title: Emiliano Sala

text: On 19 January 2019, Sala joined Premier League side Cardiff City on a three and a half-year deal for a club record transfer fee, reported to be £15 million. The transfer beat the previous club record of £11 million paid for Gary Medel in 2013. As part of a sell-on clause, 50% of the transfer fee was due to his first professional club Bordeaux. Sala rejected a late bid from a club in the Chinese Super League to join Cardiff, despite being offered a higher salary, due to his desire to play in the Premier League. Following Sala's death, Nantes demanded the transfer fee from Cardiff. In September 2019, FIFA ruled in Nantes' favour and ordered Cardiff to pay a first instalment of €6 million (£5.3 million), and the remainder the following January. In August 2022 the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that the first instalment has to be paid.


title: Emiliano Sala

text: Sala stated that he modelled his style on his idol, former Argentine international forward Gabriel Batistuta. BBC Sport compared Sala to Jamie Vardy, describing him as "a player who likes wide spaces and being part of a team that has a strong counter-attacking style." A large and powerful striker, he was also recognised for his ability to hold the ball up and was described as possessing "reasonable" pace; he also drew praise in the media for his work-rate, tenacity, eye for goal, and finishing ability.


title: Emiliano Sala

text: After completing his medical at Cardiff, Sala returned to Nantes on Saturday 19 January, on a plane arranged by football agent Mark McKay. His intention was to return to Cardiff on Monday 21 January, in order to attend his first training session with his new club the following morning. Sala had been invited to attend Cardiff's match against Newcastle United by manager Neil Warnock, but he returned to France to say goodbye to his Nantes teammates and collect personal belongings.


title: Emiliano Sala

text: On 21 January, the Piper Malibu aircraft, which was flying Sala from Nantes to Cardiff, disappeared off Alderney. The same aircraft and pilot had flown Sala to Nantes two days earlier. On 23 January, Channel Islands Air Search reported that there was "no hope" of finding any survivors in the water.


title: Emiliano Sala

text: An audio message, allegedly sent from the plane by Sala to his friends via WhatsApp, was released by Argentine media outlet "Olé". The audio message translates as follows:


title: Emiliano Sala

text: Guernsey Police initially searched for three days about across the English Channel. At 15:15 GMT on 24 January 2019, after a "very thorough and extensive search" including eighty hours of combined searching undertaken by three planes, five helicopters and two lifeboats, the police announced that they had called off the search for the aircraft or any survivors. The decision led to calls worldwide for the search to continue, including numerous other footballers, among them fellow Argentine players Lionel Messi, Gonzalo Higuaín, Sergio Agüero and former player Diego Maradona. The president of Argentina, Mauricio Macri, stated his intention to request the British and French governments to resume the search. An online petition also attracted over 65,000 signatures and Sala's family later announced their decision to fund a private search. Over £280,000 was raised for this search on GoFundMe started by Sports Cover, a sports agency that represented Sala. The funds enabled the private search to commence on 26 January, with the launch of two boats, led by marine scientist David Mearns.


title: Emiliano Sala

text: On 28 January, plans were announced for an underwater search to begin "within a week", dependent on weather conditions, using an unmanned remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) to search an area of seabed north of Hurd's Deep. On 29 January, Cardiff City included Sala on the team sheet for their game against Arsenal, with a daffodil next to his name in place of a squad number. On 30 January, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) reported that they had found two seat cushions washed up on a French beach, which were believed to be from the missing aircraft.


title: Emiliano Sala

text: On 3 February, another underwater search for the aircraft began, using the AAIB's "Geo Ocean III" vessel and a privately funded vessel, which were conducting sonar surveys of the seabed. The planned search, lasting three days, would cover an area of , about north of Guernsey. At approximately 21:11 GMT, six hours after the new search began, wreckage from the aircraft was found at a depth of . On 4 February, investigators stated that there was one body visible inside the wreckage.


title: Emiliano Sala

text: On 7 February, the body was recovered from the wreckage and taken to the Isle of Portland to be passed to the Dorset coroner. Later that day, Dorset Police identified the body as Sala's by means of fingerprint evidence. Nantes subsequently retired his former number 9 jersey. On 11 February, the results of a post mortem reported that Sala had died of "head and trunk injuries". Sala's body was taken back to Argentina on 15 February 2019 and his funeral was held, in his hometown of Progreso, the following day. On 25 February, a Special Bulletin was issued by the AAIB, giving a radar track of final section of flight including photographs of the wreckage on the sea-bed. It examined, in some detail, the regulatory framework for the accident flight.


title: Emiliano Sala

text: On 28 February, ex-football agent Willie McKay, who had arranged the flight, said that Sala had been "abandoned" by Cardiff City and was left to arrange his own travel. McKay's son Mark was Nantes' acting agent in the deal for Sala. The football club said they "strongly reject" the claim they neglected to provide Sala with travel arrangements. On 29 April, two people were arrested after a photograph purporting to show the dead body of Emiliano Sala during a post-mortem was posted on Twitter.


title: Emiliano Sala

text: On 19 June 2019, Dorset Police announced that they had arrested a man on suspicion of manslaughter by an unlawful act in respect of the death of Sala. His identity was not made public, but several newspapers identified the man as pilot David Henderson, who arranged the flight and had originally intended to fly the plane. On 11 March 2020, it was reported that no further action would be taken against the man. However, in October 2021, Henderson was prosecuted and found guilty of arranging a flight without permission or authorisation and of endangering the safety of an aircraft. On 14 August, it was reported that toxicology tests on Sala's body showed high levels of exposure to carbon monoxide, and the AAIB considered it was likely that the pilot would also have been exposed to the gas, potentially leading to drowsiness or unconsciousness.


title: Emiliano Sala

text: In September 2022, the BBC released recordings of the pilot, David Ibbotson, who also died in the crash, saying "I'll be wearing my life jacket" on the journey from France to Wales. He had also stated to friends that the 35-year-old airplane was "dodgy". The recordings further revealed that Ibbotson said about a previous flight in the same aircraft:


title: Liberal Party (Brazil, 2006)

text: The Liberal Party (, PL) is a conservative and national liberal political party in Brazil. From its foundation in 2006 until 2019, it was called the Party of the Republic (, PR).


title: Liberal Party (Brazil, 2006)

text: The party was founded in 2006 as a merger of the 1985 Liberal Party and the Party of the Reconstruction of the National Order (PRONA), as a big tent, centre-right party, and is considered part of the "Centrão", a bloc of parties without consistent ideological orientation that support different sides of the political spectrum in order to gain political privileges. In 2021, it became the base of the incumbent president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, for the 2022 Brazilian general election. This led to many of his supporters joining the party, which thereby became the largest bloc in the National Congress of Brazil.


title: Liberal Party (Brazil, 2006)

text: The Party of the Republic was founded on 26 October 2006, by the merger of the old Liberal Party — which initially started as a classical liberal party, but slowly shifted towards social conservatism after it became influenced by evangelicals — and the Party of the Reconstruction of the National Order ("Partido da Reedificação da Ordem Nacional", PRONA) — a far-right nationalist party. The merger was performed in order to surpass the Electoral threshold of 5%, but also as a rebranding as the Liberal Party was heavily implicated in the Mensalão scandal.


title: Liberal Party (Brazil, 2006)

text: Historically the party was a pragmatic party of business interests, supporting the candidacies of Lula and Dilma from the Workers' Party (PT) for the sake of moderating their presidencies. It generally supported a form of Lulism, which had less economic regulation. As such, the Party of the Republic was considered part of the "Centrão". PR's predecessor, the Liberal Party, was heavily involved in the Mensalão - a vote-buying scheme done by the Workers' Party in order to gain support in the National Congress, and Lula's Vice President José Alencar was a member of the old PL.


title: Liberal Party (Brazil, 2006)

text: During the 2010 elections, the Party of the Republic focused on the parliamentary elections; it won 41 of the 513 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 4 of the 81 Senate seats. One of PR's elected politicians was professional humorist and professional clown Tiririca, who became the State of São Paulo's most voted representative with more than one million votes, and due to Brazil's proportional voting system, Tiririca thus supported PR in electing a sizeable amount of representatives.


title: Liberal Party (Brazil, 2006)

text: Sergio Victor Tamer, founder of the Party of the Republic, was the party's president from 2006 to 2014. Alfredo Nascimento succeeded Tamer as president of the PR until April 2016, when he resigned due to party leadership not supporting the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff. However, 26 of the PR's MPs did vote for her impeachment.


title: Liberal Party (Brazil, 2006)

text: After that move by its MPs, the party took a more rightward turn away from its bipartisan past and supported Geraldo Alckmin's failed campaign in the 2018 Brazilian presidential election.


title: Liberal Party (Brazil, 2006)

text: On 7 May 2019, the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) voted to approve a motion of the party to change its name back to Liberal Party (PL). According to party leadership, the change was done in order to return to the party's roots as body defending economic liberalism, Free market and low intervention of the state in the economy. The social positions of the party remained socially conservative, however. Other specialists point it out as part of a national tendency of parties in Brazil rebranding in order to get better perception from the electorate due a process of loss of trust caused by the Brazilian political crisis, and also riding a wave of pro-liberalism sentiment in Brazil.


title: Liberal Party (Brazil, 2006)

text: On 30 November 2021, President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro and his son Senator Flávio Bolsonaro — who were previously affiliated with the Social Liberal Party (PSL) and left it, attempting to create the Alliance for Brazil party with no avail — joined the PL in preparation for the 2022 Brazilian general election (as presidential candidates must be affiliated with a political party). He had previously considered returning to the Progressists (PP), the Social Christian Party (PSC), Brazilian Labour Party (PTB), as well negotiation with number of other smaller and/or right-wing parties. Bolsonaro's affiliation to the PL has been pointed out by analysts as a consolidation of an alliance with the "Centrão".


title: Liberal Party (Brazil, 2006)

text: In the 2022 general election, the party has formed a presidential ticket and many gubernatorial tickets with a hard right coalition of the Republicans and the Progressitas (PP). The election was a great success to the party, resulting on PL becoming the largest bloc in the National Congress of Brazil with 99 seats and the Federal Senate with 13 seats. According to some analysts, the party has been divided between two wide factions: one from traditional "Centrão" politicians loyal to party president Valdemar Costa Neto, and a Bolsonarist one, composed by about two-thirds of the PL's elected bench, coming from his followers from PSL. In an interview, Neto revealed he fears that in case Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is elected president, there will be a split in the party as the traditional faction might want to align themselves with a possible PT government, while the Bolsonarist branch will form an opposition.


