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2134539
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquagenic%20pruritus
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Aquagenic pruritus
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Aquagenic pruritus is a skin condition characterized by the development of severe, intense, prickling-like epidermal itching without observable skin lesions and evoked by contact with water.
Presentation
Presentation varies from person to person. Some people have discrete attacks, which can last between 10 and 120 minutes while others are symptomatic almost constantly due to atmospheric humidity levels and/or sweating. Itching most frequently occurs on the legs, arms, chest, back, and abdomen, though it can also occur elsewhere.
Itching on contact with water that also includes hives is known as aquagenic urticaria.
Pathogenesis
The exact mechanism of the condition is unknown. Some studies have suggested the itching occurs in response to increased fibrinolytic activity in the skin, inappropriate activation of the sympathetic nervous system, increased activity of acetylcholinesterase, or an increase in mast cell degranulation that releases histamine and other chemicals into the body.
Diagnosis
No definitive medical test is known for aquagenic pruritus. Rather, diagnosis is made by excluding all other possible causes of the patient's itching, including polycythemia vera. Since pruritus is a symptom of many serious diseases, it is important to rule out other causes before making a final diagnosis.
Treatment
Beta-Alanine, a nonessential amino acid and freely available as a nutritional supplement in many countries, has been found to suppress or significantly reduce the symptoms in many cases. Anecdotal evidence indicates that it is commonly consumed in doses of 750 mg to 2 grams before water contact. A study found that a dose of 2 grams twice per day led to a "dramatic and sustained improvement" of symptoms in a 13-year-old male patient, allowing him to comfortably shower, exercise, and swim.
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2134539
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquagenic%20pruritus
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Aquagenic pruritus
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Other treatment is usually focused on topical itch management. This can be effected by the application of hot water at the end of a bath or shower, antipruritic lotions or creams such as lotion containing capsaicin, using phototherapy, or the application of hot or cold packs to the skin after water contact. Paradoxically, hot baths or showers help many patients, possibly because heat causes mast cells in the skin to release their supply of histamine and to remain depleted for up to 24 hours afterward.
H1 and H2 blockers, such as loratadine, doxepin, or cimetidine, have historically been the first line of pharmacological treatment, but not all people find relief with these medications. When antihistamines do work, loratadine seems to be the most effective for mild cases and doxepin most effective for more severe cases.
Naltrexone, hydrocortisone, or propranolol may relieve itching for some people.
Sertraline or other Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) is also a line of treatment.
Gabapentin is very helpful.
Etymology
The name is derived from Latin: aquagenic, meaning water-induced, and pruritus, meaning itch.
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2134540
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naaman
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Naaman
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As the object of the narrative of Naaman's sickness and restoration to health is, apparently, to form a link in the long series of miracles performed by Elisha, the redactor of II Kings did not concern himself to indicate the time when this event occurred. The rabbinical tradition that Naaman was the archer () who mortally wounded Ahab seems to have been adopted by Josephus. If the tradition is correct, the king Naaman served must have been Hadadezer, but since the interval between the death of Ahab and the curing of Naaman's leprosy is not known, it is impossible to identify the king to whom Naaman was sent with a letter. Ewald thinks the king referred to was Jehoahaz, while Schenkel suggests Jehu, but the general view is that it was Jehoram. The passage "for through him GOD had granted victory to Aram" (II Kings 5:1) upon which the identification of Naaman with Ahab's slayer is based by the Chazal is referred by G. Rawlinson, however, to the triumph over Shalmaneser III in the Battle of Qarqar by an alliance of Aramean and Arab states led by Hadadezer.
New Testament
Naaman is also mentioned in Luke 4 of the New Testament, in Greek as "Ναιμὰν ὁ Σύρος" or "Naaman the Syrian", a leper.
Christian theology depicts Naaman as an example for the will of God to save people who are considered by men as less than pious and unworthy of salvation.
The Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament, uses the word baptizein for the dipping that heals the heathen Naaman from the skin disease called tzaraath. The new baptism takes place in the Jordan River where Jesus of Nazareth, also called the Christ by his followers, was baptized many centuries later.
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2134565
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green%20Party%20%28Bulgaria%29
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Green Party (Bulgaria)
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The Green Party () is an environmentalist political party in Bulgaria. It was founded in Sofia in 1989 by Aleksandar Karakachanov, who later went on to become the chairperson of the party.
History
The Green Party was established on December 28, 1989 by Alexander Karakachanov. It consisted of activists from the "Ecoglasnost" movement. Right after its formation, the party joined the Union of the Democratic Forces in Bulgaria (UDF), which was then a broad coalition of anti-totalitarian political parties and organizations.
The party had 17 representatives in the 7th Grand National Assembly, where it was the initiator and submitter of the proposal for the Bulgaria's accession to the European Union. It was most recently represented by two MPs in the 38th National Assembly.
Merging
A small party called Green Bulgaria merged with the Green Party in 2008 to form The Green Party – Bulgarian Greens. The new party was chaired by Stoyan Dinkov on the Political Council (2008–2009). Alexander Karakachanov became president after the merger. Trifon Grudev, formerly of Green Bulgaria, became the vice-president.
Participation in elections
The party usually seeks to form a coalition with left-wing and center-left actors.
In 1989, it was a founding member of the UDF, a broad anti-totalitarian coalition. In elections for the 7th Grand National Assembly, Green Party won 17 MPs. In the 1991 National Assembly election, the party won 2.81% of the vote and no MPs.
The party joined the Democratic Alternative for the Republic coalition in the 1994 election, winning 3.84% of the vote. In the 1997 election, as part of the Union for National Salvation coalition, two Green Party MPs were elected.
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2134565
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green%20Party%20%28Bulgaria%29
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Green Party (Bulgaria)
|
In 2005, the Green Party participated in the elections for the National Assembly as a member of the Coalition for Bulgaria known as the Triple Coalition. The Green Party had no elected representatives, and it left the coalition before the end of the term as a result of policy disagreements. Specifically, the party disagreed with the shift towards neoliberal politics and swaps of state forests made by the ruling Coalition. The Green Party protested against these actions of the ruling government and submitted a law for restoring the swapped forests and lands.
During the 2007 European Parliament elections, conservationist Thomas Belev was nominated as a candidate from the civil quota in 2007. The party received 9,976 votes forming 0.51% of the vote.
The party did not participate in national or European Parliament elections in 2009 and 2013. However, they participated in the 2014 elections, winning around 9,000 votes or 0.4% of the popular vote.
The party generally achieves a higher vote share than the other Bulgarian green parties. Its best ever result was in the municipality of Blagoevgrad where it won 8.4% of the vote and has 6 MPs in the local parliament.
Participation in power
The Green Party was part of the UDF during the administration of Philip Dimitrov in 1991–1992. During this time, Alexander Karakachanov was supported by the UDF and elected as the mayor of Sofia.
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2134586
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambassador%20Magma
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Ambassador Magma
|
The human interest in the story was a family of three: a boy named Mikko, his mother Tomoko, and his journalist father Ito Mura. The family became involved in the story due to the villain Rodak's desire to publish news of his presence to world media. The Mura family found themselves continually caught in the crossfire of monster attacks and harried by the Lugo men and Rodak's spies. A major sub-plot in the series developed when Mikko's mother was kidnapped by the Lugo men and held in uncertain conditions for a number of episodes.
In the first episodes, the robot team were a duo consisting of a gold robot aptly named Goldar and his companion, a silver-clad humanoid female named Silvar. It was implied that they had been created by the wizard Methusan. Early in the series, the wizard Methusan completed the team to mirror the Mura family by creating a humanoid rocket-boy named Gam, in the image of Mikko Mura, complete with his trademark red-and-white sweater vest. All members of the robot team were capable of transforming into rockets identified respectively by gold, silver, and red-and-white color schemes. Each had bulb-tipped antennae protruding from their heads, capable of discharging directed blasts of gamma rays. Goldar and Silvar were capable of firing missiles from their chest cavities, but Silvar was only shown doing this once. A regularly featured plot device was Mikko's ability to summon the robots by blowing a special high-frequency whistle: once to summon Gam, twice to summon Silvar and three times to summon Goldar.
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2134649
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell%20dwellers
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Shell dwellers
|
Types of shell dwellers
There are several groups the shell dwellers can be placed into:
Colonial shell dwellers. Quite popular for their familial behavior, these fish are native to or, in some cases, create their own shellbeds, with piles of dense shells. Species include Neolamprologus multifasciatus, Neolamprologus similis and Neolamprologus callipterus
The ocellatus group has the most attractively patterned and many of the most aggressive of the shell-dwelling species, which share a similar body shape and territorial behavior. It has been said that if sharks behaved as this group does, the world's beaches would be abandoned. Species include Lamprologus ocellatus, Lamprologus stappersi, Lamprologus speciosus, and several species much more rare to the hobby.
The Lepidiolamprologus group, now considered Neolamprologus species. These are larger shell dwellers and some may prefer mud-dwelling in the wild. They include Neolamprologus boulengeri, Neolamprologus hecqui, Neolamprologus variostigma and Neolamprologus meeli.
The Altolamprologus varieties include Altolamprologus compressiceps "Sumbu" and other locational varieties that remain smaller than the normal A. compressiceps in order to use shells.
The genus Telmatochromis contains one definite shell dweller, Telmatochromis sp "temporalis shell," and many species that will shell-dwell in captivity.
The brevis group contains a number of species with heavy bodies and gentle temperaments, including Neolamprologus brevis and Neolamprologus calliurus.
The signatus group contains slim, reflective species, including Neolamprologus signatus, Neolamprologus ornatippinnis and Neolamprologus kungweensis.
The Malawi shell dwellers, which may comprise several species but as yet only Pseudotropheus lanisticola is certain, one of the smallest mbuna in Lake Malawi at a bare 7 cm.
Range
Shell dwellers are found throughout Lake Tanganyika, along the coasts of Zambia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Tanzania.
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2134649
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell%20dwellers
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Shell dwellers
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Diet
Shell dwellers are carnivores that primarily feed on zooplankton and other microscopic and near-microscopic foods.
Cichlids' distinctive pharyngeal teeth, in the throat of the fish, are present in shell dwellers, though small. Armed with those and the usual teeth along with the typical dissolving qualities of water shell dwellers can eat a variety of foods in the wild and in captivity. Many species have been known to pull small snails from their shells to eat, to catch and devour the fry of other fish, and to go after small crustaceans.
Reproduction
As with other cichlids they protect their young, and the distinctive shell-dwelling provides them with a defensible nursery.
Generally eggs are laid by the female within the shell and fertilized as she lays them or immediately after by the male.
The female will protect the shell, fanning her pectoral fins to keep the internal water oxygenated, and often rearranging the substrate to create barriers or to hide the shell from predators.
Eggs hatch within 48 hours, dependent primarily on temperature, and the yolk sac is absorbed within five days. Fry typically emerge from the shell a week after spawning, although they remain quite benthic for days or weeks after their emergence.
Shell dwellers as aquarium fish
The Malawi shell dweller, Pseudotropheus lanisticola, was first identified in 1964 along with many other mbuna in that lake, but the Tanganyikan shell dwellers were found primarily in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Altolamprologus compressiceps was identified in 1958 but the shell-dwelling varieties were found much later.
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2134678
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern%20Oregon%20Regional%20Airport
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Eastern Oregon Regional Airport
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Eastern Oregon Regional Airport (Eastern Oregon Regional Airport at Pendleton) is a public airport three miles northwest of Pendleton, in Umatilla County, Oregon, United States. Commercial service is provided by Boutique Air to Portland, subsidized by the Essential Air Service program.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the airport had 7,217 passenger boardings in calendar year 2008, 3,828 in 2009, 4,898 in 2010 and 4,305 in 2015. The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015 categorized it as a non-primary commercial service airport (between 2,500 and 10,000 enplanements per year).
History
World War II - Pendleton Field Army Air Corps Base
Beginning in June 1941 the 34th Bomb Squadron, flying North American B-25 Mitchell bombers, was based at Pendleton. It began flying anti-submarine patrols after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, and continued to do so until it moved to South Carolina in February 1942.
One of the 34th's pilots who served at Pendleton was Lt. William G. Farrow. He later volunteered for the April 1942 Doolittle Raid, was captured by the Japanese, and executed in October.
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2134684
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9%20Manuel%20Moreno
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José Manuel Moreno
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José Manuel Moreno Fernández (3 August 1916 – 26 August 1978), nicknamed "El Charro", was an Argentine footballer who played as an inside forward for several clubs in Argentina, Mexico, Chile, and Colombia; for many who saw him play, he is regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, even among Diego Maradona, Pelé and Alfredo Di Stéfano, and was the first footballer ever to have won first division league titles in four countries (later players to emulate the feat include Jiri Jarosik, Rivaldo, George Weah and Zlatan Ibrahimović).
Moreno was part of the River Plate team known as La Máquina ("The Machine") which dominated Argentine football in the 1940s, and was also a member of the Argentina national team that won the South American Championships in 1941 and 1947, being chosen in the latter tournament as the best player of the tournament.
He was regarded by many as a complete player. In 1999, he was ranked as the 5th best South American player in the 20th century (behind Pelé, Maradona, Di Stéfano and Garrincha), and among the 25 best players in the world through a poll by the IFFHS. He was known as a player of great technique, great vision, and lethal in the penalty area. Despite his reputation for drinking, smoking and not going to training, Moreno was also known for his formidable heading ability, scoring 75 with his head, he also had fine physical qualities.
Club career
Moreno was born in the neighbourhood of La Boca, in Buenos Aires, and grew up in the surroundings of the club Boca Juniors' stadium, La Bombonera. At the age of 15, he tried out for the lower divisions of Boca Juniors, but did not make the selection. According to the Argentine Football Association archives, he said, frustrated: "some time you will regret it". Moreno then became part of the lower divisions of River Plate, Boca Junior's arch-rival, in 1933, having been recommended by Bernabé Ferreyra, a notable forward for River Plate.
River Plate (1935–1944)
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2134684
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9%20Manuel%20Moreno
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José Manuel Moreno
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Colombia
Moreno moved to Colombia in 1954, joining Independiente Medellín, where he would end his playing career. He was both a player and a manager for the club. He won the Colombian championship in 1955, becoming the only footballer to have won league titles in four countries' leagues, doing so in Argentina, Mexico, Chile, and Colombia. In 1957, he won his last – and 12th overall – first division title. He retired with Independiente Medellín in a friendly match against Boca Juniors in 1961, a match during which he participated both as coach and player. Independiente won the match 5–2, and Moreno scored one goal.
International career
Moreno was a member of the Argentina national team from 1936 to 1950, earning 34 caps and scoring 19 goals. Moreno was part of the winning squads at the South American Championships (now Copa América) of 1941, 1942 and 1947. He scored the tournament's milestone goal number 500 in an atypical match against Ecuador: he scored five goals in that match, a Copa América record which he shares with Héctor Scarone (Uruguay), Juan Marvezzi (Argentina) and Evaristo (Brazil). That day, Argentina beat Ecuador 12–0, which is also the largest goal difference in a single Copa América match.
Moreno was the top goalscorer of the 1942 South American Championship with seven goals, along with Herminio Masantonio, and was chosen best player of the 1947 edition. He is also tied for third place among the Copa América's all-time top scorers, with 13 overall goals.
Managerial career
Moreno had a brief spell as manager of Argentina in 1959. He also worked as the manager of Boca Juniors, Huracán and All Boys in Argentina and Colo-Colo in Chile.
Honours
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2134692
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitre%20Peak
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Mitre Peak
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Mitre Peak () is a mountain in the South Island of New Zealand; it is located on the shore of Milford Sound.
Etymology
The mountain was named by Captain John Lort Stokes of HMS Acheron, who found its shape reminiscent of the mitre headwear of Christian bishops. The Māori name for the peak is Rahotu.
Geography
Mitre Peak is close to the shore of Milford Sound, in the Fiordland National Park in the southwestern South Island. It rises to with almost sheer drops to the water. The peak is actually a closely grouped set of five peaks, although from most easily accessible viewpoints, it appears as a single point. Milford Sound is part of Te Wahipounamu, a World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO. The imposing setting makes the peak a favourite object for painters. A painting by Charles Decimus Barraud is held by the Sarjeant Gallery in Whanganui.
The only road access to Milford Sound is via State Highway 94.
Climbing
Mitre Peak is difficult to reach and as a result ascent attempts are relatively infrequent. The first known attempt of the peak was in 1883 by Invercargill artist Samuel Mereton, and Donald Sutherland. The pair took a boat to Sinbad Bay on 6 February and camped at the head of the valley. The next day, with little equipment, no coats and one biscuit each they climbed to the crest of the Mitre Range, from where they could see Mitre Peak over 3 km away to the east. With it being too late in the day to descend, they slept where they were overnight, before the next day abandoning the attempt to avoid an approaching storm. After a difficult descent they waited for two more days in bad weather at the head of Sinbad Gully before rowing back across Milford Sound to the hotel operated by Sunderland's wife.
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2134692
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitre%20Peak
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Mitre Peak
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In 1911, Jim Dennistoun walked in to Milford Sound from Lake Te Anau over McKinnon Pass, and inquired among the track porters in the hope of finding someone to climb the peak with him. None of the porters had any climbing experience, but one of them, Joe Beaglehole (1875–1962), had read Scrambles among the Alps by noted climber Edward Whymper and was thus chosen by Dennistoun to accompany him.
During a sea voyage in the area with brother George in HMS Pioneer in 1909, Dennistoun had identified what he thought was a possible route but as he was not able to reconnoitre it he instead decided to take a route recommended by Donald Sutherland. After rowing across in a boat to the mouth of Sinbad Gully at the base of the peak they starting climbing at 07:30 on 13 March 1911. Dennistoun and Beaglehole climbed via the south east-ridge through the bush until 300 metres short of the summit Beaglehole decided it was too difficult to continue and stopped. Dennistoun continued on alone up steep, smooth slabs of granite, to reach the summit at 13:15.
