title: LGBT rights in Japan

text: In June 2018, the Japanese Government enacted a new law lowering the age of majority in Japan to 18. Among others, the new law sets the age of marriage at 18 for both men and women (previously women could marry at the age of 16) and allows 18-year-olds to obtain valid passports, credit cards, etc. The law also allows people diagnosed with gender dysphoria and who have undergone irreversible sterilization to legally change their sex at the age of 18. The changes took effect on 1 April 2022.


title: LGBT rights in Japan

text: In October 2020, Human Rights Watch wrote a letter urging Japan officials to allow transgender women to enroll in public women's universities in the country.


title: LGBT rights in Japan

text: In January 2022, a transgender individual was arrested for "using the wrong bathroom" in Osaka. The Osaka Prefectural Police has declined to pursue charges, instead leaving that decision up to state prosecutors. Mikiya Nakatsuka, professor of health sciences at Okayama University and president of the Japanese Society of Gender Identity Disorder, stated that most transgender persons in Japan "paid attention when they used toilets at public facilities so they [could] stay out of trouble], and expressed concern that this single case would be applied erroneously to the wider transgender community, creating unwarranted prejudice and discrimination.


title: LGBT rights in Japan

text: Gay and bisexual men are allowed to donate blood in Japan following a six-month abstinence from sex. While women and heterosexual men only need to wait six-months after being with a new partner of the opposite sex.


title: LGBT rights in Japan

text: The Japan Self-Defense Forces, when being asked about their policy toward people who are gay or lesbian following the U.S. debate during the Clinton presidency, answered that it was not an issue, and individuals within the forces indicated that as long as same-sex relations did not lead to fights or other trouble, there were few, if any, barriers to their inclusion in the armed services.


title: LGBT rights in Japan

text: While representations of homosexuals in the Japanese media tend towards caricature on the basis of stereotypes of sexual or behavioral deviance (e.g. the actually straight Hard Gay), there are several examples of transgender and non-binary celebrities in Japan such as Haruna Ai, Kayo Satoh, Ataru Nakamura, Kaba-chan, Hikaru Utada and Ikko. Several prominent musicians including Yoshinori Kanemoto and Ayumi Hamasaki have large LGBT fanbases as a result of their support for the LGBT community; among other activities, Hikaru Utada featured a gay teddybear called Kuma who she introduced as far back as 2010, and Ayumi Hamasaki headlined at Tokyo's 2018 Pride festival (incidentally, Hamasaki starred in the LGBT-themed movie "Nagisa no Shindobaddo" in the 1990s). Various celebrities have dedicated airtime on radios and podcasts to LGBT topics and supporting LGBT issues. Sho Sakurai of Arashi held an interview with drag queens in 2015 in Shinjuku Ni-chōme and was given the nickname "Cherry Shoko in the Sky". Matsuko Deluxe is a famous and well-respected drag queen TV personality along the lines of Lily Savage (UK) and Dame Edna (Australia). The education specialist Naoki Ogi (more colloquially known by teachers across Japan by his nickname "Ogimama") has in past years given focus to LGBT issues in schools. Support for LGBT rights has been expressed by corporate executives and Olympic athlete Dai Tamesue. One of famous Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda's earliest movies, a documentary called "August without Him", released in 1994, follows Hirata Yutaka, the first openly gay AIDS sufferer in Japan. Filmed over a series of months, it contrasts his public life as an outspoken figure on the lecture circuit with his personal descent into illness and death.


title: LGBT rights in Japan

text: Most political parties in Japan have formal positions in favor or against LGBT rights in their party's platform or manifesto. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has indicated opposition to legalizing same-sex marriage, whereas the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP), the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party have indicated support for legalization.


title: LGBT rights in Japan

text: In 2001, the Council for Human Rights Promotion, under the Ministry of Justice, recommended that sexual orientation be included in the nation's civil rights code, but the National Diet refused to adopt the recommendation.


title: LGBT rights in Japan

text: In 2003, Aya Kamikawa became the first openly transgender politician to be elected to public office in Japan, winning a seat on the Setagaya Ward Assembly. She initially ran as an independent but expressed support for the now-defunct Rainbow and Greens party and later unsuccessfully ran for the National Parliament as a member of the Democratic Party of Japan.


title: LGBT rights in Japan

text: In 2005, Kanako Otsuji, from the Osaka Prefectural Assembly (2003–2007), became the first openly gay politician in Japan, when she formally came out at the Tokyo Gay Pride Festival. She later briefly served on the House of Councillors in 2013. Following the 2017 general election, Otsuji became the first openly lesbian member of the House of Representatives.


title: LGBT rights in Japan

text: In 2010, Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara faced international criticism for controversial comments he made, in which he said that gays and lesbians were "deficient somehow. It may be attributed to something genetic. I feel sorry for them being a minority."


title: LGBT rights in Japan

text: In 2011, Taiga Ishikawa became the first openly gay man elected to office in Japan, winning a seat in the local assembly of Toshima Ward. He came out publicly in his book "Where Is My Boyfriend" (2002), and started a non-profit organization that sponsors social events for gay men in Japan. At the 2019 House of Councillors election, Ishikawa won a seat in the House of Councillors as a member of the CDP, the first openly gay man to do so. After his election, he vowed to legalize same-sex marriage and enact anti-discrimination laws within the six years of his term.


title: LGBT rights in Japan

text: At the 2016 House of Councillors election, the conservative governing LDP included in its manifesto, that "same-sex marriage is incompatible with the Constitution". However, it also included "promoting understanding of sexual diversity" in its platform, a move that would have been "unthinkable" in earlier times and that lawmaker Gaku Hashimoto attributed in part to burnishing the country's international image in advance of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. In 2019, former Defense Minister Tomomi Inada said she was unsure whether she would be able to introduce new legislation seeking greater tolerance of same-sex relationships amid opposition from her LDP colleagues. While Inada announced she wishes to "promote understanding" of LGBT people, she stated she is not trying to get Japan to legalize same-sex marriage or ban discrimination against LGBT citizens. Some LDP members have made controversial statements, such as Katsuei Hirasawa who argued in a speech in February 2019 that the "nation would collapse" if everyone were gay. Another ruling party lawmaker, Mio Sugita, published a magazine article in 2018 describing same-sex couples as "unproductive" because they do not have children.


title: LGBT rights in Japan

text: In March 2017, Tomoya Hosoda was elected to the Iruma Assembly, in the prefecture of Saitama. Hosoda is believed to be the first openly transgender man elected to public office in the world.


title: LGBT rights in Japan

text: During the country's 2017 general election, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike's newly launched Party of Hope pledged the elimination of LGBT discrimination in its manifesto.


title: LGBT rights in Japan

text: In January 2019, trans woman Maria Akasaka became a member of the Kameoka City Assembly, in Kyoto Prefecture. In April 2019, another trans woman, Ayako Fuchigami, won a seat on the Hokkaido Prefectural Assembly representing Sapporo's Higashi-ku ward. She became the first openly transgender person to hold a prefectural assembly position in Japan.


title: LGBT rights in Japan

text: In June 2019, the CDP added introducing legislation aimed at ending discrimination against the LGBT community and legalising same-sex marriage to their party platforms ahead of the 2019 Japanese House of Councillors election.


title: LGBT rights in Japan

text: In May 2021, Japan’s conservative governing LDP has been accused of violating the Olympic charter after it failed to approve a bill to protect the rights of the LGBT community, during discussions marred by homophobic outbursts from conservative MPs. Closed meetings held in May to discuss a bill, proposed by opposition parties, ended without agreement after some LDP MPs said the rights of sexual minorities had "gone too far". An unnamed lawmaker described LGBT people as "morally unacceptable", while another MP, Kazuo Yana, said sexual minorities were "resisting the preservation of the species that occurs naturally in biological terms", media reports said. The failure to back a proposed law to protect LGBT rights was condemned by human rights groups, which said the party deserved a "gold medal for homophobia".


title: LGBT rights in Japan

text: In July 2022, LGBT rights activists and supporters protested in front of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's headquarters after an intra-party panel meeting circulated a booklet claiming that "homosexuality is a mental disease or addiction."


title: LGBT rights in Japan

text: The text was packed with false information, including "It's not the case that high suicide rates among LGBT people can be attributed to discrimination within society," and, "We should not legitimatize the sexual lifestyles of sexual minorities as it will become a social problem which will destroy families and society."


title: Combined drug intoxication

text: Combined drug intoxication (CDI), or multiple drug intake (MDI), is a cause of death by drug overdose from poly drug use, often implicated in polysubstance dependence.


title: Combined drug intoxication

text: Deaths by combined drug intoxication are relatively rare (one in several million). In 2004, there were 3,800 deaths in the US resulting from a fatal medication error involving alcohol, while in 1983 there were less than 100 such deaths. It is more of a risk for older patients.


title: Combined drug intoxication

text: People who engage in polypharmacy and other hypochondriac behaviors are at an elevated risk of death from CDI. Other dangers of combining drugs include "brain damage, heart problems, seizures, stomach bleeding, liver damage/ liver failure, heatstroke, coma, suppressed breathing, and respiratory failure", along with many other complications. Disorders like depression and anxiety can also stem from polydrug use. Elderly people are at the highest risk of CDI, because of having many age-related health problems requiring many medications combined with age-impaired judgment, leading to confusion in taking medications. Elderly patients are often prescribed more than one drug within the same drug class, and doctors may treat the side effects of prescribed drugs with even more drugs, which can overwhelm the patient.


title: Combined drug intoxication

text: In general, the simultaneous use of multiple drugs should be carefully monitored by a qualified individual such as board certified and licensed medical doctor, either an MD or DO. Close association between prescribing physicians and pharmacies, along with the computerization of prescriptions and patients' medical histories, aim to avoid the occurrence of dangerous drug interactions. Lists of contraindications for a drug are usually provided with it, either in monographs, package inserts (accompanying prescribed medications), or in warning labels (for OTC drugs). CDI/MDI might also be avoided by physicians requiring their patients to return any unused prescriptions. Patients should ask their doctors and pharmacists if there are any interactions between the drugs they are taking.