title: Liberal Party (Brazil, 2006)

text: The Liberal Party is a big tent conservative party. The Liberal Party are described as centre-right or right-wing.


title: Liberal Party (Brazil, 2006)

text: Though previously a party of national liberalism, before its merger with PRONA, the party has increasingly been affiliated with the anti-democratic right in Brazil. This has come as a result of the party's joining around the political philosophy of Jair Bolsonaro, who was initially affiliated with the PSL and other socially conservative parties. With the questioning of democracy, foreign policy, and the anti-democratic statements of Bolsonaro, the party seems to have re-embraced some of the tendencies of the head of PRONA Eneas Carneiro, a noted supporter of LaRoucheism, the previous military dictatorship, and a right wing opposition to neoliberalism.


title: Liberal Party (Brazil, 2006)

text: Generally the party is right-wing populist, economically liberal, but socially anti liberal and pro-Evangelical, aligning with the ideology of Bolsonaro. The party is agrarian, pro-military, and pro-life. The party promotes a generally more economically open form of Brazilian nationalism than Carneiro. The party has frequently supported Bolsonaro's attacks on the media and the election system in Brazil.


title: Kirsten Vangsness

text: Kirsten Simone Vangsness (born July 7, 1972) is an American actress and writer. She is best known for her portrayal of FBI Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia on the CBS drama series "Criminal Minds". She portrayed the same character on the spin-off series "" and "".


title: Kirsten Vangsness

text: Vangsness was born in Pasadena, California, daughter of Errol Leroy Vangsness, of Norwegian descent, and wife Barbara Mary (née Marconi), of Italian descent. She was raised in Porterville, California, and later moved to Cerritos, California. She graduated from Cerritos High School in June 1990 and attended Cypress College in Cypress, California. She later graduated from California State University, Fullerton in 1996.


title: Kirsten Vangsness

text: Vangsness became involved in acting as a child to help overcome shyness and got her first big break in the theatre, where she won several awards, including the 15 Minutes of Female Best Actress Award, the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award for Best Emerging Comic Actress, and the Golden Betty Award.


title: Kirsten Vangsness

text: Vangsness' work has been published in the "Los Angeles Times". Since 2014, Vangsness has co-written four episodes of "Criminal Minds". In 2014 she co-wrote "Nelson's Sparrow" with executive producer, Erica Messer. In 2015 she co-wrote "A Beautiful Disaster" once again with Messer and in 2016 she co-wrote "Spencer" with Messer. The "Criminal Minds" series finale was also co-written by Vangsness and Messer.


title: Kirsten Vangsness

text: In a 2011 interview, Vangsness has described herself as "as queer as a purple unicorn singing Madonna". She was in a seven-year relationship with editor Melanie Goldstein, to whom she was engaged, until 2013.


title: 2017 in film

text: 2017 in film is an overview of events, including the highest-grossing films, award ceremonies, festivals, a list of films released, and notable deaths in 2017.


title: 2017 in film

text: Richard Brody of "The New Yorker" observed that for 2017, "the most important event in the world of movies was the revelation, in "The New York Times" and "The New Yorker", of sexual abuse by Harvey Weinstein, and the resulting liberation of the long-stifled voices of the people who had been abused by him or other powerful figures in the movie business, and, for that matter, in other arts and industries, too." He emphasizes that in effect, "[w]hat's missing from the year-end list, and from the era in movies, isn't only the unmade work by these filmmakers but the artistry and the careers of cast and crew members who would have been in their unrealized films."


title: 2017 in film

text: "", "Beauty and the Beast", "The Fate of the Furious", and "Despicable Me 3" have each grossed over $1 billion, making them among the highest-grossing films of all time, with the latter being the fourth-highest-grossing animated film.


title: 2017 in film

text: "Wolf Warrior 2", a Chinese film, became the first non-Hollywood film to be listed on the all-time worldwide top 100 box office.


title: 2017 in film

text: "Split", by M. Night Shyamalan, was the year's most profitable film in terms of return on investment (ROI), having generated over 2,000% ROI. It is the 11th film to cross 2,000% ROI, and the first film to do so since 2015.


title: 2017 in film

text: List of some of the film festivals for 2017 that have been accredited by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF).


title: Kinkajou

text: The kinkajou ( ; Potos flavus) is a tropical rainforest mammal of the family Procyonidae related to olingos, coatis, raccoons, and the ringtail and cacomistle. It is the only member of the genus Potos and is also known as the "honey bear" (a name that it shares with the unrelated sun bear). Kinkajous are arboreal, a lifestyle they evolved independently; they are not closely related to any other tree-dwelling mammal group (primates, some mustelids, etc.).


title: Kinkajou

text: Native to Central and South America, this mostly frugivorous mammal is not an endangered species, though it is seldom seen by people because of its strict nocturnal habits. However, it is hunted for the pet trade, for its skin (to make wallets and horse saddles), and for its meat. The species has been included in Appendix III of CITES by Honduras, which means that exports from Honduras require an export permit, and exports from other countries require a certificate of origin or of re-export. They may live up to 40 years in captivity.


title: Kinkajou

text: The common name "kinkajou" derives from , based on the Algonquian name for the wolverine. It is similar to the Ojibwe word "kwi·nkwaʔa·ke". Its other names in English include honey bear, night ape, and night walker. Throughout its range, several regional names are used; for instance, the Dutch names "nachtaap", "rolbeer", and "rolstaartbeer" are used in Suriname. Many names come from Portuguese, Spanish, and local dialects, such as "jupará", "huasa", "cuchi cuchi", "leoncillo", "marta", "perro de monte", and "yapará".


title: Kinkajou

text: A. M. Husson, of the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie (Leiden), discussed the rather complicated nomenclature of the kinkajou in "The Mammals of Suriname" (1978). In his 1774 work "Die Säugethiere in Abbildungen nach der Natur", Schreber listed three items under the name ""Lemur flavus" Penn.": on page 145 is a short translation of Pennant's description of the yellow maucauco (later identified to be "Lemur mongoz", presently known as the mongoose lemur) from his 1771 work "A Synopsis of Quadrupeds" (page 138, second figure on plate 16); on plate 42 is a depiction of the yellow maucauco by Schreber; the last item is a reference to "A Synopsis of Quadrupeds" itself. Husson noted that the last item is actually Pennant's description of an animal that is clearly a kinkajou. Husson therefore concluded that "Lemur flavus" is actually a "composite species" based on Schreber's specimen of the mongoose lemur and Pennant's specimen of the kinkajou, and identified the latter as the lectotype for the species.


title: Kinkajou

text: The type locality reported by Schreber for "L. flavus" ("the mountains in Jamaica") was clearly based on Pennant's description of the kinkajou, who claimed, however, that his specimen was "shown about three years ago in London: its keeper said it came from the mountains of Jamaica". This error was pointed out by Thomas in 1902, who corrected the type locality to Suriname. He used the name "Potos flavus" for the kinkajou. The genus "Potos" was erected by Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier in 1795, with the type species "Viverra caudivolvula" described by Schreber in 1778 (later identified as a synonym of "Potos flavus"). In 1977 the family Cercoleptidae was proposed with the kinkajou as the sole member, but this classification was later dismissed.


title: Kinkajou

text: A 2016 phylogenetic study based on mitochondrial gene cytochrome b analyzed kinkajou specimens from a variety of locations throughout most of their range. The results showed 27 haplotypes split into five clades corresponding to geographical divisions: Costa Rica (clade 1), northern Brazil and the Guianas (clade 2), northern Peru (clade 3), Ecuador and Panama (clade 4), interfluves between the Branco River and Rio Negro in the Brazilian Amazon, low-lying Amazonian areas (in Bolivia, western Brazil and Peru), and eastern Atlantic Forest (clade 5). Given the diverse clades, the researchers suggested that some of the subspecies might be independent species.


title: Kinkajou

text: A 2007 phylogenetic study showed that kinkajous form a basal lineage sister to the rest of the Procyonidae. They diverged 21.6–24 Mya. Two clades, one leading to "Bassaricyon" (olingos and the olinguito) plus "Nasua" (coatis), and one leading to "Bassariscus" (the ring-tailed cat and the cacomistle) plus "Procyon" (racoons), appeared subsequently and radiated during the Miocene (). Kinkajous are thought to have evolved in Central America and invaded South America as part of the Great American Interchange that followed the formation of the Isthmus of Panama. The phylogenetic relationships obtained in the 2007 study are given below; these were supported by similar studies in the following years.


title: Kinkajou

text: The kinkajou has a round head, large eyes, a short, pointed snout, short limbs, and a long prehensile tail. The total head-and-body length (including the tail) is between , and the tail measures . Its mature weight ranges from . Females are generally smaller than males. The short, rounded ears measure . The eyes reflect green or bright yellow against light. The long, thick tongue is highly extrudable. The snout is dark brown to black. The claws are sharp and short.


title: Kinkajou

text: The coat color varies throughout the range and at different times of the year. Several shades such as tawny olive, wood brown, and yellowish tawny have been reported for the upper part of the coat and the upper side of the tail, while the underparts and the lower side of the tail have been observed to be buff, tawny, or brownish yellow. Some individuals have a black stripe running along the midline of the back. The color seems to become lighter from the south to the north, though no seasonal trends have been observed. The fur is short, woolly and dense. Hairs are of two types - light yellowish and darker with brown tips. The darker hairs reflect light poorly relative to the lighter ones, often creating an illusion of spots and dark lines on the coat. The tail is covered with thick fur up to the end.


title: Kinkajou

text: The kinkajou is distinguished from other procyonids by its small, rounded ears, extensible tongue, and prehensile tail. Olingos are similar enough in appearance that many native cultures do not distinguish the two. Compared to olingos, kinkajous are larger, have foreshortened muzzles, and lack anal scent glands (in addition to the previously described differences). The binturong, a Southeast Asian viverrid, has similar limb proportions and is the only other carnivoran with a prehensile tail. The kinkajou resembles neotropical monkeys in having a prehensile tail and big, forward-facing eyes, but has a different dentition and heavy fur on the soles of the feet.