Descending back down Dennistoun rejoined Beaglehole and they continued with the descent. To avoid climbing back over the Footstool, they decided to descend straight into Sinbad Gully, which meant they had to resort to using a rope to lower themselves down bluffs. They reached the valley floor in darkness, and it began to rain. With no camping equipment, they had no choice but to continue on until they reached the boat at 21:45. They then rowed back across to spend the night at the hotel operated by Elizabeth Sunderland.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corsican%20immigration%20to%20Puerto%20Rico
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Corsican immigration to Puerto Rico
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Corsican immigration to Puerto Rico resulted in the 19th century from widespread economic and political changes in Europe that made life difficult for the peasant and agricultural classes in Corsica and other territories. The Second Industrial Revolution drew more people into urban areas for work, widespread crop failure resulted from long periods of drought, and crop diseases, and political discontent rose. In the early nineteenth century, Spain lost most of its possessions in the so-called "New World" as its colonies won independence. It feared rebellion in its last two Caribbean colonies: Puerto Rico and Cuba. The Spanish Crown had issued the Royal Decree of Graces of 1815 (Real Cédula de Gracias) which fostered and encouraged the immigration of European Catholics, even if not of Spanish origin, to its Caribbean colonies.
Hundreds of families emigrated from Corsica to Puerto Rico. Corsicans and those of Corsican descent played an instrumental role in the development of the economy of the island, especially in the coffee industry.
First documented Corsican immigrants
Juan Fantauzzi was the first documented Corsican to immigrate to Puerto Rico. He was born about 1734 in Morsiglia, Corsica. He immigrated to what is now Aguadilla in the 1760s, where he married Josefa Martínez. Two known children of theirs are Francisco and Juan María Fantauzzi. He died November 5, 1798. His death certificate confirms his Corsican origin.
Antonio Silvestri was a Corsican who immigrated to Puerto Rico and settled in Cabo Rojo in 1762. He married Maria Francisca de Rivera in that town sometime in the 1770s and had a total of 16 children. He died in Cabo Rojo on May 18, 1820, at the age of 74.
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2134693
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corsican%20immigration%20to%20Puerto%20Rico
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Corsican immigration to Puerto Rico
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Influence in the Coffee Industry
Hundreds of Corsicans and their families immigrated to Puerto Rico from as early as 1830, and their numbers peaked in the early 1900s. The first Spanish settlers had settled and owned the land in the coastal areas, as they wanted access to the sea. The Corsicans tended to settle the mountainous southwestern region of the island, primarily in the towns of Adjuntas, Lares, Utuado, Ponce, Coamo, Yauco, Guayanilla, and Guánica. Yauco, with a rich agricultural area, attracted the majority of the Corsican settlers. The three main commodity crops in Yauco were coffee, sugar cane and tobacco.
The new settlers dedicated themselves to the cultivation of these crops and within a short period of time some began to save enough money to own and operate their own grocery stores. Coffee was the means by which some made their fortunes. Cultivation of coffee in Yauco originally began in the Rancheras and Diego Hernández sectors, and later extended to the Aguas Blancas, Frailes and Rubias sectors. By the 1860s the Corsican settlers were the leaders of the coffee industry in Puerto Rico: seven out of ten coffee plantations were owned by Corsicans.
The Mariani family of Yauco used two tactics to strengthen their position in the coffee industry. First, they converted a cotton gin in order to use it for mechanical dehusking of coffee cherries, a labor-intensive process. Second, they sent two of their family as representatives to visit the important European coffee buying centers and establish connections. The visit to Europe was a success and Mariania led Puerto Rico to become an important member of the worldwide coffee industry.
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2134693
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corsican%20immigration%20to%20Puerto%20Rico
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Corsican immigration to Puerto Rico
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The descendants of the Corsican settlers also became influential in the fields of education, literature, journalism and politics. Historian Colonel Héctor A. Negroni, (USAF-Retired), researched the Corsican-Puerto Rican connection and has documented substantial information about Puerto Rico's ties with Corsica. Today the town of Yauco is known as both the "Corsican Town" and "The Coffee Town". A memorial was installed in Yauco with the inscription, "To the memory of our citizens of Corsican origin, France, who in the 19th Century became rooted in our village, who have enriched our culture with their traditions and helped our progress with their dedicated work – the municipality of Yauco pays them homage." Corsican surnames such as Paoli, Negroni and Fraticelli are common in the island.
Influence in the Sugar Industry
During the 19th century, many Corsican migrants started or purchased sugar mills throughout the island. One example includes mills operated in Aguadilla and Aguada by the Santoni family. Carlos Sixto Santoni Alers operated the Central Coloso mill which was purchased from his father in 1862. Many of these mills changed hands between the Corsican-Puerto Rican community, and evident through decisions by the Puerto Rican Supreme Court.
The Spanish-American war allowed the sugar industry to thrive after American intervention since the industry was competing and losing to Cuba and Brazil. Despite investment by American sugar companies, the sugar industry would eventually see challenges. The sugar industry saw challenges brought on by the Jones-Costigan Act. The Act was a protectionist legislation that restricted Puerto Rican exporting of sugar to allow sugar companies in the mainland United States to compete.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corsican%20immigration%20to%20Puerto%20Rico
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Corsican immigration to Puerto Rico
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Corsican influence in Puerto Rican and popular culture
Besides having distinguished careers in agriculture and the military, Puerto Ricans of Corsican descent have made many other contributions to the Puerto Rican way of life. Their contributions can be found in, but are not limited to, the fields of education, commerce, politics and entertainment. The Vivoni family has four notable members: Carlos Vivoni, the former Secretary of Economic Development and Commerce and, as well, former Secretary of Housing, Pedro Santos Vivoni, the first mayor of Lajas, Pierre Vivoni, a Judge and former Police Commissioner, and José Antonio Vivoni Ramírez de Arellano, the former mayor of San Germán.
Other Puerto Ricans of Corsican descent who have led notable political careers were Ernesto Ramos Antonini, who was the first President of the House of Representatives of Puerto Rico and co-founder of the Partido Popular Democrático de Puerto Rico (Popular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico), Jaime Fuster Berlingeri, an associate justice of the Puerto Rico Supreme Court and former Resident Commissioner, Jorge Farinacci, the head of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, and Jorge Santini, the former mayor of San Juan.
One of the first Puerto Rican entertainers to achieve world-wide fame was Antonio Paoli Marcano, an opera singer known as "The King of Tenors" and as "The Tenor of Kings." He was the first operatic artist to record an entire opera when he participated in a performance of Pagliacci by Ruggiero Leoncavallo in Italy in 1907. The Palmieri brothers, Charlie and Eddie Palmieri, were band leaders in the United States. Rock N Roll Hall of Famer Joe Negroni was a member of the rock and roll group The Teenagers. Both Américo Boschetti and Vicente Carattini were singers and composers. Carattini composed Puerto Rican Christmas-related songs. Carmen Delia Dipiní was also a notable singer of boleros.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaf%20curl
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Leaf curl
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Peach leaf curl is a plant disease characterized by distortion and coloration of leaves and is caused by the fungus Taphrina deformans, which infects peach, nectarine, and almond trees. T. deformans is found in the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Peach leaf curl reduces the amount of leaves and fruit produced by peach and nectarine trees.
Affected species
Peach leaf curl mainly affects peach, nectarine, and almond trees. Apricots are generally immune to peach leaf curl (instead, the major apricot diseases are blossom wilt and branch dieback caused by Monilinia fructicola in the spring and Eutypa lata in the summer). However, in an isolated case in Hungary in 2011, peach leaf curl was also identified in apricot trees.
Symptoms
Peach leaf curl is a distinctive and easily noticeable fungal disease, and the severity of the symptoms depends on how early infection has occurred. Diseased leaves can usually be identified soon after they emerge from the bud, due to their red color and twisted shape. As the leaves develop, they become increasingly distorted, and ultimately thick and rubbery compared to normal leaves. The color of the leaves changes from the normal green to red and purple, until a whitish bloom covers each leaf. Finally, the dead leaf may dry and turn black before it is cast off. Changes in the bark are less noticeable, if at all. Fruit may fail to develop from diseased blossoms. Any fruit that does develop from a diseased tree is usually normal, but sometimes may also be affected, showing a reddish color. Infected leaves fall early. The tree usually produces a second flush of leaves that is rarely diseased, except in an unseasonably cool and wet spring, because the fungus is not infectious at the normally higher temperatures in late spring and early summer.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight%20Deer%20Jaguar%20Claw
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Eight Deer Jaguar Claw
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Eight Deer Jaguar Claw (), or Eight Deer for brevity, was a powerful Mixtec ruler in 11th-century Oaxaca referred to in the 15th-century deerskin manuscript Codex Zouche-Nuttall, and other Mixtec manuscripts. His surname is alternatively translated Tiger-Claw and Ocelot-Claw. John Pohl has dated his life spanning from 1063 until his assassination in 1115.
Biography
Born on the Mixtec Calendar date from which he got his name, Eight Deer was the son of the high priest of Tilantongo Lord Five Alligator Sun Rain. His mother was Lady Eleven Water Bird Jewel. Two of his brothers, Twelve Earthquake Bloody Jaguar and Nine Flower Copal Ball with Arrow, were his faithful war companions.
He also had a half-sister, Six Lizard Jade Fan. First the fiancée and lover of Eight Deer himself, she was ultimately married to Eight Deer's archenemy Eleven Wind Bloody Jaguar, the king of the city Xipe's Bundle, also known as Red and White Bundle. The lords of Xipe's Bundle had rights to the throne of Tilantongo and were therefore the most important rivals to Eight Deer's power.
Lord Eight Deer is remembered for his military expansion. The Codex Zouche-Nuttall counts 94 cities conquered during his reign. Almost always pictured wearing a jaguar helmet, he supported the powerful Toltec ruler of Cholula, Lord Four Jaguar Face of the Night, in his attempts at expansionism, and was thus awarded a turquoise nose ornament, a symbol of Toltec royal authority.
The codices also tell of his several marriages which seem to have been part of a political strategy to achieve dominance by marrying into different Mixtec royal lineages. He married Thirteen Serpent, daughter of his own stepsister and former fiancée Six Lizard.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight%20Deer%20Jaguar%20Claw
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Eight Deer Jaguar Claw
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In 1101 Eight Deer conquered Xipe's Bundle and killed his wife's father and his stepsister's husband Eleven Wind. He also tortured and killed his brothers-in-law, sparing only the youngest, Four Wind. Eight Deer's own death is described differently by modern authors. Charles C. Mann's book 1491 states that when Eight Deer was 55 years of age, Four Wind led an alliance between different Toltec and Zapotec kingdoms against Eight Deer, who was taken prisoner and sacrificed by Four Wind, his own nephew and brother-in-law. Pohl instead states that Four Wind was trusted by Eight Deer and raised as his own child, until at the age of 23 he had Eight Deer assassinated during a hunting trip.
Legacy
Eight Deer was the only Mixtec king to unite kingdoms of the three Mixtec areas: Tilantongo in the Mixteca Alta area, Teozacualco of the Mixteca Baja area, and Tututepec of the coastal Mixteca area.
His reputation as a great ruler has given him a legendary status among the Mixtecs; some aspects of his life story as told in the pictographic codices seem to merge with myth. Furthermore, actual knowledge of his life is hindered by the lack of complete understanding of the Mixtec codices, and although the study of the codices has advanced much over the past 20 years, it is still difficult to achieve a definitive interpretation of their narrative. The narrative, as it is currently understood, is a tragic story of a man who achieves greatness but falls victim to his own hunger for power. The above biography of Eight Deer is based on the codex's interpretation by Mixtec specialist John Pohl.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna%20%C5%BBubr
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Joanna Żubr
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Joanna Żubr (1772 or 1782 – 9 July 1852) was a Polish soldier of the Napoleonic Wars, a veteran of the Polish–Austrian War, and the first woman to receive the Virtuti Militari, the highest Polish military decoration.
After the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars and creation of the Duchy of Warsaw in 1808, Joanna Żubr with her husband, Michał, left Austrian-ruled Volhynia. Both joined the army of the new Duchy, with Joanna initially a camp-follower. Soon she enlisted in the 2nd Infantry Regiment (4th company, 2nd battalion) as a private, hiding that she was a woman from both her superiors and fellow soldiers.
In 1809, Joanna took part in the Galician Campaign, distinguishing herself in the Battle of Zamość on 19 May that year. For her bravery, Prince Józef Poniatowski awarded her the medal of Virtuti Militari; Joanna was the first female soldier to be awarded the decoration and one of the first women in the world to receive a military award for bravery in battle.
After the campaign, she joined the 17th Infantry Regiment in Dąbrowski's Division, under Jan Henryk Dąbrowski. Her husband was an ensign in the same regiment and Joanna Żubr was promoted to sergeant, as the first woman in the Polish Army. Their division, renamed the Greater Polish Division, took part in Napoleon's invasion of Russia and his campaign in present-day Belarus.
During the battles and Napoleon's retreat, she was separated from her division, but she managed to escape from Russia on her own. In the summer of 1813, weeks after Prince Józef Poniatowski's forces had abandoned Kraków, she reached Polish units in Saxony and served with distinction until the signing of the Treaty of Fontainebleau and the end of the war.
Joanna and her husband returned to Poland. Because she could return to neither Austrian-occupied nor Russian-held parts of Poland, they settled at Wieluń. She died there during a cholera epidemic in 1852, at the age of about eighty.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crater%20Lake%E2%80%93Klamath%20Regional%20Airport
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Crater Lake–Klamath Regional Airport
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Crater Lake–Klamath Regional Airport (Klamath Falls Airport) is a public use airport in Klamath County, Oregon, United States, five miles southeast of Klamath Falls, which owns it. It is used by general aviation, military aviation and a few airline flights. In 2013, the name of the airport was changed to Crater Lake-Klamath Regional Airport.
The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015 categorized it as a primary commercial service airport since it has over 10,000 passenger boardings (enplanements) per year. Federal Aviation Administration records say the airport had 15,856 enplanements in 2011, a decrease from 21,353 in 2010.
As Kingsley Field Air National Guard Base, the airport is the home of the Oregon Air National Guard's 173d Fighter Wing (173 FW) flying the F-15 Eagle. An Air Education and Training Command (AETC)-gained unit, the 173 FW specializes as an advanced air-to-air combat training center for Regular Air Force and Air National Guard F-15 pilots, as well as hosting joint and combined air combat exercises for all US military services and those of Canada. Kingsley Field is home to a USAF flight surgeon training school. The 173d Fighter Wing is currently under the command of Colonel Jeff Smith.
History
In 1928, the citizens of Klamath Falls approved the sale of $50,000 worth of bonds to build Klamath Falls Municipal Airport. It had gravel runways and one Fixed-Base Operator; in 1942, it was selected for a Naval Air Station later named NAS Klamath Falls. In 1945, the airport was transferred back to civil use; the January 1952 C&GS diagram shows runway 7 (5258 ft long), 14 (7134 ft) and 18 (5164 ft).
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crater%20Lake%E2%80%93Klamath%20Regional%20Airport
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Crater Lake–Klamath Regional Airport
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In 1954, the airport was selected as a U.S. Air Force Air Defense Command base, becoming a joint-use civil-military location. The 408th Fighter Group arrived to supervise these activities, authorized Mighty Mouse rocket and airborne intercept radar equipped North American F-86 Sabres. But for some years the assigned 518th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron was not made operational, remaining inactive.
In 1957 the airport was dedicated as Kingsley Field in honor of 2nd Lieutenant David R. Kingsley, USAAF, an Oregonian killed in action on June 23, 1944, after a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombing mission over the oil fields of Ploiesti, Roumania. The 827th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron (later 827th Radar Squadron) was activated at Kingsley Field the same year. While the administrative and support sections of the squadron were located on the airfield, the squadrons operational element and radars were located nearby at what was named Keno Air Force Station in February 1959.
The 408th Fighter Group was reassigned to the 25th Air Division on 1 March 1959; to the Portland Air Defense Sector on 15 April 1960; to the 26th Air Division on 1 April 1966; and the 25th Air Division on 15 September 1969. The group was inactivated on 1 October 1970.
Fighter-interceptor squadrons which operated from Kingsley Field were:
322d Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, 1 April 1959 – 30 September 1968 (F-101B Voodoo)
59th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, 30 September 1968 – 17 December 1969 (F-101B/F Voodoo])
460th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, 1 December 1969 – 16 April 1971 (F-106A/B Delta Dart)
In 1976, ADC was inactivated and control passed to Tactical Air Command (TAC). In 1978, the Department of Defense transferred the facilities from the active duty Air Force to the Oregon Air National Guard.
The now-827th Radar Squadron was inactivated on 1 October 1979.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studd%20brothers
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Studd brothers
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The match was low scoring and had been affected by recent rain. Australia batted first and scored 63; England only managed 101 in reply. In their second innings the Australians scored 122, so on the second day, England needed only 85 to win. When England's last batsman went in the team needed only 10 runs to win, but the final batsman Edmund Peate scored only 2 before being bowled by Boyle. The astonished crowd fell silent, not believing that England could possibly have lost by 7 runs. When what had happened had sunk in, the crowd cheered the Australians.
