History.

The history of Internet Relay Chat flooding started as a method of taking over an IRC channel from the original founders of the channel. The first attacks generally used a modified IRC client or an application to flood a channel or a user. Later they started to be based on bots and scripts. This later moved on to starting IRC-based botnets which were capable of DDoS and IRC floods.

Types of floods.

Connect flood.

Connecting and disconnecting from a channel as fast as possible, therefore spamming the channel with dis/connect messages also called q/j flooding.

CTCP flood.

Since CTCP is implemented in almost every client, most users respond to CTCP requests. By sending too many requests, after a couple of answers they get disconnected from the IRC server. The most widely used type is CTCP PING, although some clients also implement other CTCP replies.

DCC flood.

This type consists of initiating many DCC requests simultaneously. Theoretically it can also be used to disconnect users, because the target client sends information back about what port is intended to be used during the DCC session.

ICMP flood.

Typically referred to as a ping flood. This attack overloads the victim's internet connection with an amount of ICMP data exceeding the connection's capacity, potentially causing a disconnection from the IRC network. For the duration of the attack, the user's internet connection remains hindered. Technically speaking, this is not an IRC flood, as the attack itself doesn't traverse the IRC network at all, but operates entirely independent of anything but the raw internet connection and its IP protocol (of which ICMP is a subset). Even so, the actual IP address to flood (the address of the victim's connection) is frequently obtained by looking at the victim's user information (e.g. through the /whois or /dns command) on the IRC network.

Invite flood.

Sending disruptive numbers of invites to a certain channel.

Post flood.

This is the simplest type of IRC flooding. It involves posting large numbers of posts or one very long post with repetitive text. This type of flood can be achieved, for example, by copying and pasting one short word repeatedly.

Message flood.

Sending massive numbers of private messages to the victim, mainly from different connections called clones (see below). Since some clients separate the private conversations into another window, each new message could open a new window for every new user a message is received from. This is exploitable by sending messages from multiple names, causing the target client to open many new windows and potentially swamping the user with boxes. Sometimes the easiest way to close all the windows is to restart the IRC client, although scripts (client extensions) exist to 'validate' unknown nicknames before receiving messages from them.

Notice flood.

Similar to the message, but uses the "notice" command.

Nick flood.

Changing the nick as fast as possible, thus disrupting conversation in the channel.

Flooding or scrolling on an IRC network is a method of disconnecting users from an IRC server (a form of Denial of Service), exhausting bandwidth which causes network latency ('lag'), or just disrupting users. Floods can either be done by scripts (written for a given client) or by external programs.


Life.

Stanisław Feliks Przybyszewski was born in Lohdorf (Łojewo) near Kruschwitz (Kruszwica) in Prussia. The son of a local teacher, Józef Przybyszewski, Stanisław attended a German gymnasium in Thorn (Toruń), graduating in 1889. He left for Berlin, where he first studied architecture and then medicine. It was there that he became fascinated by the philosophy of Nietzsche, began referring to himself as a Satanist and immersed himself into the bohemian life of the city.  In Berlin he lived with, but did not marry, Martha Foerder. They had had three children together; two before he left her to marry Dagny Juel on 18 August 1893 and one during his marriage to Dagny. From 1893 to 1898 he lived with Dagny, sometimes in Berlin and at others in Dagny's hometown of Kongsvinger, in Norway. In Berlin they met other artists at Zum schwarzen Ferkel.  In 1896 he was arrested in Berlin on suspicion of the murder of his common-law wife Martha, but released after it was determined that she had died of carbon monoxide poisoning. After Martha's death the children were sent to different foster homes. In the autumn of 1898, he and Dagny moved to Krakau (Kraków), in Austro-Hungarian Galicia, where he set himself up as the leader of a group of revolutionary young artists and as editor of their mouthpiece "Życie" (Life). He remained a fervent apostle of industrialism and self-expression.  He travelled to Lemberg (Lviv) and visited the poet and playwright Jan Kasprowicz. Przybyszewski started an affair with Kasprowicz's wife Jadwiga Gąsowska. Kasprowicz had married Jadwiga, his second wife, in 1893; his first marriage to Teodozja Szymańska in 1886 had ended in divorce after a few months.  In 1899 Przybyszewski abandoned Dagny and set up house with Jadwiga in Varshava (Warsaw). Around this time he was also involved with Aniela Pająkówna, one of whose two daughters was Przybyszewski's. Dagny returned to Paris and was murdered by a young friend of hers, Władysław Emeryk, in Tbilisi in 1901.  In 1905 Przybyszewski and Jadwiga moved to Thorn (Toruń) where he attempted rehabilitation from his problems with alcohol. While there, Jadwiga's divorce was finalized and they married on 11 April 1905. Przybyszewski continued to struggle with alcoholism for the rest of his life.  In 1906 the couple moved to Munich, financed by the sale of the manuscript of the play "Śluby" ("The Vows"). During the war they lived for a short time in Bohemia (Czech Lands) and moved to newly re-established Poland in 1919.  In Poznań he applied for the position of director of a literary theatre, but his work with German political brochures during the war prevented the appointment. He got a job working as a German translator for the post office. In 1920 he found similar work in Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk) with the railways. He lived in Danzig until 1924 and managed a Polish bookshop there. After Danzig, he tried to settle in Toruń, Zakopane, and Bydgoszcz — all without success. Finally he found work in Warsaw, in the offices of the President. He lived in rooms in the old Royal Castle.  In 1927 he returned to the Kujawy region and died in Jaronty in November of that year, aged 59.  He wrote a number of successful novels, of which "Homo Sapiens", the most popular, has been translated into English.

Stanisław Przybyszewski (; 7 May 1868 – 23 November 1927) was a Polish novelist, dramatist, and poet of the decadent naturalistic school. His drama is associated with the Symbolist movement. He wrote both in German and in Polish.


Career.

Her first successes came in the triple jump in 2000, when she won European Indoor gold medal and a silver at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. She became the World Champion the following year in addition to a silver medal at the world indoors. After retaining her triple jump title at the 2003 World Championships, she decided to take up the long jump as well. The move paid dividends: she broke the indoor world record in the triple jump at the 2004 World Indoor Championships and won a second gold in the long jump with a mark of 15.36. She won her first Olympic gold medal in the long jump event at the 2004 Athens Olympics and also won the bronze in the triple jump competition.  In 2005, she missed the World Championships due to injury, but became the sole winner of the IAAF Golden League jackpot, a bonus of US$1 million awarded to athletes who win their event at each of six designated European summer meets. That year, she concentrated on the triple jump.  Lebedeva excelled at the 2005 IAAF Golden League, receiving the entire jackpot prize of US$1 million. She became European champion for the first time with a win at the 2006 European Athletics Championships in the triple jump. Lebedeva reached the podium twice at the 2007 World Championships taking long jump gold and triple jump silver.  On 25 January 2017, the International Olympic Committee sanctioned Lebedeva for doping at the 2008 Olympic Games, as a result she lost her silver medals for both the long jump and triple jump events in that Games. Lebedeva appealed the IOC's decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, however on 26 July 2018, the IOC's decision was upheld.  She won the long jump silver medal at the 2009 World Championships (her eighth medal on the world podium), although she could not match this form in the triple jump.

Personal life.

In September 2002, Lebedeva and her husband Nikolay Matveev had their first daughter, Anastasiya. She announced that she was pregnant for a second time in 2010 (choosing to skip the 2011 season), and gave birth to a second daughter (Aleksandra) in November.

Tatyana Romanovna Lebedeva (, born 21 July 1976) is a Russian athlete who competes in both the long jump and triple jump events. She is one of the most successful athletes in the disciplines, having won gold medals at Olympic, world and European levels. She has a long jump best of 7.33 m and had hold the indoor world record mark of 15.36 m in the triple jump.


Affected species.

Peach leaf curl can mainly affect peach, nectarine, and to a lesser extent almond trees. In an isolated case in Hungary in 2011, peach leaf curl was also identified in apricot trees.

Symptoms.

