Some other important members of Solanaceae include a number of ornamental plants such as Petunia, Browallia, and Lycianthes, and sources of psychoactive alkaloids, Datura, Mandragora (mandrake), and Atropa belladonna (deadly nightshade). Certain species are widely known for their medicinal uses, their psychotropic effects, or for being poisonous.[5]
Most of the economically important genera are contained in the subfamily Solanoideae, with the exceptions of tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum, Nicotianoideae) and petunia (Petunia × hybrida, Petunioideae).
Many of the Solanaceae, such as tobacco and petunia, are used as model organisms in the investigation of fundamental biological questions at the cellular, molecular, and genetic levels.[citation needed]
Alkaloid
any of a class of nitrogenous organic compounds of plant origin which have pronounced physiological actions on humans. They include many drugs (morphine, quinine) and poisons (atropine, strychnine).
Alkaloids are a class of basic, naturally occurring organic compounds that contain at least one nitrogen atom. This group also includes some related compounds with neutral[2] and even weakly acidic properties.[3] Some synthetic compounds of similar structure may also be termed alkaloids.[4] In addition to carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen, alkaloids may also contain oxygen, sulfur and, more rarely, other elements such as chlorine, bromine, and phosphorus.[5]
Equerry
ˈekwərē
an officer of the British royal household who attends or assists members of the royal family.
“he became equerry to the Duke of Kent”
HISTORICAL
an officer of the household of a prince or noble who had charge over the stables.
Origin
early 16th century (formerly also as esquiry ): from Old French esquierie ‘company of squires, prince’s stables’, from Old French esquier ‘esquire’, perhaps associated with Latin equus ‘horse’. The historical sense is apparently based on Old French esquier d’esquierie ‘squire of stables’.
Frock
Use the noun frock as an old-fashioned way to say “dress.” You might wear a new pink frock to your best friend’s birthday party. Typically, girls and women wear frocks, especially to formal events like weddings and fancy parties.
People also ask
What does a frock means?
noun. ˈfräk. : an outer garment worn by monks and friars : habit. : an outer garment worn chiefly by men: : a long loose mantle
Sinhalese
Sinhalese people (Sinhala: සිංහල ජනතාව, romanized: Sinhala Janathāva) are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group native to the island of Sri Lanka. They were historically known as Hela people (Sinhala: හෙළ).[10][11] They constitute about 75% of the Sri Lankan population and number more than 16.2 million.[1][2] The Sinhalese identity is based on language, cultural heritage and nationality. The Sinhalese people speak Sinhala, an insular Indo-Aryan language, and are predominantly Theravada Buddhists,[12] although a minority of Sinhalese follow branches of Christianity and other religions. Since 1815, they were broadly divided into two respective groups: The ‘Up-country Sinhalese’ in the central mountainous regions, and the ‘Low-country Sinhalese’ in the coastal regions; although both groups speak the same language, they are distinguished as they observe different cultural customs.[13][14]
Sinhala is derived Sanskrit siṃhá, literally “lion” with the suffix -la, together meaning “abode of lions”, referring to the prevalence of lions in earlier Sri Lankan history.[19]
The Mahavamsa records the origin of the Sinhalese people and related historical events. It traces the historical origin of the Sinhalese people back to the first king who mentioned in the documentary history of Sri Lanka, Vijaya, who is the son of Sinhabahu (Sanskrit meaning ‘Sinha’ (lion) + ‘bahu’ (hands, feet), the ruler of Sinhapura. Some versions suggest Vijaya is the grandson of Sinhabahu.[20][21] According to the Mahavamsa, Sinhabahu was the son of princess Suppadevi of Vanga, who copulated with a lion and gave birth to a daughter called Sinhasivali and to a son, Sinhabahu,[22] whose hands and feet were like the paws of a lion and who had the strength of a lion. King Vijaya, the lineage of Sinhabahu, according to the Mahavamsa and other historical sources, arrived on the island of Tambapanni (Sri Lanka) and gave origin to the lion people, Sinhalese.
The story of the arrival of Prince Vijaya in Sri Lanka and the origin of the Sinhalese people is also depicted in the Ajanta caves, in a mural of cave number 17.
Fob
a chain attached to a watch for carrying in a waistcoat or waistband pocket.
a small ornament attached to a watch chain.
a small pocket for carrying a watch.
noun: fob pocket; plural noun: fob pockets
a tab on a key ring.
Dhobi
ˈdōbē
in South Asia) a washerman or washerwoman.
from Hindi dhobī, from dhob ‘washing’.
Pansil
ˈpan(t)sə̇l
: the rite in Hinayana Buddhism of undertaking ceremonially a set of five precepts of morality
Singhalese, from Pali pañca sīlāni five precepts, from Sanskrit pañca five + śīla custom, moral conduct, moral precept
The Five precepts (Sanskrit: pañcaśīla; Pali: pañcasīla) or five rules of training (Sanskrit: pañcaśikṣapada; Pali: pañcasikkhapada)[4][5][note 1] is the most important system of morality for Buddhist lay people. They constitute the basic code of ethics to be respected by lay followers of Buddhism. The precepts are commitments to abstain from killing living beings, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and intoxication. Within the Buddhist doctrine, they are meant to develop mind and character to make progress on the path to enlightenment. They are sometimes referred to as the Śrāvakayāna precepts in the Mahāyāna tradition, contrasting them with the bodhisattva precepts. The five precepts form the basis of several parts of Buddhist doctrine, both lay and monastic. With regard to their fundamental role in Buddhist ethics, they have been compared with the ten commandments in Abrahamic religions[6][7] or the ethical codes of Confucianism. The precepts have been connected with utilitarianist, deontological and virtue approaches to ethics, though by 2017, such categorization by western terminology had mostly been abandoned by scholars. The precepts have been compared with human rights because of their universal nature, and some scholars argue they can complement the concept of human rights.
The five precepts were common to the religious milieu of 6th-century BCE India, but the Buddha’s focus on awareness through the fifth precept was unique. As shown in Early Buddhist Texts, the precepts grew to be more important, and finally became a condition for membership of the Buddhist religion. When Buddhism spread to different places and people, the role of the precepts began to vary. In countries where Buddhism had to compete with other religions, such as China, the ritual of undertaking the five precepts developed into an initiation ceremony to become a Buddhist layperson. On the other hand, in countries with little competition from other religions, such as Thailand, the ceremony has had little relation to the rite of becoming Buddhist, as many people are presumed Buddhist from birth.
Undertaking and upholding the five precepts is based on the principle of non-harming (Pāli and Sanskrit: ahiṃsa). The Pali Canon recommends one to compare oneself with others, and on the basis of that, not to hurt others. Compassion and a belief in karmic retribution form the foundation of the precepts. Undertaking the five precepts is part of regular lay devotional practice, both at home and at the local temple. However, the extent to which people keep them differs per region and time. People keep them with an intention to develop themselves, but also out of fear of a bad rebirth.
The first precept consists of a prohibition of killing, both humans and all animals. Scholars have interpreted Buddhist texts about the precepts as an opposition to and prohibition of capital punishment,[8] suicide, abortion[9][10] and euthanasia.[11] In practice, however, many Buddhist countries still use the death penalty. With regard to abortion, Buddhist countries take the middle ground, by condemning though not prohibiting it fully. The Buddhist attitude to violence is generally interpreted as opposing all warfare, but some scholars have raised exceptions found in later texts.
The second precept prohibits theft and related activities such as fraud and forgery.
The third precept refers to sexual misconduct, and has been defined by modern teachers with terms such as sexual responsibility and long-term commitment.
The fourth precept involves falsehood spoken or committed to by action, as well as malicious speech, harsh speech and gossip.
The fifth precept prohibits intoxication through alcohol, drugs, or other means.[12][13] Early Buddhist Texts nearly always condemn alcohol, and so do Chinese Buddhist post-canonical texts. Smoking is sometimes also included here.
In modern times, traditional Buddhist countries have seen revival movements to promote the five precepts. As for the West, the precepts play a major role in Buddhist organizations. They have also been integrated into mindfulness training programs, though many mindfulness specialists do not support this because of the precepts’ religious import. Lastly, many conflict prevention programs make use of the precepts.
Pernod Ricard
pronunciation: [pɛʁno ʁikaʁ]
Pernod Ricard (French pronunciation: [pɛʁno ʁikaʁ]) is a French company best known for its anise-flavoured pastis apéritifs Pernod Anise and Ricard Pastis (often referred to simply as Pernod or Ricard). The world’s second-largest wine and spirits seller,[2] it also produces several other types of pastis.
After the banning of absinthe, Pernod Ricard was created from the Pernod Fils company, which had produced absinthe. Pernod Ricard owned the distilled beverage division of the former corporation Seagram (including brands like Chivas Regal) until 2006, along with many other holdings. In 2005, the company acquired a British-based competitor, Allied Domecq PLC.
In 2008, Pernod Ricard announced its acquisition of Swedish-based V&S Group, which produces Absolut Vodka. In 2013, Pernod Ricard joined leading alcohol producers as part of a producers’ commitments to reducing harmful drinking.[3] As of 2015, India is the company’s third largest market by value.[4]
In December 2018, Elliott Management Corporation purchased a 2.5% stake in Pernod Ricard.[5]
According to the NGO Alliance Anticorrida, Pernod Ricard was the major funder of bullfighting in France,[6][7] financing bullfighting clubs and sponsoring corridas despite the opposition of a majority of French citizens to blood sports. In 2020, Pernod Ricard ended the association with bullfighting clubs.[8]
Strychnine
Strychnine (/ˈstrɪkniːn, -nɪn/, STRIK-neen, -nin, US chiefly /-naɪn/ -nyne)[5][6] is a highly toxic, colorless, bitter, crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as birds and rodents. Strychnine, when inhaled, swallowed, or absorbed through the eyes or mouth, causes poisoning which results in muscular convulsions and eventually death through asphyxia.[7] While it is no longer used medicinally, it was used historically in small doses to strengthen muscle contractions, such as a heart and bowel stimulant[8] and performance-enhancing drug. The most common source is from the seeds of the Strychnos nux-vomica tree.
Strychnine was the first alkaloid to be identified in plants of the genus Strychnos, family Loganiaceae. Strychnos, named by Carl Linnaeus in 1753, is a genus of trees and climbing shrubs of the Gentianales order. The genus contains 196 various species and is distributed throughout the warm regions of Asia (58 species), America (64 species), and Africa (75 species). The seeds and bark of many plants in this genus contain strychnine.
The toxic and medicinal effects of Strychnos nux-vomica have been well known from the times of ancient India, although the chemical compound itself was not identified and characterized until the 19th century. The inhabitants of these countries had historical knowledge of the species Strychnos nux-vomica and Saint-Ignatius’ bean (Strychnos ignatii). Strychnos nux-vomica is a tree native to the tropical forests on the Malabar Coast in Southern India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, which attains a height of about 12 metres (39 ft). The tree has a crooked, short, thick trunk and the wood is close grained and very durable. The fruit has an orange color and is about the size of a large apple with a hard rind and contains five seeds, which are covered with a soft wool-like substance. The ripe seeds look like flattened disks, which are very hard. These seeds are the chief commercial source of strychnine and were first imported to and marketed in Europe as a poison to kill rodents and small predators. Strychnos ignatii is a woody climbing shrub of the Philippines. The fruit of the plant, known as Saint Ignatius’ bean, contains as many as 25 seeds embedded in the pulp. The seeds contain more strychnine than other commercial alkaloids. The properties of S. nux-vomica and S. ignatii are substantially those of the alkaloid strychnine.
Strychnine was first discovered by French chemists Joseph Bienaimé Caventou and Pierre-Joseph Pelletier in 1818 in the Saint-Ignatius’ bean.[56][57] In some Strychnos plants a 9,10-dimethoxy derivative of strychnine, the alkaloid brucine, is also present. Brucine is not as poisonous as strychnine. Historic records indicate that preparations containing strychnine (presumably) had been used to kill dogs, cats, and birds in Europe as far back as 1640.[51] It was also used during World War II by the Dirlewanger Brigade against civilian population.[58]
The structure of strychnine was first determined in 1946 by Sir Robert Robinson and in 1954 this alkaloid was synthesized in a laboratory by Robert B. Woodward. This is one of the most famous syntheses in the history of organic chemistry. Both chemists won the Nobel prize (Robinson in 1947 and Woodward in 1965).[51]
Strychnine has been used as a plot device in the author Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries.[59]
Performance enhancer
Edit
Strychnine was popularly used as an athletic performance enhancer and recreational stimulant in the late 19th century and early 20th century, due to its convulsant effects. One notorious instance of its use was during the 1904 Olympics marathon, when track-and-field athlete Thomas Hicks was unwillingly administered a concoction of egg whites and brandy laced with a small amount of strychnine by his assistants to boost his stamina. Hicks won the race, but was hallucinating[failed verification] by the time he reached the finish line, and soon after collapsed.[60][61] Maximilian Theodor Buch proposed it as a cure for alcoholism around the same time. It was thought to be similar to coffee.[62][63] Its effects are well-described in H. G. Wells’ novella The Invisible Man: the title character states “Strychnine is a grand tonic … to take the flabbiness out of a man.” Dr Kemp, an acquaintance replies: “It’s the devil, … It’s the palaeolithic in a bottle.”[64]
Latitude and Longitudd
North Star
Polaris is a star in the northern circumpolar constellation of Ursa Minor. It is designated α Ursae Minoris (Latinized to Alpha Ursae Minoris) and is commonly called the North Star or Pole Star. With an apparent magnitude that fluctuates around 1.98,[3] it is the brightest star in the constellation and is readily visible to the naked eye at night.[16] The position of the star lies less than 1° away from the north celestial pole, making it the current northern pole star. The stable position of the star in the Northern Sky makes it useful for navigation.
As the closest Cepheid variable its distance is used as part of the cosmic distance ladder. The revised Hipparcos stellar parallax gives a distance to Polaris of about 433 light-years (133 parsecs), while the successor mission Gaia gives a distance of about 448 light-years (137 parsecs). Calculations by other methods vary widely.
Although appearing to the naked eye as a single point of light, Polaris is a triple star system, composed of the primary, a yellow supergiant designated Polaris Aa, in orbit with a smaller companion, Polaris Ab; the pair is in a wider orbit with Polaris B. The outer pair AB were discovered in August 1779 by William Herschel, where the ‘A’ refers to what is now known to be the Aa/Ab pair.
Because Polaris lies nearly in a direct line with the Earth’s rotational axis “above” the North Pole—the north celestial pole—Polaris stands almost motionless in the sky, and all the stars of the northern sky appear to rotate around it. Therefore, it makes an excellent fixed point from which to draw measurements for celestial navigation and for astrometry. The elevation of the star above the horizon gives the approximate latitude of the observer.[16]
calipers
A caliper is a device used to measure the dimensions of an object. Many types of calipers permit reading out a measurement on a ruled scale, a dial, or a digital display. Some calipers can be as simple as a compass with inward or outward-facing points, but no scale
inveterate
inˈvedərət
having a particular habit, activity, or interest that is long-established and unlikely to change.
“he was an inveterate gambler”
late Middle English (referring to disease, in the sense ‘of long standing, chronic’): from Latin inveteratus ‘made old’, past participle of inveterare (based on vetus, veter- ‘old’).
Bernini
Gian Lorenzo (or Gianlorenzo) Bernini (UK: /bɛərˈniːni/, US: /bərˈ-/, Italian: [ˈdʒan loˈrɛntso berˈniːni]; Italian Giovanni Lorenzo; 7 December 1598 – 28 November 1680) was an Italian sculptor and architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was more prominently the leading sculptor of his age, credited with creating the Baroque style of sculpture. As one scholar has commented, “What Shakespeare is to drama, Bernini may be to sculpture: the first pan-European sculptor whose name is instantaneously identifiable with a particular manner and vision, and whose influence was inordinately powerful …“[1] In addition, he was a painter (mostly small canvases in oil) and a man of the theater: he wrote, directed and acted in plays (mostly Carnival satires), for which he designed stage sets and theatrical machinery. He produced designs as well for a wide variety of decorative art objects including lamps, tables, mirrors, and even coaches
As an architect and city planner, he designed secular buildings, churches, chapels, and public squares, as well as massive works combining both architecture and sculpture, especially elaborate public fountains and funerary monuments and a whole series of temporary structures (in stucco and wood) for funerals and festivals. His broad technical versatility, boundless compositional inventiveness and sheer skill in manipulating marble ensured that he would be considered a worthy successor of Michelangelo, far outshining other sculptors of his generation. His talent extended beyond the confines of sculpture to a consideration of the setting in which it would be situated; his ability to synthesize sculpture, painting, and architecture into a coherent conceptual and visual whole has been termed by the late art historian Irving Lavin the “unity of the visual arts”.[2]
candiru
Candiru (Vandellia cirrhosa), also known as cañero, toothpick fish, or vampire fish, is a species of parasitic freshwater catfish in the family Trichomycteridae native to the Amazon Basin where it is found in the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
The definition of candiru differs between authors. The word has been used to refer to only Vandellia cirrhosa, the entire genus Vandellia, the subfamily Vandelliinae, or even the two subfamilies Vandelliinae and Stegophilinae.[1][2][3][4]
Although some candiru species have been known to grow to a size of 40 centimetres (16 in) in length, others are considerably smaller. These smaller species are known for an alleged tendency to invade and parasitise the human urethra; however, despite ethnological reports dating back to the late 19th century,[5] the first documented case of the removal of a candiru from a human urethra did not occur until 1997, and even that incident has remained a matter of controversy.
Candirus are small fish. Members of the genus Vandellia can reach up to 17 cm (7 in) in standard length,[6] but some others can grow to around 40 cm (16 in). Each has a rather small head and a belly that can appear distended, especially after a large blood meal. The body is translucent, making it quite difficult to spot in the turbid waters of its home. There are short sensory barbels around the head, together with short, backward pointing spines on the gill covers.[7]
Although lurid anecdotes of attacks on humans abound, very few cases have been verified, and some alleged traits of the fish have been discredited as myth or superstition.
Historical accounts
The earliest published report of candiru attacking a human host comes from German biologist C. F. P. von Martius in 1829, who never actually observed it, but rather was told about it by the native people of the area, including that men would tie ligatures around their penises while going into the river to prevent this from happening. Other sources also suggest that other tribes in the area used various forms of protective coverings for their genitals while bathing, though it was also suggested that these were to prevent bites from piranha. Martius also speculated that the fish were attracted by the “odor” of urine.[8] Later experimental evidence has shown this to be false, as the fish actually hunt by sight and have no attraction to urine at all.[9]
Another report from French naturalist Francis de Castelnau in 1855 relates an allegation by local Araguay fisherman, saying that it is dangerous to urinate in the river as the fish “springs out of the water and penetrates into the urethra by ascending the length of the liquid column.”[10] While Castelnau himself dismissed this claim as “absolutely preposterous,” and the fluid mechanics of such a maneuver defy the laws of physics, it remains one of the more stubborn myths about the candiru. It has been suggested this claim evolved out of the real observation that certain species of fish in the Amazon will gather at the surface near the point where a urine stream enters, having been attracted by the noise and agitation of the water.[11]
In 1836 Eduard Poeppig documented a statement by a local physician in Pará, known only as Dr. Lacerda, who offered an eyewitness account of a case where a candiru had entered a human orifice. However, it was lodged in a native woman’s vagina, rather than a male urethra. He relates that the fish was extracted after external and internal application of the juice from a Xagua plant (believed to be a name for Genipa americana). Another account was documented by biologist George A. Boulenger from a Brazilian physician, named Dr. Bach, who had examined a man and several boys whose penises had been amputated. Bach believed this was a remedy performed because of parasitism by candiru, but he was merely speculating as he did not speak his patients’ language.[12] American biologist Eugene Willis Gudger noted that the area which the patients were from did not have candiru in its rivers, and suggested the amputations were much more likely the result of having been attacked by piranha.[11]
In 1891, naturalist Paul Le Cointe provides a rare first-hand account of a candiru entering a human body, and like Lacerda’s account, it involved the fish being lodged in the vaginal canal, not the urethra. Le Cointe actually removed the fish himself, by pushing it forward to disengage the spines, turning it around and removing it head-first.[13]
Gudger, in 1930, noted there have been several other cases reported wherein the fish entered the vaginal canal, but not a single case of a candiru entering the anus was ever documented. According to Gudger, this lends credence to the unlikelihood of the fish entering the male urethra, based on the comparatively small opening that would accommodate only the most immature members of the species.[11]
Modern cases
To date, there is only one documented case of a candiru entering a human urethra, which took place in Itacoatiara, Brazil, in 1997.[14][15] In this incident, the victim (a 23-year-old man known only as “F.B.C.”) claimed a candiru “jumped” from the water into his urethra as he urinated while thigh-deep in a river.[16] After traveling to Manaus on October 28, 1997, the victim underwent a two-hour urological surgery by Dr. Anoar Samad to remove the fish from his body.[15]
In 1999, American marine biologist Stephen Spotte traveled to Brazil to investigate this particular incident in detail. He recounts the events of his investigation in his book Candiru: Life and Legend of the Bloodsucking Catfishes.[17] Spotte met Dr. Samad in person and interviewed him at his practice and home. Samad gave him photos, the original VHS tape of the cystoscopy procedure, and the actual fish’s body preserved in formalin as his donation to the INPA.[18] Spotte and his colleague Paulo Petry took these materials and examined them at the INPA, comparing them with Samad’s formal paper. While Spotte did not overtly express any conclusions as to the veracity of the incident, he did remark on several observations that were suspicious about the claims of the patient and/or Samad himself.
According to Samad, the patient claimed “the fish had darted out of the water, up the urine stream, and into his urethra.” While this is the most popularly known legendary trait of the candiru, according to Spotte it has been known conclusively to be a myth for more than a century, as it is impossible because of simple fluid physics.[19]
The documentation and specimen provided indicate a fish that was 133.5 mm in length and had a head with a diameter of 11.5 mm. This would have required significant force to pry the urethra open to this extent. The candiru has no appendages or other apparatus that would have been necessary to accomplish this, and if it were leaping out of the water as the patient claimed, it would not have had sufficient leverage to force its way inside.[20]
Samad’s paper claims the fish must have been attracted by the urine.[15] This belief about the fish has been held for centuries, but was discredited in 2001.[9] While this was merely speculation on Samad’s part based on the prevailing scientific knowledge at the time, it somewhat erodes the patient’s story by eliminating the motivation for the fish to have attacked him in the first place.
Samad claimed the fish had “chewed” its way through the ventral wall of the urethra into the patient’s scrotum. Spotte notes that the candiru does not possess the right teeth or strong enough dentition to have been capable of this.[21]
Samad claimed he had to snip the candiru’s grasping spikes off in order to extract it, yet the specimen provided had all its spikes intact.[20]
The cystoscopy video depicts traveling into a tubular space (presumed to be the patient’s urethra) containing the fish’s carcass and then pulling it out backwards through the urethral opening,[18] something that would have been almost impossible with the fish’s spikes intact.[22]
When subsequently interviewed, Spotte stated that even if a person were to urinate while “submerged in a stream where candiru live”, the odds of that person being attacked by candiru are “(a)bout the same as being struck by lightning while simultaneously being eaten by a shark.”[23]
The Explorer
Kipling
“Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!”
So I went, worn out of patience; never told my nearest neighbours -
Stole away with pack and ponies - left ‘em drinking in the town;
And the faith that moveth mountains didn’t seem to help my labours
As I faced the sheer main-ranges, whipping up and leading down.
March by march I puzzled through ‘em, turning flanks and dodging shoulders,
Hurried on in hope of water, headed back for lack of grass;
Till I camped above the tree-line - drifted snow and naked boulders -
Felt free air astir to windward - knew I’d stumbled on the Pass.
‘Thought to name it for the finder: but that night the Norther found me -
Froze and killed the plains-bred ponies; so I called the camp Despair
(It’s the Railway Gap to-day, though). Then my Whisper waked to hound me: -
“Something lost behind the Ranges. Over yonder! Go you there!”
Then I knew, the while I doubted - knew His Hand was certain o’er me.
Still - it might be self-delusion - scores of better men had died -
I could reach the township living, but … He knows what terror tore me…
But I didn’t… but I didn’t. I went down the other side.
Till the snow ran out in flowers, and the flowers turned to aloes,
And the aloes sprung to thickets and a brimming stream ran by;
But the thickets dwined to thorn-scrub, and the water drained to shallows,
And I dropped again on desert - blasted earth, and blasting sky….
I remember lighting fires; I remember sitting by ‘em;
I remember seeing faces, hearing voices, through the smoke;
I remember they were fancy - for I threw a stone to try ‘em.
“Something lost behind the Ranges” was the only word they spoke.
I remember going crazy. I remember that I knew it
When I heard myself hallooing to the funny folk I saw.
‘Very full of dreams that desert, but my two legs took me through it…
And I used to watch ‘em moving with the toes all black and raw.
But at last the country altered - White Man’s country past disputing -
Rolling grass and open timber, with a hint of hills behind -
There I found me food and water, and I lay a week recruiting.
Got my strength and lost my nightmares. Then I entered on my find.
Thence I ran my first rough survey - chose my trees and blazed and ringed ‘em -
Week by week I pried and sampled - week by week my findings grew.
Saul he went to look for donkeys, and by God he found a kingdom !
But by God, who sent His Whisper, I had struck the worth of two !
Up along the hostile mountains, where the hair-poised snowslide shivers -
Down and through the big fat marshes that the virgin ore-bed stains,
Till I heard the mile-wide mutterings of unimagined rivers,
And beyond the nameless timber saw illimitable plains !
‘Plotted sites of future cities, traced the easy grades between ‘em;
Watched unharnessed rapids wasting fifty thousand head an hour;
Counted leagues of water-frontage through the axe-ripe woods that screen ‘em -
Saw the plant to feed a people - up and waiting for the power!
Well, I know who’ll take the credit - all the clever chaps that followed -
Came, a dozen men together - never knew my desert-fears;
Tracked me by the camps I’d quitted, used the water-holes I hollowed.
They’ll go back and do the talking. They’ll be called the Pioneers !
They will find my sites of townships - not the cities that I set there.
They will rediscover rivers - not my rivers heard at night.
By my own old marks and bearings they will show me how to get there,
By the lonely cairns I builded they will guide my feet aright.
Have I named one single river? Have I claimed one single acre ?
Have I kept one single nugget - (barring samples)? No, not I !
Because my price was paid me ten times over by my Maker.
But you wouldn’t understand it. You go up and occupy.
Ores you’ll find there; wood and cattle; water-transit sure and steady
(That should keep the railway rates down), coal and iron at your doors.
God took care to hide that country till He judged His people ready,
Then He chose me for His Whisper, and I’ve found it, and it’s yours !
Yes, your “Never-never country” - yes, your “edge of cultivation”
And “no sense in going further” - till I crossed the range to see.
God forgive me! No, I didn’t. It’s God’s present to our nation.
Anybody might have found it, but - His Whisper came to Me!
Parsec
a unit of distance used in astronomy, equal to about 3.26 light years (3.086 × 1013 kilometers). One parsec corresponds to the distance at which the mean radius of the earth’s orbit subtends an angle of one second of arc.
The word parsec is a portmanteau of “parallax of one second” and was coined by the British astronomer Herbert Hall Turner in 1913[5] to make calculations of astronomical distances from only raw observational data easy for astronomers. Partly for this reason, it is the unit preferred in astronomy and astrophysics, though the light-year remains prominent in popular science texts and common usage. Although parsecs are used for the shorter distances within the Milky Way, multiples of parsecs are required for the larger scales in the universe, including kiloparsecs (kpc) for the more distant objects within and around the Milky Way, megaparsecs (Mpc) for mid-distance galaxies, and gigaparsecs (Gpc) for many quasars and the most distant galaxies.
One of the oldest methods used by astronomers to calculate the distance to a star is to record the difference in angle between two measurements of the position of the star in the sky. The first measurement is taken from the Earth on one side of the Sun, and the second is taken approximately half a year later, when the Earth is on the opposite side of the Sun. The distance between the two positions of the Earth when the two measurements were taken is twice the distance between the Earth and the Sun. The difference in angle between the two measurements is twice the parallax angle, which is formed by lines from the Sun and Earth to the star at the distant vertex. Then the distance to the star could be calculated using trigonometry.[8] The first successful published direct measurements of an object at interstellar distances were undertaken by German astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel in 1838, who used this approach to calculate the 3.5-parsec distance of 61 Cygni.[9]
Ligature
a thing used for tying or binding something tightly.
“there was no sign of the ligature which strangled her”
a cord or thread used in surgery, especially to tie up a bleeding artery.
2.
MUSIC
a slur or tie.
3.
PRINTING
a character consisting of two or more joined letters, e.g. æ, fl.
a stroke that joins adjacent letters in writing or printing
Middle English: via late Latin ligatura from Latin ligat- ‘bound’, from the verb ligare .
Para (state)
Pará is a state of Brazil, located in northern Brazil and traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas and Roraima. To the northwest are the borders of Guyana and Suriname, to the northeast of Pará is the Atlantic Ocean. The capital and largest city is Belém, which is located at the mouth of the Amazon. The state, which is home to 4.1% of the Brazilian population, is responsible for just 2.2% of the Brazilian GDP.
Pará is the most populous state of the North Region, with a population of over 8.6 million, being the ninth-most populous state in Brazil. It is the second-largest state of Brazil in area, at 1.2 million square kilometres (460,000 sq mi), second only to Amazonas upriver. Its most famous icons are the Amazon River and the Amazon Rainforest. Pará produces rubber (extracted from natural rubber tree groves), cassava, açaí, pineapple, cocoa, black pepper, coconut, banana, tropical hardwoods such as mahogany, and minerals such as iron ore and bauxite. A new commodity crop is soy, cultivated in the region of Santarém.
Every October, Belém receives tens of thousands of tourists for the year’s most important religious celebration: the procession of the Círio de Nazaré. Another important attraction of the capital is the Marajó-style ceramics, based on the extinct Marajoara culture, which developed on an island in the Amazon River.
The state’s name is a toponym of the Tupi word pará – literally “sea”, but sometimes used to refer to large rivers.[1] The state was named after the river of the same name, the Pará River, one of the tributaries of the Amazon River
In 1500, the Spanish navigator Vicente Yáñez Pinzón was the first European to navigate the mouth of the Amazon River.[2] On 26 August 1542, the Spaniard Francisco de Orellana reached the mouth of the Amazon River, waterway by river from Quito, Ecuador.[3] On 28 October 1637, the Portuguese Pedro Teixeira left Belém and went to Quito: during the expedition, he placed a landmark in the confluence of the Napo and Aguarico, in the current border between Ecuador and Peru, to Portugal, and later to Brazil, getting the possession of most of the Amazon, including all of the current territory of Pará.[3]
Prior to European Arrival
Edit
Fort of the Nativity (Forte do Presépio), in Belém city, Brazil.
Fort of the Nativity (Forte do Presépio), in Belém city, Brazil.
Funerary urn marajoara (1000-1250)
Marajoara funerary urn (1000-1250)
Archaeologists divide the ancient inhabitants of prehistory Brazil into groups according to their way of life and tools: hunter-gatherers of the coast and farmers. These groups were subsequently named by European settlers as “Indians”. There are archaeological records proving the human presence in Brazil and the region of Santarém since 3000 BC.
Marajó people lived in farmers’ huts or houses 3,500 years ago. These people knew ceramics, dyes, natural medicinal compounds; practiced slash-and-burn (to clear the land); and planted cassava. Their culture remains in Marajoara pottery, which has peculiar size and decoration. The period from 500 to 1300 was the height of the Marajoara culture.
Formation of Grão-Pará and Maranhão
Edit
See also: State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão
The region of the Amazon valley, by the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), was in possession of the Spanish Crown, the Portuguese expeditionaries, with the purpose of consolidating the region as Portuguese territory, founded the Fort of the Nativity (Forte do Presépio) in 1616, in Santa Maria de Belém do Grão-Pará (Saint Mary of Bethlehem of the Great Pará). The building was the first of the model on Amazon and the most significant in the Amazon territory until 1660. Despite the construction of fort, the occupation of territory was marked by early Dutch and English incursions in search of spices, hence the need of the Portuguese to fortify the area.[2]
In the 17th century, the region, integrated into the captaincy of Maranhão, was prosperous with crops and livestock. In 1616 the captaincy of Grão-Pará was created, belonging to the Portuguese colonial state of Maranhão. In the same year the state of Grão-Pará and Maranhão transferred capital to Belém, forming and attaching the captaincy of Rio Negro in 1755 by creating the State of Grão-Pará and Rio Negro.
In 1751, with the expansion to the west, the colonial state of Grão-Pará, which besides the captaincy of Grão Pará would host the captaincy of São José do Rio Negro (today the State of Amazonas).
In 1823, the Pará decided to join the independent Brazil, which had been separated during the colonial period, reporting directly to Lisbon. However, political infighting continued. The most important of them, the Cabanagem (1835), decreed the independence of the province of Pará. This was, along with the Ragamuffin War, the only to lift the regency period when the power was taken. Cabanagem was the only revolt led by the popular strata.
Cabanagem
Edit
See also: Cabanagem
19th century engraving about the Cabanagem
Cabanagem, a popular and social revolt during the Empire of Brazil, in the Amazon region, was influenced by the French Revolution. It was mainly due to extreme poverty, hunger and disease that devastated the Amazon at the beginning of the period, in the former province of Grão-Pará, which included the current Amazonian states of Pará, Amazonas, Amapá, Roraima and Rondônia. The revolt spread from 1835 until January 1840, due to the process of independence of Brazil (1822), which did not occur immediately in the province due to political irrelevance to which the region was relegated by Prince Regent Pedro I. After independence, the strong Portuguese influence remained stable, giving political irrelevance in this province to the Brazilian central government.
Indians, blacks, and mestizos (mostly poor class members), all named cabanos (cabins), teamed against the Regent Government and rebelled, to increase the importance of the region in Brazil’s central government addressing the issue of poverty as one of the reasons. All lived in mud huts (hence the name of the revolt).[4] At the bottom of the rebellion, there was a mobilization of the Brazilian Empire against the reactionary forces of the province of Grão-Pará in expelling the insurgents who wanted to keep the region as a Portuguese colony or territory independent. Many of the local leaders, who resented the lack of political participation in decisions of the centralizer of the Brazil government, contributed to the climate of dissatisfaction against the provincial government.
Rubber cycle and mineral extraction
Edit
After the revolt, the local economy grew rapidly during the 19th century and early 20th century by exploitation of rubber, the latex, by extracting it. At this period the Amazon experienced two distinct economic cycles with the exploitation of the same raw material.
The intendant Antônio Lemos was the main character of the urban transformation that Belém experienced, which came to be known as Paris n’America (Paris in the America), as a reference to the influence of the urbanization that Paris had experienced at the time, which served as the inspiration for Antônio Lemos.
During this period, for example, the city center was heavily lined with mango trees transported from India and development inspired by the model of Paris. With the decline of the two cycles of rubber (1870–1920 and 1940–1945),[5] came a distressing economic stagnation, which stopped in the 1960s and 1970s,[6] with the development of agricultural activities in the south of the state. From the decade of 1960s, but mainly in the 1970s, growth was accelerating with the exploitation of minerals mainly in the southeastern region of the state, as with iron extraction in the Serra dos Carajás and the Serra Pelada gold.[7]
Cuiabá
Cuiabá (Portuguese pronunciation: [kujaˈba]) is the capital city of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. It is located near the geographical centre of South America. Also, it forms the metropolitan area of Mato Grosso, along with the neighbouring town of Várzea Grande.[4] The city’s name is an indigenous Bororo word meaning ‘arrow-fishing’, The city was founded in 1719, during the gold rush,[5] and it has been the state capital since 1818. The city is a trading centre for an extensive cattle-raising and agricultural area. The capital is among the fastest-growing cities in Brazil, followed by the growth of agribusiness in Mato Grosso, despite the recession that is affecting Brazilian industries.[6] Cuiabá was one of the host cities for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
Cuiaba is the heart of an urban area that also includes the state’s second largest city, Várzea Grande. Thermal electric and hydroelectric plants located in the area have been expanded since the completion of a natural gas pipeline from Bolivia in 2000 (see Pantanal Pipeline by Alex Ramsay). The city is the seat of the Federal University of Mato Grosso and the largest football stadium of the state, Arena Pantanal.[7]
The city is a rich mix of European, African and Native American influences and numerous museums reflect this. Cuiabá is also notable for its cuisine, dance, music and craftwork. Known as the “Southern gate to the Amazon”, Cuiabá experiences a hot humid tropical climate.
Cuiabá was founded on January 1, 1727, by Rodrigo César de Menezes, then the “captain” of the captaincy of São Paulo in the aftermath of the discovery of gold mines.[8] The Rosário Church built at the time in the centre of the little town marked the location of a rich seam of gold. However, in 1746 much of the town was destroyed by an earthquake.[9]
0:47
Cuiabá, 1976. National Archives of Brazil.
It was given township status in 1818 and became the state capital in 1835.[9]
From the late eighteenth century, until the time of the Paraguayan War (1864-1870), the town remained small and was in decline. The war, however, brought some infrastructure and a brief period of economic boom, with Cuiabá supplying sugar, foodstuffs, and timber to the Brazilian troops.[9]
After the war, the town was once again forgotten by the rest of the country, to such an extent that the Imperial and later the Republican governments of Brazil used to use it as a site of exile for troublesome politicians. Isolation allowed it to preserve many of the oldest Brazilian ways of life until well into the twentieth century.[9]
Starting in 1930, the isolation was diminished, with the construction of roads and later with the advent of aviation. The town became a city and would grow quite rapidly from 1960 onwards, after the establishment of the newly built Brazilian capital in Brasília.[9]
In the 1970s and 1980s, the pace of growth would continue to increase as agriculture became commercialized, using the roads to transport soybeans and rice produced in the state in order to be sold abroad. The growth was such that from 1960 to 1980 the small town of 50,000 inhabitants grew into a giant, with more than a quarter of a million inhabitants (including those from the surrounding area and towns).[9]
Since 1990, the rate of population growth has decreased, as other towns in the state have begun to attract more immigration than the capital. Tourism has emerged as a source of income and environmental issues have become a concern for the first time.[9
Brambles
a prickly scrambling vine or shrub, especially a blackberry or other wild shrub of the rose family.
Old English bræmbel, brǣmel, of Germanic origin; related to broom.
Dagobas
a dome-shaped memorial alleged to contain relics of Buddha or a Buddhist saint; stupa; chaitya.
The Dagoba resembles the temple of Bhood, but is only about half its size; the spire is covered with plates of copper, gilt.
A JOURNEY TO KATMANDU|LAURENCE OLIPHANT
For an account of the present condition of this Dagoba at Bintenne, see Vol.
CEYLON; AN ACCOUNT OF THE ISLAND PHYSICAL, HISTORICAL, AND TOPOGRAPHICAL WITH NOTICES OF ITS NATURAL HISTORY, ANTIQUITIES AND PRODUCTIONS, VOLUME 1 (OF 2)|JAMES EMERSON TENNENT
At the latter she obtained admission to the temple of Dagoba, which contains a precious relic of Buddha, namely, one of his teeth.
CELEBRATED WOMEN TRAVELLERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY|W. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS
Monomania
Mottled
King George Island
King George Island (Argentinian Spanish: Isla 25 de Mayo, Chilean Spanish: Isla Rey Jorge, Russian: Ватерло́о Vaterloo) is the largest of the South Shetland Islands, lying 120 km (75 miles) off the coast of Antarctica in the Southern Ocean. The island was named after King George III.
The island was first claimed for Britain on 16 October 1819, formally annexed[2][3][4] by Britain as part of the Falkland Islands Dependencies in 1908, and now as part of the separate British Antarctic Territory. The Island was claimed by Chile in 1940, as part of the Chilean Antarctic Territory. It was also claimed by Argentina in 1943, now as part of Argentine Antarctica, called by the Argentines Isla Veinticinco de Mayo (25 May) in honour of their National day. The US and Russia do not recognize any Antarctic claim, and have formally reserved their right to claim Antarctic territories.
The island was discovered and named by the British explorer William Smith in 1819, who named it after the then King, George III.[5] It is approximately 95 km (59 mi) long and 25 km (16 mi) wide with a land area of 1,150 square kilometres (444 sq mi). Over 90% of the island’s surface is permanently glaciated.[5] In 1821, 11 men of the sealing vessel Lord Melville survived the winter on the island, the first men to do so in Antarctica.[6]
The coastal areas of the island are home to a comparatively diverse selection of vegetation and animal life, including elephant, Weddell, and leopard seals, and Adelie, chinstrap and gentoo penguins. Several other seabirds, including skuas and southern giant petrel, nest on this island during the summer months.
Human activity
Edit
King George Island
Chilean scientists have claimed that Amerinds visited the area, due to stone artifacts recovered from bottom-sampling operations in Admiralty Bay;[7] however, the artefacts—two arrowheads—were later found to have been planted.[8][9]
Human habitation of King George Island is limited to research stations belonging to Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, South Korea, Peru, Poland, Russia, Uruguay, and the United States. Most of these stations are permanently staffed, carrying out research into areas as diverse as biology, ecology, geology, and palaeontology. Base Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva, the Chilean Station on the Fildes Peninsula, is operated as a permanent village with an airstrip (with large hangar and control tower along with other buildings), cafeterias for personnel of its several agencies there, a bank, a post office and comfortable ranch-style family homes with children. Chile (like Argentina and Great Britain) regards all of the Antarctic Peninsula and South Shetland Islands as part of that country’s territory; however, the terms of the Antarctic Treaty allow Chile to colonize the Fildes Peninsula without overtly pursuing its territorial claims.[10] The Chinese Great Wall base features an indoor multipurpose room which serves as a full-size basketball court.
Construction of China’s first antarctic base in January 1985, the Great Wall Station.
In 2004, a Russian Orthodox church, Trinity Church, was opened on the island near Russia’s Bellingshausen Station. The church, one of the southernmost in the world and one of the few permanent structures in Antarctica, is permanently staffed by a priest.
In October 2013, American heavy metal band Metallica announced that it would perform a concert sponsored by The Coca-Cola Company at Carlini Station heliport.[11] The concert took place on 8 December 2013.[12]
The first attempted murder in Antarctica occurred on the island in 2018 at Russia’s Bellingshausen Station.[13]
Chilean base Frei and Russian Bellingshausen (on the right)
A small amount of specialised tourist activity also takes place during summer, including an annual marathon, known as the Antarctic marathon.
The Fildes Peninsula 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) long, forms the SW extremity of the island. It was named from association with nearby Fildes Strait by the UK-APC in 1960.
Point Thomas lighthouse at Arctowski Station is the most southerly lighthouse of the world.[14]
NOAA runs Lenie Base, a seasonal research station for penguin studies on Admiralty Bay. This small station, dubbed Copacabana, operates in the Antarctic summer only, but is used as a survival hut in the winter.[15]
The Antarctic Peninsula and its nearby islands are considered to have the mildest living conditions in Antarctica. The island’s climate is strongly influenced by the surrounding ocean.[16] Under the Köppen system, it is one of the few locations in Antarctica classified as a tundra climate rather than an ice cap climate.[17] Variation in temperatures are small with the coldest month, July averaging −6.5 °C (20.3 °F) and 1.5 °C (34.7 °F) in the warmest month.[18] With only 591.3 hours of sunshine per year, the weather is often unsettled and cloudy throughout the year with precipitation in the form of snow, rain and drizzle occurring often.[16] On average, 729 mm of precipitation falls per year.[16]
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America or the Laurentian Great Lakes,[1] are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes, which are Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario and are in general on or near the Canada–United States border. Hydrologically, lakes Michigan and Huron are a single body joined at the Straits of Mackinac. The Great Lakes Waterway enables modern travel and shipping by water among the lakes.
Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole (February 1, 1801 – February 11, 1848) was an English-American painter known for his landscape and history paintings. He is regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School,[1][2] an American art movement that flourished in the mid-19th century. Cole’s work is known for its romantic portrayal of the American wilderness.[3]
Born in Bolton le Moors, Lancashire, in 1801,[4] Cole immigrated with his family to the United States in 1818, settling in Steubenville, Ohio. At the age of 22, he moved to Philadelphia and later, in 1825, to Catskill, New York, where he lived with his wife and children until his death in 1848.[5]
Cole found work early on as an engraver. He was largely self-taught as a painter, relying on books and by studying the work of other artists. In 1822, he started working as a portrait painter and later on, gradually shifted his focus to landscape.[6
In New York, Cole sold five paintings to George W. Bruen, who financed a summer trip to the Hudson Valley where the artist produced landscapes featuring the Catskill Mountain House, the famous Kaaterskill Falls, the ruins of Fort Putnam, and two views of Cold Spring.[7][8] Returning to New York, he displayed five landscapes in the window of William Colman’s bookstore; according to the New York Evening Post the two views of Cold Spring were purchased by Mr. A. Seton, who lent them to the American Academy of the Fine Arts annual exhibition in 1826. This garnered Cole the attention of John Trumbull, Asher B. Durand, and William Dunlap. Among the paintings was a landscape called View of Fort Ticonderoga from Gelyna. Trumbull was especially impressed with the work of the young artist and sought him out, bought one of his paintings, and put him into contact with a number of his wealthy friends[4] including Robert Gilmor of Baltimore and Daniel Wadsworth of Hartford, who became important patrons of the artist.
Cole was primarily a painter of landscapes, but he also painted allegorical works. The most famous of these are the five-part series, The Course of Empire, which depict the same landscape over generations—from a near state of nature to consummation of empire, and then decline and desolation—now in the collection of the New-York Historical Society and the four-part The Voyage of Life. There are two versions of the latter, one at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., the other at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, New York. Among Cole’s other famous works are The Oxbow (1836), The Notch of the White Mountains, Daniel Boone at his cabin at the Great Osage Lake, and Lake with Dead Trees (1825) which is at the Allen Memorial Art Museum.[9] He also painted The Garden of Eden (1828), with lavish detail of Adam and Eve living amid waterfalls, vivid plants, and deer.[10] In 2014, friezes painted by Cole on the walls of his home, which had been decorated over, were discovered.[11]
Cole influenced his peers in the art movement later termed the Hudson River School, especially Asher B. Durand and Frederic Edwin Church. Church studied with Cole from 1844 to 1846, where he learned Cole’s technique of sketching from nature and later developing an idealized, finished composition; Cole’s influence is particularly notable in Church’s early paintings.[12] Cole spent the years 1829 to 1832 and 1841 to 1842 abroad, mainly in England and Italy.[4
Hudson River School
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area, including the Catskill, Adirondack, and White Mountains.
Thomas Cole (1801–1848), The Oxbow, View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm (1836), Metropolitan Museum of Art
Works by second generation artists expanded to include other locales in New England, the Maritimes, the American West, and South America.
The term Hudson River School is thought to have been coined by the New York Tribune art critic Clarence Cook or by landscape painter Homer Dodge Martin.[1] It was initially used disparagingly, as the style had gone out of favor after the plein-air Barbizon School had come into vogue among American patrons and collectors.
Hudson River School paintings reflect three themes of America in the 19th century: discovery, exploration, and settlement.[2] They also depict the American landscape as a pastoral setting, where human beings and nature coexist peacefully. Hudson River School landscapes are characterized by their realistic, detailed, and sometimes idealized portrayal of nature, often juxtaposing peaceful agriculture and the remaining wilderness which was fast disappearing from the Hudson Valley just as it was coming to be appreciated for its qualities of ruggedness and sublimity.[3] In general, Hudson River School artists believed that nature in the form of the American landscape was a reflection of God,[4] though they varied in the depth of their religious conviction. They were inspired by European masters such as Claude Lorrain, John Constable, and J. M. W. Turner. Several painters were members of the Düsseldorf School of painting, others were educated by German Paul Weber.[5]
Thomas Cole is generally acknowledged as the founder of the School.[6] He took a steamship up the Hudson in the autumn of 1825, stopping first at West Point then at Catskill landing. He hiked west high into the eastern Catskill Mountains of New York to paint the first landscapes of the area. The first review of his work appeared in the New York Evening Post on November 22, 1825.[7] Cole was from England and the brilliant autumn colors in the American landscape inspired him.[6] His close friend Asher Brown Durand became a prominent figure in the school.[8] A prominent element of the Hudson River School was its themes of nationalism, nature, and property. Adherents of the movement also tended to be suspicious of the economic and technological development of the age.[9]
The second generation of Hudson River School artists emerged after Cole’s premature death in 1848; its members included Cole’s prize pupil Frederic Edwin Church, John Frederick Kensett, and Sanford Robinson Gifford. Works by artists of this second generation are often described as examples of Luminism. Kensett, Gifford, and Church were also among the founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.[10]
Most of the finest works of the second generation were painted between 1855 and 1875. Artists such as Frederic Edwin Church and Albert Bierstadt were celebrities during that time. They were both influenced by the Düsseldorf school of painting, and Bierstadt had studied in that city for several years. Thousands of people would pay 25 cents per person to view paintings such as Niagara[11] and The Icebergs.[12] The epic size of these landscapes was unexampled in earlier American painting and reminded Americans of the vast, untamed, and magnificent wilderness areas in their country. This was the period of settlement in the American West, preservation of national parks, and establishment of green city parks.
Hudson River School art has had minor periods of resurgence in popularity. The school gained interest after World War I, probably due to nationalist attitudes. Interest declined until the 1960s, and the regrowth of the Hudson Valley[vague] has spurred further interest in the movement.[15] Historic house museums and other sites dedicated to the Hudson River School include Olana State Historic Site in Hudson, New York, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in the town of Catskill, the Newington-Cropsey Foundation’s historic house museum, art gallery, and research library in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, and the John D. Barrow Art Gallery in the village of Skaneateles, New York.
Lancashire
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog (German: [ˈvɛɐ̯nɐ ˈhɛɐ̯tsoːk]; born 5 September 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, author, actor, and opera director, regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema. His films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams,[1] people with unique talents in obscure fields, or individuals in conflict with nature.[2] He is known for his unique filmmaking process, such as disregarding storyboards, emphasizing improvisation, and placing the cast and crew into similar situations as characters in his films
Herzog started work on his first film Herakles in 1961, when he was nineteen. Since then he has produced, written, and directed more than sixty feature films and documentaries, such as Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974), Heart of Glass (1976), Stroszek (1977), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), Fitzcarraldo (1982), Cobra Verde (1987), Lessons of Darkness (1992), Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997), My Best Fiend (1999), Invincible (2000), Grizzly Man (2005), Encounters at the End of the World (2007), Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009), and Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010). He has published more than a dozen books of prose and directed many operas.
French filmmaker François Truffaut once called Herzog “the most important film director alive”.[3] American film critic Roger Ebert said that Herzog “has never created a single film that is compromised, shameful, made for pragmatic reasons, or uninteresting. Even his failures are spectacular.”[4] He was named one of the world’s 100 most influential people by Time in 2009
Herzog was born Werner Stipetich in Munich, Germany, to Elisabeth Stipetich, an Austrian of Croatian descent, and Dietrich Herzog, a German. When Herzog was two weeks old, his mother took refuge in the remote Bavarian village of Sachrang in the Chiemgau Alps, after the house next to theirs was destroyed during an Allied bombing raid in World War II.[6] In Sachrang, Herzog grew up without running water, a flushing toilet, or a telephone. He recounted, “we had no toys, we had no tools”, and said that there was a sense of anarchy, as all the children’s fathers were absent.[7] He never saw films, and did not even know of the existence of cinema until a traveling projectionist came by the one-room schoolhouse in Sachrang.[8]
When Herzog was twelve, he and his family moved back to Munich. His father had abandoned the family early in his youth. Herzog later adopted his father’s surname Herzog (German for “duke”), which he thought sounded more impressive for a filmmaker.[9] Herzog made his first phone-call when he was seventeen; two years later, he started work on his first film, Herakles.[7] Herzog says that when he eventually met his father again, “fairly late in life”, his mother had to translate Werner’s German into the Bavarian dialect which his father spoke so the two could communicate.[10] Herzog, aged thirteen, was told by a bullying music teacher to sing in front of his class at school in an effort, Herzog said, “to break my back.” When he adamantly refused he was almost expelled. The incident scarred him for life.[7] For several years Herzog listened to no music, sang no songs, and studied no instruments, but when he turned eighteen he immersed himself in music with particular intensity.[7]
At an early age, he experienced a dramatic phase in which he converted to Catholicism, which only lasted a few years. He started to embark on long journeys, some on foot. Around this time, he knew he would be a filmmaker and learned the basics from a few pages in an encyclopedia which provided him with “everything I needed to get myself started” as a filmmaker—that, and the 35 mm camera he stole from the Munich Film School.[11] In the commentary for Aguirre, the Wrath of God, he says, “I don’t consider it theft. It was just a necessity. I had some sort of natural right for a camera, a tool to work with”.
During Herzog’s last years of high school, no production company was willing to take on his projects, so he worked night shifts as a welder in a steel factory to earn the funds for his first featurettes.[12] When he finished school, but before he formally graduated, he followed his girlfriend to Manchester, England, where he spent several months and learned to speak English. He found the language classes pointless and “fled”.[13][14] After graduating from high school, he was intrigued by the post-independence Congo, but in attempting to travel there, reached only the south of Sudan before falling seriously ill.[15] While already making films, he had a brief stint at Munich University, where he studied history and literature.[16] Herzog subsequently moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in order to study at Duquesne University.[17]
Early and mid-career: 1962–2005
Edit
Herzog, along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schlöndorff, led the beginning of the New German Cinema, which included documentarians who filmed on low budgets and were influenced by the French New Wave. He developed a habit of casting professional actors alongside people from the locality in which he was shooting. His films, “usually set in distinct and unfamiliar landscapes, are imbued with mysticism.”[18] Herzog says his Catholic upbringing is evident in “something of a religious echo in my work”.[19]
In 1971, while Herzog was location scouting for Aguirre, the Wrath of God in Peru, he narrowly avoided taking LANSA Flight 508. Herzog’s reservation was cancelled due to a last-minute change in itinerary. The plane was later struck by lightning and disintegrated, but one survivor, Juliane Koepcke, lived after a free fall. Long haunted by the event, nearly 30 years later he made a documentary film, Wings of Hope (1998), which explored the story of the sole survivor.
Herzog and his films have been nominated for and won many awards. His first major award was the Silver Bear Extraordinary Prize of the Jury for his first feature film Signs of Life[20] (Nosferatu the Vampyre was also nominated for Golden Bear in 1979). Herzog won the Best Director award for Fitzcarraldo at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival. In 1975, his movie The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury (also known as the ‘Silver Palm’) and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Cannes Festival. Other films directed by Herzog nominated for Golden Palm are: Woyzeck (1979) and Where the Green Ants Dream (1984). His films have been nominated at many other festivals around the world: César Awards (Aguirre, the Wrath of God), Emmy Awards (Little Dieter Needs to Fly), European Film Awards (My Best Fiend) and Venice Film Festival (Scream of Stone and The Wild Blue Yonder). In 1987, Herzog and his half-brother Lucki Stipetić won the Bavarian Film Award for Best Producing for the film Cobra Verde.[21] In 2002 he won the Dragon of Dragons Honorary Award during Kraków Film Festival in Kraków, Poland.
Herzog once promised to eat his shoe if Errol Morris completed the film project on pet cemeteries that he had been working on, in order to challenge and motivate Morris, whom Herzog perceived as incapable of following up on the projects he conceived. In 1978, when the film Gates of Heaven premiered, Herzog cooked and publicly ate his shoe, an event later incorporated into a short documentary Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe by Les Blank. At the event, Herzog suggested that he hoped the act would serve to encourage anyone having difficulty bringing a project to fruition.[22]
Herzog at the 1991 Venice International Film Festival
In the winter of 1974, upon learning of the impending death of his friend Lotte H. Eisner, Herzog began a three week pilgrimage, traversing the route from Munich to Paris on foot. He believed this act of devotion would prolong Eisner’s life. Durning these travels Herzog kept a diary which would eventually be published as Of Walking in Ice.
Werner Herzog moved to Los Angeles with his wife in the late nineties. “Wherever you look is an immense depth, a tumult that resonates with me. New York is more concerned with finance than anything else. It doesn’t create culture, only consumes it; most of what you find in New York comes from elsewhere. Things actually get done in Los Angeles. Look beyond the glitz and glamour of Hollywood and a wild excitement of intense dreams opens up; it has more horizons than any other place. There is a great deal of industry in the city and a real working class; I also appreciate the vibrant presence of the Mexicans.”[23]
Later career: 2006 onwards
Edit
Herzog was honored at the 49th San Francisco International Film Festival, receiving the 2006 Film Society Directing Award.[24] Four of his films have been shown at the San Francisco International Film Festival: Wodaabe – Herdsmen of the Sun in 1990, Bells from the Deep in 1993, Lessons of Darkness in 1993, and The Wild Blue Yonder in 2006.
Sloan Prize and Air Rifle Shooting
Edit
Grizzly Man, directed by Herzog, was awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. In 2006, Herzog was shot in the abdomen while on Skyline Drive in Los Angeles. He had been giving an interview on Grizzly Man to Mark Kermode of the BBC.[25][26] Herzog continued the interview without seeking medical treatment, stating “it’s not significant”. The shooter later turned out to be a crazed fan with an air-rifle. Regarding the incident, Herzog later said, “I seem to attract the clinically insane.” In a 2021 episode of Diminishing Returns podcast covering Herzog’s film Stroszek, presenter Dallas Campbell called this incident a hoax, claiming to be friends with the director of the piece and that the incident was “set up”.[27] Two days later, Herzog helped actor Joaquin Phoenix exit his car after a car crash.[28]
Herzog at a press conference in Brussels, 2007
Herzog’s April 2007 appearance at the Ebertfest in Champaign, Illinois, earned him the Golden Thumb Award, and an engraved glockenspiel given to him by a young film maker inspired by his films. Encounters at the End of the World won the award for Best Documentary at the 2008 Edinburgh International Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, Herzog’s first nomination.[citation needed] In 2009, Herzog became the only filmmaker in recent history to enter two films in competition in the same year at the Venice Film Festival. Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans was entered into the festival’s official competition schedule, and his My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? entered the competition as a “surprise film”.[29] Herzog also provided the narration for the short film Plastic Bag directed by Ramin Bahrani which was the opening night film in the Corto Cortissimo section of the festival.[30]
Dissatisfied with the way film schools are run, Herzog founded his own Rogue Film School in 2009.[31] For the students, Herzog has said, “I prefer people who have worked as bouncers in a sex club, or have been wardens in the lunatic asylum. You must live life in its very elementary forms. The Costa Ricans have a very nice word for it: pura vida. It doesn’t mean just purity of life, but the raw, stark-naked quality of life. And that’s what makes young people more into a filmmaker than academia.”[32]
Herzog was the president of the jury at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival in 2010.[33][34][35]
Herzog completed a documentary called Cave of Forgotten Dreams in 2010, which shows his journey into the Chauvet Cave in France. Although generally skeptical of 3D film as a format,[36] Herzog premiered the film at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival in 3-D and had its European premiere at the 2011 Berlinale. Also in 2010, Herzog co-directed with Dimitry Vasuykov Happy People: A Year in the Taiga, which portrays the life of fur trappers from the Siberian part of the Taiga, and had its premiere at the 2010 Telluride Film Festival.[37]
Herzog’s star on the Boulevard der Stars [de] in Berlin
Herzog has narrated many of his documentary films, and he lent his voice to an animated television program for the first time in 2010, appearing in The Boondocks in its third-season premiere episode It’s a Black President, Huey Freeman. In the episode, he played a fictionalized version of himself filming a documentary about the series’ cast of characters and their actions during the 2008 election of Barack Obama.[citation needed]
Continuing with voice work, Herzog played Walter Hotenhoffer (formerly known as Augustus Gloop) in The Simpsons episode “The Scorpion’s Tale” which aired in March 2011. The next year, he also appeared in the 8th-season episode of American Dad! called “Ricky Spanish”, and lent his voice to a recurring character during the 4th season of the Adult Swim animated series Metalocalypse. In 2015 he voiced a character for Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty. He also appeared opposite Tom Cruise as the villain Zec Chelovek in the 2012 action film Jack Reacher.
Herzog gained attention in 2013 when he released a 35-minute Public Service Announcement-style documentary, From One Second to the Next, demonstrating the danger of texting while driving and financed by AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile as part of their It Can Wait driver safety campaign. The film, which documents four stories in which texting and driving led to tragedy or death, initially received over 1.7 million YouTube views and was subsequently distributed to over 40,000 high schools.[38] In July 2013, Herzog contributed to an art installation entitled “Hearsay of the Soul”, for the Whitney Biennial, which was later acquired as a permanent exhibit by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. In late 2013 he also lent his voice to the English-language dub of Hayao Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises.[39]
In 2011, Herzog competed with Ridley Scott to make a film based around the life of explorer Gertrude Bell.[40] In 2012, it was confirmed that Herzog would start production on his long-in-development project in March 2013 in Morocco with Naomi Watts to play Gertrude Bell along with Robert Pattinson to play T. E. Lawrence and Jude Law to play Henry Cadogan.[41] The film was completed in 2014 with a different cast: Nicole Kidman as Gertrude Bell, James Franco as Henry Cadogan, Damian Lewis as Charles Doughty-Wylie, and Robert Pattinson as a 22-year-old archaeologist T. E. Lawrence. Queen of the Desert had its world premiere at the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival.[citation needed]
Herzog in 2015
In 2015, Herzog shot a feature film, Salt and Fire, in Bolivia, starring Veronica Ferres, Michael Shannon and Gael García Bernal. It is described as a “highly explosive drama inspired by a short story by Tom Bissell”.[42]
In 2019, Herzog joined the cast of the Disney+ live action Star Wars television series The Mandalorian, portraying “The Client”, a character with nebulous connections to the Empire.[43] Herzog accepted the role after being impressed with the screenplay,[44] despite admitting that he had never seen a Star Wars film.[45]
In June 2022, Herzog published his debut novel, titled The Twilight World, telling the story of Hiroo Onoda. Herzog had met Onoda in Tokyo more than two decades ago, and the two had discussed the jungle, a setting that reoccurs throughout many of Herzog’s film works. Onoda, a WWII Japanese soldier who was deployed in 1944 to Lubang, a small Philippine Island, stayed in the jungles of Lubang for twenty nine years. After receiving orders to “hold his position”, his commander promised that someone would return for him, but as the years went by, it was clear that he was forgotten. While the novel was written as a fictionalized account of Hiroo Onoda’s real life ordeal of being stranded in a jungle fighting a war that had officially ended, Herzog admits to bending the truth, saying “Most details are factually correct; some are not”.[46][47][48]
Herzog’s films have received considerable critical acclaim and achieved popularity on the art house circuit. They have also been the subject of controversy in regard to their themes and messages, especially the circumstances surrounding their creation. A notable example is Fitzcarraldo, in which the obsessiveness of the central character was reflected by the director during the making of the film. Burden of Dreams, a documentary filmed during the making of Fitzcarraldo, explored Herzog’s efforts to make the film in harsh conditions. Herzog’s diaries during the making of Fitzcarraldo were published as Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo. Mark Harris of The New York Times wrote in his review: “The movie and its making are both fables of daft aspiration, investigations of the blurry border between having a dream and losing one’s mind.”[49]
Herzog has said that our civilization is “starving for new images”; in a 1982 interview with Roger Ebert, he explained that “We do not have adequate images for our kind of civilization…We are surrounded by images that are worn out, and I believe that unless we discover new images, we will die out.” He has said it is his mission to help us discover new images: “I am trying to make something that has not been made before.”[50] He is proud of never using storyboards and often improvising large parts of the script. He explains this technique in the commentary track to Aguirre, the Wrath of God.
In 1999, before a public dialogue with critic Roger Ebert at the Walker Art Center, Herzog read a new manifesto, which he dubbed Minnesota Declaration: Truth and Fact in Documentary Cinema.[51] Subtitled “Lessons of Darkness,” after his film of that name, the 12-point declaration began: “Cinema Verité is devoid of verité. It reaches a merely superficial truth, the truth of accountants.” Herzog explained that “There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization” and that “facts sometimes have a strange and bizarre power that makes their inherent truth seem unbelievable.”[52] Ebert later wrote of its significance: “For the first time, it fully explained his theory of ‘ecstatic truth.’“[53] In 2017, Herzog wrote a six-point addendum to the manifesto,[54] prompted by a question about “truth in an age of alt-facts.”[55]
His treatment of subjects has been characterized as Wagnerian in its scope, but film theory has in recent years focused on the concept of the ecstatic and the nomadic character of his film. The plot of Fitzcarraldo is based on the building of an opera house and his later film Invincible (2001) touches on the character of Siegfried.[56] Herzog’s documentary The Transformation of the World into Music goes behind the scenes of the Bayreuth Festival. Herzog has directed several operas, including Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Beethoven’s Fidelio and Wagner’s Parsifal.
Teaching
Edit
Critical of film schools,[57] Herzog has taught three cinema workshops. From 2009 to 2016, he organized the Rogue Film School, in which young directors spent a few days with him in evocative locations.[58] What exactly goes on at the rogue film school have been clouded in secrecy, but director and writer Kristoffer Hegnsvad report from his stay there in his book Werner Herzog – Ecstatic Truth and Other Useless Conquest: “The first thing you notice is his enormous presence. His self-confidence sends shockwaves through a room every time he opens his mouth or make eye contact; he adops a stance of exalted calm, as though he has achieved some kind of mastery – not just over his own mind, but over the capriciousness of the world” “.[59] Lessons ranged from “How does music function in film?” to “The creation of your own shooting permits”. In 2018, he held “Filming in Peru with Werner Herzog”, a twelve-day workshop in the Amazonian rainforest, close to the locations for Fitzcarraldo, for new filmmakers from around the world. Each made a short film under Herzog’s supervision.[60] Herzog was enthusiastic, and said of the resulting films that “the best 10 of them are better than the selections for best short film at the Academy Awards”.[61] Workshop participants included directors Rupert Clague and Quentin Lazzarotto. Herzog is also on the website MasterClass, where he presents a course on filmmaking, entitled “Werner Herzog teaches filmmaking”.[62][63][64] In a discussion with Errol Morris at the Toronto Film Festival, Morris, who was influenced by Herzog’s early films, joked that he considered himself one of the first students of the Rogue Film School. Regarding Herzog’s influence on him, Morris quoted García Márquez’s reaction to reading Kafka for the first time: “I didn’t know you were allowed to do that.” [3]
Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi (Italian: [enˈriːko ˈfermi]; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian (later naturalized American) physicist and the creator of the world’s first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1. He has been called the “architect of the nuclear age”[1] and the “architect of the atomic bomb”.[2] He was one of very few physicists to excel in both theoretical physics and experimental physics. Fermi was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on induced radioactivity by neutron bombardment and for the discovery of transuranium elements. With his colleagues, Fermi filed several patents related to the use of nuclear power, all of which were taken over by the US government. He made significant contributions to the development of statistical mechanics, quantum theory, and nuclear and particle physics.
Fermi’s first major contribution involved the field of statistical mechanics. After Wolfgang Pauli formulated his exclusion principle in 1925, Fermi followed with a paper in which he applied the principle to an ideal gas, employing a statistical formulation now known as Fermi–Dirac statistics. Today, particles that obey the exclusion principle are called “fermions”. Pauli later postulated the existence of an uncharged invisible particle emitted along with an electron during beta decay, to satisfy the law of conservation of energy. Fermi took up this idea, developing a model that incorporated the postulated particle, which he named the “neutrino”. His theory, later referred to as Fermi’s interaction and now called weak interaction, described one of the four fundamental interactions in nature. Through experiments inducing radioactivity with the recently discovered neutron, Fermi discovered that slow neutrons were more easily captured by atomic nuclei than fast ones, and he developed the Fermi age equation to describe this. After bombarding thorium and uranium with slow neutrons, he concluded that he had created new elements. Although he was awarded the Nobel Prize for this discovery, the new elements were later revealed to be nuclear fission products.
Fermi left Italy in 1938 to escape new Italian racial laws that affected his Jewish wife, Laura Capon. He emigrated to the United States, where he worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II. Fermi led the team at the University of Chicago that designed and built Chicago Pile-1, which went critical on 2 December 1942, demonstrating the first human-created, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. He was on hand when the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, went critical in 1943, and when the B Reactor at the Hanford Site did so the next year. At Los Alamos, he headed F Division, part of which worked on Edward Teller’s thermonuclear “Super” bomb. He was present at the Trinity test on 16 July 1945, where he used his Fermi method to estimate the bomb’s yield.
After the war, Fermi served under J. Robert Oppenheimer on the General Advisory Committee, which advised the Atomic Energy Commission on nuclear matters. After the detonation of the first Soviet fission bomb in August 1949, he strongly opposed the development of a hydrogen bomb on both moral and technical grounds. He was among the scientists who testified on Oppenheimer’s behalf at the 1954 hearing that resulted in the denial of Oppenheimer’s security clearance. Fermi did important work in particle physics, especially related to pions and muons, and he speculated that cosmic rays arose when material was accelerated by magnetic fields in interstellar space. Many awards, concepts, and institutions are named after Fermi, including the Enrico Fermi Award, the Enrico Fermi Institute, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, and the synthetic element fermium, making him one of 16 scientists who have elements named after them. Fermi tutored or directly influenced no fewer than eight young researchers who went on to win Nobel Prizes.[3][4]
Valladolid
Valladolid (Spanish: [baʝaðoˈlið] (listen)) is a municipality in Spain and the primary seat of government and de facto capital of the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. It has a population around 300,000 people (2021 est.).[2]
The city is located roughly in the centre of the northern half of the Iberian Peninsula’s Meseta Central, at the confluence of the Pisuerga and Esgueva rivers 15 km (9.3 mi) before they join the Duero, surrounded by winegrowing areas. The area was settled in pre-Roman times by the Celtic Vaccaei people, and then by Romans themselves. The settlement was purportedly founded after 1072, growing in prominence within the context of the Crown of Castile, being endowed with fairs and different institutions such as a collegiate church, University (1241), Royal Court and Chancellery and a royal mint. The city was briefly the capital of the Habsburg Monarchy between 1601 and 1606. The city then declined until the arrival of the railway in the 19th century, and with its industrialisation into the 20th century.
The old town is made up of a variety of historic houses, palaces, churches, plazas, avenues and parks, and includes the National Museum of Sculpture as well as the houses of Zorrilla and Cervantes which are open as museums. Among the events that are held each year in the city are the famous Holy Week, Valladolid International Film Festival (Seminci), and the Festival of Theatre and Street Arts (TAC). Together with another 15 surrounding municipalities, it belongs to an urban community of around 404,000 inhabitants.[3]
There is no direct evidence for the origin of the modern name of Valladolid.
It is mentioned as Valledolit in the Primera Crónica General; earlier documented variants include Valledolidi, Valleolide (1092) and Valleolit, Valleoleti, Valleoliti (1095).[4]
One widely held etymological theory suggests that the modern name Valladolid derives from the Celtiberian language expression Vallis Tolitum, meaning “valley of waters”, referring to the confluence of rivers in the area. Another theory suggests that the name derives from the Arabic expression (Arabic: بلد الوليد, Balad al-Walid), which is the Arabic exonym currently used and means ‘city of al-Walid’, referring to Al-Walid I.[5][6] Yet a third claims that it derives from Vallis Olivetum, meaning ‘valley of the olives’; however, no olive trees are found in that terrain. Instead, innumerable pine trees abound in the south part of the city. The gastronomy reflects the importance of the piñón (pine nut) as a local product, rather than olives. In texts from the middle ages the town is called Vallisoletum, meaning ‘sunny valley’, and a person from the town is a Vallisoletano (male), or Vallisoletana (female).
The city is also popularly called Pucela, a nickname whose origin is not clear, but may refer to knights in the service of Joan of Arc, known as La Pucelle. Another theory is that Pucela comes from the fact that Pozzolana cement was sold there, the only city in Spain that sold it.
Precedents
Edit
The Vaccaei were a Celtic tribe, the first people documented as a stable presence on the sector of the middle valley of the River Duero.
Remains of Celtiberian and of a Roman camp have been excavated near the city. The nucleus of the city was originally located in the area of the current San Miguel y el Rosarillo square and was surrounded by a palisade. Proofs of the existence of three ancient lines of walls have been found.
During the time of Muslim rule in Spain, the Christian kings moved the population of this region north into more easily defended areas and deliberately created a no man’s land as a buffer zone against further Moorish conquests. The area was captured from the Moors in the 10th century.
Repopulation and growth
Edit
Historicist early 20th century mural painting by Eugenio Oliva depicting a meeting of Ansúrez, Eylo and other people in Valladolid
In 1072 Alfonso VI of León and Castile gifted the Lordship of Valladolid to Count Pedro Ansúrez. Entrusted with the repopulation of the area, Ansúrez led the foundation of Valladolid along his wife Eylo Alfónsez [es].[14] By 1084 the project for the foundation of the settlement was already underway.[15] Ansúrez built a palace (now lost) and La Antigua church.[citation needed] Eylo founded three hospitals and the Churches of San Sebastián and San Nicolás.[16] Both co-founded the church of Santa María.[16] Valladolid was repopulated by people from the lands of Carrión and Saldaña.[17]
In the 12th and 13th centuries, Valladolid grew rapidly, favoured by the commercial privileges granted by the kings Alfonso VIII and Alfonso X.[citation needed]
Early Modern period
Edit
In 1469, Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand of Aragon were married in the city; by the 15th century Valladolid was the residence of the kings of Castile.[citation needed] In 1506, Christopher Columbus died in Valladolid “still convinced that he had reached the Indies”[18] in a house that is now a museum dedicated to him.
From 1554 to 1559, Joanna of Austria, sister of Philip II, served as regent, establishing herself in Valladolid,[19] with the latter becoming the political center of the Hispanic Monarchy by that time.[20] She favoured the Ebolist Party, one of the two leading factions of the Court of Philip II, in competition with the albistas.[19] The Reformation took some hold in the city appearing some Protestant circles presumably around the leading figure of Augustino de Cazalla, an adviser of Joanna.[20] Ensuing autos de fe against the Protestant sects took place in 1559 in Valladolid.[20] A catastrophic fire in 1561 destroyed a portion of the city.[21]
During 1550-1551 the town held the first moral debate in European history to discuss the rights and treatment of the indigenous people by conquerors. See Valladolid debate.
Vallisoletum, 1574, by Braun and Hogenberg.
Valladolid was granted the status of city in 1596, also becoming a bishopric.[22]
In the midst of the reign of Philip III, Valladolid briefly served as the capital of the Hispanic Monarchy between 1601 and 1606 under the auspice of the Duke of Lerma, valido of Philip III. Lerma and his network had bought plots in Valladolid before in order to sell those to the Crown.[23] Promoted by Lerma, the decision on moving the capital from Madrid to Valladolid has been portrayed as case of a (double) real estate speculative scheme, as Lerma had bought housing in Madrid as the prices plummeted when the capital was moved from the city .[24][23] After a plague in Valladolid, Lerma suggested the King to go back to Madrid, earning a hefty profit when the Royal Court returned and prices went up again.[24][23]
The city was again damaged by a flood of the rivers Pisuerga and Esgueva.
Contemporary history
Edit
The Paseo de Zorrilla in the 1970s.
From 1950 onwards Valladolid became an important industrial centre.[25] This was the context in which companies such as ENDASA (1950), FASA (1954), TECNAUTO (1956) and SAVA (1957) were created.[26] The city was declared as a Polo de Desarrollo Industrial (“Pole for Industrial Development”) in 1964.[26] During the 1960 and early 1970s the city attracted many immigrants, chiefly coming from the province of Valladolid and neighbouring provinces.[26] The city started to expand across the western bank of the Pisuerga in the early 1960s.[27]
In the context of the fraught process for the creation of the autonomous community of Castile and León (completed in 1983), Valladolid vied for the condition of regional capital, competing with other cities, most notably creating a sense of antagonism with Burgos.[28] Although the capital was not explicitly enshrined in the region’s statute of autonomy [es] from 1983,[29] Valladolid was designated in 1987 as the de jure seat of the executive and legislative institutions (the Junta of Castile and León and the Cortes of Castile and León).[29]
South Georgia
South Georgia (Spanish: Isla San Pedro) is an island in the South Atlantic Ocean that is part of the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It lies around 1,400 kilometres (870 mi) east of the Falkland Islands. Stretching in the east–west direction, South Georgia is around 170 kilometres (106 mi) long and has a maximum width of 35 kilometres (22 mi). The terrain is mountainous, with the central ridge rising to 2,935 metres (9,629 ft) at Mount Paget. The northern coast is indented with numerous bays and fjords, serving as good harbours.
Discovered by Europeans in 1675, South Georgia had no indigenous population due to its harsh climate and remoteness. Captain James Cook in HMS Resolution made the first landing, survey and mapping of the island, and on 17 January 1775 he claimed it a British possession, naming it “Isle of Georgia” after King George III. Through its history, it served as a whaling and seal hunting base, with intermittent population scattered in several whaling bases, the most important historically being Grytviken. The main settlement and the capital today is King Edward Point near Grytviken, a British Antarctic Survey research station, with a population of about 20 people.
The island of South Georgia was probably discovered in 1675 by Anthony de la Roché,[1][2] a London merchant, and was named Roche Island on a number of early maps. It was sighted by a commercial Spanish ship named León operating out of Saint-Malo on 28 June or 29 June 1756.[3] According to Argentine historians, it was explored on 29 June 1756, St Peter’s Day, hence its Spanish name Isla San Pedro, literally “St Peter’s Island”.[4]
The mariner Captain James Cook in HMS Resolution made the first landing, survey and mapping of South Georgia. As mandated by the Admiralty, on 17 January 1775 he took possession for Britain and renamed the island ‘Isle of Georgia’ for King George III.[5]
After making a foot crossing of the island with Tom Crean and Frank Worsley,[6] Ernest Shackleton organised the rescue of his party from Elephant Island following the disaster that befell the 1916 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, which he led.[7] He is buried in the cemetery at Grytviken alongside Frank Wild.[8]
Commercial sealing was conducted on the island between 1786 and 1913. During that period 131 sealing visits are recorded, eight of which ended when the vessel was wrecked.[9] Modern industrial sealing associated with whaling stations was carried out between 1909 and 1964. Sealing era relics include iron try pots, hut ruins, graves and inscriptions, and the South Georgia Museum was established on the island in 1992.[10]
Surveying by Carse
Edit
The island was surveyed by explorer Duncan Carse. He organised and led the South Georgia Survey of 1951–57, surveying much of the interior of the island. Mount Carse and Carse Point are named after him. In 1961 he lived as a hermit in a remote part of South Georgia. Carse built a house at Ducloz Head on the southern coast of the island, intending to live there through the winter. However, in May, three months into the experiment, surge waves destroyed his camp. He managed to salvage enough gear to survive the winter until making contact with a ship 116 days later.[11]
His knowledge and mapping proved helpful to the British during the Falklands conflicts.
Argentine occupation
Edit
Main article: Invasion of South Georgia
On 19 March 1982, a group of Argentinians arrived at Leith Harbour and raised the Argentine flag on the island. On 3 April, the second day of the Falklands War, Argentine naval forces occupied the island. South Georgia was retaken by British forces on 25 April during Operation Paraquet.[12]
Great Pyrenees
The Pyrenean Mountain Dog (French: Chien de Montagne des Pyrénées) is a breed of livestock guardian dog from France, where it is commonly called the Patou. The breed comes from the French side of the Pyrenees Mountains that separate France and Spain. It is recognised as a separate breed from the closely related Pyrenean Mastiff, which is from the Spanish side of the mountains.
The breed is widely used throughout France as a livestock guardian, particularly in the French Alps and Pyrenees, protecting flocks from predation by wolves and bears. The breed is known as the Great Pyrenees in the United States, where it is also used to protect flocks from various predators.
The Pyrenean Mountain Dog is a traditional breed of the Pyrenees. In France it is usually called the ‘Patou’.[note 1] It is sometimes claimed that its forebears – and those of the Pyrenean Mastiff – were white livestock guardian dogs brought to the area from Asia in Roman times, and thus that it is related to Maremmano-Abruzzese Sheepdog of Italy and the Kuvasz of Hungary.[2][3] Genomic data places it within the same genetic clade as the Pharaoh Hound, Cirneco dell’Etna, and the Ibizan Hound.[4]
In the seventeenth century, Madame de Maintenon and Louis, Dauphin of France, brought a dog of this type to the court of King Louis XIV, where they soon became in great demand, the King even naming it the Royal Dog of France.[2][3][5] They came to be used by the French nobility to guard their châteaux, particularly in the south of the country.[5] It is sometimes claimed that French settlers brought these dogs with them to Canada and that they are among the forebears of the Newfoundland dog.[3] In the 1830s, Pyrenean Mountain Dogs were used as one of the foundation breeds in the creation of the Leonberger.[3]
With the extirpation of wolves from the Pyrenees, the popularity of the breed declined and by the beginning of the 20th century it was on the verge of extinction.[2][3] Local shepherds sold pups to eager tourists and it is from these pups the breed found its way to Britain and several were registered with The Kennel Club at the beginning of the century, although British interest in the large breed declined during the First World War.[2] French aristocrat and dog authority Bernard Senac-Lagrange is credited with saving the breed from extinction at the beginning of the 20th century, touring the mountains to collect the finest specimens available to form a breeding base.[5] Senac-Lagrange established the first breed club, the Réunion des Amateurs de Chiens Pyrénées, and drew up the first breed standard for the breed in 1923; he also registered the breed as the Chien de Montagne des Pyrénées with the Société Centrale Canine in the same year.[2][5][6] In 1946 the Real Sociedad Canina de España recognised the large white livestock guardians on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees as the Pyrenean Mastiff with a slightly different breed standard.[3][7]
In the early 1930s, the Pyrenean Mountain Dog was imported into North America where it is known as the Great Pyrenees.[3][5] The breed became a favourite in the show ring in both Canada and the United States.[3][5] In 1935, the American Kennel Club adopted a new breed standard that had a number of deviations from the French original that would not be permitted in France.[2] This standard promoted the exaggeration of certain physical features at the expense of functional form and was later adopted by Britain’s Kennel Club.[2] To combat the deterioration of the breed’s show lines in their country, in 2011 the British Pyrenean Mountain Dog breed club released a brochure with instructions for show judges not to reward glamorous, heavy-bodied, short-muzzled examples of the breed over lean and muscular examples with weatherproof coats capable of performing their original role in high mountainous regions.[7]
Melcombe Regis
Melcombe Regis is an area of Weymouth in Dorset, England.
Situated on the north shore of Weymouth Harbour and originally part of the waste of Radipole,[clarification needed] it seems only to have developed as a significant settlement and seaport in the 13th century. It received a charter as a borough in 1268.
Parish church of St. John
Melcombe was one of the first points of entry of the Black Death into England in the summer of 1348. (The disease was possibly carried there by infected soldiers and sailors returning from the Hundred Years’ War, or from a visiting spice ship. There is no way of knowing for certain.)
The two boroughs, Melcombe on the north shore and Weymouth on the south, were joined as a double borough in 1571, after which time the name Weymouth came to serve for them both. Nevertheless, Melcombe Regis remained a separate parish[1] and became a civil parish in 1866. The civil parish was abolished in 1920 and merged with Weymouth.[2]
After two centuries of decline, the town’s fortunes were dramatically revived by the patronage of the Duke of Gloucester, brother of King George III, in the 1780s, and then of the King himself, who regularly used the town as a holiday resort between 1789 and 1811. He is commemorated by a prominent statue on the Esplanade, or sea-front, recording the gratitude of the inhabitants, and by the locally well-known Osmington White Horse. The well-known terraces of large late Georgian town houses on the Esplanade date from this period, with additional building later in the 19th century. The town has the Regis name.
The town was well established as a successful resort by the time that George’s visits ceased, and has continued as such to the present day.
Weymouth & Melcombe Regis was used as a base for Allied troops in the D-Day landings of World War II, and has since operated on and off as a cross-channel ferry terminus.
Wiltshire
Wiltshire (/ˈwɪlt.ʃər, -ʃɪər/;[1] abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of 3,485 km2 (1,346 square miles).[2] It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the northeast and Berkshire to the east. The county town was originally Wilton, after which the county is named, but Wiltshire Council is now based in the county town of Trowbridge. Within the county’s boundary are two unitary authority areas, Wiltshire and Swindon, governed respectively by Wiltshire Council and Swindon Borough Council.
Wiltshire is characterised by its high downland and wide valleys. Salisbury Plain is noted for being the location of the Stonehenge and Avebury stone circles (which together are a UNESCO Cultural and World Heritage site[3]) and other ancient landmarks, and as a training area for the British Army. The city of Salisbury is notable for its medieval cathedral. Swindon is the county’s largest town and commercial centre, with a population of 230,000. Large country houses open to the public include Longleat (where there is also a safari park) and the National Trust’s Stourhead.
Wiltshire is notable for its pre-Roman archaeology. The Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age people that occupied southern Britain built settlements on the hills and downland that cover Wiltshire. Stonehenge and Avebury are perhaps the most famous Neolithic sites in the UK.
In the 6th and 7th centuries Wiltshire was at the western edge of Saxon Britain, as Cranborne Chase and the Somerset Levels prevented the advance to the west. The Battle of Bedwyn was fought in 675 between Escuin, a West Saxon nobleman who had seized the throne of Queen Saxburga, and King Wulfhere of Mercia.[5] In 878 the Danes invaded the county. Following the Norman Conquest in 1066, large areas of the country came into the possession of the crown and the church.
At the time of the Domesday Survey, the industry of Wiltshire was largely agricultural; 390 mills are mentioned, and vineyards at Tollard and Lacock. In the succeeding centuries sheep-farming was vigorously pursued, and the Cistercian monastery of Stanley exported wool to the Florentine and Flemish markets in the 13th and 14th centuries.
In the 17th century English Civil War Wiltshire was largely Parliamentarian. The Battle of Roundway Down, a Royalist victory, was fought near Devizes.
In 1794 it was decided at a meeting at the Bear Inn in Devizes to raise a body of ten independent troops of Yeomanry for the county of Wiltshire, which formed the basis for what would become the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry, who served with distinction both at home and abroad, during the Boer War, World War I and World War II. The Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry currently lives on as Y (RWY) Squadron, based in Swindon, and B (RWY) Squadron, based in Salisbury, of the Royal Wessex Yeomanry.[6]
Around 1800 the Kennet and Avon Canal was built through Wiltshire, providing a route for transporting cargoes from Bristol to London until the development of the Great Western Railway.
Information on the 261 civil parishes of Wiltshire is available on Wiltshire Council’s Wiltshire Community History[7] website which has maps, demographic data, historic and modern pictures and short histories.
The local nickname for Wiltshire natives is “Moonrakers”. This originated from a story of smugglers who managed to foil the local Excise men by hiding their alcohol, possibly French brandy in barrels or kegs, in a village pond. When confronted by the excise men they raked the surface to conceal the submerged contraband with ripples, and claimed that they were trying to rake in a large round cheese visible in the pond, really a reflection of the full moon. The officials took them for simple yokels or mad and left them alone, allowing them to continue with their illegal activities. Many villages claim the tale for their own village pond, but the story is most commonly linked with The Crammer in Devizes.[8][9]
tweed
briar pipe
a tobacco pipe made from nodules borne at ground level by a large woody plant of the heath family.
2.
the white-flowered shrub of the heath family that bears these nodules, native chiefly to France and Corsica.
Origin
mid 19th century: from French bruyère ‘heath, heather’, from medieval Latin brucus .
Heath
a
: a tract of wasteland
b
: an extensive area of rather level open uncultivated land usually with poor coarse soil, inferior drainage, and a surface rich in peat or peaty humus
2
a
: any of a family (Ericaceae, the heath family) of shrubby dicotyledonous and often evergreen plants that thrive on open barren usually acid and ill-drained soil
especially : an evergreen subshrub of either of two genera (Erica and Calluna) with whorls of needlelike leaves and clusters of small flowers
b
: any of various plants that resemble true heaths
Coquimbo
Coquimbo is a port city, commune and capital of the Elqui Province, located on the Pan-American Highway, in the Coquimbo Region of Chile. Coquimbo is situated in a valley 10 km (6 mi) south of La Serena, with which it forms Greater La Serena with more than 400,000 inhabitants. The commune spans an area around the harbor of 1,429.3 km2 (552 sq mi).[2] The average temperature in the city lies around 14 °C (57 °F), and precipitation is low.
The area was originally occupied by indigenous people, who used it as a settlement and for fishing purposes. The natural harbour in Coquimbo was taken over by Pedro de Valdivia from Spain in 1550. The gold and copper industry in the region led to the city’s importance as a port around 1840 and many Europeans especially from England settled in Coquimbo. In 1879 it was recognised as a town.
The city was on the main path of totality of the Solar eclipse of July 2, 2019.
According to the 2002 census of the National Statistics Institute, Coquimbo had 163,036 inhabitants (79,428 men and 83,608 women). Of these, 154,316 (94.7%) lived in urban areas and 8,720 (5.3%) in rural areas. The population grew by 32.8% (40,270 persons) between the 1992 and 2002 censuses.[2]
The city is an industrial and shipping center. It is growing quickly, registering a 32.8% growth rate from 1992 to 2002. Tourism has started to develop. It is an access point for beach towns to the south, such as Guanaqueros and Tongoy. The port is still important for shipping, especially fruit and copper from mines in the region. Wine is also produced in the area.
garrotte
ɡəˈrät,ɡəˈrōt
kill (someone) by strangulation, typically with an iron collar or a length of wire or cord.
“he had been garroted with piano wire”
early 17th century: via French from Spanish garrote ‘a cudgel, a garrotte’, perhaps of Celtic origin.
parvenu
Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (Italian: [dʒuˈzɛppe ˈverdi]; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Vincenzo Bellini, whose works significantly influenced him.
In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated a sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. The chorus “Va, pensiero” from his early opera Nabucco (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, Verdi did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements. As he became professionally successful, he was able to reduce his operatic workload and sought to establish himself as a landowner in his native region. He surprised the musical world by returning, after his success with the opera Aida (1871), with three late masterpieces: his Requiem (1874), and the operas Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893).
His operas remain extremely popular, especially the three peaks of his ‘middle period’: Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata. The bicentenary of his birth in 2013 was widely celebrated in broadcasts and performances.
Verdi, the first child of Carlo Giuseppe Verdi (1785–1867) and Luigia Uttini (1787–1851), was born at their home in Le Roncole, a village near Busseto, then in the Département Taro and within the borders of the First French Empire following the annexation of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza in 1808. The baptismal register, prepared on 11 October 1813, lists his parents Carlo and Luigia as “innkeeper” and “spinner” respectively. Additionally, it lists Verdi as being “born yesterday”, but since days were often considered to begin at sunset, this could have meant either 9 or 10 October.[1] Following his mother, Verdi always celebrated his birthday on 9 October, the day he himself believed he was born.[2]
Verdi had a younger sister, Giuseppa, who died aged 17 in 1833.[2] She is said to have been his closest friend during childhood.[3] From the age of four, Verdi was given private lessons in Latin and Italian by the village schoolmaster, Baistrocchi, and at six he attended the local school. After learning to play the organ, he showed so much interest in music that his parents finally provided him with a spinet.[4] Verdi’s gift for music was already apparent by 1820–21 when he began his association with the local church, serving in the choir, acting as an altar boy for a while, and taking organ lessons. After Baistrocchi’s death, Verdi, at the age of eight, became the official paid organist.[5]
Antonio Barezzi, Verdi’s patron and later father-in-law
The music historian Roger Parker points out that both of Verdi’s parents “belonged to families of small landowners and traders, certainly not the illiterate peasants from which Verdi later liked to present himself as having emerged… Carlo Verdi was energetic in furthering his son’s education…something which Verdi tended to hide in later life… [T]he picture emerges of youthful precocity eagerly nurtured by an ambitious father and of a sustained, sophisticated and elaborate formal education.”[6]
In 1823, when he was 10, Verdi’s parents arranged for the boy to attend school in Busseto, enrolling him in a Ginnasio—an upper school for boys—run by Don Pietro Seletti, while they continued to run their inn at Le Roncole. Verdi returned to Busseto regularly to play the organ on Sundays, covering the distance of several kilometres on foot.[7] At age 11, Verdi received schooling in Italian, Latin, the humanities, and rhetoric. By the time he was 12, he began lessons with Ferdinando Provesi, maestro di cappella at San Bartolomeo, director of the municipal music school and co-director of the local Società Filarmonica (Philharmonic Society). Verdi later stated: “From the ages of 13 to 18 I wrote a motley assortment of pieces: marches for band by the hundred, perhaps as many little sinfonie that were used in church, in the theatre and at concerts, five or six concertos and sets of variations for pianoforte, which I played myself at concerts, many serenades, cantatas (arias, duets, very many trios) and various pieces of church music, of which I remember only a Stabat Mater.”[1] This information comes from the Autobiographical Sketch which Verdi dictated to the publisher Giulio Ricordi late in life, in 1879, and remains the leading source for his early life and career.[8] Written, understandably, with the benefit of hindsight, it is not always reliable when dealing with issues more contentious than those of his childhood.[9][10]
Margherita Barezzi, Verdi’s first wife
The other director of the Philharmonic Society was Antonio Barezzi [it], a wholesale grocer and distiller, who was described by a contemporary as a “manic dilettante” of music. The young Verdi did not immediately become involved with the Philharmonic. By June 1827, he had graduated with honours from the Ginnasio and was able to focus solely on music under Provesi. By chance, when he was 13, Verdi was asked to step in as a replacement to play in what became his first public event in his home town; he was an immediate success mostly playing his own music to the surprise of many and receiving strong local recognition.[11]
By 1829–30, Verdi had established himself as a leader of the Philharmonic: “none of us could rival him” reported the secretary of the organisation, Giuseppe Demaldè. An eight-movement cantata, I deliri di Saul, based on a drama by Vittorio Alfieri, was written by Verdi when he was 15 and performed in Bergamo. It was acclaimed by both Demaldè and Barezzi, who commented: “He shows a vivid imagination, a philosophical outlook, and sound judgment in the arrangement of instrumental parts.”[12] In late 1829, Verdi had completed his studies with Provesi, who declared that he had no more to teach him.[13] At the time, Verdi had been giving singing and piano lessons to Barezzi’s daughter Margherita; by 1831, they were unofficially engaged.[1]
Verdi set his sights on Milan, then the cultural capital of northern Italy, where he applied unsuccessfully to study at the Conservatory.[1] Barezzi made arrangements for him to become a private pupil of Vincenzo Lavigna [it], who had been maestro concertatore at La Scala, and who described Verdi’s compositions as “very promising”.[14] Lavigna encouraged Verdi to take out a subscription to La Scala, where he heard Maria Malibran in operas by Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini.[15] Verdi began making connections in the Milanese world of music that were to stand him in good stead. These included an introduction by Lavigna to an amateur choral group, the Società Filarmonica, led by Pietro Massini.[16] Attending the Società frequently in 1834, Verdi soon found himself functioning as rehearsal director (for Rossini’s La cenerentola) and continuo player. It was Massini who encouraged him to write his first opera, originally titled Rocester, to a libretto by the journalist Antonio Piazza.[1]
1834–1842: First operas
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Temistocle Solera, Verdi’s first librettist.
List of compositions by Giuseppe Verdi
In mid-1834, Verdi sought to acquire Provesi’s former post in Busseto but without success. But with Barezzi’s help he did obtain the secular post of maestro di musica. He taught, gave lessons, and conducted the Philharmonic for several months before returning to Milan in early 1835.[6] By the following July, he obtained his certification from Lavigna.[17] Eventually in 1835 Verdi became director of the Busseto school with a three-year contract. He married Margherita in May 1836, and by March 1837, she had given birth to their first child, Virginia Maria Luigia on 26 March 1837. Icilio Romano followed on 11 July 1838. Both the children died young, Virginia on 12 August 1838, Icilio on 22 October 1839.[1]
In 1837, the young composer asked for Massini’s assistance to stage his opera in Milan.[18] The La Scala impresario, Bartolomeo Merelli, agreed to put on Oberto (as the reworked opera was now called, with a libretto rewritten by Temistocle Solera)[19] in November 1839. It achieved a respectable 13 additional performances, following which Merelli offered Verdi a contract for three more works.[20]
While Verdi was working on his second opera Un giorno di regno, Margherita died of encephalitis at the age of 26. Verdi adored his wife and children and was devastated by their early deaths. Un giorno, a comedy, was premiered only a few months later. It was a flop and only given the one performance.[20] Following its failure, it is claimed Verdi vowed never to compose again,[10] but in his Sketch he recounts how Merelli persuaded him to write a new opera.
Verdi was to claim that he gradually began to work on the music for Nabucco, the libretto of which had originally been rejected by the composer Otto Nicolai:[21] “This verse today, tomorrow that, here a note, there a whole phrase, and little by little the opera was written”, he later recalled.[22] By the autumn of 1841 it was complete, originally under the title Nabucodonosor. Well received at its first performance on 9 March 1842, Nabucco underpinned Verdi’s success until his retirement from the theatre, twenty-nine operas (including some revised and updated versions) later.[10] At its revival in La Scala for the 1842 autumn season it was given an unprecedented (and later unequalled) total of 57 performances; within three years it had reached (among other venues) Vienna, Lisbon, Barcelona, Berlin, Paris and Hamburg; in 1848 it was heard in New York, in 1850 in Buenos Aires. Porter comments that “similar accounts…could be provided to show how widely and rapidly all [Verdi’s] other successful operas were disseminated.”[23]
1842–1849
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Francesco Maria Piave whose work with Verdi included Rigoletto and La traviata
A period of hard work for Verdi—with the creation of twenty operas (excluding revisions and translations)—followed over the next sixteen years, culminating in Un ballo in maschera. This period was not without its frustrations and setbacks for the young composer, and he was frequently demoralised. In April 1845, in connection with I due Foscari, he wrote: “I am happy, no matter what reception it gets, and I am utterly indifferent to everything. I cannot wait for these next three years to pass. I have to write six operas, then addio to everything.”[24] In 1858 Verdi complained: “Since Nabucco, you may say, I have never had one hour of peace. Sixteen years in the galleys.”[25]
After the initial success of Nabucco, Verdi settled in Milan, making a number of influential acquaintances. He attended the Salotto Maffei, Countess Clara Maffei’s salons in Milan, becoming her lifelong friend and correspondent.[10] A revival of Nabucco followed in 1842 at La Scala where it received a run of fifty-seven performances,[26] and this led to a commission from Merelli for a new opera for the 1843 season. I Lombardi alla prima crociata was based on a libretto by Solera and premiered in February 1843. Inevitably, comparisons were made with Nabucco; but one contemporary writer noted: “If [Nabucco] created this young man’s reputation, I Lombardi served to confirm it.”[27]
Verdi paid close attention to his financial contracts, making sure he was appropriately remunerated as his popularity increased. For I Lombardi and Ernani (1844) in Venice he was paid 12,000 lire (including supervision of the productions); Attila and Macbeth (1847), each brought him 18,000 lire. His contracts with the publishers Ricordi in 1847 were very specific about the amounts he was to receive for new works, first productions, musical arrangements, and so on.[28] He began to use his growing prosperity to invest in land near his birthplace. In 1844 he purchased Il Pulgaro, 62 acres (23 hectares) of farmland with a farmhouse and outbuildings, providing a home for his parents from May 1844. Later that year, he also bought the Palazzo Cavalli (now known as the Palazzo Orlandi) on the via Roma, Busseto’s main street.[29] In May 1848, Verdi signed a contract for land and houses at Sant’Agata in Busseto, which had once belonged to his family.[30] It was here he built his own house, completed in 1880, now known as the Villa Verdi, where he lived from 1851 until his death.[31]
Giuseppina Strepponi (c. 1845)
In March 1843, Verdi visited Vienna (where Gaetano Donizetti was musical director) to oversee a production of Nabucco. The older composer, recognising Verdi’s talent, noted in a letter of January 1844: “I am very, very happy to give way to people of talent like Verdi… Nothing will prevent the good Verdi from soon reaching one of the most honourable positions in the cohort of composers.”[32] Verdi travelled on to Parma, where the Teatro Regio di Parma was producing Nabucco with Strepponi in the cast. For Verdi the performances were a personal triumph in his native region, especially as his father, Carlo, attended the first performance. Verdi remained in Parma for some weeks beyond his intended departure date. This fuelled speculation that the delay was due to Verdi’s interest in Giuseppina Strepponi (who stated that their relationship began in 1843).[33] Strepponi was in fact known for her amorous relationships (and many illegitimate children) and her history was an awkward factor in their relationship until they eventually agreed on marriage.[34]
After successful stagings of Nabucco in Venice (with twenty-five performances in the 1842/43 season), Verdi began negotiations with the impresario of La Fenice to stage I Lombardi, and to write a new opera. Eventually, Victor Hugo’s Hernani was chosen, with Francesco Maria Piave as librettist. Ernani was successfully premiered in 1844 and within six months had been performed at twenty other theatres in Italy, and also in Vienna.[35] The writer Andrew Porter notes that for the next ten years, Verdi’s life “reads like a travel diary—a timetable of visits…to bring new operas to the stage or to supervise local premieres”. La Scala premiered none of these new works, except for Giovanna d’Arco. Verdi “never forgave the Milanese for their reception of Un giorno di regno”.[28]
During this period, Verdi began to work more consistently with his librettists. He relied on Piave again for I due Foscari, performed in Rome in November 1844, then on Solera once more for Giovanna d’Arco, at La Scala in February 1845, while in August that year he was able to work with Salvadore Cammarano on Alzira for the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. Solera and Piave worked together on Attila for La Fenice (March 1846).[36]
Emanuele Muzio, Verdi’s pupil and assistant
In April 1844, Verdi took on Emanuele Muzio, eight years his junior, as a pupil and amanuensis. He had known him since about 1828 as another of Barezzi’s protégés.[37] Muzio, who in fact was Verdi’s only pupil, became indispensable to the composer. He reported to Barezzi that Verdi “has a breadth of spirit, of generosity, a wisdom”.[38] In November 1846, Muzio wrote of Verdi: “If you could see us, I seem more like a friend, rather than his pupil. We are always together at dinner, in the cafes, when we play cards…; all in all, he doesn’t go anywhere without me at his side; in the house we have a big table and we both write there together, and so I always have his advice.”[39] Muzio was to remain associated with Verdi, assisting in the preparation of scores and transcriptions, and later conducting many of his works in their premiere performances in the US and elsewhere outside Italy. He was chosen by Verdi as one of the executors of his will, but predeceased the composer in 1890.[40]
After a period of illness Verdi began work on Macbeth in September 1846. He dedicated the opera to Barezzi: “I have long intended to dedicate an opera to you, as you have been a father, a benefactor and a friend for me. It was a duty I should have fulfilled sooner if imperious circumstances had not prevented me. Now, I send you Macbeth, which I prize above all my other operas, and therefore deem worthier to present to you.”[41] In 1997 Martin Chusid wrote that Macbeth was the only one of Verdi’s operas of his “early period” to remain regularly in the international repertoire,[42] although in the 21st century Nabucco has also entered the lists.[43]
Strepponi’s voice declined and her engagements dried up in the 1845 to 1846 period, and she returned to live in Milan whilst retaining contact with Verdi as his “supporter, promoter, unofficial adviser, and occasional secretary” until she decided to move to Paris in October 1846. Before she left Verdi gave her a letter that pledged his love. On the envelope, Strepponi wrote: “5 or 6 October 1846. They shall lay this letter on my heart when they bury me.”[44]
Verdi had completed I masnadieri for London by May 1847 except for the orchestration. This he left until the opera was in rehearsal, since he wanted to hear “la [Jenny] Lind and modify her role to suit her more exactly”.[45] Verdi agreed to conduct the premiere on 22 July 1847 at Her Majesty’s Theatre, as well as the second performance. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert attended the first performance, and for the most part, the press was generous in its praise.[46]
Salvadore Cammarano, librettist of Alzira, La battaglia di Legnano, and Luisa Miller
For the next two years, except for two visits to Italy during periods of political unrest, Verdi was based in Paris.[47] Within a week of returning to Paris in July 1847, he received his first commission from the Paris Opéra. Verdi agreed to adapt I Lombardi to a new French libretto; the result was Jérusalem, which contained significant changes to the music and structure of the work (including an extensive ballet scene) to meet Parisian expectations.[48] Verdi was awarded the Order of Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.[49][n 1] To satisfy his contracts with the publisher Francesco Lucca [it], Verdi dashed off Il Corsaro. Budden comments “In no other opera of his does Verdi appear to have taken so little interest before it was staged.”[52]
On hearing the news of the “Cinque Giornate”, the “Five Days” of street fighting that took place between 18 and 22 March 1848 and temporarily drove the Austrians out of Milan, Verdi travelled there, arriving on 5 April.[53] He discovered that Piave was now “Citizen Piave” of the newly proclaimed Republic of San Marco. Writing a patriotic letter to him in Venice, Verdi concluded “Banish every petty municipal idea! We must all extend a fraternal hand, and Italy will yet become the first nation of the world…I am drunk with joy! Imagine that there are no more Germans here!!”[54]
Verdi had been admonished by the poet Giuseppe Giusti for turning away from patriotic subjects, the poet pleading with him to “do what you can to nourish the [sorrow of the Italian people], to strengthen it, and direct it to its goal.”[55] Cammarano suggested adapting Joseph Méry’s 1828 play La Bataille de Toulouse, which he described as a story “that should stir every man with an Italian soul in his breast”.[56] The premiere was set for late January 1849. Verdi travelled to Rome before the end of 1848. He found that city on the verge of becoming a (short-lived) republic, which commenced within days of La battaglia di Legnano’s enthusiastically received premiere. In the spirit of the time were the tenor hero’s final words, “Whoever dies for the fatherland cannot be evil-minded”.[57]
Verdi had intended to return to Italy in early 1848, but was prevented by work and illness, as well as, most probably, by his increasing attachment to Strepponi. Verdi and Strepponi left Paris in July 1849, the immediate cause being an outbreak of cholera,[58] and Verdi went directly to Busseto to continue work on completing his latest opera, Luisa Miller, for a production in Naples later in the year.[59]
1849–1853: Fame
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Villa Verdi at Sant’Agata, as it looked between 1859 and 1865
Verdi was committed to the publisher Giovanni Ricordi for an opera—which became Stiffelio—for Trieste in the Spring of 1850; and, subsequently, following negotiations with La Fenice, developed a libretto with Piave and wrote the music for Rigoletto (based on Victor Hugo’s Le roi s’amuse) for Venice in March 1851. This was the first of a sequence of three operas (followed by Il trovatore and La traviata) which were to cement his fame as a master of opera.[60] The failure of Stiffelio (attributable not least to the censors of the time taking offence at the taboo subject of the supposed adultery of a clergyman’s wife and interfering with the text and roles) incited Verdi to take pains to rework it, although even in the completely recycled version of Aroldo (1857) it still failed to please.[61] Rigoletto, with its intended murder of royalty, and its sordid attributes, also upset the censors. Verdi would not compromise:
What does the sack matter to the police? Are they worried about the effect it will produce?…Do they think they know better than I?…I see the hero has been made no longer ugly and hunchbacked!! Why? A singing hunchback…why not?…I think it splendid to show this character as outwardly deformed and ridiculous, and inwardly passionate and full of love. I chose the subject for these very qualities…if they are removed I can no longer set it to music.[62]
“La donna è mobile”
2:10
Enrico Caruso performs “La donna e mobile” from Rigoletto
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Verdi substituted a Duke for the King, and the public response and subsequent success of the opera all over Italy and Europe fully vindicated the composer.[63] Aware that the melody of the Duke’s song “La donna è mobile” (“Woman is fickle”) would become a popular hit, Verdi excluded it from orchestral rehearsals for the opera, and rehearsed the tenor separately.[64][n 2]
Giuseppina Strepponi, c. 1850s
For several months Verdi was preoccupied with family matters. These stemmed from the way in which the citizens of Busseto were treating Giuseppina Strepponi, with whom he was living openly in an unmarried relationship. She was shunned in the town and at church, and while Verdi appeared indifferent, she was certainly not.[66] Furthermore, Verdi was concerned about the administration of his newly acquired property at Sant’Agata.[67] A growing estrangement between Verdi and his parents was perhaps also attributable to Strepponi[68] (the suggestion that this situation was sparked by the birth of a child to Verdi and Strepponi which was given away as a foundling[69] lacks any firm evidence). In January 1851, Verdi broke off relations with his parents, and in April they were ordered to leave Sant’Agata; Verdi found new premises for them and helped them financially to settle into their new home. It may not be coincidental that all six Verdi operas written in the period 1849–53 (La battaglia, Luisa Miller, Stiffelio, Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata), have, uniquely in his oeuvre, heroines who are, in the opera critic Joseph Kerman’s words, “women who come to grief because of sexual transgression, actual or perceived”. Kerman, like the psychologist Gerald Mendelssohn, sees this choice of subjects as being influenced by Verdi’s uneasy passion for Strepponi.[70]
Verdi and Strepponi moved into Sant’Agata on 1 May 1851.[71] May also brought an offer for a new opera from La Fenice, which Verdi eventually realised as La traviata. That was followed by an agreement with the Rome Opera company to present Il trovatore for January 1853.[72] Verdi now had sufficient earnings to retire, had he wished to.[73] He had reached a stage where he could develop his operas as he wished, rather than be dependent on commissions from third parties. Il trovatore was in fact the first opera he wrote without a specific commission (apart from Oberto).[74] At around the same time he began to consider creating an opera from Shakespeare’s King Lear. After first (1850) seeking a libretto from Cammarano (which never appeared), Verdi later (1857) commissioned one from Antonio Somma, but this proved intractable, and no music was ever written.[75][n 3] Verdi began work on Il trovatore after the death of his mother in June 1851. The fact that this is “the one opera of Verdi’s which focuses on a mother rather than a father” is perhaps related to her death.[78]
In the winter of 1851–52 Verdi decided to go to Paris with Strepponi, where he concluded an agreement with the Opéra to write what became Les vêpres siciliennes, his first original work in the style of grand opera. In February 1852, the couple attended a performance of Alexander Dumas fils’s play The Lady of the Camellias; Verdi immediately began to compose music for what would later become La traviata.[79]
After his visit to Rome for Il trovatore in January 1853, Verdi worked on completing La traviata, but with little hope of its success, due to his lack of confidence in any of the singers engaged for the season.[80] Furthermore, the management insisted that the opera be given a historical, not a contemporary setting. The premiere in March 1853 was indeed a failure: Verdi wrote: “Was the fault mine or the singers’? Time will tell.”[81] Subsequent productions (following some rewriting) throughout Europe over the following two years fully vindicated the composer; Roger Parker has written “Il trovatore consistently remains one of the three or four most popular operas in the Verdian repertoire: but it has never pleased the critics”.[82]
1853–1860: Consolidation
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In the eleven years up to and including Traviata, Verdi had written sixteen operas. Over the next eighteen years (up to Aida), he wrote only six new works for the stage.[83] Verdi was happy to return to Sant’Agata and, in February 1856, was reporting a “total abandonment of music; a little reading; some light occupation with agriculture and horses; that’s all”. A couple of months later, writing in the same vein to Countess Maffei he stated: “I’m not doing anything. I don’t read. I don’t write. I walk in the fields from morning to evening, trying to recover, so far without success, from the stomach trouble caused me by I vespri siciliani. Cursed operas!”[84] An 1858 letter by Strepponi to the publisher Léon Escudier describes the kind of lifestyle that increasingly appealed to the composer: “His love for the country has become a mania, madness, rage, and fury—anything you like that is exaggerated. He gets up almost with the dawn, to go and examine the wheat, the maize, the vines, etc….Fortunately our tastes for this sort of life coincide, except in the matter of sunrise, which he likes to see up and dressed, and I from my bed.”[85]
Verdi confronting the Naples censor when preparing Un ballo in maschera (caricature by Delfico)
Nonetheless on 15 May, Verdi signed a contract with La Fenice for an opera for the following spring. This was to be Simon Boccanegra. The couple stayed in Paris until January 1857 to deal with these proposals, and also the offer to stage the translated version of Il trovatore as a grand opera. Verdi and Strepponi travelled to Venice in March for the premiere of Simon Boccanegra, which turned out to be “a fiasco” (as Verdi reported, although on the second and third nights, the reception improved considerably).[86]
With Strepponi, Verdi went to Naples early in January 1858 to work with Somma on the libretto of the opera Gustave III, which over a year later would become Un ballo in maschera. By this time, Verdi had begun to write about Strepponi as “my wife” and she was signing her letters as “Giuseppina Verdi”.[85] Verdi raged against the stringent requirements of the Neapolitan censor stating: “I’m drowning in a sea of troubles. It’s almost certain that the censors will forbid our libretto.”[87] With no hope of seeing his Gustavo III staged as written, he broke his contract. This resulted in litigation and counter-litigation; with the legal issues resolved, Verdi was free to present the libretto and musical outline of Gustave III to the Rome Opera. There, the censors demanded further changes; at this point, the opera took the title Un ballo in maschera.[88]
Arriving in Sant’Agata in March 1859 Verdi and Strepponi found the nearby city of Piacenza occupied by about 6,000 Austrian troops who had made it their base, to combat the rise of Italian interest in unification in the Piedmont region. In the ensuing Second Italian War of Independence the Austrians abandoned the region and began to leave Lombardy, although they remained in control of the Venice region under the terms of the armistice signed at Villafranca. Verdi was disgusted at this outcome: “[W]here then is the independence of Italy, so long hoped for and promised?…Venice is not Italian? After so many victories, what an outcome… It is enough to drive one mad” he wrote to Clara Maffei.[89]
Verdi and Strepponi now decided on marriage; they travelled to Collonges-sous-Salève, a village then part of Piedmont. On 29 August 1859 the couple were married there, with only the coachman who had driven them there and the church bell-ringer as witnesses.[90] At the end of 1859, Verdi wrote to his friend Cesare De Sanctis “[Since completing Ballo] I have not made any more music, I have not seen any more music, I have not thought anymore about music. I don’t even know what colour my last opera is, and I almost don’t remember it.” [91] He began to remodel Sant’Agata, which took most of 1860 to complete and on which he continued to work for the next twenty years. This included major work on a square room that became his workroom, his bedroom, and his office.[92]
Politics
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Painting “Viva Verdi” slogans
Having achieved some fame and prosperity, Verdi began in 1859 to take an active interest in Italian politics. His early commitment to the Risorgimento movement is difficult to estimate accurately; in the words of the music historian Philip Gossett “myths intensifying and exaggerating [such] sentiment began circulating” during the nineteenth century.[93] An example is the claim that when the “Va, pensiero” chorus in Nabucco was first sung in Milan, the audience, responding with nationalistic fervour, demanded an encore. As encores were expressly forbidden by the government at the time, such a gesture would have been extremely significant. But in fact the piece encored was not “Va, pensiero” but the hymn “Immenso Jehova”.[94][n 4]
The growth of the “identification of Verdi’s music with Italian nationalist politics” perhaps began in the 1840s.[98] In 1848, the nationalist leader Giuseppe Mazzini (whom Verdi had met in London the previous year) requested Verdi (who complied) to write a patriotic hymn.[99] The opera historian Charles Osborne describes the 1849 La battaglia di Legnano as “an opera with a purpose” and maintains that “while parts of Verdi’s earlier operas had frequently been taken up by the fighters of the Risorgimento…this time the composer had given the movement its own opera”[100] It was not until 1859 in Naples, and only then spreading throughout Italy, that the slogan “Viva Verdi” was used as an acronym for Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re D’Italia (Viva Victor Emmanuel King of Italy), (who was then king of Piedmont).[101] After Italy was unified in 1861, many of Verdi’s early operas were increasingly re-interpreted as Risorgimento works with hidden Revolutionary messages that perhaps had not been originally intended by either the composer or his librettists.[102]
In 1859, Verdi was elected as a member of the new provincial council, and was appointed to head a group of five who would meet with King Vittorio Emanuele II in Turin. They were enthusiastically greeted along the way and in Turin Verdi himself received much of the publicity. On 17 October Verdi met with Cavour, the architect of the initial stages of Italian unification.[103] Later that year the government of Emilia was subsumed under the United Provinces of Central Italy, and Verdi’s political life temporarily came to an end. Whilst still maintaining nationalist feelings, he declined in 1860 the office of provincial council member to which he had been elected in absentia.[104] Cavour however was anxious to convince a man of Verdi’s stature that running for political office was essential to strengthening and securing Italy’s future.[105] The composer confided to Piave some years later that “I accepted on the condition that after a few months I would resign.”[106] Verdi was elected on 3 February 1861 for the town of Borgo San Donnino (Fidenza) to the Parliament of Piedmont-Sardinia in Turin (which from March 1861 became the Parliament of the Kingdom of Italy), but following the death of Cavour in 1861, which deeply distressed him, he scarcely attended.[107] Later, in 1874, Verdi was appointed a member of the Italian Senate, but did not participate in its activities.[108][109]
1860–1887: from La forza to Otello
Edit
Verdi in Russia, 1861–62
In the months following the staging of Ballo, Verdi was approached by several opera companies seeking a new work or making offers to stage one of his existing ones, but refused them all.[110] But when, in December 1860, an approach was made from Saint Petersburg’s Imperial Theatre, the offer of 60,000 francs plus all expenses was doubtless a strong incentive. Verdi came up with the idea of adapting the 1835 Spanish play Don Alvaro o la fuerza del sino by Angel Saavedra, which became La forza del destino, with Piave writing the libretto. The Verdis arrived in St. Petersburg in December 1861 for the premiere, but casting problems meant that it had to be postponed.[111]
Returning via Paris from Russia on 24 February 1862, Verdi met two young Italian writers, the twenty-year-old Arrigo Boito and Franco Faccio. Verdi had been invited to write a piece of music for the 1862 International Exhibition in London, [112] and charged Boito with writing a text, which became the Inno delle nazioni. Boito, as a supporter of the grand opera of Giacomo Meyerbeer and an opera composer in his own right, was later in the 1860s critical of Verdi’s “reliance on formula rather than form”, incurring the composer’s wrath. Nevertheless, he was to become Verdi’s close collaborator in his final operas.[113] The St. Petersburg premiere of La forza finally took place in September 1862, and Verdi received the Order of St. Stanislaus.[114]
Grand March from Aida
5:08
The Grand March from the Act 2 of Aida
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A revival of Macbeth in Paris in 1865 was not a success, but he obtained a commission for a new work, Don Carlos, based on the play Don Carlos by Friedrich Schiller. He and Giuseppina spent late 1866 and much of 1867 in Paris, where they heard, and did not warm to, Giacomo Meyerbeer’s last opera, L’Africaine, and Richard Wagner’s overture to Tannhäuser.[115] The opera’s premiere in 1867 drew mixed comments. While the critic Théophile Gautier praised the work, the composer Georges Bizet was disappointed at Verdi’s changing style: “Verdi is no longer Italian. He is following Wagner.”[115]
During the 1860s and 1870s, Verdi paid great attention to his estate around Busseto, purchasing additional land, dealing with unsatisfactory (in one case, embezzling) stewards, installing irrigation, and coping with variable harvests and economic slumps.[116] In 1867, both Verdi’s father Carlo, with whom he had restored good relations, and his early patron and father-in-law Antonio Barezzi, died. Verdi and Giuseppina decided to adopt Carlo’s great-niece Filomena Maria Verdi, then seven years old, as their own child. She was to marry in 1878 the son of Verdi’s friend and lawyer Angelo Carrara and her family became eventually the heirs of Verdi’s estate.[117]
Teresa Stolz as Aida in the 1872 Parma production
Aida was commissioned by the Egyptian government for the opera house built by the Khedive Isma’il Pasha to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. The opera house actually opened with a production of Rigoletto. The prose libretto in French by Camille du Locle, based on a scenario by the Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, was transformed to Italian verse by Antonio Ghislanzoni.[118] Verdi was offered the enormous sum of 150,000 francs for the opera (even though he confessed that Ancient Egypt was “a civilization I have never been able to admire”), and it was first performed in Cairo in 1871.[119] Verdi spent much of 1872 and 1873 supervising the Italian productions of Aida at Milan, Parma and Naples, effectively acting as producer and demanding high standards and adequate rehearsal time.[120] During the rehearsals for the Naples production he wrote his string quartet, the only chamber music by him to survive, and the only major work in the form by an Italian of the 19th century.[121]
In 1869, Verdi had been asked to compose a section for a requiem mass in memory of Rossini. He compiled and completed the requiem, but its performance was abandoned (and its premiere did not take place until 1988).[122] Five years later, Verdi reworked his “Libera Me” section of the Rossini Requiem and made it a part of his Requiem honouring Alessandro Manzoni, who had died in 1873. The complete Requiem was first performed at the cathedral in Milan on the anniversary of Manzoni’s death on 22 May 1874.[122] The spinto soprano Teresa Stolz (1834–1902), who had sung in La Scala productions from 1865 onwards, was the soloist in the first and many later performances of the Requiem; in February 1872, she had created Aida in its European premiere in Milan. She became closely associated personally with Verdi (exactly how closely remains conjectural), to Giuseppina Verdi’s initial disquiet; but the women were reconciled and Stolz remained a companion of Verdi after Giuseppina’s death in 1897 until his own death.[123]
Verdi conducted his Requiem in Paris, London and Vienna in 1875 and in Cologne in 1876.[108] It seemed that it would be his last work. In the words of his biographer John Rosselli, it “confirmed him as the unique presiding genius of Italian music. No fellow composer…came near him in popularity or reputation”. Verdi, now in his sixties, initially seemed to withdraw into retirement. He deliberately shied away from opportunities to publicise himself or to become involved with new productions of his works,[124] but secretly he began work on Otello, which Boito (to whom the composer had been reconciled by Ricordi) had proposed to him privately in 1879. The composition was delayed by a revision of Simon Boccanegra which Verdi undertook with Boito, produced in 1881, and a revision of Don Carlos. Even when Otello was virtually completed, Verdi teased “Shall I finish it? Shall I have it performed? Hard to tell, even for me.” As news leaked out, Verdi was pressed by opera houses across Europe with enquiries; eventually the opera was triumphantly premiered at La Scala in February 1887.[125]
1887–1901: Falstaff and last years
Edit
Arrigo Boito and Verdi at Sant’Agata in 1893
Following the success of Otello Verdi commented, “After having relentlessly massacred so many heroes and heroines, I have at last the right to laugh a little.” He had considered a variety of comic subjects but had found none of them wholly suitable and confided his ambition to Boito. The librettist said nothing at the time but secretly began work on a libretto based on The Merry Wives of Windsor with additional material taken from Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2.[126] Verdi received the draft libretto probably in early July 1889 after he had just read Shakespeare’s play: “Benissimo! Benissimo!… No one could have done better than you”, he wrote back to Boito. But he still had doubts: his age, his health (which he admits to being good) and his ability to complete the project: “If I were not to finish the music?”. If the project failed, it would have been a waste of Boito’s time, and have distracted him from completing his own new opera. Finally on 10 July 1889 he wrote again: “So be it! So let’s do Falstaff! For now, let’s not think of obstacles, of age, of illnesses!” Verdi emphasised the need for secrecy, but continued “If you are in the mood, then start to write.”[127] Later he wrote to Boito (capitals and exclamation marks are Verdi’s own): “What joy to be able to say to the public: HERE WE ARE AGAIN!!! COME AND SEE US!”[128]
The first performance of Falstaff took place at La Scala on 9 February 1893. For the first night, official ticket prices were thirty times higher than usual. Royalty, aristocracy, critics and leading figures from the arts all over Europe were present. The performance was a huge success; numbers were encored, and at the end the applause for Verdi and the cast lasted an hour. That was followed by a tumultuous welcome when the composer, his wife and Boito arrived at the Grand Hotel de Milan.[129] Even more hectic scenes ensued when he went to Rome in May for the opera’s premiere at the Teatro Costanzi, when crowds of well-wishers at the railway station initially forced Verdi to take refuge in a tool-shed. He witnessed the performance from the Royal Box at the side of King Umberto and the Queen.[130]
Group portrait at Sant’Agata in 1900 with various family and friends. His companion Teresa Stolz is standing at the left, Giulio Ricordi is standing second from the right, with his wife seated below him. Verdi is in the middle, and his adopted daughter, Maria Carrara Verdi, is seated at the far left.
In his last years Verdi undertook a number of philanthropic ventures, publishing in 1894 a song for the benefit of earthquake victims in Sicily, and from 1895 onwards planning, building and endowing a rest-home for retired musicians in Milan, the Casa di Riposo per Musicisti, and building a hospital at Villanova sull’Arda, close to Busseto.[131][132] His last major composition, the choral set of Four sacred pieces, was published in 1898. In 1900 he was deeply upset at the assassination of King Umberto and sketched a setting of a poem in his memory but was unable to complete it.[133] While staying at the Grand Hotel, Verdi suffered a stroke on 21 January 1901.[n 5] He gradually grew more feeble over the next week, during which Stolz cared for him, and died on 27 January at the age of 87.[134][135]
Verdi’s grave at the Casa di Riposo, Milan
Verdi was initially buried in a private ceremony at Milan’s Cimitero Monumentale.[136] A month later, his body was moved to the crypt of the Casa di Riposo. On this occasion, “Va, pensiero” from Nabucco was conducted by Arturo Toscanini with a chorus of 820 singers. A huge crowd was in attendance, estimated at 300,000.[137] Boito wrote to a friend, in words which recall the mysterious final scene of Don Carlos, “[Verdi] sleeps like a King of Spain in his Escurial, under a bronze slab that completely covers him.”[138]
Celeste Aida
Verdi, Aida. 1st Act
Se quel guerrier io fossi!
Se il mio sogno si avverasse!
Un esercito di prodi da me guidato
E la vittoria e il plauso di Menfi tutta!
E a te, mia dolce Aida,
Tornar di lauri cinto
Dirti: per te ho pugnato,
Per te ho vinto!
Celeste Aida, forma divina,
Mistico serto di luce e fior,
Del mio pensiero tu sei regina,
Tu di mia vita sei lo splendor.
Il tuo bel cielo vorrei ridarti,
Le dolci brezze del patrio suol
Un regal serto sul crin posarti,
Ergerti un trono vicino al sol.
If only I were that warrior!
If only my dream might come true!
An army of brave men with me as their leader
And victory and the applause of all Memphis!
And to you, my sweet Aida,
To return crowned with laurels,
To tell you: for you I have fought,
For you I have won!
Heavenly Aida, divine form,
Mystical garland of light and flowers,
You are queen of my thoughts,
You are the splendour of my life.
I want to give you back your beautiful sky,
The sweet breezes of your native land,
To place a royal garland on your hair,
To raise you a throne next to the sun.
Castile
Faroe Islands
The Faroe Islands (/ˈfɛəroʊ/ FAIR-oh), or simply the Faroes (Faroese: Føroyar [ˈfœɹjaɹ] (listen); Danish: Færøerne [ˈfeɐ̯ˌøˀɐnə]), are a North Atlantic archipelago island country and self-governing nation under the external sovereignty of the Kingdom of Denmark.
They are located 320 kilometres (200 mi) north-northwest of Scotland, and about halfway between Norway (580 kilometres (360 mi) away) and Iceland (430 kilometres (270 mi) away). The territory is one of three constituent countries that form the Kingdom of Denmark, along with Denmark and Greenland. The islands have a total area of about 1,400 square kilometres (540 sq mi) with a population of 54,000 as of June 2022.[8]
The terrain is rugged, and the subpolar oceanic climate (Cfc) is windy, wet, cloudy, and cool. Temperatures for such a northerly climate are moderated by the Gulf Stream, averaging above freezing throughout the year, and hovering around 12 °C (54 °F) in summer and 5 °C (41 °F) in winter.[9] The northerly latitude also results in perpetual civil twilight during summer nights and very short winter days.
Between 1035 and 1814, the Faroe Islands were part of the Kingdom of Norway, which was in a personal union with Denmark from 1380. In 1814, the Treaty of Kiel transferred Norway to Sweden, whereas Denmark kept its Atlantic territories, which included the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Iceland.
While part of the Kingdom of Denmark, the Faroe Islands have been self-governing since 1948,[10] controlling most areas apart from military defence, policing, justice, currency, and foreign affairs.[11] Because the Faroe Islands are not part of the same customs area as Denmark, the Faroe Islands have an independent trade policy, and can establish trade agreements with other states. The Faroes have an extensive bilateral free trade agreement with Iceland, known as the Hoyvík Agreement. In the Nordic Council, they are represented as part of the Danish delegation. In certain sports, the Faroe Islands field their own national teams. They did not become a part of the European Economic Community in 1973, instead keeping the autonomy over their own fishing waters.
In Faroese, the name appears as Føroyar. Oyar represents the plural of oy, older Faroese for ‘island’. Due to sound changes, the modern Faroese word for island is oyggj. The first element, før, may reflect an Old Norse word fær (‘sheep’), although this analysis is sometimes disputed because Faroese now uses the word seyður (from Old Norse sauðr) to mean ‘sheep’. Another possibility is that the Irish monks, who settled the island around 625, had already given the islands a name related to the Gaelic word fearann, meaning ‘land’ or ‘estate’. This name could then have been passed on to the Norwegian settlers, who then added oyar (islands).[12] The name thus translates as either ‘Islands of Sheep’ or ‘Land Islands’.
In English, it may be seen as a tautology to say the Faroe Islands, since the oe comes from an element meaning ‘island’. This is seen in the BBC Shipping Forecast, where the waters around the islands are called Faeroes. The name is also rarely spelled Faeroe.[13][14]
There is some evidence of settlement on the Faroe Islands before Norse Viking settlers arrived in the ninth century AD. Archeologists found burnt grains of domesticated barley and peat ash deposited in two phases; the first dated between the mid-fourth and mid-sixth centuries, and another between the late-sixth and late-eighth centuries.[15][16] Researchers have also found sheep DNA in lake-bed sediments, which were dated to around the year 500. Barley and sheep had to have been brought to the islands by humans. As Scandinavians did not begin using the sail until about 750, it is unlikely they could have reached the Faroes before then, and it is more likely the settlers came from Great Britain or Ireland.[17][18]
Archaeologist Mike Church noted that Dicuil, an Irish monk of the early ninth century, may have mentioned the Faroes. Dicuil wrote in his geographical work De mensura orbis terrae that there were heremitae ex nostra Scotia (“hermits from our land of Ireland/Scotland”) who had lived on the northerly islands of Britain for almost a hundred years until the Vikings arrived.[19] Church suggested that the people living there might have been from Ireland, Scotland, or Scandinavia, or possibly from all three.[20] According to a ninth-century voyage tale, the Irish saint Brendan visited islands resembling the Faroes in the sixth century. This association, however, is not conclusive.[21]
Norsemen settled the islands c. 800, bringing Old West Norse, which evolved into the modern Faroese language. According to Icelandic sagas such as Færeyjar Saga, one of the best known men in the island was Tróndur í Gøtu, a descendant of Scandinavian chiefs who had settled in Dublin, Ireland. Tróndur led the battle against Sigmund Brestisson, the Norwegian monarchy and the Norwegian church.
The Faroe Islands as seen by the Breton navigator Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec in 1767
The Norse and Norse–Gael settlers probably did not come directly from Scandinavia, but rather from Norse communities surrounding the Irish Sea, Northern Isles, and Outer Hebrides of Scotland, including the Shetland and Orkney islands. A traditional name for the islands in Irish, Na Scigirí, possibly refers to the (Eyja-)Skeggjar “(Island-)Beards”, a nickname given to island dwellers.
According to the Færeyinga saga, more emigrants left Norway who did not approve of the monarchy of Harald Fairhair (ruled c. 872 to 930). These people settled the Faroes around the end of the ninth century.[22] Early in the eleventh century, Sigmundur Brestisson (961–1005) – whose clan had flourished in the southern islands before invaders from the northern islands almost exterminated it – escaped to Norway. He was sent back to take possession of the islands for Olaf Tryggvason, King of Norway from 995 to 1000.[23] Sigmundur introduced Christianity, forcing Tróndur í Gøtu to convert or face beheading and, although Sigmundur was subsequently murdered, Norwegian taxation was upheld. Norwegian control of the Faroes continued until 1814, although, when the Kingdom of Norway (872–1397) entered the Kalmar Union with Denmark, this gradually resulted in Danish control of the islands. The Protestant Reformation in the form of Lutheranism reached the Faroes in 1538. When the union between Denmark and Norway was dissolved as a result of the Treaty of Kiel in 1814, Denmark retained possession of the Faroe Islands (along with Greenland and Iceland); Norway itself was joined in a union with Sweden.
Ruins of the Cathedral of St. Magnus of Orkney
Following the turmoil caused by the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), in 1816, the Faroe Islands became a county within the Danish Kingdom.[24]
As part of its mercantilist economic policy, Denmark maintained a monopoly over trade with the Faroe Islands and forbade their inhabitants trading with others (e.g. the geographically close Britain). The trade monopoly in the Faroe Islands was abolished in 1856, after which the area developed as a modern fishing nation with its own fishing fleet. The national awakening from 1888 initially arose from a struggle to maintain the Faroese language and was thus culturally oriented, but after 1906 it became more political with the foundation of political parties within the Faroe Islands.
In the first year of the Second World War, on 12 April 1940, British troops occupied the Faroe Islands in Operation Valentine. Nazi Germany had invaded Denmark and commenced the invasion of Norway on 9 April 1940 under Operation Weserübung. In 1942–1943, the British Royal Engineers, under the command of lieutenant colonel William Law, built the first and only airport in the Faroe Islands, Vágar Airport. Following the war, control of the islands reverted to Denmark, but Danish rule had been undermined, and Iceland’s full independence served as a precedent and a model in the mind of many Faroese.
The 1946 Faroese independence referendum resulted in 50.73% in favour of independence to 49.27% against.[25] The Faroe Islands subsequently declared independence on 18 September 1946; however, this declaration was annulled by Denmark on 20 September on the grounds that a majority of the Faroese voters had not supported independence and King Christian X of Denmark dissolved the Faroese Løgting on 24 September.[26] The dissolution of the Løgting took place in November, followed by the Faroese parliamentary election of 1946 in which the parties in favour of full independence received a total of 5,396 votes while the parties opposed to it received a total of 7,488 votes.[27] As a reaction to the growing movements in favour of self-government and independence, Denmark finally granted the Faroe Islands home-rule with a high degree of local autonomy in 1948.[28]
In 1973 the Faroe Islands declined to join Denmark in entering the European Economic Community (which later became the European Union). Following the collapse of the fishing industry in the early 1990s,[29] the Faroes experienced considerable economic difficulties.
Battle of the Coral Sea
The Battle of the Coral Sea, from 4 to 8 May 1942, was a major naval battle between the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and naval and air forces of the United States and Australia. Taking place in the Pacific Theatre of World War II, the battle is historically significant as the first action in which the opposing fleets neither sighted nor fired upon one another, attacking over the horizon with aircraft carriers instead.
To strengthen their defensive position in the South Pacific, the Japanese decided to invade and occupy Port Moresby (in New Guinea) and Tulagi (in the southeastern Solomon Islands). The plan, Operation Mo, involved several major units of Japan’s Combined Fleet. Two fleet carriers and a light carrier were assigned to provide air cover for the invasion forces, under the overall command of Admiral Shigeyoshi Inoue. The U.S. learned of the Japanese plan through signals intelligence and sent two U.S. Navy carrier task forces and a joint Australian-American cruiser force to oppose the offensive, under the overall command of U.S. Admiral Frank J. Fletcher.
On 3–4 May, Japanese forces successfully invaded and occupied Tulagi, although several supporting warships were sunk or damaged in a surprise attack by the U.S. carrier Yorktown. Alerted to the presence of enemy aircraft carriers, the Japanese fleet carriers advanced towards the Coral Sea to locate and destroy the Allied naval forces. On the evening of 6 May, the two carrier fleets closed to within 70 nmi (81 mi; 130 km) but did not detect each other in the darkness. The next day, both fleets launched airstrikes against what they thought was the enemy fleet carriers, but both sides actually attacked other targets. The U.S. sank the Japanese light carrier Shōhō, and the Japanese sank a U.S. destroyer and damaged the fleet oiler Neosho. On 8 May, both sides finally located and attacked the other’s fleet carriers, with the Japanese fleet carrier Shōkaku damaged, the U.S. fleet carrier Lexington critically damaged and later scuttled, and the fleet carrier Yorktown lightly damaged.
Both sides having suffered heavy aircraft losses and carriers sunk or damaged, the two forces disengaged and retired from the area. Because of the loss of carrier air cover, Inoue also recalled the Port Moresby invasion fleet. Although the battle was a tactical victory for the Japanese in terms of ships sunk, it has been described as a strategic victory for the Allies. The battle marked the first time since the start of the war that a major Japanese advance had been turned back. More importantly, the damage to Shōkaku and the aircraft losses of Zuikaku prevented both ships from participating in the Battle of Midway in the following month.
Moselle River
Malabar Coast
The Malabar Coast is the southwestern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Geographically, it comprises the wettest regions of southern India, as the Western Ghats intercept the moisture-laden monsoon rains, especially on their westward-facing mountain slopes. The term is used to refer to the entire Indian coast from the western coast of Konkan to the tip of India at Kanyakumari.[3] The peak of Anamudi, which is also the point of highest altitude in India outside the Himalayas, and Kuttanad, which is the point of least elevation in India, lie on the Malabar Coast. Kuttanad, also known as The Rice Bowl of Kerala, has the lowest altitude in India, and is also one of the few places in the world where cultivation takes place below sea level.[4][5
The region parallel to the Malabar Coast gently slopes from the eastern highland of Western Ghats ranges to the western coastal lowland. The moisture-laden winds of the Southwest monsoon, on reaching the southernmost point of the Indian Peninsula, because of its topography, divides into two branches; the “Arabian Sea Branch” and the “Bay of Bengal Branch”.[6] The “Arabian Sea Branch” of the Southwest monsoon first hits the Western Ghats,[7] making Kerala the first state in India to receive rain from the Southwest monsoon.[8][9] The Malabar Coast is a source of Biodiversity in India.
The whole name Malabar was first attested in Arabic (as malabaar) in the writing of Al Biruni.
Until the arrival of the British, the term Malabar was used in foreign trade circles as a general name for Kerala.[1] Earlier, the term Malabar had also been used to denote Tulu Nadu and Kanyakumari which lie contiguous to Kerala in the southwestern coast of India, in addition to the modern state of Kerala.[10][11] The people of Malabar were known as Malabars. The term Malabar is often used to denote the entire southwestern coast of India. From the time of Cosmas Indicopleustes (6th century CE) itself, the Arab sailors used to call Kerala as Male. The first element of the name, however, is attested already in the Topography written by Cosmas Indicopleustes. This mentions a pepper emporium called Male, which clearly gave its name to Malabar (‘the country of Male’). The name Male is thought to come from the Malayalam word Mala (‘mountain’).[12][13] The second part of the name is thought by scholars to be the Arabic word barr (‘continent’) or its Persian relative bar (‘country’). Al-Biruni (AD 973 - 1048) must have been the first writer to call this state Malabar.[1] Authors such as Ibn Khordadbeh and Al-Baladhuri mention Malabar ports in their works.[14] The Arab writers had called this place Malibar, Manibar, Mulibar, and Munibar. Malabar is reminiscent of the word Malanad which means the land of mountains. According to William Logan, the word Malabar comes from a combination of the Malayalam word Mala (mountain) and the Persian/Arabic word Barr (country/continent).[1]
The term Malabar Coast, in historical contexts, refers to India’s southwestern coast, which lies on the narrow coastal plain of Karnataka and Kerala between the Western Ghats range and the Arabian Sea.[3] The coast runs from south of Goa to Kanyakumari on India’s southern tip. India’s southeastern coast is called the Coromandel Coast.[15]
In ancient times the term Malabar was used to denote the entire south-western coast of the Indian peninsula. The region formed part of the ancient kingdom of Chera until the early 12th century. Following the breakup of the Chera Kingdom, the chieftains of the region proclaimed their independence. Notable among these were the Zamorins of Calicut, Kolathiris, Perumbadappu Swaroopam, Venad, the Coylot Wanees Country of northeast and coastal Ceylon (including Puttalam), Valluvokonathiris of Valluvanad.
The name Malabar Coast is sometimes used as an all-encompassing term for the entire Indian coast from Konkan to the tip of the subcontinent at Kanyakumari.[3] This coast is over 845 km (525 mi) long and stretches from the coast of southwestern Maharashtra, along the region of Goa, through the entire western coast of Karnataka and Kerala, and up to Kanyakumari. It is flanked by the Arabian Sea on the west and the Western Ghats on the east. The southern part of this narrow coast is referred to as the South Western Ghats moist deciduous forests.[citation needed]
Malabar is also used by ecologists to refer to the tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests of southwestern India (present-day Kerala).[citation needed]
Prehistory
Edit
A substantial portion of the Malabar Coast including the western coastal lowlands and the plains of the midland may have been under the sea in ancient times. Marine fossils have been found in an area near Changanassery, thus supporting the hypothesis.[27] Pre-historical archaeological findings include dolmens of the Neolithic era in the Marayur area of the Idukki district, which lie on the eastern highland made by Western Ghats. Rock engravings in the Edakkal Caves, in Wayanad date back to the Neolithic era around 6000 BCE.[28][29]
Ancient and medieval history
Edit
Names, routes and locations of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (1st century CE)
The Malabar Coast has been a major spice exporter since 3000 BCE, according to Sumerian records and it is still referred to as the “Garden of Spices” or as the “Spice Garden of India”.[30][16]: 79 Kerala’s spices attracted ancient Arabs, Babylonians, Assyrians and Egyptians to the Malabar Coast in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BCE. Phoenicians established trade with Malabar during this period.[31] Arabs and Phoenicians were the first to enter the Malabar Coast to trade Spices.[31] The Arabs on the coasts of Yemen, Oman, and the Persian Gulf, must have made the first long voyage to Malabar and other eastern countries.[31] They must have brought the Cinnamon of Malabar to the Middle East.[31] The Greek historian Herodotus (5th century BCE) records that in his time the cinnamon spice industry was monopolized by the Egyptians and the Phoenicians.[31]
According to the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a region known as Limyrike began at Naura and Tyndis. However the Ptolemy mentions only Tyndis as the Limyrike’s starting point. The region probably ended at Kanyakumari; it thus roughly corresponds to the present-day Malabar Coast. The value of Rome’s annual trade with the region was estimated at around 50,000,000 sesterces.[32] Pliny the Elder mentioned that Limyrike was prone by pirates.[33] The Cosmas Indicopleustes mentioned that the Limyrike was a source of Malabar peppers.[34][35] In the last centuries BCE the coast became important to the Greeks and Romans for its spices, especially Malabar pepper. The Cheras had trading links with China, West Asia, Egypt, Greece, and the Roman Empire.[36] In foreign-trade circles the region was known as Male or Malabar.[37] Muziris, Tyndis, Naura (near Kannur), and Nelcynda were among the principal ports at that time.[38] contemporary Sangam literature describes Roman ships coming to Muziris in Kerala, laden with gold to exchange for Malabar pepper. One of the earliest western traders to use the monsoon winds to reach Kerala was Eudoxus of Cyzicus, around 118 or 166 BCE, under the patronage of Ptolemy VIII, king of the Hellenistic Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt. Roman establishments in the port cities of the region, such as a temple of Augustus and barracks for garrisoned Roman soldiers, are marked in the Tabula Peutingeriana, the only surviving map of the Roman cursus publicus.[39][40]
The term Kerala was first epigraphically recorded as Ketalaputo (Cheras) in a 3rd-century BCE rock inscription by emperor Ashoka of Magadha.[41] It was mentioned as one of four independent kingdoms in southern India during Ashoka’s time, the others being the Cholas, Pandyas and Satyaputras.[42] The Cheras transformed Kerala into an international trade centre by establishing trade relations across the Arabian Sea with all major Mediterranean and Red Sea ports as well those of the Far East. The dominion of Cheras was located in one of the key routes of the ancient Indian Ocean trade. The early Cheras collapsed after repeated attacks from the neighboring Cholas and Rashtrakutas.