When Peate returned to the pavilion he was reprimanded by the captain WG Grace for not allowing his partner at the wicket, CT Studd, to get the runs. Despite Studd being one of the best batsmen in England, Peate replied, "I had no confidence in Mr Studd, sir, so thought I had better do my best." By now the damage was done and The Sporting Times next headlined with the following famous phrase:
Longer-lasting fame continues for the brothers in the form of the inscription on the Ashes' urn, which reads:
Studd family
Articles relating to the famous three brothers:
Kynaston Studd
George Studd
The minor brothers
Four more Studd brothers were competent cricketers, and all played for MCC, but did not rise to the fame of their siblings:
Edward John Charles Studd
Born 13 February 1849, Tirhoot, India
Died 1 March 1909, Folkestone, Kent, England
Cricket teams: Eton, Cheltenham (1866), MCC
Reginald Augustus Studd
Born 18 December 1873, Tedworth House, Wiltshire
Died 3 February 1948, Northampton
Cricket teams: Eton, Blue at Cambridge in 1895, Hampshire, MCC
Arthur Haythorne Studd, known as a painter and art collector
Born 19 November 1863, Hallaton Hall, Hallaton, Leicestershire
Died 26 January 1919, Marylebone, London
Cricket teams: Eton, MCC
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet%20S-10%20EV
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Chevrolet S-10 EV
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The Chevrolet S-10 Electric was an American electric-powered vehicle built by Chevrolet. It was introduced in 1997, becoming the world's first electric pickup truck from the original manufacturer, updated in 1998, and then discontinued. It was an OEM BEV variant of Chevrolet's S-10 pickup truck. The S-10 Electric was solely powered by electricity (batteries) and was marketed primarily to utility fleet customers.
Design
General Motors started with a regular-cab, short-box ( bed) S-10 pickup, with a base-level trim package plus a half-tonneau cover.
In place of a typical inline four cylinder or V-6 internal combustion engine, the Electric S-10 EV was equipped with an three-phase, liquid-cooled AC induction motor, based on GM's EV1 electric coupe. The EV1 had a 100kW motor; GM reduced the S-10EV's motor output because of the additional weight and drag of the truck so as not to overstress the batteries.
Because the S10 EV shared its major powertrain components with the GM EV1, it used a front wheel drive configuration, as opposed to the rear wheel drive (two-wheel-drive) configuration of the gasoline-powered S10. Its closest competitor, the electric Ford Ranger EV was also rear wheel drive.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kynaston%20Studd
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Kynaston Studd
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After leaving Cambridge, where he was a member of the Pitt Club, Kynaston played occasionally for Middlesex, but spent most of his time on business and at the Royal Polytechnic Institute where he was president from 1903 until his death. He was awarded the OBE in the 1919 New Year Honours.
After serving as Sheriff of London for 1922–23, he was knighted in 1923 and became Lord Mayor of London for 1928–29. He was created Baronet at the end of his official year. While President of MCC in September 1930 he gave a banquet at Merchant Taylors' Hall to the Australian team captained by W. M. Woodfull.
His great-nephew Sir Peter Malden Studd was also Lord Mayor of London, from 1970 to 1972.
Legacy
Canon F. H. Gillingham, the former Dulwich College and Essex batsman, in his address at the Studd's memorial service in St. Paul's Cathedral said that after coming down from Cambridge, Kynaston realised that games were only a preparation for sterner duties, and in his presence it was easier for men to be good and harder to be bad. "Everything he touched he lifted up."
The Studd Trophy for athletic achievement at the Royal Polytechnic Institution is named for him.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reideen%20the%20Brave
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Reideen the Brave
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International release
Brave Raideen is considered the first super robot anime to reach a large U.S. audience directly. It was first broadcast in Honolulu, Hawaii on KIKU TV-13, which ran the series with English subtitles created and produced in-house. The series first hit the mainland in March 1976, Friday nights at 6:00 P.M. on Los Angeles's KWHY TV-22 and at 8:00 P.M. on San Francisco's KEMO TV-20. Later in 1976, Brave Raideen began running on KMUV TV-31 in Sacramento, California (Sunday nights; timeslot to be confirmed), as part of the station's Japanese-American programming. The series also aired similarly in Chicago (station and dates to be confirmed), as well as broadcast as part of the Japanese programming on New York City's WNJU TV-47. The Stateside push was sponsored by Honolulu/Los Angeles-based Marukai Trading Co., Ltd., who distributed a large line of Japanese-produced merchandise (as well as some Hawaii-produced items, such as tee-shirts) to local retailers in localities airing Brave Raideen—including Popy's Jumbo Machinder (which may account for Mattel's launching of the popular Shogun Warriors line in the U.S.), according to author August Ragone.
Merchandise
The original toy figures of Reideen (spelled "Raydeen") were introduced to the mainstream U.S. market as part of the Shogun Warriors toyline during the late 1970s under the Mattel brand, as well as the Marvel Comics book based on said toyline.
Cultural impact
In December 1994 police found a pamphlet at the headquarters of Aum Shinrikyo that included a song called "Sarin the Brave", a parody of Reideen The Brave.
The Tubes recorded a song based on the show called "God-Bird-Change" written by Mingo Lewis in 1977. The stage show included dancers and the lead singer dressed as Reideen.
The anime series Crayon Shin-Chan parodied the series' theme song for its sixth opening theme.
Dan Briggs discussed the series, and provided illustrations, in Bradford G. Boyle's fanzine Japanese Giants, issue four.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles%20Studd
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Charles Studd
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Charles Thomas Studd, often known as C. T. Studd (2 December 1860 – 16 July 1931), was a British missionary, a contributor to The Fundamentals, and a cricketer.
As a British Anglican Christian missionary to China he was part of the Cambridge Seven, and later was responsible for setting up the Heart of Africa Mission which became the Worldwide Evangelisation Crusade (now WEC International). As a cricketer, he played for England in the 1882 match won by Australia, which was the origins of The Ashes.
A poem he wrote, "Only One Life, 'Twill Soon Be Past", has become famous to many who are unaware of its author.
Faith
Studd was a son of retired merchant Edward Studd. Edward became a Christian during a Moody and Sankey campaign in England, and a visiting preacher to the Studd home, Tedworth House in Wiltshire, converted C.T. and two of his brothers to the faith while they were students at Eton. According to his conversion narrative, the preacher asked him if he believed God's promises to give believers eternal life, and as Charles would only go so far as to profess he believed Jesus Christ died, the guest pressed the point, and Charles then believed on the Lord Jesus for salvation. Charles later recalled the moment:
"I got down on my knees and I did say 'thank you' to God. And right then and there joy and peace came into my soul. I knew then what it was to be 'born again,' and the Bible which had been so dry to me before, became everything."
Studd continued from Eton to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1883. In 1884 after his brother George was taken seriously ill Charles was confronted by the question, "What is all the fame and flattery worth ... when a man comes to face eternity?" He had to admit that since his conversion six years earlier he had been in "an unhappy backslidden state". As a result of the experience he said, "I know that cricket would not last, and honour would not last, and nothing in this world would last, but it was worthwhile living for the world to come."
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles%20Studd
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Charles Studd
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Studd emphasised the life of faith, believing that God would provide for a Christian's needs. His father died while he was in China, and he gave away his inheritance of £29,000, specifying £5,000 to be used for the Moody Bible Institute, £5,000 for George Müller mission work and his orphans, £5,000 for George Holland's work with England's poor in Whitechapel, and £5,000 to Commissioner Booth Tucker for the Salvation Army in India. For the rest of his life, he lived as a ‘faith missionary’, with no fundraising.
Studd believed that God's purposes could be confirmed through providential coincidences, such as a sum of money being donated spontaneously at just the right moment. He encouraged Christians to take risks in planning missionary ventures, trusting in God to provide. His spirituality was intense, and he mostly read only the Bible. Another work that influenced him was Hannah Whitall Smith's The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life. Although he believed that God sometimes healed physical illnesses through prayer and the anointing of oil, he also accepted that some ailments were chronic.
Studd also believed in plain speaking and muscular Christianity, and his call for Christians to embrace a "Don't Care a Damn" (DCD) attitude to worldly things caused some scandal. He believed that missionary work was urgent, and that those who were unevangelised would be condemned to hell.
Cricketing career
Studd gained fame as a cricketer representing England's Cambridge University, Gentlemen of India and Middlesex. Charles was the youngest and best known of the three Studd brothers who played for Eton, Cambridge University and Middlesex. By the time he was sixteen he had started to excel at cricket and at nineteen was captain of his team at Eton College; after school he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was also recognised as an outstanding cricketer.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John%20Aristotle%20Phillips
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John Aristotle Phillips
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John Aristotle Phillips (born August 23, 1955) is a U.S. entrepreneur specializing in political campaigns, who became famous for attempting to design a nuclear weapon while a student, leading to him being dubbed The A-Bomb Kid by the media.
"A-Bomb Kid"
Phillips was born in August 1955 to Greek immigrant parents and raised in North Haven, Connecticut.
Phillips attended Princeton University as an undergraduate. He was a major in physics, and played the tiger mascot at sports events.
While an undergraduate physics major at Princeton University, he attended a seminar on arms control in which he read John McPhee's The Curve of Binding Energy (1974), which profiled the nuclear weapon designer Ted Taylor. In the book, Taylor argues that there was no real barrier to the development of crude nuclear weapons, even for terrorists, other than the possession of fissile material like enriched uranium or separated plutonium. Any "secrets" that had existed had long been declassified. Taylor's argument was made in the service of urging for stronger fissile material controls in the United States and abroad.
For his junior-year independent research project for his physics degree, Phillips decided that he wanted to try and prove Taylor's thesis correct, in the sense that anyone could design a plausible nuclear weapon based on information in the public domain. As he later wrote:
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John%20Aristotle%20Phillips
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John Aristotle Phillips
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The physicist Freeman Dyson agreed to be his advisor of the paper, but told Phillips that he would give him no classified information. Ultimately he relied upon first-principles derivations of the physics of nuclear weapons, information obtained from declassified books and reports (including the Los Alamos Primer), and information obtained from making phone calls to contractors and chemical companies under false pretenses, in order to work out the specifications for a crude plutonium implosion-type nuclear weapon and the mathematics required to show it was plausible. The final paper, "The Fundamentals of Atomic Bomb Design: An Assessment of the Problems and Possibilities Confronting a Terrorist Group or Non-Nuclear National Attempting to Design a Crude Pu239 Fission Bomb," was turned in by Phillips in May 1976. Dyson gave it an "A". He also removed it from circulation. Contrary to many hyperbolic stories of this event, the paper was never seized by the US government or the FBI.
Whether the bomb design would have worked, in the sense of achieving the yield Phillips estimated it to have if it were actually constructed, is unknown, as predicting the performance of crude bomb designs is not straightforward. As Dyson later put it:
Another student in the course told a reporter at the Trenton Times about Phillips paper. Phillips was advised by Taylor, who now worked at Princeton, that going "public" with his story might help avert the sale of a nuclear reactor to Pakistan from France, which Taylor thought would be a good idea given the proliferation potential of such a sale. Phillips agreed to be the subject of the story. The story ended up being syndicated and re-written by national newspapers, including the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. In many of these stories, the original intent of Phillips — to show that there were really no "nuclear secrets" — was overlooked. Instead, they focused on how Phillips had acquired the "secrets", and some even implied that he had built, and not just designed, a weapon.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John%20Aristotle%20Phillips
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John Aristotle Phillips
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Several months after the story first went public, in February 1977, Phillips was contacted by someone from the Pakistani embassy trying to purchase his bomb design. Phillips went to the FBI. The incident was addressed on the Senate floor by William Proxmire and Charles Percy.
Phillips had become a minor celebrity by this time, dubbed "The A-Bomb Kid" by the media, and making a series of television appearances including a featured spot on the game show To Tell the Truth.
In 1979, Phillips published his story together with a co-author, David Michaelis, as Mushroom: The True Story of the A-Bomb Kid ( / ).
Political activity
Phillips parlayed his celebrity status into a brief career as an anti-nuclear activist. In 1980 and 1982, he ran for the United States House of Representatives as a Democratic Party candidate in Connecticut's 4th congressional district, losing both times to Republican Stewart McKinney.
Aristotle, Inc.
The experience he had gained during his campaigns obtaining the voter list from the state and using it for campaign purposes led him and his brother Dean (who had written a program to handle the list on an Apple II) to found Aristotle, Inc. in 1983, a non-partisan technology consulting firm for political campaigns which John Philips has since led as the CEO. It specializes in combining voter lists with personal data from other sources (such as income, gun ownership or church attendance) and data-mining, to assist with micro-targeting of specific voter groups; as of 2007, its database contained detailed information about ca. 175 million U.S. voters and it had about 100 employees.
Aristotle has served every occupant of the White House since Ronald Reagan, and consults for several top political action committees.
In 1998 he spoke of the critical importance to a political campaign of targeting its advertising, including on the World Wide Web. In 2009 he observed that 8.9% of registered voters in the United States are ineligible to vote because they have moved away or died.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St.%20George%20Municipal%20Airport
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St. George Municipal Airport
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St. George Municipal Airport was a public airport in St. George, serving southern Utah, until 13 January 2011. It was used for general aviation and by St. George-based SkyWest Airlines on behalf of Delta Air Lines and United Airlines. SkyWest has served St. George since its founding in 1972. SkyWest, which is now one of the largest regional airlines in the world, continues to be based in St. George.
Replacement airport
The prospect of a new airport for the region had been around for many years. The old St. George Municipal Airport, located on top of a mesa, was land-locked and had no room for expansion. The runway and terminal were too small for larger aircraft. With the rapid growth of the area and tourism increasing, a new airport became essential.
The new St. George Regional Airport () was built about 6 miles southeast of downtown at the site of an abandoned airfield, which had not seen air traffic since 1961 and most recently has been used for vehicle drag racing and radio controlled aircraft.
An Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was completed in August 2006. The study concluded the impact on the environment and noise pollution would be minimal. Plans for the new airport include a single runway usable by regional jets and larger airliners. It is initially 9,300 by 150 feet, with plans for the runway to be extended to 11,500 ft. The new airport includes a precision instrument approach, which the old airport did not have.
The new airport has been partially funded by grants from the Federal Aviation Administration totaling US$24.2 million. The project was expected to cost between $170 million and $190 million. The city broke ground on the new site in October 2008, and the new airport opened on January 13, 2011.
Facilities
The facility included a terminal. It had one asphalt runway, 16/34, 6,606 feet (2,014 m) long.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George%20Studd
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George Studd
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George Brown Studd (20 October 1859 – 13 February 1945) was an English cricketer and missionary.
Studd was the second eldest of the famous Studd brothers, who dominated English cricket in the late 19th century. He played in four Tests with the English cricket team, and played first-class cricket for Cambridge University and Middlesex County Cricket Club.
Studd was born at Netheravon House, near Amesbury, Wiltshire, England. He won his cricket Colours for Eton in 1877 when he scored 32 and 23 against Harrow and 54 against Winchester. He went up to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1878, where he won his Blue as a freshman and played in the university match, against Oxford, four times. He made 38 and 40 against Oxford in 1880, and he and two of his brothers, Kynaston and Charles, were together in the Cambridge team in 1881 and 1882. George was captain of Cambridge in 1882, when he scored 120, which at the time was only the seventh three-figure score and the second highest in University matches. While primarily a cricketer, George also played against Oxford in singles and doubles tennis during his last two years as an undergraduate at Cambridge.
In 1882, he made 819 runs in first-class matches and then scored 289 while playing for the Cambridge Long Vacation Club. George and his brother Charles toured Australia in 1882/3 with the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) captained by the Honourable Ivo Bligh. The team won back the Ashes, but George disappointed in the four Tests in which he played, scoring only 31 runs in 7 innings.
George was called to the Bar, but never practised. Like his brother Charles, he became a missionary, initially with the Peniel Mission of Theodore and Manie Payne Ferguson, before joining the Apostolic Faith mission in September 1907. From 1891 until his death, he lived and worked in a notorious and squalid area of Southern Los Angeles in California.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teppe%20Hasanlu
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Teppe Hasanlu
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Teppe Hasanlu or Hasanlu Tepe () is an archeological site of an ancient city located in northwest Iran (in the province of West Azerbaijan), a short distance south of Lake Urmia. The nature of its destruction at the end of the 9th century BC essentially froze one layer of the city in time, providing researchers with extremely well preserved buildings, artifacts, and skeletal remains from the victims and enemy combatants of the attack. The site was likely associated with the Mannaeans.
Hasanlu Tepe is the largest site in the Gadar River valley and dominates the small plain known as Solduz. The site consists of a 25-m-high central "citadel" mound, with massive fortifications and paved streets, surrounded by a low outer town, 8 m above the surrounding plain. The entire site, once much larger but reduced in size by local agricultural and building activities, now measures about 600 m across, with the citadel having a diameter of about 200 m.
The site was inhabited fairly continuously from the 6th millennium BC to the 3rd century AD. It is famous for the Golden bowl of Hasanlu. Since June 2018, the Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization has pushed for the entire archeological site to be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Name and etymology
The site is named after the nearby village of Hasanlū (). Tepe (, also Romanized teppe, tappeh, etc.) is the Persian word for tell or hill, borrowed from Old Turkic töpü ().
Archaeology
After some licensed commercial digging by dealers, the site was first dug by Aurel Stein in 1936. Excavations were conducted by the Iranian Archaeological Service in 1947 and 1949 though it appears nothing was published. The site of Hasanlu was then excavated in 10 seasons between 1956 and 1974 by a team from the University Museum, University of Pennsylvania and the Metropolitan Museum. The project was directed by Robert H. Dyson Jr. and is considered today to have been an important training ground for a generation of highly successful Near Eastern archaeologists.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teppe%20Hasanlu
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Teppe Hasanlu
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Originally, excavations in the Ushnu-Solduz Valley were intended to explore a series of stratified occupation levels in the area with the objective of reconstructing a regional cultural history from Neolithic times until Alexander the Great's conquest of Persia beginning in 334 BC, such that any conclusions would rely solely on material evidence from the region itself, independent of linguistic or literary evidence from adjoining regions. The unexpected discovery of the famous "Gold Bowl" at Hasanlu in 1958 led to the project shifting its focus to the Iron Age levels at this site, although several other sites in the region were also excavated in order to stay in line with the project's broader objective. A silver cup was found at the same time. These other excavations were conducted at Dinkha Tepe, Dalma Tepe, Hajji Firuz Tepe, Agrab Tepe, Pisdeli, and Seh Girdan.