Peach leaf curl is a distinctive and easily noticeable fungal disease, and the severity of the symptoms depends on how early infection has occurred. Diseased leaves can usually be identified soon after they emerge from the bud, due to their red color and twisted shape. As the leaves develop, they become increasingly distorted, and ultimately thick and rubbery compared to normal leaves. The color of the leaves changes from the normal green to red and purple, until a whitish bloom covers each leaf. Finally, the dead leaf may dry and turn black before it is cast off. Changes in the bark are less noticeable, if at all. Fruit may fail to develop from diseased blossoms. Any fruit that does develop from a diseased tree is usually normal, but sometimes may also be affected, showing a reddish color. Infected leaves fall early. The tree usually produces a second flush of leaves that is rarely diseased, except in an unseasonably cool and wet spring, because the fungus is not infectious at the normally higher temperatures in late spring and early summer.

Cause of peach leaf curl.

The fungus "T. deformans" causes deformed young leaves, red blisters, and ultimately the whitish bloom that covers the leaf as the infection progresses. This white color is made of asci that break through the cuticle of the leaf. One ascus consists of eight ascospores that create conidia, which are ejected in early summer and spread by rain and wind. The fungus survives the winter on the surface of the host plant, such as on bark or buds. In late winter or early spring, rainwater washes spores into the buds as they burst. Once this happens, no treatment is effective. In the spring, about two weeks after blossom, new leaves emerging from the infected buds are infected by the conidia. The disease may not occur every year due to variation in temperature and rainfall. Specifically, for successful infection, the fungus requires wet winters, where rain (not fog or dew) wets the tree for more than 12.5 hours at temperatures below. The fungus cannot grow at temperatures below.

Control of the disease.

Various methods are applied.  If a tree has peach leaf curl in a particular year, the disease will inexorably take its course, but measures can be taken to sustain the tree or maximize crop yield: protecting the tree from further rain at temperatures below, providing nitrogen and excess water to minimize stress on the tree; applying greasebands around the trunk to protect from insect infestation; and thinning the fruit. It is unclear whether removal of infected leaves from the tree is beneficial. Removing the infected leaves and fruit after they fall to the ground is sometimes also suggested but superfluous if, in the following winter, fungicides or rain protection are applied.

History.

Peach leaf curl was first introduced in America in 1852 and has now spread all over the country. By 1947, the disease was costing the United States $2.5 to 3.0 million annually.

Peach leaf curl is a plant disease characterized by distortion and coloration of leaves and is caused by the fungus "Taphrina deformans", which infects peach, nectarine, and almond trees. "T. deformans" is found in the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Peach leaf curl reduces the amount of leaves and fruit produced by peach and nectarine trees.


Biography.

Life and career.

Born in Prague, Baarová studied acting at the city's Conservatory and received her first film role in the Czechoslovak film "Pavel Čamrda's Career" ("Kariéra Pavla Čamrdy") at the age of 17. Her mother sang in a choir and appeared in several theatre plays; her younger sister, Zorka Janů (1921–1946), also became a film actress. In 1934, Baarová left Prague for Berlin after winning a contest at the UFA film studios for a role in the film "Barcarole".  In Berlin, she made a successful appearance in the film "Barcarole" (1935), along with the German actor Gustav Fröhlich (1902–1987). She and Fröhlich, meanwhile divorced from the Hungarian opera singer Gitta Alpár, became lovers and starred together in several films. Baarová also performed on stage at the Deutsches Theater and the Volksbühne. She received several job offers from Hollywood studios. She turned them down under pressure from the Nazi authorities, but later regretted it and claimed to her biographer, Josef Škvorecký: "I could have been as famous as Marlene Dietrich."  After her engagement to Fröhlich, the couple moved to Schwanenwerder island on the outskirts of Berlin, where their house was close to the residence of Joseph Goebbels, a leading member in the Nazi government of Adolf Hitler with a decisive voice in German film production and Nazi cinema. Baarová, still working for the Ufa studios, met him when Goebbels visited Fröhlich's home in 1936. Gradually, they became closer and, under the urging of Goebbels, started a relationship that lasted over two years. Their love affair caused serious complications between Goebbels and his wife Magda. When the minister began to show up in public with his mistress, Magda Goebbels in turn began an affair with Goebbels' state secretary Karl Hanke and eventually asked Hitler for permission to divorce her husband. According to Baarová's own statements, she herself, fearing Goebbels' wounded pride, approached the dictator for help.  Hitler intervened on 16 August 1938 and rebuked his minister, stating that in view of his "perfect marriage" as well as the coming annexation of the Sudetenland, his affair with a Czech actress was an impossibility. Baarová was told by the Berlin chief of police Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorff that she had to quit her relationship with Goebbels immediately and was prohibited from performing on Hitler's direct order. Her recently completed film "A Prussian Love Story", which depicted the love affair between Wilhelm I and the Polish princess Elisa Radziwill, and was a thinly-veiled reference to Goebbels and Baarová, was banned, and not shown in theatres until 1950 as "Liebeslegende" ("Story of Love"). Paid shills yelled out "Get out, minister's whore" when Baarovà's character appeared on the screen at the premiere of "Der Spieler" ("The Gambler"), and did not stop until the showing was halted. The film's run was ended and the actress had a nervous breakdown. She tried to contact friends in Hollywood, with an eye to going there, but Hitler told her that she could not leave the country. Followed by the Gestapo wherever she went, ordered by Helldorf to stop making public appearances, and pressed by her friends, in the winter of 1938–39 Baarová fled back to Prague. There, she was temporarily allowed to perform under German occupation and, in 1942, moved to Italy, where she starred in such films as "Grazia" (1943), "La Fornarina" (1944), "Vivere ancora" (1945) and others.  After Allied troops occupied Italy, she had to return to Prague. In April 1945, however, Lída Baarová left Prague for Germany again. On the way, she was taken into custody by the American military police, imprisoned in Munich, and later extradited to Czechoslovakia.

Post-war years.

In Czechoslovakia in 1945, Baarová and her family were taken into custody on suspicion of collaboration with the Germans during the war. Her mother died under interrogation; her sister Zorka committed suicide in 1946. She herself was released after 18 months of custody due to lack of evidence. She had never been convicted or sentenced. While in custody, she was often visited by the puppeteer Jan Kopecký and they eventually married on 27 July 1947. Kopecký was a close relative of a prominent politician in the post-war government of Czechoslovakia. Kopecký's prominent relative did not approve of the marriage and Kopecký lost his job as a result. Kopecký emigrated to Argentina, leaving Lída behind to recuperate in the sanatorium of Dr. Lundwall.  In Austria, the actress attempted a comeback, but when the Austrian-British actor Anton Walbrook withdrew from a film where he was cast with her, she left for Argentina to escape the resulting negative media. Living in extreme poverty, she decided to return to Italy. Her husband stayed in Argentina and they were divorced in 1956. Back in Italy, she appeared in several films, including Fellini's "I Vitelloni" (1953), where she played the wife of a rich merchant. In 1958, she moved to Salzburg, where she again performed on stage. She married Austrian physician Kurt Lundwall in 1969; he died in 1972.

After the fall of Communism in Europe.

In the 1990s, Baarová re-appeared on the cultural scene of the Czech Republic. She published her autobiography. A film, "Lída Baarová's Bittersweet Memories", was released in 1995 and won an award at the 1996 Art Film Festival in Trenčianske Teplice, Slovakia.

Later life and death.

Baarová suffered from Parkinson's disease and died in 2000 in Salzburg, while living alone on the estate she inherited after the death of her second husband, Dr. Lundwall. Her ashes were interred in Prague's Strašnice Cemetery, where she rests with her parents and her sister Zorka.

In popular culture.

In 2016, a dramatization of Baarová's life was set on film in "" ("Lída Baarová") by Filip Renč, with Tatiana Pauhofová starring as Baarová and Karl Marcovics as Goebbels.

References.

Notes Sources

Lída Baarová (born Ludmila Babková; 7 September 1914 – 27 October 2000) was a Czech-Austrian actress who for two years was the mistress of the Nazi propaganda minister of Germany, Joseph Goebbels.


Playing career.

Early career (1994–1998).