title: Combined drug intoxication

text: Alcohol can exacerbate the symptoms and may directly contribute to increased severity of symptoms. The reasons for toxicity vary depending on the mixture of drugs. Usually, most victims die after using two or more drugs in combination that suppress breathing, and the low blood oxygen level causes brain death.


title: Devon Bostick

text: Devon Bostick (born November 13, 1991) is a Canadian actor. He played Rodrick Heffley in the first three "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" films, starred in the Atom Egoyan-directed film "Adoration" (2008) and portrayed Jasper Jordan on the dystopian science fiction television series "The 100" from 2014 to 2017.


title: Devon Bostick

text: Bostick was born in Toronto, Ontario. His mother, Stephanie Gorin, is a casting director in Toronto, who works on stage and screen and his father, Joe Bostick, is an actor as well as a film fight coordinator.


title: Devon Bostick

text: He is of British and Norwegian descent. Devon began acting when in grade five. He is a graduate of the Etobicoke School of the Arts in Toronto.


title: Devon Bostick

text: He has had roles in the television series "", "Flashpoint" and in the film "Citizen Duane", and appeared in the series premiere of "Rookie Blue". His film work has included roles in "Godsend", "Fugitive Pieces" and "The Stone Angel".


title: Devon Bostick

text: In "Adoration" (2008), he played Simon, a boy who being raised by his uncle (played by Scott Speedman) after his parents' death. He also appeared in an online spoof trailer for a hoax movie called "Ice Fortress." He had roles in "The Poet", a World War II drama starring Roy Scheider and Colm Feore, "Saw VI" as Brent and "" as Ezio Auditore.


title: Devon Bostick

text: Bostick also played Erica's deceased brother Leo in CBC Television's series "Being Erica", and Rodrick Heffley in the movies of "Diary of a Wimpy Kid". He played Alan in three episodes of "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel".


title: National Security Guard

text: The National Security Guard (NSG), commonly known as Black Cats, is a counter-terrorism unit of India under the Ministry of Home Affairs. It was founded on 16 October 1984, following Operation Blue Star, for combating terrorist activities and protect states against internal disturbances. Formalised in the Parliament of India under the National Security Guard Act, 1986. It is one of the seven Central Armed police forces of India.


title: National Security Guard

text: "Train, equip and keep in readiness a special force capable of swiftly and effectively combating terrorism to live up to its motto "Sarvatra Sarvottam Suraksha""


title: National Security Guard

text: The NSG is a 'Federal Contingency Deployment Force' to tackle all facets of terrorism in the country.<ref name="nsg, 22/8"></ref> As a specialised counter-terrorism force, it is intended to be used "only in exceptional situations" and is not meant to take over the "functions of the State Police Forces or other Para Military Forces". Yet, over the years its role has been expanded to provide personal security to influential politicians regardless of the real threat that they face.


title: National Security Guard

text: However, in January 2020, the NSG was withdrawn from this task of VIP security to ensure its focus on its original roles as an elite counter-terrorism and anti-hijacking force.


title: National Security Guard

text: The NSG is trained to conduct counter-terrorist tasks, including countering hijackings on the land, sea, and air; bomb disposal (search, detection, and neutralisation of IEDs); PBI (Post Blast Investigation) and Hostage Rescue missions.


title: National Security Guard

text: M A Ganapathy (DOB: 01-03-1964) is an Indian Police Service officer of the 1986 batch of Uttarakhand cadre, now serving as the Director General, National Security Guard w.e.f. 18-03-2021. He has previously served as Director General of Bureau of Civil Aviation Security and Director General of Police, Uttarakhand.


title: National Security Guard

text: According to the NSG website, it is modelled on the British Special Air Service as well as Germany's GSG 9 (Grenzschutzgruppe 9 or "Border Guard Group 9").<ref name="nsg, 16/9"></ref>


title: National Security Guard

text: Administration The Director-General is assisted by four Indian Police Service officers for administrative matters of whom two are Inspectors General each for Administration and Headquarters (HQ) who in turn are assisted by Deputy Inspectors General. The Financial Advisor of the NSG has been an officer of the rank of Joint Secretary from Central Accounts Services and is assisted by Dy Financial Advisors.


title: National Security Guard

text: Operation and training: A Major General of the Indian Army, on deputation, designated as Inspector General (operations), is responsible for the planning and conduct of operations. Training is under another Inspector General (Training), located in Manesar, Gurgaon. They are further assisted by two DIGs – DIG (Operations) and DIG (Training). The strength of the NSG is estimated to be about 7000+ personnel. Air transport to support NSG is located at Indira Gandhi Airport.


title: National Security Guard

text: There are 2 Special Action Groups – 51 and 52 SAGs. Both, along with 11 SRG, constitute the counter terrorist force (CTF) which is the counter-terrorist arm of NSG. 51 SAG along with 11 SRG are tasked for counter-terrorist and counter insurgency operations while 52 SAG deal with anti-hijacking operations. While SAG members are drawn from the Indian Army, SRG members are largely drawn from CAPFs.


title: National Security Guard

text: There are 3 Special Ranger Groups (SRG) – 11,12 and 13. 11 SRG is under counter terrorist force (CTF) and is used purely for counter terrorist operations along with 51 SAG.


title: National Security Guard

text: SRG members are drawn both from the border guarding forces like BSF, ITBP and SSB and Internal Security Forces such as CRPF, CISF and Assam Rifles. In recent times GoI has decided to remove SRGs from protection duties and re-orient them exclusively for the mandate of NSG like SAG and 11 SRG.


title: National Security Guard

text: NSG has set five regional hubs under regional deployment. SCG consists of personnel both from Army and CAPFs for counter-terror operations within their area of responsibility. Each SCG is headed by an officer of rank colonel from the Indian Army on deputation as Group Commander. The five regional hubs are


title: National Security Guard

text: The electronic support group stationed at Manesar, provides communication and technological support. The group is headed by a Group Commander level officer on deputation.


title: National Security Guard

text: The National Bomb Data Centre (NBDC) was established in the year 1988 and redefined its role in the year 2000. NBDC was assigned the role of monitoring, recording and analyzing all bombing incidents in the country. It also records and analyses various bombing incidents across the world to gain expertise knowledge in bombing and related incidents to effectively counter such situations and shares information with relevant security agencies. NBDC also performs research and development in the field of explosives engineering. At present NBDC act as a nodal agency for all bombing related facets in the country. It is headed by a Group Commander who can be either from the Army or para military force. The current Group Commander is a Commandant rank officer from CRPF.


title: National Security Guard

text: In response to the criticism, due to the time taken by NSG units to arrive in November 2008 Mumbai attacks, from its base in Manesar, Haryana, the MHA decided to deploy NSG contingents in major regions across India.


title: National Security Guard

text: NSG hub is the regional hub of the National Security Guard and it's commando training is located near Hyderabad, Telangana, India. With the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) giving its nod and sanctioning in 2017, the National Security Guard (NSG) officials geared up to establish the Southern Regional Center (SRC) at Ibrahimpatnam, Hyderabad for training commandos. It will be home to 300 black cat commandoes and is tasked with tackling any terror threat in the four states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha and Chhattisgarh. The hub land area is and constructed at a cost of .


title: National Security Guard

text: The Hyderabad hub of 28 Special Composite Group (SCG) of the NSG is among the four regional hubs in the country. By 2018, 300 commandos were stationed at the NSG hub at Trimulgherry.


title: National Security Guard

text: The state has two trained anti-terror striking forces. Besides the NSG, the Telangana Police's counter-terrorist group, OCTOPUS, also has a training facility in the same neighbourhood at Ibrahimpatnam, that has a strength of over 250 personnel.


title: National Security Guard

text: NSG and OCTOPUS personnel undergo a gruelling training, including handling sophisticated weapons, after which commandos are sent back to their parent department when they reach the age of 35, ensuring that the force remains young and fighting fit.


title: National Security Guard

text: As of 2013, the proposal to set up a state-of-the-art NSG training centre at Ibrahimpatnam on the lines of NSG Manesar training centre had been pending for over three years. But the MHA officials, in their annual report released recently, announced the release of funds for developing infrastructure. "Post the 26/11 Mumbai terror strike, four regional hubs of NSG were operationalised in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata to reduce reaction time. A regional centre at Hyderabad is also being raised, for which of land has been acquired. MHA has conveyed sanction of towards the construction of this Southern Regional Centre, NSG at Ibrahimpatnam," the MHA report said.


title: National Security Guard

text: Hyderabad would have an NSG hub at Trimulgherry as well as the SRC for training 'Black Cats'. As of now, nearly 300 commandos, ready for anti-terror operations round-the-clock, are stationed at the NSG hub at Trimulgherry.


title: National Security Guard

text: On 1 March 2020, the 29 Special Composite Group complex was inaugurated by the Home Minister Amit Shah at New Town, West Bengal.


title: National Security Guard

text: In July 2018, NSG operationalized its fifth regional hub at Gandhinagar in Gujarat. Around 100 people will be based for counter-terror and counter-hijack operation.


title: National Security Guard

text: The NSG was established in the wake of 1984 Operation Blue Star, and the high collateral damage to Golden Temple, and civilian and military collateral casualties. Since its founding the NSG has been used in the Punjab in 1986, and Jammu and Kashmir. Some of the NSG's known operations include:


title: National Security Guard

text: Selection is demanding and has a drop out rate of about 70–80 percent. Three of their 14 months of training in Manesar, Haryana, are devoted to the basics. Physical fitness training has 26 elements, ranging from a cross-country obstacle course to jumping from heights and across divides and scaling different kinds of terrain. One endurance test involves martial arts, target shooting at the end of an obstacle-ridden cross-country run. This is meant to gauge the candidate's performance under conditions of stress and exhaustion. Those who successfully complete the tests are sent for nine months of advanced training.


title: National Security Guard

text: The training includes learning to conduct urban counter-terrorism, underwater operations, house intervention, counter-UAV and anti-drone operations, bomb detection and disposal skills, apart from various other specialisations.


title: National Security Guard

text: Exercise between NSG and United States Army Special Forces, code named "Balanced Iroquois", started on 18 October 2015. This three-week long exercise was preceded by a joint airborne-jump at Aero India 2015.