The Hasanlu Publications Project was initiated in 2007 to produce the official monograph-length final reports on the excavation. Currently two Excavation Reports and several Special Studies volumes have been completed.
Dalma Tepe
Dalma Tepe is a small mound located about 5 km southwest of Ḥasanlū Tepe, near the modern village of Dalma, which is a type site of Dalma culture. It is approximately 50 m in diameter. It was excavated by Charles Burney and T. Cuyler Young Jr., in 1958–1961 in three seasons totally less than one month.
Large quantities of handmade, chaff-tempered pottery were found.
'Dalma painted ware' is decorated with large patterns of triangles in deep shades on red.
Similar pottery has been found at Seh Gābī and Godin Tepe, attributed to Period X. Kul Tepe Jolfa is another related site from the same period. It is located north of Lake Urmia.
History
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Teppe Hasanlu
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The excavators originally divided the site’s occupation history into ten periods based on the nature of material finds in the different strata: the oldest, Level X, stretches back to the Neolithic period, after which there was fairly continuous occupation until the early Iron Age (ca 1250–330 BC), followed by a hiatus before subsequent reoccupation; occupation finally ends in Iran’s medieval period (Hasanlu period I).
Middle Bronze Age (Level VI)
Starting in the Middle Bronze III period or Hasanlu VIa (1600–1450 BC), there are important changes in material culture. This is best attested at the site of Dinkha Tepe, but is also present at Hasanlu. The most obvious change is the rapid abandonment of old styles of pottery, especially painted Khabur Ware, and the increased importance in producing monochrome unpainted pottery that is frequently polished or burnished. This ware is known as Monochrome Burnished Ware or, formerly, "Grey Ware"; however the ware occurs in a wide range of colors and thus is something of a misnomer.
Late Bronze Age (Level V)
In the Late Bronze Age or Hasanlu Period V, Monochrome Burnished Ware came to dominate the ceramic assemblages of the Ushnu and Solduz valleys of the southern Lake Urmia Basin. Some scholars link changes in pottery forms to cultural contact with Assyria, this being a period of expansion for the Middle Assyrian kingdom, when such kings as Adad-nirari I (1295–1264 BC), Shalmaneser I (1263–1234 BC), and Tukulti-Ninurta I (1233–1197 BC) were conducting campaigns into the Zagros Mountains to the south. During this time, there was occupation on the High Mound and Low Mound of Hasanlu, and graves have been excavated at Dinkha Tepe and Hasanlu.
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Iron Age (Level IV - III)
At around 1250 BC, there are some changes in the material culture at Hasanlu and in the graves excavated at Dinkha. This marks the beginning of the Iron I period, formerly identified with Hasanlu Period V but now the equivalent of Hasanlu IVc. While this period is designated the Iron I, there is virtually no iron in use during this period — two iron finger rings are known from Hasanlu.
In previous scholarship, it was believed that there was an abrupt change in material culture due to the arrival of iron-using population to the area before the Hasanlu IVc period. But subsequent research by Michael Danti tried to clarify these matters, and currently these theories are no longer accepted.
The High Mound of Hasanlu was almost certainly fortified during this period, and an internal gateway, large residential structures, and possibly a temple were located in this citadel. The Low Mound was also occupied, the best evidence of this coming from a house excavated in 1957 and 1959 dubbed the "Artisan's House". This structure derives its name from the fact that evidence for metalworking, primarily the casting of copper/bronze objects, was found there.
At the end of Hasanlu IVc/Iron I, Hasanlu was destroyed by a fire. Evidence of this destruction was discovered on the High and Low Mound. This destruction dates to around 800 BC, based on radiocarbon dating, and it marks the beginning of the Iron II period. While the destruction was extensive, the settlement's occupants seem to have rebuilt the citadel and the buildings of the Lower Town rapidly, cutting down the mudbrick walls of the burned structures to their stone footings and erecting new brick walls. The buildings of the Iron II settlement were based on their Iron I precursors, but were also larger and more elaborate in their layout and ornamentation. The primary example of this being the monumental columned halls of the citadel.
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The continued presence in significant quantities of Assyrian goods or copies, alongside objects of local manufacture, attest to continued cultural contact with Assyria at this time; iron first appears in bulk at Hansanlu at around the same time Assyria seized control of the metal trade in Asia Minor.
While the Neo-Assyrian Empire was beginning a period of renewed power and influence in the 9th century, it is also at this time that the existence of the kingdom of Urartu, centered around Lake Van, is first attested in the Neo-Assyrian annals and related literature. By the time we hear about it, it is already a fully developed state – the circumstances attending its rise in the 2nd millennium are obscure. Urartu’s expansion during this period brought the area south of Lake Urmia under its influence, although material finds at Hasanlu suggest that the city may have remained independent. Nevertheless, Hansanlu was catastrophically destroyed,
We know a great deal about Iron II/Hasanlu IVb because of the violent sacking and burning at around 800 BC, probably by the Urartians.
Over 285 human victims were found where they had been slain. Some victims were mutilated and distributions of other bodies and the wounds they received suggest mass executions. Amid the burned remains of the settlement the excavators found thousands of objects in situ. Hasanlu IVb is a veritable Pompeii of the early Iron Age Near East. Some have suggested that the Iron II culture of Hasanlu, which has close ties to Mesopotamia and northern Syria, indicates the settlement came under the control of a foreign power, or experienced an influx of new occupants, or perhaps made internal changes to its political system.
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Cordyline fruticosa
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Cordyline fruticosa is an evergreen flowering plant in the family Asparagaceae. The plant is of great cultural importance to the traditional inhabitants of the Pacific Islands and Island Southeast Asia. It is also cultivated for food, traditional medicine, and as an ornamental for its variously colored leaves. It is identified by a wide variety of common names, including ti plant, palm lily, cabbage palm.
Description
It is a palm-like plant growing up to tall with an attractive fan-like and spirally arranged cluster of broadly elongated leaves at the tip of the slender trunk. The leaves range from red to green and variegated forms. It is a woody plant with leaves (rarely ) long and wide at the top of a woody stem. It produces long panicles of small scented yellowish to red flowers that mature into red berries.
Taxonomy
Cordyline fruticosa was formerly listed as part of the families Agavaceae and Laxmanniaceae (now both subfamilies of the Asparagaceae in the APG III system).
Names
The reconstructed Proto-Malayo-Polynesian word for ti plant is *siRi. Cognates include Malagasy síly; Palauan sis; Ere and Kuruti siy; Araki jihi; Arosi diri; Chuukese tii-n; Wuvulu si or ti; Tongan sī; Samoan, Tahitian, and Māori tī; and Hawaiian kī. The names in some languages have also been applied to the botanically unrelated garden crotons (Codiaeum variegatum), which similarly have red or yellow leaves. The cognates of Proto-Western-Malayo-Polynesian *sabaqaŋ, similarly, have been applied to both garden crotons and ti plants.
In the Philippines, they are also known by names derived from the Proto-Austronesian *kilala, "to know", due to its use in divination rituals. Cognates derived from that usage include Tagalog sagilala; and Visayan and Bikol kilála or kilaa, though in Central Visayas, this plant is called ti-as. In New Zealand, the terms for ti were also transferred to the native and closely related cabbage tree (Cordyline australis), as tī kōuka.
Distribution and history
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It has many uses but it is most notable as one of the most important plants related to the indigenous socio-cultural practices of the Pacific and Island Southeast-Asia. In particular, it was propagated throughout the Austronesian linguistic area by humans, not so much for its food value (although some forms are edible) but mainly for socio-cultural reasons. It is widely regarded as having mystical and spiritual importance in various cultures. It is common planted on grave sites, used in magical and ritual practices, including for healing. It is also used as a decorative attire and ornamentation, and as a boundary markers. It is common for the red and green cultivars to be used differently in rituals. Red ti plants commonly symbolize blood, war, and the ties between the living and the dead; while green ti plants commonly symbolize peace and healing. Their ritual uses in Island Southeast Asia have largely been obscured by the introduction of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity, but they still persist in certain areas or are co-opted for the rituals of the new religions.
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Cordyline fruticosa
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In Indonesia, red ti are used similarly as in the Philippines. Among the Dayak, Sundanese, Kayan, Kenyah, Berawan, Iban and Mongondow people, red ti are used as wards against evil spirits and as boundary markers. They are also used in rituals like in healing and funerals and are very commonly planted in sacred groves and around shrines. The Dayak also extract a natural green dye from ti. During healing rituals of the Mentawai people, the life-giving spirit are enticed with songs and offerings to enter ti stems which are then reconciled with the sick person. Among the Sasak people, green ti leaves are used as part of the offerings to spirits by the belian shamans. Among the Baduy people, green ti represent the body, while red ti represent the soul. Both are used in rice planting rituals. They are also planted on burial grounds. Among the Balinese and Karo people, ti plants are planted near village or family shrines in a sacred grove. Among the Toraja people, red ti plants are used in rituals and as decorations of ritual objects. They are believed to occur in both the material and the spirit worlds (a common belief in Austronesian animism). In the spirit world, they exist as fins and tails of spirits. In the material world, they are most useful as guides used to attract the attentions of spirits. The red leaves are also symbolic of blood and thus of life and vitality. Among the Ngaju people, ti plants were symbolic of the sacred groves of ancestors. They were also important in ritual promises dedicated to high gods. They were regarded as symbolic of the masculine "Tree of Life", in a dichotomy against Ficus species which symbolize the feminine "Tree of the Dead".
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In New Guinea, ti are commonly planted to indicate land ownership for cultivation and are also planted around ceremonial men's houses. They are also used in various rituals and are commonly associated with blood and warfare. Among the Tsembaga Maring people, they are believed to house "red spirits" (spirits of men who died in battle). Prior to a highly ritualized (but lethal) warfare over land ownership, they are uprooted and pigs are sacrificed to the spirits. After the hostilities, they are re-planted in the new land boundaries depending on the outcome of the fight. The men involved ritually place their souls into the plants. The ritual warfare have been suppressed by the Papua New Guinea government, but parts of the rituals still survive. Among the Ankave people, red ti is part of their creation myth, believed as having arisen from the site of the first murder. Among the Mendi and Sulka people they are made into dyes used as body paint, and their leaves are used for body adornments and purification rituals. Among the Nikgini people, the leaves have magical abilities to bring good luck and are used in divination and in decorating ritual objects. Among the Kapauku people, ti plants are regarded as magical plants and are believed to be spiritual beings themselves. Unlike other magical plants which are controlled by other spirits, ti plants had their own spirits and are powerful enough to command other spiritual beings. Red plants are used in white magic rituals, while green plants are used in black magic rituals. They are also commonly used in protection and warding rituals. Among the Baktaman people, red plants are used for initiation rites, while green plants are used for healing. The Ok-speaking peoples also regard ti plants as their collective totem.
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In Island Melanesia, ti are regarded as sacred by various Austronesian-speaking peoples and are used in rituals for protection, divination, and fertility. Among the Kwaio people, red ti are associated with feuding and vengeance, while green ti are associated with ancestor spirits, markers of sacred groves, and wards against evil. The Kwaio cultivate these varieties around their communities. Among the Maenge people of New Britain, ti leaves are worn as everyday skirts by women. The color and size of leaves can vary by personal preference and fashion. New cultivars with different colors are traded regularly and strands of ti are grown near the village. Red leaves can only worn by women past puberty. Ti is also the most important plant in magic and healing rituals of the Maenge. Some ti cultivars are associated with supernatural spirits and have names and folklore around them. In Vanuatu, Cordyline leaves, known locally by the Bislama name nanggaria, are worn tucked into a belt in traditional dances like Māʻuluʻulu, with different varieties having particular symbolic meanings. Cordylines are often planted outside nakamal buildings. In Fiji, red ti leaves are used as skirts for dancers and are used in rituals dedicated to the spirits of the dead. They are also planted around ceremonial buildings used for initiation rituals.
In Micronesia, ti leaves are buried under newly built houses in Pohnpei to ward of malign sorcery. In instances of an unknown death, shamans in Micronesia communicate with the dead spirit through ti plants, naming various causes of death until the plant trembles. There is also archaeological evidence that the rhizomes of the plants were eaten in the past in Guam prior to the Latte Period.
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In Polynesia, green ti were cultivated widely for food and religious purposes. They are commonly planted around homes, in sacred places (including marae and heiau), and in grave sites. The leaves are also carried as a charm when traveling and the leaves are used in rituals that communicate with the species. Like in Southeast Asia, they are widely believed to protect against evil spirits and bad luck; as well as having the ability to host spirits of dead people, as well as nature spirits.
In ancient Hawaii the plant was thought to have great spiritual power; only kahuna (shamans) and alii (chiefs) were able to wear leaves around their necks during certain ritual activities. Ti was sacred to the god of fertility and agriculture Lono, and the goddess of the forest and the hula dance, Laka. Ti leaves were also used to make lei, and to outline borders between properties it was also planted at the corners of the home to keep evil spirits away. To this day some Hawaiians plant tī near their houses to bring good luck. The leaves are also used for lava sledding. A number of leaves are lashed together and people ride down hills on them. The leaves were also used to make items of clothing including skirts worn in dance performances. The Hawaiian hula skirt is a dense skirt with an opaque layer of at least fifty green leaves and the bottom (top of the leaves) shaved flat. The Tongan dance dress, the sisi, is an apron of about 20 leaves, worn over a tupenu, and decorated with some yellow or red leaves.
In New Zealand, certain place names are derived from the use and folklore of ti, like Puketī Forest and Temuka. The ti plants in Kaingaroa are known as nga tī whakāwe o Kaingaroa ("the phantom trees of Kaingaroa"), based on the legend of two women who were turned into ti plants and seemingly follow people traveling through the area.
Other uses
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The roots and young leaves can be cooked and eaten as survival food. The leaves can make a rain cloak. The plants are also widely used for traditional medicine, dye, and ornamentation throughout Austronesia and New Guinea.
Cordyline fruticosa flowers are a traditional treatment for asthma, and their anthocyanin content has been assessed to see if they might be commercial herbal remedy.
In the Philippines, the roots were used to flavor the traditional intus sugarcane wines of the Lumad people of Mindanao.
In Polynesia, the leaves of the green-leafed form are used to wrap food, line earth ovens and fermentation pits of breadfruit, and their rhizomes harvested and processed into a sweet molasses-like pulp eaten like candy or used to produce a honey-like liquid used in various sweet treats. In Hawaii, the roots mixed with water and fermented are also distilled into an alcoholic beverage known as okolehao. Fibers extracted from leaves are also used in cordage and in making bird traps. The consumption of ti as food, regarded as a sacred plant and thus was originally taboo, is believed to have been a daring innovation of Polynesian cultures as a response to famine conditions. The lifting of the taboo is believed to be tied to the development of the firewalking ritual.
Ti is a popular ornamental plant, with numerous cultivars available, many of them selected for green or reddish or purple foliage.
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Cedar City Regional Airport
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Cedar City Regional Airport is two miles northwest of Cedar City, in Iron County, Utah. It is owned by the Cedar City Corporation. Airline flights are subsidized by the Essential Air Service program.
Federal Aviation Administration records say the airport had 7,776 passenger boardings (enplanements) in calendar year 2008, 5,486 in 2009 and 5,997 in 2010. The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015 categorized it as a non-primary commercial service airport (between 2,500 and 10,000 enplanements per year).
History
SkyWest Airlines provided Essential Air Service (EAS) from 1972 until 2005 when Air Midwest, a subsidiary of Mesa Airlines was awarded the contract. Mayor Gerald Sherratt was quoted as saying “This is not good” when told the news about Mesa being awarded the contract. Citizens wrote to senator Orrin Hatch which prompted him in 2007 to write a letter to the United States Department of Transportation to urge them to select a new carrier to provide air service to Cedar City. Late in 2007, Mesa filed to discontinue service to Cedar City, and a new contract was awarded to SkyWest.
Western Airlines flew to Cedar City in the 1940s; Bonanza Air Lines DC-3s replaced them in 1957–58. Bonanza Fairchild F-27s flew Phoenix–Prescott–Grand Canyon Airport–Page–Cedar City–Salt Lake City. Successor Air West/Hughes Airwest continued with F-27s, later flying between Cedar City and Las Vegas. Hughes Airwest dropped Cedar City in 1977.
SkyWest served Cedar City with 19-seat Fairchild Swearingen Metroliners, then 30-seat Embraer EMB-120 Brasilias. SkyWest now flies 76 seat Canadair regional jets as Delta Connection nonstop to Salt Lake City.
Facilities
The airport covers 1,040 acres (421 ha) at an elevation of 5,622 feet (1,714 m). It has two asphalt runways: 2/20 is 8,650 by 150 feet (2,637 x 46 m) and 8/26 is 4,822 by 60 feet (1,470 x 18 m).
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Yashwantrao Chavan
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Yashwantrao Balwantrao Chavan (Marathi pronunciation: [jəʃʋənt̪ɾaːʋ t͡səʋʱaːɳ]; 12 March 1913 – 25 November 1984) was an Indian freedom fighter and politician who served as 8th Minister of Finance from 1970 to 1971 and 1971 to 1974. He served as the last Chief Minister of Bombay State and the first of Maharashtra after latter was created by the division of Bombay state. His last significant ministerial post was as the Deputy Prime Minister of India in the short lived Charan Singh government in 1979.