Vokoun was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens in the ninth round of the 1994 NHL Entry Draft, 226th overall. He remained in the Czech Republic for another year, playing with Poldi Kladno.  Vokoun moved to North America for the 1995–96 season and played for the Wheeling Thunderbirds of the ECHL. He was called up to the Fredericton Canadiens of the American Hockey League (AHL) and played one playoff game. Having proven himself in the ECHL, Vokoun spent the 1996–97 season in Fredericton and played in his only game for Montreal; it was not a stellar debut, however, as he allowed four goals in only 20 minutes of play against the Philadelphia Flyers.

Nashville Predators (1998–2007).

After another season with the Fredericton Canadiens, Vokoun was chosen by the Nashville Predators in the 1998 NHL Expansion Draft on 26 June 1998.  Vokoun played 37 games for Nashville in their debut season and played nine games for the Milwaukee Admirals in the International Hockey League (IHL). Although he again split time between the two clubs the following season, by 2000, Vokoun established himself in the NHL, though he initially only saw limited action as the back-up to starter Mike Dunham. In 2002, Dunham was traded to the New York Rangers for Marek Židlický, Tomáš Klouček and Rem Murray, effectively awarding Vokoun the starting job.  Vokoun's play was solid enough in 2003–04 to send him to the All-Star Game for the first time, and his goaltending was a major factor in the Predators' first-ever playoff berth that season. The team lost in six games to the Detroit Red Wings in the first round. In game 4 of that series, played in Nashville, Vokoun earned the first-ever playoff shutout in franchise history, stopping 41 Red Wing shots.  During the 2004–05 NHL lockout, Vokoun played 19 regular season games for HIFK in the Finnish SM-liiga, posting a.940 save percentage. In the playoffs, Vokoun did not perform as well, posting an.846 save percentage in four games, the worst in the league in that year's playoffs.  On 10 April 2006, the Predators announced Vokoun was afflicted by thrombophlebitis of the pelvis, a blood-clotting condition. He missed the team's remaining regular season games and the entire playoffs while he recovered by taking blood-thinning drugs and avoiding physical activity. Back-up goaltender Chris Mason took his place as the starter, but the Predators failed to advance in the playoffs, again losing in the quarter-finals. On 24 July 2006, Vokoun was cleared to resume his career and returned for the 2006–07 NHL season. However, at the beginning of the season, Vokoun injured his thumb during a game and was required to have surgery. Pins were put in this thumb, and he played with the pins and a brace on his thumb.

Florida Panthers (2007–2011).

On the day of the 2007 NHL Entry Draft, Vokoun was traded to the Florida Panthers in exchange for a first-round selection in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft, a second-round selection in the 2007 draft (58th overall) and a conditional second-round selection in either 2007 or 2008. Vokoun's nine-year tenure in Nashville had him setting many of the Predators' goaltending records, all of which were overtaken by Pekka Rinne in the following decade.  Vokoun was selected to play for the Eastern Conference team in the 2008 NHL All Star Game in Atlanta.  During the 2008–09 NHL season, Vokoun recorded 26 wins for the Panthers as they battled for their first playoff berth since 2000. Although they ultimately fell short, the Panthers' being in position to qualify was due in large part to the goaltending of Vokoun and fellow goaltender Craig Anderson.  Vokoun was injured by teammate Keith Ballard in a game on 30 November 2009, when Ballard hit Vokoun with an errant stick in the head. Vokoun was carried off the ice on a stretcher and was treated at a nearby hospital for an ear laceration. Vokoun had just given up a goal to Ilya Kovalchuk of the Atlanta Thrashers and Ballard went to break his stick on the goal post in frustration, but caught Vokoun instead.

Washington and Pittsburgh (2011–2014).

Vokoun signed a one-year contract with the Washington Capitals on 2 July 2011 worth $1.5 million. Vokoun had a rough 2011–12 NHL season with the Capitals, as it was plagued by injury and inconsistent performance.  With Washington resorting to youngster Braden Holtby as their starting goaltender, Vokoun was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins on 4 June 2012 in exchange for a seventh-round pick in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft. The following day, Vokoun signed to a two-year, $4 million contract. Since his customary sweater number 29 was being worn by Marc-André Fleury, Vokoun opted to wear number 92 with the Penguins; he became the first goaltender since Daren Puppa to wear a sweater number from 90 to 98.  On 30 March 2013, Vokoun set a personal best and Pittsburgh Penguins individual franchise record shutout streak of 187:30. He had two consecutive shutouts (on 28 March against the Winnipeg Jets and on 30 March against the New York Islanders) and a combined shutout with Marc-André Fleury on 26 March against the Montreal Canadiens. Vokoun played the third period to complete the shutout after Fleury was injured at the end of the second period. On 9 May 2013, Vokoun made his first playoff start in six seasons, a 31-save shutout against the New York Islanders in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Quarter-finals.  Vokoun was sidelined indefinitely after undergoing surgery to dissolve another blood clot in his pelvis during the 2013 pre-season. On 21 January 2014, it was reported Vokoun would begin skating in practice again, with no timetable as to his possible return. On 15 December 2014, Vokoun announced his retirement.

International play.

– Competitor for the Czech Republic  Vokoun has represented the Czech Republic many times over the course of his playing career. His first international experience came with the under-20 team at the 1996 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships, where the Czechs finished in fourth place. His first senior experience came at the 2003 IIHF World Championship, where the Czechs again finished in fourth place. Overall, he has played for the Czechs at four IIHF World Championships, two Winter Olympic Games and also in the 2004 World Cup of Hockey. He backstopped the Czechs to a third-place finish at the World Cup, gold medals at the 2005 and 2010 World Championships and won bronze with the team at the 2006 Olympics in Turin.

Personal life.

Vokoun lives with his wife, Dagmar, and two daughters, Adelle and Natalie, in Parkland, Florida.

Tomáš Vokoun (; born 2 July 1976) is a Czech former professional ice hockey goaltender. He played in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Pittsburgh Penguins, Washington Capitals, Florida Panthers, Nashville Predators and the Montreal Canadiens, with whom he was originally drafted in the ninth round, 226th overall, in the 1994 NHL Entry Draft.


The progression of the three stages of sociology.

(1) The Theological stage refers to explosion by personified deities. During the earlier stages, people believed that all the phenomena of nature are the creation of the divine or supernatural. Adults and children failed to discover the natural causes of various phenomena and hence attributed them to a supernatural or divine power. Comte broke this stage into 3 sub-stages:  (2) The Metaphysical stage is the extension of the theological stage. Metaphysical stage refers to explanation by impersonal abstract concepts. People often tried to believe that God is an abstract being. They believe that an abstract power or force guides and determines events in the world. Metaphysical thinking discards belief in a concrete God. The nature of inquiry was legal and rational in nature. For example: In Classical Hindu Indian society the principle of the transmigration of the soul, the conception of rebirth, notions of pursuant were largely governed by metaphysical uphill.  (3) The Positivity stage, also known as the scientific stage, refers to scientific explanation based on observation, experiment, and comparison. Positive explanations rely upon a distinct method, the scientific method, for their justification. Today people attempt to establish cause and effect relationships. Positivism is a purely intellectual way of looking at the world; as well, it emphasizes observation and classification of data and facts. This is the highest, most evolved behavior according to Comte.  Comte, however, was conscious of the fact that the three stages of thinking may or do coexist in the same society or in the same mind and may not always be successive.  Comte proposed a hierarchy of the sciences based on historical sequence, with areas of knowledge passing through these stages in order of complexity. The simplest and most remote areas of knowledge—mechanical or physical—are the first to become scientific. These are followed by the more complex sciences, those considered closest to us.  The sciences, then, according to Comte's "law", developed in this order: Mathematics; Astronomy; Physics; Chemistry; Biology; Sociology. A science "of society" is thus the "Queen science" in Comte's hierarchy as it would be the most fundamentally complex. Since Comte saw social science as an observation of human behavior and knowledge, his definition of sociology included observing humanity’s development of science itself. Because of this, Comte presented this introspective field of study as the science above all others. Sociology would both complete the body of positive sciences by discussing humanity as the last unstudied scientific field, and would link the fields of science together in human history, showing the "intimate interrelation of scientific and social development".  To Comte, the law of three stages made development of sociology inevitable and necessary. Comte saw the formation of his law as an active use of sociology, but this formation was dependent on other sciences reaching the positive stage; Comte’s three-stage law would not have evidence for a positive stage without the observed progression of other sciences through these three stages. Thus, sociology and its first law of three stages would be developed after other sciences were developed out of the metaphysical stage, with the observation of these developed sciences becoming the scientific evidence used in a positive stage of sociology. This special dependence on other sciences contributed to Comte’s view of sociology being the most complex. It also provided an explanation for sociology being the last science to be developed.  Comte saw the results of his three-stage law and sociology as not only inevitable, but good. In Comte’s eyes, the positive stage was not only the most evolved stage, but also the stage best for mankind. Through a continuous development of positive sciences, Comte hoped that humans would perfect their knowledge of the world and make real progress to improve the welfare of humanity. He acclaimed the positive stage as the "highest accomplishment of the human mind" and as having "natural superiority" over the other, more primitive stages.  Overall, Comte saw his law of three stages as the start of the scientific field of sociology as a positive science. He believed this development was the key to completing positive philosophy and would finally allow humans to study every observable aspect of the universe. For Comte, sociology’s human-centered studies would relate the fields of science to each other as progressions in human history and make positive philosophy one coherent body of knowledge. Comte presented the positive stage as the final state of all sciences, which would allow human knowledge to be perfected, leading to human progress.