During the early Middle Ages, Namboodiri Brahmin immigrants arrived in Kerala and shaped the society on the lines of the caste system. In the 8th century, Adi Shankara was born at Kalady in central Kerala. He travelled extensively across the Indian subcontinent founding institutions of the widely influential philosophy of Advaita Vedanta. The Cheras regained control over Kerala in the 9th century until the kingdom was dissolved in the 12th century, after which small autonomous chiefdoms, most notably the Kingdom of Kozhikode, arose. The 13th century Venetian explorer, Marco Polo, would visit and write of his stay in the province.[43] The port at Kozhikode acted as the gateway to medieval South Indian coast for the Chinese, the Arabs, the Portuguese, the Dutch, and finally the British.[44]
The path Vasco da Gama took to reach Kozhikode (black line) in 1498, which was also the discovery of a sea route from Europe to India, and eventually paved way for the European colonisation of Indian subcontinent.
In 1498, Vasco Da Gama established a sea route to Kozhikode during the Age of Discovery, which was also the first modern sea route from Europe to South Asia, and raised Portuguese settlements, which marked the beginning of the colonial era of India. European trading interests of the Dutch, French and the British East India companies took centre stage during the colonial wars in India. Travancore became the most dominant state in Kerala by defeating the powerful Zamorin of Kozhikode in the battle of Purakkad in 1755.[45] After the Dutch were defeated by Travancore king Marthanda Varma, the British crown gained control over Kerala through the creation of the Malabar District in northern Kerala and by allying with the newly created princely state of Travancore in the southern part of the state until India was declared independent in 1947. The state of Kerala was created in 1956 from the former state of Travancore-Cochin, the Malabar district and the Kasaragod taluk of South Canara District of Madras state.[46]
British colonialism: Malabar District
Edit
Main article: Malabar District
See also: Dutch Malabar, North Malabar, and South Malabar
After the Anglo-Mysore wars, the parts of the Malabar Coast, those became British colonies, were organized into a district of British India. The British district included the present-day districts of Kannur, Kozhikode, Wayanad, Malappuram, much of Palakkad (Excluding Chittur taluk), some parts of Thrissur (Chavakkad Taluk), and the Fort Kochi region of Ernakulam district, besides the isolated islands of Lakshadweep. The administrative headquarters was at Kozhikode.
A map of the erstwhile Malabar District in 1951
Malabar District, a part of the ancient Malabar (or Malabar Coast) was a part of the British East India Company-controlled state. It included the northern half of the state of Kerala and the islands of Lakshadweep.[47] Kozhikode is considered as the capital of Malabar. The area was divided into two categories as North and South. North Malabar comprises present Kasaragod and Kannur Districts, Mananthavady Taluk of Wayanad District and Vatakara and Koyilandy Taluks of Kozhikode District. The left-over area is South Malabar aka Eranad Taluk which comes under present Malappuram District, Palakkad District and Chavakkad taluk of Thrissur district.
During the British rule, the Malabar’s chief importance laid in producing pepper, tiles, and Coconut.[48] In the old administrative records of the Madras Presidency, it is recorded that the most remarkable plantation owned by Government in the erstwhile Madras Presidency was the Teak plantation at Nilambur planted in 1844.[49] The District of Malabar and the ports at Beypore and Fort Kochi had some sort of importance in the erstwhile Madras Presidency as it was one of the two districts of the Presidency that lies on the Western Malabar Coast, thus accessing the marine route through Arabian Sea. The first railway line of Kerala from Tirur to Beypore in 1861 was laid for it.
After Indian independence
Edit
With India’s independence, Madras presidency became Madras State, which was divided along linguistic lines on 1 November 1956, whereupon Kasaragod region was merged with the Malabar immediately to the north and the state of Travancore-Cochin to the south to form the state of Kerala. Before that, Kasaragod was a part of South Canara district of Madras Presidency. Lakshadweep Islands were separated to form a new union territory.
Trinity Test
Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon. It was conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project. The test was conducted in the Jornada del Muerto desert about 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, on what was then the USAAF Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, now part of White Sands Missile Range. The only structures originally in the vicinity were the McDonald Ranch House and its ancillary buildings, which scientists used as a laboratory for testing bomb components. A base camp was constructed, and there were 425 people present on the weekend of the test.
The code name “Trinity” was assigned by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, inspired by the poetry of John Donne. The test was of an implosion-design plutonium device, informally nicknamed “The Gadget”, of the same design as the Fat Man bomb later detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. The complexity of the design required a major effort from the Los Alamos Laboratory, and concerns about whether it would work led to a decision to conduct the first nuclear test. The test was planned and directed by Kenneth Bainbridge.
Fears of a fizzle did lead to the construction of a steel containment vessel called Jumbo that could contain the plutonium, allowing it to be recovered, although ultimately this was not used in the test. A rehearsal was held on May 7, 1945, in which 108 short tons (96 long tons; 98 t) of high explosive spiked with radioactive isotopes were detonated. The Gadget’s detonation released the explosive energy of about 25 kilotons of TNT (100 TJ). Observers included Vannevar Bush, James Chadwick, James Conant, Thomas Farrell, Enrico Fermi, Hans Bethe, Richard Feynman, Leslie Groves, Robert Oppenheimer, Frank Oppenheimer, Geoffrey Taylor, Richard Tolman, Edward Teller, and John von Neumann.
The test site was declared a National Historic Landmark district in 1965, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places the following year.
The creation of nuclear weapons arose from scientific and political developments of the 1930s. The decade saw many new discoveries about the nature of atoms, including the existence of nuclear fission. The concurrent rise of fascist governments in Europe led to a fear of a German nuclear weapon project, especially among scientists who were refugees from Nazi Germany and other fascist countries. When their calculations showed that nuclear weapons were theoretically feasible, the British and United States governments supported an all-out effort to build them.[3]
These efforts were transferred to the authority of the U.S. Army in June 1942, and became the Manhattan Project.[4] Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves, Jr. was appointed its director in September 1942.[5] The weapons development portion of this project was located at the Los Alamos Laboratory in northern New Mexico, under the directorship of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. The University of Chicago, Columbia University and the Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley conducted other development work.[6]
Production of the fissile isotopes uranium-235 and plutonium-239 were enormous undertakings given the technology of the 1940s, and accounted for 80% of the total costs of the project. Uranium enrichment was carried out at the Clinton Engineer Works near Oak Ridge, Tennessee.[7] Theoretically, enriching uranium was feasible through preexisting techniques, but it proved difficult to scale to industrial levels and was extremely costly. Only 0.72 percent of natural uranium was uranium-235, and it was estimated that it would take 27,000 years to produce a gram of uranium with mass spectrometers, but kilogram amounts were required.[8]
Plutonium is a synthetic element with complicated physical, chemical and metallurgical properties. It is not found in nature in appreciable quantities. Until mid-1944, the only plutonium that had been isolated had been produced in cyclotrons in microgram amounts, whereas weapons required kilograms.[9] In April 1944, physicist Emilio Segrè, the head of the Los Alamos Laboratory’s P-5 (Radioactivity) Group,[10] received the first sample of reactor-bred plutonium from the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge. He discovered that, in addition to the plutonium-239 isotope, it also contained significant amounts of plutonium-240.[11] The Manhattan Project produced plutonium in nuclear reactors at the Hanford Engineer Works near Hanford, Washington.[7]
The longer the plutonium remained irradiated inside a reactor—necessary for high yields of the metal—the greater the content of the plutonium-240 isotope, which undergoes spontaneous fission at thousands of times the rate of plutonium-239. The extra neutrons it released meant that there was an unacceptably high probability that plutonium in a gun-type fission weapon would detonate too soon after a critical mass was formed, producing a “fizzle”—a nuclear explosion many times smaller than a full explosion.[11] This meant that the Thin Man bomb design that the laboratory had developed would not work properly.[12]
The Laboratory turned to an alternative, albeit more technically difficult, design, an implosion-type nuclear weapon. In September 1943, mathematician John von Neumann had proposed a design in which a fissile core would be surrounded by two different high explosives that produced shock waves of different speeds. Alternating the faster- and slower-burning explosives in a carefully calculated configuration would produce a compressive wave upon their simultaneous detonation. This so-called “explosive lens” focused the shock waves inward with enough force to rapidly compress the plutonium core to several times its original density. This reduced the size of a critical mass, making it supercritical. It also activated a small neutron source at the center of the core, which assured that the chain reaction began in earnest at the right moment. Such a complicated process required research and experimentation in engineering and hydrodynamics before a practical design could be developed.[13] The entire Los Alamos Laboratory was reorganized in August 1944 to focus on the design of a workable implosion bomb.[14]
The idea of testing the implosion device was brought up in discussions at Los Alamos in January 1944 and attracted enough support for Oppenheimer to approach Groves. Groves gave approval, but he had concerns. The Manhattan Project had spent a great deal of money and effort to produce the plutonium, and he wanted to know whether there would be a way to recover it. The Laboratory’s Governing Board then directed Norman Ramsey to investigate how this could be done. In February 1944, Ramsey proposed a small-scale test in which the explosion was limited in size by reducing the number of generations of chain reactions, and that it take place inside a sealed containment vessel from which the plutonium could be recovered.[15]
The means of generating such a controlled reaction were uncertain, and the data obtained would not be as useful as that from a full-scale explosion.[15] Oppenheimer argued that the “implosion gadget must be tested in a range where the energy release is comparable with that contemplated for final use.”[16] In March 1944, he obtained Groves’s tentative approval for testing a full-scale explosion inside a containment vessel, although Groves was still worried about how he would explain the loss of “a billion dollars worth” of plutonium to a Senate Committee in the event of a failure.[15]
Code name
Edit
The exact origin of the code name “Trinity” for the test is unknown, but it is often attributed to Oppenheimer as a reference to the poetry of John Donne, which in turn references the Christian belief of the Trinity (i.e. God as one being existing as three persons). In 1962, Groves wrote to Oppenheimer about the origin of the name, asking if he had chosen it because it was a name common to rivers and peaks in the West and would not attract attention, and elicited this reply:
I did suggest it, but not on that ground … Why I chose the name is not clear, but I know what thoughts were in my mind. There is a poem of John Donne, written just before his death, which I know and love. From it a quotation:
As West and East
In all flatt Maps – and I am one – are one,
So death doth touch the Resurrection.[17][a]
That still does not make a Trinity, but in another, better known devotional poem Donne opens,
Batter my heart, three person’d God.[b][18][19]
Organization
Edit
In March 1944, planning for the test was assigned to Kenneth Bainbridge, a professor of physics at Harvard University, working under explosives expert George Kistiakowsky. Bainbridge’s group was known as the E-9 (Explosives Development) Group.[20] Stanley Kershaw, formerly from the National Safety Council, was made responsible for safety.[20] Captain Samuel P. Davalos, the assistant post engineer at Los Alamos, was placed in charge of construction.[21] First Lieutenant Harold C. Bush became commander of the Base Camp at Trinity.[22] Scientists William Penney, Victor Weisskopf and Philip Moon were consultants. Eventually seven subgroups were formed:[23]
TR-1 (Services) under John H. Williams
TR-2 (Shock and Blast) under John H. Manley
TR-3 (Measurements) under Robert R. Wilson
TR-4 (Meteorology) under J. M. Hubbard
TR-5 (Spectrographic and Photographic) under Julian E. Mack
TR-6 (Airborne Measurements) under Bernard Waldman
TR-7 (Medical) under Louis H. Hempelmann
The E-9 group was renamed the X-2 (Development, Engineering and Tests) Group in the August 1944 reorganization.[20]
Test site
Edit
Trinity Site (red arrow) near Carrizozo Malpais
Safety and security required a remote, isolated and unpopulated area. The scientists also wanted a flat area to minimize secondary effects of the blast, and with little wind to spread radioactive fallout. Eight candidate sites were considered: the Tularosa Valley; the Jornada del Muerto Valley; the area southwest of Cuba, New Mexico, and north of Thoreau; and the lava flats of the El Malpais National Monument, all in New Mexico; the San Luis Valley near the Great Sand Dunes National Monument in Colorado; the Desert Training Area and San Nicolas Island in Southern California; and the sand bars of Padre Island, Texas.[24]
The sites were surveyed by car and by air by Bainbridge, R. W. Henderson, Major W. A. Stevens and Major Peer de Silva. The site finally chosen, after consulting with Major General Uzal Ent, the commander of the Second Air Force on September 7, 1944,[24] lay at the northern end of the Alamogordo Bombing Range, in Socorro County near the towns of Carrizozo and San Antonio.(33°40.636′N 106°28.525′W).[25]
The only structures in the vicinity were the McDonald Ranch House and its ancillary buildings, about 2 miles (3.2 km) to the southeast.[26] Like the rest of the Alamogordo Bombing Range, it had been acquired by the government in 1942. The patented land had been condemned and grazing rights suspended.[27][28] Scientists used this as a laboratory for testing bomb components.[26] Bainbridge and Davalos drew up plans for a base camp with accommodation and facilities for 160 personnel, along with the technical infrastructure to support the test. A construction firm from Lubbock, Texas built the barracks, officers’ quarters, mess hall and other basic facilities.[21] The requirements expanded and, by July 1945, 250 people worked at the Trinity test site. On the weekend of the test, there were 425 present.[29]
The Trinity test base camp
Lieutenant Bush’s twelve-man MP unit arrived at the site from Los Alamos on December 30, 1944. This unit established initial security checkpoints and horse patrols. The distances around the site proved too great for the horses, so they were repurposed for polo playing, and the MPs resorted to using jeeps and trucks for transportation.[24][30] Maintenance of morale among men working long hours under harsh conditions along with dangerous reptiles and insects was a challenge. Bush strove to improve the food and accommodation, and to provide organized games and nightly movies.[31]
Throughout 1945, other personnel arrived at the Trinity Site to help prepare for the bomb test. They tried to use water out of the ranch wells, but found the water so alkaline they could not drink it. They were forced to use U.S. Navy saltwater soap and hauled drinking water in from the firehouse in Socorro. Gasoline and diesel were purchased from the Standard Oil plant there.[30] Military and civilian construction personnel built warehouses, workshops, a magazine and commissary. The railroad siding at Pope, New Mexico, was upgraded by adding an unloading platform. Roads were built, and 200 miles (320 km) of telephone wire was strung. Electricity was supplied by portable generators.[32][33]
Due to its proximity to the bombing range, the base camp was accidentally bombed twice in May. When the lead plane on a practice night raid accidentally knocked out the generator or otherwise doused the lights illuminating their target, they went in search of the lights, and since they had not been informed of the presence of the Trinity base camp, and it was lit, bombed it instead. The accidental bombing damaged the stables and the carpentry shop, and a small fire resulted.[34]
Jumbo
Edit
Jumbo arrives at the site
Responsibility for the design of a containment vessel for an unsuccessful explosion, known as “Jumbo”, was assigned to Robert W. Henderson and Roy W. Carlson of the Los Alamos Laboratory’s X-2A Section. The bomb would be placed into the heart of Jumbo, and if the bomb’s detonation was unsuccessful, the outer walls of Jumbo would not be breached, making it possible to recover the bomb’s plutonium. Hans Bethe, Victor Weisskopf, and Joseph O. Hirschfelder, made the initial calculations, followed by a more detailed analysis by Henderson and Carlson.[22] They drew up specifications for a steel sphere 13 to 15 feet (3.96 to 4.57 m) in diameter, weighing 150 short tons (140 t) and capable of handling a pressure of 50,000 pounds per square inch (340,000 kPa). After consulting with the steel companies and the railroads, Carlson produced a scaled-back cylindrical design that would be much easier to manufacture. Carlson identified a company that normally made boilers for the Navy, Babcock & Wilcox; they had made something similar and were willing to attempt its manufacture.[35]
As delivered in May 1945,[36] Jumbo was 10 feet (3.05 m) in diameter and 25 feet (7.62 m) long with walls 14 inches (356 mm) thick, and weighed 214 short tons (191 long tons; 194 t).[37][38] A special train brought it from Barberton, Ohio, to the siding at Pope, where it was loaded on a large trailer and towed 25 miles (40 km) across the desert by crawler tractors.[39] At the time, it was the heaviest item ever shipped by rail.[38]
The Jumbo container after the test
For many of the Los Alamos scientists, Jumbo was “the physical manifestation of the lowest point in the Laboratory’s hopes for the success of an implosion bomb.”[36] By the time it arrived, the reactors at Hanford produced plutonium in quantity, and Oppenheimer was confident that there would be enough for a second test.[35] The use of Jumbo would interfere with the gathering of data on the explosion, the primary objective of the test.[39] An explosion of more than 500 tons of TNT (2,100 GJ) would vaporize the steel and make it hard to measure the thermal effects. Even 100 tons of TNT (420 GJ) would send fragments flying, presenting a hazard to personnel and measuring equipment.[40] It was therefore decided not to use it.[39] Instead, it was hoisted up a steel tower 800 yards (732 m) from the explosion, where it could be used for a subsequent test.[35] In the end, Jumbo survived the explosion, although its tower did not.[37]
Jumbo was destroyed on April 16, 1946, when an Army ordnance team detonated eight 500 lb bombs in the bottom of the steel container. Jumbo, with its steel banding around the middle, had been designed specifically to contain the 5000 lbs of high explosive in Gadget while it was suspended in the center of the vessel. With the bombs sitting in the bottom of Jumbo, the resulting blast sent fragments flying in all directions as far as three quarters of a mile.[41] Who authorized the destruction of Jumbo remains controversial.[42] The rusting skeleton of Jumbo sits in the parking lot at the Trinity site on the White Sands Missile Range, where it was moved in 1979.[43]
The development team also considered other methods of recovering active material in the event of a dud explosion. One idea was to cover it with a cone of sand. Another was to suspend the bomb in a tank of water. As with Jumbo, it was decided not to proceed with these means of containment either. The CM-10 (Chemistry and Metallurgy) group at Los Alamos also studied how the active material could be chemically recovered after a contained or failed explosion.[40]
100-ton test
Edit
0.1 kiloton conventional explosives rehearsal test, Trinity
Because there would be only one chance to carry out the test correctly, Bainbridge decided that a rehearsal should be carried out to allow the plans and procedures to be verified, and the instrumentation to be tested and calibrated. Oppenheimer was initially skeptical but gave permission, and later agreed that it contributed to the success of the Trinity test.[33]
A 20-foot-high (6 m) wooden platform was constructed 800 yards (730 m) to the south-east of Trinity ground zero and 81 tonnes (89 short tons) of Composition B explosive (with the explosive power of 108 tonnes of TNT (450 GJ)) were stacked on top of it. Kistiakowsky assured Bainbridge that the explosives used were not susceptible to shock. This was proven correct when some boxes fell off the elevator lifting them up to the platform. Flexible tubing was threaded through the pile of boxes of explosives. A radioactive slug from Hanford with 1,000 curies (37 TBq) of beta ray activity and 400 curies (15 TBq) of gamma ray activity was dissolved, and Hempelmann poured it into the tubing.[44][45][46]
The test was scheduled for May 5 but was postponed for two days to allow for more equipment to be installed. Requests for further postponements had to be refused because they would have affected the schedule for the main test. The detonation time was set for 04:00 Mountain War Time (MWT), on May 7, but there was a 37-minute delay to allow the observation plane,[47] a Boeing B-29 Superfortress from the 216th Army Air Forces Base Unit flown by Major Clyde “Stan” Shields,[48] to get into position.[47]
Men stack crates of high explosives for the 100-ton test
The fireball of the conventional explosion was visible from Alamogordo Army Air Field 60 miles (100 km) away, but there was little shock at the base camp 10 miles (16 km) away.[47] Shields thought that the explosion looked “beautiful”, but it was hardly felt at 15,000 feet (4,600 m).[48] Herbert L. Anderson practiced using a converted M4 Sherman tank lined with lead to approach the 5-foot-deep (1.5 m) and 30-foot-wide (9 m) blast crater and take a sample of dirt, although the radioactivity was low enough to allow several hours of unprotected exposure. An electrical signal of unknown origin caused the explosion to go off 0.25 seconds early, ruining experiments that required split-second timing. The piezoelectric gauges developed by Anderson’s team correctly indicated an explosion of 108 tons of TNT (450 GJ), but Luis Alvarez and Waldman’s airborne condenser gauges were far less accurate.[45][49]
In addition to uncovering scientific and technological issues, the rehearsal test revealed practical concerns as well. Over 100 vehicles were used for the rehearsal test, but it was realized more would be required for the main test, and they would need better roads and repair facilities. More radios were required, and more telephone lines, as the telephone system had become overloaded. Lines needed to be buried to prevent damage by vehicles. A teletype was installed to allow better communication with Los Alamos. A town hall was built to allow for large conferences and briefings, and the mess hall had to be upgraded. Because dust thrown up by vehicles interfered with some of the instrumentation, 20 miles (32 km) of road was sealed at a cost of $5,000 per mile ($3,100/km).[49][33]
The Gadget
Edit
See also: Nuclear weapon design § Implosion-type weapon
Norris Bradbury, group leader for bomb assembly, stands next to the assembled Gadget atop the test tower. Later, he became the director of Los Alamos, after the departure of Oppenheimer.
Mockup of the Gadget physics package at the Nuclear Weapons Instructional Museum, Kirtland Air Force Base
The term “gadget” was a laboratory euphemism for a bomb,[50] from which the laboratory’s weapon physics division, “G Division”, took its name in August 1944.[51] At that time it did not refer specifically to the Trinity Test device as it had yet to be developed,[52] but once it was, it became the laboratory code name.[51] The Trinity Gadget was officially a Y-1561 device, as was the Fat Man used a few weeks later in the bombing of Nagasaki. The two were very similar, with only minor differences, the most obvious being the absence of fuzing and the external ballistic casing. The bombs were still under development, and small changes continued to be made to the Fat Man design.[53]
To keep the design as simple as possible, a near solid spherical core was chosen rather than a hollow one, although calculations showed that a hollow core would be more efficient in its use of plutonium.[54][55] The core was compressed to prompt super-criticality by the implosion generated by the high explosive lens. This design became known as a “Christy Core”[56] or “Christy pit” after physicist Robert F. Christy, who made the solid pit design a reality after it was initially proposed by Edward Teller.[54][57][58] Along with the pit, the whole physics package was also informally nicknamed “Christy[’s] Gadget”.[51]
Of the several allotropes of plutonium, the metallurgists preferred the malleable δ (delta) phase. This was stabilized at room temperature by alloying it with gallium. Two equal hemispheres of plutonium-gallium alloy were plated with silver,[53][59] and designated by serial numbers HS-1 and HS-2.[60] The 6.19-kilogram (13.6 lb) radioactive core generated 15 W of heat, which warmed it up to about 100 to 110 °F (38 to 43 °C),[53] and the silver plating developed blisters that had to be filed down and covered with gold foil; later cores were plated with nickel instead.[61] The Trinity core consisted of just these two hemispheres. Later cores also included a ring with a triangular cross-section to prevent jets forming in the gap between them.[62]
Basic nuclear components of the Gadget. The uranium slug containing the plutonium sphere was inserted late in the assembly process.
A trial assembly of the Gadget without the active components or explosive lenses was carried out by the bomb assembly team headed by Norris Bradbury at Los Alamos on July 3. It was driven to Trinity and back. A set of explosive lenses arrived on July 7, followed by a second set on July 10. Each was examined by Bradbury and Kistiakowsky, and the best ones were selected for use.[63] The remainder were handed over to Edward Creutz, who conducted a test detonation at Pajarito Canyon near Los Alamos without nuclear material.[64] This test brought bad news: magnetic measurements of the simultaneity of the implosion seemed to indicate that the Trinity test would fail. Bethe worked through the night to assess the results and reported that they were consistent with a perfect explosion.[65]
Assembly of the nuclear capsule began on July 13 at the McDonald Ranch House, where the master bedroom had been turned into a clean room. The polonium-beryllium “Urchin” initiator was assembled, and Louis Slotin placed it inside the two hemispheres of the plutonium core. Cyril Smith then placed the core in the natural uranium tamper plug, or “slug”. Air gaps were filled with 0.5-mil (0.013 mm) gold foil, and the two halves of the plug were held together with uranium washers and screws which fit smoothly into the domed ends of the plug. The completed capsule was then driven to the base of the tower.[66]
Louis Slotin and Herbert Lehr with the Gadget prior to insertion of the tamper plug (visible in front of Lehr’s left knee)[67]
At the tower, a temporary eyebolt was screwed into the 105-pound (48 kg) capsule and a chain hoist was used to lower the capsule into the gadget. As the capsule entered the hole in the uranium tamper, it stuck. Robert Bacher realized that the heat from the plutonium core had caused the capsule to expand, while the explosives assembly with the tamper had cooled during the night in the desert. By leaving the capsule in contact with the tamper, the temperatures equalized and, in a few minutes, the capsule had slipped completely into the tamper.[68] The eyebolt was then removed from the capsule and replaced with a threaded uranium plug, a boron disk was placed on top of the capsule, an aluminum plug was screwed into the hole in the pusher, and the two remaining high explosive lenses were installed. Finally, the upper Dural polar cap was bolted into place. Assembly was completed at about 16:45 on July 13.[69]
The Gadget was hoisted to the top of a 100-foot (30 m) steel tower. The height would give a better indication of how the weapon would behave when dropped from a bomber, as detonation in the air would maximize the amount of energy applied directly to the target (as the explosion expanded in a spherical shape) and would generate less nuclear fallout. The tower stood on four legs that went 20 feet (6.1 m) into the ground, with concrete footings. Atop it was an oak platform, and a shack made of corrugated iron that was open on the western side. The Gadget was hauled up with an electric winch.[70] A truckload of mattresses was placed underneath in case the cable broke and the Gadget fell.[71] The seven-man arming party, consisting of Bainbridge, Kistiakowsky, Joseph McKibben and four soldiers including Lieutenant Bush, drove out to the tower to perform the final arming shortly after 22:00 on July 15.[71]
Personnel
Edit
The 30-metre (100 ft) “shot tower” constructed for the test
In the final two weeks before the test, some 250 personnel from Los Alamos were at work at the Trinity site,[72] and Lieutenant Bush’s command had ballooned to 125 men guarding and maintaining the base camp. Another 160 men under Major T.O. Palmer were stationed outside the area with vehicles to evacuate the civilian population in the surrounding region should that prove necessary.[73] They had enough vehicles to move 450 people to safety and had food and supplies to last them for two days. Arrangements were made for Alamogordo Army Air Field to provide accommodation.[74] Groves had warned the Governor of New Mexico, John J. Dempsey, that martial law might have to be declared in the southwestern part of the state.[75]
Shelters were established 10,000 yards (9,100 m) due north, west, and south of the tower, known as N-10,000, W-10,000 and S-10,000. Each had its own shelter chief: Robert Wilson at N-10,000, John Manley at W-10,000 and Frank Oppenheimer at S-10,000.[76] Many other observers were around 20 miles (32 km) away, and some others were scattered at different distances, some in more informal situations. Richard Feynman claimed to be the only person to see the explosion without the goggles provided, relying on a truck windshield to screen out harmful ultraviolet wavelengths.[77]
Bainbridge asked Groves to keep his VIP list down to just ten. He chose himself, Oppenheimer, Richard Tolman, Vannevar Bush, James Conant, Brigadier General Thomas F. Farrell, Charles Lauritsen, Isidor Isaac Rabi, Sir Geoffrey Taylor, and Sir James Chadwick.[73] The VIPs viewed the test from Compania Hill, about 20 miles (32 km) northwest of the tower.[78] The observers set up a betting pool on the results of the test. Edward Teller was the most optimistic, predicting 45 kilotons of TNT (190 TJ).[79] He wore gloves to protect his hands, and sunglasses underneath the welding goggles that the government had supplied everyone with.[78] Teller was also one of the few scientists to actually watch the test (with eye protection), instead of following orders to lie on the ground with his back turned.[80] He also brought suntan lotion, which he shared with the others.[81]
The Gadget is unloaded at the base of the tower for the final assembly
Others were less optimistic. Ramsey chose zero (a complete dud), Robert Oppenheimer chose 0.3 kilotons of TNT (1.3 TJ), Kistiakowsky 1.4 kilotons of TNT (5.9 TJ), and Bethe chose 8 kilotons of TNT (33 TJ).[79] Rabi, the last to arrive, took 18 kilotons of TNT (75 TJ) by default, which would win him the pool.[82] In a video interview, Bethe stated that his choice of 8 kt was exactly the value calculated by Segrè, and he was swayed by Segrè’s authority over that of a more junior [but unnamed] member of Segrè’s group who had calculated 20 kt.[83] Enrico Fermi offered to take wagers among the top physicists and military present on whether the atmosphere would ignite, and if so whether it would destroy just the state, or incinerate the entire planet.[84] This last result had been previously calculated by Bethe to be almost impossible,[85][86][c] although for a while it had caused some of the scientists some anxiety. Bainbridge was furious with Fermi for scaring the guards who, unlike the physicists, did not have the advantage of their knowledge about the scientific possibilities (some GIs had asked to be relieved from manning their stations[88]). His own biggest fear was that nothing would happen, in which case he would have to head back to the tower to investigate.[89]
Julian Mack and Berlyn Brixner were responsible for photography. The photography group employed some fifty different cameras, taking motion and still photographs. Special Fastax cameras taking 10,000 frames per second would record the minute details of the explosion. Spectrograph cameras would record the wavelengths of light emitted by the explosion, and pinhole cameras would record gamma rays. A rotating drum spectrograph at the 10,000-yard (9,100 m) station would obtain the spectrum over the first hundredth of a second. Another, slow recording one would track the fireball. Cameras were placed in bunkers only 800 yards (730 m) from the tower, protected by steel and lead glass, and mounted on sleds so they could be towed out by the lead-lined tank.[90] Some observers brought their own cameras despite the security. Segrè brought in Jack Aeby with his 35 mm Perfex 44. He would take the only known well-exposed color photograph
Spanish Armada
1588
The Spanish Armada (Spanish: Grande y Felicísima Armada, lit. ’Great and Most Fortunate Navy’) was a Spanish fleet that sailed from Lisbon in late May 1588, commanded by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aristocrat without previous naval experience appointed by Philip II of Spain. His orders were to sail up the English Channel, link up with the Duke of Parma in Flanders, and escort an invasion force that would land in England and overthrow Elizabeth I. Its purpose was to reinstate Catholicism in England, end support for the Dutch Republic, and prevent attacks by English and Dutch privateers against Spanish interests in the Americas.
The Spanish were opposed by an English fleet based in Plymouth. Faster and more manoeuvrable than the larger Spanish galleons, they were able to attack the Armada as it sailed up the Channel. Several subordinates advised Medina Sidonia to anchor in The Solent and occupy the Isle of Wight, but he refused to deviate from his instructions to link up with Parma. Although the Armada reached Calais largely intact, while awaiting communication from Parma, it was attacked at night by English fire ships and forced to scatter.
The Armada suffered further losses in the ensuing Battle of Gravelines, and was in danger of running aground on the Dutch coast when the wind changed, allowing it to escape into the North Sea. Pursued by the English, the Spanish ships returned home via Scotland and Ireland. Up to 24 ships were wrecked along the way before the rest managed to get home.
The expedition was the largest engagement of the undeclared Anglo-Spanish War. The following year, England organized a similar large-scale campaign against Spain, the English Armada, sometimes called the “counter-Armada of 1589”, which was also a failure.
By the mid sixteenth century Hapsburg Spain under King Philip II was a dominant political and military power in Europe, with a global empire which became the source of her wealth. It championed the Catholic cause and its global possessions stretched from Europe, the Americas and to the Philippines. This was expanded further in 1580 when Portugal was annexed thus forming the Iberian Union, greatly expanding the empire. Philip became the first monarch who ruled over an empire upon which the sun did not set, and he did so from his chambers in the Escorial Palace by means of written communication.[23]
In comparison England was only a minor European power with no empire, and it could exercise little influence over it’s shores. King Henry VIII began the English Reformation as a political exercise over his desire to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Over time, England became increasingly aligned with the Protestant reformation taking place in Europe, especially during the reign of Henry’s son, Edward VI. Edward died childless, and his half-sister Mary ascended the throne in 1553. Three years later Mary married Philip II, becoming queen consort of Spain and began to reassert Roman Catholic influence over church affairs. Her attempts led to more than 260 people being burned at the stake, earning her the nickname “Bloody Mary”.[24]
Mary’s death in 1558 led to her half-sister Elizabeth taking the throne. Unlike Mary, Elizabeth was firmly in the reformist camp and quickly reimplemented many of Edward’s reforms. Philip, no longer co-monarch, deemed Elizabeth a heretic and illegitimate ruler of England. In the eyes of the Catholic Church, Henry had never officially divorced Catherine, making Elizabeth illegitimate. It is alleged that Philip supported plots to have Elizabeth overthrown in favour of her Catholic cousin and heir presumptive, Mary, Queen of Scots. These plans were thwarted when Elizabeth had Mary imprisoned in 1567; Mary was forced to abdicate the crown of Scotland in favour of her son James VI; Elizabeth had Mary executed, finally, in 1587, due to constant plots against Elizabeth carried out in Mary’s name. Elizabeth also retaliated against Philip by supporting the Dutch Revolt against Spain, as well as funding privateers to raid Spanish ships across the Atlantic. She had also negotiated an enduring trade and political alliance with Morocco.
Opposing monarchs
Philip II of Spain c. 1580, National Portrait Gallery, London
Philip II of Spain c. 1580, National Portrait Gallery, London
Queen Elizabeth I c. 1585, Trinity College, Cambridge
Queen Elizabeth I c. 1585, Trinity College, Cambridge
In retaliation, Philip planned an expedition to invade England in order to overthrow Elizabeth and, if the Armada was not entirely successful, at least negotiate freedom of worship for Catholics and financial compensation for war in the Low Countries.[25] Through this endeavour, English material support for the United Provinces, the part of the Low Countries that had successfully seceded from Spanish rule, and English attacks on Spanish trade and settlements[26] in the New World would end. Philip was supported by Pope Sixtus V, who treated the invasion as a crusade, with the promise of a subsidy should the Armada make land.[27] Substantial support for the invasion was also expected from English Catholics, including wealthy and influential aristocrats and traders.[28]
A raid on Cádiz, led by privateer Francis Drake in April 1587, had captured or destroyed about 30 ships and great quantities of supplies, setting preparations back by a year.[29][30] There is also evidence that a letter from Elizabeth’s security chief and spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, to her ambassador in Istanbul, William Harborne, sought to initiate Ottoman Empire fleet manoeuvres to harass the Spaniards,[31] but there is no evidence for the success of that plan.
The Prince of Parma was initially consulted by Philip II in 1583.[22] Alexander stressed that three conditions would need to be met so as to achieve success; absolute secrecy, secure the possession and defense of the Dutch provinces, and keep the French from interfering either with a peace agreement or by sowing division between the Catholic League and the Huguenots.[32][33] Secrecy couldn’t be maintained which made the enterprise vastly more complicated. Philip ultimately combined Parma’s plan with that of Santa Cruz, initially entertaining a triple attack, starting with a diversionary raid on Scotland, while the main Armada would capture either the Isle of Wight or Southampton to establish a safe anchorage in The Solent. Farnese would then follow with a large army from the Low Countries crossing the English Channel.
The appointed commander of the naval forces of the Armada was the highly experienced Marquis of Santa Cruz while Alexander Farnese would be in command of the invasion forces.[34] Unfortunately, Santa Cruz died in February 1588 and the Duke of Medina Sidonia, a high-born courtier, took his place. While a competent soldier and distinguished administrator, Medina Sidonia had no naval experience. He wrote to Philip expressing grave doubts about the planned campaign, but his message was prevented from reaching the King by courtiers on the grounds that God would ensure the Armada’s success.[35]
After news of the defeat of the Armada had reached the Duke of Parma, he assembled his Council of War to discuss what uses his force could be used for before the onset of winter. In late September he divided them into three groups; one sent to the Rhine, one to remain in the costal region and one led by Parma himself to capture Bergen-op-Zoom, the garrison of which consisted mainly of English troops.[67] The Spanish marched through Brabant to besiege the town, determined to make up for the Armada defeat. They were however repelled with heavy losses, and combined with poor weather, Parma was forced to abandon the siege in November.[86][87]
England and the Netherlands
Edit
Even though the Spanish armada had failed to invade England it had demonstrated its feasibility, and that the British Isles overall were vulnerable to attack.[88]
It took some time for the scale of the victory to be realized as news began to filter through by the end of August and beginning of September.[89] All the while, the costs of this defensive effort were mounting — the total was nearly £400,000[90]— and measures were put in motion to mitigate it. After the victory, the English ships came into port in grim condition. Typhus swept the through the ships. For instance, of the Elizabeth Bonaventure’s crew of 500, more than 200 had died[91] and, as Howard wrote to Burghley on August 20, 1588,
The Elizabeth Jonas, which hath done as well as ever any ship did in any service, hath had a great infection in her from the beginning, so as of the 500 men which she carried out, by the time we had been in Plymouth three weeks or a month, there were dead of them 200 and above; so as I was driven to set all the rest of her men ashore, to take out her ballast, and to make fires in her of wet broom, three or four days together; and so hoped thereby to have cleansed her of her infection; and thereupon got new men, very tall and able as ever I saw, and put them into her. Now the infection is broken out in greater extremity than ever it did before, and [the men] die and sicken faster than ever they did; so as I am driven of force to send her to Chatham. We all think and judge that the infection remaineth in the pitch. Sir Roger Townshend, of all the men he brought out with him, hath but one left alive.
— John Knox, Laughton (1894). State papers relating to the defeat of the Spanish Armada, anno 1588. Vol. II. London: Navy Records Society. p. 96.
The day after her Tilbury speech, Elizabeth ordered the army disbanded, the camp at Tilbury dissolved five days later, then discharged the navy, sending them home without pay[92][93] and many died of disease and starvation after landing at Margate. Hawkins accused Burghley “that by death, by discharging of sick men, and such like, that there may be spared something in the general pay.”[94] The men had to rely on the charity of their officers, and Howard set an example by doing what he could out of his own purse to help the sailors. Nevertheless upwards of 3,000 perished.[12][95] As a result the Chatham Chest was set up - it’s purpose to help pay pensions to disabled seamen.[96]
In contrast, a number of thanksgiving services were held at Cathedrals and Churches throughout England. At St Paul’s Cathedral in London a series of thanksgivings took place, the first on August 30 a sermon was preached followed by another on September 18. As news of the full scale disaster came through and also news of England’s victory against Parma at Bergen and the subsequent mutinies in the Spanish army, a bigger National service of thanksgiving took place on November 29.[97] A final bigger thanksgiving took place five days later which saw a royal procession procession of the Queen in a chariot through the streets of London. Twelve Spanish standards and other trophies which had been captured from the ships of the armada, decorated the choir of St Paul during the huge service.[98]
The captured Spanish galleons Nuestra Señora del Rosario and the San Salvador were studied by the English. The San Salvador became known as the ‘Great Spaniard’ but was lost in a wreck in November 1588 off Studland. Nuestra Señora del Rosario was brought to Dartmouth. The 397 crew were taken to Torre Abbey near Torquay where they were held prisoner in a barn (today called the ‘Spanish Barn’) and spared execution.[99] The Rosario was later sent to Chatham where she was dry docked and eventually sunk to support a wharf.[100] Pedro de Valdés was held prisoner in the Tower of London for five years, until his ransom was paid by his family for his release back to Spain. He was not blamed for the loss of his ship and was appointed colonial governor of Cuba from 1602 to 1608.[101]
The Dutch also celebrated the victory and their artists were quick to take on commemorative medals and paintings which were soon circulated within the year. The wrecked Spanish galleons San Mateo and San Felipe which had run aground were both found to be riddled with holes by cannonballs that had struck below the waterline. Both ships were too damaged to be salvaged and were therefore broken up - the cannons were used by the Dutch in nearby fortresses. The main-topmast rigging banner from the San Matteo - part of which depicts ‘Christ on the Cross’, was taken, hung and displayed in the choir of St Peters Church in Leiden. It now resides in the Museum De Lakenhal.[102]
Spain
Edit
The news of the disaster brought shock and despair and the nation went into mourning.[103] It’s defeat was even more devastating because hopes of its success had been raised by false rumours. These included Drake and Howard being taken prisoner, the Isle of Wight and Plymouth taken and Parma’s army even approaching London.[104] The King took the news hard and shut himself away for days - the daily business of government was also brought to an abrupt halt. The King is claimed to have said: “I sent the Armada against men, not God’s winds and waves”.[105] News of the loss of La Girona bore more despair for Philip, the loss of not only De Leiva but also his followers from almost every noble house in Spain had also drowned with him.[106]
The number of ships lost have been debated - historian José Luis Casado Soto examined the fate of each ship creating individual dossiers and provided precise data as follows:
Propagandist and historian alike have until now estimated losses of the Gran Armada at between 60 and 70 ships, counting as lost all those ships for which they had no published documentation. But the detailed accounts of the campaign and the administrative documents for later fleets have allowed us to prove that the total number of losses in the campaign was no more than 34 or 35 ships.[107]
Of the 122 Armada ships that entered the English Channel, 87 returned from their voyage through the Channel and around the British isles.[108] Other historians have done further research; Neil Hanson, Robert Hutchinson, Colin Martin and Geoffrey Parker all researched the Armada ships that had returned coming to the same conclusion. The overall figure of between 44 and 51 ships being lost overall - with more detailed breakdowns in the number of ships that set sail along with their fate.[109][110] That figure being a third of the fleet had been sunk, captured, wrecked or scuttled.[111] American historian Garrett Mattingly wrote in 1959 that only 66 ships returned to Spain, with another returning later in the year.[112] The losses did not include the smaller vulnerable ships like the pataches and zarbas.[113] Even though most of the ships had returned, many of them were severely damaged from either the storms, and English gunfire. One hulk the Doncella sank after they had cast anchor in Santander, and the Santa Anna was accidentally burned within a few days of entering San Sebastian.[114] In addition the severely damaged galleons San Marcos and San Francisco were broken up, the guns and the timber being sold off. As many as half of the fleet were unfit for further service and as a result a number were scuttled, broken up or left to rot.[115]
Furthermore, Spanish sources state that no more than 11,000 perished.[116][117][118] Philip’s administrators, bureaucrats and secretaries documented, dated and filed everything that went on in all corners of the Spanish empire, and all those records are still kept in the National Archives of Spain and the Escorial. The number of men lost was extracted from the paymaster distribution lists.[119] A detailed analysis of the human cost of the campaign reveals that 25,696 men left Coruña and 13,399 returned.[120]
Even after arrival the men were near death from disease, as the conditions were very cramped, and most of the ships had run out of food and water. More Armada survivors later died in Spain or on hospital ships in Spanish harbours from diseases contracted during the voyage. A large number of prominent Spanish commanders also died, many after having arrived in port. Vice Admiral of the fleet and commander of the Guipuzcoa Squadron, Miguel de Oquendo suffering from battle wounds and a fever, died at Coruña two days after arriving. Another was the Biscayan squadron commander Juan Martínez de Recalde, who also succumbed the same way.[121] The Duke of Medina Sidonia also fell ill on his return and nearly succumbed; he was not blamed by Philip, who allowed him to return home to convalesce. Hutchinson claimed that the number of survivors was just over 50% but these numbers however do not include the Portuguese, the Neapolitans and the galley slaves.[122] while Hanson claimed that fewer than 10,000 men (38%) survived the expedition.[123]
English Counter Armada
Edit
Main article: English Armada
The following year the English with Dutch conscripts launched the Counter Armada, under Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Norris with three tasks:
Destroy the battered Spanish Atlantic fleet, which was being repaired in ports of northern Spain
Make a landing at Lisbon, Portugal and raise a revolt there against King Philip II (Philip I of Portugal) installing the pretender Dom António, Prior of Crato to the Portuguese throne
Take the Azores if possible so as to establish a permanent base.
None of the objectives were achieved.[124][125][126][127] The attempt to restore the Portuguese Crown from Spain was unsuccessful, and the opportunity to strike a decisive blow against the weakened Spanish Navy was lost. The expedition depleted the financial resources of England’s treasury, which had been carefully restored during the long reign of Elizabeth I, and it’s failure was so embarrassing that, even today, England barely acknowledges it ever happened.[124] Through this lost opportunity, Philip was able revive his navy the very next year, sending 37 ships with 6,420 men to Brittany where they established a base of operations on the Blavet river. The English and Dutch ultimately failed to disrupt the various fleets of the Indies despite the great number of military personnel mobilized every year. Thus, Spain remained the predominant power in Europe for several decades.[128]
Course of the war
Edit
During the course of the war, the Spanish struggled to gain control of the English Channel or stop the English intervention in Flanders or English privateer transatlantic raids. From their base in Brittany, Spanish corsairs did make several incursions on the English coast and plundered English and Dutch ships.[129] The Spanish launched a number of small scale attacks such as the Raid on Mount’s Bay in Cornwall on July 26, 1595, where over two days, Penzance, Newlyn, Mousehole, and Paul were raided and torched. Another smaller raid on Cawsand bay, also in Cornwall, took place the following year but ended in failure.[130] In June 1596 England and the United Dutch Provinces sent a second Armada to Spain seizing Cadiz and holding the place for two weeks causing economic losses but failed to seize the treasure fleet. After this three more armadas were sent by Spain: in 1596 (126-140 ships) which was scattered by a storm, 1597 (140 ships) where 7 ships managed to land 700 elite forces on a beach in one of the creeks off the Helford River near Falmouth, and 1601 (33 ships) where the Spanish held the town of Kinsale for three months, but these efforts ultimately failed to succeed.[131] The conflict wound down with diminishing military actions until a peace was agreed between the two powers on the signing of the Treaty of London in 1604.
Strabo
Strabo[n 1] (/ˈstreɪboʊ/; Greek: Στράβων Strábōn; 64 or 63 BC – c. 24 AD) was a Greek geographer, philosopher, and historian who lived in Asia Minor during the transitional period of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire.
Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus (in present-day Turkey) in around 64 BC.[1] His family had been involved in politics since at least the reign of Mithridates V.[2] Strabo was related to Dorylaeus on his mother’s side. Several other family members, including his paternal grandfather had served Mithridates VI during the Mithridatic Wars. As the war drew to a close, Strabo’s grandfather had turned several Pontic fortresses over to the Romans.[3] Strabo wrote that “great promises were made in exchange for these services”, and as Persian culture endured in Amaseia even after Mithridates and Tigranes were defeated, scholars have speculated about how the family’s support for Rome might have affected their position in the local community, and whether they might have been granted Roman citizenship as a reward.[2]
Strabo as depicted in the Nuremberg Chronicle
Strabo’s life was characterized by extensive travels. He journeyed to Egypt and Kush, as far west as coastal Tuscany and as far south as Ethiopia in addition to his travels in Asia Minor and the time he spent in Rome. Travel throughout the Mediterranean and Near East, especially for scholarly purposes, was popular during this era and was facilitated by the relative peace enjoyed throughout the reign of Augustus (27 BC – AD 14). He moved to Rome in 44 BC, and stayed there, studying and writing, until at least 31 BC. In 29 BC, on his way to Corinth (where Augustus was at the time), he visited the island of Gyaros in the Aegean Sea. Around 25 BC, he sailed up the Nile until he reached Philae,[n 2] after which point there is little record of his travels until AD 17.
Statue of Strabo in his hometown (modern-day Amasya, Turkey)
It is not known precisely when Strabo’s Geography was written, though comments within the work itself place the finished version within the reign of Emperor Tiberius. Some place its first drafts around 7 BC,[4] others around AD 17[5] or AD 18.[4] The latest passage to which a date can be assigned is his reference to the death in AD 23 of Juba II, king of Maurousia (Mauretania), who is said to have died “just recently”.[6] He probably worked on the Geography for many years and revised it steadily, but not always consistently. It is an encyclopaedic chronicle and consists of political, economic, social, cultural, geographic description covering almost all of Europe and the Mediterranean: British Isles, Iberian Peninsula, Gaul, Germania, the Alps, Italy, Greece, Northern Black Sea region, Anatolia, Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa. The Geography is the only extant work providing information about both Greek and Roman peoples and countries during the reign of Augustus.[7]
On the presumption that “recently” means within a year, Strabo stopped writing that year or the next (AD 24), at which time he is thought to have died. He was influenced by Homer, Hecataeus and Aristotle.[8] The first of Strabo’s major works, Historical Sketches (Historica hypomnemata), written while he was in Rome (c. 20 BC), is nearly completely lost. Meant to cover the history of the known world from the conquest of Greece by the Romans, Strabo quotes it himself and other classical authors mention that it existed, although the only surviving document is a fragment of papyrus now in the possession of the University of Milan (renumbered [Papyrus] 46).
Strabo studied under several prominent teachers of various specialities throughout his early life[n 3] at different stops during his Mediterranean travels. The first chapter of his education took place in Nysa (modern Sultanhisar, Turkey) under the master of rhetoric Aristodemus, who had formerly taught the sons of the Roman general who had taken over Pontus.[n 4] Aristodemus was the head of two schools of rhetoric and grammar, one in Nysa and one in Rhodes. The school in Nysa possessed a distinct intellectual curiosity in Homeric literature and the interpretation of the ancient Greek epics. Strabo was an admirer of Homer’s poetry, perhaps as a consequence of his time spent in Nysa with Aristodemus.[n 5]
At around the age of 21, Strabo moved to Rome, where he studied philosophy with the Peripatetic Xenarchus, a highly respected tutor in Augustus’s court. Despite Xenarchus’s Aristotelian leanings, Strabo later gives evidence to have formed his own Stoic inclinations.[n 6] In Rome, he also learned grammar under the rich and famous scholar Tyrannion of Amisus.[n 7] Although Tyrannion was also a Peripatetic, he was more relevantly a respected authority on geography, a fact of some significance considering Strabo’s future contributions to the field.
The final noteworthy mentor to Strabo was Athenodorus Cananites, a philosopher who had spent his life since 44 BC in Rome forging relationships with the Roman elite. Athenodorus passed onto Strabo his philosophy, his knowledge and his contacts. Unlike the Aristotelian Xenarchus and Tyrannion who preceded him in teaching Strabo, Athenodorus was a Stoic and almost certainly the source of Strabo’s diversion from the philosophy of his former mentors. Moreover, from his own first-hand experience, Athenodorus provided Strabo with information about regions of the empire which Strabo would not otherwise have known about.
Strabo is best known for his work Geographica (“Geography”), which presented a descriptive history of people and places from different regions of the world known during his lifetime.[6]
Map of Europe according to Strabo.
Although the Geographica was rarely utilized by contemporary writers, a multitude of copies survived throughout the Byzantine Empire. It first appeared in Western Europe in Rome as a Latin translation issued around 1469. The first Greek edition was published in 1516 in Venice.[9] Isaac Casaubon, classical scholar and editor of Greek texts, provided the first critical edition in 1587.
Although Strabo cited the classical Greek astronomers Eratosthenes and Hipparchus, acknowledging their astronomical and mathematical efforts covering geography, he claimed that a descriptive approach was more practical, such that his works were designed for statesmen who were more anthropologically than numerically concerned with the character of countries and regions.[citation needed]
As such, Geographica provides a valuable source of information on the ancient world of his day, especially when this information is corroborated by other sources. He travelled extensively, as he says: “Westward I have journeyed to the parts of Etruria opposite Sardinia; towards the south from the Euxine to the borders of Ethiopia; and perhaps not one of those who have written geographies has visited more places than I have between those limits.”[10]
It is not known when he wrote Geographica, but he spent much time in the famous library in Alexandria taking notes from “the works of his predecessors”. A first edition was published in 7 BC and a final edition no later than 23 AD, in what may have been the last year of Strabo’s life. It took some time for Geographica to be recognized by scholars and to become a standard.[11]
Alexandria itself features extensively in the last book of Geographica, which describes it as a thriving port city with a highly developed local economy.[12] Strabo notes the city’s many beautiful public parks, and its network of streets wide enough for chariots and horsemen. “Two of these are exceeding broad, over a plethron in breadth, and cut one another at right angles … All the buildings are connected one with another, and these also with what are beyond it.”[13]
Lawrence Kim observes that Strabo is [14] “… pro-Roman throughout the Geography. But while he acknowledges and even praises Roman ascendancy in the political and military sphere, he also makes a significant effort to establish Greek primacy over Rome in other contexts.”
In Europe, Strabo was the first to connect the Danube – Danouios and the Istros – with the change of names occurring at “the cataracts,” the modern Iron Gates on the Romanian/Serbian border.[15]
In India, a country he never visited, Strabo described small flying reptiles that were long with a snake-like body and bat-like wings (this description matches the Indian flying lizard Draco dussumieri), winged scorpions, and other mythical creatures along with those that were actually factual.[16] Other historians, such as Herodotus, Aristotle, and Flavius Josephus, mentioned similar creatures.[citation needed]
Zanzibar
Zanzibar (/ˈzænzɪbɑːr/; Swahili: Zanzibar; ) is an insular semi-autonomous province which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, 25–50 kilometres (16–31 mi) off the coast of the mainland, and consists of many small islands and two large ones: Unguja (the main island, referred to informally as Zanzibar) and Pemba Island. The capital is Zanzibar City, located on the island of Unguja. Its historic centre, Stone Town, is a World Heritage Site.
Zanzibar’s main industries are spices, raffia and tourism.[6] In particular, the islands produce cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, and black pepper. For this reason, the Zanzibar Archipelago, together with Tanzania’s Mafia Island, are sometimes referred to locally as the “Spice Islands”. Tourism in Zanzibar is a more recent activity, driven by government promotion that caused an increase from 19,000 tourists in 1985,[7] to 376,000 in 2016.[8] The islands are accessible via 5 ports and the Abeid Amani Karume International Airport, which can serve up to 1.5 million passengers per year.[9]
Zanzibar’s marine ecosystem is an important part of the economy for fishing and algaculture and contains important marine ecosystems that act as fish nurseries for Indian Ocean fish populations. Moreover, the land ecosystem is the home of the endemic Zanzibar red colobus, the Zanzibar servaline genet, and the extinct or rare Zanzibar leopard.[10][11] Pressure from the tourist industry and fishing as well as larger threats such as sea level rise caused by climate change are creating increasing environmental concerns throughout the region.[12]
The word Zanzibar came from Arabic zanjibār (زنجبار [zandʒibaːr]), which is in turn from Persian zangbâr (زنگبار [zæŋbɒːɾ]), a compound of Zang (زنگ [zæŋ], “black”) + bâr (بار [bɒːɾ], “coast”),[13][14][15] cf. the Sea of Zanj. The name is one of several toponyms sharing similar etymologies, ultimately meaning “land of the blacks” or similar meanings, in reference to the dark skin of the inhabitants.
Pre-1498
Edit
The presence of microliths suggests that Zanzibar has been home to humans for at least 20,000 years,[16] which was the beginning of the Later Stone Age.
A Greco-Roman text between the 1st and 3rd centuries, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, mentioned the island of Menuthias (Ancient Greek: Μενουθιάς), which is probably Unguja.[17] Zanzibar, like the nearby coast, was settled by Bantu speakers at the outset of the first millennium. Archaeological finds at Fukuchani, on the northwest coast of Zanzibar, indicate a settled agricultural and fishing community from the 6th century at the latest. The considerable amount of daub found indicates timber buildings, and shell beads, bead grinders, and iron slag have been found at the site. There is evidence of limited engagement in long-distance trade: a small amount of imported pottery has been found, less than 1% of total pottery finds, mostly from the Gulf and dated to the 5th to 8th century. The similarity to contemporary sites such as Mkokotoni and Dar es Salaam indicates a unified group of communities that developed into the first center of coastal maritime culture. The coastal towns appear to have been engaged in Indian Ocean and inland African trade at this early period.[18] Trade rapidly increased in importance and quantity beginning in the mid-8th century and by the close of the 10th century Zanzibar was one of the central Swahili trading towns.[19]: 46
Excavations at nearby Pemba Island, but especially at Shanga in the Lamu Archipelago, provide the clearest picture of architectural development. Houses were originally built with timber (circa 1050) and later in mud with coral walls (circa 1150). The houses were continually rebuilt with more permanent materials. By the 13th century, houses were built with stone, and bonded with mud, and the 14th century saw the use of lime to bond stone. Only the wealthier patricians would have had stone and lime built houses, the strength of the materials allowing for flat roofs, while the majority of the population lived in single-story thatched houses similar to those from the 11th and 12th centuries. According to John Middleton and Mark Horton, the architectural style of these stone houses have no Arab or Persian elements, and should be viewed as an entirely indigenous development of local vernacular architecture. While much of Zanzibar Town’s architecture was rebuilt during Omani rule, nearby sites elucidate the general development of Swahili, and Zanzibari, architecture before the 15th century.[19]: 119
From the 9th century, Swahili merchants on Zanzibar operated as brokers for long-distance traders from both the hinterland and Indian Ocean world. Persian, Indian, and Arab traders frequented Zanzibar to acquire East African goods like gold, ivory, and ambergris and then shipped them overseas to Asia. Similarly, caravan traders from the African Great Lakes and Zambezian Region came to the coast to trade for imported goods, especially Indian cloth. Before the Portuguese arrival, the southern towns of Unguja Ukuu and Kizimkazi and the northern town of Tumbatu were the dominant centers of exchange. Zanzibar was just one of the many autonomous city-states that dotted the East African littoral. These towns grew in wealth as the Swahili people served as intermediaries and facilitators to merchants and traders.[20] This interaction between Central African and Indian Ocean cultures contributed in part to the evolution of the Swahili culture, which developed an Arabic-script literary tradition. Although a Bantu language, the Swahili language as a consequence today includes some borrowed elements, particularly loanwords from Arabic, though this was mostly a 19th-century phenomenon with the growth of Omani hegemony. Many foreign traders from Africa and Asia married into wealthy patrician families on Zanzibar. Particularly Asian men, who “wintered” on the coast for up to six months because of the prevailing monsoon wind patterns, married East African women. Since most Asian traders were Muslim, their children inherited their paternal ethnic identity, though East African matrilineal traditions remained key.[21][22]
Portuguese colonization
Edit
The castle in Zanzibar
Vasco da Gama’s visit in 1498 marked the beginning of European influence. In 1503 or 1504, Zanzibar became part of the Portuguese Empire when Captain Ruy Lourenço Ravasco Marques landed and demanded and received tribute from the sultan, in exchange for peace.[23]: page: 99 Zanzibar remained a possession of Portugal for almost two centuries. It initially became part of the Portuguese province of Arabia and Ethiopia and was administered by a governor general. Around 1571, Zanzibar became part of the western division of the Portuguese empire and was administered from Mozambique.[24]: page: 15 It appears, however, that the Portuguese did not closely administer Zanzibar. The first English ship to visit Unguja, the Edward Bonaventure in 1591, found that there was no Portuguese fort or garrison. The extent of their occupation was a trade depot where produce was purchased and collected for shipment to Mozambique. “In other respects, the affairs of the island were managed by the local ‘king’, the predecessor of the Mwinyi Mkuu of Dunga.”[17]: page: 81 This hands-off approach ended when Portugal established a fort on Pemba Island around 1635 in response to the Sultan of Mombasa’s slaughter of Portuguese residents several years earlier. Portugal had long considered Pemba to be a troublesome launching point for rebellions in Mombasa against Portuguese rule.[17]: page: 85
The precise origins of the sultans of Unguja are uncertain. However, their capital at Unguja Ukuu is believed to have been an extensive town. Possibly constructed by locals, it was composed mainly of perishable materials.[17]: page: 89
Sultanate of Zanzibar
Edit
Main article: Sultanate of Zanzibar
Omani Sultan of Zanzibar
Zanzibari slave trader Tippu Tip
The Harem and Tower Harbour of Zanzibar (p.234), London Missionary Society[25]
The Portuguese arrived in East Africa in 1498, where they found several independent towns on the coast, with Muslim Arabic-speaking elites. While the Portuguese travelers describe them as ‘black’ they made a clear distinction between the Muslim and non-Muslim populations.[26] Their relations with these leaders were mostly hostile, but during the sixteenth century they firmly established their power, and ruled with the aid of tributary sultans. The Portuguese presence was relatively limited, leaving administration in the hands of preexisting local leaders and power structures. This system lasted until 1631, when the Sultan of Mombasa massacred the Portuguese inhabitants. For the remainder of their rule, the Portuguese appointed European governors. The strangling of trade and diminished local power led the Swahili elites in Mombasa and Zanzibar to invite Omani aristocrats to assist them in driving the Europeans out.[24]: page: 9
In 1698, Zanzibar came under the influence of the Sultanate of Oman.[27] There was a brief revolt against Omani rule in 1784. Local elites invited Omani merchant princes to settle on Zanzibar in the first half of the nineteenth century, preferring them to the Portuguese. Many locals today continue to emphasize that indigenous Zanzibaris had invited Seyyid Said, the first Busaidi sultan, to their island,[28] claiming a patron-client relationship with powerful families was a strategy used by many Swahili coast towns since at least the fifteenth century.[28]
In 1832,[23]: page: 162 or 1840[29]: page: 2, 045 (the date varies among sources), Said bin Sultan, Sultan of Muscat and Oman moved his capital from Muscat, Oman to Stone Town. After Said’s death in June 1856, two of his sons, Thuwaini bin Said and Majid bin Said, struggled over the succession. Said’s will divided his dominions into two separate principalities, with Thuwaini to become the Sultan of Oman and Majid to become the first Sultan of Zanzibar; the brothers quarreled about the will, which was eventually upheld by Charles Canning, 1st Earl Canning, Great Britain’s Viceroy and Governor-General of India.[23]: pages: 163–4 [24]: pages: 22–3
A Zanj slave gang in Zanzibar (1889)
Until around 1890, the sultans of Zanzibar controlled a substantial portion of the Swahili coast known as Zanj, which included Mombasa and Dar es Salaam. Beginning in 1886, Great Britain and Germany plotted to obtain parts of the Zanzibar sultanate for their own empires.[29]: page: 188 In October 1886, a British-German border commission established the Zanj as a 10-nautical-mile-wide (19 km) strip along most of the African Great Lakes region’s coast, an area stretching from Cape Delgado (now in Mozambique) to Kipini (now in Kenya), including Mombasa and Dar es Salaam. Over the next few years, however, almost all of these mainland possessions were lost to European imperial powers.
The sultans developed an economy of trade and cash crops in the Zanzibar Archipelago with a ruling Arab elite. Ivory was a major trade good. The archipelago, sometimes referred to by locals as the Spice Islands, was famous worldwide for its cloves and other spices, and plantations were developed to grow them. The archipelago’s commerce gradually fell into the hands of traders from the Indian subcontinent, whom Said bin Sultan encouraged to settle on the islands.
During his 14-year reign as sultan, Majid bin Said consolidated his power around the east African slave trade. Malindi in Zanzibar City was the Swahili Coast’s main port for the slave trade with the Middle East. In the mid-19th century, as many as 50,000 slaves passed annually through the port.[citation needed][30]
Many were captives of Tippu Tib, a notorious Arab/Swahili slave trader and ivory merchant. Tib led huge expeditions, some 4,000 strong, into the African interior, where chiefs sold him their villagers for next to nothing. These Tib used to caravan ivory back to Zanzibar, then sold them in the slave market for large profits. In time Tib became one of the wealthiest men in Zanzibar, the owner of multiple plantations and 10,000 slaves.[31]
One of Majid’s brothers, Barghash bin Said, succeeded him and was forced to abolish the slave trade in the Zanzibar Archipelago by the British. He largely developed Unguja’s infrastructure.[32] Another brother of Majid, Khalifa bin Said, was the third sultan of Zanzibar and furthered the relationship with the British which led to the archipelago’s progress toward abolishing slavery.[23]: page: 172
British protectorate
Edit
The post office in Zanzibar was initially managed by the postal service of British India. Before dedicated Zanzibar stamps could be manufactured, Indian stamps were locally overprinted. This item is from a pre-printed Indian envelope or postcard, overprinted at the offices of the Zanzibar Gazette, which had the only printing press in the territory.
Control of Zanzibar eventually came into the hands of the British Empire; part of the political impetus for this was the 19th century movement for the abolition of the slave trade. Zanzibar was the center of the east African slave trade. In 1822, Captain Moresby, the British consul in Muscat pressed Sultan Said to end the slave trade by signing Moresby treaty.[33]
The Moresby Treaty, the first of a series of anti-slavery treaties with Britain. It prohibited slave transport south and east of the Moresby Line, from Cape Delgado in Africa to Diu Head on the coast of India.[34] Said lost the revenue he would have received as duty on all slaves sold, so to make up for this shortfall he encouraged the development of the slave trade in Zanzibar itself.[34] Said came under increasing pressure from the British to abolish slavery entirely. In 1842, Britain told Said it wished to abolish the slave trade to Arabia, Oman, Persia, and the Red Sea.[35]
A street scene in Zanzibar during the early 20th century
Ships from the Royal Navy were employed to enforce the anti-slavery treaties by capturing any dhows carrying slaves, but with only four ships patrolling a huge area of sea, the British navy found it hard to enforce the treaties as ships from France, Spain, Portugal, and America continued to carry slaves.[36] In 1856, Sultan Majid consolidated his power around the African Great Lakes slave trade. But in 1873, Sir John Kirk informed his successor, Sultan Barghash, that a total blockade of Zanzibar was imminent, and Barghash reluctantly signed the Anglo-Zanzibari treaty which abolished the slave trade in the sultan’s territories, closed all slave markets and protected liberated slaves.[37]
The relationship between Britain and the German Empire, at that time the nearest relevant colonial power, was formalized by the 1890 Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty, in which Germany agreed to “recognize the British protectorate over … the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba”.[38]
In 1890 Zanzibar became a protectorate (not a colony) of Britain. This status meant it remained under the sovereignty of the Sultan of Zanzibar. Prime Minister Salisbury explained the British position:
The condition of a protected dependency is more acceptable to the half civilised races, and more suitable for them than direct dominion. It is cheaper, simpler, less wounding to their self-esteem, gives them more career as public officials, and spares them unnecessary contact with white men.[39]
From 1890 to 1913, traditional viziers were in charge; they were supervised by advisors appointed by the Colonial Office. However, in 1913 a switch was made to a system of direct rule through residents (effectively governors) from 1913. The death of the pro-British Sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini on 25 August 1896 and the succession of Sultan Khalid bin Barghash, whom the British did not approve of, led to the Anglo-Zanzibar War. On the morning of 27 August 1896, ships of the Royal Navy destroyed the Beit al Hukum Palace. A cease-fire was declared 38 minutes later, and to this day the bombardment stands as the shortest war in history.[40]
Zanzibar became the birthplace of famed British singer-songwriter of Queen, Freddie Mercury.
Zanzibar revolution and merger with Tanganyika
Edit
Main article: Zanzibar Revolution
President Abeid Karume
On 10 December 1963,[41] the Protectorate that had existed over Zanzibar since 1890 was terminated by the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom did not grant Zanzibar independence as such, because the UK had never had sovereignty over Zanzibar. Rather, by the Zanzibar Act 1963 of the United Kingdom, the UK ended the Protectorate and made provision for full self-government in Zanzibar as an independent country within the Commonwealth. Upon the Protectorate being abolished, Zanzibar became a constitutional monarchy within the Commonwealth under the Sultan.[42]
However, just a month later, on 12 January 1964 Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah was deposed during the Zanzibar Revolution.[43] The Sultan fled into exile, and the Sultanate was replaced by the People’s Republic of Zanzibar, a socialist government led by the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP). Over 20,000 people were killed - mostly Arabs and Indians - and many of them escaped the country as a consequence of the revolution.[44]
In April 1964, the republic merged with mainland Tanganyika. This United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar was soon renamed, blending the two names, as the United Republic of Tanzania, within which Zanzibar remains an autonomous region.
Monsoon
A monsoon (/mɒnˈsuːn/) is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation[1] but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal oscillation of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) between its limits to the north and south of the equator. Usually, the term monsoon is used to refer to the rainy phase of a seasonally changing pattern, although technically there is also a dry phase. The term is also sometimes used to describe locally heavy but short-term rains.[2][3]
The major monsoon systems of the world consist of the West African, Asia–Australian, the North American, and South American monsoons.
The term was first used in English in British India and neighboring countries to refer to the big seasonal winds blowing from the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea in the southwest bringing heavy rainfall to the area.[4]
The etymology of the word monsoon is not wholly certain.[6] The English monsoon came from Portuguese monção ultimately from Arabic موسم (mawsim, “season”), “perhaps partly via early modern Dutch monson”.[7]
Asian monsoon
Strengthening of the Asian monsoon has been linked to the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau after the collision of the Indian subcontinent and Asia around 50 million years ago.[8] Because of studies of records from the Arabian Sea and that of the wind-blown dust in the Loess Plateau of China, many geologists believe the monsoon first became strong around 8 million years ago. More recently, studies of plant fossils in China and new long-duration sediment records from the South China Sea led to a timing of the monsoon beginning 15–20 million years ago and linked to early Tibetan uplift.[9] Testing of this hypothesis awaits deep ocean sampling by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program.[10] The monsoon has varied significantly in strength since this time, largely linked to global climate change, especially the cycle of the Pleistocene ice ages.[11] A study of Asian monsoonal climate cycles from 123,200 to 121,210 years BP, during the Eemian interglacial, suggests that they had an average duration of around 64 years, with the minimum duration being around 50 years and the maximum approximately 80 years, similar to today.[12]
A study of marine plankton suggested that the South Asian Monsoon (SAM) strengthened around 5 million years ago. Then, during ice periods, the sea level fell and the Indonesian Seaway closed. When this happened, cold waters in the Pacific were impeded from flowing into the Indian Ocean. It is believed that the resulting increase in sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean increased the intensity of monsoons.[13] In 2018, a study of the SAM’s variability over the past million years found that precipitation resulting from the monsoon was significantly reduced during glacial periods compared to interglacial periods like the present day.[14] The Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) underwent several intensifications during the warming following the Last Glacial Maximum, specifically during the time intervals corresponding to 16,100–14,600 BP, 13,600–13,000 BP, and 12,400–10,400 BP as indicated by vegetation changes in the Tibetan Plateau displaying increases in humidity brought by an intensifying ISM.[15]
During the Middle Miocene, the July ITCZ, the zone of rainfall maximum, migrated northwards, increasing precipitation over southern China during the East Asian Summer Monsoon (EASM) while making Indochina drier.[16] The East Asian Winter Monsoon (EAWM) was significantly weaker during the Early Pliocene but abruptly became more intense around 3.8 million years ago[17] as crustal stretching widened the Tsushima Strait and enabled greater inflow of the warm Tsushima Current into the Sea of Japan.[18] Circa 3.0 million years ago, the EAWM became more stable, having previously been more variable and inconsistent, in addition to being enhanced further amidst a period of global cooling and sea level fall.[19] The EASM, which was weaker during cold intervals of glacial periods such as the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and stronger during interglacials and warm intervals of glacial periods,[20] expanded its influence deeper into the interior of Asia as sea levels rose following the LGM[21] and underwent a period of intensification during the Middle Holocene, around 6,000 years ago, due to orbital forcing made more intense by the fact that the Sahara at the time was much more vegetated and emitted less dust.[22] This Middle Holocene interval of maximum EASM was associated with an expansion of temperate deciduous forest steppe and temperate mixed forest steppe in northern China.[23] By around 5,000 to 4,500 BP, the East Asian monsoon’s strength began to wane, weakening from that point until the present day.[24] The location of the EASM shifted multiple times over the course of the Holocene: first, it moved southward between 12,000 and 8,000 BP, followed by an expansion to the north between approximately 8,000 and 4,000 BP, and most recently retreated southward once more between 4,000 and 0 BP.[25]
Australian monsoon
The January ITCZ migrated further south to its present location during the Middle Miocene, strengthening the summer monsoon of Australia that had previously been weaker.[16]
Five episodes during the Quaternary at 2.22 Ma ([clarification needed]PL-1), 1.83 Ma (PL-2), 0.68 Ma (PL-3), 0.45 Ma (PL-4) and 0.04 Ma (PL-5) were identified which showed a weakening of the Leeuwin Current (LC). The weakening of the LC would have an effect on the sea surface temperature (SST) field in the Indian Ocean, as the Indonesian Throughflow generally warms the Indian Ocean. Thus these five intervals could probably be those of considerable lowering of SST in the Indian Ocean and would have influenced Indian monsoon intensity. During the weak LC, there is the possibility of reduced intensity of the Indian winter monsoon and strong summer monsoon, because of change in the Indian Ocean dipole due to reduction in net heat input to the Indian Ocean through the Indonesian Throughflow. Thus a better understanding of the possible links between El Niño, Western Pacific Warm Pool, Indonesian Throughflow, wind pattern off western Australia, and ice volume expansion and contraction can be obtained by studying the behaviour of the LC during Quaternary at close stratigraphic intervals.[26]
Kalahari Dessert
millstone.
noun: millstone; plural noun: millstones; noun: mill stone; plural noun: mill stones
each of two circular stones used for grinding grain.
Phrases
a millstone around someone’s neck — a heavy and inescapable responsibility.
“she threatened to become a millstone around his neck”
Salisbury
Salisbury (locally /ˈsɔːzb(ə)ri/ SAWZ-b(ə-)ree)[a] is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820,[1] at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately 20 miles (30 kilometres) from Southampton and 30 miles (50 kilometres) from Bath.
Salisbury is in the southeast of Wiltshire, near the edge of Salisbury Plain. Salisbury Cathedral was formerly north of the city at Old Sarum. The cathedral was relocated and a settlement grew up around it, which received a city charter in 1227 as New Sarum. This continued to be its official name until 2009, when Salisbury City Council was established. Salisbury railway station is an interchange between the West of England Main Line and the Wessex Main Line.
Stonehenge is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is 8 miles (13 kilometres) northwest of Salisbury.
The name Salisbury, which is first recorded around the year 900 as Searoburg (dative Searobyrig), is a partial translation of the Roman Celtic name Sorbiodūnum. The Brittonic suffix -dūnon, meaning “fortress” (in reference to the fort that stood at Old Sarum), was replaced by its Old English equivalent -burg. The first part of the name is of obscure origin. The form “Sarum” is a Latinization of Sar, a medieval abbreviation for Middle English Sarisberie.[4]
Salisbury appeared in the Welsh Chronicle of the Britons as Caer-Caradog, Caer-Gradawc, and Caer-Wallawg.[5][6][7] Cair-Caratauc, one of the 28 cities listed in the History of the Britons, has also been identified with Salisbury.[8][9]
The hilltop at Old Sarum lies near the Neolithic sites of Stonehenge and Avebury and shows some signs of early settlement.[10] It commanded a salient between the River Bourne and the Hampshire Avon, near a crossroads of several early trade routes.[11] During the Iron Age, sometime between 600 and 300 BC, a hillfort (oppidum) was constructed around it.[11] The Romans may have occupied the site or left it in the hands of an allied tribe. At the time of the Saxon invasions, Old Sarum fell to King Cynric of Wessex in 552.[12] Preferring settlements in bottomland, such as nearby Wilton, the Saxons largely ignored Old Sarum until the Viking invasions led King Alfred (King of Wessex from 871 to 899) to restore its fortifications.[11] Along with Wilton, however, it was abandoned by its residents to be sacked and burned by the Dano-Norwegian king Sweyn Forkbeard in 1003.[13] It subsequently became the site of Wilton’s mint.[11] Following the Norman invasion of 1066, a motte-and-bailey castle was constructed by 1070.[11] The castle was held directly by the Norman kings; its castellan was generally also the sheriff of Wiltshire.
In 1075 the Council of London established Herman as the first bishop of Salisbury,[14] uniting his former sees of Sherborne and Ramsbury into a single diocese which covered the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, and Berkshire. In 1055, Herman had planned to move his seat to Malmesbury, but its monks and Earl Godwin objected.[15] Herman and his successor, Saint Osmund, began the construction of the first Salisbury cathedral, though neither lived to see its completion in 1092.[14] Osmund served as Lord Chancellor of England (in office c. 1070–1078); he was responsible for the codification of the Sarum Rite,[16] the compilation of the Domesday Book, which was probably presented to William at Old Sarum,[11] and, after centuries of advocacy from Salisbury’s bishops, was finally canonised by Pope Callixtus III in 1457.[17] The cathedral was consecrated on 5 April 1092 but suffered extensive damage in a storm, traditionally said to have occurred only five days later.[18][19] Bishop Roger was a close ally of Henry I (reigned 1100–1135): he served as viceroy during the king’s absence in Normandy[20] and directed, along with his extended family, the royal administration and exchequer.[21] He refurbished and expanded Old Sarum’s cathedral in the 1110s and began work on a royal palace during the 1130s, prior to his arrest by Henry’s successor, Stephen.[20] After this arrest, the castle at Old Sarum was allowed to fall into disrepair, but the sheriff and castellan continued to administer the area under the king’s authority.[22]
New Sarum
Edit
The Great West Front of Salisbury Cathedral
The 15th-century Doom painting in St Thomas’ church
A picture of Minster Street, c. 1870
Bishop of Salisbury Hubert Walter was instrumental in the negotiations with Saladin during the Third Crusade, but he spent little time in his diocese prior to his elevation to archbishop of Canterbury.[23] The brothers Herbert and Richard Poore succeeded him and began planning the relocation of the cathedral into the valley almost immediately. Their plans were approved by King Richard I but repeatedly delayed: Herbert was first forced into exile in Normandy in the 1190s by the hostility of his archbishop Walter and then again to Scotland in the 1210s owing to royal hostility following the papal interdiction against King John. The secular authorities were particularly incensed, according to tradition, owing to some of the clerics debauching the castellan’s female relations.[22] In the end, the clerics were refused permission to reenter the city walls following their rogations and processions.[24] This caused Peter of Blois to describe the church as “a captive within the walls of the citadel like the ark of God in the profane house of Baal”. He advocated
Let us descend into the plain! There are rich fields and fertile valleys abounding in the fruits of the earth and watered by the living stream. There is a seat for the Virgin Patroness of our church to which the world cannot produce a parallel.[25]
Herbert Poore’s successor and brother Richard Poore eventually moved the cathedral to a new town on his estate at Veteres Sarisberias (“Old Salisburies”) in 1220. The site was at “Myrifield” (“Merryfield”),[26] a meadow near the confluence of the River Nadder and the Hampshire Avon. It was first known as “New Sarum”[25] or New Saresbyri.[24] The town was laid out on a grid.
Work on the new cathedral building, the present Salisbury Cathedral, began in 1221. The site was supposedly established by shooting an arrow from Old Sarum, although this is certainly a legend: the distance is over three kilometres (2 mi). The legend is sometimes amended to claim that the arrow struck a white deer, which continued to run and died on the spot where the cathedral now rests. The structure was built upon wooden faggots on a gravel bed with unusually shallow foundations of 18 in (45 cm) and the main body was completed in only 38 years. The 123 m or 404 ft tall spire, the tallest in the UK, was built later. With royal approval, many of the stones for the new cathedral were taken from the old one; others came from Chilmark. They were probably transported by ox-cart, owing to the obstruction to boats on the River Nadder caused by its many weirs and watermills. The cathedral is considered a masterpiece of Early English architecture. The spire’s large clock was installed in 1386, and is one of the oldest surviving mechanical clocks in the world.[27] The Cathedral also contains the best-preserved of the four surviving copies of Magna Carta.
New Sarum was made a city by a charter from King Henry III in 1227[28] and, by the 14th century, was the largest settlement in Wiltshire. The city wall surrounds the Close and was built in the 14th century, again with stones removed from the former cathedral at Old Sarum. The wall now has five gates: the High Street Gate, St Ann’s Gate, the Queen’s Gate, and St Nicholas’s Gate were original, while a fifth was constructed in the 19th century to allow access to Bishop Wordsworth’s School, in the Cathedral Close. During his time in the city, the composer Handel stayed in a room above St Ann’s gate. The original site of the city at Old Sarum, meanwhile, fell into disuse. It continued as a rotten borough: at the time of its abolition during the reforms of 1832, its Member of Parliament (MP) represented three households.
In May 1289, there was uncertainty about the future of Margaret, Maid of Norway, and her father sent ambassadors to Edward I. Edward met Robert the Bruce and others at Salisbury in October 1289, which resulted in the Treaty of Salisbury, under which Margaret would be sent to Scotland before 1 November 1290 and any agreement on her future marriage would be delayed until she was in Scotland.[29]
The Parliament of England met at New Sarum in the years 1324, 1328, and 1384.[30]
In 1450, a number of riots broke out in Salisbury at roughly the same time as Jack Cade led a famous rebellion through London. The riots occurred for related reasons, although the declining fortunes of Salisbury’s cloth trade may also have been influential. The violence peaked with the murder of the bishop, William Ayscough, who been involved with the government. In 1483, a large-scale rebellion against Richard III broke out, led by his own ‘kingmaker’, Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham. After the revolt collapsed, Buckingham was executed at Salisbury, near the Bull’s Head Inn. In 1664, an act for making the River Avon navigable from Christchurch to the city of New Sarum was passed[31] and the work completed, only for the project to be ruined shortly thereafter by a major flood.[32] Soon after, during the Great Plague of London, Charles II held court in Salisbury’s cathedral close.
Salisbury was the site chosen to assemble James II’s forces to resist the Glorious Revolution. He arrived to lead his approximately 19 000 men on 19 November 1688. His troops were not keen to fight Mary or her husband William, and the loyalty of many of James’s commanders was in doubt. The first blood was shed at the Wincanton Skirmish, in Somerset. In Salisbury, James heard that some of his officers had deserted, such as Edward Hyde, and he broke out in a nosebleed, which he took as an omen that he should retreat. His commander in chief, the Earl of Feversham, advised retreat on 23 November, and the next day John Churchill defected to William. On 26 November, James’s own daughter, Princess Anne, did the same, and James returned to London the same day, never again to be at the head of a serious military force in England.[33]
20th and 21st centuries: Salisbury
Edit
Secret Spitfire Memorial, view from the south
Following the destruction by the Luftwaffe of the factories building Supermarine Spitfires in 1940 in Southampton, production was dispersed to shadow factories elsewhere in the south of England. Salisbury was the major centre of production, supplemented by Trowbridge and Reading. Several factories were set up in the centre of Salisbury and manned by predominantly young women who had no previous mechanical experience but were trained for specific tasks in the aircraft construction process. Supporting the factories were many workers producing small components in home-based workshops and garden sheds. Sub-assemblies were built in the city centre factories and then transported to High Post airfield (north of the city, in Durnford parish) and Chattis Hill[34] (northeast, near Stockbridge), where the aircraft were assembled, test flown and then distributed to RAF airfields across England. A total of over 2000 Spitfires were produced. The whole process was carried out in secret without the knowledge of even the local people and only emerged into public knowledge after the production of a film describing the whole process.[35] In July 2021 a memorial to the workers, in the form of a life-size fibreglass model Mk IX Spitfire, was unveiled in Castle Road, Salisbury on the site of one of the factories.[36][37]
At the time of the 1948 Summer Olympics, held in London, a relay of runners carried the Olympic Flame from Wembley Stadium, where the Games were based, to the sailing centre at Torbay via Slough, Basingstoke, Salisbury, and Exeter.[citation needed]
The 1972 Local Government Act eliminated the administration of the City of New Sarum under its former charters, but its successor, Wiltshire County’s Salisbury District, continued to be accorded its former city status. The name was finally formally amended from “New Sarum” to “Salisbury” during the 2009 changes occasioned by the 1992 Local Government Act, which established the Salisbury City Council.
On 4 March 2018, former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, were poisoned in Salisbury with a Novichok nerve agent.[38]
Romanesque
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of medieval Europe characterized by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque style, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 11th century, this later date being the most commonly held. In the 12th century it developed into the Gothic style, marked by pointed arches. Examples of Romanesque architecture can be found across the continent, making it the first pan-European architectural style since Imperial Roman architecture. The Romanesque style in England and Sicily is traditionally referred to as Norman architecture.
Combining features of ancient Roman and Byzantine buildings and other local traditions, Romanesque architecture is known by its massive quality, thick walls, round arches, sturdy pillars, barrel vaults, large towers and decorative arcading. Each building has clearly defined forms, frequently of very regular, symmetrical plan; the overall appearance is one of simplicity when compared with the Gothic buildings that were to follow. The style can be identified right across Europe, despite regional characteristics and different materials.
Many castles were built during this period, but they are greatly outnumbered by churches. The most significant are the great abbey churches, many of which are still standing, more or less complete and frequently in use.[1] The enormous quantity of churches built in the Romanesque period was succeeded by the still busier period of Gothic architecture, which partly or entirely rebuilt most Romanesque churches in prosperous areas like England and Portugal. The largest groups of Romanesque survivors are in areas that were less prosperous in subsequent periods, including parts of southern France, rural Spain and rural Italy. Survivals of unfortified Romanesque secular houses and palaces, and the domestic quarters of monasteries are far rarer, but these used and adapted the features found in church buildings, on a domestic scale.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “Romanesque” means “descended from Roman” and was first used in English to designate what are now called Romance languages (first cited 1715). The French term “romane” was first used in the architectural sense by archaeologist Charles de Gerville in a letter of 18 December 1818 to Auguste Le Prévost to describe what Gerville sees as a debased Roman architecture.[Notes 1][3] In 1824 Gerville’s friend Arcisse de Caumont adopted the label “roman” to describe the “degraded” European architecture from the 5th to the 13th centuries, in his Essai sur l’architecture religieuse du moyen-âge, particulièrement en Normandie,[4] at a time when the actual dates of many of the buildings so described had not been ascertained:[5][6][7]
The name Roman (esque) we give to this architecture, which should be universal as it is the same everywhere with slight local differences, also has the merit of indicating its origin and is not new since it is used already to describe the language of the same period. Romance language is degenerated Latin language. Romanesque architecture is debased Roman architecture.[Notes 2]
The first use in a published work is in William Gunn’s An Inquiry into the Origin and Influence of Gothic Architecture (London 1819).[9][10] The word was used by Gunn to describe the style that was identifiably Medieval and prefigured the Gothic, yet maintained the rounded Roman arch and thus appeared to be a continuation of the Roman tradition of building.
The term is now used for the more restricted period from the late 10th to 12th centuries. The term “Pre-romanesque” is sometimes applied to architecture in Germany of the Carolingian and Ottonian periods and Visigothic, Mozarab and Asturian constructions between the 8th and the 10th centuries in the Iberian Peninsula while “First Romanesque” is applied to buildings in north of Italy and Spain and parts of France that have Romanesque features but pre-date the influence of the Abbey of Cluny.
Typical Romanesque architectural forms
Portal, Church of Santa Maria, Viu de Llevata, Catalonia, Spain
Portal, Church of Santa Maria, Viu de Llevata, Catalonia, Spain
The vault at the Abbey Church of Saint Foy, Conques, France
The vault at the Abbey Church of Saint Foy, Conques, France
Cloister of the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, Rome
Cloister of the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, Rome
Bell tower of Angoulême Cathedral, Charente, SW France
Bell tower of Angoulême Cathedral, Charente, SW France
Window and Lombard band of the Rotunda of San Tomè, Almenno San Bartolomeo
Window and Lombard band of the Rotunda of San Tomè, Almenno San Bartolomeo
Buildings of every type were constructed in the Romanesque style, with evidence remaining of simple domestic buildings, elegant town houses, grand palaces, commercial premises, civic buildings, castles, city walls, bridges, village churches, abbey churches, abbey complexes and large cathedrals.[11] Of these types of buildings, domestic and commercial buildings are the most rare, with only a handful of survivors in the United Kingdom, several clusters in France, isolated buildings across Europe and by far the largest number, often unidentified and altered over the centuries, in Italy. Many castles exist, the foundations of which date from the Romanesque period. Most have been substantially altered, and many are in ruins.
By far the greatest number of surviving Romanesque buildings are churches. These range from tiny chapels to large cathedrals. Although many have been extended and altered in different styles, a large number remain either substantially intact or sympathetically restored, demonstrating the form, character and decoration of Romanesque church architecture.[11]
The scope of Romanesque architecture
Saint Nicholas Rotunda in Cieszyn, Poland
Saint Nicholas Rotunda in Cieszyn, Poland
A small three-storey stone house with an exterior stone staircase to the first floor, and a wooden balcony around the upper floor
Romanesque house in Poreč, Croatia
An imposing four-storey stone building with battlements and rows of paired windows, facing onto a town square.
The Civic Hall in Massa Marittima, Italy
The facade of a tall grey church with paired towers and a single ornately carved doorway
Abbey Church of St James, Lébény, Hungary (1208)
A circular castle tower with enormous jutting buttresses. There are few windows and entrance is on an upper floor, is reached by a modern staircase.
The keep of Conisbrough Castle, England
Origins
Edit
Romanesque architecture was the first distinctive style to spread across Europe since the Roman Empire. With the decline of Rome, Roman building methods survived to an extent in Western Europe, where successive Merovingian, Carolingian and Ottonian architects continued to build large stone buildings such as monastery churches and palaces. In the more northern countries, Roman building styles and techniques had never been adopted except for official buildings, while in Scandinavia they were unknown. Although the round arch continued in use, the engineering skills required to vault large spaces and build large domes were lost. There was a loss of stylistic continuity, particularly apparent in the decline of the formal vocabulary of the Classical Orders. In Rome several great Constantinian basilicas continued in use as an inspiration to later builders. Some traditions of Roman architecture also survived in Byzantine architecture with the 6th-century octagonal Byzantine Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna being the inspiration for the greatest building of the Early Middle Ages in Europe, the Emperor Charlemagne’s Palatine Chapel, Aachen, Germany, built around the year AD 800.[12]
Dating shortly after the Palatine Chapel is a remarkable 9th-century Swiss manuscript known as the Plan of Saint Gall and showing a very detailed plan of a monastic complex, with all its various monastic buildings and their functions labelled. The largest building is the church, the plan of which is distinctly Germanic, having an apse at both ends, an arrangement not generally seen elsewhere. Another feature of the church is its regular proportion, the square plan of the crossing tower providing a module for the rest of the plan. These features can both be seen at the Proto-Romanesque St. Michael’s Church, Hildesheim, 1001–1030.[12]
Architecture of a Romanesque style also developed simultaneously in the north of Italy, parts of France and in the Iberian Peninsula in the 10th century and prior to the later influence of the Abbey of Cluny. The style, sometimes called First Romanesque or Lombard Romanesque, is characterised by thick walls, lack of sculpture and the presence of rhythmic ornamental arches known as a Lombard band.
Anzio
Anzio (/ˈænzioʊ/,[4][5] also US: /ˈɑːntsioʊ/,[6] Italian: [ˈantsjo]) is a town and comune on the coast of the Lazio region of Italy, about 51 kilometres (32 mi) south of Rome.
Well known for its seaside harbour setting, it is a fishing port and a departure point for ferries and hydroplanes to the Pontine Islands of Ponza, Palmarola, and Ventotene. The town bears great historical significance as the site of Operation Shingle, a crucial landing by the Allies during the Italian Campaign of World War II.
The symbol of Anzio is the goddess Fortuna, in reference to her veneration in the ancient Antium,[7] whose territory Anzio occupies a very important part; so that it retains the heritage of the ancient town in archaeological terms: the settlement of Antium, over the centuries, was certainly present in the area of modern Anzio (the Capo d’Anzio).
In the Roman era the territory of Antium almost entirely corresponded to modern Anzio and nearby Nettuno.[8]
In the Middle Ages Antium was deserted in favour of Nettuno, which maintained the legacy of the ancient settlement.[9][10]
Modern Era
Edit
At the end of the 17th century Innocent XII and Clement XI restored the harbour, not on the old site of the Roman one of Nero, but to the east of it, with the opening to the east, a mistake which leads to its being frequently silted up; it has a depth of about 5 metres (16 ft). The sea is encroaching slightly at Anzio, but some kilometres farther north-west the old Roman coast-line now lies slightly inland (see Tiber).[9]
A village arose and developed after the construction of the new harbour - completed in 1700 - with the Roman aristocracy discovering the area.[11] [10]
In 1857 Pope Pius IX founded the modern municipality (comune) of Anzio, with the boundaries of Nettuno being redrawn to accommodate the new town;[10] however, the official name of the new municipality was Porto d’Anzio until 1885.[8]
Anzio known a remarkable development as a seaside resort at the end of the 19th century.[12]
World War II
Edit
Main article: Battle of Anzio
Anzio in the 1940s
From 1940 to 1945 Anzio was united with Nettuno in a single municipality (comune): Nettunia.[10]
Anzio and Nettuno are also notable as sites of an Allied forces landing and the ensuing Battle of Anzio during World War II. The Commonwealth Anzio War Cemetery and Beach Head War Cemetery are located here.
In February 1944 American soldiers (the U.S. Fifth Army) were surrounded by Germans in the caves of Pozzoli for a week, suffering heavy casualties. A film based on the events called Anzio (1968, directed by Edward Dmytryk) was made, starring Robert Mitchum and based on a book by Wynford Vaughan-Thomas.
Tor Caldara Tower and the Anzio beach.
On 18 February 1944, the British light cruiser Penelope was struck by two torpedoes off the coast of Anzio and sunk with a loss of 417 crew.
In the same region Lieutenant Eric Fletcher Waters of the British Army lost his life in battle while serving as a member of the 8th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), part of the 167th (London) Infantry Brigade of the 56th (London) Infantry Division which fought at Anzio for nearly six weeks. His son, Roger Waters, became the bassist and main lyricist of progressive rock band, Pink Floyd. In his honour and remembrance Roger Waters recorded the song “The Fletcher Memorial Home”, which is the maiden name of Eric Waters’ mother. (Also see “When the Tigers Broke Free”.)
Post-war
Edit
On September 14, 1948, a waterspout came ashore in the town, which threw a mobile home 40 metres (44 yd) and threw a car “violently” into a tree. This tornado never received an official rating from the European Severe Storms Laboratory, however, the La Stampa newspaper wrote an article how it was “exceptionally violent”. According to La Stampa, a wooden and brick home was completely destroyed, ten homes had their roofs completely torn off, and about 50 large pine trees were completely uprooted. The tornado caused several million lire in damage.[13
Cayman Islands
Hieronymus Bosch
Hieronymus Bosch (/haɪˈrɒnɪməs bɒʃ, bɔːʃ, bɔːs/,[1][2][3][4] Dutch: [ɦijeːˈroːnimʏz ˈbɔs] (listen);[a] born Jheronimus van Aken[5] [jeːˈroːnimʏs fɑn ˈaːkə(n)];[b] c. 1450 – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch/Netherlandish painter from Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, generally oil on oak wood, mainly contains fantastic illustrations of religious concepts and narratives.[6] Within his lifetime his work was collected in the Netherlands, Austria, and Spain, and widely copied, especially his macabre and nightmarish depictions of hell.
Little is known of Bosch’s life, though there are some records. He spent most of it in the town of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, where he was born in his grandfather’s house. The roots of his forefathers are in Nijmegen and Aachen (which is visible in his surname: Van Aken). His pessimistic fantastical style cast a wide influence on northern art of the 16th century, with Pieter Bruegel the Elder being his best-known follower. Today, Bosch is seen as a hugely individualistic painter with deep insight into humanity’s desires and deepest fears. Attribution has been especially difficult; today only about 25 paintings are confidently given to his hand[7] along with eight drawings. About another half-dozen paintings are confidently attributed to his workshop. His most acclaimed works consist of a few triptych altarpieces, including The Garden of Earthly Delights.
Hieronymus Bosch was born Jheronimus (or Joen,[8] respectively the Latin and Middle Dutch form of the name “Jerome”) van Aken (meaning “from Aachen”). He signed a number of his paintings as Jheronimus Bosch.[9] His surname derives from his birthplace, ‘s-Hertogenbosch (‘Duke’s forest’), which is commonly called “Den Bosch” (‘the forest’).[10]
Little is known of Bosch’s life or training. He left behind no letters or diaries, and what has been identified has been taken from brief references to him in the municipal records of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, and in the account books of the local order of the Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady. Nothing is known of his personality or his thoughts on the meaning of his art. Bosch’s date of birth has not been determined with certainty. It is estimated at c. 1450 on the basis of a hand-drawn portrait (which may be a self-portrait) made shortly before his death in 1516. The drawing shows the artist at an advanced age, probably in his late sixties.[11]
Bosch lived all his life in and near ‘s-Hertogenbosch, which was located in the Duchy of Brabant. His grandfather Jan van Aken (died 1454) was a painter and is first mentioned in the records in 1430. Jan had five sons, four of whom were also painters. Bosch’s father, Anthonius van Aken (died c. 1478), acted as artistic adviser to the Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady.[12] It is generally assumed that either Bosch’s father or one of his uncles taught the artist to paint, but none of their works survive.[13] Bosch first appears in the municipal record on 5 April 1474, when he is named along with two brothers and a sister.[14]
’s-Hertogenbosch was a flourishing city in 15th-century Brabant, in the south of the present-day Netherlands, at the time part of the Burgundian Netherlands, and during its[clarification needed] lifetime passing through marriage to the Habsburgs.[citation needed] In 1463, four thousand houses in the town were destroyed by a catastrophic fire, which the then (approximately) thirteen-year-old Bosch presumably witnessed. He became a popular painter in his lifetime and often received commissions from abroad.[citation needed] In 1486/7 he joined the highly respected Brotherhood of Our Lady, a devotional confraternity of some forty influential citizens of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, and seven thousand ‘outer-members’ from around Europe.[14]
Sometime between 1479 and 1481, Bosch married Aleyt Goyaerts van den Meerveen, who was a few years his senior. The couple moved to the nearby town of Oirschot, where his wife had inherited a house and land from her wealthy family.[15] An entry in the accounts of the Brotherhood of Our Lady records Bosch’s death in 1516. A funeral mass served in his memory was held in the church of Saint John on 9 August of that year.[16]
The Garden of Earthly Delights
The Garden of Earthly Delights is the modern title[a] given to a triptych oil painting on oak panel painted by the Early Netherlandish master Hieronymus Bosch, between 1490 and 1510, when Bosch was between 40 and 60 years old.[1] It has been housed in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain since 1939.
As little is known of Bosch’s life or intentions, interpretations of his artistic intent behind the work range from an admonition of worldly fleshy indulgence, to a dire warning on the perils of life’s temptations, to an evocation of ultimate sexual joy. The intricacy of its symbolism, particularly that of the central panel, has led to a wide range of scholarly interpretations over the centuries. Twentieth-century art historians are divided as to whether the triptych’s central panel is a moral warning or a panorama of paradise lost.
Bosch painted three large triptychs (the others are The Last Judgment of c. 1482 and The Haywain Triptych of c. 1516) that can be read from left to right and in which each panel was essential to the meaning of the whole. Each of these three works presents distinct, yet linked themes addressing history and faith. Triptychs from this period were generally intended to be read sequentially, the left and right panels often portraying Eden and the Last Judgment respectively, while the main subject was contained in the center piece.[2] It is not known whether The Garden was intended as an altarpiece, but the general view is that the extreme subject matter of the inner center and right panels make it unlikely that it was intended to function in a church or monastery, but was instead commissioned by a lay patron.[3]
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight (/waɪt/ WYTE) is a county and the largest and second-most populous island of England. It is located in the English Channel, two to five miles (3.2 to 8.0 km) off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. Referred to as ‘The Island’ by residents,[5] the Isle of Wight has resorts that have been popular holiday destinations since Victorian times. It is known for its mild climate, coastal scenery, and verdant landscape of fields, downland and chines. The island is historically part of Hampshire,[6] and is designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.
The island has been home to the poets Algernon Charles Swinburne and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Queen Victoria built her summer residence and final home, Osborne House at East Cowes, on the Isle. It has a maritime and industrial tradition of boat-building, sail-making, the manufacture of flying boats, hovercraft, and Britain’s space rockets. The island hosts annual music festivals, including the Isle of Wight Festival, which in 1970 was the largest rock music event ever held.[7] It has well-conserved wildlife and some of the richest cliffs and quarries of dinosaur fossils in Europe.
The island has played an important part in the defence of the ports of Southampton and Portsmouth, and has been near the front-line of conflicts through the ages, having faced the Spanish Armada and weathered the Battle of Britain. Rural for most of its history, its Victorian fashionability and the growing affordability of holidays led to significant urban development during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The island became a separate administrative county in 1890, making it independent of Hampshire. It continued to share the Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire until 1974, when it was made its own ceremonial county. The Isle no longer has administrative links to Hampshire, though the two counties share their police force and fire and rescue service, and the island’s Anglican churches belongs to the Diocese of Portsmouth (originally Winchester). A combined local authority with Portsmouth and Southampton was considered,[8] but was unlikely to proceed as of 2017.[9]
The quickest public transport link to the mainland is the hovercraft (Hovertravel) from Ryde to Southsea. Three vehicle ferry and two catamaran services cross the Solent to Southampton, Lymington and Portsmouth via the island’s largest ferry operator, Wightlink, and the island’s second largest ferry company, Red Funnel. Tourism is the largest industry on the island.
The oldest records that give a name for the Isle of Wight are from the Roman Empire. It was called Vectis or Vecta in Latin, and Iktis or Ouiktis in Greek. Latin Vecta, Old English Wiht and Old Welsh forms Gueid and Guith were recorded from the Anglo-Saxon period. The Domesday Book called the island Wit. The modern Welsh name is Ynys Wyth (ynys meaning island). These are all variant forms of the same name, possibly Celtic in origin. [10][11]
Inhabitants of the Isle of Wight were known as Wihtware. [a]
Toponym
Edit
Place of the division [b]
The island that lifts up out of the sea. [c] [d] [e] [f]
Pre-Bronze Age
Edit
During Pleistocene glacial periods, sea levels were lower and the present day Solent was part of the valley of the Solent River. The river flowed eastward from Dorset, following the course of the modern Solent strait, before travelling south and southwest towards the major Channel River system. At these times extensive gravel terraces associated with the Solent River and the forerunners of the island’s modern rivers were deposited. During warmer interglacial periods silts, beach gravels, clays and muds of marine and estuarine origin were deposited as a result of higher sea levels, similar to those experienced today.
A flint hand axe from the Paleolithic, c. 500,000 BP, found on the island in 2010.[15]
The earliest clear evidence of Lower Palaeolithic archaic human occupation on what is now the Isle of Wight is found close to Priory Bay. Here more than 300 acheulean handaxes have been recovered from the beach and cliff slopes, originating from a sequence of Pleistocene gravels dating approximately to MIS 11-MIS 9 (424,000–374,000 years ago).[16] Reworked and abraded artefacts found at the site may be considerably older however, closer to 500,000 years old. The identity of the hominids who produced these tools is unknown, but sites and fossils of the same age range in Europe are often attributed to Homo heidelbergensis or early populations of Neanderthals.
A Middle Palaeolithic Mousterian flint assemblage, consisting of 50 handaxes and debitage, has been recovered from Great Pan Farm in the Medina Valley near Newport. Gravel sequences at the site have been dated to the MIS 3 interstadial, during the last glacial period (c. 50,000 years ago). These tools are associated with late Neanderthal occupation, and evidence of late Neanderthal presence is seen across Britain at this time.
No major evidence of Upper Palaeolithic activity exists on the Isle of Wight. This period is associated with the expansion and establishment of populations of modern human (Homo sapiens) hunter-gatherers in Europe, beginning around 45,000 years ago. However, evidence of late Upper Palaeolithic activity has been found at nearby sites on the mainland, notably Hengistbury Head in Dorset, dating to just prior to onset of the Holocene and the end of the last glacial period.
A Neolithic arrowhead from c. 2500 – c. 2100 BCE, found on the island in 2011[17]
A submerged escarpment 11m below sea level off Bouldnor Cliff on the island’s northwest coastline is home to an internationally significant mesolithic archaeological site. The site has yielded evidence of seasonal occupation by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers dating to c. 6050 BC. Finds include flint tools, burnt flint, worked timbers, wooden platforms and pits. The worked wood shows evidence of the splitting of large planks from oak trunks, interpreted as being intended for use as dug-out canoes. DNA analysis of sediments at the site yielded wheat DNA, not found in Britain until the Neolithic 2,000 years after the occupation at Bouldnor Cliff. It has been suggested this is evidence of wide-reaching trade in Mesolithic Europe; however, the contemporaneity of the wheat with the Mesolithic occupation has been contested. When hunter-gatherers used the site it was located on a river bank surrounded by wetland and woodland.[18] As sea levels rose throughout the Holocene the river valley slowly flooded, submerging the site.
Evidence of Mesolithic occupation on the island is generally found along the river valleys, particularly along the north of the Island, and in the former catchment of the western Yar. Further key sites are found at Newtown Creek, Werrar and Wootton-Quarr.
Neolithic occupation on the Isle of Wight is primarily attested to by flint tools and monuments. Unlike the previous Mesolithic hunter-gatherer population, Neolithic communities on the Isle of Wight were based on farming and linked to a migration of Neolithic populations from France and northwest Europe to Britain c. 6,000 years ago.
The Isle of Wight’s most visible Neolithic site is the Longstone at Mottistone, the remains of an early Neolithic long-barrow. Originally constructed with two standing stones at the entrance, only one remains standing today. A Neolithic mortuary enclosure has been identified on Tennyson Down near Freshwater.
Bronze and Iron Age
Edit
An early Bronze Age axehead from c. 2000 – c. 1700 BCE, found on the island in 2011[19]
Bronze Age Britain had large reserves of tin in the areas of Cornwall and Devon and tin is necessary to smelt bronze. At that time the sea level was much lower and carts of tin were brought across the Solent at low tide[20][21] for export, possibly on the Ferriby Boats. Anthony Snodgrass[22][23] suggests that a shortage of tin, as a part of the Bronze Age Collapse and trade disruptions in the Mediterranean around 1300 BC, forced metalworkers to seek an alternative to bronze. From the 7th century BC, during the Late Iron Age, the Isle of Wight, like the rest of Great Britain, was occupied by the Celtic Britons, in the form of the Durotriges tribe; as attested by finds of their coins, for example, the South Wight Hoard,[24][25] and the Shalfleet Hoard.[26] The island was known as Ynys Weith in Brittonic Celtic.[27] South eastern Britain experienced significant immigration that is reflected in the genetic makeup of the current residents.[28] As the Iron Age began, the value of tin likely dropped sharply, greatly changing the Isle of Wight’s economy. Trade however continued, as evidenced by the local abundance of European Iron Age coins.[29][30]
Roman period
Edit
Julius Caesar reported that the Belgae took the Isle of Wight in about 85 BC,[31] and recognised the culture of this general region as “Belgic”, but made no reference to Vectis.[32] The Roman historian Suetonius mentions that the island was captured by the commander Vespasian. The Romans built no towns on the island, but the remains of at least seven Roman villas have been found, indicating the prosperity of local agriculture.[33] First-century exports were principally hides, slaves, hunting dogs, grain, cattle, silver, gold, and iron.[32]
Early Medieval period
Edit
An Anglo-Saxon copper-alloy pin, dating from c. 700 – c. 900, found on the island in 2012[34]
There are indications that the island had wide trading links, with a port at Bouldnor,[35][36][37] evidence of Bronze Age tin trading,[21] and finds of Late Iron Age coins.[38] Starting in AD 449, the 5th and 6th centuries saw groups of Germanic-speaking peoples from Northern Europe crossing the English Channel and gradually set about conquering the region.[39]
During the Early Middle Ages the island was settled by Jutes as the pagan kingdom of the Wihtwara under King Arwald. In 685 it was invaded by King Cædwalla of Wessex who tried to replace the inhabitants with his own followers. Though in 686 Arwald was defeated and the island became the last part of English lands to be converted to Christianity, Cædwalla was unsuccessful in driving the Jutes from the island.[40][41][42] Wight was then added to Wessex and became part of England under King Alfred the Great, included within the shire of Hampshire.
It suffered especially from Viking raids,[43] and was often used as a winter base by Viking raiders when they were unable to reach Normandy.[44] Later, both Earl Tostig and his brother Harold Godwinson (who became King Harold II) held manors on the island.[45][46]
Norman Conquest – 19th century
Edit
A silver penny of Edward I, minted 1300-05, found on the island in 2011[47]
The Norman Conquest of 1066 created the position of Lord of the Isle of Wight; the island was given by William the Conqueror to his kinsman William FitzOsbern. Carisbrooke Priory and the fort of Carisbrooke Castle were then founded. Allegiance was sworn to FitzOsbern rather than the king; the Lordship was subsequently granted to the de Redvers family by Henry I, after his succession in 1100.
Carisbrooke Castle
For nearly 200 years the island was a semi-independent feudal fiefdom, with the de Redvers family ruling from Carisbrooke. The final private owner was the Countess Isabella de Fortibus, who, on her deathbed in 1293, was persuaded to sell it to Edward I. Thereafter the island was under control of the English Crown[48] and its Lordship a royal appointment.
The island continued to be attacked from the continent: it was raided in 1374 by the fleet of Castile,[49] and in 1377 by French raiders who burned several towns, including Newtown.[50]
Under Henry VIII, who developed the Royal Navy and its Portsmouth base, the island was fortified at Yarmouth, Cowes, East Cowes, and Sandown.
The French invasion on 21 July 1545 (famous for the sinking of the Mary Rose on the 19th) was repulsed by local militia.[51]
During the English Civil War, King Charles I fled to the Isle of Wight, believing he would receive sympathy from the governor Robert Hammond, but Hammond imprisoned the king in Carisbrooke Castle.[52]
Osborne House and its grounds are now open to the public.
Eugene Manet on the Isle of Wight, 1875 painting by Berthe Morisot
During the Seven Years’ War, the island was used as a staging post for British troops departing on expeditions against the French coast, such as the Raid on Rochefort. During 1759, with a planned French invasion imminent, a large force of soldiers was stationed there. The French called off their invasion following the Battle of Quiberon Bay.[53]
19th century – present
Edit
In the mid 1840s Potato Blight was found first in the UK on the Island having arrived from Belgium. It later was transmitted to Ireland.[54]
In the 1860s, what remains in real terms the most expensive ever government spending project saw fortifications built on the island and in the Solent, as well as elsewhere along the south coast, including the Palmerston Forts, The Needles Batteries and Fort Victoria, because of fears about possible French invasion.[55]
The future Queen Victoria spent childhood holidays on the island and became fond of it. When she became queen she made Osborne House her winter home, and so the island became a fashionable holiday resort, including for Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Julia Margaret Cameron, and Charles Dickens (who wrote much of David Copperfield there), as well as the French painter Berthe Morisot and members of European royalty.[56]
Queen Victoria’s bathing machine, preserved at Queen Victoria’s Beach east of Osborne House[57]
Until the queen’s example, the island had been rural, with most people employed in farming, fishing or boat-building. The boom in tourism, spurred by growing wealth and leisure time, and by Victoria’s presence, led to significant urban development of the island’s coastal resorts. As one report summarizes, “The Queen’s regular presence on the island helped put the Isle of Wight ‘on the map’ as a Victorian holiday and wellness destination … and her former residence Osborne House is now one of the most visited attractions on the island”[58] While on the island, the queen used a bathing machine that could be wheeled into the water on Osborne Beach; inside the small wooden hut she could undress and then bathe, without being visible to others.[59] Her machine had a changing room and a WC with plumbing. The refurbished machine is now displayed at the beach.[60][61]
On 14 January 1878, Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated an early version of the telephone to the queen,[62] placing calls to Cowes, Southampton and London. These were the first publicly-witnessed long distance telephone calls in the UK. The queen tried the device and considered the process to be “quite extraordinary” although the sound was “rather faint”.[63] She later asked to buy the equipment that was used, but Bell offered to make “a set of telephones” specifically for her.[64][65]
The world’s first radio station was set up by Guglielmo Marconi in 1897, during her reign, at the Needles Battery, at the western tip of the island.[66][67] A 168-foot (51 m) high mast was erected near the Royal Needles Hotel, as part of an experiment of communicating with ships at sea. That location is now the site of the Marconi Monument.[68] In 1898 the first paid wireless telegram (called a “Marconigram”) was sent from this station, and the island was for some time[69] the home of the National Wireless Museum, near Ryde.[70]
Queen Victoria died at Osborne House on 22 January 1901, at the age of 81.
During the Second World War the island was frequently bombed. With its proximity to German-occupied France, the island hosted observation stations and transmitters, as well as the RAF radar station at Ventnor. It was the starting-point for one of the earlier Operation Pluto pipelines to feed fuel to Europe after the Normandy landings.[71]
The Needles Battery was used to develop and test the Black Arrow and Black Knight space rockets, which were subsequently launched from Woomera, Australia.[72]
Statue of Jimi Hendrix outside Dimbola Lodge
The Isle of Wight Festival was a very large rock festival that took place near Afton Down, West Wight in August 1970, following two smaller concerts in 1968 and 1969. The 1970 show was one of the last public performances by Jimi Hendrix and attracted somewhere between 600,000 and 700,000 attendees.[73] The festival was revived in 2002 in a different format, and is now an annual event.[74]
On 26 October 2020 an oil tanker the Nave Andromeda, suspected to have been hijacked by Nigerian stowaways, was stormed south east of the island by the Special Boat Service. Seven people believed to be Nigerians seeking UK asylum were handed over to Hampshire Police.[75]
Smolensk
Smolensk (Russian: Смоленск, IPA: [smɐˈlʲensk] (listen)) is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River, 360 kilometers (220 mi) west-southwest of Moscow. First mentioned in 863, it is one of the oldest cities in Russia. Population: 316,570 (2021 Census);[10] 326,861 (2010 Census);[5] 325,137 (2002 Census);[11] 341,483 (1989 Census).[12]
The city has been destroyed several times throughout its long history because it was on the invasion routes of various empires. Smolensk is known for its electronics, textiles, food processing, and diamond faceting industries.
The name of the city is derived from the name of the Smolnya River. Smolnya river flows through Karelian and Murmansk areas of north-western Russia.[13] The origin of the river’s name is less clear. One possibility is the old Slavic word смоль (smol) for black soil, which might have colored the waters of the Smolnya. An alternative origin could be the Russian word смола (smola), which means resin, tar, or pitch. Pine trees grow in the area, and the city was once a center of resin processing and trade. The Byzantine emperor Constantine VII (r. 913–959) recorded its name as Μιλινισκα (Miliniska).[14]
The city is located in European Russia on the banks of the upper Dnieper River, which crosses the city within the Smolensk Upland, which is the western part of the Smolensk–Moscow Upland. The Dnieper River flows through the city from east to west and divides it into two parts: the northern (Zadneprove) and southern (center). Within the city and its surroundings the river takes in several small tributaries.
In the valleys are stretched streets, high ridges, hills, and headlands form the mountain. Smolensk is situated on seven hills (mountains). The old part of the city occupies the high, rugged left (south) bank of the Dnieper River. The area features undulating terrain, with a large number of tributaries, creeks and ravines
Medieval origins
Edit
St. Michael’s Church (Svirskaya) was built in 1180–1197 and is one of the few surviving structures in Russia from before the Mongol conquests.
Smolensk is among the oldest Russian cities of the known Rus’ era. The first recorded mention of the city was 863 AD, two years after the founding of Kievan Rus’. According to Russian Primary Chronicle, Smolensk (probably located slightly downstream, at the archaeological site of Gnezdovo) was located on the area settled by the East Slavic Radimichs tribe in 882 when Oleg of Novgorod took it in passing from Novgorod to Kiev. The town was first attested two decades earlier, when the Varangian chieftains Askold and Dir, while on their way to Kiev, decided against challenging Smolensk on account of its large size and population.
The first foreign writer to mention the city was the Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus. In De Administrando Imperio (c. 950) he described Smolensk as a key station on the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks. The Rus’ people sailed from the Baltic region up the Western Dvina (Daugava) River as far as they could then they portaged their boats to the upper Dnieper. It was in Smolensk that they supposedly mended any leaks and small holes that might have appeared in their boats from being dragged on the ground and they used tar to do that, hence the city name.
The Principality of Smolensk was founded in 1054. Due to its central position in Kievan Rus’, the city developed rapidly. By the end of the 12th century, the princedom was one of the strongest in Eastern Europe, so that Smolensk princes frequently controlled the Kievan throne. Numerous churches were built in the city at that time, including the church of Sts. Peter and Paul (1146, reconstructed to its presumed original appearance after World War II) and the church of St. John the Baptist (1180, also partly rebuilt). The most remarkable church in the city is called Svirskaya (1197, still standing); it was admired by contemporaries as the most beautiful structure east of Kiev.
Smolensk had its own veche since the very beginning of its history. Its power increased after the disintegration of Kievan Rus’, and although it was not as strong as the veche in Novgorod, the princes had to take its opinion into consideration; several times in 12th and 13th centuries there was an open conflict between them.[15]
Between Lithuania and Russia
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Historical affiliations
Grand Duchy of Lithuania 1404–1514
Grand Duchy of Moscow 1514–1547
Tsardom of Russia 1547–1611
Poland–Lithuania 1611–1656
Tsardom of Russia 1656–1721
Russian Empire 1721–1812
French occupation 1812
Russian Empire 1812–1917
Russian Republic 1917–1918
Belarusian People’s Republic 1918–1919
Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia 1919
Russian SFSR 1919–1922
Soviet Union 1922–1941
German occupation 1941–1943
Soviet Union 1943–1991
Russia 1991–present
Although spared by the Mongol armies in 1240, Smolensk paid tribute to the Golden Horde, gradually becoming a pawn in the long struggle between Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Grand Duchy of Moscow. The last sovereign monarch of Smolensk was Yury of Smolensk; during his reign the city was taken by Vytautas the Great of Lithuania on three occasions: in 1395, 1404, and 1408. After the city’s incorporation into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, some of Smolensk’s boyars (e.g., the Sapiehas) moved to Vilnius; descendants of the ruling princes (e.g., the Tatishchevs, Kropotkins, Mussorgskys, Vyazemskys) fled to Moscow.
Siege of Smolensk (1609–1611) by Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
Three Lithuanian Smolensk regiments took part in the 1410 Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg) against the Teutonic Knights. It was a severe blow to Lithuania when the city was taken by Vasily III of Russia in 1514. To commemorate this event, the Tsar founded the Novodevichy Convent in Moscow and dedicated it to the icon of Our Lady of Smolensk.
In order to repel future Polish–Lithuanian attacks, Boris Godunov made it his priority to heavily fortify the city. The stone kremlin constructed in 1597–1602 is the largest in Russia. It features thick walls and numerous watchtowers. Heavy fortifications did not prevent the fortress from being taken by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1611 after a long twenty-month siege, during the Time of Troubles and Dimitriads. Weakened Muscovy temporarily ceded Smolensk land to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Truce of Deulino. The city was granted Magdeburg rights in 1611 and was the seat of Smolensk Voivodeship for the next forty-three years.[16]
To recapture the city, the Tsardom of Russia launched the so-called “Smolensk War” against the Commonwealth in 1632. After a defeat at the hands of king Wladislaw IV, the city remained in Polish–Lithuanian hands. In 1632, the Uniate bishop Lew Kreuza built his apartments in Smolensk; they were later converted into the Eastern Orthodox Church of Saint Barbara. The hostilities resumed in 1654 when the Commonwealth was being affected by the Khmelnytsky Uprising and the Swedish deluge. After another siege, on September 23, 1654, Smolensk was recaptured by Russia. In the 1667 Truce of Andrusovo, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth renounced its claims to Smolensk.
Modern history
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View of Smolensk in 1912. Early colour photograph by Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii
French and Polish soldiers assault the burning city of Smolensk, 1812.
Smolensk has been a special place to Russians for many reasons, not least for the fact that the local cathedral housed one of the most venerated Orthodox icons, attributed to St. Luke. Building the new Cathedral of the Assumption was a great project which took more than a century to complete. Despite slowly sinking into an economic backwater, Smolensk was still valued by the Tsars as a key fortress defending the route to Moscow. It was made the seat of Smolensk Governorate in 1708.
In August 1812, two of the largest armies ever assembled clashed in Smolensk. During the hard-fought battle, described by Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace (Book Three Part Two Chapter 4), Napoleon entered the city. Total losses were estimated at 30,000 men. Apart from other military monuments, central Smolensk features the Eagles monument, unveiled in 1912 to mark the centenary of Napoleon’s Russian campaign.
At the beginning of World War I, the 56th Smolensk Infantry Division was first assigned to the First Army of the Imperial Russian Army. They fought at the Battle of Tannenberg. It was subsequently transferred to the 10th Army and fought at the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes. In March 1918, the Belarusian People’s Republic, proclaimed in Minsk under the German occupation, declared Smolensk part of it. In February–December 1918, Smolensk was home to the headquarters of the Western Front, North-West Oblast Bolshevik Committee and Western Oblast Executive Committee. On January 1, 1919, the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed in Smolensk,[17] but its government moved to Minsk as soon as the German forces had been driven out of the city several days later.
Soviet period
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After the revolution, there was debate on whether to include Smolensk in the Byelorussian SSR. In 1920 a provincial census was held, according to which the Russian population prevailed over the Belarusian one, meaning Smolensk had to be transferred to the Russian SFSR. In 1940, 18 km (11 mi) from Smolensk, the Katyn Massacre occurred, in which some 22,000 Polish POWs were murdered by the NKVD. At this time Boris Menshagin was mayor of Smolensk, with his deputy Boris Bazilevsky. Both of them would be key witnesses in the Nuremberg Trials over the massacre.[18]
Smolensk under German occupation, 1941.
During World War II, Smolensk once again saw wide-scale fighting during the first Battle of Smolensk when the city was captured by the Germans on July 16, 1941. The first Soviet counteroffensive against the German army was launched in August but failed. However, the limited Soviet victories outside the city halted the German advance for a crucial two months, granting time to Moscow’s defenders to prepare in earnest. Over 93% of the city was destroyed during the fighting; the ancient icon of Our Lady of Smolensk was lost. Nevertheless, it escaped total destruction. In late 1943, Hermann Göring had ordered Gotthard Heinrici to destroy Smolensk in accordance with the Nazi “scorched earth” policy. He refused and was punished for it. The city was finally liberated on September 25, 1943, during the second Battle of Smolensk. The rare title of Hero City was bestowed on Smolensk after the war.
After the Germans captured the city in 1941, they found the intact archives of the Smolensk Oblast Committee of the Communist Party, the so-called Smolensk Archive. The archive was moved to Germany, and a significant part of it eventually ended up in the United States, providing Western scholars and intelligence specialists with unique information during the Cold War on the local workings of the Soviet government during its first two decades. The archives were returned to Russia by the United States in 2002.[19][20]
Recent events
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On April 10, 2010, a Tu-154 military jet carrying Polish president Lech Kaczyński, his wife, and many notable political and military figures crashed in a wooded area near Smolensk while approaching the local military airport. All ninety-six passengers died immediately on impact. The purpose of the visit was to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre.
In June 2013, archaeologists of the Russian Academy of Sciences discovered and unearthed ancient temples in Smolensk dated to the middle to second half of the 12th century, built on the left bank of the Dnieper River. At the time the city was the capital of Smolensk principality.[21]
In September 2013, Smolensk widely celebrated its 1,150th anniversary with funds spent on different construction and renovation projects in the city.[22] In celebration the Central Bank of Russia issued commemorative coins made of precious metals.[23]
Pan (greek god)
Greek god
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pan (/pæn/;[2] Ancient Greek: Πάν, romanized: Pán) is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, rustic music and impromptus, and companion of the nymphs.[3] He has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, in the same manner as a faun or satyr. With his homeland in rustic Arcadia, he is also recognized as the god of fields, groves, wooded glens, and often affiliated with sex; because of this, Pan is connected to fertility and the season of spring.[4]
In Roman religion and myth, Pan’s counterpart was Faunus, a nature god who was the father of Bona Dea, sometimes identified as Fauna; he was also closely associated with Sylvanus, due to their similar relationships with woodlands. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Pan became a significant figure in the Romantic movement of western Europe and also in the 20th-century Neopagan movement.[5]
Many modern scholars consider Pan to be derived from the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European god Péh₂usōn, whom they believe to have been an important pastoral deity[6] (Péh₂usōn shares an origin with the modern English word “pasture”).[7] The Rigvedic god Pushan is believed to be a cognate of Pan. The connection between Pan and Pushan was first identified in 1924 by the German scholar Hermann Collitz.[8][9] The familiar form of the name Pan is contracted from earlier Πάων, derived from the root *peh₂- (guard, watch over).[10] According to Edwin L. Brown, the name Pan is probably a cognate with the Greek word ὀπάων “companion”.[11]
In his earliest appearance in literature, Pindar’s Pythian Ode iii. 78, Pan is associated with a mother goddess, perhaps Rhea or Cybele; Pindar refers to maidens worshipping Cybele and Pan near the poet’s house in Boeotia.[12]
The worship of Pan began in Arcadia which was always the principal seat of his worship. Arcadia was a district of mountain people, culturally separated from other Greeks. Arcadian hunters used to scourge the statue of the god if they had been disappointed in the chase.[13]
Being a rustic god, Pan was not worshipped in temples or other built edifices, but in natural settings, usually caves or grottoes such as the one on the north slope of the Acropolis of Athens. These are often referred to as the Cave of Pan. The only exceptions are the Temple of Pan on the Neda River gorge in the southwestern Peloponnese – the ruins of which survive to this day – and the Temple of Pan at Apollonopolis Magna in ancient Egypt.[14] In the 4th century BC Pan was depicted on the coinage of Pantikapaion.[15]
Archaeologists while excavating a Byzantine church of around 400 CE in Banyas, discovered in the walls of the church an altar of the god Pan with a Greek inscription, dating back to the 2nd or 3rd century CE. The inscription reads, “Atheneon son of Sosipatros of Antioch is dedicating the altar to the god Pan Heliopolitanus. He built the altar using his own personal money in fulfillment of a vow he made.”[16]
Battle with Typhon
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The goat-god Aegipan was nurtured by Amalthea with the infant Zeus in Crete. In Zeus’ battle with Typhon, Aegipan and Hermes stole back Zeus’ “sinews” that Typhon had hidden away in the Corycian Cave.[35] Pan aided his foster-brother in the battle with the Titans by letting out a horrible screech and scattering them in terror. According to some traditions, Aegipan was the son of Pan, rather than his father. The constellation Capricornus is traditionally depicted as a sea-goat, a goat with a fish’s tail (see “Goatlike” Aigaion called Briareos, one of the Hecatonchires). A myth reported as “Egyptian” in Hyginus’s Poetic Astronomy[36] (which would seem to be invented to justify a connection of Pan with Capricorn) says that when Aegipan—that is Pan in his goat-god aspect[37]—was attacked by the monster Typhon, he dived into the river Nile; the parts above the water remained a goat, but those under the water transformed into a fish.
Erotic aspects
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Representations of Pan on 4th-century BC gold and silver Pantikapaion coins.
Pan is famous for his sexual prowess and is often depicted with a phallus. Diogenes of Sinope, speaking in jest, related a myth of Pan learning masturbation from his father, Hermes, and teaching the habit to shepherds.[38]
There was a legend that Pan seduced the moon goddess Selene, deceiving her with a sheep’s fleece.[39]
One of the famous myths of Pan involves the origin of his pan flute, fashioned from lengths of hollow reed. Syrinx was a lovely wood-nymph of Arcadia, daughter of Ladon, the river-god. As she was returning from the hunt one day, Pan met her. To escape from his importunities, the fair nymph ran away and didn’t stop to hear his compliments. He pursued from Mount Lycaeum until she came to her sisters who immediately changed her into a reed. When the air blew through the reeds, it produced a plaintive melody. The god, still infatuated, took some of the reeds, because he could not identify which reed she became, and cut seven pieces (or according to some versions, nine), joined them side by side in gradually decreasing lengths, and formed the musical instrument bearing the name of his beloved Syrinx. Henceforth, Pan was seldom seen without it.
Pan having sex with a goat, statue from Villa of the Papyri, Herculaneum.
Echo was a nymph who was a great singer and dancer and scorned the love of any man. This angered Pan, a lecherous god, and he instructed his followers to kill her. Echo was torn to pieces and spread all over Earth. The goddess of the Earth, Gaia, received the pieces of Echo, whose voice remains repeating the last words of others. In some versions, Echo and Pan had two children: Iambe and Iynx. In other versions, Pan had fallen in love with Echo, but she scorned the love of any man but was enraptured by Narcissus. As Echo was cursed by Hera to only be able to repeat words that had been said by someone else, she could not speak for herself. She followed Narcissus to a pool, where he fell in love with his own reflection and changed into a narcissus flower. Echo wasted away, but her voice could still be heard in caves and other such similar places.
Pan also loved a nymph named Pitys, who was turned into a pine tree to escape him.[40] In another version, Pan and the north wind god Boreas clashed over the lovely Pitys. Boreas uprooted all the trees to impress her, but Pan laughed and Pitys chose him. Boreas then chased her and threw her off a cliff resulting in her death. Gaia pitied Pitys and turned her into a pine tree.[41]
According to some traditions, Pan taught Daphnis, a rustic son of Hermes, how to play the pan-pipes, and also fell in love with him.[42][43]
Women who had had sexual relations with several men were referred to as “Pan girls.”[44]
Panic
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Disturbed in his secluded afternoon naps, Pan’s angry shout inspired panic (panikon deima) in lonely places.[45][46] Following the Titans’ assault on Olympus, Pan claimed credit for the victory of the gods because he had frightened the attackers. In the Battle of Marathon (490 BC), it is said that Pan favored the Athenians and so inspired panic in the hearts of their enemies, the Persians.[47]
Music
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“Sweet, piercing sweet was the music of Pan’s pipe” reads the caption on this depiction of Pan (by Walter Crane)
In two late Roman sources, Hyginus[48] and Ovid,[49] Pan is substituted for the satyr Marsyas in the theme of a musical competition (agon), and the punishment by flaying is omitted.
Pan once had the audacity to compare his music with that of Apollo, and to challenge Apollo, the god of the lyre, to a trial of skill. Tmolus, the mountain-god, was chosen to umpire. Pan blew on his pipes and gave great satisfaction with his rustic melody to himself and to his faithful follower, Midas, who happened to be present. Then Apollo struck the strings of his lyre. Tmolus at once awarded the victory to Apollo, and all but Midas agreed with the judgment. Midas dissented and questioned the justice of the award. Apollo would not suffer such a depraved pair of ears any longer and turned Midas’ ears into those of a donkey.[50]
All of the Pans
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Learn more
This section needs additional citations for verification. (October 2021)
Marble table support adorned by a group including Dionysos, Pan and a Satyr; Dionysos holds a rhyton (drinking vessel) in the shape of a panther; traces of red and yellow colour are preserved on the hair of the figures and the branches; from an Asia Minor workshop, 170–180 AD, National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece
Pan could be multiplied into a swarm of Pans, and even be given individual names, as in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca, where the god Pan had twelve sons that helped Dionysus in his war against the Indians. Their names were Kelaineus, Argennon, Aigikoros, Eugeneios, Omester, Daphoenus, Phobos, Philamnos, Xanthos, Glaukos, Argos, and Phorbas.
Two other Pans were Agreus and Nomios. Both were the sons of Hermes, Agreus’ mother being the nymph Sose, a prophetess: he inherited his mother’s gift of prophecy, and was also a skilled hunter. Nomios’ mother was Penelope (not the same as the wife of Odysseus). He was an excellent shepherd, seducer of nymphs, and musician upon the shepherd’s pipes. Most of the mythological stories about Pan are actually about Nomios, not the god Pan. Although, Agreus and Nomios could have been two different aspects of the prime Pan, reflecting his dual nature as both a wise prophet and a lustful beast.
Aegipan, literally “goat-Pan,” was a Pan who was fully goatlike, rather than half-goat and half-man. When the Olympians fled from the monstrous giant Typhoeus and hid themselves in animal form, Aegipan assumed the form of a fish-tailed goat. Later he came to the aid of Zeus in his battle with Typhoeus, by stealing back Zeus’ stolen sinews. As a reward the king of the gods placed him amongst the stars as the Constellation Capricorn. The mother of Aegipan, Aix (the goat), was perhaps associated with the constellation Capra.
Sybarios was an Italian Pan who was worshipped in the Greek colony of Sybaris in Italy. The Sybarite Pan was conceived when a Sybarite shepherd boy named Krathis copulated with a pretty she-goat amongst his herds.
According to the Greek historian Plutarch (in De defectu oraculorum, “The Obsolescence of Oracles”),[51] Pan is the only Greek god who actually dies. During the reign of Tiberius (AD 14–37), the news of Pan’s death came to one Thamus, a sailor on his way to Italy by way of the Greek island of Paxi. A divine voice hailed him across the salt water, “Thamus, are you there? When you reach Palodes,[52] take care to proclaim that the great god Pan is dead.” Which Thamus did, and the news was greeted from shore with groans and laments.
Christian apologists, including Eusebius of Caesarea, have long made much of Plutarch’s story of the death of Pan. Due to the word “all” in Greek also being “pan,” a pun was made that “all demons” had perished.[53]
In Rabelais’ Fourth Book of Pantagruel (16th century), the Giant Pantagruel, after recollecting the tale as told by Plutarch, opines that the announcement was actually about the death of Jesus Christ, which did take place at about the same time (towards the end of Tiberius’ reign), noting the aptness of the name: “for he may lawfully be said in the Greek tongue to be Pan, since he is our all. For all that we are, all that we live, all that we have, all that we hope, is him, by him, from him, and in him.”[54] In this interpretation, Rabelais was following Guillaume Postel in his De orbis terrae concordia.[55]
The 19th-century visionary Anne Catherine Emmerich, in a twist echoed nowhere else, claims that the phrase “the Great Pan” was actually a demonic epithet for Jesus Christ, and that “Thamus, or Tramus” was a watchman in the port of Nicaea, who, at the time of the other spectacular events surrounding Christ’s death, was then commissioned to spread this message, which was later garbled “in repetition.”[56]
In modern times, G. K. Chesterton has repeated and amplified the significance of the “death” of Pan, suggesting that with the “death” of Pan came the advent of theology. To this effect, Chesterton claimed, “It is said truly in a sense that Pan died because Christ was born. It is almost as true in another sense that men knew that Christ was born because Pan was already dead. A void was made by the vanishing world of the whole mythology of mankind, which would have asphyxiated like a vacuum if it had not been filled with theology.”[57][58][59] It was interpreted with concurrent meanings in all four modes of medieval exegesis: literally as historical fact, and allegorically as the death of the ancient order at the coming of the new.[original research?]
In more modern times, some have suggested a possible naturalistic explanation for the myth. For example, Robert Graves (The Greek Myths) reported a suggestion that had been made by Salomon Reinach[60] and expanded by James S. Van Teslaar[61] that the sailors actually heard the excited shouts of the worshipers of Tammuz, Θαμούς πανμέγας τέθνηκε (Thamoús panmégas téthnēke, “All-great Tammuz is dead!”), and misinterpreted them as a message directed to an Egyptian sailor named ‘Thamus’: “Great Pan is Dead!” Van Teslaar explains, “[i]n its true form the phrase would have probably carried no meaning to those on board who must have been unfamiliar with the worship of Tammuz which was a transplanted, and for those parts, therefore, an exotic custom.”[62] Certainly, when Pausanias toured Greece about a century after Plutarch, he found Pan’s shrines, sacred caves and sacred mountains still very much frequented. However, a naturalistic explanation might not be needed. For example, William Hansen[63] has shown that the story is quite similar to a class of widely known tales known as Fairies Send a Message.
The cry “The Great Pan is dead” has appealed to poets, such as John Milton, in his ecstatic celebration of Christian peace, On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity line 89,[64] and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.[65]
In the late 18th century, interest in Pan revived among liberal scholars. Richard Payne Knight discussed Pan in his Discourse on the Worship of Priapus (1786) as a symbol of creation expressed through sexuality. “Pan is represented pouring water upon the organ of generation; that is, invigorating the active creative power by the prolific element.”[66]
John Keats’s “Endymion” (1818) opens with a festival dedicated to Pan where a stanzaic hymn is sung in praise of him. Keats’s account of Pan’s activities is largely drawn from the Elizabethan poets. Douglas Bush notes, “The goat-god, the tutelary divinity of shepherds, had long been allegorized on various levels, from Christ to ‘Universall Nature’ (Sandys); here he becomes the symbol of the romantic imagination, of supra-mortal knowledge.’“[67]
In the late 19th century Pan became an increasingly common figure in literature and art. Patricia Merivale states that between 1890 and 1926 there was an “astonishing resurgence of interest in the Pan motif”.[68] He appears in poetry, in novels and children’s books, and is referenced in the name of the character Peter Pan.[69] In the Peter Pan stories, Peter represents a golden age of pre-civilisation in both the minds of very young children, before enculturation and education, and in the natural world outside the influence of humans. Peter Pan’s character is both charming and selfish emphasizing our cultural confusion about whether human instincts are natural and good, or uncivilised and bad. J. M. Barrie describes Peter as ‘a betwixt and between’, part animal and part human, and uses this device to explore many issues of human and animal psychology within the Peter Pan stories.[70]
Arthur Machen’s 1894 novella The Great God Pan uses the god’s name in a simile about the whole world being revealed as it really is: “seeing the Great God Pan”. The novella is considered by many (including Stephen King) as being one of the greatest horror stories ever written.[71]
In an article in Hellebore magazine, Melissa Edmundson argues that women writers from the 19th century used the figure of Pan “to reclaim agency in texts that explored female empowerment and sexual liberation”. In Eleanor Farjeon’s poem “Pan-Worship”, the speaker tries to summon Pan to life after feeling “a craving in me”, wishing for a “spring-tide” that will replace the stagnant “autumn” of the soul. A dark version of Pan’s seductiveness appears in Margery Lawrence’s Robin’s Rath, who both gives and takes life and vitality.
Pan is the eponymous “Piper at the Gates of Dawn” in the seventh chapter of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows (1908). Grahame’s Pan, unnamed but clearly recognisable, is a powerful but secretive nature-god, protector of animals, who casts a spell of forgetfulness on all those he helps. He makes a brief appearance to help the Rat and Mole recover the Otter’s lost son Portly.
The goat-footed god entices villagers to listen to his pipes as if in a trance in Lord Dunsany’s novel The Blessing of Pan (1927). Although the god does not appear within the story, his energy invokes the younger folk of the village to revel in the summer twilight, while the vicar of the village is the only person worried about the revival of worship for the old pagan god.
Pan is featured as a prominent character in Tom Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume (1984).
The British writer and editor Mark Beech of Egaeus Press published in 2015 the limited-edition anthology Soliloquy for Pan[72] which includes essays and poems such as “The Rebirthing of Pan” by Adrian Eckersley, “Pan’s Pipes” by Robert Louis Stevenson, “Pan with Us” by Robert Frost, and “The Death of Pan” by Lord Dunsany. Some of the detailed illustrated depictions of Pan included in the volume are by the artists Giorgio Ghisi, Sir James Thornhill, Bernard Picart, Agostino Veneziano, Vincenzo Cartari, and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.
Revival in music
Edit
Pan inspired pieces of classical music by Claude Debussy. Syrinx, written as part of incidental music to the play Psyché by Gabriel Mourey, was originally called “Flûte de Pan”. Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune was based on a poem by Stéphane Mallarmé.
The British rock band Pink Floyd named its first album “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” in reference to Pan, as he appeared in The Wind in the Willows. Andrew King, Pink Floyd’s manager, said Syd Barrett “thought Pan had given him an understanding into the way nature works. It formed into his holistic view of the world.”[73]
Founding member of The Rolling Stones Brian Jones strongly identified with Pan.[73] He produced the live album Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka, about a Moroccan festival that evoked the ancient Roman rites of Pan.
Musician Mike Scott of the Waterboys refers to Pan as the archetypal force within us all, and talks about his search of “The Pan Within”, reflected in songs such as “The Return of Pan”.[74]
Revived worship
Edit
In the English town of Painswick in Gloucestershire, a group of 18th-century gentry, led by Benjamin Hyett, organised an annual procession dedicated to Pan, during which a statue of the deity was held aloft, and people shouted “Highgates! Highgates!” Hyett also erected temples and follies to Pan in the gardens of his house and a “Pan’s lodge”, located over Painswick Valley. The tradition died out in the 1830s, but was revived in 1885 by the new vicar, W. H. Seddon, who mistakenly believed that the festival had been ancient in origin. One of Seddon’s successors, however, was less appreciative of the pagan festival and put an end to it in 1950, when he had Pan’s statue buried.[75]
Occultists Aleister Crowley and Victor Neuburg built an altar to Pan on Da’leh Addin, a mountain in Algeria, where they performed a magic ceremony to summon the god. In the final rite of the ritual playThe Rites of Eleusis, written by Crowley, Pan “pulls back the final veil, revealing the child Horus, who represents humanity’s eternal and divine element.[74]”
A modern account of several purported meetings with Pan is given by Robert Ogilvie Crombie in The Findhorn Garden (Harper & Row, 1975) and The Magic of Findhorn (Harper & Row, 1975). Crombie claimed to have met Pan many times at various locations in Scotland, including Edinburgh, on the island of Iona and at the Findhorn Foundation.
Aeronautical engineer and occultist Jack Parsons invoked Pan before test launches at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Neopaganism
Edit
In 1933, the Egyptologist Margaret Murray published the book The God of the Witches, in which she theorised that Pan was merely one form of a horned god who was worshipped across Europe by a witch-cult.[76] This theory influenced the Neopagan notion of the Horned God, as an archetype of male virility and sexuality. In Wicca, the archetype of the Horned God is highly important, as represented by such deities as the Celtic Cernunnos, the Hindu Pashupati, and the Greek Pan.
Identification with Satan
Edit
Francisco Goya, Witches’ Sabbath (El aquelarre), of Basque mythology. 1798. Oil on canvas, 44 × 31 cm. Museo Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid.
Pan’s goatish image recalls conventional faun-like depictions of Satan. The similarities between conventional representations of Pan and the Devil were observed by the occultists Aleister Crowley[77] and Anton Szandor LaVey, the latter of whom said in The Satanic Bible:
Many pleasures revered before the advent of Christianity were condemned by the new religion. It required little change-over to transform the horns and cloven hooves of Pan into a most convincing devil! Pan’s attributes could neatly be changed into charged-with-punishment sins, and so the metamorphosis was complete.[78]
Audie Murphy
Audie Leon Murphy (20 June 1925 – 28 May 1971) was an American soldier, actor and songwriter. He was one of the most decorated American combat soldiers of World War II. He received every military combat award for valor available from the United States Army, as well as French and Belgian awards for heroism. Murphy received the Medal of Honor for valor that he demonstrated at the age of 19 for single-handedly holding off a company of German soldiers for an hour at the Colmar Pocket in France in January 1945, before leading a successful counterattack while wounded and out of ammunition.
Murphy was born into a large family of sharecroppers in Hunt County, Texas. After his father abandoned them, his mother died when he was a teenager. Murphy left school in fifth grade to pick cotton and find other work to help support his family; his skill with a hunting rifle helped feed his family.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Murphy’s older sister helped him to falsify documentation about his birthdate in order to meet the minimum age requirement for enlisting in the military. Turned down initially for being underweight by the Army, Navy and the Marine Corps, he eventually was able to enlist in the Army. He first saw action in the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily; then in 1944 he participated in the Battle of Anzio, the liberation of Rome, and the invasion of southern France. Murphy fought at Montélimar and led his men on a successful assault at L’Omet quarry near Cleurie in north-eastern France in October.
After the war, Murphy embarked on a 21-year acting career. He played himself in the 1955 autobiographical film To Hell and Back, based on his 1949 memoirs of the same name, but most of his roles were in westerns. He made guest appearances on celebrity television shows and starred in the series Whispering Smith. Murphy was a fairly accomplished songwriter. He bred quarter horses in California and Arizona, and became a regular participant in horse racing.
Because Murphy had what would today be described as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), he slept with a loaded handgun under his pillow. He looked for solace in addictive sleeping pills. In his last few years, he was plagued by money problems but refused offers to appear in alcohol and cigarette commercials because he did not want to set a bad example. Murphy died in a plane crash in Virginia in 1971, shortly before his 46th birthday. He was interred with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery, where his grave is one of the most visited.