title: National Security Guard

text: In February 2018, Green Berets from the 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne) conducted a joint training exercise with the NSG in Kolkata. The Green Berets learnt some urban warfare strategies from the NSG while the NSG learnt about some advanced equipment of the US soldiers. The drill included intervention techniques, training in the Kolkata Metro system and a drill at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur.


title: National Security Guard

text: After the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the NSG decided to have a joint exercise with the German GSG 9. In November 2009, a team from NSG visited the GSG 9 headquarters. Joint training exercises between GSG 9 and NSG were subsequently conducted in Manesar.


title: Caraway

text: Caraway, also known as meridian fennel and Persian cumin ("Carum carvi"), is a biennial plant in the family Apiaceae, native to western Asia, Europe, and North Africa.


title: Caraway

text: The etymology of "caraway" is unclear. Caraway has been called by many names in different regions, with names deriving from the Latin "cuminum" (cumin), the Greek "karon" (again, cumin), which was adapted into Latin as "carum" (now meaning caraway), and the Sanskrit "karavi", sometimes translated as "caraway", but other times understood to mean "fennel". English use of the term caraway dates to at least 1440, possibly having Arabic origin.


title: Caraway

text: The plant is similar in appearance to other members of the carrot family, with finely divided, feathery leaves with thread-like divisions, growing on stems. The main flower stem is tall, with small white or pink flowers in compound umbels composed of 5-16 unequal rays 1-6 cm long. Caraway fruits, informally called seeds, are smooth, crescent-shaped, laterally compressed achenes, around long, with five pale ridges and a distinctive pleasant smell when crushed.


title: Caraway

text: Caraway was mentioned by the early Greek botanist Pedanius Dioscorides as a herb and tonic. It was later mentioned in the Roman "Apicius" as an ingredient in recipes. Caraway was known in the Arab world as "karauya", and cultivated in Morocco.


title: Caraway

text: The only species that is cultivated is "Carum carvi", its fruits being used in many ways in cooking and in the preparation of medicinal products and liqueurs.


title: Caraway

text: The plant prefers warm, sunny locations and well-drained soil rich in organic matter. In warmer regions, it is planted in the winter as an annual. In temperate climates, it is planted as a summer annual or biennial.


title: Caraway

text: It is widely established as a cultivated plant. The Netherlands, Poland and Germany are the top caraway producers. Finland supplies about 28% (2011) of the world's caraway production from some 1500 farms, the high output occurring possibly from its favorable climate and latitudes, which ensure long summer hours of sunlight.


title: Caraway

text: Caraway seeds are 10% water, 50% carbohydrates, 20% protein, and 15% fat (table). In a reference amount, caraway seeds are a rich source (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) of protein, B vitamins (24-33% DV), vitamin C (25% DV), and several dietary minerals, especially iron (125% DV), phosphorus (81% DV), and zinc (58% DV) (table).


title: Caraway

text: When ground, caraway seeds yield up to 7.5% of volatile oil, mostly D-carvone, and 15% fixed oil of which the major fatty acids are oleic, linoleic, petroselinic, and palmitic acids.


title: Caraway

text: Phytochemicals identified in caraway seed oil include thymol, o-cymene, γ‑terpinene, trimethylene dichloride, β-pinene, 2-(1-cyclohexenyl), cyclohexanone, β-phellandrene, 3-carene, α-thujene, and linalool.


title: Caraway

text: The fruits, usually used whole, have a pungent, anise-like flavor and aroma that comes from essential oils, mostly carvone, limonene, and anethole. Caraway is used as a spice in breads, especially rye bread. In the United States, the most common use of caraway is whole as an addition to rye bread – often called "seeded rye" or "Jewish rye" bread, where the recipe itself owes to East Slavic coriander and caraway flavoured rye bread (see Borodinsky bread). Caraway seeds are often used in Irish soda bread and other baked goods.


title: Caraway

text: Caraway may be used in desserts, liquors, casseroles, and other foods. Its leaves can be added to salads, stews, and soups, and are sometimes consumed as herbs, either raw, dried, or cooked, similar to parsley. The root is consumed as a winter root vegetable in some places, similar to parsnips.


title: Caraway

text: Caraway fruits are found in diverse European cuisines and dishes, for example sauerkraut, and the United Kingdom's caraway seed cake.


title: Caraway

text: In Austrian cuisine it is used to season beef and, in German cuisine, pork. In Hungarian cuisine it is added to goulash, and in Norwegian cuisine and Swedish cuisine it is used for making caraway black bread. In Latvian cuisine whole caraway seeds are added to the Jāņi sour milk cheese.


title: Caraway

text: Caraway oil is used to for the production of Kümmel liquor in Germany and Russia, Scandinavian akvavit, Icelandic brennivín.


title: Caraway

text: In Oxford, where the plant appeared to have become naturalised in a meadow, the seeds were formerly offered on a tray by publicans to people who wished to disguise the odour of their drinker's breath.


title: Neco Williams

text: Neco Shay Williams (born 13 April 2001) is a Welsh professional footballer who plays as a full-back for Premier League club Nottingham Forest and the Wales national team.


title: Neco Williams

text: Williams joined the academy of Liverpool at the age of six and progressed through the youth ranks, representing the club at U18, U19 and U23 level, as well as in the UEFA Youth League. He suffered a serious back injury which ruled him out for most of the 2017–18 season, but recovered his place to feature in the club's victorious FA Youth Cup campaign two years later.


title: Neco Williams

text: Williams' form at youth level was rewarded when, on 30 October 2019, he made his debut for the senior side, starting in a 5–5 (5–4) penalty shoot-out win over Arsenal in the EFL Cup. He featured prominently in the match and recorded a last-minute assist for Divock Origi's goal to send the match to penalties, where Liverpool emerged victorious. In December, he was included in Liverpool's squad which won the 2019 FIFA Club World Cup, although he was an unused substitute in both of the club's matches in the competition.


title: Neco Williams

text: Following the turn of the year, he starred in a team largely made up of teenagers and reserves that defeated Merseyside rivals Everton in the FA Cup 3rd round, and Shrewsbury Town in the 4th round replay, forcing an own goal from Ro-Shaun Williams in the latter fixture to secure his side's progression in the competition. In the match against Shrewsbury, Williams was also part of a starting line-up that was the youngest in Liverpool's history, with an average age of 19 years and two days. His Premier League debut followed on 24 June 2020, shortly after campaign resumed following a three-month long suspension caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, when he featured as a 74th-minute substitute in a 4–0 win over Crystal Palace. Williams would go on to make enough appearances to secure his league winners' medal, and a few weeks later on 17 August, he signed a new long-term deal with the Reds.


title: Neco Williams

text: On 31 January 2022, Williams joined Championship club Fulham on loan until the end of the 2021–22 season. He scored the first senior club goals of his career when he scored twice in a 5–1 win over Swansea City on 8 March 2022.


title: Neco Williams

text: Williams signed for newly promoted Premier League club Nottingham Forest on 10 July 2022 on a four-year contract for a fee reported to be around £17 million.


title: Neco Williams

text: Williams was born in Wrexham and has represented Wales at Under 19 level. In August 2020 he was called into the senior Wales squad for the first time. Williams made his Wales debut in a 1–0 UEFA Nations League win over Finland on 3 September 2020. He scored his first goal for the senior team on 6 September 2020 against Bulgaria in the UEFA Nations League, scoring the winning goal in a 1–0 victory for Wales. In May 2021 he was selected for the Wales squad for the delayed UEFA Euro 2020 tournament.


title: Neco Williams

text: Williams helped Wales qualify for the FIFA World Cup in 2022 for the first time since 1958. In November 2022 he was named in the Wales squad for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.


title: Neco Williams

text: Williams' grandfather, Kelvin Jones, died in November 2022, the day before Williams started in Wales' opening game of the World Cup; he revealed the loss after game, dedicating his performance to Jones.


title: Hannah Jeter

text: Hannah Jeter ("née" Davis; born May 5, 1990) is an American model and television host best known for her appearances in the "Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue", including the cover of the 2015 edition.


title: Hannah Jeter

text: Hannah Davis was born and raised on Saint Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the youngest of three children of Deborah (née Behm) and Conn Davis. She stated that the best part of growing up there was "the friendly people, great weather and waking up to the sound of the waves on the beach".


title: Hannah Jeter

text: Professionally, Jeter appeared in campaigns for Ralph Lauren, Blue Label and walked in their 2006 Spring/Summer runway show. She was additionally the face of the Ralph Lauren fragrance, Ralph Rocks.


title: Hannah Jeter

text: Jeter appeared on two individual covers for the Italian magazine "D" in 2006, Mexico's "Elle" in August 2009, France's "FHM" in September 2012 and South Africa's "FHM" in April 2013.


title: Hannah Jeter

text: She modeled for Victoria's Secret as well as American Eagle Outfitters, Tommy Hilfiger, and Levi's. Jeter has appeared in televised advertisements as the DirecTV Genie, and appears in a series of ads for the same company.


title: Hannah Jeter

text: Jeter appeared in five editions of the "Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue", from 2013 to 2017, and was the cover model of the 2015 issue.


title: Hannah Jeter

text: In 2015, she appeared in a bit part in the comedy film "Vacation", as a flirtatious young woman driving a red Ferrari.


title: Hannah Jeter

text: Jeter has played tennis since she was eight years old and was a champion on the Caribbean National tennis team and played on the Caribbean Tennis Circuit. She is the niece of sportscaster Glenn Davis.


title: Hannah Jeter

text: In early November 2015, former New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter confirmed earlier reports that he and Hannah were engaged. The two married on July 9, 2016, in Napa Valley. They have three daughters, born in August 2017, January 2019, and December 2021.


title: Hannah Jeter

text: Jeter experienced high-risk pregnancies with her first two children, which resulted in an emergency hysterectomy after the birth of her third child. She used intermittent fasting as a weight loss method after the birth of her children.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughel) the Elder (, ; ; – 9 September 1569) was the most significant artist of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaker, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so-called genre painting); he was a pioneer in making both types of subject the focus in large paintings.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: He was a formative influence on Dutch Golden Age painting and later painting in general in his innovative choices of subject matter, as one of the first generation of artists to grow up when religious subjects had ceased to be the natural subject matter of painting. He also painted no portraits, the other mainstay of Netherlandish art. After his training and travels to Italy, he returned in 1555 to settle in Antwerp, where he worked mainly as a prolific designer of prints for the leading publisher of the day. Only towards the end of the decade did he switch to make painting his main medium, and all his famous paintings come from the following period of little more than a decade before his early death, when he was probably in his early forties, and at the height of his powers.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: As well as looking forwards, his art reinvigorates medieval subjects such as marginal drolleries of ordinary life in illuminated manuscripts, and the calendar scenes of agricultural labours set in landscape backgrounds, and puts these on a much larger scale than before, and in the expensive medium of oil painting. He does the same with the fantastic and anarchic world developed in Renaissance prints and book illustrations.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: He is sometimes referred to as "Peasant Bruegel", to distinguish him from the many later painters in his family, including his son Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564–1638). From 1559, he dropped the 'h' from his name and signed his paintings as "Bruegel"; his relatives continued to use "Brueghel" or "Breughel".