He was a strong Congress leader, co-operative leader, social activist and writer. He was popularly known as Leader of Common People. He advocated social democracy in his speeches and articles and was instrumental in establishing co-operatives in Maharashtra for the betterment of the farmers.
Early life
Yashwantrao Chavan was born in a Kunbi-Maratha family on 12 March 1913 in the village of Devrashtre in Satara District (now in Sangli District) of Maharashtra, India. He had three siblings. Chavan lost his father in his early childhood and was brought up by his uncle and mother. His mother taught him about self-dependency and patriotism. From his childhood he was fascinated by the freedom struggle of India.
Chavan was an active participant in the struggle for independence of India. As a schoolboy in Karad in 1930, he was fined for his participation in the Non-cooperation Movement led by Mahatma Gandhi. In 1932, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for hoisting the Indian flag in Satara. During this period, he came in contact with Swami Ramanand Bharti, Dhulappa Bhaurao Navale, Gaurihar (Appasaheb) Sihasane, V. S. Page and Govind Kruparam Wani. Their friendship lasted forever.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling%20block
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Rolling block
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A rolling-block action is a single-shot firearm action where the sealing of the breech is done with a specially shaped breechblock able to rotate on a pin. The breechblock is shaped like a section of a circle.
The breechblock is locked into place by the hammer, therefore preventing the cartridge from moving backward at the moment of firing. By cocking the hammer, the breechblock can be rotated freely to reload the breech of the weapon.
History
The Remington Rolling Block rifle is one of the most successful single-shot weapons ever developed. It is a strong, simple, and very reliable action, that is not prone to be jammed by debris or with rough handling. It was invented by Leonard Geiger during the United States Civil War and patented in 1863, who (along with his partner, Charles Alger) negotiated a royalty deal with Remington when they put it into production as the so-called "split breech" action late in the war. That design was re-engineered by Joseph Rider in 1865 and called the "Remington System". The first firearm based on it, the Model 1865 Remington Pistol, was offered for sale to the United States Army and Navy in 1866. While the Army turned the design down, the Navy committed to purchase 5,000 pistols.
The first rifle based on this design was introduced at the Paris Exposition in 1867 and the United States Navy placed an order for 12,000 rifles. Within a year it had become the standard military rifle of several nations, including Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.
Many earlier percussion rifles and muskets were converted to rolling-block designs in the interim before the development of more modern bolt-action designs.
The Remington M1867, Springfield Model 1870, and Springfield Model 1871 rifles also used the rolling-block action.
Remington built estimated 1.5 million firearms with rolling-block action, encompassing rifles, carbines, shotguns and pistols.
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Viewpoints
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Viewpoints is a movement-based pedagogical and artistic practice that provides a framework for creating and analyzing performance by exploring spatial relationships, shape, time, emotion, movement mechanics, and the materiality of the actor's body. Rooted in the domains of postmodern theatre and dance composition, the Viewpoints operate as a medium for thinking about and acting upon movement, gesture, and the creative use of space.
Background
The Six Viewpoints was originally developed in the 1970s by master theater artist and educator Mary Overlie, later conceptualised in her book Standing in Space: The Six Viewpoints Theory & Practice (2016). Overlie's Viewpoints and practice are seen to contribute greatly to the postmodern movement in theatre, dance, and choreography, grounded in its opposition against modernism's emphasis on hierarchical structure in performance creation, fixed meaning, and linear narratives.
A key principle of the Viewpoints practice is horizontalism, a distinct focus on a non-hierarchical organisation of the performance elements, meaning shared engagement with elements like space, body, text, time, shape, and emotion. The practice subsequently constitutes a shared agency of creation amongst performers and creators in working through the individual body and its surrounding material environment as part of a collective ensemble. The Viewpoints thus encourages the performer to incorporate their own bodily impulses and personal experiences in the act of creation.
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Viewpoints
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The Six Viewpoints theory was adapted by directors Anne Bogart and Tina Landau, ultimately resulting in the delineation of nine "physical" and five "vocal" Viewpoints. Bogart and Overlie were on the faculty of the Experimental Theatre Wing at NYU Tisch School of the Arts in the late 1970s and early 1980s, during which Bogart was influenced by Overlie's innovations. Overlie's Six Viewpoints are considered to be a methodology to examine, analyze, and create performance in non-hierarchised and deconstructed way, whilst Bogart's Viewpoints are considered practical in creating staging with actors.
Overlie's Viewpoints
Introduction and Overview
The Six Viewpoints is a philosophical and practical approach to articulate a post-modern perspective on performance. The practice involves deconstructing the physical stage and physical performance into its six Materials of composition: Space, Shape, Time, Emotion, Movement and Story. These six elements have existed historically within a rigid hierarchy which gives prevalence to story and emotion in theatre, and shape and movement in dance. The Six Viewpoints releases the Materials from this fixed construct into a fluid non-hierarchical environment for re-examination. The act of deconstructing performance into its Six Materials invites the performer, director, and artist to engage with the individual materials "allowing these elements to take the lead in a creative dialogue".
For Overlie, this shift in attention re-defines art and the role of the artist from a "creator/originator" mindset to what she called the "observer/participant," which centers on "witnessing, and interacting, ... working under the supposition that structure could be discerned rather than imposed". Overlie observed this redefinition of the artist's endeavor to correspond with the artistic shift from modernism to post-modernism.
The theory and practice of the Six Viewpoints are organized in two parts: The Materials and The Bridge.
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Viewpoints
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The Materials (SSTEMS)
When working with the materials, the artist is instructed to turn off the impulse to control or own the material, and is challenged to work very specifically with each material as an independent entity. Overlie recommends the artist to gather as much "useless" data as they can and to take time to explore.The seed of the entire work of The Six Viewpoints is found in the simple act of standing in space. From this perspective the artist is invited to read and be educated by the lexicon of daily experience. The information of space, the experience of time, the familiarity of shapes, the qualities and rules of kinetics in movement, the ways of logic, how stories are formed, the states of being and emotional exchanges that constitute the process of communication between living creatures ... Working directly with these materials the artist begins to learn of performance through the essential languages as an independent intelligence (Overlie).The Six Materials of composition, referred to with the acronym SSTEMS, are:
S (Space)
Space contains blocking, placement of furniture, placement of the walls, doors and windows, angle of gaze, distance of projection, and spatial alignment of the actors to the proscenium, to the audience and to each other.
S (Shape)
Shape contains geometry, costumes, gestures, and the shape of the actors' bodies and of all the objects onstage.
T (Time)
Time contains duration, rhythm, punctuation, pattern, impulse, repetition, legato, pizzicato, lyrical.
E (Emotion)
Emotion contains presence, anger, laughter, pensiveness, empathy, alienation, romance, pity, fear, anticipation, etc.
M (Movement)
Movement contains falling, walking, running, breath, suspension, contraction, impact.
S (Story)
Story contains logic, order and progression of information, memory, projection, conclusion, allusions, truth, lies, associations, influences, power, weakness, reification, un-reification, constructions and deconstruction.
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Architecture: The physical environment, the space, and whatever belongs to it or constitutes it, including permanent and non-permanent features.
Spatial Relationship: Distance between objects on stage; one body in relation to another, to a group, or to the architecture.
Topography: The movement over landscape, floor pattern, design and colours.
Shape: The contour or outline of bodies in space; the shape of the body by itself, in relation to other bodies, or in relation to architecture; lines, curves, angles, arches all stationary or in motion.
Gesture: a) Behavioral gesture: realistic gesture belonging to the physical world as we observe it every day. b) Expressive gesture: abstract or symbolic gesture expressing an inner state or emotion; it is not intended as a public or "realistic" gesture.
Tempo: How quickly or slowly something happens on stage.
Duration: How long an event occurs over time; how long a person or a group maintains a particular movement, tempo, gesture, etc. before it changes.
Kinesthetic Response: A spontaneous reaction to a motion that occurs outside of oneself. An instinctive response to an external stimulus (realistic/non-realistic).
Repetition: a) Internal Repetition: repeating a movement done with one's own body, and b) External Repetition: repeating a movement occurring outside one's body.
Lineage and Influence on Viewpoints
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division%20of%20Parkes
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Division of Parkes
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The Division of Parkes is an Australian electoral division in the state of New South Wales.
History
The former Division of Parkes (1901–1969) was located in suburban Sydney, and was not related to this division, except in name.
The division is named after Sir Henry Parkes, seventh Premier of New South Wales and sometimes known as the 'Father of Federation'. The division was proclaimed at the redistribution of 11 October 1984, and was first contested at the 1984 federal election. The seat is currently a safe Nationals seat. It was substantially changed by the 2006 redistribution and is now considered by many observers as the successor to the abolished Division of Gwydir. As a result, the then member for Parkes, John Cobb, instead contested the Division of Calare. The current Member for Parkes, since the 2007 federal election, is Mark Coulton, a member of the National Party of Australia.
According to the 2011 census, approximately 78 per cent of the population within the division identify as Christian, more than any other electorate in Australia at that time.
The 2015 redistribution resulted in Parkes expanded westwards to cover the state's Far West, including Broken Hill. The seat previously lost this area to the Division of Farrer in the 2006 redistribution.
Boundaries
Since 1984, federal electoral division boundaries in Australia have been determined at redistributions by a redistribution committee appointed by the Australian Electoral Commission. Redistributions occur for the boundaries of divisions in a particular state, and they occur every seven years, or sooner if a state's representation entitlement changes or when divisions of a state are malapportioned.
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Night of Fire
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The German Night Gate Fire (; ) happened on the night of 12 June 1961 when 37 electricity pylons were blown up in South Tyrol by the South Tyrolean Liberation Committee. It formed a turning point in the history of the province.
Background
After fascism came to an end in Italy, the situation of the German-speaking population in South Tyrol seemed to be getting better. However, a large section of the population was not ready to accept the status quo as existed under Benito Mussolini. Even though fundamental questions were addressed in the Treaty of Paris, the conditions of the treaty were rarely fully fulfilled. In addition, many German speakers of the province wanted to renege their attachment to Italy and to once again become part of Austria and others wanted to become self-governing. Starting in 1957, small militant groups were prepared to use force to achieve their aims. The night of fire was the starting point for a series of attacks throughout the 1960s, planned and carried out by a group called the South Tyrolean Liberation Committee (Befreiungsausschuss Südtirol (BAS)).
Aims
The aim of the attacks was, first and foremost, to make the world aware of the South Tyrolean question. By blowing up the electricity pylons the electricity supply to the Bolzano industrial zone was cut off. This goal was not achieved during the night of fire, but the world was indeed made aware of the plight of the province.
The immediate response of the Italian state was to massively increase the military and police presence there. One month later there was another attempt, at a smaller scale, which did indeed cut off the power supply to a part of the northern Italian industrial zone and forced international trains to grind to a halt.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matth%C3%A4us%20Daniel%20P%C3%B6ppelmann
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Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann
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Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann (1662–1736) was a German master builder and architect who helped to rebuild Dresden after the fire of 1685. His most famous work is the Zwinger Palace.
Life
Pöppelmann was born in Herford in Westphalia on 3 May 1662 the son of a shopkeeper.
In 1680, he began working on an unpaid basis as a building designer in the court of Dresden Castle.
As court architect for the King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, Augustus II the Strong, he designed the grandiose Zwinger palace in Dresden. He was also in charge of major works at Dresden Castle, Pillnitz Castle and he designed the Vineyard Church (Weinbergkirche) in Pillnitz. Pöppelmann, together with Johann Christoph Naumann, developed an urban plan for a portion of the city of Warsaw, Poland, which was only partially realized, including the Saxon Axis and other important streetscapes.
He died in Dresden on 17 January 1736. He is buried in the Matthauskirche in Dresden.
He was the grandfather of the famous actress Friederike Sophie Seyler.
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Byzantine navy
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The Byzantine navy was the naval force of the Byzantine Empire. Like the state it served, it was a direct continuation from its Roman predecessor, but played a far greater role in the defence and survival of the state than its earlier iteration. While the fleets of the Roman Empire faced few great naval threats, operating as a policing force vastly inferior in power and prestige to the army, command of the sea became vital to the very existence of the Byzantine state, which several historians have called a "maritime empire".
The first threat to Roman hegemony in the Mediterranean Sea was posed by the Vandals in the 5th century, but their threat was ended by the wars of Justinian I in the 6th century. The re-establishment of a permanently maintained fleet and the introduction of the dromon galley in the same period also marks the point when the Byzantine navy began departing from its late Roman roots and developing its own characteristic identity. This process would be furthered with the onset of the early Muslim conquests in the 7th century. Following the loss of the Levant and later Africa, the Mediterranean was transformed from a "Roman lake" into a battleground between the Byzantines and a series of Muslim states. In this struggle, the Byzantine fleets were critical, not only for the defence of the Empire's far-flung possessions around the Mediterranean basin, but also for repelling seaborne attacks against the imperial capital of Constantinople itself. Through the use of the newly invented "Greek fire", the Byzantine navy's best-known and feared secret weapon, Constantinople was saved from several sieges and numerous naval engagements resulted in Byzantine victories.
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Byzantine navy
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The Byzantine navy, like the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire itself, continued the systems of the Roman Empire. After the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, in the absence of any external threat in the Mediterranean, the Roman navy performed mostly policing and escort duties. Massive sea battles, like those fought centuries before in the Punic Wars (264 to 146 BC), no longer occurred, and the Roman fleets comprised relatively small vessels, best suited to their new tasks. By the early 4th century AD, the permanent Roman fleets had dwindled, so that when the fleets of the rival emperors Constantine the Great and Licinius clashed in 324 AD, they were composed to a great extent of newly built or -commandeered ships from the port cities of the Eastern Mediterranean. The civil wars of the 4th and early 5th centuries, however, did spur a revival of naval activity, with fleets mostly employed to transport armies. Considerable naval forces continued to be employed in the Western Mediterranean throughout the first quarter of the fifth century, especially from North Africa, but Rome's mastery of the Mediterranean was challenged when Africa was overrun by the Vandals (429 to 442).
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The new Vandalic Kingdom of Carthage, under the capable Geiseric (), immediately launched raids against the coasts of Italy and Greece, even sacking and plundering Rome in 455. The Vandal raids continued unabated over the next two decades, despite repeated Roman attempts to defeat them. The Western Empire was impotent, its navy having dwindled to almost nothing, but the eastern emperors could still call upon the resources and naval expertise of the eastern Mediterranean. A first Eastern expedition in 448, however, went no further than Sicily, and in 460, the Vandals attacked and destroyed a Western Roman invasion fleet at Cartagena in Spain. Finally, in 468, a huge Eastern expedition assembled under Basiliscus, reputedly numbering 1,113 ships and 100,000 men, but it failed disastrously. About 600 ships were lost to fire ships, and the financial cost of 130,000 pounds of gold and 700,000 pounds of silver nearly bankrupted the Empire. This forced the Romans to come to terms with Geiseric and to sign a peace treaty. After Geiseric's death in 477, however, the Vandal threat receded.
Sixth century – Justinian restores Roman control over the Mediterranean
The 6th century marked the rebirth of Roman naval power. In 508, as antagonism with the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Theodoric flared up, the Emperor Anastasius I () is reported to have sent a fleet of 100 warships to raid the coasts of Italy. In 513, the general Vitalian revolted against Anastasius. The rebels assembled a fleet of 200 ships which, despite some initial successes, were destroyed by admiral Marinus, who employed a sulphur-based incendiary substance to defeat them.
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After seizing Cyprus in 649 and raiding Rhodes, Crete and Sicily, the young Arab navy decisively defeated the Byzantines under the personal command of Emperor Constans II (641–668) in the Battle of the Masts of 655. This catastrophic Byzantine defeat opened up the Mediterranean to the Arabs and began a centuries-long series of naval conflicts over the control of the Mediterranean waterways. From the reign of Muawiyah I (661–680), raids intensified, as preparations were made for a great assault on Constantinople itself. In the long first Arab siege of Constantinople, the Byzantine fleet proved instrumental to the survival of the Empire: the Arab fleets were defeated through the use of its newly developed secret weapon, known as "Greek fire". The Muslim advance in Asia Minor and the Aegean was halted, and an agreement to a thirty-year truce concluded soon after.
In the 680s, Justinian II () paid attention to the needs of the navy, strengthening it by the resettlement of over 18,500 Mardaites along the southern coasts of the Empire, where they were employed as marines and rowers. Nevertheless, the Arab naval threat intensified as they gradually took control of North Africa in the 680s and 690s. The last Byzantine stronghold, Carthage, fell in 698, although a Byzantine naval expedition managed to briefly retake it. The Arab governor Musa bin Nusair built a new city and naval base at Tunis, and 1,000 Coptic shipwrights were brought to construct a new fleet, which would challenge Byzantine control of the western Mediterranean. Thus, from the early 8th century on, Muslim raids unfolded unceasingly against Byzantine holdings in the Western Mediterranean, especially Sicily. In addition, the new fleet would allow the Muslims to complete their conquest of the Maghreb and to successfully invade and capture most of the Visigoth-controlled Iberian Peninsula.
Byzantine counter-offensive
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The Byzantines were unable to respond effectively to the Muslim advance in Africa because the two decades between 695 and 715 were a period of great domestic turmoil. They did react with raids of their own in the East, such as the one in 709 against Egypt which captured the local admiral, but they also were aware of a coming onslaught: as Caliph al-Walid I () readied his forces for a renewed assault against Constantinople, Emperor Anastasios II () prepared the capital, and mounted an unsuccessful pre-emptive strike against the Muslim naval preparations. Anastasios was soon overthrown by Theodosius III (), who in turn was replaced, just as the Muslim army was advancing through Anatolia, by Leo III the Isaurian (). It was Leo III who faced the second and final Arab siege of Constantinople. The use of Greek fire, which devastated the Arab fleet, was again instrumental in the Byzantine victory, while a harsh winter and Bulgar attacks further sapped the besiegers' strength.