Murphy was born on 20 June 1925, in Kingston, a small rural community in Hunt County in northeastern Texas.[ALM 1] He was the seventh of twelve children born to Emmett Berry Murphy (1887–1976) and his wife Josie Bell Murphy (née Killian; 1891–1941). The Murphys were sharecroppers, of English, Irish, Scots-Irish, Scottish, and German descent.[7][8][9]
As a child, Murphy was a loner with mood swings and an explosive temper.[10] He grew up in northeastern Texas around the towns of Farmersville, Greenville, and Celeste, where he attended elementary school.[11] His father drifted in and out of the family’s life and eventually deserted them. Murphy dropped out of school in fifth grade and got a job picking cotton for a dollar a day (equivalent to $20 in 2021) to help support his family; he also became skilled with a rifle, hunting small game to help feed them. After his mother died of endocarditis and pneumonia[12] in 1941, he worked at a radio repair shop and at a combination general store, garage and gas station in Greenville.[13] Hunt County authorities placed his three youngest siblings in Boles Children’s Home,[14] a Christian orphanage in Quinlan. After the war, he bought a house in Farmersville for his eldest sister Corinne and her husband, Poland Burns. His other siblings briefly shared the home.[15]
The loss of his mother stayed with Murphy throughout his life. He later stated:
She died when I was sixteen. She had the most beautiful hair I’ve ever seen. It reached almost to the floor. She rarely talked; and always seemed to be searching for something. What it was I don’t know. We didn’t discuss our feelings. But when she passed away, she took something of me with her. It seems I’ve been searching for it ever since.[16]
Murphy had always wanted to be a soldier. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he tried to enlist,[13] but the Army, Navy and Marine Corps all turned him down for being underweight and underage. After his sister provided an affidavit that falsified his birth date by a year, he was accepted by the U.S. Army on 30 June 1942.[ALM 1][ALM 3] After basic training at Camp Wolters,[21] he was sent to Fort Meade for advanced infantry training.[22] During basic training, he earned the Marksman Badge with Rifle Component Bar and Expert Badge with Bayonet Component Bar.[23]
Mediterranean Theater
Allied landing in Sicily, Licata Sector Joss Beach Mollarella Poliscia, Marker erected 10 July 2011
Murphy was shipped to Casablanca in French Morocco on 20 February 1943. He was assigned to Company B, 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, which trained under the command of Major General Lucian Truscott.[24][25] After the 13 May surrender of the Axis forces in French Tunisia,[26] the division was put in charge of the prisoners.[27] He participated as a platoon messenger with his division at Arzew in Algeria in rigorous training for the Allied assault landings in Sicily.[28] Murphy was promoted to private first class on 7 May and corporal on 15 July.[29][30]
When the 3rd Infantry landed at Licata, Sicily, on 10 July, Murphy was a division runner.[31][32] On a scouting patrol, he killed two fleeing Italian officers near Canicattì.[33] Sidelined with illness for a week when Company B arrived in Palermo on 20 July,[34] he rejoined them when they were assigned to a hillside location protecting a machine-gun emplacement, while the rest of the 3rd Infantry Division fought at San Fratello en route to the Allied capture of the transit port of Messina.[35]
Murphy participated in the September 1943 mainland Salerno landing at Battipaglia.[36] While on a scouting party along the Volturno River, he and two other soldiers were ambushed; German machine gun fire killed one soldier. Murphy and the other survivor responded by killing five Germans with hand grenades and machine gun fire.[37] While taking part in the October Allied assault on the Volturno Line,[36][38] near Mignano Monte Lungo Hill 193, he and his company repelled an attack by seven German soldiers, killing three and taking four prisoner.[39] Murphy was promoted to sergeant on 13 December.[40]
In January 1944, Murphy was promoted to staff sergeant.[40] He was hospitalized in Naples with malaria on 21 January and was unable to participate in the initial landing at the Anzio beachhead.[41] He returned on 29 January and participated in the First Battle of Cisterna,[42][43] and was made a platoon sergeant in Company B following the battle.[44] He returned with the 3rd Division to Anzio, where they remained four months.[45] Taking shelter from the weather in an abandoned farmhouse on 2 March, Murphy and his platoon killed the crew of a passing German tank.[46] He then crawled out alone close enough to destroy the tank with rifle grenades, for which he received the Bronze Star with “V” device.[47][48]
Murphy continued to make scouting patrols to take German prisoners before being hospitalized for a week on 13 March with a second bout of malaria. Sixty-one infantry officers and enlisted men of Company B, 15th Infantry, including Murphy, were awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge on 8 May.[49]
Murphy was awarded a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster for his Bronze Star.[50][51] American forces liberated Rome on 4 June, and Murphy remained bivouacked in Rome with his platoon throughout July.[52]
European Theater
During the first wave of the Allied invasion of southern France, Murphy received the Distinguished Service Cross[53][54] for action taken on 15 August 1944.[55] After landing on Yellow Beach near Ramatuelle,[56] Murphy’s platoon was making its way through a vineyard when the men were attacked by German soldiers. He retrieved a machine gun that had been detached from the squad and returned fire at the German soldiers, killing two and wounding one.[56] Two Germans exited a house about 100 yards (91 m) away and appeared to surrender; when Murphy’s best friend responded, they shot and killed him. Murphy advanced alone on the house under direct fire. He killed six, wounded two and took 11 prisoner.[56]
Murphy was with the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment during the 27–28 August offensive at Montélimar that secured the area from the Germans.[55][57] Along with the other soldiers who took part in the action, he received the Presidential Unit Citation.[58]
Murphy’s first Purple Heart was for a heel wound received in a mortar shell blast on 15 September 1944 in northeastern France.[59][60][61] His first Silver Star came after he killed four and wounded three at a German machine gun position on 2 October at L’Omet quarry in the Cleurie valley.[53] Three days later, Murphy crawled alone towards the Germans at L’Omet, carrying an SCR-536 radio and directing his men for an hour while the Germans fired directly at him. When his men finally took the hill, 15 Germans had been killed and 35 wounded. Murphy’s actions earned him a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster for his Silver Star.[62] He was awarded a battlefield commission to second lieutenant on 14 October, which elevated him to platoon leader.[63] While en route to Brouvelieures on 26 October, the 3rd Platoon of Company B was attacked by a German sniper group. Murphy captured two before being shot in the hip by a sniper; he returned fire and shot the sniper between the eyes. At the 3rd General Hospital at Aix-en-Provence,[64] the removal of gangrene from the wound caused partial loss of his hip muscle and kept him out of combat until January.[53] Murphy received his first Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster for his Purple Heart for this injury.[65][66]
The Colmar Pocket, 850 square miles (2,200 km2) in the Vosges Mountains, had been held by German troops since November 1944.[67] On 14 January 1945, Murphy rejoined his platoon, which had been moved to the Colmar area in December.[68] He moved with the 3rd Division on 24 January to the town of Holtzwihr, where they faced a strong German counterattack.[69] He was wounded in both legs, for which he received a second Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster for his Purple Heart.[70] As the company awaited reinforcements on 26 January, he was made commander of Company B.[71]
The Germans scored a direct hit on an M10 tank destroyer, setting it alight, forcing the crew to abandon it.[72] Murphy ordered his men to retreat to positions in the woods, remaining alone at his post, shooting his M1 carbine and directing artillery fire via his field radio while the Germans aimed fire directly at his position.[73] Murphy mounted the abandoned, burning tank destroyer and began firing its .50 caliber machine gun at the advancing Germans, killing a squad crawling through a ditch towards him.[74] For an hour, Murphy stood on the flaming tank destroyer returning German fire from foot soldiers and advancing tanks, killing or wounding 50 Germans. He sustained a leg wound during his stand, and stopped only after he ran out of ammunition. Murphy rejoined his men, disregarding his own injury, and led them back to repel the Germans. He insisted on remaining with his men while his wounds were treated.[72]
For his actions that day, he was awarded the Medal of Honor.[75] The 3rd Infantry Division was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for its actions at the Colmar Pocket, giving Murphy a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster for the emblem.[76]
On 16 February, Murphy was promoted to first lieutenant[77] and was awarded the Legion of Merit for his service from 22 January 1944 to 18 February 1945.[78] He was moved from the front lines to Regimental Headquarters and made a liaison officer.[79]
Decorations
Main article: Audie Murphy honors and awards
Army version of the Medal of Honor
The United States additionally honored Murphy’s war contributions with the American Campaign Medal,[80] the European–African–Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with arrowhead device and 9 campaign stars, the World War II Victory Medal,[80] and the Army of Occupation Medal with Germany Clasp.[48][80] France recognized his service with the French Legion of Honor – Grade of Chevalier,[81] the French Croix de guerre with Silver Star,[82] the French Croix de guerre with Palm,[83] the French Liberation Medal[48][80] and the French Fourragère in Colors of the Croix de guerre,[48] which was authorized for all members of the 3rd Infantry Division who fought in France during World War II. Belgium awarded Murphy the Belgian Croix de guerre with 1940 Palm.[83]
Brigadier General Ralph B. Lovett and Lieutenant Colonel Hallet D. Edson recommended Murphy for the Medal of Honor.[84][85] Near Salzburg, Austria on 2 June 1945,[86] Lieutenant General A.M. Patch[15] presented Murphy with the Medal of Honor and Legion of Merit for his actions at Holtzwihr. When asked after the war why he had seized the machine gun and taken on an entire company of German infantry, he replied, “They were killing my friends.”[87]
Murphy received every U.S. military combat award for valor available from the U.S. Army for his World War II service.[ALM 4]
Postwar military service
Inquiries were made through official channels about the prospect of Murphy attending West Point upon his return to the United States, but he never enrolled.[6][90] According to author Don Graham, Murphy suggested the idea and then dropped it, possibly when he realized the extent of academic preparation needed to pass the entrance exam.[91]
Murphy was one of several military personnel who received orders on 8 June 1945 to report to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, for temporary duty and reassignment.[6][90] Upon arrival on 13 June, he was one of four assigned to Fort Sam Houston Army Ground & Services Redistribution Station and sent home for 30 days of recuperation, with permission to travel anywhere within the United States during that period.[6] While on leave, Murphy was feted with parades, banquets, and speeches.[92] He received a belated Good Conduct Medal on 21 August.[93]
He was discharged with the rank of first lieutenant at a 50 percent disability classification on 21 September and transferred to the Officers’ Reserve Corps.[ALM 5]
Post-traumatic stress
Audie L. Murphy Memorial VA Hospital in San Antonio, Texas
Since his military service, Murphy had been plagued with insomnia and bouts of depression, and he slept with a loaded pistol under his pillow.[95][96] A post-service medical examination on 17 June 1947 revealed symptoms of headaches, vomiting, and nightmares about the war. His medical records indicated that he took sleeping pills to help prevent nightmares.[97] During the mid-1960s, he recognized his dependence on the sedative Placidyl, and locked himself alone in a hotel room for a week to successfully break the addiction.[15] Post-traumatic stress levels exacerbated his innate moodiness,[10] and surfaced in episodes that friends and professional colleagues found alarming.[98] His first wife, Dixie Wanda Hendrix, claimed he once held her at gunpoint.[99] She witnessed her husband being guilt-ridden and tearful over newsreel footage of German war orphans.[100] Murphy briefly found a creative stress outlet in writing poetry after his Army discharge. His poem “The Crosses Grow on Anzio” appeared in his book To Hell and Back,[101] but was attributed to the fictitious character Kerrigan.[102]
To draw attention to the problems of returning Korean War and Vietnam War veterans, Murphy spoke out candidly about his own problems with posttraumatic stress disorder.[103] It was known during Murphy’s lifetime as “battle fatigue” and “shell shock”, terminology that dated back to World War I. He called on the government to give increased consideration and study to the emotional impact of combat experiences, and to extend health care benefits to war veterans.[104][105] As a result of legislation introduced by U.S. Congressman Olin Teague five months after Murphy’s death in 1971, the Audie L. Murphy Memorial VA Hospital[106] in San Antonio, now a part of the South Texas Veterans Health Care System
Challenger Disaster
On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard. The spacecraft disintegrated 46,000 feet (14 km) above the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:39 a.m. EST (16:39 UTC). It was the first fatal accident involving an American spacecraft in flight.
The mission, designated STS-51-L, was the tenth flight for the orbiter and the twenty-fifth flight of the Space Shuttle fleet. The crew was scheduled to deploy a communications satellite and study Halley’s Comet while they were in orbit, in addition to taking school teacher Christa McAuliffe into space. The latter resulted in a higher than usual media interest and coverage of the mission; the launch and subsequent disaster were seen live in many schools across the United States.
The cause of the disaster was the failure of the two redundant O-ring seals in a joint in the shuttle’s right solid rocket booster (SRB). The record-low temperatures of the launch had stiffened the rubber O-rings, reducing their ability to seal the joints. Shortly after liftoff, the seals were breached, and hot pressurized gas from within the SRB leaked through the joint and burned through the aft attachment strut connecting it to the external propellant tank (ET), and later the tank itself. The collapse of the ET’s internal structures and the rotation of the SRB that followed threw the shuttle stack, traveling at a speed of Mach 1.92, into a direction which allowed aerodynamic forces to tear the orbiter apart. Both SRBs detached from the now-destroyed ET and continued to fly uncontrolled until the range safety officer destroyed them.
The crew compartment and many other fragments from the shuttle were recovered from the ocean floor after a three-month search-and-recovery operation. The exact timing of the deaths of the crew is unknown, but several crew members are thought to have survived the initial breakup of the spacecraft. The orbiter had no escape system, and the impact of the crew compartment at terminal velocity with the ocean surface was too violent to be survivable.
The disaster resulted in a 32-month hiatus in the Space Shuttle program. President Ronald Reagan created the Rogers Commission to investigate the accident. The commission criticized NASA’s organizational culture and decision-making processes that had contributed to the accident. Test data since 1977 had revealed a potentially catastrophic flaw in the SRBs’ O-rings. Neither NASA nor SRB manufacturer Morton Thiokol addressed the issue. NASA managers also disregarded engineers’ warnings about the dangers of launching in cold temperatures and did not report these technical concerns to their superiors.
As a result of the disaster, NASA established the Office of Safety, Reliability, and Quality Assurance, and arranged for deployment of commercial satellites from expendable launch vehicles rather than from a crewed orbiter. To replace Challenger, construction of a new Space Shuttle orbiter, Endeavour, was approved in 1987, and the new orbiter first flew in 1992. Subsequent missions were launched with redesigned SRBs and their crews wore pressurized suits during ascent and reentry.
The Space Shuttle was a partially reusable spacecraft operated by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).[1]: 5, 195 It flew for the first time in April 1981,[2]: III–24 and was used to conduct in-orbit research,[2]: III–188 and deploy commercial,[2]: III–66 military,[2]: III–68 and scientific payloads.[2]: III–148 At launch, it consisted of the orbiter, which contained the crew and payload, the external tank (ET), and the two solid rocket boosters (SRBs).[3]: 363 The orbiter was a reusable, winged vehicle that launched vertically and landed as a glider.[2]: II-1 Five orbiters were built during the Space Shuttle program.[1]: 5 Challenger (OV-099) was the second orbiter constructed after its conversion from a structural test article.[2]: I-455 The orbiter contained the crew compartment, where the crew predominantly lived and worked throughout a mission.[2]: II-5 Three Space Shuttle main engines (SSMEs) were mounted at the aft end of the orbiter and provided thrust during launch.[3]: II-170 Once in space, the crew maneuvered using the two smaller, aft-mounted Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) engines.[3]: II-79
When it launched, the orbiter was connected to the ET, which held the fuel for the SSMEs.[3]: II-222 The ET consisted of a larger tank for liquid hydrogen (LH2) and a smaller tank for liquid oxygen (LOX), both of which were required for the SSMEs to operate.[3]: II-222, II-226 After its fuel had been expended, the ET separated from the orbiter and reentered the atmosphere, where it would break apart during reentry and its pieces would land in the Indian or Pacific Ocean.[3]: II-238
Two solid rocket boosters (SRBs), built by Morton Thiokol at the time of the disaster,[4]: 9–10 provided the majority of thrust at liftoff. They were connected to the external tank, and burned for the first two minutes of flight.[3]: II-222 The SRBs separated from the orbiter once they had expended their fuel and fell into the Atlantic Ocean under a parachute.[3]: II-289 NASA retrieval teams recovered the SRBs and returned them to the Kennedy Space Center, where they were disassembled and their components were reused on future flights.[3]: II-292 Each SRB was constructed in four main sections at the factory in Utah and transported to Kennedy Space Center (KSC), then assembled in the Vehicle Assembly Building at KSC with three tang-and-clevis field joints, each joint consisting of a tang from the upper segment fitting into the clevis of the lower segment. Each field joint was sealed with two rubber O-rings around the circumference of the SRB and had a cross-section diameter of 0.280 inches (7.1 mm).[1]: 48 The O-rings were required to contain the hot, high-pressure gases produced by the burning solid propellant and allowed for the SRBs to be rated for crewed missions.[4]: 24 [5]: 420 The two O-rings were configured to create a double bore seal, and the gap between segments was filled with putty. When the motor was running, this configuration was designed to compress air in the gap against the upper O-ring, pressing it against the sealing surfaces of its seat. On the SRB Critical Items List, the O-rings were listed as Criticality 1R, which indicated that an O-ring failure could result in the destruction of the vehicle and loss of life, but it was considered a redundant system due to the secondary O-ring.[1]: 126
O-ring concerns
Edit
Diagram from the Rogers Commission depicting a cross-section of the solid rocket booster field joint
Cross-sectional diagram of the original SRB field joint
Evaluations of the proposed SRB design in the early 1970s and field joint testing showed that the wide tolerances between the mated parts allowed the O-rings to be extruded from their seats rather than compressed. This extrusion was judged to be acceptable by NASA and Morton Thiokol despite concerns of NASA’s engineers.[1]: 122–123 [6] A 1977 test showed that up to .052 inches (1.3 mm) of joint rotation occurred during the simulated internal pressure of a launch. Joint rotation, which occurred when the tang and clevis bent away from each other, reduced the pressure on the O-rings which weakened their seals and made it possible for combustion gases to erode the O-rings.[1]: 123–124 NASA engineers suggested that the field joints should be redesigned to include shims around the O-rings, but they received no response.[1]: 124–125 In 1980, the NASA Verification/Certification Committee requested further tests on joint integrity to include testing in the temperature range of 40 to 90 °F (4 to 32 °C) and with only a single O-ring installed. The NASA program managers decided that their current level of testing was sufficient and further testing was not required. In December 1982, the Critical Items List was updated to indicate that the secondary O-ring could not provide a backup to the primary O-ring, as it would not necessarily form a seal in the event of joint rotation. The O-rings were redesignated as Criticality 1, removing the “R” to indicate it was no longer considered a redundant system.[1]: 125–127 [4]: 66
The first occurrence of in-flight O-ring erosion occurred on the right SRB on STS-2 in November 1981.[1]: 126 In August 1984, a post-flight inspection of the left SRB on STS-41-D revealed that soot had blown past the primary O-ring and was found in between the O-rings. Although there was no damage to the secondary O-ring, this indicated that the primary O-ring was not creating a reliable seal and was allowing hot gas to pass. The amount of O-ring erosion was insufficient to prevent the O-ring from sealing, and investigators concluded that the soot between the O-rings resulted from non-uniform pressure at the time of ignition.[1]: 130 [4]: 39–42 The January 1985 launch of STS-51-C was the coldest Space Shuttle launch to date. The air temperature was 62 °F (17 °C) at the time of launch, and the calculated O-ring temperature was 53 °F (12 °C). Post-flight analysis revealed erosion in primary O-rings in both SRBs. Morton Thiokol engineers determined that the cold temperatures caused a loss of flexibility in the O-rings that decreased their ability to seal the field joints, which allowed hot gas and soot to flow past the primary O-ring.[4]: 47 O-ring erosion occurred on all but one (STS-51-J) of the Space Shuttle flights in 1985, and erosion of both the primary and secondary O-rings occurred on STS-51-B.[1]: 131 [4]: 50–52, 63
To correct the issues with O-ring erosion, engineers at Morton Thiokol, led by Allan McDonald and Roger Boisjoly, proposed a redesigned field joint that introduced a metal lip to limit movement in the joint. They also recommended adding a spacer to provide additional thermal protection and using an O-ring with a larger cross section.[4]: 67−69 In July 1985, Morton Thiokol ordered redesigned SRB casings, with the intention of using already-manufactured casings for the upcoming launches until the redesigned cases were available the following year.[4]: 62
Picture of the seven crew members in flight suits and holding their helmets
STS-51-L crew: (back row) Onizuka, McAuliffe, Jarvis, Resnik; (front row) Smith, Scobee, McNair
Space Shuttle mission
Edit
Main article: STS-51-L
The Space Shuttle mission, named STS-51-L, was the twenty-fifth Space Shuttle flight and the tenth flight of Challenger.[1]: 6 The crew was announced on January 27, 1985, and was commanded by Dick Scobee. Michael Smith was assigned as the pilot, and the mission specialists were Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, and Ronald McNair. The two payload specialists were Gregory Jarvis, who was assigned to conduct research for the Hughes Aircraft Company, and Christa McAuliffe, who flew as part of the Teacher in Space Project.[1]: 10–13
The primary mission of the Challenger crew was to use an Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) to deploy a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS), named TDRS-B, that would have been part of a constellation to enable constant communication with orbiting spacecraft. The crew also planned to study Halley’s Comet as it passed near the sun,[2]: III-76 and deploy and retrieve a SPARTAN satellite.[7]
The mission was originally scheduled for July 1985, but was delayed to November and then to January 1986.[1]: 10 The mission was scheduled to launch on January 22, but was delayed until January 28.[8]
Columbia Space Shuttle
Space Shuttle Columbia (OV-102) was a Space Shuttle orbiter manufactured by Rockwell International and operated by NASA. Named after the first American ship to circumnavigate the upper North American Pacific coast and the female personification of the United States, Columbia was the first of five Space Shuttle orbiters to fly in space, debuting the Space Shuttle launch vehicle on its maiden flight in April 1981. As only the second full-scale orbiter to be manufactured after the Approach and Landing Test vehicle Enterprise, Columbia retained unique features indicative of its experimental design compared to later orbiters, such as test instrumentation and distinctive black chines. In addition to a heavier fuselage and the retention of an internal airlock throughout its lifetime, these made Columbia the heaviest of the five spacefaring orbiters; around 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) heavier than Challenger and 3,600 kilograms (7,900 pounds) heavier than Endeavour. Columbia also carried ejection seats based on those from the SR-71 during its first six flights until 1983, and from 1986 onwards carried an external imaging pod on its vertical stabilizer.
During its 22 years of operation, Columbia was flown on 28 missions in the Space Shuttle program, spending over 300 days in space and completing over 4,000 orbits around Earth. While it was seldom used after completing its objective of testing the Space Shuttle system, and its heavier mass and internal airlock made it less than ideal for planned Shuttle-Centaur launches and dockings with space stations, it nonetheless proved useful as a workhorse for scientific research in orbit following the loss of Challenger in 1986. Columbia was used for eleven of the fifteen flights of Spacelab laboratories, all four United States Microgravity Payload missions, and the only flight of Spacehab’s Research Double Module. The Extended Duration Orbiter pallet was used by the orbiter in thirteen of the pallet’s fourteen flights, which aided lengthy stays in orbit for scientific and technological research missions. Columbia was also used to retrieve the Long Duration Exposure Facility and deploy the Chandra observatory, and also carried into space the first female commander of an American spaceflight mission, the first ESA astronaut, the first female astronaut of Indian origin, and the first Israeli astronaut.
At the end of its final flight in February 2003 Columbia disintegrated upon reentry, killing the seven-member crew of STS-107 and destroying most of the scientific payloads aboard. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board convened shortly afterwards concluded that damage sustained to the orbiter’s left wing during the launch of STS-107 fatally compromised the vehicle’s thermal protection system. The loss of Columbia and its crew led to a refocusing of NASA’s human exploration programs and led to the establishment of the Constellation program in 2005 and the eventual retirement of the Space Shuttle program in 2011. Numerous memorials and dedications were made to honor the crew following the disaster; the Columbia Memorial Space Center was opened as a national memorial for the accident, and the Columbia Hills in Mars’ Gusev crater, which the Spirit rover explored, were named after the crew. The majority of Columbia’s recovered remains are stored at the Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building, though some pieces are on public display at the nearby Visitor Complex.
Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce (November 23, 1804 – October 8, 1869) was the 14th president of the United States, serving from 1853 to 1857. He was a northern Democrat who believed that the abolitionist movement was a fundamental threat to the nation’s unity. He alienated anti-slavery groups by signing the Kansas–Nebraska Act and enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act. Conflict between North and South persisted until Southern states seceded and the American Civil War began in 1861.
Pierce was born in New Hampshire. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1833 until his election to the Senate, where he served from 1837 until his resignation in 1842. His private law practice was a success, and he was appointed New Hampshire’s U.S. Attorney in 1845. He took part in the Mexican–American War as a brigadier general in the Army. Democrats saw him as a compromise candidate uniting Northern and Southern interests, and nominated him for president on the 49th ballot at the 1852 Democratic National Convention. He and running mate William R. King easily defeated the Whig Party ticket of Winfield Scott and William A. Graham in the 1852 presidential election.
As president, Pierce attempted to enforce neutral standards for civil service while also satisfying the Democratic Party’s diverse elements with patronage, an effort that largely failed and turned many in his party against him. He was a Young America expansionist who signed the Gadsden Purchase of land from Mexico and led a failed attempt to acquire Cuba from Spain. He signed trade treaties with Britain and Japan and his Cabinet reformed its departments and improved accountability, but political strife during his presidency overshadowed these successes. His popularity declined sharply in the Northern states after he supported the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which nullified the Missouri Compromise, while many Southern whites continued to support him. The act’s passage led to violent conflict over expanding slavery in the American West. Pierce’s administration was further damaged when several of his diplomats issued the Ostend Manifesto calling for the annexation of Cuba, a document that was roundly criticized. He fully expected the Democrats to renominate him in the 1856 presidential election, but they abandoned him and his bid failed. His reputation in the North suffered further during the American Civil War as he became a vocal critic of President Abraham Lincoln.
Pierce was popular and outgoing, but his family life was difficult; his three children died young and his wife, Jane Pierce, suffered from illness and depression for much of her life.[1] Their last surviving son was killed in a train accident while the family was traveling, shortly before Pierce’s inauguration. A heavy drinker for much of his life, Pierce died in 1869 of cirrhosis of the liver. Historians and scholars generally rank Pierce as one of the worst and least memorable U.S. presidents.
Custis-Lee Family
Rustication
Rustication is a range of masonry techniques used in classical architecture giving visible surfaces a finish texture that contrasts with smooth, squared-block masonry called ashlar. The visible face of each individual block is cut back around the edges to make its size and placing very clear. In addition the central part of the face of each block may be given a deliberately rough or patterned surface.[1]
Rusticated masonry is usually “dressed”, or squared off neatly, on all sides of the stones except the face that will be visible when the stone is put in place. This is given wide joints that emphasize the edges of each block, by angling the edges (“channel-jointed”), or dropping them back a little. The main part of the exposed face may be worked flat and smooth or left with, or worked, to give a more or less rough or patterned surface. Rustication is often used to give visual weight to the ground floor in contrast to smooth ashlar above. Though intended to convey a “rustic” simplicity, the finish is highly artificial, and the faces of the stones often carefully worked to achieve an appearance of a coarse finish.[2]
Rustication was used in ancient times, but became especially popular in the revived classical styles of Italian Renaissance architecture and that of subsequent periods, particularly in the lower floors of secular buildings. It remains in use in some modern architecture.
Similar finishes are very common in medieval architecture, especially in castles, walls and similar buildings, but here it merely arises from an unwillingness to spend the extra money required for ashlar masonry in a particular building, and lacks the deliberate emphasis on the joints between blocks. Though it often achieves a decorative effect, this is something of a by-product, and the exploitation for architectural effect within a single building of contrasts between rusticated and ashlar surfaces is rarely seen. In some buildings, such as the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence (begun 1298) something other than cost-saving is at play, and this may be the association of the technique with the display of power and strength, from its use in military architecture.[3] Rough finishes on stone are also very common in architecture outside the European tradition, but these too would generally not be called rustication. For example, the bases of Japanese castles and other fortifications usually use rough stone, often very attractively.
The Lords Prayer
Sapphire
Sapphire is a precious gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum, consisting of aluminium oxide (α-Al2O3) with trace amounts of elements such as iron, titanium, chromium, vanadium, or magnesium. The name sapphire is derived via the Latin “sapphirus” from the Greek “sappheiros”, which referred to lapis lazuli.[2] It is typically blue, but natural “fancy” sapphires also occur in yellow, purple, orange, and green colors; “parti sapphires” show two or more colors. Red corundum stones also occur, but are called rubies rather than sapphires.[3] Pink-colored corundum may be classified either as ruby or sapphire depending on locale. Commonly, natural sapphires are cut and polished into gemstones and worn in jewelry. They also may be created synthetically in laboratories for industrial or decorative purposes in large crystal boules. Because of the remarkable hardness of sapphires – 9 on the Mohs scale (the third hardest mineral, after diamond at 10 and moissanite at 9.5) – sapphires are also used in some non-ornamental applications, such as infrared optical components, high-durability windows, wristwatch crystals and movement bearings, and very thin electronic wafers, which are used as the insulating substrates of special-purpose solid-state electronics such as integrated circuits and GaN-based blue LEDs. Sapphire is the birthstone for September and the gem of the 45th anniversary. A sapphire jubilee occurs after 65 years.[4]
Tympanum
A tympanum (plural, tympana; from Greek and Latin words meaning “drum”) is the semi-circular or triangular decorative wall surface over an entrance, door or window, which is bounded by a lintel and an arch.[1] It often contains pedimental sculpture or other imagery or ornaments.[2] Many architectural styles include this element.[3
A tympanum (plural, tympana; from Greek and Latin words meaning “drum”) is the semi-circular or triangular decorative wall surface over an entrance, door or window, which is bounded by a lintel and an arch.[1] It often contains pedimental sculpture or other imagery or ornaments.[2] Many architectural styles include this element.[3]
Pediment (Architecture)
Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pediment is sometimes the top element of a portico. For symmetric designs, it provides a center point and is often used to add grandness to entrances.
The tympanum, the triangular area within the pediment, is often decorated with a pedimental sculpture which may be freestanding or a relief sculpture.[1] The tympanum may hold an inscription, or in modern times, a clock face.
Pediments are found in ancient Greek architecture as early as 600 BC (e.g. the archaic Temple of Artemis). Variations of the pediment occur in later architectural styles such as Classical, Neoclassical and Baroque.[2] Gable roofs were common in ancient Greek temples with a low pitch (angle of 12.5° to 16°).
The pediment is found in classical Greek temples, Etruscan, Roman, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical and Beaux-Arts architecture. A prominent example is the Parthenon, where it contains a tympanum decorated with figures in relief sculpture. This architectural element was developed in the architecture of ancient Greece and first appeared as gable ends of Greek temples.[1] In ancient Rome, the Renaissance, and later architectural revivals, the pediment was used as a non-structural element over windows, doors and aediculae.[4] Some used to protect windows and openings from weather.
As classical architecture moved to Britain during the Renaissance, pediments wouldn’t fit with the steeply pitched roofs and became detached from the structure to only create an impression. The form of the pediment is dictated by the primary function of the roof which in several areas is the dismissal of rainwater.
A variant is the “segmental” or “arch” pediment, where the normal angular slopes of the cornice are replaced by one in the form of a segment of a circle, in the manner of a depressed arch. Both traditional and segmental pediments have “broken” and “open” forms. In the broken pediment the raking cornice is left open at the apex. The open pediment is open along the base – often “ sculpture, “tondo” paintings, mirrors or windows. These forms were adopted in Mannerist architecture, and applied to furniture designed by Thomas Chippendale. The terms “open pediment” and “broken pediment” are often used interchangeably.[5] Another variant is the swan’s neck pediment and is a refinement of a broken pediment with two “S”-shaped profiles resembling a swan’s neck. Non-triangular variations of pediments are usually found over doors, windows, and porches.
Straight of Magellan
The Strait of Magellan (Spanish: Estrecho de Magallanes), also called the Straits of Magellan, is a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and Tierra del Fuego to the south. The strait is considered the most important natural passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It was discovered and first traversed by the Spanish expedition of Ferdinand Magellan in 1520, after whom it is named. Prior to this, the strait had been navigated by canoe-faring indigenous peoples including the Kawésqar.
Magellan’s original name for the strait was Estrecho de Todos los Santos (“Strait of All Saints”). The King of Spain, Emperor Charles V, who sponsored the Magellan-Elcano expedition, changed the name to the Strait of Magellan in honor of Magellan.[1]
The route is difficult to navigate due to frequent narrows and unpredictable winds and currents. Maritime piloting is now compulsory. The strait is shorter and more sheltered than the Drake Passage, the often stormy open sea route around Cape Horn, which is beset by frequent gale-force winds and icebergs.[2] Along with the Beagle Channel, the strait was one of the few sea routes between the Atlantic and Pacific before the construction of the Panama Canal.
Pre-history
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Land adjacent to the Strait of Magellan has been inhabited by indigenous Americans for thousands of years.[3] Paleo-Indians near the strait are thought to have hunted American horses and Mylodons.[4][5] Guanacos and huemules were possibly also hunted.[4]
Historically identifiable indigenous ethnic groups around the strait are the Kawésqar, the Tehuelche, the Selk’nam and Yaghan people. The Kawésqar lived on the western part of the strait’s northern coast. To the east of the Kawésqar were the Tehuelche, whose territory extended to the north in Patagonia. To the south of the Tehuelche across the strait lived the Selk’nam, who inhabited the majority of the eastern portion of Tierra del Fuego. To the west of the Selk’nam were the Yaghan people, who inhabited the southernmost part of Tierra del Fuego.[6][7]
All tribes in the area were nomadic hunter-gatherers. The Tehuelche were the only non-maritime culture in the area;[dubious – discuss] they fished and gathered shellfish along the coast during the winter and moved into the southern Andes in the summer to hunt.[8] The tribes of the region saw little European contact until the late 19th century. Later, European-introduced diseases decimated portions of the indigenous population.[9]
It is possible that Tierra del Fuego was connected to the mainland in the Early Holocene (c. 9000 years BP) much in the same way that Riesco Island was back then.[4] A Selk’nam tradition recorded by the Salesian missionary Giuseppe María Beauvoir relate that the Selk’nam arrived in Tierra del Fuego by land, and that the Selk’nam were later unable to return north as the sea had flooded their crossing.[10] Selknam migration to Tierra del Fuego is generally thought to have displaced a related non-seafaring people, the Haush that once occupied most of the main island.[11] The Selk’nam, Haush, and Tehuelche are generally thought to be culturally and linguistically related peoples physically distinct from the sea-faring peoples.[11]
According to a Selk’nam myth the strait was created along with the Beagle Channel and Fagnano Lake by slingshots falling on Earth during the fight of Taiyín with a witch who was said to have “retained the waters and the foods”.[12]
Magellan
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A replica of Victoria, one of Magellan’s ships, in the Museo Nao Victoria, Punta Arenas, Chile
The first European contact in this area was evidently the voyage of Ferdinand Magellan.[13] (A report by António Galvão in 1563 that mentions early charts showing the strait as “Dragon’s Tail” has led to speculation that there might have been earlier contact, but this is generally discounted.)[13][14][a]
Magellan led an expedition in the service of the Spanish King, Emperor Charles V, to reach the Spice Islands. His ships became the first to navigate the strait in 1520.[15] The five ships included La Trinidad (110 tons, 55 crew members), under the command of Magellan; La San Antonio (120 tons, 60 crew members) under the command of Juan de Cartagena; La Concepción (90 tons, 45 crew members) under the command of Gaspar de Quezada (Juan Sebastián Elcano served as boatswain); La Victoria (85 tons, 42 crew members) under the command of Luis de Mendoza; and La Santiago (75 tons, 32 crew members), under command of Juan Rodríguez Serrano (João Rodrigues Serrão).[citation needed] Before the passage of the strait (and after the mutiny in Puerto San Julián), Álvaro de Mesquita became captain of the San Antonio, and Duarte Barbosa of the Victoria. Later, Serrão became captain of the Concepcion (the Santiago, sent on a mission to find the passage, was caught in a storm and wrecked). San Antonio, charged to explore Magdalen Sound, failed to return to the fleet, instead sailing back to Spain under Estêvão Gomes, who imprisoned the captain Mesquita.[citation needed]
Magellan’s ships entered the strait on All Saints’ Day, 1 November 1520. Magellan named the strait Estrecho de Todos los Santos (“Strait of All Saints”) and planted a flag to claim the land on behalf of the King of Spain.[16] Magellan’s chronicler, Antonio Pigafetta, called it the Patagonian Strait, and others Victoria Strait, commemorating the first ship that entered.[17][18][19] Within seven years, it was being called Estrecho de Magallanes in honor of Magellan.[18][19] The Spanish Empire and the Captaincy General of Chile considered the strait the southern boundary of their territory.[citation needed]
16th century explorations after Magellan
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View of the capitulaciones granted by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in 1534
In the 1530s Charles V divided South America and whatever was to be south of it into a series of grants to different conquistadors. The strait of Magellan and the area south of it went to Pedro Sánchez de la Hoz.[20][b]
Pedro de Valdivia, the conquistador of Chile, managed to have Charles V extend his governorship all the way to the northern shores of the strait. Meanwhile, Sánchez de la Hoz was executed in Chile by Francisco de Villagra, one of Valdivia’s men.
The first map of the Pacific Ocean, Maris Pacifici from 1589, depicts the strait as the only route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.[citation needed]
The strait and the conquest of Chile
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Further information: Conquest of Chile
Contemporaries differed in their estimation of the strait’s significance. In Europe it was viewed by some as an opportunity and a strategic location to facilitate long-range trade, though Antonio Pigafetta seemed to have understood his voyage through the area as an unrepeatable feat.[21] By contrast, conquistador Pedro de Valdivia, in a letter to Charles V, considered the strait a threat through which rival conquistadors could arrive to challenge his claims.[21]
In 1544 Valdivia commissioned Captain Juan Bautista Pastene to explore the coast from Valparaiso to the Strait of Magellan,[21] and installed his personal secretary Juan de Cárdenas in the expedition to produce a written account of the lands discovered in order to solidify his claims before the King.[21] Although Pastene’s expedition reached only the 41st parallel south, well short of the strait, it discovered San Pedro Bay and the mouth of Valdivia River, where Valdivia would later found the city that bears his name.[22][23] As Valdivia consolidated his claims, he mentions in a 1548 letter to the Council of the Indies the possibility of establishing contacts between Chile and Seville through the strait.[21]
García Jofré de Loaiza was the second captain to navigate the strait and the first to discover that Tierra del Fuego was an island. Valdivia then dispatched Francisco de Ulloa to survey and explore the strait, facilitating navigation from Spain to Chile. In October 1553, Ulloa sailed from the city of Valdivia in the first expedition to enter the strait from the west. Ulloa reached Woods Bay, but faced with the steep coastline and lack of provisions and fearing entrapment in the strait during the winter, he turned around, returning to Chilean ports in February 1554.[16]
Valdivia himself never actually reached the strait, as he was killed in 1553 attempting to conquer Araucanía, about 1600 km (994 miles) north of the strait.[21][24]
In October 1557, Governor García Hurtado de Mendoza sent another exploratory squad of 70 men under the command of Juan Ladrillero. They were charged with mapping the coastline and surveying the region’s flora, fauna, and ethnography. On August 16, 1558, Ladrillero arrived in the Atlantic Ocean, becoming the first navigator to cross the Strait of Magellan in both directions.[16]
Colonization by the Spanish southward in Chile halted after the conquest of the Chiloé Archipelago in 1567. The Spanish are thought to have lacked incentives for further conquests south.[25] The indigenous populations were sparse and did not engage in the sedentary agricultural life of the Spanish.[25] The harsh climate in the fjords and channels of Patagonia may also have deterred further expansion.[25] Even in Chiloé the Spanish encountered difficulties, having to abandon their initial economic model based on gold mining and “hispanic-mediterranean” agriculture.[26]
Spanish attempt to colonise the strait
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Main article: Spanish colonization attempt of the Strait of Magellan
In 1578 English navigator Francis Drake crossed the strait, creating fear on the Pacific coast that an attack was imminent. In order to seal the passage, the Viceroy of Peru, Francisco de Toledo, sent a squadron with two ships under Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa. They carefully explored the strait, trying to ferret out English invaders, while surveying locations for future fortifications.[16]
Pigafetta had described the strait as a hospitable area with many good ports, “cedar” wood, and abundant shellfish and fish.[21]
In 1584, Sarmiento de Gamboa founded two colonies in the strait: Nombre de Jesús and Ciudad del Rey Don Felipe. The latter was established on the north shore of the strait with 300 settlers.[27][28] That winter, it became known as Puerto del Hambre, or “Port Famine”, as most of the settlers died of cold or starvation.[29] When Sir Thomas Cavendish landed at the site of Rey Don Felipe in 1587, he found only ruins of the settlement.
The Spanish failure to colonize the Strait of Magellan made the Chiloé Archipelago key in protecting western Patagonia from foreign intrusions.[30] Valdivia, reestablished in 1645, and Chiloé acted as sentries, and as hubs where the Spanish collected intelligence from all over Patagonia.[31]
In 1599 it took five ships under Simon de Cordes and his pilot William Adams four months to traverse the strait; Sebalt de Weert returned before reaching the end.
17th century explorations
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Further information: Garcia de Nodal expedition
In 1616, Dutch travelers, including Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire, discovered Cape Horn and recognized the southern end of Tierra del Fuego. Years later, a Spanish expedition commanded by brothers Bartolomé and Gonzalo Nodal verified this discovery[16] making in the way also the first circumnavigation of Tierra del Fuego.[32] After this there would be 150 years before the next ship from Spain would traverse the strait.[32] By 1620, one hundred years after European discovery, at least 55 ships had traversed the strait including 23 Spanish, 17 English and 15 Dutch.[32]
John Narborough’s 1670 explorations in Patagonia caused the Spanish to launch various maritime expeditions to western Patagonia from 1674 to 1676.[33][34] In the last and largest one, Pascual de Iriate led a party to Evangelistas Islets at the western entrance to the strait. At Evangelistas sixteen men of the party disappeared on February 17 including the son of Pascual de Iriarte.[35][36] The ill-fated men had attempted to reach one of the islets to install a metal plaque indicating the King of Spain’s ownership of the territory.[36] Viceroy of Peru Baltasar de la Cueva issued orders to the governments of Chile, Chiloé and Río de la Plata to inquire about the men who disappeared at Evangelistas Islets.[37] However no information about their fate came forth and it is presumed that the boat wrecked in the same storm that forced the remaining party to leave the area.[37][38] Overall a total of 16–17 men perished in it.[25][38][36] While by 1676 rumours about English bases in Western Patagonia had been dispelled, that year new rumours appeared claiming that England was preparing an expedition to settle the Straits of Magellan.[39] The focus of Spanish attention to repel tentative English settlements shifted from the Pacific coast of Patagonia to the Straits of Magellan and Tierra del Fuego.[39] Such a change, from the western archipelagoes to the strait, meant that any English settlement could be approached by Spain by land from the north, which was not the case for the islands in western Patagonia.[39]
In February 1696, the first French expedition under the command of M. de Gennes reached the Strait of Magellan. The expedition is described by the French explorer, engineer, and hydrographer François Froger [fr] in his A Relation of a Voyage (1699).
18th century explorations
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In the 18th century further explorations were done by English explorers John Byron and James Cook. The French sent Louis Antoine de Bougainville and JSC Dumont D’Urville.[16] By 1770 the focus of a potential conflict between Spain and Britain had shifted from the strait to Falkland Islands.
19th century
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Explorations
Edit
From 1826 to 1830, the strait was explored and thoroughly charted by Phillip Parker King, who commanded the British survey vessel HMS Adventure. In consort with HMS Beagle, King surveyed the complex coasts around the strait. A report on the survey was presented at two meetings of the Geographical Society of London in 1831.[17][40] In connection to these explorations Robert FitzRoy came to suggest the establishment of a British base in strait to aid travel between the British Isles and Australia.[41]
The 1837 French expedition of Dumont D’Urville surveyed the area of Puerto del Hambre and the navigational conditions in the Strait of Magellan.[42] In a report the expedition recommended that a French colony be established at the strait to support future traffic along the route.[42]
Richard Charles Mayne commanded HMS Nassau on a survey expedition to the strait from 1866 to 1869.[43] The naturalist on the voyage was Robert Oliver Cunningham.[44] Charles Darwin requested the Lords of the Admiralty to ask Mayne to collect several boatloads of fossils of extinct quadruped species. Admiral Sulivan had previously discovered an astonishingly rich accumulation of fossil bones not far from the strait. These remains apparently belonged to a more ancient period than collections made by Darwin on HMS Beagle and other naturalists, and therefore were of great scientific interest. Many of these fossils were collected with the aid of hydrographer Richards R. N. and deposited in the British Museum.[45] The Admiralty compiled advice to mariners of the strait in 1871.[46]
Incorporation into Chile
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See also: Chilean colonization of the Strait of Magellan, Patagonian sheep farming boom, and Tierra del Fuego gold rush
Chile took possession of the Strait of Magellan on May 23, 1843. President Manuel Bulnes ordered this expedition after consulting the Chilean libertador Bernardo O’Higgins, who feared an occupation by Great Britain or France. The first Chilean settlement, Fuerte Bulnes, was situated in a forested zone on the north side of the strait, and was later abandoned. In 1848, Punta Arenas was founded farther north, where the Magellanic forests meet the Patagonian plains. In Tierra del Fuego, across the strait from Punta Arenas, the village of Porvenir emerged during the Tierra del Fuego gold rush in the late 19th century. Until the opening of the Panama Canal, the town was an important supply stop for mariners.[2] It has been claimed that Chile’s annexation of the area originated from a fear of occupation by Great Britain or France.[17][47]
In the Boundary treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina, Argentina effectively recognized Chilean sovereignty over the Strait of Magellan. Argentina had previously claimed all of the strait, or at least the eastern third of it.
In the Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1984 between Chile and Argentina the conflicts between two countries were settled and Argentina ratified the strait as Chilean.[48]
Steamship navigation
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In 1840, the Pacific Steam Navigation Company became the first to use steamships for commercial traffic in the strait.[17] Until the Panama Canal opened in 1914, the Strait of Magellan was the main route for steamships traveling from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. It was often considered safer than the Drake Passage separating Cape Horn from Antarctica, as the Drake Passage is notorious for turbulent and unpredictable weather, and is frequented by icebergs and sea ice. Ships in the strait, protected by Tierra del Fuego to the south and the coast of continental South America to the north, crossed with relative ease, and Punta Arenas became a primary refueling port that provided coal for steamships in transit. The Strait’s curving channel, with widths varying between 1.9 and 22 miles (3 to 35 kms), experiences unpredictable winds and tidal currents,[49] leading sailing ships to prefer the Drake Passage, where they had more room to maneuver.[50])
The strait is approximately 570 kilometres (310 nmi; 350 mi) long and 2 kilometres (1.1 nmi; 1.2 mi) wide at its narrowest point (Carlos III Island, west of Cape Froward).[51] The northwestern portion of the strait is connected with other sheltered waterways via the Smyth Channel. This area is similar to the Inside Passage of Alaska. South of Cape Froward, the principal shipping route follows the Magdalena Channel. The climate is generally foggy and cold, and the course is convoluted with several narrow passages. It is several hundred miles shorter than the Drake Passage, but sailing ships, particularly clipper ships, prefer the latter. Its major port is Punta Arenas, a transshipment point for Chilean mutton situated on the Brunswick Peninsula.[52] Exemplifying the difficulty of the passage, it took Magellan 38 days to complete the crossing.[17]
The eastern opening is a wide bay on the border of Chile and Argentina between Punta Dúngeness on the mainland and Cabo del Espíritu Santo (“Cape of the Holy Spirit”) on Tierra del Fuego, the border as defined in the Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1984 between Chile and Argentina. Immediately west are Primera Angostura and Segunda Angostura, narrows formed by two terminal moraines of different ages.[53] The Primera Angostura is the closest approach of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego to mainland South America. Farther west lies Magdalena Island, part of Los Pingüinos Natural Monument. The strait’s southern boundary in the east follows first the shoreline of the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, then the northern end of the Canal Whiteside and the shoreline of Dawson Island.
The western part of the strait leads northwest from the northern end of the Magdalena Channel to the strait’s Pacific entrance. This is flanked on the south by Capitán Aracena Island, Clarence Island, Santa Inés Island, Desolación Island (Cabo Pilar), and other smaller islands, and on the north by Brunswick Peninsula, Riesco Island, Muñoz Gamero Peninsula, Manuel Rodriguez Island, and other minor islands of the Queen Adelaide Archipelago. Two narrow channels connect the strait with Seno Otway and Seno Skyring. A broader channel, Smyth Channel, leads north from the strait between Muñoz Gamero Peninsula and Manuel Rodriguez Island. Francisco Coloane Coastal and Marine Protected Area, a sanctuary for humpback whales, is located in this area. This part of the strait lies on the elongated Magallanes-Fagnano Fault, which marks a plate boundary between the South American Plate and the Scotia Plate. This fault continues southward under Almirantazgo Fjord and then below Fagnano Lake.[54] Possibly, new tourism industries could be established in the eastern part of the strait for watching southern right whales,[55] as the number of observations in the area has increased in recent years.[56][57]
On the Atlantic side, the strait is characterized by semidiurnal macrotides with mean and spring tide ranges of 7.1 and 9.0 m, respectively. On the Pacific side, tides are mixed and mainly semidiurnal, with mean and spring tide ranges of 1.1 and 1.2 m, respectively.[58] There is enormous tidal energy potential in the strait.[59] The strait is prone to Williwaws, “a sudden violent, cold, katabatic gust of wind descending from a mountainous coast of high latitudes to the sea”.[60][c]
Mylodon
Mylodon is a genus of extinct ground sloth belonging to the family Mylodontidae, known from the region of Patagonia in Chile and Argentina in southern South America. With a total length of 3 to 4 m, it is one of the best-known and largest representatives of the group. The oldest finds probably date to the Lower Pleistocene; however, most of the fossil remains date from the Upper Pleistocene period. One of the most important sites of this phase is the Cueva del Milodón in southern Chile. Shortly after, about 10,200 BP,[1] Mylodon became extinct. At this point in time, it coexisted with the first human colonists in America. However, there is little evidence that it was hunted by humans.
In Mylodon’s case, not only bones and teeth are known, but also various soft tissue and integumentary structures are preserved. The diet of Mylodon is known in great detail due to fossilized faeces. Its skull is greatly elongated and, compared to other large mylodontids, is narrower, possessing a completely closed nasal arch. Other distinguishing features concern the dental structure.
Mylodon was a terrestrial ground sloth. A thick coat with long hair can be interpreted as an adaptation to a life under cold climatic conditions, as they prevailed in southern South America during the last glacial period. A diet based predominantly on grasses also corresponds to this in this region. The widespread distribution of Mylodon into the pampas region and some features on the skull show, however, that the animals had a much larger ecological range and could also cope with warmer temperature conditions and possibly a mixed vegetable diet. Some of the animals fell victim to larger predators.
The genus was described in 1840, and only one species, Mylodon darwini is usually recognized. The type material comes from the area of the Pampas, where it was collected by Charles Darwin during his voyage with HMS Beagle. Mylodon was one of the first extinct sloths on which genetic studies were carried out.
Mylodon was named by Richard Owen on the basis of a nearly complete lower jaw with teeth, which was found by Charles Darwin in a consolidated gravel cliff at Bahía Blanca, during the survey expedition of HMS Beagle.[2] At several sites, preserved hide and dung have been discovered, and are in such a state of conservation that the people who first discovered them believed they belonged to a living animal, instead of to an extinct species. The discovery of fresh-looking samples of skin and dung sparked a small wave of expeditions during the early 20th century to search for a living example of the animal.[3] The samples have since been found to be around 10,000 years old, although they look fresh because of the extreme cold and stable conditions in the caves in which they were found.
Fossils assigned to Mylodon have also been found in the Ñuapua Formation of Bolivia.[4] Well preserved samples of Mylodon remains have been discovered in the Cueva del Milodón site in Patagonia, Chile along the southern flank of Cerro Benítez in the year 1896. Associated with bones of other early Patagonian animals, these remains of Mylodon date from an era earlier than 10,000 BC.[5] The American Museum of Natural History has exhibited a sample of Mylodon dung from Argentina with a note that reads “deposited by Theodore Roosevelt”.[6][7][8][9]
General
Edit
Mylodon was a large representative of the Mylodontidae. Its total length was estimated to be around 3 to 4 m. Based on the size of the skull, a weight between 1 and 2 tonnes is assumed, with an approximate estimate of 1.65 tonnes.[10] Thus, Mylodon had about the size of related forms such as Glossotherium or Paramylodon, but was significantly smaller than the giant Lestodon. In terms of physique, it largely corresponded with the other large ground-living sloths.[6][11]
Skull and dentition features
Edit
Especially in the construction of the skull, Mylodon differed significantly from other related forms. Its length varied between 59 and 71.5 cm, which is significantly longer than Glossotherium or Lestodon. At the skull it was between 16.5 and 22.5 cm wide, in the front nasal area between 11.3 and 15.5 cm. The height of the posterior skull was 14.0 to 19.0 cm and the anterior 15.0 to 23.5 cm.[12] The skull was thereby elongated and narrow, unlike Glossotherium and Lestodon that had a short and very broad skull. The extraordinary length of the skull of Mylodon was mainly due to elongations in the rostrum. Seen from above, the rostrum narrowed towards the front. This is where the most important difference to most of the other representatives of the Mylodontidae can be found: The nasal bone was long and narrow and curved downwards in the front area. At the front end, it connected to the middle jawbone, which was lengthened by an appendage, and which in turn fused with the upper jaw. This resulted in a completely closed nasal arch in adult individuals, which is largely unknown in other sloths. In comparison, the skulls of Glossotherium and Lestodon, but also of Paramylodon, showed a nasal area, seen from above, which was rather short and looked clearly cut off when viewed from the side; the roof of the skull was largely straight in Mylodon, only a slight indentation could occur above the orbit. On parietal, significant temporal lines were present, but no head crest formed. The zygomatic arch was slim, the anterior attachment began above the third and fourth molars. It did not form a solid end with the rear arch attachment. As is usual with sloths, the front arch base consisted of three appendages: one ascending, one horizontal, and one descending, the former of which was the longest. The rear arch formed a triangular plate. The occiput bent at an angle of 120° from the roof of the skull. The underside of the occiput was at about the level of the occlusal plane. When viewed from behind, the occiput appeared almost circular and not as depressed as in Glossotherium and Lestodon.[13] The palate was narrow and was more or less triangularly oriented towards the front of the skull. Numerous small bone openings were characteristic here. The glenoid pit, in which the joint of the lower jaw engages, corresponding to that of other mylodonts with its weak form, but this provided free rotation overall.[12][14][15]
Lower jaw of Mylodon
The lower jaw of Mylodon varied in length between 42 and 48 cm. It was elongated, more noticeable than in Glossotherium and Lestodon, since in Mylodon the area in front of the teeth, in particular, is strongly elongated. The horizontal bone body increased continuously in height towards the rear, below the last molar it was about 10.5 to 12.7 cm. The symphysis at the front end for the jointing of the two halves of the lower jaw was about 12.4 cm long. Here the lower edge of the body of the lower jaw rose at an angle so that the anterior end of the symphysis was above the occlusal plane of the teeth. As with other sloths, the symphysis extended forward, it ended slightly rounded. According to the rostrum of the skull, Mylodon’s symphysis was narrow and not as wide as in Glossotherium and Lestodon. The mandible foramen opened shortly behind the symphysis. The ascending branch started behind the last molar and formed an angle of 140° to the occlusal plane. The crown process rose up to 20 cm. In contrast, the articular process was lower, roughly at the level of the occlusal plane, resulting in a low cranial-mandibular connection. The angular process at the rear end of the lower jaw was clearly visible. Sometimes it tipped down and was below the lower edge of the horizontal bone body. The upper side of the angular process does not reach the occlusal plane.[12][14][15]
The dentition of Mylodon differs greatly from that of the other placental mammals and usually consists of five teeth at the top and four teeth at the bottom per jaw arch, meaning a total of 18 teeth. In the mylodonts, the first tooth was often caniniform while the rear teeth were more molariform. Within the sloth, this structure of the teeth can be called original. A special feature of Mylodon was that the upper canine-like tooth of each row was completely regressed and only the molar-like four rear teeth were found here. In the lower row of teeth, the anterior caniniform tooth was transformed into a molariform. The dentition thus consisted of a total of 16 teeth. This is somewhat reminiscent of Paramylodon, in which the upper canine-shaped teeth were also missing, but the lower ones had retained their strikingly pointed shape. In contrast to this, Glossotherium and Lestodon had the original decayed teeth. The flat, flap-like and largely indented structure of the molariform teeth can be emphasized as a characteristic of the mylodonts, which clearly differs from that of the Megatheriidae and Megalonychidae with their two transverse raised ridges per tooth. The shapes of the teeth present in Mylodon were simpler. In the upper jaw row, they had a rather round to oval outline, in the lower jaw row a more diamond-shaped outline. The typically more complex bilobed design of the molar-like teeth of Glossotherium and Lestodon, caused by a central constriction, only occurred on the lower rearmost tooth in Mylodon. In general, the rows of teeth diverged to the front, and the teeth were very high crowned (hypsodont). The upper row of teeth ranges in length from 10.9 to 13.3 cm, the lower row was between 12.0 and 15.0 cm in length.[14][12][15][16]
Postcrania
Edit
Postcranial skeletons are far rarer in Mylodon than in the other large mylodontid sloths. As a result, the skeleton is less well documented. Only individual elements of the spine, such as the atlas and various thoracic vertebrae, have been described. The humerus was massive and extremely long at 46 to 48 cm. The joint head, the diameter of which was over 10 cm, stood out due to its hemispherical, but laterally somewhat flattened shape. A distinct deltopectoral ridge ran down the shaft, which acted as an anchor point for the shoulder muscles. As with many ground sloths, the lower end of the joint extended far and brought it here to a width of almost 26 cm. In part, this was caused by a massive internal epicondyle. The articular surfaces (capitulum and trochlea) were almost perpendicular to each other and did not form such an obtuse angle as in Glossotherium. The cubit was built gracefully. Their length was around 37 cm. The olecranon, i.e. the upper articular process, took up about 8.1 cm of it, which corresponds to about 22% of the total length and is significantly less than in comparison with Glossotherium and Lestodon. It was laterally narrowed, which is also found in Paramylodon. The spoke largely resembled that of Glossotherium and was compact and straight built with a length of about 30 cm. The head was oval in shape with a prominent lip. The pelvis was extremely expansive and 114 cm wide between the two iliac bones. The thigh bone measured between 55 and 59 cm in length. It was typical of ground sloths, being flat in shape. Its width decreased significantly on the shaft, the lowest value was reached just below the midpoint. Here the width was about 18 cm, the thickness about 7.5 cm. The joint ends, on the other hand, were markedly wider, around 30 cm at the knee end and around 26 cm at the foot end. The thighbone reached the shin with only about half of its length, a characteristic of mylodonts. This bone, too, was clearly flat with a thickness that was only half the value of the width at the shaft. The fibula is so far only fragmented. It was drawn in on the shaft and widened at the joint ends, with the upper joint end showing more pronounced curves than in Glossotherium.[17][18][19]
The hand comprised a total of five digits (I to V), whereby the metacarpal bone was fused with the large polygonal bone on the first digit. This created the so-called Metacrapal Carpal Complex (MCC for short), which is typical for many ground sloths. As a special feature of the wrist, the pea bone was clearly flat, its shape resembled that of Glossotherium, but differed from the corresponding bone of other Mylodonts with spherical, walnut-like or a pyramidal shape. The fourth digit had formed the longest metacarpal bone, while that of the fifth was only slightly shorter. The respective bones measured there around 12.5 and 10.7 cm in length. As with Glossotherium and Paramylodon, only the three inner digits were probably clawed, but only of the second digit have all bone elements been documented. The metacarpal bone was 7.8 cm long and was built very gracefully. The first phalanx was extremely short and only about 2.5 cm long, the second was about 4.2 cm long and the third at least 11.5 cm. It was tubular and went forward into an extension on which the claw rested. The first phalanges of the two outer digits were significantly reduced in length. Only individual root bones of the foot, such as the talus, are present.[18]
Integument
Edit
Fur and skin at the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin
Mylodon is one of the few extinct mammals that has mummified skin remains. The most important location for such finds is the Cueva del Milodón in the Chilean province of Última Esperanza, where the first skin parts were brought to light at the end of the 19th century.[20][21] Individual pieces have lengths of up to 150 cm, but have shrunk through drying processes. Its thickness is up to 1.5 cm in some places, but it is usually around 1 cm. The skin is densely covered with stiff, slightly wavy hair, with only the top hair being developed, while the undercoat is missing. This feature is similar to the two-toed sloths but less so than the three-toed sloths, which possess an undercoat. The length of the individual hairs vary between 5 and sometimes over 20 cm with the shortest in the area of the back of the head, medium-length hair on the back and very long hair on the limbs. Their known color ranges from yellowish to reddish-brown. The hair shafts are uniformly tubular, at the upper end they form blunt tips. As with today’s sloths, the hair did not have a pith (medulla). In contrast to the hair of the two-toed sloth, they lack their characteristic longitudinal ribbing.[20][21][22][23][24]
The mylodonts are the only representatives of the sloths to have bony plates embedded in their skin. Such structures, called osteoderms, are known today to a greater extent only in armadillos. In contrast to the outer armor of the armadillos, the bone platelets of the mylodonts were rather loosely scattered. Hermann Burmeister published the first finds of individual osteoderms of Mylodon as early as the 1860s.[25][26] The remains of skin found in the caves of Última Esperanza give an impression of how they were embedded in the skin and distributed over the body. The bone platelets are all located in the lower section of the skin, while the hairs originate in the upper sections. The distribution turned out to be very inconsistent. Some areas with a dense array of osteoderms contain between 83 and 95 platelets per 10 cm². For others, however, the number is very thin. However, even with a close arrangement, the osteoderms never unite to form a closed shell, but are always separated from one another by individual skin folds. In accordance with the armadillos’ shells, the bone platelets form a single layer and do not appear stacked. Since all skin residues were found isolated from the body skeletons, it is sometimes difficult to assign the skin areas with a dense and thin arrangement of bone platelets to a specific part of the body. However, it can be assumed that the back was largely armored and the stomach was free. In the sections with dense osteoderm formation, these were larger than in the clear areas. The bone platelets of Mylodon were mostly of irregular oval shape with dimensions of 0.5 to 2.5 cm in length, 0.3 to 1.8 cm in width and 0.2 to 1.1 cm in thickness, with weights of a maximum of 2g. On the surface, they showed individual dimples.[27] In cross-section, they consisted of numerous bundles of fibers mixed with hard bone blades (osteoma). This made their structure much simpler than that of the armadillos, and they probably lacked the keratin layer known from the armadillos. In principle, the osteoderms of Mylodon were similar to those of other large mylodonts.[20][21][28][29][27][30]
Overview and origins
Edit
Mylodon was mainly distributed in the southern part of South America. Fossil finds are available from Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay and Brazil. Thus, the colonized regions include very far southern sites on the island of Tierra del Fuego as well as most of Patagonia northward to the Pampa region. Its southern limit reached the range at about 53° southern latitude. The Tres Arroyos site on Tierra del Fuego and the region around Cueva del Milodón in southwestern Patagonia are among the southernmost known records of a sloth representative in the Pleistocene.[31][32] In the Pampa region, the northern limit was found approximately at the Chuí River in the southeastern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul around 30 degrees south latitude. Even more northerly points of discovery, such as Ñuapua in Bolivia, are tangent to the 20th parallel south. Finds reported from Paraguay, however, are considered rather uncertain.[33][34][35]
The first occurrence of Mylodon may have been in the Lower Pleistocene, but finds are rather rare.[36][37] During this period, the possibly closely related form Archaeomylodon also occurred in the Pampas region, whose foremost canine teeth of the upper dentition were greatly reduced in size, but not yet completely reduced.[38] Among the early and more northerly finds of Mylodon is, for example, a skull from the El Palmar Formation in the Argentine province of Entre Ríos, which dates to the end of the last warm period about 80,000 years ago.[12] Also from the northern distribution areas two partial skeletons are worth mentioning, one of which was found at the Río Anisacate in the Argentine province of Córdoba and the other in Arroyo Quequén Salado near Oriente in the Argentine province of Buenos Aires. Mainly in the Pampas, there was an overlap in the occurrence of Mylodon with the two other major mylodontid sloth representatives Glossotherium and Lestodon during the Upper Pleistocene. However, actual co-occurrence is rarely attested. These include the important archaeological site of Paso Otero in Buenos Aires Province, the locality of Arroyo de Vizcaíno in southern Uruguay, and the Chuí River.[39]
Important Upper Pleistocene finds
Edit
As with many of the other large ground sloths, most of the Mylodon material is from the Upper Pleistocene, with a focus toward the end of the last glacial period. It is also the phase when Mylodon again disappeared from the fossil record. From a global perspective, numerous larger animals became extinct during the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene, which is why this event is considered a Quaternary extinction wave. In South America, this coincides with the first appearance of humans. Whether the two are causally related is the subject of much controversy. In addition to potential hunting and possible landscape overprinting by early human hunter-gatherer groups, climatic changes may also have had an influence.[40] Numerous archaeological sites, especially in the Pampa region and in the Patagonian area, are between 13,500 and 10,000 years old. The majority of these attest to at least a coexistence of humans and ground sloths over an extended period of time. Direct associations of human cultural products and fossil remains of Mylodon are found, among others, at Gruta del Indio in the eastern foothills of the Andes, at Piedra Museo or Las Buitreras, all in Argentina, and at Tres Arroyos in Tierra del Fuego, respectively.
Mylodon is often represented by isolated osteoderms, bones or in the form of coprolites, while human remains are limited to stone artifacts and/or hearths. Whether this also involved a more or less intensive raw material use of sloth bones on the part of humans is in many cases unproven. Numerous bone marks that were originally interpreted as anthropogenically caused are, according to recent studies, due to predation. Evidence of direct hunting by humans of the large ground sloths is even more difficult. One piece of evidence is often considered to be Quebrada de Quereo, a site on an ancient coastline in northern Chile. From here come, among other things, skeletal remains of two individuals of Mylodon, distributed in each case over a narrowly defined area, but in two different stratigraphic units and at a spatial distance of 21 m from each other. One of the individuals was associated with about 70 stone objects, whose anthropogenic origin is under discussion. No cut marks are found on the bones as evidence of any human manipulation. The age of the site is given as 11,600 to 10,900 years before present.[41][42]
Entrance of Cueva del Milodón
Various finds of Mylodon from Cueva del Milodón (femur, mandible, hair)
One of the most important sites is the Cueva del Milodón near Lago Sofía in the Chilean province of Última Esperanza, known mainly for its surviving skin remains. It is part of a whole system of caves in the region, such as the Cueva del Medio[43][44] or the Cueva Chica,[45] which line the southern flank of the 556 m high Cerro Benitez like pearls. Cueva del Milodón is a large cave 250 m long, 140 m wide and 30 m high at the entrance and 10 m at the back, respectively. It was discovered in 1895 by the German captain Hermann Eberhard, who also found the first skin remains. The great importance of these finds led to the cave, initially known as “Cueva Eberhardt”, being subsequently visited and explored by numerous scientists. As a result, a large number of finds accumulated over time, among which Mylodon with bone remains, and numerous coprolites has a large share. Other finds belong to camelss such as Lama, horses such as Hippidion or South American ungulates such as Macrauchenia, in addition, several predators are represented, including the jaguar, Smilodon as a member of the saber-toothed cats, and the giant bear form Arctotherium. Some of the mammal bones have marks that were originally associated with human activity, but the current view is that they are more likely due to predator browsing. In addition to faunal remains, the cave also held a myriad of botanical material. It also yielded one of the most extensive data sequences from the Upper Pleistocene. Several radiocarbon dates, measured from a wide variety of Mylodon finds, span a period from about 16,700 to 10,200 years ago. The upper data are among the most recent obtained directly from finds of the sloth vertebrate.[46][42][47][48][49]
Tympanum
A tympanum (plural, tympana; from Greek and Latin words meaning “drum”) is the semi-circular or triangular decorative wall surface over an entrance, door or window, which is bounded by a lintel and an arch.[1] It often contains pedimental sculpture or other imagery or ornaments.[2] Many architectural styles include this element.[3]
In ancient Greek, Roman and Christian architecture, tympana of religious buildings often contain pedimental sculpture or mosaics with religious imagery.[4] A tympanum over a doorway is very often the most important, or only, location for monumental sculpture on the outside of a building. In classical architecture, and in classicising styles from the Renaissance onwards, major examples are usually triangular; in Romanesque architecture, tympana more often has a semi-circular shape, or that of a thinner slice from the top of a circle, and in Gothic architecture they have a more vertical shape, coming to a point at the top. These shapes naturally influence the typical compositions of any sculpture within the tympanum.
The upper portion of a gable when enclosed with a horizontal belt course, is also termed a tympanum.[5]
Bands of molding surrounding the tympanum are referred to as the archivolt.[6]
In medieval French architecture the tympanum is often supported by a decorated pillar called a trumeau.
Cypress Tree
Cupressus sempervirens, the Mediterranean cypress (also known as Italian cypress,[1] Tuscan cypress, Persian cypress, or pencil pine), is a species of cypress native to the eastern Mediterranean region, in northeast Libya, southern Albania, southern and coastal Bulgaria, southern coastal Croatia and Slovenia, southern Montenegro, southern Bosnia and Herzegovina, southwestern North Macedonia, southern Greece, southern Turkey, Cyprus, northern Egypt, western Syria, Lebanon, Malta, Italy, southern France, Spain, Palestine, Israel, western Jordan, South Caucasus, and also a disjunct population in Iran.[citation needed]
Cupressus sempervirens is a medium-sized coniferous evergreen tree to 35 m (115 ft) tall, with a conic crown with level branches and variably loosely hanging branchlets.[2] It is very long-lived, with some trees reported to be over 1,000 years old.
The foliage grows in dense sprays, dark green in colour. The leaves are scale-like, 2–5 mm long, and produced on rounded (not flattened) shoots. The seed cones are ovoid or oblong, 25–40 mm long, with 10-14 scales, green at first, maturing brown about 20–24 months after pollination. The male cones are 3–5 mm long, and release pollen in late winter. It is moderately susceptible to cypress canker, caused by the fungus Seiridium cardinale, and can suffer extensive dieback where this disease is common. The species name sempervirens comes from the Latin for ‘evergreen’.
It is also known as “the churchyard cypress,” from being often found standing (as if sentinels) surrounding a graveyard.
Mediterranean cypress has been widely cultivated as an ornamental tree for millennia away from its native range, mainly throughout the whole Mediterranean region, and in other areas with similar hot, dry summers and mild, rainy winters, including California, southwest South Africa and southern Australia. It can also be grown successfully in areas with cooler, moister summers, such as the British Isles, New Zealand and the Pacific Northwest (coastal Oregon, Washington and British Columbia). It is also planted in Florida and parts of the coastal southern United States as an ornamental tree. In some areas, particularly the United States, it is known as “Italian” or “Tuscan cypress”. Commonly seen throughout New Mexico, the Mediterranean cypress is also known as the “drama tree” because of its tendency to bend with even the slightest of breezes.[citation needed]
The vast majority of the trees in cultivation are selected cultivars with a fastigiate crown, with erect branches forming a narrow to very narrow crown often less than a tenth as wide as the tree is tall. The dark green “exclamation mark” shape of these trees is a highly characteristic signature of Mediterranean town and village landscapes. Formerly, the species was sometimes separated into two varieties, the wild C. sempervirens var. sempervirens (syn. var. horizontalis), and the fastigiate C. s. var. pyramidalis (syn. var. fastigiata, var. stricta), but the latter is now only distinguished as a Cultivar Group, with no botanical significance.[citation needed]
It is also known for its very durable, scented wood, used most famously for the doors of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, Rome. Cypress used to be used in distilleries as staves to hold mash ferments to make alcohol before the invention of stainless steel.[citation needed]
In cosmetics it is used as astringent, firming, anti-seborrheic, anti-dandruff, anti-aging and as fragrance.[3] It is also the traditional wood used for Italian harpsichords.[4]
Iranians considered cypress to be a relic of Zoroaster, and they believed that Vishtaspa ordered to plant this cypress after converting to Zoroaster. In the words of the Shahnameh, cypress represents a single-minded, professional and wise man. In ancient Iran, at Yalda night, a tree called Yalda tree was decorated, which was generally made of cypress and pine trees. It is said that the decoration of cypress and pine in Christmas was adapted from ancient Iran, because the Iranians looked at these two trees, especially the cypress, as a symbol of resistance against darkness and cold, and they stood in front of the cypress on the first day of January. And they vowed to be strong and stable until the next year and plant another cedar sapling. Also, according to Iranian beliefs, greens at the beginning of the year are a sign of blessing throughout that year, and based on this belief, the custom of planting greens at the beginning of the year and at the same time as Nowruz celebration gradually replaced the Cypress tree. Cypress, Cupressus sempervirens, was the first choice for Iranian gardens. In all of the famous Persian Gardens, such as Fin Garden, Shazdeh Garden, Dowlat-Abad, and others, this tree plays a central role in their design.[citation needed] The oldest living cypress is the Sarv-e-Abarkooh in Iran’s Yazd Province. Its age is estimated to be approximately 4,000 years.[5][failed verification]
In classical antiquity, the cypress was a symbol of mourning and in the modern era it remains the principal cemetery tree in both the Muslim world and Europe. In the classical tradition, the cypress was associated with death and the underworld because it failed to regenerate when cut back too severely. Athenian households in mourning were garlanded with boughs of cypress.[6] Cypress was used to fumigate the air during cremations.[7] It was among the plants that were suitable for making wreaths to adorn statues of Pluto, the classical ruler of the underworld.[8]
The poet Ovid, who wrote during the reign of Augustus, records the best-known myth that explains the association of the cypress with grief. The handsome boy Cyparissus, a favorite of Apollo, accidentally killed a beloved tame stag. His grief and remorse were so inconsolable that he asked to weep forever. He was transformed into cupressus sempervirens, with the tree’s sap as his tears.[9] In another version of the story, it was the woodland god Silvanus who was the divine companion of Cyparissus and who accidentally killed the stag. When the boy was consumed by grief, Silvanus turned him into a tree, and thereafter carried a branch of cypress as a symbol of mourning.[10]
In Greek mythology, besides Cyparissus, the cypress is also associated with Artemis and Hecate, a goddess of magic, crossroads and the underworld. Ancient Roman funerary rites used it extensively.[citation needed]
The most famous Muslim cemetery in Turkey where C. sempervirens is used widely is Istanbul Karacaahmet Cemetery. In Istanbul Turkish the tree is referred to as “mezarlık servisi” (cemetery tree); its common name in Turkish and the name used in Turkish forestry is “kara selvi” (black cypress). Cypresses are mentioned extensively in the Shahnameh, the great Iranian epic poem by Ferdowsi.[citation needed]
In Jewish tradition, the cypress was held to be the wood used to build Noah’s Ark and The Temple, and is mentioned as an idiom or metaphor in biblical passages, either referencing the tree’s shape as an example of uprightness or its evergreen nature as an example of eternal beauty or health. It is popular in modern Israeli cemeteries, with contemporary explanation being that its shape resembles a candle and its being an evergreen symbolized the immortality of the soul.[citation needed]
In popular culture the Italian cypress is often stereotypically associated with vacation destinations to the Mediterranean region; Italy in particular. The tree has been seen on travel posters for decades.[11][12]
Foie Gras
Foie gras (English: /ˌfwɑːˈɡrɑː/ (listen), French: [fwa ɡʁɑ]; French for ‘fat liver’) is a specialty food product made of the liver of a duck or goose. According to French law,[1] foie gras is defined as the liver of a duck or goose fattened by gavage (force feeding).
Foie gras is a popular and well-known delicacy in French cuisine. Its flavour is rich, buttery, and delicate, unlike an ordinary duck or goose liver. Foie gras is sold whole or is prepared into mousse, parfait, or pâté, and may also be served as an accompaniment to another food item, such as steak. French law states, “Foie gras belongs to the protected cultural and gastronomical heritage of France.”[2]
The technique of gavage dates as far back as 2500 BC, when the ancient Egyptians began keeping birds for food and deliberately fattened the birds through force-feeding.[3] Today, France is by far the largest producer and consumer of foie gras, though there are producers and markets worldwide, particularly in other European nations, the United States, and China.[4]
Gavage-based foie gras production is controversial, due mainly to animal welfare concerns about force-feeding, intensive housing and husbandry, and enlarging the liver to 10 times its usual volume. A number of countries and jurisdictions have laws against force-feeding and the production, import, or sale of foie gras.
Ancient times
Edit
As early as 2500 BC, the ancient Egyptians learned that many birds could be fattened through forced overfeeding and began this practice. Whether they particularly sought the fattened livers of birds as a delicacy remains undetermined.[5][6] In the necropolis of Saqqara, in the tomb of Mereruka, an important royal official, there is a bas relief scene wherein workers grasp geese around the necks to push food down their throats. At the side, stand tables piled with more food pellets and a flask for moistening the feed before giving it to the geese.[6][7][8]
The practice of goose fattening spread from Egypt to the Mediterranean.[9] The earliest reference to fattened geese is from the 5th-century-BC Greek poet Cratinus, who wrote of geese-fatteners, yet Egypt maintained its reputation as the source for fattened geese. When the Spartan king Agesilaus visited Egypt in 361 BC, he noted Egyptian farmers fattened geese and calves.[6][10]
It was not until the Roman period; however, that foie gras is mentioned as a distinct food, which the Romans named iecur ficatum;[11][12][13] iecur means liver[14] and ficatum derives from ficus, meaning fig in Latin.[15] The emperor Elagabalus fed his dogs on foie gras during the four years of his reign.[16] Pliny the Elder (1st century AD) credits his contemporary, Roman gastronome Marcus Gavius Apicius, with feeding dried figs to geese to enlarge their livers:
“Apicius made the discovery that we may employ the same artificial method of increasing the size of the liver of the sow, as of that of the goose; it consists in cramming them with dried figs, and when they are fat enough, they are drenched with wine mixed with honey and immediately killed.”
— Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book VIII. Chapter 77[17]
Hence, the term iecur ficatum, fig-stuffed liver; feeding figs to enlarge a goose’s liver may derive from Hellenistic Alexandria, since much of Roman luxury cuisine was of Greek inspiration.[18] Ficatum was closely associated with animal liver and it became the root word for “liver”[19] in each of these languages: foie in French,[20] hígado in Spanish, fígado in Portuguese, fegato in Italian, fetge in Catalan and Occitan and ficat in Romanian, all meaning “liver”; this etymology has been explained in different manners.[21][22]
Postclassical Europe
Edit
After the fall of the Roman empire, goose liver temporarily vanished from European cuisine. Some claim that Gallic farmers preserved the foie gras tradition until the rest of Europe rediscovered it centuries later, but the medieval French peasant’s food animals were mainly pigs and sheep.[23] Others claim that the tradition was preserved by the Jews, who learned the method of enlarging a goose’s liver during the Roman colonisation of Judea[24] or earlier from Egyptians.[25] The Jews carried this culinary knowledge as they migrated farther north and west to Europe.[24]
The Judaic dietary law, Kashrut, forbade lard as a cooking medium, and butter, too, was proscribed as an alternative since Kashrut also prohibited mixing meat and dairy products.[9] Jewish cuisine used olive oil in the Mediterranean and sesame oil in Babylonia, but neither cooking medium was readily available in Western and Central Europe, so poultry fat (known in Yiddish as schmaltz), which could be abundantly produced by overfeeding geese, was substituted in their stead.[24][26][27] The delicate taste of the goose’s liver was soon appreciated; Hans Wilhelm Kirchhof of Kassel wrote in 1562 that the Jews raise fat geese and particularly love their livers. Some Rabbis were concerned that eating forcibly overfed geese violated Jewish food restrictions. Some rabbis contended that it is not a forbidden food (treyf) as none of its limbs are damaged, and the geese did not feel any pain in their throats from the process.[27] This matter remained a debated topic in Jewish dietary law until the Jewish taste for goose liver declined in the 19th century.[24] Another kashrut matter, still a problem today, is that even properly slaughtered and inspected meat must be drained of blood before being considered fit to eat. Usually, salting achieves that; however, as the liver is regarded as “(almost) wholly blood”, broiling is the only way of kashering. Properly broiling foie gras while preserving its delicate taste is difficult and, therefore, rarely practised. Even so, there are restaurants in Israel that offer grilled goose foie gras. Foie gras also resembles the Jewish food staple, chopped liver.[27]
Bartolomeo Scappi
Appreciation of fattened goose liver spread to gastronomes outside the Jewish community, who could buy in the local Jewish ghetto of their cities. In 1570, Bartolomeo Scappi, chef de cuisine to Pope Pius V, published his cookbook Opera, wherein he writes that “the liver of [a] domestic goose raised by the Jews is of extreme size and weighs [between] two and three pounds”.[28] In 1581, Marx Rumpolt of Mainz, chef to several German nobles, published the massive cookbook Ein Neu Kochbuch, describing that the Jews of Bohemia produced livers weighing more than three pounds; he lists recipes for it—including one for goose liver mousse.[28][29] János Keszei, chef to the court of Michael Apafi, the prince of Transylvania, included foie gras recipes in his 1680 cookbook A New Book About Cooking, instructing cooks to “envelop the goose liver in a calf’s thin skin, bake it and prepare [a] green or [a] brown sauce to accompany it. I used goose liver fattened by Bohemian Jews; its weight was more than three pounds. You may also prepare a mush of it.”
In the 21st century, France is the largest producer and consumer of foie gras, though it is produced and consumed in several other countries worldwide, particularly in some other European nations, the United States, and China.[4] Approximately 30,000 people work in the French foie gras industry, with 90% of them residing in the Périgord (Dordogne), Aquitaine in the southwest, and Alsace in the east.[35] The European Union recognizes the foie gras produced according to traditional farming methods (label rouge) in southwestern France with a protected geographical indication.[citation needed]
Hungary is the world’s second-largest foie gras (libamáj) producer and the largest exporter. France is the principal market for Hungarian foie gras – mainly exported raw. Approximately 30,000 Hungarian goose farmers are dependent on the foie gras industry.[36] French food companies spice, process, and cook the foie gras so it may be sold as a French product in its domestic and export markets.[37]
2005
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In 2005, France produced 18,450 tonnes of foie gras (78.5% of the world’s estimated total production of 23,500 tonnes), of which 96% was duck liver and 4% goose liver. Total French consumption of foie gras this year was 19,000 tonnes.[31] In 2005, Hungary, the world’s second-largest foie gras producer, exported 1,920 tonnes,[36] and Bulgaria produced 1,500 tons of foie gras.[31]
The demand for foie gras in the Far East is such that China has become a sizeable producer.[38] Madagascar is a small but rapidly growing producer of high-quality foie gras.[39]
2011
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In 2011 in Bulgaria (which started production in 1960), 5 million mule ducks were raised for foie gras on 800 farms, making Bulgaria the second-largest European producer.[40]
2012
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In 2012, France produced approximately 19,000 tonnes of foie gras, representing 75% of the world’s production in that year. This required the force-feeding of around 38 million ducks and geese.[41] World production in 2015 is estimated as 27,000 tonnes.[42]
2014–2015
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In 2014, the whole of the EU produced approximately 25,000 tonnes of foie gras – 23,000 tonnes of duck foie gras and 2,000 tonnes of goose foie gras.[43] The same year, France was producing 72% of world foie gras production, of which 97% was from ducks.[44]
In 2014, France produced 19,608 tons of foie gras (74.3% of the world’s estimated total production).[32]
Foie gras served with hawthorn puree at a restaurant in Beijing
In 2015, it was reported that in France, sales of foie gras may be waning, and an OpinionWay poll found that 47% of the French population supported a ban on force-feeding.[45][46]
2015–2016
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Learn more
This section needs to be updated. (July 2019)
In 2016, it was reported that France produces an estimated 75% of the world’s foie gras and southwestern France produces approximately 70% of that total. In 2016, it could retail for upwards of $65 a pound.[47]
In late 2015, there were several outbreaks of the highly contagious H5N1 bird flu in France, which escalated in 2016. This led to Algeria, China, Egypt, Japan, Morocco, South Korea, Thailand and Tunisia banning French poultry exports, including foie gras, and France to initiate increased bio-security protocols which will cost an estimated 220 million euros. One of these measures was the halting of production in southwestern France from early April 2016 for an anticipated period of three months to reduce the spread of the virus. Exports of foie gras from France are expected to decrease from 4,560 tonnes in 2015 to 3,160 in 2016.[47][48][49]
The largest producer in the United States is Hudson Valley Foie Gras, which uses approximately 350,000 ducks annually.[50]
In France, foie gras exists in different, legally defined presentations, ordered by expense:[51]
foie gras entier (“whole foie gras”), made of one or two whole liver lobes; either cuit (“cooked”), mi-cuit (“semi-cooked”), or frais (“fresh”);
foie gras, made of pieces of livers reassembled together;
bloc de foie gras, a fully cooked, moulded block composed of 98% or more foie gras; if termed avec morceaux (“with pieces”), it must contain at least 50% foie gras pieces for goose, and 30% for duck.
Additionally, there is pâté de foie gras, mousse de foie gras (either must contain 50% or more foie gras), parfait de foie gras (must contain 75% or more foie gras), and other preparations (no legal obligation established).
Fully cooked preparations are generally sold in either glass containers or metal cans for long-term preservation. Whole, fresh foie gras is usually unavailable in France outside Christmas, except in some producers’ markets in the producing regions. Frozen whole foie gras sometimes is sold in French supermarkets.
Whole foie gras is readily available from gourmet retailers in Canada, the United States, Hungary, Argentina and regions with a sizeable market for the product. In the US, raw foie gras is classified as Grade A, B or C. Grade A is typically the highest in fat and especially suited for low-temperature preparation because the veins are relatively few and the resulting terrine will be more aesthetically appealing because it displays little blood. Grade B is accepted for higher temperature preparation because the higher proportion of protein gives the liver more structure after being seared. Grade C livers are generally reserved for making sauces as well as other preparations where a higher proportion of blood-filled veins will not impair the appearance of the dish.[citation needed]
Species, breeds and sex used
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Geese
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Traditionally, foie gras was produced from special breeds of geese. However, by 2004, geese accounted for less than 10% of the total global foie gras production[52] and by 2014 only 5% of total French production.[53] Goose breeds used in modern foie gras production are primarily the grey Landes goose (Anser anser)[53] and the Toulouse goose.[54][55][better source needed]
In 2016, Hungary was producing 80% of the world’s goose foie gras; however, production rates are likely to drop in 2017 due to outbreaks of bird flu.[56]
Ducks
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In 2014, ducks accounted for 95% of foie gras production.[53] The breeds primarily used are the Muscovy duck (Cairina moschata)[53] (also called the Barbary duck) and the hybrid cross of a male Muscovy duck and a female Pekin duck (Anas platyrhynchos domestica) called the Mulard duck.[53] This hybrid is sterile and is, therefore, sometimes referred to as a “mule” duck. Mulards are estimated to account for about 35% of all foie gras consumed in the US.[57] About 95% of duck foie gras production from France comes from force-fed Mulards and the remaining 5% from the Muscovy duck.[58]
After hatching, the Mulard ducklings are sexed. Males put on more weight than females, so the females are slaughtered.
Physiological basis
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Individual cages are used in some farms producing foie gras.
The basis of foie gras production is the ability that some waterfowl have to expand their esophagus and to gain weight, particularly in the liver,[citation needed] in preparation for migration.[59] Wild geese may consume 300 grams of protein and another 800 grams of grasses per day. Farmed geese allowed to graze on carrots adapt to eating 100 grams of protein but may consume up to 2500 grams of carrots per day. The increasing amount of feed given before force-feeding and during the force-feeding itself cause the expansion of the lower part of the esophagus.[57]
Pre-feeding phase
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The pre-force feeding phase consists of three stages.[53]
The first stage (“start-up”) lasts from 1 to 28 days of age (0–4 weeks). During this stage, the young birds are housed in large, indoor groups (e.g. 2,100[58]), usually on straw.
The second stage (“growth”) lasts from 28 to 63 days of age (4–9 weeks). The birds are moved outside to feed on grasses ad libitum. The birds are given additional feed, but access to this is limited by time. This stage aims to take advantage of the natural dilation capacity of the esophagus of some wildfowl.[60]
The third stage (“pre-fattening”) lasts from 63 to 90 days of age (9–13 weeks). The birds are brought inside for gradually longer periods while introduced to a high-starch diet. This is a feeding transition where the food is distributed by meals, first in restricted amounts and time and, after that, greatly increased.
Feeding phase
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The next production phase, which the French call gavage or finition d’engraissement, or “completion of fattening”, involves forced daily ingestion of controlled amounts of feed for 12 to 15 days with ducks and 15 to 18 days with geese. During this phase, ducks are usually fed twice daily, while geese are fed up to three times daily. To facilitate the handling of ducks during gavage, these birds are typically housed throughout this phase in individual cages or small group pens.
Typical foie gras production involves force-feeding birds more food than they would eat in the wild, and much more than they would voluntarily eat domestically.[61]
Modern gavage feeding process
In modern production, the bird is typically fed a controlled amount of feed, depending on the stage of the fattening process, the bird’s weight, and the amount of feed the bird last ingested.[62] At the start of production, a bird might be fed a dry weight of 250 grams (9 oz) of food per day and up to 1,000 grams (35 oz) (in dry weight) by the end of the process. The actual amount of food force-fed is much greater because the birds are fed a mash with a composition of about 53% dry and 47% liquid (by weight). This is the equivalent of around 1,900 grams per day in total mass.[63]
The feed is administered using a funnel fitted with a long tube (20–30 cm long), which forces the feed into the bird’s esophagus. If an auger is used, the feeding takes about 45 to 60 seconds, however, modern systems usually use a tube fed by a pneumatic pump with an operation time of 2 to 3 seconds per duck. During feeding, efforts are made to avoid damaging the bird’s esophagus, which could cause injury or death, although researchers have found evidence of inflammation of the walls of the proventriculus after the first session of force-feeding.[64] There is also an indication of inflammation of the esophagus in the later stages of fattening.[65] Several studies have also demonstrated that mortality rates can be significantly elevated during the gavage period.[66][67][68]
The feed, usually corn boiled with fat (to facilitate ingestion), deposits large amounts of fat in the liver, thereby producing the buttery consistency sought by some gastronomes.
Ducks reared for foie gras are typically slaughtered at 100 days of age, and geese at 112 days.[30] The bird’s liver is 6 to 10 times its ordinary size this time.[69] Storage of fat in the liver produces steatosis of the liver cells.
Alternative production
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Alternative methods can produce fattened liver without gavage, and this is often referred to either as “fatty goose liver” or as foie gras (outside France), though it does not conform to the French legal definition. This method involves timing the slaughter to coincide with the winter migration when livers are naturally fattened.[70]
The winner of the Coup de Coeur award at the Salon International d’Alimentation, SIAL 2006, Patería de Sousa produces fattened livers without force-feeding.[71][72][73][74] This has only recently been produced commercially and is a very small fraction of the market.[citation needed]
Producers outside France do not always force-feed birds to produce fattened livers considered to be foie gras, instead allowing them to eat freely, termed ad libitum. Interest in alternative production methods has grown recently due to ethical concerns in gavage-based foie gras production. Such livers are alternatively termed fatty goose liver, ethical foie gras, or humane foie gras. The British supermarket chain Waitrose also provides a version of ethical foie gras which it calls (and has been trademarked) faux gras.[75] This is not to be confused with the American product by the same name, produced by Regal Vegan, which has the US trademark for faux gras, and is actually a vegan, nut-based spread.[76]
The term ethical foie gras or humane foie gras is also used for gavage-based foie gras production that is more concerned with the animal’s welfare (using rubber hoses rather than steel pipes for feeding). Others have expressed skepticism at these claims of humane treatment,[77] as earlier attempts to produce fattened livers without gavage have not produced satisfactory results.[78]
A more humane version of foie gras was pioneered in the Spanish region of Extremadura, whereby the bird is tricked into preparing for migration rather than force-fed.[79]
More radical approaches have been studied. A duck or goose with a ventromedian hypothalamic (VMH) lesion will tend not to feel satiated after eating and will therefore eat more than a non-lesioned animal. By producing such lesions surgically, it is possible to increase the bird’s food consumption when permitted to eat ad libitum by a factor of more than two.[80]
Currently, one of the few producers in the world of patented and certified goose- and duck livers without force-feeding but up to the same standards as the traditional foie gras is the German company Foie Royale.[81] The products of Foie Royale are being used by several Michelin star chefs throughout the world.[82] Foie Royale developed a process together with the German Institute of Food Technologies (DIL) to get the same result as the traditional Foie Gras, but without the force-feeding.[83]
Human obesity and microbiome studies led French researchers at a startup company called Aviwell to use probiotic preparations to produce fatty livers in geese over six months without forced feeding.[84]
The controversial nature of foie gras production was identified in a paper that juxtaposed the views of “foie gras production as the apotheosis of murderous meat production, and those who consider it to be a co-production between humans and animals”.[107]
Animal rights and welfare advocates such as Animal Equality,[108] PETA,[109] Viva!,[110] and the Humane Society of the United States[111] contend that foie gras production methods, and force-feeding in particular, constitute cruel treatment of animals.
An Ipsos MORI poll found that 63% of the UK population would like to see a complete ban on the sale of foie gras in the UK.[112]
In 2011 and 2012, Animal Equality conducted investigations inside four foie gras farms in France and five in Spain, exposing the cruelty of force-feeding.[108] The footage collected reveals ducks covered in blood with broken and torn beaks, birds kept in small metal cages with no room to turn around, and ducks and geese desperately struggling to avoid force-feeding.
In April–May 2013, an investigator from Mercy for Animals recorded an undercover video at Hudson Valley Foie Gras farm in New York state. The footage showed workers forcefully pushing tubes down ducks’ throats. One worker said of the force-feeding process: “Sometimes the duck doesn’t get up, and it dies. There have been times that 20 ducks were killed.” Hudson Valley operations manager Marcus Henley replied that the farm’s mortality statistics are not above average for the poultry industry.[113] Because Hudson Valley provides foie gras to Amazon.com, Mercy for Animals began a campaign urging Amazon to stop selling foie gras, a move that has already been made by Costco, Safeway, and Target.[114]
In November 2013, the Daily Mirror published a report based on the video they obtained depicting cruelty towards ducks in a farm owned by French firm Ernest Soulard, which is a supplier to celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants. The restaurant chain suspended purchasing from the supplier following the exposé.[115]
Animal research
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The process of force-feeding can make animals sick by stressing the liver. If the stress is prolonged, excess protein may build up and clump together as amyloids, consumption of which has been found to induce amyloidosis in laboratory mice. It has been hypothesized this may be a route of transmission in humans too, and so be a risk for people with inflammatory complaints such as rheumatoid arthritis.[116]
Legislation and bans
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Further information: Foie gras controversy § Statutory and voluntary bans
Several countries and regions have laws against force-feeding or the sale or importation of foie gras; even where it is legal, some retailers have ceased selling it.[117][118][119]
In 2017, foie gras production was banned in Brussels, a largely symbolic measure because of the small number of producers within the city limits. Belgium is one of several countries that continues to produce foie gras legally.[120]
In November 2022, the Buckingham Palace household wrote to the Peta campaign group that foie gras was not bought or served in royal residences. “There will be no foie gras served in royal residences”, a letter from Buckingham Palace to animal rights campaigners confirmed. [121][122]
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 – 79), called Pliny the Elder (/ˈplɪni/),[1] was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic Naturalis Historia (Natural History), which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. He spent most of his spare time studying, writing, and investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field.
His nephew, Pliny the Younger, wrote of him in a letter to the historian Tacitus:
For my part I deem those blessed to whom, by favour of the gods, it has been granted either to do what is worth writing of, or to write what is worth reading; above measure blessed are those on whom both gifts have been conferred. In the latter number will be my uncle, by virtue of his own and of your compositions.[2]
Among Pliny’s greatest works was the twenty-volume work Bella Germaniae (“The History of the German Wars”), which is no longer extant. Bella Germaniae, which began where Aufidius Bassus’ Libri Belli Germanici (“The War with the Germans”) left off, was used as a source by other prominent Roman historians, including Plutarch, Tacitus and Suetonius. Tacitus—who many scholars agree had never travelled in Germania—used Bella Germaniae as the primary source for his work, De origine et situ Germanorum (“On the Origin and Situation of the Germans”).[3]
Pliny the Elder died in AD 79 in Stabiae while attempting the rescue of a friend and his family from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.[4]
Pliny’s dates are pinned to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 and a statement by his nephew that he died in his 56th year, which would put his birth in AD 23 or 24.
Pliny was the son of an equestrian Gaius Plinius Celer and his wife, Marcella. Neither the younger nor the elder Pliny mention the names. Their ultimate source is a fragmentary inscription (CIL V 1 3442) found in a field in Verona and recorded by the 16th-century Augustinian monk Onofrio Panvinio. The form is an elegy. The most commonly accepted reconstruction is
PLINIVS SECVNDVS AVGV. LERI. PATRI. MATRI. MARCELLAE. TESTAMENTO FIERI IVSSO
Plinius Secundus augur ordered this to be made as a testament to his father [Ce]ler and his mother [Grania] Marcella
The actual words are fragmentary. The reading of the inscription depends on the reconstruction,[6] but in all cases the names come through. Whether he was an augur and whether she was named Grania Marcella are less certain.[7] Jean Hardouin presents a statement from an unknown source that he claims was ancient, that Pliny was from Verona and that his parents were Celer and Marcella.[8] Hardouin also cites the conterraneity (see below) of Catullus.[6]
City and Lake of Como, painted by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 1834
How the inscription got to Verona is unknown, but it could have arrived by dispersal of property from Pliny the Younger’s estate at Colle Plinio, north of Città di Castello, identified with certainty by his initials in the roof tiles. He kept statues of his ancestors there. Pliny the Elder was born at Como, not at Verona: it is only as a native of old Gallia Transpadana that he calls Catullus of Verona his conterraneus, or fellow-countryman, not his municeps, or fellow-townsman.[9][10] A statue of Pliny on the façade of the Como Cathedral celebrates him as a native son. He had a sister, Plinia, who married into the Caecilii and was the mother of his nephew, Pliny the Younger, whose letters describe his work and study regimen in detail.
In one of his letters to Tacitus (avunculus meus), Pliny the Younger details how his uncle’s breakfasts would be light and simple (levis et facilis) following the customs of our forefathers (veterum more interdiu). Pliny the Younger wanted to convey that Pliny the Elder was a “good Roman”, which means that he maintained the customs of the great Roman forefathers. This statement would have pleased Tacitus.
Two inscriptions identifying the hometown of Pliny the Younger as Como take precedence over the Verona theory. One (CIL V 5262) commemorates the younger’s career as the imperial magistrate and details his considerable charitable and municipal expenses on behalf of the people of Como. Another (CIL V 5667) identifies his father Lucius’ village as present-day Fecchio (tribe Oufentina), a hamlet of Cantù, near Como. Therefore, Plinia likely was a local girl and Pliny the Elder, her brother, was from Como.[11]
Gaius was a member of the Plinia gens: the Insubric root Plina still persists, with rhotacism, in the local surname “Prina”. He did not take his father’s cognomen, Celer, but assumed his own, Secundus. As his adopted son took the same cognomen, Pliny founded a branch, the Plinii Secundi. The family was prosperous; Pliny the Younger’s combined inherited estates made him so wealthy that he could found a school and a library, endow a fund to feed the women and children of Como, and own multiple estates around Rome and Lake Como, as well as enrich some of his friends as a personal favor. No earlier instances of the Plinii are known.
In 59 BC, only about 82 years before Pliny’s birth, Julius Caesar founded Novum Comum (reverting to Comum) as a colonia to secure the region against the Alpine tribes, whom he had been unable to defeat. He imported a population of 4,500 from other provinces to be placed in Comasco and 500 aristocratic Greeks to found Novum Comum itself.[12] The community was thus multi-ethnic and the Plinies could have come from anywhere. Whether any conclusions can be drawn from Pliny’s preference for Greek words, or Julius Pokorny’s derivation of the name from north Italic as “bald”[13] is a matter of speculative opinion. No record of any ethnic distinctions in Pliny’s time is apparent—the population considered themselves to be Roman citizens.
Pliny the Elder did not marry and had no children. In his will, he adopted his nephew, which entitled the latter to inherit the entire estate. The adoption is called a “testamental adoption” by writers on the topic[who?], who assert that it applied to the name change[what name change?] only, but Roman jurisprudence recognizes no such category. Pliny the Younger thus became the adopted son of Pliny the Elder after the latter’s death.[14] For at least some of the time, however, Pliny the Elder resided in the same house in Misenum with his sister and nephew (whose husband and father, respectively, had died young); they were living there when Pliny the Elder decided to investigate the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and was sidetracked by the need for rescue operations and a messenger from his friend asking for assistance.
Student and lawyer
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Pliny’s father took him to Rome to be educated in lawmaking.[15] Pliny relates that he saw Marcus Servilius Nonianus.
Junior officer
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In AD 46, at about age 23, Pliny entered the army as a junior officer, as was the custom for young men of equestrian rank. Ronald Syme, Plinian scholar, reconstructs three periods at three ranks.[16][17]
Pliny’s interest in Roman literature attracted the attention and friendship of other men of letters in the higher ranks, with whom he formed lasting friendships. Later, these friendships assisted his entry into the upper echelons of the state; however, he was trusted for his knowledge and ability, as well. According to Syme, he began as a praefectus cohortis, a “commander of a cohort” (an infantry cohort, as junior officers began in the infantry), under Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, himself a writer (whose works did not survive) in Germania Inferior. In AD 47, he took part in the Roman conquest of the Chauci and the construction of the canal between the rivers Maas and Rhine.[15] His description of the Roman ships anchored in the stream overnight having to ward off floating trees has the stamp of an eyewitness account.[18]
Map of Castra Vetera, a large permanent base (castra stativa) of Germania Inferior, where Pliny spent the last of his 10-year term as a cavalry commander: The proximity of a naval base there means that he trained also in ships, as the Romans customarily trained all soldiers in all arms whenever possible. The location is on the lower Rhine River.
At some uncertain date, Pliny was transferred to the command of Germania Superior under Publius Pomponius Secundus with a promotion to military tribune,[16] which was a staff position, with duties assigned by the district commander. Pomponius was a half-brother of Corbulo.[19] They had the same mother, Vistilia, a powerful matron of the Roman upper classes, who had seven children by six husbands, some of whom had imperial connections, including a future empress. Pliny’s assignments are not clear, but he must have participated in the campaign against the Chatti of AD 50, at age 27, in his fourth year of service. Associated with the commander in the praetorium, he became a familiar and close friend of Pomponius, who also was a man of letters.
At another uncertain date, Pliny was transferred back to Germania Inferior. Corbulo had moved on, assuming command in the east. This time, Pliny was promoted to praefectus alae, “commander of a wing”, responsible for a cavalry battalion of about 480 men.[20] He spent the rest of his military service there. A decorative phalera, or piece of harness, with his name on it has been found at Castra Vetera, modern Xanten, then a large Roman army and naval base on the lower Rhine.[16] Pliny’s last commander there, apparently neither a man of letters nor a close friend of his, was Pompeius Paullinus, governor of Germania Inferior AD 55–58.[21] Pliny relates that he personally knew Paulinus to have carried around 12,000 pounds of silver service on which to dine in a campaign against the Germans (a practice which would not have endeared him to the disciplined Pliny).[22]
According to his nephew,[20] during this period, he wrote his first book (perhaps in winter quarters when more spare time was available), a work on the use of missiles on horseback, De Jaculatione Equestri (“On the Use of the Dart by Cavalry”).[15] It has not survived, but in Natural History, he seems to reveal at least part of its content, using the movements of the horse to assist the javelin-man in throwing missiles while astride its back.[23] During this period, he also dreamed that the spirit of Drusus Nero begged him to save his memory from oblivion.[20] The dream prompted Pliny to begin forthwith a history of all the wars between the Romans and the Germans,[15] which he did not complete for some years.
Colossal head of Titus, son of Vespasian. Glyptothek, Munich
Literary interlude
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At the earliest time, Pliny could have left the service, Nero, the last of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, had been emperor for two years. He did not leave office until AD 68, when Pliny was 45 years old. During that time, Pliny did not hold any high office or work in the service of the state. In the subsequent Flavian dynasty, his services were in such demand that he had to give up his law practice, which suggests that he had been trying not to attract the attention of Nero, who was a dangerous acquaintance.
Under Nero, Pliny lived mainly in Rome. He mentions the map of Armenia and the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea, which was sent to Rome by the staff of Corbulo in 58.[24][15] He also witnessed the construction of Nero’s Domus Aurea or “Golden House” after the Great Fire of Rome in 64.[25]
Besides pleading law cases, Pliny wrote, researched, and studied. His second published work was The Life of Pomponius Secundus, a two-volume biography of his old commander, Pomponius Secundus.[20]
Meanwhile, he was completing his monumental work, Bella Germaniae, the only authority expressly quoted in the first six books of the Annales of Tacitus,[15] and probably one of the principal authorities for the same author’s Germania.[3] It disappeared in favor of the writings of Tacitus (which are far shorter), and, early in the fifth century, Symmachus had little hope of finding a copy.[26]
Like Caligula, Nero seemed to grow gradually more insane as his reign progressed. Pliny devoted much of his time to writing on the comparatively safe subjects of grammar and rhetoric.[15] He published a three-book, six-volume educational manual on rhetoric, entitled Studiosus, “The Student”. Pliny the Younger says of it: “The orator is trained from his very cradle and perfected.”[20] It was followed by eight books entitled Dubii sermonis[15] (Of Doubtful Phraseology). These are both now lost works. His nephew relates: “He wrote this under Nero, in the last years of his reign, when every kind of literary pursuit which was in the least independent or elevated had been rendered dangerous by servitude.”
In 68, Nero no longer had any friends and supporters. He committed suicide, and the reign of terror was at an end, as was the interlude in Pliny’s obligation to the state.
Senior officer
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Bust of Vespasian, Pushkin Museum, Moscow
At the end of AD 69, after a year of civil war consequent on the death of Nero, Vespasian, a successful general, became emperor. Like Pliny, he had come from the equestrian class, rising through the ranks of the army and public offices and defeating the other contenders for the highest office. His main tasks were to re-establish peace under imperial control and to place the economy on a sound footing. He needed in his administration all the loyalty and assistance he could find. Pliny, apparently trusted without question, perhaps (reading between the lines) recommended by Vespasian’s son Titus, was put to work immediately and was kept in a continuous succession of the most distinguished procuratorships, according to Suetonius.[27] A procurator was generally a governor of an imperial province. The empire was perpetually short of, and was always seeking, officeholders for its numerous offices.
Throughout the latter stages of Pliny’s life, he maintained good relations with Emperor Vespasian. As is written in the first line of Pliny the Younger’s Avunculus Meus:
Ante lucem ibat ad Vespasianum imperatorem (nam ille quoque noctibus utebatur), deinde ad officium sibi delegatum.
Before dawn he was going to Emperor Vespasian (for he also made use of the night), then he did the other duties assigned to him.
In this passage, Pliny the Younger conveys to Tacitus that his uncle was ever the academic, always working. The word ibat (imperfect, “he used to go”) gives a sense of repeated or customary action. In the subsequent text, he mentions again how most of his uncle’s day was spent working, reading, and writing. He notes that Pliny “was indeed a very ready sleeper, sometimes dropping off in the middle of his studies and then waking up again.”[28]
A definitive study of the procuratorships of Pliny was compiled by the classical scholar Friedrich Münzer, which was reasserted by Ronald Syme and became a standard reference point. Münzer hypothesized four procuratorships, of which two are certainly attested and two are probable but not certain. However, two does not satisfy Suetonius’ description of a continuous succession.[29] Consequently, Plinian scholars present two to four procuratorships, the four comprising (i) Gallia Narbonensis in 70, (ii) Africa in 70–72, (iii) Hispania Tarraconensis in 72–74, and (iv) Gallia Belgica in 74–76.
According to Syme, Pliny may have been “successor to Valerius Paulinus”, procurator of Gallia Narbonensis (southeastern France), early in AD 70. He seems to have a “familiarity with the provincia”, which, however, might otherwise be explained.[30] For example, he says[31]
In the cultivation of the soil, the manners and civilization of the inhabitants, and the extent of its wealth, it is surpassed by none of the provinces, and, in short, might be more truthfully described as a part of Italy than as a province.
denoting a general popular familiarity with the region.
Oasis at Gabès
Pliny certainly spent some time in the province of Africa, most likely as a procurator.[32] Among other events or features that he saw are the provoking of rubetae, poisonous toads (Bufonidae), by the Psylli;[33] the buildings made with molded earthen walls, “superior in solidity to any cement;”[34] and the unusual, fertile seaside oasis of Gabès (then Tacape), Tunisia, currently a World Heritage Site.[35] Syme assigns the African procuratorship to AD 70–72.
The procuratorship of Hispania Tarraconensis was next. A statement by Pliny the Younger that his uncle was offered 400,000 sesterces for his manuscripts by Larcius Licinius while he (Pliny the Elder) was procurator of Hispania makes it the most certain of the three.[20] Pliny lists the peoples of “Hither Hispania”, including population statistics and civic rights (modern Asturias and Gallaecia). He stops short of mentioning them all for fear of “wearying the reader”.[36] As this is the only geographic region for which he gives this information, Syme hypothesizes that Pliny contributed to the census of Hither Hispania conducted in 73/74 by Vibius Crispus, legate from the Emperor, thus dating Pliny’s procuratorship there.[37]
Las Médulas, Spain, site of a large Roman mine
During his stay in Hispania, he became familiar with the agriculture and especially the gold mines of the north and west of the country.[38] His descriptions of the various methods of mining appear to be eyewitness judging by the discussion of gold mining methods in his Natural History. He might have visited the mine excavated at Las Médulas.
The Porta Nigra Roman gate, Trier, Germany
The last position of procurator, an uncertain one, was of Gallia Belgica, based on Pliny’s familiarity with it. The capital of the province was Augusta Treverorum (Trier), named for the Treveri surrounding it. Pliny says that in “the year but one before this” a severe winter killed the first crops planted by the Treviri; they sowed again in March and had “a most abundant harvest.”[39] The problem is to identify “this”, the year in which the passage was written. Using 77 as the date of composition Syme[40] arrives at AD 74–75 as the date of the procuratorship, when Pliny is presumed to have witnessed these events. The argument is based entirely on presumptions; nevertheless, this date is required to achieve Suetonius’ continuity of procuratorships, if the one in Gallia Belgica occurred.
Pliny was allowed home (Rome) at some time in AD 75–76. He was presumably at home for the first official release of Natural History in 77. Whether he was in Rome for the dedication of Vespasian’s Temple of Peace in the Forum in 75, which was in essence a museum for display of art works plundered by Nero and formerly adorning the Domus Aurea, is uncertain, as is his possible command of the vigiles (night watchmen), a lesser post. No actual post is discernible for this period. On the bare circumstances, he was an official agent of the emperor in a quasiprivate capacity. Perhaps he was between posts. In any case, his appointment as commander of the imperial fleet at Misenum[41] took him there, where he resided with his sister and nephew. Vespasian died of disease on 23 June 79. Pliny outlived him by four months.
Noted author
Edit
During Nero’s reign of terror, Pliny avoided working on any writing that would attract attention to himself. His works on oratory in the last years of Nero’s reign (67–68) focused on form rather than on content. He began working on content again probably after Vespasian’s rule began in AD 69, when the terror clearly was over and would not be resumed. It was to some degree reinstituted (and later cancelled by his son Titus) when Vespasian suppressed the philosophers at Rome, but not Pliny, who was not among them, representing, as he says, something new in Rome, an encyclopedist (certainly, a venerable tradition outside Italy).[42]
In his next work, Bella Germaniae, Pliny completed the history which Aufidius Bassus left unfinished. Pliny’s continuation of Bassus’s History was one of the authorities followed by Suetonius and Plutarch.[15] Tacitus also cites Pliny as a source. He is mentioned concerning the loyalty of Burrus, commander of the Praetorian Guard, whom Nero removed for disloyalty.[43] Tacitus portrays parts of Pliny’s view of the Pisonian conspiracy to kill Nero and make Piso emperor as “absurd”[44] and mentions that he could not decide whether Pliny’s account or that of Messalla was more accurate concerning some of the details of the Year of the Four Emperors.[45] Evidently Pliny’s extension of Bassus extended at least from the reign of Nero to that of Vespasian. Pliny seems to have known it was going to be controversial, as he deliberately reserved it for publication after his death:[15]
It has been long completed and its accuracy confirmed; but I have determined to commit the charge of it to my heirs, lest I should have been suspected, during my lifetime, of having been unduly influenced by ambition. By this means I confer an obligation on those who occupy the same ground with myself; and also on posterity, who, I am aware, will contend with me, as I have done with my predecessors.[46]
Natural History
Edit
Main article: Natural History (Pliny)
Pliny’s last work, according to his nephew, was the Naturalis Historia (Natural History), an encyclopedia into which he collected much of the knowledge of his time.[20] Some historians consider this to be the first encyclopedia written.[47] It comprised 37 books. His sources were personal experience, his own prior works (such as the work on Germania), and extracts from other works. These extracts were collected in the following manner: One servant would read aloud, and another would write the extract as dictated by Pliny. He is said to have dictated extracts while taking a bath. In winter, he furnished the copier with gloves and long sleeves so his writing hand would not stiffen with cold (Pliny the Younger in avunculus meus). His extract collection finally reached about 160 volumes, which Larcius Licinius, the Praetorian legate of Hispania Tarraconensis, unsuccessfully offered to purchase for 400,000 sesterces.[20] That would have been in 73/74 (see above). Pliny bequeathed the extracts to his nephew.
When composition of Natural History began is unknown. Since he was preoccupied with his other works under Nero and then had to finish the history of his times, he is unlikely to have begun before 70. The procuratorships offered the ideal opportunity for an encyclopedic frame of mind. The date of an overall composition cannot be assigned to any one year. The dates of different parts must be determined, if they can, by philological analysis (the post mortem of the scholars).
Laocoön and his Sons, a sculpture admired by Pliny
The closest known event to a single publication date, that is, when the manuscript was probably released to the public for borrowing and copying, and was probably sent to the Flavians, is the date of the Dedication in the first of the 37 books. It is to the imperator Titus. As Titus and Vespasian had the same name, Titus Flavius Vespasianus, earlier writers hypothesized a dedication to Vespasian. Pliny’s mention of a brother (Domitian) and joint offices with a father, calling that father “great”, points certainly to Titus.[48]
Pliny also says that Titus had been consul six times.[49] The first six consulships of Titus were in 70, 72, 74, 75, 76, and 77, all conjointly with Vespasian, and the seventh was in 79. This brings the date of the Dedication probably to 77. In that year, Vespasian was 68. He had been ruling conjointly with Titus for some years.[48] The title imperator does not indicate that Titus was sole emperor, but was awarded for a military victory, in this case that in Jerusalem in 70.[50]
Aside from minor finishing touches, the work in 37 books was completed in AD 77.[51] That it was written entirely in 77 or that Pliny was finished with it then cannot be proved. Moreover, the dedication could have been written before publication, and it could have been published either privately or publicly earlier without the dedication. The only certain fact is that Pliny died in AD 79.
Natural History is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman Empire and was intended to cover the entire field of ancient knowledge, based on the best authorities available to Pliny. He claims to be the only Roman ever to have undertaken such a work. It encompasses the fields of botany, zoology, astronomy, geology, and mineralogy, as well as the exploitation of those resources. It remains a standard work for the Roman period and the advances in technology and understanding of natural phenomena at the time. His discussions of some technical advances are the only sources for those inventions, such as hushing in mining technology or the use of water mills for crushing or grinding grain. Much of what he wrote about has been confirmed by archaeology. It is virtually the only work that describes the work of artists of the time, and is a reference work for the history of art. As such, Pliny’s approach to describing the work of artists informed Lorenzo Ghiberti in writing his commentaries in the 15th century, and Giorgio Vasari, who wrote the celebrated Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects in 1550.
Natural History as the First Encyclopedia
Edit
Some historians consider Natural History to be the first encyclopedia ever written.[47] It was the earliest encyclopedia to survive. There were many ancient histories written before Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, but scholars still recognize Natural History as an encyclopedia, setting it apart from the other ancient histories. Regardless of if it was first, it is certainly the most significant. Through Natural History, Pliny the Elder gives modern experts a view into meanings of various things from first century Rome in a way that no other surviving text does.[52] Each book of the Natural History covers a different topic, and the work is meant to cover every topic. Given the organization of the work, it is clear that it was meant to be a reference resource.[52] Even modern scholars will sometimes compare an unknown object mentioned in a different ancient text with the objects described by Pliny and make comparisons. Modern scholars are also able to use Natural History to understand the traditions, fantasies, and prejudices in Ancient Rome. Some people[who?] have said that certain prejudices that have been prevalent throughout western history (such as a stigma around menstruation) were spread by Natural History.
The work became a model for all later encyclopedias in terms of the breadth of subject matter examined, the need to reference original authors, and a comprehensive index list of the contents. It is the only work by Pliny to have survived, and the last that he published, lacking a final revision at his sudden and unexpected death in the AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
Pliny, who had been appointed praefectus classis in the Roman navy by Vespasian, was stationed with the fleet at Misenum at the time of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.[41] He organized and led a rescue mission upon receiving a message from his friend Rectina, who had been left stranded in Stabiae during the eruption. Pliny boarded one of several galleys that he dispatched across the Gulf of Naples to Stabiae.[2]
As Pliny’s vessel approached the shore near Herculaneum, cinders and pumice began to fall on it. The helmsman advised turning back, to which Pliny replied, “Fortune favours the bold; steer to where Pomponianus is.” Upon reaching Stabiae, they found Senator Pomponianus, but the same winds that brought them there prevented them from leaving. The group waited for the wind to abate, but they decided to leave later that evening for fear their houses would collapse. The group fled when a plume of hot toxic gases engulfed them. Pliny, a corpulent man who suffered from a chronic respiratory condition, possibly asthma, died from asphyxiation caused by the toxic gases, and was left behind. Upon the group’s return three days later after the plume had dispersed, Pliny’s body was found, with no apparent external injuries.[2]
Twenty-seven years later, upon a request from Tacitus, Pliny the Younger provided an account (obtained from the survivors from Stabiae) of his uncle’s death.[2][20][15]
Suetonius wrote that Pliny approached the shore only from scientific interest and then asked a slave to kill him to avoid heat from the volcano.[53] In 1859, Jacob Bigelow, after summarizing the information about Pliny’s death contained in Pliny the Younger’s letter to Tacitus, concluded that Pliny had died from apoplexy (stroke) or heart disease.[54]
In 1967, science historian Conway Zirkle similarly stated that “there is widespread and persisting misinformation” about Pliny’s death. He suggested that despite his rescue attempt, Pliny never came within miles of Mount Vesuvius and no evidence has been found that shows he died from breathing in fumes, and like Bigelow, concluded that he died of a heart attack.[55]
Aquitaine
Aquitaine (UK: /ˌækwɪˈteɪn/ AK-wih-TAYN, US: /ˈækwɪteɪn/ AK-wit-ayn, French: [akitɛn] (listen); Occitan: Aquitània [akiˈtanjɔ]; Basque: Akitania; Poitevin-Saintongeais: Aguiéne), archaic Guyenne or Guienne (Occitan: Guiana), is a historical region of southwestern France and a former administrative region of the country. Since 1 January 2016 it has been part of the region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine.[2] It is situated in the southwest corner of Metropolitan France, along the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain, and for most of its written history Bordeaux has been a vital port and administrative center. It is composed of the five departments of Dordogne, Lot-et-Garonne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Landes and Gironde. Gallia Aquitania was established by the Romans in ancient times and in the Middle Ages, Aquitaine was a kingdom and a duchy, whose boundaries fluctuated considerably.
Ancient history
Edit
There are traces of human settlement by prehistoric peoples, especially in the Périgord, but the earliest attested inhabitants in the south-west were the Aquitani, who were not considered Celtic people, but more akin to the Iberians (see Gallia Aquitania). Although a number of different languages and dialects were in use in the area during ancient times, it is most likely that the prevailing language of Aquitaine during the late pre-historic to Roman period was an early form of the Basque language. This has been demonstrated by various Aquitanian names and words that were recorded by the Romans, and which are currently easily readable as Basque. Whether this Aquitanian language (Proto-Basque) was a remnant of a Vasconic language group that once extended much farther, or it was generally limited to the Aquitaine/Basque region is not known. One reason the language of Aquitaine is important is because Basque is the last surviving non-Indo-European language in western Europe and it has had some effect on the languages around it, including Spanish and, to a lesser extent, French.
The original Aquitania (named after the inhabitants) at the time of Caesar’s conquest of Gaul included the area bounded by the river Garonne, the Pyrenees and the Atlantic Ocean. The name may stem from Latin ‘aqua’, maybe derived from the town “Aquae Augustae”, “Aquae Tarbellicae” or just “Aquis” (Dax, Akize in modern Basque) or as a more general geographical feature.
Landscape in Dordogne, Aquitaine
Under Augustus’ Roman rule, since 27 BC the province of Aquitania was further stretched to the north to the river Loire, thus including proper Gaul tribes along with old Aquitani south of the Garonne (cf. Novempopulania and Gascony) within the same region.
In 392, the Roman imperial provinces were restructured as Aquitania Prima (north-east), Aquitania Secunda (centre) and Aquitania Tertia, better known as Novempopulania in the south-west.
Early Middle Ages
Edit
Accounts of Aquitania during the Early Middle Ages are imprecise, but there was much unrest. The Visigoths were called into Gaul as foederati, legalizing their status within the Empire. Eventually they established themselves as the de facto rulers in south-west Gaul as central Roman rule collapsed. Visigoths established their capital in Toulouse, but their tenure on Aquitaine was feeble. In 507, they were expelled south to Hispania after their defeat in the Battle of Vouillé by the Franks, who became the new rulers in the area to the south of the Loire.
The Roman Aquitania Tertia remained in place as Novempopulania, where a duke was appointed to hold a grip over the Basques (Vascones/Wascones, rendered Gascons in English). These dukes were quite detached from central Frankish overlordship, sometimes governing as independent rulers with strong ties to their kinsmen south of the Pyrenees. As of 660, the foundations for an independent Aquitaine/Vasconia polity were established by the duke Felix of Aquitaine, a magnate (potente(m)) from Toulouse, probably of Gallo-Roman stock. Despite its nominal submission to the Merovingians, the ethnic make-up of the new Aquitanian realm was not Frankish, but Gallo-Roman north of the Garonne and in main towns and Basque, especially south of the Garonne.
Situation in the duchies of Vasconia and Aquitaine in 760 C.E.
A united Basque-Aquitanian realm reached its heyday under Odo the Great’s rule. In 721, the Aquitanian duke fended Umayyad troops (Sarracens) off at Toulouse, but in 732 (or 733, according to Roger Collins), an Umayyad expedition commanded by Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi defeated Odo next to Bordeaux, and went on to loot its way up to Poitiers. Odo was required to pledge allegiance to the Frankish Charles Martel in exchange for help against the advancing Arab forces. Basque-Aquitanian self-rule temporarily came to a halt, definitely in 768 after the assassination of Waifer.
In 781, Charlemagne decided to proclaim his son Louis King of Aquitaine within the Carolingian Empire, ruling over a realm comprising the Duchy of Aquitaine and the Duchy of Vasconia.[3] He suppressed various Basque (Gascon) uprisings, even venturing into the lands of Pamplona past the Pyrenees after ravaging Gascony, with a view to imposing his authority also in the Vasconia to south of Pyrenees. According to his biography, he achieved everything he wanted and after staying overnight in Pamplona, on his way back his army was attacked in Roncevaux in 812, but narrowly escaped an engagement at the Pyrenean passes.
Seguin (Sihiminus), count of Bordeaux and Duke of Vasconia, seemed to have attempted a detachment from the Frankish central authority on Charlemagne’s death. The new emperor Louis the Pious reacted by removing him from his capacity, which stirred the Basques into rebellion. The king in turn sent his troops to the territory, obtaining their submission in two campaigns and killing the duke, while his family crossed the Pyrenees and continued to foment risings against Frankish power. In 824, the 2nd Battle of Roncevaux took place, in which counts Aeblus and Aznar, Frankish vassals from the Duchy of Vasconia sent by the new King of Aquitaine, Pepin, were captured by the joint forces of Iñigo Arista and the Banu Qasi.
Before Pepin’s death, emperor Louis had appointed a new king in 832, his son Charles the Bald, while the Aquitanian lords elected Pepin II as king. This struggle for control of the kingdom led to a constant period of war between Charles, loyal to his father and the Carolingian power, and Pepin II, who relied more on the support of Basque and Aquitanian lords.
Ethnic make-up in the Early Middle Ages
Edit
See also: Duchy of Vasconia
Despite the early conquest of southern Gaul by the Franks after the Battle of Vouillé in 507, the Frankish element was feeble south of the Loire, where Gothic and Gallo-Roman Law prevailed and a small Frankish settlement took place. However scarce, some Frankish population and nobles settled down in regions like Albigeois, Carcassonne (on the fringes of Septimania), Toulouse, and Provence and Lower Rhone (the last two not in Aquitaine). After the death of the king Dagobert I, the Merovingian tenure south of the Loire became largely nominal, with the actual power being in the hands of autonomous regional leaders and counts. The Franks may have become largely assimilated to the preponderant Gallo-Roman culture by the 8th century, but their names were well in use by the ruling class, like Odo. Still, in the Battle of Toulouse, the Aquitanian duke Odo was said to be leading an army of Aquitanians and Franks.[4]
On the other hand, the Franks did not mix with the Basques, keeping separate paths. In the periods before and after the Muslim thrust, the Basques are often cited in several accounts stirring against Frankish attempts to subdue Aquitaine (stretching up to Toulouse) and Vasconia, pointing to a not preponderant but clearly significant Basque presence in the former too. Recorded evidence points to their deployment across Aquitaine in a military capacity as a mainstay of the Duke’s forces. ‘Romans’ are cited as living in the cities of Aquitaine, as opposed to the Franks (mid 8th century).
Landscape in Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Aquitaine
Aquitaine after the Treaty of Verdun
Edit
After the 843 Treaty of Verdun, the defeat of Pepin II and the death of Charles the Bald, the Kingdom of Aquitaine (subsumed in West Francia) ceased to have any relevance and the title of King of Aquitaine took on a nominal value. In 1058, the Duchy of Vasconia (Gascony) and Aquitaine merged under the rule of William VIII, Duke of Aquitaine.
The title “Duke of Aquitaine” was held by the counts of Poitiers from the 10th to the 12th century.
14th-century representation of the wedding of Eleanor of Aquitaine to Louis of France
English Aquitaine
Edit
Aquitaine passed to France in 1137 when the duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine married Louis VII of France, but their marriage was annulled in 1152. When Eleanor’s new husband became King Henry II of England in 1154, the area became an English possession, and a cornerstone of the Angevin Empire. Aquitaine remained English until the end of the Hundred Years’ War in 1453, when it was annexed by France.
During the three hundred years that the region was ruled by the Kings of England, links between Aquitaine and England strengthened, with large quantities of wine produced in southwestern France being exported to London, Southampton, and other English ports. In fact, so much wine and other produce was being exported to London and sold that by the start of the Hundred Years’ War the profits from Aquitaine were the principal source of the English King’s income per annum.[5]
After the Hundred Years’ War
Edit
The region served as a stronghold for the Protestant Huguenots during the 16th and 17th centuries, who suffered persecution at the hands of the French Catholics. The Huguenots called upon the English crown for assistance against forces led by Cardinal Richelieu.
From the 13th century until the French Revolution, Aquitaine was usually known as Guyenne.
Demographics
Edit
Aquitaine consists of 3,150,890 inhabitants, equivalent to 6% of the total French population.
The region of Aquitaine forms the 6th most populated region in France.
Culture
Edit
The footpath west from the Château de Pau
Language
Edit
French is the official language of the region. Many residents also have some knowledge of Basque, of a variety of Occitan (Gascon, Limousin, or Languedocien), or of the Poitevin-Saintongeais dialect of French.
In 2005, 78,000 children were learning Occitan as a second language in state schools and 2,000 were enrolled in Occitan-medium private schools.
Basque speakers number about 73,000, concentrated in the far south of the region:
Labourd: 37% of the population (38,600 bilingual, 24,000 able to read and understand)
Lower Navarre and Soule: 76% of the population (28,000 bilingual, 7,000 able to read and understand)
Important cities
Edit
Bordeaux, Pont-de-Pierre
Bordeaux is the largest city in Aquitaine. It is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department. It is the capital of Aquitaine, as well as the prefecture of the Gironde department. Bordeaux is famous for its wine industry. Apart from Bordeaux, there are also other important cities in Aquitaine.
Gavage
Windward
Précis
Sprig
noun: sprig; plural noun: sprigs
1.
a small stem bearing leaves or flowers, taken from a plant.
“a sprig of holly”
Similar:
small stem
spray
twig
branch
branchlet
2.
a descendant or younger member of a family or social class.
“a sprig of the French nobility”
DEROGATORY•ARCHAIC
View definition
3.
a small moulded decoration applied to a piece of pottery before firing.
verb
verb: sprig; 3rd person present: sprigs; past tense: sprigged; past participle: sprigged; gerund or present participle: sprigging
decorate (pottery) with small, separately moulded designs.
Origin
Middle English: from or related to Low German sprick .
Pantile
noun
noun: pantile; plural noun: pantiles
a roof tile curved to form an S-shaped section, fitted to overlap its neighbour.
Origin
mid 17th century: from pan1 + tile, probably suggested by Dutch dakpan, literally ‘roof pan’.
Esplanade
a long, open, level area, typically beside the sea, along which people may walk for pleasure.
an open, level space separating a fortress from a town.
Sash window
What Is a Window Sash?
A window sash is a part of the window that surrounds the glass and holds the glass in place in the window frame. Some window sashes are moveable, enabling the glass to slide up and down on the track where it is positioned. Other sashes cannot be moved (1, 2).
Modern residential windows typically feature sashes. Single hung windows feature a single sash that moves and a single sash that doesn’t. Double-hung windows feature two sashes that are both moveable.
What Does A Window Sash Look Like?
Sometimes homeowners have a hard time identifying which part of the window is the sash. To find the sash on a standard double-hung or single hung window, look at the wooden, aluminum or vinyl casing around the glass. This casing will be stuck in the window frame and will cling to the window frame on tracks. This casing is the sash.
Basalt
Basalt (UK: /ˈbæsɔːlt, -əlt/;[1] US: /bəˈsɔːlt, ˈbeɪsɔːlt/)[2] is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90% of all volcanic rock on Earth is basalt. Rapid-cooling, fine-grained basalt is chemically equivalent to slow-cooling, coarse-grained gabbro. The eruption of basalt lava is observed by geologists at about 20 volcanoes per year. Basalt is also an important rock type on other planetary bodies in the Solar System. For example, the bulk of the plains of Venus, which cover ~80% of the surface, are basaltic; the lunar maria are plains of flood-basaltic lava flows; and basalt is a common rock on the surface of Mars.
Molten basalt lava has a low viscosity due to its relatively low silica content (between 45% and 52%), resulting in rapidly moving lava flows that can spread over great areas before cooling and solidifying. Flood basalts are thick sequences of many such flows that can cover hundreds of thousands of square kilometres and constitute the most voluminous of all volcanic formations.
Basaltic magmas within Earth are thought to originate from the upper mantle. The chemistry of basalts thus provides clues to processes deep in Earth’s interior.
Pituitary Gland
Your pituitary gland (also known as hypophysis) is a small, pea-sized gland located at the base of your brain below your hypothalamus. It sits in its own little chamber under your brain known as the sella turcica. It’s a part of your endocrine system and is in charge of making several essential hormones. Your pituitary gland also tells other endocrine system glands to release hormones.
A gland is an organ that makes one or more substances, such as hormones, digestive juices, sweat or tears. Endocrine glands release hormones directly into your bloodstream.
Hormones are chemicals that coordinate different functions in your body by carrying messages through your blood to various organs, skin, muscles and other tissues. These signals tell your body what to do and when to do it.
Your pituitary gland is divided into two main sections: the anterior pituitary (front lobe) and the posterior pituitary (back lobe). Your pituitary is connected to your hypothalamus through a stalk of blood vessels and nerves called the pituitary stalk (also known as infundibulum).
Lichen
A lichen (/ˈlaɪkən/ LY-kən, also UK: /ˈlɪtʃən/ LITCH-ən) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species[1] in a mutualistic relationship.[2][3][4] Lichens have properties different from those of their component organisms. They come in many colors, sizes, and forms and are sometimes plant-like, but are not plants. They may have tiny, leafless branches (fruticose); flat leaf-like structures (foliose); grow crust-like, adhering tightly to a surface (substrate) like a thick coat of paint (crustose);[5] have a powder-like appearance (leprose); or other growth forms.[6]
A macrolichen is a lichen that is either bush-like or leafy; all other lichens are termed microlichens.[2] Here, “macro” and “micro” do not refer to size, but to the growth form.[2] Common names for lichens may contain the word moss (e.g., “reindeer moss”, “Iceland moss”), and lichens may superficially look like and grow with mosses, but they are not closely related to mosses or any plant.[4]: 3 Lichens do not have roots that absorb water and nutrients as plants do,[7]: 2 but like plants, they produce their own nutrition by photosynthesis.[8] When they grow on plants, they do not live as parasites, but instead use the plant’s surface as a substrate.
Lichens occur from sea level to high alpine elevations, in many environmental conditions, and can grow on almost any surface.[8] They are abundant growing on bark, leaves, mosses, or other lichens[7] and hanging from branches “living on thin air” (epiphytes) in rainforests and in temperate woodland. They grow on rock, walls, gravestones, roofs, exposed soil surfaces, rubber, bones, and in the soil as part of biological soil crusts. Various lichens have adapted to survive in some of the most extreme environments on Earth: arctic tundra, hot dry deserts, rocky coasts, and toxic slag heaps. They can even live inside solid rock, growing between the grains.
It is estimated that 6–8% of Earth’s land surface is covered by lichens.[9] There are about 20,000 known species.[10] Some lichens have lost the ability to reproduce sexually, yet continue to speciate.[7][11] They can be seen as being relatively self-contained miniature ecosystems, where the fungi, algae, or cyanobacteria have the potential to engage with other microorganisms in a functioning system that may evolve as an even more complex composite organism.[12][13][14][15] Lichens may be long-lived, with some considered to be among the oldest living things.[4][16] They are among the first living things to grow on fresh rock exposed after an event such as a landslide. The long life-span and slow and regular growth rate of some species can be used to date events (lichenometry).
The English word lichen derives from the Greek λειχήν leichēn (“tree moss, lichen, lichen-like eruption on skin”) via Latin lichen.[17][18][19] The Greek noun, which literally means “licker”, derives from the verb λείχειν leichein, “to lick”.[20][21] In American English, “lichen” is pronounced the same as the verb “liken” (/ˈlaɪkən/). In British English, both this pronunciation and one rhyming with “kitchen” (/ˈlɪtʃən/) are used.[22][23][24]
Lichen
A lichen (/ˈlaɪkən/ LY-kən, also UK: /ˈlɪtʃən/ LITCH-ən) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species[1] in a mutualistic relationship.[2][3][4] Lichens have properties different from those of their component organisms. They come in many colors, sizes, and forms and are sometimes plant-like, but are not plants. They may have tiny, leafless branches (fruticose); flat leaf-like structures (foliose); grow crust-like, adhering tightly to a surface (substrate) like a thick coat of paint (crustose);[5] have a powder-like appearance (leprose); or other growth forms.[6]
A macrolichen is a lichen that is either bush-like or leafy; all other lichens are termed microlichens.[2] Here, “macro” and “micro” do not refer to size, but to the growth form.[2] Common names for lichens may contain the word moss (e.g., “reindeer moss”, “Iceland moss”), and lichens may superficially look like and grow with mosses, but they are not closely related to mosses or any plant.[4]: 3 Lichens do not have roots that absorb water and nutrients as plants do,[7]: 2 but like plants, they produce their own nutrition by photosynthesis.[8] When they grow on plants, they do not live as parasites, but instead use the plant’s surface as a substrate.
Lichens occur from sea level to high alpine elevations, in many environmental conditions, and can grow on almost any surface.[8] They are abundant growing on bark, leaves, mosses, or other lichens[7] and hanging from branches “living on thin air” (epiphytes) in rainforests and in temperate woodland. They grow on rock, walls, gravestones, roofs, exposed soil surfaces, rubber, bones, and in the soil as part of biological soil crusts. Various lichens have adapted to survive in some of the most extreme environments on Earth: arctic tundra, hot dry deserts, rocky coasts, and toxic slag heaps. They can even live inside solid rock, growing between the grains.
It is estimated that 6–8% of Earth’s land surface is covered by lichens.[9] There are about 20,000 known species.[10] Some lichens have lost the ability to reproduce sexually, yet continue to speciate.[7][11] They can be seen as being relatively self-contained miniature ecosystems, where the fungi, algae, or cyanobacteria have the potential to engage with other microorganisms in a functioning system that may evolve as an even more complex composite organism.[12][13][14][15] Lichens may be long-lived, with some considered to be among the oldest living things.[4][16] They are among the first living things to grow on fresh rock exposed after an event such as a landslide. The long life-span and slow and regular growth rate of some species can be used to date events (lichenometry).
The English word lichen derives from the Greek λειχήν leichēn (“tree moss, lichen, lichen-like eruption on skin”) via Latin lichen.[17][18][19] The Greek noun, which literally means “licker”, derives from the verb λείχειν leichein, “to lick”.[20][21] In American English, “lichen” is pronounced the same as the verb “liken” (/ˈlaɪkən/). In British English, both this pronunciation and one rhyming with “kitchen” (/ˈlɪtʃən/) are used.[22][23][24]
Vault types
Vault
Bale
great evil
2
: WOE, SORROW
… bring us bale and bitter sorrowings …
—Edmund Spenser
bale
2 of 3
noun (2)
: a large bundle of goods
specifically : a large closely pressed package of merchandise bound and usually wrapped
a bale of paper
a bale of hay
Red Velvet Cake
Red velvet cake is traditionally a red, red-brown, crimson, or scarlet-colored[1] layer cake, layered with ermine icing.[2] Traditional recipes do not use food coloring, with the red color due to non-Dutched, anthocyanin-rich cocoa.[1][3][4]
Common ingredients include buttermilk, butter, cocoa, vinegar, and flour. Beet juice or red food coloring may be used for the color.[3]
Velvet cake is thought to have originated in Maryland in the early 20th century.[citation needed] In the 19th century, “velvet” cake, a soft and velvety crumb cake, came to be served as a fancy dessert, in contrast to what had been the more common, coarser-crumbed cake. Around the turn of the 20th century, devil’s food cake was introduced, which is how some believe that red velvet cake came about. The key difference between the two cakes is that devil’s food cake uses chocolate and red velvet cake uses cocoa.[5]
When foods were rationed in the US during World War II, bakers used boiled beet juices to enhance the color of their cakes. Beet was and is used in some recipes as a filler or to retain moisture.[6] Adams Extract is credited with bringing the red velvet cake to kitchens across America during the Great Depression era, by being one of the first to sell red food coloring and other flavor extracts with the use of point-of-sale posters and tear-off recipe cards.[7][8] The cake and its original recipe are well known in the United States from New York City’s famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, which has been dubbed the confection Waldorf-Astoria cake. However, it is widely considered a Southern recipe.[9] Traditionally, red velvet cake is iced with a French-style butter ermine icing (also called roux icing though, while containing butter and flour, it is not made from a roux),[10] which is very light and fluffy, but time-consuming to prepare. Cream cheese frosting and buttercream frosting are variations that have increased in popularity.[11][12]
In Canada, the cake was a well-known dessert in the restaurants and bakeries of the Eaton’s department store chain in the 1940s and 1950s. Promoted as an exclusive Eaton’s recipe, with employees who knew the recipe sworn to silence, many mistakenly believed the cake was the invention of the department store matriarch, Lady Eaton.[13]
In recent years, red velvet cake and red velvet cupcakes have become increasingly popular in the US and many European countries, especially around Christmas and more recently Valentine’s Day. A resurgence in the popularity of this cake is attributed by some to the 1989 film Steel Magnolias, which included a red velvet groom’s cake made in the shape of an armadillo.[9]
Transom
the flat surface forming the stern of a boat.
a horizontal beam reinforcing the stern of a boat.
a strengthening crossbar, in particular one set above a window or door.
NORTH AMERICAN
short for transom window.
Phrases
over the transom — offered or sent without prior agreement; unsolicited.
“the editors receive about ten manuscripts a week over the transom”
Origin
late Middle English (earlier as traversayn ): from Old French traversin, from the verb traverser ‘to cross’ (see traverse).
Ferrule
a ring or cap, typically a metal one, which strengthens the end of a handle, stick, or tube and prevents it from splitting or wearing.
a metal band strengthening or forming a joint.
Origin
early 17th century: alteration (probably by association with Latin ferrum ‘iron’) of obsolete verrel, from Old French virelle, from Latin viriola, diminutive of viriae ‘bracelets’.
Mandible
In anatomy, the mandible, lower jaw or jawbone is the largest, strongest and lowest bone in the human facial skeleton.[2] It forms the lower jaw and holds the lower teeth in place. The mandible sits beneath the maxilla. It is the only movable bone of the skull (discounting the ossicles of the middle ear).[3] It is connected to the temporal bones by the temporomandibular joints.
The bone is formed in the fetus from a fusion of the left and right mandibular prominences, and the point where these sides join, the mandibular symphysis, is still visible as a faint ridge in the midline. Like other symphyses in the body, this is a midline articulation where the bones are joined by fibrocartilage, but this articulation fuses together in early childhood.[4]
The word “mandible” derives from the Latin word mandibula, “jawbone” (literally “one used for chewing”), from mandere “to chew” and -bula (instrumental suffix).
Burgos
Burgos is a Spanish city and municipality located in the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula . The city is the capital of the homonymous province integrated into the autonomous community of Castilla y León . In 2021 it had a registered population of 174,051 inhabitants spread over an area of 107.06 km² , making it the 36th most populous municipality in the country and the second in the autonomous community. [ 7 ] Its metropolitan area , made up of a large number of small municipalities, has about20,000 inhabitants , which together with the central municipality form an urban area of about 200,000 inhabitants .
There is evidence of settlements from the Neolithic , Chalcolithic , Bronze Age and the First Iron Age on Cerro del Castillo and on Cerro de San Miguel, reliefs overlooking the city and the Arlanzón valley. [ 8 ] [ 9 ] [ 10 ] [ 11 ] However, it is considered that the city was founded as such by Count Diego Rodríguez Porcelos in the year 884. Around the year 930 it became the capital of the county of Castile , first dependent onkingdom of León and independent later by action of count Fernán González . It was the capital of the kingdom of Castile and, intermittently, of the Crown of Castile , from 1230 until the reign of the Catholic Monarchs . These dictated in the city in 1512 the Laws of Burgos , the first that the Hispanic Monarchy applied in America to organize its conquest, the basis of current human rights . [ 12 ] Later it was the capital of the old historical region of Castilla la Vieja, the provisional capital of the autonomous community of Castilla y León, the capital of the rebel side in the Civil War and, in general, from April 1 to October 18, 1939.