Critiques of the law.

Historian William Whewell wrote "Mr. Comte's arrangement of the progress of science as successively metaphysical and positive, is contrary to history in fact, and contrary to sound philosophy in principle." The historian of science H. Floris Cohen has made a significant effort to draw the modern eye towards this first debate on the foundations of positivism.  In contrast, within an entry dated early October 1838 Charles Darwin wrote in one of his then private notebooks that "M. Comte's idea of a theological state of science [is a] grand idea."

The law of three stages is an idea developed by Auguste Comte in his work "The Course in Positive Philosophy". It states that society as a whole, and each particular science, develops through three mentally conceived stages: (1) the theological stage, (2) the metaphysical stage, and (3) the positive stage.


Early life.

Elena Cornaro Piscopia was born in the Palazzo Loredan, at Venice, Republic of Venice on 5 June 1646. She was the third child of Gianbattista Cornaro-Piscopia and his mistress Zanetta Boni. Her mother was a peasant and her parents were not married at the time of her birth. Lady Elena was therefore not technically a member of the Cornaro family by birth, as Venetian law barred illegitimate children of nobles from noble privilege, even if recognized by the noble parent. Worse for Zanetta's case, she was from an extremely poor peasant family. Zanetta had likely fled to Venice in order to escape starvation, and soon found herself the mistress of a member of one of the most powerful noble dynasties in the Republic. Gianbattista and Zanetta married officially in 1654, but their children were barred from noble privilege, which galled him.  In 1664, her father was chosen to become the "Procuratore di San Marco de supra", the treasurer of St. Mark's Cathedral, a coveted position among Venetian nobility. At that point, Gianbattista was second only to the Doge of Venice in terms of precedence. Because of this connection, Lady Elena was prominent in the Marriage of the Sea celebration, even though she was born illegitimate. Her father tried to arrange betrothals for her several times, but she rebuffed each man's advances. Early biographers' suggestion that she took a vow of chastity at age 11 are disputed by Francesco Ludovico Maschietto.  In 1665 she took the habit of a Benedictine oblate without, however, becoming a nun.

Education.

As a young girl, Lady Elena was seen as a prodigy. By the advice from Giovanni Fabris, a priest who was a friend of the family, she began a classical education. She studied Latin and Greek under distinguished instructors, and became proficient in these languages, as well as French and Spanish, by the age of seven. She also mastered Hebrew and Arabic, earning the title of ("Seven-language Oracle"). Her later studies included mathematics, philosophy and theology.  Elena came to be an expert musician, mastering the harpsichord, the clavichord, the harp and the violin. Her skills were shown by the music that she composed in her lifetime. In her late teens and early twenties she became interested in physics, astronomy and linguistics., her tutor in philosophy, and at that point the Chairman of Philosophy at the University of Padua, published a book in 1668 written in Latin and centering on geometry. The book was dedicated to a twenty-two year old Elena. After the death of her main tutor, Fabris, she became even closer to Rinaldini, who took over her studies.

Career.

In 1669, she translated the "Colloquy of Christ" by Carthusian monk Lanspergius from Spanish into Italian. The translation was dedicated to Gian Paolo Oliva, her close friend and confessor. The volume was issued in five editions in the Republic from 1669 to 1672. She was invited to be a part of many scholarly societies when her fame spread and in 1670 she became president of the Venetian society Accademia dei Pacifici. Upon the recommendation of Carlo Rinaldini, her tutor in philosophy, Felice Rotondi petitioned the University of Padua to grant Cornaro the "laurea" in theology. When Cardinal Gregorio Barbarigo, the bishop of Padua, learned that she was pursuing a degree in theology, he refused on the grounds that she was a woman. However, he did allow for her to get a degree in philosophy and after a brilliant course of study she received the "laurea" in Philosophy. The degree was conferred on 25 June 1678, in Padua Cathedral in the presence of the University authorities, the professors of all the faculties, the students, and most of the Venetian Senators, together with many invited guests from the Universities of Bologna, Perugia, Rome and Naples. Lady Elena spoke for an hour in Classical Latin, explaining difficult passages selected at random from the works of Aristotle: one from the "Posterior Analytics" and the other from the "Physics". She was listened to with great attention and when she had finished, she received plaudits as Professor Rinaldini proceeded to award her the insignia of the laurea: a book of philosophy, a laurel wreath on her head, a ring on her finger, and over her shoulders an ermine mozzetta. She was proclaimed ["teacher and doctor in philosophy"], thus becoming one of the first women to receive an academic degree from a university, and the first to receive a Doctor of Philosophy degree.  The last seven years of her life were devoted to study and charity. She died in Padua in 1684 of tuberculosis and was buried in the church of Santa Giustina.

Legacy.

A few months after Elena's conferral, Charles [Carlo] Patin, lecturer in medicine at Padua, applied for his daughter Gabrielle-Charlotte [Carla Gabriella] Patin to begin a degree. The university, supported by Gianbattista Cornaro-Piscopia, changed its statutes to prohibit women from graduation. The next female doctorate was granted by the University of Bologna in 1732 to Laura Bassi.  Cornaro's death was marked by memorial services in Venice, Padua, Siena and Rome. The published two memorial volumes of tributes by members: one to mark her degree, and the other her death. Padua's Accademia dei Ricovrati also produced a volume at her death. Her statue was placed in the University of Padua, which caused a medal to be struck in her honour in 1685.  In 1895 Abbess Mathilda Pynsent of the English Benedictine Nuns in Rome had Cornaro's tomb opened, the remains placed in a new casket, and a suitable tablet inscribed to her memory. Her graduation ceremony is depicted in the Cornaro Window, installed in 1906 in the West Wing of the Thompson Memorial Library at Vassar College. At the suggestion of Ruth Crawford Mitchell, Cornaro is depicted in Giovanni Romagnoli's 1949 mural in the Italian Nationality Room at the University of Pittsburgh. On 5 June 2019, Google celebrated her 373rd birthday with a Google Doodle.

Bibliography.

Works.

Her writings include academic discourses, translations and devotional treatises.

Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia (, ) or Elena Lucrezia Corner (; 5 June 1646 – 26 July 1684), also known in English as Helen Cornaro, was a Venetian philosopher of noble descent who in 1678 became one of the first women to receive an academic degree from a university, and the first to receive a Doctor of Philosophy degree.


Early life.

Dr Horáková was born Milada Králová in Prague. At the age of 17, in the last year of the First World War, she was expelled from school for participating in an anti-war demonstration. She nevertheless completed her secondary education in the newly-formed Czechoslovakia and went on to study law at Charles University, graduating in 1926. From 1927 to 1940 she was employed in the social welfare department of the Prague city authority. In addition to focusing on issues of social justice, Horáková also became a prominent campaigner for the equal status of women. She was also active in the Czechoslovak Red Cross. In 1929 she joined the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party which, despite the similarity in names, was a strong opponent of German National Socialism.  Horáková married her husband Bohuslav Horák in 1927. Their daughter, Jana, was born in 1933.