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: The two main early sources for Bruegel's biography are Lodovico Guicciardini's account of the Low Countries (1567) and Karel van Mander's 1604 "Schilder-boeck". Guicciardini recorded that Bruegel was born in Breda, but Van Mander specified that Bruegel was born in a village ("dorp") near Breda called "Brueghel", which does not fit any known place. Nothing at all is known of his family background. Van Mander seems to assume he came from a peasant background, in keeping with the over-emphasis on Bruegel's peasant genre scenes given by van Mander and many early art historians and critics.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: In contrast, scholars of the last six decades have emphasized the intellectual content of his work, and conclude: "There is, in fact, every reason to think that Pieter Bruegel was a townsman and a highly educated one, on friendly terms with the humanists of his time", ignoring Van Mander's "dorp" and just placing his childhood in Breda itself. Breda was already a significant centre as the base of the House of Orange-Nassau, with a population of some 8,000, although 90% of the 1300 houses were destroyed in a fire in 1534. However, this reversal can be taken to excess; although Bruegel moved in highly educated humanist circles, it seems "he had not mastered Latin", and had others add the Latin captions in some of his drawings.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: From the fact that Bruegel entered the Antwerp painters' guild in 1551, it is inferred that he was born between 1525 and 1530. His master, according to Van Mander, was the Antwerp painter Pieter Coecke van Aelst.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Between 1545 and 1550 he was a pupil of Pieter Coecke, who died on 6 December 1550. However, before this, Bruegel was already working in Mechelen, where he is documented between September 1550 and October 1551 assisting Peeter Baltens on an altarpiece (now lost), painting the wings in "grisaille". Bruegel possibly got this work via the connections of Mayken Verhulst, the wife of Pieter Coecke. Mayken's father and eight siblings were all artists or married an artist, and lived in Mechelen.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: In 1551 Bruegel became a free master in the Guild of Saint Luke of Antwerp. He set off for Italy soon after, probably by way of France. He visited Rome and, rather adventurously for the period, by 1552 he had reached Reggio Calabria at the southern tip of the mainland, where a drawing records the city in flames after a Turkish raid. He probably continued to Sicily, but by 1553 was back in Rome. There he met the miniaturist Giulio Clovio, whose will of 1578 lists paintings by Bruegel; in one case a joint work. These works, apparently landscapes, have not survived, but marginal miniatures in manuscripts by Clovio are attributed to Bruegel.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: He left Italy by 1554, and had reached Antwerp by 1555, when the set of prints to his designs known as the "Large Landscapes" were published by Hieronymus Cock, the most important print publisher of northern Europe. Bruegel's return route is uncertain, but much of the debate over it was made irrelevant in the 1980s when it was realized that the celebrated series of large drawings of mountain landscapes thought to have been made on the trip were not by Bruegel at all. However, all the drawings from the trip that are considered authentic are of landscapes; unlike most other 16th-century artists visiting Rome he seems to have ignored both classical ruins and contemporary buildings.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: From 1555 until 1563, Bruegel lived in Antwerp, then the publishing centre of northern Europe, mainly working as a designer of over forty prints for Cock, though his dated paintings begin in 1557. With one exception, Bruegel did not work the plates himself, but produced a drawing which Cock's specialists worked from. He moved in the lively humanist circles of the city, and his change of name (or at least its spelling) in 1559 can be seen as an attempt to Latinize it; at the same time he changed the script he signed in from the Gothic blackletter to Roman capitals.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: In 1563, he married Pieter Coecke van Aelst's daughter Mayken Coecke in Brussels, where he lived for the remainder of his short life. While Antwerp was the capital of Netherlandish commerce as well as the art market, Brussels was the centre of government. Van Mander tells a story that his mother-in-law pushed for the move to distance him from his established servant girl mistress. By now painting had become his main activity, and his most famous works come from these years. His paintings were much sought after, with patrons including wealthy Flemish collectors and Cardinal Granvelle, in effect the Habsburg chief minister, who was based in Mechelen. Bruegel had two sons, both well known as painters, and a daughter about whom nothing is known. These were Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564–1638) and Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568–1625); he died too early to train either of them. He died in Brussels on 9 September 1569 and was buried in the Kapellekerk.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Van Mander records that before he died he told his wife to burn some drawings, perhaps designs for prints, carrying inscriptions "which were too sharp or sarcastic ... either out of remorse or for fear that she might come to harm or in some way be held responsible for them", which has led to much speculation that they were politically or doctrinally provocative, in a climate of sharp tension in both these areas.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Bruegel was born at a time of extensive change in Western Europe. Humanist ideals from the previous century influenced artists and scholars. Italy was at the end of its High Renaissance of arts and culture, when artists such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci painted their masterpieces. In 1517, about eight years before Bruegel's birth, Martin Luther created his "Ninety-five Theses" and began the Protestant Reformation in neighboring Germany. Reformation was accompanied by iconoclasm and widespread destruction of art, including in the Low Countries. The Catholic Church viewed Protestantism and its iconoclasm as a threat to the Church. The Council of Trent, which concluded in 1563, determined that religious art should be more focused on religious subject-matter and less on material things and decorative qualities.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: At this time, the Low Countries were divided into Seventeen Provinces, some of which wanted separation from the Habsburg rule based in Spain. The Reformation meanwhile produced a number of Protestant denominations that gained followers in the Seventeen Provinces, influenced by the newly Lutheran German states to the east and the newly Anglican England to the west. The Habsburg monarchs of Spain attempted a policy of strict religious uniformity for the Catholic Church within their domains and enforced it with the Inquisition. Increasing religious antagonisms and riots, political manoeuvrings, and executions eventually resulted in the outbreak of the Eighty Years' War.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: In this atmosphere Bruegel reached the height of his career as a painter. Two years before his death, the Eighty Years' War began between the United Provinces and Spain. Although Bruegel did not live to see it, seven provinces became independent and formed the Dutch Republic, while the other ten remained under Habsburg control at the end of the war.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Pieter Bruegel specialized in genre paintings populated by peasants, often with a landscape element, though he also painted religious works. Making the life and manners of peasants the main focus of a work was rare in painting in Bruegel's time, and he was a pioneer of the genre painting. Many of his peasant paintings fall into two groups in terms of scale and composition, both of which were original and influential on later painting. His earlier style shows dozens of small figures, seen from a high viewpoint, and spread fairly evenly across the central picture space. The setting is typically an urban space surrounded by buildings, within which the figures have a "fundamentally disconnected manner of portrayal", with individuals or small groups engaged in their own distinct activity, while ignoring all the others.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: His earthy, unsentimental but vivid depiction of the rituals of village life—including agriculture, hunts, meals, festivals, dances, and games—are unique windows on a vanished folk culture, though still characteristic of Belgian life and culture today, and a prime source of iconographic evidence about both physical and social aspects of 16th-century life. For example, his famous painting "Netherlandish Proverbs", originally "The Blue Cloak", illustrates dozens of then-contemporary aphorisms, many of which still are in use in current Flemish, French, English and Dutch. The Flemish environment provided a large artistic audience for proverb-filled paintings because proverbs were well known and recognizable as well as entertaining. "Children's Games" shows the variety of amusements enjoyed by young people. His winter landscapes of 1565, like "The Hunters in the Snow", are taken as corroborative evidence of the severity of winters during the Little Ice Age. Bruegel often painted community events, as in "The Peasant Wedding" and "The Fight Between Carnival and Lent". In paintings like "The Peasant Wedding", Bruegel painted individual, identifiable people, while the people in "The Fight Between Carnival and Lent" are unidentifiable, muffin-faced allegories of greed or gluttony.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Bruegel also painted religious scenes in a wide Flemish landscape setting, as in the "Conversion of Paul" and "The Sermon of St. John the Baptist". Even if Bruegel's subject matter was unconventional, the religious ideals and proverbs driving his paintings were typical of the Northern Renaissance. He accurately depicted people with disabilities, such as in "The Blind Leading the Blind", which depicted a quote from the Bible: "If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch" (Matthew 15:14). Using the Bible to interpret this painting, the six blind men are symbols of the blindness of mankind in pursuing earthly goals instead of focusing on Christ's teachings.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Using abundant spirit and comic power, Bruegel created some of the very early images of acute social protest in art history. Examples include paintings such as "The Fight Between Carnival and Lent" (a satire of the conflicts of the Protestant Reformation) and engravings like "The Ass in the School" and "Strongboxes Battling Piggybanks".