In the aftermath of the siege, the retreating remains of the Arab fleet were decimated in a storm, and Byzantine forces launched a counter-offensive, with a fleet sacking Laodicea and an army driving the Arabs from Asia Minor. For the next three decades, naval warfare featured constant raids from both sides, with the Byzantines launching repeated attacks against the Muslim naval bases in Syria (Laodicea), and Egypt (Damietta and Tinnis). In 727, a revolt of the provincial thematic fleets, largely motivated by resentment against the Emperor's iconoclasm, was put down by the imperial fleet through the use of Greek fire. Despite the losses this entailed, some 390 warships were reportedly sent to attack Damietta in 739, and in 746 the Byzantines decisively defeated the Alexandrian fleet at Keramaia in Cyprus, breaking the naval power of the Umayyad Caliphate.
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The Byzantines followed this up with the destruction of the North African flotillas and coupled their successes at sea with severe trading limitations imposed on Muslim traders. Given the Empire's new ability to control the waterways, this strangled Muslim maritime trade. With the collapse of the Umayyad state shortly thereafter and the increasing fragmentation of the Muslim world, the Byzantine navy was left as the sole organized naval force in the Mediterranean. Thus, during the latter half of the 8th century, the Byzantines enjoyed a second period of complete naval superiority. It is no coincidence that in the many Islamic apocalyptic texts composed and transmitted during the first and second Islamic centuries, the End Times are preceded by a seaborne Byzantine invasion. Many traditions from the period stress that manning the guard posts () on the coasts of Syria is tantamount to partaking in the , and authorities like Abu Hurayrah were cited as considering one day of more pious an act than a night of prayer in the Kaaba.
These successes enabled Emperor Constantine V () to shift the fleet from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea during his campaigns against the Bulgars in the 760s. In 763, a fleet of 800 ships carrying 9,600 cavalries and some infantry sailed to Anchialus, where he scored a significant victory, but in 766, a second fleet, allegedly of 2,600 ships, again bound for Anchialus, sank en route. At the same time, however, the Isaurian emperors undermined Byzantium's naval strength: with the Arab threat gone for the moment, and with the largely iconodule naval themes staunchly opposed to their iconoclastic policies, the emperors reduced the navy's size and downgraded the naval themes.
Renewed Muslim ascendancy
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The Byzantine naval predominance lasted until the early 9th century when a succession of disasters at the hands of the resurgent Muslim fleets spelled its end and inaugurated an era that would represent the zenith of Muslim ascendancy. Already in 790, the Byzantines suffered a major defeat in the Gulf of Antalya, and raids against Cyprus and Crete recommenced during the reign of Harun al-Rashid (786–809). Around the Mediterranean, new powers were rising, foremost amongst them the Carolingian Empire, while in 803, the recognized the de facto independence of Byzantine Venice, which was further entrenched by the repulsion of a Byzantine attack in 809. At the same time, in Ifriqiya, the new Aghlabid dynasty was established, which immediately engaged in raids throughout the central Mediterranean.
The Byzantines, on the other hand, were weakened by a series of catastrophic defeats against the Bulgars, followed in 820 by the Revolt of Thomas the Slav, which attracted the support of a large part of the Byzantine armed forces, including the thematic fleets. Despite its suppression, the revolt had severely depleted the Empire's defences. As a result, Crete fell between 824 and 827 to a band of Andalusian exiles. Three successive Byzantine recovery attempts failed over the next few years, and the island became a base for Muslim piratical activity in the Aegean, radically upsetting the balance of power in the region. Despite some Byzantine successes over the Cretan corsairs, and the razing of Damietta by a Byzantine fleet of 85 ships in 853, Arab naval power in the Levant was steadily reviving under Abbasid rule. Further Byzantine attempts to recover Crete, in 843 and 866, were complete failures.
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The situation was even worse in the West. A critical blow was inflicted on the Empire in 827, as the Aghlabids began the slow conquest of Sicily, aided by the defection of the Byzantine commander Euphemios and the island's thematic fleet. In 838, the Muslims crossed over into Italy, taking Taranto and Brindisi, followed soon by Bari. Venetian operations against them were unsuccessful, and throughout the 840s, the Arabs were freely raiding Italy and the Adriatic, even attacking Rome in 846. Attacks by the Lombards and Lothair I failed to dislodge the Muslims from Italy, while two large-scale Byzantine attempts to recover Sicily were heavily defeated in 840 and 859. By 850, the Muslim fleets, together with large numbers of independent raiders, had emerged as the major power of the Mediterranean, putting the Byzantines and the Christians in general on the defensive.
The same period, when a battered Byzantium defended itself against enemies on all fronts, also saw the emergence of a new, unexpected threat: the Rus' made their first appearance in Byzantine history with a raid against Paphlagonia in the 830s, followed by a major expedition in 860.
Byzantine Reconquest: the era of the Macedonian dynasty
During the course of the later 9th and the 10th century, as the Caliphate fractured into smaller states and Arab power became weakened, the Byzantines launched a series of successful campaigns against them. This "Byzantine Reconquest" was overseen by the able sovereigns of the Macedonian dynasty (867–1056), and marked the noontide of the Byzantine state.
Reign of Basil I
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In the West, the Muslims continued to make steady advances, as the local Byzantine forces proved inadequate: the Empire was forced to rely on the aid of their nominal Italian subjects, and had to resort to the transfer of the eastern fleets to Italy to achieve any progress. Following the fall of Enna in 855, the Byzantines were confined to the eastern shore of Sicily, and under increasing pressure. A relief expedition in 868 achieved little. Syracuse was attacked again in 869, and in 870, Malta fell to the Aghlabids. Muslim corsairs raided the Adriatic, and although they were driven out of Apulia, in the early 880s they established bases along the western Italian coast, from where they would not be completely dislodged until 915. In 878, Syracuse, the main Byzantine stronghold in Sicily, was attacked again and fell, largely because the Imperial Fleet was occupied with transporting marble for the construction of the Nea Ekklesia, Basil's new church. In 880, Ooryphas' successor, the Nasar, scored a significant victory in a night battle over the Aghlabids who were raiding the Ionian Islands. He then proceeded to raid Sicily, carrying off much booty, before defeating another Muslim fleet off Punta Stilo. At the same time, another Byzantine squadron scored a significant victory at Naples. These successes allowed a short-lived Byzantine counter-offensive to develop in the West in the 870s and 880s under Nikephoros Phokas the Elder, expanding the Byzantine foothold in Apulia and Calabria and forming the theme of Longobardia, which would later evolve into the Catepanate of Italy. A heavy defeat off Milazzo in 888, however, signalled the virtual disappearance of major Byzantine naval activity in the seas around Italy for the next century.
Arab raids during the reign of Leo VI
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Despite the successes under Basil, during the reign of his successor Leo VI the Wise (886–912), the Empire again faced serious threats. In the north, a war broke out against the Bulgarian Tsar Simeon, and a part of the Imperial Fleet was used in 895 to ferry an army of Magyars across the Danube to raid Bulgaria. The Bulgarian war produced several costly defeats, while at the same time the Arab naval threat reached new heights, with successive raids devastating the shores of Byzantium's naval heartland, the Aegean Sea. In 891 or 893, the Arab fleet sacked the island of Samos and took its (military governor) prisoner, and in 898, the eunuch admiral Raghib carried off 3,000 Byzantine sailors of the Cibyrrhaeots as prisoners. These losses denuded Byzantine defences, opening the Aegean up to raids by the Syrian fleets. The first heavy blow came in 901, when the renegade Damian of Tarsus plundered Demetrias, while in the next year, Taormina, the Empire's last outpost in Sicily, fell to the Muslims. The greatest disaster, however, came in 904, when another renegade, Leo of Tripoli, raided the Aegean. His fleet penetrated even into the Dardanelles, before proceeding to sack the Empire's second city, Thessalonica, all while the Empire's fleet remained passive in the face of the Arabs' superior numbers. Furthermore, the Cretan corsairs' raids reached such intensity, that by the end of Leo's reign, most of the southern Aegean islands were either abandoned or forced to accept Muslim control and pay tribute to the pirates. It is no surprise that a defensive and cautious mindset was prevalent in Leo's contemporary instructions on naval warfare (Naumachica).
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The most distinguished Byzantine admiral of the period was Himerios, the . Appointed admiral in 904, he was unable to prevent the sack of Thessalonica, but he scored the first victory in 905 or 906, and in 910, he led a successful attack on Laodicea. The city was sacked and its hinterland plundered and ravaged without the loss of any ships. A year later, however, a huge expedition of 112 dromons and 75 with 43,000 men, that had sailed under Himerios against the Emirate of Crete, not only failed to recover the island, but on its return voyage, it was ambushed and comprehensively defeated by Leo of Tripoli off Chios (October 912).
The tide began to turn again after 920. Coincidentally, the same year witnessed the ascension of an admiral, Romanos Lekapenos (920–944), to the imperial throne, for the second (after Tiberios Apsimaros) and last time in the Empire's history. Finally, in 923, the decisive defeat of Leo of Tripoli off Lemnos, coupled with the death of Damian during a siege of a Byzantine fortress in the next year, marked the beginning of the Byzantine resurgence.
Recovery of Crete and the northern Levant
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The Empire's growing might be displayed in 942, when Emperor Romanos I dispatched a squadron to the Tyrrhenian Sea. Using Greek fire, the squadron destroyed a fleet of Muslim corsairs from Fraxinetum. In 949, however, another expedition of about 100 ships, launched by Constantine VII (945–959) against the Emirate of Crete, ended in disaster, due to the incompetence of its commander, Constantine Gongyles. A renewed offensive in Italy in 951–952 was defeated by the Fatimids, but another expedition in 956 and the loss of an Ifriqiyan fleet in a storm in 958 temporarily stabilized the situation in the peninsula. In 962, the Fatimids launched an assault on the remaining Byzantine strongholds on Sicily; Taormina fell on Christmas Day 962 and Rometta was besieged. In response, a major Byzantine expedition was launched in 964 but ended in disaster. The Fatimids defeated the Byzantine army before Rametta and then annihilated the fleet at the Battle of the Straits, notably through the use of divers bearing incendiary devices. Both powers focusing their attention elsewhere, a truce was concluded between Byzantium and the Fatimids in 967, which curbed Byzantine naval activity in the West: the seas of Italy were left to the local Byzantine forces and the various Italian states until after 1025, when Byzantium again actively intervened in southern Italy and Sicily.
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Throughout most of the 11th century, the Byzantine navy faced few challenges. The Muslim threat had receded, as their navies declined and relations between the Fatimids, especially, and the Empire were largely peaceful. The last Arab raid against imperial territory was recorded in 1035 in the Cyclades, and was defeated in the next year. Another Rus' attack in 1043 was beaten back with ease, and with the exception of a short-lived attempt to recover Sicily under George Maniakes, no major naval expeditions were undertaken either. Inevitably, this long period of peace and prosperity led to complacency and neglect of the military. Already in the reign of Basil II (976–1025), the defence of the Adriatic was entrusted to the Venetians. Under Constantine IX (1042–1055), both the army and navy were reduced as military service was increasingly commuted in favour of cash payments, resulting in an increased dependency upon foreign mercenaries. The large thematic fleets declined and were replaced by small squadrons subject to the local military commanders, geared more towards the suppression of piracy than towards confronting a major maritime foe.
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By the last quarter of the 11th century, the Byzantine navy was a shadow of its former self, having declined through neglect, the incompetence of its officers, and lack of funds. Kekaumenos, writing in c. 1078, laments that "on the pretext of reasonable patrols, [the Byzantine ships] are doing nothing else but ferrying wheat, barley, pulse, cheese, wine, meat, olive oil, a great deal of money, and anything else" from the islands and coasts of the Aegean, while they "flee [the enemy] before they have even caught sight of them, and thus become an embarrassment to the Romans". By the time Kekaumenos wrote, new and powerful adversaries had risen. In the West, the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, which had expelled the Byzantines from Southern Italy and had conquered Sicily, was now casting its eye on the Byzantine Adriatic coasts and beyond. In the East, the disastrous Battle of Manzikert in 1071 had resulted in the loss of Asia Minor, the Empire's military and economic heartland, to the Seljuk Turks, who by 1081 had established their capital at Nicaea, barely a hundred miles south of Constantinople. Soon after, Turkish as well as Christian pirates appeared in the Aegean. The Byzantine thematic fleets, which once policed the seas, were by then so depleted by neglect and the successive civil wars that they were incapable of responding effectively.
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Attempts at recovery under Alexios I and John II
At this point, the sorry state of the Byzantine fleet had dire consequences. The Norman invasion could not be forestalled, and their army seized Corfu, landed unopposed in Epirus and laid siege to Dyrrhachium, starting a decade of war which consumed the scant resources of the embattled Empire. The new emperor, Alexios I Komnenos (1081–1118), was forced to call upon the assistance of the Venetians, who in the 1070s had already asserted their control of the Adriatic and Dalmatia against the Normans. In 1082, in exchange for their help, he granted them major trading concessions. This treaty, and subsequent extensions of these privileges, practically rendered the Byzantines hostage to the Venetians (and later also the Genoese and the Pisans). Historian John Birkenmeier notes that:
In the clashes with the Normans through the 1080s, the only effective Byzantine naval force was a squadron commanded, and possibly maintained, by Michael Maurex, a veteran naval commander of previous decades. Together with the Venetians, he initially prevailed over the Norman fleet, but the joint fleet was caught off guard and defeated by the Normans off Corfu in 1084.
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Alexios inevitably realized the importance of having his own fleet, and despite his preoccupation with land operations, he took steps to re-establish the navy's strength. His efforts bore some success, especially in countering the attempts by Turkish emirs like Tzachas of Smyrna to launch fleets in the Aegean. The fleet under John Doukas was subsequently used to suppress revolts in Crete and Cyprus. With the aid of the Crusaders, Alexios was able to regain the coasts of Western Anatolia and expand his influence eastwards: in 1104, a Byzantine squadron of 10 ships captured Laodicea and other coastal towns as far as Tripoli. By 1118, Alexios was able to pass on a small navy to his successor, John II Komnenos (1118–1143). Like his father, John II concentrated on the army and regular land-based campaigns, but he took care to maintain the navy's strength and provisioning system. In 1122, however, John refused to renew the trading privileges that Alexios had granted to the Venetians. In retaliation, the Venetians plundered several Byzantine islands, and, with the Byzantine fleet unable to confront them, John was forced to renew the treaty in 1125. Evidently, the Byzantine navy at this point was not sufficiently powerful for John to successfully confront Venice, especially since there were other pressing demands on the Empire's resources. Not long after this incident, John II, acting on the advice of his finance minister John of Poutza, is reported to have cut funding to the fleet and transferred it to the army, equipping ships on an ad hoc basis only.
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Naval expeditions of Manuel I
The navy enjoyed a major comeback under the ambitious emperor Manuel I Komnenos (1143–1180), who used it extensively as a powerful tool of foreign policy in his relations with the Latin and Muslim states of the Eastern Mediterranean. During the early years of his reign, the Byzantine naval forces were still weak: in 1147, the fleet of Roger II of Sicily under George of Antioch was able to raid Corfu, the Ionian islands and into the Aegean almost unopposed. In the next year, with Venetian aid, an army accompanied by a very large fleet (allegedly 500 warships and 1,000 transports) was sent to recapture Corfu and the Ionian Islands from the Normans. In retaliation, a Norman fleet of 40 ships reached Constantinople itself, demonstrating in the Bosporus off the Great Palace and raiding its suburbs. On its return voyage however it was attacked and destroyed by a Byzantine or Venetian fleet.
In 1155, a Byzantine squadron of 10 ships in support of Norman rebel Robert III of Loritello arrived at Ancona, launching the last Byzantine bid to regain Southern Italy. Despite initial successes and reinforcements under Alexios Komnenos Bryennios, the expedition was ultimately defeated in 1156, and 4 Byzantine ships were captured. By 1169, the efforts of Manuel had evidently borne fruit, as a large and purely Byzantine fleet of about 150 galleys, 10-12 large transports and 60 horse transports under Andronikos Kontostephanos was sent to invade Egypt in cooperation with the ruler of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. The invasion failed, however, and the Byzantines lost half the fleet in a storm on the way back.
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After the death of Manuel I and the subsequent demise of the Komnenian dynasty in 1185, the navy declined swiftly. The maintenance of galleys and the upkeep of proficient crews were very expensive, and neglect led to a rapid deterioration of the fleet. Already by 1182 the Byzantines had to pay Venetian mercenaries to crew some of their galleys, but in the 1180s, as the bulk of the Komnenian naval establishment persisted, expeditions of 70–100 ships are still recorded in contemporary sources. Thus Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos (1183–1185) could still gather 100 warships in 1185 to resist and later defeat a Norman fleet in the Sea of Marmara. However, the subsequent peace treaty included a clause that required the Normans to furnish a fleet for the Empire. This, together with a similar agreement made by Isaac II Angelos (1185–1195 and 1203–1204) with Venice the next year, in which the Republic would provide 40–100 galleys at six months' notice in exchange for favourable trading concessions, is a telling indication that the Byzantine government was aware of the inadequacy of its own naval establishment.