Wartime resistance.

After the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939, Horáková became active in the underground resistance movement. Together with her husband, she was arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo in 1940, in her case because of her pre-war political activity. She was sent to the concentration camp at Terezín and then to various prisons in Germany. In the summer of 1944, Horáková appeared before a court in Dresden. Although the prosecution demanded the death penalty, she was sentenced to 8 years imprisonment. She was released from detention in Bavaria in April 1945 by advancing United States forces in the closing stages of the Second World War.

Political activity.

Following the liberation of Czechoslovakia in 1945, Horáková returned to Prague and joined the leadership of the re-constituted Czechoslovak National Socialist Party, becoming a member of the Provisional National Assembly. In 1946, she won a seat in the elected National Assembly representing the region of České Budějovice in southern Bohemia. Her political activities again focussed on the role of women in society and also on the preservation of Czechoslovakia's democratic institutions. Shortly after the Communist coup in February 1948, she resigned in protest from the parliament. Unlike many of her political associates, Horáková chose not to leave Czechoslovakia for the West, and continued to be politically active in Prague. On 27 September 1949, she was arrested and accused of being the leader of an alleged plot to overthrow the Communist regime.

Trial and execution.

Before facing trial, Horáková and her co-defendants were subjected to intensive interrogation by the StB, the Czechoslovak state security organ, using both physical and psychological torture. She was accused of leading a conspiracy to commit treason and espionage at the behest of the United States, Great Britain, France and Yugoslavia. Evidence of the alleged conspiracy included Horáková's presence at a meeting of political figures from the National Socialist, Social Democrat and People's parties, in September 1948, held to discuss their response to the new political situation in Czechoslovakia. She was also accused of maintaining contacts with Czechoslovak political figures in exile in the West.  The trial of Horáková and twelve of her colleagues began on 31 May 1950. It was intended to be a show trial, like those in the Soviet Great Purges of the 1930s. It was supervised by Soviet advisors and accompanied by a public campaign, organised by the Communist authorities, demanding the death penalty for the accused. The State's prosecutors were led by Dr. Josef Urválek and included Ludmila Brožová-Polednová. The trial proceedings were carefully orchestrated with confessions of guilt secured from the accused, though a recording of the event, discovered in 2005, revealed Horáková's courageous defence of her political ideals. Invoking the values of Czechoslovakia's democratic presidents, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and Edvard Beneš, she declared that "no-one in this country has to be made to die or be imprisoned for their beliefs."  Milada Horáková was sentenced to death, along with three co-defendants (Jan Buchal, Oldřich Pecl, and Záviš Kalandra), on 8 June 1950. Many prominent figures in the West, notably Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill and Eleanor Roosevelt, petitioned for her life, but the sentences were confirmed. She was executed by hanging in Prague's Pankrác Prison on 27 June 1950; at the age of 48. Her reported last words were (in translation): "I have lost this fight but I leave with honour. I love this country, I love this nation, strive for their wellbeing. I depart without rancour towards you. I wish you, I wish you..."  Following the execution, Horáková's body was cremated at Strašnice Crematorium, but her ashes were not returned to her family. Their whereabouts are unknown.

Rehabilitation.

The trial verdict was annulled in June 1968 during the Prague Spring, but because of the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia that followed, Horáková's reputation was not fully rehabilitated until after the Velvet Revolution of 1989. A major thoroughfare in Prague 7, Letná, was renamed in her honour in 1990. In 1991 she was awarded the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1st Class). 27 June, the day of her execution, was declared "Commemoration Day for the Victims of the Communist Regime" in the Czech Republic.  On 11 September 2008, aged 86, Ludmila Brožová-Polednová, the then sole surviving member of the prosecution in the Horáková trial, was sentenced to six years in prison for assisting in the judicial murder of Milada Horáková. Brožová-Polednová was released from detention in December 2010 due to her age and health and died on 15 January 2015.

Family.

Milada Horáková's husband, Bohuslav Horák, who managed to avoid arrest in 1949, escaped to West Germany and later settled in the United States. Their daughter, Jana, aged 16 at the time of her mother's execution, and subsequently raised by her aunt, joined her father in 1968.  Horáková's last letters, including those to her husband and her daughter, have been published in English translation.

"Milada".

A feature film - "Milada" - about the life of Milada Horáková was released in November 2017. The role of Horáková is played by the Israeli-American actress Ayelet Zurer. The English-language production is directed by the Czech-born film-maker, David Mrnka.

Milada Horáková (née Králová, 25 December 1901 – 27 June 1950) was a Czech politician. She was a victim of judicial murder committed by the communist party on fabricated charges of conspiracy and treason. The verdict of her trial was annulled in 1968, and she was fully rehabilitated in the 1990s and posthumously received the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1st Class) and Order of the White Double Cross (1st Class).


Range.

"A. diadematus" has a holarctic distribution, found throughout Europe and across North America, from southern Canada to Mexico, and from British Columbia to Newfoundland.

Size and markings.

Individual spiders' colourings can range from extremely light yellow to very dark grey, but all "A. diadematus" have mottled white markings across the dorsal abdomen, with four or more segments forming a cross. The markings are formed in cells filled with guanine, which is a byproduct of protein metabolism.  Adult females range in length from, while males range from. Occasionally, the female will eat the male directly after mating. (See video below.)

Specialization.

The legs of orb-weaver spiders are specialized for spinning orb webs. The webs are built by the larger females who hang head down in the center of the web or remain hidden in nearby foliage, with one claw hooked to a signal line connected to the main orb waiting for a disturbance to signal the arrival of prey. Prey is then quickly bitten and wrapped in silk before being stored for later consumption. The initial bite serves to paralyze the prey and minimize the danger of the spider herself being stung or bitten, and the enzymes thus injected serve to begin liquefaction of the prey's internal structures.  Alongside the use of the web to capture other prey, the spiders are also cannibals and prey on each other. However, this only happens before, during or after sexual activity. They attack based on their size, sexual experience and hunger levels.  "A. diadematus" is a reclusive creature and only bites humans if cornered or otherwise provoked. It responds to a disturbance by vibrating rapidly in its web until it becomes a blur, a reaction that is assumed to confuse potential predators.

The spider species Araneus diadematus is commonly called the European garden spider, diadem spider, orangie, cross spider and crowned orb weaver. It is sometimes called the pumpkin spider, although this name is also used for a different species, "Araneus marmoreus". It is an orb-weaver spider found in Europe and North America.


Life.

The son of a custom-house official, Le Play was educated at the École Polytechnique and the École des Mines. In 1834, he was appointed chairman of the permanent committee of mining statistics. In 1840, he became engineer-in-chief and professor of metallurgy at the École des Mines, where he became inspector in 1848.  For nearly a quarter of a century Le Play travelled around Europe, collecting a vast amount of material bearing on the social and economic condition of the working classes. In 1855, he published "Les Ouvriers Européens", a series of 36 monographs on the budgets of typical families selected from a wide range of industries. This work was crowned with the Montyon prize conferred by the Académie des Sciences. In 1856, Le Play founded the "Société internationale des études pratiques d'économie sociale", which has devoted its energies principally to forwarding social studies on the lines laid down by its founder. The journal of the society, "La Réforme Sociale", founded in 1881, is published fortnightly.  Napoleon III, who held him in high esteem, entrusted him with the organization of the Exhibition of 1855, and appointed him counsellor of state, commissioner general of the Exhibition of 1867, senator of the empire and Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur.  Initially an atheist, Le Play gradually became convinced of the need for religion. In 1864, he published an essay defending Christianity against Darwinism and Scepticism. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1879, three years before his death. Blum (2004) included Le Play in his anthology of French counter-revolutionary thinkers.

Legacy.