It has an extensive peripheral green ring, two linear parks around the two main rivers that cross it and a wide range of monuments, including the Cathedral of Santa María , an exponent of Gothic architecture , declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Unesco on October 31, 1984, [ 13 ] the monastery of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas and the charterhouse of Miraflores . The city is crossed by the Camino de Santiago , also a World Heritage Site , [ 14 ] and is less than15 km from the Atapuerca site , also under the protection of UNESCO since the year 2000. [ 15 ] On July 13, 2010, the Museum of Human Evolution opened its doors in the city , which exhibits the most important fossils found at the site and is among the ten most visited museums in the country.
The city experienced strong industrialization during the 20th century , mainly around the automobile and food sectors, both by local businessmen and foreign investment, favored by the establishment of the Development Pole during the Franco regime . Its privileged geographical location, approximately in the center of the northern half of the peninsula, [ 16 ] has allowed it to become an important communications hub in northern Spain , both on national and international routes.
It has a diverse educational offer led by the University of Burgos , which has more than 8,000 students , which stands out for its research quality and its relationship with the business world. [ 17 ] It houses the headquarters of the Superior Court of Justice of Castilla y León and the Castilian and Leonese Institute of the Language . It has the largest aviation pilot school in the country. [ 18 ]
Burgos is the venue for various international events, such as the iRedes social media congress , and national events such as the ForoBurgos seminars, on the economic and business sector, or the Castilla y León Fashion Catwalk. [ 19 ]
In recent years, the city has been immersed in various projects, such as the total urbanization of the Boulevard del Ferrocarril , which, with some 12 km in length, is one of the longest avenues in Europe, crossing a large part of the city in this to the west following the redeveloped route of the eliminated train tracks. Burgos was the Spanish capital of gastronomy in 2013. [ 20 ]
Prehistory
Edit
The Arlanzón valley shows human occupations from remote times. Just 15 km from the town center are the Atapuerca deposits, considered the cradle of the first European . Human remains have been dated in the sites of the Sierra de Atapuerca with more than 1,000,000 years old. According to archeopaleontological investigations, to date there are human skeletal remains of four different species: Homo antecessor (Lower Pleistocene), Homo heidelbergensis (Middle Pleistocene), Homo neanderthalensis (Upper Pleistocene) and Homo sapiens .(Holocene), which is correlated with the geospatial analysis of settlement distribution carried out in the Arlanzón basin. [ 9 ] [ 31 ] [ 32 ]
In the city of Burgos there was also an important settlement from the Bronze Age to the First Iron Age on Cerro del Castillo and on Cerro de San Miguel, in addition to some Celtiberian evidence from the Second Iron Age and Romans, although the latter very rare. [ 8 ] At the moment, in Burgos castle there is only one sequence of radiocarbon dating for levels from the Bronze Age to the First Iron Age (Sector II levels: NX, NXII, NI, NV and NVI) , with 14C dates ranging from 3230±70 to 2400±110 BP. [ 8 ] [ 9 ] [ 10 ] [ 33 ][ 34 ] In another updated archaeological work, a new compilation and recalibration of all the radiocarbon dating of the castle was carried out, with the Intcal13 calibration curve. [ 11 ]According to this study, the ranges of the radiocarbon dates recalibrated to 95% probability reveal the existence of occupations from the Early/Middle Bronze Age to the transition to the Second Iron Age. However, although there are no dates for other levels, the work carried out also shows that there are important material remains from the Chalcolithic in El Castillo (Level XIII), and from the Neolithic and Chalcolithic in the hill of San Miguel, but the latter have suffered significant damage. Postdepositional alterations due to the superimposition of the levels of the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, in addition to the usual medieval and contemporary alterations. The Recent Prehistory from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age is not only documented in El Castillo and in the hill of San Miguel,p. eg , Cueva del Mirador and Cueva Mayor)—, but there are abundant deposits in the Arlanzón valley, with numerous settlements from the Neolithic ( 6th to 4th millennium BC), Chalcolithic ( 3rd millennium BC) and Bronze Age ( ii millennium BC). [ 9 ] [ 10 ] [ 11 ]
The Roman road that linked Italy with Hispania passed through the north of Burgos. [ 35 ] The road is still preserved in some sections, such as this one located parallel to the north interior ring road
Old age
Edit
Kingdom of Castile in 1200. Caminos de Santiago-Roman roads
Although there is no evidence of important settlements in the city, there are numerous sites from Roman times, especially in the areas closest to the Arlanzón river .
roman road
A Roman road runs to the north of the city between the neighboring municipalities of Villayerno Morquillas and Tardajos , from east to west. This is the Antonino A-34 Itinerary , which linked Astorga with Bordeaux . Currently, confused as a simple rural road, its last remains between the area of Casa la Vega and the railway diversion are in serious danger of disappearing due to urban development plans in the area. The best preserved section of this road is in the municipality of Quintanapalla .
Middle Ages
Edit
An Arab chronicle mentions a population looted in the year 860 called Burchia, which seemed to correspond to the current Burgos, but in 2004 it was shown that the population of Burchia had nothing to do with the current city. [ 36 ]
Around the year 884, Alfonso III tried to stop the Muslim advance and sent Diego Porcelos to build a fortification on a hill on the right bank of the Arlanzón river. This would contribute to the place growing due to its strategic importance.
In 931, Fernán González managed to reunite the government of the counties of Burgos, Lara , Lantarón , Cerezo and Álava , [ 37 ] leaving Burgos as the capital of the county of Castilla .
Kingdom of Castile
Mudejar plasterwork with the heraldry of the Kingdom of Castile in the Monastery of Las Huelgas
When in 1038 Ferdinand I was crowned King of León, forming the kingdom of Castile , Burgos was chosen as its capital.
In 1071 Sancho II imprisoned his brother García in Burgos to seize the kingdom of Galicia from him . In 1074 Alfonso VI , king after the death of his brother Sancho, ceded his palace in Burgos for the construction of the Cathedral of Santa María . That same year his sisters, Elvira and Urraca , transferred the diocese from Oca to Gamonal .
In 1080, Alfonso VI of León and Castile convened a general council of their kingdoms in the city and officially declared the abolition of the Hispanic liturgy and its replacement by the Roman one .
After the conquest of Toledo in 1085 by Alfonso VI , Burgos lost the status of capital of the Kingdom of Castile in favor of this city. This did not paralyze the growth of Burgos, where some Courts would continue to be held.
Regarding this city, the Arab geographer Al-Idrisi wrote in the twelfth century :
It is a large city, crossed by a river and divided into neighborhoods surrounded by walls. One of these neighborhoods is particularly inhabited by Jews. The city is strong and equipped for defense. There are bazaars, commerce and a lot of population and wealth. It is located on the great route of travelers.
Some Spanish cities and others in the New World were founded from Burgos, such as Bilbao , a foundation confirmed by King Ferdinand IV of Castile on January 4, 1301.
Modern age
Edit
View of Burgos in the 16th century in the Civitates orbis terrarum
The 16th century was the century of its fullness for Burgos. Towards the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century , the city, which had been born on an agricultural environment, turned its back on the countryside and dedicated itself to functions polarized around commerce. It is during the 16th century when Burgos fully exploits the advantages of its geographical location.
In the city the military conquest of Navarre by Castile was legalized , since the Duke of Alba reported this event on June 11, 1515 in the Castilian Cortes meeting in the city.
International trade of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries . Consulate of Burgos
At the end of the 16th century , a period of decline began in the city. The main causes were not exclusively internal, since they reached a higher category: the Flanders wars , the discovery of America and the centralism of the absolute monarchs, aggravated by the circumstances of the transfer of the capital to Madrid , among others.
Causes of a local nature also had an influence, such as the famous plagues, which especially punished the city, mainly in the last quarter of a century, decimating its population.
Disarmed the economic and social framework of Burgos, the roads and communication routes decayed; Burgos entered into a great torpor and isolation. The crisis is reflected in a document kept in the Municipal Archives, which says: «The City is so depopulated and without people, that those who are there go out to live, because they cannot support themselves and the houses and buildings are almost all ruined and on the floor”. Burgos remained in this state of desolation until the last decades of the 18th century , when enlightened despotism seemed to slightly renew the city.
Burgos festivities poster from 1888
An attempt was made to restore the Consulate; the Royal Decree of March 16, 1763 restored the great institution of the Consulate, but a wool monopoly made no sense in an economy with little export. In Burgos everything had to be artificially implanted: money, merchants, means of transportation.
From the end of the 18th century and during the 19th century, the industrial promotion measures of Catalonia and the Basque Country by the enlightened monarchs, together with protectionist policies, managed to relaunch the incipient and uncompetitive manufacturing industry by applying tariffs to foreign products. For example, a yard of flamenco cloth went from costing 2 pesetas to costing 6, so that Catalan cloth that cost 5 pesetas began to be sold throughout Spain and the colonies. This brought with it a response from the English and the Dutch applying the same tariffs, for which reason the Castilian wool and grain were allowed to be sold. Thus, a bushel of Castilian wheat went from costing 10 pesetas to costing 5, also influenced by the irruption of the United States in the global cereal market. Castilla sold its products cheaper and was forced to buy more expensive.
The Consulate languished very soon and from 1781 it was oriented towards an Academy of Arts and Crafts and other charitable-cultural activities very much in tune with the mentality of the time. Something similar happened with the Faculty of Medicine, established in the old Hospital de la Concepción , established in 1799, disappearing around 1817. At this time the city underwent superficial urban reforms: «The San Pablo bridge, the replacement of sleeves, the composition of roads, the Consistory that is going to be built in the place of some old and indecent corridors ».
Contemporary age
Edit
The Spanish War of Independence especially affected the Castilian economy. The harvests of 1811 and 1812 were poor and scarce due to the uncertainty felt by the farmers as the armies and guerrillas resupplied themselves on the ground through requisitions. The lack of subsistence spread famine and caused an intense mortality crisis in 1812. Not only did agricultural production fall, there were industries that almost disappeared, such as the woolen textile industry in Castilla, since the herds of Merino sheep were used to feed the troops.
In addition, there was the looting of many of the works of art that the different religious buildings treasured, such as the Cartuja de Miraflores , the looting and dispersal of the remains of the tomb of the Cid Campeador , and other already disappeared convents, especially by the Governor of Old Castile, General Darmagnac . The blowing up of the castle in 1813 by Napoleonic soldiers destroyed churches such as Santa María la Blanca , as well as a large part of the stained glass windows of the Cathedral .
Burgos from the East, a watercolor by Edgar TA Wigram, published in his Northern Spain in 1906
During the Spanish civil war , the city of Burgos was the headquarters of the Junta de Defensa Nacional . The formation of the First National Government of Spain (1939-1939) also took place in the city , during which the dictator Francisco Franco officially assumed the positions of Head of State and Government . The Francoist government remained in Burgos until October 18, 1939, when it moved to Madrid . On August 9, the Second Francoist government was formed in this city .
On December 3, 1970, the so-called Burgos Process took place , a trial against sixteen members of the terrorist organization ETA accused of the murder of three people. The death sentences of six of the defendants were not carried out, commuting to prison sentences. [ 38 ]
21st century
Edit
In the 21st century , a new railway station was built in Burgos, it is located on the outskirts of the city, the old station is currently the children’s and youth leisure center La Estación . A new hospital in Burgos, the HUBU , was also built to replace the old General Yagüe, which was demolished in 2017.
On July 29, 2009 in Burgos there was an attack on the civil guard barracks perpetrated by the terrorist group ETA , fortunately there were no fatalities but there were 65 injuries and the building was seriously damaged and had to be rehabilitated. This event was considered a “miracle”, in what could have become the largest massacre of ETA ‘s assassins due to the amount of explosives, the time and the place chosen; homes of entire families that were sleeping.
Since the Middle Ages , it acted as an important economic center in the north of the peninsula, focused on trade, especially that related to wool, which had its peak in the fifteenth century .
In the 20th century , strong industrialization took place, culminating in the creation of large industrial estates in the 1970s. The establishment of the Burgos Industrial Promotion Pole , together with the location advantages due to its geographical position, facilitated the development of the industry, generating a business fabric.
Its privileged geographical location, [ 39 ] has allowed it to become an important communications hub in northern Spain, both on national and international routes. These factors, together with a developed tertiary sector, with a notable presence of tourism, make it the 18th city in terms of economic activity in the nation. [ 40 ]
It is the headquarters of some companies with the highest turnover in Castilla y León, such as Grupo Antolin (one of the largest business groups in the automotive sector worldwide), [ 41 ] and it owns factories of some of the companies with the highest turnover from Spain, such as Campofrío , San Miguel , Bridgestone , Smurfit Kappa , Matutano . Also notable for their activity are Adisseo Spain, Benteler Spain, Quesos Arias, Hiperbaric, Cerámicas Gala, L’Oréal , [ 42 ] Grupo Cropu, Gonvarri Industrial, Nicolás Correa, Kronospan, [43 ] or the only Ferroli production plant in Spain.
The city of Burgos represents around 60% of the provincial economy and 20% of the regional one, [ citation needed ] acting as a provincial economic center, which even reaches the bordering areas of La Rioja or Palencia . Currently, the economic sector with the most weight is industrial, although the service sector increasingly has more employment and development. As of 2009, the city leads the auto parts manufacturing industry in the community, with 25 manufacturers employing about 5,000 workers. [ 44 ]
There is also a chemical industry, such as the Adisseo Group, which manufactures methionine for the entire United States market. This production was assumed exclusively in the Burgos plant in 2012 due to its high industrial competitiveness. [ 45 ] In the west of the city is the National Currency and Stamp Factory - Real Casa de la Moneda , in which part of the euro banknotes that are distributed throughout Europe are manufactured. [ 46 ]
Primary sector
Edit
Agriculture
Despite the fact that it decreases every year, there is still a large amount of agricultural land in the municipal area, with cereal crops such as wheat for the most part.
Cattle raising
There are small farms for the production of eggs or milk , the majority grouped in cooperatives located in peripheral areas of the city.
Secondary sector
Edit
Aerial view of the eastern part of the Villalonquéjar industrial estate
Burgos is a diversified city in which the service sector predominates, followed by a diversified manufacturing industry, and which benefits from its good location in certain logistics corridors, with important business activity. The number of workplaces per 1,000 inhabitants reaches an average of 42.9, which places it above cities such as Valladolid, Vitoria, Zaragoza, Seville and the national average, and its per capita income is 12.5 more % the national average. [ 47 ]
It has widely consolidated industrial land, as well as a large future expansion projected in the Burgos Technology Park and the Center for Economic Activities (CAE). [ 48 ]
PepsiCo Iberia factory
Burgos is considered a city of a predominantly industrial nature. The city experienced its first major industrialization in 1964, being one of the cities declared an Industrial Promotion Pole , largely concentrated around the Gamonal and Villalonquéjar industrial estates .
In 2007, Burgos employed 20,217 people in the sector (22% of the employed population), making it the second industrial center in Castilla y León in absolute terms, only slightly surpassed by Valladolid. [ 49 ] Its industrial index is higher than that of cities such as Valencia , Bilbao or Seville . [ citation needed ]
The industrial estates of Burgos bring together around 1,500 companies and their connections are unbeatable, all surrounded like a perfect spider web by the new infrastructures: the airport, the high-speed train and the new ring roads that encircle the city.
It currently has a large area dedicated to industry, divided between three main industrial estates and other smaller estates: [ 50 ]
Villalonquéjar Industrial Estate
Located to the northwest of the city and developed in four phases, three of them already consolidated and the last one urbanized and with some companies already established in it. It has a total area of 10 million m², which makes it the largest industrial estate in Castilla y León, [ 51 ] where more than 12,000 people work in 515 companies. The occupancy rate is 75%.
There are companies with a long industrial history, such as the Nicolás Correa Group, whose spin-off , Hiperbaric, is the world’s leading supplier of high-pressure food equipment manufacturing. [ 52 ]
In 2014, the city became the southern European headquarters of the Benteler company, previously located in Barcelona , due to the high productivity and efficiency of its workforce. [ 53 ]
East Burgos Industrial Estate / Gamonal
Bridgestone Hispania plant in the Gamonal industrial estate
The new Campofrío plant, inaugurated in November 2016 at the same location as the previous factory, destroyed in the terrifying fire of 2014, in the Gamonal industrial estate (Image taken in August 2017)
Located to the east of the municipality, between the neighborhoods of Gamonal, Villímar, Villayuda-La Ventilla and Villafría; Well connected, it occupies a gross area of 3,500,000 m² , with 950 companies. The occupancy rate is 97.9%. Important companies such as the San Miguel brewery, Campofrío, Bridgestone , Gonvarri and Matutano (PepsiCo Group) are located in it.
Monte la Abadesa Industrial Estate
Located to the south of the city, along the A-1 , with access from the BU-V-1002 and BU-P-1001 highways . Together with the contiguous industrial estates of Los Pedernales ( Villagonzalo Pedernales ) and El Clavillo ( Villariezo ) they together make up more than 4,500,000 m² of gross land.
Los Brezos Industrial Estate
Located in the west of the city, on the N-120 , in the municipality of Villalbilla de Burgos , bordering on the municipality of Burgos.
Burgos-Buniel Industrial Estate
Still in the project phase, the construction of the Burgos-Buniel Industrial Estate, considered of regional interest, is planned. The area initially considered is 1,033.54 hectares , which means a buildable area of 5,840,295 m² . Some 30,000 @people could work on it . It will affect the municipalities of Albillos , Buniel , Burgos, San Mamés , Villagonzalo Pedernales and Villalbilla . Promoted by Mobart and Caja Círculo, it will be located between the BU-30 (Circunvalación de Burgos) and A-62 (Autovía de Castilla) highways, extending to the south of the latter. [54 ]
Burgos Technology Park
Main article: Burgos Technology Park
It is planned to be a space for technology companies located in the Spanish city of Burgos. It was promoted by the Junta de Castilla y León in 2006, and is currently under construction.
Third sector
Edit
Headquarters of one of the savings banks that operates in the city, currently within the IberCaja group
The city has tertiary activities linked to administrative, financial and tourist services, being the headquarters of a savings and credit cooperative ( Caja Rural de Burgos ). Previously, it was also the headquarters of two savings banks (Caja de Burgos and Caja Círculo), of which only their respective foundations currently remain: Fundación Caja Burgos and Fundación Caja Círculo .
After the mergers of the savings banks, Caja de Burgos is integrated into CaixaBank and Caja Circulo into the Ibercaja Group. The headquarters of the territorial division of Castilla y León and Asturias of CaixaBank is located in the city. [ 55 ]
R+D+i
The CEEI, Burgos European Center for Business and Innovation, located in the Villafría neighborhood , favors the creation of companies, especially innovation. [ 56 ]
At the beginning of 2010, the development of the Burgos Technological Park began , which will occupy a plot of 123.79 ha , and will affect two municipalities, Burgos and Cardeñajimeno . It will become the largest technology park in Castilla y León, and will mainly host technology activities of companies in sectors such as capital goods, robotics, automotive, new materials and agri-food. [ 57 ]
traditional markets
Main access to one of the city markets
There are currently two main markets with these characteristics: the Mercado Norte in the Plaza de España and the Mercado Sur, very close to the bus station. In the Gamonal neighborhood there is also another municipal market in the area known as G-9. They are characterized by being made up of dozens of stalls that offer products that are mostly artisanal and of provincial or regional origin .
In addition, on weekdays Wednesdays and Saturdays, there is a fruit and vegetable market with stalls from local and regional producers. [ 58 ] The traditional location of this market is in the vicinity of the El Plantío stadium, but due to the works it is undergoing, it has been moved to the Gamonal neighborhood. [ 59 ]
Malls
Currently there are three large-area shopping centers, located in such a way as to cover most of the citizens:
Parque Burgos Shopping Center. In the southern part of the city, the Hipercor hypermarket is located there. This shopping center is accessed via the BU-11 highway , leaving Burgos in the direction of Madrid (next to the Landa knot).
El Mirador Shopping Center. Located on the Santander highway , leaving Burgos before reaching the Villatoro neighborhood, the Carrefour hypermarket is located there.
Camino de la Plata Shopping Center. Located between the populous neighborhood of Gamonal and the expansion, in the geographical center of the city, the Alcampo hypermarket is located there.
Hostelry
Recently, thanks to a boom in tourism, several hotels have opened their doors throughout the city.
The city has a wide range of hotels, which has contributed to the fact that the municipality and the province have the hotel establishments with the best value for money in Spain , surpassing European cities such as Berlin or Prague . [ 60 ]
In March 2012, there were a total of 4,400 hotel beds, distributed among 46 hotels, 35 hostels and pensions, and three private hostels. This represents 50% of the total for the province. [ citation needed ]
Tourism
The city has experienced a sharp increase in the number of visitors in recent years. Currently, it is the second city in Castilla y León that receives the most foreign tourists, mainly from France and Germany . [ 61 ]
Its extensive historical heritage, together with a varied museum offer, its extensive green areas and its well-known gastronomy, allow it to be a focus of tourist attraction in northern Spain.
Tourist Interpretation and Reception Center - CITUR
Main article: Burgos Tourist Reception and Interpretation Center
CITUR was inaugurated on February 16, 2011 and is located on Nuño Rasura street, a few meters from the cathedral . The building can be accessed both from Corral de los Infantes street (north façade of the Arco de Santa María) and from Nuño Rasura street. It offers free tourist information on the city on the first floor, and two exhibition parts on the lower and upper floors
Soutane
/suːˈtɑːn/
Learn to pronounce
noun
noun: soutane; plural noun: soutanes
a type of cassock worn by Roman Catholic priests.
Sternum
The sternum or breastbone is a long flat bone located in the central part of the chest. It connects to the ribs via cartilage and forms the front of the rib cage, thus helping to protect the heart, lungs, and major blood vessels from injury. Shaped roughly like a necktie, it is one of the largest and longest flat bones of the body. Its three regions are the manubrium, the body, and the xiphoid process.[1] The word “sternum” originates from the Ancient Greek στέρνον (stérnon), meaning “chest”.
The sternum is a narrow, flat bone, forming the middle portion of the front of the chest. The top of the sternum supports the clavicles (collarbones) and its edges join with the costal cartilages of the first two pairs of ribs. The inner surface of the sternum is also the attachment of the sternopericardial ligaments.[2] Its top is also connected to the sternocleidomastoid muscle. The sternum consists of three main parts, listed from the top:
Manubrium
Body (gladiolus)
Xiphoid process
In its natural position, the sternum is angled obliquely, downward and forward. It is slightly convex in front and concave behind; broad above, shaped like a “T”, becoming narrowed at the point where the manubrium joins the body, after which it again widens a little to below the middle of the body, and then narrows to its lower extremity. In adults the sternum is on average about 17 cm, longer in the male than in the female.
Myrrh
myrrh1
/məː/
Learn to pronounce
noun
noun: myrrh
a fragrant gum resin obtained from certain trees and used, especially in the Near East, in perfumery, medicines, and incense.
Old English myrra, myrre, via Latin from Greek murra, of Semitic origin; compare with Arabic murr ‘bitter’.
Vespa
Vespa (Italian pronunciation: [ˈvɛspa]) is an Italian luxury brand of scooters and mopeds manufactured by Piaggio. The name means wasp in Italian. The Vespa has evolved from a single model motor scooter manufactured in 1946 by Piaggio & Co. S.p.A. of Pontedera, Italy to a full line of scooters and one of seven companies today owned by Piaggio.[1]
From their inception, Vespa scooters have been known for their painted, pressed steel unibody which combines, in a unified structural unit, a complete cowling for the engine (enclosing the engine mechanism and concealing dirt or grease), a flat floorboard (providing foot protection), and a prominent front fairing (providing wind protection).
After World War II, in light of its agreement to cease war activities with the Allies, Italy had its aircraft industry severely restricted in both capability and capacity.
Piaggio emerged from the conflict with its Pontedera bomber plane plant demolished by bombing. Italy’s crippled economy, and the disastrous state of its roads, were not immediately conducive to the re-development of the automobile market. Enrico Piaggio, the son of Piaggio’s founder Rinaldo Piaggio, decided to leave the aeronautical field in order to address Italy’s urgent need for a modern and affordable mode of transportation for the masses.
Design
Edit
Piaggio MP5 “Paperino”, the initial Piaggio prototype
In 1944, Piaggio engineers Renzo Spolti and Vittorio Casini designed a motorcycle with bodywork fully enclosing the drivetrain and forming a tall splash guard at the front. In addition to the bodywork, the design included handlebar-mounted controls, forced air cooling, wheels of small diameter, and a tall central section that had to be straddled. Officially known as the MP5 (“Moto Piaggio no. 5”), the prototype was nicknamed “Paperino” (meaning “Donald Duck” in Italian).[2] Piaggio was displeased with the MP5, especially the tall central section. He contracted aeronautical engineer Corradino D’Ascanio, to redesign the scooter.[2] D’Ascanio, who had earlier been consulted by Ferdinando Innocenti about scooter design and manufacture, made it immediately known that he hated motorcycles, believing them to be bulky, dirty, and unreliable.[3]
D’Ascanio’s MP6 prototype had its engine mounted beside the rear wheel. The wheel was driven directly from the transmission, eliminating the drive chain and the oil and dirt associated with it. The prototype had a unit spar frame with stress-bearing steel outer panels.[3] These changes allowed the MP6 to have a step-through design instead of a tall centre section like that of the MP5 Paperino. The MP6 design also included a single-sided front suspension, interchangeable front and rear wheels mounted on stub axles, and a spare wheel. Other features of the MP6 were similar to those on the Paperino, including the handlebar-mounted controls and the enclosed bodywork with the tall front splash guard.[2]
Upon seeing the MP6 for the first time, Enrico Piaggio exclaimed: “Sembra una vespa!” (“It looks like a wasp!”) Piaggio effectively named his new scooter on the spot.[3][4] Vespa is both Latin and Italian for wasp—derived from the vehicle’s body shape: the thicker rear part connected to the front part by a narrow waist, and the steering rod resembled antennae.
Product
Edit
Glove box on newer Vespa PX
On 23 April 1946, at 12 o’clock in the central office for inventions, models and makes of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce in Florence, Piaggio e C. S.p.A. took out a patent for a “motorcycle of a rational complexity of organs and elements combined with a frame with mudguards and a casing covering the whole mechanical part”.[5]
The basic patented design allowed a series of features to be deployed on the spar-frame that would later allow quick development of new models. The original Vespa featured a rear pillion seat for a passenger, or optionally a storage compartment. The original front protection “shield” was a flat piece of aero metal; later, this developed into a twin skin to allow additional storage behind the front shield, similar to the glove compartment in a car. The fuel cap was located underneath the (hinged) seat, which saved the cost of an additional lock on the fuel cap or need for additional metal work on the smooth skin.
The scooter had rigid rear suspension and small 8-inch (200 mm) wheels that allowed a compact design and plenty of room for the rider’s legs. The Vespa’s enclosed, horizontally mounted 98 cc two-stroke engine acted directly on the rear drive wheel through a three-speed transmission. The twistgrip-controlled gear change involved a system of rods. The early engine had no forced-air cooling, but fan blades were soon attached to the magneto-flywheel (which houses the points and generates electricity for accessories and for the engine’s spark) to push air over the cylinder’s cooling fins. The modern Vespa engine is still cooled this way.
The MP6 prototype had large grilles on the front and rear of the rear fender covering the engine. This was done to allow air in to cool the engine, as the prototype did not have fan cooling. A cooling fan similar to that used on the MP5 “Paperino” prototype was included in the design of the production Vespa, and the grilles were removed from the fender.[2]
Piaggio filed a patent for the Vespa scooter design in April 1946. The application documents referred to a “model of a practical nature” for a “motorcycle with rationally placed parts and elements with a frame combining with mudguards and engine-cowling covering all working parts”, of which “the whole constitutes a rational, comfortable motorcycle offering protection from mud and dust without jeopardizing requirements of appearance and elegance”. The patent was approved the following December.
The first 13 examples appeared in spring 1946, and revealed their aeronautical background. In the first examples, one can recognize the typical aircraft technology. Attention to aerodynamics is evident in all the design, in particular on the tail. It was also one of the first vehicles to use monocoque construction (where the body is an integral part of the chassis).
The company was aiming to manufacture the new Vespa in large numbers, and their longstanding industrial experience led to an efficient Ford-style volume production line. The scooter was presented to the press at Rome Golf Club, where journalists were apparently mystified by the strange, pastel coloured, toy-like object on display. However, the road tests were encouraging, and even with no rear suspension the machine was more manoeuvrable and comfortable to ride than a traditional motorcycle.
Following its public debut at the 1946 Milan Fair, the first fifty sold slowly. With the introduction of payment by installments, sales took off.
Piaggio sold some 2,500 Vespas in 1947, over 10,000 in 1948, 20,000 in 1949, and over 60,000 in 1950.[6]
The biggest sales promo ever was Hollywood. In 1952, Audrey Hepburn side-saddled Gregory Peck’s Vespa in the feature film Roman Holiday for a ride through Rome, resulting in over 100,000 sales. In 1956, John Wayne dismounted his horse in favor of the two-wheeler to originally get between takes on sets.[7] as well as Marlon Brando, Dean Martin, and the entertainer Abbe Lane had become Vespa owners. William Wyler filmed Ben Hur in Rome in 1959, allowing Charlton Heston to abandon horse and chariot between takes to take a spin on the Vespa.[8][9]
Vespa clubs popped up throughout Europe, and by 1952, worldwide Vespa Club membership had surpassed 50,000. By the mid-1950s, Vespas were being manufactured under licence in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and Spain; in the 1960s, production was started in India, Brazil and Indonesia. By 1956, one million had been sold, then two million by 1960. By the 1960s, the Vespa—originally conceived as a utility vehicle—had come to symbolize freedom and imagination, and resulted in further sales boosts: four million by 1970, and ten million by the late 1980s.
Improvements were made to the original design and new models were introduced. The 1948 Vespa 125 had rear suspension and a bigger engine. The headlamp was moved up to the handlebars in 1953 and had more engine power and a restyled rear fairing. A cheaper spartan version was also available. One of the best-loved models was the Vespa 150 GS introduced in 1955 with a 150 cc engine, a long saddle, and the faired handlebar-headlamp unit. Then came the 50 cc of 1963, and in 1968 Vespa 125 Primavera became one of the most durable of all.
T5 Millennium from the PX series
Vespas came in two sizes, referred to as “largeframe” and “smallframe”. The smallframe scooters came in 50 cc, 90 cc, 100 cc, and 125 cc versions, all using an engine derived from the 50 cc model of 1963, and the largeframe scooters in 125 cc, 150 cc, 160 cc, 180 cc, and 200 cc displacements using engines derived from the redesigned 125 cc VNA engine from 1957.
The largeframe Vespa evolved into the PX range in the late 1970s and was produced in 125, 150 and 200 cc versions until July 2007. Starting in 1981, an 80cc version was available as well. Piaggio reintroduced the PX 125 and 150 models in 2011, with a revised EURO3 compliant engine.
The smallframe evolved into the PK range in the early 1980s, although some vintage-styled smallframes were produced for the Japanese market as late as the mid-1990s.
Axle
An axle or axletree is a central shaft for a rotating wheel or gear. On wheeled vehicles, the axle may be fixed to the wheels, rotating with them, or fixed to the vehicle, with the wheels rotating around the axle.[1] In the former case, bearings or bushings are provided at the mounting points where the axle is supported. In the latter case, a bearing or bushing sits inside a central hole in the wheel to allow the wheel or gear to rotate around the axle. Sometimes, especially on bicycles, the latter type of axle is referred to as a spindle.
Obliquely
having a slanting direction or position : neither perpendicular nor parallel. : having the axis not perpendicular to the base.
Coming down upon each other obliquely, these broad streams meet about the middle of the tropical belt. The whole was sometimes placed obliquely, or even turned upside down, doubtless for the same reason.
Grenoble
Grenoble (/ɡrəˈnoʊbəl/ grə-NOH-bəl,[4] French: [ɡʁənɔbl] (listen); Arpitan: Grenoblo or Grainóvol; Occitan: Graçanòbol) is the prefecture and largest city of the Isère department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of southeastern France.[5] It was the capital of the Dauphiné historical province and lies where the river Drac flows into the Isère at the foot of the French Alps.
The population of the commune of Grenoble was 158,198 as of 2019, while the population of the Grenoble metropolitan area (French: aire d’attraction de Grenoble or agglomération grenobloise) was 714,799 which makes it the largest metropolis in the Alps, ahead of Innsbruck and Bolzano.[3] A significant European scientific centre,[6][7] the city advertises itself as the “Capital of the Alps”, due to its size and its proximity to the mountains. The many suburban communes that make up the rest of the metropolitan area include four with populations exceeding 20,000: Saint-Martin-d’Hères, Échirolles, Fontaine and Voiron.[8][9]
Grenoble’s history goes back over 2,000 years, to a time when it was a village of the Allobroges Gallic tribe. It became the capital of the Dauphiné in the 11th century.[10] This status, consolidated by the annexation to France, allowed it to develop its economy. Grenoble then became a parliamentary and military city, close to the border with Savoy, which at the time was part of the Holy Roman Empire. Industrial development increased the prominence of Grenoble through several periods of economic expansion over the last three centuries. This started with a booming glove industry in the 18th and 19th centuries, continued with the development of a strong hydropower industry in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, and ended with a post-World War II economic boom symbolized by the holding of the X Olympic Winter Games in 1968.
The city has grown to be one of Europe’s most important research, technology and innovation centres, with one in five inhabitants working directly in these fields.[6][7][11] Grenoble is classified as a global city with the ranking of “sufficiency” by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. The city holds the title of European Green Capital in 2022.[12]
Antiquity
Edit
Remnants of the Roman walls
The first references to what is now Grenoble date back to 43 BC. Cularo was at that time a Gallic village of the Allobroges tribe, near a bridge across the Isère. Three centuries later and with insecurity rising in the late Roman empire, a strong wall was built around the small town in 286 AD.[13]
The Emperor Gratian visited Cularo and, touched by the people’s welcome, made the village a Roman city.[14] In honour of this, Cularo was renamed Gratianopolis (“city of Gratian”) in 381 (leading to Graignovol[15] during the Middle Ages, and then Grenoble).
Christianity spread to the region during the 4th century, and the diocese of Grenoble was founded in 377 AD. From that time on, the bishops exercised significant political power over the city. Until the French Revolution, they styled themselves the “bishops and princes of Grenoble”.[16]
Middle Ages
Edit
After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the city became part of the first Burgundian kingdom in the 5th century and of the later Kingdom of Burgundy until 1032, when it was integrated into the Holy Roman Empire. The Burgundian rule was interrupted between 942 and 970 by Arab rule based in Fraxinet.
Grenoble grew significantly in the 11th century when the Counts of Albon chose the city as the capital of their territories. Their possessions at the time were a patchwork of several territories sprawled across the region,[17] and the central position of Grenoble allowed the Counts to strengthen their authority. When they later adopted the title of “Dauphins”, Grenoble became the capital of the State of Dauphiné.
Despite their status, the Counts had to share authority over the city with the Bishop of Grenoble. One of the most famous of those was Saint Hugh. Under his rule, the city’s bridge was rebuilt, and a regular and leper hospital was built.[18]
Coat of arms of the Dauphiné after becoming a province of France
The inhabitants of Grenoble took advantage of the conflicts between the Counts and the bishops and obtained the recognition of a Charter of Customs that guaranteed their rights.[19] That charter was confirmed by Kings Louis XI in 1447 and Francis I in 1541.
In 1336 the last Dauphin Humbert II founded a court of justice, the Conseil delphinal [fr], which settled at Grenoble in 1340. He also established the University of Grenoble in 1339. Without an heir and deep into debt, Humbert sold his state to France in 1349, on the condition that the heir to the French crown used the title of Dauphin. The first one, the future Charles V, spent nine months in Grenoble. The city remained the capital of the Dauphiné,[10] henceforth a province of France, and the Estates of Dauphiné were created.
The only Dauphin who governed his province was the future Louis XI, whose “reign” lasted from 1447 to 1456. It was only under his rule that Dauphiné properly joined the Kingdom of France. The Old Conseil Delphinal became a Parlement (the third in France after the Parliaments of Paris and Toulouse), strengthening the status of Grenoble as a Provincial capital. He also ordered the construction of the Palais du Parlement (finished under Francis I) and ensured that the Bishop pledged allegiance, thus unifying the political control of the city.[20]
At that time, Grenoble was a crossroads between Vienne, Geneva, Italy, and Savoy. It was the industrial centre of the Dauphiné and the province’s biggest city, but a rather small one.
Renaissance
Edit
François de Bonne, duc de Lesdiguières
Owing to Grenoble’s geographical situation, French troops were garrisoned in the city and its region during the Italian Wars. Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I went several times to Grenoble. Its people consequently had to suffer from the exactions of the soldiers.
The nobility of the region took part in various battles (Marignano, Pavia) and in doing so gained significant prestige.[21] The best-known of its members was Bayard, “the knight without fear and beyond reproach”.
Grenoble suffered as a result of the French Wars of Religion. The Dauphiné was indeed an important settlement for Protestants and therefore experienced several conflicts. The baron des Adrets, the leader of the Huguenots, pillaged the Cathedral of Grenoble and destroyed the tombs of the former Dauphins.
In August 1575, Lesdiguières became the new leader of the Protestants and, thanks to the accession of Henry IV to the throne of France, allied himself with the governor and the lieutenant general of the Dauphiné. But this alliance did not bring an end to the conflicts. Indeed, a Catholic movement, the Ligue, which took Grenoble in December 1590, refused to make peace. After months of assaults, Lesdiguières defeated the Ligue and took back Grenoble. He became the leader of the entire province.[22]
Lesdiguières became the lieutenant-general of the Dauphiné and administered the Province from 1591 to 1626. He began the construction of the Bastille to protect the city and ordered the construction of new walls, increasing the city’s size. He also constructed the Hôtel Lesdiguières, built new fountains, and dug sewers.[23]
In 1689, the bishop Étienne Le Camus launched the construction of Saint-Louis Church.
From Louis XIV to the French Revolution
Edit
Grenoble plan-relief (1848)
Day of the Tiles, 1890 painting by Alexandre Debelle,
(Musée de la Révolution française)
The revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV caused the departure of 2,000 Protestants from Grenoble, weakening the city’s economy.[24] However, it also weakened the competing glove industry of Grasse, leaving the glove factories of Grenoble without any competition.[25] This allowed a stronger economic development for the city during the 18th century. At the beginning of that century, only 12 glovers made 15,000 dozen gloves each year; by 1787, 64 glovers made 160,000 dozen gloves each year.[25]
The city gained some notoriety on 7 June 1788 when the townspeople assaulted troops of Louis XVI in the “Day of the Tiles”.[10] The people attacked the royal troops to prevent an expulsion of the notables of the city, which would have seriously endangered the economic prosperity of Grenoble. Following these events, the Assembly of Vizille took place. Its members organized the meeting of the old Estates General, thus beginning the French Revolution. During the Revolution, Grenoble was represented in Paris by two illustrious notables, Jean Joseph Mounier and Antoine Barnave.
In 1790, the Dauphiné was divided into three departments, and Grenoble became the chef-lieu of the Isère department. Only two refractory priests were executed at Grenoble during the Reign of Terror.[26] Pope Pius VI, prisoner of France, spent two days at Grenoble in 1799[27] before going to Valence where he died.
19th century
Edit
Ramparts close to the Porte Saint Laurent
The establishment of the Empire was overwhelmingly approved (in Isère, the results showed 82,084 yes and only 12 no).[28] Grenoble welcomed for the second time a prisoner Pope in 1809. Pius VII spent 10 days in the city en route to his exile in Fontainebleau.
In 1813 Grenoble was under threat from the Austrian army, which invaded Switzerland and Savoy. The well-defended city contained the Austrian attacks, and the French army defeated the Austrians, forcing them to withdraw at Geneva. However, the later invasion of France in 1814 resulted in the capitulation of the troops and the occupation of the city.
During his return from the island of Elba in 1815, Napoleon took a road that led him near Grenoble at Laffrey. There he met the Royalist Régiment d’Angouleme (former 5th) of Louis XVIII’s Royal Army. Napoleon stepped toward the soldiers and said these famous words: “If there is among you a soldier who wants to kill his Emperor, here I am.” The soldiers all joined his cause. After that, Napoleon was acclaimed at Grenoble and General Jean Gabriel Marchand could not prevent Napoleon from entering the city through the Bonne gate. He said later: “From Cannes to Grenoble, I still was an adventurer; in that last city, I came back a sovereign”.[29] But after the defeat of Waterloo, the region suffered from a new invasion of Austrian and Sardinian troops.
Fountain of the Three Orders (1897)
The 19th century saw significant industrial development of Grenoble. The glove factories reached their Golden Age, and their products were exported to the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia.[30]
General Haxo transformed the Bastille fortress, which took on its present aspect between 1824 and 1848. The Second Empire saw the construction of the French railway network, and the first trains arrived at Grenoble in 1858. Shortly thereafter Grenoble experienced widespread destruction by extensive flooding in 1859.
In 1869 engineer Aristide Bergès played a major role in industrializing hydroelectricity production. With the development of his paper mills, he accelerated the economic development of the Grésivaudan valley and Grenoble.[citation needed]
On 4 August 1897, a stone and bronze fountain was inaugurated in Grenoble to commemorate the pre-revolutionary events of June 1788. Built by the sculptor Henri Ding, the Fountain of the Three Orders, which represents three characters, is located on Place Notre-Dame. People in Grenoble interpret these characters as follows: “Is it raining?” inquires the third estate; “Please heaven it had rained”, lament the clergy; and “It will rain”, proclaims the nobility.[31]
20th century
Edit
World War I accelerated Grenoble’s economic development.[32] To sustain the war effort, new hydroelectric industries developed along the various rivers of the region, and several existing companies moved into the armaments industry (for example in Livet-et-Gavet). Electrochemical factories were also established in the area surrounding Grenoble, initially to produce chemical weapons. This development resulted in significant immigration to Grenoble, particularly from Italian workers who settled in the Saint-Laurent neighborhood.
Gate of the exposition in 1925
The economic development of the city was highlighted by the organization of the International Exhibition of Hydropower and Tourism in 1925, which was visited by more than 1 million people.[33][circular reference] The organization of this exhibition forced the military to remove the old city walls and allowed the expansion of the city to the south. This exhibition also highlighted the city’s hydropower industry and the region’s tourist attractions.
The site of the exhibition became an urban park in 1926, named Parc Paul Mistral after the death of the mayor in 1932. The only building of this exhibition remaining in the park is the crumbling Tour Perret, which has been closed to the public since 1960 due to its very poor state of maintenance.
World War II
Edit
During World War II, at the Battle of the Alps, the Nazi invasion was stopped near Grenoble at Voreppe by the forces of General Cartier in June 1940. The French forces resisted until the armistice. Grenoble was then part of the French State, before an Italian occupation from 1942 to 1943. The relative mercy of the Italian occupiers towards the Jewish populations resulted in a significant number moving to the region from the German-occupied parts of France.[34]
Grenoble was extremely active in the Résistance against the occupation. Its action was symbolized by figures such as Eugène Chavant, Léon Martin, and Marie Reynoard.[35] The University of Grenoble supported the clandestine operations and provided false documentation for young people to prevent them from being assigned to STO.
In September 1943, German troops occupied Grenoble, escalating the conflict with the clandestine movements. On 11 November 1943 (the anniversary of the armistice of 1918), massive strikes and demonstrations took place in front of the local collaboration offices. In response, the occupiers arrested 400 demonstrators in the streets. On 13 November, the resistance blew up the artillery at the Polygon, which was a psychological shock for an enemy who then intensified the repression. On 25 November, the occupiers killed 11 members of the Résistance organizations of Grenoble. This violent crackdown was nicknamed “Grenoble’s Saint-Bartholomew”.[36] From these events, Grenoble was styled by the Free French Forces the title of Capital of the Maquis on the antennas of the BBC.[37]
This event only intensified the activities of Grenoble’s resistance movements. The Germans could not prevent the destruction of their new arsenal on 2 December at the Bonne Barracks. After the Normandy landing, resistance operations reached their peak, with numerous attacks considerably hampering the activity of German troops. With the landing in Provence, German troops evacuated the city on 22 August 1944. On 5 November 1944, General Charles de Gaulle came to Grenoble and bestowed on the city the Compagnon de la Libération to recognise “a heroic city at the peak of the French resistance and combat for the liberation”.[35]
Post-war
Edit
In 1955, future physics Nobel prize laureate Louis Néel created the Grenoble Center for Nuclear Studies (CENG), resulting in the birth of the Grenoble model, a combination of research and industry. The first stone was laid in December 1956.
In 1968 Grenoble hosted the X Olympic Winter Games. This event helped modernize the city with the development of infrastructure such as an airport, motorways, a new town hall, and a new train station.[38] It also helped the development of ski resorts like Chamrousse, Les Deux Alpes, and Villard-de-Lans.[39]
Fleur de Lis
The fleur-de-lis, also spelled fleur-de-lys (plural fleurs-de-lis or fleurs-de-lys),[pron 1] is a lily (in French, fleur and lis mean ‘flower’ and ‘lily’ respectively) that is used as a decorative design or symbol.
The fleur-de-lis has been used in the heraldry of numerous European nations, but is particularly associated with France, notably during its monarchical period. The fleur-de-lis became “at one and the same time, religious, political, dynastic, artistic, emblematic, and symbolic,” especially in French heraldry.[4] The fleur-de-lis has been used by French royalty and throughout history to represent saints of France. In particular, the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph are often depicted with a lily.
The fleur-de-lis is represented in Unicode at U+269C ⚜ in the Miscellaneous Symbols block.
The fleur de lis is widely thought to be a stylized version of the species Iris pseudacorus, or Iris florentina.[5][6] However, the lily (genus lilium, family Liliaceae) and the iris (family Iridaceae) are two different plants, phylogenetically and taxonomically unrelated. Lily (in Italian: giglio) is the name usually associated with the stylized flower in the Florentine heraldic devices.
Decorative ornaments that resemble the fleur-de-lis have appeared in artwork from the earliest human civilizations.[citation needed] According to Pierre-Augustin Boissier de Sauvages, an 18th-century French naturalist and lexicographer:[7]
The old fleurs-de-lis, especially the ones found in our first kings’ sceptres, have a lot less in common with ordinary lilies than the flowers called flambas [in Occitan], or irises, from which the name of our own fleur-de-lis may derive. What gives some colour of truth to this hypothesis that we already put forth, is the fact that the French or Franks, before entering Gaul itself, lived for a long time around the river named Lys in the Flanders. Nowadays, this river is still bordered with an exceptional number of irises —as many plants grow for centuries in the same places—: these irises have yellow flowers, which is not a typical feature of lilies but fleurs-de-lis. It was thus understandable that our kings, having to choose a symbolic image for what later became a coat of arms, set their minds on the iris, a flower that was common around their homes, and is also as beautiful as it was remarkable. They called it, in short, the fleur-de-lis, instead of the flower of the river of lis. This flower, or iris, looks like our fleur-de-lis not just because of its yellow colour but also because of its shape: of the six petals, or leaves, that it has, three of them are alternatively straight and meet at their tops. The other three on the opposite, bend down so that the middle one seems to make one with the stalk and only the two ones facing out from left and right can clearly be seen, which is again similar with our fleurs-de-lis, that is to say exclusively the one from the river Luts whose white petals bend down too when the flower blooms.
Iris compared with fleur-de-lis ornament in French [8]
The heraldist François Velde is known to have expressed the same opinion:[9]
However, a hypothesis ventured in the 17th c. sounds very plausible to me. One species of wild iris, the Iris pseudacorus, yellow flag in English, is yellow and grows in marshes (cf. the azure field, for water). Its name in German is Lieschblume (also gelbe Schwertlilie), but Liesch was also spelled Lies and Leys in the Middle Ages. It is easy to imagine that, in Northern France, the Lieschblume would have been called ‘fleur-de-lis’. This would explain the name and the formal origin of the design, as a stylized yellow flag. There is a fanciful legend about Clovis which links the yellow flag explicitly with the French coat of arms.[9]
Sauvages’ hypothesis seems to be supported by the archaic English spelling fleur-de-luce[10] and by the Luts’s variant name Lits.[citation needed]
Alternative derivations
Edit
Another (debated) hypothesis is that the symbol derives from the Frankish angon.[11] Note that the angon, or sting, was a typical Frankish throwing spear.[11]
A possibly derived symbol of Frankish royalty was the bee, of similar shape, as found in the burial of Childric I, whose royal see of power over the Salian Franks was based over the valley of the Lys.[citation needed]
Other imaginative explanations include the shape having been developed from the image of a dove descending, which is the symbol of the Holy Ghost.
Ancient usages
Edit
It has consistently been used as a royal emblem, though different cultures have interpreted its meaning in varying ways. Gaulish coins show the first Western designs which look similar to modern fleurs-de-lis.[12] In the East it was found on the gold helmet of a Scythian king uncovered at the Ak-Burun kurgan and conserved in Saint Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum.[13]
There is also a statue of Kanishka the Great, the emperor of the Kushan dynasty in 127–151 AD, in the Mathura Museum in India, with four modern Fleurs-de-lis symbols in a square emblem repeated twice on the bottom end of his smaller sword.[citation needed]
The graphic evolution of crita to fleur-de-lis was accompanied by textual allegory. By the late 13th century, an allegorical poem by Guillaume de Nangis (d. 1300), written at Joyenval Abbey in Chambourcy, relates how the golden lilies on an azure ground were miraculously substituted for the crescents on Clovis’ shield, a projection into the past of contemporary images of heraldry.[citation needed]
The fleur-de-lis’ symbolic origins with French monarchs may stem from the baptismal lily used in the crowning of King Clovis I.[14] The French monarchy may have adopted the Fleur-de-lis for its royal coat of arms as a symbol of purity to commemorate the conversion of Clovis I,[15] and a reminder of the Fleur-de-lis ampulla that held the oil used to anoint the king. So, the fleur-de-lis stood as a symbol of the king’s divinely approved right to rule. The thus “anointed” kings of France later maintained that their authority was directly from God. A legend enhances the mystique of royalty by informing us that a vial of oil—the Holy Ampulla—descended from Heaven to anoint and sanctify Clovis as King,[16] descending directly on Clovis or perhaps brought by a dove to Saint Remigius. One version explains that an angel descended with the Fleur-de-lis ampulla to anoint the king.[17] Another story tells of Clovis putting a flower in his helmet just before his victory at the Battle of Vouillé.[9] Through this propagandist connection to Clovis, the fleur-de-lis has been taken in retrospect to symbolize all the Christian Frankish kings, most notably Charlemagne.[18]
In the 14th-century French writers asserted that the monarchy of France, which developed from the Kingdom of the West Franks, could trace its heritage back to the divine gift of royal arms received by Clovis. This story has remained popular, even though modern scholarship has established that the fleur-de-lis was a religious symbol before it was a true heraldic symbol.[19] Along with true lilies, it was associated with the Virgin Mary, and in the 12th century Louis VI and Louis VII started to use the emblem, on sceptres for example, so connecting their rulership with this symbol of saintliness and divine right. Louis VII ordered the use of fleur-de-lis clothing in his son Philip’s coronation in 1179,[20] while the first visual evidence of clearly heraldic use dates from 1211: a seal showing the future Louis VIII and his shield strewn with the “flowers”.[21] Until the late 14th century the French royal coat of arms was Azure semé-de-lis Or (a blue shield “sown” (semé) with a scattering of small golden fleurs-de-lis), but Charles V of France changed the design from an all-over scattering to a group of three in about 1376.[a][b] These two coats are known in heraldic terminology as France Ancient and France Modern, respectively.[citation needed]
Coronation of Louis VIII and Blanche of Castile at Reims in 1223.
In the reign of King Louis IX (St. Louis) the three petals of the flower were said to represent faith, wisdom and chivalry, and to be a sign of divine favour bestowed on France.[22] During the next century, the 14th, the tradition of Trinity symbolism was established in France, and then spread elsewhere.[citation needed]
In 1328, King Edward III of England inherited a claim to the crown of France, and in about 1340 he quartered France Ancient with the arms of Plantagenet, as “arms of pretence”. [c] After the kings of France adopted France Modern, the kings of England adopted the new design as quarterings from about 1411.[23] The monarchs of England (and later of Great Britain) continued to quarter the French arms until 1801, when George III abandoned his formal claim to the French throne.[citation needed]
King Charles VII ennobled Joan of Arc’s family on 29 December 1429 with an inheritable symbolic denomination. The Chamber of Accounts in France registered the family’s designation to nobility on 20 January 1430. The grant permitted the family to change their surname to du Lys.[citation needed]
France Moderne
Edit
France moderne remained the French royal standard, and with a white background was the French national flag until the French Revolution, when it was replaced by the tricolor of modern-day France. The fleur-de-lis was restored to the French flag in 1814, but replaced once again after the revolution against Charles X of France in 1830.[d] In a very strange turn of events after the end of the Second French Empire, where a flag apparently influenced the course of history, Henri, comte de Chambord, was offered the throne as King of France, but he agreed only if France gave up the tricolor and brought back the white flag with fleurs-de-lis.[24] His condition was rejected and France became a republic.
Other European monarchs and rulers
Edit
Serbian king Stefan Milutin coin (13th century) reverse – with the Serbian state fleur-de-lis coat of arms. With Serbian king and Christ
Bosnian king Tvrtko I’s gold coin (14th century) reverse – with the Bosnian state fleur-de-lis coat of arms. (GLORIA TIBI DEUS SPES NOSTRA).
Fleurs-de-lis feature prominently in the Crown Jewels of England and Scotland. In English heraldry, they are used in many different ways, and can be the cadency mark of the sixth son. Additionally, it features in a large number of royal arms of the House of Plantagenet, from the 13th century onwards to the early Tudors (Elizabeth of York and the de la Pole family).[citation needed]
The tressure flory–counterflory (flowered border) has been a prominent part of the design of the Scottish royal arms and Royal Standard since James I of Scotland.[e]
The treasured fleur-de-luce he claims
To wreathe his shield, since royal James
—Sir Walter Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel[25]
In Italy, fleurs-de-lis have been used for some papal crowns[g] and coats of arms, the Farnese Dukes of Parma,[citation needed] and by some doges of Venice.[citation needed]
The fleur-de-lis was also the symbol of the House of Kotromanić, a ruling house in medieval Bosnia allegedly in recognition of the Capetian House of Anjou, where the flower is thought of as a Lilium bosniacum.[h] Today, fleur-de-lis is a national symbol of Bosniaks.[i]
Other countries include Spain in recognition of rulers from the House of Bourbon. Coins minted in 14th-century Romania, from the region that was the Principality of Moldova at the time, ruled by Petru I Mușat, carry the fleur-de-lis symbol.[26]
As a dynastic emblem it has also been very widely used: not only by noble families but also, for example, by the Fuggers, a medieval banking family.
Three fleurs-de-lis appeared in the personal coat of arms of Grandmaster Alof de Wignacourt who ruled the Malta between 1601 and 1622. His nephew Adrien de Wignacourt, who was Grandmaster himself from 1690 to 1697, also had a similar coat of arms with three fleurs-de-lis.
Imhotep
Imhotep (/ɪmˈhoʊtɛp/;[1] Ancient Egyptian: ỉỉ-m-ḥtp “(the one who) comes in peace”;[2] fl. late 27th century BCE) was an Egyptian chancellor to the Pharaoh Djoser, possible architect of Djoser’s step pyramid, and high priest of the sun god Ra at Heliopolis. Very little is known of Imhotep as a historical figure, but in the 3,000 years following his death, he was gradually glorified and deified.
Traditions from long after Imhotep’s death treated him as a great author of wisdom texts[3] and especially as a physician.[4][5][6][7][8] No text from his lifetime mentions these capacities and no text mentions his name in the first 1,200 years following his death.[9][10] Apart from the three short contemporary inscriptions that establish him as chancellor to the Pharaoh, the first text to reference Imhotep dates to the time of Amenhotep III (c. 1391–1353 BCE). It is addressed to the owner of a tomb, and reads:
The wab-priest may give offerings to your ka. The wab-priests may stretch to you their arms with libations on the soil, as it is done for Imhotep with the remains of the water bowl.
— Wildung (1977)[3]
It appears that this libation to Imhotep was done regularly, as they are attested on papyri associated with statues of Imhotep until the Late Period (c. 664–332 BCE). Wildung (1977)[3] explains the origin of this cult as a slow evolution of intellectuals’ memory of Imhotep, from his death onward. Gardiner finds the cult of Imhotep during the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1077 BCE) sufficiently distinct from the usual offerings made to other commoners that the epithet “demigod” is likely justified to describe his veneration.[11]
The first references to the healing abilities of Imhotep occur from the Thirtieth Dynasty (c. 380–343 BCE) onward, some 2,200 years after his death.[10]: 127 [3]: 44
Imhotep is among the few non-royal Egyptians who were deified after their deaths, and until the 21st century, he was one of nearly a dozen non-royals to achieve this status.[12][13] The center of his cult was in Memphis. The location of his tomb remains unknown, despite efforts to find it.[14] The consensus is that it is hidden somewhere at Saqqara.
Imhotep’s historicity is confirmed by two contemporary inscriptions made during his lifetime on the base or pedestal of one of Djoser’s statues (Cairo JE 49889) and also by a graffito on the enclosure wall surrounding Sekhemkhet’s unfinished step pyramid.[15][16] The latter inscription suggests that Imhotep outlived Djoser by a few years and went on to serve in the construction of Pharaoh Sekhemkhet’s pyramid, which was abandoned due to this ruler’s brief reign.[15]
Architecture and engineering
Edit
The step pyramid of Djoser
Imhotep was one of the chief officials of the Pharaoh Djoser. Concurring with much later legends, egyptologists credit him with the design and construction of the Pyramid of Djoser, a step pyramid at Saqqara built during the 3rd Dynasty.[17] He may also have been responsible for the first known use of stone columns to support a building.[18] Despite these later attestations, the pharaonic Egyptians themselves never credited Imhotep as the designer of the stepped pyramid, nor with the invention of stone architecture.[19]
God of medicine
Edit
Two thousand years after his death, Imhotep’s status had risen to that of a god of medicine and healing. Eventually, Imhotep was equated with Thoth, the god of architecture, mathematics, and medicine, and patron of scribes: Imhotep’s cult was merged with that of his own former tutelary god.
He was revered in the region of Thebes as the “brother” of Amenhotep, son of Hapu – another deified architect – in the temples dedicated to Thoth.[20][21]: v3, p104 Because of his association with health, the Greeks equated Imhotep with Asklepios, their own god of health who also was a deified mortal.[22]
According to myth, Imhotep’s mother was a mortal named Kheredu-ankh, she too being eventually revered as a demi-goddess as the daughter of Banebdjedet.[23] Alternatively, since Imhotep was known as the “Son of Ptah”,[21]: v?, p106 [volume & issue needed] his mother was sometimes claimed to be Sekhmet, the patron of Upper Egypt whose consort was Ptah.
Post-Alexander period
Edit
The Upper Egyptian Famine Stela, which dates from the Ptolemaic period (305–30 BCE), bears an inscription containing a legend about a famine lasting seven years during the reign of Djoser. Imhotep is credited with having been instrumental in ending it. One of his priests explained the connection between the god Khnum and the rise of the Nile to the Pharaoh, who then had a dream in which the Nile god spoke to him, promising to end the drought.[24]
A demotic papyrus from the temple of Tebtunis, dating to the 2nd century CE, preserves a long story about Imhotep.[25] The Pharaoh Djoser plays a prominent role in the story, which also mentions Imhotep’s family; his father the god Ptah, his mother Khereduankh, and his younger sister Renpetneferet. At one point Djoser desires Renpetneferet, and Imhotep disguises himself and tries to rescue her. The text also refers to the royal tomb of Djoser. Part of the legend includes an anachronistic battle between the Old Kingdom and the Assyrian armies where Imhotep fights an Assyrian sorceress in a duel of magic.[26]
As an instigator of Egyptian culture, Imhotep’s idealized image lasted well into the Roman period. In the Ptolemaic period, the Egyptian priest and historian Manetho credited him with inventing the method of a stone-dressed building during Djoser’s reign, though he was not the first to actually build with stone. Stone walling, flooring, lintels, and jambs had appeared sporadically during the Archaic Period, though it is true that a building of the size of the step pyramid made entirely out of stone had never before been constructed. Before Djoser, Pharaohs were buried in mastaba tombs.
Medicine
Edit
Egyptologist James Peter Allen states that “The Greeks equated him with their own god of medicine, Asklepios, although ironically there is no evidence that Imhotep himself was a physician.”[27]
7 wonders of the ancient world
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, also known as the Seven Wonders of the World or simply the Seven Wonders, is a list of seven notable structures present during classical antiquity. The first known list of seven wonders dates back to the 2nd–1st century BC.
While the entries have varied over the centuries, the seven traditional wonders are the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Temple of Artemis, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Using modern-day countries, two of the wonders were located in Greece, two in Turkey, two in Egypt, and one in Iraq. Of the seven wonders, only the Pyramid of Giza, which is also by far the oldest of the wonders, still remains standing, with the others being destroyed over the centuries. There is scholarly debate over the exact nature of the Hanging Gardens, and there is doubt as to whether they existed at all.
Summer Solstice
A solstice is an event that occurs when the Sun appears to reach its most northerly or southerly excursion relative to the celestial equator on the celestial sphere. Two solstices occur annually, around June 21 and December 21. In many countries, the seasons of the year are determined by the solstices and the equinoxes.
The term solstice can also be used in a broader sense, as the day when this occurs. The day of a solstice in either hemisphere has either the most sunlight of the year (summer solstice) or the least sunlight of the year (winter solstice) for any place other than the Equator. Alternative terms, with no ambiguity as to which hemisphere is the context, are “June solstice” and “December solstice”, referring to the months in which they take place every year.[7]
The word solstice is derived from the Latin sol (“sun”) and sistere (“to stand still”), because at the solstices, the Sun’s declination appears to “stand still”; that is, the seasonal movement of the Sun’s daily path (as seen from Earth) pauses at a northern or southern limit before reversing direction.
For an observer at the North Pole, the Sun reaches the highest position in the sky once a year in June. The day this occurs is called the June solstice day. Similarly, for an observer on the South Pole, the Sun reaches the highest position on the December solstice day. When it is the summer solstice at one Pole, it is the winter solstice on the other. The Sun’s westerly motion never ceases as Earth is continually in rotation. However, the Sun’s motion in declination comes to a stop at the moment of solstice. In that sense, solstice means “sun-standing”.
This modern scientific word descends from a Latin scientific word in use in the late Roman Republic of the 1st century BC: solstitium. Pliny uses it a number of times in his Natural History with a similar meaning that it has today. It contains two Latin-language morphemes, sol, “sun”, and -stitium, “stoppage”.[8] The Romans used “standing” to refer to a component of the relative velocity of the Sun as it is observed in the sky. Relative velocity is the motion of an object from the point of view of an observer in a frame of reference. From a fixed position on the ground, the Sun appears to orbit around Earth.[9]
To an observer in an inertial frame of reference, planet Earth is seen to rotate about an axis and revolve around the Sun in an elliptical path with the Sun at one focus. Earth’s axis is tilted with respect to the plane of Earth’s orbit and this axis maintains a position that changes little with respect to the background of stars. An observer on Earth therefore sees a solar path that is the result of both rotation and revolution.
A solargraph taken from the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment at the Llano de Chajnantor Observatory in the southern hemisphere. This is a long-exposure photograph, with the image exposed for six months in a direction facing east of north, from mid-December 2009 until the southern winter solstice in June 2010.[10] The Sun’s path each day can be seen from right to left in this image across the sky; the path of the following day runs slightly lower until the day of the winter solstice, whose path is the lowest one in the image.
The component of the Sun’s motion seen by an earthbound observer caused by the revolution of the tilted axis – which, keeping the same angle in space, is oriented toward or away from the Sun – is an observed daily increment (and lateral offset) of the elevation of the Sun at noon for approximately six months and observed daily decrement for the remaining six months. At maximum or minimum elevation, the relative yearly motion of the Sun perpendicular to the horizon stops and reverses direction.
Outside of the tropics, the maximum elevation occurs at the summer solstice and the minimum at the winter solstice. The path of the Sun, or ecliptic, sweeps north and south between the northern and southern hemispheres. The days are longer around the summer solstice and shorter around the winter solstice. When the Sun’s path crosses the equator, the length of the nights at latitudes +L° and −L° are of equal length. This is known as an equinox. There are two solstices and two equinoxes in a tropical year.[11]
The seasons occur because the Earth’s axis of rotation is not perpendicular to its orbital plane (the plane of the ecliptic) but currently makes an angle of about 23.44° (called the obliquity of the ecliptic), and because the axis keeps its orientation with respect to an inertial frame of reference. As a consequence, for half the year the Northern Hemisphere is inclined toward the Sun while for the other half year the Southern Hemisphere has this distinction. The two moments when the inclination of Earth’s rotational axis has maximum effect are the solstices.
At the June solstice the subsolar point is further north than any other time: at latitude 23.44° north, known as the Tropic of Cancer. Similarly at the December solstice the subsolar point is further south than any other time: at latitude 23.44° south, known as the Tropic of Capricorn. The subsolar point will cross every latitude between these two extremes exactly twice per year.
Also during the June solstice, places on the Arctic Circle (latitude 66.56° north) will see the Sun just on the horizon during midnight, and all places north of it will see the Sun above horizon for 24 hours. That is the midnight sun or midsummer-night sun or polar day. On the other hand, places on the Antarctic Circle (latitude 66.56° south) will see the Sun just on the horizon during midday, and all places south of it will not see the Sun above horizon at any time of the day. That is the polar night. During the December Solstice, the effects on both hemispheres are just the opposite. This sees polar sea ice re-grow annually due to lack of sunlight on the air above and surrounding sea.
Ancient Greek names and concepts
Edit
The concept of the solstices was embedded in ancient Greek celestial navigation. As soon as they discovered that the Earth was spherical[12] they devised the concept of the celestial sphere,[13] an imaginary spherical surface rotating with the heavenly bodies (ouranioi) fixed in it (the modern one does not rotate, but the stars in it do). As long as no assumptions are made concerning the distances of those bodies from Earth or from each other, the sphere can be accepted as real and is in fact still in use. The Ancient Greeks use the term “ηλιοστάσιο” (heliostāsio), meaning stand of the Sun.
The stars move across the inner surface of the celestial sphere along the circumferences of circles in parallel planes[14] perpendicular to the Earth’s axis extended indefinitely into the heavens and intersecting the celestial sphere in a celestial pole.[15] The Sun and the planets do not move in these parallel paths but along another circle, the ecliptic, whose plane is at an angle, the obliquity of the ecliptic, to the axis, bringing the Sun and planets across the paths of and in among the stars.*
Cleomedes states:[16]
The band of the Zodiac (zōdiakos kuklos, “zodiacal circle”) is at an oblique angle (loksos) because it is positioned between the tropical circles and equinoctial circle touching each of the tropical circles at one point … This Zodiac has a determinable width (set at 8° today) … that is why it is described by three circles: the central one is called “heliacal” (hēliakos, “of the sun”).
The term heliacal circle is used for the ecliptic, which is in the center of the zodiacal circle, conceived as a band including the noted constellations named on mythical themes. Other authors use Zodiac to mean ecliptic, which first appears in a gloss of unknown author in a passage of Cleomedes where he is explaining that the Moon is in the zodiacal circle as well and periodically crosses the path of the Sun. As some of these crossings represent eclipses of the Moon, the path of the Sun is given a synonym, the ekleiptikos (kuklos) from ekleipsis, “eclipse”.
English names
Edit
The two solstices can be distinguished by different pairs of names, depending on which feature one wants to stress.
Summer solstice and winter solstice are the most common names, referring to the seasons they are associated with. However, these can be ambiguous since the Northern Hemisphere’s summer is the Southern Hemisphere’s winter, and vice versa. The Latinate names estival solstice (summer) and hibernal solstice (winter) are sometimes used to the same effect,[17] as are midsummer and midwinter.
June solstice and December solstice refer to the months of year in which they take place,[18] with no ambiguity as to which hemisphere is the context. They are still not universal, however, as not all cultures use a solar-based calendar where the solstices occur every year in the same month (as they do not in the Islamic calendar and Hebrew calendar, for example).
Northern solstice and southern solstice indicate the hemisphere of the Sun’s location.[19] The northern solstice is in June, when the Sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere, and the southern solstice is in December, when the Sun is directly over the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere.[20] These terms can be used unambiguously for other planets.
First point of Cancer and first point of Capricorn refer to the astrological signs that the sun “is entering” (a system rooted in Roman Classical period dates).[21] Due to the precession of the equinoxes, the constellations the sun appears in at solstices are currently Taurus in June and Sagittarius in December.
Neolithic Age
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts of the world. This “Neolithic package” included the introduction of farming, domestication of animals, and change from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of settlement.
began about 12,000 years ago when farming appeared in the Epipalaeolithic Near East, and later in other parts of the world. The Neolithic lasted in the Near East until the transitional period of the Chalcolithic (Copper Age) from about 6,500 years ago (4500 BC), marked by the development of metallurgy, leading up to the Bronze Age and Iron Age.
In other places the Neolithic followed the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) and then lasted until later. In Ancient Egypt, the Neolithic lasted until the Protodynastic period, c. 3150 BC.[1][2][3] In China it lasted until circa 2000 BC with the rise of the pre-Shang Erlitou culture,[4] and in Scandinavia the Neolithic lasted until about 2000 BC.[5][6][7]
The term Neolithic is modern, based on Greek νέος néos ‘new’ and λίθος líthos ‘stone’, literally ‘New Stone Age’. The term was coined by Sir John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system.[8]
Following the ASPRO chronology, the Neolithic started in around 10,200 BC in the Levant, arising from the Natufian culture, when pioneering use of wild cereals evolved into early farming. The Natufian period or “proto-Neolithic” lasted from 12,500 to 9,500 BC, and is taken to overlap with the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPNA) of 10,200–8800 BC. As the Natufians had become dependent on wild cereals in their diet, and a sedentary way of life had begun among them, the climatic changes associated with the Younger Dryas (about 10,000 BC) are thought to have forced people to develop farming.
By 10,200–8,800 BC farming communities had arisen in the Levant and spread to Asia Minor, North Africa and North Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC.
Early Neolithic farming was limited to a narrow range of plants, both wild and domesticated, which included einkorn wheat, millet and spelt, and the keeping of dogs. By about 8000 BC, it included domesticated sheep and goats, cattle and pigs.
Not all of these cultural elements characteristic of the Neolithic appeared everywhere in the same order: the earliest farming societies in the Near East did not use pottery. In other parts of the world, such as Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia, independent domestication events led to their own regionally distinctive Neolithic cultures, which arose completely independently of those in Europe and Southwest Asia. Early Japanese societies and other East Asian cultures used pottery before developing agriculture.[10][11]
Parapet
a low protective wall along the edge of a roof, bridge, or balcony.
“she stood on the bridge, leaning over the parapet to watch the water race by”
late 16th century: from French, or from Italian parapetto ‘chest-high wall’, from para- ‘protecting’ + petto ‘chest’ (from Latin pectus ).
Breeches
short trousers fastened just below the knee, now chiefly worn for riding a horse or as part of ceremonial dress.
“a pair of buckskin breeches”
Gabardine
Gabardine is a durable twill worsted wool, a tightly woven fabric originally waterproof and used to make suits, overcoats, trousers, uniforms, windbreakers, outerwear and other garments.
The word gaberdine or gabardine has been used to refer to a particular item of clothing, a sort of long cassock but often open at the front, since at least the 15th century, in the 16th becoming used for outer garments of the poor, and later signifying a rain cloak or protective smock-frock.[1][2]
The modern use of the term for a fabric rather than a garment dates to Thomas Burberry, founder of the Burberry fashion house in Basingstoke, Hampshire, England, who invented the fabric and revived the name in 1879, and patented it in 1888. Gabardine made its public appearance in 1879 when it was introduced by Burberry Clothing.[A]
Gabardine was an innovative fabric that changed the course of outerwear as well as protective wear design and production. It was a new kind of fabric which was not only lightweight but high in durability and consequently came from its most notable attributes,[clarification needed] its breathability and its weatherproofing which revolutionized rainwear.
The original fabric was worsted wool, sometimes in combination with cotton, and was waterproofed using lanolin before weaving.[4] The fiber may also be pure cotton, texturized polyester, or a blend.[citation needed]
Gabardine is woven as a warp-faced steep or regular twill, with a prominent diagonal rib on the face and smooth surface on the back. Gabardine always has many more warp than weft yarns.[5][6][1]
Rockabilly Star Warren Smith Wearing a 1950’s Gabardine Suit.
Gabardine is tightly woven and water-repellent but more comfortable and breathable than rubberised fabrics.[6]
Trachea
The trachea, also known as the windpipe, is a cartilaginous tube that connects the larynx to the bronchi of the lungs, allowing the passage of air, and so is present in almost all air-breathing animals with lungs. The trachea extends from the larynx and branches into the two primary bronchi. At the top of the trachea the cricoid cartilage attaches it to the larynx. The trachea is formed by a number of horseshoe-shaped rings, joined together vertically by overlying ligaments, and by the trachealis muscle at their ends. The epiglottis closes the opening to the larynx during swallowing.
iridescent
showing luminous colors that seem to change when seen from different angles.
“the drake’s head has an iridescent purple sheen”
late 18th century: from Latin iris, irid- ‘rainbow’ + -escent.
Taza
Taza (Berber languages: ⵜⴰⵣⴰ, Arabic: تازة) is a city in northern Morocco occupying the corridor between the Rif mountains and Middle Atlas mountains, about 120 km east of Fez and 150 km west of Al hoceima. It recorded a population of 148,406 in the 2019 Moroccan census[2] and is the capital of Taza Province.
Historically Taza was known first as Ribāt Taza (Arabic: رباط تازة), a military camp belonging to the Fatimid state, founded by the local governor Mussa ibn abi al-‘Afiya (موسى بن أبي العافية) who was also the leader of the Miknasa.[3][full citation needed] Up to at least the early 20th century, Taza was a considerable trading centre on the route between Fez and the Algerian frontier.[4] Taza as a toponym could be derivative from Tizi (Tamazight for a hill that lies between mountains) which is where it stands up.[citation needed]
Taza was first settled by Miknasa tribesmen, who gave it its name: Miknasa Taza, similar to Miknasa al-Zeitoun (present-day Meknes, another Miknasa settlement). The Almoravid empire took over Taza in 1074. They were replaced by the Almohad empire in 1132. In 1248 the city was captured by the Marinids. Although Taza barred the route of the Turks from Algiers seeking conquest in what is now Morocco,[5] it fell to the French in 1914. The old town has Berber monuments, mosques, and a 14th-century madrasa (Koranic school). Population in 1982 stood at 77,216.
Taza is located in north-central Morocco, in the south of the Rif region right outside the mountain range on a narrow plain. The city is composed of two formerly separate towns built on separate terraces overlooking a mountain valley. The old-Taza town is at an elevation of 1,919 feet (585 m) above sea level and is surrounded by fortifications; the newer town, established by the French in 1920, is located in a fertile plain at an elevation of 1,460 feet (445 m). Fossil remains indicate that caves in the area were inhabited as early as the Paleolithic Period. One of the most important caves in Morocco, Rhar Chara, is close to Taza. This cave is over 7.6 kilometres long.[6]
The city is located in a mountain pass known as the “Taza Gap”, where the Rif mountains and the Middle-Atlas range come together. Through this pass successive waves of invaders moved westward onto the Atlantic coastal plains of north-western Africa.
The city’s most famous historic monument is the Great Mosque of Taza, an important piece of Moroccan architecture from the Almohad and Marinid periods.[11][12][13] The old town’s main thoroughfare is enlivened by the Grain Market and the Souks where wickerwork, tapestries, jewellery and other goods are sold. The road terminates at a square doubling as a parade ground which sports the Al-Andalous Mosque. The Mosque’s minaret, constructed in the 14th century, is wider at the top than at its base.
Bab el-Qebbour Street crosses the Kissaria (covered marketplace), then leads on to the Market Mosque where it meets up with Bab Jamaa gate, the main point of entry of Taza. Somewhat further south, across from Bab el-Rih, the Wind Gate, a bastion dating from the 16th century closes the ring around the kasbah. Taza’s city walls, raised in the 12th century and frequently enlarged on later occasions were equipped with a Borj or fortified tower 26 metres (85 ft) wide at the base by the Saadian sultan Ahmed el-Mansour in the 16th century. The gate with an iron grate and the casemates with terraced roofs are clearly influenced by European military architecture.
The topology of the area has imposed a pattern of urban spread. Viewed from above, the city takes the form of a “T”. It has its root in Taza high and stretches north to reach the bed of the Oued Larbaâ. Since the urban stretches east and west along the N6 between Fez and Oujda.
At the dawn of independence, the city consisted of the Medina High Taza, the European district occupying a hill called “No Adrar Illouz. People usually pronounce Draâ louz. This area became the center of town, and finally the station area a few kilometers below.
During the following years (60s, 70s) districts have emerged, midway between downtown and the train station (Bit Goulem, Ourida, Bin-Jradi).
During the 80s, other districts make their appearance, especially north of the city (and Massira Al-Quds), extended and developed areas today. The goal of this extension was the slum clearance. It was a success, since 1986 the city was declared a city without slums. The craze is such that sections like (Massira II) are villa style.
The 90s marked the beginning of the urbanization of the axis center - Taza above. These are buildings with 6 or 7 floors occupying a strategic content between public facilities (municipality, space, civil protection, hospital ibn baja, high school and college …) and on the other hand, it is down the high rock a hundred yards. This area is also adjacent to the uptown-Qessou meddah, Friouato and Hay Shuhada (developed throughout the last three decades).
More recently this area continues to morph and promises a beautiful view from the heights of the city. The planning now also spread on the road to Fez for several kilometers to reach the intermittently R508 (about Tainast).
The development plan provides a direct link between Taza West (at the “white bridge”) and Taza high.
Carbuncle
a severe abscess or multiple boil in the skin, typically infected with staphylococcus bacteria.
Similar:
boil
blister
sore
abscess
pustule
pimple
spot
wart
papule
wen
whitlow
canker
swelling
lump
growth
outgrowth
eruption
infection
inflammation
plook
vesication
furuncle
2.
BRITISH
something, especially a building, that is unsightly or visually intrusive.
“from our bedroom window we’ve got a wonderful view of a carbuncle of a theater”
3.
a bright red gem, in particular a garnet cut en cabochon
Old English carbunculus (in carbuncle (sense 3)), from Latin carbunculus ‘coal, precious stone, pustule’, from carbo ‘coal, charcoal’; subsequently reinforced by Old French charbuncle . Use in carbuncle (sense 2) is associated with a statement made by Prince Charles in 1984: ‘What is proposed [as an extension to the National Gallery] is like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend’.
Azure
Azure (/ˈæʒər, ˈeɪʒər/ AZH-ər, AY-zhər, UK also /ˈæzjʊər, ˈeɪzjʊər/ AZ-ure, AY-zure)[2][3][4] is the color between cyan and blue on the spectrum of visible light. It is often described as the color of the sky on a clear day.[4][5]
The color azure ultimately takes its name from the intense blue mineral lapis lazuli. Lapis is the Latin word for “stone” and lāzulī is the genitive form of the Medieval Latin lāzulum, which is taken from the Arabic لازورد lāzaward, itself from the Persian لاژورد lāžaward, which is the name of the stone in Persian[6] and also of a place where lapis lazuli was mined.[7][8]
The name of the stone came to be associated with its color. The French azur, the Italian azzurro, the Polish lazur, Romanian azur and azuriu, the Portuguese and Spanish azul, Hungarian azúr, and the Catalan atzur, all come from the name and color of lapis lazuli.
The word was adopted into English from the French, and the first recorded use of it as a color name in English was in 1374 in Geoffrey Chaucer’s work Troilus and Criseyde, where he refers to “a broche, gold and asure” (a brooch, gold and azure).[9][10][11]
Some languages, such as Italian, generally consider azure to be a basic colour, separate and distinct from blue. Some sources even go to the point of defining blue as a darker shade of azure.[12]
Azure also describes the color of the mineral azurite, both in its natural form and as a pigment in various paint formulations. In order to preserve its deep color, azurite was ground coarsely. Fine-ground azurite produces a lighter, washed-out color. Traditionally, the pigment was considered unstable in oil paints, and was sometimes isolated from other colors and not mixed.
The use of the term spread through the practice of heraldry, where “azure” represents a blue color in the system of tinctures. In engravings, it is represented as a region of parallel horizontal lines, or by the abbreviation az. or b. In practice, azure has been represented by any number of shades of blue. In later heraldic practice a lighter blue, called bleu celeste (“sky blue”), is sometimes specified.
Lily
Lilium (/ˈlɪliːəm/)[3] is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants growing from bulbs, all with large prominent flowers. They are the true lilies. Lilies are a group of flowering plants which are important in culture and literature in much of the world. Most species are native to the northern hemisphere and their range is temperate climates and extends into the subtropics. Many other plants have “lily” in their common names, but do not belong to the same genus and are therefore not true lilies.
Lilies are tall perennials ranging in height from 2–6 ft (60–180 cm). They form naked or tunicless scaly underground bulbs which are their organs of perennation. In some North American species the base of the bulb develops into rhizomes, on which numerous small bulbs are found. Some species develop stolons.[4] Most bulbs are buried deep in the ground, but a few species form bulbs near the soil surface. Many species form stem-roots. With these, the bulb grows naturally at some depth in the soil, and each year the new stem puts out adventitious roots above the bulb as it emerges from the soil. These roots are in addition to the basal roots that develop at the base of the bulb, a number of species also produce contractile roots that move the bulbs deeper into the soil.[5]
The flowers are large, often fragrant, and come in a wide range of colors including whites, yellows, oranges, pinks, reds and purples. Markings include spots and brush strokes. The plants are late spring- or summer-flowering. Flowers are borne in racemes or umbels at the tip of the stem, with six tepals spreading or reflexed, to give flowers varying from funnel shape to a “Turk’s cap”. The tepals are free from each other, and bear a nectary at the base of each flower. The ovary is ‘superior’, borne above the point of attachment of the anthers. The fruit is a three-celled capsule.[6]
The range of lilies in the Old World extends across much of Europe, across most of Asia to Japan, south to India, and east to Indochina and the Philippines. In the New World they extend from southern Canada through much of the United States. They are commonly adapted to either woodland habitats, often montane, or sometimes to grassland habitats. A few can survive in marshland and epiphytes are known in tropical southeast Asia. In general they prefer moderately acidic or lime-free soils.
Thoth
Thoth (/θoʊθ, toʊt/; from Koinē Greek: Θώθ Thṓth, borrowed from Coptic: Ⲑⲱⲟⲩⲧ Thōout, Egyptian: Ḏḥwtj, the reflex of ḏḥwtj “[He] is like the Ibis”) is an ancient Egyptian deity. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon, animals sacred to him. His feminine counterpart was Seshat, and his wife was Ma’at.[2] He was the god of the moon, wisdom, writing, hieroglyphs, science, magic, art, and judgment. His Greek equivalent is Hermes.
Thoth’s chief temple was located in the city of Hermopolis (Ancient Egyptian: ḫmnw /χaˈmaːnaw/, Egyptological pronunciation: “Khemenu”, Coptic: Ϣⲙⲟⲩⲛ Shmun). Later known as el-Ashmunein in Egyptian Arabic, the Temple of Thoth was mostly destroyed before the beginning of the Christian era, but its very large pronaos was still standing in 1826.[3]
In Hermopolis, Thoth led “the Ogdoad”, a pantheon of eight principal deities, and his spouse was Nehmetawy. He also had numerous shrines in other cities.[4]
Thoth played many vital and prominent roles in Egyptian mythology, such as maintaining the universe, and being one of the two deities (the other being Ma’at) who stood on either side of Ra’s solar barque.[5] In the later history of ancient Egypt, Thoth became heavily associated with the arbitration of godly disputes,[6] the arts of magic, the system of writing, and the judgment of the dead.[7]
Thoth’s roles in Egyptian mythology were many. He served as scribe of the gods,[20] credited with the invention of writing and Egyptian hieroglyphs.[21] In the underworld, Duat, he appeared as an ape, Aani, the god of equilibrium, who reported when the scales weighing the deceased’s heart against the feather, representing the principle of Maat, was exactly even.[22]
The ancient Egyptians regarded Thoth as One, self-begotten, and self-produced.[17] He was the master of both physical and moral (i.e. divine) law,[17] making proper use of Ma’at.[23] He is credited with making the calculations for the establishment of the heavens, stars, Earth,[24] and everything in them.[23]
The Egyptians credited him as the author of all works of science, religion, philosophy, and magic.[25] The Greeks further declared him the inventor of astronomy, astrology, the science of numbers, mathematics, geometry, surveying, medicine, botany, theology, civilized government, the alphabet, reading, writing, and oratory. They further claimed he was the true author of every work of every branch of knowledge, human and divine.[21]
Egyptian mythology credits Thoth with the creation of the 365-day calendar. Originally, according to the myth, the year was only 360 days long and Nut was sterile during these days, unable to bear children. Thoth gambled with the Moon for 1/72nd of its light (360/72 = 5), or 5 days, and won. During these 5 days, Nut and Geb gave birth to Osiris, Set, Isis, and Nephthys.
In the central Osiris myth, Thoth gives Isis the words to restore her husband, allowing the pair to conceive Horus. Following a battle between Horus and Set, Thoth offers counsel and provides wisdom.
Thoth was a Moon god. The Moon not only provides light at night, allowing time to still be measured without the sun, but its phases and prominence gave it a significant importance in early astrology/astronomy. The perceived cycles of the Moon also organized much of Egyptian society’s rituals and events, both civil and religious. Consequently, Thoth gradually became seen as a god of wisdom, magic, and the measurement and regulation of events and of time.[26] He was thus said to be the secretary and counselor of the sun god Ra, and with Ma’at (truth/order) stood next to Ra on the nightly voyage across the sky.
Thoth became credited by the ancient Egyptians as the inventor of writing (hieroglyphs),[27] and was also considered to have been the scribe of the underworld. For this reason, Thoth was universally worshipped by ancient Egyptian scribes. Many scribes had a painting or a picture of Thoth in their “office”. Likewise, one of the symbols for scribes was that of the ibis.
In art, Thoth was usually depicted with the head of an ibis, possibly because the Egyptians saw the curve of the ibis’ beak as a symbol of the crescent moon.[28] Sometimes, he was depicted as a baboon holding up a crescent moon.
Adorer before two ibises of Thoth. (early 19th Dynasty)
During the Late Period of ancient Egypt, a cult of Thoth gained prominence due to its main center, Khmun (Hermopolis Magna), also becoming the capital. Millions of dead ibis were mummified and buried in his honor.[29]
Thoth was inserted in many tales as the wise counselor and persuader, and his association with learning and measurement led him to be connected with Seshat, the earlier deification of wisdom, who was said to be his daughter, or variably his wife. Thoth’s qualities also led to him being identified by the Greeks with their closest matching god Hermes, with whom Thoth was eventually combined as Hermes Trismegistus,[30] leading to the Greeks’ naming Thoth’s cult center as Hermopolis, meaning city of Hermes.
In the Papyrus of Ani copy of the Egyptian Book of the Dead the scribe proclaims “I am thy writing palette, O Thoth, and I have brought unto thee thine ink-jar. I am not of those who work iniquity in their secret places; let not evil happen unto me.”[31] Plate XXIX Chapter CLXXV (Budge) of the Book of the Dead is the oldest tradition said to be the work of Thoth himself.[32]
There was also an Egyptian pharaoh of the Sixteenth dynasty named Djehuty (Thoth) after him, and who reigned for three years.
Modern impression of an Achaemenid cylinder seal from Iran, with king holding two lion griffins at bay and Egyptian hieroglyphs reading “Thoth is a protection over me”. (c. 6th–5th century BC).[33]
Plato mentions Thoth in his dialogue, Phaedrus. He uses the myth of Thoth to demonstrate that writing leads to laziness and forgetfulness. In the story, Thoth remarks to King Thamus of Egypt that writing is a wonderful substitute for memory. Thamus remarks that it is a remedy for reminding, not remembering, with the appearance but not the reality of wisdom. Future generations will hear much without being properly taught and will appear wise but not be so.
Artapanus of Alexandria, an Egyptian Jew who lived in the third or second century BC, euhemerized Thoth-Hermes as a historical human being and claimed he was the same person as Moses, based primarily on their shared roles as authors of texts and creators of laws. Artapanus’s biography of Moses conflates traditions about Moses and Thoth and invents many details.[34] Many later authors, from late antiquity to the Renaissance, either identified Hermes Trismegistus with Moses or regarded them as contemporaries who expounded similar beliefs.[35]
Archaeology
Edit
Egypt’s Minister of Tourism and Antiquities announced the discovery of the collective graves of senior officials and high clergies of the god Thoth in Tuna el-Gebel in Minya in January 2020. An archaeological mission headed by Mostafa Waziri reported that 20 sarcophagi and coffins of various shapes and sizes, including five anthropoid sarcophagi made of limestone and carved with hieroglyphic texts, as well as 16 tombs and five well-preserved wooden coffins were unearthed by their team.[36][37]
British Commonwealth
The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth,[4] is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire.[5] The chief institutions of the organisation are the Commonwealth Secretariat, which focuses on intergovernmental aspects, and the Commonwealth Foundation, which focuses on non-governmental relations amongst member states.[6] Numerous organisations are associated with and operate within the Commonwealth.[7]
The Commonwealth dates back to the first half of the 20th century with the decolonisation of the British Empire through increased self-governance of its territories. It was originally created as the British Commonwealth of Nations[8] through the Balfour Declaration at the 1926 Imperial Conference, and formalised by the United Kingdom through the Statute of Westminster in 1931. The current Commonwealth of Nations was formally constituted by the London Declaration in 1949, which modernised the community and established the member states as “free and equal”.[9]
The head of the Commonwealth is Charles III. He is king of 15 member states, known as the Commonwealth realms, while 36 other members are republics, and five others have different monarchs.[10]
Member states have no legal obligations to one another but are connected through their use of the English language and historical ties. The Commonwealth Charter defines their shared values of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law,[11] as promoted by the quadrennial Commonwealth Games.
Origins of the concept and establishment of the term
Edit
Main articles: British Empire and Historiography of the British Empire
Draft of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, with “British Empire” crossed out and “British Commonwealth of Nations” added by hand.
The prime ministers of five members at the 1944 Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference. (L-R) Mackenzie King (Canada), Jan Smuts (South Africa), Winston Churchill (United Kingdom), Peter Fraser (New Zealand) and John Curtin (Australia)
Queen Elizabeth II, in her address to Canada on Dominion Day in 1959, pointed out that the Confederation of Canada on 1 July 1867 had been the birth of the “first independent country within the British Empire”. She declared: “So, it also marks the beginning of that free association of independent states which is now known as the Commonwealth of Nations.”[12] As long ago as 1884 Lord Rosebery, while visiting Australia, had described the changing British Empire, as some of its colonies became more independent, as a “Commonwealth of Nations”.[13] Conferences of British and colonial prime ministers occurred periodically from the first one in 1887, leading to the creation of the Imperial Conferences in 1911.[14]
The Commonwealth developed from the imperial conferences. A specific proposal was presented by Jan Smuts in 1917 when he coined the term “the British Commonwealth of Nations” and envisioned the “future constitutional relations and readjustments in essence” at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, attended by delegates from the Dominions as well as the United Kingdom.[15][16] The term first received imperial statutory recognition in the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, when the term British Commonwealth of Nations was substituted for British Empire in the wording of the oath taken by members of parliament of the Irish Free State.[17]
Adoption and formalisation of the Commonwealth
Edit
In the Balfour Declaration at the 1926 Imperial Conference, the United Kingdom and its dominions agreed they were “equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations”. The term “Commonwealth” was officially adopted to describe the community.[18]
These aspects to the relationship were formalised by the Statute of Westminster in 1931, which applied to Canada without the need for ratification, but Australia, New Zealand, and Newfoundland had to ratify the statute for it to take effect. Newfoundland never did as due to economic hardship and the need for financial assistance from London, Newfoundland voluntarily accepted the suspension of self-government in 1934 and governance reverted to direct control from London. Newfoundland later joined Canada as its tenth province in 1949.[19] Australia and New Zealand ratified the Statute in 1942 and 1947 respectively.[20][21]
Although the Union of South Africa was not among the Dominions that needed to adopt the Statute of Westminster for it to take effect, two laws—the Status of the Union Act, 1934, and the Royal Executive Functions and Seals Act of 1934—were passed to confirm South Africa’s status as a sovereign state.[22]
Decolonisation and self-governance
Edit
For a more comprehensive list, see List of countries that have gained independence from the United Kingdom.
After the Second World War ended, the British Empire was gradually dismantled. Most of its components have become independent countries, whether Commonwealth realms or republics, and members of the Commonwealth. There remain the 14 mainly self-governing British overseas territories which retain some political association with the United Kingdom. In April 1949, following the London Declaration, the word “British” was dropped from the title of the Commonwealth to reflect its changing nature.[23]
Burma (Myanmar since 1989) and Aden (now part of the Republic of Yemen) are the only states that were British colonies at the time of the war not to have joined the Commonwealth upon independence. Former British protectorates and mandates that did not become members of the Commonwealth are Egypt (independent in 1922), Iraq (1932), Transjordan (1946), Palestine (part of which became the state of Israel in 1948), Sudan (1956), British Somaliland (which united with the former Italian Somaliland in 1960 to form the Somali Republic), Kuwait (1961), Bahrain (1971), Oman (1971), Qatar (1971), and the United Arab Emirates (1971).[24]
The postwar Commonwealth was given a fresh mission by Queen Elizabeth II in her Christmas Day 1953 broadcast, in which she envisioned the Commonwealth as “an entirely new conception – built on the highest qualities of the Spirit of Man: friendship, loyalty, and the desire for freedom and peace”.[25] Hoped-for success was reinforced by such achievements as climbing Mount Everest in 1953, breaking the four-minute mile in 1954, and a solo circumnavigation of the globe in 1966.[26]
After the Second World War, the British treasury was so weak that it could not operate independently of the United States. The loss of defence and financial roles, furthermore, undermined Joseph Chamberlain’s early 20th-century vision of a world empire that could combine Imperial preference, mutual defence, and social growth. In addition, the United Kingdom’s cosmopolitan role in world affairs became increasingly limited, especially with the losses of India and Singapore.[27] While British politicians at first hoped that the Commonwealth would preserve and project British influence, they gradually lost their enthusiasm, argues Krishnan Srinivasan. Early enthusiasm waned as British policies came under fire at Commonwealth meetings. Public opinion became troubled as immigration from non-white member states became large-scale.[28]
Republics
Edit
On 18 April 1949, Ireland formally became a republic in accordance with the Irish Republic of Ireland Act 1948; in doing so, it also formally left the Commonwealth.[29] While Ireland had not actively participated in the Commonwealth since the early 1930s, other dominions wished to become republics without losing Commonwealth ties. The issue came to a head in April 1949 at a Commonwealth prime ministers’ meeting in London. Under the London Declaration, India agreed that, when it became a republic in January 1950, it would remain in the Commonwealth and accept the British Sovereign as a “symbol of the free association of its independent member nations and as such the Head of the Commonwealth”. Upon hearing this, King George VI told the Indian politician Krishna Menon: “So, I’ve become ‘as such’”.[30] Some other Commonwealth countries that have since become republics have chosen to leave, while others, such as Guyana, Mauritius and Dominica, have remained members.[31]
The London Declaration is often seen as marking the beginning of the modern Commonwealth. Following India’s precedent, other nations became republics, or constitutional monarchies with their own monarchs. While some countries retained the same monarch as the United Kingdom, their monarchies developed differently and soon became essentially independent of the British monarchy. The monarch is regarded as a separate legal personality in each realm, even though the same person is monarch of each realm.[32][33][34][35]
New Commonwealth
Edit
Planners in the interwar period, like Lord Davies, who had also taken “a prominent part in building up the League of Nations Union” in the United Kingdom, in 1932 founded the New Commonwealth Society, of whose British section Winston Churchill became the president.[36] This new society was aimed at the creation of an international air force to be an arm of the League of Nations, to allow nations to disarm and safeguard the peace.[citation needed]
The term ‘New Commonwealth’ gained usage in the UK (especially in the 1960s and 1970s) to refer to recently decolonised countries, predominantly non-white and developing. It was often used in debates about immigration from these countries.[37] The United Kingdom and the pre-1945 dominions became informally known as the ‘Old Commonwealth’, or more pointedly as the ‘white Commonwealth’,[38] in reference to what had been known as the ‘White Dominions’.
Plan G and inviting Europe to join
Edit
At a time when Germany and France, together with Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, were planning what later became the European Union, and newly independent African countries were joining the Commonwealth, new ideas were floated to prevent the United Kingdom from becoming isolated in economic affairs. British trade with the Commonwealth was four times larger than its trade with Europe. In 1956 and 1957 the British government under Prime Minister Anthony Eden considered a “Plan G” to create a European free trade zone while also protecting the favoured status of the Commonwealth.[39][40][41] The United Kingdom also considered inviting Scandinavian and other European countries to join the Commonwealth, so that it would become a major economic common market.
At the time of the Suez Crisis in 1956, in the face of colonial unrest and international tensions, French prime minister Guy Mollet proposed to British prime minister Anthony Eden that their two countries be joined in a “union”. When that proposal was turned down, Mollet suggested that France join the Commonwealth, possibly with “a common citizenship arrangement on the Irish basis”. These ideas faded away with the end of the Suez Crisis.[42][43][44]
Under the formula of the London Declaration, Charles III is the head of the Commonwealth.[2][45] When the monarch dies, the successor to the crown does not automatically become the new head of the Commonwealth.[46] However, at their meeting in April 2018, Commonwealth leaders agreed that Prince Charles should succeed his mother Elizabeth II as head after her death.[47] The position is symbolic, representing the free association of independent members,[45] the majority of which (36) are republics, and five have monarchs of different royal houses (Brunei, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malaysia, and Tonga).
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting
Edit
Main article: Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting
The main decision-making forum of the organisation is the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), where Commonwealth heads of government, including (amongst others) prime ministers and presidents, assemble for several days to discuss matters of mutual interest. CHOGM is the successor to the Meetings of Commonwealth Prime Ministers and, earlier, the Imperial Conferences and Colonial Conferences, dating back to 1887. There are also regular meetings of finance ministers, law ministers, health ministers, etc. Members in arrears, as special members before them, are not invited to send representatives to either ministerial meetings or CHOGMs.[45]
The head of government hosting the CHOGM is called the chair-in-office (CIO) and retains the position until the following CHOGM. Since the most recent CHOGM, in Rwanda in 2022, the chair-in-office has been the president of Rwanda.[48]
The 26th CHOGM was initially to be held in Kigali, Rwanda, in June 2020. Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was rescheduled to be held there in the week of 21 June 2021 before again being postponed to 25-26 June 2022. It was accompanied by meetings of a Commonwealth Youth Forum, a Commonwealth Women’s Forum and a Commonwealth People’s Forum.[49]
Commonwealth Secretariat
Edit
Main article: Commonwealth Secretariat
Marlborough House, London, the headquarters of the Commonwealth Secretariat, the Commonwealth’s principal intergovernmental institution
The Commonwealth Secretariat, established in 1965, is the main intergovernmental agency of the Commonwealth, facilitating consultation and co-operation among member governments and countries. It is responsible to member governments collectively. The Commonwealth of Nations is represented in the United Nations General Assembly by the secretariat as an observer. The secretariat organises Commonwealth summits, meetings of ministers, consultative meetings and technical discussions; it assists policy development and provides policy advice, and facilitates multilateral communication among the member governments. It also provides technical assistance to help governments in the social and economic development of their countries and in support of the Commonwealth’s fundamental political values.[50]
The secretariat is headed by the Commonwealth secretary-general, who is elected by the Commonwealth heads of government for no more than two four-year terms. The secretary-general and two deputy secretaries-general direct the divisions of the Secretariat. The present secretary-general is Patricia Scotland, Baroness Scotland of Asthal, from Dominica, who took office on 1 April 2016, succeeding Kamalesh Sharma of India (2008–2016). The first secretary-general was Arnold Smith of Canada (1965–75), followed by Sir Shridath Ramphal of Guyana (1975–90), Chief Emeka Anyaoku of Nigeria (1990–99), and Don McKinnon of New Zealand (2000–2008).[50]
Commonwealth citizenship and high commissioners
Edit
Main articles: Commonwealth citizen and High commissioner (Commonwealth)
Initially, Commonwealth countries were not considered to be “foreign” to each other as their citizens were British subjects.[51][52][53] Citizenship laws have evolved independently in each Commonwealth country. For example, in Australia, for the purpose of considering certain constitutional and legal provisions no distinction is made between Commonwealth and foreign countries: in the High Court case of Sue v Hill, other Commonwealth countries (specifically, the United Kingdom) were held to be ‘foreign powers’; similarly, in Nolan v Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, the nationals of other Commonwealth realms were held to be ‘aliens’.
Nevertheless, some members treat resident citizens of other Commonwealth countries preferentially to citizens of non-Commonwealth countries (see Commonwealth citizen). The United Kingdom and several others, mostly in the Caribbean, grant the right to vote to Commonwealth citizens who reside in those countries.
The closer association amongst Commonwealth countries is reflected in the diplomatic protocols of the Commonwealth countries. For example, when engaging bilaterally with one another, Commonwealth governments exchange high commissioners instead of ambassadors.[54] In non-Commonwealth countries in which their own country is not represented, Commonwealth citizens may seek consular assistance at the British embassy although it is for the embassy to decide, in its discretion, whether to provide any.[55] Other alternatives can also occur such as the consular services agreement between Canada and Australia that began in 1986.[56]
Criteria
Edit
Main article: Commonwealth of Nations membership criteria
The criteria for membership of the Commonwealth of Nations have developed over time from a series of separate documents. The Statute of Westminster 1931, as a fundamental founding document of the organisation, laid out that membership required dominionhood. The 1949 London Declaration ended this, allowing republican and indigenous monarchic members on the condition that they recognised King George VI as “Head of the Commonwealth”.[57] In the wake of the wave of decolonisation in the 1960s, these constitutional principles were augmented by political, economic, and social principles. The first of these was set out in 1961, when it was decided that respect for racial equality would be a requirement for membership, leading directly to the withdrawal of South Africa’s re-application (which they were required to make under the formula of the London Declaration upon becoming a republic). The 14 points of the 1971 Singapore Declaration dedicated all members to the principles of world peace, liberty, human rights, equality, and free trade.[58]
These criteria were unenforceable for two decades,[59] until, in 1991, the Harare Declaration was issued, dedicating the leaders to applying the Singapore principles to the completion of decolonisation, the end of the Cold War, and the end of apartheid in South Africa.[60] The mechanisms by which these principles would be applied were created, and the manner clarified, by the 1995 Millbrook Commonwealth Action Programme, which created the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), which has the power to rule on whether members meet the requirements for membership under the Harare Declaration.[61] Also in 1995, an Inter-Governmental Group was created to finalise and codify the full requirements for membership. Upon reporting in 1997, as adopted under the Edinburgh Declaration, the Inter-Governmental Group ruled that any future members would have to have a direct constitutional link with an existing member.[62]
In addition to this new rule, the former rules were consolidated into a single document. These requirements are that members must accept and comply with the Harare principles, be fully sovereign states, recognise King Charles III as head of the Commonwealth, accept the English language as the means of Commonwealth communication, and respect the wishes of the general population with regard to Commonwealth membership.[62] These requirements had undergone review, and a report on potential amendments was presented by the Committee on Commonwealth Membership at the 2007 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.[63] New members were not admitted at this meeting, though applications for admission were considered at the 2009 CHOGM.[64]
New members must “as a general rule” have a direct constitutional link to an existing member. In most cases, this is due to being a former colony of the United Kingdom, but some have links to other countries, either exclusively or more directly (e.g., Samoa to New Zealand, Papua New Guinea to Australia, Namibia to South Africa, Bangladesh to Pakistan and Singapore to Malaysia). The first member to be admitted without having any constitutional link to the British Empire or a Commonwealth member was Mozambique in 1995 following its first democratic elections and South Africa’s re-admission in 1994. Mozambique was a former Portuguese colony. Mozambique’s controversial[citation needed] entry led to the Edinburgh Declaration and the current membership guidelines.[65]
In 2009, Rwanda became the second Commonwealth member admitted not to have any constitutional links to Britain. It was a Belgian trust territory that had been a district of German East Africa until World War I.[66] Consideration for Rwanda’s admission was considered an “exceptional circumstance” by the Commonwealth Secretariat.[67] Rwanda was permitted to join despite the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) finding that “the state of governance and human rights in Rwanda does not satisfy Commonwealth standards”, and that it “does not therefore qualify for admission”.[68] CHRI commented that: “It does not make sense to admit a state that already does not satisfy Commonwealth standards. This would tarnish the reputation of the Commonwealth and confirm the opinion of many people and civic organisations that the leaders of its governments do not really care for democracy and human rights, and that its periodic, solemn declarations are merely hot air.”[68]
In 2022, Togo and Gabon joined the Commonwealth, despite never having been under British rule.[69]
Members
Edit
Main article: Member states of the Commonwealth of Nations
Flags of the members of the Commonwealth in Parliament Square, London
The Commonwealth flag flying at the Parliament of Canada in Ottawa
The Commonwealth comprises 56 countries, across all inhabited continents.[70] The members have a combined population of 2.4 billion people, almost a third of the world population, with 1.4 billion living in India, and 94% living in either Asia or Africa.[71] After India, the next-largest Commonwealth countries by population are Pakistan (227 million), Nigeria (213 million), Bangladesh (167 million), and the United Kingdom (68 million). Tuvalu is the smallest member, with about 12,000 people.[72]
The land area of the Commonwealth nations is about 31,500,000 km2 (12,200,000 sq mi), or about 21% of the total world land area. The two largest Commonwealth nations by area are Canada at 9,984,670 km2 (3,855,100 sq mi) and Australia at 7,617,930 km2 (2,941,300 sq mi).[73]
The status of “Member in Arrears” is used to denote those that are in arrears in paying subscription dues. The status was originally known as “special membership”, but was renamed on the Committee on Commonwealth Membership’s recommendation.[74] There are currently no Members in Arrears. The most recent Member in Arrears, Nauru, returned to full membership in June 2011.[75] Nauru has alternated between special and full membership since joining the Commonwealth, depending on its financial situation.[76]
Economy of member countries
Edit
Main article: List of Commonwealth of Nations countries by GDP (nominal)
In 2019, the Commonwealth members had a combined gross domestic product of over $9 trillion, 78% of which is accounted for by the four largest economies: United Kingdom ($3.124 trillion), India ($3.050 trillion), Canada ($1.652 trillion), and Australia ($1.379 trillion).[77]
Applicants
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See also: Member states of the Commonwealth of Nations § Prospective members
In 1997 the Commonwealth Heads of Government agreed that, to become a member of the Commonwealth, an applicant country should, as a rule, have had a constitutional association with an existing Commonwealth member; that it should comply with Commonwealth values, principles and priorities as set out in the Harare Declaration; and that it should accept Commonwealth norms and conventions.[78]
South Sudanese politicians have expressed interest in joining the Commonwealth.[79] A senior Commonwealth source stated in 2006 that “many people have assumed an interest from Israel, but there has been no formal approach”.[80] The State of Palestine is also a potential candidate for membership.[80]
President Yahya Jammeh unilaterally withdrew the Gambia from the Commonwealth in October 2013.[81] However, newly elected president Adama Barrow returned the country to the organisation in February 2018.[82]
Other eligible applicants could be any of the remaining inhabited British Overseas Territories, Crown Dependencies, Australian external territories and the Associated States of New Zealand if they become fully independent.[83] Many such jurisdictions are already directly represented within the Commonwealth, particularly through the Commonwealth Family.[84] There are also former British possessions that have not become independent. Although Hong Kong has become part of China, it continues to participate in some of the institutions within the Commonwealth Family, including the Commonwealth Lawyers Association, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the Commonwealth Association of Legislative Counsel[85][86] and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC).
All three of the Crown dependencies regard their existing situation as unsatisfactory and have lobbied for change. The States of Jersey have called on the UK foreign secretary to request that the Commonwealth heads of government “consider granting associate membership to Jersey and the other Crown Dependencies as well as any other territories at a similarly advanced stage of autonomy”. Jersey has proposed that it be accorded “self-representation in all Commonwealth meetings; full participation in debates and procedures, with a right to speak where relevant and the opportunity to enter into discussions with those who are full members; and no right to vote in the Ministerial or Heads of Government meetings, which is reserved for full members”.[87] The States of Guernsey and the Government of the Isle of Man have made calls of a similar nature for a more integrated relationship with the Commonwealth,[88] including more direct representation and enhanced participation in Commonwealth organisations and meetings, including Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings.[89] The Chief Minister of the Isle of Man has said: “A closer connection with the Commonwealth itself would be a welcome further development of the Island’s international relationships”.[90]
Suspension
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Main article: Suspension from the Commonwealth of Nations
Members can be suspended “from the Councils of the Commonwealth” for “serious or persistent violations” of the Harare Declaration, particularly in abrogating their responsibility to have democratic government.[91] Suspensions are agreed by the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), which meets regularly to address potential breaches of the Harare Declaration. Suspended members are not represented at meetings of Commonwealth leaders and ministers, although they remain members of the organisation.
Nigeria was suspended between 11 November 1995 and 29 May 1999,[92] following its execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa on the eve of the 1995 CHOGM.[93] Pakistan was the second country to be suspended, on 18 October 1999, following the military coup by Pervez Musharraf.[94] The Commonwealth’s longest suspension came to an end on 22 May 2004, when Pakistan’s suspension was lifted following the restoration of the country’s constitution.[95] Pakistan was suspended for a second time, far more briefly, for six months from 22 November 2007, when Musharraf called a state of emergency.[96] Zimbabwe was suspended in 2002 over concerns regarding the electoral and land reform policies of Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF government,[97] before it withdrew from the organisation in 2003.[98] On 15 May 2018, Zimbabwe applied to rejoin the Commonwealth.[99]
The declaration of a Republic in Fiji in 1987, after military coups designed to deny Indo-Fijians political power, was not accompanied by an application to remain. Commonwealth membership was held to have lapsed until 1997, after discriminatory provisions in the republican constitution were repealed and reapplication for membership made.[100][101] Fiji has since been suspended twice, with the first imposed from 6 June 2000[102] to 20 December 2001 after another coup.[97] Fiji was suspended yet again in December 2006, following the most recent coup. At first, the suspension applied only to membership on the Councils of the Commonwealth.[100][103] After failing to meet a Commonwealth deadline for setting a date for national elections by 2010, Fiji was “fully suspended” on 1 September 2009.[100][103] The secretary-general of the Commonwealth, Kamalesh Sharma, confirmed that full suspension meant that Fiji would be excluded from Commonwealth meetings, sporting events and the technical assistance programme (with an exception for assistance in re-establishing democracy). Sharma stated that Fiji would remain a member of the Commonwealth during its suspension, but would be excluded from emblematic representation by the secretariat.[100] On 19 March 2014 Fiji’s full suspension was amended to a suspension from councils of the Commonwealth by the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, permitting Fiji to join a number of Commonwealth activities, including the Commonwealth Games.[104] Fiji’s suspension was lifted in September 2014.[105] The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group fully reinstated Fiji as a member following elections in September 2014.[106]
Most recently, during 2013 and 2014, international pressure mounted to suspend Sri Lanka from the Commonwealth, citing grave human rights violations by the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. There were also calls to change the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2013 from Sri Lanka to another member country. Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper threatened to boycott the event, but was instead represented at the meeting by Deepak Obhrai. UK Prime Minister David Cameron also chose to attend.[107][108] These concerns were rendered moot by the election of opposition leader Maithripala Sirisena as president in 2015.[109]
Withdrawal and termination
Edit
See also: Member states of the Commonwealth of Nations § Former members, and Member states of the Commonwealth of Nations § Dissolved members
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As membership is purely voluntary, member governments can choose at any time to leave the Commonwealth. The first state to do so was Ireland in 1948 following its decision to declare itself a republic. At the time, all members accepted the British monarch as head of state as a condition of membership. This rule was changed after Ireland’s departure to allow India to retain membership when it became a republic, although Ireland did not rejoin. Pakistan left on 30 January 1972 in protest at the Commonwealth’s recognition of breakaway Bangladesh, but rejoined on 2 August 1989. Zimbabwe’s membership was suspended in 2002 on the grounds of alleged human rights violations and deliberate misgovernment, and Zimbabwe’s government terminated its membership in 2003.[110] The Gambia left the Commonwealth on 3 October 2013,[81] and rejoined on 8 February 2018.[82]
The Maldives withdrew from the Commonwealth on 13 October 2016,[111][112] citing Commonwealth’s “punitive actions against the Maldives since 2012” after the allegedly forced resignation of Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed among the reasons for withdrawal.[112] Following the election of Ibrahim Mohamed Solih as president in November 2018, the Maldives announced its intention to reapply to join the Commonwealth.[113] They rejoined on 1 February 2020.[114]
Although heads of government have the power to suspend member states from active participation, the Commonwealth has no provision for the expulsion of members.
Until 1948, there was a consensus among the existing half-dozen Commonwealth members that Commonwealth realms that became a republic would cease to be members but the situation changed in 1948 when newly independent India announced its intention to become a republic on 1 January 1950 although it wished to remain in the Commonwealth. This was granted. Now, the majority of the Commonwealth members, including all those from Africa, are republics or have their own native monarch.
Ireland withdrew from participation in the Commonwealth in the 1930s, attending its last Commonwealth governmental heads’ meeting in 1932. For some years Ireland considered itself to be a republic outside the Commonwealth but the Commonwealth considered Ireland to still be a Commonwealth member. Its treatment as a member ended on 18 April 1949 when Irish legislation that the Commonwealth chose to regard as having caused Ireland to become a republic became law. It is the only country whose membership terminated without any declaration withdrawing from the organisation. Instead, it was (with its own tacit support) excluded from the organisation.
South Africa was barred from continuing as a member after it became a republic in 1961, due to hostility from many members, particularly those in Africa and Asia as well as Canada, to its policy of racial apartheid. The South African government withdrew its application to remain in the organisation as a republic when it became clear at the 1961 Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference that any such application would be rejected. South Africa was re-admitted to the Commonwealth in 1994, following its first multiracial elections that year.[115]
The transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997 ended the territory’s status as a part of the Commonwealth through the United Kingdom. Non-sovereign states or regions are not permitted to become members of the Commonwealth. The government of the People’s Republic of China has not pursued membership. Hong Kong has nevertheless continued to participate in some of the organisations of the Commonwealth Family, such as the Commonwealth Lawyers Association (hosted the Commonwealth Lawyers Conference in 1983 and 2009), the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (and the Westminster Seminar on Parliamentary Practice and Procedures), the Association of Commonwealth Universities and the Commonwealth Association of Legislative Counsel,[85][86] as well as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC).
Objectives and activities
Edit
The Commonwealth’s objectives were first outlined in the 1971 Singapore Declaration, which committed the Commonwealth to the institution of world peace; promotion of representative democracy and individual liberty; the pursuit of equality and opposition to racism; the fight against poverty, ignorance, and disease; and free trade.[116] To these were added opposition to discrimination on the basis of gender by the Lusaka Declaration of 1979,[58] and environmental sustainability by the Langkawi Declaration of 1989.[117] These objectives were reinforced by the Harare Declaration in 1991.[118]
The Commonwealth’s current highest-priority aims are on the promotion of democracy and development, as outlined in the 2003 Aso Rock Declaration,[119] which built on those in Singapore and Harare and clarified their terms of reference, stating, “We are committed to democracy, good governance, human rights, gender equality, and a more equitable sharing of the benefits of globalisation.”[120] The Commonwealth website lists its areas of work as: democracy, economics, education, gender, governance, human rights, law, small states, sport, sustainability, and youth.[121]
Through a separate voluntary fund, Commonwealth governments support the Commonwealth Youth Programme, a division of the Secretariat with offices in Gulu (Uganda), Lusaka (Zambia), Chandigarh (India), Georgetown (Guyana) and Honiara (Solomon Islands).[citation needed]
Competence
Edit
In recent years,[when?] the Commonwealth has been accused of not being vocal enough on its core values. Allegations of a leaked memo from the Secretary General instructing staff not to speak out on human rights were published in October 2010.[122]
The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2011 considered a report by a Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group (EPG) panel which asserted that the organisation had lost its relevance and was decaying due to the lack of a mechanism to censure member countries when they violated human rights or democratic norms.[123] The panel made 106 “urgent” recommendations including the adoption of a Charter of the Commonwealth, the creation of a new commissioner on the rule of law, democracy and human rights to track persistent human rights abuses and allegations of political repression by Commonwealth member states, recommendations for the repeal of laws against homosexuality in 41 Commonwealth states and a ban on forced marriage.[124][125] The failure to release the report, or accept its recommendations for reforms in the area of human rights, democracy and the rule of law, was decried as a “disgrace” by former British Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind, a member of the EPG, who told a press conference: “The Commonwealth faces a very significant problem. It’s not a problem of hostility or antagonism, it’s more of a problem of indifference. Its purpose is being questioned, its relevance is being questioned and part of that is because its commitment to enforce the values for which it stands is becoming ambiguous in the eyes of many member states. The Commonwealth is not a private club of the governments or the secretariat. It belongs to the people of the Commonwealth.”[125]
In the end, two-thirds of the EPG’s 106 urgently recommended reforms were referred to study groups, an act described by one EPG member as having them “kicked into the long grass”. There was no agreement to create the recommended position of human rights commissioner, instead a ministerial management group was empowered with enforcement: the group includes alleged human rights offenders. It was agreed to develop a charter of values for the Commonwealth without any decision on how compliance with its principles would be enforced.[123]
The result of the effort was that a new Charter of the Commonwealth was signed by Queen Elizabeth on 11 March 2013 at Marlborough House, which opposes “all forms of discrimination, whether rooted in gender, race, colour, creed, political belief or other grounds”.[126][127]
Wallonia
Wallonia (/wɒˈloʊniə/; French: Wallonie [walɔni]),[a] officially the Walloon Region (French: Région wallonne),[b] is one of the three regions of Belgium—along with Flanders and Brussels.[4] Covering the southern portion of the country, Wallonia is primarily French-speaking. It accounts for 55% of Belgium’s territory, but only a third of its population. The Walloon Region and the French Community of Belgium, which is the political entity responsible for matters related mainly to culture and education, are independent concepts, because the French Community of Belgium encompasses both Wallonia and the bilingual Brussels-Capital Region.
There is a German-speaking minority in eastern Wallonia, resulting from the annexation of three cantons previously part of the German Empire at the conclusion of World War I. This community represents less than 1%[5] of the Belgian population. It forms the German-speaking Community of Belgium, which has its own government and parliament for culture-related issues.
During the industrial revolution, Wallonia was second only to the United Kingdom in industrialization, capitalizing on its extensive deposits of coal and iron. This brought the region wealth, and from the beginning of the 19th to the middle of the 20th century, Wallonia was the more prosperous half of Belgium. Since World War II, the importance of heavy industry has greatly diminished, and the Flemish Region has exceeded Wallonia in wealth as Wallonia has declined economically. Wallonia now suffers from high unemployment and has a significantly lower GDP per capita than Flanders. The economic inequalities and linguistic divide between the two are major sources of political conflicts in Belgium and a major factor in Flemish separatism.
The capital of Wallonia is Namur, and the most populous city is Charleroi. Most of Wallonia’s major cities and two-thirds of its population lie along the east–west aligned Sambre and Meuse valley, the former industrial backbone of Belgium. To the north of this valley, Wallonia lies on the Central Belgian Plateau, which, like Flanders, is a relatively flat and agriculturally fertile area. The south and southeast of Wallonia is made up of the Ardennes, an expanse of forested highland that is less densely populated.
Wallonia borders Flanders and the Netherlands (the province of Limburg) in the north, France (Grand Est and Hauts-de-France) to the south and west, and Germany (North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate) and Luxembourg (Capellen, Clervaux, Esch-sur-Alzette, Redange and Wiltz) to the east. Wallonia has been a member of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie since 1980.
Au gratin
sprinkled with breadcrumbs or grated cheese, or both, and browned.
“lentils and mushrooms au gratin”
Origin
French, literally ‘by grating’, from the verb gratter ‘to grate’.
Ardennes
The Ardennes (French: Ardenne [aʁdɛn] (listen); Dutch: Ardennen [ɑrˈdɛnə(n)] (listen); German: Ardennen; Walloon: Årdene [ɑːʀdɛn]; Luxembourgish: Ardennen [ɑʁˈdænən]), also known as the Ardennes Forest or Forest of Ardennes, is a region of extensive forests, rough terrain, rolling hills and ridges primarily in Belgium and Luxembourg, extending into Germany and France. Geologically, the range is a western extension of the Eifel; both were raised during the Givetian age of the Devonian (382.7 to 387.7 million years ago), as were several other named ranges of the same greater range.[1]
The Ardennes proper stretches well into Germany and France (lending its name to the Ardennes department and the former Champagne-Ardenne region) and geologically into the Eifel (the eastern extension of the Ardennes Forest into Bitburg-Prüm, Germany); most of it is in the southeast of Wallonia, the southern and more rural part of Belgium (away from the coastal plain but encompassing more than half of the country’s total area). The eastern part of the Ardennes forms the northernmost third of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, also called “Oesling” (Luxembourgish: Éislek). On the southeast the Eifel region continues into the German state of the Rhineland-Palatinate.
The trees and rivers of the Ardennes provided the charcoal industry assets that enabled the great industrial period of Wallonia in the 18th and 19th centuries, when it was arguably the second great industrial region of the world. The greater region maintained an industrial eminence into the 20th century, after coal replaced charcoal in metallurgy.
Much of the Ardennes is covered in dense forests, with the hills averaging around 350–400 m (1,150–1,310 ft) in height but rising to over 694 m (2,277 ft) in the boggy moors of the High Fens region of south-eastern Belgium. The region is typified by steep-sided valleys carved by swift-flowing rivers, the most prominent of which is the Meuse. Its most populous cities are Verviers in Belgium and Charleville-Mézières in France, both exceeding 50,000 inhabitants. The Ardennes is otherwise relatively sparsely populated, with few of the cities exceeding 10,000 inhabitants. (Exceptions include Belgium’s Eupen and Bastogne.)
The Eifel range in Germany adjoins the Ardennes and is part of the same geological formation, although they are conventionally regarded as being two distinct areas.
Highest summits
Edit
Signal de Botrange 694 m (2,277 ft), Liège Province, Belgium - highest point in the Ardennes, highest point in the Benelux countries
Weißer Stein 692 m (2,270 ft), Mürringen, Liège Province, Belgium
Baraque Michel 674 m (2,211 ft), Liège Province, Belgium
Baraque de Fraiture, 652 m (2,139 ft), highest point of the Plateau des Tailles, Luxembourg Province, Belgium
Lieu-dit (=place called) Galata, 589 m (1,932 ft), highest point on the Plateau de Saint-Hubert, Luxembourg Province, Belgium
Kneiff, 560 m (1,840 ft), highest point in the nation of Luxembourg (Grand Duchy of Luxembourg)
Buurgplaatz, 559 m (1,834 ft), highest point in the Oesling section of the Ardennes, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
Napoléonsgaard, 547 m (1,795 ft), near Rambrouch, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
Croix Scaille 504 m (1,654 ft), on the border of the provinces of Namur, Belgium, and Champagne, France
The Ardennes are the remnants of a mountain range formed during the Hercynian orogeny; in France similar formations are the Armorican Massif, the Massif Central, and the Vosges. The low interior of such former mountains often contains coal, plus iron, zinc and other metals in the sub-soil. This geologic fact explains the greatest part of the geography of Wallonia and its history. In the North and West of the Ardennes lie the valleys of the Sambre and Meuse rivers, forming an arc (Sillon industriel) going across the most industrial provinces of Wallonia, for example Hainaut Province, along the river Haine (the etymology of Hainaut); the Borinage, the Centre and Charleroi along the river Sambre; Liège Province along the river Meuse.
The region was uplifted by a mantle plume during the last few hundred thousand years, as measured from the present elevation of old river terraces.[2]
This geological region is important in the history of Wallonia because this former mountain is at the origin of the economy, the history, and the geography of Wallonia. “Wallonia presents a wide range of rocks of various ages. Some geological stages internationally recognized were defined from rock sites located in Wallonia: e.g. Frasnian (Frasnes-lez-Couvin), Famennian (Famenne), Tournaisian (Tournai), Visean (Visé), Dinantian (Dinant) and Namurian (Namur)”.[3] Except for the Tournaisian, all these rocks are within the Ardennes geological area.
The Ardennes includes the greatest part of Belgium’s Luxembourg Province (number 4; not to be confused with the neighbouring Grand Duchy of Luxembourg), the south of Namur Province (number 5), and Liège Province (number 3), plus a very small part of Hainaut Province (number 2), as well as the northernmost third of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, called Oesling (Luxembourgish: Éislek) and the main part of the French Ardennes department.
Before the 19th century industrialization, the first furnaces in these four Belgian provinces (all in the Wallonia region) and in the French Ardennes used charcoal for fuel, made from harvesting the Ardennes forest. This industry was also in the extreme south of present-day Luxembourg Province (which until 1839 was part of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg), in the region called Gaume. The most important part of the Walloon steel industry, using coal, was built around the coal mines, mainly in the region around the cities of Liège, Charleroi, La Louvière, the Borinage, and further in the Walloon Brabant (in Tubize). Wallonia became the second industrial power area of the world (after Great Britain) in proportion to its territory and to its population (see further).
The rugged terrain and the harsh climate of the Ardennes limits the scope for agriculture; arable and dairy farming in cleared areas form the mainstay of the agricultural economy. The region is rich in timber and minerals, and Liège and the city of Namur are both major industrial centres. The extensive forests have an abundant population of wild game. The scenic beauty of the region and its wide variety of outdoor activities, including hunting, cycling, walking and canoeing, make it a popular tourist destination.
The region takes its name from the vast ancient forest known as Arduenna Silva in the Roman Period. Arduenna probably derives from a Gaulish cognate of the Brythonic word ardu- as in the Welsh: ardd (“high”) and the Latin arduus (“high”, “steep”).[4] The second element is less certain, but may be related to the Celtic element *windo- as in the Welsh wyn/wen (“fair”, “blessed”), which tentatively suggests an original meaning of “The forest of blessed/fair heights”.
The Ardennes likely shares this derivation with the numerous Arden place names in Britain, including the Forest of Arden.
The modern Ardennes region covers a greatly diminished area from the forest recorded in Roman times.
A song about Charlemagne, the Old French 12th-century chanson de geste Quatre Fils Aymon, mentions many of Wallonia’s rivers, villages and other places. In Dinant the rock named Bayard takes its name for Bayard, the magic bay horse which, according to legend, jumped from the top of the rock to the other bank of the Meuse.
On their pillaging raids in the years 881 and 882, the Vikings used the old Roman roads in the Ardennes and attacked the abbeys of Malmedy and Stablo and destroyed Prüm Abbey in the Eifel.[5]
The strategic position of the Ardennes has made it a battleground for European powers for centuries. Much of the Ardennes formed part of the Duchy (since 1815, the Grand Duchy) of Luxembourg, a member state of the Holy Roman Empire, which changed hands numerous times between the powerful dynasties of Europe. In 1793 revolutionary France annexed the whole area, together with all other territories west of the Rhine river. In 1815, the Congress of Vienna, which dealt with the political aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, restored the previous geographical situation, with most of the Ardennes becoming part of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. After the revolution of 1830, which resulted in the establishment of the Kingdom of Belgium, the political future of the Ardennes became a matter of much dispute between Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, as well as involving the contemporary great powers of France, Prussia, and Great Britain. As a result, in 1839, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg ceded the westernmost 63% of its territory (being also the main part of the Ardennes) to the new Kingdom of Belgium, which is now its Luxembourg Province.[6]
In the 20th century the Ardennes was widely thought by leading military strategists to be unsuitable for large-scale military operations, due to its difficult terrain and narrow lines of communications. However, in both World War I and World War II, Germany successfully gambled on making a rapid passage through the Ardennes to attack a relatively lightly defended part of France. The Ardennes became the site of three major battles during the world wars—the Battle of the Ardennes (August 1914) in World War I, and the Battle of France (1940) and the Battle of the Bulge (1944–1945) in World War II. Many of the towns of the region suffered severe damage during the two world wars.
1914
The Battles of the Frontiers (1914) involved a series of collisions between the French and the German armies. The French forces carried out a counteroffensive (“Plan XVII”), attacking the flank of the westwards-advancing German army executing its Schlieffen Plan.
The Battle of the Ardennes (1914) was the second of the Battles of the Frontiers, After the advancing German left wing defeated French forces in Lorraine, France launched another attack just north of Lorraine, advancing temporarily into the Ardennes.
Allied generals in World War II believed that the region was impenetrable to massed vehicular traffic and especially armor, so the area was effectively “all but undefended”[citation needed] during the war. The German Army twice used this region to invade northern France and southern Belgium, via Luxembourg in the Battle of France and the later Battle of the Bulge.
The military strategists of Nazi Germany in 1939 and 1940 selected the forest as the primary route of their mechanized forces in the Invasion of France. The forest’s great size could conceal the armored divisions, and because the French did not suspect that the Germans would make such a risky move, they did not consider a breakthrough there, or considered that it would take at least 15 days for an army to pass through the forest. German forces, primarily under the command of Erich von Manstein, carried out the plan in two days, and managed to slip numerous divisions past the Maginot Line to attack France from the north, and rout the French forces. In May 1940 the German army crossed the Meuse, despite the resistance of the French Army. Under the command of General Heinz Guderian,[7] the German armoured divisions crossed the river at Dinant and at Sedan, France. This was a crucial step in the push towards Paris, and France fell on 25 June 1940.
1940
Battle of France (1940) The Germans execute Erich Von Manstein’s plan for Fall Gelb. Armoured divisions cross the Meuse (16 May), (principally in Dinant) and Sedan and the Ardennes. The Ardennes is just at the east of the red shading which marks the extent of the German advance. On 16 May General Maurice Gamelin said he could no longer protect Paris because he had lost the Ardennes.
Battle of France (1940) The Wehrmacht advances further, particularly accelerating through the Gembloux gap northwest of the Ardennes, in the week of 21 May (red shading), quickly reaching Abbeville, near the English Channel. This cut off the Allied troops of the North (some French divisions, the Belgian Army and the British Expeditionary Force). With this, the German armies won the first stage of the Battle of France.
At the other end of the war, the Ardennes area came to prominence again during the Battle of the Bulge. The German Army, which had been forced to retreat for some time, launched a surprise attack in December 1944 in an attempt to recapture Antwerp and to drive a wedge between the advancing British and American forces in northern France. After a fierce battle the Allied forces blocked the German advance on the river Meuse at Dinant.
1944
Battle of the Bulge. In 1944, the Germans counterattacked across the Ardennes and the Meuse valley but they were eventually thwarted after fierce battles. Their most advanced position was the “nose” of the salient, just in front of Dinant and the Meuse river. They had wanted to move northeast and reach Antwerp and the North Sea.
The salient was mainly in the Ardennes, its “nose” being just to the west of it, in the Condroz. Areas above 400 metres (1,300 ft) (shown in the darkest shade of brown) form the heart of the Ardennes.
In the postwar period, the Ardennes has become a weekend retreat that is popular among both Belgians and the neighboring countries. The tourist industry is extensive and varied in range of activities and type of accommodations.
Lambic Beers
Lambic (English: /lɒ̃bikˌ ˈlæmbɪk/) is a type of beer brewed in the Pajottenland region of Belgium southwest of Brussels and in Brussels itself since the 13th century.[1] Types of lambic beers include gueuze, kriek lambic and framboise.[2] Lambic differs from most other beers in that it is fermented through exposure to wild yeasts and bacteria native to the Zenne valley, as opposed to exposure to carefully cultivated strains of brewer’s yeast. This process gives the beer its distinctive flavour: dry, vinous, and cidery, often with a tart aftertaste.[3]
This beverage is first mentioned in 1794 as allambique. The initial ‘a’ was dropped early on so that in an 1811 advert it was called lambicq, though it was sometimes referred to as alambic as late as 1829. The name may stem from alembic, a type of still used for producing local spirits like cognac and jenever (but not used in the production of lambic).[4] Breweries in and around Lembeek, a village near Halle, Belgium, have attempted to associate lambic with the name.[2]
Lambic is generally brewed from a grist containing approximately 60–70% barley malt and 30–40% unmalted wheat. The wort is cooled overnight in a shallow, flat metal pan (generally copper or stainless steel) called a coolship where it is left exposed to the open air so more than 120 different types of microorganisms may inoculate the wort.[5] This cooling process requires night-time temperatures between −8 and 8 °C (18 and 46 °F).[6] While this cooling method of open-air exposure is a critical feature of the style, the key yeasts and bacteria that perform the fermentation reside within the breweries’ timber fermenting vessels.[7] Over eighty microorganisms have been identified in lambic beer, the most significant being Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Saccharomyces pastorianus and Brettanomyces bruxellensis. The process is generally only possible between October and May as in the summer months there are too many unfavourable organisms in the air that could spoil the beer.[8] In Brussels dialect, lambic produced after this traditional brewing season is referred to as bezomerd, meaning that it has had “too much summer”.[6] Climate change is further shortening this limited brewing window: in the early 1900s, lambic brewers enjoyed roughly 165 days a year in the ideal temperature range, whereas by 2018 that number has shrunk to 140.[6]
Aged, dried hops
Since at least the 11th century, and probably earlier, hops have been used in beer for their natural preservative qualities as well as for the pleasant bitterness, flavour, and aroma they impart. Since the method of inoculation and long fermentation time of lambic beers increases the risk of spoilage, lambic brewers use large amounts of hops for their antibacterial properties. Lambic in the early 19th century was a highly hopped beer, using 8–9 g/L of the locally grown Aalst or Poperinge varieties.[9] Modern lambic brewers, however, try to avoid making the beer extremely hop-forward and use aged, dry hops which have lost much of their bitterness, aroma, and flavour.[10] Consequently, lambics often have a strong, cheese-like, “old hop” aroma, in contrast to the resiny, herbal, earthy hop bitterness found in other styles.[11][12] The favourite hop used for lambic in the nineteenth century was a variety called Coigneau which was cultivated in the Aalst-Asse area in Belgium.[13]
After the fermentation process starts, the lambic is siphoned into barrels, mostly old port wine or sherry barrels (of chestnut or oak) from Portugal or Spain. Some brewers prefer used wine barrels. The lambic is left to ferment and mature for one or several years. It forms a velo de flor of yeast that gives some protection from oxidation, in a similar way to vin jaune and sherry; the barrels are not topped up.
Rene Magritte
René François Ghislain Magritte (French: [ʁəne fʁɑ̃swa ɡilɛ̃ maɡʁit]; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and boundaries of reality and representation.[1] His imagery has influenced pop art, minimalist art, and conceptual art.[2]
René Magritte was born in Lessines, in the province of Hainaut, Belgium, in 1898. He was the oldest son of Léopold Magritte, a tailor and textile merchant,[3] and Régina (née Bertinchamps), who was a milliner before she got married. Little is known about Magritte’s early life. He began lessons in drawing in 1910.[3]
On 24 February 1912, his mother committed suicide by drowning herself in the River Sambre at Châtelet.[4] It was not her first suicide attempt. Her body was not discovered until 12 March.[4] According to a legend, 13-year-old Magritte was present when her body was retrieved from the water, but recent research has discredited this story, which may have originated with the family nurse.[5] Supposedly, when his mother was found, her dress was covering her face, an image that has been suggested as the source of several of Magritte’s paintings in 1927–1928 of people with cloth obscuring their faces, including Les Amants.[6]
Magritte’s earliest paintings, which date from about 1915, were Impressionistic in style.[5] During 1916–1918, he studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels,[7] under Constant Montald, but found the instruction uninspiring.[5] He also took classes at the Académie Royale from the painter and poster designer Gisbert Combaz.[8] The paintings he produced during 1918–1924 were influenced by Futurism and by the figurative Cubism of Metzinger.[5]
From December 1920 until September 1921, Magritte served in the Belgian infantry in the Flemish town of Beverlo near Leopoldsburg. In 1922, Magritte married Georgette Berger, whom he had met as a child in 1913.[3] Also during 1922, the poet Marcel Lecomte showed Magritte a reproduction of Giorgio de Chirico’s The Song of Love (painted in 1914). The work brought Magritte to tears; he described this as “one of the most moving moments of my life: my eyes saw thought for the first time.”[9] The paintings of the Belgian symbolist painter William Degouve de Nuncques have also been noted as an influence on Magritte, specifically the former’s painting The Blind House (1892) and Magritte’s variations or series on The Empire of Lights.[10]: 64–65 pp.
In 1922–1923, Magritte worked as a draughtsman in a wallpaper factory, and was a poster and advertisement designer until 1926, when a contract with Galerie Le Centaure in Brussels made it possible for him to paint full-time. In 1926, Magritte produced his first surreal painting, The Lost Jockey (Le jockey perdu), and held his first solo exhibition in Brussels in 1927.[7] Critics heaped abuse on the exhibition.[citation needed]
Depressed by the failure, he moved to Paris where he became friends with André Breton and became involved in the Surrealist group. An illusionistic, dream-like quality is characteristic of Magritte’s version of Surrealism. He became a leading member of the movement, and remained in Paris for three years.[11] In 1929, he exhibited at Goemans Gallery in Paris with Salvador Dalí, Jean Arp, de Chirico, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Picabia, Picasso and Yves Tanguy.[citation needed]
On 15 December 1929, Magritte participated in the last publication of La Revolution Surrealiste No. 12, where he published his essay “Les mots et les images”, where words play with images in sync with his work The Treachery of Images.[12]
Galerie Le Centaure closed at the end of 1929, ending Magritte’s contract income. Having made little impact in Paris, Magritte returned to Brussels in 1930 and resumed working in advertising.[13] He and his brother, Paul, formed an agency which earned him a living wage. In 1932, Magritte joined the Communist Party, which he would periodically leave and rejoin for several years.[13] In 1936 he had his first solo exhibition in the United States at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York, followed by an exposition at the London Gallery in 1938.[14]
Between 1934 and 1937, Magritte drew film posters under the pseudonym ‘Emair’ for the German sound film distributor Tobis Klangfilm. The Leuven City Archive preserves seven posters designed by Magritte.
During the early stages of his career, the British surrealist patron Edward James allowed Magritte to stay rent-free in his London home, where Magritte studied architecture and painted. James is featured in two of Magritte’s works painted in 1937, Le Principe du Plaisir (The Pleasure Principle) and La Reproduction Interdite, a painting also known as Not to Be Reproduced.[15]
During the German occupation of Belgium in World War II he remained in Brussels, which led to a break with Breton. He briefly adopted a colorful, painterly style in 1943–44, an interlude known as his “Renoir period”, as a reaction to his feelings of alienation and abandonment that came with living in German-occupied Belgium.[16]
In 1946, renouncing the violence and pessimism of his earlier work, he joined several other Belgian artists in signing the manifesto Surrealism in Full Sunlight.[17] During 1947–48, Magritte’s “Vache period,” he painted in a provocative and crude Fauve style. During this time, Magritte supported himself through the production of fake Picassos, Braques, and de Chiricos—a fraudulent repertoire he was later to expand into the printing of forged banknotes during the lean postwar period. This venture was undertaken alongside his brother Paul and fellow Surrealist and “surrogate son” Marcel Mariën, to whom had fallen the task of selling the forgeries.[18] At the end of 1948, Magritte returned to the style and themes of his pre-war surrealistic art.[19]
In France, Magritte’s work has been showcased in a number of retrospective exhibitions, most recently at the Centre Georges Pompidou (2016–2017). In the United States his work has been featured in three retrospective exhibitions: at the Museum of Modern Art in 1965, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1992, and again at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2013. An exhibition entitled “The Fifth Season” at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2018 focused on the work of his later years.[20]
Politically, Magritte stood to the left, and retained close ties to the Communist Party, even in the post-war years. However, he was critical of the functionalist cultural policy of the Communist left, stating that “Class consciousness is as necessary as bread; but that does not mean that workers must be condemned to bread and water and that wanting chicken and champagne would be harmful. (…) For the Communist painter, the justification of artistic activity is to create pictures that can represent mental luxury.” While remaining committed to the political left, he thus advocated a certain autonomy of art.[21][22] Spiritually, Magritte was an agnostic.[23]
Popular interest in Magritte’s work rose considerably in the 1960s, and his imagery has influenced pop, minimalist, and conceptual art.[2] In 2005 he was 9th in the Walloon version of De Grootste Belg (The Greatest Belgian); in the Flemish version he was 18th.[citation needed]
Atlas Mountains
The Atlas Mountains are a mountain range in the Maghreb in North Africa. It separates the Sahara Desert from the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean; the name “Atlantic” is derived from the mountain range. It stretches around 2,500 km (1,600 mi) through Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. The range’s highest peak is Toubkal, which is in central Morocco, with an elevation of 4,167 metres (13,671 ft).[1] The Atlas mountains are primarily inhabited by Berber populations.[2] The terms for ‘mountain’ are Adrar and adras in some Berber languages, and these terms are believed to be cognates of the toponym Atlas. The mountains are also home to a number of animals and plants which are mostly found within Africa but some of which can be found in Europe. Many of these species are endangered and a few are already extinct. The weather is cooling but has sunny summers, and the average temperature there is 25°C.[3]
The basement rock of most of Africa was formed during the Precambrian supereon and is much older than the Atlas Mountains lying on the continent. The Atlas was formed during three subsequent phases of Earth’s geology.
The first tectonic deformation phase involves only the Anti-Atlas, which was formed in the Paleozoic Era (~300 million years ago) as the result of continental collisions. North America, Europe and Africa were connected millions of years ago.
The tectonic boundary
The Anti-Atlas Mountains are believed to have originally been formed as part of Alleghenian orogeny. These mountains were formed when Africa and America collided and were once a chain rivaling today’s Himalayas. Today, the remains of this chain can be seen in the Fall Line region in the Eastern United States. Some remnants can also be found in the later formed Appalachians in North America.
A second phase took place during the Mesozoic Era (before ~66 My). It consisted of a widespread extension of the Earth’s crust that rifted and separated the continents mentioned above. This extension was responsible for the formation of many thick intracontinental sedimentary basins including the present Atlas. Most of the rocks forming the surface of the present High Atlas were deposited under the ocean at that time.