title: Kinkajou

text: Kinkajous range from east and south of the Sierra Madre in Mexico, throughout Central America to Bolivia east of the Andes and the Atlantic Forest of southeastern Brazil. Their altitudinal range is from sea level to 2500 m. They are found in closed-canopy tropical forests, including lowland rainforest, montane forest, dry forest, gallery forest, and secondary forest. Deforestation is thus a potential threat to the species.


title: Kinkajou

text: Although the kinkajou is classified in the order Carnivora and has sharp teeth, its omnivorous diet consists mainly of fruit, particularly figs. Some 90% of their diet consists of (primarily ripe) fruit. To eat softer fruits, they hold it with their forepaws, then scoop out the succulent pulp with their tongue. They may play an important role in seed dispersal. Leaves, flowers, and various herbs make up much of the other 10% of their diet. They sometimes eat insects, particularly ants. They may occasionally eat bird eggs and small vertebrates. Their frugivorous habits are actually convergent with those of (diurnal) spider monkeys.


title: Kinkajou

text: The kinkajou's slender 5-inch extrudable tongue helps the animal to obtain fruit and to lick nectar from flowers, so it sometimes acts as a pollinator. (Nectar is also sometimes obtained by eating entire flowers.) Although captive specimens avidly eat honey (hence the name "honey bear"), honey in the diet of wild kinkajous is not well reported.


title: Kinkajou

text: Kinkajou spend most of their lives in trees, to which they are particularly well adapted. Like raccoons, kinkajous' remarkable manipulatory abilities rival those of primates. The kinkajou has a short-haired, fully prehensile tail (like some New World monkeys), which it uses as a "fifth hand" in climbing. It does not use its tail for grasping food. It can rotate its ankles and feet 180°, making it easy for the animal to run backward over tree limbs and climb down trees headfirst. Scent glands near the mouth, on the throat, and on the belly allow kinkajous to mark their territory and their travel routes. Kinkajous sleep in family units and groom one another.


title: Kinkajou

text: While they are usually solitary when foraging, they occasionally forage in large groups, and sometimes associate with olingos (which are also nocturnal arboreal frugivores). The larger kinkajous are dominant and will drive olingos away when food is scarce. Kinkajous have a much more extensive range than olingos and tend to be more common. However, olingos may have greater agility, perhaps facilitating their sympatry with kinkajous.


title: Kinkajou

text: As a nocturnal animal, the kinkajou's peak activity is usually between about 7:00 pm and midnight, and again an hour before dawn. During daylight hours, kinkajous sleep in tree hollows or in shaded tangles of leaves, avoiding direct sunlight.


title: Kinkajou

text: Kinkajous breed throughout the year, giving birth to one or occasionally two small babies after a gestation period of 112 to 118 days.


title: Kinkajou

text: Kinkajous are sometimes kept as exotic pets. They are playful, generally quiet, docile, and have little odor, but they can occasionally be aggressive. Kinkajous dislike sudden movements, noise, and being awake during the day. An agitated kinkajou may emit a scream and attack, usually clawing its victim and sometimes biting deeply. In 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that pet kinkajous in the United States can be carriers (fecal–oral route) of the raccoon roundworm "Baylisascaris procyonis", which is capable of causing severe morbidity and even death in humans if the brain is infected.