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Over the 1560s, Bruegel moved to a style showing only a few large figures, typically in a landscape background without a distant view. His paintings dominated by their landscapes take a middle course as regards both the number and size of figures.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Bruegel adapted and made more natural the world landscape style, which shows small figures in an imaginary panoramic landscape seen from an elevated viewpoint that includes mountains and lowlands, water, and buildings. Back in Antwerp from Italy he was commissioned in the 1550s by the publisher Hieronymus Cock to make drawings for a series of engravings, the "Large Landscapes", to meet what was now a growing demand for landscape images.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Some of his earlier paintings, such as his "Landscape with the Flight into Egypt" (Courtauld, 1563), are fully within the Patinir conventions, but his "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" (known from two copies) had a Patinir-style landscape, in which already the largest figure was a genre figure who was only a bystander for the supposed narrative subject, and may not even be aware of it. The date of Bruegel's lost original is unclear, but it is probably relatively early, and if so, foreshadows the trend of his later works. During the 1560s the early scenes crowded with multitudes of very small figures, whether peasant genre figures or figures in religious narratives, give way to a small number of much larger figures.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: His famous set of landscapes with genre figures depicting the seasons are the culmination of his landscape style; the five surviving paintings use the basic elements of the world landscape (only one lacks craggy mountains) but transform them into his own style. They are larger than most previous works, with a genre scene with several figures in the foreground, and the panoramic view seen past or through trees. Bruegel was also aware of the Danube School's landscape style through prints.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: The series on the months of the year includes several of Bruegel's best-known works. In 1565, a wealthy patron in Antwerp, Niclaes Jonghelinck, commissioned him to paint a series of paintings of each month of the year. There has been disagreement among art historians as to whether the series originally included six or twelve works. Today, only five of these paintings survive and some of the months are paired to form a general season. Traditional Flemish luxury books of hours (e.g., the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry; 1416) had calendar pages that included the Labours of the Months, depictions set in landscapes of the agricultural tasks, weather, and social life typical for that month.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Bruegel's paintings were on a far larger scale than a typical calendar page painting, each one approximately three feet by five feet. For Bruegel, this was a large commission (the price of a commission was based on how large the painting was) and an important one. In 1565, the Calvinist riots began and it was only two years before the Eighty Years' War broke out. Bruegel may have felt safer with a secular commission so as to not offend Calvinist or Catholic. Some of the most famous paintings from this series included "The Hunters in the Snow" (December–January) and "The Harvesters" (August).


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: On his return from Italy to Antwerp, Bruegel earned his living producing drawings to be turned into prints for the leading print publisher of the city, and indeed northern Europe, Hieronymus Cock. At his "House of the Four Winds" Cock ran a well-oiled production and distribution operation efficiently turning out prints of many sorts that was more concerned with sales than the finest artistic achievement. Most of Bruegel's prints come from this period, but he continued to produce drawn designs for prints until the end of his life, leaving only two completed out of a series of the "Four Seasons". The prints were popular and it is reasonable to assume that all those published have survived. In many cases we also have Bruegel's drawings. Although the subject matter of his graphic work was often continued in his paintings, there are considerable differences in emphases between the two "oeuvres". To his contemporaries and for long after, until public museums and good reproductions of the paintings made these better known, Bruegel was much better known through his prints than his paintings, which largely explains the critical assessment of him as merely the creator of comic peasant scenes.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: The prints are mostly engravings, though from about 1559 onwards some are etchings or mixtures of both techniques. Only one complete woodcut was made from a Bruegel design, with another left incomplete. This, "The Dirty Wife", is a most unusual survival (now Metropolitan Museum of Art) of a drawing on the wooden block intended for printing. For some reason, the specialist block-cutter who carved away the block, following the drawing while also destroying it, had only done one corner of the design before stopping work. The design then appears as an engraving, perhaps soon after Bruegel's death.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Among his greatest successes were a series of allegories, among several designs adopting many of the very individual mannerisms of his compatriot Hieronymus Bosch: "The Seven Deadly Sins" and "The Virtues". The sinners are grotesque and unidentifiable while the allegories of virtue often wear odd headgear. That imitations of Bosch sold well is demonstrated by his drawing "Big Fish Eat Little Fish" (now Albertina), which Bruegel signed but Cock shamelessly attributed to Bosch in the print version.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Although Bruegel presumably made them, no drawings that are clearly preparatory studies for paintings survive. Most surviving drawings are finished designs for prints, or landscape drawings that are fairly finished. After a considerable purge of attributions in recent decades, led by Hans Mielke, sixty-one sheets of drawings are now generally agreed to be by Bruegel. A new "Master of the Mountain Landscapes" has emerged from the carnage. Mielke's key observation was that the lily watermark on the paper of several sheets was only found from around 1580 onwards, which led to the rapid acceptance of his proposal. Another group of about twenty-five pen drawings of landscapes, many signed and dated as by Bruegel, are now given to Jacob Savery, probably from the decade of so before Savery's death in 1603. A giveaway was that two drawings including the walls of Amsterdam were dated 1563 but included elements only built in the 1590s. This group appears to have been made as deliberate forgeries.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Around 1563, Bruegel moved from Antwerp to Brussels, where he married Mayken Coecke, the daughter of the painter Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Mayken Verhulst. As registered in the archives of the Cathedral of Antwerp, their deposition for marriage was registered 25 July 1563. The marriage itself was concluded in the Chapel Church, Brussels in 1563.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Pieter the Elder had two sons: Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder (both kept their name as Brueghel). Their grandmother, Mayken Verhulst, trained the sons because "the Elder" died when both were very small children. The older brother, Pieter Brueghel copied his father's style and compositions with competence and considerable commercial success. Jan was much more original, and very versatile. He was an important figure in the transition to the Baroque style in Flemish Baroque painting and Dutch Golden Age painting in a number of its genres. He was often a collaborator with other leading artists, including with Peter Paul Rubens on many works including the "Allegory of Sight".


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Other members of the family include Jan van Kessel the Elder (grandson of Jan Brueghel the Elder) and Jan van Kessel the Younger. Through David Teniers the Younger, son-in-law of Jan Brueghel the Elder, the family is also related to the whole Teniers family of painters and the Quellinus family of painters and sculptors, through the marriage of Jan-Erasmus Quellinus to Cornelia, daughter of David Teniers the Younger.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Bruegel's art was long more highly valued by collectors than critics. His friend Abraham Ortelius described him in a friendship album in 1574 as "the most perfect painter of his century", but both Vasari and Van Mander see him as essentially a comic successor to Hieronymus Bosch.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: But Bruegel's work was, as far as we know, always keenly collected. The banker Nicolaes Jonghelinck owned sixteen paintings; his brother Jacques Jonghelinck was a gentleman-sculptor and medallist, who also had significant business interests. He made medals and tombs in an international style for the Brussels elite, especially Cardinal Granvelle, who was also a keen patron of Bruegel. Granvelle owned at least two Bruegels, including the Courtauld "Flight into Egypt", but we do not know if he bought them directly from the artist. Granvelle's nephew and heir was strong-armed out of his Bruegels by Rudolf II, the very acquisitive Austrian Habsburg Emperor. The series of the "Months" entered the Habsburg collections in 1594, given to Rudolf's brother and later taken by the emperor himself. Rudolf eventually owned at least ten Bruegel paintings. A generation later Rubens owned eleven or twelve, which mostly passed to the Antwerp senator Pieter Stevens, and were then sold in 1668.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Bruegel's son Pieter could still keep himself and a large studio team busy producing replicas or adaptations of Bruegel's works, as well as his own compositions along similar lines, sixty years or more after they were first painted. The most frequently copied works were generally not the ones that are most famous today, though this may reflect the availability of the full-scale detailed drawings that were evidently used. The most-copied painting is the "Winter Landscape with (Skaters and) a Bird Trap" (1565), of which the original is in Brussels; 127 copies are recorded. They include paintings after some of Bruegel's drawn print designs, especially "Spring".


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: The next century's artists of peasant genre scenes were heavily influenced by Brueghel. Outside the Brueghel family, early figures were Adriaen Brouwer (c. 1605/6 – 1638) and David Vinckboons (1576 – c. 1632), both Flemish-born but spending much of their time in the northern Netherlands. As well as the general conception of such "kermis" subjects, Vinckboons and other artists took from Bruegel "such stylistic devices as the bird's-eye perspective, ornamentalized vegetation, bright palette, and stocky, odious figures." Forty years after their deaths, and over a century after Bruegel's, Jan Steen (1626–79) continued to show a particular interest in Bruegelian treatments.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: The critical treatment of Bruegel as essentially an artist of comic peasant scenes persisted until the late 19th century, even after his best paintings became widely visible as royal and aristocratic collections were turned into museums. This had been partly explicable when his work was mainly known from copies, prints and reproductions. Even Henri Hymans, whose work of 1890/91 was the first important contribution to modern Bruegel scholarship, could describe him thus: "His field of enquiry is certainly not of the most extensive; his ambition, too, is modest. He confines himself to a knowledge of mankind and the most immediate objects", a line no modern scholar is likely to take. As his landscape paintings, in good colour reproduction, have become his best-loved works, so his importance in the history of landscape art has become understood.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: There are about forty generally accepted surviving paintings, twelve of which are in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. A number of others are known to have been lost, including what, according to van Mander, Bruegel himself thought his best work, "a picture in which Truth triumphs".


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Bruegel only etched one plate himself, "The Rabbit Hunt," but designed some forty prints, both engravings and etchings, mostly for the Cock publishing house. As discussed above, about sixty-one drawings are now recognized as authentic, mostly designs for prints or landscapes.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: His painting "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus", now thought only to survive in copies, is the subject of the final lines of the 1938 poem "Musée des Beaux Arts" by W. H. Auden:


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: It also was the subject of a 1960 poem by William Carlos Williams and was mentioned in Nicolas Roeg's 1976 science fiction film "The Man Who Fell to Earth". Further, Williams' final collection of poetry alludes to a number of Bruegel's works.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Bruegel's painting "Two Monkeys" was the subject of Wisława Szymborska's 1957 poem, "Brueghel's Two Monkeys".


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky refers to Bruegel's paintings in his films several times, notably in "Solaris" (1972) and "The Mirror" (1975).


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Director Lars von Trier also uses Bruegel's paintings in his film "Melancholia" (2011). This was used as a reference to Tarkovsky's "Solaris", a movie with related themes.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: His 1564 painting "The Procession to Calvary" inspired the 2011 Polish-Swedish film co-production "The Mill and the Cross", in which Bruegel is played by Rutger Hauer. Bruegel's paintings in the Kunsthistorisches Museum are shown in the 2012 film, "Museum Hours", where his work is discussed at length by a guide.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Seamus Heaney refers to Brueghel in his poem "The Seed Cutters". David Jones alludes to the painting "The Blind Leading the Blind" in his World War One prose-poem "In Parenthesis": "the stumbling dark of the blind, that Breughel knew about – ditch circumscribed".