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The period also saw the rise of piracy across the Eastern Mediterranean. The pirate activity was high in the Aegean, while pirate captains frequently offering themselves as mercenaries to one or the other of the region's powers, providing for the latter a quick and cheap way of raising a fleet for particular expeditions, without the costs of a standing navy. Thus a Byzantine fleet of 66 vessels sent by Isaac II to recapture Cyprus from Isaac Komnenos was destroyed by the pirate Margaritus of Brindisi, who was in the employ of the Normans of Sicily. The depredations of the pirates, especially the Genoese captain Kaphoures, described by Niketas Choniates and his brother, the Metropolitan of Athens Michael Choniates, finally forced the Angeloi to action. The fleet tax was once again levied from the coastal regions and a navy of 30 ships was equipped, which was entrusted to the Calabrian pirate Steiriones. Despite scoring a few early successes, Steiriones' fleet was destroyed in a surprise attack by Kaphoures off Sestos. A second fleet, augmented by Pisan vessels and again commanded by Steiriones, was finally able to defeat Kaphoures and end his raids.
At the same time, however, the then , Michael Stryphnos, was accused by Niketas Choniates of enriching himself by selling off the equipment of the imperial fleet, while by the early 13th century the authority of the central government had weakened to such an extent that various local potentates began seizing power in the provinces. The general atmosphere was one of lawlessness, which enabled men like Leo Sgouros in southern Greece and the imperial governor of Samos, Pegonites, to use their ships for their own purposes, launching raids of their own. Even Emperor Alexios III Angelos (1195–1203) is said to have licensed one of his commanders, Constantine Phrangopoulos, to launch pirate raids against commerce in the Black Sea.
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The Byzantine state and its fleet were thus in no state to resist the naval might of Venice, which supported the Fourth Crusade. When Alexios III and Stryphnos were alerted to the fact that the Crusade was sailing for Constantinople, only 20 "wretched and decayed" vessels could be found, according to Niketas Choniates. During the first Crusader siege of the city in 1203, the attempts of the Byzantine ships to oppose the Crusader fleet from entering the Golden Horn were repulsed, and the Byzantine attempt to employ fireships failed due to the Venetians' skill at handling their ships.
Nicaea and the Palaiologan period
After the capture of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the Byzantine Empire was partitioned between the Crusaders, while three Greek successor states were set up, the Despotate of Epirus, the Empire of Trebizond, and the Empire of Nicaea, each claiming the Byzantine imperial title. The former did not maintain a fleet, the Trapezuntine navy was minuscule and mostly used for patrols and transporting troops, while the Nicaeans initially followed a policy of consolidation and used their fleet for coastal defence. Under John III Vatatzes (1222–1254), a more energetic foreign policy was pursued, and in 1225, the Nicaean fleet was able to occupy the islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, and Icaria. It was, however, no match for the Venetians: attempting to blockade Constantinople in 1235, the Nicaean navy was defeated by a far smaller Venetian force, and in another similar attempt in 1241, the Nicaeans were again routed. Nicaean efforts during the 1230s to support a local rebellion in Crete against Venice were also only partially successful, with the last Nicaean troops being forced to leave the island in 1236. Aware of the weakness of his navy, in March 1261 the Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos (1259–1282) concluded the Treaty of Nymphaeum with the Genoese, securing their aid against Venice at sea, in return for commercial privileges.
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Following the recapture of Constantinople a few months later however, Michael VIII was able to focus his attention on building up his own fleet. In the early 1260s, the Byzantine navy was still weak and depended still greatly on Genoese aid. Even so, the allies were not able to stand up to Venice in a direct confrontation, as evidenced by the defeat of a combined Byzantine–Genoese fleet of 48 ships by a much smaller Venetian fleet in 1263. Taking advantage of the Italians' preoccupation with the ongoing Venetian–Genoese war, by 1270 Michael's efforts had produced a strong navy of 80 ships, with several Latin privateers sailing under imperial colours. In the same year, a fleet of 24 galleys besieged the town of Oreos in Negroponte (Euboea), and defeated a Latin fleet of 20 galleys. This marked the first successful independent Byzantine naval operation and the beginning of an organized naval campaign in the Aegean that would continue throughout the 1270s and would result in the recapture, albeit briefly, of many islands from the Latins.
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Andronikos' decision aroused considerable opposition and criticism from contemporary scholars and officials almost from the outset, and historians like Pachymeres and Nikephoros Gregoras dwell long on the disastrous long-term effects of this short-sighted decision: piracy flourished, often augmented by the crews of the disbanded fleet who took service under Turkish and Latin masters, Constantinople was rendered defenceless towards the Italian maritime powers, and more and more Aegean islands fell under foreign rule—including Chios to the Genoese Benedetto Zaccaria, Rhodes and the Dodecanese to the Hospitallers, Lesbos and other islands to the Gattilusi. As Gregoras commented, "if [the Byzantines] had remained masters of the seas, as they had been, then the Latins would not have grown so arrogant [...], nor would the Turks ever have gazed upon the sands of the [Aegean] sea, [...] nor would we have to pay to everyone tribute every year." After 1305, bowing to popular pressure and the need to contain the Catalan Company, the Emperor belatedly tried to rebuild the navy of 20 vessels, but although a few ships were built and a small fleet appears to have been active over the next couple of years, it eventually was disbanded again.
In the 14th century, recurrent civil wars, attacks from Bulgaria and Serbia in the Balkans and the devastation caused by ever-increasing Turkish raids hastened the collapse of the Byzantine state, which would culminate in its final fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Several emperors after Andronikos II also tried to re-build a fleet, especially in order to secure the security and hence the independence of Constantinople itself from the interference of the Italian maritime powers, but their efforts produced only short-term results.
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Thus Andronikos II's successor Andronikos III Palaiologos (1328–1341), immediately after his accession, with the help of contributions from various magnates, assembled a large fleet of reportedly 105 vessels. This he personally led in the last major foray of a Byzantine navy in the Aegean, recovering Chios and Phocaea from the Genoese and forcing various smaller Latin and Turkish principalities to come to terms with him. His campaigns against the Ottomans in Bithynia were failures, however, and soon the Ottomans had established their first naval base at Trigleia on the Sea of Marmara, from where they raided the coasts of Thrace. To defend against this new threat, towards the end of Andronikos III's reign a fleet of some 70 ships was built at Constantinople to oppose the Turkish raids, and headed by the , Alexios Apokaukos. This fleet was very active during the civil war of 1341–1347, in which its commander played a prominent role. Following the civil war, Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos (1347–1354) tried to restore the navy and merchant fleet, as a means of both reducing the Empire's economic dependency on the Genoese colony of Galata, which controlled the trade passing through Constantinople, and of securing the control of the Dardanelles against passage by the Turks. To that end, he enlisted the aid of the Venetians, but in March 1349, his newly built fleet of nine warships and about 100 smaller vessels were caught in a storm off the southern shore of Constantinople. The inexperienced crews panicked, and the ships were either sunk or captured by the Genoese. Undeterred, Kantakouzenos launched another effort at building a fleet, which allowed him to re-establish Byzantine authority over Thessalonica and some coastal cities and islands. A core of this fleet was maintained at Constantinople, and although Byzantine ships remained active in the Aegean, and scored some successes over Turkish pirates, they were never able to stop their activities, let alone challenge the Italian navies for supremacy at sea
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Henceforth, the impoverished Byzantine state became a pawn of the great powers of the day, trying to survive by exploiting their rivalries. Thus, for instance, in 1351, Kantakouzenos was induced to side with Venice in its war with Genoa, but, abandoned by the Venetian admirals, his fleet was easily defeated by the Genoese and he was forced to sign an unfavourable peace. During the brief usurpation of John VII in 1390, Manuel II (1391–1425) was able to gather only five galleys and four smaller vessels (including some from the Hospitallers of Rhodes) to recapture Constantinople and rescue his father John V. Six years later, Manuel promised to arm ten ships to assist the Crusade of Nicopolis; twenty years later, he personally commanded 4 galleys and 2 other vessels carrying some infantry and cavalry, and saved the island of Thasos from an invasion. Byzantine ships were active throughout the Ottoman Interregnum, when Byzantium sided with various rival Ottoman princes in turn. Manuel used his ships to ferry the rival pretenders and their forces across the Straits. With Genoese assistance, Manuel's fleet was also able to muster a fleet of eight galleys and capture Gallipoli in May 1410, albeit for a brief time; and in August 1411, the Byzantine fleet was instrumental in the failure of a siege of Constantinople by the Ottoman prince Musa Çelebi, when it defeated Musa's attempt to blockade the city by sea as well. Likewise, in 1421, 10 Byzantine warships were engaged in support of the Ottoman pretender Mustafa against Sultan Murad II.
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Under Emperor Diocletian (284–305), the navy's strength reportedly increased from 46,000 men to 64,000 men, a figure that represents the numerical peak of the late Roman navy. The Danube Fleet (Classis Histrica) with its attendant legionary flotillas is still well attested in the Notitia Dignitatum, and its increased activity is commented upon by Vegetius (De Re Militari, IV.46). In the West, several fluvial fleets are mentioned, but the old standing praetorian fleets had all but vanished (De Re Militari, IV.31) and even the remaining western provincial fleets appear to have been seriously understrength and incapable of countering any significant barbarian attack. In the East, the Syrian and Alexandrian fleets are known from legal sources to have still existed in c. 400 (Codex Justinianus, XI.2.4 & XI.13.1), while a fleet is known to have been stationed at Constantinople itself, perhaps created out of the remnants of the praetorian fleets. In 400 it was sufficient to slaughter a large number of Goths who had built rafts and tried to cross the strip of sea that separates Asia from Europe. Its size, however, is unknown, and it does not appear in the Notitia.
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The however proved inadequate and were replaced in the early 8th century by a more complex system composed of three elements, which with minor alterations survived until the 11th century: a central imperial fleet based at Constantinople, a small number of large regional naval commands, either naval themes or independent commands termed "droungariates", and a greater number of local squadrons charged with purely defensive and police tasks and subordinate to the local provincial governors. Unlike the earlier Roman navy, where the provincial fleets were decidedly inferior in numbers and included only lighter vessels than the central fleets, the Byzantine regional fleets were probably formidable formations in their own right.
The Imperial Fleet
The capital's navy had played a central role in the repulsion of the Arab sieges of Constantinople, but the exact date of the establishment of the Imperial Fleet (, , or , ) as a distinct command is unclear. The Irish historian J. B. Bury, followed by the French Byzantinist Rodolphe Guilland, considered it "not improbable" that the Imperial Fleet existed as a subordinate command under the already in the 7th century. On the other hand, the of the Imperial Fleet first appears in the Taktikon Uspensky of ; and as there is little evidence for major fleets operating from Constantinople during the 8th century, the Greek Byzantinist Hélène Ahrweiler dated the fleet's creation to the early 9th century. From that point on, the Imperial Fleet formed the main naval reserve force and provided the core of various expeditionary fleets.
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Isolated regions of particular importance for the control of the major sea-lanes were covered by separate officials with the title of , who in some cases may have commanded detachments of the Imperial Fleet. Such are known for Chios, Malta, the Euboic Gulf, and possibly Vagenetia and "Bulgaria" (whose area of control is identified by Ahrweiler with the mouths of the Danube). These vanished by the end of the 9th century, either succumbing to Arab attacks or being reformed or incorporated into themes.
Manpower and size
Just as with its land counterpart, the exact size of the Byzantine navy and its units is a matter of considerable debate, owing to the scantness and ambiguous nature of the primary sources. One exceptions are the numbers for the late 9th and early 10th century, for which we possess a more detailed breakdown, dated to the Cretan expedition of 911. These lists reveal that during the reign of Leo VI the Wise, the navy reached 34,200 oarsmen and perhaps as many as 8,000 marines. The central Imperial Fleet totalled some 19,600 oarsmen and 4,000 marines under the command of the of the Imperial Fleet. These four thousand marines were professional soldiers, first recruited as a corps by Basil I in the 870s. They were a great asset to the Imperial Fleet, for whereas previously it had depended on thematic and tagmatic soldiers for its marines, the new force provided a more reliable, better trained and immediately available force at the Emperor's disposal. The high status of these marines is illustrated by the fact that they were considered to belong to the imperial , and were organized along similar lines. The Aegean thematic fleet numbered 2,610 oarsmen and 400 marines, the Cibyrrhaeot fleet stood at 5,710 oarsmen and 1,000 marines, the Samian fleet at 3,980 oarsmen and 600 marines, and finally, the Theme of Hellas furnished 2,300 oarsmen with a portion of its 2,000 thematic soldiers doubling as marines.
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Palaiologan navy
Despite their efforts, the Nicaean emperors failed to successfully challenge the Venetian domination of the seas, and were forced to turn to the Genoese for aid. After regaining Constantinople in 1261 however, Michael VIII initiated a great effort to lessen this dependence by building a "national" navy, forming a number of new corps to this purpose: the (), who were men of mixed Greek-Latin descent living around the capital; and men from Laconia, called ) or (), were used as marines, forming the bulk of Byzantine naval manpower in the 1260s and 1270s. Michael also set the rowers, called () or (), apart as a separate corps. All these groups received small grants of land to cultivate in exchange for their service, and were settled together in small colonies. The were settled near the sea throughout the northern Aegean, while the and were settled mostly around Constantinople and in Thrace. These corps remained extant, albeit in a diminished form, throughout the last centuries of the Empire; indeed the of Gallipoli formed the bulk of the crews of the first Ottoman fleets after the Ottomans captured the area. Throughout the Palaiologan period, the fleet's main base was the harbour of Kontoskalion on the Marmara shore of Constantinople, dredged and refortified by Michael VIII. Among the provincial naval centres, probably the most important was Monemvasia in the Peloponnese.
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The primary warship of the Byzantine navy until the 12th century was the dromon and other similar ship types. Apparently an evolution of the light liburnian galleys of the imperial Roman fleets, the term first appears in the late 5th century, and was commonly used for a specific kind of war-galley by the 6th. The term () itself comes from the Greek root , , thus meaning 'runner'; 6th-century authors like Procopius are explicit in their references to the speed of these vessels. During the next few centuries, as the naval struggle with the Arabs intensified, heavier versions with two or possibly even three banks of oars evolved. Eventually, the term was used in the general sense of 'warship', and was often used interchangeably with another Byzantine term for a large warship, (, from the Greek word , 'courser'), which first appeared during the 8th century.
Evolution and features
The appearance and evolution of medieval warships is a matter of debate and conjecture: until recently, no remains of an oared warship from either ancient or early medieval times had been found, and information had to be gathered by analyzing literary evidence, crude artistic depictions and the remains of a few merchant vessels. Only in 2005–2006 did archaeological digs for the Marmaray project in the location of the Harbour of Theodosius (modern Yenikapi) uncover the remains of over 36 Byzantine ships from the 6th to 10th centuries, including four light galleys of the type.
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The accepted view is that the main developments which differentiated the early dromons from the liburnians, and that henceforth characterized Mediterranean galleys, were the adoption of a full deck (), the abandonment of the rams on the bow in favour of an above-water spur, and the gradual introduction of lateen sails. The exact reasons for the abandonment of the ram (; , ) are unclear. Depictions of upward-pointing beaks in the 4th-century manuscript may well illustrate that the ram had already been replaced by a spur in late antique galleys. One possibility is that the change occurred because of the gradual evolution of the ancient shell-first mortise and tenon hull construction method, against which rams had been designed, into the skeleton-first method, which produced a stronger and more flexible hull, less susceptible to ram attacks. Certainly by the early 7th century, the ram's original function had been forgotten, if we judge by Isidore of Seville's comments that they were used to protect against collision with underwater rocks. As for the lateen sail, various authors have in the past suggested that it was introduced into the Mediterranean by the Arabs, possibly with an ultimate origin in India. However, the discovery of new depictions and literary references in recent decades has led scholars to antedate the appearance of the lateen sail in the Levant to the late Hellenistic or early Roman period. Not only the triangular, but also the quadrilateral version were known, used for centuries (mostly on smaller craft) in parallel with square sails. Belisarius' invasion fleet of 533 was apparently at least partly fitted with lateen sails, making it probable that by the time the lateen had become the standard rig for the dromon, with the traditional square sail gradually falling from use in medieval navigation.
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For cargo transport, the Byzantines usually commandeered ordinary merchantmen as transport ships () or supply ships (). These appear to have been mostly sailing vessels, rather than oared. The Byzantines and Arabs also employed horse-transports (), which were either sailing ships or galleys, the latter certainly modified to accommodate the horses. Given that the appear originally to have been oared horse-transports, this would imply differences in construction between the and the proper, terms which otherwise are often used indiscriminately in literary sources. While the was developed exclusively as a war galley, the would have had to have a special compartment amidships to accommodate a row of horses, increasing its beam and hold depth. In addition, Byzantine sources refer to the or (, ), which was a boat carried along by the bigger ships. The kind described in the De Ceremoniis had a single mast, four oars and a rudder. In the earlier years of the empire, shipbuilding wood for transport and supply ships was mainly from conifers, but in the later years from broad-leaved trees, possibly from forests in what is now Turkey.
Western designs of the last centuries
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The exact period when the dromon was superseded by -derived ships of Italian origin is uncertain. The term continued in use until the late 12th century, although Byzantine writers were indiscriminate in their use of it. Contemporary Western writers used the term to denote large ships, usually transports, and there is evidence to support the idea that this usage had also spread to the Byzantines. William of Tyre's description of the Byzantine fleet in 1169, where "dromons" are classed as very large transports, and the warships with two oar banks are set apart from them, may thus indeed indicate the adoption of the new bireme galley types by the Byzantines. From the 13th century on, the term fell into gradual disuse and was replaced by (, meaning 'detailed to/owing a service'), a late-11th century term which originally applied to the crews, who were drawn from populations detailed to military service. During the latter period of the Byzantine Empire, Byzantine ships were based on Western models: the term is used indiscriminately for both Byzantine and Latin ships, and the horse-carrying was replaced by the Western (itself deriving from Arabic , adopted as , , in Greek). A similar process is seen in surviving sources from Angevin Sicily, where the term was replaced by the , although for a time both continued to be used. No construction differences are mentioned between the two, with both terms referring to horse-carrying vessels () capable of carrying from 20 to 40 horses.