title: Kinkajou

text: In El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, pet kinkajous are commonly called "micoleón", meaning "lion monkey". In Peru, pet kinkajous are frequently referred to as "lirón", often described as a "bear-monkey". These names reflect its monkey-like body and obviously carnivoran head.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: Roy Albert DeMeo (; September 7, 1940 – January 10, 1983) was an Italian-American mobster in the Gambino crime family of New York City. He headed a group referred to as the "DeMeo crew", which became notorious for the large number of murders they committed and for the grisly way they disposed of the bodies, which became known as "the Gemini Method". The crew was responsible for a very large number of murders, possibly as many as 200, with the majority of them committed by DeMeo himself.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: Roy Albert DeMeo was born on September 7, 1940 in Flatlands, Brooklyn, to a working-class Italian immigrant family of Neapolitan origin. The fourth of five children of Eleanor (a housewife) and Anthony DeMeo (a laundry company deliveryman), DeMeo graduated from James Madison High School in 1959, during which time he began earning money as a loanshark. The economist Walter Block and future presidential candidate Bernie Sanders were among his graduating year classmates. Between the ages of fifteen and twenty-two, he also worked at a local grocery store, where he trained as an apprentice butcher. Roy's older brother Anthony Frank "Chubby" DeMeo, a U.S. Marine Corps corporal, was killed in action during the Korean War on April 23, 1951, aged twenty. His father died of a heart attack on December 12, 1960 when Roy was nineteen, and his mother subsequently returned to Italy with Roy's youngest brother to live with relatives near Naples.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: Roy DeMeo was initially an associate of the Flatlands–Canarsie faction of the Lucchese crime family, which controlled tow truck companies, junkyards, and car theft operations in that section of Brooklyn. Anthony Gaggi, a soldier in the Gambino crime family, noticed DeMeo in 1966 and told him that he could make even more money with his successful business if he came to work directly for the Gambinos. Through the late 1960s, DeMeo's organized crime prospects increased on two fronts. He continued in the loansharking business with Gaggi, and began developing a crew of young men involved in car theft. It was this collective of criminals that became known both in the underworld and in law enforcement circles as the DeMeo crew.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: The first member of the DeMeo crew was 16-year-old Chris Rosenberg, who met DeMeo in 1966 when he was dealing marijuana at a Canarsie gas station. DeMeo helped Rosenberg increase his business and profits by loaning him money so that he could deal in larger amounts. By 1972, Rosenberg had introduced his friends to DeMeo and they began working for him as well. The additional members of the crew came to include Joseph and Patrick Testa, Anthony Senter, Richard and Frederick DiNome, Henry Borelli, Joseph "Dracula" Guglielmo (DeMeo's cousin), and later, Vito Arena and Carlo Profeta. DeMeo joined a Brooklyn credit union that same year, gaining a position on the board of directors shortly afterward. He utilized his position to launder money earned through his illegal ventures. He also introduced colleagues at the credit union to a lucrative side-business, laundering the money of drug dealers he had become acquainted with. DeMeo also built up his loansharking business with funds stolen from credit union reserves.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: DeMeo's collection of loanshark customers, while still primarily those in the car industry, soon included other businesses such as a dentist's office, an abortion clinic, restaurants and flea markets. He was also listed as an employee for a Brooklyn company named S & C Sportswear Corporation, and frequently told his neighbors he worked in construction, food retailing and the used car business. Bonanno underboss Salvatore Vitale claimed to the FBI that in 1974 he was ordered to deliver the corpse of a man who had just been murdered to a garage in Queens so that it could be disposed of by DeMeo.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: In late 1974, a conflict that had erupted between the DeMeo crew and Andrei Katz, a young auto repair shop owner who was partners with DeMeo in a stolen car ring, had continued to escalate. In January 1975, Katz visited the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office and voluntarily provided them information that Chris Rosenberg was heavily involved in auto theft. DeMeo learned about the meeting immediately after it happened from an Auto Crimes detective on his payroll. Roy ordered DeMeo crew associate Henry Borelli to contact a female acquaintance, Babette Judith Questel, about being used as bait. In May, Katz appeared before a Brooklyn grand jury and divulged what he knew about the DeMeo crew's illegal activities.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: On June 13, 1975, Questel was used to successfully lure Katz to her Manhattan apartment complex for what he thought was a date, where upon arrival he was immediately abducted by members of the DeMeo crew. He was then taken to the meat department of a supermarket in Rockaway Beach, Queens, where he was stabbed multiple times in the heart and then the back by a butcher knife. After being decapitated, Katz's head was then crushed when it was put through a machine normally used for compacting cardboard boxes. The body parts were wrapped in plastic bags and then deposited into the supermarket's dumpster, where they were discovered days later when a pedestrian walking his dog spotted one of Katz's legs lying on a curb near the store. The police reported to the press that a grisly, brutal killing had occurred, but that was the extent of the information given. The body was identified as that of Andrei Katz two days later through the use of dental records.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: As the 1970s continued, DeMeo cultivated his followers into a crew experienced with the process of murdering and dismembering victims. With the exception of killings intended to send a message to any who would hinder their criminal activities, or murders that presented no other alternative, a set method of execution was established by DeMeo and crew to ensure that victims would be dispatched quickly and then made to disappear. The style of execution was dubbed the "Gemini Method", after the Gemini Lounge, the primary hangout of the DeMeo crew, as well as the site where most of the crew's victims were killed.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: The process of the Gemini Method, as revealed by multiple crew members and associates who became government witnesses in the early 1980s, was to lure the victim through the side door of the lounge and into the apartment in the back portion of the building. At this point, a crew member (almost always DeMeo according to crew-member-turned-government-witness Frederick DiNome) would approach with a silenced pistol in one hand and a towel in the other, shooting the victim in the head then wrapping the towel around the victim's head wound like a turban to stanch the blood flow. Immediately after, another member of the crew (originally Chris Rosenberg, up until his 1979 murder, according to government witness testimony) would stab the victim in the heart to prevent more blood from pumping out of the gunshot wound. By then, the victim would be dead, at which point the body would be stripped of clothing and dragged into the bathroom, where the remaining blood drained out or congealed within the body. This was to eliminate the messiness of the next step, when crew members would place the body onto plastic sheets laid out in the main room and proceed to dismember it, cutting off the arms, legs and head.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: The body parts would then be put into bags, placed in cardboard boxes and sent to the Fountain Avenue Dump in Brooklyn. So many tons of garbage were dropped each day at the dump that it would be nearly impossible for the bodies to be discovered. During the initial stages of an early 1980s federal/state task force targeting the DeMeo crew, a plan by authorities to excavate sections of the dump to locate remains of victims was aborted when it was deemed too costly and unlikely to locate any meaningful evidence. The landfill, opposite the Starrett City Apartment Complex on Pennsylvania Avenue in the heavily African-American East New York section of Brooklyn, across the Belt Parkway, was closed in 1985, and capped over since, all signs (and odors) that a landfill had existed gone, replaced by a parkland.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: Some victims were killed in other ways for varying reasons. At times, suspected informants or those who committed an act of disrespect against a member of the crew or their superiors had their bodies left in the streets of New York to serve as a message and warning. There were also occasions where it would not be possible to lure the intended victim into the Gemini Lounge, in which case other locations would have to be used. A cabin cruiser owned by Richard DiNome was used on at least one occasion to dispose of remains.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: In the latter half of 1975, DeMeo became a silent partner in a peep show/prostitution establishment in Bricktown, New Jersey after the owner of the business became unable to pay his loansharking debts. DeMeo also began dealing in bestiality and child pornography, which he sold to his New Jersey establishment as well as connections he had in Rhode Island. When Gaggi found out about DeMeo's involvement in such taboo films, he ordered DeMeo to stop under the threat of death. However, DeMeo defied Gaggi and continued the practice. Gaggi did not retaliate, and, according to his nephew, Dominick Montiglio, the subject was never mentioned again as long as DeMeo continued making payments to Gaggi. DeMeo also dealt in narcotics despite the Gambino family strictly forbidding such activity; he financed a major operation importing Colombian marijuana, which was unloaded from an offshore freighter and sold at various auto shops in Canarsie, and also sold cocaine out of the Gemini Lounge.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: As 1975 drew to a close, DeMeo was the subject of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) investigations into his income. Months earlier, the Boro of Brooklyn Credit Union had been pushed into insolvency as a result of DeMeo and his colleagues' plundering of its finances. As a result, DeMeo quit the Credit Union. Before an indictment could be handed down against him, he utilized false affidavits from businesses owned by friends and acquaintances claiming he was on their payrolls as an employee. These affidavits served to account for some of his income, allowing him to reach a settlement with the IRS.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: DeMeo's sources of income, as well as his crew, continued to grow. By July 1976, DeMeo added an automobile firm by the name of Team Auto Wholesalers to his loanshark customers. The owner of Team Auto, Matthew Rega, also purchased stolen vehicles from the crew and sold them off at a New Jersey car lot that he owned. He also involved himself with hijacking delivery trucks from John F. Kennedy International Airport. His crew now included Edward "Danny" Grillo, a hijacker who had just been released from prison.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: In the fall of 1976, the Gambino family went through a massive change when its boss Carlo Gambino died of natural causes. Paul Castellano was named the boss, with Aniello Dellacroce retaining the position of underboss. The implications of this were twofold for DeMeo. Gaggi was elevated to the position of "caporegime", taking over the crew of men Castellano previously headed. This promotion was beneficial for DeMeo, whose mentor was now even closer to the family leadership. Another advantage was that with Gambino deceased, new associates would be eligible for membership into the family.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: Castellano did not immediately "open the books" for new members, opting instead to promote existing members and shuffle around the crews' leaders. He also allegedly opposed the idea of DeMeo being made. Castellano involved himself in white-collar crime and looked down on street-level members such as DeMeo. Additionally, Castellano felt DeMeo was uncontrollable. Gaggi's attempts at persuading Castellano to make DeMeo were continually rejected. By 1977, DeMeo became distraught by this situation and searched for opportunities that would ensure larger returns for his superiors.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: DeMeo secured his induction into the Gambino family by forming an alliance with an Irish-American gang known as the Westies. The leader of a rival Irish gang, Mickey Spillane, was causing delays for the construction of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, much to the frustration of Gambino boss Paul Castellano, who had a part in the project. After the unsolved murder of Spillane in May 1977, Westies leader James Coonan assumed control of the Irish mob rackets on the West Side of Manhattan. DeMeo, sensing an opportunity to create a vast source of income for the Gambino family, persuaded Gaggi to consider a partnership with the Westies. Shortly afterwards, Coonan and his second-in-command Mickey Featherstone were called to a meeting with Castellano, in which they agreed to become a "de facto" arm of the Gambino family and share ten percent of all profits. In exchange, the Westies would be privy to several lucrative union deals and take on murder contracts for the family.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: It was his pivotal role in the Westie/Gambino alliance that reportedly convinced Castellano to give DeMeo his "button", or formally induct him into the family. DeMeo was made in mid-1977 and put in charge of handling all family business with the Westies. He was ordered to get permission before committing any murders and to avoid drug dealing. DeMeo's crew, however, continued to sell large amounts of cocaine, marijuana, and a variety of narcotic pills. DeMeo also continued to commit unsanctioned killings, such as the 1977 double homicide of Johnathan Quinn, a car thief suspected of cooperating with law enforcement, and Cherie Golden, Quinn's 19-year-old girlfriend. DeMeo's crew dumped the bodies in locations where they would be discovered to serve as a warning against cooperation with authorities.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: In 1978, Frederick DiNome, previously DeMeo's chauffeur, joined the crew. DeMeo and his crew murdered Edward Grillo, who had fallen into heavy debt with DeMeo and was believed to be becoming susceptible to police coercion. Grillo, who was dismembered and disposed of like many of the crew's murder victims, was the first known occurrence of internal crew discipline.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: The next member to be killed was Rosenberg, who had set up a drug deal with a Cuban man living in Florida and then murdered him and his associates when they traveled to New York to complete the sale. The Cuban had connections with a Cuban drug cartel, raising the possibility of violence between the Gambino family and the Cubans unless Rosenberg was dealt with. DeMeo was ordered to kill Rosenberg but stalled for weeks. During this period, DeMeo committed his most public murder. The victim was a college student with no criminal ties named Dominick Ragucci, who was paying for his tuition as a door-to-door salesman. DeMeo saw Ragucci parked outside his Massapequa Park, Long Island house and assumed he was a Cuban assassin. DeMeo and crew members Joseph Guglielmo and Freddy DiNome pursued Ragucci in a seven-mile car chase on Route 110 through Amityville and Farmingdale, after which the student was shot to death by DeMeo. After returning home and gathering his family, DeMeo drove them out of Long Island and left them at a hotel in upstate New York for two weeks. According to DeMeo's son Albert, he started crying when he discovered he had murdered an innocent teenager and did not eat for several days afterwards. The public execution of Ragucci also put a strain on DeMeo's relationship with his wife Gladys, who had previously been able to ignore her husband's criminal activities.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: Gaggi was infuriated by the murder of Ragucci, and ordered DeMeo to kill Rosenberg before there were any other innocent victims. On May 11, 1979, Rosenberg reported to the Gemini clubhouse for the crew's usual Friday night meeting. Shortly after his arrival, DeMeo quickly fired a single bullet into the unsuspecting Rosenberg's head. The usually ice-cold DeMeo hesitated when the still-living Rosenberg managed to rise off the floor to one knee, but Anthony Senter then moved in and finished him off with four shots to the head. Unlike Grillo, Rosenberg's body was not dismembered or made to disappear. The Cubans had demanded that his murder make the newspapers. DeMeo's men placed Rosenberg's body in his car and left it on the side of Cross Bay Boulevard, near the Gateway National Wildlife Refuge in Broad Channel, Queens to be found. Albert DeMeo later recounted that Rosenberg's murder affected his father deeply, and that when DeMeo came home after the killing, he went into his study room and didn't come out for two days. After Rosenberg's murder, DeMeo spent six weeks hiding out with Guglielmo in a safe house near 42nd Street in Times Square, Manhattan, growing a full beard and disguising himself with a baseball cap and sunglasses when out in public.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: As 1979 continued, DeMeo began to expand his business activities, in particular his auto theft operation, which soon became the largest in New York City's history. Dubbed the Empire Boulevard Operation by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents, the operation consisted of hundreds of stolen cars being shipped from the port of Newark, New Jersey to Kuwait and Puerto Rico. DeMeo put together a group of five active partners in the operation, all of whom earned approximately $30,000 a week each in profit. Aside from stolen automobiles, DeMeo was also shipping cigarettes and pornographic magazines to the Middle East.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: Aside from the active partners, other associates and crew members performed the actual stealing of the automobiles off the streets of New York. Among these associates was Vito Arena, a long-time car thief and armed robber who began working for DeMeo in 1978 after murdering his old partner. Like DiNome, Arena became closely involved with the DeMeo Crew by the end of the 1970s. In 1979, the scheme was nearly stopped by a legitimate car dealer who threatened to inform the police. He was murdered along with an uninvolved acquaintance before he could provide law-enforcement authorities with information.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: In late 1979, DeMeo and Nino Gaggi became involved in a conflict with James Eppolito and James Eppolito Jr., two made Gambino members in Gaggi's crew. They were the paternal uncle and cousin, respectively, of a corrupt former New York City Police Department (NYPD) detective, Louis Eppolito, whose father, Ralph, brother of James Sr., was also a made member of the Gambino family.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: James Eppolito met with Paul Castellano and accused DeMeo and Gaggi of drug dealing, which carried the penalty of death. Castellano, to whom Gaggi was a close ally, sided against Eppolito in the situation and gave Gaggi permission to do what he pleased. He and DeMeo shot the two to death in Eppolito Jr.'s car en route to the Gemini Lounge on October 1, 1979. A witness driving by right as the shots were fired within the parked car managed to alert a nearby police officer, who arrested Gaggi after a shootout between the two that left Gaggi with a bullet wound in his neck. Since DeMeo had split up with Gaggi as they left the scene, he was not arrested or identified by the witness. Gaggi was charged with murder and the attempted murder of a police officer but through jury tampering was convicted only of assault and given a 5 to 15-year sentence in federal prison. DeMeo murdered the witness shortly after Gaggi's sentencing in March 1980.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: The Empire Boulevard Operation had continued to expand through 1979 and 1980 until the warehouse serving as its headquarters was raided by agents from the Newark branch of the FBI in the summer of 1980. The FBI had been surveilling the warehouse and some of the men unloading vehicles there and had shortly thereafter obtained a search warrant. Henry Borelli and Frederick DiNome were arrested in May 1981 for their roles in the operation, but there was not enough evidence to arrest any of the other active partners. DeMeo ordered Borelli and DiNome to plead guilty to the charges in hopes that it would stop any further investigations into his activities by the FBI or other law enforcement agencies.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: By 1982, the FBI was investigating the enormous number of missing and murdered persons who were linked to DeMeo or who had last been seen entering the Gemini Lounge. Around this time an FBI bug in the home of Gambino family capo Angelo Ruggiero picked up a conversation between Ruggiero and Gene Gotti, a brother of John Gotti. In the conversation, it is discussed that Paul Castellano had put out a hit on DeMeo, but was having difficulty finding someone willing to do the job. Gene Gotti mentions that his brother, John, was wary of taking the contract, as DeMeo had an "army of killers" around him. It is also mentioned in this same secretly recorded conversation that, at that time, John had killed fewer than 10 people, while DeMeo had killed 37 that they had known about. According to mob turncoat Sammy Gravano, eventually the contract was given to Frank DeCicco, but DeCicco and his crew could not get to DeMeo either. DeCicco allegedly handed the job to DeMeo's own men.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: DeMeo's son Albert wrote that in his final days, DeMeo was paranoid and knew that he would be killed soon. In his final days, DeMeo was seen wearing a leather jacket, with a shotgun concealed underneath. DeMeo considered faking his own death by having his son shoot him and laying low. On January 10, 1983, DeMeo went to crew member Patty Testa's house for a meeting with his men. That night, he failed to attend his daughter Dione's birthday party, which caused his family to be suspicious. Albert DeMeo later found Roy's personal belongings such as his watch, wallet, and ring in his study room, and a Catholic pamphlet. Ten days later, on January 20, DeMeo's Cadillac Coupe DeVille was discovered in the parking lot of the Varuna Boat Club in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. The car was towed to a nearby police station where it was searched by Organized Crime Control Bureau detectives. DeMeo's partially frozen body was found in the trunk with a chandelier on top of it. He had been shot multiple times in the head and had a bullet wound in his hand, assumed by law enforcement to be a reflexive defensive wound caused when his killers opened fire on him.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: The task force investigating the DeMeo crew theorized that DeMeo was set up in a similar manner to how he set up Rosenberg, and that Gaggi, Testa and Senter were present when he was killed. In April 1984, Colombo crime family soldier Ralph Scopo was overheard explaining to an associate that DeMeo had been killed by his own family because they merely suspected that he would not be able to stand up to legal charges that resulted from his stolen car ring. According to Scopo, Castellano also "had to put (DeMeo) away" because he "was crazy and had cast-iron balls". Albert DeMeo believed that his father was killed by members of his own crew.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: In 1984, a 78 count indictment was filed against 24 defendants including the surviving members of the DeMeo crew, capo Nino Gaggi, and Gambino crime family head Paul Castellano. The charges related to auto-theft, racketeering, and drug trafficking. Paul Castellano was indicted for ordering the murder of DeMeo, as well as a host of other crimes, but was killed in December 1985 while out on bail in the middle of the first trial. The murder was ordered by John Gotti, who thus became the new boss of the Gambino family. After the death of Castellano, Nino Gaggi became the lead defendant but he too soon died later of natural causes. In March 1986, six were found guilty, with Henry Borelli and other person found guilty of two counts of murder. They were found guilty of murdering two people who threatened to expose the car theft ring. In June 1989, nine additional members, including Anthony Senter and Joseph Testa, were found guilty. At sentencing, Senter and Testa were given life sentences for murder with an additional 20 years for racketeering. Prosecutor William Mack Jr. said "The Roy DeMeo Crew is the most violent crew ever prosecuted in federal court, as far as my knowledge" and saying DeMeo "engaged in wholesale slaughter".