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Michael Frayn, in his novel "Headlong", imagines a lost panel from the 1565 "Months" series resurfacing unrecognized, which triggers a mad conflict between an art (and money) lover and the boor who possesses it. Much thought is spent on Bruegel's secret motives for painting it.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Author Don Delillo uses Bruegel's painting "The Triumph of Death" in his novel "Underworld" and his short story "Pafko at the Wall". It is believed that the painting "The Hunters in the Snow" influenced the classic short story with the same title written by Tobias Wolff and featured in "In the Garden of the North American Martyrs".


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: In the foreword to his novel "The Folly of the World", author Jesse Bullington explains that Bruegel's painting Netherlandish Proverbs not only inspired the title but also the plot to some extent. Various sections are introduced with a proverb depicted in the painting that alludes to a plot element.


title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

text: Poet Sylvia Plath refers to Bruegel's painting "The Triumph of Death" in her poem "Two Views of a Cadaver Room" from her 1960 collection "The Colossus and Other Poems".


title: Heraklion

text: Heraklion or Iraklion ( ; , , ) is the largest city and the administrative capital of the island of Crete and capital of Heraklion regional unit. It is the fourth largest city in Greece with a population of 211,370 (Urban Area) according to the 2011 census. The population of the municipality was 177,064.


title: Heraklion

text: The Bronze Age palace of Knossos, also known as the Palace of Minos, is located 5.5 km (3.1m) southeast of the city.


title: Heraklion

text: Heraklion was Europe's fastest growing tourism destination for 2017, according to Euromonitor, with an 11.2% growth in international arrivals. According to the ranking, Heraklion was ranked as the 20th most visited region in Europe, as the 66th area on the planet and as the 2nd in Greece for the year 2017, with 3.2 million visitors and the 19th in Europe for 2018, with 3.4 million visitors.


title: Heraklion

text: The Arab traders from al-Andalus (Iberia) who founded the Emirate of Crete moved the island's capital from Gortyna to a new castle they called "rabḍ al-ḫandaq" (, "Castle of the Moat") in the 820s. This was hellenized as Χάνδαξ ("Chándax") or Χάνδακας ("Chándakas") and Latinized as Candia, which was taken into other European languages: in Italian and Latin as "Candia", in French as "Candie", in English as "Candy", all of which could refer to the island of Crete as a whole as well as to the city alone; the Ottoman name was "Kandiye".


title: Heraklion

text: After the Byzantine reconquest of Crete, the city was locally known as "Megalo Kastro" (, 'Big Castle' in Greek) and its inhabitants were called "Kastrinoi" (Καστρινοί, "castle-dwellers").


title: Heraklion

text: The ancient name Ηράκλειον was revived in the 19th century and comes from the nearby Roman port of Heracleum ("Heracles's city"), whose exact location is unknown.


title: Heraklion

text: Heraklion is close to the ruins of the palace of Knossos, which in Minoan times was the largest centre of population on Crete. Knossos had a port at the site of Heraklion (in the Poros-Katsambas neighborhood) from the beginning of the Early Minoan period (3500 to 2100 BC). Between 1600 and 1525 BC, the port was destroyed by a volcanic tsunami from nearby Santorini, leveling the region and covering it with ash.


title: Heraklion

text: After the fall of the Minoans, Heraklion, as well as the rest of Crete in general, fared poorly, with very little development in the area. Only with the arrival of the Romans did some construction in the area begin, yet especially early into Byzantine times the area abounded with pirates and bandits.


title: Heraklion

text: The present city of Heraklion was founded in 824 by the Arabs under Abu Hafs Umar who had been expelled from Al-Andalus by Emir Al-Hakam I and had taken over the island from the Eastern Roman Empire. They built a moat around the city for protection, and named the city "rabḍ al-ḫandaq" (ربض الخندق, "Castle of the Moat", hellenized as Χάνδαξ, "Chandax"). It became the capital of the Emirate of Crete (ca. 827–961). The Saracens allowed the port to be used as a safe haven for pirates who operated against Imperial (Byzantine) shipping and raided Imperial territory around the Aegean.


title: Heraklion

text: In 960, Byzantine forces under the command of Nikephoros Phokas, later to become Emperor, landed in Crete and attacked the city. After a prolonged siege, the city fell in March 961. The Saracen inhabitants were slaughtered, the city looted and burned to the ground. Soon rebuilt, the town remained under Byzantine control for the next 243 years.


title: Heraklion

text: In 1204, the city was bought by the Republic of Venice as part of a complicated political deal which involved, among other things, the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade restoring the deposed Eastern Roman Emperor Isaac II Angelus to his throne. The Venetians improved on the ditch of the city by building enormous fortifications, most of which are still in place, including a giant wall, in places up to 40 m thick, with 7 bastions, and a fortress in the harbour. Chandax was renamed "Candia" and became the seat of the Duke of Candia, and the Venetian administrative district of Crete became known as "Regno di Candia" (Kingdom of Candia). The city retained the name of Candia for centuries and the same name was often used to refer to the whole island of Crete as well. To secure their rule, the Venetians began in 1212 to settle families from Venice on Crete. The coexistence of two different cultures and the stimulus of the Italian Renaissance led to a flourishing of letters and the arts in Candia and Crete in general, that is today known as the "Cretan Renaissance".


title: Heraklion

text: During the Cretan War (1645–1669), the Ottomans besieged the city for 21 years, from 1648 to 1669, the longest siege in history up until that time. In its final phase, which lasted for 22 months, 70,000 Turks, 38,000 Cretans and slaves and 29,088 of the city's Christian defenders perished. The Ottoman army under an Albanian grand vizier, Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Pasha conquered the city in 1669.


title: Heraklion

text: Under the Ottomans, "Kandiye" (Ottoman Turkish قنديه) was the capital of Crete ("Girit Eyâleti") until 1849, when Chania ("Hanya") became the capital, and Kandiye became a sancak. In Greek, it was commonly called "Megalo Castro" (Μεγάλο Κάστρο 'Big Castle').


title: Heraklion

text: During the Ottoman period, the harbour silted up, so most shipping shifted to Chania in the west of the island.


title: Heraklion

text: An earthquake located off the northern coast of Crete on October 12, 1856 destroyed most of the over 3,600 homes in the city. Only 18 homes were left intact. The disaster claimed 538 victims in Heraklion.


title: Heraklion

text: In 1898, the autonomous Cretan State was created, under Ottoman suzerainty, with Prince George of Greece as its High Commissioner and under international supervision. During the period of direct occupation of the island by the Great Powers (1898–1908), Candia was part of the British zone. At this time, the city was renamed "Heraklion", after the Roman port of Heracleum ("Heracles' city"), whose exact location is unknown.


title: Heraklion

text: In 1913, with the rest of Crete, Heraklion was incorporated into the Kingdom of Greece. Heraklion became again capital of Crete in 1971, replacing Chania.


title: Heraklion

text: Venetian constructions such as the Koules Fortress ("Castello a Mare"), the ramparts and the arsenal dominate the port area.


title: Heraklion

text: Several sculptures, statues and busts commemorating significant events and figures of the city's and island's history, like El Greco, Vitsentzos Kornaros, Nikos Kazantzakis and Eleftherios Venizelos can be found around the city.


title: Heraklion

text: Many fountains of the Venetian era are preserved, such as the "Bembo" fountain, the "Priuli" fountain, "Palmeti" fountain, "Sagredo" fountain and "Morosini" fountain (in Lions Square).


title: Heraklion

text: After the St Titus Cathedral, the two largest medieval churches in the city were San Salvatore, belonging to the Augustinian Friars, and San Francesco, belonging to the Franciscans. San Salvatore stood in Kornaros Square and was demolished in 1970.


title: Heraklion

text: Around the historic city center of Heraklion there are also a series of defensive walls, bastions and other fortifications which were built earlier in the Middle Ages, but were completely rebuilt by the Republic of Venice. The fortifications managed to withstand the longest siege in history for 21 years, before the city fell to the Ottomans in 1669.


title: Heraklion

text: The municipality Heraklion was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 5 former municipalities, that became municipal units:


title: Heraklion

text: Heraklion is an important shipping port and ferry dock. Travellers can take ferries and boats from Heraklion to destinations including Santorini, Ios Island, Paros, Mykonos, and Rhodes. There are direct ferries to Naxos, Karpathos, Kasos, Sitia, Anafi, Chalki and Diafani. There are also several daily ferries to Piraeus, the port of Athens in mainland Greece. The port of Heraklion was built by Sir Robert McAlpine and completed in 1928.


title: Heraklion

text: Heraklion International Airport, or Nikos Kazantzakis Airport is located about east of the city. The airport is named after Heraklion native Nikos Kazantzakis, a writer and a philosopher. It is the second busiest airport of Greece after Athens International Airport, first in charter flights and the 65th busiest in Europe, because of Crete being a major holiday destination with 7,974,887 passengers in 2018 (List of the busiest airports in Europe).


title: Heraklion

text: European route E75 runs through the city and connects Heraklion with the three other major cities of Crete: Agios Nikolaos, Chania, and Rethymno.


title: Heraklion

text: Urban buses serving the city, with 39 different routes. Intercity buses connects Heraklion to many major destinations in Crete.


title: Heraklion

text: From 1922 to 1937, a working industrial railway connected the Koules in Heraklion to Xiropotamos for the construction of the harbor.


title: Heraklion

text: In the summer of 2007, at the Congress of Cretan emigrants, held in Heraklion, two qualified engineers, George Nathenas (from Gonies, Malevizi Province) and Vassilis Economopoulos, recommended the development of a railway line in Crete, linking Chania, Rethymno and Heraklion, with a total journey time of 50 minutes (30 minutes between Heraklion and Rethymno, 20 minutes from Chania to Rethymno) and with provision for extensions to Kissamos, Kastelli Pediados (for the planned new airport), and Agios Nikolaos. No plans exist for implementing this idea.


title: Heraklion

text: Heraklion has a hot-summer-Mediterranean climate ("Csa" in the Köppen climate classification). Summers are warm to hot and dry with clear skies. Dry hot days are often relieved by seasonal breezes. Winters are very mild with moderate rain. Because Heraklion is further south than Athens, it has a warmer climate during winter but cooler during summer because of the Aegean sea. The maximum temperature during the summer period is usually not more than 28 - 30 °C (Athens normal maximum temperature is about 5 °C higher). The minimum temperature record is -0.8 °C


title: Heraklion

text: The city is home to several sports clubs. Most notably, Heraklion hosts OFI and Ergotelis, two football clubs with earlier presence in the Greek Superleague, the top tier of the Greek football league system. Furthermore, the city is the headquarters of the Heraklion Football Clubs Association, which administers football in the entire region. Other notable sport clubs include Iraklio B.C. (basketball), Atsalenios (football) and Irodotos (football) in the suburbs of "Atsalenio" and Nea Alikarnassos respectively.