The bireme Italian-style galleys remained the mainstay of Mediterranean fleets until the late 13th century, although again, contemporary descriptions provide little detail on their construction. From that point on, the galleys universally became trireme ships, i.e. with three men on a single bank located above deck, each rowing a different oar; the so-called system. The Venetians also developed the so-called "", which was an enlarged galley capable of carrying more cargo for trade.
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Little is known on particular Byzantine ships during the period. The accounts of the 1437 journey by sea of the Byzantine delegation to the Council of Florence, by the Byzantine cleric Sylvester Syropoulos and the Greek-Venetian captain Michael of Rhodes, mention that most of the ships were Venetian or Papal, but also record that Emperor John VIII travelled on an "imperial ship". It is unclear whether that ship was Byzantine or had been hired, and its type is not mentioned. It is, however, recorded as having been faster than the Venetian great merchant galleys accompanying it, possibly indicating that it was a light war galley. Michael of Rhodes also wrote a treatise on shipbuilding, which provided construction instructions and illustrations of the main vessels, both galleys and sailing ships, used by Venice and the other maritime states of the region in the first half of the 15th century.
Tactics and weapons
The Byzantines took care to codify, preserve and pass on the lessons of warfare at land and sea from past experience, through the use of military manuals. Despite their sometimes antiquarian terminology, these texts form the basis of our knowledge on Byzantine naval affairs. The main surviving texts are the chapters on sea combat () in the Tactica of Leo the Wise and Nikephoros Ouranos (both drawing extensively from the Naumachiai of Syrianos Magistros and other earlier works), complemented by relevant passages in the De Administrando Imperio of Constantine Porphyrogennetos and other works by Byzantine and Arab writers.
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Naval strategy, logistics and tactics
When examining ancient and medieval naval operations, it is necessary to first understand the technological limitations of galley fleets. Galleys did not handle well in rough waters and could be swamped by waves, which would be catastrophic in the open sea; history is replete with instances where galley fleets were sunk by bad weather (e.g. the Roman losses during the First Punic War). The sailing season was therefore usually restricted from mid-spring to September. The maintainable cruising speed of a galley, even when using sails, was limited, as were the amount of supplies it could carry. Water in particular, being essentially a galley's "fuel" supply, was of critical importance. There is no evidence that the navy operated dedicated supply ships to support the warships. With consumption levels estimated at 8 litres a day for every oarsman, its availability was a decisive operational factor in the often water-scarce and sun-baked coasts of the Eastern Mediterranean. Smaller dromons are estimated to have been able to carry about four days' worth of water. Effectively, this meant that fleets composed of galleys were confined to coastal routes, and had to make frequent landfall to replenish their supplies and rest their crews. This is well attested in Byzantine overseas endeavours, from Belisarius' campaign against the Vandals to the Cretan expeditions of the 9th and 10th centuries. It is for these reasons that Nikephoros Ouranos emphasizes the need to have available "men with accurate knowledge and experience of the sea [...], which winds cause it to swell and which blow from the land. They should know both the hidden rocks in the sea, and the places which have no depth, and the land along which one sails and the islands adjacent to it, the harbours and the distance such harbours are the one from the other. They should know both the countries and the water supplies."
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Medieval Mediterranean naval warfare was therefore essentially coastal and amphibious in nature, carried out to seize coastal territory or islands, and not to exercise "sea control" as it is understood today. Furthermore, following the abandonment of the ram, the only truly "ship-killing" weapon available prior to the advent of gunpowder and explosive shells, sea combat became, in the words of John Pryor, "more unpredictable. No longer could any power hope to have such an advantage in weaponry or the skill of crews that success could be expected." It is no surprise therefore that the Byzantine and Arab manuals emphasize cautious tactics, with the priority given to the preservation of one's own fleet, and the acquisition of accurate intelligence, often through the use of spies posing as merchants. Emphasis was placed on achieving tactical surprise and, conversely, on avoiding being caught unprepared by the enemy. Ideally, battle was to be given only when assured of superiority by virtue of numbers or tactical disposition. Importance is also laid on matching one's forces and tactics to the prospective enemy: Leo VI, for instance, contrasted (Tactica, XIX.74–77) the Arabs with their heavy and slow ships (), to the small and fast craft (, chiefly monoxyla), of the Slavs and Rus'.
On campaign, following the assembly of the various squadrons at fortified bases () along the coast, the fleet consisted of the main body, composed of the oared warships, and the baggage train () of sailing vessels and oared transports, which would be sent away in the event of battle. The battle fleet was divided into squadrons, and orders were transmitted from ship to ship through signal flags () and lanterns. The navy played key role in supplying land-based forces.
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On the approach to and during an actual battle, a well-ordered formation was critical: if a fleet fell into disorder, its ships would be unable to lend support to each other and probably would be defeated. Fleets that failed to keep an ordered formation or that could not order themselves into an appropriate counter-formation () to match that of the enemy, often avoided, or broke off from battle. Tactical manoeuvres were therefore intended to disrupt the enemy formation, including the use of various stratagems, such as dividing one's force and carrying out flanking manoeuvres, feigning retreat or hiding a reserve in ambush (Tactica, XIX.52–56). Indeed, Leo VI openly advised (Tactica, XIX.36) against direct confrontation and advocates the use of stratagems instead. According to Leo VI (Tactica, XIX.52), a crescent formation seems to have been the norm, with the flagship in the centre and the heavier ships at the horns of the formation, in order to turn the enemy's flanks. A range of variants and other tactics and counter-tactics was available, depending on the circumstances.
Once the fleets were close enough, exchanges of missiles began, ranging from combustible projectiles to arrows and javelins. The aim was not to sink ships, but to deplete the ranks of the enemy crews before the boarding actions, which decided the outcome. Once the enemy strength was judged to have been reduced sufficiently, the fleets closed in, the ships grappled each other, and the marines and upper bank oarsmen boarded the enemy vessel and engaged in hand-to-hand combat.
Armament
Unlike the warships of Antiquity, Byzantine and Arab ships did not feature rams, and the primary means of ship-to-ship combat were boarding actions and missile fire, as well as the use of inflammable materials such as Greek fire. Despite the fearsome reputation of the latter, it was only effective under certain circumstances, and not the decisive anti-ship weapon that the ram had been in the hands of experienced crews.
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"Greek fire" was the name given by Western Europeans to the flammable concoction used by the Byzantines, so called because the Europeans viewed the Byzantines as Greeks instead of Romans. The Byzantines themselves used various descriptive names for it, but the most common was 'liquid fire' (). Although the use of incendiary chemicals by the Byzantines has been attested to since the early 6th century, the actual substance known as Greek fire is believed to have been created in 673 and is attributed to an engineer from Syria, named Kallinikos. The most common method of deployment was to emit the formula through a large bronze tube () onto enemy ships. Alternatively, it could be launched in jars fired from catapults; pivoting cranes () are also mentioned as a method of pouring combustibles onto enemy ships. Usually the mixture would be stored in heated, pressurized barrels and projected through the tube by some sort of pump while the operators were sheltered behind large iron shields. A portable version () also existed, reputedly invented by Leo VI, making it the direct analogue to a modern flamethrower. The means of its production was kept a state secret, and its components are only roughly guessed or described through secondary sources like Anna Komnene, so that its exact composition remains to this day unknown. In its effect, the Greek fire must have been rather similar to napalm. Contemporary sources make clear that it could not be extinguished by water, but rather floated and burned on top of it; sand could extinguish it by depriving it of oxygen, and several authors also mention strong vinegar and old urine as being able to extinguish it, presumably by some sort of chemical reaction. Consequently, felt or hides soaked in vinegar were used to provide protection against it.
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Despite the somewhat exaggerated accounts of Byzantine writers, it was by no means a "wonder weapon", and did not avert some serious defeats. Given its limited range, and the need for a calm sea and favourable wind conditions, its usability was limited. Nevertheless, in favourable circumstances and against an unprepared enemy, its great destructive ability and psychological impact could prove decisive, as displayed repeatedly against the Rus'. Greek fire continued to be mentioned during the 12th century, but the Byzantines failed to use it against the Fourth Crusade, possibly because they had lost access to the areas (the Caucasus and the eastern coast of the Black Sea) where the primary ingredients were to be found. The Arabs fielded their own 'liquid fire' after 835, but it is unknown if they used the Byzantine formula, possibly obtained through espionage or through the defection of Euphemios in 827, or whether they independently created a version of their own. A 12th-century treatise prepared by Mardi bin Ali al-Tarsusi for Saladin records a version of Greek fire, called (naphtha), which had a petroleum base, with sulphur and various resins added.
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Byzantine navy
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On the other hand, the nature and limitations of the maritime technology of the age meant that the neither the Byzantines nor any of their opponents could develop a true thalassocracy. Galley fleets were confined to coastal operations, and were not able to play a truly independent role. Furthermore, as the alternation of Byzantine victories and defeats against the Arabs illustrates, no side was able to permanently gain the upper hand. Although the Byzantines pulled off a number of spectacular successes, such as Nasar's remarkable night-time victory in 880 (one of a handful of similar engagements in the Middle Ages), these victories were balanced off by similarly disastrous losses. Reports of mutinies by oarsmen in Byzantine fleets also reveal that conditions were often far from the ideal prescribed in the manuals. Combined with the traditional predominance of the great Anatolian land-holders in the higher military and civil offices, all this meant that, as in the Roman Empire, the navy, even at its height, was still regarded largely as an adjunct to the land forces. This fact is clearly illustrated by the relatively lowly positions its admirals held in the imperial hierarchy.
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Byzantine navy
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It is clear nevertheless that the gradual decline of the indigenous Byzantine naval power in the 10th and 11th centuries, when it was eclipsed by the Italian city-states, chiefly Venice and later Genoa, was of great long-term significance for the fate of the Empire. The sack of the Fourth Crusade, which shattered the foundations of the Byzantine state, was due in large part to the absolute defencelessness of the Empire at sea. This process was initiated by Byzantium itself in the 9th century, when the Italians were increasingly employed by the Empire to compensate for its own naval weakness in the West. The Italian republics also profited from their role as intermediaries in the trade between the Empire and Western Europe, marginalizing the Byzantine merchant marine, which in turn had adverse effects on the availability of Byzantine naval forces. Inevitably however, as the Italian republics slowly moved away from the Byzantine orbit, they began pursuing their own policies, and from the late 11th century on, they turned from protection of the Empire to exploitation and sometimes outright plunder, heralding the eventual financial and political subjugation of Byzantium to their interests. The absence of a strong navy was certainly keenly felt by the Byzantines at the time, as the comments of Kekaumenos illustrate. Strong and energetic emperors like Manuel Komnenos, and later Michael VIII Palaiologos, could revive Byzantine naval power, but even after landing heavy strokes against the Venetians, they merely replaced them with the Genoese and the Pisans. Trade thus remained in Latin hands, its profits continued to be siphoned off from the Empire, and after their deaths, their achievements quickly evaporated. After 1204, and with the brief exception of Michael VIII's reign, the fortunes of the now small Byzantine navy were more or less tied to the shifting alliances with the Italian maritime republics.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza%20de%20Col%C3%B3n
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Plaza de Colón
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Plaza de Colón (Columbus Square, in English) is located in the encounter of Chamberí, Centro and Salamanca districts of Madrid, Spain. This plaza and its fountain commemorate the explorer Christopher Columbus, whose name in Spanish was Cristóbal Colón.
Monuments
The plaza, originally called Plaza de Santiago (St. James Square), was renamed Plaza de Colón in 1893 to honor Christopher Columbus. The square contains two monuments.
On the Paseo de la Castellana side there is a monument to Columbus whose base was constructed between 1881-1885. It is topped by a statue of Columbus. The monument is 3 meters tall.
The second monument near the Calle de Serrano consists of a group of concrete macro-sculptures by Joaquín Vaquero Turcios. The concrete blocks are decorated with inscriptions and reliefs related to the discovery of America.
Flag
Since Spain's National Day in 2001, the world's largest Spanish flag—14m x 21m (46 x 69 ft.)—294 square meters (3164 square feet)—has flown from a flagpole in Plaza de Colón that is 50 m (164 ft.) high.
The flag originally cost €378,000. It was replaced in January, 2016 at a cost of €400,000.
Other features
The gardens in the plaza are known as the Jardines del Descubrimiento (Gardens of Discovery), where the Royal Mint was located until 1970.
At the base of the Columbus monument is a large fountain with a broad cascade of water. There are steps leading under the cascade and beneath the plaza, where the roar of the fountain is amplified. Under the plaza along with the Teatro Fernán Gómez lies a stop for a special shuttle that takes passengers to Barajas Airport.
At the other side of the Plaza are the twin Torres de Colón. The Platea Madrid gourmet food hall is located on the square at Calle de Goya 5–7.
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Alison Goldfrapp
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Alison Elizabeth Margaret Goldfrapp (born 13 May 1966) is an English musician and record producer, known as the vocalist of English electronic music duo Goldfrapp.
Early life and education
Alison Elizabeth Margaret Goldfrapp was born on 13 May 1966, in Enfield, London, the youngest of six children. Her mother, Isabella Barge, was a nurse. Her father, Nicholas Goldfrapp, had been an army officer, and worked in advertising. Goldfrapp's surname is of German origin.
While Goldfrapp was growing up, her family moved frequently, eventually settling in Alton, Hampshire, where Goldfrapp attended the independent Alton Convent School. She sang in a choir at the school and has said that she loved being in a school with nuns. However, she was forced to leave at age 11 after failing the senior exam, and attended the local comprehensive school, Amery Hill School.
She moved into a squat in London aged 16, then lived in Belgium for a brief time. Four years later, she went to art school, where she started experimenting with music.
Career
In 1994, she featured on the Orbital album Snivilisation and recorded songs "The Good" and "The Bad" with trip reggae outfit Dreadzone, for their 'best of' album The Best of Dreadzone – The Good The Bad and the Dread. Performing with them live resulted in two songs on the limited edition Performance album released in 1994. In the same year, Goldfrapp featured on trip hop artist Tricky's 1995 song "Pumpkin" and collaborated with Stefan Girardet on two songs on the soundtrack to the 1995 film The Confessional.
Goldfrapp was introduced to composer Will Gregory in 1999 after he had listened to her vocal contribution for "Pumpkin"; they then formed Goldfrapp and signed to Mute Records.
In 2000, she was a featured vocalist on the songs "The Time Of The Turning" and "The Time of the Turning (Reprise)/The Weaver's Reel" from the release OVO, Peter Gabriel's soundtrack album to the London Millennium Dome Show.
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Japanese holdout
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On May 12, 1948, the Associated Press reported that two unnamed Japanese soldiers had surrendered to civilian policemen in Guam the day before.
On June 27, 1951, the Associated Press reported that a Japanese petty officer who surrendered on Anatahan Island in the Marianas two weeks before said that there were 18 other holdouts there. A U.S. Navy plane that flew over the island spotted 18 Japanese soldiers on a beach waving white flags. However, the Navy remained cautious, as the Japanese petty officer had warned that the soldiers were "well-armed and that some of them threatened to kill anyone who tried to give himself up. The leaders profess to believe that the war is still on." The Navy dispatched a seagoing tug, the Cocopa, to the island in hopes of picking up some or all of the soldiers without incident. After a formal surrender ceremony, all the men were retrieved. The Japanese occupation of the island inspired the 1953 Japanese film Anatahan and the 1998 novel Cage on the Sea.
In 1955, four Japanese airmen surrendered at Hollandia in Dutch New Guinea: Shimada Kakuo, Shimokubo Kumao, Ojima Mamoru and Jaegashi Sanzo. They were the survivors of a bigger group.
In 1956, nine soldiers were discovered and sent home from Indonesia's Morotai island.
In November 1956, four men surrendered on the Philippines' island of Mindoro: Lieutenant Shigeichi Yamamoto and Corporals Unitaro Ishii, Masaji Izumida and Juhie Nakano.
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Japanese holdout
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Alleged sightings (1981–2005)
In 1981, a Diet of Japan committee mentioned newspaper reports that holdouts were still living in the forest on Vella Lavella in the Solomon Islands. However, it is believed that these were hoaxes made up to lure Japanese tourists to the islands. Searches for holdouts were conducted by the Japanese government on many Pacific islands throughout the 1980s, but the information was too scant to take any further action, and the searches ended by 1989. In 1992, it was reported that a few holdouts still lived on the island of Kolombangara, though subsequent searches were unable to find any evidence. An investigation into similar reports of holdouts on Guadalcanal in 2001 failed to turn up evidence.
The last report taken seriously by Japanese officials took place in May 2005, when two elderly men emerged from the jungle in the Philippines claiming to be ex-soldiers. It was initially assumed that the media attention scared the two men off as they disappeared and were not heard from again. Suspicions of a hoax or a kidnapping attempt later mounted as the area where the alleged soldiers emerged from is "notorious" for ransom kidnappings and attacks by Islamist separatists. It was reported by Tokyo Shimbun on May 31, 2005 that unconfirmed information about remaining Japanese soldiers is said to be rampant in the Philippines. These reports are connected to scams tied to wealth, such as the alleged location of Yamashita's gold and (The M Fund). It is unknown how many or if any legitimate Japanese holdouts remain today, but after over three quarters of a century since the end of the war, harsh jungle terrain, and equatorial climates, it is highly unlikely that any are still alive. The National WWII Museum reported in 2022 that surviving veterans are "dying quickly", as those who served are now "in their 90s or older".
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