title: Roy DeMeo

text: The convictions were secured in large part by testimony of former members Frederick DiNome and Dominick Montiglio, as well as Vito Arena. Montiglio turned when he learned there was a contract on his life, and was placed in the witness protection program for 20 years for his testimony. Richard DiNome was killed in 1984. Frederick DiNome later died in what was ruled as a suicide. Vito Arena left New York in 1989 after serving 6 years of an 18-year sentence after his testimony. He was killed in a 1991 robbery in Texas. The Gemini Lounge later became a storefront church.


title: Roy DeMeo

text: DeMeo is the subject of the 1992 book "Murder Machine" by Jerry Capeci and Gene Mustaine. Roy DeMeo's son Albert also wrote a book about his life growing up called "For the Sins of My Father", published in 2002. DeMeo is portrayed by Michael A. Miranda in the 2001 film "Boss of Bosses". Ray Liotta plays DeMeo in the 2012 film adaptation of Anthony Bruno's book about Richard Kuklinski, "The Iceman: The True Story of a Cold-Blooded Killer".


title: Roy DeMeo

text: Roy DeMeo married Gladys Rosamond Brittain (February 13, 1939 – September 7, 2002) in 1960. In 1966, DeMeo moved into a custom-built home in Massapequa, Long Island, where he lived with his wife and three children. The couple had two daughters and a son. DeMeo was raised Catholic, but stopped practicing the religion in later life; his children were raised in his wife's Lutheran faith. By all accounts, he was a devoted family man. Describing growing up, Roy's son Albert DeMeo said "I grew up in a very normal household."


title: Roy DeMeo

text: Albert DeMeo became a stockbroker, but had a nervous breakdown after the release of "Murder Machine" in 1992. He was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. One of Roy's daughters became a clothing designer, and the other one a medical doctor.


title: Petrarch

text: Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists.


title: Petrarch

text: Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited with initiating the 14th-century Italian Renaissance and the founding of Renaissance humanism. In the 16th century, Pietro Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio, and, to a lesser extent, Dante Alighieri. Petrarch was later endorsed as a model for Italian style by the Accademia della Crusca.


title: Petrarch

text: Petrarch's sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poetry. He is also known for being the first to develop the concept of the "Dark Ages".


title: Petrarch

text: Petrarch was born in the Tuscan city of Arezzo on 20 July 1304. He was the son of Ser Petracco and his wife Eletta Canigiani. His given name was "Francesco Petracco," which was Latinized to "Petrarca." Petrarch's younger brother was born in Incisa in Val d'Arno in 1307. Dante Alighieri was a friend of his father.


title: Petrarch

text: Petrarch spent his early childhood in the village of Incisa, near Florence. He spent much of his early life at Avignon and nearby Carpentras, where his family moved to follow Pope Clement V, who moved there in 1309 to begin the Avignon Papacy. Petrarch studied law at the University of Montpellier (1316–20) and Bologna (1320–23) with a lifelong friend and schoolmate, Guido Sette, future archbishop of Genoa. Because his father was in the legal profession (a notary), he insisted that Petrarch and his brother also study law. Petrarch, however, was primarily interested in writing and Latin literature and considered these seven years wasted. Additionally, he proclaimed that through legal manipulation his guardians robbed him of his small property inheritance in Florence, which only reinforced his dislike for the legal system. He protested, "I couldn't face making a merchandise of my mind", since he viewed the legal system as the art of selling justice.


title: Petrarch

text: Petrarch was a prolific letter writer and counted Boccaccio among his notable friends to whom he wrote often. After the death of their parents, Petrarch and his brother Gherardo went back to Avignon in 1326, where he worked in numerous clerical offices. This work gave him much time to devote to his writing. With his first large-scale work, "Africa", an epic in Latin about the great Roman general Scipio Africanus, Petrarch emerged as a European celebrity. On 8 April 1341, he became the second poet laureate since classical antiquity and was crowned by Roman "Senatori" Giordano Orsini and Orso dell'Anguillara on the holy grounds of Rome's Capitol.


title: Petrarch

text: He traveled widely in Europe, served as an ambassador, and, because he traveled for pleasure, as with his ascent of Mont Ventoux, has been called "the first tourist".


title: Petrarch

text: During his travels, he collected crumbling Latin manuscripts and was a prime mover in the recovery of knowledge from writers of Rome and Greece. He encouraged and advised Leontius Pilatus's translation of Homer from a manuscript purchased by Boccaccio, although he was severely critical of the result. Petrarch had acquired a copy, which he did not entrust to Leontius, but he knew no Greek; Petrarch said of himself, "Homer was dumb to him, while he was deaf to Homer". In 1345 he personally discovered a collection of Cicero's letters not previously known to have existed, the collection "Epistulae ad Atticum", in the Chapter Library ("Biblioteca Capitolare") of Verona Cathedral.


title: Petrarch

text: Disdaining what he believed to be the ignorance of the era in which he lived, Petrarch is credited with creating the concept of a historical "Dark Ages", which most modern scholars now find inaccurate and misleading.


title: Petrarch

text: Petrarch recounts that on 26 April 1336, with his brother and two servants, he climbed to the top of Mont Ventoux (), a feat which he undertook for recreation rather than necessity. The exploit is described in a celebrated letter addressed to his friend and confessor, the monk Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro, composed some time after the fact. In it, Petrarch claimed to have been inspired by Philip V of Macedon's ascent of Mount Haemo and that an aged peasant had told him that nobody had ascended Ventoux before or after himself, 50 years earlier, and warned him against attempting to do so. The nineteenth-century Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt noted that Jean Buridan had climbed the same mountain a few years before, and ascents accomplished during the Middle Ages have been recorded, including that of Anno II, Archbishop of Cologne.


title: Petrarch

text: Scholars note that Petrarch's letter to Dionigi displays a strikingly "modern" attitude of aesthetic gratification in the grandeur of the scenery and is still often cited in books and journals devoted to the sport of mountaineering. In Petrarch, this attitude is coupled with an aspiration for a virtuous Christian life, and on reaching the summit, he took from his pocket a volume by his beloved mentor, Saint Augustine, that he always carried with him.


title: Petrarch

text: For pleasure alone he climbed Mont Ventoux, which rises to more than six thousand feet, beyond Vaucluse. It was no great feat, of course; but he was the first recorded Alpinist of modern times, the first to climb a mountain merely for the delight of looking from its top. (Or almost the first; for in a high pasture he met an old shepherd, who said that fifty years before he had attained the summit, and had got nothing from it save toil and repentance and torn clothing.) Petrarch was dazed and stirred by the view of the Alps, the mountains around Lyons, the Rhone, the Bay of Marseilles. He took Augustine's "Confessions" from his pocket and reflected that his climb was merely an allegory of aspiration toward a better life.


title: Petrarch

text: James Hillman argues that this rediscovery of the inner world is the real significance of the Ventoux event. The Renaissance begins not with the ascent of Mont Ventoux but with the subsequent descent—the "return [...] to the valley of soul", as Hillman puts it.


title: Petrarch

text: Arguing against such a singular and hyperbolic periodization, Paul James suggests a different reading:


title: Petrarch

text: Petrarch spent the later part of his life journeying through northern Italy as an international scholar and poet-diplomat. His career in the Church did not allow him to marry, but he is believed to have fathered two children by a woman or women unknown to posterity. A son, Giovanni, was born in 1337, and a daughter, Francesca, was born in 1343. He later legitimized both.