title: Heraklion

text: Heraklion has been the home town of some of Greece's most significant people, including the novelist Nikos Kazantzakis (best known for "Zorba the Greek"), the poet and Nobel Prize winner Odysseas Elytis and the world-famous painter Domenicos Theotokopoulos (El Greco).


title: Peritoneum

text: The peritoneum is the serous membrane forming the lining of the abdominal cavity or coelom in amniotes and some invertebrates, such as annelids. It covers most of the intra-abdominal (or coelomic) organs, and is composed of a layer of mesothelium supported by a thin layer of connective tissue. This peritoneal lining of the cavity supports many of the abdominal organs and serves as a conduit for their blood vessels, lymphatic vessels, and nerves.


title: Peritoneum

text: The abdominal cavity (the space bounded by the vertebrae, abdominal muscles, diaphragm, and pelvic floor) is different from the intraperitoneal space (located within the abdominal cavity but wrapped in peritoneum). The structures within the intraperitoneal space are called "intraperitoneal" (e.g., the stomach and intestines), the structures in the abdominal cavity that are located behind the intraperitoneal space are called "retroperitoneal" (e.g., the kidneys), and those structures below the intraperitoneal space are called "subperitoneal" or "infraperitoneal" (e.g., the bladder).


title: Peritoneum

text: The peritoneum is one continuous sheet, forming two layers and a potential space between them: the peritoneal cavity.


title: Peritoneum

text: The outer layer, the parietal peritoneum, is attached to the abdominal wall and the pelvic walls. The tunica vaginalis, the serous membrane covering the male testis, is derived from the vaginal process, an outpouching of the parietal peritoneum.


title: Peritoneum

text: The inner layer, the visceral peritoneum, is wrapped around the visceral organs, located inside the intraperitoneal space for protection. It is thinner than the parietal peritoneum. The mesentery is a double layer of visceral peritoneum that attaches to the gastrointestinal tract. There are often blood vessels, nerves, and other structures between these layers. The space between these two layers is technically outside of the peritoneal sac, and thus not in the peritoneal cavity.


title: Peritoneum

text: The potential space between these two layers is the peritoneal cavity, filled with a small amount (about 50 mL) of slippery serous fluid that allows the two layers to slide freely over each other.


title: Peritoneum

text: The right paracolic gutter is continuous with the right and left subhepatic spaces. The epiploic foramen allows communication between the greater sac and the lesser sac. The peritoneal space in males is closed, while the peritoneal space in females is continuous with the extraperitoneal pelvis through openings of the fallopian tubes, the uterus, and the vagina.


title: Peritoneum

text: Peritoneal folds are omenta, mesenteries and ligaments; they connect organs to each other or to the abdominal wall. There are two main regions of the peritoneal cavity, connected by the omental foramen.


title: Peritoneum

text: The mesentery is the part of the peritoneum through which most abdominal organs are attached to the abdominal wall and supplied with blood and lymph vessels and nerves.


title: Peritoneum

text: In addition, in the pelvic cavity there are several structures that are usually named not for the peritoneum, but for the areas defined by the peritoneal folds:


title: Peritoneum

text: The structures in the abdomen are classified as intraperitoneal, mesoperitoneal, retroperitoneal or infraperitoneal depending on whether they are covered with visceral peritoneum and whether they are attached by mesenteries (mensentery, mesocolon).


title: Peritoneum

text: Structures that are "intraperitoneal" are generally mobile, while those that are "retroperitoneal" are relatively fixed in their location.


title: Peritoneum

text: Some structures, such as the kidneys, are "primarily retroperitoneal", while others such as the majority of the duodenum, are "secondarily retroperitoneal", meaning that structure developed intraperitoneally but lost its mesentery and thus became retroperitoneal.


title: Peritoneum

text: The peritoneum develops ultimately from the mesoderm of the trilaminar embryo. As the mesoderm differentiates, one region known as the lateral plate mesoderm splits to form two layers separated by an intraembryonic coelom. These two layers develop later into the visceral and parietal layers found in all serous cavities, including the peritoneum.


title: Peritoneum

text: As an embryo develops, the various abdominal organs grow into the abdominal cavity from structures in the abdominal wall. In this process they become enveloped in a layer of peritoneum. The growing organs "take their blood vessels with them" from the abdominal wall, and these blood vessels become covered by peritoneum, forming a mesentery.


title: Peritoneum

text: CT scan is a fast (15 seconds) and efficient way in visualising the peritoneal spaces. Although ultrasound is good at visualizing peritoneal collections and ascites, without ionising radiation, it does not provide a good overall assessment of all the peritoneal cavities. MRI scan is also increasingly used to visualise peritoneal diseases, but requires long scan time (30 to 45 minutes) and prone to motion artifacts due to respiration and peristalsis and chemical shift artifacts at the bowel-mesentery interface. Those with peritoneal carcinomatosis, acute pancreatitis, and intraabdominal sepsis may not tolerate prolonged MRI scan.


title: Peritoneum

text: In one form of dialysis, called peritoneal dialysis, a glucose solution is sent through a tube into the peritoneal cavity. The fluid is left there for a prescribed amount of time to absorb waste products, and then removed through the tube. The reason for this effect is the high number of arteries and veins in the peritoneal cavity. Through the mechanism of diffusion, waste products are removed from the blood.


title: Peritoneum

text: Peritonitis is the inflammation of the peritoneum. It is more commonly associated to infection from a punctured organ of the abdominal cavity. It can also be provoked by the presence of fluids that produce chemical irritation, such as gastric acid or pancreatic juice. Peritonitis causes fever, tenderness, and pain in the abdominal area, which can be localized or diffuse. The treatment involves rehydration, administration of antibiotics, and surgical correction of the underlying cause. Mortality is higher in the elderly and if present for a prolonged time.


title: Peritoneum

text: "Peritoneum" is derived from Greek περιτόναιον "peritonaion" "peritoneum, abdominal membrane" via Latin. In Greek, περί "peri" means "around," while τείνω "teino" means "to stretch"; thus, "peritoneum" means "stretched over."


title: Burke and Hare murders

text: The Burke and Hare murders were a series of sixteen killings committed over a period of about ten months in 1828 in Edinburgh, Scotland. They were undertaken by William Burke and William Hare, who sold the corpses to Robert Knox for dissection at his anatomy lectures.


title: Burke and Hare murders

text: Edinburgh was a leading European centre of anatomical study in the early 19th century, in a time when the demand for cadavers led to a shortfall in legal supply. Scottish law required that corpses used for medical research should only come from those who had died in prison, suicide victims, or from foundlings and orphans. The shortage of corpses led to an increase in body snatching by what were known as "resurrection men". Measures to ensure graves were left undisturbed—such as the use of mortsafes—exacerbated the shortage. When a lodger in Hare's house died, he turned to his friend Burke for advice and they decided to sell the body to Knox. They received what was, for them, the generous sum of £7 10s. A little over two months later, when Hare was concerned that a lodger with a fever would deter others from staying in the house, he and Burke murdered her and sold the body to Knox. The men continued their murder spree, probably with the knowledge of their wives. Burke and Hare's actions were uncovered after other lodgers discovered their last victim, Margaret Docherty, and contacted the police.


title: Burke and Hare murders

text: A forensic examination of Docherty's body indicated she had probably been suffocated, but this could not be proven. Although the police suspected Burke and Hare of other murders, there was no evidence on which they could take action. An offer was put to Hare granting immunity from prosecution if he turned king's evidence. He provided the details of Docherty's murder and confessed to all sixteen deaths; formal charges were made against Burke and his wife for three murders. At the subsequent trial Burke was found guilty of one murder and sentenced to death. The case against his wife was found not proven—a Scottish legal verdict to acquit an individual but not declare them innocent. Burke was hanged shortly afterwards; his corpse was dissected and his skeleton displayed at the Anatomical Museum of Edinburgh Medical School where, , it remains.


title: Burke and Hare murders

text: The murders raised public awareness of the need for bodies for medical research and contributed to the passing of the Anatomy Act 1832. The events have made appearances in literature, and been portrayed on screen, either in heavily fictionalised accounts or as the inspiration for fictional works.


title: Burke and Hare murders

text: In the early 19th century Edinburgh had several pioneering anatomy teachers, including Alexander Monro, his son who was also called Alexander, John Bell, John Goodsir and Robert Knox, all of whom developed the subject into a modern science. Because of their efforts, Edinburgh became one of the leading European centres of anatomical study, alongside Leiden in the Netherlands and the Italian city of Padua. The teaching of anatomy—crucial in the study of surgery—required a sufficient supply of cadavers, the demand for which increased as the science developed. Scottish law determined that suitable corpses on which to undertake the dissections were those who died in prison, suicide victims, and the bodies of foundlings and orphans. With the rise in prestige and popularity of medical training in Edinburgh, the legal supply of corpses failed to keep pace with the demand; students, lecturers and grave robbers—also known as resurrection men—began an illicit trade in exhumed cadavers.


title: Burke and Hare murders

text: The situation was confused by the legal position. Disturbing a grave was a criminal offence, as was the taking of property from the deceased. Stealing the body itself was not an offence, as it did not legally belong to anyone. The price per corpse changed depending on the season. It was £8 during the summer, when the warmer temperatures brought on quicker decomposition, and £10 in the winter months, when the demand by anatomists was greater, because the lower temperatures meant they could store corpses longer so they undertook more dissections.