Le Play's work was further developed by his many disciples: Adolphe Focillon (1823-1890), Émile Cheysson (1836-1910), Alexis Delaire (1836-1915), Henri de Tourville (1842-1903), Claudio Jannet (1844-1894), Edmond Demolins (1852-1907), Paul de Rousiers (1857-1934), Gabriel Olphe-Galliard (1870-1947), the Belgian Victor Brants (1854-1917) and the Canadian Léon Gérin.  After an eclipse between the 1940s and the 1960s Le Play's methods resurfaced when the "history of the family" became a new field of interest in social science. In Britain, Peter Laslett who worked within the "Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure" used le Play's methods at the end of the 1960s to study family structures from census and property transmission data, describing particularly the nuclear family structure which Le Play had not worked on.  At about the same time in France, legal history academics working on customary law were the first to re-apply Le Play's methods in scientific research. In the early 1970s, a growing number of ethnologists and historians joined this trend, especially those within the historical anthropology school: André Burguière, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie. In a 1989 book which became a reference in its field, ethnologist Georges Augustins reshaped Le Play's family types classification.  Some sociologists rediscovered Le Play's work as well from the late 1960s on, overcoming the general opinion that Le Play's views were just overly conservative, particularly Paul Lazarsfeld, Antoine Savoye and Bernard Kalaora.  At the end of the 1970s historian and demographer Emmanuel Todd, a disciple of both Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and Peter Laslett, was struck by the geographical similarity between the area of prevalence of the communitarian family system (patriarcal family in Le Play's words) and the regions where communism had become dominant in the 20th century. He reprocessed Le Play's study of family structures and published a number of widely publicised books establishing a link between traditional family structures and the great ideological and society movements in European history (religious and political choices, economic development,...).

Works.

In English translation

Pierre Guillaume Frédéric Le Play (; April 11, 1806 – April 5, 1882) was a French engineer, sociologist and economist.


Life.

He was born into a prosperous Jewish family in the village of Tučapy in southern Bohemia, where his father Leopold was a large-scale producer of liquors and spirits. After graduating from the gymnasium in Prague (1918–24) he studied composition and conducting at the Prague Conservatory between 1925 and 1929, along with chamber music, violin and percussion. In 1931 he participated as assistant conductor at the Munich premiere of Alois Hába's quarter-tone opera "Mother". Ančerl also studied conducting under Hermann Scherchen in Strasbourg and with Václav Talich in Prague. Between 1931 and 1933, he conducted the orchestra of the avant-garde theatre "Osvobozené divadlo" in Prague, where he brought about a marked improvement in playing standards. From 1933 to 1939, he conducted for the Czechoslovak radio, but his career as a conductor was interrupted by World War II.  He was sent with his family to the Theresienstadt concentration camp (Terezín) on 12 November 1942. There, he became the leader of the "Terezín String Orchestra" and started to organize cultural and music life in the ghetto. His final performance was for the propaganda film "Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt" ("The Führer Gives the Jews a City"), directed, under coercion of the camp commandant Karl Rahm, by Kurt Gerron to fool the Red Cross. The film showed Ančerl conducting a work by Pavel Haas on a wooden pavilion, with flowerpots hiding the fact that many of the orchestra were barefoot. The film also featured Martin Roman's big band, the Ghetto Swingers. As soon as the film was over, Gerron, Ančerl, Haas, Roman and all those who had participated in the film were herded into cattle trucks for the final transport to Auschwitz on 15 October 1944. Ančerl managed to survive Auschwitz, but his wife Valy and son Jan (born in Terezín) perished in the gas chambers.  After the war, he conducted for Radio Prague until 1950, and rose to fame when appointed (on 20 October 1950) artistic director of the Czech Philharmonic. His eighteen-year tenure with this orchestra is often regarded as its greatest period, which brought it much international recognition. In August 1968, after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, he decided to emigrate to Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He conducted his last two concerts with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra at the Prague Spring Festival in 1969. He conducted the Toronto Symphony Orchestra from 1968 until his death in Toronto in 1973. His tomb is located in Vyšehrad cemetery in Prague.  Some of his notable pupils include Brian Jackson, Štěpán Koníček, Libor Pešek, Jan Tausinger, and Martin Turnovský.

Style.

As a conductor, Ančerl followed a recognizably Czech tradition. Along with Václav Talich, Karel Šejna, Václav Neumann and others, he helped foster a distinctly Czech orchestral sound. Rhythmic sharpness, vibrant dynamics, and a keenly etched sound were hallmarks of his conducting style. While these characteristics were especially evident when he conducted his home orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, he also persuaded orchestras as diverse as the Toronto Symphony, the Vienna Symphony and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra to play with a distinctive Czech sound. In addition to both the indigenous characteristics of Ancerl's work on the podium, especially in repertoire to which that would apply, and an always flexibly molded incredibly minute attention to, ear for detail, there was a grace, a spiritually infused lyricism absorbed by a love of life, of nature to Ancerl's music-making - sample his discs of Martinu Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, Mahler Ninth on Supraphon - that was a clear stand-out. He himself, certainly a few others have, may have attributed some of this to the horrors he witnessed, experienced during the war. An innate classical sense to his work in Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms was fully remarkable as well.  Ančerl remains highly regarded as a recording artist. His broad range of recordings for the Czech Supraphon label have been carefully remastered for the Karel Ančerl Gold Edition, which was awarded the "Grand Prix du Disque" by "l'Académie Charles Cros". In addition to performances of Czech composers, including Antonín Dvořák, Bedřich Smetana, Leoš Janáček, Bohuslav Martinů and Miloslav Kabeláč, Ančerl is also admired for his interpretations of 20th-century composers, such as Gustav Mahler, Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich, as well as the Toronto-based organist/composer Healey Willan. He also championed less widely known Czech composers, such as Jan Hanuš, Iša Krejčí, Otmar Mácha and Ladislav Vycpálek. Performances with several orchestras have appeared on labels such as Tahra, CBC Records and EMI. Line Classics has issued some radio recordings made during the late 1940s, when Ančerl returned to Prague.

Karel Ančerl (11 April 1908 – 3 July 1973) was a Czechoslovak conductor, renowned especially for his performances of contemporary music and for his interpretations of music by Czech composers.


History.

Counts of Blois.

In 854 the Castle of Blois, known as Blisum castrum, was attacked by Vikings. In the 10th and 11th centuries, the Counts of Blois and landowners from Chartres and Champagne joined together to rebuild the fortress. Thibaud le Tricheur raised the “big tower” and by the end of the 12th century, the Counts contributions were finished by building the Saint-Sauveur.  The "Salle des États Généraux", built in the beginning of the 13th century, is one of the oldest seignoral rooms preserved in France, and is also the largest remaining civilian Gothic room. The room was used as a court of justice by the Counts of Blois and was used in 1576 and 1588 for the "États Généraux".

Louis XII.

The medieval castle was purchased in 1391 by Louis I, Duke of Orléans, brother of Charles VI; after Louis' assassination, his widow, Valentina Visconti, retired to this castle at Blois. It was later inherited by their son, Charles d'Orléans the poet, who was captured at Agincourt and imprisoned in England. After twenty-five years as a hostage in England, Charles d'Orleans returned to his beloved Blois and partly helped rebuild the chateau as a more commodious dwelling. It became the favourite royal residence and the political capital of the kingdom under Charles' son, King Louis XII.  At the beginning of the 16th century, King Louis XII initiated a reconstruction of the entry of the main block and the creation of an Italian garden in terraced parterres where Place Victor Hugo stands today.  This wing, of red brick and grey stone, forms the main entrance to the château, and features a statue of the mounted king above the entrance. Although the style is principally Gothic, as the profiles of mouldings, the lobed arches and the pinnacles attest, there are elements of Renaissance architecture present, such as a small chandelier.

François I.

When Francis I took power in 1515, his wife Queen Claude had him refurbish Blois with the intention of moving from the Château d'Amboise to Blois. Francis initiated the construction of a new wing and created one of the period's most important libraries in the castle. After the death of his wife in 1524, he spent very little time at Blois and the massive library was moved to the royal Château de Fontainebleau. It is this library that formed the royal library and the backbone of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.  In this wing, the architecture and ornamentation are marked by Italian influence. At the centre is the monumental spiral staircase, covered with fine bas-relief sculptures and looking out onto the château's central court. Behind this wing is the façade of the Loges, characterised by a series of disconnected niches.