Finally, in the Paleogene and Neogene Periods (~66 million to ~1.8 million years ago), the mountain chains that today constitute the Atlas were uplifted, as the land masses of Europe and Africa collided at the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula. Such convergent tectonic boundaries occur where two plates slide towards each other forming a subduction zone (if one plate moves underneath the other), and/or a continental collision (when the two plates contain continental crust). In the case of the Africa-Europe collision, it is clear that tectonic convergence is partially responsible for the formation of the High Atlas, as well as for the closure of the Strait of Gibraltar and the formation of the Alps and the Pyrenees. However, there is a lack of evidence for the nature of the subduction in the Atlas region, or for the thickening of the Earth’s crust generally associated with continental collisions. In fact, one of the most striking features of the Atlas to geologists is the relative small amount of crustal thickening and tectonic shortening despite the important altitude of the mountain range. Recent studies suggest that deep processes rooted in the Earth’s mantle may have contributed to the uplift of the High and Middle Atlas.[4][5]
View of the mountains
Natural resources
Edit
The Atlas are rich in natural resources. There are deposits of iron ore, lead ore, copper, silver, mercury, rock salt, phosphate, marble, anthracite coal and natural gas among other resources.[citation needed]
Metric Conversions
3.28ft / meter
1 mile / 1.6km
Ibis
The ibises (/ˈaɪbɪs/) (collective plural ibis;[1] classical plurals ibides[2][3] and ibes[3]) are a group of long-legged wading birds in the family Threskiornithidae, that inhabit wetlands, forests and plains.[4] “Ibis” derives from the Latin and Ancient Greek word for this group of birds. It also occurs in the scientific name of the cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis) mistakenly identified in 1757 as being the sacred ibis.[5]
Ibises all have long, downcurved bills, and usually feed as a group, probing mud for food items, usually crustaceans. They are monogamous and highly territorial while nesting and feeding.[4] Most nest in trees, often with spoonbills or herons. All extant species are capable of flight, but two extinct genera were flightless, namely the kiwi-like Apteribis in the Hawaiian Islands, and the peculiar Xenicibis in Jamaica.[4] The word ibis comes from Latin ibis[6] from Greek ἶβις ibis from Egyptian hb, hīb.[7]
The African sacred ibis was an object of religious veneration in ancient Egypt, particularly associated with the deity Djehuty or otherwise commonly referred to in Greek as Thoth. He is responsible for writing, mathematics, measurement and time as well as the moon and magic.[11] In artworks of the Late Period of Ancient Egypt, Thoth is popularly depicted as an ibis-headed man in the act of writing.[11] However, Mitogenomic diversity in sacred ibis mummies indicates that ancient Egyptians captured the birds from the wild rather than farming them.[12]
At the town of Hermopolis, ibises were reared specifically for sacrificial purposes and in the Ibis Galleries at Saqqara, archaeologists found the mummies of one and a half million ibises.[13]
According to local legend in the Birecik area, the northern bald ibis was one of the first birds that Noah released from the Ark as a symbol of fertility,[14] and a lingering religious sentiment in Turkey helped the colonies there to survive long after the demise of the species in Europe.[15][16]
The mascot of the University of Miami is an American white ibis named Sebastian. The ibis was selected as the school mascot because of its legendary bravery during hurricanes. According to legend, the ibis is the last of wildlife to take shelter before a hurricane hits and the first to reappear once the storm has passed.[17]
Harvard University’s humor magazine, Harvard Lampoon, uses the ibis as its symbol. A copper statue of an ibis is prominently displayed on the roof of the Harvard Lampoon Building at 44 Bow Street.
A short story “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst uses the red bird as foreshadowing for a character’s death and as the primary symbol.
The African sacred ibis is the unit symbol of the Israeli Special Forces unit known as Unit 212 or Maglan (Hebrew מגלן).
According to Josephus, Moses used the ibis to help him defeat the Ethiopians.[18]
The Australian white ibis has become a focus of art, pop culture and memes since rapidly adapting to city life in recent decades, and has earned the popular nicknames ‘bin chicken’ and ‘tip turkey’.[19]
In April 2022, Queensland sports minister Stirling Hinchliffe suggested the ibis as a potential mascot for the 2032 Olympic Games which are scheduled to be held in Brisbane.[20] Hinchcliffe’s suggestion prompted much discussion in the media.[21][22][23]
Stepped Gable
A stepped gable, crow-stepped gable, or corbie step[1] is a stairstep type of design at the top of the triangular gable-end of a building.[1] The top of the parapet wall projects above the roofline and the top of the brick or stone wall is stacked in a step pattern above the roof as a decoration and as a convenient way to finish the brick courses. A stepped parapet may appear on building facades with or without gable ends, and even upon a false front.
The oldest examples can be seen in Ghent (Flanders, Belgium) and date from the 12th century: the house called Spijker on Graslei, and some other Romanesque buildings in this city. From there, they were spread in the whole of Northern Europe as from the 13th century, in particular in cities of the Hanseatic League (with brick Gothic style), then in Central Europe at the next century. These gables are numerous in Belgium, Netherlands, all Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Baltic States, Switzerland, and some parts of France (French Flanders, Eastern Normandy, Picardy and Alsace). They are also present but much rarer in the British Isles. Crow-stepped gables are especially common on traditional Flemish and Dutch houses and Danish medieval churches.
Crow-stepped gables were also used in Scotland as early as the 16th century.[2] Examples of Scottish crow-stepped gable can be seen at Muchalls Castle, Monboddo House, and the Stonehaven Tolbooth, all late 16th- and early 17th-century buildings.
Nineteenth-century examples are found in North America, and the step gable is also a feature of the northern-Renaissance Revival and Dutch Colonial Revival[3] styles.
Convenient access to the roof ridge motivated the crow-step design, along with the availability of squarish stones to accomplish this form of construction. The access would have been convenient for chimney sweeps and roofers in earlier times, where cranes were non-existent and tall ladders were not common.
With crow steps, the roofing slates (rarely tiles) do not reach the end of the building, so making for a special problem with keeping the roof watertight.[4] Many different schemes are found for overcoming this, some of which are described below. Terms currently used in Scotland are italicised.
Slates may be laid to the edge of the crow step, with the last slate raised by a wedge (tilting fillet). Then mortar (lime mortar or cement) would be laid over the edge of the slate to seal the gap. Other solutions involve working with lead.
A groove approximately 25 mm (1 inch) deep is cut into the inside edge of the steps. A lead abutment flashing is inserted into this groove, called a chase or a raggle. The lead is laid over the end slate, which is raised by a tilting fillet.
Leading is inserted into a raggle, and used to make a trough, or secret gutter, running down the inside edge of the steps. The far edge of the trough is raised over a triangular fillet. Slates are then laid resting on that trough edge and overlapping into the trough, which is open and runs directly down to gutters (roans).
Rather than forming a raggle, lead flashings may be placed into the joints between bricks as they are laid.
When lead is to be held into a raggle, small folded lead wedges called bats are inserted at intervals and hammered in so they expand. The raggle is then sealed with mortar. Crow steps are frequently made of sandstone, even on buildings otherwise of granite,[5] and it is said that the porous nature of sandstone leads to problems with water penetration. Because of this, crow steps are sometimes capped with lead or sealed with other materials.
Ozarks
The Ozarks, also known as the Ozark Mountains, Ozark Highlands or Ozark Plateau, is a physiographic region in the U.S. states of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and the extreme southeastern corner of Kansas. The Ozarks cover a significant portion of northern Arkansas and most of the southern half of Missouri, extending from Interstate 40 in central Arkansas to Interstate 70 in central Missouri.
There are two mountain ranges in the Ozarks: the Boston Mountains of Arkansas and the St. Francois Mountains of Missouri. Buffalo Lookout, the highest point in the Ozarks, is located in the Boston Mountains. Geologically, the area is a broad dome with the exposed core in the ancient St. Francois Mountains. The Ozarks cover nearly 47,000 square miles (120,000 km2), making it the most extensive highland region between the Appalachians and Rockies. Together with the Ouachita Mountains, the area is known as the U.S. Interior Highlands.
The Salem Plateau, named after Salem, Missouri, makes up the largest geologic area of the Ozarks. The second largest is the Springfield Plateau, named after Springfield, Missouri, nicknamed the “Queen City of the Ozarks”. On the northern Ozark border are the cities of St. Louis and Columbia, Missouri. Significant Ozark cities in Arkansas include Fayetteville, Bentonville, Springdale, Eureka Springs, and Fort Smith. Branson, just north of the Arkansas–Missouri border, is a tourist destination and popularizer of Ozark culture.
Ozarks is a toponym believed to be derived as an English-language adaptation of the French abbreviation aux Arcs (short for aux Arcansas, meaning “of/at/to the Arcansas [plural]”).[1][2] Originally, in the decades prior to the French and Indian War, aux Arkansas referred to the trading post at Arkansas Post, located in wooded Arkansas Delta lowland area above the confluence of the Arkansas River with the Mississippi River.[3][4][5]
Other possible derivations include aux arcs meaning “[land] of the arches”,[6] in reference to the dozens of natural bridges formed by erosion and collapsed caves in the Ozark region. These include Clifty Hollow Natural Bridge (actually a series of arches) in Missouri,[7] and Alum Cove in the Ozark–St. Francis National Forest. By the early 20th century, the “Ozarks” had become a generic and widely used term.[8][9]
Arkansas
“Ozark” also refers to the distinctive culture, architecture,[56][61] and dialect shared by the people who live on the plateau. Early settlers in Missouri were pioneers who came west from the Southern Appalachians at the beginning of the 19th century,[37][62] followed in the 1840s and 1850s by Irish and German immigrants. Much of the Ozark population is of English, Scots-Irish, and German descent, and the Ozark families from which the regional culture derived[62] tend to have lived in the area since the 19th century.[63]
Early settlers relied on hunting, fishing, trapping, and foraging to supplement their diets and incomes.[37] Today hunting and fishing for recreation are common activities and an important part of the tourist industry. Foraging for mushrooms (especially morels) and for ginseng is common and financially supported by established buyers in the area. Other forages include poke, watercress, persimmons and pawpaw; wild berries such as blackberry, black raspberry, raspberry, red mulberry, black cherry, wild strawberry and dewberry; and wild nuts such as black walnut and even acorns.[64] Edible native legumes, wild grasses and wildflowers are plentiful, and beekeeping is common.[65]
Print and broadcast media have explored Ozark culture broadly. Books set in the Ozarks include Where the Red Fern Grows, The Shepherd of the Hills,[58] and As a Friend.[66] The 1999 film Ride with the Devil, based on the book Woe to Live On,[67] depicts conflict in southwest Missouri during the Civil War.[68] Winter’s Bone,[69] a novel by Daniel Woodrell (author of Woe to Live On), reflects on contemporary methamphetamine culture and its impact on families on the plateau. Released as a feature film in 2010, Winter’s Bone received the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, as well as other awards. Several early and influential country-music television and radio programs originated from Springfield in the 1950s and ’60s, including ABC-TV’s Ozark Jubilee and The Slim Wilson Show on KYTV. The Clampett clan of The Beverly Hillbillies TV show provide a stereotypical depiction of Ozark people. Ozark musicians include Porter Wagoner and old-time fiddler Bob Holt.[70] Netflix drama series Ozark takes place in Osage Beach, Missouri and revolves around the well-to-do Byrde family as their lives are uprooted and they are forced to move from Chicago to the Ozarks after a money laundering scheme goes wrong. The series focuses on the Byrdes’ dealings in the Ozarks, as well as their interactions with local Ozark crime families. The series premiered on July 21, 2017.[71]
Examples of commercial interpretations of traditional Ozark culture include the two major family theme parks in the region, Silver Dollar City and the now defunct Dogpatch USA, and the resort entertainment complex in Branson. Ozark Folkways in Winslow, Arkansas, and Ozark Folk Center State Park in Mountain View, Arkansas, interpret regional culture through musical performance and exhibitions of pioneer skills and crafts.
Traditional Ozark culture includes stories and tunes passed orally between generations through community music parties and other informal gatherings.[72] Many of these tunes and tales can be traced to British origins[73] and to German folklore. Moreover, historian Vance Randolph attributes the formation of much Ozark lore to individual families when “backwoods parents begin by telling outrageous whoppers to their children and end by half believing the wildest of these tales themselves.”[62] Randolph collected Ozark folklore and lyrics in volumes such as the national bestseller Pissing in the Snow and Other Ozark Folktales (University of Illinois Press, 1976), Ozark Folksongs (University of Missouri Press, 1980), a four-volume anthology of regional songs and ballads collected in the 1920s and 1930s,[73] and Ozark Magic and Folklore (Courier Dover Publications, 1964).[62] Evidenced by Randolph’s extensive field work, many Ozark anecdotes from the oral tradition are often bawdy, full of wild embellishments on everyday themes.[74][75] In 1941–42, commissioned by Alan Lomax of the Archive of Folk Culture, Randolph returned to the Ozarks with a portable recording machine from the Library of Congress and captured over 800 songs, ballads and instrumentals.[76] Selected from among these several hundred recordings, 35 tracks were released on Various Artists: Ozark Folksongs (Rounder Records) in 2001.[73]
Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow (born Harlean Harlow Carpenter; March 3, 1911 – June 7, 1937) was an American actress. Known for her portrayal of “bad girl” characters, she was the leading sex symbol of the early 1930s and one of the defining figures of the pre-Code era of American cinema.[1] Often nicknamed the “Blonde Bombshell” and the “Platinum Blonde”, Harlow was popular for her “Laughing Vamp” screen persona. Harlow was in the film industry for only nine years, but she became one of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars, whose image in the public eye has endured. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Harlow No. 22 on its greatest female screen legends of classical Hollywood cinema list.[2]
Harlow was first signed by business magnate Howard Hughes, who directed her first major role in Hell’s Angels (1930). After a series of critically failed films, and Hughes’ loss of interest in her career, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought out Harlow’s contract in 1932[3] and cast her in leading roles in a string of hits built on her comedic talent: Red-Headed Woman (1932), Red Dust (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), Reckless (1935) and Suzy (1936). Harlow’s popularity rivaled and then surpassed that of MGM’s top leading ladies Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer. She died at the age of 26 of kidney failure while filming Saratoga. MGM completed the film with the use of body doubles and released it less than two months after her death; it became MGM’s most successful film of 1937, as well as the highest-grossing film of her career.
Harlow was born as Harlean Harlow Carpenter[4] in a house located at 3344 Olive Street in Kansas City, Missouri.[5]
Her father, Mont Clair Carpenter (1877–1974), son of Abraham L. Carpenter and Dianna (née Beal), was a dentist who attended dental school in Kansas City. He was from a working-class background.[6] Her mother, Jean Poe Carpenter (née Harlow; 1891–1958), was the daughter of wealthy real estate broker Skip Harlow and his wife, Ella Harlow (née Williams). In 1908, Skip Harlow arranged his daughter’s marriage to Mont Clair Carpenter. She was underage at the time and grew resentful and unhappy in the marriage, but the Carpenters remained together living in a Kansas City house owned by her father.[7]
Harlow with her mother in 1934
Harlean was called “The Baby”, a nickname to which she was accustomed and which endured for the rest of her life. It was not until she was five years old that she learned her real name was Harlean, when staff and students at Miss Barstow’s Finishing School for Girls used the name.[8] Harlean was always very close to her mother, who was extremely protective. Her mother was reported to have instilled a sense in her daughter that she owed everything she had to her; “She was always all mine!”, Mama Jean said of her daughter in interviews.[9] Jean Carpenter was later known by “Mama Jean” when Harlean achieved star status as Jean Harlow.
When Harlean was at finishing school, her mother filed for a divorce. On September 29, 1922, the uncontested divorce was finalized, giving sole custody of Harlean to her mother. Although Harlean loved her father, she did not see him often after the divorce.[10]
In 1923, the 32-year-old Jean Carpenter took her daughter and moved to Hollywood in hopes of becoming an actress, but was told that she was too old to begin a film career.[11] Harlean was enrolled at the Hollywood School for Girls, where she met Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Joel McCrea, and Irene Mayer Selznick, but dropped out at the age of 14, in the spring of 1925.[12]
With their finances dwindling, Jean and Harlean moved back to Kansas City after Skip Harlow issued an ultimatum that he would disinherit his daughter if they did not return. Several weeks later, Skip sent his granddaughter to summer camp at Camp Cha-Ton-Ka, in Michigamme, Michigan, where she became ill with scarlet fever. Jean Carpenter traveled to Michigan to care for Harlean, rowing herself across the lake to the camp, but was told that she could not see her daughter.[13]
Harlean next attended the Ferry Hall School (now Lake Forest Academy) in Lake Forest, Illinois. Jean Carpenter had an ulterior motive for her daughter’s attendance at this particular school: It was close to the Chicago home of her boyfriend, Marino Bello.[14]
During Harlow’s freshman year at the school, she was paired with a “big sister” from the senior class who introduced her to 19-year-old Charles “Chuck” Fremont McGrew III, an heir to a large fortune. By the fall of 1926, Harlean and Chuck were dating seriously, and they were married in 1927.[15] Jean Carpenter was also married that same year to Marino Bello, on January 18. However, Harlow did not attend her mother’s wedding.[16]
In 1928, two months after the wedding, Chuck McGrew turned 21 and received part of his inheritance. The couple left Chicago and moved to Los Angeles, settling into a home in Beverly Hills, where Harlow thrived as a wealthy socialite. McGrew hoped to distance Harlow from her mother with the move. Neither Chuck nor Harlow worked during this time, and both were considered heavy drinkers.[17]
1928–1929: Work as an extra
Edit
While living in Los Angeles, Harlean befriended a young aspiring actress named Rosalie Roy. Not owning a car herself, Rosalie asked Harlean to drive her to Fox Studios for an appointment. While waiting for Rosalie, Harlean was noticed and approached by Fox executives, whom she told she was not interested. Nevertheless, she was given letters of introduction to Central Casting. A few days later, Rosalie Roy bet Harlean that she did not have the nerve to go in for an audition. Unwilling to lose a wager and pressed by her enthusiastic mother who had followed her daughter to Los Angeles by this time, Harlean went to Central Casting and signed in under her mother’s maiden name, Jean Harlow.[18]
After several calls from casting and a number of rejected job offers by Harlean, Mother Jean finally pressed her into accepting work at the studio. Harlean appeared in her first film, Honor Bound (1928), as an unbilled “extra” for $7 a day and a box lunch, common pay for such work.[19][20] This led to a wage increase to $10 per day and small parts in feature films such as Moran of the Marines (1928) and the Charley Chase lost film Chasing Husbands (1928).[20] In December 1928, Harlean as Jean Harlow signed a five-year contract with Hal Roach Studios for $100 per week.[21] She had small roles in the 1929 Laurel and Hardy shorts: Double Whoopee, Liberty and Bacon Grabbers, the last giving her a costarring credit.[22][23]
Jean Arthur, Clara Bow, Harlow, and Leone Lane in The Saturday Night Kid, in which Harlow had her first speaking part
In March 1929, she parted with Hal Roach, who tore up her contract after Harlow told him, “It’s breaking up my marriage, what can I do?”[24] In June 1929, Harlow separated from her husband and moved in with Mother Jean and Bello.[24] After her separation from McGrew, Harlow continued working as an “extra” in such films as This Thing Called Love, Close Harmony, and The Love Parade (all 1929), until she landed her first speaking role in the Clara Bow film The Saturday Night Kid.[25][23] Harlow and her husband divorced in 1929.[26]
1929–1932: Platinum blonde star
Edit
In late 1929, Harlow was spotted by Ben Lyon, an actor filming Howard Hughes’ Hell’s Angels;[27] another account gives Angels head cameraman Arthur Landau as the man that spotted and suggested her to Hughes.[28] Hughes was reshooting most of his originally silent film with sound and needed an actress to replace Greta Nissen, whose Norwegian accent was undesirable for her character. Harlow screen-tested for Hughes, who gave her the part and signed her to a five-year, $100-per-week contract on October 24, 1929.[29][30] During filming, Harlow met MGM executive Paul Bern.
Harlow and Ben Lyon in Hell’s Angels (1930), her first major film appearance
Harlow and Clark Gable in The Secret Six (1931)
Hell’s Angels premiered in Hollywood at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on May 27, 1930, and became the highest-grossing film of that year, besting even Greta Garbo’s talkie debut in Anna Christie. Hell’s Angels made Harlow an international star. Though she was popular with audiences, the critics were less than enthusiastic.[31] The New Yorker called her performance “plain awful”,[32] though Variety magazine conceded, “It doesn’t matter what degree of talent she possesses … nobody ever starved possessing what she’s got.”[31]
In spite of her relative success with Hell’s Angels, Harlow again found herself in the role of “uncredited extra” in the Charlie Chaplin film City Lights (1931), though her appearance did not make the final cut.[33][34] With no other projects planned for Harlow at the time, Hughes decided to send her to New York, Seattle, and Kansas City for Hell’s Angels premieres.[35] In 1931, his Caddo Company loaned her out to other studios, where she gained more attention by appearing in The Secret Six, with Wallace Beery and Clark Gable; Iron Man, with Lew Ayres and Robert Armstrong; and The Public Enemy, with James Cagney. Even though the successes of these films ranged from moderate to hit, Harlow’s acting ability was mocked by critics.[36] Hughes sent her on a brief publicity tour in order to bolster her career, but this was not a success as Harlow dreaded making personal appearances.[37]
Harlow briefly dated Abner Zwillman, who bought her a jeweled bracelet and a red Cadillac, and made a large cash loan to studio head Harry Cohn to obtain a two-picture deal for her at Columbia Pictures. The relationship ended when he reportedly referred to her in derogatory and vulgar terms when speaking to other associated crime figures, as revealed in secret surveillance recordings.[38][39][40]
Columbia Pictures’ first cast Harlow in a Frank Capra film with Loretta Young, originally titled Gallagher for Young’s lead character but renamed Platinum Blonde to capitalize on Hughes’ publicity of Harlow’s “platinum” hair color.[41][42] Though Harlow denied her hair was bleached,[43] the platinum blonde color was reportedly achieved with a weekly application of ammonia, Clorox bleach, and Lux soap flakes.[44] This process weakened and damaged Harlow’s naturally ash-blonde hair.[45] Many female fans began dyeing their hair to match hers and Hughes’ team organized a series of “Platinum Blonde” clubs across the nation offering a prize of $10,000 to any beautician who could match Harlow’s shade.[41] No one could, and the prize went unclaimed, but the publicity scheme worked and the “Platinum Blonde” nickname stuck with Harlow. Her second film for that studio was Three Wise Girls (1932), with Mae Clarke and Walter Byron.
Paul Bern then arranged with Hughes to borrow her for MGM’s The Beast of the City (1932), co-starring Walter Huston. After filming, Bern booked a 10-week personal-appearance tour on the East Coast. To the surprise of many, especially Harlow herself, she packed every theater in which she appeared, often appearing in a single venue for several nights. Despite critical disparagement and poor roles, Harlow’s popularity and following were large and growing, and in February 1932, the tour was extended by six weeks.[46]
According to Fay Wray, who played Ann Darrow in RKO Pictures’s King Kong (1933), Harlow was the original choice to play the screaming blonde heroine, but was under an exclusive contract with MGM during the film’s pre-production phase—and the part went to Wray, a brunette who had to wear a blonde wig.[47]
When mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel came to Hollywood to expand casino operations, Harlow became the informal godmother of Siegel’s eldest daughter, Millicent, when the family lived in Beverly Hills.[48][49][50][51]
1932–1937: Successful actress at MGM
Edit
Paul Bern was now romantically involved with Harlow and spoke to Louis B. Mayer about buying her contract with Hughes and signing her to MGM, but Mayer declined. MGM’s leading ladies were presented as elegant, and Harlow’s screen persona was not so to Mayer. Bern then began urging close friend Irving Thalberg, production head of MGM, to sign Harlow, noting her popularity and established image. After initial reluctance Thalberg agreed, and on March 3, 1932, Harlow’s 21st birthday, Bern called her with the news that MGM had purchased her contract from Hughes for $30,000. Harlow officially joined the studio on April 20, 1932.[52]
Harlow received recognition as an actress in Red-Headed Woman, her first MGM film; she wore a red wig for the role.
At MGM, Harlow was given superior movie roles to show off her looks and nascent comedic talent. Though her screen persona changed dramatically during her career, one constant was her sense of humor. In 1932, she starred in the comedy Red-Headed Woman for which she received $1,250 a week. It was the first film in which she “resembles something of an actress”, portraying a woman who is successful at being amoral in a film that does not moralize or punish the character for her behavior.[53] The film is often noted as being one of the few films in which Harlow did not appear with platinum blonde hair; she wore a red wig for the role.[45][54] While Harlow was filming Red-Headed Woman, actress Anita Page passed her on the studio lot without acknowledging her. She later told Page that the snub had caused her to cry until she saw herself, noticed the red wig, and burst out laughing when she realized Page had not recognized her.[55] “That shows you how sensitive she was”, Page said. “She was a lovely person in so many ways.”[56]
She next starred in Red Dust, her second film with Clark Gable. Harlow and Gable worked well together and co-starred in a total of six films.[57] She was also paired multiple times with Spencer Tracy and William Powell. MGM began trying to distinguish Harlow’s public persona from her screen characters by putting out press releases that her childhood surname was not the common ‘Carpenter’ but the chic ‘Carpentiér’, claiming that writer Edgar Allan Poe was one of her ancestors and publishing photographs of her doing charity work to change her image to that of an all-American woman. This transformation proved difficult; once, Harlow was heard muttering, “My God, must I always wear a low-cut dress to be important?”[58]
During the making of Red Dust, Bern—her husband of two months—was found dead at their home; this created a lasting scandal. Initially, Harlow was suspected of killing Bern,[59] but his death was officially ruled a suicide by self-inflicted gunshot wound. Louis B. Mayer feared negative publicity from the incident and intended to replace Harlow in the film, offering the role to Tallulah Bankhead. Bankhead was appalled by the offer and wrote in her autobiography, “To damn the radiant Jean for the misfortune of another would be one of the shabbiest acts of all time. I told Mr. Mayer as much.” Harlow kept silent, survived the ordeal, and became more popular than ever. A 2009 biography of Bern asserted that Bern was, in fact, murdered by a former lover and the crime scene re-arranged by MGM executives to make it appear Bern had killed himself.[60]
After Bern’s death, Harlow began an indiscreet affair with boxer Max Baer who, though separated from his wife Dorothy Dunbar, was threatened with divorce proceedings naming Harlow as a co-respondent for alienation of affection, a legal term for adultery. After Bern’s death, the studio did not want another scandal and defused the situation by arranging a marriage between Harlow and cinematographer Harold Rosson. Rosson and Harlow were friends, and Rosson went along with the plan. They quietly divorced eight months later.[61][62]
Harlow with Clark Gable in 1933’s Hold Your Man, another successful film pairing of the two and box office success for MGM
By 1933, MGM realized the value of the Harlow-Gable team with Red Dust and paired them again in Hold Your Man (1933), which was also a box-office success. In the same year, she played the adulterous wife of Wallace Beery in the all-star comedy-drama Dinner at Eight, and played a pressured Hollywood film star in the screwball comedy Bombshell with Lee Tracy and Franchot Tone. The film has been said to be based on Harlow’s own life or that of 1920s “It girl” Clara Bow.
The following year, she was teamed with Lionel Barrymore and Tone in The Girl from Missouri (1934). The film was the studio’s attempt to soften Harlow’s image, but suffered from censorship problems, so much so that its original title, Born to Be Kissed, had to be changed.[63]
After the hit Hold Your Man, MGM cast the Harlow-Gable team in two more successful films: China Seas (1935), with Wallace Beery and Rosalind Russell; and Wife vs. Secretary (1936), with Myrna Loy and James Stewart. Stewart later spoke of a scene in a car with Harlow in Wife vs. Secretary, saying, “Clarence Brown, the director, wasn’t too pleased by the way I did the smooching. He made us repeat the scene about half a dozen times … I botched it up on purpose. That Jean Harlow sure was a good kisser. I realized that until then, I had never been really kissed.”[64]
Harlow in a trailer for Riffraff (1936)
Harlow in a trailer for Libeled Lady (1936)
Harlow was consistently voted one of the strongest box office draws in the United States from 1933 onward, often outranking her female colleagues at MGM in audience popularity polls. By the mid-1930s, she was one of the biggest stars in the US, and, it was hoped, MGM’s next Greta Garbo. Still young, her star continued to rise while the popularity of other female stars at MGM, such as Garbo, Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer, waned. Harlow’s movies continued to make huge profits at the box office even during the middle of the Depression.
After her third marriage ended in 1934, Harlow met William Powell, another MGM star, and quickly fell in love. The couple were reportedly engaged for two years,[65] but differences that ranged from past marriages to Powell’s uncertainty about the future, kept them from publicly formalizing their relationship.[66] The two co-starred in her next film Reckless (1935), her first movie musical; her voice was dubbed with that of skilled vocalist Virginia Verrill.
Suzy (1936), in which she played the title role, gave her top billing over four time co-star Tone and Cary Grant. While critics noted that Harlow dominated the film, it was a reasonable box-office success. She then starred in Riffraff (1936) a financial disappointment that co-starred Spencer Tracy and Una Merkel. Afterwards the release of worldwide hit Libeled Lady (1936), in which she was top-billed over Powell, Loy, and Tracy, brought good reviews for Harlow’s comedic performance.[67] She then filmed W.S. Van Dyke’s comedy Personal Property (1937), co-starring Robert Taylor. It was Harlow’s final completed motion picture appearance.[68]
In January 1937, Harlow and Robert Taylor traveled to Washington, D.C., to take part in fundraising activities associated with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s birthday, for the organization later known as the March of Dimes.[73][74] The trip was physically taxing for Harlow, and she contracted influenza. She recovered in time to attend the Academy Awards ceremony with William Powell.[68]
Filming for Harlow’s final film, Saratoga, co-starring Clark Gable, was scheduled to begin in March 1937. However, production was delayed when she developed sepsis after a multiple wisdom tooth extraction, and had to be hospitalized. Almost two months later, Harlow recovered, and shooting began on April 22, 1937.[75] She also appeared on the May 3 cover of Life magazine in photographs by Martin Munkácsi.[76]
On May 20, 1937, while filming Saratoga, Harlow began to complain of illness. Her symptoms—fatigue, nausea, fluid retention and abdominal pain—did not seem very serious to the studio doctor, who believed that she was suffering from cholecystitis and influenza. The doctor was not aware that Harlow had been ill during the previous year with a severe sunburn and influenza.[77] Friend and co-star Una Merkel noticed Harlow’s on-set weight gain, gray pallor and fatigue.[78]
On May 29, while Harlow filmed a scene in which her character had a fever, she was clearly sicker than her character and leaned against her co-star Gable between takes and said, “I feel terrible! Get me back to my dressing room.” She requested that the assistant director telephone William Powell, who immediately left his own movie set, in order to escort her back home.[79]
This photo with director Jack Conway and Clark Gable on the set of Saratoga was taken only minutes before Harlow’s collapse and was issued at the time her death was announced.
The next day, Powell checked on Harlow and discovered that her condition had not improved. He contacted her mother and insisted that she cut her holiday short to be at her daughter’s side. Powell also summoned a doctor. [79] Because Harlow’s previous illnesses had delayed the shooting of three movies (Wife vs. Secretary, Suzy, and Libeled Lady), initially there was no great concern regarding this latest bout with a recurring illness. On June 2, it was announced she was again suffering from influenza.[80] Dr. Ernest Fishbaugh, who had been called to Harlow’s home to treat her, diagnosed her with an inflamed gallbladder.[81] Mother Jean told MGM Harlow was feeling better on June 3, and co-workers expected her back on the set by Monday, June 7, 1937.[82] Press reports were contradictory, with headlines reading “Jean Harlow seriously ill” and “Harlow recovers from illness crisis”.[83] When she did not return to set, a concerned Gable visited her and later remarked that she was severely bloated and that he smelled urine on her breath when he kissed her—both signs of kidney failure.[81][84]
Dr. Leland Chapman, a colleague of Fishbaugh, was called in to give a second opinion on Harlow’s condition. Chapman recognized that she was not suffering from an inflamed gallbladder, but was in the final stages of kidney failure.[85][81] On June 6, 1937, Harlow said that she could not see Powell clearly and could not tell how many fingers he was holding up.[86]
That evening, she was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, where she slipped into a coma.[87] The next day at 11:37 a.m., Harlow died in the hospital at the age of 26. In the doctor’s press releases, the cause of death was given as cerebral edema, a complication of kidney failure.[88] Hospital records mention uremia.[89]
The Jean Harlow crypt in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Glendale reads “Our Baby”
Harlow’s bed in the Jean Harlow Museum in Black Canyon City, Arizona
For years, rumors circulated about Harlow’s death. Some claimed that her mother had refused to call a doctor because she was a Christian Scientist or that Harlow had declined hospital treatment or surgery.[90] From the onset of her illness, Harlow had been attended by a doctor while she was resting at home. Two nurses also visited her house, and various equipment was brought from a nearby hospital.[91] Harlow’s grayish complexion, recurring illnesses, and severe sunburn were signs of the disease.[92] Toxins also adversely affected her brain and central nervous system.[92]
Harlow suffered from scarlet fever when she was 15, and speculation that she suffered a poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis following the incident, which may have caused high blood pressure and ultimately kidney failure, has been suggested.[93] Her death certificate lists the cause of death as “acute respiratory infection”, “acute nephritis”, and “uremia”.[94]
One MGM writer later said, “The day Baby died…there wasn’t one sound in the commissary for three hours.”[95] Frequent costar Spencer Tracy wrote in his diary, “Jean Harlow died. Grand girl.”[96]
Harlow was interred in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale in a private room of multicolored marble, which William Powell bought for $25,000 ($471,000 today).[97] She was laid to rest in the gown she wore in Libeled Lady and in her hands she had a white gardenia along with a note that Powell had written: “Goodnight, my dearest darling.” Harlow’s inscription on her crypt reads, “Our Baby”.[98]
Spaces in the same room were reserved for Harlow’s mother and Powell.[97] Harlow’s mother was buried there in 1958, but Powell married actress Diana Lewis in 1940. After his death in 1984, he was cremated[99] and his ashes buried in Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California.
MGM planned to replace Harlow in Saratoga with either Jean Arthur or Virginia Bruce, but because of public objections the film was finished using three doubles (Mary Dees for close-ups, Geraldine Dvorak for long shots, and Paula Winslowe for dubbing Harlow’s lines) and rewriting some scenes without her.[100] The film was released on July 23, 1937, less than two months after Harlow’s death, and was a hit with audiences,[101][102] grossing $3.3 million in worldwide rentals[103] and becoming MGM’s most successful film of the year, as well as the highest-grossing film of her career.
Her name was given to a cocktail, the “Jean Harlow”, which is equal parts light rum and sweet vermouth.[104][105]
Legendary blues musician Lead Belly wrote the song “Jean Harlow” while in prison upon hearing about her death.[106]
The French composer Charles Koechlin composed the piece Épitaphe de Jean Harlow (opus 164) in 1937.[107]
On February 8, 1960, Jean Harlow was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 6910 Hollywood Boulevard on the south part of the Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, California.
Harlow’s signature, hands and footprints were imprinted in cement on September 29, 1933, in the 24th ceremony at Grauman’s Chinese Theater and are located near the forecourt on the west side of the box office at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood, California.[108][109]
Silvius Brabo
Silvius Brabo [ˈsɪɫviəz ˈbraːboː] was a mythical Roman soldier who was said to have killed a giant, and by this would have created the name Brabant.
Brabo statue in Antwerp
Later this story was also used to explain the name Antwerp (‘Antwerpen’ in Dutch) which, according to the story, is a derivative of ‘handwerpen’ (meaning hand throwing). Brabo once killed a giant, called Druon Antigoon, who asked money from people who wanted to pass the bridge over the river Scheldt. When they didn’t want to or couldn’t pay, he cut off their hand and threw it in the river. Because of this, Brabo also removed the hand of the giant, and threw it into the river.
This mythical story is still shown by the statue in front of the Antwerp City Hall.
Passchendaele
The Third Battle of Ypres (German: Dritte Flandernschlacht; French: Troisième Bataille des Flandres; Dutch: Derde Slag om Ieper), also known as the Battle of Passchendaele (/ˈpæʃəndeɪl/), was a campaign of the First World War, fought by the Allies against the German Empire.[a] The battle took place on the Western Front, from July to November 1917, for control of the ridges south and east of the Belgian city of Ypres in West Flanders, as part of a strategy decided by the Allies at conferences in November 1916 and May 1917. Passchendaele lies on the last ridge east of Ypres, 5 mi (8.0 km) from Roulers (now Roeselare), a junction of the Bruges-(Brugge)-to-Kortrijk railway. The station at Roulers was on the main supply route of the German 4th Army. Once Passchendaele Ridge had been captured, the Allied advance was to continue to a line from Thourout (now Torhout) to Couckelaere (Koekelare).
Further operations and a British supporting attack along the Belgian coast from Nieuport (Nieuwpoort), combined with an amphibious landing (Operation Hush), were to have reached Bruges and then the Dutch frontier. Although a general withdrawal had seemed inevitable in early October, the Germans were able to avoid one due to the resistance of the 4th Army, unusually wet weather in August, the beginning of the autumn rains in October and the diversion of British and French resources to Italy. The campaign ended in November, when the Canadian Corps captured Passchendaele, apart from local attacks in December and early in the new year. The Battle of the Lys (Fourth Battle of Ypres) and the Fifth Battle of Ypres of 1918, were fought before the Allies occupied the Belgian coast and reached the Dutch frontier.
A campaign in Flanders was controversial in 1917 and has remained so. The British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, opposed the offensive, as did General Ferdinand Foch, the Chief of Staff of the French Army. Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), did not receive approval for the Flanders operation from the War Cabinet until 25 July. Matters of dispute by the participants, writers and historians since 1917 include the wisdom of pursuing an offensive strategy in the wake of the Nivelle Offensive, rather than waiting for the arrival of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in France.
Remaining controversial are the choice of Flanders, its climate, the selection of General Hubert Gough and the Fifth Army to conduct the offensive, and debates over the nature of the opening attack and between advocates of shallow and deeper objectives. Also debated are the time between the Battle of Messines (7–14 June) and the first Allied attack (the Battle of Pilckem Ridge, 31 July), the extent to which the French Army mutinies influenced the British, the effect of the exceptional weather, the decision to continue the offensive in October and the human costs of the campaign.
belfry
the part of a bell tower or steeple in which bells are housed.
a bell tower or steeple housing bells.
carillon
a set of bells played using a keyboard or by an automatic mechanism similar to a piano roll.
a tune played on a carillon.
late 18th century: from French, from Old French quarregnon ‘peal of four bells’, based on Latin quattuor ‘four’.
Chimay
Chimay (French pronunciation: [ʃimɛ] (listen), Walloon: Chimai) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium.[2] In 2006, Chimay had a population of 9,774. The area is 197.10 km2 which gives a population density of 50 inhabitants per km2. It is the source of the Oise River.
In the administrative district of Thuin, the municipality was created with a merger of 14 communes in 1977. The Trappist monastery of Scourmont Abbey in the town is famous for the Chimay Brewery.
charcuterie
Charcuterie (/ʃɑːrˈkuːtəri/ (listen) shar-KOO-tər-ee, also US: /ʃɑːrˌkuːtəˈriː/ (listen) -EE; French: [ʃaʁkyt(ə)ʁi] (listen); from chair, ‘flesh’, and cuit, ‘cooked’) is a French term for a branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products, such as bacon, ham, sausage, terrines, galantines, ballotines, pâtés, and confit, primarily from pork.[1]
Charcuterie is part of the garde manger chef’s repertoire. Originally intended as a way to preserve meat before the advent of refrigeration, they are prepared today for their flavors derived from the preservation processes.[2]
The French word for a person who practices charcuterie is charcutier. The etymology of the word is the combination of chair and cuite, or cooked flesh. The Food Lover’s Companion says, “it refers to the products, particularly (but not limited to) pork specialties such as pâtés, rillettes, galantines, crépinettes, etc., which are made and sold in a delicatessen-style shop, also called a charcuterie.” The 1961 edition of Larousse Gastronomique defines it as “[t]he art of preparing various meats, in particular pork, in order to present them in the most diverse ways.”[citation needed]
Spa
A spa is a location where mineral-rich spring water (and sometimes seawater) is used to give medicinal baths. Spa towns or spa resorts (including hot springs resorts) typically offer various health treatments, which are also known as balneotherapy. The belief in the curative powers of mineral waters goes back to prehistoric times. Such practices have been popular worldwide, but are especially widespread in Europe and Japan. Day spas and medspas are also quite popular, and offer various personal care treatments.
Spa (French pronunciation: [spa] (listen); Walloon: Spå) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium, whose name became an eponym for mineral baths with supposed curative properties. It is situated in a valley in the Ardennes mountains 35 km (22 mi) south-east of Liège and 45 km (28 mi) south-west of Aachen. In 2006, Spa had a population of 10,543 and an area of 39.85 km2 (15.39 sq mi), giving a population density of 265/km2 (690/sq mi).
Belgium Monarchs
Faience
Faience or faïence (/faɪˈɑːns, feɪˈ-, -ˈɒ̃s/; French: [fajɑ̃s] (listen)) is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major advance in the history of pottery. The invention seems to have been made in Iran or the Middle East before the ninth century. A kiln capable of producing temperatures exceeding 1,000 °C (1,830 °F) was required to achieve this result, the result of millennia of refined pottery-making traditions. The term is now used for a wide variety of pottery from several parts of the world, including many types of European painted wares, often produced as cheaper versions of porcelain styles.
English generally uses various other terms for well-known sub-types of faience. Italian tin-glazed earthenware, at least the early forms, is called maiolica in English, Dutch wares are called Delftware, and their English equivalents English delftware, leaving “faience” as the normal term in English for French, German, Spanish, Portuguese wares and those of other countries not mentioned (it is also the usual French term, and fayence in German). The name faience is simply the French name for Faenza, in the Romagna near Ravenna, Italy, where a painted majolica ware on a clean, opaque pure-white ground, was produced for export as early as the fifteenth century.
Technically, lead-glazed earthenware, such as the French sixteenth-century Saint-Porchaire ware, does not properly qualify as faience, but the distinction is not usually maintained. Semi-vitreous stoneware may be glazed like faience. Egyptian faience is not really faience, or pottery, at all, but made of a vitreous frit, and so closer to glass.
In English 19th-century usage “faience” was often used to describe “any earthenware with relief modelling decorated with coloured glazes”,[1] including much glazed architectural terracotta and Victorian majolica, adding a further complexity to the list of meanings of the word.
Western Mediterranean
Edit
Main articles: Hispano-Moresque wares and maiolica
The Moors brought the technique of tin-glazed earthenware to Al-Andalus, where the art of lustreware with metallic glazes was perfected. From at least the 14th century, Málaga in Andalusia and later Valencia exported these “Hispano-Moresque wares”, either directly or via the Balearic Islands to Italy and the rest of Europe. Later these industries continued under Christian lords.
“Majolica” and “maiolica” are garbled versions of “Maiorica”,[2] the island of Majorca, which was a transshipping point for refined tin-glazed earthenwares shipped to Italy from the kingdom of Aragon in Spain at the close of the Middle Ages. This type of Spanish pottery owed much to its Moorish inheritance.
In Italy, locally produced tin-glazed earthenwares, now called maiolica, initiated in the fourteenth century, reached a peak in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. After about 1600, these lost their appeal to elite customers, and the quality of painting declined, with geometric designs and simple shapes replacing the complicated and sophisticated scenes of the best period. Production continues to the present day in many centres, and the wares are again called “faience” in English (though usually still maiolica in Italian). At some point “faience” as a term for pottery from Faenza in northern Italy was a general term used in French, and then reached English.[3]
French and northern European faïence
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Rococo tureen, Marseille, ca 1770
The first northerners to imitate the tin-glazed earthenwares being imported from Italy were the Dutch. Delftware is a kind of faience, made at potteries round Delft in the Netherlands, characteristically decorated in blue on white. It began in the early sixteenth century on a relatively small scale, imitating Italian maiolica, but from around 1580 it began to imitate the highly sought-after blue and white Chinese export porcelain that was beginning to reach Europe, soon followed by Japanese export porcelain. From the later half of the century the Dutch were manufacturing and exporting very large quantities, some in its own recognisably Dutch style, as well as copying East Asian porcelain.
In France, the first well-known painter of faïence was Masseot Abaquesne, established in Rouen in the 1530s. Nevers faience and Rouen faience were the leading French centres of faience manufacturing in the 17th century, both able to supply wares to the standards required by the court and nobility. Nevers continued the Italian istoriato maiolica style, painted with figurative subjects, until around 1650. Many others centres developed from the early 18th century, led in 1690 by Quimper in Brittany [1], followed by Moustiers, Marseille, Strasbourg and Lunéville and many smaller centres. The cluster of factories in the south were generally the most innovative, while Strasbourg and other centres near the Rhine were much influenced by German porcelain.
The products of faience manufactories are identified by the usual methods of ceramic connoisseurship: the character of the clay body, the character and palette of the glaze, and the style of decoration, faïence blanche being left in its undecorated fired white slip. Faïence parlante (especially from Nevers) bears mottoes often on decorative labels or banners. Apothecary wares, including albarelli, can bear the names of their intended contents, generally in Latin and often so abbreviated to be unrecognizable to the untutored eye. Mottoes of fellowships and associations became popular in the 18th century, leading to the faïence patriotique that was a specialty of the years of the French Revolution.
“English delftware” produced in Lambeth, London, and at other centres, from the late sixteenth century, provided apothecaries with jars for wet and dry drugs, among a wide range of wares. Large painted dishes were produced for weddings and other special occasions, with crude decoration that later appealed to collectors of English folk art. Many of the early potters in London were Flemish.[4] By about 1600, blue-and-white wares were being produced, labelling the contents within decorative borders. The production was slowly superseded in the first half of the eighteenth century with the introduction of cheap creamware.
Luneville faience
Dutch potters in northern (and Protestant) Germany established German centres of faience: the first manufactories in Germany were opened at Hanau (1661) and Heusenstamm (1662), soon moved to nearby Frankfurt-am-Main. In Switzerland, Zunfthaus zur Meisen near Fraumünster church houses the porcelain and faience collection of the Swiss National Museum in Zurich.
By the mid-18th centuries many French factories produced (as well as simpler wares) pieces that followed the Rococo styles of the French porcelain factories and often hired and trained painters with the skill to produce work of a quality that sometimes approached them.
The products of French faience manufactories, rarely marked, are identified by the usual methods of ceramic connoisseurship: the character of the body, the character and palette of the glaze, and the style of decoration, faïence blanche being left in its undecorated fired white slip. Faïence parlante bears mottoes often on decorative labels or banners. Wares for apothecaries, including albarello, can bear the names of their intended contents, generally in Latin and often so abbreviated to be unrecognizable to the untutored eye. Mottoes of fellowships and associations became popular in the 18th century, leading to the Faïence patriotique that was a specialty of the years of the French Revolution.
By the mid-18th century, glazed earthenware made in Liguria was imitating decors of its Dutch and French rivals.
In the course of the later 18th century, cheaper porcelain, and the refined earthenwares first developed in Staffordshire pottery such as creamware took over the market for refined faience. The French industry was given a nearly fatal blow by a commercial treaty with Great Britain in 1786, much lobbied for by Josiah Wedgwood, which set the import duty on English earthenware at a nominal level.[5] In the early 19th century, fine stoneware—fired so hot that the unglazed body vitrifies—closed the last of the traditional makers’ ateliers even for beer steins. At the low end of the market, local manufactories continued to supply regional markets with coarse and simple wares, and many local varieties have continued to be made in versions of the old styles as a form of folk art, and today for tourists.
Revival
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In the 19th century two glazing techniques revived by Minton were: 1. Tin-glazed pottery in the style of Renaissance Italian maiolica and, 2. The pottery of coloured glazes decoration over unglazed earthenware molded in low relief. At the Great Exhibition of 1851 and at the International Exhibition of 1862[6] both were exhibited. Both are known today as Victorian majolica.[7] The coloured glazes majolica wares were later also made by Wedgwood and numerous smaller Staffordshire potteries round Burslem and Stoke-on-Trent. At the end of the nineteenth century, William de Morgan re-discovered the technique of lustered faience “to an extraordinarily high standard”.[8]
Ancient frit wares called “faience”
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Egyptian pendant of lions or Apis Bull.[9] The Walters Art Museum.
Main article: Egyptian faience
The term faience broadly encompassed finely glazed ceramic beads, figures and other small objects found in Egypt as early as 4000 BC, as well as in the Ancient Near East, the Indus Valley civilisation and Europe. However, this material is not pottery at all, containing no clay, but a vitreous frit, either self-glazing or glazed. The Metropolitan Museum of Art displays a piece known as “William the Faience Hippopotamus” from Meir, Egypt, dated to the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt, c. 1981–1885 BC.[10] Different to those of ancient Egypt in theme and composition, artefacts of the Nubian Kingdom of Kerma are characterized by extensive amounts of blue faience, which was developed by the natives of Kerma independently of Egyptian techniques.[11][12][13] Examples of ancient faience are also found in Minoan Crete, which was likely influenced by Egyptian culture. Faience material, for instance, has been recovered from the Knossos archaeological site.[14]
Victor Horta
Victor Pierre Horta (French: [ɔʁta]; Victor, Baron Horta after 1932; 6 January 1861 – 8 September 1947) was a Belgian architect and designer, and one of the founders of the Art Nouveau movement.[1] His Hôtel Tassel in Brussels, built in 1892–93, is often considered the first Art Nouveau house. The curving stylized vegetal forms that Horta used influenced many others, including architect Hector Guimard, who used it in the first house he designed in Paris and in the entrances he designed for the Paris Metro.[2][3] He is also considered a precursor of modern architecture for his open floor plans and his innovative use of iron, steel and glass.[4]
Horta’s later work moved away from Art Nouveau, and became more geometric and formal, with classical touches, such as columns. He made a highly original use of steel frames and skylights to bring light into the structures, open floor plans, and finely-designed decorative details. His later major works included the Maison du Peuple/Volkshuis (1895–1899); Brussels’ Centre for Fine Arts (1923–1929); and Brussels Central Station (1913–1952).
In 1932, King Albert I conferred on Horta the title of Baron for his services to the field of architecture. Four of the buildings he designed have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Rape of Europa
In Greek mythology, Europa (/jʊəˈroʊpə, jə-/; Ancient Greek: Εὐρώπη, Eurṓpē, Attic Greek pronunciation: [eu̯.rɔ̌ː.pɛː]) was a Phoenician princess of Argive Greek origin, and the mother of King Minos of Crete. The continent of Europe may be named after her. The story of her abduction by Zeus in the form of a bull was a Cretan story; as classicist Károly Kerényi points out, “most of the love-stories concerning Zeus originated from more ancient tales describing his marriages with goddesses. This can especially be said of the story of Europa.”[1]
San Marino (country)
San Marino (/ˌsæn məˈriːnoʊ/ (listen), Italian: [sam maˈriːno]), officially the Republic of San Marino[1][2][8] (Italian: Repubblica di San Marino; Romagnol: Ripóbblica d’ San Marein), also known as the Most Serene Republic of San Marino[9] (Italian: Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino), is the fifth-smallest country in the world[10] and a European microstate in Southern Europe enclaved by Italy.[11] Located on the northeastern side of the Apennine Mountains, San Marino covers a land area of just over 61 km2 (23+1⁄2 sq mi), and has a population of 33,562.[12]
San Marino is a landlocked country; however, its northeastern end is within ten kilometres (six miles) of the Italian city of Rimini on the Adriatic coast. The nearest airport is also in Italy. The country’s capital city, the City of San Marino, is located atop Monte Titano, while its largest settlement is Dogana within the largest municipality of Serravalle. San Marino’s official language is Italian.
The country derives its name from Saint Marinus, a stonemason from the then-Roman island of Rab in present-day Croatia. Born in AD 275, Marinus participated in the rebuilding of Rimini’s city walls after their destruction by Liburnian pirates. Marinus then went on to found an independently ruled monastic community on Monte Titano in AD 301; thus, San Marino lays claim to being the oldest extant sovereign state, as well as the oldest constitutional republic.[13]
Uniquely, San Marino’s constitution dictates that its democratically elected legislature, the Grand and General Council, must elect two heads of state every six months. Known as captains regent, the two heads of state serve concurrently and hold equal powers until their term expires after six months.
The country’s economy is mainly based on finance, industry, services, retail, and tourism. It is one of the wealthiest countries in the world in GDP per capita, with a figure comparable to the most developed European regions.[1] Its health care system ranks 3rd in the World Health Organization first ever analysis of the world’s health systems.[14] Despite this fact, ranking 44th, its Human Development Index score is the lowest in Western Europe. Among the European microstates, San Marino is the only Summer Olympics Games medals winner.
Saint Marinus left the island of Rab in present-day Croatia with his lifelong friend Leo, and went to the city of Rimini as a stonemason. After the Diocletianic Persecution following his Christian sermons, he escaped to the nearby Monte Titano, where he built a small church and thus founded what is now the city and state of San Marino.
The official founding date is 3 September 301 AD.[15] In 1320, the community of Chiesanuova chose to join the country.[16] In 1463, San Marino was extended with the communities of Faetano, Fiorentino, Montegiardino, and Serravalle, after which the country’s borders have remained unchanged.[17]
In 1503, Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, occupied the Republic for six months until his father’s successor, Pope Julius II, intervened and restored the country’s independence.[18]
On 4 June 1543, Fabiano di Monte San Savino, nephew of the later Pope Julius III, attempted to conquer the republic, but his infantry and cavalry failed as they got lost in a dense fog, which the Sammarinese attributed to Saint Quirinus, whose feast day it was.[19]
After the Duchy of Urbino was annexed by the Papal States in 1625, San Marino became an enclave within the Papal States, something which led to its seeking the formal protection of the Papal States in 1631, but this never equalled a de facto Papal control of the republic.[20]
The country was occupied on 17 October 1739 by the legate (Papal governor) of Ravenna, Cardinal Giulio Alberoni, but independence was restored by Pope Clement XII on 5 February 1740, the feast day of Saint Agatha, after which she became a patron saint of the republic.[21]
The advance of Napoleon’s army in 1797 presented a brief threat to the independence of San Marino, but the country was saved from losing its liberty by one of its regents, Antonio Onofri, who managed to gain the respect and friendship of Napoleon. Due to Onofri’s intervention, Napoleon, in a letter delivered to Gaspard Monge, scientist and commissary of the French Government for Science and Art, promised to guarantee and protect the independence of the Republic, even offering to extend its territory according to its needs. The offer was declined by the regents, fearing future retaliation from other states’ revanchism.[22][23]
Anita and Giuseppe Garibaldi in San Marino, 1849
The San Marino constitution, or more precisely statutes, of 1600
During the later phase of the Italian unification process in the 19th century, San Marino served as a refuge for many people persecuted because of their support for unification, including Giuseppe Garibaldi and his wife Anita. Garibaldi allowed San Marino to remain independent. San Marino and the Kingdom of Italy signed a Convention of Friendship in 1862.[24]
The government of San Marino made United States President Abraham Lincoln an honorary citizen. He wrote in reply, saying that the republic proved that “government founded on republican principles is capable of being so administered as to be secure and enduring.”[25][26]
During World War I, when Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary on 24 May 1915, San Marino remained neutral and Italy adopted a hostile view of Sammarinese neutrality, suspecting that San Marino could harbour Austrian spies who could be given access to its new radiotelegraph station. Italy tried to forcibly establish a detachment of Carabinieri in the republic and then cut the republic’s telephone lines when it did not acquiesce. Two groups of ten volunteers joined Italian forces in the fighting on the Italian front, the first as combatants and the second as a medical corps operating a Red Cross field hospital. The existence of this hospital later caused Austria-Hungary to suspend diplomatic relations with San Marino.[27]
After the war, San Marino suffered from high rates of unemployment and inflation, leading to increased tensions between the lower and middle classes. The latter, fearing that the moderate government of San Marino would make concessions to the lower class majority, began to show support for the Sammarinese Fascist Party (Partito Fascista Sammarinese, PFS), founded in 1922 and styled largely on their Italian counterpart. PFS rule lasted from 1923 to 1943, and during this time they often sought support from Benito Mussolini’s fascist government in Italy.[28]
British troops at Monte Titano during the Battle of San Marino, September 1944
During World War II, San Marino remained neutral, although it was wrongly reported in an article from The New York Times that it had declared war on the United Kingdom on 17 September 1940.[29] The Sammarinese government later transmitted a message to the British government stating that they had not declared war on the United Kingdom.[30]
On 28 July 1943, three days after the fall of the Fascist regime in Italy, PFS rule collapsed and the new government declared neutrality in the conflict. The PFS regained power on 1 April 1944, but kept neutrality intact. Despite that, on 26 June 1944, San Marino was bombed by the Royal Air Force, in the belief that San Marino had been overrun by German forces and was being used to amass stores and ammunition. The Sammarinese government declared on the same day that no military installations or equipment were located on its territory, and that no belligerent forces had been allowed to enter.[31] San Marino accepted thousands of civilian refugees when Allied forces went over the Gothic Line.[32] In September 1944, it was briefly occupied by German forces, who were defeated by Allied forces in the Battle of San Marino.[citation needed]
San Marino had the world’s first democratically elected communist government – a coalition between the Sammarinese Communist Party and the Sammarinese Socialist Party, which held office between 1945 and 1957.[33][34]
San Marino became a member of the Council of Europe in 1988 and of the United Nations in 1992. It is not a member of the European Union, although it uses the euro as its currency (despite not legally being part of the Eurozone). Before the introduction of the euro, the country’s currency was the Sammarinese lira.
As of June 2020, San Marino had the highest death rate per capita of any country, due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.[35] In April 2021, the nation received headlines for using the Russian Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine rather than vaccines approved by the EU following a slow rollout for the latter vaccines.[36][37]
At the 2020 Summer Olympics, San Marino became the smallest country to earn an Olympic medal when Alessandra Perilli won a bronze medal in women’s trap.[38] They later won another medal, this one silver, with Perilli’s and Gian Marco Berti’s performance in the mixed trap shooting event.[39]
On 7 March 2022, during the Russia-Ukraine War, the Russian Kremlin released a list of countries, via Twitter, who it considered “unfriendly” to Russia. San Marino was included in the list, alongside numerous well known Russian adversaries such as the United States and countries in the European Union. The motivation for including San Marino as an “unfriendly” nation was unclear and gained substantial attention on the Internet.[40]
On 31 August 2022, San Marino officials voted to legalize abortion in the republic, “one of the last European states to have had the procedure outlawed under all circumstances”.[41] 32 members of the legislature approved the bill while 10 abstained and 7 rejected.[42] The public health system is promised to cover the cost of the abortion procedure.
San Marino is an enclave surrounded by Italy in Southern Europe, on the border between the regions of Emilia Romagna and Marche and about ten kilometres (six miles) from the Adriatic coast at Rimini. Its hilly topography, with no substantial naturally flat ground, is part of the Apennine mountain range. The highest point in the country, the summit of Monte Titano, is 749 m (2,457 ft) above sea level; the lowest, the Ausa River (ending in the Marecchia),[43] is 55 m (180 ft). San Marino has no still or contained bodies of water of any significant size.
It is one of only three countries in the world to be completely enclosed by another country (the others being Vatican City, also enclosed by Italy, and Lesotho, enclosed by South Africa). It is the third smallest country in Europe, after Vatican City and Monaco, and the fifth-smallest country in the world.[10]
The terrestrial ecoregion of Italian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests lies within San Marino’s territory.[44] The country had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 0.01/10, ranking it last globally out of 172 countries.[45]
San Marino has the political framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic: the captains regent are both heads of state and heads of government, and there is a pluriform multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the Grand and General Council. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
San Marino is considered to have the earliest written governing documents still in effect, as the Statutes of 1600 are still at the core of its constitutional framework.[49]
San Marino was originally led by the Arengo, initially formed from the heads of each family. In the 13th century, power was given to the Grand and General Council. In 1243, the first two captains regent were nominated by the council. Still today, Captains Regent are elected every six months by the council.
The legislature of the republic is the Grand and General Council (Consiglio grande e generale). The council is a unicameral legislature with 60 members. There are elections every five years by proportional representation in all nine administrative districts. These districts (townships) correspond to the old parishes of the republic. All citizens 18 years or older are eligible to vote.
Besides general legislation, the Grand and General Council approves the budget and elects the captains regent, the State Congress (composed of ten secretaries with executive power), the Council of Twelve (which forms the judicial branch during the period of legislature of the council), the Advising Commissions, and the Government Unions. The council also has the power to ratify treaties with other countries. The council is divided into five different Advising Commissions consisting of fifteen councilors who examine, propose, and discuss the implementation of new laws that are on their way to being presented on the floor of the council.
Every six months, the council elects two captains regent to be the heads of state. The captains are chosen from opposing parties so that there is a balance of power. They serve a six-month term. The investiture of the captains regent takes place on 1 April and 1 October in every year. Once this term is over, citizens have three days in which to file complaints about the captains’ activities. If they warrant it, judicial proceedings against the ex-head(s) of state can be initiated.
The practice of having two heads of state, like Roman consuls, chosen in frequent elections, is derived directly from the customs of the Roman Republic. The council is equivalent to the Roman Senate; the captains regent, to the consuls of ancient Rome. It is thought the inhabitants of the area came together as Roman rule collapsed to form a rudimentary government for their own protection from foreign rule.
San Marino is a multi-party democratic republic. A new election law in 2008 raised the threshold for small parties entering Parliament, causing political parties to organise themselves into two alliances: the right-wing Pact for San Marino, led by the San Marinese Christian Democratic Party; and the left-wing Reforms and Freedom, led by the Party of Socialists and Democrats, a merger of the Socialist Party of San Marino and the former communist Party of Democrats. The 2008 general election was won by the Pact for San Marino with 35 seats in the Grand and General Council against Reforms and Freedom’s 25.
On 1 October 2007, Mirko Tomassoni was elected as captain regent, making him the first disabled person elected to that office.[50]
San Marino has had more female heads of state than any other country: 15 as of October 2014, including three who served twice. With regard to the legal profession, while the Order of Lawyers and Notaries of the Republic of San Marino (Ordine degli Avvocati e Notai della Repubblica di San Marino) exists, there is no clear indication as to how demographic groups have fared in the legal field.
On 1 April 2022, 58-year-old Paolo Rondelli was elected as one of the two captains regent, its heads of state. He had previously been the Ambassador to the United States and is the world’s first openly gay head of state.[51]
Adolph Sax
Antoine-Joseph “Adolphe” Sax (French: [ɑ̃twan ʒozɛf adɔlf saks]; 6 November 1814 – 4 February 1894)[a] was a Belgian inventor and musician who invented the saxophone in the early 1840s, patenting it in 1846. He also invented the saxotromba, saxhorn and saxtuba. He played the flute and clarinet.
Antoine-Joseph Sax was born on 6 November 1814 in Dinant, in what is now Belgium, to Charles-Joseph Sax and his wife Marie-Joseph (Masson).[1] While his given name was Antoine-Joseph, he was referred to as Adolphe from childhood.[2][3] His father and mother were instrument designers themselves, who made several changes to the design of the French horn. Adolphe began to make his own instruments at an early age, entering two of his flutes and a clarinet into a competition at the age of 15. He subsequently studied performance on those two instruments as well as voice at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels.[2][3]
Sax faced many brushes with death. As a child, he once fell from a height of three floors, hit his head on a stone and was believed dead. At the age of three, he drank a bowl full of acidic water, mistaking it for milk,[4] and later swallowed a pin. He received serious burns from a gunpowder explosion and once fell onto a hot cast-iron frying pan, burning his side. Several times he avoided accidental poisoning and asphyxiation from sleeping in a room where varnished furniture was drying. Another time young Sax was struck on the head by a cobblestone and fell into a river, almost dying.[5]
His mother once said that “he’s a child condemned to misfortune; he won’t live”. His neighbors called him “little Sax, the ghost”.[5]
After leaving the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, Sax began to experiment with new instrument designs, while his parents continued their business of making conventional instruments. Sax’s first important invention was an improvement in bass clarinet design, which he patented at the age of 24.[6] He relocated permanently to Paris in 1842 and began working on a new set of valved bugles. While he did not invent this instrument, his examples were much more successful than those of his rivals and became known as saxhorns. Hector Berlioz was so enamoured of these that he arranged in February 1844 for one of his pieces to be played entirely on saxhorns.[7] They were made in seven different sizes and paved the way for the creation of the flugelhorn. Today saxhorns are sometimes used in concert bands, marching bands, and orchestras. The saxhorn also laid the groundwork for the modern euphonium.[8]
Sax also developed the saxotromba family, valved brass instruments with narrower bore than the saxhorns, in 1845, though they survived only briefly.[2]
The use of saxhorns spread rapidly. The saxhorn valves were accepted as state-of-the-art in their time and remain largely unchanged today. The advances made by Adolphe Sax were soon followed by the British brass band movement, which exclusively adopted the saxhorn family of instruments.[9] A decade after saxhorns became available, the Jedforest Instrumental Band (1854) and The Hawick Saxhorn Band (1855) were formed in the Scottish Borders.[citation needed]
The period around 1840 saw Sax inventing the clarinette-bourdon, an early unsuccessful design of contrabass clarinet. On 28 June 1846 he patented the saxophone, intended for use in orchestras and military bands.[10] By 1846 Sax had designed saxophones ranging from sopranino to subcontrabass, although not all were built. Composer Hector Berlioz wrote approvingly of the new instrument in 1842, but despite his support, saxophones did not become a standard part of the orchestra. Their ability to play technical passages easily like woodwinds yet project loudly like brass instruments led to their inclusion in military bands in France and elsewhere. Sax’s reputation helped secure him a job teaching at the Paris Conservatory in 1857.[11]
He continued to make instruments later in life and presided over the new saxophone course at the Paris Conservatory. Legal troubles involving patents continued for over 20 years, with rival instrument makers attacking the legitimacy of his patents and Sax suing them for patent infringement. He was driven into bankruptcy three times: in 1852, 1873 and 1877.[5]
Sax suffered from lip cancer between 1853 and 1858 but made a full recovery. In 1894 he died of pneumonia in Paris, in poverty,[12] and was interred in section 5 (Avenue de Montebello) at the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris.
Galleon
Galleons were large, multi-decked sailing ships first used as armed cargo carriers by European states from the 16th to 18th centuries during the age of sail and were the principal vessels drafted for use as warships until the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the mid-1600s.[3] Galleons generally carried three or more masts with a lateen fore-and-aft rig on the rear masts, were carvel built with a prominent squared off raised stern, and used square-rigged sail plans on their fore-mast and main-masts.
Such ships were the mainstay of maritime commerce into the early 19th century, and were often drafted into use as auxiliary naval war vessels—indeed, were the mainstay of contending fleets through most of the 150 years of the Age of Exploration—before the Anglo-Dutch wars brought purpose-built ship-rigged warships, ships of the line, that thereafter dominated war at sea during the remainder of the age of sail.
The word galleon ‘large ship’ comes from Old French galion ‘armed ship of burden’ or from (Castilian) Spanish galeón ‘galleon, armed merchant ship’, (perhaps via Italian galeone ‘big galea, big galley’[4]) from Medieval Greek galea ‘galley’, to which the French or Spanish augmentative suffix -on is added.[5] Another possible origin is the Old French word galie ‘galley’;[6] also from Medieval Greek galea.[7] The galea was a warship of the Byzantine navy, and its name may be related to the Greek word galeos ‘dogfish shark’.[8] The term was originally given to certain types of war galleys in the Middle Ages.
The Annali Genovesi mention galleons of 60, 64 and 80 oars, used for battle and on missions of exploration, in the 12th and 13th centuries. It is very likely that the galleons and galliots mentioned in the accounts of the crusades were the same vessels.[citation needed] In the early 16th century, the Venetian galleoni were a new class of galley used to hunt down pirates in the Mediterranean.
Later, when the term started to be applied to sail-only vessels, it meant, like the English term “man-of-war”, any large warship that was otherwise no different from the other sailing ships of the time.[citation needed]
In the beginning of the 16th century, a lowering of the carrack’s forecastle and elongation of the hull gave the ocean-going galleons an unprecedented level of stability in the water, and reduced wind resistance at the front, leading to a faster, more maneuverable vessel. The galleon differed from the older types primarily by being longer, lower and narrower, with a square tuck stern instead of a round tuck, and by having a snout or head projecting forward from the bows below the level of the forecastle. In Portugal at least, Portuguese carracks were usually very large ships for their time (often over 1,000 tons), while galleons were mostly under 500 tons, although the Manila galleons were to reach up to 2,000 tons. With the introduction of the galleon in Portuguese India Armadas during the first quarter of the 16th century,[9][10] carracks’ armament was reduced as they became almost exclusively cargo ships (which is why the Portuguese carracks were pushed to such large sizes), leaving any fighting to be done to the galleons. One of the largest and most famous of Portuguese galleons was the São João Baptista (nicknamed Botafogo, “Spitfire”), a 1,000-ton galleon built in 1534, said to have carried 366 guns.[citation needed]
Carracks also tended to be lightly armed and used for transporting cargo in all the fleets of other Western European states, while galleons were purpose-built warships, and were stronger, more heavily armed, and also cheaper to build (five galleons could cost around the same as three carracks) and were therefore a much better investment for use as warships or transports. There are disputes about its origins and development but each Atlantic sea power built types suited to its needs, while constantly learning from their rivals. It was the captains of the Spanish navy, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and Álvaro de Bazán, who designed the definitive long and relatively narrow hulled galleon for Spain in the 1550s.[11][12]
The galleon was powered entirely by wind, using sails carried on three or four masts, with a lateen sail continuing to be used on the last (usually third and fourth) masts. They were used in both military and trade applications, most famously in the Spanish treasure fleet, and the Manila galleons. While carracks played the leading role in early global explorations, galleons also played a part in the 16th and 17th centuries. In fact, galleons were so versatile that a single vessel might be refitted for wartime and peacetime roles several times during its lifespan. The galleon was the prototype of all square-rigged ships with three or more masts for over two and a half centuries, including the later full-rigged ship.
The principal warships of the opposing English and Spanish fleets in the 1588 confrontation of the Spanish Armada and in the 1589 confrontation of the English Armada were galleons, with the modified English race-built galleons developed by John Hawkins proving their great utility in combat, while the capacious Spanish galleons, designed primarily as transports, showed great endurance in the battles.
Galleons were constructed from oak (for the keel), pine (for the masts) and various hardwoods for hull and decking. Hulls were usually carvel-built. The expenses involved in galleon construction were enormous. Hundreds of expert tradesmen (including carpenters, pitch-melters, blacksmiths, coopers, shipwrights, etc.) worked for months before a galleon was seaworthy. To cover the expense, galleons were often funded by groups of wealthy businessmen who pooled resources for a new ship. Therefore, most galleons were originally consigned for trade, although those captured by rival states were usually put into military service.
The most common gun used aboard a galleon was the demi-culverin, although gun sizes up to demi-cannon were possible.
Because of the long periods often spent at sea and poor conditions on board, many of the crew often perished during the voyage; therefore advanced rigging systems were developed so that the vessel could be sailed home by an active sailing crew a fraction of the size aboard at departure.[citation needed]
Galleons were a class of blue-water sailing ship that combined the easy-to-maneuver fore-and-aft rig of smaller shipping (boats) with the square rig of late middle ages cargo vessels. The galleons solidified the place of the square-rig and the centrally situated tallest main-masts and the slightly shorter fore-masts of a square-rigged ship characteristic of the 16th–19th centuries, but introduced the use of the lateen rig to sail closer to the wind on a tack than could a square-rigged vessel—an important attribute in restricted waters, but more so over long voyages where holding a few compass points closer to the wind might save hundreds of miles and days or weeks of sailing ‘beating into the wind’.
The most distinguishing features of the galleon include the long, prominent beak or beakhead followed by a foremast and mainmast, both noticeably taller than the single or double lateen-rigged mizzenmasts with their sloped lateen-rig yards, and below those the square quarter gallery at the stern. On average with three masts, in larger galleons, a fourth mast was added, usually another lateen-rigged mizzen, called the bonaventure mizzen.
The galleon continued to be used into the 18th century, by which time purpose-built vessels such as the fluyt, the brig and the full-rigged ship, both as a trading vessel and ship of the line, rendered it obsolete for trade and warfare respectively.
Sir Thomas More
Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More,[7][8] was an English lawyer, judge,[9] social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lord High Chancellor of England from October 1529 to May 1532.[10] He wrote Utopia, published in 1516,[11] which describes the political system of an imaginary island state.
More opposed the Protestant Reformation, directing polemics against the theology of Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin and William Tyndale. More also opposed Henry VIII’s separation from the Catholic Church, refusing to acknowledge Henry as supreme head of the Church of England and the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. After refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, he was convicted of treason and executed. On his execution, he was reported to have said: “I die the King’s good servant, and God’s first”.
Pope Pius XI canonised More in 1935 as a martyr. Pope John Paul II in 2000 declared him the patron saint of statesmen and politicians.[12][13][14]
Born on Milk Street in the City of London, on 7 February 1478, Thomas More was the son of Sir John More,[15] a successful lawyer and later a judge,[9] and his wife Agnes (née Graunger). He was the second of six children. More was educated at St. Anthony’s School, then considered one of London’s best schools.[16][17] From 1490 to 1492, More served John Morton, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor of England, as a household page.[18]: xvi
Morton enthusiastically supported the “New Learning” (scholarship which was later known as “humanism” or “London humanism”), and thought highly of the young More. Believing that More had great potential, Morton nominated him for a place at the University of Oxford (either in St. Mary Hall or Canterbury College, both now gone).[19]: 38
More began his studies at Oxford in 1492, and received a classical education. Studying under Thomas Linacre and William Grocyn, he became proficient in both Latin and Greek. More left Oxford after only two years—at his father’s insistence—to begin legal training in London at New Inn, one of the Inns of Chancery.[18]: xvii [20] In 1496, More became a student at Lincoln’s Inn, one of the Inns of Court, where he remained until 1502, when he was called to the Bar.[18]: xvii
According to his friend, the theologian Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, More once seriously contemplated abandoning his legal career to become a monk.[21][22] Between 1503 and 1504 More lived near the Carthusian monastery outside the walls of London and joined in the monks’ spiritual exercises. Although he deeply admired their piety, More ultimately decided to remain a layman, standing for election to Parliament in 1504 and marrying the following year.[18]: xxi
More continued ascetic practices for the rest of his life, such as wearing a hair shirt next to his skin and occasionally engaging in self-flagellation.[18]: xxi A tradition of the Third Order of Saint Francis honours More as a member of that Order on their calendar of saints.[23]
More married Jane Colt in 1505. In that year he leased a portion of a house known as the Old Barge (originally there had been a wharf nearby serving the Walbrook river) on Bucklersbury, St Stephen Walbrook parish, London. Eight years later he took over the rest of the house and in total he lived there for almost 20 years, until his move to Chelsea in 1525.[19]: 118, 271 [24][25] Erasmus reported that More wanted to give his young wife a better education than she had previously received at home, and tutored her in music and literature.[19]: 119 The couple had four children: Margaret, Elizabeth, Cicely, and John. Jane died in 1511.[19]: 132
Going “against friends’ advice and common custom,” within 30 days, More had married one of the many eligible women among his wide circle of friends.[26][27] He chose Alice Middleton, a widow, to head his household and care for his small children.[28] The speed of the marriage was so unusual that More had to get a dispensation from the banns of marriage, which, due to his good public reputation, he easily obtained.[26]
More had no children from his second marriage, although he raised Alice’s daughter from her previous marriage as his own. More also became the guardian of two young girls: Anne Cresacre who would eventually marry his son, John More;[19]: 146 and Margaret Giggs (later Clement) who was the only member of his family to witness his execution (she died on the 35th anniversary of that execution, and her daughter married More’s nephew William Rastell). An affectionate father, More wrote letters to his children whenever he was away on legal or government business, and encouraged them to write to him often.[19]: 150 [29]: xiv
More insisted upon giving his daughters the same classical education as his son, an unusual attitude at the time.[19]: 146–47 His eldest daughter, Margaret, attracted much admiration for her erudition, especially her fluency in Greek and Latin.[19]: 147 More told his daughter of his pride in her academic accomplishments in September 1522, after he showed the bishop a letter she had written:
When he saw from the signature that it was the letter of a lady, his surprise led him to read it more eagerly … he said he would never have believed it to be your work unless I had assured him of the fact, and he began to praise it in the highest terms … for its pure Latinity, its correctness, its erudition, and its expressions of tender affection. He took out at once from his pocket a portague [A Portuguese gold coin] … to send to you as a pledge and token of his good will towards you.[29]: 152
More’s decision to educate his daughters set an example for other noble families. Even Erasmus became much more favourable once he witnessed their accomplishments.[19]: 149
A portrait of More and his family, Sir Thomas More and Family, was painted by Holbein; however, it was lost in a fire in the 18th century. More’s grandson commissioned a copy, of which two versions survive.
In 1504 More was elected to Parliament to represent Great Yarmouth, and in 1510 began representing London.[30]
From 1510, More served as one of the two undersheriffs of the City of London, a position of considerable responsibility in which he earned a reputation as an honest and effective public servant. More became Master of Requests in 1514,[31] the same year in which he was appointed as a Privy Counsellor.[32] After undertaking a diplomatic mission to the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, accompanying Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal Archbishop of York, to Calais and Bruges, More was knighted and made under-treasurer of the Exchequer in 1521.[32]
As secretary and personal adviser to King Henry VIII, More became increasingly influential: welcoming foreign diplomats, drafting official documents, and serving as a liaison between the King and Lord Chancellor Wolsey. More later served as High Steward for the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
In 1523 More was elected as knight of the shire (MP) for Middlesex and, on Wolsey’s recommendation, the House of Commons elected More its Speaker.[32] In 1525 More became Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, with executive and judicial responsibilities over much of northern England.[32]
After Wolsey fell, More succeeded to the office of Lord Chancellor in 1529. He dispatched cases with unprecedented rapidity.
Campaign against the Protestant Reformation
Edit
Sir Thomas More is commemorated with a sculpture at the late-19th-century Sir Thomas More House, Carey Street, London, opposite the Royal Courts of Justice.
More supported the Catholic Church and saw the Protestant Reformation as heresy, a threat to the unity of both church and society. More believed in the theology, argumentation, and ecclesiastical laws of the church, and “heard Luther’s call to destroy the Catholic Church as a call to war.”[33]
His early actions against the Protestant Reformation included aiding Wolsey in preventing Lutheran books from being imported into England, spying on and investigating suspected Protestants,[34] especially publishers, and arresting anyone holding in his possession, transporting, or distributing Bibles and other materials of the Protestant Reformation. Additionally, More vigorously suppressed Tyndale’s English translation of the New Testament.[35]
The Tyndale Bible used controversial translations of certain words that More considered heretical and seditious; for example, “senior” and “elder” rather than “priest” for the Greek presbyteros, and “congregation” instead of “church.”[36] He also pointed out that some of the marginal glosses challenged Catholic doctrine.[37] It was during this time that most of his literary polemics appeared.
Many accounts circulated during and after More’s lifetime regarding persecution of the Protestant “heretics” during his time as Lord Chancellor. The popular sixteenth-century English Protestant historian John Foxe was instrumental in publicising accusations of torture in his Book of Martyrs, claiming that More had often personally used violence or torture while interrogating heretics.[38] Later authors such as Brian Moynahan and Michael Farris cite Foxe when repeating these allegations,[39] although Diarmaid MacCulloch, while acknowledging More’s “relish for burning heretics”, finds no evidence that he was directly involved.[40] During More’s chancellorship, six people were burned at the stake for heresy; they were Thomas Hitton, Thomas Bilney, Richard Bayfield, John Tewkesbury, Thomas Dusgate, and James Bainham.[19]: 299–306 Moynahan argued that More was influential in the burning of Tyndale, as More’s agents had long pursued him, even though this took place over a year after his own death.[41]
Peter Ackroyd also lists claims from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and other post-Reformation sources that More “tied heretics to a tree in his Chelsea garden and whipped them”, that “he watched as ‘newe men’ were put upon the rack in the Tower and tortured until they confessed”, and that “he was personally responsible for the burning of several of the ‘brethren’ in Smithfield.”[19]: 305 Richard Marius records a similar claim, which tells about James Bainham, and writes that “the story Foxe told of Bainham’s whipping and racking at More’s hands is universally doubted today”.[42] More himself denied these allegations:
Stories of a similar nature were current even in More’s lifetime and he denied them forcefully. He admitted that he did imprison heretics in his house – ‘theyr sure kepynge’ – he called it – but he utterly rejected claims of torture and whipping… ‘as help me God.’[19]: 298–299
More instead claimed in his “Apology” (1533) that he only applied corporal punishment to two heretics: a child who was caned in front of his family for heresy regarding the Eucharist, and a “feeble-minded” man who was whipped for disrupting the mass by raising women’s skirts over their heads at the moment of consecration.[43]: 404
Burning at the stake had been a standard punishment for heresy: 30 burnings had taken place in the century before More’s elevation to Chancellor, and burning continued to be used by both Catholics and Protestants during the religious upheaval of the following decades.[44] Ackroyd notes that More zealously “approved of burning”.[19]: 298 Marius maintains that More did everything in his power to bring about the extermination of the Protestant “heretics”.[42]
John Tewkesbury was a London leather seller found guilty by the Bishop of London John Stokesley[45] of harbouring English translated New Testaments; he was sentenced to burning for refusing to recant. More declared: he “burned as there was neuer wretche I wene better worthy.”[46] After Richard Bayfield was also executed for distributing Tyndale’s Bibles, More commented that he was “well and worthely burned”.[19]: 305
Modern commentators are divided over More’s religious actions as Chancellor. Some biographers, including Ackroyd, have taken a relatively tolerant view of More’s campaign against Protestantism by placing his actions within the turbulent religious climate of the time and the threat of deadly catastrophes such as the German Peasants’ Revolt, which More blamed on Luther,[47][48][49] as did many others, such as Erasmus.[50] Others have been more critical, such as Richard Marius, an American scholar of the Reformation, believing that such persecutions were a betrayal of More’s earlier humanist convictions, including More’s zealous and well-documented advocacy of extermination for Protestants.[43]: 386–406
Some Protestants take a different view. In 1980, More was added to the Church of England’s calendar of Saints and Heroes of the Christian Church, despite being a fierce opponent of the English Reformation that created the Church of England. He was added jointly with John Fisher, to be commemorated every 6 July (the date of More’s execution) as “Thomas More, scholar, and John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, Reformation Martyrs, 1535”.[13] Pope John Paul II honoured him by making him patron saint of statesmen and politicians in October 2000, stating: “It can be said that he demonstrated in a singular way the value of a moral conscience … even if, in his actions against heretics, he reflected the limits of the culture of his time”.[12]
Resignation
Edit
As the conflict over supremacy between the Papacy and the King reached its peak, More continued to remain steadfast in supporting the supremacy of the Pope as Successor of Peter over that of the King of England. Parliament’s reinstatement of the charge of praemunire in 1529 had made it a crime to support in public or office the claim of any authority outside the realm (such as the Papacy) to have a legal jurisdiction superior to the King’s.[51]
In 1530, More refused to sign a letter by the leading English churchmen and aristocrats asking Pope Clement VII to annul Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, and also quarrelled with Henry VIII over the heresy laws. In 1531, a royal decree required the clergy to take an oath acknowledging the King as Supreme Head of the Church of England. The bishops at the Convocation of Canterbury in 1532 agreed to sign the Oath but only under threat of praemunire and only after these words were added: “as far as the law of Christ allows”.[52]
This was considered to be the final Submission of the Clergy.[53] Cardinal John Fisher and some other clergy refused to sign. Henry purged most clergy who supported the papal stance from senior positions in the church. More continued to refuse to sign the Oath of Supremacy and did not agree to support the annulment of Henry’s marriage to Catherine.[51] However, he did not openly reject the King’s actions and kept his opinions private.[54]
On 16 May 1532, More resigned from his role as Chancellor but remained in Henry’s favour despite his refusal.[55] His decision to resign was caused by the decision of the convocation of the English Church, which was under intense royal threat, on the day before.[56]
In 1533, More refused to attend the coronation of Anne Boleyn as the Queen of England. Technically, this was not an act of treason, as More had written to Henry seemingly acknowledging Anne’s queenship and expressing his desire for the King’s happiness and the new Queen’s health.[57] Despite this, his refusal to attend was widely interpreted as a snub against Anne, and Henry took action against him.
Shortly thereafter, More was charged with accepting bribes, but the charges had to be dismissed for lack of any evidence. In early 1534, More was accused by Thomas Cromwell of having given advice and counsel to the “Holy Maid of Kent,” Elizabeth Barton, a nun who had prophesied that the king had ruined his soul and would come to a quick end for having divorced Queen Catherine. This was a month after Barton had confessed, which was possibly done under royal pressure,[58][59] and was said to be concealment of treason.[60]
Though it was dangerous for anyone to have anything to do with Barton, More had indeed met her, and was impressed by her fervour. But More was prudent and told her not to interfere with state matters. More was called before a committee of the Privy Council to answer these charges of treason, and after his respectful answers the matter seemed to have been dropped.[61]
On 13 April 1534, More was asked to appear before a commission and swear his allegiance to the parliamentary Act of Succession. More accepted Parliament’s right to declare Anne Boleyn the legitimate Queen of England, though he refused “the spiritual validity of the king’s second marriage”,[62] and, holding fast to the teaching of papal supremacy, he steadfastly refused to take the oath of supremacy of the Crown in the relationship between the kingdom and the church in England. More furthermore publicly refused to uphold Henry’s annulment from Catherine. John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, refused the oath along with More. The oath reads:[63]
…By reason whereof the Bishop of Rome and See Apostolic, contrary to the great and inviolable grants of jurisdictions given by God immediately to emperors, kings and princes in succession to their heirs, hath presumed in times past to invest who should please them to inherit in other men’s kingdoms and dominions, which thing we your most humble subjects, both spiritual and temporal, do most abhor and detest…
In addition to refusing to support the King’s annulment or supremacy, More refused to sign the 1534 Oath of Succession confirming Anne’s role as queen and the rights of their children to succession. More’s fate was sealed.[64][65] While he had no argument with the basic concept of succession as stated in the Act, the preamble of the Oath repudiated the authority of the Pope.[54][66][67]
His enemies had enough evidence to have the King arrest him on treason. Four days later, Henry had More imprisoned in the Tower of London. There More prepared a devotional Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation. While More was imprisoned in the Tower, Thomas Cromwell made several visits, urging More to take the oath, which he continued to refuse.
The site of the scaffold at Tower Hill where More was executed by decapitation
A commemorative plaque at the site of the ancient scaffold at Tower Hill, with Sir Thomas More listed among other notables executed at the site
The charges of high treason related to More’s violating the statutes as to the King’s supremacy (malicious silence) and conspiring with Bishop John Fisher in this respect (malicious conspiracy) and, according to some sources, included asserting that Parliament did not have the right to proclaim the King’s Supremacy over the English Church. One group of scholars believes that the judges dismissed the first two charges (malicious acts) and tried More only on the final one, but others strongly disagree.[51]
Regardless of the specific charges, the indictment related to violation of the Treasons Act 1534 which declared it treason to speak against the King’s Supremacy:[68]
If any person or persons, after the first day of February next coming, do maliciously wish, will or desire, by words or writing, or by craft imagine, invent, practise, or attempt any bodily harm to be done or committed to the king’s most royal person, the queen’s, or their heirs apparent, or to deprive them or any of them of their dignity, title, or name of their royal estates … That then every such person and persons so offending … shall have and suffer such pains of death and other penalties, as is limited and accustomed in cases of high treason.[69]
The trial was held on 1 July 1535, before a panel of judges that included the new Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas Audley, as well as Anne Boleyn’s uncle, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, her father Thomas Boleyn and her brother George Boleyn. Norfolk offered More the chance of the king’s “gracious pardon” should he “reform his […] obstinate opinion”. More responded that, although he had not taken the oath, he had never spoken out against it either and that his silence could be accepted as his “ratification and confirmation” of the new statutes.[70]
Thus More was relying upon legal precedent and the maxim “qui tacet consentire videtur” (“one who keeps silent seems to consent”[71]), understanding that he could not be convicted as long as he did not explicitly deny that the King was Supreme Head of the Church, and he therefore refused to answer all questions regarding his opinions on the subject.[72]
William Frederick Yeames, The meeting of Sir Thomas More with his daughter after his sentence of death, 1872
Thomas Cromwell, at the time the most powerful of the King’s advisors, brought forth Solicitor General Richard Rich to testify that More had, in his presence, denied that the King was the legitimate head of the Church. This testimony was characterised by More as being extremely dubious. Witnesses Richard Southwell and Mr. Palmer (a servant to Southwell) were also present and both denied having heard the details of the reported conversation.[73] As More himself pointed out:
Can it therefore seem likely to your Lordships, that I should in so weighty an Affair as this, act so unadvisedly, as to trust Mr. Rich, a Man I had always so mean an Opinion of, in reference to his Truth and Honesty, … that I should only impart to Mr. Rich the Secrets of my Conscience in respect to the King’s Supremacy, the particular Secrets, and only Point about which I have been so long pressed to explain my self? which I never did, nor never would reveal; when the Act was once made, either to the King himself, or any of his Privy Councillors, as is well known to your Honours, who have been sent upon no other account at several times by his Majesty to me in the Tower. I refer it to your Judgments, my Lords, whether this can seem credible to any of your Lordships.[74]
Beheading of Thomas More, 1870 illustration
The jury took only fifteen minutes, however, to find More guilty.
After the jury’s verdict was delivered and before his sentencing, More spoke freely of his belief that “no temporal man may be the head of the spirituality” (take over the role of the Pope). According to William Roper’s account, More was pleading that the Statute of Supremacy was contrary to the Magna Carta, to Church laws and to the laws of England, attempting to void the entire indictment against him.[51] He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered (the usual punishment for traitors who were not the nobility), but the King commuted this to execution by decapitation.[75]
The execution took place on 6 July 1535 at Tower Hill. When he came to mount the steps to the scaffold, its frame seeming so weak that it might collapse,[76][77] More is widely quoted as saying (to one of the officials): “I pray you, master Lieutenant, see me safe up and [for] my coming down, let me shift for my self”;[78] while on the scaffold he declared “that he died the king’s good servant, and God’s first.”[79][80][81] After More had finished reciting the Miserere while kneeling,[82][83] the executioner reportedly begged his pardon, then More rose up merrily, kissed him and gave him forgiveness.[84][85][86][87]
Relics
Edit
Sir Thomas More family’s vault
Another comment he is believed to have made to the executioner is that his beard was completely innocent of any crime, and did not deserve the axe; he then positioned his beard so that it would not be harmed.[88] More asked that his foster/adopted daughter Margaret Clement (née Giggs) be given his headless corpse to bury.[89] She was the only member of his family to witness his execution. He was buried at the Tower of London, in the chapel of St Peter ad Vincula in an unmarked grave. His head was fixed upon a pike over London Bridge for a month, according to the normal custom for traitors.
More’s daughter Margaret later rescued the severed head.[90] It is believed to rest in the Roper Vault of St Dunstan’s Church, Canterbury,[91] perhaps with the remains of Margaret and her husband’s family.[92] Some have claimed that the head is buried within the tomb erected for More in Chelsea Old Church.[93]
Among other surviving relics is his hair shirt, presented for safe keeping by Margaret Clement.[94] This was long in the custody of the community of Augustinian canonesses who until 1983 lived at the convent at Abbotskerswell Priory, Devon. Some sources, including one from 2004, claimed that the shirt, made of goat hair was then at the Martyr’s church on the Weld family’s estate in Chideock, Dorset.[95][96] It is now preserved at Buckfast Abbey, near Buckfastleigh in Devon.[97][98]
Rosary Beads
The Rosary[1] (/ˈroʊzəri/; Latin: rosarium, in the sense of “crown of roses” or “garland of roses”),[2] also known as the Dominican Rosary,[3][4] or simply the Rosary, refers to a set of prayers used primarily in the Catholic Church, and to the physical string of knots or beads used to count the component prayers. When referring to the prayer, the word is usually capitalized (“the Rosary”, as is customary for other names of prayers, such as “the Lord’s Prayer”, and “the Hail Mary”); when referring to the prayer beads as an object, it is written with a lower-case initial letter (e.g. “a rosary bead”).
The prayers that compose the Rosary are arranged in sets of ten Hail Marys, called “decades”. Each decade is preceded by one Lord’s Prayer (“Our Father”), and traditionally followed by one Glory Be. Some Catholics also recite the “O my Jesus” prayer after the Glory Be; it is the best-known of the seven Fátima prayers that appeared in the early 20th century. Rosary prayer beads are an aid for saying these prayers in their proper sequence.
Usually, five decades are recited in a session. Each decade provides an opportunity to meditate on one of the Mysteries of the Rosary, which recall events in the lives of Jesus Christ and his mother Mary.
In the 16th century Pope Pius V established a standard 15 Mysteries of the Rosary, based on long-standing custom. This groups the mysteries in three sets: the Joyful Mysteries, the Sorrowful Mysteries, and the Glorious Mysteries. In 2002, Pope John Paul II said it is fitting that a new set of five be added, termed the Luminous Mysteries, bringing the total number of mysteries to 20. The mysteries are prayed on specific days of the week; with the addition of the Luminous Mysteries on Thursday, the others are the Glorious on Sunday and Wednesday, the Joyful on Monday and Saturday, and the Sorrowful on Tuesday and Friday.
Over more than four centuries, several popes have promoted the Rosary as part of the veneration of Mary in the Catholic Church,[5] and consisting essentially in meditation on the life of Christ.[6] The rosary also represents the Catholic emphasis on “participation in the life of Mary, whose focus was Christ”, and the Mariological theme “to Christ through Mary”.[7]
Rosary beads provide a physical method of keeping count of the number of Hail Marys said as the mysteries are contemplated.[8] By not having to keep track of the count mentally, the mind is free to meditate on the mysteries. A five-decade rosary contains five groups of ten beads (a “decade”), with additional large beads before each decade.[52] The Hail Mary is said on the ten beads within a decade, while the Lord’s Prayer is said on the large bead before each decade. A new mystery meditation commences at each of the large beads. Some rosaries, particularly those used by religious orders, contain fifteen decades, corresponding to the traditional fifteen mysteries of. Both five- and fifteen-decade rosaries are attached to a shorter strand, which starts with a crucifix, followed by one large bead, three small beads, and one large bead, before connecting to the rest of the rosary.[8] A five-decade rosary consists of a “total” of 59 beads.[53]
Although counting the prayers on a string of beads is customary, the prayers of the Rosary do not require beads, but can be said using any type of counting device, by counting on the fingers, or by counting mentally.[8]
Single-decade rosaries
Edit
A single-decade rosary
Single-decade rosaries can also be used: the devotee counts the same ring of ten beads repeatedly for every decade. During religious conflict in 16th- and 17th-century Ireland severe legal penalties were prescribed against practising Catholics. Small, easily hidden rosaries were thus used to avoid identification and became known as Irish penal rosaries.[8] Sometimes rather than a cross, other symbols of specific meanings were used: a hammer to signify the nails of the cross, cords to represent the scourging, a chalice to recall the Last Supper, or a crowing rooster signifying the denial of Peter.
Materials and distribution
Edit
A Saint Michael Chaplet
The beads can be made from any materials, including wood, bone, glass, crushed flowers, semi-precious stones such as agate, jet, amber, or jasper, or precious materials including coral, crystal, silver, and gold. Beads may be made to include enclosed sacred relics or drops of holy water. Rosaries are sometimes made from the seeds of the “rosary pea” or “bead tree.” Today, the vast majority of rosary beads are made of glass, plastic, or wood. It is common for beads to be made of material with some special significance, such as jet from the shrine of Saint James the Greater at Santiago de Compostela, or olive seeds from the Garden of Gethsemane. In rare cases, beads are made of expensive materials, from gold and silver, to mother of pearl and Swarovski black diamonds. Early rosaries were strung on thread, often silk, but modern ones are more often made as a series of chain-linked beads. Most rosaries used in the world today have simple and inexpensive plastic or wooden beads connected by cords or strings. Italy has a strong manufacturing presence in medium- and high-cost rosaries.
There are a number of rosary-making clubs around the world that make and distribute rosaries to missions, hospitals, prisons, etc. free of charge. Our Lady’s Rosary Makers produce some 7 million rosaries annually that are distributed to those deemed to be in economic and spiritual need.[54]
Wearing the rosary
Edit
Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort encouraged Christians to also wear the rosary beads, stating that doing so “eased him considerably.”[55] Many religious orders wear the rosary as part of their habit. A rosary hanging from the belt often forms part of the Carthusian habit.[56]
Canon Law §1171 provides that sacred objects, which are designated for divine worship by dedication or blessing, are to be treated reverently and are not to be employed for profane or inappropriate use even if they are owned by private persons.[57] As such, according to Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum University:
If the reason for wearing a rosary is as a statement of faith, as a reminder to pray it, or some similar reason “to the glory of God,” then there is nothing to object to. It would not be respectful to wear it merely as jewelry. This latter point is something to bear in mind in the case of wearing a rosary around the neck. In the first place, while not unknown, it is not common Catholic practice. … While a Catholic may wear a rosary around the neck for a good purpose, he or she should consider if the practice will be positively understood in the cultural context in which the person moves. If any misunderstanding is likely, then it would be better to avoid the practice … Similar reasoning is observed in dealing with rosary bracelets and rings, although in this case there is far less danger of confusion as to meaning. They are never mere jewelry but are worn as a sign of faith.[58]
A 2022 opinion piece in The Atlantic linked Catholic rosary beads to Christian nationalism, radical traditional Catholicism and “extremist” right wing movements in the United States.[59][60] The article raised concerns of anti-Catholic sentiment[61] and disrespecting people of faith.[62]
Single-decade rosary ring
A rosary ring, also known as a “Basque rosary,” is a finger ring with eleven knobs on it, ten round ones and one crucifix, representing one decade of a rosary. These and other kinds of religious rings were especially popular during the 15th and the 16th centuries.[63] These rosary rings have been given to some Catholic nuns at the time of their solemn profession.[64]
A rosary bracelet is one with ten beads and often a cross or medal. Another form is the rosary card. A rosary card is either one with a “handle” that moves like a slide rule to count the decade, or it has a whole rosary with bumps similar to Braille and ancient counting systems. Some households that cannot afford Christian artwork or a crucifix simply hang up a rosary as a focal point for prayer.[65] In addition, many Christians hang rosaries from the rear-view mirror of their automobiles as a witness of their faith and protection as they drive.[66]
Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky[a] ComSE (17 June [O.S. 5 June] 1882 – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernist music.
Stravinsky’s compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. He first achieved international fame with three ballets commissioned by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev and first performed in Paris by Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913). The last transformed the way in which subsequent composers thought about rhythmic structure and was largely responsible for Stravinsky’s enduring reputation as a revolutionary who pushed the boundaries of musical design. His “Russian phase”, which continued with works such as Renard, L’Histoire du soldat, and Les noces, was followed in the 1920s by a period in which he turned to neoclassicism. The works from this period tended to make use of traditional musical forms (concerto grosso, fugue, and symphony) and drew from earlier styles, especially those of the 18th century. In the 1950s, Stravinsky adopted serial procedures. His compositions of this period shared traits with examples of his earlier output: rhythmic energy, the construction of extended melodic ideas out of a few two- or three-note cells, and clarity of form and instrumentation.
Early life, 1882–1901
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Stravinsky was born on 17 June 1882 in the town of Oranienbaum on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland, 25 mi (40 km) west of Saint Petersburg.[2][3] His father, Fyodor Ignatievich Stravinsky (1843–1902), was an established bass opera singer in the Kiev Opera and the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg and his mother, Anna Kirillovna Stravinskaya (née Kholodovskaya; 1854–1939), a native of Kiev, was one of four daughters of a high-ranking official in the Kiev Ministry of Estates. Igor was the third of their four sons; his brothers were Roman, Yury, and Gury.[4] The Stravinsky family was of Polish and Russian heritage,[5] descended “from a long line of Polish grandees, senators and landowners”.[6] It is traceable to the 17th and 18th centuries to the bearers of the Sulima and Strawiński coat of arms. The original family surname was Sulima-Strawiński; the name “Stravinsky” originated from the word “Strava”, one of the variants of the Streva River in Lithuania.[7][8]
house of Igor Stravinsky
Stravinsky’s house in Ustilug, now a museum
On 10 August 1882, Stravinsky was baptised at Nikolsky Cathedral in Saint Petersburg.[4] Until 1914, he spent most of his summers in the town of Ustilug, now in Ukraine, where his father-in-law owned an estate.[9][10] Stravinsky’s first school was The Second Saint Petersburg Gymnasium, where he stayed until his mid-teens. Then he moved to Gourevitch Gymnasium, a private school, where he studied history, mathematics, and languages (Latin, Greek, and Slavonic; and French, German, and his native Russian).[11] Stravinsky expressed his general distaste for schooling and recalled being a lonely pupil: “I never came across anyone who had any real attraction for me.”[12]
Stravinsky took to music at an early age and began regular piano lessons at age nine, followed by tuition in music theory and composition.[13] At around eight years old, he attended a performance of Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Sleeping Beauty at the Mariinsky Theatre, which began a lifelong interest in ballets and the composer himself. By age fifteen, Stravinsky had mastered Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and finished a piano reduction of a string quartet by Alexander Glazunov, who reportedly considered Stravinsky unmusical and thought little of his skills.[14]
Education and first compositions, 1901–1909
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Stravinsky in 1903, age 21
Despite Stravinsky’s enthusiasm and ability in music, his parents expected him to study law, and he at first took to the subject. In 1901, he enrolled at the University of Saint Petersburg, studying criminal law and legal philosophy, but attendance at lectures was optional and he estimated that he turned up to fewer than fifty classes in his four years of study.[15] In 1902, Stravinsky met Vladimir, a fellow student at the University of Saint Petersburg and the youngest son of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Rimsky-Korsakov at that time was arguably the leading Russian composer, and he was a professor at Saint Petersburg Conservatory of Music. Stravinsky wished to meet Vladimir’s father to discuss his musical aspirations. He spent the summer of 1902 with Rimsky-Korsakov and his family in Heidelberg, Germany. Rimsky-Korsakov suggested to Stravinsky that he should not enter the Saint Petersburg Conservatory but continue private lessons in theory. [16]
By the time of his father’s death from cancer in 1902, Stravinsky was spending more time studying music than law.[17] His decision to pursue music full time was helped when the university was closed for two months in 1905 in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday, which prevented him from taking his final law exams. In April 1906, Stravinsky received a half-course diploma and concentrated on music thereafter.[18][19] In 1905, he began studying with Rimsky-Korsakov twice a week and came to regard him as a second father.[15] These lessons continued until Rimsky-Korsakov’s death in 1908.[20] Stravinsky completed his first composition during this time, the Symphony in E-flat, catalogued as Opus 1. In the wake of Rimsky-Korsakov’s death, Stravinsky composed Funeral Song, Op. 5 which was performed once and then considered lost until its re-discovery in 2015.[21]
In August 1905, Stravinsky became engaged to his first cousin, Katherina Gavrylovna Nosenko.[10] In spite of the Orthodox Church’s opposition to marriage between first cousins, the couple married on 23 January 1906. They lived in the family’s residence at 6 Kryukov Canal in Saint Petersburg before they moved into a new home in Ustilug, which Stravinsky designed and built, and which he later called his “heavenly place”. He wrote many of his first compositions there.[22][23] It is now a museum with documents, letters, and photographs on display, and an annual Stravinsky Festival takes place in the nearby town of Lutsk.[24][25] Stravinsky and Nosenko’s first two children, Fyodor (Theodore) and Ludmila, were born in 1907 and 1908, respectively.[26]
Ballets for Diaghilev and international fame, 1909–1920
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Sergei Diaghilev in a 1906 painting by Léon Bakst
By 1909, Stravinsky had composed two more pieces, Scherzo fantastique, Op. 3, and Feu d’artifice (“Fireworks”), Op. 4. In February of that year, both were performed in Saint Petersburg at a concert that marked a turning point in Stravinsky’s career. In the audience was Sergei Diaghilev, a Russian impresario and owner of the Ballets Russes who was struck with Stravinsky’s compositions. He wished to stage a mix of Russian opera and ballet for the 1910 season in Paris, among them a new ballet from fresh talent that was based on the Russian fairytale of the Firebird.[27] After Anatoly Lyadov was given the task of composing the score, he informed Diaghilev that he needed about one year to complete it.[28] Diaghilev then asked the 28-year-old Stravinsky, who had provided satisfactory orchestrations for him for the previous season at short notice and agreed to compose a full score.[27] At about 50 minutes in length, The Firebird was revised by Stravinsky for concert performance in 1911, 1919, and 1945.
The Firebird premiered at the Opera de Paris on 25 June 1910 to widespread critical acclaim and Stravinsky became an overnight sensation.[29][30][31] As his wife was expecting their third child, the Stravinskys spent the summer in La Baule in western France. In September, they moved to Clarens, Switzerland where their second son, Sviatoslav (Soulima), was born.[32] The family would spend their summers in Russia and winters in Switzerland until 1914.[33] Diaghilev commissioned Stravinsky to score a second ballet for the 1911 Paris season. The result was Petrushka, based the Russian folk tale featuring the titular character, a puppet, who falls in love with another, a ballerina. Though it failed to capture the immediate reception that The Firebird had following its premiere at Théâtre du Châtelet in June 1911, the production continued Stravinsky’s success.
It was Stravinsky’s third ballet for Diaghilev, The Rite of Spring, that caused a sensation among critics, fellow composers, and concertgoers. Based on an original idea offered to Stravinsky by Nicholas Roerich, the production features a series of primitive rituals celebrating the advent of spring, after which a young girl is chosen as a sacrificial victim to the sun god Yarilo, and dances herself to death. Stravinsky’s score contained many novel features for its time, including experiments in tonality, metre, rhythm, stress and dissonance. The radical nature of the music and choreography caused a near-riot at its premiere at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on 29 May 1913.[34][35]
Shortly after the premiere, Stravinsky contracted typhoid from eating bad oysters and he was confined to a Paris nursing home. He left in July 1913 and returned to Ustilug.[36] For the rest of the summer he focused on his first opera, The Nightingale (Le Rossignol), based on the same-titled story by Hans Christian Andersen, which he had started in 1908.[37] On 15 January 1914, Stravinsky and Nosenko had their fourth child, Marie Milène (or Maria Milena). After her delivery, Nosenko was discovered to have tuberculosis and was confined to a sanatorium in Leysin in the Alps. Stravinsky took up residence nearby, where he completed The Nightingale.[38][39] The work premiered in Paris in May 1914, after the Moscow Free Theatre had commissioned the piece for 10,000 roubles but soon became bankrupt. Diaghilev agreed for the Ballets Russes to stage it.[40][41][42] The opera had only lukewarm success with the public and the critics, apparently because its delicacy did not meet their expectations following the tumultuous Rite of Spring.[39] However, composers including Ravel, Bartók, and Reynaldo Hahn found much to admire in the score’s craftsmanship, even alleging to detect the influence of Arnold Schoenberg.[43]
Group of supporters and members of the Ballets Russes in April 1911, Cote d’Azur (left to right: Aleksandra Khokhlova (née Botkina), Pavel Koribut-Kubitovich, Tamara Karsavina, Vaslav Nijinsky, Igor Stravinsky, Alexandre Benois, Sergei Diaghilev, Anastasia Notthaft (née Botkina), sit. E.Oblakova. Ph.by Alexandra Botkina (née Tretyakova))
In April 1914, Stravinsky and his family returned to Clarens.[40] Following the outbreak of World War I later that year, he was ineligible for military service due to health reasons.[33] Stravinsky managed a short visit to Ustilug to retrieve personal items just before national borders were closed.[44] In June 1915, he and his family moved from Clarens to Morges, a town six miles from Lausanne on the shore of Lake Geneva. The family lived there (at three different addresses), until 1920.[45] In December 1915, Stravinsky made his conducting debut at two concerts in aid of the Red Cross with The Firebird.[46] The war and subsequent Russian Revolution in 1917 made it impossible for Stravinsky to return to his homeland.[47]
Stravinsky began to struggle financially in the late 1910s as Russia (and its successor, the USSR) did not adhere to the Berne Convention, thus creating problems for Stravinsky to collect royalties for the performances of his pieces for the Ballets Russes.[48] He blamed Diaghilev for his financial troubles, accusing the impresario of failing to adhere to their contract.[17] While composing his theatrical piece L’Histoire du soldat (The Soldier’s Tale), Stravinsky approached Swiss philanthropist Werner Reinhart for financial assistance, who agreed to sponsor him and largely underwrite its first performance which took place in Lausanne in September 1918.[49] In gratitude, Stravinsky dedicated the work to Reinhart and gave him the original manuscript.[50] Reinhart supported Stravinsky further when he funded a series of concerts of his chamber music in 1919.[51][52] In gratitude to his benefactor, Stravinsky also dedicated his Three Pieces for Clarinet to Reinhart, who was also an amateur clarinetist.[53]
Following the premiere of Pulcinella by the Ballets Russes in Paris on 15 May 1920, Stravinsky returned to Switzerland.[54]
Life in France, 1920–1939
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Stravinsky as drawn by Picasso in 1920
In June 1920, Stravinsky and his family left Switzerland for France, first settling in Carantec, Brittany for the summer while they sought a permanent home in Paris.[55][56] They soon heard from couturière Coco Chanel, who invited the family to live in her Paris mansion until they had found their own residence. The Stravinskys accepted and arrived in September.[57] Chanel helped secure a guarantee for a revival production of The Rite of Spring by the Ballets Russes from December 1920 with an anonymous gift to Diaghilev that was claimed to be worth 300,000 francs.[58]
In 1920, Stravinsky signed a contract with the French piano manufacturing company Pleyel. As part of the deal, Stravinsky transcribed most of his compositions for their player piano, the Pleyela. The company helped collect Stravinsky’s mechanical royalties for his works and provided him with a monthly income. In 1921, he was given studio space at their Paris headquarters where he worked and entertained friends and acquaintances.[59][60][61] The piano rolls were not recorded, but were instead marked up from a combination of manuscript fragments and handwritten notes by Jacques Larmanjat, musical director of Pleyel’s roll department. During the 1920s, Stravinsky recorded Duo-Art piano rolls for the Aeolian Company in London and New York City, not all of which have survived.[62]
Stravinsky’s second wife, Vera de Bosset, in 1921 by Serge Sudeikin
Stravinsky met Vera de Bosset in Paris in February 1921,[63] while she was married to the painter and stage designer Serge Sudeikin, and they began an affair that led to de Bosset leaving her husband.[64]
In May 1921, Stravinsky and his family moved to Anglet, a town close to the Spanish border.[65] Their stay was short-lived as by the autumn, they had settled to nearby Biarritz and Stravinsky completed his Trois mouvements de Petrouchka, a piano transcription of excerpts from Petrushka for Artur Rubinstein. Diaghilev then requested orchestrations for a revival production of Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Sleeping Beauty.[66] From then until his wife’s death in 1939, Stravinsky led a double life, dividing his time between his family in Anglet, and Vera in Paris and on tour.[67] Katya reportedly bore her husband’s infidelity “with a mixture of magnanimity, bitterness, and compassion”.[68]
In June 1923, Stravinsky’s ballet Les noces (The Wedding) premiered in Paris and performed by the Ballets Russes.[69] In the following month, he started to receive money from an anonymous patron from the US who insisted to remain anonymous and only identified themselves as “Madame”. They promised to send him $6,000 in the course of three years, and sent Stravinsky an initial cheque for $1,000. Despite some payments not being sent, Robert Craft believed that the patron was famed conductor Leopold Stokowski, whom Stravinsky had recently met, and theorised that the conductor wanted to win Stravinsky over to visit the US.[69][70]
In September 1924, Stravinsky bought a new home in Nice.[71] Here, the composer re-evaluated his religious beliefs and reconnected with his Christian faith with help from a Russian priest, Father Nicholas.[72] He also thought of his future, and used the experience of conducting the premiere of his Octet at one of Serge Koussevitzky’s concerts the year before to build on his career as a conductor. Koussevitzky asked for Stravinsky to compose a new piece for one of his upcoming concerts; Stravinsky agreed to a piano concerto, to which Koussevitzky convinced him that he be the soloist at its premiere. Stravinsky agreed, and the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments was first performed in May 1924.[73] The piece was a success, and Stravinsky secured himself the rights to exclusively perform the work for the next five years.[74] Following a European tour through the latter half of 1924, Stravinsky completed his first US tour in early 1925 which spanned two months.[74] It opened with Stravinsky conducting an all-Stravinsky program at Carnegie Hall.[75] He visited Catalonia six times, and the first time, in 1924, after holding three concerts with the Pau Casals Orchestra at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, he stated: “Barcelona will be unforgettable for me. What I liked most was the cathedral and the sardanas”.[76]
In May 1927, Stravinsky’s opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex premiered in Paris. The funding of its production was largely provided by Winnaretta Singer, Princesse Edmond de Polignac, who paid 12,000 francs for a private preview of the piece at her house. Stravinsky gave the money to Diaghilev to help finance the public performances. The premiere received a reaction,[clarification needed] which irked Stravinsky, who had started to become annoyed at the public’s fixation towards his early ballets.[77] In the summer of 1927 Stravinsky received a commission from Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, his first from the US. A wealthy patroness of music, Coolidge requested a thirty-minute ballet score for a festival to be held at the Library of Congress, for a $1,000 fee. Stravinsky accepted and wrote Apollo, which premiered in 1928.[78]
From 1931 to 1933, the Stravinskys lived in Voreppe, a commune near Grenoble in southeastern France.[79] In June 1934, the couple acquired French citizenship. Later in that year, they left Voreppe to live on rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris, where they stayed for five years.[80][81] The composer used his citizenship to publish his memoirs in French, entitled Chroniques de ma Vie in 1935, and underwent a US tour with Samuel Dushkin. His only composition of that year was the Concerto for Two Solo Pianos, which was written for himself and his son Soulima using a special double piano that Pleyel had built. The pair completed a tour of Europe and South America in 1936.[80] In April 1937 in New York City he directed his three-part ballet Jeu de cartes, itself a commission for Lincoln Kirstein’s ballet company with choreography by George Balanchine.[82] Stravinsky later remembered this last European address as his unhappiest. Upon his return to Europe, Stravinsky left Paris for Annemasse near the Swiss border to be near his family, after his wife and daughters Ludmila and Milena had contracted tuberculosis and were in a sanatorium. Ludmila died in late 1938, followed by his wife of 33 years, in March 1939.[83] Stravinsky himself spent five months in hospital at Sancellemoz, during which time his mother also died.[84]
During his later years in Paris, Stravinsky had developed professional relationships with key people in the United States: he was already working on his Symphony in C for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra[85] and he had agreed to accept the Charles Eliot Norton Chair of Poetry of 1939–1940 at Harvard University and while there, deliver six lectures on music as part of the prestigious Charles Eliot Norton Lectures.[86][87]
Life in the United States, 1939–1971
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Early US years, 1939–1945
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Famous photograph of Stravinsky at a grand piano by Arnold Newman
Stravinsky arrived in New York City on 30 September 1939 and headed for Cambridge, Massachusetts to fulfill his engagements at Harvard. During his first two months in the US, Stravinsky stayed at Gerry’s Landing, the home of art historian Edward W. Forbes.[88] Vera arrived in January 1940 and the couple married on 9 March in Bedford, Massachusetts. After a period of travel, the two moved into a home in Beverly Hills, California before they settled in Hollywood from 1941. Stravinsky felt the warmer Californian climate would benefit his health.[89] Stravinsky had adapted to life in France, but moving to America at the age of 58 was a very different prospect. For a while, he maintained a circle of contacts and émigré friends from Russia, but he eventually found that this did not sustain his intellectual and professional life. He was drawn to the growing cultural life of Los Angeles, especially during World War II, when writers, musicians, composers, and conductors settled in the area. Music critic Bernard Holland claimed Stravinsky was especially fond of British writers, who visited him in Beverly Hills, “like W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Dylan Thomas. They shared the composer’s taste for hard spirits – especially Aldous Huxley, with whom Stravinsky spoke in French.”[90] Stravinsky and Huxley had a tradition of Saturday lunches for west coast avant-garde and luminaries.[91]
In 1940, Stravinsky completed his Symphony in C and conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at its premiere later that year.[92] It was at this time when Stravinsky began to associate himself with film music; the first major film to use his music was Walt Disney’s animated feature Fantasia (1940) which includes parts of The Rite of Spring rearranged by Leopold Stokowski to a segment depicting the history of Earth and the age of dinosaurs.[93] Orson Welles urged Stravinsky to write the score for Jane Eyre (1943), but negotiations broke down; a piece used in one of the film’s hunting scenes was used in Stravinsky’s orchestral work Ode (1943). An offer to score The Song of Bernadette (1943) also fell through; Stravinsky deemed the terms fell into the producer’s favour. Music he had written for the film was later used in his Symphony in Three Movements.[93]
Stravinsky’s unconventional dominant seventh chord in his arrangement of the “Star-Spangled Banner” led to an incident with the Boston police on 15 January 1944, and he was warned that the authorities could impose a $100 fine upon any “re-arrangement of the national anthem in whole or in part”.[94] The police, as it turned out, were wrong. The law in question merely forbade using the national anthem “as dance music, as an exit march, or as a part of a medley of any kind”,[95] but the incident soon established itself as a myth, in which Stravinsky was supposedly arrested, held in custody for several nights, and photographed for police records.[96]
On 28 December 1945, Stravinsky and his wife Vera became naturalized US citizens.[97] Their sponsor and witness was actor Edward G. Robinson.[98]
Last major works, 1945–1966
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Stravinsky on the cover of Time in 1948
Stravinsky during a 1962 visit to Israel. Boris Carmi, Meitar Collection, National Library of Israel
Stravinsky during a 1962 visit to Israel
On the same day Stravinsky became an American citizen, he arranged for Boosey & Hawkes to publish rearrangements of several of his compositions and used his newly acquired American citizenship to secure a copyright on the material, thus allowing him to earn money from them.[99] The five-year contract was finalised and signed in January 1947 which included a guarantee of $10,000 per for the first two years, then $12,000 for the remaining three.[100]
In late 1945, Stravinsky received a commission from Europe, his first since Perséphone, in the form of a string piece for the 20th anniversary for Paul Sacher’s Basle Chamber Orchestra. The Concerto in D premiered in 1947.[101] In January 1946, Stravinsky conducted the premiere of his Symphony in Three Movements at Carnegie Hall in New York City. It marked his first premiere in the US.[102] In 1947, Stravinsky was inspired to write his English-language opera The Rake’s Progress by a visit to a Chicago exhibition of the same-titled series of paintings by the eighteenth-century British artist William Hogarth, which tells the story of a fashionable wastrel descending into ruin. Auden and writer Chester Kallman worked on the libretto. The opera premiered in 1951 and marks the final work of Stravinsky’s neoclassical period.[103] While composing The Rake’s Progress, Stravinsky befriended Robert Craft, who became his personal assistant and close friend and encouraged the composer to write serial music. This began Stravinsky’s third and final distinct musical period which lasted until his death.[104]
In 1953, Stravinsky agreed to compose a new opera with a libretto by Dylan Thomas, which detailed the recreation of the world after one man and one woman remained on Earth after a nuclear disaster. Development on the project came to a sudden end following Thomas’s death in November of that year. Stravinsky completed In Memorian Dylan Thomas, a piece for tenor, string quartet, and four trombones, in 1954.[105]
In 1961, Igor and Vera Stravinsky and Robert Craft traveled to London, Zürich and Cairo on their way to Australia where Stravinsky and Craft conducted all-Stravinsky concerts in Sydney and Melbourne. They returned to California via New Zealand, Tahiti, and Mexico.[106][107] In January 1962, during his tour’s stop in Washington, D.C., Stravinsky attended a dinner at the White House with President John F. Kennedy in honour of his eightieth birthday, where he received a special medal for “the recognition his music has achieved throughout the world”.[108][109] In September 1962, Stravinsky returned to Russia for the first time since 1914, accepting an invitation from the Union of Soviet Composers to conduct six performances in Moscow and Leningrad. During the three-week visit he met with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and several leading Soviet composers, including Dmitri Shostakovich and Aram Khachaturian.[110][111] Stravinsky did not return to his Hollywood home until December 1962 in what was almost eight months of continual travelling.[112] Following the assassination of Kennedy in 1963, Stravinsky completed his Elegy for J.F.K. in the following year. The two-minute work took the composer two days to write.[113]
By early 1964, the long periods of travel had started to affect Stravinsky’s health. His case of polycythemia had worsened and his friends had noticed that his movements and speech had slowed.[113] In 1965, Stravinsky agreed to have David Oppenheim produce a documentary film about himself for the CBS network. It involved a film crew following the composer at home and on tour that year, and he was paid $10,000 for the production.[114] The documentary includes Stravinsky’s visit to Les Tilleuls, the house in Clarens, Switzerland, where he wrote the majority of The Rite of Spring. The crew asked Soviet authorities for permission to film Stravinsky returning to his hometown of Ustilug, but the request was denied.[115] In 1966, Stravinsky completed his last major work, the Requiem Canticles.[116]
Final years and death, 1967–1971
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In February 1967, Stravinsky and Craft directed their own concert in Miami, Florida, the composer’s first in that state. By this time, Stravinsky’s typical performance fee had grown to $10,000. However subsequently, upon doctor’s orders, offers to perform that required him to fly were generally declined.[117] An exception to this was a concert at Massey Hall in Toronto, Canada in May 1967, where he conducted the relatively physically undemanding Pulcinella suite with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He had become increasingly frail and for the only time in his career, Stravinsky conducted while sitting down. It was his final performance as conductor in his lifetime.[118] While backstage at the venue, Stravinsky informed Craft that he believed he had suffered a stroke.[117] In August 1967, Stravinsky was hospitalised in Hollywood for bleeding stomach ulcers and thrombosis which required a blood transfusion. In his diary, Craft wrote that he spoon-fed the ailing composer and held his hand: “He says the warmth diminishes the pain.”[119]
By 1968, Stravinsky had recovered enough to resume touring across the US with him in the audience while Craft took to the conductor’s post for the majority of the concerts.[120] In May 1968, Stravinsky completed the piano arrangement of two songs by Austrian composer Hugo Wolf for a small orchestra.[120] In October Stravinsky, Vera, and Craft travelled to Zurich, Switzerland to sort out business matters with Stravinsky’s family. While there, Stravinsky’s son Theodore held the manuscript of The Rite of Spring while Stravinsky signed it before giving it to Vera.[121] The three considered relocating to Switzerland as they had become increasingly less fond of Hollywood, but they decided against it and returned to the US.[122]
Stravinsky’s grave on San Michele Island
In October 1969, after close to three decades in California and being denied to travel overseas by his doctors due to ill health, Stravinsky and Vera secured a two-year lease for a luxury three bedroom apartment in Essex House in New York City. Craft moved in with them, effectively putting his career on hold to care for the ailing composer.[123] Among Stravinsky’s final projects was orchestrating two preludes from The Well-Tempered Clavier by Bach, but it was never completed.[124] He was hospitalised in April 1970 following a bout of pneumonia, which he successfully recovered from. Two months later, he travelled to Évian-les-Bains by Lake Geneva where he reunited with his eldest son Theodore and niece Xenia.[125]
On 18 March 1971, Stravinsky was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital with pulmonary edema where he stayed for ten days. On 29 March, he moved into a newly furnished apartment at 920 Fifth Avenue, his first city apartment since living in Paris in 1939. After a period of well being, the edema returned on 4 April and Vera insisted that medical equipment should be installed in the apartment.[126] Stravinsky soon stopped eating and drinking and died at 5:20 a.m. on 6 April at the age of 88. The cause on his death certificate is heart failure. A funeral service was held three days later at Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel.[124][127] As per his wishes, he was buried in the Russian corner of the cemetery island of San Michele in Venice, Italy, several yards from the tomb of Sergei Diaghilev,[128] having been brought there by gondola after a service at Santi Giovanni e Paolo led by Cherubin Malissianos, Archimandrite of the Greek Orthodox Church.[129][130] During the funerals Requiem Canticles and organ music by Andrea Gabrieli were performed.[131]
He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and in 1987 he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement. He was posthumously inducted into the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame in 2004.
The national flag of Belgium (Dutch: vlag van België, French: drapeau de la Belgique, German: Flagge Belgiens) is a tricolour consisting of three equal vertical bands displaying the national colours of Belgium: black, yellow, and red. The colours were taken from the coat of arms of the Duchy of Brabant, and the vertical design may be based on the flag of France. When flown, the black band is nearest the pole (at the hoist side). It has the unusual proportions of 13∶15.
In 1830, the flag, at that time non-officially, consisted of three horizontal bands, with the colors red, yellow and black. On 23 January 1831, the National Congress enshrined the tricolor in the Constitution, but did not determine the direction and order of the color bands. As a result, the “official” flag was given vertical stripes with the colors black, yellow and red.
After the death of Charlemagne, the present-day territory of Belgium (except the County of Flanders) became part of Lotharingia, which had a flag of two horizontal red stripes separated by a white stripe.[1] The territory then passed into Spanish hands, and after the coronation of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, yellow and red, the colours of Spain, were added. From the 16th century to the end of the 18th century, the colours of what is now Belgium were red, white and yellow.[1] Occasionally, the red Cross of Burgundy was placed on the white section of the flag.[1]
During the period of Austrian rule, a number of different flags were tried. Eventually, the Austrian emperor imposed the Austrian flag. The population of Brussels was opposed to this, and, following the example of France, red, yellow and black cockades began to appear, those being the colours of Brabant.[1] The colours thus correspond to the red lion of Hainaut, Limburg and Luxembourg, the yellow lion of Brabant, and the black lion of Flanders and Namur.[1]
Congo River
Hedges
The Citadel
The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, commonly known simply as The Citadel, is a public senior military college in Charleston, South Carolina. Established in 1842, it is one of six senior military colleges in the United States. It has 18 academic departments divided into five schools offering 31 majors and 57 minors. The military program is made up of cadets pursuing bachelor’s degrees who live on campus. The non-military programs offer 12 undergraduate degrees, 26 graduate degrees, as well as evening and online programs with seven online graduate degrees, three online undergraduate degrees, and three certificate programs.[5][6][7]
The South Carolina Corps of Cadets numbers 2,300 and is one of the largest uniformed bodies in the U.S. Approximately 1,350 non-cadet students are enrolled in Citadel Graduate College pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees.[8] Women comprise approximately 9% of the Corps and 22% of the overall enrollment while racial minorities comprise 15% of the Corps and 23% of the total enrollment. Approximately half of The Citadel’s cadet enrollment is from the state of South Carolina; cadets come from 45 states and 23 foreign countries.[9][10] South Carolina residents receive a discount in tuition, as is common at state-sponsored schools. The Citadel receives 8% of its operating budget from the state.[11] In 2019, the school’s ROTC program commissioned 186 officers.[12]
The Corps of Cadets combines academics, physical challenges, and military discipline. While only about one-third of graduates each year go into the armed services, all members of the Corps are required to participate in ROTC.[13] The academic program is divided into five schools – Business, Education, Engineering, Humanities and Social Sciences, and Science and Mathematics. Bachelor’s degrees are offered in 38 major programs of study with 55 minors. The Citadel Graduate College offers 26 master’s degrees with 41 different concentrations, 25 graduate certificates and two educational specialist courses; a college transfer evening/online program also allows students with college credit to complete their bachelor’s degree in 12 subjects. 94% of the faculty hold doctoral degrees and the majority are full-time professors; the ratio of cadets to faculty is 12:1 and the average class size is 20.[14]
While all programs make use of The Citadel’s campus and professors, only cadets live on campus. (Cadets are required to live on campus while they are in the Corps. There are no on-campus housing options for the other student populations).[15][16] The veterans program, reinstated in the fall of 2007, allows veterans to attend classes with cadets and complete their degrees.[17] Enlisted members from the Marine Corps and Navy also attend cadet classes as part of a program to commission highly qualified NCOs.[18]
The Citadel Bulldogs compete at the NCAA Division I level in 16 sports within the Southern Conference.
The Citadel traces its origins to an arsenal constructed by the state of South Carolina to defend white Charlestonians against possible slave uprisings following Denmark Vesey’s thwarted rebellion of 1822.[19][20][21] The school was founded by an act of the state legislature in 1842 as the South Carolina Military Academy it originally consisted of the Citadel Academy in Charleston and the Arsenal Academy in Columbia. The Arsenal was burned by General Sherman’s forces during the American Civil War and never reopened. The Citadel Academy was occupied by Union troops in 1865 and reopened as an educational institution in 1882. During the Civil War, the SCMA Corps of Cadets was organized into a military unit known as the Battalion of State Cadets which took part in nine engagements. In January 1861, Citadel Academy cadets manning a battery on Morris Island fired the first shots of the conflict when they shelled the Union steamship Star of the West which was attempting to resupply Fort Sumter. In December 1864, the cadet battalion made up more than a third of a Confederate force that defended a strategic rail line during the Battle of Tulifinny. The Citadel was awarded 9 battle streamers for service in the Civil War and is one of only 5 American colleges to receive a battle streamer for the participation of its student body in wartime service. The four other institutes are: VMI for the Battle of New Market, Florida State for the Battle of Natural Bridge, William and Mary for the Siege of Yorktown, and the University of Hawaii for the Hawaiian Islands Campaign.[22]
In 1922, the school moved from its original location on Marion Square in downtown Charleston to a new campus on the banks of the Ashley River on the northwest side of the city. The Citadel has grown steadily from an enrollment of 460 to its present 3,500. During World War II, The Citadel had the highest percentage of any American college student body serving in the military and all but 346 of its living graduates were members of the armed forces.[22] Alumni served as members of the Flying Tigers and Doolittle Raiders; 280 died in the service of their country. The first black cadet enrolled in 1966. The first woman admitted was Shannon Faulkner after a two-and-a-half-year court battle. She matriculated into The Citadel in 1995 with an otherwise all-male corps of cadets on August 15, 1995, but soon withdrew after she and her family received dozens of death threats and her parents’ home was vandalized.[23][24][25][26] In 2018, The Citadel appointed the first female, Sarah Zorn, to lead the entire South Carolina Corps of Cadets as Regimental Commander.[27] A graduate program was started in 1968. A major capital improvement campaign started in 1989 saw the replacement or extensive renovation of a majority of the buildings on campus, academic offerings have been continuously expanded to offer in demand courses and degrees in fields such as Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Criminal Justice and Nursing.[28] Citadel cadets and alumni have served in every United States military action from the Mexican War to the current Global War on Terrorism.[29][30]
Ore
Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically containing metals, that can be mined, treated and sold at a profit.[1][2] Ore is extracted from the earth through mining and treated or refined, often via smelting, to extract the valuable metals or minerals.[3] The grade of ore refers to the concentration of the desired material it contains. The value of the metals or minerals a rock contains must be weighed against the cost of extraction to determine whether it is of sufficiently high grade to be worth mining, and is therefore considered an ore.[3]
Minerals of interest are generally oxides, sulfides, silicates, or native metals such as copper or gold. Ores must be processed to extract the elements of interest from the waste rock. Ore bodies are formed by a variety of geological processes generally referred to as ore genesis.
Narvik
disambiguation).
Narvik (help·info) (Northern Sami: Áhkanjárga[3]) is the third-largest municipality in Nordland county, Norway, by population. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Narvik. Some of the notable villages in the municipality include Ankenesstranda, Ballangen, Beisfjord, Bjerkvik, Bjørnfjell, Elvegård, Kjøpsvik, Skjomen, Håkvik, Hergot, Straumsnes, and Vidrek. The Elvegårdsmoen army camp is located near Bjerkvik.
Narvik is located on the shores of the Ofotfjorden. The municipality is part of the traditional district of Ofoten of Northern Norway, inside the Arctic Circle. The municipality of Narvik borders the municipality of Hamarøy to the southwest, Evenes to the northwest, Bardu, Gratangen, Lavangen and Tjeldsund (in Troms og Finnmark county) to the north, and Norrbotten County (Lapland) in Sweden to the south and east.
The 3,432-square-kilometre (1,325 sq mi) municipality is the 10th largest by area out of the 356 municipalities in Norway. Narvik is the 57th most populous municipality in Norway with a population of 21,530. The municipality’s population density is 6.7 inhabitants per square kilometre (17/sq mi) and its population has decreased by 2% over the previous 10-year period.[4][5]
The municipality of Narvik was established on 1 January 1902 when the village of Narvik received status as a proper town and was separated from the large municipality of Ankenes. Initially, the town-municipality of Narvik had 3,705 residents. On 1 January 1974, the municipality of Ankenes was merged with the town-municipality of Narvik, forming a new, larger municipality of Narvik. After the merger, the new municipality of Narvik had 19,780 residents. On 1 January 1999, a small area of Narvik Municipality (population: 9) was transferred to the neighboring Evenes Municipality.[6][7]
On 1 January 2020, the municipality of Narvik was merged with the neighboring Ballangen Municipality and the eastern half of Tysfjord Municipality to form a new, larger municipality of Narvik. This occurred because in 2017, the municipal government agreed to the merger and the Parliament of Norway required Tysfjord to be split up.[8]
Coat of arms
Edit
The coat of arms was adopted on 20 June 2019 for use starting in 2020. The arms are blue with a white image of the mountain Stetind. The arms were designed by Eirik Djupvik.[9]
The old arms were granted on 1 June 1951. The arms showed a gold-coloured anchor on a red background. The anchor symbolises Narvik’s status as an important port (the largest harbour in North Norway).[10]
Current arms since 2020
Current arms since 2020
Arms (1951-2019)
Arms (1951-2019)
Name
Edit
Narvik is named after the old Narvik farm (“Narduigh” – 1567), since the town is built on its ground.[11]
The Old Norse form of the port was probably *Knarravík, The first element is the genitive pluralis of knarr ‘merchant ship’ – the last element is vík ‘inlet’. The name Knarravík (modern forms Knarvik or Narvik) is found several places along the Norwegian coast (and three places in the old Norwegian province of Bohuslän), and it refers to good, natural ports.
The port was once called Victoriahavn after Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, however Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria was also honoured.[12]
The history of Narvik as a settlement began in the Bronze Age. Not very much is known about these people, but the Vikings lived in this area.
View of Narvik at night from the highest point accessible to cars
Narvik was developed as an all-year ice free port for the Swedish Kiruna and Gällivare iron mines. The history of modern Narvik begins in the 1870s, when the Swedish government began to understand the potential of the iron ore mines in Kiruna, Sweden. Obtaining iron ore from Kiruna had one significant problem in that there was no suitable Swedish port. The nearest Swedish port, Luleå, had limitations. It was covered with ice all winter, it is far from Kiruna, and it allows only medium-sized bulk freight vessels. Narvik offered a port which is ice-free thanks to the warm Gulf Stream, and is naturally large, allowing boats of virtually any size to anchor, up to 208 metres (682 ft) long and 27 metres (89 ft) deep.[12][13] The Swedish company (Gällivarre Aktiebolag) built the Iron Ore Line (Malmbanan) to Riksgränsen on the Norway–Sweden border. The Norwegian Ofotbanen railway line connects Narvik to the Swedish border.
Swedish mining corporation LKAB still ships the majority of its ore from Narvik (a total 25 million tons a year). It is an important employer and landowner in Narvik, although its influence is not as prominent as in the past.[13]
World War II
Edit
Main article: Battles of Narvik
Iron ore is extracted in Kiruna and Malmberget, and brought by rail to the harbours of Luleå and Narvik.
(Borders as of 1920–1940.)
Narvik burning after German bombing, 2. June 1940
Narvik 1928 with the fjord Rombaken as backdrop
The port of Narvik proved to be strategically valuable in the early years of World War II and the town became a focal point of the Norwegian Campaign. In 1939, Germany’s war industry depended upon iron ore mined in Kiruna and Malmberget in Sweden. During the summer season, this ore could be sent by cargo ship to Germany through the Baltic Sea via the Swedish port of Luleå on the Gulf of Bothnia. However, when the Gulf of Bothnia froze during the winter, more shipments of the ore needed to be transported through Narvik and, from there, down the west coast of Norway to Germany. The town of Narvik is linked by rail to Sweden, but not to any other towns in Norway. As a result, Narvik serves as a gateway to the ore fields of Sweden that cannot be easily reached from southern Norway via land. Winston Churchill realized that the control of Narvik meant stopping most German imports of iron ore during the winter of 1940. This would be advantageous to the Allies, and it might help shorten the war. Equally as important, later in the war, German submarines and warships based there threatened the allied supply line to the Soviet Union.[14]
Churchill proposed laying a naval minefield in Norwegian territorial waters around Narvik (referred to as “the Leads”),[14] or else occupying the town with Allied troops. The Allies hoped that they might be able to use an occupied Narvik as a base from which to secure the Swedish ore fields and/or to send supplies and reinforcements to Finland, then fighting the Finnish Winter War with the Soviet Union. Plans to lay a minefield around Narvik or to seize the town met with debate within the British government – since both plans would mean a violation of Norway’s neutrality and sovereignty.[14]
Finally, on 8 April 1940, the British Admiralty launched Operation Wilfred, an attempt to lay anti-shipping minefields around Narvik in Norwegian territorial waters. Coincidentally, Germany launched its invasion of Norway (Operation Weserübung) on the next day. During this invasion, ten German destroyers, each carrying 200 mountain infantry soldiers, were sent to Narvik. The outdated Norwegian coastal defence ships HNoMS Eidsvold and HNoMS Norge attempted to resist the invasion, but both Norwegian warships were sunk after a short and uneven battle. The Royal Navy quickly dispatched several ships to Narvik, including the battleship HMS Warspite, and during the Battles of Narvik, the British took control of the coast, destroying the German destroyers that had brought the invasion force to Narvik, as well as other German ships in the area.
On 12 April 1940, the first convoys of Allied soldiers were sent under Major-General Pierse Joseph Mackesy to Narvik. The Admiralty urged Mackesy to conduct an assault on Narvik from the sea as soon as possible. However, Mackesy believed that the German harbour defences were too strong for such an invasion to take place. The Admiralty argued that a naval bombardment of Norway would enable the troops to land safely, but General Mackesy refused to subject Norwegian citizens to such a bombardment, and instead he chose to land his troops near Narvik and wait until the snow melted to take over the town.[14]
Coordinated by the Norwegian General Carl Gustav Fleischer, Norwegian, French, Polish, and British forces recaptured Narvik on 28 May 1940. This is also considered the first Allied infantry victory in World War II. However, by that time, the Allies were losing the Battle of France and the evacuation from Dunkirk was underway. Since the Nazi German invasion of France had made Scandinavia largely irrelevant, and since the valuable troops assigned to Narvik were badly needed elsewhere, the Allies withdrew from Narvik on 8 June 1940 in Operation Alphabet. The same day, while operating in the Narvik area, the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sank the British aircraft carrier HMS Glorious during the withdrawal from this battle.[15] Without support from the Allied naval task force, the Norwegians were outnumbered, and they had to lay down their arms in Norway on 10 June 1940. This was not a complete capitulation, since the Norwegians kept on fighting guerrilla operations inland.
Possession of the Ofotfjord was also important to the German Kriegsmarine (navy) since it provided a refuge for warships like the “pocket battleship” Lützow and the battleship Tirpitz outside the range (at the time) of air attacks from Scotland. Also, possibly U-boats could be based at Narvik.
Narvik appeared in Battlefield V, a First-person shooter video game, based on WWII. The map’s setting, in Narvik, specifically depicts the Allied landings at the city on the 28th of May. The setting’s location, depicts a snowy, mountainside battlefield, featuring tanks, planes, and infantry. the playable area includes the rail yard, loading bay, town, and ore deposit.
Narvik is a Norwegian historical film directed by Erik Skjoldbjaerg It stars Kristine Hartgen, Carl Martin Eggsbø, Cristoph Gelfert Mathiesen and Henrik Mestad. The film was released worldwide on Netflix in January 2023. The film featured as the Top 10 films on Netflix Canada in the month of January as of January 27, 2023.
John Bull
John Bull is a national personification of the United Kingdom in general and England in particular, especially in political cartoons and similar graphic works. He is usually depicted as a stout, middle-aged, country-dwelling, jolly and matter-of-fact man. He originated in satirical works of the early 18th century and would come to stand for “English liberty” in opposition to revolutionaries. He was popular through the 18th and 19th centuries until the time of the First World War, when he generally stopped being seen as representative of the “common man”.
John Bull originated as a satirical character created by John Arbuthnot, a friend of Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope. Bull first appeared in 1712 in Arbuthnot’s pamphlet Law is a Bottomless Pit.[1] The same year Arbuthnot published a four-part political narrative The History of John Bull. In this satirical treatment of the War of the Spanish Succession, John Bull brings a lawsuit against various figures intended to represent the kings of France (Louis Baboon) and Spain (Lord Strutt), as well as institutions both foreign and domestic.[2] The allegory was intended primarily as attack against the Whigs, their foreign policy and their financiers who were profiting from the war.[3]
William Hogarth and other British writers made Bull, originally derided, “a heroic archetype of the freeborn Englishman.”[1] Later, the figure of Bull was disseminated overseas by illustrators and writers such as American cartoonist Thomas Nast and Irish writer George Bernard Shaw, author of John Bull’s Other Island.
Starting in the 1760s, Bull was portrayed as an Anglo-Saxon country dweller.[1] He was almost always depicted in a buff-coloured waistcoat and a simple frock coat (in the past Navy blue, but more recently with the Union Jack colours).[1] Britannia, or a lion, is sometimes used as an alternative in some editorial cartoons.
As a literary figure, John Bull is well-intentioned, frustrated, full of common sense, and entirely of native country stock. Unlike Uncle Sam later, he is not a figure of authority but rather a yeoman who prefers his small beer and domestic peace, possessed of neither patriarchal power nor heroic defiance. John Arbuthnot provided him with a sister named Peg (Scotland), and a traditional adversary in Louis Baboon (the House of Bourbon[4] in France). Peg continued in pictorial art beyond the 18th century, but the other figures associated with the original tableau dropped away. John Bull himself continued to frequently appear as a national symbol in posters and cartoons as late as World War I.
Bull is usually depicted as a stout man in a tailcoat with light-coloured breeches and a top hat which, by its shallow crown, indicates its middle class identity. During the Georgian period his waistcoat is red and/or his tailcoat is royal blue which, together with his buff or white breeches, can thus refer to a greater or lesser extent to the “blue and buff” scheme;[1] this was used by supporters of Whig politics, which was part of what John Arbuthnot wished to deride when he created and designed the character. By the twentieth century, however, his waistcoat nearly always depicts a Union Flag,[1] and his coat is generally dark blue. (Otherwise, however, his clothing still echoes the fashions of the Regency period.) He also wears a low topper (sometimes called a John Bull topper) on his head and is often accompanied by a bulldog. John Bull has been used in a variety of different ad campaigns over the years, and is a common sight in British editorial cartoons of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Singer David Bowie wore a coat in the style of Bull.[1]
Washington Irving described him in his chapter entitled “John Bull” from The Sketch Book:
…[A] plain, downright, matter-of-fact fellow, with much less of poetry about him than rich prose. There is little of romance in his nature, but a vast deal of a strong natural feeling. He excels in humour more than in wit; is jolly rather than gay; melancholy rather than morose; can easily be moved to a sudden tear or surprised into a broad laugh; but he loathes sentiment and has no turn for light pleasantry. He is a boon companion, if you allow him to have his humour and to talk about himself; and he will stand by a friend in a quarrel with life and purse, however soundly he may be cudgelled.
The cartoon image of stolid, stocky, conservative and well-meaning John Bull, dressed like an English country squire, sometimes explicitly contrasted with the conventionalised scrawny, French revolutionary sans-culottes Jacobin, was developed from about 1790 by British satirical artists James Gillray, Thomas Rowlandson and Isaac Cruikshank. (An earlier national personification was Sir Roger de Coverley, from a 1711 edition of The Spectator.)
A more negative portrayal of John Bull occurred in the cartoons drawn by the Egyptian nationalist journalist Yaqub Sanu in his popular underground newspaper Abu-Naddara Zarqa in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[5] Sanu’s cartoons depicted John Bull as a coarse, ignorant drunken bully who pushed around ordinary Egyptians while stealing all the wealth of Egypt.[5] Much of Sanu’s humor revolved around John Bull’s alcoholism, his crass rudeness, his ignorance about practically everything except alcohol, and his inability to properly speak French (the language of the Egyptian elite), which he hilariously mangled unlike the Egyptian characters who spoke proper French.[6]
A 1904 British cartoon commenting on the Entente Cordiale: John Bull walking off with Marianne, turning his back on the Kaiser.
Increasingly through the early twentieth century, John Bull became seen as not particularly representative of “the common man,” and during the First World War this function was largely taken over by the figure of Tommy Atkins.[7] According to Alison Light, during the interwar years the nation abandoned “formerly heroic…public rhetorics of national destiny” in favour of “an Englishness at once less imperial and more inward-looking, more domestic and more private”.[8] Consequently, John Bull was replaced by Sidney Strube’s suburban Little Man as the personification of the nation.[9] Some saw John Bull’s replacement by the Little Man as symbolic of Britain’s post-First World War decline; W. H. Auden’s 1937 poem “Letter to Lord Byron” favourably contrasted John Bull to the Little Man.[10] Auden wrote:
Ask the cartoonist first, for he knows best.