title: Petrarch

text: Giovanni died of the plague in 1361. In the same year Petrarch was named canon in Monselice near Padua. Francesca married Francescuolo da Brossano (who was later named executor of Petrarch's will) that same year. In 1362, shortly after the birth of a daughter, Eletta (the same name as Petrarch's mother), they joined Petrarch in Venice to flee the plague then ravaging parts of Europe. A second grandchild, Francesco, was born in 1366, but died before his second birthday. Francesca and her family lived with Petrarch in Venice for five years from 1362 to 1367 at Palazzo Molina; although Petrarch continued to travel in those years. Between 1361 and 1369 the younger Boccaccio paid the older Petrarch two visits. The first was in Venice, the second was in Padua.


title: Petrarch

text: About 1368 Petrarch and Francesca (with her family) moved to the small town of Arquà in the Euganean Hills near Padua, where he passed his remaining years in religious contemplation. He died in his house in Arquà on 18/19 July 1374. The house hosts now a permanent exhibition of Petrarchian works and curiosities, including the famous tomb of an embalmed cat long believed to be Petrarch's (although there is no evidence Petrarch actually had a cat). On the marble slab, there is a Latin inscription written by Antonio Quarenghi:


title: Petrarch

text: Petrarch's will (dated 4 April 1370) leaves 50 florins to Boccaccio "to buy a warm winter dressing gown"; various legacies (a horse, a silver cup, a lute, a Madonna) to his brother and his friends; his house in Vaucluse to its caretaker; for his soul, and for the poor; and the bulk of his estate to his son-in-law, Francescuolo da Brossano, who is to give half of it to "the person to whom, as he knows, I wish it to go"; presumably his daughter, Francesca, Brossano's wife. The will mentions neither the property in Arquà nor his library; Petrarch's library of notable manuscripts was already promised to Venice, in exchange for the Palazzo Molina. This arrangement was probably cancelled when he moved to Padua, the enemy of Venice, in 1368. The library was seized by the lords of Padua, and his books and manuscripts are now widely scattered over Europe. Nevertheless, the Biblioteca Marciana traditionally claimed this bequest as its founding, although it was in fact founded by Cardinal Bessarion in 1468.


title: Petrarch

text: Petrarch is best known for his Italian poetry, notably the "Rerum vulgarium fragmenta" ("Fragments of Vernacular Matters"), a collection of 366 lyric poems in various genres also known as 'canzoniere' ('songbook'), and "I trionfi" ("The Triumphs"), a six-part narrative poem of Dantean inspiration. However, Petrarch was an enthusiastic Latin scholar and did most of his writing in this language. His Latin writings include scholarly works, introspective essays, letters, and more poetry. Among them are "Secretum" ("My Secret Book"), an intensely personal, imaginary dialogue with a figure inspired by Augustine of Hippo; "De Viris Illustribus" ("On Famous Men"), a series of moral biographies; "Rerum Memorandarum Libri", an incomplete treatise on the cardinal virtues; "De Otio Religiosorum" ("On Religious Leisure") and "De vita solitaria" ("On the Solitary Life"), which praise the contemplative life; "De Remediis Utriusque Fortunae" ("Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul"), a self-help book which remained popular for hundreds of years; "Itinerarium" ("Petrarch's Guide to the Holy Land"); invectives against opponents such as doctors, scholastics, and the French; the "Carmen Bucolicum", a collection of 12 pastoral poems; and the unfinished epic "Africa". He translated seven psalms, a collection known as the "Penitential Psalms".


title: Petrarch

text: Petrarch also published many volumes of his letters, including a few written to his long-dead friends from history such as Cicero and Virgil. Cicero, Virgil, and Seneca were his literary models. Most of his Latin writings are difficult to find today, but several of his works are available in English translations. Several of his Latin works are scheduled to appear in the Harvard University Press series "I Tatti". It is difficult to assign any precise dates to his writings because he tended to revise them throughout his life.


title: Petrarch

text: Petrarch collected his letters into two major sets of books called "Rerum familiarum liber" ("Letters on Familiar Matters") and "Seniles" ("Letters of Old Age"), both of which are available in English translation. The plan for his letters was suggested to him by knowledge of Cicero's letters. These were published "without names" to protect the recipients, all of whom had close relationships to Petrarch. The recipients of these letters included Philippe de Cabassoles, bishop of Cavaillon; Ildebrandino Conti, bishop of Padua; Cola di Rienzo, tribune of Rome; Francesco Nelli, priest of the Prior of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Florence; and Niccolò di Capoccia, a cardinal and priest of Saint Vitalis. His "Letter to Posterity" (the last letter in "Seniles") gives an autobiography and a synopsis of his philosophy in life. It was originally written in Latin and was completed in 1371 or 1372—the first such autobiography in a thousand years (since Saint Augustine).


title: Petrarch

text: While Petrarch's poetry was set to music frequently after his death, especially by Italian madrigal composers of the Renaissance in the 16th century, only one musical setting composed during Petrarch's lifetime survives. This is "Non al suo amante" by Jacopo da Bologna, written around 1350.


title: Petrarch

text: On 6 April 1327, after Petrarch gave up his vocation as a priest, the sight of a woman called "Laura" in the church of Sainte-Claire d'Avignon awoke in him a lasting passion, celebrated in the "Rerum vulgarium fragmenta" ("Fragments of Vernacular Matters").


title: Petrarch

text: Laura may have been Laura de Noves, the wife of Count Hugues de Sade (an ancestor of the Marquis de Sade). There is little definite information in Petrarch's work concerning Laura, except that she is lovely to look at, fair-haired, with a modest, dignified bearing. Laura and Petrarch had little or no personal contact. According to his "Secretum", she refused him because she was already married. He channeled his feelings into love poems that were exclamatory rather than persuasive, and wrote prose that showed his contempt for men who pursue women. Upon her death in 1348, the poet found that his grief was as difficult to live with as was his former despair. Later, in his "Letter to Posterity", Petrarch wrote: "In my younger days I struggled constantly with an overwhelming but pure love affair—my only one, and I would have struggled with it longer had not premature death, bitter but salutary for me, extinguished the cooling flames. I certainly wish I could say that I have always been entirely free from desires of the flesh, but I would be lying if I did".


title: Petrarch

text: While it is possible she was an idealized or pseudonymous character—particularly since the name "Laura" has a linguistic connection to the poetic "laurels" Petrarch coveted—Petrarch himself always denied it. His frequent use of "l'aura" is also remarkable: for example, the line "Erano i capei d'oro a "l'aura" sparsi" may mean both "her hair was all over Laura's body" and "the wind ("l'aura") blew through her hair". There is psychological realism in the description of Laura, although Petrarch draws heavily on conventionalised descriptions of love and lovers from troubadour songs and other literature of courtly love. Her presence causes him unspeakable joy, but his unrequited love creates unendurable desires, inner conflicts between the ardent lover and the mystic Christian, making it impossible to reconcile the two. Petrarch's quest for love leads to hopelessness and irreconcilable anguish, as he expresses in the series of paradoxes in Rima 134 "Pace non trovo, et non ò da far guerra;/e temo, et spero; et ardo, et son un ghiaccio": "I find no peace, and yet I make no war:/and fear, and hope: and burn, and I am ice".


title: Petrarch

text: Laura is unreachable and evanescent – descriptions of her are evocative yet fragmentary. Francesco de Sanctis praises the powerful music of his verse in his "Storia della letteratura italiana". Gianfranco Contini, in a famous essay ("Preliminari sulla lingua del Petrarca". Petrarca, Canzoniere. Turin, Einaudi, 1964), has described Petrarch's language in terms of "unilinguismo" (contrasted with Dantean "plurilinguismo").


title: Petrarch

text: Petrarch is very different from Dante and his "Divina Commedia". In spite of the metaphysical subject, the "Commedia" is deeply rooted in the cultural and social milieu of turn-of-the-century Florence: Dante's rise to power (1300) and exile (1302); his political passions call for a "violent" use of language, where he uses all the registers, from low and trivial to sublime and philosophical. Petrarch confessed to Boccaccio that he had never read the "Commedia", remarks Contini, wondering whether this was true or Petrarch wanted to distance himself from Dante. Dante's language evolves as he grows old, from the courtly love of his early stilnovistic "Rime" and "Vita nuova" to the "Convivio" and "Divina Commedia", where Beatrice is sanctified as the goddess of philosophy—the philosophy announced by the Donna Gentile at the death of Beatrice.


title: Petrarch

text: In contrast, Petrarch's thought and style are relatively uniform throughout his life—he spent much of it revising the songs and sonnets of the "Canzoniere" rather than moving to new subjects or poetry. Here, poetry alone provides a consolation for personal grief, much less philosophy or politics (as in Dante), for Petrarch fights within himself (sensuality versus mysticism, profane versus Christian literature), not against anything outside of himself. The strong moral and political convictions which had inspired Dante belong to the Middle Ages and the libertarian spirit of the commune; Petrarch's moral dilemmas, his refusal to take a stand in politics, his reclusive life point to a different direction, or time. The free commune, the place that had made Dante an eminent politician and scholar, was being dismantled: the "signoria" was taking its place. Humanism and its spirit of empirical inquiry, however, were making progress—but the papacy (especially after Avignon) and the empire (Henry VII, the last hope of the white Guelphs, died near Siena in 1313) had lost much of their original prestige.


title: Petrarch

text: Petrarch polished and perfected the sonnet form inherited from Giacomo da Lentini and which Dante widely used in his "Vita nuova" to popularise the new courtly love of the "Dolce Stil Novo". The tercet benefits from Dante's terza rima (compare the "Divina Commedia"), the quatrains prefer the ABBA–ABBA to the ABAB–ABAB scheme of the Sicilians. The imperfect rhymes of "u" with closed "o" and "i" with closed "e" (inherited from Guittone's mistaken rendering of Sicilian verse) are excluded, but the rhyme of open and closed "o" is kept. Finally, Petrarch's enjambment creates longer semantic units by connecting one line to the following. The vast majority (317) of Petrarch's 366 poems collected in the "Canzoniere" (dedicated to Laura) were "sonnets", and the Petrarchan sonnet still bears his name.


title: Petrarch

text: Petrarch is often referred to as the father of humanism and considered by many to be the "father of the Renaissance". In "Secretum meum", he points out that secular achievements do not necessarily preclude an authentic relationship with God, arguing instead that God has given humans their vast intellectual and creative potential to be used to its fullest. He inspired humanist philosophy, which led to the intellectual flowering of the Renaissance. He believed in the immense moral and practical value of the study of ancient history and literaturethat is, the study of human thought and action. Petrarch was a devout Catholic and did not see a conflict between realizing humanity's potential and having religious faith, although many philosophers and scholars have styled him a Proto-Protestant who challenged the Pope's dogma.