Henry III.

Driven from Paris during the French Wars of Religion, King Henry III lived at Blois and held the Estates-General convention there in 1576 and 1588. During the December 1588 convention the king had his arch-enemy, Henry I, Duke of Guise assassinated. The following day, the Duke's brother, Louis II, Cardinal of Guise was also assassinated.

Henry IV.

After this, the castle was occupied by Henry IV, the first Bourbon monarch. On Henry's death in 1610, it became the place of exile for his widow, Marie de' Medici, when she was expelled from the court of her son, Louis XIII.

Gaston d'Orléans.

In 1626, King Louis XIII gave the Château of Blois to his brother and heir, Gaston of France, Duke of Orléans as a wedding gift. In 1634, Gaston embarked on building a completely new castle in Blois. The task of developing this new castle was given to François Mansart. The rear of the courtyard is where Mansart began this ambitious building project with a main dwelling house. This house should have been the first building in a large-scale reconstruction project. The project was stopped in 1638 when Gaston's nephew was born, the future Louis XIV. With Louis XIV's birth, Gaston was no longer the heir and no longer eligible for financing.  This wing makes up the rear wall of the court, directly opposite the Louis XII wing. The central section is composed of three horizontal layers where the superposition of Doric, Ionic and Corinthian orders can be seen.  By the time of the French Revolution the immense castle had been neglected for more than a hundred and thirty years. The contents, many of its statues, royal emblems and coats of arms of the palace were removed. In a state of near total disrepair, the Château of Blois was scheduled to be demolished but was given a reprieve as a military barracks.

Preservation as a monument.

In 1840, the initiative of Prosper Mérimée placed the Chateau of Blois on the list of historical monuments. This allowed state funds to be used in the preservation. It was restored under the direction of the architect Félix Duban. The chateau is now used as a public museum. On view for visitors are the supposed poison cabinets of Catherine de' Medici. Most likely this room, the "chamber of secrets", had a much more banal purpose: exhibiting precious objects for guests.  Today, the château is owned by the town of Blois and is a tourist attraction.

The Royal Château de Blois (, ) is located in the city center of Blois at the Loir-et-Cher "département" in the Loire Valley, in France. The residence of several French kings, it is also the place where Joan of Arc went in 1429 to be blessed by the Archbishop of Reims before departing with her army to drive the English from Orléans.


History.

The record of Australian Aboriginal occupation of Shark Bay extends to years BP. At that time most of the area was dry land, rising sea levels flooding Shark Bay between BP and BP. A considerable number of aboriginal midden sites have been found, especially on Peron Peninsula and Dirk Hartog Island which provide evidence of some of the foods gathered from the waters and nearby land areas.  An expedition led by Dirk Hartog happened upon the area in 1616, becoming the second group of Europeans known to have visited Australia. (The crew of the "Duyfken", under Willem Janszoon, had visited Cape York in 1606). The area was given the name Shark Bay by the English explorer William Dampier, on 7 August 1699.  The heritagelisted area had a population of fewer than people as at the 2011 census and a coastline of over. The half-dozen small communities making up this population occupy less than 1% of the total area.

Shark Bay World Heritage site.

The World Heritage status of the region was created and negotiated in 1991. The site was gazetted on the Australian National Heritage List on 21 May 2007 under the.

Protected areas.

Declared as a World Heritage Site in 1991, the site covers an area of, of which about 70 per cent are marine waters. It includes many protected areas and conservation reserves, including Shark Bay Marine Park, Francois Peron National Park, Hamelin Pool Marine Nature Reserve, Zuytdorp Nature Reserve and numerous protected islands. Denham and Useless Loop both fall within the boundary of the site, yet are specifically excluded from it. Shark Bay was the first Australian site to be classified on the World Heritage list.

Landforms.

The bay itself covers an area of, with an average depth of. It is divided by shallow banks and has many peninsulas and islands. The coastline is over long. There are about of limestone cliffs overlooking the bay. One spectacular segment of cliffs is known as the Zuytdorp Cliffs. The bay is located in the transition zone between three major climatic regions and between two major botanical provinces.  Dirk Hartog Island is of historical significance due to landings upon it by early explorers. In 1616, Dirk Hartog landed at Inscription Point on the north end of the island and marked his discovery with a pewter plate, inscribed with the date and nailed to a post. This plate was then replaced by Willem de Vlamingh and returned to the Netherlands. It is now kept in the Rijksmuseum. There is a replica in the Shark Bay Discovery Centre in Denham.  Bernier and Dorre islands in the north-west corner of the heritage area are among the last-remaining habitats of Australian mammals threatened with extinction. They are used, with numerous other smaller islands throughout the marine park, to release threatened species that are being bred at Project Eden in François Peron National Park. These islands are free of feral non-native animals which might predate the threatened species, and so provide a safe haven of pristine environment on which to restore species that are threatened on the mainland.  The Australian Wildlife Conservancy is the guardian of Faure Island, off Monkey Mia. Seasonally, sea turtles come here to nest and are the subject of studies conducted in conjunction with the Western Australian Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) on this sheltered island.

Fauna.

Shark Bay is an area of major zoological importance. It is home to about 10,000 dugongs (‘sea cows’), around 12.5% of the world's population, and there are many Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins, particularly at Monkey Mia. The dolphins here have been particularly friendly since the 1960s. The area supports 26 threatened Australian mammal species, over 230 species of bird, and nearly 150 species of reptile. It is an important breeding and nursery ground for fish, crustaceans, and coelenterates. There are over 323 fish species, many of them sharks and rays.  Some bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay exhibit one of the few known cases of tool use in marine mammals (along with sea otters): they protect their nose with a sponge while foraging for food in the sandy sea bottom. Humpback and southern right whales use the waters of the bay as migratory staging post while other species such as Bryde's whale come into the bay less frequently but to feed or rest. The threatened green and loggerhead sea turtles nest on the bay's sandy beaches. The largest fish in the world, the whale shark, gathers in the bay during the April and May full moons.

Flora.

Shark Bay has the largest known area of seagrass, with seagrass meadows covering over of the bay. It includes the Wooramel Seagrass Bank, the largest seagrass bank in the world. Shark Bay also contains the largest number of seagrass species ever recorded in one place; twelve species have been found, with up to nine occurring together in some places. The seagrasses are a vital part of the complex environment of the bay. Over thousands of years, sediment and shell fragments have accumulated in the seagrasses to form vast expanses of seagrass beds. This has raised the sea floor, making the bay shallower. Seagrasses are the basis of the food chain in Shark Bay, providing home and shelter to various marine species and attracting the dugong population.  In Shark Bay's hot, dry climate, evaporation greatly exceeds the annual precipitation rate. Thus, the seawater in the shallow bays becomes very salt-concentrated, or 'hypersaline'. Seagrasses also restrict the tidal flow of waters through the bay area, preventing the ocean tides from diluting the sea water. The water of the bay is 1.5 to 2 times more salty than the surrounding ocean waters.

Stromatolites.

Based on growth rate it is believed that about 1,000 years ago cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) began building up stromatolites in Hamelin Pool at the Hamelin Station Reserve in the southern part of the bay. These structures are modern equivalents of the earliest signs of life on Earth, with fossilized stromatolites being found dating from 3.5 billion years ago at North Pole near Marble Bar, in Western Australia, and are considered the longest continuing biological lineage. They were first identified in 1956 at Hamelin Pool as a living species, before that only being known in the fossil record. Hamelin Pool contains the most diverse and abundant examples of living stromatolite forms in the world. Other occurrences are found at Lake Clifton near Mandurah and Lake Thetis near Cervantes. It is hypothesized that some stromatolites contain a new form of chlorophyll, chlorophyll f.

Shark Bay World Heritage Discovery Centre.

Facilities around the World Heritage area, provided by the Shire of Shark Bay and the WA Department of Environment and Conservation, include the Shark Bay World Heritage Discovery Centre in Denham which provides interactive displays and comprehensive information about the features of the region.