Where is the John Bull of the good old days,
The swaggering bully with the clumsy jest?
His meaty neck has long been laid to rest,
His acres of self-confidence for sale;
He passed away at Ypres and Passchendaele.[11]
John Bull’s surname is also reminiscent of the alleged fondness of the English for beef, reflected in the French nickname for English people, les rosbifs, which translates as “the ‘Roast Beefs.’” It is also reminiscent of the animal, and for that reason Bull is portrayed as “virile, strong, and stubborn,” like a bull.[1]
A typical John Bull Englishman is referenced in Margaret Fuller’s Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 in Chapter 2: “Murray’s travels I read, and was charmed by their accuracy and clear broad tone. He is the only Englishman that seems to have traversed these regions, as man, simply, not as John Bull.”
In 1966, The Times, criticising the Unionist government of Northern Ireland, branded the region “John Bull’s Political Slum.”
chicotte
The sjambok (/ˈʃæmbʌk, -bɒk/)[1] or litupa is a heavy leather whip. It is traditionally made from an adult hippopotamus or rhinoceros hide, but is also commonly made out of plastic.
A strip of the animal’s hide is cut and carved into a strip 0.9 to 1.5 metres (3 to 5 ft) long, tapering from about 25 mm (1 in) thick at the handle to about 10 mm (3⁄8 in) at the tip. This strip is then rolled until reaching a tapered-cylindrical form. The resulting whip is both flexible and durable. A plastic version was made for the apartheid era South African Police, and used for riot control.
Peter Hathaway Capstick describes a sjambok as a short swordlike whip made from rhino pizzle leather that could lay a man open like a straight razor.[2]
The sjambok was heavily used by the Voortrekkers driving their oxen while migrating from the Cape of Good Hope, and remains in use by herdsmen to drive cattle. They are widely available in South Africa from informal traders to regular stores from a variety of materials, lengths and thicknesses.
Shinkolobwe
Shinkolobwe, or Kasolo, or Chinkolobew, or Shainkolobwe, was a radium and uranium mine in the Haut-Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), located 20 km west of Likasi (formerly Jadotville), 20 km south of Kambove, and about 145 km northwest of Lubumbashi.[1][2]
More than 80 percent of the uranium in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs came from the heavily guarded Congo mine of Shinkolobwe.
The mine produced the most economical uranium ore in the world and was used for the Manhattan Project and subsequent nuclear weapons produced by the United States in the 1940s and 50s. Before World War II, uranium extracted here was originally taken to Belgium to be processed; this supply was captured by the Wehrmacht in 1940 and subsequently used for the unsuccessful German nuclear program.
The Shinkolobwe mine was officially closed in 2004.
The mineral deposits at Shinkolobwe were discovered in 1915 by English geologist Robert Rich Sharp (1881–1960).[4][5]
The formations of the Shinkolobwe ore deposit form a spur of the Mine Series wedged into a fold-fault. Uranium minerals, and associated cobalt, silver, nickel, bismuth and arsenic, occur as massive sulfide ore in veinlets along fractures, joints, and minor faults within the Katanga synclinorium. Uraninite mineralization occurred 630 Ma, when uraniferous solutions percolated into the dolomitic shales of the Precambrian Mine Series (Serie des Mines), under the Roche Argilotalqueuse (R.A.T.) nappe. The Mine Series is a Schist-Dolomite System postulated to be in the Roan System. This schistose-dolomite appears structurally between two contacts of the Kundelungu System, the Middle Kundelungu and the Lower Kundelungu, of the Katanga Group. The Lower and Upper Kundelungu form a double syncline, the northern limb of which overlies the Shinkolobwe Fault. These structural complexities aside, the Katanga stratigraphic column consists, top to bottom, of the Precambrian Kundelungu System (Upper, Middle and Lower), the Grand Conglomerate and Mwashya Systems, the Schist-Dolomite System (Roan System-Mine Series of R.G.S., C.M.N., S.D., R.S.C., R.S.F., D. Strat., R.A.T. Gr., and R.A.T.) and the Kibara Group.[6][7]
Uraninite crystals from 1 to 4 centimeter cubes were common. New minerals identified here include ianthinite, becquerelite, schoepite, curite, fourmarierite, masuyite, vandendriesscheite, richetite, billietite, vandenbrandeite, kasolite, soddyite, sklodowskite, cuprosklodowskite, dewindtite, dumontite, renardite, parsonsite, saleite, sharpite, studtite, and diderichite. Similar uraninite deposits occur 36 km west at Swampo, and 120 km west at Kalongwe.[6][7]
Surface ores consist of oxidized minerals from supergene alteration above the water table and the formation of uranyl minerals. Below the water table, hypogene ores include uraninite (pitchblende), cobalt-nickel sulfides and selenides.[2]
The first mine was opened in the Belgian Congo in 1921. Uranium-bearing ore was initially exported to Olen, Belgium for the extraction of radium,[8] and uranium. Only the richest ore was sent to Olen, with the remainder held in reserve. Open-cut mining was suspended at level 57 m and at the level 79 m underground in 1936, though exploration had commenced at level 114 m, and water pumps installed at level 150 m.[2][7]
Both Britain and France expressed interest in the Belgium inventory of uranium ore in 1939. Nothing further happened though after the Nazis occupied Belgium in 1940, gaining control of the ore still “on the docks”.[3]: 45 [1]: 186–187
Open-cut operations restarted in 1944, and underground in 1945. This required pumping the mine dry since the water table was at about 45 m. The 255 m level was reached in 1955.[2][9]
Manhattan Project
Edit
Uranophane in malachite specimen from the Shinkolobwe mine
The United States used Shinkolobwe’s uranium resources to supply the Manhattan Project to construct the atomic bomb in World War II. Edgar Sengier, then director of Union Minière du Haut Katanga, had stockpiled 1,200 tonnes of uranium ore in a warehouse on Staten Island, New York. This ore and an additional 3,000 tonnes of ore stored above-ground at the mine was purchased by Colonel Ken Nichols for use in the project. Nichols wrote:[10]
Our best source, the Shinkolobwe mine, represented a freak occurrence in nature. It contained a tremendously rich lode of uranium pitchblende. Nothing like it has ever again been found. The ore already in the United States contained 65 percent U3O8, while the pitchblende aboveground in the Congo amounted to a thousand tons of 65 percent ore, and the waste piles of ore contained two thousand tons of 20 percent U3O8. To illustrate the uniqueness of Sengier’s stockpile, after the war the MED and the AEC considered ore containing three-tenths of 1 percent as a good find. Without Sengier’s foresight in stockpiling ore in the United States and aboveground in Africa, we simply would not have had the amounts of uranium needed to justify building the large separation plants and the plutonium reactors.
In 1940, 1,200 tons of stockpiled uranium ore were shipped to the US by Sengier’s African Metals Corp., a commercial arm of Union Minière. Then, after the September 1942 agreement with Nichols, an average of 400 tons of uranium oxide were shipped to the US each month. Initially, the port of Lobito was used to ship the ore, but later Matadi was used to improve security. Only two shipments were lost at sea. The aerodromes in Elizabethville and Leopoldville were also expanded. Additionally, the mine was reopened with the help of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, which involved draining the water and retooling the facility. Finally, the Office of Strategic Services were enlisted to deal with the threat of smuggling to Germany.[1]: 3, 6–7, 11 [3]: 45–49
American interest in the Shinkolobwe mine for the purpose of developing of nuclear weapons led to the implementation of extensive security measures. Shinkolobwe’s location was removed from maps and journalists were denied access to the mine and official information.
Cold War era
Edit
Just as a lack of uranium ore impeded the German and Japanese attempts to make an atomic bomb, the Americans wanted to maintain their monopoly against the Soviets.
Security measures were slightly more relaxed in the wake of World War II,[8] but in the 1950s, most journalists were able to gather only scraps of information on the mine’s operation, from unofficial sources.[11][12] In 1950, a uranium processing plant was said to be under construction near the mine.[8] At the time, Shinkolobwe was believed to contain roughly half of the world’s known reserves of uranium.[13]
In 1947, the U.S. received 1,440 tons of uranium concentrates from the Belgian Congo, 2,792 in 1951, and 1,600 in 1953. A processing plant was added nearby, and for increased security, a garrison was also established, with a supporting NATO military base in Kamina. Jadotville became a security checkpoint for foreigners. However, by the time of Congo independence, Union Minière had sealed the mine with concrete.[1]: 253–258
Despite the US presence in the 1940s and 1950s, in 1960, due to increase opening of Uranium mines from the American Homeland and the independence of the Congo, the United States left the mine. Hence, the sealing of the mine by Union Minière.[14][15]
Israeli yellowcake
Edit
Israeli in 1968 obtained yellowcake (processed uranium ore) to support the Israeli nuclear weapons effort in a clandestine operation after France stopped supplying it with uranium fuel for the Dimona nuclear reactor in reaction to the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Numerous sources believe that in 1968 Israel managed to obtain 200 tonnes of yellowcake from the Belgian mining company Union Minière. The company collaborated with Mossad in shipping out the ore from Antwerp to Genoa for a European front company which then surreptitiously transferred the ore to another vessel at night on the Mediterranean Sea.
Closure
Edit
The mine was officially closed on January 28, 2004, by presidential decree. However eight people died and a further thirteen people were injured in July 2004 when part of the old mine collapsed. Although industrial production has ceased with cement lids sealing off the mine shafts, there is evidence that some artisanal mining still goes on here.[16] A United Nations inter-agency mission, led by the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and organised through their Joint Environment Unit, visited the mine. The UNEP/OCHA concluded:
Shinkolobwe is representative of similar situations in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world. A strong link exists between rural poverty, environmental protection and this type of livelihood activity. Alternative income opportunities must be developed and integrated in parallel to artisanal exploitation if new livelihood options are to be found for these rural poor. A holistic, multidisciplinary approach within the context of poverty alleviation is essential to address this problem and avoid further human and environmental catastrophes.[17]
Artisanal mining and smuggling
Edit
On July 18, 2006, the DRC Sanctions Committee (United Nations Security Council Committee Established Pursuant to Resolution 1533 (2004), to give it its full name) released a report dated June 15, 2006, which stated that artisanal mining for various minerals continues at the Shinkolobwe mine:
- During an investigation into alleged smuggling of radioactive materials, the Group of Experts has learned that such incidents are far more frequent than assumed. According to Congolese experts on radioactive materials, organs of State security have, during the past six years, confiscated over 50 cases containing uranium or cesium in and around Kinshasa. The last significant incident occurred in March 2004 when two containers with over 100 kilograms of stable uranium-238 and uranium-235 were secured. 150. In response to a request for information by the Group of Experts the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania has provided limited data on four shipments that were seized over the past 10 years. Unfortunately the Government chose not to provide information about the quantities of the seized consignments nor the specific method of smuggling. At least in reference to the last shipment from October 2005, the Tanzanian Government left no doubt that the uranium was transported from Lubumbashi by road through Zambia to the United Republic of Tanzania. Attempts via Interpol to learn the precise origin within the Democratic Republic of the Congo have remained inconclusive.[18]
On August 9, 2006, the British Sunday Times published a report claiming that Iran was seeking to import “bomb-making uranium” from the Shinkolobwe mine,[19] providing no evidence but quoting the UN report of July 18, 2006. It gives “Tanzanian customs officials” as its sole source for the claim that the uranium was destined for processing in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan via the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. American journalist Douglas Farah has compared this to North Korean attempts to get uranium from the same mine.[20]
Dundee
Dundee (/dʌnˈdiː/ (listen); Scots: Dundee; Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Dè or Dùn Dèagh [t̪un ˈtʲeː]) is Scotland’s fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was 148,210, giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or 6,420/sq mi, the second-highest in Scotland. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea. Under the name of Dundee City,[6] it forms one of the 32 council areas used for local government in Scotland.
Within the boundaries of the historic county of Angus, the city developed into a burgh in the late 12th century and established itself as an important east coast trading port.[7] Rapid expansion was brought on by the Industrial Revolution, particularly in the 19th century when Dundee was the centre of the global jute industry.[8] This, along with its other major industries, gave Dundee its epithet as the city of “jute, jam and journalism”.
Today, Dundee is promoted as “One City, Many Discoveries” in honour of Dundee’s history of scientific activities and of the RRS Discovery, Robert Falcon Scott’s Antarctic exploration vessel, which was built in Dundee and is now berthed at Discovery Point. Biomedical and technological industries have arrived since the 1980s, and the city now accounts for 10% of the United Kingdom’s digital entertainment industry, including mobile app development and gaming. Dundee has two universities – the University of Dundee and Abertay University. In 2014, Dundee was recognised by the United Nations as the UK’s first UNESCO City of Design for its diverse contributions to fields including medical research, comics and video games.[9][10][11]
A unique feature of Dundee is that its two professional football clubs, Dundee F.C. and Dundee United F.C., have stadiums all but adjacent to each other.[12]
With the decline of traditional industry, the city has adopted a plan to regenerate and reinvent itself as a cultural centre.[13] In pursuit of this, a £1 billion master plan to regenerate and to reconnect the Waterfront to the city centre started in 2001 and is expected to be completed within a 30-year period. The V&A Dundee – the first branch of the V&A to operate outside of London – is the main centre piece of the waterfront project.[14][15]
In recent years, Dundee’s international profile has risen. GQ magazine named Dundee the “Coolest Little City in Britain” in 2015 and The Wall Street Journal ranked Dundee at number 5 on its “Worldwide Hot Destinations” list for 2018.[16]
The name “Dundee” is made up of two parts: the common Celtic place-name element dun, meaning fort; and a second part that may derive from a Celtic element, cognate with the Gaelic dè, meaning ‘fire’.[17]
Dundee in 1693 by John Slezer
While earlier evidence for human occupation is abundant,[18] Dundee’s success and growth as a seaport town arguably came as a result of William the Lion’s charter, granting Dundee to his younger brother, David (later Earl of Huntingdon) in the late 12th century.[19] The situation of the town and its promotion by Earl David as a trading centre led to a period of prosperity and growth.[20] The earldom was passed down to David’s descendants, amongst whom was John Balliol. The town became a Royal Burgh on John’s coronation as king in 1292.[21] The town and its castle were occupied by English forces for several years during the First War of Independence and recaptured by Robert the Bruce in early 1312.[22] The original Burghal charters were lost during the occupation and subsequently renewed by Bruce in 1327.[23]
The burgh suffered considerably during the conflict known as the Rough Wooing of 1543 to 1550, and was occupied by the English forces of Andrew Dudley from 1547. In 1548, unable to defend the town against an advancing Scottish force, Dudley ordered that the town be burnt to the ground.[24] In 1645, during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, Dundee was again besieged, this time by the Royalist Marquess of Montrose.[25] The town was finally destroyed by Parliamentarian forces led by George Monck in 1651.[26] The town played a pivotal role in the establishment of the Jacobite cause when John Graham of Claverhouse, 1st Viscount Dundee raised the Stuart standard on the Dundee Law in 1689.[27] The town was held by the Jacobites in the 1715–16 rising, and on 6 January 1716 the Jacobite claimant to the throne, James VIII and III (the Old Pretender), made a public entry into the town. Many in Scotland, including many in Dundee, regarded him as the rightful king.[28]
A notable resident of Dundee was Adam Duncan, 1st Viscount Duncan of Camperdown, Baron of Lundie (1 July 1731 to 4 August 1804). He was born in Dundee on 1 July 1731, the son of Alexander Duncan of Lundie, Provost of Dundee. Adam was educated in Dundee and later joined the Royal Navy on board the sloop Trial. He rose to be admiral and in October 1797 defeated the Dutch fleet off Camperdown (north of Haarlem). This was seen as one of the most significant actions in naval history.[29]
The economy of mediaeval Dundee centred on the export of raw wool, with the production of finished textiles being a reaction to recession in the 15th century.[30] Two government Acts in the mid 18th century had a profound effect on Dundee’s industrial success: the textile industry was revolutionised by the introduction of large four-storey mills, stimulated in part by the 1742 Bounty Act which provided a government-funded subsidy on Osnaburg linen produced for export.[31] Expansion of the whaling industry was triggered by the second Bounty Act, introduced in 1750 to increase Britain’s maritime and naval skill base.[32] Dundee, and Scotland more generally, saw rapid population increase at end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, with the city’s population increasing from 12,400 in 1751 to 30,500 in 1821.[33]
The phasing out of the linen export bounty between 1825 and 1832 stimulated demand for cheaper textiles, particularly for cheaper, tough fabrics.[34] The discovery that the dry fibres of jute could be lubricated with whale oil (of which Dundee had a surfeit, following the opening of its gasworks) to allow it to be processed in mechanised mills resulted in the Dundee mills rapidly converting from linen to jute, which sold at a quarter of the price of flax.[35] Interruption of Prussian flax imports during the Crimean War and of cotton during the American Civil War resulted in a period of inflated prosperity for Dundee and the jute industry dominated Dundee throughout the latter half of the 19th century.[36] Unprecedented immigration, notably of Irish workers, led to accelerated urban expansion, and at the height of the industry’s success, Dundee supported 62 jute mills, employing some 50,000 workers.[37] Cox Brothers, who owned the massive Camperdown Works in Lochee, were one of the largest jute manufacturers in Europe and employed more than 5,000 workers.[38]
The rise of the textile industries brought with it an expansion of supporting industries, notably of the whaling, maritime and shipbuilding industries,[39] and extensive development of the waterfront area started in 1815 to cope with increased demand for port capacity.[40] At its height, 200 ships per year were built there, including Robert Falcon Scott’s Antarctic research vessel, the RRS Discovery. This ship is now on display at Discovery Point in the city.[41] A significant whaling industry was also based in Dundee, largely existing to supply the jute mills with whale oil. Whaling ceased in 1912 and shipbuilding ceased in 1981.[42]
The original Tay Bridge (from the south) the day after the disaster. The collapsed section can be seen near the northern end.
While the city’s economy was dominated by the jute industry, it also became known for smaller industries. Most notable among these were James Keiller’s and Sons, established in 1795, which pioneered commercial marmalade production,[43] and the publishing firm DC Thomson, which was founded in the city in 1905. Dundee was said to be built on the ‘three Js’: Jute, Jam and Journalism.
The town was also the location of one of the worst rail disasters in British history, the Tay Bridge disaster. The first Tay Rail Bridge was opened in 1878. It collapsed some 18 months later during a storm, as a passenger train passed over it, resulting in the loss of 75 lives.[44] The most destructive fire in the city’s history came in 1906, reportedly sending “rivers of burning whisky” through the street.
The jute industry fell into decline in the early 20th century, partly due to reduced demand for jute products and partly due to an inability to compete with the emerging industry in Calcutta.[45] This gave rise to unemployment levels far in excess of the national average, peaking in the inter-war period,[46] but major recovery was seen in the post-war period, thanks to the arrival first of American light engineering companies like Timex and NCR, and subsequent expansion into microelectronics.[47]
A £1 billion master plan to regenerate Dundee Waterfront is expected to last for a 30-year period between 2001 and 2031.[48] The aims of the project are to reconnect the city centre to the waterfront; to improve facilities for walking, cyclists and buses; to replace the existing inner ring road with a pair of east/west tree-lined boulevards; and to provide a new civic square and a regenerated railway station and arrival space at the western edge. A new Victoria and Albert Museum opened on 15 September 2018.
Parasol
parasol (plural parasols)
A small light umbrella used as protection from the sun.
A miniature paper umbrella used as a decoration in tropical-themed cocktails.
(architecture) A roof or covering of a structure designed to provide cover from wind, rain, or sun.
Any of various Asian species of libellulid dragonfly of the genus Neurothemis.
Synonyms
Edit
(small light umbrella): sunshade, umbrella, beach umbrella, sun umbrella
Derived terms
Edit
parasol ant
parasol cell
parasol mushroom
parasol tree
parasol wing
Translations
Edit
show ▼umbrella used as protection from the sun
Verb
Edit
parasol (third-person singular simple present parasols, present participle parasoling or parasolling, simple past and past participle parasoled or parasolled)
(transitive) To protect with, or as if with, a parasol; to shade. quotations ▼
Anagrams
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Rapalos
Staves
a vertical wooden post or plank in a building or other structure.
“to support all this, an intricate system of beams and additional staves became necessary”
any of the lengths of wood attached side by side to make a barrel, bucket, or other container.
“whiskey barrel staves make excellent firewood”
a strong wooden stick or iron pole used as a weapon.
“on the wall were various weapons, from axes to swords and staves”
Calico
NORTH AMERICAN
printed cotton fabric.
“his trousers were of striped calico”
BRITISH
a type of cotton cloth, typically plain white or unbleached.
“ribbon can give plain calico a decorative edge”
2.
NORTH AMERICAN
a domestic cat with a coat that is white with mottled black, brown, and orange patches.
“Lena shooed a big calico cat off the counter”
mid 16th century (originally also calicut ): alteration of Calicut, where the fabric originated.
Mica
a shiny silicate mineral with a layered structure, found as minute scales in granite and other rocks, or as crystals. It is used as a thermal or electrical insulator.
Tom Friedman
Thomas Loren Friedman (/ˈfriːdmən/; born July 20, 1953) is an American political commentator and author. He is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner who is a weekly columnist for The New York Times. He has written extensively on foreign affairs, global trade, the Middle East, globalization, and environmental issues.
Friedman was born on July 20, 1953, in Minneapolis, Minnesota,[3] the son of Margaret Blanche (née Phillips) and Harold Abe Friedman.[4] Harold, who was vice president of a ball bearing company, United Bearing, died of a heart attack in 1973 when Tom was nineteen years old. Margaret, who served in the United States Navy during World War II and studied Home Economics at the University of Wisconsin, was a homemaker and a part-time bookkeeper. Margaret was also a Senior Life Master duplicate bridge player, and died in 2008. Friedman has two older sisters, Shelly and Jane.
From an early age, Friedman, whose father often took him to the golf course for a round after work, wanted to be a professional golfer. He played a lot of sports, and became serious about tennis and golf. He caddied at a local country club and in 1970 caddied for professional golfer Chi Chi Rodriguez when the US Open came to town.[5]
Friedman is Jewish.[6] He attended Hebrew school five days a week until his Bar Mitzvah,[7] then St. Louis Park High School, where he wrote articles for his school’s newspaper.[8] He became enamored with Israel after a visit there in December 1968, and he spent all three of his high school summers living on Kibbutz HaHotrim, near Haifa.[9] He has characterized his high school years as “one big celebration of Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War.”[9]
Friedman studied at the University of Minnesota for two years, but later transferred to Brandeis University and graduated summa cum laude in 1975 with a degree in Mediterranean studies. Friedman also pursued Arabic studies at The American University in Cairo, where he graduated in 1974 from its Arabic language unit (ALU).[1] Friedman later taught a class in economics at Brandeis in 2006, and was a commencement speaker there in 2007.[10]
After graduating from Brandeis, he attended St Antony’s College at the University of Oxford as a Marshall Scholar, earning an M.Phil. in Middle Eastern studies.
Friedman joined the London bureau of United Press International after completing his master’s degree. He was dispatched a year later to Beirut, where he lived from June 1979 to May 1981 while covering the Lebanon Civil War. He was hired by The New York Times as a reporter in 1981 and re-dispatched to Beirut at the start of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. His coverage of the war, particularly the Sabra and Shatila massacre,[11] won him the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting (shared with Loren Jenkins of The Washington Post).[12] Alongside David K. Shipler[clarification needed] he also won the George Polk Award for foreign reporting.[5]
In June 1984, Friedman was transferred to Jerusalem, where he served as the New York Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief until February 1988. That year he received a second Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, which cited his coverage of the First Palestinian Intifada.[12] He wrote a book, From Beirut to Jerusalem, describing his experiences in the Middle East,[13] which won the 1989 U.S. National Book Award for Nonfiction.[14]
Friedman covered Secretary of State James Baker during the administration of President George H. W. Bush. Following the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, Friedman became the White House correspondent for the New York Times. In 1994, he began to write more about foreign policy and economics, and moved to the op-ed page of The New York Times the following year as a foreign affairs columnist. In 2002, Friedman won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for his “clarity of vision, based on extensive reporting, in commenting on the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat.”[15][16]
In February 2002, Friedman met Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah and encouraged him to make a comprehensive attempt to end the Arab–Israeli conflict by normalizing Arab relations with Israel in exchange for the return of refugees alongside an end to the Israel territorial occupations. Abdullah proposed the Arab Peace Initiative at the Beirut Summit that March, which Friedman has since strongly supported.[17]
Friedman received the 2004 Overseas Press Club Award for lifetime achievement and the same year was named to the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.[18][19]
In May 2011, The New York Times reported that President Barack Obama “has sounded out” Friedman concerning Middle East issues.[20]
Friedman has been criticized for his staunch advocacy of the Iraq War[21] and unregulated trade[22] and his early support of Saudi Royal Prince Mohammed bin Salman.[23]
Aadhaar
Edit
Friedman has publicly expressed his support for the biometrics based Unique Identification program of India. When asked about the privacy concerns raised by the UID program in India he said[24]
I am a huge enthusiast of the UID platform. I feel that is going to be a platform for innovation. Societies require these platforms where people are integrated with a trusted ID. I think concerns about privacy are bogus. The platform doesn’t store anything about you except your biometrics. It’s not tracking you. Facebook is tracking you much more today. If you are worried about privacy, then you shouldn’t be using Google, Facebook, Twitter, any of these things. They are tracking you so much more than the Indian government is tracking you. What’s worse is that they are selling it [information about you] for profit. So, I think the privacy concern [around Aadhaar] is bogus.
Globalization
Edit
Further information: The Lexus and the Olive Tree, The World Is Flat, and Longitudes and Attitudes
Friedman and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at the World Economic Forum in Davos, January 17, 2017
Friedman first discussed his views on globalization in the book The Lexus and the Olive Tree (1999). In 2004, visits to Bangalore, India, and Dalian, China, led Friedman to write a follow-up analysis, The World Is Flat (2005). The book was on the New York Times Best Seller list from its April 2005 publication until May 2007.
Friedman believes that individual countries must sacrifice some degree of economic sovereignty to global institutions (such as capital markets and multinational corporations), a situation he has termed the “golden straitjacket”.[25]
In 2000, Friedman championed Free Trade with The People’s Republic of China, claiming that Free Trade would make China more democratic.[26]
He has also expressed concern about the United States’ lack of energy independence. He has stated, “First rule of oil—addicts never tell the truth to their pushers. We are the addicts, the oil producers are the pushers—we’ve never had an honest conversation with the Saudis.”[27]
In 2007, Friedman viewed American immigration laws as too restrictive and damaging to U.S. economic output: “It is pure idiocy that Congress will not open our borders—as wide as possible—to attract and keep the world’s first-round intellectual draft choices in an age when everyone increasingly has the same innovation tools and the key differentiator is human talent.”[28]
After visiting the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego, California in early April 2019, Friedman wrote, “The whole day left me more certain than ever that we have a real immigration crisis and that the solution is a high wall with a big gate — but a smart gate.”[29][30]
Terrorism
Edit
After the September 11 attacks in 2001, Friedman’s writing focused more on the threat of terrorism and the Middle East. He was awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary “for his clarity of vision, based on extensive reporting, in commenting on the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat”. These columns were collected and published in the book Longitudes and Attitudes.[citation needed] For a while, his reporting on post-9/11 topics led him to diverge from his prior interests in technological advances and globalization, until he began to research The World Is Flat.[31]
After the 7/7 London bombings, Friedman called for the U.S. State Department to “shine a spotlight on hate speech wherever it appears”, and to create a quarterly “War of Ideas Report, which would focus on those religious leaders and writers who are inciting violence against others”.[32] Friedman said the governmental speech-monitoring should go beyond those who actually advocate violence, and include also those whom former State Department spokesperson Jamie Rubin calls “excuse makers”.[32] In his July 22 column, Friedman wrote against the “excuses” made by terrorists or apologists who blame their actions on third-party influences or pressures. “After every major terrorist incident, the excuse makers come out to tell us … why the terrorists acted. These excuse makers are just one notch less despicable than the terrorists and also deserve to be exposed. When you live in an open society like London, where anyone with a grievance can publish an article, run for office or start a political movement, the notion that blowing up a busload of innocent civilians in response to Iraq is somehow “understandable” is outrageous. “It erases the distinction between legitimate dissent and terrorism” Mr. Rubin said, “and an open society needs to maintain a clear wall between them.”[32] As part of their response to this column, the editors at FAIR encouraged their readers to contact Friedman and inform him that “opponents of the Iraq War do not deserve to be on a government blacklist-even if they oppose the war because they believe it encourages terrorism”.[33]
Kosovo War
Edit
During the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, Friedman wrote the following in The New York Times on April 23, 1999: “Like it or not, we are at war with the Serbian nation (the Serbs certainly think so), and the stakes have to be very clear: Every week you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can do 1389 too.” Friedman urged the US to destroy “in Belgrade: every power grid, water pipe, bridge [and] road”, annex Albania and Macedonia as “U.S. protectorates”, “occupy the Balkans for years,” and “[g]ive war a chance.”[34]
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) labeled Friedman’s remarks “war-mongering” and “crude race-hatred and war-crime agitation”.[35] Steve Chapman, critical of the response taken by NATO, referred to Friedman as “the most fervent supporter of the air war” and ironically asked in the Chicago Tribune: “Why stop at 1389? Why not revive the idea, proposed but never adopted in Vietnam, of bombing the enemy all the way back to the Stone Age?”[36] Norman Solomon asserted in 2007 that “a tone of sadism could be discerned” in Friedman’s article.[37]
Iraq
Edit
Friedman supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, writing that the establishment of a democratic state in the Middle East would force other countries in the region to liberalize and modernize.[citation needed] In his February 9, 2003, column for The Wall Street Journal, Friedman also pointed to the lack of compliance with the United Nations Security Council Resolution regarding Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction:
The French position is utterly incoherent. The inspections have not worked yet, says Mr. de Villepin, because Saddam has not fully cooperated, and, therefore, we should triple the number of inspectors. But the inspections have failed not because of a shortage of inspectors. They have failed because of a shortage of compliance on Saddam’s part, as the French know. The way you get that compliance out of a thug like Saddam is not by tripling the inspectors, but by tripling the threat that if he does not comply he will be faced with a U.N.-approved war.[38]
Nevertheless, he found the incoherence of the American position to be an asset, arguing that “the axis-of-evil idea isn’t thought through – but that’s what I like about it. (…) There is a lot about the Bush team’s foreign policy I don’t like, but their willingness to restore our deterrence, and to be as crazy as some of our enemies, is one thing they have right. It is the only way we’re going to get our turkey back.[39]
After the invasion, Friedman expressed alarm over the post-invasion conduct of the war by the George W. Bush administration. Nevertheless, until his piece dated August 4, 2006 (see below), his columns remained hopeful to the possibility of a positive conclusion to the Iraq conflict (although his optimism appeared to steadily diminish as the conflict continued). Friedman chided George W. Bush and Tony Blair for “hyping” the evidence, and stated plainly that converting Iraq to democracy “would be a huge undertaking, though, and maybe impossible, given Iraq’s fractious history”. In January 2004, he participated in a forum on Slate called “Liberal Hawks Reconsider the Iraq War”, in which he dismisses the justification for war based on Iraq’s lack of compliance with the U.N. Resolutions:
The right reason for this war … was to oust Saddam’s regime and partner with the Iraqi people to try to implement the Arab Human Development report’s prescriptions in the heart of the Arab world. That report said the Arab world is falling off the globe because of a lack of freedom, women’s empowerment, and modern education. The right reason for this war was to partner with Arab moderates in a long-term strategy of dehumiliation and redignification.[40]
In his September 29, 2005, column in The New York Times, Friedman entertained the idea of supporting the Kurds and Shias in a civil war against the Sunnis: “If they the Sunnis won’t come around, we should arm the Shiites and Kurds and leave the Sunnis of Iraq to reap the wind.”[41]
Critics of Friedman’s position on the Iraq War have noted his recurrent assertion that “the next six months” will prove critical in determining the outcome of the conflict. A May 2006 study by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting cited 14 examples of Friedman’s declaring the next “few months” or “six months” as a decisive or critical period, dating from in November 2003, describing it as “a long series of similar do-or-die dates that never seem to get any closer”.[42]
The blogger Atrios coined the neologism “Friedman Unit” to refer to this unit of time in relation to Iraq, noting its use as a supposedly critical window of opportunity.[43][44]
In a live television interview aired June 11, 2006, on CNN, Howard Kurtz asked Friedman about the concept: “Now, I want to understand how a columnist’s mind works when you take positions, because you were chided recently for writing several times in different occasions ‘the next six months are crucial in Iraq.’” Friedman responded: “The fact is that the outcome there is unclear, and I reflected that in my column. And I will continue to reflect.”[45] Responding to prodding from Stephen Colbert, Friedman said in 2007: “We’ve run out of six months. It’s really time to set a deadline.”[46]
Environment
Edit
Iran’s Great Weakness May Be Its Oil, by Thomas Friedman, challenges and debates conflicts about oil. Friedman states,”The best tool we have for curbing Iran’s influence is not containment or engagement, but getting the price of oil down in the long term with conservation and an alternative-energy strategy. Let’s exploit Iran’s oil addiction by ending ours”.[47]
In Hot, Flat, and Crowded, he says that “any car company that gets taxpayer money must demonstrate a plan for transforming every vehicle in its fleet to a hybrid-electric engine with flex-fuel capability, so its entire fleet can also run on next generation cellulosic ethanol”.[48]
In a Fresh Dialogues interview, Friedman described his motivations for writing the book: “My concern is about America…. Demand for clean energy, clean fuel and energy efficiency is clearly going to explode; it’s going to be the next great global industry. I know that as sure as I know that I’m sitting here at De Anza College talking to you. By being big in the next big thing, we’ll be seen by the rest of the world as working on the most important problem in the world.”[49]
Some of Friedman’s environmental critics question his support of still-undeveloped coal pollution mitigation technology (“clean coal”) and coal mining as emblematic of Friedman’s less than “green” commitment to renewable energy.[50]
Israel
Edit
Friedman has been criticized by organizations such as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting for defending Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon as a form of “educating” Israel’s opponents; according to FAIR, Friedman was explicitly endorsing terrorism by Israel against Lebanese and Palestinians.[51] Journalist Glenn Greenwald and professor Noam Chomsky also accused Friedman of endorsing and encouraging terrorism by Israeli forces.[52][53]
Political reporter Belen Fernandez heavily critiques Friedman’s commentary regarding Israel. Among other criticisms, Fernandez singles out Friedman’s suggestion that Israeli forces were unaware that their allied Lebanese militias carried out the Sabra and Shatila massacre while under their guard, contradicting the assessments of other journalists and observers; his encouragement of strong-armed force by the Israeli army against Palestinians; and his opposition to settlements only on the grounds that they are counter-productive, rather than because they violate international law or cause suffering for Palestinians. Fernandez suggests that Friedman is most worried about successfully maintaining Israel’s Jewish ethnocracy and actively opposing a “one-man, one-vote” system of democracy.[54]
Friedman has also come under criticism from supporters of Israel. In an op-ed, Yitzhak Benhorin criticized Friedman’s alleged suggestion that Israel relinquish territory it had occupied in the 1967 Middle Eastern War.[55]
Friedman sparked criticism for writing that congressional ovations for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”[56] A letter from the American Jewish Committee objected that “Public opinion polls consistently show a high level of American … support for and identification with Israel. This indicates that the people’s elected representatives are fully reflecting the will of the voters.”[57] Friedman responded to criticism by writing: “In retrospect I probably should have used a more precise term like ‘engineered’ by the Israel lobby – a term that does not suggest grand conspiracy theories that I don’t subscribe to.”[58]
Friedman hailed the Trump-brokered peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates as “exactly what Trump said it was in his tweet: a ‘HUGE breakthrough.’“[59]
China
Edit
In September 2009, Friedman wrote an article praising China’s one-party autocracy, saying that China’s leaders are “boosting gasoline prices” and “overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power.”[60] The article was in turn subject to critical analysis: Matt Lewis who wrote, “Friedman’s apparent wish for a ‘benign’ dictator is utopian, inasmuch as it ignores Lord Acton’s warning that ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely.’“[61] and William Easterly who quotes Friedman’s one-party autocracy assertions[62] as part of his academic paper in which he concluded that, “Formal theory and evidence provides little or no basis on which to believe the benevolent autocrat story” and that, “economists should retain their traditional skepticism for stories that have little good theory or empirics to support them.”[63] However, in a July 2012 article in the NYT,[60] he also wrote that the current Chinese leadership has not used its surging economic growth to also introduce gradual political reform and that, “Corruption is as bad as ever, institutionalized transparency and rule of law remain weak and consensual politics nonexistent.”[64] When asked if he had “China envy” during a Fresh Dialogues interview, Friedman replied, “You detect the envy of someone who wants his own government to act democratically with the same effectiveness that China can do autocratically.”[65] Likewise, in a 2011 interview with the BBC Friedman says that he wants his children to live in a world where “there’s a strong America counterbalancing a strong and thriving China, and not one where you have a strong and rising China and an America that is uncertain, weak and unable to project power economically and militarily it historically did.”[66]
Friedman’s work is popular in China. His book The World is Flat was a bestseller in the country, although criticism of China in the book was removed when it was published in the country.[67] A translated version of his article from The New York Times, “China Needs Its Own Dream”, has been credited with popularizing the phrase “Chinese Dream” in China, a term that was later adopted as a slogan by Xi Jinping.[67] Friedman, in the magazine Foreign Policy, has attributed the phrase to Peggy Liu and her environmental NGO JUCCCE.[68]
In September 2020, Friedman told CNBC that “Trump is not the American president America deserves, in my opinion. But he definitely is the American president China deserved. We needed to have a president who was going to call the game with China. And Trump has done it, with I would say more grit and toughness than any of his predecessors. I give him credit for that.”[69]
Iran
Edit
As the Iran nuclear deal agreement reached between Iran and a group of world powers (the P5+1). In Friedman’s interview, he mentioned that “Our view of the Middle East is deeply colored by Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey and they all have their own interest. 15 of the 19 hijackers on 911 were from Saudi Arabia, none from Iran! Iranians had a spontaneous demonstration to support Americans on 911.” He added, “What strikes you most about Iran (vs. Saudi Arabia) is that Iran has real politics… A country of 85 million people, a great civilization, many educated men and women, if they want to get a bomb they will get it. They have demonstrated they could do it under the most severe sanctions… Show me where Iranians have acted reckless [like Saddam Hussein]. These are survivors.”[70]
Radical centrism
Edit
In the 2010s, Friedman wrote several columns supporting the politics of radical centrism. In one he stated that, if the “radical center wants to be empowered, it can’t just whine. It needs its own grass-roots movement”.[71] In another column Friedman promoted Americans Elect, an organization trying to field a radical-centrist candidate for the 2012 U.S. presidential election. That column decried “the two-party duopoly that has dominated American political life”.[72] Friedman’s radical-centrist columns received a considerable amount of criticism, particularly from liberals.[73]
Lancet
noun: lancet; plural noun: lancets
1.
a small, broad two-edged surgical knife or blade with a sharp point.
2.
a lancet arch or window.
shaped like a lancet arch.
modifier noun: lancet
“a lancet clock”
Twill
Twill is a type of textile weave with a pattern of diagonal parallel ribs. It is one of three fundamental types of textile weaves along with plain weave and satin. It is made by passing the weft thread over one or more warp threads then under two or more warp threads and so on, with a “step,” or offset, between rows to create the characteristic diagonal pattern.[1] Because of this structure, twill generally drapes well.
Serried
of rows of people or things) standing close together.
“serried ranks of soldiers”
mid 17th century: past participle of serry ‘press close’, probably from French serré ‘close together’, based on Latin sera ‘lock’.
Gauntlet
a stout glove with a long loose wrist.
HISTORICAL
an armored glove, as worn by a medieval knight.
the part of a glove covering the wrist.
late Middle English: from Old French gantelet, diminutive of gant ‘glove’, of Germanic origin.
Tawny
of an orange-brown or yellowish-brown color.
“tawny eyes”
noun
Middle English: from Old French tane, from tan ‘tanbark’; related to tan1.
Ulster (thing)
a man’s long, loose overcoat of rough cloth, typically with a belt at the back.
late 19th century: from Ulster, where it was originally sold.
Ulster (province)
Ulster (/ˈʌlstər/; Irish: Ulaidh [ˈʊlˠiː, ˈʊlˠə] or Cúige Uladh [ˌkuːɟə ˈʊlˠə, - ˈʊlˠuː]; Ulster Scots: Ulstèr[6][7][8] or Ulster)[9][10][11] is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kingdom); the remaining three are in the Republic of Ireland.
It is the second-largest (after Munster) and second-most populous (after Leinster) of Ireland’s four traditional provinces, with Belfast being its biggest city. Unlike the other provinces, Ulster has a high percentage of Protestants, making up almost half of its population. English is the main language and Ulster English the main dialect. A minority also speak Irish, and there are Gaeltachtaí (Irish-speaking regions) in southern County Londonderry, the Gaeltacht Quarter, Belfast, and in County Donegal; collectively, these three regions are home to a quarter of the total Gaeltacht population of Ireland.[12] Ulster-Scots is also spoken. Lough Neagh, in the east, is the largest lake in the British Isles, while Lough Erne in the west is one of its largest lake networks. The main mountain ranges are the Mournes, Sperrins, Croaghgorms and Derryveagh Mountains.
Historically, Ulster lay at the heart of the Gaelic world made up of Gaelic Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. According to tradition, in ancient Ireland it was one of the fifths (Irish: cúige) ruled by a rí ruirech, or “king of over-kings”. It is named after the overkingdom of Ulaid, in the east of the province, which was in turn named after the Ulaid folk. The other overkingdoms in Ulster were Airgíalla and Ailech. After the Norman invasion of Ireland in the 12th century, eastern Ulster was conquered by the Anglo-Normans and became the Earldom of Ulster. By the late 14th century the Earldom had collapsed and the O’Neill dynasty had come to dominate most of Ulster, claiming the title King of Ulster. Ulster became the most thoroughly Gaelic and independent of Ireland’s provinces. Its rulers resisted English encroachment but were defeated in the Nine Years’ War (1594–1603). King James I then colonised Ulster with English-speaking Protestant settlers from Great Britain, in the Plantation of Ulster. This led to the founding of many of Ulster’s towns. The inflow of Protestant settlers and migrants also led to bouts of sectarian violence with Catholics, notably during the 1641 rebellion and the Armagh disturbances. Along with the rest of Ireland, Ulster became part of the United Kingdom in 1801. In the early 20th century, moves towards Irish self-rule were opposed by many Ulster Protestants, sparking the Home Rule Crisis. In the last all Ireland election (1918 Irish general election) counties Donegal and Monaghan returned large Sinn Féin (nationalist) majorities. Sinn Fein candidates ran unopposed in Cavan. Fermanagh and Tyrone had Sinn Fein/Nationalist Party (Irish Parliamentary Party) majorities. The other four Counties of Ulster had Unionist Party majorities.[13] The home rule crisis and the subsequent Irish War of Independence, led to the partition of Ireland under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. Six Ulster counties became Northern Ireland, a self-governing territory within the United Kingdom, while the rest of Ireland became the Irish Free State, now the Republic of Ireland.
The term Ulster has no official function for local government purposes in either state. However, for the purposes of ISO 3166-2:IE, Ulster is used to refer to the three counties of Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan only, which are given country sub-division code “IE-U”.[14] The name is also used by various organisations such as cultural and sporting bodies.
Ulster’s name ultimately derives from the Ulaidh, a group of tribes that once dwelt in this part of Ireland. The Norsemen knew the province as Ulaztir, the tír or land (a word borrowed from Irish) of the Ulaidh;[15] this was then taken into English as Ullister or Ulvester, and later contracted to Ulster.[16] Another, less probable explanation is that the suffix -ster represents the Old Norse element staðr (“place”), found in names like Lybster and Scrabster in Scotland.[15]
Ulster is still known as Cúige Uladh in Irish, meaning the province (literally “fifth”) of the Ulaidh. Ulaidh has historically been anglicised as Ulagh or Ullagh[17] and Latinised as Ulidia or Ultonia.[18] The latter two have yielded the terms Ulidian and Ultonian. The Irish word for someone or something from Ulster is Ultach, and this can be found in the surnames MacNulty, MacAnulty, and Nulty, which all derive from Mac an Ultaigh, meaning “son of the Ulsterman”.[19]
Northern Ireland is often referred to as Ulster,[20] despite including only six of Ulster’s nine counties. This usage is most common among people in Northern Ireland who are unionist,[21] although it is also used by the media throughout the United Kingdom.[22][23] Most Irish nationalists object to the use of Ulster in this context.[21]
Ulster has a population of just over 2 million people and an area of 22,067 square kilometres (8,520 sq mi). About 62% of the area of Ulster is in the UK while the remaining 38% is in the Republic of Ireland. Ulster’s biggest city, Belfast, has an urban population of over half a million inhabitants, making it the second-largest city on the island of Ireland and the 10th largest urban area in the UK. Six of Ulster’s nine counties, Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone, including the former parliamentary boroughs of Belfast and Londonderry, form Northern Ireland which remained part of the United Kingdom after the partition of Ireland in 1921. Three Ulster counties – Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan – form part of the Republic of Ireland. About half of Ulster’s population lives in counties Antrim and Down. Across the nine counties, according to the aggregate UK 2011 Census for Northern Ireland, and the ROI 2011 Census for counties Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan, there is a Roman Catholic majority over Protestant of 50.8% to 42.7%.[24]
While the traditional counties continue to demarcate areas of local government in the Republic of Ireland, this is no longer the case in Northern Ireland. Since 1974, the traditional counties have a ceremonial role only. Local government in Northern Ireland is today demarcated by 11 districts.
The biggest lake in the British Isles, Lough Neagh, lies in eastern Ulster. The province’s highest point, Slieve Donard (848 metres (2,782 ft)), stands in County Down. The most northerly point in Ireland, Malin Head, is in County Donegal, as are the sixth-highest (601 metres (1,972 ft)) sea cliffs in Europe, at Slieve League, and the province’s largest island, Arranmore. The most easterly point in Ireland is also in Ulster, in County Down, and the most westerly point in the UK is in County Fermanagh. The longest river in the British Isles, the Shannon, rises at the Shannon Pot in County Cavan with underground tributaries from County Fermanagh. Volcanic activity in eastern Ulster led to the formation of the Antrim Plateau and the Giant’s Causeway, one of Ireland’s three UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Ulster also has a significant drumlin belt. The geographical centre of Ulster lies between the villages of Pomeroy and Carrickmore in County Tyrone. In terms of area, County Donegal is the largest county in all of Ulster.
Brier Score
Example
Edit
Suppose that one is forecasting the probability
P
P that it will rain on a given day. Then the Brier score is calculated as follows:
If the forecast is 100% (
P
P = 1) and it rains, then the Brier Score is 0, the best score achievable.
If the forecast is 100% and it does not rain, then the Brier Score is 1, the worst score achievable.
If the forecast is 70% (
P
P = 0.70) and it rains, then the Brier Score is (0.70−1)2 = 0.09.
In contrast, if the forecast is 70% (
P
P = 0.70) and it does not rain, then the Brier Score is (0.70−0)2 = 0.49.
Similarly, if the forecast is 30% (
P
P = 0.30) and it rains, then the Brier Score is (0.30−1)2 = 0.49.
If the forecast is 50% (
P
P = 0.50), then the Brier score is (0.50−1)2 = (0.50−0)2 = 0.25, regardless of whether it rains.
Snellen Chart
A Snellen chart is an eye chart that can be used to measure visual acuity. Snellen charts are named after the Dutch ophthalmologist Herman Snellen, who developed the chart in 1862.[1] Many ophthalmologists and vision scientists now use an improved chart known as the LogMAR chart.
Snellen developed charts using symbols based in a 5×5 unit grid. The experimental charts developed in 1861 used abstract symbols.[2] Snellen’s charts published in 1862 used alphanumeric capitals in the 5×5 grid. The original chart shows A, C, E, G, L, N, P, R, T, 5, V, Z, B, D, 4, F, H, K, O, S, 3, U, Y, A, C, E, G, L, 2.[3]
portmanteau
noun: portmanteau; plural noun: portmanteaux; plural noun: portmanteaus; noun: portmanteau word; plural noun: portmanteau words
1.
a large trunk or suitcase, typically made of stiff leather and opening into two equal parts.
2.
a word blending the sounds and combining the meanings of two others, for example motel (from ‘motor’ and ‘hotel’) or brunch (from ‘breakfast’ and ‘lunch’).
“podcast is a portmanteau, a made-up word coined from a combination of the words iPod and broadcast”
consisting of or combining two or more aspects or qualities.
modifier noun: portmanteau
“a portmanteau movie composed of excerpts from his most famous films”
Origin
mid 16th century: from French portemanteau, from porter ‘carry’ + manteau ‘mantle’.
griddle
a heavy, flat iron plate that is heated and used for cooking food.
“griddle cakes”
Middle English (denoting a gridiron): from Old French gredil, from Latin craticula, diminutive of cratis ‘hurdle’; related to crate, grate2, and grill1.
brioche
a light sweet yeast bread typically in the form of a small round roll.
“she ate a brioche and drank milky coffee”
French, from Norman French brier, synonym of broyer, literally ‘split up into very small pieces by pressure’.
Brioche (/ˈbriːoʊʃ/, also UK: /ˈbriːɒʃ, briːˈɒʃ/,[1] US: /briːˈoʊʃ, ˈbriːɔːʃ, briːˈɔːʃ/,[2][3][4] French: [bʁijɔʃ]) is a bread of French origin whose high egg and butter content gives it a rich and tender crumb. Chef Joël Robuchon described it as “light and slightly puffy, more or less fine, according to the proportion of butter and eggs.”[5] It has a dark, golden, and flaky crust, frequently accentuated by an egg wash applied after proofing.
Brioche is considered a Viennoiserie because it is made in the same basic way as bread but has the richer aspect of a pastry because of the extra addition of eggs, butter, liquid (milk, water, cream, and, sometimes, brandy) and occasionally sugar. Brioche, along with pain au lait and pain aux raisins—which are commonly eaten at breakfast or as a snack—form a leavened subgroup of Viennoiserie. Brioche is often baked with additions of fruit or chocolate chips and served on its own or as the basis of a dessert, with many regional variations in added ingredients, fillings, or toppings.
East Village
The East Village is a neighborhood on the East Side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is roughly defined as the area east of the Bowery and Third Avenue, between 14th Street on the north and Houston Street on the south.[2] The East Village contains three subsections: Alphabet City, in reference to the single-letter-named avenues that are located to the east of First Avenue; Little Ukraine, near Second Avenue and 6th and 7th Streets; and the Bowery, located around the street of the same name.
Initially the location of the present-day East Village was occupied by the Lenape Native Americans, and was then divided into plantations by Dutch settlers. During the early 19th century, the East Village contained many of the city’s most opulent estates. By the middle of the century, it grew to include a large immigrant population – including what was once referred to as Manhattan’s Little Germany – and was considered part of the nearby Lower East Side. By the late 1960s, many artists, musicians, students and hippies began to move into the area, and the East Village was given its own identity. Since at least the 2000s, gentrification has changed the character of the neighborhood.[5]
The East Village is part of Manhattan Community District 3, and its primary ZIP Codes are 10003 and 10009.[1] It is patrolled by the 9th Precinct of the New York City Police Department.
The area that is today known as the East Village was originally occupied by the Lenape Native Americans.[6] The Lenape relocated during different seasons, moving toward the shore to fish during the summers, and moving inland to hunt and grow crops during the fall and winter.[7] Manhattan was purchased in 1626 by Peter Minuit of the Dutch West India Company, who served as director-general of New Netherland.[8][9]
The population of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam was located primarily below the current Fulton Street, while north of it were a number of small plantations and large farms that were then called bouwerij (anglicized to “boweries”; modern Dutch: boerderij). Around these farms were a number of enclaves of free or “half-free” Africans, which served as a buffer between the Dutch and the Native Americans.[6][10] One of the largest of these was located along the modern Bowery between Prince Street and Astor Place, as well as the “only separate enclave” of this type within Manhattan.[6][11] These black farmers were some of the earliest settlers of the area.[12]: 769–770
There were several “boweries” within what is now the East Village. Bowery no. 2 passed through several inhabitants, before the eastern half of the land was subdivided and given to Harmen Smeeman in 1647. Peter Stuyvesant, the director-general of New Netherland, owned adjacent bowery no. 1 and bought bowery no. 2 in 1656 for his farm. Stuyvesant’s manor, also called Bowery, was near what is now 10th Street between Second and Third Avenues. Though the manor burned down in the 1770s, his family held onto the land for over seven generations, until a descendant began selling off parcels in the early 19th century.[13][14]
Bowery no. 3 was located near today’s 2nd Street between Second Avenue and the modern street named Bowery. It was owned by Gerrit Hendricksen in 1646 and later given to Philip Minthorne by 1732. The Minthorne and Stuyvesant families both owned slaves on their farms.[14] According to an 1803 deed, Stuyvesant’s slaves were to be buried in a cemetery plot at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery.[15] The Stuyvesants’ estate later expanded to include two Georgian-style manors: the “Bowery House” to the south[13][14] and “Petersfield” to the north.[16][17]
Many of these farms had become wealthy country estates by the middle of the 18th century. The Stuyvesant, DeLancey, and Rutgers families would come to own most of the land on the Lower East Side, including the portions that would later become the East Village.[18] By the late 18th century Lower Manhattan estate owners started having their lands surveyed to facilitate the future growth of Lower Manhattan into a street grid system. The Stuyvesant plot, surveyed in the 1780s or 1790s, was planned to be developed with a new grid around Stuyvesant Street, a street that ran compass west–east. This contrasted with the grid system that was ultimately laid out under the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811, which is offset by 28.9 degrees clockwise. Stuyvesant Street formed the border between former boweries 1 and 2, and the grid surrounding it included four north–south and nine west–east streets.[13][14]
Because each landowner had done their own survey, there were different street grids that did not align with each other. Various state laws, passed in the 1790s, gave the city of New York the ability to plan out, open, and close streets.[16][17] The final plan, published in 1811, resulted in the current street grid north of Houston Street – and most of the streets in the modern East Village – were conformed to this plan, except for Stuyvesant Street.[19] The north–south avenues within the Lower East Side were finished in the 1810s, followed by the west–east streets in the 1820s.[20]
Upscale neighborhood
Edit
Hamilton-Holly House
Daniel LeRoy House
Two of the remaining rowhouses on St. Mark’s Place. Both are city landmarks.[17]
The Commissioners’ Plan and resulting street grid was the catalyst for the northward expansion of the city,[21] and for a short period, the portion of the Lower East Side that is now the East Village was one of the wealthiest residential neighborhoods in the city.[22] Bond Street between the Bowery and Broadway, just west of the East Side within present-day NoHo, was considered the most upscale street address in the city by the 1830s,[18] with structures such as the Greek Revival-style Colonnade Row and Federal-style rowhouses.[23][17] The neighborhood’s prestigious nature could be attributed to several factors, including a rise in commerce and population following the Erie Canal’s opening in the 1820s.[21]
Following the grading of the streets, development of rowhouses came to the East Side and NoHo by the early 1830s.[21] One set of Federal-style rowhouses was built in the 1830s by Thomas E. Davis on 8th Street between Second and Third Avenues. That block was renamed “St. Mark’s Place” and is one of the few remaining terrace names in the East Village.[24] In 1833 Davis and Arthur Bronson bought the entire block of 10th Street from Avenue A to Avenue B. The block was located adjacent to Tompkins Square Park, located between 7th and 10th Streets from Avenue A to Avenue B, designated the same year.[25]
Though the park was not in the original Commissioners’ Plan of 1811, part of the land from 7th to 10th Streets east of First Avenue had been set aside for a marketplace that was ultimately never built.[6] Rowhouses up to three stories were built on the side streets by such developers as Elisha Peck and Anson Green Phelps; Ephraim H. Wentworth; and Christopher S. Hubbard and Henry H. Casey.[26]
Mansions were also built on the East Side. One notable address was the twelve-house development called “Albion Place”, located on Fourth Street between the Bowery and Second Avenue, built for Peck and Phelps in 1832–1833.[23][24] Second Avenue also had its own concentration of mansions, though most residences on that avenue were row houses built by speculative land owners, including the Isaac T. Hopper House.[24][27] One New York Evening Post article in 1846 said that Second Avenue was to become one of “the two great avenues for elegant residences” in Manhattan, the other being Fifth Avenue.[19]
Two marble cemeteries were also built on the East Side: the New York City Marble Cemetery, built in 1831 on 2nd Street between First and Second Avenues,[28]: 1 and the New York Marble Cemetery, built in 1830 within the backlots of the block to the west.[29]: 1 Following the rapid growth of the neighborhood, Manhattan’s 17th ward was split from the 11th ward in 1837. The former covered the area from Avenue B to the Bowery, while the latter covered the area from Avenue B to the East River.[30]
Immigrant neighborhood
Edit
19th century
Edit
See also: Little Germany, Manhattan
Former German-American Shooting Society Clubhouse at 12 St Mark’s Place (1885), part of Little Germany
By the middle of the 19th century, many of the wealthy had continued to move further northward to the Upper West Side and the Upper East Side.[31]: 10 Some wealthy families remained, and one observer noted in the 1880s that these families “look[ed] down with disdain upon the parvenus of Fifth avenue”.[32] In general, though, the wealthy population of the neighborhood started to decline as many moved northward. Immigrants from modern-day Ireland, Germany, and Austria moved into the rowhouses and manors.[30]
The population of Manhattan’s 17th ward – which includes the western part of the East Village and Lower East Side – grew from 18,000 in 1840 to over 43,000 by 1850 and to 73,000 persons in 1860, becoming the city’s most highly populated ward at that time.[30][33]: 29, 32 As a result of the Panic of 1837, the city had experienced less construction in the previous years, and so there was a dearth of units available for immigrants, resulting in the subdivision of many houses in lower Manhattan.[30][34]
Another solution was brand-new “tenant houses”, or tenements, within the East Side.[31]: 14–15 Clusters of these buildings were constructed by the Astor family and Stephen Whitney.[35] The developers rarely involved themselves with the daily operations of the tenements, instead subcontracting landlords (many of them immigrants or their children) to run each building.[36] Numerous tenements were erected, typically with footprints of 25 by 25 feet (7.6 by 7.6 m), before regulatory legislation was passed in the 1860s.[35]
To address concerns about unsafe and unsanitary conditions, a second set of laws was passed in 1879, requiring each room to have windows, resulting in the creation of air shafts between each building. Subsequent tenements built to the law’s specifications were referred to as Old Law Tenements.[37][38] Reform movements, such as the one started by Jacob Riis’s 1890 book How the Other Half Lives, continued to attempt to alleviate the problems of the area through settlement houses, such as the Henry Street Settlement, and other welfare and service agencies.[12]: 769–770
Because most of the new immigrants were German speakers, the East Village and the Lower East Side collectively became known as “Little Germany” (German: Kleindeutschland).[33]: 29 [39][40][41] The neighborhood had the third largest urban population of Germans outside of Vienna and Berlin. It was America’s first foreign language neighborhood; hundreds of political, social, sports and recreational clubs were set up during this period.[39] Numerous churches were built in the neighborhood, of which many are still extant.[37] In addition, Little Germany also had its own library on Second Avenue,[40] now the New York Public Library’s Ottendorfer branch.[42] However, the community started to decline after the sinking of the General Slocum on June 15, 1904, in which more than a thousand German-Americans died.[40][43]
The Germans who moved out of the area were replaced by immigrants of many different nationalities.[44] This included groups of Italians and Eastern European Jews, as well as Greeks, Hungarians, Poles, Romanians, Russians, Slovaks and Ukrainians, each of whom settled in relatively homogeneous enclaves.[12]: 769–770 In How the Other Half Lives Riis wrote: “A map of the city, colored to designate nationalities, would show more stripes than on the skin of a zebra, and more colors than any rainbow.”[38]: 20
One of the first groups to populate the former Little Germany were Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews, who first settled south of Houston Street before moving northward.[45] The Roman Catholic Poles as well as the Protestant Hungarians would also have a significant impact in the East Side, erecting houses of worship next to each other along 7th Street at the turn of the 20th century. American-born New Yorkers would build other churches and community institutions, including the Olivet Memorial Church at 59 East 2nd Street (built 1891), the Middle Collegiate Church at 112 Second Avenue (built 1891–1892), and the Society of the Music School Settlement, now Third Street Music School Settlement, at 53–55 East 3rd Street (converted 1903–1904).[46]
By the 1890s tenements were being designed in the ornate Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival styles. Tenements built in the later part of the decade were built in the Renaissance Revival style.[47] At the time, the area was increasingly being identified as part of the Lower East Side.[48]
20th century
Edit
See also: Yiddish Theatre District
The Village East Cinema/Louis N. Jaffe Theater was originally a Jewish theater.
By the 1890s and 1900s any remaining manors on Second Avenue had been demolished and replaced with tenements or apartment buildings.[49] The New York State Tenement House Act of 1901 drastically changed the regulations to which tenement buildings had to conform.[49][50] The early 20th century marked the creation of apartment houses,[51] office buildings,[52] and other commercial or institutional structures on Second Avenue.[53] After the widening of Second Avenue’s roadbed in the early 1910s, many of the front stoops on that road were eliminated.[54] The symbolic demise of the old fashionable district came in 1912 when the last resident moved out of the Thomas E. Davis mansion at Second Avenue and St. Mark’s Place, which The New York Times had called the “last fashionable residence” on Second Avenue.[55]
Simultaneously with the decline of the last manors, the Yiddish Theatre District or “Yiddish Rialto” developed within the East Side. It contained many theaters and other forms of entertainment for the Jewish immigrants of the city.[56][57] While most of the early Yiddish theaters were located south of Houston Street, several theater producers were considering moving north along Second Avenue by the first decades of the 20th century.[58]
Second Avenue gained more prominence as a Yiddish theater destination in the 1910s with the opening of two theatres: the Second Avenue Theatre, which opened in 1911 at 35–37 Second Avenue,[59] and the National Theater, which opened in 1912 at 111–117 East Houston Street.[60] This was followed by the opening of several other theaters, such as the Louis N. Jaffe Theater and the Public Theatre in 1926 and 1927 respectively. Numerous movie houses also opened in the East Side, including six on Second Avenue.[61] By World War I the district’s theaters hosted as many as twenty to thirty shows a night.[57] After World War II Yiddish theater became less popular,[62] and by the mid-1950s few theaters were still extant in the District.[63]
The city built First Houses on the south side of East 3rd Street between First Avenue and Avenue A, and on the west side of Avenue A between East 2nd and East 3rd Streets in 1935–1936, the first such public housing project in the United States.[12]: 769–770 [64]: 1 The neighborhood originally ended at the East River, to the east of where Avenue D was later located. In the mid-20th-century, landfill – including World War II debris and rubble shipped from London – was used to extend the shoreline to provide foundation for the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive.[65]
In the mid-20th century Ukrainians created a Ukrainian enclave in the neighborhood, centered around Second Avenue and 6th and 7th Streets.[66][67] The Polish enclave in the East Village persisted as well. Numerous other immigrant groups had moved out, and their former churches were sold and became Orthodox cathedrals.[66] Latin American immigrants started to move to the East Side, settling in the eastern part of the neighborhood and creating an enclave that later came to be known as Loisaida.[68][69][70]
St. Nicholas Kirche at East 2nd Street, just west of Avenue A. The church and almost all buildings on the street were demolished in 1960 and replaced with parking lots for the Village View Houses.[71]
The East Side’s population started to decline at the start of the Great Depression in the 1930s and the implementation of the Immigration Act of 1924, and the expansion of the New York City Subway into the outer boroughs.[72] Many old tenements, deemed to be “blighted” and unnecessary, were destroyed in the middle of the 20th century.[73] A substantial portion of the neighborhood, including the Ukrainian enclave, was slated for demolition under the Cooper Square Urban Renewal Plan of 1956, which was to redevelop the area from Ninth to Delancey Streets from the Bowery/Third Avenue to Chrystie Street/Second Avenue with new privately owned cooperative housing.[73][74]
The United Housing Foundation was selected as the sponsor for the project,[75] and there was significant opposition to the plan, as it would have displaced thousands of people.[76] Neither the original large-scale development nor a 1961 revised proposal were implemented and the city’s government lost interest in performing such large-scale slum-clearance projects.[77] Another redevelopment project that was completed was the Village View Houses on First Avenue between East 2nd and 6th Streets, which opened in 1964[77] partially on the site of the old St. Nicholas Kirche.[71]
Rebranding and cultural scene
Edit
Initial rebranding
Edit
Until the mid-20th century the area was simply the northern part of the Lower East Side, with a similar culture of immigrant, working-class life. In the 1950s and 1960s the migration of Beatniks into the neighborhood later attracted hippies, musicians, writers, and artists who had been priced out of the rapidly gentrifying Greenwich Village.[2][77][78]: 254 Among the first displaced Greenwich Villagers to move to the area were writers Allen Ginsberg, W. H. Auden, and Norman Mailer, who all moved to the area in 1951–1953.[78]: 258
A cluster of cooperative art galleries on East 10th Street (later collectively referred to as the 10th Street galleries) were opened around the same time, starting with the Tanger and the Hansa which both opened in 1952.[77][79] Further change came in 1955 when the Third Avenue elevated railway above the Bowery and Third Avenue was removed.[77][80] This in turn made the neighborhood more attractive to potential residents; in 1960 The New York Times reported: “This area is gradually becoming recognized as an extension of Greenwich Village … thereby extending New York’s Bohemia from river to river.”[77][81]
The 1960 Times article stated that rental agents were increasingly referring to the area as “Village East” or “East Village”.[81] The new name was used to dissociate the area from the image of slums evoked by the Lower East Side. According to The New York Times, a 1964 guide called Earl Wilson’s New York wrote: “Artists, poets and promoters of coffeehouses from Greenwich Village are trying to remelt the neighborhood under the high-sounding name of ‘East Village’.”[2] Newcomers and real estate brokers popularized the new name, and the term was adopted by the popular media by the mid-1960s.[82]: ch. 5 A weekly newspaper with the neighborhood’s new name, The East Village Other, started publication in 1966. The New York Times declared that the neighborhood “had come to be known” as the East Village in the edition of June 5, 1967.[2]
Growth
Edit
The Phyllis Anderson Theater, one of several theaters that were originally Yiddish theaters
The East Village became a center of the counterculture in New York, and was the birthplace and historical home of many artistic movements, including punk rock[83] and the Nuyorican literary movement.[84] Multiple former Yiddish theaters were converted for use by Off-Broadway shows: for instance, the Public Theater at 66 Second Avenue became the Phyllis Anderson Theater.[77] Numerous buildings on East 4th Street hosted Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway productions, including the Royal Playhouse, the Fourth Street Theatre, the Downtown Theatre, the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, and the Truck & Warehouse Theater just on the block between Bowery and Second Avenue.[66][81]
By the 1970s and 1980s the city in general was in decline and nearing bankruptcy, especially after the 1975 New York City fiscal crisis.[68] Residential buildings in the East Village suffered from high levels of neglect, as property owners did not properly maintain their buildings.[82]: 191–194 The city purchased many of these buildings, but was also unable to maintain them due to a lack of funds.[68] Following the publication of a revised Cooper Square renewal plan in 1986,[85] some properties were given to the Cooper Square Mutual Housing Association as part of a 1991 agreement.[85][86]
In spite of the deterioration of the structures within the East Village, its music and arts scenes were doing well. By the 1970s gay dance halls and punk rock clubs had started to open in the neighborhood.[85] These included the Fillmore East Music Hall (later a gay private nightclub called The Saint), which was located in a movie theater at 105 Second Avenue.[85][78]: 264 The Phyllis Anderson Theatre was converted into Second Avenue Theater, an annex of the CBGB music club, and hosted musicians and bands such as Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, and the Talking Heads. The Pyramid Club, which opened in 1979 at 101 Avenue A, hosted musical acts such as Nirvana and Red Hot Chili Peppers, as well as drag performers such as RuPaul and Ann Magnuson.[85] In addition, there were more than a hundred art galleries in the East Village by the mid-1980s. These included Patti Astor and Bill Stelling’s Fun Gallery at 11th Street, as well as numerous galleries on 7th Street.[85]
Decline
Edit
By 1987 the visual arts scene was in decline.[87] Many of these art galleries relocated to more profitable neighborhoods such as SoHo, or closed altogether.[88][85] The arts scene had become a victim of its own success, since the popularity of the art galleries had revived the East Village’s real estate market.[89]
A wall in the East Village in 1998, featuring a mural of two men
One club that tried to resurrect the neighborhood’s past artistic prominence was Mo Pitkins’ House of Satisfaction, part-owned by comedian Jimmy Fallon before it closed in 2007.[90] A Fordham University study, examining the decline of the East Village performance and art scene, stated that “the young, liberal culture that once found its place on the Manhattan side of the East River” has shifted in part to new neighborhoods like Williamsburg in Brooklyn.[91][92] There are still some performance spaces, such as Sidewalk Cafe on 6th Street and Avenue A, where downtown acts find space to exhibit their talent, as well as the poetry clubs Bowery Poetry Club and Nuyorican Poets Café.[93]
Gentrification, preservation, and present day
Edit
In the late 20th and early 21st centuries the East Village became gentrified as a result of real-estate price increases following the success of the arts scene.[94][89] In the 1970s rents were extremely low and the neighborhood was considered among the last places in Manhattan where many people would want to live.[95] However, as early as 1983, the Times reported that because of the influx of artists, many longtime establishments and immigrants were being forced to leave the East Village due to rising rents.[96] By the following year, young professionals constituted a large portion of the neighborhood’s demographics.[95] Even so, crimes remained prevalent and there were often drug deals being held openly in Tompkins Square Park.[97]
Tensions over gentrification resulted in the 1988 Tompkins Square Park riot, which occurred following opposition to a proposed curfew that had targeted the park’s homeless. The aftermath of the riot slowed down the gentrification process somewhat as real estate prices declined.[98] By the end of the 20th century, however, real estate prices had resumed their rapid rise. About half of the East Village’s stores had opened within the decade since the riot, while vacancy rates in that period had dropped from 20% to 3%, indicating that many of the longtime merchants had been pushed out.[99]
By the early 21st century some buildings in the area were torn down and replaced by newer buildings.[100] One example of this was in 2010, when actor David Schwimmer bought an 1852 townhouse on 6th Street and completely rebuilt it, despite having received several notices of its possible landmark status.[101]
Rezoning
Edit
Due to the gentrification of the neighborhood, parties including the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP), Manhattan Community Board 3, the East Village Community Coalition, and City Councilmember Rosie Mendez, began calling for a change to the area’s zoning in the first decade of the 21st century. The city first released a draft in July 2006, which concerned an area bounded by East 13th Street on the north, Third Avenue on the west, Delancey Street on the south, and Avenue D on the east.[102][103] The rezoning proposal was done in response to concerns about the character and scale of some of the new buildings in the neighborhood.[104] Despite protests and accusations of promoting gentrification and increased property values over the area’s history and need for affordable housing, the rezoning was approved in 2008.[104] Among other things, The zoning established height limits for new development throughout the affected area, modified allowable density of real estate, capped air rights transfers, eliminated the current zoning bonus for dorms and hotels, and created incentives for the creation and retention of affordable housing.[105]
Landmark efforts
Edit
“Extra Place”, an obscure side street off of East 1st Street, just east of the Bowery
Local community groups such as the GVSHP are actively working to gain individual and district landmark designations for the East Village to preserve and protect the architectural and cultural identity of the neighborhood.[106] In early 2011 the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) proposed two East Village historic districts: a small district along the block of 10th Street that lies north of Tompkins Square Park, and a larger district focused around lower Second Avenue.[107] before later being expanded.[108] In January 2012 the East 10th Street Historic District was designated by the LPC,[109][110] and that October, the larger East Village/Lower East Side Historic District was also designated by the LPC.[111]
Several notable buildings are designated as individual landmarks, some due to the GVSHP’s efforts. These include:
The First Houses at East 3rd Street and Avenue A, the country’s first public housing development, built in 1935 and designated in 1974[64]
The Stuyvesant Polyclinic at 137 Second Avenue, built in 1884 and designated in 1976[112]
The Christodora House, built in 1928 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986[113]
The Children’s Aid Society’s Tompkins Square Lodging House for Boys and Industrial School at 296 East 8th Street, built in 1886 and designated in 2000[114]
Public School 64 at 350 East 10th Street, a French Renaissance Revival public school built in 1904–1906 by architect and school superintendent C.B.J. Snyder, designated in 2006[115]
Webster Hall, a Romanesque Revival concert hall and nightclub designed in 1886,[116] designated in 2008[117]
The Children’s Aid Society’s Elizabeth Home for Girls at 308 East 12th Street, built in 1891–1892 and designated in 2008[118]
The Wheatsworth Bakery Building, built in 1927–1928 and designated in 2008[119]
The St. Nicholas of Myra Church at 288 East 10th Street, designated in 2008[120]
The Van Tassell and Kearney Horse Auction Mart at 126–128 East 13th Street, a horse auction mart built in 1903–1904, designated in 2012[121]
The First German Baptist Church (Town & Village Synagogue) at 334 East 14th Street, designated in 2014[122]
First Houses
First Houses
Webster Hall
Webster Hall
128 East 13th Street
128 East 13th Street
East 5th Street between Second Avenue and Cooper Square is a typical side street in the heart of the East Village.
Landmark efforts have included a number of losses as well. Despite the request of GVSHP and allied groups in 2012 for landmarking of Mary Help of Christians school, church and rectory, the site was demolished starting in 2013.[123] In 2011 an early 19th-century Federal house at 35 Cooper Square – one of the oldest on the Bowery and in the East Village – was approved for demolition to make way for a college dorm.[124] over requests of community groups and elected officials.[125] Furthermore, the LPC acts on no particular schedule, leaving open indefinitely some “calendared” requests for designation.[126] Sometimes it simply declines requests for consideration, as it did regarding an intact Italianate tenement at 143 East 13th Street.[127] In other cases the LPC has refused the expansion of existing historic districts, as in 2016 when it declined to add 264 East 7th Street (the former home of illustrator Felicia Bond) and four neighboring rowhouses to the East Village/Lower East Side Historic District.[128]
2015 gas explosion
Edit
Main article: 2015 East Village gas explosion
On March 26, 2015, a gas explosion occurred on Second Avenue after a gas line was tapped.[129] The explosion and resulting fire destroyed three buildings at 119, 121 and 123 Second Avenue, between East 7th Street and St. Marks Place. Two people were killed, and at least twenty-two people were injured, four critically.[130] Three restaurants were also destroyed in the explosion.[131] Landlord Maria Hrynenko and an unlicensed plumber and another employee were sentenced to prison time for their part in causing the explosion in New York State Supreme Court. Ms. Hrynenko allowed an illegal gas line to be constructed on her property.[132]
Central Pangean Mountains
Bakersfield
Bakersfield is a city in Kern County, California, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Kern County. The city covers about 151 sq mi (390 km2)[9][10] near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley and the Central Valley region. Bakersfield’s population as of the 2020 census was 403,455,[11] making it the 48th-most populous city in the United States of America and the 9th-most populous city in California. The Bakersfield–Delano Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Kern County, had a 2020 census population of 909,235,[8] making it the 62nd-largest metropolitan area in the United States.[12] The urban area that includes Bakersfield and areas immediately around the city, such as East Bakersfield, Oildale, and Rosedale, has a population of 570,235.
Bakersfield is a significant hub for both agriculture and energy production. Kern County is the most productive oil-producing county in California[13] and the fourth-most productive agricultural county (by value) in the United States.[14] Industries in and around Bakersfield include natural gas and other energy extraction, mining, petroleum refining, distribution, food processing, and corporate regional offices.[15] The city is the birthplace of the country music genre known as the Bakersfield sound.
Archaeological evidence indicates the presence of Native American settlements dating back thousands of years.[16] Upon Spanish arrival, present-day Bakersfield was inhabited by the Yowlumne, a Yokuts people.[17] Yowlumne accounts indicate that the village of Woilu was situated in the bounds of the present city.[18]
The Yokuts of the region lived in lodges[19] along the branches of the Kern River delta and hunted antelope, tule elk, deer, bear, fish, and game birds.
Spanish priest Francisco Garcés arrived in the Bakersfield area in 1776.
In 1776, Spanish missionary Francisco Garcés became the first European to explore the area. Recording his May 1 arrival to a Yokuts village along the Kern River, immediately northeast of present-Bakersfield, Garcés wrote,[18]
The people of the rancheria had a great feast over my arrival, and having regaled me well I reciprocated to them all with tobacco and glass beads, congratulating myself on seeing the people so affable and affectionate.
Given the remoteness and inaccessibility of the region, the Yokuts remained largely isolated from further contact until after the Mexican War of Independence, when Mexican settlers began to migrate to the area. Following the discovery of gold in California in 1848, settlers flooded into the San Joaquin Valley. In 1851, gold was discovered along the Kern River in the southern Sierra Nevada, and in 1865, oil was discovered in the valley.[20] The Bakersfield area, once a tule reed-covered marshland, was first known as Kern Island to the handful of pioneers, who built log cabins there in 1860. The area was subject to periodic flooding from the Kern River, which occupied what is now the downtown area, and experienced outbreaks of malaria.[21]
Bakersfield is the fifth-largest majority-Hispanic city in the United States, with 53% of its population being Hispanic in 2020.[22]
Founding
Edit
Bakersfield is named after Thomas Baker, who came to the area in 1863.
In 1861, disastrous floods swept away the original settlement founded in 1860 by the German-born Christian Bohna.[23] Among those attracted to the area by the California gold rush was Thomas Baker, a lawyer and former colonel in the militia of Ohio, his home state.[23][24] Baker moved to the banks of the Kern River in 1863,[23] at what became known as Baker’s Field, which became a stopover for travelers.[25] By 1870, with a population of 600, what is now known as Bakersfield was becoming the principal town in Kern County.[23]
In 1873, Bakersfield was officially incorporated as a city,[23] and by 1874, it officially replaced the town of Havilah as the county seat.[23] Alexander Mills was hired as the city marshal, a man one historian would describe as “… an old man by the time he became Marshal of Bakersfield, and he walked with a cane. But he was a Kentuckian, a handy man with a gun, and not lacking in initiative and resource when the mood moved him.”[26] Businessmen and others began to resent Mills, who was cantankerous and high-handed in his treatment of them. Wanting to fire him but fearing reprisals, they came up with a scheme to disincorporate, effectively leaving him without an employer. According to local historian Gilbert Gia[27] the city was also failing to collect the taxes it needed for services.[28] In 1876,[29] the city voted to disincorporate. For the next 22 years, a citizen’s council managed the community.[30]
By 1880, Bakersfield had a population of 801 with 250 of Chinese descent.[31][32]
By 1890, it had a population of 2,626. Migration from Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Southern California brought new residents, who were mostly employed by the oil industry. [31]
The city reincorporated on January 11, 1898.[33]
1952 earthquake
Edit
Main article: 1952 Kern County earthquake
The First Baptist Church, built in 1931 in a Spanish Colonial Revival style is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
On July 21, 1952, an earthquake struck at 4:52 am Pacific Daylight Time.[34] The earthquake, which measured 7.5 on the moment magnitude scale and was felt from San Francisco to the Mexican border, destroyed the nearby communities of Tehachapi and Arvin. The earthquake’s destructive force bent cotton fields into U shapes, slid a shoulder of the Tehachapi Mountains across all four lanes of the Ridge Route, collapsed a water tower creating a flash flood, and destroyed the railroad tunnels in the mountain chain.[citation needed] Bakersfield was somewhat spared, experiencing minor architectural damage without loss of life.
A large aftershock occurred on July 29, and did minor architectural damage, but raised fears that the flow of the Friant-Kern Canal could be dangerously altered, potentially flooding the city and surrounding areas.
The historic Spanish Baroque Revival style Fox Theater, built in 1930.
Aftershocks continued for the next month, and on August 22 at 3:42 pm, another earthquake, measured at 5.8, struck directly under the city’s center in the most densely populated area of the southern San Joaquin Valley. Four people died in the aftershock, and many of the town’s historic structures sustained heavy damage.
1970 to 2010
Edit
Between 1970 and 2010, Bakersfield grew 400% (from 70,000 to 347,483),[35] making it one of the fastest-growing cities in California.[14]
Bakersfield’s close proximity to mountain passes, primarily the Tejon Pass on Interstate 5 between the Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Joaquin Valley, has made the city a regional transportation hub.[36]
In 1990, Bakersfield was one of 10 U.S. communities to receive the All-America City Award from the National Civic League.
In 2010, the Bakersfield MSA had a gross metropolitan product of $29.466 billion, making it the 73rd-largest metropolitan economy in the United States.[37]
Historic architecture and preservation
Edit
Main article: Bakersfield Register of Historic Places and Areas of Historic Interest
Bakersfield has a number of buildings and locations that have been designated as historic sites at the national, state, and city levels. Five buildings have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), including the First Baptist Church (NRHP 1/2/79); Baker Street Library (NRHP 4/1/81) and Bakersfield Californian Building (NRHP 3/10/83). Four sites have been designated as California Historical Landmarks, including Garces Memorial Circle (designated in 1937) and the Colonel Thomas Baker Memorial (designated in 1944). In addition, 16 sites have been locally designated on the Bakersfield Register of Historic Places, including the Fox Theater (designated 8/24/94) and Kern County Chamber of Commerce Building (designated 3/12/08). With only 16 sites on its local register (compared to more than 300 sites designated by the City of Fresno), Bakersfield has been criticized for its lack of focus on historic preservation.[38]
Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach (/ˈɒfənbɑːx/, also US: /ˈɔːf-/, French: [ʒak ɔfɛnbak], German: [ˈʔɔfn̩bax] (listen); 20 June 1819 – 5 October 1880) was a German-born French composer, cellist and impresario of the Romantic period. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s to the 1870s, and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss Jr. and Arthur Sullivan. His best-known works were continually revived during the 20th century, and many of his operettas continue to be staged in the 21st. The Tales of Hoffmann remains part of the standard opera repertory.
Born in Cologne, the son of a synagogue cantor, Offenbach showed early musical talent. At the age of 14, he was accepted as a student at the Paris Conservatoire but found academic study unfulfilling and left after a year. From 1835 to 1855 he earned his living as a cellist, achieving international fame, and as a conductor. His ambition, however, was to compose comic pieces for the musical theatre. Finding the management of Paris’ Opéra-Comique company uninterested in staging his works, in 1855 he leased a small theatre in the Champs-Élysées. There he presented a series of his own small-scale pieces, many of which became popular.
In 1858, Offenbach produced his first full-length operetta, Orphée aux enfers (“Orpheus in the Underworld”), which was exceptionally well received and has remained one of his most played works. During the 1860s, he produced at least 18 full-length operettas, as well as more one-act pieces. His works from this period included La belle Hélène (1864), La Vie parisienne (1866), La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein (1867) and La Périchole (1868). The risqué humour (often about sexual intrigue) and mostly gentle satiric barbs in these pieces, together with Offenbach’s facility for melody, made them internationally known, and translated versions were successful in Vienna, London and elsewhere in Europe.
Offenbach became associated with the Second French Empire of Napoleon III; the emperor and his court were genially satirised in many of Offenbach’s operettas. Napoleon III personally granted him French citizenship and the Légion d’Honneur. With the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Offenbach found himself out of favour in Paris because of his imperial connections and his German birth. He remained successful in Vienna and London, however. He re-established himself in Paris during the 1870s, with revivals of some of his earlier favourites and a series of new works, and undertook a popular US tour. In his last years he strove to finish The Tales of Hoffmann, but died before the premiere of the opera, which has entered the standard repertory in versions completed or edited by other musicians.
Offenbach was born Jacob (or Jakob[n 1]) Offenbach to a Jewish family in the German city of Cologne, which was then a part of Prussia.[11][n 2] His birthplace in the Großer Griechenmarkt was a short distance from the square that is now named after him, the Offenbachplatz.[4] He was the second son and the seventh of ten children of Isaac Juda Offenbach né Eberst (1779–1850) and his wife Marianne, née Rindskopf (c. 1783–1840).[12] Isaac, who came from a musical family, had abandoned his original trade as a bookbinder and earned an itinerant living as a cantor in synagogues and playing the violin in cafés.[13] He was generally known as “der Offenbacher”, after his native town, Offenbach am Main, and in 1808 he officially adopted Offenbach as a surname.[n 3] In 1816 he settled in Cologne, where he became established as a teacher, giving lessons in singing, violin, flute, and guitar, and composing both religious and secular music.[8]
When Jacob was six years old, his father taught him to play the violin; within two years the boy was composing songs and dances, and at the age of nine he took up the cello.[8] As he was by then the permanent cantor of the local synagogue, Isaac could afford to pay for his son to take lessons from the cellist Bernhard Breuer. Three years later, the biographer Gabriel Grovlez records, the boy was giving performances of his own compositions, “the technical difficulties of which terrified his master”, Breuer.[15] Together with his brother Julius (violin) and sister Isabella (piano), Jacob played in a trio at local dance halls, inns and cafés, performing popular dance music and operatic arrangements.[16][n 4] In 1833, Isaac decided that the two most musically talented of his children, Julius and Jacob (then aged 18 and 14), needed to leave the provincial musical scene of Cologne to study in Paris. With generous support from local music lovers and the municipal orchestra, with whom they gave a farewell concert on 9 October, the two young musicians, accompanied by their father, made the four-day journey to Paris in November 1833.[17]
Isaac had been given letters of introduction to the director of the Paris Conservatoire, Luigi Cherubini, but he needed all his eloquence to persuade Cherubini even to give Jacob an audition. The boy’s age and nationality were both obstacles to admission.[n 5] Cherubini had several years earlier refused the 12-year-old Franz Liszt admission on similar grounds,[19] but he eventually agreed to hear the young Offenbach play. He listened to his playing and stopped him, saying, “Enough, young man, you are now a pupil of this Conservatoire.”[20] Julius was also admitted. Both brothers adopted French forms of their names, Julius becoming Jules and Jacob becoming Jacques.[21]
Early influences: Luigi Cherubini and Fromental Halévy (top); Louis-Pierre Norblin and Friedrich von Flotow (below)
Isaac hoped to secure permanent employment in Paris but failed to do so and returned to Cologne.[20] Before leaving, he found a number of pupils for Jules; the modest earnings from those lessons, supplemented by fees earned by both brothers as members of synagogue choirs, supported them during their studies. At the conservatoire, Jules was a diligent student; he graduated and became a successful violin teacher and conductor, and led his younger brother’s orchestra for several years.[22] By contrast, Jacques was bored by academic study and left after a year. The conservatoire’s roll of students notes against his name “Struck off on the 2 December 1834 (left of his own free will)”.[n 6]
Cello virtuoso
Edit
Having left the conservatoire, Offenbach was free from the stern academicism of Cherubini’s curriculum, but as the biographer James Harding writes, “he was free, also, to starve.”[25] He secured a few temporary jobs in theatre orchestras before gaining a permanent appointment in 1835 as a cellist at the Opéra-Comique. He was no more serious there than he had been at the conservatoire, and regularly had his pay docked for playing pranks during performances; on one occasion, he and the principal cellist played alternate notes of the printed score, and on another they sabotaged some of their colleagues’ music stands to make them collapse in mid-performance.[1] Nevertheless, his earnings from his orchestral work enabled him to take lessons with the cellist Louis-Pierre Norblin.[26] He made a favourable impression on the composer and conductor Fromental Halévy, who gave him lessons in composition and orchestration and wrote to Isaac Offenbach in Cologne that the young man was going to be a great composer.[27] Some of Offenbach’s early compositions were programmed by the conductor Louis Antoine Jullien.[28] Offenbach and another young composer Friedrich von Flotow collaborated on a series of works for cello and piano.[29] Although Offenbach’s ambition was to compose for the stage, he could not gain an entrée to Parisian theatre at this point in his career; with Flotow’s help, he built a reputation composing for and playing in the fashionable salons of Paris.[30]
Offenbach as a young cello virtuoso, drawing by Alexandre Laemlein from 1850
Among the salons at which Offenbach most frequently appeared was that of the comtesse de Vaux. There he met Hérminie d’Alcain (1827–1887), the daughter of a Carlist general.[31] They fell in love, but he was not yet in a financial position to propose marriage.[32] To extend his fame and earning power beyond Paris, he undertook tours of France and Germany. Among those with whom he performed were Anton Rubinstein and, in a concert in Offenbach’s native Cologne, Liszt.[4] In 1844, probably through English family connections of Hérminie,[33] he embarked on a tour of England. There, he was immediately engaged to appear with some of the most famous musicians of the day, including Mendelssohn, Joseph Joachim, Michael Costa and Julius Benedict.[32] The Era wrote of his debut performance in London, “His execution and taste excited both wonder and pleasure, the genius he exhibited amounting to absolute inspiration.”[34] The British press reported a triumphant royal command performance; The Illustrated London News wrote, “Herr Jacques Offenbach, the astonishing Violoncellist, performed on Thursday evening at Windsor before the Emperor of Russia, the King of Saxony, Queen Victoria, and Prince Albert with great success.”[35][n 7] The use of “Herr” rather than “Monsieur”, reflecting the fact that Offenbach remained a Prussian citizen, was common to all the British press coverage of Offenbach’s 1844 tour.[37] The ambiguity of his nationality sometimes caused him difficulty in later life.[38]
Offenbach returned to Paris with his reputation and his bank balance both much enhanced. The last remaining obstacle to his marriage to Hérminie was the difference in their professed religions; he converted to Roman Catholicism, with the comtesse de Vaux acting as his sponsor. Isaac Offenbach’s views on his son’s conversion from Judaism are unknown.[39] The wedding took place on 14 August 1844; the bride was 17 years old, and the bridegroom was 25.[39] The marriage was lifelong, and happy, despite some extramarital dalliances on Offenbach’s part.[40][n 8] After Offenbach’s death, a friend said that Hérminie “gave him courage, shared his ordeals and comforted him always with tenderness and devotion”.[42]
Offenbach caricatured in 1858 by Nadar
Returning to the familiar Paris salons, Offenbach quietly shifted the emphasis of his work from being a cellist who also composed to being a composer who played the cello.[43] He had already published many compositions, and some of them had sold well, but now he began to write, perform and produce musical burlesques as part of his salon presentations.[44] He amused the comtesse de Vaux’s 200 guests with a parody of Félicien David’s currently fashionable Le désert, and in April 1846 gave a concert at which seven operatic items of his own composition were premiered before an audience that included leading music critics.[44] After some encouragement and some temporary setbacks, he seemed on the verge of breaking into theatrical composition when Paris was convulsed by the 1848 revolution, which swept Louis Philippe from the throne and led to serious bloodshed in the streets of the capital.[45] Offenbach hastily took Hérminie and their recently born daughter to join his family in Cologne. He thought it politic to revert temporarily to the name Jacob.[46]
Returning to Paris in February 1849, Offenbach found the grand salons closed down. He went back to working as a cellist, and occasional conductor, at the Opéra-Comique, but was not encouraged in his aspirations to compose.[47] His talents had been noted by the director of the Comédie-Française, Arsène Houssaye, who appointed him musical director of the theatre, with a brief to enlarge and improve the orchestra.[48] Offenbach composed songs and incidental music for eleven classical and modern dramas for the Comédie-Française in the early 1850s. Some of his songs became very popular, and he gained valuable experience in writing for the theatre. Houssaye later wrote that Offenbach had done wonders for his theatre.[49] The management of the Opéra-Comique, however, remained uninterested in commissioning him to compose for its stage.[50] The composer Debussy later wrote that the musical establishment could not cope with Offenbach’s irony, which exposed the “false, overblown quality” of the operas they favoured – “the great art at which one was not allowed to smile”.[51]
Bouffes-Parisiens, Champs-Élysées
Edit
Between 1853 and 1855, Offenbach wrote three one-act operettas and managed to have them staged in Paris.[n 9] They were all well received, but the authorities of the Opéra-Comique remained unmoved. Offenbach found more encouragement from the composer, singer and impresario Florimond Ronger, known professionally as Hervé. At his theatre, the Folies-Nouvelles, which had opened the previous year, Hervé pioneered French light comic opera, or “opérette”.[15][52] In The Musical Quarterly, Martial Teneo and Theodore Baker wrote, “Without the example set by Hervé, Offenbach might perhaps never have become the musician who penned Orphée aux Enfers, La belle Hélène, and so many other triumphant works.”[53] Offenbach approached Hervé, who agreed to present a new one-act operetta with words by Jules Moinaux and music by Offenbach, called Oyayaye ou La reine des îles.[n 10] It was presented on 26 June 1855 and was well received. Offenbach’s biographer Peter Gammond describes it as “a charming piece of nonsense”.[57] The piece depicts a double-bass player, played by Hervé, shipwrecked on a cannibal island, who after several perilous encounters with the female chief of the cannibals makes his escape using his double-bass as a boat.[54] Offenbach pressed ahead with plans to present his works himself at his own theatre[57] and to abandon further thoughts of acceptance by the Opéra-Comique.[n 11]
Poster by Offenbach’s friend Nadar
Offenbach had chosen his theatre, the Salle Lacaze in the Champs-Élysées.[60] The location and the timing were ideal for him. Paris was about to be filled between May and November with visitors from France and abroad for the 1855 Great Exhibition. The Salle Lacaze was next to the exhibition site. He later wrote:
In the Champs-Élysées, there was a little theatre to let, built for [the magician] Lacaze but closed for many years. I knew that the Exhibition of 1855 would bring many people into this locality. By May, I had found twenty supporters and on 15 June I secured the lease. Twenty days later, I gathered my librettists and I opened the “Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens”.[61]
The description of the theatre as “little” was accurate: it could only hold an audience of at most 300.[n 12] It was therefore well suited to the tiny casts permitted under the prevailing licensing laws: Offenbach was limited to three speaking (or singing) characters in any piece.[n 13] With such small forces, full-length works were out of the question, and Offenbach, like Hervé, presented evenings of several one-act pieces.[64] The opening of the theatre was a frantic rush, with less than a month between the issue of the licence and the opening night on 5 July 1855.[65] During this period Offenbach had to “equip the theatre, recruit actors, orchestra and staff, find authors to write material for the opening programme – and compose the music.”[64] Among those he recruited at short notice was Ludovic Halévy, the nephew of Offenbach’s early mentor Fromental Halévy. Ludovic was a respectable civil servant with a passion for the theatre and a gift for dialogue and verse. While maintaining his civil service career he went on to collaborate (sometimes under discreet pseudonyms) with Offenbach in 21 works over the next 24 years.[4]
Halévy wrote the libretto for one of the pieces in the opening programme, but the most popular work of the evening had words by Moinaux. Les deux aveugles, “The Two Blind Men” is a comedy about two beggars feigning blindness. During rehearsals there had been some concern that the public might judge it to be in poor taste,[66] but it was not only the hit of the season in Paris: it was soon playing successfully in Vienna, London and elsewhere.[67] Another success that summer was Le violoneux, which made a star of Hortense Schneider in her first role for Offenbach. Aged 22, when she auditioned for him, she was engaged on the spot. From 1855 she was a key member of his companies through much of his career.[67]
The Champs-Élysées in 1855 were not yet the grand avenue laid out by Baron Haussmann in the 1860s, but an unpaved allée.[65] The public who were flocking to Offenbach’s theatre in the summer and autumn of 1855 could not be expected to venture there in the depths of a Parisian winter. He cast about for a suitable venue and found the Théâtre des Jeunes Élèves, known also as the Salle Choiseul or Théâtre Comte,[15] in central Paris. He entered into partnership with its proprietor and moved the Bouffes-Parisiens there for the winter season. The company returned to the Salle Lacaze for the 1856, 1857, and 1859 summer seasons, performing at the Salle Choiseul in the winter.[68] Legislation enacted in March 1861 prevented the company from using both theatres, and appearances at the Salle Lacaze were discontinued.[69]
Salle Choiseul
Edit
Offenbach’s first piece for the company’s new home was Ba-ta-clan (December 1855), a well-received piece of mock-oriental frivolity, to a libretto by Halévy.[70] He followed it with 15 more one-act operettas over the next three years.[4] They were all for the small casts permitted under his licence, although at the Salle Choiseul he was granted an increase from three to four singers.[65]
Hortense Schneider, the first star created by Offenbach
Under Offenbach’s management, the Bouffes-Parisiens staged works by many composers. These included new pieces by Leon Gastinel and Léo Delibes. When Offenbach asked Rossini’s permission to revive his comedy Il signor Bruschino, Rossini replied that he was pleased to be able to do anything for “the Mozart of the Champs-Élysées”.[n 14] Offenbach revered Mozart above all other composers. He had an ambition to present Mozart’s neglected one-act comic opera Der Schauspieldirektor at the Bouffes-Parisiens, and he acquired the score from Vienna.[65] With a text translated and adapted by Léon Battu and Ludovic Halévy, he presented it during the Mozart centenary celebrations in May 1856 as L’impresario; it was popular with the public[79] and also greatly enhanced the critical and social standing of the Bouffes-Parisiens.[80] By command of the emperor, Napoleon III, the company performed at the Tuileries palace shortly after the first performance of the Mozart piece.[65]
In a long article in Le Figaro in July 1856, Offenbach traced the history of comic opera. He declared that the first work worthy to be called opéra-comique was Philidor’s 1759 Blaise le savetier, and he described the gradual divergence of Italian and French notions of comic opera, with verve, imagination and gaiety from Italian composers, and cleverness, common sense, good taste and wit from the French composers.[n 15] He concluded that comic opera had become too grand and inflated. His disquisition was a preliminary to the announcement of an open competition for aspiring composers.[82] A jury of French composers and playwrights including Daniel Auber, Fromental Halévy, Ambroise Thomas, Charles Gounod and Eugène Scribe considered 78 entries; the five short-listed entrants were all asked to set a libretto, Le docteur miracle, written by Ludovic Halévy and Léon Battu.[83] The joint winners were Georges Bizet and Charles Lecocq. Bizet became, and remained, a devoted friend of Offenbach. Lecocq and Offenbach took a dislike to one another, and their subsequent rivalry was not altogether friendly.[82][84]
Although the Bouffes-Parisiens played to full houses, the theatre was constantly on the verge of running out of money, principally because of what his biographer Alexander Faris calls “Offenbach’s incorrigible extravagance as a manager”.[80] An earlier biographer, André Martinet, wrote, “Jacques spent money without counting. Whole lengths of velvet were swallowed up in the auditorium; costumes devoured width after width of satin.”[n 16] Moreover, Offenbach was personally generous and liberally hospitable.[85] To boost the company’s finances, a London season was organised in 1857, with half the company remaining in Paris to play at the Salle Choiseul and the other half performing at the St James’s Theatre in the West End of London.[65] The visit was a success, but did not cause the sensation that Offenbach’s later works did in London.[86]
Orphée aux enfers
Edit
Poster for a 19th-century production of Orpheus in the Underworld
In 1858, the government lifted the licensing restrictions on the number of performers, and Offenbach was able to present more ambitious works. His first full-length operetta, Orphée aux enfers (“Orpheus in the Underworld”), was presented in October 1858. Offenbach, as usual, spent freely on the production, with scenery by Gustave Doré, lavish costumes, a cast of twenty principals, and a large chorus and orchestra.[87]
As the company was particularly short of money following an abortive season in Berlin, a big success was urgently needed. At first the production seemed merely to be a modest success. It soon benefited from an outraged review by Jules Janin, the critic of the Journal des Débats; he condemned the piece for profanity and irreverence (ostensibly to Roman mythology but in reality to Napoleon and his government, generally seen as the targets of its satire).[88] Offenbach and his librettist Hector Crémieux seized on this free publicity, and joined in a lively public debate in the columns of the Parisian daily newspaper Le Figaro.[89] Janin’s indignation made the public agog to see the work, and the box office takings were prodigious. Among those who wanted to see the satire of the emperor was the emperor himself, who commanded a performance in April 1860.[89] Despite many great successes during the rest of Offenbach’s career, Orphée aux enfers remained his most popular. Gammond lists among the reasons for its success, “the sweeping waltzes” reminiscent of Vienna but with a new French flavour, the patter songs, and “above all else, of course, the can-can which had led a naughty life in low places since the 1830s or thereabouts and now became a polite fashion, as uninhibited as ever.”[90]
In the 1859 season, the Bouffes-Parisiens presented new works by composers including Flotow, Jules Erlanger, Alphonse Varney, Léo Delibes, and Offenbach himself. Of Offenbach’s new pieces, Geneviève de Brabant, though initially only a mild success, was later revised and gained much popularity where the duet of the two gendarmes became a favourite number in England and France and the basis for the Marines’ Hymn in the U.S.[91]
Early 1860s
Edit
Offenbach with his only son, Auguste, 1865
The 1860s were Offenbach’s most successful decade. At the beginning of 1860, he was granted French citizenship by the personal command of Napoleon III,[92] and the following year he was appointed a Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur; this appointment scandalised those haughty and exclusive members of the musical establishment who resented such an honour for a composer of popular light opera.[93] Offenbach began the decade with his only stand-alone ballet, Le papillon (“The Butterfly”), produced at the Opéra in 1860. It achieved what was then a successful run of 42 performances, without, as the biographer Andrew Lamb says, “giving him any greater acceptance in more respectable circles.”[4] Among other operettas in the same year, he finally had a piece presented by the Opéra-Comique, the three-act Barkouf. It was not a success; its plot revolved around a dog, and Offenbach attempted canine imitations in his music. Neither the public nor the critics were impressed, and the piece survived for only seven performances.[94]
Apart from that setback, Offenbach flourished in the 1860s, with successes greatly outnumbering failures. In 1861 he led the company in a summer season in Vienna. Encountering packed houses and enthusiastic reviews, Offenbach found Vienna much to his liking. He even reverted, for a single evening, to his old role as a cello virtuoso at a command performance before Emperor Franz Joseph.[95] That success was followed by a failure in Berlin. Offenbach, though born a Prussian citizen, observed, “Prussia never does anything to make those of our nationality happy.”[n 17] He and the company hastened back to Paris.[95] Meanwhile, among his operettas that season were the full-length Le pont des soupirs and the one-act M. Choufleuri restera chez lui le….[96]
In 1862, Offenbach’s only son, Auguste (died 1883), was born, the last of five children. In the same year, Offenbach resigned as director of the Bouffes-Parisiens, handing the post over to Alphonse Varney. He continued to write most of his works for the company, with the exception of occasional pieces for the summer season at Bad Ems.[n 18] Despite problems with the libretto, Offenbach completed a serious opera in 1864, Die Rheinnixen, a hotchpotch of romantic and mythological themes. The opera was presented with substantial cuts at the Vienna Court Opera and in Cologne in 1865. It was not given again until 2002, when it was finally performed in its entirety. Since then it has been given several productions.[97] It contained one number, the “Elfenchor”, described by the critic Eduard Hanslick as “lovely, luring and sensuous”,[98] which Ernest Guiraud later adapted as the Barcarolle in The Tales of Hoffmann.[99] After December 1864, Offenbach wrote less frequently for the Bouffes-Parisiens, and many of his new works premiered at larger theatres.[4]
Later 1860s
Edit
Offenbach’s leading ladies (clockwise from top left): Marie Garnier in Orphée aux enfers, Zulma Bouffar in Les brigands, Léa Silly (role unidentified), and Rose Deschamps in Orphée aux enfers
Between 1864 and 1868, Offenbach wrote four of the operettas for which he is chiefly remembered: La belle Hélène (1864), La Vie parisienne (1866), La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein (1867) and La Périchole (1868). Halévy was joined as librettist for all of them by Henri Meilhac. Offenbach, who called them “Meil” and “Hal”,[100] said of this trinity: “Je suis sans doute le Père, mais chacun des deux est mon Fils et plein d’Esprit,”[101] a play on words loosely translated as “I am certainly the Father, but each of them is my Son and Wholly Spirited”.[n 19]
For La belle Hélène, Offenbach secured Hortense Schneider to play the title role. Since her early success in his short operas, she had become a leading star of the French musical stage. She now commanded large fees and was notoriously temperamental, but Offenbach was adamant that no other singer could match her as Hélène.[102] Rehearsals for the premiere at the Théâtre des Variétés were tempestuous, with Schneider and the principal mezzo-soprano Léa Silly feuding, the censor fretting about the satire of the imperial court, and the manager of the theatre attempting to rein in Offenbach’s extravagance with production expenses.[102] Once again the success of the piece was inadvertently assured by the critic Janin; his scandalised notice was strongly countered by liberal critics and the ensuing publicity again brought the public flocking.[103]
Barbe-bleue was a success in early 1866 and was quickly reproduced elsewhere. La Vie parisienne later in the same year was a new departure for Offenbach and his librettists; for the first time in a large-scale piece they chose a modern setting, instead of disguising their satire under a classical cloak. It needed no accidental boost from Janin but was an instant and prolonged success with Parisian audiences, although its very Parisian themes made it less popular abroad. Gammond describes the libretto as “almost worthy of [W.S.] Gilbert”, and Offenbach’s score as “certainly his best so far”.[104] The piece starred Zulma Bouffar, who began an affair with the composer that lasted until at least 1875.[105]
In 1867, Offenbach had his greatest success. The premiere of La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein, a satire on militarism,[106] took place two days after the opening of the Paris Exhibition, an even greater international draw than the 1855 exhibition which had helped him launch his composing career.[107] The Parisian public and foreign visitors flocked to the new operetta. Sovereigns who saw the piece included the King of Prussia accompanied by his chief minister, Otto von Bismarck. Halévy, with his experience as a senior civil servant, saw more clearly than most the looming threat from Prussia; he wrote in his diary, “Bismarck is helping to double our takings. This time it’s war we’re laughing at, and war is at our gates.”[108] La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein was followed quickly by a series of successful pieces: Robinson Crusoé, Geneviève de Brabant (revised version; both 1867), Le château à Toto, Le pont des soupirs (revised version) and L’île de Tulipatan (all in 1868).[109]
In October 1868, La Périchole marked a transition in Offenbach’s style, with less exuberant satire and more human romantic interest.[110] Lamb calls it Offenbach’s “most charming” score.[111] There was some critical grumbling at the change, but the piece, with Schneider in the lead, did good business.[112] It was quickly produced in Europe and both North and South America.[113][114] Of the pieces that followed it at the end of the decade, Les brigands (1869) was another work that leaned more to romantic comic opera than to opéra bouffe. It was well received, but has not subsequently been revived as often as Offenbach’s best-known operettas.[110]
War and aftermath
Edit
Offenbach returned hurriedly from Ems and Wiesbaden before the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. He then went to his home in Étretat and arranged for his family to move to the safety of San Sebastián in northern Spain, joining them shortly afterwards.[115][116] Having risen to fame under Napoleon III, satirised him, and been rewarded by him, Offenbach was universally associated with the old régime: he was known as “the mocking-bird of the Second Empire”.[117] When the empire fell in the wake of Prussia’s crushing victory at Sedan (1870), Offenbach’s music was suddenly out of favour. France was swept by violently anti-German sentiments, and despite his French citizenship and Légion d’honneur, his birth and upbringing in Cologne made him suspect. His operettas were now frequently vilified as the embodiment of everything superficial and worthless in Napoleon III’s régime.[38] La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein was banned in France because of its antimilitarist satire.[118]
Programme for the first London production of La Périchole
Although his Parisian audience deserted him, Offenbach had by now become highly popular in England. John Hollingshead of the Gaiety Theatre presented Offenbach’s operettas to large and enthusiastic audiences.[119] Between 1870 and 1872, the Gaiety produced 15 of his works. At the Royalty Theatre, Richard D’Oyly Carte presented La Périchole in 1875.[120] In Vienna, too, Offenbach works were regularly produced. While the war and its aftermath ravaged Paris, the composer supervised Viennese productions and travelled to England as the guest of the Prince of Wales.[121]
By the end of 1871 life in Paris had returned to normal, and Offenbach ended his voluntary exile. His new works Le roi Carotte (1872) and La jolie parfumeuse (1873) were modestly profitable, but lavish revivals of his earlier successes did better business. He decided to go back into theatre management and took over the Théâtre de la Gaîté in July 1873.[122] His spectacular revival of Orphée aux enfers there was highly profitable; an attempt to repeat that success with a new, lavish version of Geneviève de Brabant proved less popular.[123] Along with the costs of extravagant productions, collaboration with the dramatist Victorien Sardou culminated in financial disaster. An expensive production of Sardou’s La haine in 1874, with incidental music by Offenbach, failed to attract the public to the Gaîté, and Offenbach was forced to sell his interests in the Gaîté and to mortgage future royalties.[124]
In 1876 a successful tour of the United States in connection with its Centennial Exhibition enabled Offenbach to recover some of his losses and pay his debts. Beginning with a concert at Gilmore’s Garden before a crowd of 8,000 people, he gave a series of more than 40 concerts in New York and Philadelphia. To circumvent a Philadelphia law forbidding entertainments on Sundays, he disguised his operetta numbers as liturgical pieces and advertised a “Grand Sacred Concert by M. Offenbach”. “Dis-moi, Vénus” from La belle Hélène became a “Litanie”, and other equally secular numbers were billed as “Prière” or “Hymne”.[125] The local authorities were not deceived, and the concert did not take place.[126] At Booth’s Theatre, New York, Offenbach conducted La vie parisienne[127] and his recent (1873) La jolie parfumeuse.[4] He returned to France in July 1876, with profits that were handsome but not spectacular.[53]
Offenbach’s later operettas enjoyed renewed popularity in France, especially Madame Favart (1878), which featured a fantasy plot about the real-life French actress Marie Justine Favart, and La fille du tambour-major (1879), which was the most successful of his operettas of the 1870s.[128]
Last years
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The Tales of Hoffmann – scene from the premiere, showing Adèle Isaac as the dead Antonia, with (l. to r.) Hippolyte Belhomme, Marguerite Ugalde, Pierre Grivot, Émile-Alexandre Taskin, and Jean-Alexandre Talazac
Profitable though La fille du tambour-major was, composing it left Offenbach less time to work on his cherished project, the creation of a successful serious opera. Since the beginning of 1877, he had been working when he could on a piece based on a stage play, Les contes fantastiques d’Hoffmann, by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré. Offenbach had suffered from gout since the 1860s, often being carried into the theatre in a chair. Now in failing health, he was conscious of his own mortality and wished passionately to live long enough to complete the opera Les contes d’Hoffmann (“The Tales of Hoffmann”). He was heard saying to Kleinzach, his dog, “I would give everything I have to be at the première”.[129] However, Offenbach did not live to finish the piece. He left the vocal score substantially complete and had made a start on the orchestration. Ernest Guiraud, a family friend, assisted by Offenbach’s 18-year-old son Auguste, completed the orchestration, making significant changes as well as the substantial cuts demanded by the Opéra-Comique’s director, Carvalho.[130][n 20] The opera was first seen at the Opéra-Comique on 10 February 1881; Guiraud added recitatives for the Vienna premiere, in December 1881, and other versions were made later.[130]
Offenbach died in Paris in 1880 at the age of 61. His cause of death was certified as heart failure brought on by acute gout. He was given a state funeral; The Times wrote, “The crowd of distinguished men that accompanied him on his last journey amid the general sympathy of the public shows that the late composer was reckoned among the masters of his art.”[131] He is buried in the Montmartre Cemetery.[132]
Influence
Edit
The musician and author Fritz Spiegl wrote in 1980, “Without Offenbach there would have been no Savoy Opera … no Die Fledermaus or Merry Widow.[174] The two creators of the Savoy operas, the librettist, Gilbert, and the composer, Sullivan, were both indebted to Offenbach and his partners for their satiric and musical styles, even borrowing plot components.[175] For example, Faris argues that the mock-oriental Ba-ta-clan influenced The Mikado, including its character names: Offenbach’s Ko-ko-ri-ko and Gilbert’s Ko-Ko;[176] Faris also compares Le pont des soupirs (1861) and The Gondoliers (1889): “in both works there are choruses à la barcarolle for gondoliers and contadini [in] thirds and sixths; Offenbach has a Venetian admiral telling of his cowardice in battle; Gilbert and Sullivan have their Duke of Plaza-Toro who led his regiment from behind.”[93] Offenbach’s Les Géorgiennes (1864), like Gilbert and Sullivan’s Princess Ida (1884), depicts a female stronghold challenged by males in disguise.[177][n 27] The best-known instance in which a Savoy opera draws on Offenbach’s work is The Pirates of Penzance (1879), where both Gilbert and Sullivan follow the lead of Les brigands (1869) in their treatment of the police, plodding along ineffectually in heavy march-time.[110] Les brigands was presented in London in 1871, 1873 and 1875; for the first of these, Gilbert made an English translation of Meilhac and Halévy’s libretto.[110]
However much the young Sullivan was influenced by Offenbach,[n 28] the influence was evidently not in only one direction. Hughes observes that two numbers in Offenbach’s Maître Péronilla (1878) bear “an astonishing resemblance” to “My name is John Wellington Wells” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Sorcerer (1877).[181]
Elegy to Offenbach by Clement Scott in the magazine Punch
It is not clear how directly Offenbach influenced Johann Strauss. He had encouraged Strauss to turn to operetta when they met in Vienna in 1864, but it was not until seven years later that Strauss did so.[182] However, Offenbach’s operettas were well established in Vienna, and Strauss worked on the lines established by his French colleague; in 1870s Vienna, an operetta composer who did not do so was quickly called to order by the press.[182] In Gammond’s view, the Viennese composer most influenced by Offenbach was Franz von Suppé, who studied Offenbach’s works carefully and wrote many successful operettas using them as a model.[183]
In his 1957 article, Lubbock wrote, “Offenbach is undoubtedly the most significant figure in the history of the ‘musical’,” and traced the development of musical theatre from Offenbach to Irving Berlin and Rodgers and Hammerstein, via Franz Lehár, André Messager, Sullivan and Lionel Monckton.[133]
Reputation
Edit
During Offenbach’s lifetime, and in the obituary notices in 1880, fastidious critics (dubbed “Musical Snobs Ltd” by Gammond) showed themselves at odds with public appreciation.[184] In a 1980 article in The Musical Times, George Hauger commented that those critics not only underrated Offenbach, but wrongly supposed that his music would soon be forgotten.[185] Although most critics of the time made that erroneous assumption, a few perceived Offenbach’s unusual quality; in The Times, Francis Hueffer wrote, “none of his numerous Parisian imitators has ever been able to rival Offenbach at his best.”[186] Nevertheless, the paper joined in the general prediction: “It is very doubtful whether any of his works will survive.”[186] The New York Times shared this view: “That he had the gift of melody in a very extraordinary degree is not to be denied, but he wrote currente calamo,[n 29] and the lack of development of his choicest inspirations will, it is to be feared, keep them from reaching even the next generation”.[187] After the posthumous production of The Tales of Hoffmann, The Times partially reconsidered its judgment, writing, “Les Contes de Hoffmann [will] confirm the opinion of those who regard him as a great composer in every sense of the word”. It then lapsed into what Gammond calls “Victorian sanctimoniousness”[188] by taking it for granted that the opera “will uphold Offenbach’s fame long after his lighter compositions have passed out of memory.”[189]
The critic Sacheverell Sitwell compared Offenbach’s lyrical and comic gifts to those of Mozart and Rossini.[190] Friedrich Nietzsche called Offenbach both an “artistic genius” and a “clown”, but wrote that “nearly every one” of Offenbach’s works achieves half a dozen “moments of wanton perfection”. Émile Zola commented on Offenbach and his work in a novel (Nana)[191] and an essay, “La féerie et l’opérette IV/V”.[192] While granting that Offenbach’s best operettas are full of grace, charm and wit, Zola blames Offenbach for what others have made out of the genre. Zola calls operetta a “public enemy” and a “monstrous beast”. While some critics saw the satire in Offenbach’s works as a social protest, an attack against the establishment, Zola saw the works as a homage to the social system in the Second Empire.[192]
Otto Klemperer was an admirer; late in life he reflected: “At the Kroll we did La Périchole. That’s a really delightful score. So is Orpheus in the Underworld and Belle Hélène. Those who called him ‘The Mozart of the Boulevards’ were not much mistaken”.[193] Debussy, Bizet, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov loved Offenbach’s operettas.[194] Debussy rated them higher than The Tales of Hoffmann: “The one work in which [Offenbach] tried to be serious met with no success.”[n 30] A London critic wrote, on Offenbach’s death:
I somewhere read that some of Offenbach’s latest work shows him to be capable of more ambitious work. I, for one, am glad he did what he did, and only wish he had done more of the same.[198]
Cracker Barrel
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc., doing business as simply Cracker Barrel, is an American chain of restaurant and gift stores with a Southern country theme. The company was founded by Dan Evins in 1969. Its first store was in Lebanon, Tennessee; the corporate offices are located at a different facility in the same city. The chain’s stores were at first positioned near Interstate Highway exits in the Southeastern and Midwestern United States, but expanded across the country during the 1990s and 2000s. As of September 16, 2020, the chain operates 663 stores in 45 states.[2]
Cracker Barrel’s menu is based on traditional Southern cuisine, with appearance and decor designed to resemble an old-fashioned general store. Each location features a front porch lined with wooden rocking chairs, a stone fireplace, and decorative artifacts from the local area. Cracker Barrel partners with country music performers. It engages in charitable activities, such as its assistance to victims of Hurricane Katrina and injured war veterans.
During the early 1990s, the company became the subject of controversy when founder and CEO Dan Evins instituted an official company policy prohibiting the hiring of any individual whose “sexual preferences fail to demonstrate normal heterosexual values.”[8] Following massive public backlash and large shareholders such as the New York City Employee Retirement System threatening to vote out the entirety of upper management, the company reversed the policy.[9]
First location and early company history
Edit
Cracker Barrel was founded in 1969 by Dan Evins, a representative for Shell Oil, who developed the restaurant and gift store concept initially as a plan to improve gasoline sales.[10] Designed to resemble the traditional country store that he remembered from his childhood, with a name chosen to give it a Southern country theme,[11] Cracker Barrel was intended to attract the interest of highway travelers.[10] The name comes from the barrels of soda crackers that could be found for sale in small-town stores across the American South in the early 1900s; people would stand around the barrels chatting and catching up, similar in purpose to contemporary office water coolers.[12]
The first restaurant was built close to Interstate 40, in Lebanon, Tennessee.[13] It opened in September 1969,[14] serving Southern cuisine including biscuits, grits, country ham, and turnip greens.[13]
Evins incorporated Cracker Barrel in February 1970,[10] and soon opened more locations. In the early 1970s, the firm leased land on gasoline station sites near interstate highways to build restaurants.[11] These early locations all featured gas pumps on-site; during gasoline shortages in the mid to late 1970s, the firm began to build restaurants without pumps.[10] Into the early 1980s, the company reduced the number of gas stations on-site, eventually phasing them out altogether as the company focused on its restaurant and gift sales revenues.[14] Cracker Barrel became a publicly traded company in 1981 to raise funds for further expansion.[10][13] It floated more than half a million shares, raising $10.6 million.[11] Following the initial public offering, Cracker Barrel grew at a rate of around 20 percent per year;[15] by 1987, the company had become a chain of more than 50 units in eight states, with annual net sales of almost $81 million.[10]
New markets and refocus
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A Cracker Barrel in Minnesota
The company grew consistently through the 1980s and 1990s, attaining a $1 billion market value by 1992.[13][16][17] In 1993, the chain’s revenue was nearly twice that of any other family restaurant.[11]
In 1994, the chain tested a carry-out-only store, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Corner Market, in suburban residential neighborhoods.[17] In addition, it expanded into new markets through the establishment of more traditional Cracker Barrel locations, the majority of them outside the South, and tested alterations to its menus to adapt to new regions.[18] The chain added regional dishes to its menus, including eggs and salsa in Texas and Reuben sandwiches in New York, but continued to offer its original menu items in all restaurants.[16]
By September 1997, Cracker Barrel had 314 restaurants, and aimed to increase the number of stores by approximately 50 per year over the following five years.[18] The firm closed its Corner Market operations in 1997 and refocused on its restaurant and gift store locations. The company’s president, Ron Magruder, stated that the chain was concentrating on strengthening its core theme, offering traditional foods and retail in a country store setting, with good service and country music.[15] The chain opened its first restaurant and gift store not located near a highway in 1998, in Dothan, Alabama.[19] In the 2000s, in the wake of incidents including charges of racial discrimination and controversy over its policy of firing gay employees, the firm launched a series of promotional activities including a nationwide book drive and a sweepstakes with trips to the Country Music Association Awards and rocking chairs among the prizes.[20] The company has since begun expansion to the West Coast: in 2017, their first store in the region opened in Tualatin, Oregon,[21] and their first store in California was opened the next year in Victorville.[22]
In 2019 Cracker Barrel purchased Maple Street Biscuit Company for $36 million cash.[23]
Operations
Edit
The number of combined restaurants and stores owned by Cracker Barrel increased between 1997 and 2000, to more than 420 locations. In 2000 and 2001, the company addressed staffing and infrastructure issues related to this rapid growth by implementing a more rigorous recruitment strategy and introducing new technology, including an order-placement system.[24] From the late 1990s to the mid-2000s, the company focused on opening new locations in residential areas to attract local residents and workers as customers.[19] It updated its marketing in 2006 to encourage new customers, changing the design of its highway billboard advertisements to include images of menu items. Previously the signs had featured only the company’s logo.[25] By 2011, Cracker Barrel had opened more than 600 restaurants in 42 states.[26][27][28] On January 17, 2012, company founder Dan Evins died of bladder cancer.[29]
Cracker Barrel partnered with DoorDash in 2020, in response to restaurant closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It was the restaurant’s first partnership with a delivery service.[30][31] Since then, the company has continued to grow its off-premise sales, launched two virtual brands including the Pancake Kitchen and Chicken n’ Biscuits, as well as two new “Ghost Kitchens” in the Los Angeles area called Cracker Barrel Kitchen which only processes off-premise orders.[32][33] In February 2021, the company announced in an earnings call that 30% of its total sales in the previous quarter came from off-premise sales, an increase of 78%.[34]
Robert Millikan
Robert Andrews Millikan (March 22, 1868 – December 19, 1953) was an American experimental physicist honored with the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1923 for the measurement of the elementary electric charge and for his work on the photoelectric effect.
Millikan graduated from Oberlin College in 1891 and obtained his doctorate at Columbia University in 1895. In 1896 he became an assistant at the University of Chicago, where he became a full professor in 1910. In 1909 Millikan began a series of experiments to determine the electric charge carried by a single electron. He began by measuring the course of charged water droplets in an electric field. The results suggested that the charge on the droplets is a multiple of the elementary electric charge, but the experiment was not accurate enough to be convincing. He obtained more precise results in 1910 with his famous oil-drop experiment in which he replaced water (which tended to evaporate too quickly) with oil.
In 1914 Millikan took up with similar skill the experimental verification of the equation introduced by Albert Einstein in 1905 to describe the photoelectric effect. He used this same research to obtain an accurate value of Planck’s constant. In 1921 Millikan left the University of Chicago to become director of the Norman Bridge Laboratory of Physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California. There he undertook a major study of the radiation that the physicist Victor Hess had detected coming from outer space. Millikan proved that this radiation is indeed of extraterrestrial origin, and he named it “cosmic rays.” As chairman of the Executive Council of Caltech (the school’s governing body at the time) from 1921 until his retirement in 1945, Millikan helped to turn the school into one of the leading research institutions in the United States.[4][5] He also served on the board of trustees for Science Service, now known as Society for Science & the Public, from 1921 to 1953.
Brutalist
Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era.[1][2][3] Brutalist buildings are characterised by minimalist constructions that showcase the bare building materials and structural elements over decorative design.[4][5] The style commonly makes use of exposed, unpainted concrete or brick, angular geometric shapes and a predominantly monochrome colour palette;[6][5] other materials, such as steel, timber, and glass, are also featured.[7]
Descending from the modernist movement, brutalism is said to be a reaction against the nostalgia of architecture in the 1940s.[8] Derived from the Swedish phrase nybrutalism, the term “new brutalism” was first used by British architects Alison and Peter Smithson for their pioneering approach to design.[9][6][10] The style was further popularised in a 1955 essay by architectural critic Reyner Banham, who also associated the movement with the French phrases béton brut (“raw concrete”) and art brut (“raw art”).[11][12] The style, as developed by architects such as the Smithsons, Hungarian-born Ernő Goldfinger, and the British firm Chamberlin, Powell & Bon, was partly foreshadowed by the modernist work of other architects such as French-Swiss Le Corbusier, Estonian-American Louis Kahn, German-American Mies van der Rohe, and Finnish Alvar Aalto.[5][13]
In the United Kingdom, brutalism was featured in the design of utilitarian, low-cost social housing influenced by socialist principles and soon spread to other regions around the world.[4][5][14] Brutalist designs became most commonly used in the design of institutional buildings, such as universities, libraries, courts, and city halls. The popularity of the movement began to decline in the late 1970s, with some associating the style with urban decay and totalitarianism.[5]
Brutalism has been polarising historically; specific buildings, as well as the movement as a whole, have drawn a range of criticism (often being described as “cold” or “soulless”) but have also elicited support from architects and local communities (with many brutalist buildings having become cultural icons, sometimes obtaining listed status).[4] In recent decades, the movement has become a subject of renewed interest.[4] In 2006, several Bostonian architects called for a rebranding of the style to “heroic architecture” to distance it from the negative connotations of the term “brutalism”.[15]
The term nybrutalism (new brutalism)[16] was coined by the Swedish architect Hans Asplund to describe Villa Göth, a modern brick home in Uppsala, designed in January 1950[9] by his contemporaries Bengt Edman and Lennart Holm.[10] Showcasing the ‘as found’ design approach that would later be at the core of brutalism, the house displays visible I-beams over windows, exposed brick inside and out, and poured concrete in several rooms where the tongue-and-groove pattern of the boards used to build the forms can be seen.[17][11] The term was picked up in the summer of 1950 by a group of visiting English architects, including Michael Ventris, Oliver Cox, and Graeme Shankland, where it apparently “spread like wildfire, and [was] subsequently adopted by a certain faction of young British architects”.[16][18][10]
The first published usage of the phrase “new brutalism” occurred in 1953, when Alison Smithson used it to describe a plan for their unbuilt Soho house which appeared in the November issue of Architectural Design.[11][7] She further stated “It is our intention in this building to have the structure exposed entirely, without interior finishes wherever practicable.”[10][11] The Smithsons’ Hunstanton School completed in 1954 in Norfolk, and the Sugden House completed in 1955 in Watford, represent the earliest examples of new brutalism in the United Kingdom.[2] Hunstanton school, likely inspired by Mies van der Rohe’s 1946 Alumni Memorial Hall at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, United States, is notable as the first completed building in the world to carry the title of “new brutalist” by its architects.[19][20] At the time, it was described as “the most truly modern building in England”.[21]
The term gained increasingly wider recognition when British architectural historian Reyner Banham used it to identify both an ethic and aesthetic style, in his 1955 essay The New Brutalism. In the essay, Banham described Hunstanton and the Soho house as the “reference by which The New Brutalism in architecture may be defined.”[11] Reyner Banham also associated the term new brutalism with art brut and béton brut, meaning raw concrete in French, for the first time.[16][22][23] The best-known béton brut architecture is the proto-brutalist work of the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier, in particular his 1952 Unité d’habitation in Marseille, France; the 1953 Secretariat Building (Palace of Assembly) in Chandigarh, India; and the 1955 church of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, France.
Banham further expanded his thoughts in the 1966 book, The New Brutalism: Ethic or Aesthetic?, to characterise a somewhat recently established cluster of architectural approaches, particularly in Europe.[24] In the book, Banham says that Le Corbusier’s concrete work was a source of inspiration and helped popularise the movement, suggesting “if there is one single verbal formula that has made the concept of Brutalism admissible in most of the world’s Western languages, it is that Le Corbusier himself described that concrete work as ‘béton-brut’”.[25] He further states that “the words ‘The New Brutalism’ were already circulating, and had acquired some depth of meaning through things said and done, over and above the widely recognised connection with béton brut. The phrase still ‘belonged’ to the Smithsons, however, and it was their activities above all others that were giving distinctive qualities to the concept of Brutalism.”[26]
New brutalism is not only an architectural style; it is also a philosophical approach to architectural design, a striving to create simple, honest, and functional buildings that accommodate their purpose, inhabitants, and location.[27][28] Stylistically, brutalism is a strict, modernistic design language that has been said to be a reaction to the architecture of the 1940s, much of which was characterised by a retrospective nostalgia.[29] Peter Smithson believed that the core of brutalism was a reverence for materials, expressed honestly, stating “Brutalism is not concerned with the material as such but rather the quality of material”,[30] and “the seeing of materials for what they were: the woodness of the wood; the sandiness of sand.”[31] Architect John Voelcker explained that the “new brutalism” in architecture “cannot be understood through stylistic analysis, although some day a comprehensible style might emerge”,[32] supporting the Smithsons’ description of the movement as “an ethic, not an aesthetic”.[33] Reyner Banham felt the phrase “the new brutalism” existed as both an attitude toward design as well as a descriptive label for the architecture itself and that it “eludes precise description, while remaining a living force”. He attempted to codify the movement in systematic language, insisting that a brutalist structure must satisfy the following terms, “1, Formal legibility of plan; 2, clear exhibition of structure, and 3, valuation of materials for their inherent qualities ‘as found’.”[11] Also important was the aesthetic “image”, or “coherence of the building as a visual entity”.[11]
Brutalist buildings are usually constructed with reoccurring modular elements representing specific functional zones, distinctly articulated and grouped together into a unified whole. There is often an emphasis on graphic expressions in the external elevations and in the whole-site architectural plan in regard to the main functions and people-flows of the buildings.[34] Buildings may use materials such as concrete, brick, glass, steel, timber, rough-hewn stone, and gabions among others.[6] However, due to its low cost, raw concrete is often used and left to reveal the basic nature of its construction with rough surfaces featuring wood ‘shuttering’ produced when the forms were cast in-situ.[6] Examples are frequently massive in character (even when not large) and challenge traditional notions of what a building should look like with focus given to interior spaces as much as exterior.[11][6]
A common theme in brutalist designs is the exposure of the building’s inner-workings—ranging from their structure and services to their human use—in the exterior of the building. In the Boston City Hall, designed in 1962, the strikingly different and projected portions of the building indicate the special nature of the rooms behind those walls, such as the mayor’s office or the city council chambers. From another perspective, the design of the Hunstanton School included placing the facility’s water tank, normally a hidden service feature, in a prominent, visible tower. Rather than being hidden in the walls, Hunstanton’s water and electric utilities were delivered via readily visible pipes and conduits.[11]
Brutalism as an architectural philosophy was often associated with a socialist utopian ideology, which tended to be supported by its designers, especially by Alison and Peter Smithson, near the height of the style. Indeed, their work sought to emphasize functionality and to connect architecture with what they viewed as the realities of modern life.[27] Among their early contributions were “streets in the sky” in which traffic and pedestrian circulation were rigorously separated, another theme popular in the 1960s.[34] This style had a strong position in the architecture of European communist countries from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s (Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, USSR, Yugoslavia).[35] In Czechoslovakia, Brutalism was presented as an attempt to create a “national” but also “modern socialist” architectural style. Such prefabricated socialist era buildings are called panelaky.
sublimity
Casserole
A casserole (French: diminutive of casse, from Provençal cassa ‘pan’[1]) is a kind of large, deep pan or bowl used for cooking a variety of dishes in the oven; it is also a category of foods cooked in such a vessel. To distinguish the two uses, the pan can be called a “casserole dish” or “casserole pan”, whereas the food is simply “a casserole”. The same pan is often used both for cooking and for serving.
Baked dishes have existed for thousands of years. Early casserole recipes consisted of rice that was pounded, pressed, and filled with a savoury mixture of meats such as chicken or sweetbread. Sometime around the 1870s this sense of casserole seems to have taken its current sense.[2] Cooking in earthenware containers has always been common in most cultures, but the idea of casserole cooking as a one-dish meal became popular in the United States in the twentieth century, especially in the 1950s when new forms of lightweight metal and glass cookware appeared on the market. By the 1970s casseroles took on a less-than-sophisticated image.[3]
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Persian Empire Extent
Archaemenid Dynasty
Persepolis
Persepolis (/pərˈsɛpəlɪs/; Old Persian: 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿, romanized: Pārsa; New Persian: تخت جمشید, romanized: Takht-e Jamshīd, lit. ’Throne of Jamshid’) was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire (c. 550–330 BC). It is situated in the plains of Marvdasht, encircled by southern Zagros mountains of the Iranian plateau. Modern day Shiraz is situated 60 kilometres (37 mi) southwest of the ruins of Persepolis. The earliest remains of Persepolis date back to 515 BC. It exemplifies the Achaemenid style of architecture. UNESCO declared the ruins of Persepolis a World Heritage Site in 1979.[2]
The complex is raised high on a walled platform, with five “palaces” or halls of varying size, and grand entrances. The function of Persepolis remains quite unclear. It was not one of the largest cities in Persia, let alone the rest of the empire, but appears to have been a grand ceremonial complex that was only occupied seasonally; it is still not entirely clear where the king’s private quarters actually were. Until recent challenges, most archaeologists held that it was especially used for celebrating Nowruz, the Persian New Year, held at the spring equinox, and still an important annual festivity in modern Iran. The Iranian nobility and the tributary parts of the empire came to present gifts to the king, as represented in the stairway reliefs.[3]
It is also unclear what permanent structures there were outside the palace complex; it may be better to think of Persepolis as just that complex rather than a “city” in the normal sense.
The complex was taken by the army of Alexander the Great in 330 BC, and soon after the wooden parts were completely destroyed by fire, very likely deliberately.
Parthia
Parthia (Old Persian: 𐎱𐎼𐎰𐎺 Parθava; Parthian: 𐭐𐭓𐭕𐭅 Parθaw; Middle Persian: 𐭯𐭫𐭮𐭥𐭡𐭥 Pahlaw) is a historical region located in northeastern Greater Iran. It was conquered and subjugated by the empire of the Medes during the 7th century BC, was incorporated into the subsequent Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great in the 6th century BC, and formed part of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire after the 4th-century BC conquests of Alexander the Great. The region later served as the political and cultural base of the Eastern Iranian Parni people and Arsacid dynasty, rulers of the Parthian Empire (247 BC – 224 AD). The Sasanian Empire, the last state of pre-Islamic Iran, also held the region and maintained the seven Parthian clans as part of their feudal aristocracy.
The name “Parthia” is a continuation from Latin Parthia, from Old Persian Parthava, which was the Parthian language self-designator signifying “of the Parthians” who were an Iranian people. In context to its Hellenistic period, Parthia also appears as Parthyaea.[citation needed]
Parthia was known as Pahlaw in the Middle Persian sources of the Sasanian period, and Pahla or Fahla by later Islamic authors.[1]
The original location of Parthia roughly corresponds to a region in northeastern Iran, but part is in southern Turkmenistan. It was bordered by the Kopet Dag mountain range in the north, and the Dasht-e-Kavir desert in the south. It bordered Media on the west, Hyrcania on the north west, Margiana on the northeast, and Aria on the east.[2]
During Arsacid times, Parthia was united with Hyrcania as one administrative unit, and that region is therefore often (subject to context) considered a part of Parthia proper.[citation needed]
By the early Sasanian period, Parthia was located in the central part of the Iranian plateau, neighboring Pars to the south, Khuzistan to the south-west, Media to the north-west, the Alborz Mountains to the north, Abarshahr to the north-east, and Kirman to the east. In the late Sasanian era, Parthia came to embrace central and north-central Iran but also extended to the western parts of the plateau as well.[1]
In the Islamic era, Parthia was believed to be located in central and western Iran. Ibn al-Muqaffa considered Parthia as encompassing the regions of Isfahan, Ray, Hamadan, Mah-i Nihawand and Azerbaijan.[3] The same definition is found in the works of al-Khawazmi and Hamza al-Isfahani. Al-Dinawari, while not using the word Parthia, considered Jibal to be the realm of the last Parthian king, Artabanus IV.[1]
As the region inhabited by Parthians, Parthia first appears as a political entity in Achaemenid lists of governorates (“satrapies”) under their dominion. Prior to this, the people of the region seem to have been subjects of the Medes,[4] and 7th century BC Assyrian texts mention a country named Partakka or Partukka (though this “need not have coincided topographically with the later Parthia”).[5]
A year after Cyrus the Great’s defeat of the Median Astyages, Parthia became one of the first provinces to acknowledge Cyrus as their ruler, “and this allegiance secured Cyrus’ eastern flanks and enabled him to conduct the first of his imperial campaigns – against Sardis.”[6] According to Greek sources, following the seizure of the Achaemenid throne by Darius I, the Parthians united with the Median king Phraortes to revolt against him. Hystaspes, the Achaemenid governor of the province (said to be father of Darius I), managed to suppress the revolt, which seems to have occurred around 522–521 BC.[citation needed]
The first indigenous Iranian mention of Parthia is in the Behistun inscription of Darius I, where Parthia is listed (in the typical Iranian clockwise order) among the governorates in the vicinity of Drangiana.[7] The inscription dates to c. 520 BC. The center of the administration “may have been at [what would later be known as] Hecatompylus”.[8] The Parthians also appear in Herodotus’ list of peoples subject to the Achaemenids; the historiographer treats the Parthians, Chorasmians, Sogdians and Areioi as peoples of a single satrapy (the 16th), whose annual tribute to the king he states to be only 300 talents of silver. This “has rightly caused disquiet to modern scholars.”[9]
At the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC between the forces of Darius III and those of Alexander the Great, one such Parthian unit was commanded by Phrataphernes, who was at the time Achaemenid governor of Parthia. Following the defeat of Darius III, Phrataphernes surrendered his governorate to Alexander when the Macedonian arrived there in the summer of 330 BC. Phrataphernes was reappointed governor by Alexander.[citation needed]
Under the Seleucids
Edit
Following the death of Alexander, in the Partition of Babylon in 323 BC, Parthia became a Seleucid governorate under Nicanor. Phrataphernes, the former governor, became governor of Hyrcania. In 320 BC, at the Partition of Triparadisus, Parthia was reassigned to Philip, former governor of Sogdiana. A few years later, the province was invaded by Peithon, governor of Media Magna, who then attempted to make his brother Eudamus governor. Peithon and Eudamus were driven back, and Parthia remained a governorate in its own right.[citation needed]
In 316 BC, Stasander, a vassal of Seleucus I Nicator and governor of Bactria (and, it seems, also of Aria and Margiana) was appointed governor of Parthia. For the next 60 years, various Seleucids would be appointed governors of the province.[citation needed]
Coin of Andragoras, the last Seleucid satrap of Parthia. He proclaimed independence around 250 BC.
In 247 BC, following the death of Antiochus II, Ptolemy III seized control of the Seleucid capital at Antioch, and “so left the future of the Seleucid dynasty for a moment in question.”[10] Taking advantage of the uncertain political situation, Andragoras, the Seleucid governor of Parthia, proclaimed his independence and began minting his own coins.[citation needed]
Meanwhile, “a man called Arsaces, of Scythian or Bactrian origin, [was] elected leader of the Parni”,[11] an eastern-Iranian peoples from the Tajen/Tajend River valley, south-east of the Caspian Sea.[12] Following the secession of Parthia from the Seleucid Empire and the resultant loss of Seleucid military support, Andragoras had difficulty in maintaining his borders, and about 238 BC – under the command of “Arsaces and his brother Tiridates”[11][13] – the Parni invaded[14] Parthia and seized control of Astabene (Astawa), the northern region of that territory, the administrative capital of which was Kabuchan (Kuchan in the vulgate).[citation needed]
A short while later the Parni seized the rest of Parthia from Andragoras, killing him in the process. Although an initial punitive expedition by the Seleucids under Seleucus II was not successful, the Seleucids under Antiochus III recaptured Arsacid controlled territory in 209 BC from Arsaces’ (or Tiridates’) successor, Arsaces II. Arsaces II sued for peace and accepted vassal status,[13] and it was not until Arsaces II’s grandson (or grand-nephew) Phraates I, that the Arsacids/Parni would again begin to assert their independence.[15]
Under the Arsacids
Edit
Main article: Parthian Empire
Parthian horseman now on display at the Palazzo Madama, Turin.
Coin of Mithridates I (R. 171–138 BC). The reverse shows Heracles, and the inscription ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΑΡΣΑΚΟΥ ΦΙΛΕΛΛΗΝΟΣ “Great King Arsaces, friend of Greeks”.
Reproduction of a Parthian archer as depicted on Trajan’s Column.
A sculpted head (broken off from a larger statue) of a Parthian soldier wearing a Hellenistic-style helmet, from the Parthian royal residence and necropolis of Nisa, 2nd century BC
From their base in Parthia, the Arsacid dynasts eventually extended their dominion to include most of Greater Iran. They also quickly established several eponymous branches on the thrones of Armenia, Iberia, and Caucasian Albania. Even though the Arsacids only sporadically had their capital in Parthia, their power base was there, among the Parthian feudal families, upon whose military and financial support the Arsacids depended. In exchange for this support, these families received large tracts of land among the earliest conquered territories adjacent to Parthia, which the Parthian nobility then ruled as provincial rulers. The largest of these city-states were Kuchan, Semnan, Gorgan, Merv, Zabol and Yazd.[citation needed]
From about 105 BC onwards, the power and influence of this handful of Parthian noble families was such that they frequently opposed the monarch, and would eventually be a “contributory factor in the downfall” of the dynasty.[16]
From about 130 BC onwards, Parthia suffered numerous incursions by various nomadic tribes, including the Sakas, the Yuezhi, and the Massagetae. Each time, the Arsacid dynasts responded personally, doing so even when there were more severe threats from Seleucids or Romans looming on the western borders of their empire (as was the case for Mithridates I). Defending the empire against the nomads cost Phraates II and Artabanus I their lives.[16]
The Roman Crassus attempted to conquer Parthia in 52 BC but was decisively defeated at the Battle of Carrhae. Caesar was planning another invasion when he was assassinated in 44 BC. A long series of Roman-Parthian wars followed.[citation needed]
Around 32 BC, civil war broke out when a certain Tiridates rebelled against Phraates IV, probably with the support of the nobility that Phraates had previously persecuted. The revolt was initially successful, but failed by 25 BC.[17] In 9/8, the Parthian nobility succeeded in putting their preferred king on the throne, but Vonones proved to have too tight a budgetary control, so he was usurped in favor of Artabanus II, who seems to have been a non-Arsacid Parthian nobleman. But when Artabanus attempted to consolidate his position (at which he was successful in most instances), he failed to do so in the regions where the Parthian provincial rulers held sway.[18]
By the 2nd century AD, the frequent wars with neighboring Rome and with the nomads, and the infighting among the Parthian nobility had weakened the Arsacids to a point where they could no longer defend their subjugated territories. The empire fractured as vassalaries increasingly claimed independence or were subjugated by others, and the Arsacids were themselves finally vanquished by the Persian Sassanids, a formerly minor vassal from southwestern Iran, in April 224.[citation needed]
Under the Sasanians
Edit
Parthia was likely the first region conquered by Ardashir I after his victory over Artabanus IV, showing the importance of the province to the founder of the Sasanian dynasty.[1] Some of the Parthian nobility continued to resist Sasanian dominion for some time, but most switched their allegiance to the Sasanians very early. Several families that claimed descent from the Parthian noble families became a Sasanian institution known as the “Seven houses”, five of which are “in all probability” not Parthian, but contrived genealogies “in order to emphasize the antiquity of their families.”[19]
Parthia continued to hold importance throughout the 3rd century. In his Ka’be-ye Zardusht inscription Shapur I lists the province of Parthia in second place after Pars. The Abnun inscription describes the Roman invasion of 243/44 as an attack on Pars and Parthia. Considering the Romans never went further than Mesopotamia, “Pars and Parthia” may stand for the Sasanian Empire itself.[20] Parthia was also the second province chosen for settlement by Roman prisoners of war after the Battle of Edessa in 260.[1]
Fars Province
Fars Province (/fɑːrs/; Persian: استان فارس, Ostân-e Fârs, pronounced [ˈfɒː(ɾ)s]), also known as Pars Province (استان پارس, Ostân-e Pârs) as well as Persis and Persia,[5] is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. With an area of 122,400 km², it is located in Iran’s southwest, in Region 2,[6] and its administrative center is Shiraz. Fars province neighbours Bushehr province to the west, Hormozgan province to the south, Kerman and Yazd provinces to the east, Isfahan province to the north, and Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province to the northwest.