title: Petrarch

text: A highly introspective man, Petrarch helped shape the nascent humanist movement as many of the internal conflicts and musings expressed in his writings were embraced by Renaissance humanist philosophers and argued continually for the next 200 years. For example, he struggled with the proper relation between the active and contemplative life, and tended to emphasize the importance of solitude and study. In a clear disagreement with Dante, in 1346 Petrarch argued in "De vita solitaria" that Pope Celestine V's refusal of the papacy in 1294 was a virtuous example of solitary life. Later the politician and thinker Leonardo Bruni (1370–1444) argued for the active life, or "civic humanism". As a result, a number of political, military, and religious leaders during the Renaissance were inculcated with the notion that their pursuit of personal fulfillment should be grounded in classical example and philosophical contemplation.


title: Petrarch

text: Petrarch's influence is evident in the works of Serafino Ciminelli from Aquila (1466–1500) and in the works of Marin Držić (1508–1567) from Dubrovnik.


title: Petrarch

text: The Romantic composer Franz Liszt set three of Petrarch's Sonnets (47, 104, and 123) to music for voice, "Tre sonetti del Petrarca", which he later would transcribe for solo piano for inclusion in the suite "Années de Pèlerinage". Liszt also set a poem by Victor Hugo, "Oh! quand je dors" in which Petrarch and Laura are invoked as the epitome of erotic love.


title: Petrarch

text: While in Avignon in 1991, Modernist composer Elliott Carter completed his solo flute piece "Scrivo in Vento" which is in part inspired by and structured by Petrarch's Sonnet 212, "Beato in sogno". It was premiered on Petrarch's 687th birthday.


title: Petrarch

text: In November 2003, it was announced that pathological anatomists would be exhuming Petrarch's body from his casket in Arquà Petrarca, to verify 19th-century reports that he had stood 1.83 meters (about six feet), which would have been tall for his period. The team from the University of Padua also hoped to reconstruct his cranium to generate a computerized image of his features to coincide with his 700th birthday. The tomb had been opened previously in 1873 by Professor Giovanni Canestrini, also of Padua University. When the tomb was opened, the skull was discovered in fragments and a DNA test revealed that the skull was not Petrarch's, prompting calls for the return of Petrarch's skull.


title: Petrarch

text: The researchers are fairly certain that the body in the tomb is Petrarch's due to the fact that the skeleton bears evidence of injuries mentioned by Petrarch in his writings, including a kick from a donkey when he was 42.


title: Petrarch

text: He is credited with being the first and most famous aficionado of Numismatics. He described visiting Rome and asking peasants to bring him ancient coins they would find in the soil which he would buy from them, and writes of his delight at being able to identify the names and features of Roman emperors.


title: The Crush (1993 film)

text: The Crush is a 1993 American psychological thriller film written and directed by Alan Shapiro, which stars Cary Elwes as Nick Eliot and Alicia Silverstone as Darian Forrester, in her feature film debut. When 28-year-old writer Nick Eliot moves to a new city for a magazine job, Darian Forrester, the 14-year-old daughter of the landlords whose guesthouse he rents, instantly makes her attraction to Nick clear. However, while Nick romances photographer Amy Maddik at work, he has trouble fending off Darian's advances. As her obsession with Nick grows, Darian becomes angry at being rejected and starts attacking his property and friends, even going as far as having him arrested for sexual assault. It was filmed on location from September 24 to November 20, 1992, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The movie quickly became a cult classic. It also influenced other thriller and suspense movies of the 90s and 2000s.


title: The Crush (1993 film)

text: Twenty-eight-year-old writer Nick Eliot (Cary Elwes) secures a job at "Pique" magazine and lodging in a guest house belonging to Cliff and Liv Forrester. The handsome Nick soon becomes acquainted with and frequently visited by the couple's 14-year-old daughter Darian (Alicia Silverstone) a precocious girl who becomes intensely infatuated with him.


title: The Crush (1993 film)

text: Darian invites Nick to a party that her parents are throwing at their house. Without confirming that he will attend, Nick decides to stop in. As he enters the house, Nick is taken by Darian's impressive piano performance. Nick follows Darian to her parents' outdoor balcony afterwards. He muses that if she were just 10 years older, as she flirtatiously interrupts him, questioning what he'd do. Redirecting the conversation, Darian suddenly encourages Nick to take her for a ride in his convertible. Nick agrees to drive Darian to a place of her choosing; a romantic secluded area where she attempts to kiss him. Though initially receptive to the kiss, Nick stops when he realizes he is being seduced. Without leading her on, Nick takes Darian home.


title: The Crush (1993 film)

text: Darian's crush on Nick intensifies, but he quickly wises up and attempts to put her off. He begins a budding romance with coworker Amy. Darian continues to boldly pursue him, sneaking into his room to rewrite his article (which impresses his boss) and even going so far as to undress in front of him when he accidentally hides in her closet. When Nick continues to rebuff her advances, Darian's actions become destructive; she steals his favorite childhood photo, defaces a car he has restored, and erases his computer discs, yet he's unable to convince her parents of her guilt. Cheyenne, a friend of Darian's, tries to warn Nick about her, but she has an "accident" at the riding school she and Darian attend together when Darian sabotages the saddle on her horse. After Darian spies on Nick in bed with Amy, she locks Amy in her darkroom and empties a wasps' nest into the vents, exploiting Amy's spheksophobia. Amy survives, and Nick, now convinced that Darian is big trouble, attempts to find new lodging. However, Darian accuses him of sexually assaulting her with "evidence" obtained from a used condom from Nick's trash; he is subsequently arrested. After Michael bails him out (and suspends him until trial), Cheyenne tells Nick that she knows he is innocent and that Darian has an extensive history of obsessive behavior, citing a previous crush on a camp counselor named Rick who "accidentally" died from eating something poisonous. Cheyenne also informs Nick of a diary Darian kept that can exonerate him.


title: The Crush (1993 film)

text: After Cheyenne departs, Nick hears strange noises coming from the Forresters' house. He investigates and finds Cheyenne bound and gagged on the carousel in the attic. Darian confronts and attacks him, leading Cliff to attack Nick after he mistakes him for the aggressor. Darian then knocks Cliff unconscious in defense of Nick, enabling the latter to subdue her with one punch. Acquitted, Nick goes to live with Amy in Seattle while Darian is confined to a psychiatric hospital in Spanaway. Though she laments that Nick refuses to speak to her, respond to the multiple letters she has written, or accept her apologies, her doctor comments that she is making good progress, unaware that she is now developing a crush on him. In the final scene, Darian returns to her room in the hospital, where she glares at a photo of the doctor and his wife before her mouth slowly curves into a devious smile.


title: The Crush (1993 film)

text: Writer and director Alan Shapiro based the film on events from his own life. The girl on whom he based Adrian sued him for using her real name, Darian, for Alicia Silverstone's character. As a result, when the film was re-edited for TV, the character's name was changed from Darian to Adrian. Silverstone is still credited as having played Darian Forrester on IMDb.


title: The Crush (1993 film)

text: The VHS and laser disc releases retained the original spoken dialogue that called the character Darian. The original theatrical trailer also refers to the character as Darian.


title: The Crush (1993 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 24% rating from critics based on 29 reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Otho

text: Marcus Otho (; born Marcus Salvius Otho; 28 April 32 – 16 April 69) was the seventh Roman emperor, ruling for three months from 15 January to 16 April 69. He was the second emperor of the Year of the Four Emperors.


title: Otho

text: A member of a noble Etruscan family, Otho was initially a friend and courtier of the young emperor Nero until he was effectively banished to the governorship of the remote province of Lusitania in 58 following his wife Poppaea Sabina's affair with Nero. After a period of moderate rule in the province, he allied himself with Galba, the governor of neighbouring Hispania Tarraconensis, during the revolts of 68. He accompanied Galba on his march to Rome, but revolted and murdered Galba at the start of the next year.


title: Otho

text: Inheriting the problem of the rebellion of Vitellius, commander of the army in Germania Inferior, Otho led a sizeable force which met Vitellius' army at the Battle of Bedriacum. After initial fighting resulted in 40,000 casualties, and a retreat of his forces, Otho committed suicide rather than fight on, and Vitellius was proclaimed emperor.


title: Otho

text: Otho was born on 28 April AD 32. His grandfather Marcus had been a senator, and Claudius granted patrician status to Otho's father Lucius Salvius Otho.


title: Otho

text: Juvenal, in a passage in the Satire II ridiculing male homosexuality, specifically mentions Otho as being vain and effeminate, looking at himself in the mirror before going into battle, and "plaster[ing] his face with dough" in order to look good.


title: Otho

text: Greenhalgh writes that "he was addicted to luxury and pleasure to a degree remarkable even in a Roman". An aged freedwoman brought him into the company of the emperor Nero. Otho married the emperor's mistress Poppaea Sabina; Nero forced Otho to divorce Poppaea so that he himself could marry her. He exiled Otho to the province of Lusitania in 58 or 59 by appointing him to be its governor.


title: Otho

text: Otho proved to be capable as governor of Lusitania, yet he never forgave Nero for marrying Poppaea. He allied himself with Galba, governor of neighboring Hispania Tarraconensis, in the latter's rebellion against Nero in 68. Nero committed suicide later that year, and Galba was proclaimed emperor by the Senate. Otho accompanied the new emperor to Rome in October 68. Before they entered the city, Galba's army fought against a legion that Nero had organized.


title: Otho

text: On 1 January 69, the day Galba took the office of consul alongside Titus Vinius, the fourth and twenty-second legions of Upper Germany refused to swear loyalty to the emperor. They toppled the statues of Galba and demanded that a new emperor be chosen. On the following day, the soldiers of Lower Germany also refused to swear their loyalty and proclaimed the governor of the province, Aulus Vitellius, as emperor. Galba tried to ensure his authority as emperor was recognized by adopting the nobleman Lucius Calpurnius Piso Licinianus as his successor, an action that gained resentment from Otho. Galba was killed by the Praetorians on 15 January, followed shortly by Vinius and Piso. Their heads were placed on poles and Otho was proclaimed emperor.