title: Burke and Hare murders

text: By the 1820s the residents of Edinburgh had taken to the streets to protest at the increase in grave robbing. To avoid corpses being disinterred, bereaved families used several techniques in order to deter the thieves: guards were hired to watch the graves, and watchtowers were built in several cemeteries; some families hired a large stone slab that could be placed over a grave for a short period—until the body had begun to decay past the point of being useful for an anatomist. Other families used a mortsafe, an iron cage that surrounded the coffin. The high levels of vigilance from the public, and the techniques used to deter the grave robbers, led to what the historian Ruth Richardson describes as "a growing atmosphere of crisis" among anatomists because of the shortage of corpses. The historian Tim Marshall considers the situation meant "Burke and Hare took graverobbing to its logical conclusion: instead of digging up the dead, they accepted lucrative incentives to destroy the living".


title: Burke and Hare murders

text: Knox was an anatomist who had qualified as a doctor in 1814. After contracting smallpox as a child, he was blind in one eye and badly disfigured. He undertook service as an army physician at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, followed by a posting in England and then, during the Cape Frontier War (1819), in southern Africa. He eventually settled in his home town of Edinburgh in 1820. In 1825 he became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, where he lectured on anatomy. He undertook dissections twice a day, and his advertising promised "a full demonstration on fresh anatomical subjects" as part of every course of lectures he delivered; he stated that his lessons drew over 400 pupils. Clare Taylor, his biographer in the "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", observes that he "built up a formidable reputation as a teacher and lecturer and almost single-handedly raised the profile of the study of anatomy in Britain". Another biographer, Isobel Rae, considers that without Knox, the study of anatomy in Britain "might not have progressed as it did".


title: Burke and Hare murders

text: William Burke was born in 1792 in Urney, County Tyrone, Ireland, one of two sons to middle-class parents. Burke, along with his brother, Constantine, had a comfortable upbringing, and both joined the British Army as teenagers. Burke served in the Donegal militia until he met and married a woman from County Mayo, where they later settled. The marriage was short-lived; in 1818, after an argument with his father-in-law over land ownership, Burke deserted his wife and family. He moved to Scotland and became a labourer, working on the Union Canal. He settled in the small village of Maddiston near Falkirk, and set up home with Helen McDougal, whom he affectionately nicknamed Nelly; she became his second wife. After a few years, and when the works on the canal were finished, the couple moved to Tanners Close, Edinburgh, in November 1827. They became hawkers, selling second-hand clothes to impoverished locals. Burke then became a cobbler, a trade in which he experienced some success, earning upwards of £1 a week. He became known locally as an industrious and good-humoured man who often entertained his clients by singing and dancing for them on their doorsteps while plying his trade. Although raised as a Roman Catholic, Burke became a regular worshipper at Presbyterian religious meetings held in the Grassmarket; he was seldom seen without a bible.


title: Burke and Hare murders

text: William Hare was probably born in County Armagh, County Londonderry or in Newry. His age and year of birth are unknown; when arrested in 1828 he gave his age as 21, but one source states that he was born between 1792 and 1804. Information on his earlier life is scant, although it is possible that he worked in Ireland as an agricultural labourer before travelling to Britain. He worked on the Union Canal for seven years before moving to Edinburgh in the mid-1820s, where he worked as a coal man's assistant. He lodged at Tanner's Close, in the house of a man named Logue and his wife, Margaret Laird, in the nearby West Port area of the town. When Logue died in 1826, Hare may have married Margaret. Based on contemporary accounts, Brian Bailey in his history of the murders describes Hare as "illiterate and uncouth—a lean, quarrelsome, violent and amoral character with the scars from old wounds about his head and brow". Bailey describes Margaret, who was also an Irish immigrant, as a "hard-featured and debauched virago".


title: Burke and Hare murders

text: In 1827 Burke and McDougal went to Penicuik in Midlothian to work on the harvest, where they met Hare. The men became friends; when Burke and McDougal returned to Edinburgh, they moved into Hare's Tanner's Close lodging house, where the two couples soon acquired a reputation for hard drinking and boisterous behaviour.


title: Burke and Hare murders

text: On 29 November 1827 Donald, a lodger in Hare's house, died of dropsy shortly before receiving a quarterly army pension while owing £4 of back rent. After Hare bemoaned his financial loss to Burke, the pair decided to sell Donald's body to one of the local anatomists. A carpenter provided a coffin for a burial which was to be paid for by the local parish. After he left, the pair opened the coffin, removed the body—which they hid under the bed—filled the coffin with bark from a local tanners and resealed it. After dark, on the day the coffin was removed for burial, they took the corpse to Edinburgh University, where they looked for a purchaser. According to Burke's later testimony, they asked for directions to Professor Monro, but a student sent them to Knox's premises in Surgeon's Square. Although the men dealt with juniors when discussing the possibility of selling the body, it was Knox who arrived to fix the price at £7 10s. Hare received £4 5s while Burke took the balance of £3 5s; Hare's larger share was to cover his loss from Donald's unpaid rent. According to Burke's official confession, as he and Hare left the university, one of Knox's assistants told them that the anatomists "would be glad to see them again when they had another to dispose of".


title: Burke and Hare murders

text: There is no agreement as to the order in which the murders took place. Burke made two confessions but gave different sequences for the murders in each statement. The first was an official one, given on 3 January 1829 to the sheriff-substitute, the procurator fiscal and the assistant sheriff-clerk. The second was in the form of an interview with the "Edinburgh Courant" that was published on 7 February 1829. These in turn differed from the order given in Hare's statement, although the pair were agreed on many of the points of the murders. Contemporary reports also differ from the confessions of the two men. More recent sources, including the accounts written by Brian Bailey, Lisa Rosner and Owen Dudley Edwards, either follow one of the historic versions or present their own order of events.


title: Burke and Hare murders

text: Most of the sources agree that the first murder in January or February 1828 was either that of a miller named Joseph lodging in Hare's house, or a salt seller named Abigail Simpson. The historian Lisa Rosner considers Joseph the more likely; a pillow was used to smother the victim, while later ones were suffocated by a hand over the nose and mouth. The novelist Sir Walter Scott, who took a keen interest in the case, also thought the miller was the more likely first victim, and highlighted that "there was an additional motive to reconcile them to the deed", as Joseph had developed a fever and had become delirious. Hare and his wife were concerned that having a potentially infectious lodger would be bad for business. Hare again turned to Burke and, after providing their victim with whisky, Hare suffocated Joseph while Burke lay across the upper torso to restrict movement. They again took the corpse to Knox, who this time paid £10. Rosner considers the method of murder to be ingenious: Burke's weight on the victim stifled movement—and thus the ability to make noise—while it also prevented the chest from expanding should any air get past Hare's suffocating grip. In Rosner's opinion, the method would have been "practically undetectable until the era of modern forensics".


title: Burke and Hare murders

text: The order of the two victims next after Joseph is also unclear; Rosner puts the sequence as Abigail Simpson followed by an English male lodger from Cheshire, while Bailey and Dudley Edwards each have the order as the English male lodger followed by Simpson. The unnamed Englishman was a travelling seller of matches and tinder who fell ill with jaundice at Hare's lodging house. As with Joseph, Hare was concerned with the effect this illness might have on his business, and he and Burke employed the same "modus operandi" they had with the miller: Hare suffocating their victim while Burke lay over the body to stop movement and noise. Simpson was a pensioner who lived in the nearby village of Gilmerton and visited Edinburgh to supplement her pension by selling salt. On 12 February 1828—the only exact date Burke quoted in his confession—she was invited into the Hares' house and plied with enough alcohol to ensure she was too drunk to return home. After murdering her, Burke and Hare placed the body in a tea-chest and sold it to Knox. They received £10 for each body, and Burke's confession records of Simpson's body that "Dr Knox approved of its being so fresh ... but [he] did not ask any questions". In either February or March that year an old woman was invited into the house by Margaret Hare. She gave her enough whisky to fall asleep, and when Hare returned that afternoon, he covered the sleeping woman's mouth and nose with the bed tick (a stiff mattress cover) and left her. She was dead by nightfall and Burke joined his companion to transport the corpse to Knox, who paid another £10.


title: Burke and Hare murders

text: Burke met two women in early April: Mary Paterson (also known as Mary Mitchell) and Janet Brown, in the Canongate area of Edinburgh. He bought the two women alcohol before inviting them back to his lodging for breakfast. The three left the tavern with two bottles of whisky and went instead to his brother Constantine's house. After his brother left for work, Burke and the women finished the whisky and Paterson fell asleep at the table; Burke and Brown continued talking but were interrupted by McDougal, who accused them of having an affair. A row broke out between Burke and McDougal—during which he threw a glass at her, cutting her over the eye—Brown stated that she did not know Burke was married and left; McDougal also left, and went to fetch Hare and his wife. They arrived shortly afterwards and the two men locked their wives out of the room, then murdered Paterson in her sleep. That afternoon the pair took the body to Knox in a tea-chest, while McDougal kept Paterson's skirt and petticoats; they were paid £8 for the corpse, which was still warm when they delivered it. Fergusson—one of Knox's assistants—asked where they had obtained the body, as he thought he recognised her. Burke explained that the girl had drunk herself to death, and they had purchased it "from an old woman in the Canongate". Knox was delighted with the corpse, and stored it in whisky for three months before dissecting it. When Brown later searched for her friend, she was told that she had left for Glasgow with a travelling salesman.


title: Burke and Hare murders

text: At some point in early-to-mid 1828 a Mrs Haldane, whom Burke described as "a stout old woman", lodged at Hare's premises. After she became drunk, she fell asleep in the stable; she was smothered and sold to Knox. Several months later Haldane's daughter (either called Margaret or Peggy) also lodged at Hare's house. She and Burke drank together heavily and he killed her, without Hare's assistance; her body was put into a tea-chest and taken to Knox where Burke was paid £8. The next murder occurred in May 1828, when an old woman joined the house as a lodger. One evening while she was intoxicated, Burke smothered her—Hare was not present in the house at the time; her body was sold to Knox for £10. Then came the murder of Effy (sometimes spelt Effie), a "cinder gatherer" who scavenged through bins and rubbish tips to sell her findings. Effy was known to Burke and had previously sold him scraps of leather for his cobbling business. Burke tempted her into the stable with whisky, and when she was drunk enough he and Hare killed her; Knox gave £10 for the body. Another victim was found by Burke too drunk to stand. She was being helped by a local constable back to her lodgings when Burke offered to take her there himself; the policeman obliged, and Burke took her back to Hare's house where she was killed. Her corpse raised a further £10 from Knox.