At the 2006 census, the province numbered 4,220,721 people in 1,014,690 households.[7] As of the following census in 2011, Fars had a population of 4,596,658 people in 1,250,135 households, of whom 67.6% were registered as urban dwellers (urban/suburbs), 32.1% villagers (small town/rural), and 0.3% nomad tribes.[8] The most recent census in 2016 counted 4,851,274 people in 1,443,027 households.[2]
Fars is the historical homeland of the Persian people.[9][10] It was the homeland of the Achaemenid and Sasanian Persian dynasties of Iran, who reigned on the throne by the time of the ancient Persian Empires. The ruins of the Achaemenid capitals Pasargadae and Persepolis, among others, demonstrate the ancient history of the region. Due to the historical importance of this region, the entire country has historically been also referred to as Persia in the West.[10][11] Prior to Arab rule, this region was known as Pars.[12]
The ancient Persians were present in the region from about the 10th century BC, and became the rulers of the largest empire the world had yet seen under the Achaemenid dynasty which was established in the mid 6th century BC, at its peak stretching from Thrace-Macedonia, Bulgaria-Paeonia and Eastern Europe proper in the west, to the Indus Valley in its far east.[15] The ruins of Persepolis and Pasargadae, two of the four capitals of the Achaemenid Empire, are located in Fars.
The Achaemenid Empire was defeated by Alexander the Great in 333 BC, incorporating most of their vast empire. Shortly after this the Seleucid Empire was established. However, it never extended its power in Fars beyond the main trade routes, and by the reign of Antiochus I or possibly later Persis emerged as an independent state that minted its own coins.[16]
The Seleucid Empire was subsequently defeated by the Parthians in 238 BC, but by 205 BC, the Seleucid king Antiochus III had extended his authority into Persis and it ceased to be an independent state.[17]
Babak was the ruler of a small town called Kheir. Babak’s efforts in gaining local power at the time escaped the attention of Artabanus IV, the Parthian Arsacid Emperor of the time. Babak and his eldest son Shapur I managed to expand their power over all of Persis.
The subsequent events are unclear. Following the death of Babak around 220, Ardashir who at the time was the governor of Darabgird, got involved in a power struggle of his own with his elder brother Shapur. The sources tell us that in 222, Shapur was killed when the roof of a building collapsed on him.[citation needed]
At this point, Ardashir moved his capital further to the south of Persis and founded a capital at Ardashir-Khwarrah (formerly Gur, modern day Firouzabad).[18] After establishing his rule over Persis, Ardashir I rapidly extended the territory of his Sassanid Persian Empire, demanding fealty from the local princes of Fars, and gaining control over the neighboring provinces of Kerman, Isfahan, Susiana, and Mesene.
Artabanus marched a second time against Ardashir I in 224. Their armies clashed at Hormizdegan, where Artabanus IV was killed. Ardashir was crowned in 226 at Ctesiphon as the sole ruler of Persia, bringing the 400-year-old Parthian Empire to an end, and starting the virtually equally long rule of the Sassanian Empire, over an even larger territory, once again making Persia a leading power in the known world, only this time along with its arch-rival and successor to Persia’s earlier opponents (the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire); the Byzantine Empire.
The Sassanids ruled for 425 years, until the Muslim armies conquered the empire. Afterwards, the Persians started to convert to Islam, this making it much easier for the new Muslim empire to continue the expansion of Islam.
Persis then passed hand to hand through numerous dynasties, leaving behind numerous historical and ancient monuments; each of which has its own values as a world heritage, reflecting the history of the province, Iran, and West Asia. The ruins of Bishapur, Persepolis, and Firouzabad are all reminders of this. The Arab invaders brought about an end to centuries Zoroastrian political and cultural dominance over the region; supplanted as the faith of the ruling class in the 7th century by Islam, which and over the next 200 years gradually expanded to include a majority of the population.
Zagros Mountains
The Zagros Mountains (Arabic: جبال زاغروس, romanized: Jibal Zaghrus; Persian: کوههای زاگرس, romanized: Kuh hā-ye Zāgros; Kurdish: چیاکانی زاگرۆس, romanized: Çiyakani Zagros;[2][3] Turkish: Zagros Dağları; Luri: Kuh hā-ye Zāgros کویا زاگرس) are a long mountain range in Iran, northern Iraq, and southeastern Turkey. This mountain range has a total length of 1,600 km (990 mi). The Zagros mountain range begins in northwestern Iran and roughly follows Iran’s western border while covering much of southeastern Turkey and northeastern Iraq. From this border region, the range continues to the southeast under also the waters of the Persian Gulf. It spans the southern parts of the Armenian highland, the whole length of the western and southwestern Iranian plateau, ending at the Strait of Hormuz. The highest point is Mount Dena, at 4,409 metres (14,465 ft).
The Zagros fold and thrust belt was mainly formed by the collision of two tectonic plates, the Eurasian Plate and the Arabian Plate.[5] This collision mainly happened during the Miocene (about 25–5 million years ago or mya) and folded the entirety of the rocks that had been deposited from the Paleozoic (541–242 mya) to the Cenozoic (66 mya – present) in the passive continental margin on the Arabian Plate. However, the obduction of Neotethys oceanic crust during the Cretaceous (145–66 mya), and the continental arc collision in the Eocene (56–34 mya) both had major effects on uplifts in the northeastern parts of the belt.
The process of collision continues to the present, and as the Arabian Plate is being pushed against the Eurasian Plate, the Zagros Mountains and the Iranian plateau are getting higher and higher. Recent GPS measurements in Iran[6] have shown that this collision is still active and the resulting deformation is distributed non-uniformly in the country, mainly taken up in the major mountain belts like Alborz and Zagros. A relatively dense GPS network which covered the Iranian Zagros[7] also proves a high rate of deformation within the Zagros. The GPS results show that the current rate of shortening in the southeast Zagros is ~10 mm/a (0.39 in/year), dropping to ~5 mm/a (0.20 in/year) in the northwest Zagros. The north–south Kazerun strike-slip fault divides the Zagros into two distinct zones of deformation. The GPS results also show different shortening directions along the belt, normal shortening in the southeast, and oblique shortening in the northwest Zagros. The Zagros mountains were created around the time of the second ice age,[citation needed] which caused the tectonic collision, leading to its uniqueness.
The sedimentary cover in the SE Zagros is deforming above a layer of rock salt (acting as a ductile decollement with a low basal friction), whereas in the NW Zagros the salt layer is missing or is very thin. This different basal friction is partly responsible for the different topographies on either side of the Kazerun fault. Higher topography and narrower zone of deformation in the NW Zagros is observed whereas in the SE, deformation was spread more and a wider zone of deformation with lower topography was formed.[8] Stresses induced in the Earth’s crust by the collision caused extensive folding of the preexisting layered sedimentary rocks. Subsequent erosion removed softer rocks, such as mudstone (rock formed by consolidated mud) and siltstone (a slightly coarser-grained mudstone) while leaving harder rocks, such as limestone (calcium-rich rock consisting of the remains of marine organisms) and dolomite (rocks similar to limestone containing calcium and magnesium). This differential erosion formed the linear ridges of the Zagros Mountains.
The depositional environment and tectonic history of the rocks were conducive to the formation and trapping of petroleum, and the Zagros region is an important area for oil production. Salt domes and salt glaciers are a common feature of the Zagros Mountains. Salt domes are an important target for petroleum exploration, as the impermeable salt frequently traps petroleum beneath other rock layers. There is also much water-soluble gypsum in the region.[9]
Type and age of rock
Edit
Glaciers on Dena
The mountains are completely of sedimentary origin and are made primarily of limestone. In the Elevated Zagros or the Higher Zagros, the Paleozoic rocks can be found mainly in the upper and higher sections of the peaks of the Zagros Mountains, along the Zagros main fault. On both sides of this fault, there are Mesozoic rocks, a combination of Triassic (252–201 mya) and Jurassic (201–145 mya) rocks that are surrounded by Cretaceous rocks on both sides. The Folded Zagros (the mountains south of the Elevated Zagros and almost parallel to the main Zagros fault) is formed mainly of Tertiary rocks, with the Paleogene (66–23 mya) rocks south of the Cretaceous rocks and then the Neogene (23–2.6 mya) rocks south of the Paleogene rocks. The mountains are divided into many parallel sub-ranges (up to 10 or 250 km (6.2 or 155.3 mi) wide), and orogenically have the same age as the Alps.[10]
Iran’s main oilfields lie in the western central foothills of the Zagros mountain range. The southern ranges of the Fars Province have somewhat lower summits, reaching 4,000 metres (13,000 feet). They contain some limestone rocks showing abundant marine fossils.[8]
The Zagros Mountains have significant ancient history. They were occupied by early humans since the Lower Paleolithic Period. The earliest human fossils discovered in Zagros belongs to Neanderthals and come from Shanidar Cave, Bisitun Cave, and Wezmeh Cave. The remains of ten Neanderthals, dating from around 65,000–35,000 years ago, have been found in the Shanidar Cave.[11] The cave also contains two later “proto-Neolithic” cemeteries, one of which dates back about 10,600 years and contains 35 individuals.[12] Evidence from later Upper Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic occupations come from Yafteh Cave, Kaldar Cave near Khoramabad, and Warwasi, Malaverd near Kermanshah, Kenacheh Cave in Kurdistan, Boof Cave in Fars and a number of other caves and rock shelters.[13] Signs of early agriculture date back as far as 9000 BC in the foothills of the mountains.[14] Some settlements later grew into cities, eventually named Anshan and Susa; Jarmo is one archaeological site in this area. Some of the earliest evidence of wine production has been discovered in the mountains; both the settlements of Hajji Firuz Tepe and Godin Tepe have given evidence of wine storage dating between 3500 and 5400 BC.[15]
During early ancient times, the Zagros was the home of peoples such as the later, the Kassites, Guti, Elamites and Mitanni, who periodically invaded the Sumerian and/or Akkadian cities of Mesopotamia. The mountains create a geographic barrier between the Mesopotamian Plain, which is in Iraq, and the Iranian plateau. A small archive of clay tablets detailing the complex interactions of these groups in the early second millennium BC has been found at Tell Shemshara along the Little Zab.[16] Tell Bazmusian, near Shemshara, was occupied between 5000 BCE and 800 CE, although not continuously.[17]
Glades
an open space in a forest.
“a forest glade”
late Middle English: of unknown origin; perhaps related to glad1 or gleam, with reference to the comparative brightness of a clearing (obsolete senses of glade include ‘a gleam of light’ and ‘a bright space between clouds’).
Babylon
Babylon was the capital city of the ancient Babylonian Empire, which itself is a term referring to either of two separate empires in the Mesopotamian area in antiquity. These two empires achieved regional dominance between the 19th and 15th centuries BC, and again between the 7th and 6th centuries BC. The city, built along both banks of the Euphrates river, had steep embankments to contain the river’s seasonal floods. The site of the ancient city lies just south of present-day Baghdad.
The earliest known mention of Babylon as a small town appears on a clay tablet from the reign of Shar-Kali-Sharri (2217–2193 BC) of the Akkadian Empire.[2] Babylon was merely a religious and cultural centre at this point and neither an independent state nor a large city; like the rest of Mesopotamia, it was subject to the Akkadian Empire which united all the Akkadian and Sumerian speakers under one rule. After the collapse of the Akkadian Empire, the south Mesopotamian region was dominated by the Gutian people for a few decades before the rise of the Third Dynasty of Ur, which encompassed the whole of Mesopotamia, including the town of Babylon.
The town became part of a small independent city-state with the rise of the first Babylonian Empire, now known as the Old Babylonian Empire, in the 19th century BC. The Amorite king Hammurabi founded the short-lived Old Babylonian Empire in the 18th century BC. He built Babylon into a major city and declared himself its king. Southern Mesopotamia became known as Babylonia, and Babylon eclipsed Nippur as the region’s holy city. The empire waned under Hammurabi’s son Samsu-iluna, and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian, Kassite and Elamite domination. After the Assyrians had destroyed and then rebuilt it, Babylon became the capital of the short-lived Neo-Babylonian Empire from 609 to 539 BC. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon ranked as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. After the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the city came under the rule of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman, Sassanid, and Muslim empires. The last known record of habitation of the town dates from the 10th century AD, when it was referred to as the “small village of Babel”.
It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world c. 1770 – c. 1670 BC, and again c. 612 – c. 320 BC. It was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000.[3] Estimates for the maximum extent of its area range from 890[4] to 900 hectares (2,200 acres).[5]
The remains of the city are in present-day Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq, about 85 kilometres (53 mi) south of Baghdad, and its boundaries have been based on the perimeter of the ancient outer city walls, an area of about 1,054.3 hectares (2,605 acres).[6] They comprise a large tell of broken mud-brick buildings and debris. The main sources of information about Babylon—excavation of the site itself, references in cuneiform texts found elsewhere in Mesopotamia, references in the Bible, descriptions in other classical writing (especially by Herodotus), and second-hand descriptions (citing the work of Ctesias and Berossus)—present an incomplete and sometimes contradictory picture of the ancient city, even at its peak in the sixth century BC.[7] UNESCO inscribed Babylon as a World Heritage Site in 2019. The site receives thousands of visitors each year, almost all of whom are Iraqis.[8][9] Construction is rapidly increasing, which has caused encroachments on the ruins.[10][11][12]
The spelling Babylon is the Latin representation of Greek Babylṓn (Βαβυλών), derived from the native (Babylonian) Bābilim, meaning “gate of the god(s)”. The cuneiform spelling was 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠 (KA₂.DIG̃IR.RAKI).[13][failed verification] This would correspond to the Sumerian phrase kan dig̃irak.[14] The sign 𒆍 (KA₂) is the logogram for “gate”, 𒀭 (DIG̃IR) means “god”, and 𒊏 (RA) represents the coda of the word dig̃ir (-r) followed by the genitive suffix -ak. The final 𒆠 (KI) is a determinative indicating that the previous signs are to be understood as a place name.
Archibald Sayce, writing in the 1870s, postulated that the Semitic name was a loan-translation of the original Sumerian name.[15][16] However, the “gate of god” interpretation is increasingly viewed as a Semitic folk etymology to explain an unknown original non-Semitic placename.[17] I. J. Gelb in 1955 argued that the original name was Babilla, of unknown meaning and origin, as there were other similarly named places in Sumer, and there are no other examples of Sumerian place-names being replaced with Akkadian translations. He deduced that it later transformed into Akkadian Bāb-ili(m), and that the Sumerian name Kan-dig̃irak was a loan translation of the Semitic folk etymology, and not the original name.[18][19] The re-translation of the Semitic name into Sumerian would have taken place at the time of the “Neo-Sumerian” Third Dynasty of Ur.[20] (Bab-Il).
In the Hebrew Bible, the name appears as Babel (Hebrew: בָּבֶל Bavel, Tib. בָּבֶל Bāḇel; Classical Syriac: ܒܒܠ Bāwēl, Imperial Aramaic: בבל Bāḇel; in Arabic: بَابِل Bābil), interpreted in the Book of Genesis to mean “confusion”,[21] from the verb bilbél (בלבל, “to confuse”).[22] The modern English verb, to babble (“to speak foolish, excited, or confusing talk”), is popularly thought to derive from this name but there is no direct connection.[23]
In Pali and Sanskrit literature, the name appears as Bāveru.[24]
Ancient records in some situations use “Babylon” as a name for other cities, including cities like Borsippa within Babylon’s sphere of influence, and Nineveh for a short period after the Assyrian sack of Babylon.[25][26]
The ancient city, built along both banks of the Euphrates river, had steep embankments to contain the river’s seasonal floods. The remains of the city are in present-day Hillah,[16] Babil Governorate, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (53 mi) south of Baghdad, comprising a large tell of broken mud-brick buildings and debris. The site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an area of about 2 by 1 kilometer (1.24 mi × 0.62 mi), oriented north to south, along the Euphrates to the west. Originally, the river roughly bisected the city, but the course of the river has since shifted so that most of the remains of the former western part of the city are now inundated. Some portions of the city wall to the west of the river also remain.
Only a small portion of the ancient city (3% of the area within the inner walls; 1.5% of the area within the outer walls; 0.1% at the depth of Middle and Old Babylon) has been excavated.[27] Known remains include:
Kasr – also called Palace or Castle, it is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki and lies in the center of the site.
Amran Ibn Ali – the highest of the mounds at 25 meters (82 ft) to the south. It is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk that also contained shrines to Ea and Nabu.
Homera – a reddish-colored mound on the west side. Most of the Hellenistic remains are here.
Babil – a mound about 22 meters (72 ft) high at the northern end of the site. Its bricks have been subject to looting since ancient times. It held a palace built by Nebuchadnezzar.
Archaeologists have recovered few artifacts predating the Neo-Babylonian period. The water table in the region has risen greatly over the centuries, and artifacts from the time before the Neo-Babylonian Empire are unavailable to current standard archaeological methods. Additionally, the Neo-Babylonians conducted significant rebuilding projects in the city, which destroyed or obscured much of the earlier record. Babylon was pillaged numerous times after revolting against foreign rule, most notably by the Hittites and Elamites in the 2nd millennium, then by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Achaemenid Empire in the 1st millennium BC. Much of the western half of the city is now beneath the river, and other parts of the site have been mined for commercial building materials.
Only the Koldewey expedition recovered artifacts from the Old Babylonian period. These included 967 clay tablets (along with 564 tablets from the Middle Babylonian period), stored in private houses, with Sumerian literature and lexical documents.[27]
Nearby ancient settlements are Kish, Borsippa, Dilbat, and Kutha. Marad and Sippar were 60 kilometers (37 mi) in either direction along the Euphrates.[27]
The first attested mention of Babylon was in the late 3rd millennium BC during the Akkadian Empire reign of ruler Shar-Kali-Sharri one of whose year names mentions building two temples there. Babylon was ruled by ensi (governors) for the empire. Some of the known governors were Abba, Arši-aḫ, Itūr-ilum, Murteli, Unabatal, and Puzur-Tutu. After that nothing is heard of the city until the time of Sumu-la-El. After around 1950 BC Amorite kingdoms will appear in Uruk and Larsa in the south.[33]
Old Babylonian period
Edit
Map showing the Babylonian territory upon Hammurabi’s ascension in 1792 BC and upon his death in 1750 BC
Old Babylonian cylinder seal, hematite. This seal was probably made in a workshop at Sippar (about 65 km or 40 mi north of Babylon on the map above) either during, or shortly before, the reign of Hammurabi.[34] It depicts the king making an animal offering to the sun god Shamash.
Linescan camera image of the cylinder seal above (reversed to resemble an impression).
According to a Babylonian king list, Amorite rule in Babylon began (c. 19th or 18th century BC) with a chieftain named Sumu-abum, who declared independence from the neighboring city-state of Kazallu. Sumu-la-El, whose dates may be concurrent with those of Sumu-abum, is usually given as the progenitor of the First Babylonian dynasty. Both are credited with building the walls of Babylon. In any case, the records describe Sumu-la-El’s military successes establishing a regional sphere of influence for Babylon.[35]
Babylon was initially a minor city-state, and controlled little surrounding territory; its first four Amorite rulers did not assume the title of king. The older and more powerful states of, Elam, Isin, and Larsa overshadowed Babylon until it became the capital of Hammurabi’s short-lived empire about a century later. Hammurabi (r. 1792–1750 BC) is famous for codifying the laws of Babylonia into the Code of Hammurabi. He conquered all of the cities and city states of southern Mesopotamia, including Isin, Larsa, Ur, Uruk, Nippur, Lagash, Eridu, Kish, Adab, Eshnunna, Akshak, Shuruppak, Bad-tibira, Sippar, and Girsu, coalescing them into one kingdom, ruled from Babylon. Hammurabi also invaded and conquered Elam to the east, and the kingdoms of Mari and Ebla to the northwest. After a conflict with the Old Assyrian period king Ishme-Dagan, he forced his successor to pay tribute late in his reign.
After the reign of Hammurabi, the whole of southern Mesopotamia came to be known as Babylonia. From this time, Babylon supplanted Nippur and Eridu as the major religious centers of southern Mesopotamia. Hammurabi’s empire destabilized after his death. The far south of Mesopotamia broke away, forming the native Sealand Dynasty, and the Elamites appropriated territory in eastern Mesopotamia. The Amorite dynasty remained in power in Babylon, which again became a small city state. After the destruction of the city the Kassites rose to control the region.
Texts from Old Babylon often include references to Shamash, the sun-god of Sippar, treated as a supreme deity, and Marduk, considered as his son. Marduk was later elevated to a higher status and Shamash lowered, perhaps reflecting Babylon’s rising political power.[19]
Middle Babylon
Edit
In 1595 BC[a] the city was overthrown by the Hittite Empire from Asia Minor. Thereafter, Kassites from the Zagros Mountains captured the city of Babylon, renaming it Karduniash, ushering in a dynasty that lasted for 435 years, until 1160 BC.
Babylon weakened during the Kassite era, and as a result, Kassite Babylon began paying tribute to the Pharaoh of Egypt, Thutmose III, following his eighth campaign against Mitanni.[36][37] Kassite Babylon eventually became subject to the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1053 BC) to the north, and Elam to the east, with both powers vying for control of the city.
By 1155 BC, after continued attacks and annexing of territory by the Assyrians and Elamites, the Kassites were deposed in Babylon. An Akkadian south Mesopotamian dynasty then ruled for the first time. However, Babylon remained weak and subject to domination by Assyria. Its ineffectual native kings were unable to prevent new waves of foreign West Semitic settlers from the deserts of the Levant, including the Arameans and Suteans in the 11th century BC, and finally the Chaldeans in the 9th century BC, entering and appropriating areas of Babylonia for themselves. The Arameans briefly ruled in Babylon during the late 11th century BC.
Assyrian period
Edit
Sennacherib of Assyria during his Babylonian war, relief from his palace in Nineveh
During the rule of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–609 BC), Babylonia was under constant Assyrian domination or direct control. During the reign of Sennacherib of Assyria, Babylonia was in a constant state of revolt, led by a chieftain named Merodach-Baladan, in alliance with the Elamites, and suppressed only by the complete destruction of the city of Babylon. In 689 BC, its walls, temples and palaces were razed, and the rubble was thrown into the Arakhtu, the sea bordering the earlier Babylon on the south. The destruction of the religious center shocked many, and the subsequent murder of Sennacherib by two of his own sons while praying to the god Nisroch was considered an act of atonement. Consequently, his successor, Esarhaddon hastened to rebuild the old city and make it his residence for part of the year. After his death, Babylonia was governed by his elder son, the Assyrian prince Shamash-shum-ukin, who eventually started a civil war in 652 BC against his own brother, Ashurbanipal, who ruled in Nineveh. Shamash-shum-ukin enlisted the help of other peoples against Assyria, including Elam, Persia, the Chaldeans, and Suteans of southern Mesopotamia, and the Canaanites and Arabs dwelling in the deserts south of Mesopotamia.
Once again, Babylon was besieged by the Assyrians, starved into surrender and its allies were defeated. Ashurbanipal celebrated a “service of reconciliation”, but did not venture to “take the hands” of Bel. An Assyrian governor named Kandalanu was appointed as ruler of the city. Ashurbanipal did collect texts from Babylon for inclusion in his extensive library at Ninevah.[27]
After the death of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian empire was destabilized due to a series of internal civil wars throughout the reigns of the Assyrian kings Ashur-etil-ilani, Sin-shumu-lishir, and Sinsharishkun. Eventually, Babylon, like many other parts of the Near East, took advantage of the chaos within Assyria to free itself from Assyrian rule. In the subsequent overthrow of the Assyrian Empire by an alliance of peoples, the Babylonians saw another example of divine vengeance.[38]
Neo-Babylonian Empire
Edit
Main article: Neo-Babylonian Empire
Cuneiform cylinder from reign of Nebuchadnezzar II honoring the exorcism and reconstruction of the ziggurat Etemenanki by Nabopolassar.[39]
Detail of a relief from the reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate
A reconstruction of the blue-tiled Ishtar Gate, which was the northern entrance to Babylon. It was named for the goddess of love and war. Bulls and dragons, symbols of the god Marduk, decorated the gate.
Under Nabopolassar, Babylon escaped Assyrian rule, and the allied Medo-Babylonian armies finally destroyed the Assyrian Empire between 626 BC and 609 BC. Babylon thus became the capital of the Neo-Babylonian (sometimes called the Chaldean) Empire.[40][41][42]
With the recovery of Babylonian independence, a new era of architectural activity ensued, particularly during the reign of his son Nebuchadnezzar II (604–561 BC).[43] Nebuchadnezzar ordered the complete reconstruction of the imperial grounds, including the Etemenanki ziggurat, and the construction of the Ishtar Gate—the most prominent of eight gates around Babylon. A reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate is located in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.
Nebuchadnezzar is also credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, said to have been built for his homesick wife, Amytis. Whether the gardens actually existed is a matter of dispute. German archaeologist Robert Koldewey speculated that he had discovered its foundations, but many historians disagree about the location. Stephanie Dalley has argued that the hanging gardens were actually located in the Assyrian capital, Nineveh.[44]
Nebuchadnezzar is also notoriously associated with the Babylonian exile of the Jews, the result of an imperial technique of pacification, used also by the Assyrians, in which ethnic groups in conquered areas were deported en masse to the capital.[45] According to the Hebrew Bible, he destroyed Solomon’s Temple and exiled the Jews to Babylon. The defeat was also recorded in the Babylonian Chronicles.[46][47]
Persian conquest
Edit
Main article: Fall of Babylon
In 539 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, with a military engagement known as the Battle of Opis. Babylon’s walls were considered impenetrable. The only way into the city was through one of its many gates or through the Euphrates River. Metal grates were installed underwater, allowing the river to flow through the city walls while preventing intrusion. The Persians devised a plan to enter the city via the river. During a Babylonian national feast, Cyrus’ troops upstream diverted the Euphrates River, allowing Cyrus’ soldiers to enter the city through the lowered water. The Persian army conquered the outlying areas of the city while the majority of Babylonians at the city center were unaware of the breach. The account was elaborated upon by Herodotus[48][28] and is also mentioned in parts of the Hebrew Bible.[49][50] Herodotus also described a moat, an enormously tall and broad wall cemented with bitumen and with buildings on top, and a hundred gates to the city. He also writes that the Babylonians wear turbans and perfume and bury their dead in honey, that they practice ritual prostitution, and that three tribes among them eat nothing but fish. The hundred gates can be considered a reference to Homer, and following the pronouncement of Archibald Henry Sayce in 1883, Herodotus’ account of Babylon has largely been considered to represent Greek folklore rather than an authentic voyage to Babylon. However, recently, Dalley and others have suggested taking Herodotus’ account seriously.[48][51]
Babylonian soldier in the Achaemenid army, circa 470 BC, Xerxes I tomb.
According to 2 Chronicles 36 of the Hebrew Bible, Cyrus later issued a decree permitting captive people, including the Jews, to return to their own lands. The text found on the Cyrus Cylinder has traditionally been seen by biblical scholars as corroborative evidence of this policy, although the interpretation is disputed[by whom?] because the text identifies only Mesopotamian sanctuaries but makes no mention of Jews, Jerusalem, or Judea.
Under Cyrus and the subsequent Persian king Darius I, Babylon became the capital city of the 9th Satrapy (Babylonia in the south and Athura in the north), as well as a center of learning and scientific advancement. In Achaemenid Persia, the ancient Babylonian arts of astronomy and mathematics were revitalized, and Babylonian scholars completed maps of constellations. The city became the administrative capital of the Persian Empire and remained prominent for over two centuries. Many important archaeological discoveries have been made that can provide a better understanding of that era.[52][53]
The early Persian kings had attempted to maintain the religious ceremonies of Marduk, who was the most important god, but by the reign of Darius III, over-taxation and the strain of numerous wars led to a deterioration of Babylon’s main shrines and canals, and the destabilization of the surrounding region. There were numerous attempts at rebellion and in 522 BC (Nebuchadnezzar III), 521 BC (Nebuchadnezzar IV) and 482 BC (Bel-shimani and Shamash-eriba) native Babylonian kings briefly regained independence. However, these revolts were quickly repressed and Babylon remained under Persian rule for two centuries, until Alexander the Great’s entry in 331 BC.
Hellenistic period
Edit
In October of 331 BC, Darius III, the last Achaemenid king of the Persian Empire, was defeated by the forces of the Ancient Macedonian ruler Alexander at the Battle of Gaugamela.
Under Alexander, Babylon again flourished as a center of learning and commerce. However, following Alexander’s death in 323 BC in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, his empire was divided amongst his generals, the Diadochi, and decades of fighting soon began. The constant turmoil virtually emptied the city of Babylon. A tablet dated 275 BC states that the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to Seleucia, where a palace and a temple (Esagila) were built. With this deportation, Babylon became insignificant as a city, although more than a century later, sacrifices were still performed in its old sanctuary.[54]
Renewed Persian rule
Edit
Main article: Babylonia § Persian Babylonia
Under the Parthian and Sassanid Empires, Babylon (like Assyria) became a province of these Persian Empires for nine centuries, until after AD 650.[citation needed] Although it was captured briefly by Trajan in AD 116 to be part of the newly conquered province of Mesopotamia, his successor Hadrian relinquished his conquests east of the Euphrates river, which became again the Roman Empire’s eastern boundary.[55][56]
However, Babylon maintained its own culture and people, who spoke varieties of Aramaic, and who continued to refer to their homeland as Babylon. Examples of their culture are found in the Babylonian Talmud, the Gnostic Mandaean religion, Eastern Rite Christianity and the religion of the philosopher Mani. Christianity was introduced to Mesopotamia in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, and Babylon was the seat of a Bishop of the Church of the East until well after the Arab/Islamic conquest. Coins from the Parthian, Sasanian and Arabic periods excavated in Babylon demonstrate the continuity of settlement there.[57]
Muslim conquest
Edit
Main article: Muslim conquest of Persia
In the mid-7th century, Mesopotamia was invaded and settled by the expanding Muslim Empire, and a period of Islamization followed. Babylon was dissolved as a province and Aramaic and Church of the East Christianity eventually became marginalized. Ibn Hawqal (10th century) and the Arab scholar, al-Qazwini (13th century), describe Babylon (Babil) as a small village.[58] The latter described a well referred to as the ‘Dungeon of Daniel’ that was visited by Christians and Jews during holidays. The grave-shrine of Amran ibn Ali was visited by Muslims.
Babylon is mentioned in medieval Arabic writings as a source of bricks,[27] said to have been used in cities from Baghdad to Basra.[59]
European travellers, in many cases, could not discover the city’s location, or mistook Fallujah for it. Benjamin of Tudela, a 12th-century traveller, mentions Babylon, but it is not clear if he went there. Others referred to Baghdad as Babylon or New Babylon and described various structures encountered in the region as the Tower of Babel.[60] Pietro della Valle travelled to the village of Babil in Babylon in the 17th century and noted the existence of both baked and dried mudbricks cemented with bitumen.[59][61]
Modern era
Edit
Plan of ruins in 1905 with locations and names of villages
From the accounts of modern travellers, I had expected to have found on the site of Babylon more, and less, than I actually did. Less, because I could have formed no conception of the prodigious extent of the whole ruins, or of the size, solidity, and perfect state, of some of the parts of them; and more, because I thought that I should have distinguished some traces, however imperfect, of many of the principal structures of Babylon. I imagined, I should have said: “Here were the walls, and such must have been the extent of the area. There stood the palace, and this most assuredly was the tower of Belus.” – I was completely deceived: instead of a few insulated mounds, I found the whole face of the country covered with vestiges of building, in some places consisting of brick walls surprisingly fresh, in others merely of a vast succession of mounds of rubbish of such indeterminate figures, variety and extent, as to involve the person who should have formed any theory in inextricable confusion.
Claudius J. Rich, Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon (1815), pp. 1–2.[62]
Lion of Babylon
The eighteenth century saw an increasing flow of travellers to Babylon, including Carsten Niebuhr and Pierre-Joseph de Beauchamp, as well as measurements of its latitude. Beauchamp’s memoir, published in English translation in 1792, provoked the British East India Company to direct its agents in Baghdad and Basra to acquire Mesopotamian relics for shipment to London.[63]
By 1905, there were several villages in Babylon, one of which was Qwaresh with about 200 households located within the boundaries of the ancient inner city walls. The village grew due to the need for laborers during the German Oriental Society excavations (1899-1917).[citation needed]
Excavation and research
Edit
Claudius Rich, working for the British East India Company in Baghdad, excavated Babylon in 1811–12 and again in 1817.[64][65] Captain Robert Mignan explored the site briefly in 1827 and in 1829 he completed a map of Babylon which includes the location of several villages.[66][67] William Loftus visited there in 1849.[68] Austen Henry Layard made some soundings during a brief visit in 1850 before abandoning the site.[69][70]
Location of the Al Qurnah Disaster where hundreds of cases of antiquities from Fresnel’s mission were lost in 1855
“Entry of Alexander into Babylon”, a 1665 painting by Charles LeBrun, depicts Alexander the Great’s uncontested entry into the city of Babylon, envisioned with pre-existing Hellenistic architecture.
Fulgence Fresnel, Julius Oppert and Felix Thomas heavily excavated Babylon from 1852 to 1854.[71][72] However, much of their work was lost in the Qurnah Disaster when a transport ship and four rafts sank on the Tigris river in May 1855.[73] They had been carrying over 200 crates of artifacts from various excavation missions when they were attacked by Tigris river pirates near Al-Qurnah.[74][75] Recovery efforts, assisted by the Ottoman authorities and British Residence in Baghdad, loaded the equivalent of 80 crates on a ship for Le Havre in May 1856.[76][73] Few antiquities from the Fresnel mission would make it to France.[73][74][71] Subsequent efforts to recover the lost antiquities from the Tigris, including a Japanese expedition in 1971–72, have been largely unsuccessful.[76]
Original tiles of the processional street. Ancient Babylon, Mesopotamia, Iraq.
Henry Rawlinson and George Smith worked there briefly in 1854. The next excavation was conducted by Hormuzd Rassam on behalf of the British Museum. Work began in 1879, continuing until 1882, and was prompted by widespread looting of the site. Using industrial scale digging in search of artifacts, Rassam recovered a large quantity of cuneiform tablets and other finds. The zealous excavation methods, common at the time, caused significant damage to the archaeological context.[77][78] Many tablets had appeared on the market in 1876 before Rassam’s excavation began.[27]
Mušḫuššu (sirrush) and aurochs on either side of the processional street. Ancient Babylon, Mesopotamia, Iraq
A team from the German Oriental Society led by Robert Koldewey conducted the first scientific archaeological excavations at Babylon. The work was conducted daily from 1899 until 1917. A major problem for Koldewey was the large scale mining of baked bricks which had begun in the 19th century and which were mainly sourced from the time of Nebuchadnezzar II. At the time excavations began brick mining for various building efforts including the Hindiya dam were under way.[79] The primary efforts of the dig involved the temple of Marduk and the processional way leading up to it, as well as the city wall.[80][81][82][83][84][85] Artifacts, including pieces of the Ishtar Gate and hundreds of recovered tablets, were sent back to Germany, where Koldewey’s colleague Walter Andrae reconstructed them into displays at the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin.[86][87] The German archaeologists fled before oncoming British troops in 1917, and again, many objects went missing in the following years.[27]
Further work by the German Archaeological Institute was conducted by Heinrich J. Lenzen in 1956 and Hansjörg Schmid in 1962. Lenzen’s work dealt primarily with the Hellenistic theatre, and Schmid focused on the temple ziggurat Etemenanki.[88]
The site was excavated in 1974 on behalf of the Turin Centre for Archaeological Research and Excavations in the Middle East and Asia and the Iraqi-Italian Institute of Archaeological Sciences.[89][90] The focus was on clearing up issues raised by re-examination of the old German data. Additional work in 1987–1989 concentrated on the area surrounding the Ishara and Ninurta temples in the Shu-Anna city-quarter of Babylon.[91][92]
During the restoration efforts in Babylon, the Iraqi State Organization for Antiquities and Heritage conducted extensive research, excavation and clearing, but wider publication of these archaeological activities has been limited.[93][94] Indeed, most of the known tablets from all modern excavations remain unpublished.[27]
Iraqi government
Edit
The site of Babylon has been a cultural asset to Iraq since the creation of the modern Iraqi state in 1921. The site was officially protected and excavated by the Kingdom of Iraq under British Administration, which later became the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq, and its successors: the Arab Federation, the Iraqi Republic, Ba’athist Iraq (also officially called the Iraqi Republic), and the Republic of Iraq. Babylonian images periodically appear on Iraqi postcards and stamps. In the 1960s, a replica of the Ishtar Gate and a reconstruction of Ninmakh Temple were built on site.[95]
On 14 February 1978, the Ba’athist government of Iraq under Saddam Hussein began the “Archaeological Restoration of Babylon Project”: reconstructing features of the ancient city atop its ruins. These features included the Southern Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, with 250 rooms, five courtyards, and a 30-meter entrance arch. The project also reinforced the Processional Way, the Lion of Babylon, and an amphitheater constructed in the city’s Hellenistic era. In 1982, the government minted a set of seven coins displaying iconic features of Babylon. A Babylon International Festival was held in September 1987, and annually thereafter until 2002 (excepting 1990 and 1991), to showcase this work. The proposed reconstruction of the Hanging Gardens and the great ziggurat never took place.[96][95][97]
Hussein installed a portrait of himself and Nebuchadnezzar at the entrance to the ruins and inscribed his name on many of the bricks, in imitation of Nebuchadnezzar. One frequent inscription reads: “This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq”. These bricks became sought after as collectors’ items after Hussein’s downfall.[98] Similar projects were conducted at Nineveh, Nimrud, Assur and Hatra, to demonstrate the magnificence of Arab achievement.[99]
In the 1980s, Saddam Hussein completely removed the village of Qwaresh, displacing its residents.[100][12] He later constructed a modern palace in that area called Saddam Hill over some of the old ruins, in the pyramidal style of a ziggurat. In 2003, he intended to have a cable car line constructed over Babylon, but plans were halted by the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Under US and Polish occupation
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World Monuments Fund video on conservation of Babylon
Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the area around Babylon came under the control of US troops, before being handed over to Polish forces in September 2003.[101] US forces under the command of General James T. Conway of the I Marine Expeditionary Force were criticized for building the military base “Camp Alpha”, with a helipad and other facilities on ancient Babylonian ruins during the Iraq War. US forces have occupied the site for some time and have caused irreparable damage to the archaeological record. In a report of the British Museum’s Near East department, Dr. John Curtis described how parts of the archaeological site were levelled to create a landing area for helicopters, and parking lots for heavy vehicles. Curtis wrote of the occupation forces:
They caused substantial damage to the Ishtar Gate, one of the most famous monuments from antiquity […] US military vehicles crushed 2,600-year-old brick pavements, archaeological fragments were scattered across the site, more than 12 trenches were driven into ancient deposits and military earth-moving projects contaminated the site for future generations of scientists.[102]
A US military spokesman claimed that engineering operations were discussed with the “head of the Babylon museum”.[103] The head of the Iraqi State Board for Heritage and Antiquities, Donny George, said that the “mess will take decades to sort out” and criticised Polish troops for causing “terrible damage” to the site.[104][105] Poland resolved in 2004 to place the city under Iraq control, and commissioned a report titled Report Concerning the Condition of the Preservation of the Babylon Archaeological Site, which it presented at a meeting on 11–13 December 2004.[96] In 2005, the site was handed over to the Iraqi Ministry of Culture.[101]
In April 2006, Colonel John Coleman, former Chief of Staff for the I Marine Expeditionary Force, offered to issue an apology for the damage done by military personnel under his command. However, he also claimed that the US presence had deterred far greater damage by other looters.[106] An article published in April 2006 stated that UN officials and Iraqi leaders have plans to restore Babylon, making it into a cultural center.[107][108]
Two museums and a library, containing replicas of artifacts and local maps and reports, were raided and destroyed.[109]
Panoramic view of ruins in Babylon photographed in 2005
Panoramic view of ruins in Babylon photographed in 2005
Present-day
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In May 2009, the provincial government of Babil reopened the site to tourists and over 35,000 people visited in 2017.[8] An oil pipeline runs through an outer wall of the city.[110][111] On 5 July 2019, the site of Babylon was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[9]
Thousands of people reside in Babylon within the perimeter of the ancient outer city walls, and communities in and around them are “rapidly developing from compact, dense settlements to sprawling suburbia despite laws restricting constructions”.[12] Modern villages include Zwair West, Sinjar Village, Qwaresh, and Al-Jimjmah among which the first two are better off economically.[112] Most residents primarily depend on daily wage earning or have government jobs in Al-Hillah, while few cultivate dates, citrus fruits, figs, fodder for livestock and limited cash crops, although income from the land alone is not enough to sustain a family.[12] Both Shi’a and Sunni Muslims live in Sinjar village with mosques for both groups.[12]
The State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH) is the main authority responsible for the conservation of the archeological site. They are assisted by Antiquity and Heritage Police and maintain a permanent presence there. The World Monuments Fund is also involved in research and conservation. The SBAH Provincial Inspectorate Headquarters is located within the boundaries of the ancient inner city walls on the east side and several staff members and their families reside in subsidized housing in this area.
Susa
Susa (/ˈsuːsə/ SOO-sə; Middle Elamite: 𒀸𒋗𒊺𒂗, romanized: Šušen;[1] Middle and Neo-Elamite: 𒋢𒋢𒌦, romanized: Šušun;[1] Neo-Elamite and Achaemenid Elamite: 𒀸𒋗𒐼𒀭, romanized: Šušán;[2] Achaemenid Elamite: 𒀸𒋗𒐼, romanized: Šušá;[2] Persian: شوش Šuš [ʃuʃ]; Hebrew: שׁוּשָׁן Šūšān; Greek: Σοῦσα Soûsa; Syriac: ܫܘܫ Šuš;[3] Middle Persian: 𐭮𐭥𐭱𐭩 Sūš or 𐭱𐭥𐭮 Šūs; Old Persian: 𐏂𐎢𐏁𐎠 Çūšā) was an ancient city in the lower Zagros Mountains about 250 km (160 mi) east of the Tigris, between the Karkheh and Dez Rivers in Iran. One of the most important cities of the Ancient Near East, Susa served as the capital of Elam and the Achaemenid Empire, and remained a strategic centre during the Parthian and Sasanian periods.
The site currently consists of three archaeological mounds, covering an area of around one square kilometre.[4] The modern Iranian town of Shush is located on the site of ancient Susa. Shush is identified as Shushan, mentioned in the Book of Esther and other Biblical books.
Early settlement
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In urban history, Susa is one of the oldest-known settlements of the region. Based on C14 dating, the foundation of a settlement there occurred as early as 4395 BC (a calibrated radio-carbon date).[27] In the region around Susa were a number of towns (with their own platforms) and villages that maintained a trading relationship with the city, especially those along the Zagro frontier.[28]
The founding of Susa corresponded with the abandonment of nearby villages. Potts suggests that the settlement may have been founded to try to reestablish the previously destroyed settlement at Chogha Mish, about 25 km to the west.[29] Previously, Chogha Mish was also a very large settlement, and it featured a similar massive platform that was later built at Susa.
Another important settlement in the area is Chogha Bonut, that was discovered in 1976.
Susa I period (4200–3800 BC)
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Goblet and cup, Iran, Susa I style, 4th millennium BC – Ubaid period; goblet height c. 12 cm; Sèvres – Cité de la céramique, France
See also: Ubaid period
Shortly after Susa was first settled over 6000 years ago, its inhabitants erected a monumental platform that rose over the flat surrounding landscape.[30] The exceptional nature of the site is still recognizable today in the artistry of the ceramic vessels that were placed as offerings in a thousand or more graves near the base of the temple platform.[31]
Susa’s earliest settlement is known as the Susa I period (c. 4200–3900 BC). Two settlements named by archaeologists the Acropolis (7 ha) and the Apadana (6.3 ha), would later merge to form Susa proper (18 ha).[29] The Apadana was enclosed by 6 metre thick walls of rammed earth (this particular place is named Apadana because it also contains a late Achaemenid structure of this type).
Nearly two thousand pots of Susa I style were recovered from the cemetery, most of them now in the Louvre. The vessels found are eloquent testimony to the artistic and technical achievements of their makers, and they hold clues about the organization of the society that commissioned them.[32] Painted ceramic vessels from Susa in the earliest first style are a late, regional version of the Mesopotamian Ubaid ceramic tradition that spread across the Near East during the fifth millennium BC.[32] Susa I style was very much a product of the past and of influences from contemporary ceramic industries in the mountains of western Iran. The recurrence in close association of vessels of three types—a drinking goblet or beaker, a serving dish, and a small jar—implies the consumption of three types of food, apparently thought to be as necessary for life in the afterworld as it is in this one. Ceramics of these shapes, which were painted, constitute a large proportion of the vessels from the cemetery. Others are coarse cooking-type jars and bowls with simple bands painted on them and were probably the grave goods of the sites of humbler citizens as well as adolescents and, perhaps, children.[33] The pottery is carefully made by hand. Although a slow wheel may have been employed, the asymmetry of the vessels and the irregularity of the drawing of encircling lines and bands indicate that most of the work was done freehand.
Copper metallurgy is also attested during this period, which was contemporary with metalwork at some highland Iranian sites such as Tepe Sialk.
Louvre Suse I Boisseau décor géométrique 1 14012018.jpg
Louvre Suse I Nécropole du tell de l’Acropole Coupe décor géométrique 1 14012018.jpg
Master of animals, Susa I, Louvre Sb 2246.
Master of animals, Susa I, Louvre Sb 2246.
Sun and deities, Susa I, Louvre
Sun and deities, Susa I, Louvre
Susa II and Uruk influence (3800–3100 BC)
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Susa came within the Uruk cultural sphere during the Uruk period. An imitation of the entire state apparatus of Uruk, proto-writing, cylinder seals with Sumerian motifs, and monumental architecture is found at Susa. According to some scholars, Susa may have been a colony of Uruk.
There is some dispute about the comparative periodization of Susa and Uruk at this time, as well as about the extent of Uruk influence in Susa. Recent research indicates that Early Uruk period corresponds to Susa II period.[34]
Daniel T. Potts, argues that the influence from the highland Iranian Khuzestan area in Susa was more significant at the early period, and also continued later on. Thus, Susa combined the influence of two cultures, from the highland area and from the alluvial plains. Potts also stresses the fact that the writing and numerical systems of Uruk were not simply borrowed in Susa wholesale. Rather, only partial and selective borrowing took place, that was adapted to Susa’s needs. Despite the fact that Uruk was far larger than Susa at the time, Susa was not its colony, but still maintained some independence for a long time, according to Potts.[35] An architectural link has also been suggested between Susa, Tal-i Malyan, and Godin Tepe at this time, in support of the idea of the parallel development of the Proto-Cuneiform and proto-elamite scripts.[36]
Some scholars believe that Susa was part of the greater Uruk culture. Holly Pittman, an art historian at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia says, “they Susanians are participating entirely in an Uruk way of life. They are not culturally distinct; the material culture of Susa is a regional variation of that on the Mesopotamian plain”. Gilbert Stein, director of the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, says that “An expansion once thought to have lasted less than 200 years now apparently went on for 700 years. It is hard to think of any colonial system lasting that long. The spread of Uruk material is not evidence of Uruk domination; it could be local choice”.[37]
King-priest with bow fighting enemies, with horned temple in the center. Susa II or Uruk period (3800–3100 BC), found in excavations at Susa. Louvre Museum.[38][39]
King-priest with bow fighting enemies, with horned temple in the center. Susa II or Uruk period (3800–3100 BC), found in excavations at Susa. Louvre Museum.[38][39]
Globular envelope with the accounting tokens. Clay, Uruk period (c. 3500 BC). From the Tell of the Acropolis in Susa. The Louvre
Globular envelope with the accounting tokens. Clay, Uruk period (c. 3500 BC). From the Tell of the Acropolis in Susa. The Louvre
Work in the granaries, Susa II, Louvre.[40]
Work in the granaries, Susa II, Louvre.[40]
Priest-King with bow and arrows, Susa II, Louvre.[41]
Priest-King with bow and arrows, Susa II, Louvre.[41]
Prisoners, Susa II, Louvre.[42]
Prisoners, Susa II, Louvre.[42]
Orant statuette, Susa II, Louvre.[43]
Orant statuette, Susa II, Louvre.[43]
Susa III, or “Proto-Elamite”, period (3100–2700 BC)
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Main article: Proto-Elamite
Susa III (3100–2700 BC) is also known as the ‘Proto-Elamite’ period.[44] At this time, Banesh period pottery is predominant. This is also when the Proto-Elamite tablets first appear in the record. Subsequently, Susa became the centre of Elam civilization.
Ambiguous reference to Elam (Cuneiform; 𒉏 NIM) appear also in this period in Sumerian records. Susa enters recorded history in the Early Dynastic period of Sumer. A battle between Kish and Susa is recorded in 2700 BC, when En-me-barage-si is said to have “made the land of Elam submit”.[45]
Susa III/ Proto-Elamite cylinder seal, 3150–2800 BC. Louvre Museum, reference Sb 1484
Susa III/ Proto-Elamite cylinder seal, 3150–2800 BC. Louvre Museum, reference Sb 1484
Susa III/ Proto-Elamite cylinder seal 3150–2800 BC Mythological being on a boat Louvre Museum Sb 6379
Susa III/ Proto-Elamite cylinder seal 3150–2800 BC Mythological being on a boat Louvre Museum Sb 6379
Susa III/ Proto-Elamite cylinder seal 3150–2800 BC Louvre Museum Sb 6166
Susa III/ Proto-Elamite cylinder seal 3150–2800 BC Louvre Museum Sb 6166
Economical tablet in Proto-Elamite script, Suse III, Louvre Museum, reference Sb 15200, circa 3100–2850 BC
Economical tablet in Proto-Elamite script, Suse III, Louvre Museum, reference Sb 15200, circa 3100–2850 BC
Elamites
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Puzur-Inshushinak Ensi Shushaki (𒅤𒊭𒀭𒈹𒂞 𒑐𒋼𒋛 𒈹𒂞𒆠), “Puzur-Inshushinak Ensi (Governor) of Susa”, in the “Table au Lion”, dated 2100 BC, Louvre Museum.[46]
In the Sumerian period, Susa was the capital of a state called Susiana (Šušan), which occupied approximately the same territory of modern Khūzestān Province centered on the Karun River. Control of Susiana shifted between Elam, Sumer, and Akkad.
During the Elamite monarchy, many riches and materials were brought to Susa from the plundering of other cities.[47] This was mainly due to the fact of Susa’s location on Iran’s South Eastern region, closer to the city of Babylon and cities in Mesopotamia.
The use of the Elamite language as an administrative language was first attested in texts of ancient Ansan, Tall-e Mal-yan, dated 1000 BC.[48] Previous to the era of Elamites, the Akkadian language was responsible for most or all of the text used in ancient documents. Susiana was incorporated by Sargon the Great into his Akkadian Empire in approximately 2330 BC.[49]
Silver cup from Marvdasht, Iran, with a linear-Elamite inscription from the time of Kutik-Inshushinak. National Museum of Iran
The main goddess of the city was Nanaya, who had a significant temple in Susa.[50]
Old Elamite period (c. 2700–1500 BC)
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Dynastic list of twelve kings of Awan dynasty and twelve kings of the Shimashki Dynasty, 1800–1600 BC, Susa, Louvre Museum Sb 17729.[51][52]
The Old Elamite period began around 2700 BC. Historical records mention the conquest of Elam by Enmebaragesi, the Sumerian king of Kish in Mesopotamia. Three dynasties ruled during this period. Twelve kings of each of the first two dynasties, those of Awan (or Avan; c. 2400–2100 BC) and Simashki (c. 2100–1970 BC), are known from a list from Susa dating to the Old Babylonian period. Two Elamite dynasties said to have exercised brief control over parts of Sumer in very early times include Awan and Hamazi; and likewise, several of the stronger Sumerian rulers, such as Eannatum of Lagash and Lugal-anne-mundu of Adab, are recorded as temporarily dominating Elam.
Kutik-Inshushinak
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Susa was the capital of an Akkadian province until ca. 2100 BC, when its governor, Kutik-Inshushinak, rebelled and made it an independent state and a literary center. Also, he was the last from the Awan dynasty according to the Susa kinglist.[53] He unified the neighbouring territories and became the king of Elam. He encouraged the use of the Linear Elamite script, that remains undeciphered.
The city was subsequently conquered by the neo-Sumerian Third Dynasty of Ur and held until Ur finally collapsed at the hands of the Elamites under Kindattu in ca. 2004 BC. At this time, Susa was ruled by Elam again and became its capital under the Shimashki dynasty.
Indus-Susa relations (2600–1700 BC)
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Numerous artifacts of Indus Valley civilization origin have been found in Susa from this period, especially seals and etched carnelian beads, pointing to Indus-Mesopotamia relations during this period.[54][55]
Impression of an Indus cylinder seal discovered in Susa, in strata dated to 2600–1700 BC. Elongated buffalo with line of standard Indus script signs. Tell of the Susa acropolis. Louvre Museum, reference Sb 2425.[54][56] Indus script numbering convention per Asko Parpola.[57][58]
Impression of an Indus cylinder seal discovered in Susa, in strata dated to 2600–1700 BC. Elongated buffalo with line of standard Indus script signs. Tell of the Susa acropolis. Louvre Museum, reference Sb 2425.[54][56] Indus script numbering convention per Asko Parpola.[57][58]
Indus round seal with impression. Elongated buffalo with Harappan script imported to Susa in 2600–1700 BC. Found in the tell of the Susa acropolis. Louvre Museum, reference Sb 5614
Indus round seal with impression. Elongated buffalo with Harappan script imported to Susa in 2600–1700 BC. Found in the tell of the Susa acropolis. Louvre Museum, reference Sb 5614
Indian carnelian beads with white design, etched in white with an alkali through a heat process, imported to Susa in 2600–1700 BC. Found in the tell of the Susa acropolis. Louvre Museum, reference Sb 17751.[59][60] These beads are identical with beads found in the Indus Civilization site of Dholavira.[61]
Indian carnelian beads with white design, etched in white with an alkali through a heat process, imported to Susa in 2600–1700 BC. Found in the tell of the Susa acropolis. Louvre Museum, reference Sb 17751.[59][60] These beads are identical with beads found in the Indus Civilization site of Dholavira.[61]
Indus bracelet, front and back, made of Pleuroploca trapezium or Turbinella pyrum imported to Susa in 2600–1700 BC. Found in the tell of the Susa acropolis. Louvre Museum, reference Sb 14473.[62] This type of bracelet was manufactured in Mohenjo-daro, Lothal and Balakot.[63] The back is engraved with an oblong chevron design which is typical of shell bangles of the Indus Civilization.[64]
Indus bracelet, front and back, made of Pleuroploca trapezium or Turbinella pyrum imported to Susa in 2600–1700 BC. Found in the tell of the Susa acropolis. Louvre Museum, reference Sb 14473.[62] This type of bracelet was manufactured in Mohenjo-daro, Lothal and Balakot.[63] The back is engraved with an oblong chevron design which is typical of shell bangles of the Indus Civilization.[64]
Indus Valley Civilization carnelian beads excavated in Susa.
Indus Valley Civilization carnelian beads excavated in Susa.
Jewelry with components from the Indus, Central Asia and Northern-eastern Iran found in Susa dated to 2600–1700 BC.
Jewelry with components from the Indus, Central Asia and Northern-eastern Iran found in Susa dated to 2600–1700 BC.
Middle Elamite period (c. 1500–1100 BC)
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Middle-Elamite basrelief of warrior gods, Susa, 1600-1100 BC
Around 1500 BC, the Middle Elamite period began with the rise of the Anshanite dynasties. Their rule was characterized by an “Elamisation” of Susa, and the kings took the title “king of Anshan and Susa”. While, previously, the Akkadian language was frequently used in inscriptions, the succeeding kings, such as the Igihalkid dynasty of c. 1400 BC, tried to use Elamite. Thus, Elamite language and culture grew in importance in Susiana.
This was also the period when the Elamite pantheon was being imposed in Susiana. This policy reached its height with the construction of the political and religious complex at Chogha Zanbil, 30 km (19 mi) south-east of Susa.
In ca. 1175 BC, the Elamites under Shutruk-Nahhunte plundered the original stele bearing the Code of Hammurabi and took it to Susa. Archeologists found it in 1901. Nebuchadnezzar I of the Babylonian empire plundered Susa around fifty years later.
An ornate design on this limestone ritual vat from the Middle Elamite period depicts creatures with the heads of goats and the tails of fish, Susa, 1500–1110 BC.
An ornate design on this limestone ritual vat from the Middle Elamite period depicts creatures with the heads of goats and the tails of fish, Susa, 1500–1110 BC.
The Ziggurat at Chogha Zanbil was built by Elamite king Untash-Napirisha circa 1300 BC.
The Ziggurat at Chogha Zanbil was built by Elamite king Untash-Napirisha circa 1300 BC.
Susa, Middle-Elamite model of a sun ritual, circa 1150 BC
Susa, Middle-Elamite model of a sun ritual, circa 1150 BC
Neo-Elamite period (c. 1100–540 BC)
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Neo-Assyrians
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Main article: Battle of Susa
In 647 BC, Neo-Assyrian king Ashurbanipal leveled the city during a war in which the people of Susa participated on the other side. A tablet unearthed in 1854 by Austen Henry Layard in Nineveh reveals Ashurbanipal as an “avenger”, seeking retribution for the humiliations that the Elamites had inflicted on the Mesopotamians over the centuries:
“Susa, the great holy city, abode of their gods, seat of their mysteries, I conquered. I entered its palaces, I opened their treasuries where silver and gold, goods and wealth were amassed. . . .I destroyed the ziggurat of Susa. I smashed its shining copper horns. I reduced the temples of Elam to naught; their gods and goddesses I scattered to the winds. The tombs of their ancient and recent kings I devastated, I exposed to the sun, and I carried away their bones toward the land of Ashur. I devastated the provinces of Elam and, on their lands, I sowed salt.”[65]
Assyrian rule of Susa began in 647 BC and lasted till Median capture of Susa in 617 BC.
Susa after Achaemenid Persian conquest
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Statue of Darius the Great, National Museum of Iran
Archers frieze from Darius’ palace at Susa. Detail of the beginning of the frieze
The 24 countries subject to the Achaemenid Empire at the time of Darius, on the Statue of Darius I.
Susa underwent a major political and ethnocultural transition when it became part of the Persian Achaemenid empire between 540 and 539 BC when it was captured by Cyrus the Great during his conquest of Elam (Susiana), of which Susa was the capital.[66] The Nabonidus Chronicle records that, prior to the battle(s), Nabonidus had ordered cult statues from outlying Babylonian cities to be brought into the capital, suggesting that the conflict over Susa had begun possibly in the winter of 540 BC.[67]
It is probable that Cyrus negotiated with the Babylonian generals to obtain a compromise on their part and therefore avoid an armed confrontation.[68] Nabonidus was staying in the city at the time and soon fled to the capital, Babylon, which he had not visited in years.[69] Cyrus’ conquest of Susa and the rest of Babylonia commenced a fundamental shift, bringing Susa under Persian control for the first time. Strabo stated that Cyrus made Susa an imperial capital though there was no new construction in that period so this is in dispute.[70]
Under Cyrus’ son Cambyses II, Susa became a center of political power as one of four capitals of the Achaemenid Persian empire, while reducing the significance of Pasargadae as the capital of Persis. Following Cambyses’ brief rule, Darius the Great began a major building program in Susa and Persepolis,which included building a large palace.[71] During this time he describes his new capital in an inscription:
“This palace which I built at Susa, from afar its ornamentation was brought. Downward the earth was dug, until I reached rock in the earth. When the excavation had been made, then rubble was packed down, some 40 cubits in depth, another part 20 cubits in depth. On that rubble the palace was constructed.”[72]
The city forms the setting of The Persians (472 BC), an Athenian tragedy by the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus that is the oldest surviving play in the history of theatre.
Events mentioned in the Old Testament book of Esther are said to have occurred in Susa during the Achaemenid period.
Seleucid period
Edit
The marriages of Stateira II to Alexander the Great of Macedon and her sister, Drypteis, to Hephaestion at Susa in 324 BC, as depicted in a late-19th-century engraving.
Susa lost much of its importance after the invasion of Alexander the Great of Macedon in 331 BC. In 324 BC he met Nearchus here, who explored the Persian Gulf[citation needed] as he returned from the Indus River by sea. In that same year Alexander celebrated in Susa with a mass wedding between the Persians and Macedonians.[73]
The city retained its importance under the Seleucids for approximately one century after Alexander, however Susa lost its position of imperial capital to Seleucia on the Tigris to become the regional capital of the satrapy of Susiana.[74] Nevertheless, Susa retained its economic importance to the empire with its vast assortment of merchants conducting trade in Susa,[75] using Charax Spasinou as its port.
The city was named Seleucia on the Eulaeus or Seleucia ad Eulaeum.
Seleucus I Nicator minted coins there in substantial quantities.[76] Susa is rich in Greek inscriptions,[citation needed] perhaps indicating a significant number of Greeks living in the city. Especially in the royal city large, well-equipped peristyle houses have been excavated.
Parthian period
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Around 147 BC Susa and the adjacent Elymais broke free from the Seleucid Empire. The city was at least temporarily ruled by the rulers of the Elymais with Kamnaskires II Nikephoros minting coins there. The city may again have briefly returned to Seleucid rule, but starting with Phraates II (about 138–127 BC) to Gotarzes II (about 40–51 AD) almost all rulers of the Parthian Empire coined coins in the city, indicating that it was firmly in the hands of the Parthians at least during this period. The city however retained a considerable amount of independence and retained its Greek city-state organization well into the ensuing Parthian period.[77] From second half of the first century it was probably partly governed by rulers of Elymais again, but it became Parthian once again in 215.[78][79]
Susa was a frequent place of refuge for Parthian and later, the Persian Sassanid kings, as the Romans sacked Ctesiphon five different times between 116 and 297 AD. Susa was briefly captured in 116 AD by the Roman emperor Trajan during the course of his Parthian campaign.[80] Never again would the Roman Empire advance so far to the east.[81]
Sassanid period
Edit
Suzan was conquered and destroyed in 224 AD by the Sassanid Ardashir I, but rebuilt immediately thereafter, and perhaps even temporarily a royal residence. According to a later tradition, Shapur I is said to have spent his twilight years in the city, although this tradition is uncertain and perhaps refers more to Shapur II.
Under the Sassanids, following the founding of Gundeshapur Susa slowly lost its importance. Archaeologically, the Sassanid city is less dense compared to the Parthian period, but there were still significant buildings, with the settlement extending over 400 hectares. Susa was also still very significant economically and a trading center, especially in gold trading. Coins also continued to be minted in the city. The city had a Christian community in a separate district with a Nestorian bishop, whose last representative is attested to in 1265. Archaeologically a stucco panel with the image of a Christian saint has been found.
During the reign of Shapur II after Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire in 312, and the identification of Christians as possible collaborators with the enemy Christians living in the Sasanian Empire were persecuted from 339 onwards.[82] Shapur II also imposed a double tax on the Christians during his war campaign against the Romans. Following a rebellion of Christians living in Susa, the king destroyed the city in 339 using 300 elephants.[83] He later had the city rebuilt and resettled with prisoners of war and weavers, which is believed to have been after his victory over the Romans in Amida in 359. The weaver produced silk brocade.[84] He renamed it Eran-Khwarrah-Shapur (“Iran’s glory [built by] Shapur”).[85]
Islamic period
Edit
During the Muslim conquest of Persia an Arab army invaded Khuzistan under the command of Abu Musa al-Ash’ari. After taking most of the smaller fortified towns the army captured Tustar in 642 before proceeding to besiege Susa. A place of military importance, it also held the tomb of the Jewish prophet Daniel.
A group of Western and Iranian archaeologists at a conference held in Susa, Khuzestan, Iran in 1977. Henry Wright, William Sumner, Elizabeth Carter, Genevieve Dolfus, Greg Johnson, Saeid Ganjavi, Yousef Majidzadeh,Vanden Berghe, and others.
Two stories are given in the Muslim sources of how the city fell. In the first, a Persian priest proclaimed from the walls that only a dajjal was fated to capture the city. A dajjal is an Islamic term for an Al-Masih ad-Dajjal, a false messiah, compatible to the Antichrist in Christianity. In everyday use, it also means “deceiver” or “imposter”. Siyah, a Persian general who had defected to Muslim side, claimed that by converting to Islam he had turned his back on Zoroastrianism and was thus a dajjal. Abu Musa agreed to Siyah’s plan. Soon after as the sun came up one morning, the sentries on the walls saw a man in a Persian officer’s uniform covered in blood lying on the ground before the main gate. Thinking it he had been left out overnight after a conflict the previous day, they opened the gate and some came out to collect him. As they approached, Siyah jumped up and killed them. Before the other sentries had time to react, Siyah and a small group of Muslim soldiers hidden nearby charged through the open gate. They held the gate open long enough for Muslim reinforcements to arrive and passing through the gate to take the city.[86]
In the other story, once again the Muslims were taunted from the city wall that only an Al-Masih ad-Dajjal could capture the city, and since there were none in the besieging army then they may as well give up and go home. One of the Muslim commanders was so angry and frustrated at this taunt that he went up to one of the city gates and kicked it. Instantly the chains snapped, the locks broke and it fell open.[87]
Following their entry into the city, the Muslims killed all of the Persian nobles.[87]
Once the city was taken, as Daniel (Arabic: دانيال, romanized: Danyal) was not mentioned in the Qur’an, nor is he regarded as a prophet in Judaism, the initial reaction of the Muslim was to destroy the cult by confiscating the treasure that had stored at the tomb since the time of the Achaemenids. They then broke open the silver coffin and carried off the mummified corpse, removing from the corpse a signet ring, which carried an image of a man between two lions. However, upon hearing what had happened, the caliph Umar ordered the ring to be returned and the body reburied under the riverbed.[87] In time, Daniel became a Muslim cult figure and they as well as Christians began making pilgrimages to the site, despite several other places claiming to be the site of Daniel’s grave.[87]
Following the capture of Susa, the Muslims moved on to besiege Gundeshapur.[86]
Susa recovered following its capture and remained a regional center of more than 400 hectares in size.[88] A mosque was built, but also Nestorian bishops are still testifie. In addition, there was a Jewish community with its own synagogue. The city continued to be a manufacturing center of luxury fabrics during this period. Archaeologically, the Islamic period is characterized mainly by its rich ceramics. Beth Huzaye (East Syrian Ecclesiastical Province) had a significant Christian population during the first millennium, and was a diocese of the Church of the East between the 5th and 13th centuries, in the metropolitan province of Beth Huzaye (Elam).
In 1218, the city was razed by invading Mongols and was never able to regain its previous importance. The city further degraded in the 15th century when the majority of its population moved to Dezful.[89]
Today
Edit
Today the ancient center of Susa is unoccupied, with the population living in the adjacent modern Iranian town of Shush to the west and north of the historic ruins. Shush is the administrative capital of Shush County in Iran’s Khuzestan province. It had a population of 64,960 in 2005.
Sardis
Sardis (/ˈsɑːrdɪs/) (/ˈsɑːrdiːs/; Lydian: 𐤳𐤱𐤠𐤭𐤣 Sfard; Greek: Σάρδεις Sárdeis; Old Persian: Sparda) was an ancient city best known as the capital of the Lydian Empire. After the fall of the Lydian Empire, it became the capital of the Persian satrapy of Lydia and later a major center of Hellenistic and Byzantine culture. Now an active archaeological site, it is located in modern day Turkey, in Manisa Province near the town of Sart.
Thracians
The Thracians (/ˈθreɪʃənz/; Ancient Greek: Θρᾷκες Thrāikes; Latin: Thraci) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Southeast Europe in ancient history.[1][2] Thracians resided mainly in the Balkans (mostly modern day Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and Greece) but were also located in Anatolia (Asia Minor) and other locations in the southeast of Europe.
The exact origin of Thracians is unknown, but it is believed that proto-Thracians descended from a purported mixture of Proto-Indo-Europeans and Early European Farmers, arriving from the rest of Asia and Africa through the Asia Minor (Anatolia).[3] The proto-Thracian culture developed into the Dacian, Getae, and several other smaller Thracian cultures.
Thracian culture was described as tribal by the Greeks and Romans. They remained largely disunited, with their first permanent state being the Odrysian kingdom in the fifth century BC. They faced subjugation by the Achaemenid Empire around the same time. Thracians experienced a short period of peace after the Persians were defeated by the Greeks in the Persian Wars. The Odrysian kingdom lost independence to Macedonia in the late 4th century BC, and never regained total independence following Alexander the Great’s death.
The Thracians faced conquest by the Romans in the mid second century BC under whom they faced internal strife. They composed major parts of rebellions against the Romans along with the Macedonians until the Third Macedonian War. The last reported use of a Thracian language was by monks in the sixth century AD.
Thracians were described as “warlike” and “barbarians” by the Greeks and Romans and were favored as mercenaries. Ancient descriptions of a vicious people are disputed[citation needed] and archaeology has been used since the mid-twentieth century in southern Bulgaria to identify more about them. Both Romans and Greeks called them barbarians since they were neither Romans nor Greeks, and to the perceived backwardness of their culture. The perceived primitiveness may be related to their living simple lives in open villages. Some authors noted that even after the introduction of Latin they still kept their “barbarous” ways.[4] While the Thracians were perceived as unsophisticated by their contemporaries, they reportedly “had in fact a fairly advanced culture that was especially noted for its poetry and music.”[5]
Thracians spoke the extinct Thracian language and shared a common culture.[1] The Thracians made cultural interaction with the people surrounding them: Greeks, Persians, Scythians, Celts and later on Turks, but although they were indeed influenced by each of these cultures, this influence affected only the circles of the aristocratic elite, not Thracian culture as a whole.[6] Among their customs was tattooing, common among both males and females.[7] They followed a polytheistic religion. The study of the Thracians is known as Thracology.
The first historical record of the Thracians is found in the Iliad, where they are described as allies of the Trojans in the Trojan War against the Ancient Greeks.[8] The ethnonym Thracian comes from Ancient Greek Θρᾷξ (plural Θρᾷκες; Thrāix, Thrāikes) or Θρᾴκιος (Thrāikios; Ionic: Θρηίκιος, Thrēikios), and the toponym Thrace comes from Θρᾴκη (Thrāikē; Ionic: Θρῄκη, Thrēikē).[9] These forms are all exonyms as applied by the Greeks.[10]
In Greek mythology, Thrax (by his name simply the quintessential Thracian) was regarded as one of the reputed sons of the god Ares.[11] In the Alcestis, Euripides mentions that one of the names of Ares himself was “Thrax” since he was regarded as the patron of Thrace (his golden or gilded shield was kept in his temple at Bistonia in Thrace).[12]
The origins of the Thracians remain obscure, in the absence of written historical records before they got into contact with the Greeks.[13] Evidence of proto-Thracians in the prehistoric period depends on artifacts of material culture. Leo Klejn identifies proto-Thracians with the multi-cordoned ware culture that was pushed away from Ukraine by the advancing timber grave culture or Srubnaya. It is generally proposed that a proto-Thracian people developed from a mixture of indigenous peoples and Indo-Europeans from the time of Proto-Indo-European expansion in the Early Bronze Age[14] when the latter, around 1500 BC, mixed with indigenous peoples.[15] According to one theory, their ancestors migrated in three waves from the northeast: the first in the Late Neolithic, forcing out the Pelasgians and Achaeans, the second in the Early Bronze Age, and the third around 1200 BC. They reached the Aegean islands, ending the Mycenaean civilization. They did not speak the same language.[13] During the Iron Age (about 1000 BC) Dacians and Thracians began developing from proto-Thracians.[16] The diverse topography didn’t make it possible for a single language to form.[13]
Ancient Greek and Roman historians agreed that the ancient Thracians, who were of Indo-European stock and language, were superior fighters; only their constant political fragmentation prevented them from overrunning the lands around the northeastern Mediterranean.[citation needed] Although these historians characterized the Thracians as primitive partly because they lived in simple, open villages, the Thracians in fact had a fairly advanced culture that was especially noted for its poetry and music. Their soldiers were valued as mercenaries, particularly by the Macedonians and Romans.[citation needed]
Homeric period
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The Thracians are mentioned in Homer’s Iliad, meaning that they were already present in the eighth century BC.[22][23]
Archaic period
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The first Greek colonies along the Thracian coasts (first the Aegean, then the Marmara and Black Seas) were founded in the eighth century BC.[17] Thracians and Greeks lived side-by-side. Ancient sources record a Thracian presence on the Aegean islands and in Hellas (the broader “land of the Hellenes”).[24]
At some point in the 7th century BC, a portion of the Thracian Treres tribe migrated across the Thracian Bosporus and invaded Anatolia.[25] In 637 BC, the Treres under their king Kobos (Ancient Greek: Κώβος Kṓbos; Latin: Cobus), in alliance with the Cimmerians and the Lycians, attacked the kingdom of Lydia during the seventh year of the reign of the Lydian king Ardys.[26] They defeated the Lydians and captured the capital city of Lydia, Sardis, except for its citadel, and Ardys might have been killed in this attack.[27] Ardys’s son and successor, Sadyattes, might possibly also have been killed in another Cimmerian attack on Lydia.[27] Soon after 635 BC, with Assyrian approval[28] the Scythians under Madyes entered Anatolia. In alliance with Sadyattes’s son, the Lydian king Alyattes,[29][30] Madyes expelled the Treres from Asia Minor and defeated the Cimmerians so that they no longer constituted a threat again, following which the Scythians extended their domination to Central Anatolia[31] until they were themselves expelled by the Medes from Western Asia in the 600s BC.[26]
Achaemenid Thrace
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Main article: Skudra
Skudrian (Thracian) soldier of the Achaemenid army, c. 480 BC. Xerxes I tomb relief.
In the 6th century BC the Persian Achaemenid Empire conquered Thrace, starting in 513 BC, when the Achaemenid king Darius I amassed an army and marched from Achaemenid-ruled Anatolia into Thrace, and from there he crossed the Arteskos river and then proceeded through the valley-route of the Hebros river. This was an act of conquest by Darius I, who sought to create a new satrapy in the Balkans, and had during his march sent emissaries to the Thracians found on the path of his army as well as to the many other Thracian tribes over a wide area. All these peoples of Thrace, including the Odrysae, submitted to the Achaemenid king until his army reached the territory of Thracian tribe of the Getae who lived just south of the Danube river and who in vain attempted to resist the Achaemenid conquest. After the resistance of the Getae was defeated and they were forced to provide the Achaemenid army with soldiers, all the Thracian tribes between the Aegean Sea and the Danube river had been subjected by the Achaemenid Empire. Once Darius had reached the Danube, he crossed the river and campaigned against the Scythians, after which he returned back to Anatolia through Thrace and left a large army in Europe under the command of his general Megabazus.[32]
Following Darius I’s orders to create a new satrapy for the Achaemenid Empire in the Balkans, Megabazus forced the Greek cities who had refused to submit to the Achaemenid Empire, starting with Perinthus, after which led military campaigns throughout Thrace to impose Achaemenid rule over every city and tribe in the area. With the help of Thracian guides, Megabazus was able to conquer Paeonia up to but not including the area of Lake Prasias, and he gave the lands of the Paeonians inhabiting these regions up to the Lake Prasias to Thracians loyal to the Achaemenid Empire. The last endeavours of Megabazus included his the conquest of the area between the Strymon and Axius rivers, and at the end of his campaign, the king of Macedonia, Amyntas I, accepted to become a vassal of the Achaemenid Empire. Within the satrapy itself, the Achaemenid king Darius granted to the tyrant Histiaeus of Miletus the district of Myrcinus on the Strymon’s east bank until Megabazus persuaded him to recall Histiaeus after he returned to Asia Minor, after which the Thracian tribe of the Edoni retook control of Myrcinus.[32] The new satrapy, once created, was named Skudra (𐎿𐎤𐎢𐎭𐎼), derived from Scythian the name Skuδa, which was the self-designation of the Scythians who inhabited the northern parts of the satrapy.[33] Once Megabazus had returned to Asia Minor, he was succeeded in Skudra by a governor whose name is unknown, and Darius appointed the general Otanes to oversee the administrative division of the Hellespont, which extended on both sides of the sea and included the Bosporus, the Propontis, and the Hellespont proper and its approaches. Otanes then proceeded to capture Byzantium, Chalcedon, Antandrus, Lamponeia, Imbros, and Lemnos for the Achaemenid Empire.[32]
The area included within the satrapy of Skudra included both the Aegean coast of Thrace, as well as its Pontic coast till the Danube. In the interior, the Western border of the satrapy consisted of the Axius river and the Belasica-Pirin-Rila mountain ranges till the site of modern-day Kostenets. The importance of this satrapy rested in that it contained the Hebros river, where a route in the river valley connected the permanent Persian settlement of Doriscus with the Aegean coast, as well as with the port-cities of Apollonia, Mesembria and Odessos on the Black Sea, and with the central Thracian plain, which gave this region an important strategic value. Persian sources describe the province as being populated by three groups: the Saka Paradraya (“Saka beyond the sea”, the Persian term for all Scythian peoples to the north of the Caspian and Black Seas [34][35]); the Skudra themselves (most likely the Thracian tribes), and Yauna Takabara. The latter term, which translates as “Ionians with shield-like hats”, is believed to refer to Macedonians. The three ethnicities (Saka, Macedonian, Thracian) enrolled in the Achaemenid army, as shown in the Imperial tomb reliefs of Naqsh-e Rostam, and participated in the Second Persian invasion of Greece on the Achaemenid side.[36]
When Achaemenid control over its European possessions collapsed once the Ionian Revolt started, the Thracians did not help the Greek rebels, and they instead saw Achaemenid rule as more favourable because the latter had treated the Thracians with favour and even given them more land, and also because they realised that Achaemenid rule was a bulwark against Greek expansion and Scythian attacks. During the revolt, Aristagoras of Miletus captured Myrcinus from the Edones and died trying to attack another Thracian city.[32]
Once the Ionian Revolt had been fully quelled, the Achaemenid general Mardonius crossed the Hellespont with a large fleet and army, re-subjugated Thrace without any effort and made Macedonia full part of the satrapy of Skudra. Mardonius was however attacked at night by the Bryges in the area of Lake Doiran and modern-day Valandovo, but he was able to defeat and submit them as well. Herodotus’s list of tribes who provided the Achaemenid army with soldiers included Thracians from both the coast and from the central Thracian plain, attesting that Mardonius’s campaign had reconquered all the Thracian areas which were under Achaemenid rule before the Ionian Revolt.[32]
When the Greeks defeated a second invasion attempt by the Persian Empire in 479 BC, they started attacking the satrapy of Skudra, which was resisted by both the Thracians and the Persian forces. The Thracians kept on sending supplies to the governor of Eion when the Greeks besieged it. When the city fell to the Greeks in 475 BC, Cimon gave its land to Athens for colonisation. Although Athens was now in control of the Aegean Sea and the Hellespont following the defeat of the Persian invasion, the Persians were still able to control the southern coast of Thrace from a base in central Thrace and with the support of the Thracians. Thanks to the Thracians co-operating with the Persians by sending supplies and military reinforcements down the Hebrus river route, Achaemenid authority in central Thrace lasted until around 465 BC, and the governor Mascames managed to resist many Greek attacks in Doriscus until then.[32]
Around this time, Teres I, the king of the Odrysae tribe, in whose territory the Hebrus flowed, was starting to organise the rise of his kingdom into a powerful state. With the end of Achaemenid power in the Balkans, the Thracian Odrysian kingdom, the kingdom of Macedonia, and the Athenian thalassocracy filled the ensuing power vacuum and formed their own spheres of influence in the area.[32]
Odrysian Kingdom
Edit
Main article: Odrysian kingdom
The Odrysian Kingdom was a state union of over 40 Thracian tribes[37] and 22 kingdoms[38] that existed between the 5th century BC and the 1st century AD. It consisted mainly of present-day Bulgaria, spreading to parts of Southeastern Romania (Northern Dobruja), parts of Northern Greece and parts of modern-day European Turkey.[citation needed]
By the fifth century BC, the Thracian population was large enough that Herodotus called them the second-most numerous people in the part of the world known by him (after the Indians), and potentially the most powerful, if not for their lack of unity.[39] The Thracians in classical times were broken up into a large number of groups and tribes, though a number of powerful Thracian states were organized, the most important being the Odrysian kingdom of Thrace, and also the short lived Dacian kingdom of Burebista. The peltast, a type of soldier of this period, probably originated in Thrace.[citation needed]
During this period, a subculture of celibate ascetics called the “ctistae” lived in Thrace, where they served as philosophers, priests and prophets.[citation needed]
Macedonian Thrace
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During this period, contacts between the Thracians and Classical Greece intensified.[citation needed]
After the Persians withdrew from Europe and before the expansion of the Kingdom of Macedon, Thrace was divided into three regions (east, central, and west). A notable ruler of the East Thracians was Cersobleptes, who attempted to expand his authority over many of the Thracian tribes. He was eventually defeated by the Macedonians.[citation needed]
The Thracians were typically not city-builders[40][41] and their only polis was Seuthopolis.[42][43]
Southeastern Europe in the second century BC.
The conquest of the southern part of Thrace by Philip II of Macedon in the fourth century BC made the Odrysian kingdom extinct for several years. After the kingdom was reestablished, it was a vassal state of Macedon for several decades under generals such as Lysimachus of the Diadochi.[citation needed]
In 279 BC, Celtic Gauls advanced into Macedonia, southern Greece and Thrace. They were soon forced out of Macedonia and southern Greece, but they remained in Thrace until the end of the third century BC. From Thrace, three Celtic tribes advanced into Anatolia and established the kingdom of Galatia.[citation needed]
In western parts of Moesia, Celts (Scordisci) and Thracians lived alongside each other, as evident from the archaeological findings of pits and treasures, spanning from the third century BC to the first century BC.[44]
Roman Thrace
Edit
During the Macedonian Wars, conflict between Rome and Thrace was unavoidable. The rulers of Macedonia were weak, and Thracian tribal authority resurged. But after the Battle of Pydna in 168 BC, Roman authority over Macedonia seemed inevitable, and the governance of Thrace passed to Rome.[citation needed]
Initially, Thracians and Macedonians revolted against Roman rule. For example, the revolt of Andriscus, in 149 BC, drew the bulk of its support from Thrace. Incursions by local tribes into Macedonia continued for many years, though a few tribes, such as the Deneletae and the Bessi, willingly allied with Rome.[citation needed]
After the Third Macedonian War, Thrace acknowledged Roman authority. The client state of Thracia comprised several tribes.[citation needed]
Roman rule
Edit
Main articles: Thracia (Roman province), Dacia, Moesia, and Scythia Minor (Roman province)
The province of Thracia within the Roman Empire, c. 116 AD
The next century and a half saw the slow development of Thracia into a permanent Roman client state. The Sapaei tribe came to the forefront initially under the rule of Rhascuporis. He was known to have granted assistance to both Pompey and Caesar, and later supported the Republican armies against Mark Antony and Octavian in the final days of the Republic.[citation needed]
The heirs of Rhascuporis became as deeply enmeshed in political scandal and murder as were their Roman masters. A series of royal assassinations altered the ruling landscape for several years in the early Roman imperial period. Various factions took control with the support of the Roman Emperor. The turmoil would eventually end with one final assassination.[citation needed]
After Rhoemetalces III of the Thracian Kingdom of Sapes was murdered in AD 46 by his wife, Thracia was incorporated as an official Roman province to be governed by Procurators, and later Praetorian prefects. The central governing authority of Rome was in Perinthus, but regions within the province were under the command of military subordinates to the governor. The lack of large urban centers made Thracia a difficult place to manage, but eventually the province flourished under Roman rule. However, Romanization was not attempted in the province of Thracia. The Balkan Sprachbund does not support Hellenization.[citation needed]
Roman authority in Thracia rested mainly with the legions stationed in Moesia. The rural nature of Thracia’s populations, and distance from Roman authority, certainly inspired local troops to support Moesia’s legions. Over the next few centuries, the province was periodically and increasingly attacked by migrating Germanic tribes. The reign of Justinian saw the construction of over 100 legionary fortresses to supplement the defense.[citation needed]
Barbarians
Edit
Thracians were regarded by other peoples as warlike, ferocious, bloodthirsty, and barbarian.[45][46][4] They were seen as “barbarians” by ancient Greeks and Romans. Plato in his Republic groups them with the Scythians,[47] calling them extravagant and high spirited; and his Laws portrays them as a warlike nation, grouping them with Celts, Persians, Scythians, Iberians and Carthaginians.[48] Polybius wrote of Cotys’s sober and gentle character being unlike that of most Thracians.[49] Tacitus in his Annals writes of them being wild, savage and impatient, disobedient even to their own kings.[50] The Thracians have been said to have “tattooed their bodies, obtained their wives by purchase, and often sold their children.”[4] Victor Duruy further notes that they “considered husbandry unworthy of a warrior, and knew no source of gain but war and theft,”[4] and that they practiced human sacrifice,[4] which has been confirmed by archaeological evidence.[51]
Polyaenus and Strabo write how the Thracians broke their pacts of truce with trickery.[52][53] The Thracians struck their weapons against each other before battle, “in the Thracian manner,” as Polyaneus testifies.[54] Diegylis was considered one of the most bloodthirsty chieftains by Diodorus Siculus. An Athenian club for lawless youths was named after the Triballi.[55]
According to ancient Roman sources, the Dii[56] were responsible for the worst[57] atrocities of the Peloponnesian War, killing every living thing, including children and dogs in Tanagra and Mycalessos.[56] Thracians would impale Roman heads on their spears and rhomphaias such as in the Kallinikos skirmish at 171 BC.[57]
Herodotus writes that “they sell their children and let their maidens commerce with whatever men they please”.[58]
The accuracy and impartiality of these descriptions have been called into question in modern times, given the seeming embellishments in Herodotus’s histories, for one.[59][failed verification] Strabo treated the Thracians as barbarians, and held that they spoke the same language as the Getae.[60] Archaeologists have attempted to piece together a fuller understanding of Thracian culture through study of their artifacts.[61]
Dana Point
Dana Point (/ˌdeɪnə-/) is a city located in southern Orange County, California, United States. The population was 33,107 at the 2020 census. It has one of the few harbors along the Orange County coast, and with ready access via State Route 1, it is a popular local destination for surfing.
The city was named after the headland of Dana Point, which was in turn named after Richard Henry Dana, Jr., author of Two Years Before the Mast, which included a description of the area. Dana described the locale, including neighboring San Juan Capistrano, as “the only romantic spot on the coast”.[7] This area is designated California Historical Landmark #189.[6]
Indigenous
Edit
The Acjachemen village site of Toovannga was located near the present-day site of Dana Point Harbor. The village was located near the mouth of the San Juan Creek. The people lived in villages of around 250 people and stewarded the land into a thriving ecosystem. Each village was politically independent and established ties with other villages through marriage.[8] The area of Dana Point is located downstream from the mother village of Putuidem.[9]
The arrival of European settlers in the area began with the Portolá expedition (1769-1770). Starting in 1776, people from the village of Ubange, located near Dana Point, were brought to Mission San Juan Capistrano for conversion to Christianity and to be exploited as labor to work the mission’s grounds.[10] By 1778, dissatisfaction with the missions led to the formation of a revolt by tribal leader Cinquanto that was preemptively stopped by the Spanish.[11]
Spanish era
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Dana Point was a popular port for ships involved with the hide trade with nearby Mission San Juan Capistrano. Trading reached its peak in the 1830s and 1840s. In 1818, Argentine sailor Hippolyte de Bouchard anchored there while conducting his raid on the mission. Richard Henry Dana then visited the area in 1835 while serving aboard the sailing brig Pilgrim on her voyage along the California coastline.[6]
American era
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The headlands and pier at Dana Point, ca. 1925, prior to construction of the harbor
In 1923, Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler and General M. H. Sherman, director of the Pacific Electric Railway Company, created a major real estate group to develop the Hollywood Hills. Sidney H. Woodruff, already a prominent Los Angeles homebuilder, was hired to lead the project.
In 1926, Woodruff, Chandler, and Sherman created the Dana Point Syndicate. They invited other investors, company presidents, movie producers, and real estate investors to join them in purchasing 1,388 acres (5.6 km2) of land, some of which includes the “Headlands” of today. Promising tree-lined and paved streets, electricity, telephones, sidewalks, water mains, storm drains, sewers, and other amenities, Woodruff built 35 homes and a number of commercial buildings.
Most of these “Woodruff” houses are concentrated in the Dana Point historic core, also called Lantern Village (currently about 12,000 residents). The streets are named after different colored lanterns—Street of the Violet Lantern, Blue Lantern, etc.—because colored lanterns were used by ships 200 years ago to advertise their fares when in the Dana Point natural harbor.[12][citation needed] His crowning structure was to be the Dana Point Inn, a Mediterranean-like resort hotel on the cliffs overlooking the harbor. After a celebratory groundbreaking in 1930, a three-story foundation was poured and a 135-foot (41 m) shaft was dug for an elevator to transport hotel guests to and from the beach. The economic downturn of the Great Depression caused construction to halt, however. Although Woodruff continuously sought financial support through the years, this project was abandoned in 1939. Subsequently, he sold the remaining holdings of the Dana Point Syndicate. Thirty-four of the original Woodruff residences are still occupied.
Dana Point Harbor
Edit
View of Dana Point Harbor with the ship Pilgrim berthed at the Ocean Institute in the foreground
The harbor, built in the 1960s and dedicated on July 31, 1971,[13] is home to a marina, shops, and restaurants, and is a point of departure for the Catalina Express, a transportation service to and from the City of Avalon on Catalina Island. The entire harbor of Dana Point, including the Embarcadero Marina shops and restaurants, is set for complete demolition and redevelopment. The current vintage nautical style is being abandoned for a Tech Minimalist concept using metal roofs as well as Minimalist landscaping.[14]
Although Richard Henry Dana, Jr., author of Two Years Before the Mast, described the anchorage as poor, it is now a developed harbor and had a replica of his ship, the Pilgrim. The Pilgrim was used as a classroom by the Ocean Institute until it sank in 2020.[15]
Strand
Edit
The Strands at Headlands is a luxury housing development built on land that was originally part of the Chandler Family holdings. For decades the land facing the beach was home to the Dana Strand Beach and Tennis Club,[16] a mobile home community that closed in the late 1980s.[17] For years, access to the Strands beach was limited to hiking down a dirt trail where the mobile homes had stood. The Strands parcel included the actual headlands and bluff of Dana Point as well and was one of the last large coast properties available for development along the Orange County Coast. During the course of a ten-year approval process, the original high-density plan, which included a large multi-story hotel on the bluff top and hundreds of houses and multi-family units, was reduced in scope to just over 100 home sites. As part of negotiations with the California Coastal Commission, the developer agreed to turn the bluff into a nature preserve and build over $11 million worth of public improvements to provide easier access to Strands Beach. The improvements include stairs, restrooms, a beach-front sidewalk and a funicular to transport visitors from the parking lot to the beach.[18] After extensive infrastructure construction, lots were offered for sale in the fall of 2006. Lots in the development are rectangular with modern houses commonly priced above $10,000,000.[19][20] The development has provided much easier access to the beach below and has allowed surfers and other beach visitors to access the beach quickly and easily. Strands Homeowners, through a Mello-Roos assessment, pay for the upkeep of the beach improvements.
The community of Niguel Shores is subject to the eroding bluffs of the Strand.[21]
Capistrano Beach
Edit
Main article: Capistrano Beach, Dana Point, California
Surfers during the summer at Doheny State Beach
In 1928, a corporate entity of the American industrial giant Edward Doheny, who had built his fortune in oil production in Southern California and Mexico, purchased a number of lots in Capistrano Beach. Doheny’s son, Ned, formed a development company, the Capistrano Beach Company, which included his wife’s twin brothers, Clark and Warren Smith, and Luther Eldridge, a contractor, to build a community of Spanish style houses. According to Dana Point historians Baum and Burnes,* Eldridge favored two dominant characteristics in his homes, a typically Spanish roofline and the use of large ceiling beams in the main rooms of the houses. The roofline, covered with red ceramic tiles, incorporated a low-pitched gable, spreading out to one short and one long roof. The ceiling beams were decorated with stenciled artwork painted by artist Alex Meston. Eldridge was able to complete the original Doheny family house on the bluffs, four houses on the beach, and 18 other homes scattered throughout the area before tragedy struck the ambitious project.
Edward Doheny was preparing for his criminal trial for bribery in the Teapot Dome Scandal, and on February 16, 1929, Ned Doheny and Hugh Plunkett, his friend and secretary, who were to testify in the trial, were killed in a murder that still remains unsolved. In 1931, as a memorial to Ned, Petroleum Securities Company, Doheny’s family-owned business, made a gift of 41.4 acres (168,000 m2) to the State of California, which is now Doheny State Beach. The unimproved Capistrano Beach properties passed back to Edward Doheny, and, upon his death in 1935, to his wife and heirs. By 1944, all of the properties had been sold to private parties. The Doheny family also funded the building of what was then called St. Edward’s Chapel in Capistrano Beach. The chapel soon grew, received canonical status as a parish, and moved to its current bluff-top location in Dana Point, overlooking Doheny State Beach.
In October 2022, the California Coastal Commission approved a desalination plant on Doheny State Beach capable of producing 5 to 15 million gallons of fresh water per day.[22]
Surfing
Edit
Richard Henry Dana (the author of “Two Years Before the Mast”) considered the high bluffs and sheltered coves of this area of Southern California to be the most beautiful spot on the California coast. Pioneering surfers agreed as they surfed the many beach breaks along the coast. Dana Point had a notable surfing history, and was home to many of the first companies that produced products for surfing. Hobie Alter opened the world’s first retail surf shop in Dana Point in 1954. Many surf publications such as the Surfer’s Journal and Surfer Magazine were formed and headquartered in Dana Point. Bruce Brown produced the iconic surfer film Endless Summer in Dana Point.
“Killer Dana” was a legendary surf break off Dana Point. The surf break was notorious because it came out of deep water and broke close to the rocks that lined the beach. The Killer Dana wave was destroyed when the Dana Point Harbor was built in 1966.[23] A breakwater now cuts right through the heart of the once epic surf spot. In 1997, the surf group The Chantays recorded an instrumental track named “Killer Dana”.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 29.5 square miles (76 km2). 6.5 square miles (17 km2) of it is land and 23.0 square miles (60 km2) of it (77.96%) is water.
The Dana Point headlands are a prominent feature in Orange County geography and after years of controversy,[24] are currently being developed as a 118-house gated community, however 68 acres (280,000 m2) of the site is open to the public and features a nature center and walking trails exhibiting “lost” plants of the Southern California coast. Views on a clear day extend to Catalina Island and La Jolla in San Diego County.
The city is located 59 miles southeast of Los Angeles, and 65 miles northwest of San Diego.[25][26] Dana Point is bordered by San Clemente to the southeast, San Juan Capistrano to the northeast, Laguna Beach to the northwest, and Laguna Niguel to the north.
Dana Point harbor as seen from the end of Blue Lantern Street
Climate
Edit
Dana Point enjoys a mild climate with temperatures that tend to average around the 70s. The warmest month of the year is August with an average maximum temperature of 79 °F (26 °C). The coldest month is December with an average maximum temperature of 65 degrees Fahrenheit.[citation needed] Frost is extremely rare, allowing for a year-round growing season. Annual rainfall (with almost all of it falling between November and March) is about 12 inches but is highly variable from year to year.
hyacinths
Hyacinthus /ˌhaɪəˈsɪnθəs/[1] is a small genus of bulbous, spring-blooming perennials.[2][3] They are fragrant flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Scilloideae[4] and are commonly called hyacinths (/ˈhaɪəsɪnθs/). The genus is native to the area of the eastern Mediterranean from the south of Turkey to Israel, although naturalized more widely.[5]
Cascade Mountains
The Cascade Range or Cascades is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as the North Cascades, and the notable volcanoes known as the High Cascades. The small part of the range in British Columbia is referred to as the Canadian Cascades or, locally, as the Cascade Mountains. The latter term is also sometimes used by Washington residents to refer to the Washington section of the Cascades in addition to North Cascades, the more usual U.S. term, as in North Cascades National Park. The highest peak in the range is Mount Rainier in Washington at 14,411 feet (4,392 m).
The Cascades are part of the Pacific Ocean’s Ring of Fire, the ring of volcanoes and associated mountains around the Pacific Ocean. All of the eruptions in the contiguous United States over the last 200 years have been from Cascade volcanoes. The two most recent were Lassen Peak from 1914 to 1921 and a major eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. Minor eruptions of Mount St. Helens have also occurred since, most recently from 2004 to 2008.[1] The Cascade Range is a part of the American Cordillera, a nearly continuous chain of mountain ranges (cordillera) that form the western “backbone” of North, Central, and South America.
The Cascades extend northward from Lassen Peak (also known as Mount Lassen) in northern California to the confluence of the Nicola and Thompson rivers in British Columbia. The Fraser River separates the Cascades from the Coast Mountains in Canada, [2] as does the Willamette Valley from the upper portion of the Oregon Coast Range. The highest volcanoes of the Cascades, known as the High Cascades,[3] dominate their surroundings, often standing twice the height of the nearby mountains. They often have a visual height (height above nearby crestlines) of one mile or more. The highest peaks, such as the 14,411-foot (4,392 m) Mount Rainier, dominate their surroundings for 50 to 100 miles (80 to 161 km).
The northern part of the range, north of Mount Rainier, is known as the North Cascades in the United States but is formally named the Cascade Mountains north of the Canada–United States border, reaching to the northern extremity of the Cascades at Lytton Mountain.[4] Overall, the North Cascades and Canadian Cascades are extremely rugged; even the lesser peaks are steep and glaciated, and valleys are quite low relative to peaks and ridges, so there is great local relief.[5] The southern part of the Canadian Cascades, particularly the Skagit Range, is geologically and topographically similar to the North Cascades, while the northern and northeastern parts are less glaciated and more plateau-like, resembling nearby areas of the Thompson Plateau.[2]
Because the range is near the Pacific Ocean and in the region’s prevailing westerly winds, there is much rain and snow there, especially on the western slopes due to orographic lift, with annual snow accumulations of up to 1,000 inches (2,500 cm) (= 83 feet (25 m)) in some areas. Mount Baker in Washington recorded a national record single-season snowfall in the winter of 1998–99 with 1,140 inches (2,900 cm) (= 95 feet (29 m)).[6] Before that year, Mount Rainier held the American record for snow accumulation at Paradise in 1978. It is not uncommon for some places in the Cascades to have over 500 inches (1,300 cm) of annual snow accumulation, such as at Lake Helen, near Lassen Peak.[7] Most of the High Cascades are therefore white with snow and ice year-round. The western slopes are densely covered with Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) and red alder (Alnus rubra),[8] while the drier eastern slopes feature mostly ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), with some western larch (Larix occidentalis), mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana) and subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa) and subalpine larch (Larix lyallii) at higher elevations.[9] Annual rainfall is as low as 9 inches (230 mm) on the eastern foothills due to a rain shadow effect.[10]
The Columbia Gorge marks where the Columbia River splits the Cascade Range between the states of Washington and Oregon.
Beyond the eastern foothills is an arid plateau that was largely created 17 to 14 million years ago by the many flows of the Columbia River Basalt Group. Together, these sequences of fluid volcanic rock form the 200,000-square-mile (520,000 km2) Columbia Plateau in eastern Washington, Oregon, and parts of western Idaho.[11]
The Columbia River Gorge is the only major break of the range in the United States. When the Cascades began to rise 7 million years ago in the late Miocene, the Columbia River drained the relatively low Columbia Plateau. As the range grew, erosion from the Columbia River was able to keep pace, creating the gorge and major pass seen today. The gorge also exposes uplifted and warped layers of basalt from the plateau.[12][13]
inhabited the area for thousands of years and developed their own myths and legends about the Cascades. In these legends, St. Helens with its graceful, pre-1980 appearance was regarded as a beautiful maiden for whom Hood and Adams feuded.[14] Native tribes also developed their own names for the High Cascades and many of the smaller peaks, including “Wy’east” for Mount Hood,[15] “Seekseekqua” for Mount Jefferson (Oregon),[15] “M’laiksini Yaina” for Mount McLoughlin,[15] “Tahoma”, the Lushootseed name for Mount Rainier,[16] “Koma Kulshan” or simply “Kulshan” for Mount Baker,[17] and “Louwala-Clough”, meaning “smoking mountain” for Mount St. Helens.[14]
In early 1792, British navigator George Vancouver explored Puget Sound and gave English names to the high mountains he saw. Mount Baker was named for Vancouver’s third lieutenant, Joseph Baker, although the first European to see it was Manuel Quimper, who named it la gran montaña del Carmelo (“Great Mount Carmel”) in 1790.[18] Mount Rainier was named after Admiral Peter Rainier. Later in 1792, Vancouver had his lieutenant William Robert Broughton explore the lower Columbia River. He named Mount Hood after Lord Samuel Hood, an admiral of the Royal Navy. Mount St. Helens was sighted by Vancouver in May 1792, from near the mouth of the Columbia River. It was named for Alleyne FitzHerbert, 1st Baron St Helens, a British diplomat.[19] Vancouver’s expedition did not, however, name the mountain range which contained these peaks. He referred to it simply as the “eastern snowy range”. Earlier Spanish explorers called it Sierra Nevada, meaning “snowy mountains”.[18]
West side view of Mount Shuksan in summer as seen from Artist Point in Washington
In 1805, the Lewis and Clark Expedition passed through the Cascades on the Columbia River, which for many years was the only practical way to pass that part of the range. They were the first non-indigenous people to see Mount Adams, but they thought it was Mount St. Helens. When they later saw Mount St. Helens they thought it was Mount Rainier.[20] On their return trip, Lewis and Clark spotted a high but distant snowy pinnacle that they named for the sponsor of the expedition, U.S. President Thomas Jefferson.[21] Lewis and Clark called the Cascade Range the “Western Mountains”.[22]
The Lewis and Clark expedition, and the many settlers and traders that followed, met their last obstacle to their journey at the Cascades Rapids in the Columbia River Gorge, a feature on the river now submerged beneath the Bonneville Reservoir. Before long, the great white-capped mountains that loomed above the rapids were called the “mountains by the cascades” and later simply as the “Cascades”. The earliest attested use of the name “Cascade Range” is in the writings of botanist David Douglas in 1825.[23][24]
Mount Hood is the tallest point in the U.S. state of Oregon.
In 1814, Alexander Ross, a fur trader with the North West Company, seeking a viable route across the mountains, explored and crossed the northern Cascades between Fort Okanogan and Puget Sound. His report of the journey is vague about the route taken. He followed the lower Methow River into the mountains. He might have used Cascade Pass to reach the Skagit River. Ross was the first European-American to explore the Methow River area and likely the first to explore the Stehekin River and Bridge Creek region. Due to the difficulty of crossing the northern Cascades and the paucity of beaver, fur-trading companies made only a few explorations into the mountains north of the Columbia River after Ross.[25]
Exploration and settlement of the Cascades region by Europeans and Americans was accelerated by the establishment of a major trading post of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) at Fort Vancouver near today’s Portland, Oregon. From this base HBC trapping parties traveled throughout the Cascades in search of beaver and other fur-bearing animals. For example, using what became known as the Siskiyou Trail, Hudson’s Bay Company trappers were the first non-natives to explore the southern Cascades in the 1820s and 1830s, establishing trails which passed near Crater Lake, Mount McLoughlin, Medicine Lake Volcano, Mount Shasta, and Lassen Peak.[26]
The Coquihalla River in the Canadian Cascades
The course of political history in the Pacific Northwest saw the spine of the Cascade Range being proposed as a boundary settlement during the Oregon Dispute of 1846. The United States rejected the proposal and insisted on the 49th parallel north, which cuts across the range just north of Mount Baker. Throughout the period of dispute and up to the creation of the Crown Colony of British Columbia in 1858, the Hudson’s Bay Company’s York Factory Express route, as well the route of fur brigades, followed the Okanogan River along the east edge of the Cascades and the Columbia River through the range. Passes across the range were not well known and little used. Naches Pass was used for driving cattle and horses to Fort Nisqually. Yakima Pass was also used by the Hudson’s Bay Company.[27]
American settlement of the flanks of the Coast Range did not occur until the early 1840s, at first only marginally. Following the Oregon Treaty the inward flux of migration from the Oregon Trail intensified and the passes and back-valleys of what is now the state of Washington were explored and populated, and it was not long after that railways followed. Despite its being traversed by several major freeways and rail lines, and its lower flanks subjected to major logging in recent decades, large parts of the range remain intense and forbidding alpine wilderness. Much of the northern half of the Cascades, from Rainier north, have been preserved by U.S. national or British Columbia provincial parks (such as E.C. Manning Provincial Park), or other forms of protected area.[28]
Lassen Peak in the California Cascades. Southernmost volcano in the Cascade Range and part of Lassen Volcanic National Park
The Canadian side of the range has a history that includes the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush of 1858–60 and its famous Cariboo Road, as well as the older Hudson’s Bay Company Brigade Trail from the Canyon to the Interior, the Dewdney Trail, and older routes which connected east to the Similkameen and Okanagan valleys.
The southern mainline of the Canadian Pacific Railway penetrated the range via the passes of the Coquihalla River, along one of the steepest and snowiest routes in the entire Pacific Cordillera. Near Hope, B.C., the railway roadbed and the Othello Tunnels, now decommissioned, are popular tourist recreation destinations for hiking and bicycling. The pass is used by the Coquihalla Highway, a government megaproject built as part of the Expo 86 spending boom of the 1980s, which is now the main route from the Coast to the British Columbia interior. Traffic formerly went via the Fraser Canyon, to the west, or via Allison Pass and Manning Park along Highway 3 to the south, near the border.
The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens
The Barlow Road was the first established land path for U.S. settlers through the Cascade Range in 1845, and formed the final overland link for the Oregon Trail (previously, settlers had to raft down the treacherous rapids of the Columbia River). The Road left the Columbia at what is now Hood River and passed along the south side of Mount Hood at what is now Government Camp, terminating in Oregon City. There is an interpretive site there now at “The End of The Oregon Trail”. The road was constructed as a toll road – $5 per wagon – and was very successful.
In addition, the Applegate Trail was created to allow settlers to avoid rafting down the Columbia River. The Trail used the path of the California Trail to north-central Nevada. From there, the Trail headed northwest into northern California, and continued northwest towards today’s Ashland, Oregon. From there, settlers would head north along the established Siskiyou Trail into the Willamette Valley.
With the exception of the 1915 eruption of remote Lassen Peak in Northern California, the range was quiet for more than a century. Then, on May 18, 1980, the dramatic eruption of Mount St. Helens shattered the quiet and brought the world’s attention to the range. Geologists were also concerned that the St. Helens eruption was a sign that long-dormant Cascade volcanoes might become active once more, as in the period from 1800 to 1857 when a total of eight erupted. None have erupted since St. Helens, but precautions are being taken nevertheless, such as the Cascades Volcano Observatory and Mount Rainier Volcano Lahar Warning System in Pierce County, Washington.[29]
scaphism
A form of execution, among the ancient Persians, in which the victim is fastened into a hollow boat, force-fed and slathered in honey and milk and exposed to insects until the victim’s death.
farvahar
The Faravahar (Persian: فروهر), also known as the Foruhar (فروهر) or the Farre Kiyâni[1] (فر کیانی), is one of the best-known symbols of Zoroastrianism, an Iranian religion. There are various interpretations of what the Faravahar symbolizes, and there is no concrete universal consensus on its meaning. However, it is commonly believed that the Faravahar serves as a Zoroastrian depiction of the fravashi, or personal spirit.[2][3]
The Faravahar is one of the best-known and most used pre-Islamic symbols of Iran and is often worn as a pendant. Despite its traditionally religious nature, it has become a secular and cultural symbol for Iranians.[4][5][6]
The New Persian word فروهر is read as foruhar or faravahar (pronounced as furōhar or furūhar in Classical Persian). The Middle Persian forms were frawahr (Book Pahlavi: plwʾhl, Manichaean: prwhr), frōhar (recorded in Pazend as 𐬟𐬭𐬋𐬵𐬀𐬭; it is a later form of the previous form), and fraward (Book Pahlavi: plwlt’, Manichaean: frwrd), which was directly from Old Persian *fravarti-.[2][7] The Avestan language form was fravaṣ̌i (𐬟𐬭𐬀𐬎𐬎𐬀𐬴𐬌).
The pre-Zoroastrian use of the symbol originates as the winged sun used by various powers of the Ancient Near East, primarily those of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. The Zoroastrian adoption of the symbol comes from its prevalence in Neo-Assyrian iconography. This Assyrian image often includes their Tree of Life, which includes the god Ashur on a winged disk.[8]
The faravahar was depicted on the tombs of Achaemenid kings, such as Darius the Great (r. 522–486 BC) and Artaxerxes III (r. 358–338 BC).[9] The symbol was also used on some of the coin mints of the frataraka of Persis in the late 3rd and early 2nd BC centuries.[10] Even after the Arab conquest of Iran, Zoroastrianism continued to be part of Iranian culture. Throughout the year, festivities are celebrated such as Nowruz, Mehregan, and Chaharshanbe Suri which relate to Zoroastrian festivals and calendar. These are remnants of Zoroastrian traditions. From the start of the 20th century, the faravahar icon found itself in public places and became a known icon among Iranians. The Shahnameh by Ferdowsi is Iran’s national epic and contains stories (partly historical and partly mythical) from pre-Islamic Zoroastrian times. The tomb of Ferdowsi (built early 1930), which is visited by numerous Iranians every year, contains the faravahar icon as well.[11]
Whilst being used by both modern day Zoroastrians and Persians, it is important to note the symbol is neither Zoroastrian nor Persian in its origin. It originates as a Mesopotamian Assyrian depiction of the wing deity Ashur. After the Achaemenian dynasty, the image of the farohar was no longer[citation needed] present in Persian art or architecture. The Parthians, Sassanians and Islamic kings that followed did not use the image. It was not until the 20th century,[citation needed] over 2000 years later,[citation needed] that the symbol re-emerged thanks to the work of Parsi scholar, Jamshedji Maneckji Unvala, who published two articles in 1925 and 1930.[12][13]
Unvala’s work was discredited by Irach Jehangir Sorabji Taraporewala, who refuted the idea that the winged figure represented Ahura Mazda. Taraporewala suggested that the figures used in Persian reliefs were meant to depict khvarenah or royal glory to reflect the perceived divine empowerment of kings, and, therefore, has no true spiritual meaning. This view was later supported by Alireza Shapour Shahbazi and Mary Boyce.[14][15][16]
Modern age usage
Edit
The Sun Throne, the imperial seat of Iran, has visual implications of the Farahavar. The sovereign would be seated in the middle of the throne, which is shaped like a platform or bed that is raised from the ground. This religious-cultural symbol was adapted by the Pahlavi dynasty to represent the Iranian nation.[17] In modern Zoroastrianism, one of the interpretations of the faravahar is that it is a representation of the human soul and its development along with a visual guide of good conduct.[18] Another popular interpretation is that it is a visual representation of a Fravashi, though Fravashis are described in Zoroastrian literature as being feminine.[2] One of the most prevalent views in academia as to the meaning of the faravahar is that it represents Khvarenah, the divine power and royal glory.[2] Although there are a number of interpretations of the individual elements of the symbol, most are recent interpretations and there is still debate as to its meaning.
After the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the Lion and Sun, which was part of Iran’s original national flag, was banned by the government from public places. Nevertheless, faravahar icons were not removed and as a result, the faravahar icon became a national symbol for Iranians, and it became tolerated by the government as opposed to the Lion and Sun.[19] The winged disc has a long history in the art, religion, and culture of the ancient Near and Middle East, being about 4000 years old in usage and noted as also symbolizing Ashur, Shamash, and other deities.[18]
couloir
a steep, narrow gully on a mountainside.
early 19th century: French, ‘gully or corridor’, from couler ‘to flow’.
bivouac
biv·ou·ac
/ˈbiv(ə)ˌwak/
Learn to pronounce
noun
noun: bivouac; plural noun: bivouacs
a temporary camp without tents or cover, used especially by soldiers or mountaineers.
verb
verb: bivouac; 3rd person present: bivouacs; past tense: bivouacked; past participle: bivouacked; gerund or present participle: bivouacking
stay in a temporary camp without cover.
“he’d bivouacked on the north side of the town”
early 18th century (denoting a night watch by the whole army): from French, probably from Swiss German Bîwacht ‘additional guard at night’, apparently denoting a citizens’ patrol supporting the ordinary town watch.
moraine
a mass of rocks and sediment carried down and deposited by a glacier, typically as ridges at its edges or extremity.
late 18th century: from French, from Italian dialect morena, from French dialect morre ‘snout’; related to morion1.
cairn
cairn
/kern/
a mound of rough stones built as a memorial or landmark, typically on a hilltop or skyline.
a prehistoric burial mound made of stones.
“a chambered cairn”
2.
a small terrier of a breed with short legs, a longish body, and a shaggy coat.
amber
Amber is fossilized tree resin that has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times.[1] Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is made into a variety of decorative objects.[2] Amber is used in jewelry and has been used as a healing agent in folk medicine.
The English word amber derives from Arabic ʿanbar عنبر[5][better source needed] (ultimately from Middle Persian ambar[6]) via Middle Latin ambar and Middle French ambre. The word referred to what is now known as ambergris (ambre gris or “grey amber”), a solid waxy substance derived from the sperm whale. The word, in its sense of “ambergris,” was adopted in Middle English in the 14th century.[citation needed]
In the Romance languages, the sense of the word was extended to Baltic amber (fossil resin) from as early as the late 13th century.[citation needed] At first called white or yellow amber (ambre jaune), this meaning was adopted in English by the early 15th century. As the use of ambergris waned, this became the main sense of the word.[5][better source needed]
The two substances (“yellow amber” and “grey amber”) conceivably became associated or confused because they both were found washed up on beaches. Ambergris is less dense than water and floats, whereas amber is too dense to float, though less dense than stone.[7]
The classical names for amber, Latin electrum and Ancient Greek ἤλεκτρον (ēlektron), are connected to a term ἠλέκτωρ (ēlektōr) meaning “beaming Sun”.[8][9] According to myth, when Phaëton son of Helios (the Sun) was killed, his mourning sisters became poplar trees, and their tears became elektron, amber.[10] The word elektron gave rise to the words electric, electricity, and their relatives because of amber’s ability to bear a charge of static electricity.[11]
Pliny the Elder says that the German name of amber was glæsum, “for which reason the Romans, when Germanicus commanded the fleet in those parts, gave to one of these islands the name of Glæsaria, which by the barbarians was known as Austeravia”. This is confirmed by the recorded Old High German word glas and by the Old English word glær for “amber” (compare glass). In Middle Low German, amber was known as berne-, barn-, börnstēn (with etymological roots related to “burn” and to “stone”[12]). The Low German term became dominant also in High German by the 18th century, thus modern German Bernstein besides Dutch barnsteen. In the Baltic languages, the Lithuanian term for amber is gintaras and the Latvian dzintars. These words, and the Slavic jantar[13] and Hungarian gyanta (‘resin’), are thought[by whom?] to originate from Phoenician jainitar (“sea-resin”).[citation needed]
History
Edit
Theophrastus discussed amber in the 4th century BCE, as did Pytheas (c. 330 BCE), whose work “On the Ocean” is lost, but was referenced by Pliny, according to whose Natural History (in what is also the earliest known mention of the name Germania):[14]
Pytheas says that the Gutones, a people of Germany, inhabit the shores of an estuary of the Ocean called Mentonomon, their territory extending a distance of six thousand stadia; that, at one day’s sail from this territory, is the Isle of Abalus, upon the shores of which, amber is thrown up by the waves in spring, it being an excretion of the sea in a concrete form; as, also, that the inhabitants use this amber by way of fuel, and sell it to their neighbors, the Teutones.
Fishing for amber on the coast of Baltic Sea. Winter storms throw out amber nuggets. Close to Gdańsk, Poland.
Earlier Pliny says that Pytheas refers to a large island—three days’ sail from the Scythian coast and called Balcia by Xenophon of Lampsacus (author of a fanciful travel book in Greek)—as Basilia—a name generally equated with Abalus.[15] Given the presence of amber, the island could have been Heligoland, Zealand, the shores of Gdańsk Bay, the Sambia Peninsula or the Curonian Lagoon, which were historically the richest sources of amber in northern Europe.[citation needed] It is assumed[by whom?] that there were well-established trade routes for amber connecting the Baltic with the Mediterranean (known as the “Amber Road”). Pliny states explicitly that the Germans exported amber to Pannonia, from where the Veneti distributed it onwards.
The ancient Italic peoples of southern Italy used to work amber; the National Archaeological Museum of Siritide (Museo Archeologico Nazionale della Siritide) at Policoro in the province of Matera (Basilicata) displays important surviving examples. Amber used in antiquity, as at Mycenae and in the prehistory of the Mediterranean, comes from deposits in Sicily.[16]
Wood resin, the source of amber
Pliny also cites the opinion of Nicias (c. 470–413 BCE), according to whom amber
is a liquid produced by the rays of the sun; and that these rays, at the moment of the sun’s setting, striking with the greatest force upon the surface of the soil, leave upon it an unctuous sweat, which is carried off by the tides of the Ocean, and thrown up upon the shores of Germany.
Besides the fanciful explanations according to which amber is “produced by the Sun”, Pliny cites opinions that are well aware of its origin in tree resin, citing the native Latin name of succinum (sūcinum, from sucus “juice”).[17] In Book 37, section XI of Natural History, Pliny wrote:
Amber is produced from a marrow discharged by trees belonging to the pine genus, like gum from the cherry, and resin from the ordinary pine. It is a liquid at first, which issues forth in considerable quantities, and is gradually hardened […] Our forefathers, too, were of opinion that it is the juice of a tree, and for this reason gave it the name of “succinum” and one great proof that it is the produce of a tree of the pine genus, is the fact that it emits a pine-like smell when rubbed, and that it burns, when ignited, with the odour and appearance of torch-pine wood.[18]
He also states that amber is also found in Egypt and India, and he even refers to the electrostatic properties of amber, by saying that “in Syria the women make the whorls of their spindles of this substance, and give it the name of harpax [from ἁρπάζω, “to drag”] from the circumstance that it attracts leaves towards it, chaff, and the light fringe of tissues”.
Amber has a long history of use in China, with the first written record from 200 BCE.[19] Early in the 19th century, the first reports of amber found in North America came from discoveries in New Jersey along Crosswicks Creek near Trenton, at Camden, and near Woodbury.[2]
Dayton,OH
Dayton (/ˈdeɪtən/ (listen)) is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County.[3] A small part of the city extends into Greene County.[4] The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Dayton was estimated to be at 814,049 residents. The Combined Statistical Area (CSA) was 1,086,512. This makes Dayton the fourth-largest metropolitan area in Ohio and 73rd in the United States.[5] Dayton is within Ohio’s Miami Valley region, 50 miles (80 km) north of the Greater Cincinnati area.
Ohio’s borders are within 500 miles (800 km) of roughly 60 percent of the country’s population and manufacturing infrastructure, making the Dayton area a logistical centroid for manufacturers, suppliers, and shippers.[6][7] Dayton also hosts significant research and development in fields like industrial, aeronautical, and astronautical engineering that have led to many technological innovations. Much of this innovation is due in part to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and its place in the community. With the decline of heavy manufacturing, Dayton’s businesses have diversified into a service economy that includes insurance and legal sectors as well as healthcare and government sectors.
Along with defense and aerospace, healthcare accounts for much of the Dayton area’s economy. Hospitals in the Greater Dayton area have an estimated combined employment of nearly 32,000 and a yearly economic impact of $6.8 billion.[8] It is estimated that Premier Health Partners, a hospital network, contributes more than $2 billion a year to the region through operating, employment, and capital expenditures.[9] In 2011, Dayton was rated the #3 city in the nation by HealthGrades for excellence in healthcare.[10][11]
Dayton is also noted for its association with aviation; the city is the birthplace of Orville Wright. Other well-known individuals born in the city include poet Paul Laurence Dunbar and entrepreneur John H. Patterson. Dayton is also known for its many patents, inventions, and inventors,[12] most notably the Wright brothers’ invention of powered flight.[13] In 2007 Dayton was a part of the top 100 cities in America.[14] In 2008, 2009, and 2010, Site Selection magazine ranked Dayton the #1 mid-sized metropolitan area in the nation for economic development.[15][16][17] Also in 2010, Dayton was named one of the best places in the United States for college graduates to find a job.[18][19]
Dayton was founded on April 1, 1796, by 12 settlers known as the Thompson Party. They traveled in March from Cincinnati up the Great Miami River by pirogue and landed at what is now St. Clair Street, where they found two small camps of Native Americans. Among the Thompson Party was Benjamin Van Cleve,[20] whose memoirs provide insights into the Ohio Valley’s history. Two other groups traveling overland arrived several days later.[21] The oldest surviving building is Newcom Tavern, which was used for various purposes, including housing Dayton’s first church, which is still in existence.[22]
In 1797, Daniel C. Cooper laid out Mad River Road, the first overland connection between Cincinnati and Dayton, opening the “Mad River Country” to settlement. Ohio was admitted into the Union in 1803, and the village of Dayton was incorporated in 1805 and chartered as a city in 1841. The city was named after Jonathan Dayton, a captain in the American Revolutionary War who signed the U.S. Constitution and owned a significant amount of land in the area.[23] In 1827, construction on the Dayton–Cincinnati canal began, which would provide a better way to transport goods from Dayton to Cincinnati and contribute significantly to Dayton’s economic growth during the 1800s.[23]
Innovation
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Dayton in 1870
Innovation led to business growth in the region. In 1884, John Henry Patterson acquired James Ritty’s National Manufacturing Company along with his cash register patents and formed the National Cash Register Company (NCR). The company manufactured the first mechanical cash registers and played a crucial role in the shaping of Dayton’s reputation as an epicenter for manufacturing in the early 1900s. In 1906, Charles F. Kettering, a leading engineer at the company, helped develop the first electric cash register, which propelled NCR into the national spotlight.[24] NCR also helped develop the US Navy Bombe, a code-breaking machine that helped crack the Enigma machine cipher during World War II.[25]
Dayton has been the home for many patents and inventions since the 1870s.[12][26] According to the National Park Service, citing information from the U.S. Patent Office, Dayton had granted more patents per capita than any other U.S. city in 1890 and ranked fifth in the nation as early as 1870.[27] The Wright brothers, inventors of the airplane, and Charles F. Kettering, world-renowned for his numerous inventions, hailed from Dayton.[28] The city was also home to James Ritty’s Incorruptible Cashier, the first mechanical cash register, and Arthur E. Morgan’s hydraulic jump, a flood prevention mechanism that helped pioneer hydraulic engineering.[29][30] Paul Laurence Dunbar, an African-American poet and novelist, penned his most famous works in the late 19th century and became an integral part of the city’s history.[31]
Birthplace of Aviation
Edit
Powered aviation began in Dayton. Orville and Wilbur Wright were the first to construct and demonstrate powered flight. Although the first flight was in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, their Wright Flyer was built in and returned to Dayton for improvements and further flights at Huffman Field, a cow pasture eight miles (13 km) northeast of Dayton, near the current Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
When the government tried to move development to Langley field in southern Virginia, six Dayton businessmen including Edward A. Deeds, formed the Dayton-Wright Airplane Company in Moraine and established a flying field. Deeds also opened a field to the north in the flood plain of the Great Miami River between the confluences of that river, the Stillwater River, and the Mad River, near downtown Dayton. Later named McCook Field for Alexander McDowell McCook, an American Civil War general, this became the Army Signal Corps’ primary aviation research and training location. Wilbur Wright also purchased land near Huffman prairie to continue their research.
During World War I, the Army purchased 40 acres adjacent to Huffman Prairie for the Fairfield Aviation General Supply Depot. As airplanes developed more capability, they needed more runway space than McCook could offer, and a new location was sought. The Patterson family formed the Dayton Air Service Committee, Inc which held a campaign that raised $425,000 in two days and purchased 4,520.47 acres (18.2937 km2) northeast of Dayton, including Wilbur Wright Field and the Huffman Prairie Flying Field. Wright Field was “formally dedicated” on 12 October 1927. After World War II, Wright Field and the adjacent Patterson Field, Dayton Army Air Field, and Clinton Army Air Field were merged as the Headquarters, Air Force Technical Base. On 13 January 1948, the facility was renamed Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
The Dayton Flood
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A catastrophic flood in March 1913, known as the Great Dayton Flood, led to the creation of the Miami Conservancy District, a series of dams as well as hydraulic pumps installed around Dayton, in 1914.[32]
The war effort
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Like other cities across the country, Dayton was heavily involved in the war effort during World War II. Several locations around the city hosted the Dayton Project, a branch of the larger Manhattan Project, to develop polonium triggers used in early atomic bombs.[33] The war efforts led to a manufacturing boom throughout the city, including high demand for housing and other services. At one point, emergency housing was put into place due to a housing shortage in the region, much of which is still in use today.[34]
Alan Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. He visited the National Cash Register (NCR) company in Dayton in December 1942. He was able to show that it was not necessary to build 336 Bombes, so the initial order was scaled down to 96 machines to decipher German Enigma-machine-encrypted secret messages during World War II.[35]
Post-War Dayton
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Between the 1940s and the 1970s, the city saw significant growth in suburban areas from population migration. Veterans were returning from military service in large numbers seeking industrial and manufacturing jobs, a part of the local industry that was expanding rapidly. Advancements in architecture also contributed to the suburban boom. New, modernized shopping centers and the Interstate Highway System allowed workers to commute greater distances and families to live further from the downtown area. More than 127,000 homes were built in Montgomery County during the 1950s.[36]
During this time, the city was the site of several race riots, including one in 1955 following the murder of Emmett Till, the 1966 Dayton race riot, two in 1967 (following a speech by civil rights activist H. Rap Brown and another following the police killing of an African American man), and one in 1968 as part of the nationwide King assassination riots.[37]
Since the 1980s, however, Dayton’s population has declined, mainly due to the loss of manufacturing jobs and decentralization of metropolitan areas, as well as the national housing crisis that began in 2008.[38] While much of the state has suffered for similar reasons, the impact on Dayton has been greater than most. Dayton had the third-greatest percentage loss of population in the state since the 1980s, behind Cleveland and Youngstown.[38] Despite this, Dayton has begun diversifying its workforce from manufacturing into other growing sectors such as healthcare and education.[39]
Peace accords
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Main article: Dayton Agreement
In 1995, the Dayton Agreement, a peace accord between the parties to the hostilities of the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the former Yugoslavia, was negotiated at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Fairborn, Ohio, from November 1 to 21.
Richard Holbrooke wrote about these events in his memoirs:
There was also a real Dayton out there, a charming Ohio city, famous as the birthplace of the Wright brothers. Its citizens energized us from the outset. Unlike the population of, say, New York City, Geneva or Washington, which would scarcely notice another conference, Daytonians were proud to be part of history. Large signs at the commercial airport hailed Dayton as the “temporary center of international peace.” The local newspapers and television stations covered the story from every angle, drawing the people deeper into the proceedings. When we ventured into a restaurant or a shopping center downtown, people crowded around, saying that they were praying for us. Warren Christopher was given at least one standing ovation in a restaurant. Families on the airbase placed “candles of peace” in their front windows, and people gathered in peace vigils outside the base. One day they formed a “peace chain,” although it was not large enough to surround the sprawling eight-thousand-acre base. Ohio’s famous ethnic diversity was on display.[40]
2000s initiatives
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Downtown expansion that began in the 2000s has helped revitalize the city and encourage growth. Day Air Ballpark, home of the Dayton Dragons, was built in 2000. The highly successful minor league baseball team has been an integral part of Dayton’s culture.[41] In 2001, the city’s public park system, Five Rivers MetroParks, built RiverScape MetroPark, an outdoor entertainment venue that attracts more than 400,000 visitors each year.[42] A new performance arts theater, the Schuster Center, opened in 2003.[43] A large health network in the region, Premier Health Partners, expanded its Miami Valley Hospital with a 12-story tower addition.[44]
In 2010, the Downtown Dayton Partnership, in cooperation with the City of Dayton and community leaders, introduced the Greater Downtown Dayton Plan. It focuses on job creation and retention, infrastructure improvements, housing, recreation, and collaboration. The plan is to be implemented through the year 2020.[45]
Nickname
Edit
A photograph of the Miami and Erie Canal from Geography of Ohio, 1923
Dayton is known as the “Gem City”. The nickname’s origin is uncertain, but several theories exist. In the early 19th century, a well-known racehorse named Gem hailed from Dayton. In 1845, an article published in the Cincinnati Daily Chronicle by an author known as T stated:
In a small bend of the Great Miami River, with canals on the east and south, it can be fairly said, without infringing on the rights of others, that Dayton is the gem of all our interior towns. It possesses wealth, refinement, enterprise, and a beautiful country, beautifully developed.[46]
In the late 1840s, Major William D. Bickham of the Dayton Journal began a campaign to nickname Dayton the “Gem City.” The name was adopted by the city’s Board of Trade several years later.[46] Paul Laurence Dunbar referred to the nickname in his poem, “Toast to Dayton”, as noted in the following excerpt:
She shall ever claim our duty,
For she shines—the brightest gem
That has ever decked with beauty
Dear Ohio’s diadem.[47]
Dayton also plays a role in a nickname given to the state of Ohio, “Birthplace of Aviation.” Dayton is the hometown of the Wright brothers, aviation pioneers who are credited with inventing and building the first practical airplane in history. After their first manned flights in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, which they had chosen due to its ideal weather and climate conditions, the Wrights returned to Dayton and continued testing at nearby Huffman Prairie.[48]
Additionally, Dayton is colloquially referred to as “Little Detroit”.[49] This nickname comes from Dayton’s prominence as a Midwestern manufacturing center.[50]
Elbe
Delaware River
Tuileries Garden
The Tuileries Garden (French: Jardin des Tuileries, IPA: [ʒaʁdɛ̃ de tɥilʁi]) is a public garden located between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. Created by Catherine de’ Medici as the garden of the Tuileries Palace in 1564, it was eventually opened to the public in 1667 and became a public park after the French Revolution. Since the 19th century, it has been a place where Parisians celebrate, meet, stroll and relax.[1]
In July 1559, after the accidental death of her husband, Henry II, Queen Catherine de’ Medici decided to leave her residence of the Hôtel des Tournelles, at the eastern part of Paris, near the Bastille. Together with her son, the new king of France François II, her other children and the royal court, she moved to the Louvre Palace. Five years later, in 1564, she decided to build a new residence with more space for a garden. For that purpose, Catherine bought land west of Paris, just outside the city Wall of Charles V. It was bordered on the south by the Seine, and on the north by the faubourg Saint-Honoré, a road in the countryside continuing the Rue Saint-Honoré. Since the 13th century this area had been occupied by tile-making factories called tuileries (from the French tuile, meaning “tile”). The new residence was called the Tuileries Palace[2]
Catherine commissioned a landscape architect from Florence, Bernard de Carnesse, to create an Italian Renaissance garden for the palace. The new garden was an enclosed space five hundred metres long and three hundred metres wide, separated from the new palace by a lane. It was divided into rectangular compartments by six alleys, and the sections were planted with lawns, flower beds, and small clusters of five trees, called quinconces; and, more practically, with kitchen gardens and vineyards.[3] It was further decorated with fountains, a labyrinth, a grotto, and faience images of plants and animals, made by Bernard Palissy, whom Catherine had tasked to discover the secret of Chinese porcelain.
The development of the garden was interrupted by a civil war. In 1588 Henry III had to flee through the garden to escape capture from the Catholic League on the Day of the Barricades of the French Wars of Religion and did not return. The gardens were pillaged. However, the new King, Henry IV, returned in 1595? and, with his chief landscape gardener Claude Mollet, restored and embellished the gardens. Henry built a chamille, or covered arbor, the length of the garden, Another alley was planted with mulberry trees where he hoped to cultivate silkworms and start a silk industry in France.[3] He also built a rectangular ornamental lake of 65 metres by 45 metres with a fountain supplied with water by the new pump called La Samaritaine, which had been built in 1608 on the Pont Neuf. The area between the palace and the former moat of Charles V was turned into the “New Garden” (Jardin Neuf) with a large fountain in the center. Though Henry IV never lived in the Tuilieries Palace, which was continually under reconstruction, he did use the gardens for relaxation and exercise.[2]
In 1610, at the death of his father, Louis XIII, age nine, became the new owner of the Tuileries Gardens. It became his enormous playground - he used it for hunting, and he kept a small zoo of exotic animals. On the north side of the gardens, his mother and the regent, Marie de’ Medici, built stables and a riding school, the Manége, which survived until The French Revolution, when it was used as the meeting hall of the revolutionary parliament.
The garden was entirely enclosed, and was used exclusively by the royal family when they were in residence, but When the king and court were absent from Paris, the gardens were turned into a pleasure spot for the nobility. In 1630 a parterre at the west end of the garden, between the Louvre and the Tuileries palace, where the moat of the old city walls had been, was turned into a parterre of flower beds and paths. This parterre was transformed into a sort of a playground for the aristocracy. The daughter of Gaston d’Orléans and the niece of Louis XIII, known as La Grande Mademoiselle, held court there, and it became known as known the “Parterre de Mademoiselle”. However, in 1652, “La Grande Mademoiselle” was expelled from the chateau and garden for having supported an uprising, the Fronde, against her cousin, the young Louis XIV. Louis XIV had he space transformed into large parade ground, When his first child was born, on Jun 5-6 1662, the parterre was the setting for a spectacular circular horseback promenade by the nobility, slowly circling the parterre. This became known as a “Carrousel”, and gave its name to that portion of the garden.[4]
Louis XIV quickly imposed his own sense of order on the Tuileries Gardens. His architects, Louis Le Vau and François d’Orbay, finally finished the Tuileries Palace, making a proper royal residence. In 1664, Colbert, the king’s superintendent of buildings, commissioned the landscape architect André Le Nôtre, to redesign the entire garden. Le Nôtre was the grandson of Pierre Le Nôtre, one of Catherine de’ Medici’s gardeners, and his father Jean had also been a gardener at the Tuileries. He immediately began transforming the Tuileries into a formal jardin à la française, a style he had first developed at Vaux-le-Vicomte and perfected at Versailles, based on symmetry, order and long perspectives.
Le Nôtre’s gardens were designed to be seen from above, from a building or terrace. He eliminated the street which separated the palace and the garden, and replaced it with a terrace looking down upon flowerbeds bordered by low boxwood hedges and filled with designs of flowers. In the centre of the flowerbeds he placed three ornamental lakes with fountains. In front of the centre of the first fountain he laid out the Grande Allée, which extended 350 metres. He built two other alleys, lined with chestnut trees, on either side. He crossed these three main alleys with small lanes, to create compartments planted with diverse trees, shrubs and flowers.
On the south side of the park, next to the Seine, he built a long terrace called the Terrasse du bord-de-l’eau, planted with trees, with a view of the river He built a second terrace on the north side, overlooking the garden, called the Terrasse des Feuillants.
On the west side of the garden, beside the present-day Place de la Concorde, he built two ramps in a horseshoe shape Fer á Cheval and two terraces overlooking an octagonal lake Bassin Octogonal 60 m (200 ft) in diameter, respectively 70 m (230 ft) from corner to corner, with one fountain in the centre with a waterjet of 12 m (39 ft) height, additional powerful waterjets from each corner to the center. The terraces frame the western entrance of the garden, and provide another viewpoint to see the garden from above.
Le Nôtre wanted his grand perspective from the palace to the western end of the garden to continue outside the garden. In 1667, he made plans for an avenue with two rows of trees on either side, which would have continued west to the present Rond-Point des Champs Élysées.[5]
Le Nôtre and his hundreds of masons, gardeners and earth-movers worked on the gardens from 1666 to 1672. In 1682, however, the king, furious with the Parisians for resisting his authority, abandoned Paris and moved to Versailles.
In 1667, at the request of the famous author of Sleeping Beauty and other fairy tales, Charles Perrault, the Tuileries Garden was opened to the public, with the exception of beggars, “lackeys” and soldiers. It was the first royal garden to be open to the public.[6]
After the death of Louis XIV, the five-year-old Louis XV became owner of the Tuileries Garden. In 1719, two large equestrian statuary groups, La Renommée and Mercure, by the sculptor Antoine Coysevox, were brought from the king’s residence at Marly and placed at the west entrance of the garden. Other statues by Nicolas and Guillaume Coustou, Corneille an Clève, Sebastien Slodz, Thomas Regnaudin and Coysevox were placed along the Grande Allée.[7] A swing bridge was placed at the west end over the moat, to make access to the garden easier. The creation of the place Louis XV (now Place de la Concorde) created a grand vestibule to the garden, though entrance to the north side of the garden, prior to the construction of Rue Saint-Honore by Napoleon, was obstructed by residences, convents and private gardens.
Certain holidays, such as August 25, the feast day of Saint Louis, were celebrated with concerts and fireworks in the park. Small food stands were placed in the park, and chairs could be rented for a small fee.[8] Public toilets were added in 1780.[9]
A famous early balloon ascent, the first free flight of a manned hydrogen balloon, was made from the garden on 1 December 1783 by Jacques Alexandre César Charles and Nicolas Louis Robert. The King watched the flight from the tower of the palace. The first trial of the balloon was attended by the first American ambassador to Paris, Benjamin Franklin. The balloon and passengers landed safely at Nesles-la-Vallée, thirty-one miles from Paris.[10]
On 6 October 1789, as the French Revolution began, King Louis XVI and family were was brought against his will to the Tuileries Palace. The garden reserved exclusively for the royal family in the morning, then open to the public in the afternoon. Queen Marie Antoinette and the Dauphin were given a part of the garden for her private use, first at the west end of the Promenade Bord d’eaux, then at the edge of the Place Louis XV.[11]
After the king’s failed attempt to escape France on 21 June 1791, the King and family were placed under house arrest in the palace. The royal family was allowed to walk in the park on the evening of 18 September 1791, during the festival organized to celebrate the new French Constitution, when the alleys of the park were illuminated with pyramids and rows of lanterns.[12] But as the Revolution took a more radical turn, On 10 August 1792, a mob stormed the Palace, the king was imprisoned, and the king’s Swiss guards were chased through the gardens and massacred.[13]
The new revolutionary government, the National Convention, met in the Salle du Manège,the former riding academy in the northwest corner of the gardens, which was the largest meeting hall in the city. Louis XVI was put trial by the National Convention at the Manege, and was sentenced to death. After the Tuileries became the National Garden (Jardin National) of the new French Republic. The Convention ordered that statues from the former royal gardens of Marly, Versailles and Fontainebleau be brought to Paris and installed in the National Garden. The originals are now in the Louvre, with copies taking their place in the gardens.[13]
The garden was also used to celebrate revolutionary holidays and festivals. On 8 June 1794, a series of events to honour the Cult of the Supreme Being was organized in Paris by Robespierre, with sets and costumes designed by Jacques-Louis David. The opening event was held in the Tuileries. After a hymn written for the occasion, Robespierre set fire to mannequins representing Atheism, Ambition, Egoism and False Simplicity, revealing a statue of Wisdom. The ceremony then moved on the a larger event in the Champs de Mars. Two months later, however, Robespierre was accused of excessive ambition, arrested and sent to the guillotine.[14]
During their storming, the gardens had been badly damaged, with many buildings set on fire. The National Convention assigned the renewal of the gardens to the painter Jacques-Louis David, and to his brother in law, the architect August Cheval de Saint-Hubert. They conceived a garden decorated with Roman porticos, monumental porches, columns, and other classical decoration. The project of David and Saint-Hubert was never completed. All that remains today are the two exedres, semicircular low walls crowned with statues by the two ponds in the centre of the garden.[15][14]
An Imperial review at the new Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel built by Napoleon, 1810
Napoleon Bonaparte moved into the Tuileries Palace on 19 February 1800, shortly before declaring himself Emperor, and began making improvements to suit an imperial residence. His major addition to the palace-garden complex was the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in the large courtyard between the Tuileries palace and the Louvre, This was modeled after the triumphal arch of Septimius Severus in Rome, and was designed to be the ceremonial entrance to his palace, It also became the centerpiece of the large parade ground where Louis XIV had held his Carrousel procession.
In 1801, Napoleon ordered the construction of a new street along the northern edge of the Tuileries garden through space that had been occupied by the riding school and stables built by Marie de’ Medici, and the private gardens of aristocrats and convents and religious orders that had been closed during the Revolution. This new street also took part of the Terrasse des Feuillants, which had been occupied by cafés and restaurants. The new street, lined with arcades on the north side, was named the rue de Rivoli, after Napoleon’s victory in 1797.[13]
Napoleon made few changes to the interior of the garden. He continued to use the garden for military parades and to celebrate special events, including the passage of his own wedding procession on 2 April 1810, when he married the Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria.[16]
After Napoleon’s fall, Russian and Prussian troops were camped in the garden, and the restored monarchs moved into the Tuileries Palace. During the July Revolution of 1830, the garden again became a battleground, stormed by opponents of the monarchy. King Charles X was replaced by a constitutional King, Louis Philippe. Louis-Philippe, reluctant to have garden visitors walking by his window, had a large flower garden protected by a moat created to isolate his residence in the palace from the popular footpaths. This made him unpopular among Parisians and contributed to his downfall in 1848.[17]
In 1852, following another revolution and the short-lived Second Republic, Emperor Napoleon III became owner of the garden, and made major changes. He enlarged the royal reserve within the garden further to the west as far as the north–south alley that crossed the large round basin, He decorated the gardens with beds of exotic plants and flowers, and new statues. In 1859, he turned the Terrasse du bord-de-l’eau into a playground for his son, the Prince Imperial. He also constructed twin pavilions. The garden embellishments added by Napoleon III included an indoor handball court, the Jeu de Paume, and an Orangerie. He built a new stone balustrade at the west entrance. When The Emperor was not in Paris, usually from May to November, the entire garden, including his private garden and the playground, were opened to the public.[18]
In 1870, Napoleon III was defeated and captured by the Prussians, and Paris was the scene of the uprising of the Paris Commune. A red flag flew over the Palace, and it could be visited for fifty centimes. When the army arrived and fought to recapture the city, the Communards deliberately burned the Tuileries Palace, and tried to burn the Louvre as well. The ruins, burned out inside but with walls largely intact, were torn down in 1883. The empty site of the palace, between the two pavilions of the Louvre, became part of the garden.
Dozens of statues were added to the garden. It also served as the setting for large civic events such as the banquet given during the 1900 Paris Universal Exposition on 22 September 1900, in honour of the twenty-two thousand mayors of France, served under large tents. The Tuilieries garden was filled with entertainments for the public; acrobats, puppet theatres, lemonade stands, small boats on the lakes, donkey rides, and stands selling toys. It was a meeting for major commercial events, such as the first Paris automobile salon in 1898. At the 1900 Summer Olympics, the Gardens hosted the fencing events.[19]
20th and 21st century – restoration and updating
Edit
During the First World War (1914-1918), the gardeners were drafted into the army, and maintenance of the garden was reduced to a minimum. The statues were surrounded by sandbags. In 1918, two German long-range artillery shells landed in the garden.[20]
In the years between the two World Wars, the Jeu de paume tennis court was turned into a gallery devoted to contemporary art. The Orangerie, originally used to keep citrus trees during the winter, was also made into a gallery, with the eastern wing devoted to the display of eight paintings of the Water Lilies series by Claude Monet. They were installed there in 1927, shortly after Monet’s death. [21]
During World War II, the Jeu de paume was used by the Germans as a warehouse for art they had stolen or confiscated. An exposition of work by the German sculptor Arno Breker, a favourite of Hitler, was held in the Orangerie. The liberation of Paris in 1944 saw considerable fighting in the garden between the Germans and the French resistance. Monet’s paintings were damaged during the fighting.[22] In 1946, after the end of WWII, many masterpieces from private collections were recovered in Germany by the French Commission for Art Recovery and the Monuments Men and they were brought in the Orangerie, in a program to restore them to owners or surviving family members.[23]
Until the 1960s, most sculpture in the garden dated from the 18th or 19th century. In 1964–65, André Malraux, the Minister of Culture for President Charles de Gaulle, removed the 19th century statues which surrounded the Place du Carrousel and replaced them with contemporary sculptures by Aristide Maillol.