title: Otho

text: He accepted, or appeared to accept, the cognomen of Nero conferred upon him by the shouts of the populace, whom his comparative youth and the effeminacy of his appearance reminded of their lost favourite. Nero's statues were again set up, his freedmen and household officers reinstalled (including the young castrated boy Sporus whom Nero had taken in marriage and Otho also would live intimately with), and the intended completion of the Golden House announced.


title: Otho

text: At the same time, the fears of the more sober and respectable citizens were relieved by Otho's liberal professions of his intention to govern equitably, and by his judicious clemency towards Aulus Marius Celsus, a consul-designate and devoted adherent of Galba. Otho soon realized that it was much easier to overthrow an emperor than rule as one: according to Suetonius Otho once remarked that "playing the Long Pipes is hardly my trade" (i.e., undertaking something beyond one's ability to do so).


title: Otho

text: Any further development of Otho's policy was checked once he had read through Galba's private correspondence and realized the extent of the revolution in Germany, where several legions had declared for Vitellius, the commander of the legions on the lower Rhine River, and were already advancing upon Italy. After a vain attempt to conciliate Vitellius by the offer of a share in the Empire, Otho, with unexpected vigor, prepared for war. From the much more remote provinces, which had quietly accepted his accession, little help was to be expected, but the legions of Dalmatia, Pannonia and Moesia were eager in his cause, the Praetorian cohorts were a formidable force and an efficient fleet gave him the mastery of the Italian seas.


title: Otho

text: The fleet was at once dispatched to secure Liguria, and on 14 March Otho, undismayed by omens and prophecies, started northwards at the head of his troops in the hopes of preventing the entry of Vitellius' troops into Italy. But for this he was too late, and all that could be done was to throw troops into Placentia and hold the line of the Po. Otho's advanced guard successfully defended Placentia against Aulus Caecina Alienus, and compelled that general to fall back on Cremona, but the arrival of Fabius Valens altered the aspect of affairs.


title: Otho

text: Vitellius' commanders now resolved to bring on a decisive battle, the Battle of Bedriacum, and their designs were assisted by the divided and irresolute counsels which prevailed in Otho's camp. The more experienced officers urged the importance of avoiding a battle until at least the legions from Dalmatia had arrived. However, the rashness of the emperor's brother Titianus and of Proculus, prefect of the Praetorian Guards, added to Otho's feverish impatience, overruled all opposition, and an immediate advance was decided upon.


title: Otho

text: Otho remained behind with a considerable reserve force at Brixellum on the southern bank of the Po. When this decision was taken, Otho's army had already crossed the Po and were encamped at Bedriacum (or Betriacum), a small village on the "Via Postumia", on the route by which the legions from Dalmatia would naturally arrive.


title: Otho

text: Leaving a strong detachment to hold the camp at Bedriacum, the Othonian forces advanced along the "Via Postumia" in the direction of Cremona. At a short distance from Cremona they unexpectedly encountered the Vitellian troops. The Othonians, though at a disadvantage, fought desperately, but were eventually forced to fall back in disorder upon their camp at Bedriacum. There on the next day the victorious Vitellians followed them, but only to come to terms at once with their disheartened enemy, and to be welcomed into the camp as friends.


title: Otho

text: Otho was still in command of a formidable force as the Dalmatian legions had reached Aquileia and the spirit of his soldiers and their officers was unbroken. He was resolved to accept the verdict of the battle that his own impatience had hastened. In a speech, he bade farewell to those about him, declaring: "It is far more just to perish one for all, than many for one", and then retiring to rest soundly for some hours. Early in the morning he stabbed himself in the heart with a dagger, which he had concealed under his pillow, and died as his attendants entered the tent.


title: Otho

text: Otho's ashes were placed within a modest monument. He had reigned three months. His funeral was celebrated at once as he had wished. A plain tomb was erected in his honour at Brixellum, with the inscription "Diis Manibus Marci Othonis". His 91-day reign would be the shortest until that of Pertinax, whose reign lasted 87 days in 193 during the Year of the Five Emperors.


title: Otho

text: It has been thought that Otho's suicide was committed in order to steer his country away from the path to civil war and to avoid casualties in his legions. Just as he had come to power, many Romans learned to respect Otho in his death. Few could believe that a renowned former companion of Nero had chosen such an honourable end. Tacitus wrote that some of the soldiers committed suicide beside his funeral pyre "because they loved their emperor and wished to share his glory".


title: Otho

text: Writing during the reign of the Emperor Domitian (AD 81–96), the Roman poet Martial expressed his admiration for Otho's choice to spare the empire from civil war through sacrificing himself:


title: Chard

text: Chard or Swiss chard (; "Beta vulgaris" subsp. "vulgaris", Cicla Group and Flavescens Group) is a green leafy vegetable. In the cultivars of the Flavescens Group, the leaf stalks are large and often prepared separately from the leaf blade; the Cicla Group is the leafy spinach beet. The leaf blade can be green or reddish in color; the leaf stalks are usually white, or a colorful yellow or red.


title: Chard

text: Chard, like other green leafy vegetables, has highly nutritious leaves, making it a popular component of healthy diets. Chard has been used in cooking for centuries, but because it is the same species as beetroot, the common names that cooks and cultures have used for chard may be confusing; it has many common names, such as silver beet, perpetual spinach, beet spinach, seakale beet, or leaf beet.


title: Chard

text: Chard was first described in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus as "Beta vulgaris" var. "cicla". Its taxonomic rank has changed many times, so it was treated as a subspecies, convariety, or variety of "Beta vulgaris". (Some of the numerous synonyms are "Beta vulgaris" subsp. "cicla" (Cicla Group), "B. vulgaris" subsp. "cicla" var. "cicla" , "B. vulgaris" var. "cycla" , "B. vulgaris" subsp. "vulgaris" (Leaf Beet Group), "B. vulgaris" subsp. "vulgaris" (Spinach Beet Group), "B. vulgaris" subsp. "cicla" ( (Flavescens Group), "B. vulgaris" subsp. "cicla" var. "flavescens" , "B. vulgaris" subsp. "vulgaris" (Leaf Beet Group), "B. vulgaris" subsp. "vulgaris" (Swiss Chard Group)). The accepted name for all beet cultivars, like chard, sugar beet and beetroot, is "Beta vulgaris" subsp. "vulgaris". They are cultivated descendants of the sea beet, "Beta vulgaris" subsp. "maritima". Chard belongs to the chenopods, which are now mostly included in the family Amaranthaceae ("sensu lato").


title: Chard

text: The two rankless cultivar groups for chard are the Cicla Group for the leafy spinach beet, and the Flavescens Group for the stalky Swiss chard.


title: Chard

text: The word "chard" descends from the 14th-century French "carde", from Latin "carduus" meaning artichoke thistle (or cardoon, including the artichoke).


title: Chard

text: The origin of the adjective "Swiss" is unclear, since this coastal plant is native to Sicily, not Switzerland. Some attribute the name to it having been first described by a Swiss botanist, either Gaspard Bauhin or Karl Koch (although the latter was German, not Swiss). Chard is used in traditional Swiss cuisine, however, namely in a dish called "capuns" from the canton of Grisons.


title: Chard

text: Chard is a biennial. Clusters of chard seeds are usually sown, in the Northern Hemisphere, between June and October, depending on the desired harvesting period. Chard can be harvested while the leaves are young and tender, or after maturity when they are larger and have slightly tougher stems. Harvesting is a continuous process, as most species of chard produce three or more crops. Raw chard is extremely perishable.


title: Chard

text: Cultivars of chard include green forms, such as 'Lucullus' and 'Fordhook Giant', as well as red-ribbed forms such as 'Ruby Chard' and 'Rhubarb Chard'. The red-ribbed forms are attractive in the garden, but as a general rule, the older green forms tend to outproduce the colorful hybrids. 'Rainbow Chard' is a mix of colored varieties that is often mistaken for a variety unto itself.


title: Chard

text: Chard has shiny, green, ribbed leaves, with petioles that range from white to yellow to red, depending on the cultivar.


title: Chard

text: Chard may be harvested in the garden all summer by cutting individual leaves as needed. It does not bolt. In the Northern Hemisphere, chard is typically ready to harvest as early as April and lasts until a hard frost, typically below 25 degrees. It is one of the hardier leafy greens, with a harvest season typically lasting longer than kale, spinach, or baby greens.


title: Chard

text: Fresh chard can be used raw in salads, stirfries, soups or omelets. The raw leaves can be used like a tortilla wrap. Chard leaves and stalks are typically boiled or sautéed; the bitterness fades with cooking.


title: Chard

text: In a serving, raw Swiss chard provides of food energy and has rich content (> 19% of the Daily Value, DV) of vitamins A, K, and C, with 122%, 1038%, and 50%, respectively, of the DV. Also having significant content in raw chard are vitamin E and the dietary minerals magnesium, manganese, iron, and potassium. Raw chard has low content of carbohydrates, protein, fat, and dietary fiber.


title: Chard

text: When chard is boiled, vitamin and mineral contents are reduced compared to raw chard, but still supply significant proportions of the DV (table).


title: Pediatrics

text: Pediatrics (also spelled "paediatrics" or "pædiatrics") is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, paediatrics covers many of their youth until the age of 18. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends people seek pediatric care through the age of 21, but some pediatric subspecialists continue to care for adults up to 25. Worldwide age limits of pediatrics have been trending upward year after year. A medical doctor who specializes in this area is known as a pediatrician, or paediatrician. The word "pediatrics" and its cognates mean "healer of children," derived from the two Greek words: ("pais" "child") and ("iatros" "doctor, healer"). Pediatricians work in clinics, research centers, universities, general hospitals and children's hospitals, including those who practice pediatric subspecialties (e.g. neonatology requires resources available in a NICU).


title: Pediatrics

text: The earliest mentions of child-specific medical problems appear in the "Hippocratic Corpus", published in the fifth century B.C., and the famous "Sacred Disease". These publications discussed topics such as childhood epilepsy and premature births. From the first to fourth centuries A.D., Greek philosophers and physicians Celsus, Soranus of Ephesus, Aretaeus, Galen, and Oribasius, also discussed specific illnesses affecting children in their works, such as rashes, epilepsy, and meningitis. Already Hippocrates, Aristotle, Celsus, Soranus, and Galen understood the differences in growing and maturing organisms that necessitated different treatment: "" ("In general, boys should not be treated in the same way as men"). Some of the oldest traces of pediatrics can be discovered in Ancient India where children's doctors were called "kumara bhrtya".