In 1994, as part of the Grand Louvre project launched by President François Mitterrand, the Belgian landscape architect Jacques Wirtz remade the garden of the Carrousel, adding labyrinths and a fan of low hedges radiating from the triumphal arch in the square.
In 1998, under President Jacques Chirac, works of modern sculpture by Jean Dubuffet, Henri Laurens, Étienne Martin, Henry Moore, Germaine Richier, Auguste Rodin and David Smith were placed in the garden. In 2000, the works of living artists were added; these included works by Magdalena Abakanowicz, Louise Bourgeois, Tony Cragg, Roy Lichtenstein, François Morrellet, Giuseppe Penone, Anne Rochette and Lawrence Weiner. Another ensemble of three works by Daniel Dezeuze, Erik Dietman and Eugène Dodeigne, called Prière Toucher (Eng: Please Touch), was added at the same time.[24] At the beginning of the 21st century, French landscape architects Pascal Cribier and Louis Benech have been working to restore some of the early features of the André Le Nôtre garden.[25]
Starting in November, 2021, ninety-two elm trees are being added to the Grande Allée to recreate its historic appearance.[26]
patina
a green or brown film on the surface of bronze or similar metals, produced by oxidation over a long period.
“many bronzes have been overcleaned, their original patina removed and artificially replaced”
a gloss or sheen on a surface resulting from age or polishing.
“the dining table will acquire a warm patina with age”
the impression or appearance of something.
“he carries the patina of old money and good breeding”
mid 18th century: from Italian, from Latin patina ‘shallow dish’.
Overton Window
The range of ideas the public is willing to consider and accept.
rhinestones
rhine·stone
/ˈrīnˌstōn/
Learn to pronounce
noun
plural noun: rhinestones
an imitation diamond used in costume jewelry and to decorate clothes.
“a canary-yellow suit studded with rhinestones”
late 19th century: translating French caillou du Rhin, literally ‘pebble of the Rhine’.
amoretti
a representation of Cupid in a work of art.
garlands
a wreath of flowers and leaves, worn on the head or hung as a decoration.
adorn or crown with a garland.
“they were garlanded with flowers”
cornices
an ornamental molding around the wall of a room just below the ceiling.
a horizontal molded projection crowning a building or structure, especially the uppermost member of the entablature of an order, surmounting the frieze.
2.
an overhanging mass of hardened snow at the edge of a mountain precipice.
mid 16th century: from French corniche, from Italian cornice, perhaps from Latin cornix ‘crow’ (compare with corbel), but influenced by Greek korōnis ‘coping stone’.
toboggan
a long narrow sled used for the sport of coasting downhill over snow or ice. It typically is made of a lightweight board that is curved upward and backward at the front.
early 19th century: from Canadian French tabaganne, from Micmac topaĝan ‘sled’.
Mi’kmaq
The Mi’kmaq (also Mi’gmaq, Lnu, Miꞌkmaw or Miꞌgmaw; English: /ˈmɪɡmɑː/ MIG-mah; Miꞌkmaq: [miːɡmaɣ])[3][4][5] are a First Nations people of the Northeastern Woodlands, indigenous to the areas of Canada’s Atlantic Provinces and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec as well as Native Americans in the northeastern region of Maine. The traditional national territory of the Mi’kmaq is named Miꞌkmaꞌki (or Miꞌgmaꞌgi).
There are 170,000 Mi’kmaq people in the region, (including 18,044 members in the recently formed Qalipu First Nation in Newfoundland.[6][7]) Nearly 11,000 members speak Miꞌkmaq, an Eastern Algonquian language.[8][9] Once written in Miꞌkmaw hieroglyphic writing, it is now written using most letters of the Latin alphabet.
The Mi’kmaq, Maliseet, and Pasamaquoddy nations signed a series of treaties known as the Covenant Chain of Peace and Friendship Treaties with the British Crown throughout the eighteenth century; the first was signed in 1725, and the last in 1779. The Miꞌkmaq maintain that they did not cede or give up their land title or other rights through these Peace and Friendship Treaties.[10] The landmark 1999 Supreme Court of Canada decision in R v Marshall upheld the 1752 Peace and Friendship Treaty “which promised Indigenous Peoples the right to hunt and fish their lands and establish trade.”[11]
The Miꞌkmaw Grand Council is the official authority that engages in consultation with the Canadian federal government and the provincial government of Nova Scotia, as established by the historic August 30, 2010 agreement with the Miꞌkmaq Nation, resulting from the Miꞌkmaq–Nova Scotia–Canada Tripartite Forum.[12] This collaborative agreement, which includes all the First Nations within the province of Nova Scotia, was the first in Canadian history.[12]
Historically the Santé Mawiómi, or Grand Council, which was made up of chiefs of the district councils of Miꞌkmaꞌki, was the traditional senior level of government for the Miꞌkmaw people. The 1876 Indian Act disrupted that authority, by requiring First Nations to establish representative elected governments along the Canadian model, and attempting to limit the Council’s role to spiritual guidance.[13][14]
In southwestern Nova Scotia, there is archaeological evidence that traces traditional land use and resources to at least 4,000 years.[73]: 23 [74][75] In Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site, there are canoe routes that have been used for thousands of years by indigenous people travelling from the Bay of Fundy to the Atlantic ocean.[76]
In his Memorial University Masters thesis, Mi’kmaw elder, Roger Lewis, investigated how pre-contact Mi’kmaq populations had a reciprocal relationship with the environment that was reflected in subsistence fishing, hunting and gathering, as well as in settlement locations.[73]: 10 Lewis, who has held the position of ethnology curator at the Nova Scotia Museum in Halifax, since 2007[77] focused his MA research specifically on pre-contact fish weirs in southwestern Nova Scotia.[73]
In the chapter “Late Prehistory of the East Coast” in the Smithsonian’s 1978 Handbook of North American Indians, archaeologist Dean Snow says that the fairly deep linguistic split between the Miꞌkmaq and the Eastern Algonquians to the southwest suggests the Miꞌkmaq developed an independent prehistoric cultural sequence in their territory. It emphasized maritime orientation, as the area had relatively few major river systems.[78]: 69 In the chapter “Early Indian-European Contact” in the 1978 Handbook, ethnologist T. J. Brasser, described how pre-contact small semi-nomadic bands of a few patrilineally related families indigenous people who lived in a climate unfavorable for agriculture, had subsisted on fishing and hunting. Developed leadership did not extend beyond hunting parties.[79]: 78 In the same 1978 Handbook, anthropologist Philip Bock described the annual cycle of seasonal movement of precontact Miꞌkmaq. Bock wrote that the Mi’kmaq had lived in dispersed interior winter camps and larger coastal communities during the summer. The spawning runs of March began their movement to converge on smelt spawning streams. They next harvested spawning herring, gathered waterfowl eggs, and hunted geese. By May, the seashore offered abundant cod and shellfish, and coastal breezes brought relief from the biting black flies, deer flies, midges and mosquitoes of the interior. Autumn frost killed the biting insects during the September harvest of spawning American eels. Smaller groups would disperse into the interior where they hunted moose and caribou.[80][81] The most important animal hunted by the Miꞌkmaq was the moose, which was used in every part: the meat for food, the skin for clothing, tendons and sinew for cordage, and bones for carving and tools. Other animals hunted/trapped included deer, bear, rabbit, beaver and porcupine.[82]
Braser described the first contact between the Mi’kmaq and early European fishermen.[79]: 79–80 These fishermen salted their catch at sea and sailed directly home with it, but they set up camps ashore as early as 1520 for dry-curing cod. During the second half of the century, dry curing became the preferred preservation method.[79]: 79–80 Brasser said that, trading furs for European trade goods had changed Miꞌkmaw social perspectives. Desire for trade goods encouraged the men devoting a larger portion of the year away from the coast trapping in the interior. Trapping non-migratory animals, such as beaver, increased awareness of territoriality. Trader preferences for good harbors resulted in greater numbers of Miꞌkmaq gathering in fewer summer rendezvous locations. This in turn encouraged their establishing larger bands, led by the ablest trade negotiators.[79]: 83–84
According to the Nova Scotia Museum, bear teeth and claws were used as decoration in regalia. The women used porcupine quills to create decorative beadwork on clothing, moccasins, and accessories. The weapon used most for hunting was the bow and arrow. The Miꞌkmaq made their bows from maple. They ate fish of all kinds, such as salmon, sturgeon, lobster, squid, shellfish, and eels, as well as seabirds and their eggs. They hunted marine mammals such as porpoises, whales, walrus, and seals.[82]
Miꞌkmaw territory was the first portion of North America that Europeans exploited at length for resource extraction. Reports by John Cabot, Jacques Cartier, and Portuguese explorers about conditions there encouraged visits by Portuguese, Spanish, Basque, French, and English fishermen and whalers, beginning in the 16th century.
European fishing camps traded with Miꞌkmaw fishermen; and trading rapidly expanded to include furs, according to Thomas B. Costain, (1885–1965), a journalist who wrote historical novels. By 1578, some 350 European ships were operating around the Saint Lawrence estuary. Most were independent fishermen, but increasing numbers were exploring the fur trade.[83]
17th and 18th centuries
Edit
Colonial wars
Edit
Main article: Military history of the Miꞌkmaq people
In the wake of King Philip’s War between English colonists and Native Americans in southern New England (which included the first military conflict between the Miꞌkmaq and New England), the Miꞌkmaq became members of the Wapnáki (Wabanaki Confederacy), an alliance with four other Algonquian-language nations: the Abenaki, Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, and Maliseet.[84] The Wabanaki Confederacy was allied with the Acadian people.
Over a period of seventy-five years, during six wars in Miꞌkmaꞌki, the Miꞌkmaq and Acadians fought to keep the British from taking over the region (See the four French and Indian Wars as well as Father Rale’s War and Father Le Loutre’s War). France lost military control of Acadia in 1710 and political claim (apart from Cape Breton) by the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht with England.
But the Miꞌkmaq were not included in the treaty, and never conceded any land to the British. In 1715, the Miꞌkmaq were told that the British now claimed their ancient territory by the Treaty of Utrecht. They formally complained to the French commander at Louisbourg about the French king transferring the sovereignty of their nation when he did not possess it. They were informed that the French had claimed legal possession of their country for a century, on account of laws decreed by kings in Europe, that no land could be legally owned by any non-Christian, and that such land was therefore freely available to any Christian prince who claimed it. Miꞌkmaw historian Daniel Paul observes that, “If this warped law were ever to be accorded recognition by modern legalists they would have to take into consideration that, after Grand Chief Membertou and his family converted to Christianity in 1610, the land of the Miꞌkmaq had become exempt from being seized because the people were Christians. However, it’s hard to imagine that a modern government would fall back and try to use such uncivilized garbage as justification for non-recognition of aboriginal title.”[28]: 74–75
Along with Acadians, the Miꞌkmaq used military force to resist the founding of British (Protestant) settlements by making numerous raids on Halifax, Dartmouth, Lawrencetown, and Lunenburg. During the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years’ War between France and Britain in Europe, the Miꞌkmaq assisted the Acadians in resisting the British during the Expulsion. The military resistance was reduced significantly with the French defeat at the Siege of Louisbourg (1758) in Cape Breton. In 1763, Great Britain formalized its colonial possession of all of Miꞌkmaki in the Treaty of Paris.
Covenant Chain of Peace and Friendship Treaties
Edit
Miꞌkmaw Encampment by Hibbert Newton Binney, c.1791
Between 1725 and 1779, the Mi’kmaq, Wolastoqey (Maliseet), and Peskotomuhkati (Passamaquoddy) signed numerous treaties, commonly referred to as the Covenant Chain of Peace and Friendship Treaties, through which they entered into a “peaceful relationship with the British Crown.” The Mi’kmaq assert that through these treaties—which were referenced as legal precedent by the Supreme Court of Canada in R v Marshall—the Mi’kmaq “did not cede or give up their land title and other rights.”[10]
Some historians have asserted that first treaty signed in 1725, after Father Rale’s War, did not cede hunting, fishing, and gathering rights.[85] The Halifax Treaties (1760–61), marked the end of warfare between the Miꞌkmaq and the British.[86]
The 1752 Peace and Friendship Treaty Between His Majesty the King and Jean-Baptiste Cope,[17] on behalf of the Shubenacadie Miꞌkmaq has been cited in the Supreme Court of Canada’s 1985 decision in R. v. Simon.[17] In his 2002, book on the Marshall case, historian William Wicken said that there is no written documentation to support this assertion that Cope made the treaty on behalf of all the Miꞌkmaq.[87] : 184 has been cited in the Supreme Court of Canada’s 1985 decision in R. v. Simon.[17] With the signing of various treaties, the 75 years of regular warfare ended in 1761 with the Halifax Treaties.[88][89]
Although the treaties of 1760-61 contain statements of Miꞌkmaw submission to the British crown, later statements made by Miꞌkmaw reveal that they intended a friendly and reciprocal relationship, according to the 2009 book, Nova Scotia: a pocket history, by Saint Mary’s University history professor, John G. Reid and Brenda Conroy.[90]: 23 In the early 1760s, there were approximately 300 Miꞌkmaw fighters in the region and thousands of British soldiers. The goals of the Miꞌkmaw treaty negotiators engaged in the 1760 Halifax treaty negotiations, were to make peace, establish secure and well-regulated trade in commodities such as furs, and begin an ongoing friendship with the British crown. In return, the Mi’kmaq offered friendship and tolerance of limited British settlement, although without any formal land surrender, according to Reid and Connor.[90]: 23 To fulfill the reciprocity intended by the Miꞌkmaq, that any additional British settlement of land would have to be negotiated, and accompanied by giving presents to the Miꞌkmaq. The documents summarizing the peace agreements failed to establish specific territorial limits on the expansion of British settlements, but assured the Miꞌkmaq of access to the natural resources that had long sustained them along the regions’ coasts and in the woods.[90] Their conceptions of land use were quite different. In his 2003 book about the British expulsion of the Acadians, University of Cincinnati history professor, Geoffrey Plank, described the relationship between the Mi’kmaq and Acadians as strong. The Miꞌkmaq believed they could share their traditional lands with both the British and the Acadians—with the Mi’kmaq hunting as usual, and getting to the coast for seafood.[91]: 163
The arrival of the New England Planters and United Empire Loyalists in greater number put pressure on land use and the treaties. This migration into the region created significant economic, environmental and cultural pressures on the Miꞌkmaq. The Miꞌkmaq tried to enforce the treaties through threat of force. At the beginning of the American Revolution, many Miꞌkmaw and Maliseet tribes supported the Americans against the British. They participated in the Maugerville Rebellion and the Battle of Fort Cumberland in 1776. Miꞌkmaw delegates concluded the first international treaty, the Treaty of Watertown, with the United States soon after it declared its independence in July 1776. These delegates did not officially represent the Miꞌkmaw government, although many individual Miꞌkmaq did privately join the Continental Army as a result. In June 1779, Miꞌkmaq in the Miramichi valley of New Brunswick attacked and plundered some of the British in the area. The following month, British Captain Augustus Harvey, in command of HMS Viper, arrived and battled with the Miꞌkmaq. One Miꞌkmaw was killed and 16 were taken prisoner to Quebec. The prisoners were eventually taken to Halifax. They were released on 28 July 1779 after signing the Oath of Allegiance to the British Crown.[92][93][94]
As their military power waned in the beginning of the 19th century, the Miꞌkmaw people made explicit appeals to the British to honor the treaties and reminded them of their duty to give “presents” to the Miꞌkmaq in order to occupy Miꞌkmaꞌki. In response, the British offered charity or, the word most often used by government officials, “relief”. The British said the Miꞌkmaq must give up their way of life and begin to settle on farms. Also, they were told they had to send their children to British schools for education.[95]
Monument to the Treaty of 1752, Shubenacadie First Nation, Nova Scotia
Gabriel Sylliboy was the first Miꞌkmaw elected as grand chief in 1919 and the first to fight for treaty recognition—specifically, the Treaty of 1752—in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.
In 1986, the first Treaty Day was celebrated by Nova Scotians on October 1, 1986 in recognition of the treaties signed between the British Empire and the Miꞌkmaw people.
The treaties were only formally recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada once they were enshrined in Section 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982. The first Treaty Day occurred the year after the Supreme Court upheld the Peace Treaty of 1752 signed by Jean-Baptiste Cope and Governor Peregrine Hopson.
19th century
Edit
Royal Acadian School
Edit
Walter Bromley was a British officer and reformer who established the Royal Acadian School and supported the Miꞌkmaq over the thirteen years he lived in Halifax (1813–1825).[96] Bromley devoted himself to the service of the Miꞌkmaw people.[97] The Miꞌkmaq were among the poor of Halifax and in the rural communities. According to historian Judith Finguard, his contribution to give public exposure to the plight of the Miꞌkmaq “particularly contributes to his historical significance”. Finguard writes:
Bromley’s attitudes towards the Indians were singularly enlightened for his day. … Bromley totally dismissed the idea that native people were naturally inferior and set out to encourage their material improvement through settlement and agriculture, their talents through education, and their pride through his own study of their languages.[96]
MicMac Missionary Society
Edit
Silas Tertius Rand in 1849 help found the Micmac Missionary Society, a full-time Miꞌkmaw mission. Basing his work in Hantsport, Nova Scotia, where he lived from 1853 until his death in 1889, he travelled widely among Miꞌkmaw communities, spreading the Christian faith, learning the language, and recording examples of the Miꞌkmaw oral tradition. Rand produced scriptural translations in Miꞌkmaq and Maliseet, compiled a Miꞌkmaq dictionary and collected numerous legends, and through his published work, was the first to introduce the stories of Glooscap to the wider world. The mission was dissolved in 1870. After a long period of disagreement with the Baptist church, he eventually returned to the church in 1885.
Mic-Mac hockey sticks
Edit
Main article: Mic-Mac hockey stick
Miꞌkmaq making hockey sticks from hornbeam trees (Ostrya virginiana) in Nova Scotia c. 1890.
The Miꞌkmaq practice of playing ice hockey appeared in recorded colonial histories from as early as the 18th century. Since the nineteenth century, the Miꞌkmaq were credited with inventing the ice hockey stick.[98]: 60 The oldest known hockey stick was made between 1852 and 1856. Recently, it was sold for US$2.2 million. The stick was carved by Miꞌkmaq from Nova Scotia, who made it from hornbeam, also known as ironwood.[99]
In 1863, the Starr Manufacturing Company in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, began to sell the Mic-Mac hockey sticks nationally and internationally.[98]: 61 Hockey became a popular sport in Canada in the 1890s.[98]: 58 Throughout the first decade of the 20th century, the Mic-Mac hockey stick was the best-selling hockey stick in Canada. By 1903, apart from farming, the principal occupation of the Miꞌkmaq on reserves throughout Nova Scotia, and particularly on the Shubenacadie, Indian Brook, and Millbrook Reserves, was producing the Mic-Mac hockey stick.[98]: 61 The department of Indian Affairs for Nova Scotia noted in 1927 that the Miꞌkmaq remained the “experts” at making hockey sticks.[98]: 73 The Miꞌkmaq continued to make hockey sticks until the 1930s, when the product was industrialized.[98]: 63
carbolic acid
Phenol (systematically named Benzenol, also called carbolic acid or phenolic acid) is an aromatic organic compound with the molecular formula C6H5OH. It is a white crystalline solid that is volatile. The molecule consists of a phenyl group (−C6H5) bonded to a hydroxy group (−OH). Mildly acidic, it requires careful handling because it can cause chemical burns.
Phenol was first extracted from coal tar, but today is produced on a large scale (about 7 billion kg/year) from petroleum-derived feedstocks. It is an important industrial commodity as a precursor to many materials and useful compounds.[8] It is primarily used to synthesize plastics and related materials. Phenol and its chemical derivatives are essential for production of polycarbonates, epoxies, Bakelite, nylon, detergents, herbicides such as phenoxy herbicides, and numerous pharmaceutical drugs.
The major uses of phenol, consuming two thirds of its production, involve its conversion to precursors for plastics. Condensation with acetone gives bisphenol-A, a key precursor to polycarbonates and epoxide resins. Condensation of phenol, alkylphenols, or diphenols with formaldehyde gives phenolic resins, a famous example of which is Bakelite. Partial hydrogenation of phenol gives cyclohexanone, a precursor to nylon. Nonionic detergents are produced by alkylation of phenol to give the alkylphenols, e.g., nonylphenol, which are then subjected to ethoxylation.[8]
Phenol is also a versatile precursor to a large collection of drugs, most notably aspirin but also many herbicides and pharmaceutical drugs.
Phenol is a component in liquid–liquid phenol–chloroform extraction technique used in molecular biology for obtaining nucleic acids from tissues or cell culture samples. Depending on the pH of the solution either DNA or RNA can be extracted.
Medical
Edit
Phenol is widely used as an antiseptic. Its use was pioneered by Joseph Lister (see § History section).
From the early 1900s to the 1970s it was used in the production of carbolic soap. Concentrated phenol liquids are commonly used for permanent treatment of ingrown toe and finger nails, a procedure known as a chemical matrixectomy. The procedure was first described by Otto Boll in 1945. Since that time it has become the chemical of choice for chemical matrixectomies performed by podiatrists.
Concentrated liquid phenol can be used topically as a local anesthetic for otology procedures, such as myringotomy and tympanotomy tube placement, as an alternative to general anesthesia or other local anesthetics. It also has hemostatic and antiseptic qualities that make it ideal for this use.
Phenol spray, usually at 1.4% phenol as an active ingredient, is used medically to treat sore throat.[33] It is the active ingredient in some oral analgesics such as Chloraseptic spray, TCP and Carmex.[34]
Niche uses
Edit
Phenol is so inexpensive that it attracts many small-scale uses. It is a component of industrial paint strippers used in the aviation industry for the removal of epoxy, polyurethane and other chemically resistant coatings.[35]
Phenol derivatives have been used in the preparation of cosmetics including sunscreens,[36] hair colorings, and skin lightening preparations.[37] However, due to safety concerns, phenol is banned from use in cosmetic products in the European Union[38][39] and Canada.[40][41]
Phenol was discovered in 1834 by Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge, who extracted it (in impure form) from coal tar.[42] Runge called phenol “Karbolsäure” (coal-oil-acid, carbolic acid). Coal tar remained the primary source until the development of the petrochemical industry. The French chemist Auguste Laurent extracted phenol in its pure form, as a derivative of benzene, in 1841.[43]
In 1836, Auguste Laurent coined the name “phène” for benzene;[44] this is the root of the word “phenol” and “phenyl”. In 1843, French chemist Charles Gerhardt coined the name “phénol”.[45]
The antiseptic properties of phenol were used by Sir Joseph Lister (1827–1912) in his pioneering technique of antiseptic surgery. Lister decided that the wounds themselves had to be thoroughly cleaned. He then covered the wounds with a piece of rag or lint[46] covered in carbolic acid (phenol). The skin irritation caused by continual exposure to phenol eventually led to the introduction of aseptic (germ-free) techniques in surgery.
Joseph Lister was a student at University College London under Robert Liston, later rising to the rank of Surgeon at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. Lister experimented with cloths covered in carbolic acid after studying the works and experiments of his contemporary, Louis Pasteur in sterilizing various biological media. Lister was inspired to try to find a way to sterilize living wounds, which could not be done with the heat required by Pasteur’s experiments. In examining Pasteur’s research, Lister began to piece together his theory: that patients were being killed by germs. He theorized that if germs could be killed or prevented, no infection would occur. Lister reasoned that a chemical could be used to destroy the micro-organisms that cause infection.[47]
Meanwhile, in Carlisle, England, officials were experimenting with sewage treatment using carbolic acid to reduce the smell of sewage cesspools. Having heard of these developments, and having himself previously experimented with other chemicals for antiseptic purposes without much success, Lister decided to try carbolic acid as a wound antiseptic. He had his first chance on August 12, 1865, when he received a patient: an eleven-year-old boy with a tibia bone fracture which pierced the skin of his lower leg. Ordinarily, amputation would be the only solution. However, Lister decided to try carbolic acid. After setting the bone and supporting the leg with splints, he soaked clean cotton towels in undiluted carbolic acid and applied them to the wound, covered with a layer of tin foil, leaving them for four days. When he checked the wound, Lister was pleasantly surprised to find no signs of infection, just redness near the edges of the wound from mild burning by the carbolic acid. Reapplying fresh bandages with diluted carbolic acid, the boy was able to walk home after about six weeks of treatment.[48]
By 16 March 1867, when the first results of Lister’s work were published in the Lancet, he had treated a total of eleven patients using his new antiseptic method. Of those, only one had died, and that was through a complication that was nothing to do with Lister’s wound-dressing technique. Now, for the first time, patients with compound fractures were likely to leave the hospital with all their limbs intact
— Richard Hollingham, Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery, p. 62[48]
Before antiseptic operations were introduced at the hospital, there were sixteen deaths in thirty-five surgical cases. Almost one in every two patients died. After antiseptic surgery was introduced in the summer of 1865, there were only six deaths in forty cases. The mortality rate had dropped from almost 50 per cent to around 15 per cent. It was a remarkable achievement
— Richard Hollingham, Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery, p. 63[49]
Phenol was the main ingredient of the Carbolic Smoke Ball, an ineffective device marketed in London in the 19th century as protection against influenza and other ailments, and the subject of the famous law case Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Company.
Second World War
Edit
The toxic effect of phenol on the central nervous system, discussed below, causes sudden collapse and loss of consciousness in both humans and animals; a state of cramping precedes these symptoms because of the motor activity controlled by the central nervous system.[50] Injections of phenol were used as a means of individual execution by Nazi Germany during the Second World War.[51] It was originally used by the Nazis in 1939 as part of the Aktion T4 euthanasia program.[52] The Germans learned that extermination of smaller groups was more economical by injection of each victim with phenol. Phenol injections were given to thousands of people. Maximilian Kolbe was also killed with a phenol injection after surviving two weeks of dehydration and starvation in Auschwitz when he volunteered to die in place of a stranger. Approximately one gram is sufficient to cause death.[53]
canapés
A canapé (French: [kanape]) is a type of hors d’oeuvre, a small, prepared, and often decorative food, consisting of a small piece of bread (sometimes toasted) wrapped or topped with some savoury food, held in the fingers and often eaten in one bite.
The name comes from the French word for sofa,[1] drawing on the analogy that the garnish sits atop the bread as people do on a couch.[2]
nacreous
Nacre (/ˈneɪkər/ NAY-kər, also /ˈnækrə/ NAK-rə),[1] also known as mother of pearl, is an organic–inorganic composite material produced by some molluscs as an inner shell layer; it is also the material of which pearls are composed. It is strong, resilient, and iridescent.
Nacre is found in some of the most ancient lineages of bivalves, gastropods, and cephalopods. However, the inner layer in the great majority of mollusc shells is porcellaneous, not nacreous, and this usually results in a non-iridescent shine, or more rarely in non-nacreous iridescence such as flame structure as is found in conch pearls.
The outer layer of cultured pearls and the inside layer of pearl oyster and freshwater pearl mussel shells are made of nacre. Other mollusc families that have a nacreous inner shell layer include marine gastropods such as the Haliotidae, the Trochidae and the Turbinidae.
calcimine
cal·ci·mine
/ˈkalsəˌmīn/
noun
noun: kalsomine; noun: calcimine
a kind of white or pale blue wash for walls and ceilings.
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin[a] (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space. Travelling in the Vostok 1 capsule, Gagarin completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961. By achieving this major milestone in the Space Race he became an international celebrity, and was awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, his nation’s highest honour.
jetty
a landing stage or small pier at which boats can dock or be moored.
“Ben jumped ashore and tied the rowboat up to the small wooden jetty”
Tycho Crater
Tycho (/ˈtaɪkoʊ/) is a prominent lunar impact crater located in the southern lunar highlands, named after the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546–1601).[1] It is estimated to be 108 million years old.[2]
To the south of Tycho is the crater Street, to the east is Pictet, and to the north-northeast is Sasserides. The surface around Tycho is replete with craters of various sizes, many overlapping still older craters. Some of the smaller craters are secondary craters formed from larger chunks of ejecta from Tycho. It is one of the Moon’s brightest craters,[2] with a diameter of 85 km (53 mi) and a depth of 4,800 m (15,700 ft).[3]
Tycho is a relatively young crater, with an estimated age of 108 million years (Ma), based on analysis of samples of the crater ray recovered during the Apollo 17 mission.[2] This age initially suggested that the impactor may have been a member of the Baptistina family of asteroids, but as the composition of the impactor is unknown this remained conjecture.[4] However, this possibility was ruled out by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer in 2011, as it was discovered that the Baptistina family was produced much later than expected, having formed approximately 80 million years ago.[5]
The crater is sharply defined, unlike older craters that have been degraded by subsequent impacts. The interior has a high albedo that is prominent when the Sun is overhead, and the crater is surrounded by a distinctive ray system forming long spokes that reach as long as 1,500 kilometers. Sections of these rays can be observed even when Tycho is illuminated only by earthlight. Due to its prominent rays, Tycho is mapped as part of the Copernican System.[6]
The large ray system centered on Tycho
The ramparts beyond the rim have a lower albedo than the interior for a distance of over a hundred kilometers, and are free of the ray markings that lie beyond. This darker rim may have been formed from minerals excavated during the impact.
Its inner wall is slumped and terraced, sloping down to a rough but nearly flat floor exhibiting small, knobby domes. The floor displays signs of past volcanism, most likely from rock melt caused by the impact. Detailed photographs of the floor show that it is covered in a criss-crossing array of cracks and small hills. The central peaks rise 1,600 meters (5,200 ft) above the floor, and a lesser peak stands just to the northeast of the primary massif.
Infrared observations of the lunar surface during an eclipse have demonstrated that Tycho cools at a slower rate than other parts of the surface, making the crater a “hot spot”. This effect is caused by the difference in materials that cover the crater.
Panoramic view of the lunar surface taken by Surveyor 7, which landed about 29 km (18 mi) from the rim of Tycho
The rim of this crater was chosen as the target of the Surveyor 7 mission. The robotic spacecraft safely touched down north of the crater in January 1968. The craft performed chemical measurements of the surface, finding a composition different from the maria. From this, one of the main components of the highlands was theorized to be anorthosite, an aluminium-rich mineral. The crater was also imaged in great detail by Lunar Orbiter 5.
From the 1950s through the 1990s, NASA aerodynamicist Dean Chapman and others advanced the lunar origin theory of tektites. Chapman used complex orbital computer models and extensive wind tunnel tests to support the theory that the so-called Australasian tektites originated from the Rosse ejecta ray of Tycho. Until the Rosse ray is sampled, a lunar origin for these tektites cannot be ruled out.
This crater was drawn on lunar maps as early as 1645, when A.M.S. de Rheita depicted the bright ray system.
gibbous
gib·bous
/ˈjibəs,ˈɡibəs/
Learn to pronounce
adjective
adjective: gibbous
(of the moon) having the observable illuminated part greater than a semicircle and less than a circle.
convex or protuberant.
“gibbous eyes”
late Middle English: from late Latin gibbosus, from Latin gibbus ‘hump’.
Voronoi
In mathematics, a Voronoi diagram is a partition of a plane into regions close to each of a given set of objects. In the simplest case, these objects are just finitely many points in the plane (called seeds, sites, or generators). For each seed there is a corresponding region, called a Voronoi cell, consisting of all points of the plane closer to that seed than to any other. The Voronoi diagram of a set of points is dual to that set’s Delaunay triangulation.
The Voronoi diagram is named after mathematician Georgy Voronoy, and is also called a Voronoi tessellation, a Voronoi decomposition, a Voronoi partition, or a Dirichlet tessellation (after Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet). Voronoi cells are also known as Thiessen polygons.[1][2][3] Voronoi diagrams have practical and theoretical applications in many fields, mainly in science and technology, but also in visual art.[4][5]
Patina
a green or brown film on the surface of bronze or similar metals, produced by oxidation over a long period.
“many bronzes have been overcleaned, their original patina removed and artificially replaced”
a gloss or sheen on a surface resulting from age or polishing.
“the dining table will acquire a warm patina with age”
the impression or appearance of something.
“he carries the patina of old money and good breeding”
mid 18th century: from Italian, from Latin patina ‘shallow dish
trellises
a framework of light wooden or metal bars, chiefly used as a support for fruit trees or climbing plants.
Remora
The remora (/ˈrɛmərə/), sometimes called suckerfish, is any of a family (Echeneidae) of ray-finned fish in the order Carangiformes.[4] Depending on species, they grow to 30–110 cm (12–43 in) long. Their distinctive first dorsal fins take the form of a modified oval, sucker-like organ with slat-like structures that open and close to create suction and take a firm hold against the skin of larger marine animals.[5] The disk is made up of stout, flexible membranes that can be raised and lowered to generate suction.[6] By sliding backward, the remora can increase the suction, or it can release itself by swimming forward. Remoras sometimes attach to small boats, and have been observed attaching to divers as well. They swim well on their own, with a sinuous, or curved, motion
Remora front dorsal fins have evolved to enable them to adhere by suction to smooth surfaces, and they spend most of their lives clinging to a host animal such as a whale, turtle, shark or ray. It is probably a mutualistic arrangement as the remora can move around on the host, removing ectoparasites and loose flakes of skin, while benefiting from the protection provided by the host and the constant flow of water across its gills.[7] Although it was initially believed that remoras fed off particulate matter from the host’s meals, this has been shown to be false; in reality, their diets are composed primarily of host feces.[8]
Remoras are tropical open-ocean dwellers, but are occasionally found in temperate or coastal waters if they have attached to large fish that have wandered into these areas. In the mid-Atlantic Ocean, spawning usually takes place in June and July; in the Mediterranean Sea, it occurs in August and September. The sucking disc begins to show when the young fish are about 1 cm (0.4 in) long. When the remora reaches about 3 cm (1.2 in), the disc is fully formed and the remora can then attach to other animals. The remora’s lower jaw projects beyond the upper, and the animal lacks a swim bladder.[9]
Some remoras associate with specific host species. They are commonly found attached to sharks, manta rays, whales, turtles, and dugongs, hence the common names “sharksucker” and “whalesucker”. Smaller remoras also fasten onto fish such as tuna and swordfish, and some of the smallest remoras travel in the mouths or gills of large manta rays, ocean sunfish, swordfish and sailfish.
The relationship between a remora and its host is most often taken to be one of commensalism, specifically phoresy.
Hearth
the floor of a fireplace.
“the crackling blaze on the hearth”
the area in front of a fireplace.
“they were sitting around the hearth”
used as a symbol of one’s home.
“he left hearth and home to train in Denmark”
the base or lower part of a furnace, where molten metal collects.
Old English heorth, of West Germanic origin; related to Dutch haard and German Herd .
“the Specter of the Brocken.”
A Brocken spectre (British English; American spelling: Brocken specter; German: Brockengespenst), also called Brocken bow, mountain spectre, or spectre of the Brocken is the magnified (and apparently enormous) shadow of an observer cast in mid air upon any type of cloud opposite a strong light source. Additionally, if the cloud consists of water droplets backscattered, a bright area called Heiligenschein, and halo-like rings of rainbow coloured light called a glory can be seen around the head or apperature silhouette of the spectre. Typically the spectre appears in sunlight opposite the sun’s direction at the antisolar point.
The phenomenon can appear on any misty mountainside, cloud bank, or be seen from an aircraft, but the frequent fogs and low-altitude accessibility of the Brocken, a peak in the Harz Mountains in Germany, have created a local legend from which the phenomenon draws its name. The Brocken spectre was observed and described by Johann Silberschlag in 1780, and has often been recorded in literature about the region.
The “spectre” appears when the sun shines from behind the observer, who is looking down from a ridge or peak into mist or fog.[1] The light projects their shadow through the mist, often in a triangular shape due to perspective.[2] The apparent magnification of size of the shadow is an optical illusion that occurs when the observer judges their shadow on relatively nearby clouds to be at the same distance as faraway land objects seen through gaps in the clouds, or when there are no reference points by which to judge its size. The shadow also falls on water droplets of varying distances from the eye, confusing depth perception. The ghost can appear to move (sometimes suddenly) because of the movement of the cloud layer and variations in density within the cloud.
Harz Mountains
The Harz (German: [haːɐ̯ts] (listen)) is a highland area in northern Germany. It has the highest elevations for that region, and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The name Harz derives from the Middle High German word Hardt or Hart (hill forest). The name Hercynia derives from a Celtic name and could refer to other mountain forests, but has also been applied to the geology of the Harz. The Brocken is the highest summit in the Harz with an elevation of 1,141.1 metres (3,744 ft) above sea level. The Wurmberg (971 metres (3,186 ft)) is the highest peak located entirely within the state of Lower Saxony.
The Harz was first mentioned as Hartingowe in an 814 deed by the Carolingian King Louis the Pious. Settlement within the mountains began only 1000 years ago, as in ancient times dense forests made the region almost inaccessible. The suffix -rode (from German: roden, to stub) denotes a place where woodland had been cleared to develop a settlement.
The year 968 saw the discovery of silver deposits near the town of Goslar, and mines became established in the following centuries throughout the mountains. During the Middle Ages, ore from this region was exported along trade routes to far-flung places, such as Mesopotamia. The wealth of the region declined after these mines became exhausted in the early 19th century. People abandoned the towns for a short time, but prosperity eventually returned with tourism. Between 1945 and 1990, the Inner German border ran through the Harz, the west belonging to the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the east to the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). Today the Harz forms a popular tourist destination for summer hiking as well as winter sports.
Pre-history and early history
Edit
About 700,000 to 350,000 years ago Homo erectus hunted in and around the Harz near Bilzingsleben (Thuringia), Hildesheim and Schöningen (Lower Saxony). The Neanderthals entered the stage about 250,000 years ago and hunted aurochs, bison, brown bear and cave bear, mammoths, rhinos, horses, reindeer, forest elephants and other animals in the Harz region. Tools used by Neanderthals were discovered inter alia in the Einhorn Cave in the southern Harz (100,000 years ago) and in the Rübeland Caves. Finds of birch pitch near Aschersleben on the northern edge of the Harz point to the use of this prehistoric adhesive by Neanderthals about 50,000 years ago. The Upper Palaeolithic Revolution, about 40,000 years ago, saw Homo sapiens move from Africa into Europe, including to the Harz region, where they appear to have ousted the Neanderthals and subsequently settled here.
Many discoveries in the Harz, such as the bronze club of Thale, which was found by the Roßtrappe, could indicate an earlier Celtic occupation of the Harz.[2]
Middle Ages
Edit
Harz 1852
The Harzgau itself was first mentioned in a deed by the Emperor, Louis the Pious, from the year 814, in which it was referred to by its High German form, Hartingowe. According to the Fulda annals of 852, the Harzgau was occupied by the Harudes and after whom the Harudengau (Harudorum pagus) was named. Harud, from which Hard, Hart and Harz are derived, means forest or forested mountains, and the Harudes were the residents or dwellers in the Harud.
Of more recent origin are settlements whose names end in –rode, a suffix that is first discernable in the Harzgau from the mid-9th century. Where the founders of these villages came from is unknown.
Charlemagne declared the Harz a restricted imperial forest or Reichsbannwald. The Saxon Mirror (Sachsenspiegel), the oldest German law book (Rechtsbuch), probably published around 1220/30 at Falkenstein Castle in the Selke valley, later made the imperial restriction clear: “Whoever rides through the Harz Forest, must unstring his bow and crossbow and keep dogs on a line – only crowned royalty (gekrönte Häupter) are allowed to hunt here”. Eike von Repkow’s Sachsenspiegel which, for centuries, formed the basis on which German law was administered, described the Harz as a place where wild animals are guaranteed protection in the king’s restricted forests. There were three restricted forests, so described, in the state of Saxony, where there was no longer unfettered access for everyone.
This ban did not last forever. Mining, ironworks, water management, increasing settlement, woodland clearances, cattle driving, agriculture, and later tourism all undermined this imperial protection over the centuries.
As early as 1224, monks who had settled in Walkenried bought extensive tracts of forest in the western Harz, to secure economically the one quarter of the Rammelsberg ore profits promised to them by Frederick Barbarossa in 1129. From that it can be deduced that there was already a shortage of wood then. From the 12th to the 14th centuries, large parts of the Harz were managed economically by the Cistercian Abbey of Walkenried. As well as agriculture and fishing, they also controlled the silver mining industry in the Upper Harz and in Goslar.
In the middle of the 14th century, the settlements in the Harz became heavily depopulated as a result of the Black Death, and a systematic resettlement of mining villages in the Upper Harz did not take place until the first half of the 16th century.
Prospecte des Hartzwalds (View of the Harz Forest)
16th century until 1933
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In 1588, the Nordhausen doctor, Johannes Thal, published the first book on regional flora in the world, Silva hercynia, in which he described the flowers specific to the Harz.
In 1668, Rudolph Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg granted the first conservation order for Baumann’s Cave. The ducal decree stated, inter alia, that the cave should be permanently preserved by all those responsible as a special, natural wonder. It also stated that nothing should be spoiled or destroyed, and that groups of ordinary strangers should not be allowed to enter without prior arrangement. A resident mine worker was entrusted to oversee the natural monument. Until the issue of this conservation order, there had only been an order for the protection of the forest, which had been issued by the ruling princes for real, practical considerations. But for the first time the 1668 cave order took ethical-aesthetic considerations into account. The year 1668 was the birth of classic nature conservation in the Harz. The order had been precipitated by the earlier, serious destruction of the cave’s features by Vandals. The first Harz ‘rangers’ were formed.
In 1705, the last bear was killed in the Harz, on the Brocken.
The steadily increasing consumption of wood by the pits and smelting works led to overexploitation of the forests and, from about 1700, to their outright destruction. There were no less than 30,000 charcoal piles in the Harz. In 1707, an order by Count Ernst of Stolberg forbade Brocken guides to take strangers or local folk to the Brocken without special permission, and the lighting of fires was forbidden. The first attempts at forest conservation in the Harz were centred on the Brocken, and began with a far-sighted nature conservation act over 275 years ago. In 1718, Count Christian Ernest of the House of Stolberg issued an ordinance in which destruction or damage to the forest on the Brocken would be severely punished. In 1736, Christian Ernest also built the Wolkenhäuschen (“Little House in the Clouds”) on the Brocken.
As a young man, the famous German poet, Goethe visited the Harz several times and had a number of important lifetime experiences. These included his walks on the Brocken and his visit to the mines in Rammelsberg. Later, his observations of the rocks on the Brocken led to his geological research. His first visit to the Harz awakened in him a keen interest in science (see Goethes: Wahrheit und Dichtung). In 1777, Goethe climbed the Brocken, departing from Torfhaus. At that time, there was still no mass tourism on the Brocken; in the year 1779 only 421 walkers were recorded. Goethe described his feelings on the summit later, as follows: So lonely, I say to myself, while looking down at this peak, will it feel to the person, who only wants to open his soul to the oldest, first, deepest feelings of truth.
On 23 March 1798, the last wolf was killed in the Harz near the Plessenburg.
The count’s guest house on the Heinrichshöhe had become too small and suffered from overcrowding; in 1799 it burned down. In 1800, a new guest house was built on the Brocken to replace it.
Around 1800, large swathes of the Harz were deforested. The less resistant spruce monoculture, that arose as a consequence of the mining industry in the Upper Harz, was largely destroyed by a bark beetle outbreak and a storm of hurricane proportions in November 1800. This largest known bark beetle infestation in the Harz was known as the Große Wurmtrocknis, and destroyed about 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres) of spruce forest and lasted about for 20 years. The woods were largely reforested with spruce. Continuous problems with bark beetle and storms were the negative side effects of mining in the Harz Mountains.
In 1818, a mounted forester, Spellerberg, from Lautenthal, killed the last lynx in the Harz on the Teufelsberg.
At the start of the 19th century, the increasing changes to the natural landscape wrought by man and the extinction of large mammals like the bear, wolf and lynx raised awareness of the threat to nature.
In 1852, the district administrator of Quedlinburg placed the Teufelsmauer, “a rock outcrop famous as an object of folklore and as a rare natural curiosity”, near Thale under protection, because the inhabitants of neighbouring districts were using the rocks as a quarry. This protection order survived in spite of all protests from the local villages. Thus, a valuable natural monument was saved from destruction, and it is of note that the authorities felt that the ‘romantic’ reasons for its preservation were entirely justified.
Albert Peter laid out the Brocken Garden in 1890. This was the first Alpine flower garden to be established on German soil. And, in terms of its scientific concept and scope, the Brocken Garden was the first of its type worldwide.
The Brocken Railway began service in 1899, against the already strong concerns of conservationists. For example, the botanist, Bley, wanted to prevent trains from climbing the Brocken, because it he felt it would threaten the Brocken’s flora.
In 1907, Hermann Löns uttered his famous cry “More Protection for the Brocken” (Mehr Schutz für den Brocken) in light of the mass tourism that was beginning to affect the Brocken. By 1912, he effectively pressed for the establishment of a Harz national park, without calling it such, in Der Harzer Heimatspark (Verlag E. Appelhans u. Co., Braunschweig 1912), a brochure that has remained relatively unknown. The Harz played a special role in the life of the famous regional poet, naturalist and local patriot, undoubtedly not least because his second wife, Lisa Hausmann, came from Barbis in the South Harz.
Around 1920, the capercaillie population in the Harz died out.
The Wernigerode rector, W. Voigt, wrote, in 1926, in his famous Brockenbuch: In America it has long become the business of the people, to create a sacrosanct haven for the native flora and fauna of the regions in national parks. North and South Germany have their heath and alpine parks. May the joint efforts of the royal authorities, the local police, the Wernigerode Nature Conservation Society and individual friends of the Brocken also succeed now in central Germany, through caring nurture across the board, in establishing and preserving the Brocken too, as a small, but unique, nature reserve for the German people.
In the 1930s, national park planning in Germany became specific again. There were concrete plans for the national parks of the Lüneburg Heath, Bavarian – Bohemian Forest, High Tauern, Höllengebirge, Neusiedler See and Kurische Nehrung. The Second World War prevented these national park plans from being taken forward; nevertheless, in 1937, an Upper Harz Nature Reserve (Naturschutzgebietes Oberharz) was designated.
Nazi Germany and Second World War
Edit
During the Nazi era, the Harz area became an important production site for the armaments industry. Many factories, important to the war effort, were located there and, as the war neared its conclusion, they were increasingly staffed with slave labour. As a result, the Harz was the location of several hundred forced labour camps and KZs at that time. KZ Dora near Nordhausen in the South Harz became particularly infamous. This camp, Mittelbau-Dora (also Dora-Mittelbau and Nordhausen-Dora), was a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp. Its prisoners were used by the SS mainly in the tunnel excavation and nearby underground stations of the Mittelwerk Ltd., in Kohnstein, situated near Nordhausen, where the V-2 rocket and the flying bomb V-1 rocket were produced. The slave labourers at the Dora camp were subjected to brutal conditions, which led to more than 20,000 deaths.
In the last weeks of the war, the so-called Harz Fortress (Harzfestung) is worth mentioning. In February/March 1945 the SS Reichsführer, Heinrich Himmler, established the Harz Fortress to defend central Germany from the western allies. Its headquarters was at Blankenburg. Amongst the formations mobilised were divisions belonging to the 11th Army, divisions of the Waffen SS and the Volkssturm. When the United States First Army reached Nordhausen in the southern Harz, and went to advance northwards, it met with resistance, especially in the hills around the towns of Ilfeld and Ellrich. Not until 7 May 1945 did the last formations of the 11th Army and Waffen SS in the Harz surrender. Several units of Volkssturm troops fought on against the Americans during May.
Shortly before his death in 2003, American Second World War veteran and organized crime figure, Frank Sheeran, admitted to having participated in a massacre of German POWs in the Harz area. At the time, Sheeran was serving in the 45th U.S. Infantry Division. According to Sheeran, his unit was climbing the Harz when they came upon a mule train carrying supplies to German positions on the hillside. The Americans handed shovels to their prisoners, forced them to dig their own graves, then shot and buried them.[3]
Wernher von Braun, one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Germany during the Second World War and, subsequently, in the United States, reportedly ordered blueprints of his work to be hidden in an abandoned mine shaft in the Harz range.[4]
Former Inner German border
Edit
Until 1990, the Inner German border ran through the western third of the Harz. The Brocken plateau and other peaks near the border were part of a large military out-of-bounds area, which demonstrating walkers first entered on 3 December 1989. Tourism on the Brocken has since then become very intense – about 1.3 million people visit the summit of the Brocken annually. The former out-of-bounds area today has many habitats worth protecting and, as a result, it is being turned into a green belt.
Orkneys
Orkney (/ˈɔːrkni/; Scots: Orkney; Old Norse: Orkneyjar; Norn: Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands,[Notes 1] is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north of the coast of Caithness and has about 70 islands, of which 20 are inhabited.[3][4][5] The largest island, the Mainland, has an area of 523 square kilometres (202 sq mi), making it the sixth-largest Scottish island and the tenth-largest island in the British Isles.[6] Orkney’s largest settlement, and also its administrative centre, is Kirkwall.[7]
Orkney is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, as well as a constituency of the Scottish Parliament, a lieutenancy area, and an historic county. The local council is Orkney Islands Council, one of only three councils in Scotland with a majority of elected members who are independents.[Notes 2]
The islands have been inhabited for at least 8,500 years, originally occupied by Mesolithic and Neolithic tribes and then by the Picts. Orkney was colonized and later annexed by the Kingdom of Norway in 875 and settled by the Norsemen. In 1472, the Parliament of Scotland absorbed the Earldom of Orkney into the Kingdom of Scotland, following failure to pay a dowry promised to James III of Scotland by the family of his bride, Margaret of Denmark.[10]
In addition to the Mainland, most of the remaining islands are divided into two groups: the North Isles and the South Isles. The climate is relatively mild and the soils are extremely fertile; most of the land is farmed, and agriculture is the most important sector of the economy. The significant wind and marine energy resources are of growing importance; the amount of electricity that Orkney generates annually from renewable energy sources exceeds its demand.
The local people are known as Orcadians; they speak a distinctive dialect of the Scots language and have a rich body of folklore. Orkney contains some of the oldest and best-preserved Neolithic sites in Europe; the “Heart of Neolithic Orkney” is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site. Orkney also has an abundance of marine and avian wildlife.
Etymology
Edit
Pytheas of Massilia visited Britain – probably sometime between 322 and 285 BC – and described it as triangular in shape, with a northern tip called Orcas.[11] This may have referred to Dunnet Head, from which Orkney is visible.[12] Writing in the 1st century AD, the Roman geographers Ptolemy[13] and Pomponius Mela called the islands Orcades (Όρκάδες), as did Tacitus in 98 AD, claiming that his father-in-law Agricola had “discovered and subjugated the Orcades hitherto unknown”[12][14] (although both Mela and Pliny had previously referred to the islands[11]). The Byzantine John Tzetzes in his work Chiliades is calling the islands as Orcades.[15]
Etymologists usually interpret the element orc- as a Pictish tribal name meaning “young pig” or “young boar”.[Notes 3][1] Speakers of Old Irish referred to the islands as Insi Orc “islands of the young pigs”.[17][18] The archipelago is known as Ynysoedd Erch in modern Welsh and Arcaibh in modern Scottish Gaelic, the -aibh representing a fossilized prepositional case ending. Some earlier sources alternatively hypothesise that Orkney comes from the Latin orca, whale.[19][20] The Anglo-Saxon monk Bede refers to the islands as Orcades insulae in Ecclesiastical History of the English People.[21]
Norwegian settlers arriving from the late ninth century reinterpreted orc as the Old Norse orkn “seal” and added eyjar “islands” to the end,[22] so the name became Orkneyjar “Seal Islands”. The plural suffix -jar was later removed in English leaving the modern name Orkney. According to the Historia Norwegiæ, Orkney was named after an earl called Orkan.[23]
The Norse knew Mainland, Orkney as Megenland “Mainland” or as Hrossey “Horse Island”.[24] The island is sometimes referred to as Pomona (or Pomonia), a name that stems from a 16th-century mistranslation by George Buchanan, which has rarely been used locally.[25][26]
History
Edit
Main article: History of Orkney
Prehistory
Edit
Main article: Prehistoric Orkney
Four large standing stones sit in a field of grass and heather. They are illuminated by reddish sunlight and they cast long shadows to the left. A lake and low hills lie beyond.
Ring of Brodgar, on the island of Mainland, Orkney
A charred hazelnut shell, recovered in 2007 during excavations in Tankerness on the Mainland, has been dated to 6820–6660 BC, indicating the presence of Mesolithic nomadic tribes.[27] The earliest known permanent settlement is at Knap of Howar, a Neolithic farmstead on the island of Papa Westray, which dates from 3500 BC. The village of Skara Brae, Europe’s best-preserved Neolithic settlement, is believed to have been inhabited from around 3100 BC.[28] Other remains from that era include the Standing Stones of Stenness, the Maeshowe passage grave, the Ring of Brodgar and other standing stones. Many of the Neolithic settlements were abandoned around 2500 BC, possibly due to changes in the climate.[29][30][31]
In September 2021, archaeologists announced the discovery of two polished stone balls in a 5500-year-old Neolithic burial tomb in Sanday. According to Dr Hugo Anderson, the second object was as the “size of a cricket ball, perfectly spherical and beautifully finished”.[32][33][34]
During the Bronze Age, fewer large stone structures were built (although the great ceremonial circles continued in use[35]) as metalworking was slowly introduced to Britain from Europe over a lengthy period.[36][37] There are relatively few Orcadian sites dating from this era although there is the impressive Plumcake Mound[38] near the Ring of Brodgar and various island sites such as Tofts Ness on Sanday and the remains of two houses on Holm of Faray.[39][40]
Iron Age
Edit
A semi-circular stone wall at left hints at the existence of a large and ancient building and to the right are the ruins of various other stone structures. In the background a low cliff divides a body of water from grassy fields.
Midhowe Broch on the west coast of Rousay
Excavations at Quanterness on the Mainland have revealed an Atlantic roundhouse built about 700 BC and similar finds have been made at Bu on the Mainland and Pierowall Quarry on Westray.[41] The most impressive Iron Age structures of Orkney are the ruins of later round towers called “brochs” and their associated settlements such as the Broch of Burroughston[42] and Broch of Gurness. The nature and origin of these buildings is a subject of debate. Other structures from this period include underground storehouses, and aisled roundhouses, the latter usually in association with earlier broch sites.[43][44]
During the Roman invasion of Britain the “King of Orkney” was one of 11 British leaders who is said to have submitted to the Emperor Claudius in AD 43 at Camulodunum (modern Colchester).[45][Notes 4] After the Agricolan fleet had come and gone, possibly anchoring at Shapinsay, direct Roman influence seems to have been limited to trade rather than conquest.[48]Polemius Silvius wrote a list of Late Roman provinces, which Seeck appended to his edition of the Notitia Dignitatum.[49] The list names six provinces in Roman Britannia: the sixth is the dubious “Orcades provincia”, the possible existence of which recent researches re-evaluate.[50]
By the late Iron Age, Orkney was part of the Pictish kingdom, and although the archaeological remains from this period are less impressive, the fertile soils and rich seas of Orkney probably provided the Picts with a comfortable living.[48][Notes 5] The Dalriadic Gaels began to influence the islands towards the close of the Pictish era, perhaps principally through the role of Celtic missionaries, as evidenced by several islands bearing the epithet “Papa” in commemoration of these preachers.[52] Before the Gaelic presence could establish itself the Picts were gradually dispossessed by the North Germanic peoples from the late 8th century onwards. The nature of this transition is controversial, and theories range from peaceful integration to enslavement and genocide.[53] It has been suggested that an assault by forces from Fortriu in 681 in which Orkney was “annihilated” may have led to a weakening of the local power base and helped the Norse come to prominence.[54]
Norwegian rule
Edit
Main article: Earldom of Orkney
A page from an illuminated manuscript shows two male figures. On the left, a seated man wears a red crown and on the right, a standing man has long fair hair. Their right hands are clasped together.
According to the Orkneyinga Saga, Harald Fairhair (on the right, with fair hair) took control of Orkney in 875. He is shown here inheriting his kingdom from his father Halfdan the Black, in an illustration from the Flateyjarbók.
Both Orkney and Shetland saw a significant influx of Norwegian settlers during the late 8th and early 9th centuries. Vikings made the islands the headquarters of their pirate expeditions carried out against Norway and the coasts of mainland Scotland. In response, Norwegian king Harald Fairhair (Harald Hårfagre) annexed the Northern Isles, comprising Orkney and Shetland, in 875 (it is clear that this story, which appears in the Orkneyinga Saga, is based on the later voyages of Magnus Barelegs and some scholars believe it to be apocryphal).[55] Rognvald Eysteinsson received Orkney and Shetland from Harald as an earldom as reparation for the death of his son in battle in Scotland, and then passed the earldom on to his brother Sigurd the Mighty.[56]
However, Sigurd’s line barely survived him and it was Torf-Einarr, Rognvald’s son by a slave, who founded a dynasty that controlled the islands for centuries after his death.[57][Notes 6] He was succeeded by his son Thorfinn Skull-splitter and during this time the deposed Norwegian King Eric Bloodaxe often used Orkney as a raiding base before being killed in 954. Thorfinn’s death and presumed burial at the broch of Hoxa, on South Ronaldsay, led to a long period of dynastic strife.[59][60]
A group of warriors in medieval garb surround two men whose postures suggest they are about to embrace. The man on the right is taller, has long fair hair and wears a bright red tunic. The man on the left his balding with short grey hair and a white beard. He wears a long brown cloak.
Artist’s conception of King Olaf Tryggvason of Norway, who forcibly Christianised Orkney.[61] Painting by Peter Nicolai Arbo.
Initially a pagan culture, detailed information about the turn to the Christian religion to the islands of Scotland during the Norse era is elusive.[62] The Orkneyinga Saga suggests the islands were Christianised by Olaf Tryggvasson in 995 when he stopped at South Walls on his way from Ireland to Norway. The King summoned the jarl Sigurd the Stout[Notes 7] and said, “I order you and all your subjects to be baptised. If you refuse, I’ll have you killed on the spot and I swear I will ravage every island with fire and steel.” Unsurprisingly, Sigurd agreed and the islands became Christian at a stroke,[61] receiving their own bishop in the early 11th century.[Notes 8][Notes 9]
A large church made from red and yellow stone with a square tower and a spire on the tower.
St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall
Thorfinn the Mighty was a son of Sigurd and a grandson of King Malcolm II of Scotland (Máel Coluim mac Cináeda). Along with Sigurd’s other sons he ruled Orkney during the first half of the 11th century and extended his authority over a small maritime empire stretching from Dublin to Shetland. Thorfinn died around 1065 and his sons Paul and Erlend succeeded him, fighting at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066.[67] Paul and Erlend quarreled as adults and this dispute carried on to the next generation. The martyrdom of Magnus Erlendsson, who was killed in April 1116 by his cousin Haakon Paulsson, resulted in the building of St. Magnus Cathedral, still today a dominating feature of Kirkwall.[Notes 10][Notes 11]
Unusually, from c. 1100 onwards the Norse jarls owed allegiance both to Norway for Orkney and to the Scottish crown through their holdings as Earls of Caithness.[70] In 1231 the line of Norse earls, unbroken since Rognvald, ended with Jon Haraldsson’s murder in Thurso.[71] The Earldom of Caithness was granted to Magnus, second son of the Earl of Angus, whom Haakon IV of Norway confirmed as Earl of Orkney in 1236.[72] In 1290, the death of the child princess Margaret, Maid of Norway in Orkney, en route to mainland Scotland, created a disputed succession that led to the Wars of Scottish Independence.[73][Notes 12] In 1379 the earldom passed to the Sinclair family, who were also barons of Roslin near Edinburgh.[74][Notes 13]
Evidence of the Viking presence is widespread, and includes the settlement at the Brough of Birsay,[77] the vast majority of place names,[78] and the runic inscriptions at Maeshowe.[Notes 14]
Absorption by Scotland
Edit
A picture on a page in an old book. A man at left wears tights and a tunic with a lion rampant design and holds a sword and scepter. A woman at right wears a dress with an heraldic design bordered with ermine and carries a thistle in one hand and a sceptre in the other. They stand on a green surface over a legend in Scots that begins “James the Thrid of Nobil Memorie…” (sic) and notes that he “marrit the King of Denmark’s dochter.”
James III and Margaret, whose betrothal led to Orkney passing from Norway to Scotland.
In 1468 Orkney was pledged by Christian I, in his capacity as King of Norway, as security against the payment of the dowry of his daughter Margaret, betrothed to James III of Scotland. However the money was never paid, and Orkney was absorbed by the Kingdom of Scotland in 1472. [Notes 15]
The history of Orkney prior to this time is largely the history of the ruling aristocracy. From now on ordinary people emerge with greater clarity. An influx of Scottish entrepreneurs helped to create a diverse and independent community that included farmers, fishermen and merchants that called themselves comunitas Orcadie and who proved themselves increasingly able to defend their rights against their feudal overlords.[82][83]
From at least the 16th century, boats from mainland Scotland and the Netherlands dominated the local herring fishery. There is little evidence of an Orcadian fleet until the 19th century but it grew rapidly and 700 boats were involved by the 1840s with Stronsay and later Stromness becoming leading centres of development. White fish never became as dominant as in other Scottish ports.[84]
An old map of two island groups with the Orcades at left and Schetlandia at right. A coat of arms at top left shows a red lion rampant on a yellow shield flanked by two white unicorns. A second heraldic device is shown at bottom right below the Oceanus Germanicus. This has two mermaids surrounding a tabula containing very small writing, topped by a yellow and blue shield.
Blaeu’s 1654 map of Orkney and Shetland. Mapmakers at this time continued to use the original Latin name Orcades.
Agricultural improvements beginning in the 17th century resulted in the enclosure of the commons and ultimately in the Victoria era the emergence of large and well-managed farms using a five-shift rotation system and producing high-quality beef cattle.[85]
In the 17th century, Orcadians formed the overwhelming majority of employees of the Hudson’s Bay Company in Canada. The harsh winter weather of Orkney and the Orcadian reputation for sobriety and their boat handling skills made them ideal candidates for the rigours of the Canadian north.[86] During this period, burning kelp briefly became a mainstay of the islands’ economy. For example on Shapinsay over 3,000 long tons (3,048 t) of burned seaweed were produced per annum to make soda ash, bringing in £20,000 to the local economy.[87] The industry collapsed suddenly in 1830 after the removal of tariffs on imported alkali.[88]
During the 18th century Jacobite risings, Orkney was largely Jacobite in its sympathies. At the end of the 1715 rebellion, a large number of Jacobites who had fled north from mainland Scotland sought refuge in Orkney and were helped on to safety in Sweden.[89] In 1745, the Jacobite lairds on the islands ensured that Orkney remained pro-Jacobite in outlook, and was a safe place to land supplies from Spain to aid their cause. Orkney was the last place in the British Isles that held out for the Jacobites and was not retaken by the British Government until 24 May 1746, over a month after the defeat of the main Jacobite army at Culloden.[90]
20th century
Edit
The Italian Chapel on Lamb Holm was built and decorated by Italian prisoners of war working on the Churchill Barriers.[91]
Orkney was the site of a Royal Navy base at Scapa Flow, which played a major role in World War I and World War II. After the Armistice in 1918, the German High Seas Fleet was transferred in its entirety to Scapa Flow to await a decision on its future. The German sailors opened the seacocks and scuttled all the ships. Most ships were salvaged, but the remaining wrecks are now a favoured haunt of recreational divers. One month into World War II, a German U-boat sank the Royal Navy battleship HMS Royal Oak in Scapa Flow. As a result, barriers were built to close most of the access channels; these had the additional advantage of creating causeways enabling travellers to go from island to island by road instead of being obliged to rely on ferries. The causeways were constructed by Italian prisoners of war, who also constructed the ornate Italian Chapel.[91]
The navy base became run down after the war, eventually closing in 1957. The problem of a declining population was significant in the post-war years, though in the last decades of the 20th century there was a recovery and life in Orkney focused on growing prosperity and the emergence of a relatively classless society.[92] Orkney was rated as the best place to live in Scotland in both 2013 and 2014, and in 2019 the best place to live in the UK, according to the Halifax Quality of Life survey.[93][94]
Overview of population trends
Edit
In the modern era, population peaked in the mid 19th century at just over 32,000 and declined for a century thereafter to a low of fewer than 18,000 in the 1970s. Declines were particularly significant in the outlying islands, some of which remain vulnerable to ongoing losses. Although Orkney is in many ways very distinct from the other islands and archipelagos of Scotland these trends are very similar to those experienced elsewhere.[95][96] The archipelago’s population grew by 11% in the decade to 2011 as recorded by the census.[5][97] During the same period Scottish island populations as a whole grew by 4% to 103,702.[98]
Historical population
Year Pop. ±% p.a.
1801 24,445 —
1811 23,238 −0.51%
1821 26,979 +1.50%
1831 28,847 +0.67%
1841 30,507 +0.56%
1851 31,455 +0.31%
1861 32,395 +0.29%
1881 32,044 −0.05%
1911 25,897 −0.71%
1921 24,111 −0.71%
1931 22,077 −0.88%
1951 21,255 −0.19%
1961 18,747 −1.25%
1971 17,070 −0.93%
1981 18,194 +0.64%
1991 19,644 +0.77%
2001 19,245 −0.20%
2011 21,349 +1.04%
Source: [96]
Orkney has an abundance of wildlife, especially of grey and common seals and seabirds such as puffins, kittiwakes, black guillemots (tysties), ravens, and great skuas (bonxies). Whales, dolphins, and otters are also seen around the coasts. Inland the Orkney vole, a distinct subspecies of the common vole introduced by Neolithic humans, is an endemic.[217][218] There are five distinct varieties, found on the islands of Sanday, Westray, Rousay, South Ronaldsay, and the Mainland, all the more remarkable as the species is absent on mainland Britain.[219]
The coastline is well known for its colourful flowers including sea aster, sea squill, sea thrift, common sea-lavender, bell and common heather. The Scottish primrose is found only on the coasts of Orkney and nearby Caithness and Sutherland.[102][217] Although stands of trees are generally rare, a small forest named Happy Valley with 700 trees and lush gardens was created from a boggy hillside near Stenness during the second half of the 20th century.[220]
The North Ronaldsay sheep is an unusual breed of domesticated animal, subsisting largely on a diet of seaweed, since they are confined to the foreshore for most of the year to conserve the limited grazing inland.[221] The island was also a habitat for the Atlantic walrus until the mid-16th century.[222]
The Orkney char (Salvelinus inframundus) used to live in Heldale Water on Hoy. It has been considered locally extinct since 1908.[223][224]
Stoat problem and solution
Edit
Stoat
The introduction of alien stoats since 2010, a natural predator of the common vole and thus of the Orkney vole,[225][226] was also harming native bird populations.[227] NatureScot, Scotland’s Nature Agency, provided these additional specifics:[228]
The introduction of a ground predator like the stoat to islands such as Orkney, where there are no native ground predators, is very bad news for Orkney’s native species. Stoats are accomplished predators and pose a very serious threat to Orkney’s wildlife, including: the native Orkney vole, hen harrier, short-eared owl and many ground nesting birds.
In 2018, a stoat eradication project was presented by NatureScot to be applied “across Orkney Mainland, South Ronaldsay, Burray, Glimps Holm, Lamb Holm and Hunda, and the biosecurity activities delivered on the non-linked islands of the archipelago”. The Orkney Native Wildlife Project planned to use “humane DOC150 and DOC200 traps”.[229] The Partners in the five-year project include “RSPB Scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), and Orkney Islands Council”.[230] A report issued in October 2020 stated that over 5,000 traps had been deployed. Specifics were provided as to the locations.[231]
Not all was going well as of 15 January 2021, according to The Times which stated that the project “has been hit by alleged sabotage after the destruction and theft of traps that have also killed and injured household pets and other animals” but added that the £6 million programme was supported by most islanders.[232] Another news item stated that some of the traps had “caught and killed family pets as well as hundreds of other animals”.[233] A subsequent report confirmed that “Police Scotland is investigating a number of incidents involving damage to and the theft of stoat traps in Orkney”.[234]
Protected areas
Edit
There are 13 Special Protection Areas and 6 Special Areas of Conservation in Orkney.[235][236] One of Scotland’s 40 national scenic areas, the Hoy and West Mainland National Scenic Area, is also located in the islands.[237] The seas to the northwest of Orkney are important for sand eels that provides a food source for many species of fish, seabirds, seals, whales and dolphins, and are now protected as Nature Conservation Marine Protected Area (NCMPA) that covers 4,365 km2 (1,685 sq mi).[238][239]
Torres Strait
The Torres Strait (/ˈtɒrɪs/), also known as Zenadh Kes, is a strait between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is 151 km (94 mi) wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost extremity of the Australian mainland. To the north is the Western Province of Papua New Guinea. It is named after the Spanish navigator Luís Vaz de Torres, who sailed through the strait in 1606.
The islands of the Torres Strait have been inhabited by humans for at least 2,500 years and possibly much longer.[1] The various Torres Strait Islander communities have a unique culture and long-standing history with the islands and nearby coastlines. Their maritime-based trade and interactions with the Papuans to the north and the Australian Aboriginal communities have maintained a steady cultural diffusion among the three societal groups, dating back thousands of years.
The first recorded European navigation of the strait was by Luís Vaz de Torres, a pilot who was second-in-command on the Spanish expedition led by navigator Pedro Fernandes de Queirós who sailed from Peru to the South Pacific in 1605. After Queirós’s ship returned to Mexico, Torres resumed the intended voyage to Manila via the Maluku Islands. He sailed along the south coast of New Guinea and discovered the strait that still bears his name. This discovery recorded in Spanish maps of the Pacific would later make possible James Cook’s expedition to Australia. Torres and his crew are not known to have sighted the Australian mainland visited just four months earlier by Willem Janszoon sailing Duyfken without conversely becoming aware of the strait now known as Torres Strait. No specific records exists of Torres sighting the coast of a major land mass to his south,[2] and early Spanish maps show the coast of New Guinea correctly but omit Australia.
In 1769 the Scottish geographer Alexander Dalrymple, whilst translating some Spanish documents captured in the Philippines in 1762, had found Luís Vaz de Torres’ testimony proving a passage south of New Guinea now known as Torres Strait.[3] This discovery led Dalrymple to publish the Historical Collection of the Several Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean in 1770–1771, which aroused widespread interest in his claim of the existence of an unknown continent. It was Dalrymple who named the strait after Torres. Dalrymple was bitterly disappointed that it was James Cook and not he who was appointed commander of the expedition that eventually led in 1770 to the British encounter and charting of the eastern coastline of Australia.
In 1770 Lieutenant James Cook rounded Cape York, turned south-west and landed on Possession Island. From the top of a hill, he signalled down to the ship that he could see a navigable passage through the dangerous Strait. Later in Batavia, where he learnt that the French had preceded him across the Pacific, Cook re-wrote this signalling drill as a possession ceremony,[4] saying he had claimed Australia’s east coast for the British Crown.[5]
In 1823 Captain John Lihou, Master of the 550-ton merchant ship Zenobia of Calcutta, was on passage from Manila to South America and chose a route through Torres Strait. Remarkably, this would become the first time for a ship to be navigated through the Torres Strait from west to east. According to the Sydney Gazette of April 1823: “This essay of nautical skill was accomplished after the loss of four anchors and the rudder”. It was also the first occasion a ship was navigated through the Coral Sea from Torres Strait, south-eastward to the southward of New Caledonia. Lihou saw Sir James Saumarez’ Shoal (now Saumarez Reefs) on 27 February and named the reef system after Vice-Admiral James Saumarez. On this same trip, Lihou discovered the Lihou Reef and Cays and Port Lihou (originally named Port Yarborough, on the southern shore of Prince of Wales Island).[a]
The London Missionary Society arrived on Erub (Darnley Island) in 1871. Although some of the Torres Strait islands lie just off the coast of New Guinea, they were annexed in 1879 by colony of Queensland, then a British colony. There was an important pearling industry from the 1860s until about 1970 when it collapsed in the face of competition from the plastics industry. Pearl-shelling was responsible for the arrival of experienced divers from many countries, notably Japan.[6]
In 1978 an agreement between Australia and Papua New Guinea determined the maritime border in the Torres Strait.[7]
In the 1980s, Torres Strait Island people wanted to create a name for the islands which related to their culture. Initially the name “Magani Malu Kes” was suggested for the region, but later adopting the acronym “Zenadh Kes”, to refer to the Torres Strait.[8] The acronym “ZENADTH KES” was first derived from ‘Zey’ (south), ‘Naygay’ (north), ‘Dagam’ (place/side), ‘Thawathaw’ (coastline) and KES (passage/channel/waterway).[9] However, this has become modified and it is now spelt Zenadh Kes.[10]
Due to proximity to the Papua New Guinea mainland, the northern Torres Strait islands experience occasional asylum seeker arrivals from across the Strait. A total of ten asylum seekers from Papua New Guinea were detected in each of 2012 and 2013.[11]
In 2016 the Australian Federal Police were tipped off by residents of Prince of Wales Island that men from Sydney were attempting to buy a boat to reach Papua New Guinea in order to leave Australia without a passport.[12]
The islands’ indigenous inhabitants are the Torres Strait Islanders, one of two ethnically distinct groups of Indigenous Australian peoples. Torres Strait Islanders are distinct from both the Papuans of adjoining New Guinea and from Aboriginal Australian peoples of the nearby Australian mainland, but related to both.[18]
The people of the Torres Strait have a unique indigenous culture which has drawn the interest of a range of anthropological, historical, archaeological and folklorist researchers. This includes an expedition from Cambridge University led by the early ethnographer Alfred Haddon in 1898, and the more contemporary regional work of Australian anthropologist Jeremy Beckett. Accounts of local Indigenous narrative traditions can be found in the work of Nonie Sharp and Margaret Lawrie. Lawrie developed strong relationships with the people of the Torres Strait from the 1950s to 1970s, and many approached her to record and write down their personal stories and family histories. This resulted in her conducting research into the cultural history of the Torres Strait and collecting transcripts, audio recordings, photographs, slides, works of art and oral stories. Collectively they formed the basis of the publication Myths and Legends of Torres Strait (1970) and Tales from Torres Strait (1972). Her collection is now held by the State Library of Queensland and in 2008 it was added to UNESCO’s Australian Memory of the World Register.[19]
Two indigenous languages are spoken on the Torres Strait Islands: Kala Lagaw Ya (also known by variant names and spellings), and Meriam Mir (Meriam), as well as Brokan [Broken], otherwise called Torres Strait Creole. Kala Lagaw Ya is the traditional language owned by the Western and Central islands of the Torres Strait. The Kala Lagaw Ya language region includes the landscape within the local government boundaries of the Torres Shire Council.[20] Mabuiag is considered a dialect of Kala Lagaw Ya, one of the languages of the Torres Strait. Mabuiag (also written as Mabuyag) is a traditional language of Mabuiag, a Central Western island of the Torres Strait. The Mabuiag language region includes the island landscape of Mabuiag within the local government boundaries of the Torres Shire Council and Mabuiag Island Council.[21]
In the 2016 Australian census, the population of the islands was recorded as 4,514 on the Islands, but many more Torres Strait Islander people live outside of Torres Strait in Australia.[22]
tourmaline
Tourmaline (/ˈtʊərməlɪn, -ˌlin/ TOOR-mə-lin, -leen) is a crystalline silicate mineral group in which boron is compounded with elements such as aluminium, iron, magnesium, sodium, lithium, or potassium. Tourmaline is a gemstone and can be found in a wide variety of colors.
The term is derived from the Sinhalese “tōramalli”, which refers to the carnelian gemstones.[4]
Brightly colored Ceylonese gem tourmalines were brought to Europe in great quantities by the Dutch East India Company to satisfy a demand for curiosities and gems. Tourmaline was sometimes called the “Ceylonese Magnet” because it could attract and then repel hot ashes due to its pyroelectric properties.[5]
Tourmalines were used by chemists in the 19th century to polarize light by shining rays onto a cut and polished surface of the gem.[6]
trevally
The giant trevally (Caranx ignobilis), also known as the lowly trevally, barrier trevally, ronin jack, giant kingfish or ulua, is a species of large marine fish classified in the jack family, Carangidae. The giant trevally is distributed throughout the tropical waters of the Indo-Pacific region, with a range stretching from South Africa in the west to Hawaii in the east, including Japan in the north and Australia in the south. Two were documented in the eastern tropical Pacific in the 2010s (one captured off Panama and another sighted at the Galápagos), but it remains to be seen if the species will become established there.[2]
The giant trevally is distinguished by its steep head profile, strong tail scutes, and a variety of other more detailed anatomical features. It is normally a silvery colour with occasional dark spots, but males may be black once they mature. It is the largest fish in the genus Caranx, growing to a maximum known size of 170 cm (67 in) and a weight of 80 kg (176 lbs). The giant trevally inhabits a wide range of marine environments, from estuaries, shallow bays and lagoons as a juvenile to deeper reefs, offshore atolls and large embayments as an adult. Juveniles of the species are known to live in waters of very low salinity such as coastal lakes and upper reaches of rivers, and tend to prefer turbid waters.
The giant trevally is an apex predator in most of its habitats, and is known to hunt individually and in schools. The species predominantly takes various fish as prey, although crustaceans, cephalopods and molluscs make up a considerable part of their diets in some regions. Novel hunting strategies including shadowing monk seals to pick off escaping prey, using sharks to ambush prey, and leaping to catch birds have been observed in this species.
The giant trevally reproduces in the warmer months, with peaks differing by region. Spawning occurs at specific stages of the lunar cycle, when large schools congregate to spawn over reefs and bays, with reproductive behaviour observed in the wild. The fish grows relatively fast, reaching sexual maturity at a length of around 60 cm at three years of age.
The giant trevally is both an important species to commercial fisheries and a recognised gamefish, with the species taken by nets and lines by professionals and by bait and lures by anglers. Catch statistics in the Asian region show hauls of 4,000–10,000 tonnes, while around 10,000 lbs of the species is taken in Hawaii each year. The species is considered poor to excellent table fare by different authors, although ciguatera poisoning is common from eating the fish. Dwindling numbers around the main Hawaiian Islands have also led to several proposals to reduce the catch of fish in this region.
Mackerel
Mackerel is a common name applied to a number of different species of pelagic fish, mostly from the family Scombridae. They are found in both temperate and tropical seas, mostly living along the coast or offshore in the oceanic environment.
Mackerel species typically have deeply forked tails and vertical ‘tiger-like’ stripes on their backs with an iridescent green-blue quality.[2][3] Many are restricted in their distribution ranges and live in separate populations or fish stocks based on geography. Some stocks migrate in large schools along the coast to suitable spawning grounds, where they spawn in fairly shallow waters. After spawning they return the way they came in smaller schools to suitable feeding grounds, often near an area of upwelling. From there they may move offshore into deeper waters and spend the winter in relative inactivity. Other stocks migrate across oceans.
Smaller mackerel are forage fish for larger predators, including larger mackerel and Atlantic cod.[4] Flocks of seabirds, whales, dolphins, sharks, and schools of larger fish such as tuna and marlin follow mackerel schools and attack them in sophisticated and cooperative ways. Mackerel flesh is high in omega-3 oils and is intensively harvested by humans. In 2009, over 5 million tons were landed by commercial fishermen.[1] Sport fishermen value the fighting abilities of the king mackerel.[5]
Pinnace
a small boat, with sails or oars, forming part of the equipment of a warship or other large vessel.
Oak Bluffs
Oak Bluffs is a town located on the island of Martha’s Vineyard in Dukes County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 5,341 at the 2020 United States Census. It is one of the island’s principal points of arrival for summer tourists, and is noted for its “gingerbread cottages” and other well-preserved mid- to late-nineteenth-century buildings. The town has been a historically important center of African American culture since the eighteenth century.
The first inhabitants of Oak Bluffs were the Wampanoag people, who have lived on Martha’s Vineyard (Wampanoag name: Noepe) for approximately 10,000 years.[3] The area that is now Oak Bluffs was called “Ogkeshkuppe,” which means “damp/wet thicket or woods.”[4]
The area was later settled by Europeans in 1642 and was part of Edgartown until 1880, when it was officially incorporated as Cottage City. The town re-incorporated in 1907 as Oak Bluffs, named because the town was the site of an oak grove along the bluffs overlooking Nantucket Sound. Oak Bluffs was the only one of the six towns on the island to be consciously planned, and the only one developed specifically with tourism in mind.
People of African descent first arrived at Martha’s Vineyard in the 1600s as enslaved West Africans who worked on the farms of European settlers. The Oak Bluffs harbor drew freed slaves, laborers and sailors in the 18th century, and white locals sold them land.[5] After slavery was abolished, the freed blacks came to work in the fishing industries, in turn drawing black residents from the Massachusetts mainland, who came and started businesses to serve the Vineyard’s growing population.[6] In the 1800s some black laborers also worked as servants to wealthy white families and in the hotels.[7] In the late 19th and 20th centuries, middle-class blacks bought or rented summer homes, and many of their descendants returned annually.[5] Formerly enslaved people, or their descendants, bought property around Baptist Temple Park in the early 20th century, drawn by the religious services held there. Teachers, politicians, lawyers, doctors, artists, musicians and entrepreneurs resided there for decades afterward.[8]
Affluent African Americans from New York, Boston, and Washington came to Oak Bluffs, the only Martha’s Vineyard town that welcomed black tourists as other towns on the island did not allow black guests to stay in inns and hotels until the 1960s.[6][7] Many bought houses in an area they called the Oval or the Highlands, which Harlem Renaissance writer Dorothy West wrote about in her 1995 novel, The Wedding (edited by Doubleday editor Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, a Vineyard resident who visited West for two summers).[5][7] By the 1930s, local black landowners were transforming the town into the country’s best-known and most exclusive African American vacation spot.[6] Down the road from West, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. owned a cottage in the Oval where Arctic explorer Matthew Henson was a guest.[7] Further down the road is Shearer Cottage, the first inn for African Americans vacationers. It was built by a Charles Shearer, the son of a slave and a slave owner, when Shearer saw that black visitors were not able to stay at the homes due to segregation. Guests at the inn included the first self-made American millionairess Madame CJ Walker, singers Paul Robeson, Ethel Waters and Lillian Evanti; and composer Harry T. Burleigh.[7][9]
In 1866, Robert Morris Copeland was hired by a group of New England developers to design a planned residential community in Martha’s Vineyard. The site, a large, rolling, treeless pasture overlooking Nantucket Sound, was adjacent to the immensely popular Methodist camp meeting, Wesleyan Grove, a curving network of narrow streets lined with quaint “Carpenter’s Gothic” cottages, picket fences, and pocket parks. Seeking to take advantage of the camp’s seasonal popularity (and overflowing population), the developers established Oak Bluffs Land and Wharf Company, gaining immediate success: Five hundred lots were sold between 1868 and 1871. Copeland would end up creating three plans for the community to accommodate its constant expansion. Oak Bluffs is one of the earliest planned residential communities and largely informed later suburban development in the United States.[10]
Some of the earliest visitors to the area that became Cottage City and later Oak Bluffs were Methodists, who gathered in the oak grove known as Wesleyan Grove each summer for multi-day religious “camp meetings” held under large tents and in the open air.
Gingerbread Cottages at Wesleyan Grove
As families returned to the grove year after year, tents pitched on the ground gave way to tents pitched on wooden platforms and eventually to small wooden cottages. Small in scale and closely packed, the cottages grew more elaborate over time. Porches, balconies, elaborate door and window frames became common, as did complex wooden scrollwork affixed to the roof edges as decorative trim. The unique “gingerbread” or “Carpenter’s Gothic” architectural style of the cottages was often accented by the owner’s use of bright, multi-hue paint schemes, and gave the summer cottages a quaint, almost storybook look. Dubbed “gingerbread cottages,” they became a tourist attraction in their own right in the late nineteenth century. So, too, did the Tabernacle: a circular, open-sided pavilion covered by a metal roof supported by tall wrought iron columns, erected in the late 1880s, which became a venue for services and community events. The campground’s gingerbread cottages are cherished historic landmarks as well as very expensive real estate. Many are still family owned and passed on generation to generation.[11] The cottages and the Tabernacle were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, recognized in 2000 by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and declared a National Historic Landmark by the US Department of the Interior in 2005.[12]
Nineteenth-century tourists, arriving by steamer from the mainland, could also choose from a wide range of secular attractions: shops, restaurants, ice cream parlors, dance halls, band concerts, walks along seaside promenades, or swims in the waters of Nantucket Sound. Resort hotels, of which the Wesley House is the sole surviving example, lined the waterfront and the bluffs. For a time, a narrow-gauge railway carried curious travelers from the steamship wharf in Oak Bluffs to Edgartown, running along tracks laid on what is now Joseph Sylvia State Beach. In 1884, the Flying Horses Carousel was brought to Oak Bluffs from Coney Island and installed a few blocks inland from the ocean, where it remains in operation today. Built in 1876, it is the oldest platform carousel still in operation. Like the grounds and buildings of the Campground (so designated in April 2005), the Flying Horses were designated a National Historic Landmark by the Secretary of the Interior.
The Martha’s Vineyard Summer Institute was established in 1878, being the first summer school for teachers in the U.S.[13]
In 1873, the neighboring community of Harthaven was established by William H. Hart when he purchased a lot from the Oak Bluffs Land and Wharf Company. The community later moved in 1911 to its present location between Oak Bluffs town and Edgartown.
Strivers row
The St. Nicholas Historic District, known colloquially as “Striver’s Row”,[3] is a historic district located on both sides of West 138th and West 139th Streets between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (Seventh Avenue) and Frederick Douglass Boulevard (Eighth Avenue) in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It is both a national and a New York City district, and consists of row houses and associated buildings designed by three architectural firms and built in 1891–93 by developer David H. King Jr. These are collectively recognized as gems of New York City architecture,[4] and “an outstanding example of late 19th-century urban design”:[3]
There are three sets of buildings:
the red brick and brownstone buildings on the south (even-numbered) side of West 138th Street and at 2350–2354 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard were designed by James Brown Lord in the Georgian Revival style;
the yellow brick and white limestone with terra cotta trim buildings on the north (odd-numbered) side of 138th and on the south (even-numbered) side of 139th Street and at 2360–2378 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard were designed in the Colonial Revival style by Bruce Price and Clarence S. Luce;
the dark brick, brownstone and terra cotta buildings on the north (odd-numbered) side of 139th Street and at 2380 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard were designed in the Italian Renaissance Revival style by Stanford White of the firm McKim, Mead & White.[2][3][5]
The district was designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1967,[3] and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.[1] The district’s name reflects the nearby St. Nicholas Park.[6]
David H. King Jr., the developer of what came to be called “Striver’s Row”, had previously been responsible for building the 1870 Equitable Building,[6] the 1889 New York Times Building, the version of Madison Square Garden designed by Stanford White, and the Statue of Liberty’s base.[2] The townhouses in his new project, which were originally called the “King Model Houses”, were intended for upper-middle-class whites,[7] and featured modern amenities, dark woodwork,[3] and views of City College.[6] King’s idea was that the project would be “on such a large scale and with such ample resources as to ‘Create a Neighborhood’ independent of surrounding influences.”[3]
The houses sit back-to-back, which allowed King to specify that they would share rear courtyards. The alleyways between them – a rarity in Manhattan[3] – are gated off; some entrance gates still have signs that read “Walk Your Horses”. At one time, these alleys allowed discreet stabling of horses and delivery of supplies without disrupting activities in the main houses. Today, the back areas are used almost exclusively for parking.
King sold very few houses and the development failed, with Equitable Life Assurance Society, which had financed the project, foreclosing on almost all the units in 1895, during an economic depression.[3] By this time, Harlem was being abandoned by white New Yorkers, yet the company would not sell the King houses to blacks, and so they sat empty until 1919–20, when they were finally made available to African Americans[3] for $8,000 each. Some of the units were turned into rooming houses, but generally they attracted both leaders of the black community and upwardly-mobile professionals, or “strivers”, who gave the district its colloquial name.[3]
Between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, is 139th Street, known among Harlemites as ‘strivers’ row.’ It is the most aristocratic street in Harlem. Stanford White designed the houses for a wealthy white clientele. Moneyed African-Americans now own and inhabit them. When one lives on ‘strivers’ row’ one has supposedly arrived. Harry Rills resides there, as do a number of the leading Babbitts and professional folk of Harlem.[8]
By the 1940s, many of the houses had decayed and were converted to single room occupancies (SROs). Much of the original decorative detail inside the houses was lost at this time, though the exteriors generally remained unaltered. With the post-1995 real-estate boom in Harlem, many of these buildings are being restored to something resembling their original condition.
Astor row
Astor Row is the name given to 28 row houses on the south side of West 130th Street, between Fifth and Lenox Avenues in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, which were among the first speculative townhouses built in the area. Designed by Charles Buek,[1] the houses were built between 1880 and 1883 in three spurts, on land John Jacob Astor had purchased in 1844 for $10,000. Astor’s grandson, William Backhouse Astor, Jr., was the driving force behind the development.
The design of the three-story brick, single-family houses[2] is unusual, in that they are set back from the street, and all have front and side yards – an oddity in Manhattan – as well as wooden porches. The first group of houses, numbers 8 through 22, comprises freestanding pairs, while the remainder, numbers 24 through 60, are connected together at the rear.[1]
The Astor Row houses were designated New York City Landmarks on August 11, 1981.[3]
When William Backhouse Astor died, the houses were divided among his grandchildren: Mary, James, and Sarah Van Alen.[3] Ownership stayed in the Astor family until 1911, when the westernmost 10 of the houses were sold to real estate investor Max Marx, who traded them in part for an apartment building in Washington Heights.[4] The new owners, the Brown Realty Company, defaulted on their mortgage, and the houses passed to the New York Savings Bank.[5]
In 1920, the houses were described by a reporter for The New York Times as “one of the most attractive and exclusive home centers” in Harlem, presenting “a picture of domestic tranquility and comfort which few other blocks in the city possess.”[3]
The Astor Row townhouses rented originally for $1,100 per year and were so popular that for years there was a waiting list for them. The townhouses were occupied originally by whites, but in 1920, 20 of the 28 houses – the 10 owned by New York Savings Bank, plus 10 still owned by the Astors – were purchased by James Cruikshank, a real estate operator[5] and leased to black tenants.[6][7]
Generally, the houses were not well maintained, and the porches were gradually lost. In 1978, the second edition of the AIA Guide to New York City described the row as having “restrained beauty which has been tarnished by years of economic distress.”[8] In 1981, New York City designated the entire row as landmarks, and money was raised to restore their facades, and improve their plumbing, heating systems, and electrical lines where needed. The group overseeing and financing the work included the New York Landmarks Conservancy, New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), the Vincent Astor Foundation, Manhattan Community Board 10, the Abyssinian Development Corporation, the Commonwealth Fund, the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and several local banks. In 1992, Ella Fitzgerald performed at a benefit at Radio City Music Hall to raise money for the restoration. By the end of the 1990s, the porches and other decorative elements had been restored to almost all the buildings on the block. In August 2009, The New York Times would write “the block is at the center of an intense but, as yet, unfinished revival of the surrounding streets in Central Harlem.”[9] The restoration of the row was overseen by Roberta Washington and Li/Saltzman.[2] In late 2021, the house at 28 West 130th Street was demolished following several years of degradation,[10][11] years after the LPC had sued the house’s owner to force her to repair the house.[12]
Mobile River
The Mobile River is located in southern Alabama in the United States. Formed out of the confluence of the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers, the approximately 45-mile-long (72 km) river drains an area of 44,000 square miles (110,000 km2) of Alabama, with a watershed extending into Mississippi, Georgia, and Tennessee. Its drainage basin is the fourth-largest of primary stream drainage basins entirely in the United States. The river has historically provided the principal navigational access for Alabama. Since construction of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, it also provides an alternative route into the Ohio River watershed.
The Tombigbee and Alabama River join to form the Mobile River approximately 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Mobile, along the county line between Mobile and Baldwin counties. The combined stream flows south, in a winding course. Approximately 6 miles (10 km) downstream from the confluence, the channel of the river divides, with the Mobile flowing along the western channel. The Tensaw River, a bayou of the Mobile River, flows alongside to the east, separated from 2 to 5 miles (3 to 8 km) as they flow southward. The Mobile River flows through the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta and reaches Mobile Bay on the Gulf of Mexico just east of downtown Mobile.
Markus Garvey
Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. ONH (17 August 1887 – 10 June 1940) was a Jamaican political activist, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL, commonly known as UNIA), through which he declared himself Provisional President of Africa. Ideologically a black nationalist and Pan-Africanist, his ideas came to be known as Garveyism.
Garvey was born into a moderately prosperous Afro-Jamaican family in Saint Ann’s Bay and he was apprenticed into the print trade as a teenager. Working in Kingston, he got involved in trade unionism before he lived briefly in Costa Rica, Panama, and England. After he returned to Jamaica, he founded the UNIA in 1914. In 1916, he moved to the United States and established a UNIA branch in New York City’s Harlem district. Emphasising unity between Africans and the African diaspora, he campaigned for an end to European colonial rule across Africa and advocated the political unification of the continent. He envisioned a unified Africa as a one-party state, governed by himself, that would enact laws to ensure black racial purity. Although he never visited the continent, he was committed to the Back-to-Africa movement, arguing that part of the diaspora should migrate there. Garveyist ideas became increasingly popular and the UNIA grew in membership. However, his black separatist views—and his relationship with white racists like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in the interest of advancing their shared goal of racial separatism—caused a division between Garvey and other prominent African-American civil rights activists such as W. E. B. Du Bois who promoted racial integration.
Believing that black people needed to be financially independent from white-dominated societies, Garvey launched various businesses in the U.S., including the Negro Factories Corporation and Negro World newspaper. In 1919, he became President of the Black Star Line shipping and passenger company, designed to forge a link between North America and Africa and facilitate African-American migration to Liberia. In 1923 Garvey was convicted of mail fraud for selling the company’s stock, and he was imprisoned in the United States Penitentiary, Atlanta for nearly two years. Many commentators[who?] have argued that the trial was politically motivated; Garvey blamed Jewish people, claiming that they were prejudiced against him because of his links to the KKK. After his sentence was commuted by U.S. president Calvin Coolidge, he was deported to Jamaica in 1927. Settling in Kingston with his wife Amy Jacques, Garvey established the People’s Political Party in 1929, briefly serving as a city councillor. With the UNIA in increasing financial difficulty, he relocated to London in 1935, where his anti-socialist stance distanced him from many of the city’s black activists. He died there in 1940, and in 1964, his body was returned to Jamaica for reburial in Kingston’s National Heroes Park.
Garvey was a controversial figure. Some in the African diasporic community regarded him as a pretentious demagogue and they were highly critical of his collaboration with white supremacists, his violent rhetoric, and his prejudice against mixed-race people and Jews. Nevertheless, he received praise for encouraging a sense of pride and self-worth among Africans and the African diaspora amid widespread poverty, discrimination, and colonialism. In Jamaica he is widely regarded as a national hero. His ideas exerted a considerable influence on such movements as Rastafari, the Nation of Islam, and the Black Power Movement.
A polarizing figure,[450] Garvey was both revered and reviled.[73] Grant noted that views on him largely divided between two camps, one camp portrayed him as a charlatan and the other camp portrayed him as a saint;[357] similarly, Cronon noted that Garvey was varyingly perceived as a “strident demagogue or a dedicated prophet, a martyred visionary or a fabulous con man”.[451] Martin noted that by the time Garvey returned to Jamaica in the 1920s, he was “just about the best known Black man in the whole world”.[452] The size and scope of the UNIA has also attracted attention; Mark Christian described Garvey as the leader of “the largest Black mass movement in modern history,”[453] and John Henrik Clarke termed it “the first Black mass protest crusade in the history of the United States”.[454] Garvey’s ideas influenced many black people who never became paying members of the UNIA,[455] with Graves noting that “more than anything else, Garvey gave Negroes self-assertion and self-reliance.”[456]
In Jamaica, Garvey is considered a national hero.[457] In 1969, Jamaica’s government posthumously conferred the Order of the National Hero upon him.[458] The scholar of African-American studies Molefi Kete Asante included Garvey on his 2002 list of 100 Greatest African Americans,[459] and in 2008, the American writer Ta-Nehisi Coates described Garvey as the “patron saint” of the black nationalist movement.[460] Grant thought that Garvey, along with Du Bois, deserved to be seen as the “father of Pan-Africanism”,[354] and the Nigerian historian B. Steiner Ifekwe called Garvey “one of the greatest Pan-African leaders of the time”.[461] Garvey has received praise from people who believe that he was a “race patriot”,[462] and many African Americans believe that he encouraged black people to develop a sense of self-respect and pride.[463] While he was living in the U.S., Garvey was frequently referred to—sometimes sarcastically—as the “Negro Moses”, implying that like the eponymous Old Testament figure, he would lead his people out of the oppressive situation which they were living in.[248]
In 1955, Cronon stated that while Garvey “achieved little in the way of permanent improvement” for black people, he “awakened fires of Negro nationalism that have yet to be extinguished”.[435] In Cronon’s view, Garvey was important because he gave African-descended peoples a new feeling of collective pride and a sense of individual worth.[464] Hart believed that Garvey’s importance lay in the fact that he stirred millions of people who were otherwise apathetic into action. In this way, Hart believed that Garvey had helped lay the groundwork for the U.S. civil rights movement during the 1950s and 1960s, even though that movement’s call for racial integration and equality within the U.S. ran contrary to Garvey’s belief in racial separation and his advocacy of migration to Africa.[465]
Garvey chiefly attracted attention because he put into powerful ringing phrases the secret thoughts of the Negro world. He told his listeners what they wanted to hear—that a black skin was not a badge of shame but rather a glorious symbol of national greatness. He promised a Negro nation in the African homeland that would be the marvel of the modern world. He pointed to Negro triumphs in the past and described in glowing syllables the glories of the future. When Garvey spoke of the greatness of the race, Negroes everywhere could forget for a moment the shame of discrimination and the horrors of lynching.
— Edmund David Cronon, one of Garvey’s biographers, 1955[435]
Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, wrote in his autobiography that of all the works of literature which he had studied, the book that inspired him more than any other book was The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, or Africa for the Africans.[466] Nkrumah went on to name Ghana’s national shipping line the “Black Star Line”, and there is a Black Star Square in Accra, and the Ghanaian flag also contains a black star. Ghana’s national football team is also nicknamed the Black Stars.[466]
While he was living in the U.S., Garvey faced strong opposition from many prominent figures in the African-American community as well as from leading progressive and left-wing organisations.[375] He was also unpopular within elite sections of the African-American community, in part perhaps out of envy of his successes in attracting the support of the black masses, and in part out of concern that he was leading their community astray.[467] Critics regarded him as an idealist,[468] and he was sometimes regarded as “an egotist, a zealot, a charlatan and a buffoon”.[411] Garvey obtained a reputation for failing to pay his debts,[469] and his detractors accused him of dishonesty.[469]
Critics like Du Bois often mocked Garvey for his outfits and the grandiose titles which he gave to himself;[470] in their view, he was embarrassingly pretentious.[73] According to Grant, many members of the established African-American middle-class were “perplexed and embarrassed” by Garvey, who thought that the African-American working class should turn to their leadership rather than his.[396] Concerns were also raised about his violent language because the people who raised them believed that it was inciting many Garveyites to carry out violent acts against Garvey’s critics.[471]
During his lifetime, some African Americans wondered if he really understood the racial issues which were present in U.S. society because he was a foreigner,[472] and later African-American leaders frequently held the view that Garvey had failed to adequately address anti-black racism in his thought.[376] Grant noted that in the years after Garvey’s death, his life was primarily presented by his political opponents.[444] Writing for The Black Scholar in 1972, the scholar of African-American studies Wilson S. Moses expressed concern about the “uncritical adulation” of Garvey within African-American political circles. In Moses’ opinion, this adulation led to “red baiting” and “divisive rhetoric” about being “Blacker-than-thou”.[473] Moses argued that it was wrong for people to regard Garvey as a “man of the people” because he had a petty bourgeoise background and as a result, he had “enjoyed cultural, economic, and educational advantages which few of his black contemporaries” had enjoyed.[9]
Influence on political movements
Edit
Martin Luther King Jr. in 1964
In the Colony of Jamaica, Garvey was largely forgotten in the years after his death, but interest in him was revived by the Rastafari religious movement.[474] Jacques wrote a book about her late husband, Garvey and Garveyism, and after finding that no publishers were interested in it she self-published the volume in 1963.[474] In 1962, when Jamaica became independent, the government hailed Garvey as a hero. In 1969, he was posthumously conferred with the Order of the National Hero by the Jamaican government.[458] In 1975 the reggae artist Burning Spear released the album Marcus Garvey.[474]
Interest in Garvey’s ideas would also be revived in the 1960s through the growth of independent states across Africa and the emergence of the Black Power movement in the United States.[475] Mark Christian suggested that Garveyism gave an important psychological boost to African leaders campaigning for independence from European colonial rule,[476] while Claudius Fergus proposed that it played an important role in encouraging Africans to see the African diaspora as an “integral constituent of their own political destiny.”[477]
In his autobiography, Kwame Nkrumah, the prominent Pan-Africanist activist who became Ghana’s first president, acknowledged Garvey’s influence on him.[474] The flag that Ghana adopted when it became independent adopted the colours of UNIA (See: Pan-African colours).[354] In November 1964, Garvey’s body was removed from West Kensal Green Cemetery and taken to Jamaica. There, it lay in state in Kingston’s Catholic Cathedral before a motorcade took it to King George VI Memorial Park, where it was re-buried.[357]
During a trip to Jamaica, Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King visited Garvey’s shrine on 20 June 1965 and laid a wreath.[478] In a speech he told the audience that Garvey “was the first man of color to lead and develop a mass movement. He was the first man to give millions of Negroes a sense of dignity and destiny on a mass scale and level. And he was the first man to make the Negro feel that he was somebody.”[479] The Vietnamese Communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh said that Garvey and Korean nationalists shaped his political outlook during his stay in America.[480] Thandeka K. Chapman believed that Garveyism contributed to the formation of the multicultural education movement during the 1960s.[481] Chapman believed that both “Garveyism and multicultural education share the desire to see students of color learning and achieving academic success”,[482] and both allotted significant attention to generating racial pride.[483]
Influence on religious movements
Edit
Garvey never regarded himself as a religious visionary but he was perceived as such by some of his followers.[484] Various Bedwardites for example regarded him as the reincarnation of Moses.[484] The Moorish Science Temple of America regarded Garvey as a prophet akin to John the Baptist in relation to their prophet Noble Drew Ali, whom they regarded as a Jesus figure.[485] Garvey’s ideas were a significant influence on the Nation of Islam, a religious group for African Americans established in the U.S. in 1930.[486]
Garvey and Garveyism was a key influence on Rastafari, a new religious movement that appeared in 1930 Jamaica.[487] According to the scholar of religion Maboula Soumahoro, Rastafari “emerged from the socio-political ferment inaugurated by Marcus Garvey”,[488] while for the sociologist Ernest Cashmore, Garvey was the “most important” precursor of the Rastafari movement.[489] Rastafari does not promote all of the views that Garvey espoused, nevertheless, it shares many of them.[490] Garvey knew of the Rastas from his time in Jamaica during the 1930s but his view of them, according to the scholar Barry Chevannes, “bordered on scorn”.[491]
According to Chevannes, Garvey would have regarded the Rastas’ belief in the divinity of Haile Selassie as blasphemy.[492] Many Rastas regard Garvey as a prophet,[493] believing that he prophesied the crowning of Haile Selassie in a manner which was similar to how John the Baptist prophesied the coming of Jesus Christ.[494] Many legends and tales are told about him within Jamaica’s Rasta community.[495] Many attribute him with supernatural attributes, for instance there is a tale told about him—and also independently told about the pioneering Rasta Leonard Howell—that Garvey miraculously knew that his bath had been poisoned and refused to get into it.[496] Other stories among Jamaica’s Rastas hold that Garvey never really died and remained alive, perhaps living in Africa.[497] Some Rastas also organise meetings, known as Nyabinghi Issemblies, to mark Garvey’s birthday.[498]
Stoop staircase
In American English, a stoop is a small staircase ending in a platform and leading to the entrance of an apartment building or other building.
Originally brought to the Hudson Valley of New York by settlers from the Netherlands, the word “stoop” is part of the Dutch vocabulary that has survived there from colonial times until the present. Stoop, “a small porch”, comes from Dutch stoep[1] (meaning: step/sidewalk, pronounced the same as English “stoop”); the word is now in general use in the Northeastern United States and is probably[original research?] spreading.
Traditionally, in North American cities, the stoop served an important function as a spot for brief, incidental social encounters. Homemakers, children, and other household members would sit on the stoop outside their home to relax, and greet neighbors passing by. Similarly, while on an errand, one would stop and converse with neighbors sitting on their stoops. Within an urban community, stoop conversations helped to disseminate gossip and reaffirm casual relationships. Similarly, it was the place that children would congregate to play street games such as stoop ball. Urbanites lacking yards often hold stoop sales instead of yard sales.
In her pivotal book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs includes the stoop as part of her model of the self-regulating urban street. By providing a constant human presence watching the street, institutions such as stoops prevent street crime, without intervention from authority figures. In addition, they motivate better street maintenance and beautification, by giving it social as well as utilitarian value.
Spittoon
a metal or earthenware pot typically having a funnel-shaped top, used for spitting into.
Bauhaus
The Staatliches Bauhaus (German: [ˈʃtaːtlɪçəs ˈbaʊˌhaʊs] (listen)), commonly known as the Bauhaus (German for ‘building house’), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.[1] The school became famous for its approach to design, which attempted to unify individual artistic vision with the principles of mass production and emphasis on function.[1]
The Bauhaus was founded by architect Walter Gropius in Weimar. It was grounded in the idea of creating a Gesamtkunstwerk (“comprehensive artwork”) in which all the arts would eventually be brought together. The Bauhaus style later became one of the most influential currents in modern design, modernist architecture, and architectural education.[2] The Bauhaus movement had a profound influence upon subsequent developments in art, architecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design, and typography.[3] Staff at the Bauhaus included prominent artists such as Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and László Moholy-Nagy at various points.
The school existed in three German cities—Weimar, from 1919 to 1925; Dessau, from 1925 to 1932; and Berlin, from 1932 to 1933—under three different architect-directors: Walter Gropius from 1919 to 1928; Hannes Meyer from 1928 to 1930; and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from 1930 until 1933, when the school was closed by its own leadership under pressure from the Nazi regime, having been painted as a centre of communist intellectualism.[4] Internationally, former key figures of Bauhaus were successful in the United States and became known as the avant-garde for the International Style.[5]
The changes of venue and leadership resulted in a constant shifting of focus, technique, instructors, and politics. For example, the pottery shop was discontinued when the school moved from Weimar to Dessau, even though it had been an important revenue source; when Mies van der Rohe took over the school in 1930, he transformed it into a private school and would not allow any supporters of Hannes Meyer to attend it.
The Bauhaus style tends to feature simple geometric shapes like rectangles and spheres, without elaborate decorations. Buildings, furniture, and fonts often feature rounded corners and sometimes rounded walls. Other buildings are characterized by rectangular features, for example protruding balconies with flat, chunky railings facing the street, and long banks of windows. Furniture often uses chrome metal pipes that curve at corners.
After Germany’s defeat in World War I and the establishment of the Weimar Republic, a renewed liberal spirit allowed an upsurge of radical experimentation in all the arts, which had been suppressed by the old regime. Many Germans of left-wing views were influenced by the cultural experimentation that followed the Russian Revolution, such as constructivism. Such influences can be overstated: Gropius did not share these radical views, and said that Bauhaus was entirely apolitical.[6] Just as important was the influence of the 19th-century English designer William Morris (1834–1896), who had argued that art should meet the needs of society and that there should be no distinction between form and function.[7] Thus, the Bauhaus style, also known as the International Style, was marked by the absence of ornamentation and by harmony between the function of an object or a building and its design.
However, the most important influence on Bauhaus was modernism, a cultural movement whose origins lay as early as the 1880s, and which had already made its presence felt in Germany before the World War, despite the prevailing conservatism. The design innovations commonly associated with Gropius and the Bauhaus—the radically simplified forms, the rationality and functionality, and the idea that mass production was reconcilable with the individual artistic spirit—were already partly developed in Germany before the Bauhaus was founded. The German national designers’ organization Deutscher Werkbund was formed in 1907 by Hermann Muthesius to harness the new potentials of mass production, with a mind towards preserving Germany’s economic competitiveness with England. In its first seven years, the Werkbund came to be regarded as the authoritative body on questions of design in Germany, and was copied in other countries. Many fundamental questions of craftsmanship versus mass production, the relationship of usefulness and beauty, the practical purpose of formal beauty in a commonplace object, and whether or not a single proper form could exist, were argued out among its 1,870 members (by 1914).
German architectural modernism was known as Neues Bauen. Beginning in June 1907, Peter Behrens’ pioneering industrial design work for the German electrical company AEG successfully integrated art and mass production on a large scale. He designed consumer products, standardized parts, created clean-lined designs for the company’s graphics, developed a consistent corporate identity, built the modernist landmark AEG Turbine Factory, and made full use of newly developed materials such as poured concrete and exposed steel. Behrens was a founding member of the Werkbund, and both Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer worked for him in this period.
The Bauhaus was founded at a time when the German zeitgeist had turned from emotional Expressionism to the matter-of-fact New Objectivity. An entire group of working architects, including Erich Mendelsohn, Bruno Taut and Hans Poelzig, turned away from fanciful experimentation and towards rational, functional, sometimes standardized building. Beyond the Bauhaus, many other significant German-speaking architects in the 1920s responded to the same aesthetic issues and material possibilities as the school. They also responded to the promise of a “minimal dwelling” written into the new Weimar Constitution. Ernst May, Bruno Taut and Martin Wagner, among others, built large housing blocks in Frankfurt and Berlin. The acceptance of modernist design into everyday life was the subject of publicity campaigns, well-attended public exhibitions like the Weissenhof Estate, films, and sometimes fierce public debate.
Bauhaus and Vkhutemas
Edit
Main article: Vkhutemas
The Vkhutemas, the Russian state art and technical school founded in 1920 in Moscow, has been compared to Bauhaus. Founded a year after the Bauhaus school, Vkhutemas has close parallels to the German Bauhaus in its intent, organization and scope. The two schools were the first to train artist-designers in a modern manner.[8] Both schools were state-sponsored initiatives to merge traditional craft with modern technology, with a basic course in aesthetic principles, courses in color theory, industrial design, and architecture.[8] Vkhutemas was a larger school than the Bauhaus,[9] but it was less publicised outside the Soviet Union and consequently, is less familiar in the West.[10]
With the internationalism of modern architecture and design, there were many exchanges between the Vkhutemas and the Bauhaus.[11] The second Bauhaus director Hannes Meyer attempted to organise an exchange between the two schools, while Hinnerk Scheper of the Bauhaus collaborated with various Vkhutein members on the use of colour in architecture. In addition, El Lissitzky’s book Russia: an Architecture for World Revolution published in German in 1930 featured several illustrations of Vkhutemas/Vkhutein projects there.
The Bauhaus had a major impact on art and architecture trends in Western Europe, Canada, the United States and Israel in the decades following its demise, as many of the artists involved fled, or were exiled by the Nazi regime. In 1996, four of the major sites associated with Bauhaus in Germany were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List (with two more added in 2017).[30]
In 1928, the Hungarian painter Alexander Bortnyik founded a school of design in Budapest called Műhely,[31] which means “the studio”.[32] Located on the seventh floor of a house on Nagymezo Street,[32] it was meant to be the Hungarian equivalent to the Bauhaus.[33] The literature sometimes refers to it—in an oversimplified manner—as “the Budapest Bauhaus”.[34] Bortnyik was a great admirer of László Moholy-Nagy and had met Walter Gropius in Weimar between 1923 and 1925.[35] Moholy-Nagy himself taught at the Miihely. Victor Vasarely, a pioneer of op art, studied at this school before establishing in Paris in 1930.[36]
The Bauhaus Museum in Tel Aviv
Further information: New Objectivity (architecture)
Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, and Moholy-Nagy re-assembled in Britain during the mid-1930s and lived and worked in the Isokon housing development in Lawn Road in London before the war caught up with them. Gropius and Breuer went on to teach at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and worked together before their professional split. Their collaboration produced, among other projects, the Aluminum City Terrace in New Kensington, Pennsylvania and the Alan I W Frank House in Pittsburg. The Harvard School was enormously influential in America in the late 1920s and early 1930s, producing such students as Philip Johnson, I. M. Pei, Lawrence Halprin and Paul Rudolph, among many others.
In the late 1930s, Mies van der Rohe re-settled in Chicago, enjoyed the sponsorship of the influential Philip Johnson, and became one of the world’s pre-eminent architects. Moholy-Nagy also went to Chicago and founded the New Bauhaus school under the sponsorship of industrialist and philanthropist Walter Paepcke. This school became the Institute of Design, part of the Illinois Institute of Technology. Printmaker and painter Werner Drewes was also largely responsible for bringing the Bauhaus aesthetic to America and taught at both Columbia University and Washington University in St. Louis. Herbert Bayer, sponsored by Paepcke, moved to Aspen, Colorado in support of Paepcke’s Aspen projects at the Aspen Institute. In 1953, Max Bill, together with Inge Aicher-Scholl and Otl Aicher, founded the Ulm School of Design (German: Hochschule für Gestaltung – HfG Ulm) in Ulm, Germany, a design school in the tradition of the Bauhaus. The school is notable for its inclusion of semiotics as a field of study. The school closed in 1968, but the “Ulm Model” concept continues to influence international design education.[37] Another series of projects at the school were the Bauhaus typefaces, mostly realized in the decades afterward.
The influence of the Bauhaus on design education was significant. One of the main objectives of the Bauhaus was to unify art, craft, and technology, and this approach was incorporated into the curriculum of the Bauhaus. The structure of the Bauhaus Vorkurs (preliminary course) reflected a pragmatic approach to integrating theory and application. In their first year, students learnt the basic elements and principles of design and colour theory, and experimented with a range of materials and processes.[38][39] This approach to design education became a common feature of architectural and design school in many countries. For example, the Shillito Design School in Sydney stands as a unique link between Australia and the Bauhaus. The colour and design syllabus of the Shillito Design School was firmly underpinned by the theories and ideologies of the Bauhaus. Its first year foundational course mimicked the Vorkurs and focused on the elements and principles of design plus colour theory and application. The founder of the school, Phyllis Shillito, which opened in 1962 and closed in 1980, firmly believed that “A student who has mastered the basic principles of design, can design anything from a dress to a kitchen stove”.[40] In Britain, largely under the influence of painter and teacher William Johnstone, Basic Design, a Bauhaus-influenced art foundation course, was introduced at Camberwell School of Art and the Central School of Art and Design, whence it spread to all art schools in the country, becoming universal by the early 1960s.
One of the most important contributions of the Bauhaus is in the field of modern furniture design. The characteristic Cantilever chair and Wassily Chair designed by Marcel Breuer are two examples. (Breuer eventually lost a legal battle in Germany with Dutch architect/designer Mart Stam over patent rights to the cantilever chair design. Although Stam had worked on the design of the Bauhaus’s 1923 exhibit in Weimar, and guest-lectured at the Bauhaus later in the 1920s, he was not formally associated with the school, and he and Breuer had worked independently on the cantilever concept, leading to the patent dispute.) The most profitable product of the Bauhaus was its wallpaper.
The physical plant at Dessau survived World War II and was operated as a design school with some architectural facilities by the German Democratic Republic. This included live stage productions in the Bauhaus theater under the name of Bauhausbühne (“Bauhaus Stage”). After German reunification, a reorganized school continued in the same building, with no essential continuity with the Bauhaus under Gropius in the early 1920s.[41] In 1979 Bauhaus-Dessau College started to organize postgraduate programs with participants from all over the world. This effort has been supported by the Bauhaus-Dessau Foundation which was founded in 1974 as a public institution.
Later evaluation of the Bauhaus design credo was critical of its flawed recognition of the human element, an acknowledgment of “the dated, unattractive aspects of the Bauhaus as a projection of utopia marked by mechanistic views of human nature…Home hygiene without home atmosphere.”[42]
Subsequent examples which have continued the philosophy of the Bauhaus include Black Mountain College, Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm and Domaine de Boisbuchet.[43]
A Bauhaus-style building with “thermometer” windows on Pines Street in Tel Aviv
The White City
Edit
Further information: White City (Tel Aviv)
The White City (Hebrew: העיר הלבנה, refers to a collection of over 4,000 buildings built in the Bauhaus or International Style in Tel Aviv from the 1930s by German Jewish architects who emigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine after the rise of the Nazis. Tel Aviv has the largest number of buildings in the Bauhaus/International Style of any city in the world. Preservation, documentation, and exhibitions have brought attention to Tel Aviv’s collection of 1930s architecture. In 2003, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) proclaimed Tel Aviv’s White City a World Cultural Heritage site, as “an outstanding example of new town planning and architecture in the early 20th century.”[44] The citation recognized the unique adaptation of modern international architectural trends to the cultural, climatic, and local traditions of the city. Bauhaus Center Tel Aviv organizes regular architectural tours of the city.
Centenary year, 2019
Edit
As the centenary of the founding of Bauhaus, several events, festivals, and exhibitions were held around the world in 2019.[45] The international opening festival at the Berlin Academy of the Arts from 16 to 24 January concentrated on “the presentation and production of pieces by contemporary artists, in which the aesthetic issues and experimental configurations of the Bauhaus artists continue to be inspiringly contagious”.[46][47] Original Bauhaus, The Centenary Exhibition at the Berlinische Galerie (6 September 2019 to 27 January 2020) presented 1,000 original artefacts from the Bauhaus-Archiv’s collection and recounted the history behind the objects.[48]
The New European Bauhaus
Edit
In September 2020, President of the European Commission Ursula Von der Leyen introduced the New European Bauhaus (NEB) initiative during her State of the Union address. The NEB is a creative and interdisciplinary movement that connects the European Green Deal to everyday life. It is a platform for experimentation aiming to unite citizens, experts, businesses and institutions in imagining and designing a sustainable, aesthetic and inclusive future.
Sport and physical activity were an essential part of the original Bauhaus approach. Hannes Meyer, the second director of Bauhaus Dessau, ensured that one day a week was solely devoted to sport and gymnastics. 1 In 1930, Meyer employed two physical education teachers. The Bauhaus school even applied for public funds to enhance its playing field. The inclusion of sport and physical activity in the Bauhaus curriculum had various purposes. First, as Meyer put it, sport combatted a “one-sided emphasis on brainwork.”[49] In addition, Bauhaus instructors believed that students could better express themselves if they actively experienced the space, rhythms and movements of the body. The Bauhaus approach also considered physical activity an important contributor to wellbeing and community spirit. Sport and physical activity were essential to the interdisciplinary Bauhaus movement that developed revolutionary ideas and continues to shape our environments today.
Arte Povera
Arte Povera (Italian: [ˈarte ˈpɔːvera]; literally “poor art”) was an art movement that took place between the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s in major cities throughout Italy and above all in Turin. Other cities where the movement was also important are Milan, Rome, Genoa, Venice, Naples and Bologna. The term was coined by Italian art critic Germano Celant in 1967[1] and introduced in Italy during the period of upheaval at the end of the 1960s, when artists were taking a radical stance.[2] Artists began attacking the values of established institutions of government, industry, and culture.
Some of the first exhibitions of artists associated with Arte Povera were held at the Christian Stein Gallery in Turin, run by Margherita Stein.[3] The exhibition “Im Spazio” (The Space of Thoughts), curated by Celant and held at the Galleria La Bertesca in Genoa, Italy, from September through October 1967, is often considered to be the official starting point of Arte Povera.[2] Celant, who became one of Arte Povera’s major proponents, organized two exhibitions in 1967 and 1968, followed by an influential book published by Electa in 1985 called Arte Povera Storie e protagonisti/Arte Povera. Histories and Protagonists, promoting the notion of a revolutionary art, free of convention, the power of structure, and the market place.
Although Celant attempted to encompass the radical elements of the entire international scene, the term properly centered on a group of Italian artists who attacked the corporate mentality with an art of unconventional materials and style. Key figures closely associated with the movement are Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Enrico Castellani, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Emilio Prini, and Gilberto Zorio.[4] They often used found objects in their works. Other early exponents of radical change in the visual arts include proto Arte Povera artists: Antoni Tàpies and the Dau al Set movement, Alberto Burri, Piero Manzoni, and Lucio Fontana and Spatialism. Art dealer Ileana Sonnabend was a champion of the movement.[1]
A return to simple objects and messages
The body and behavior are art
The everyday becomes meaningful
Traces of nature and industry appear
Dynamism and energy are embodied in the work
Nature can be documented in its physical and chemical transformation
Explore the notion of space and language
Complex and symbolic signs lose meaning
Ground Zero, no culture, no art system, Art = Life
liveried
A livery /ˈlɪvəri/ is an identifying design, such as a uniform, ornament, symbol or insignia that designates ownership or affiliation, often found on an individual or vehicle. Livery often includes elements of the heraldry relating to the individual or corporate body feature in the livery. Alternatively, some kind of a personal emblem or badge, or a distinctive colour, is featured.
The word itself derives from the French livrée, meaning dispensed, handed over. Most often it would indicate that the wearer of the livery was a servant, dependant, follower or friend of the owner of the livery, or, in the case of objects, that the object belonged to them.
In the late medieval phenomenon of bastard feudalism, livery badges worn by the “retainers” of great lords, sometimes in effect private armies, became a great political concern in England.[citation needed]
epaulettes
epaulette (plural epaulettes) An ornamentation, worn on the shoulders of a military uniform, as a sign of rank. quotations ▼synonyms ▲ Synonyms: shoulder board, shoulder mark, shoulder strap.
mauve
Mauve is a pale purple color named after the mallow flower. The first use of the word mauve as a color was in 1796–98 according to the Oxford English Dictionary, but its use seems to have been rare before 1859
risotto
Risotto (/rɪˈzɒtoʊ/, Italian: [riˈzɔtto, -ˈsɔt-], from riso meaning “rice”)[1] is a northern Italian rice dish cooked with broth until it reaches a creamy consistency. The broth can be derived from meat, fish, or vegetables. Many types of risotto contain butter, onion, white wine, and Parmigiano-Reggiano. It is one of the most common ways of cooking rice in Italy. Saffron was originally used for flavour and its signature yellow colour.[2][3]
palisade
a fence of wooden stakes or iron railings fixed in the ground, forming an enclosure or defense.
enclose or provide (a building or place) with a palisade.
“he palisaded the ends of the streets, and made the town a roughly fortified camp”
early 17th century: from French palissade, from Provençal palissada, from palissa ‘paling’, based on Latin palus ‘stake’.
lapwings
Lapwings (subfamily Vanellinae) are any of various ground-nesting birds (family Charadriidae) akin to plovers and dotterels. They range from 10 to 16 inches (25 to 41 cm) in length, and are noted for their slow, irregular wingbeats in flight and a shrill, wailing cry. A group of lapwings is called a “deceit”.[1]
The traditional terms “plover”, “lapwing”, and “dotterel” do not correspond exactly to current taxonomic models; thus, several of the Vanellinae are often called plovers, and one a dotterel, while a few of the “true” plovers (subfamily Charadriinae) are known colloquially as lapwings. In general, a lapwing can be thought of as a larger plover.
In Europe’s Anglophone countries, lapwing refers specifically to the northern lapwing, the only member of this group to occur in most of the continent and thus the first bird to go by the English name lapwing (also known as peewit or pyewipe).
vitrine
a glass cabinet or case, especially for displaying art objects.
A display case (also called showcase, display cabinet, shadow box, or vitrine) is a cabinet with one or often more transparent tempered glass (or plastic, normally acrylic for strength) surfaces, used to display objects for viewing. A display case may appear in an exhibition, museum, retail store, restaurant, or house. Often, labels are included with the displayed objects, providing information such as description or prices. In a museum, the displayed cultural artifacts are normally part of the museum’s collection, or are part of a temporary exhibition. In retail or a restaurant, the items are normally being offered for sale. A trophy case is used to display sports trophies or other awards.
meerschaum
A meerschaum pipe is a smoking pipe made from the mineral sepiolite, also known as meerschaum. Meerschaum (German pronunciation: [ˈmeːɐ̯ʃaʊ̯m], German for “sea foam”) is sometimes found floating on the Black Sea and is rather suggestive of sea foam (hence the German origin of the name, as well as the French name for the same substance, écume de mer).[1]
The first recorded use of meerschaum for making pipes was around 1723. It quickly became prized as the perfect material for providing a cool, dry, flavorful smoke. Because of the porous nature of meerschaum moisture and tobacco tar are drawn deep into the stone. Meerschaum became a premium substitute for the clay pipes of the day and remains prized to this day, although since the mid-1800s briar pipes have become the most common pipes for smoking.
The use of briar wood, beginning in the early 1820s, greatly reduced demand for clay pipes and, to a lesser degree, meerschaum pipes. The qualities of meerschaum were combined with those of briar pipes by lining briar pipes with meerschaum bowls. Some smokers[who?] believe that meerschaum-lined briar pipes give the porosity and sweet-smoking qualities of meerschaum along with the heat-absorbing qualities and durability of briar. However, meerschaum must be cool before a pipe can be cleaned, and briar must be rested after a few days of smoking, so the combination comes with some of the drawbacks of both materials. The thinness of the lining can affect how long a pipe lasts and some smokers do not clean out their pipes, causing the meerschaum to crack.
When smoked, meerschaum pipes gradually change color, and old meerschaum pipes will turn incremental shades of yellow, orange, red, and amber from the base on up. When prepared for use as a pipe, the natural nodules are first scraped to remove the red earthy matrix, then dried, again scraped and polished with wax. The crudely shaped masses thus prepared are turned and carved, smoothed with glass-paper, heated in wax or stearine, and finally polished with bone-ash.[1]
Tankard
a tall beer mug, typically made of silver or pewter, with a handle and sometimes a hinged lid.
the contents of or an amount held by a tankard.
“I’ve downed a tankard of ale”
lorises
Loris is the common name for the strepsirrhine mammals of the subfamily Lorinae[1] (sometimes spelled Lorisinae[2]) in the family Lorisidae. Loris is one genus in this subfamily and includes the slender lorises, Nycticebus is the genus containing the slow lorises, and Xanthonycticebus is the genus name of the pygmy slow loris.
muumuu
a woman’s loose, brightly colored dress, especially one traditionally worn in Hawaii.
late 19th century: from Hawaiian mu’u mu’u, literally ‘cut off’.
battened
strengthen or fasten (something) with battens.
“Stephen was battening down the shutters”
late 15th century: from Old French batant, present participle (used as a noun) of batre ‘to beat’, from Latin battuere
jackdaws
Jackdaws are two species of bird in the genus Coloeus closely related to, but generally smaller than, the crows and ravens (Corvus). They have a blackish crown, wings and tail, the rest of the plumage being paler.[2] The word Coloeus is New Latin, from the Ancient Greek for jackdaws: koloiós (κολοιός).[3][4]
Pawpaws
Asimina triloba, the American papaw, pawpaw, paw paw, or paw-paw, among many regional names, is a small deciduous tree native to the eastern United States and Canada, producing a large, yellowish-green to brown fruit.[3][4][5] Asimina is the only temperate genus in the tropical and subtropical flowering plant family Annonaceae, and Asimina triloba has the most northern range of all.[6] Well-known tropical fruits of different genera in family Annonaceae include the custard-apple, cherimoya, sweetsop, ylang-ylang, and soursop.
anorak
a waterproof jacket, typically with a hood, of a kind originally used in polar regions.
lintel
A lintel or lintol is a type of beam (a horizontal structural element) that spans openings such as portals, doors, windows and fireplaces. It can be a decorative architectural element, or a combined ornamented/structural item. In the case of windows, the bottom span is referred to as a sill, but, unlike a lintel, does not serve to bear a load to ensure the integrity of the wall. Modern-day lintels may be made using prestressed concrete and are also referred to as beams in beam-and-block slabs or as ribs in rib-and-block slabs. These prestressed concrete lintels and blocks can serve as components that are packed together and propped to form a suspended-floor concrete slab.
tamarind
Tamarind (Tamarindus indica) is a leguminous tree bearing edible fruit that is indigenous to tropical Africa and naturalized in Asia.[6] The genus Tamarindus is monotypic, meaning that it contains only this species. It belongs to the family Fabaceae.
The tamarind tree produces brown, pod-like fruits that contain a sweet, tangy pulp, which is used in cuisines around the world. The pulp is also used in traditional medicine and as a metal polish. The tree’s wood can be used for woodworking and tamarind seed oil can be extracted from the seeds. Tamarind’s tender young leaves are used in South Indian and Filipino cuisine.[7][8] Because tamarind has multiple uses, it is cultivated around the world in tropical and subtropical zones.
carrel
a small cubicle with a desk for the use of a reader or student in a library.
HISTORICAL
a small enclosure or study in a cloister.
late 16th century: apparently related to carol in the old sense ‘ring’.
axle
a rod or spindle (either fixed or rotating) passing through the centre of a wheel or group of wheels.
“the exhaust pipe corrodes around the bend which goes over the rear axle on motor cars”
pike
a long-bodied predatory freshwater fish with a pointed snout and large teeth, of both Eurasia and North America.
used in names of predatory fish with large teeth other than the true pike, e.g. garpike.
carapace
the hard upper shell of a tortoise, crustacean, or arachnid.
“the study found oil in the carapace of 29 sea turtles that returned to feed in the spill area”
something regarded as a protective or defensive covering.
“under her carapace of self-confidence she was very sensitive to criticism”
damask
noun. dam·ask ˈda-məsk. : a firm lustrous fabric (as of linen, cotton, silk, or rayon) made with flat patterns in a satin weave on a plain-woven ground on jacquard looms. : damascus steel. also : the characteristic markings of this steel.4
yarrow
Achillea millefolium, commonly known as yarrow (/ˈjæroʊ/) or common yarrow, is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. Other common names include old man’s pepper, devil’s nettle, sanguinary, milfoil, soldier’s woundwort, and thousand seal.
The plant is native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere in Asia, Europe, and North America.[2] It has been introduced as a feed for livestock in New Zealand and Australia.
Achillea millefolium is an erect, herbaceous, perennial plant that produces one to several stems 0.2–1 metre (8–40 inches) in height, and has a spreading rhizomatous growth form. Leaves are evenly distributed along the stem, with the leaves near the middle and bottom of the stem being the largest. The leaves have varying degrees of hairiness (pubescence). The leaves are 5–20 centimetres (2–8 in) long, bipinnate or tripinnate, almost feathery, and arranged spirally on the stems. The leaves are cauline, and more or less clasping,[3] being more petiolate near the base.[4]
The inflorescence has 4 to 9 phyllaries and contains ray and disk flowers which are white to pink, blooming from March to October.[5] There are generally 3 to 8 ray flowers, which are 3 millimetres (1⁄8 in) long[5] and ovate to round. The tiny disk flowers range from 10 to 40.[5] The inflorescence is produced in a flat-topped capitulum cluster and the inflorescences are visited by many insects, featuring a generalized pollination system.[6] The small achene-like fruits are called cypsela.[3]
The plant has a sweet scent similar to that of chrysanthemums,[2] so powerful that it may be irritating to some.[5]
Chemistry
Edit
The dark blue essential oil of yarrow contains chemicals called proazulenes.[7]
Chamazulene and δ-Cadinol are chemical compounds found in A. millefolium. The chromophore of azulene was discovered in yarrow and wormwood and named in 1863 by Septimus Piesse.
Yarrow contains isovaleric acid, salicylic acid, asparagine, sterols, and flavonoids.[8] It also contains phenolic acids such as gallic acid, 3, 4-dihydroxy benzoic acid, chlorogenic acid, vanillic acid, caffeic acid, syringic acid, p-coumaric acid, sinapic acid, ferulic acid, cinnamic acid and flavonoid such as myricetin, hesperidin, quercetin, luteolin, kaempferol, apigenin, rutin, hyperoside.[9]
Yarrow grows from sea level to 3,500 m (11,500 ft) in elevation. Common yarrow is frequently found in the mildly disturbed soil of grasslands and open forests. Active growth occurs in the spring.[2][3]
The plant is native to Eurasia and is found widely from the UK to China.
In North America, both native and introduced genotypes, and both diploid and polyploid plants are found.[21] It is found in every habitat throughout California except the Colorado and Mojave Deserts.[22][23] Common yarrow produces an average yield of 110,000 plants per hectare (43,000/acre), with a total dry weight of 11,800 kg/ha (10,500 pounds per acre).[24]
It has been introduced as a feed for livestock in New Zealand[25] and Australia, where it is a common weed of both wet and dry areas, such as roadsides, meadows, fields and coastal places.[25]
bridle
A bridle is a piece of equipment used to direct a horse. As defined in the Oxford English Dictionary, the “bridle” includes both the headstall that holds a bit that goes in the mouth of a horse, and the reins that are attached to the bit.
soutane
a type of cassock worn by Roman Catholic priests.
viceroy
viceroy, one who rules a country or province as the representative of his sovereign or king and who is empowered to act in the sovereign’s name.
pilasters
a rectangular column, especially one projecting from a wall
late 16th century: from French pilastre, from Italian pilastro or medieval Latin pilastrum, from Latin pila ‘pillar’.
Cordillera
A cordillera is an extensive chain and/or network system of mountain ranges, such as those in the west coast of the Americas. The term is borrowed from Spanish, where the word comes from cordilla, a diminutive of cuerda (‘rope’).
The term is most commonly used in physical geography[1] and is particularly applied to the various large mountain systems of the American Cordillera, such as the Andes of South America, and less frequently to other mountain ranges in the “ridge” that rims the Pacific Ocean. In Colombia and Venezuela, cordilleras are named according to their position: Cordillera Occidental, Central, and Oriental. Various local names are used for the cordilleras in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina.
Such mountain systems have a complex structure, which is usually the result of folding and faulting accompanied by volcanic activity. In South America, the ranges include numerous volcanic peaks. The Andes cordillera has Ojos del Salado, the highest active volcano in the world and second-highest point in the Western Hemisphere (though not itself a volcano, Argentina’s Aconcagua, at 6,960 m or 22,830 ft, is the highest point in the Western Hemisphere).[2] Some of the volcanoes have been active in historical times.
Aside from the volcanic peaks, the cordilleran crests include many narrow ridges, some of which reach into the zone of permanent snow. Between the ranges are numerous inhabited valleys, basins and low plateaus, with a wide range of elevations.
vestibules
: a passage, hall, or room between the outer door and the interior of a building : lobby. : an enclosed entrance at the end of a railway passenger car.5
mylodon
Mylodon is a genus of extinct ground sloth belonging to the family Mylodontidae, known from the region of Patagonia in Chile and Argentina in southern South America. With a total length of 3 to 4 m, it is one of the best-known and largest representatives of the group. The oldest finds probably date to the Lower Pleistocene; however, most of the fossil remains date from the Upper Pleistocene period. One of the most important sites of this phase is the Cueva del Milodón in southern Chile. Shortly after, about 10,200 BP,[1] Mylodon became extinct. At this point in time, it coexisted with the first human colonists in America. However, there is little evidence that it was hunted by humans.
In Mylodon’s case, not only bones and teeth are known, but also various soft tissue and integumentary structures are preserved. The diet of Mylodon is known in great detail due to fossilized faeces. Its skull is greatly elongated and, compared to other large mylodontids, is narrower, possessing a completely closed nasal arch. Other distinguishing features concern the dental structure.
Mylodon was a terrestrial ground sloth. A thick coat with long hair can be interpreted as an adaptation to a life under cold climatic conditions, as they prevailed in southern South America during the last glacial period. A diet based predominantly on grasses also corresponds to this in this region. The widespread distribution of Mylodon into the pampas region and some features on the skull show, however, that the animals had a much larger ecological range and could also cope with warmer temperature conditions and possibly a mixed vegetable diet. Some of the animals fell victim to larger predators.
The genus was described in 1840, and only one species, Mylodon darwini is usually recognized. The type material comes from the area of the Pampas, where it was collected by Charles Darwin during his voyage with HMS Beagle. Mylodon was one of the first extinct sloths on which genetic studies were carried out.
gingko
Ginkgo biloba, commonly known as ginkgo or gingko (/ˈɡɪŋkoʊ, ˈɡɪŋkɡoʊ/ GINK-oh, -goh),[5][6] also known as the maidenhair tree,[7] is a species of tree native to China. It is the last living species in the order Ginkgoales, which first appeared over 290 million years ago. Fossils very similar to the living species, belonging to the genus Ginkgo, extend back to the Middle Jurassic approximately 170 million years ago.[2] The tree was cultivated early in human history and remains commonly planted.
Ginkgo leaf extract is commonly used as a dietary supplement, but there is no scientific evidence that it supports human health or is effective against any disease.[8][9]
The genus name is regarded as a misspelling of the Japanese pronunciation gin kyo for the kanji 銀杏 meaning “silver apricot”,[10] which is found in Chinese herbology literature such as 日用本草 (Daily Use Materia Medica) (1329) and Compendium of Materia Medica 本草綱目 published in 1578.[11]
Despite its spelling, which is due to a complicated etymology including a transcription error, “ginkgo” is usually pronounced /ˈɡɪŋkoʊ/, which has given rise to the common alternative spelling “gingko”. The spelling pronunciation /ˈɡɪŋkɡoʊ/ is also documented in some dictionaries.[12][13]
Engelbert Kaempfer first introduced the spelling ginkgo in his book Amoenitatum Exoticarum. It is considered that he may have misspelled “Ginkyo” as “Ginkgo”. This misspelling was included by Carl Linnaeus in his book Mantissa plantarum II and has become the name of the tree’s genus.[14][12]
crinolines
A crinoline /ˈkrɪn.əl.ɪn/ is a stiff or structured petticoat designed to hold out a woman’s skirt, popular at various times since the mid-19th century. Originally, crinoline described a stiff fabric made of horsehair (“crin”) and cotton or linen which was used to make underskirts and as a dress lining. The term crin or crinoline continues to be applied to a nylon stiffening tape used for interfacing and lining hemlines in the 21st century.
By the 1850s the term crinoline was more usually applied to the fashionable silhouette provided by horsehair petticoats, and to the hoop skirts that replaced them in the mid-1850s. In form and function these hoop skirts were similar to the 16th- and 17th-century farthingale and to 18th-century panniers, in that they too enabled skirts to spread even wider and more fully.
The steel-hooped cage crinoline, first patented in April 1856 by R.C. Milliet in Paris, and by their agent in Britain a few months later, became extremely popular. Steel cage crinolines were mass-produced in huge quantity, with factories across the Western world producing tens of thousands in a year. Alternative materials, such as whalebone, cane, gutta-percha and even inflatable caoutchouc (natural rubber) were all used for hoops, although steel was the most popular. At its widest point, the crinoline could reach a circumference of up to six yards, although by the late 1860s, crinolines were beginning to reduce in size. By the early 1870s, the smaller crinolette and the bustle had largely replaced the crinoline.
Crinolines were worn by women of every social standing and class across the Western world, from royalty to factory workers. This led to widespread media scrutiny and criticism, particularly in satirical magazines such as Punch. They were also hazardous if worn without due care. Thousands of women died in the mid-19th century as a result of their hooped skirts catching fire. Alongside fire, other hazards included the hoops being caught in machinery, carriage wheels, gusts of wind, or other obstacles.
The crinoline silhouette was revived several times in the 20th century, particularly in the late 1940s as a result of Christian Dior’s “New Look” of 1947. The flounced nylon and net petticoats worn in the 1950s and 1960s to poof out skirts also became known as crinolines even when there were no hoops in their construction. In the mid-1980s Vivienne Westwood designed the mini-crini, a mini-length crinoline which was highly influential on 1980s fashion. Late 20th and early 21st century designers such as John Galliano and Alexander McQueen have become famous for their updated crinoline designs. Since the 1980s and well into the 21st century the crinoline has remained a popular option for formal evening dresses, wedding dresses, and ball gowns.
The name crinoline is often described as a combination of the Latin word crinis (“hair”) and/or the French word crin (“horsehair”); with the Latin word linum (“thread” or “flax,” which was used to make linen), describing the materials used in the original textile.[1][2][3][4]
In the 21st century, the term crin is still used to describe a type of woven nylon flat braid, available in various widths and used for stiffening and providing bulk-free body to hemlines, serving the same purpose as the original crin/crinoline.[5][6] Crin tape/trim is typically transparent, though it also comes in black, white and cream colors. It is also described as horsehair braid or crinoline tape.[5]
Zouave
noun. Zou·ave zü-ˈäv. : a member of a French infantry unit originally composed of Algerians wearing a brilliant uniform and conducting a quick spirited drill. : a member of a military unit adopting the dress and drill of the Zouaves.
sarong
plesiosaurus
The Plesiosauria (/ˌpliːsiəˈsɔːriə, -zi-/;[2][3] Greek: πλησίος, plesios, meaning “near to” and sauros, meaning “lizard”) or Plesiosaurs are an order or clade of extinct Mesozoic marine reptiles, belonging to the Sauropterygia.
Plesiosaurs first appeared in the latest Triassic Period, possibly in the Rhaetian stage, about 203 million years ago.[4] They became especially common during the Jurassic Period, thriving until their disappearance due to the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous Period, about 66 million years ago. They had a worldwide oceanic distribution, and some species at least partly inhabited freshwater environments.[5]
Plesiosaurs were among the first fossil reptiles discovered. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, scientists realised how distinctive their build was and they were named as a separate order in 1835. The first plesiosaurian genus, the eponymous Plesiosaurus, was named in 1821. Since then, more than a hundred valid species have been described. In the early twenty-first century, the number of discoveries has increased, leading to an improved understanding of their anatomy, relationships and way of life.
Plesiosaurs had a broad flat body and a short tail. Their limbs had evolved into four long flippers, which were powered by strong muscles attached to wide bony plates formed by the shoulder girdle and the pelvis. The flippers made a flying movement through the water. Plesiosaurs breathed air, and bore live young; there are indications that they were warm-blooded.
Plesiosaurs showed two main morphological types. Some species, with the “plesiosauromorph” build, had (sometimes extremely) long necks and small heads; these were relatively slow and caught small sea animals. Other species, some of them reaching a length of up to seventeen metres, had the “pliosauromorph” build with a short neck and a large head; these were apex predators, fast hunters of large prey. The two types are related to the traditional strict division of the Plesiosauria into two suborders, the long-necked Plesiosauroidea and the short-neck Pliosauroidea. Modern research, however, indicates that several “long-necked” groups might have had some short-necked members or vice versa. Therefore, the purely descriptive terms “plesiosauromorph” and “pliosauromorph” have been introduced, which do not imply a direct relationship. “Plesiosauroidea” and “Pliosauroidea” today have a more limited meaning. The term “plesiosaur” is properly used to refer to the Plesiosauria as a whole, but informally it is sometimes meant to indicate only the long-necked forms, the old Plesiosauroidea.
opal
a mineral, an amorphous form of silica, SiO2 with some water of hydration, found in many varieties and colors, including a form that is milky white.
cassock
a full-length garment worn by certain Christian clergy, members of church choirs, and others having an office or role in a church.