Access.

Access to Shark Bay is by air via Shark Bay Airport, and by the World Heritage Drive, a 150 km link road between Denham and the Overlander Roadhouse on the North West Coastal Highway.

Specific reserved areas.

IBRA sub regions of the Shark Bay Area.

The Shark Bay area has three bioregions within the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) system: Carnarvon, Geraldton Sandplains, and Yalgoo. The bioregions are further divided into subbioregions:

Shark Bay (Malgana: "Gutharraguda", "two waters") is a World Heritage Site in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia. The area is located approximately north of Perth, on the westernmost point of the Australian continent. UNESCO's official listing of Shark Bay as a World Heritage Site reads:


Biography.

Savary was born at Marcq in the Ardennes. He was educated at the college of St Louis at Metz and entered the royal army in 1790. His first campaign was that waged by General Custine against the retreating forces of the duke of Brunswick in 1792. He next served in succession under Pichegru and Moreau, and distinguished himself during the skilful retreat of the latter from an untenable position in the heart of Swabia. He became "chef d'escadron" in 1797, and in 1798 served under General Louis Desaix, in the Egyptian campaign, of which he left an interesting and valuable account.  He also distinguished himself under Desaix at Marengo (14 June 1800). His fidelity and address while serving under Desaix, who was killed at Marengo, secured him the confidence of Napoleon Bonaparte, who appointed him to command the special body of gendarmes charged with the duty of guarding the First Consul. In the discovery of the various ramifications of the Georges Cadoudal-Pichegru conspiracy Savary showed great skill and activity. He proceeded to the cliff of Biville in Normandy, where the plotters were in the habit of landing, and sought, by imitating the signals of the royalist plotters, to tempt the comte d'Artois (afterwards Charles X) to land. In this he was unsuccessful.  He was in command of the troops at Vincennes when the duc d'Enghien was summarily executed. Hulin, who presided at the court-martial, afterwards accused Savary, though not by name, of having intervened to prevent the dispatch to Bonaparte of an appeal for mercy which he (Hulin) was in the act of drawing up. Savary afterwards denied this, but his denial has not generally been accepted.

Austerlitz.

In February 1805 he was raised to the rank of general of division. Shortly before the battle of Austerlitz (2 December 1805) he was sent by Napoleon with a message to the emperor Alexander I with a request for an armistice, a device which caused that monarch all the more eagerly to strike the blow which brought disaster to the Russians. After the battle Savary again took a message to Alexander, which induced him to treat for an armistice. In the campaign of 1806 Savary showed signal daring in the pursuit of the Prussians after the battle of Jena. He was negotiating during the "Siege of Hameln". Early in the next year he received command of a corps, and with it gained an important success at Ostrolenka (16 February 1807).  After the treaty of Tilsit (7 July 1807) Savary proceeded to St Petersburg as the French ambassador, but was soon replaced by General Caulaincourt, another accessory to the execution of the duc d'Enghien. The repugnance of the empress dowager to Savary is said to have been one of the reasons of his recall, but it is more probable that Napoleon felt the need of his gifts for intrigue in the Spanish affairs which he undertook at the close of 1807. With the title of duke of Rovigo (a small town in Venetia), Savary set out for Madrid when Napoleon's plans for gaining the mastery of Spain were nearing completion. With Murat Savary made skilful use of the schisms in the Spanish royal family (March–April 1808), and persuaded Charles IV of Spain, who had recently abdicated under duress, and his son Ferdinand VII, the "de facto" king of Spain, to refer their claims to Napoleon. Savary induced Ferdinand to cross the Pyrenees and proceed to Bayonne—a step which cost him his crown and his liberty until 1814.  In September 1808 Savary accompanied the emperor to the famous meeting at the Congress of Erfurt with Alexander I. In 1809 he took part, albeit without distinction, in the campaign against Austria.  On the disgrace of Fouché in the spring of 1810, Savary received his ministry of police. There he showed his wonted skill and devotion to Napoleon; and this office, which the Jacobin Fouche had shorn of its terrors, now became a veritable inquisition. Among the incidents of his time may be cited the cynical brutality with which Savary carried out the order of Napoleon for the exile of Mme de Staël and the destruction of her work "De l'Allemagne". Savary's wariness was, however, at fault at the time of the strange conspiracy of General Malet, two of whose confederates seized him in his bed and imprisoned him for a few hours (23 October 1812). Savary's reputation never quite recovered from the ridicule caused by this event. Napoleon awarded him the duché grand-fief (a rare, nominal but hereditary honor; extinguished in 1872) of Rovigo, in his own Kingdom of Italy.  He was among the last to desert the emperor at the time of his abdication (11 April 1814) and among the first to welcome his abortive return ("Cent Jours") from Elba in 1815, when he became inspector-general of gendarmerie and a Peer of France. After the battle of Waterloo he accompanied the emperor to Rochefort and sailed with him to Plymouth on HMS "Bellerophon". He was not allowed to accompany him to Saint Helena, but underwent several months' "internment" at Malta. Escaping thence, he proceeded to Smyrna, where he settled for a time. Afterwards he travelled about in more or less distress, but finally was allowed to return to France and regained civic rights; later he settled at Rome.  The July Revolution (1830) brought him back into favour and in 1831 he received the command of the French army in Algeria. While in command at Algiers, he alienated French civil authorities with his high-handed treatment of Arab leaders. He was responsible for the extermination of the local Al'Ouffia tribe and the death of several Arab leaders whom he lured into negotiations. Ill-health compelled him to return to France, and he died in Paris in June 1833.

Anne Jean Marie René Savary, 1st Duke of Rovigo (26 April 17742 June 1833) was a French general and diplomat.


Life.

Pauline was born in Vienna into the Hungarian noble family of. Her father, Count Móric Sándor (1805–1878), described as "a furious rider", was known throughout the Habsburg empire as a passionate horseman. Her mother, Princess Leontine von Metternich-Winneburg (1811–1861), was a daughter of the Austrian state chancellor Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich (known as the architect of the Concert of Europe). It was at his home in Vienna that Pauline spent almost her whole childhood.  In 1856, she married her uncle, Prince Richard von Metternich (1829–1895), whereby her grandfather Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich also became her father-in-law. The couple lived a happy conjugal life, despite Richard's frequent love-affairs with actresses and opera prima donnas. Their first child was Sophie (born 1857); her second daughter, Pascaline (b. 1862), married Count Georg von Waldstein-Wartenberg, an insane and alcoholic Czech aristocrat who was said to have murdered her in delirium in Duchcov (today in the Czech Republic) in 1890. Her youngest daughter, Clementine (b. 1870), was badly injured by her dog as a child and decided never to marry due to her scarred face.

Socialite.

Pauline accompanied her husband, an Austrian diplomat, on his missions to the royal Saxon court in Dresden and in 1859 to the imperial French court in Paris, where they lived for more than eleven years until the Franco-Prussian war of 1870/71. She played an important role in the social and cultural life of both Dresden and Paris, and, after 1871, Vienna. Pauline's regular travels between, and extended stays in, Paris and Vienna, permitted her to act as a cross-cultural transmitter of the many trends that interested her in music, political ideas, and sport. She was a close friend and confidante of French Empress Eugénie, and, with her husband, was a prominent personality at the court of Emperor Napoleon III. In 1860 she introduced fashion designer Charles Frederick Worth to the Empress and thus started his rise to fame.  Princess Pauline was an ardent patron of music and contemporary arts, and also became a leader of fashionable society. Whether in Paris or Vienna, she set the latest social trends. She taught French and Czech aristocrats to skate, and ladies to smoke cigars without fear of their reputations. She was acquainted with many composers and writers, including Charles Gounod, Camille Saint-Saëns, Prosper Mérimée and Alexandre Dumas), and corresponded with them. She befriended music composers Richard Wagner (who dedicated a piano composition to her) and Franz Liszt, and backed their career. At her request, Emperor Napoleon III invited Wagner to substantially amend his "Tannhäuser" for a special 1861 performance by the Paris Opéra, a revision that forms the basis of what is today known as the "Paris version". The project failed (it closed after three performances) and became a celebrated fiasco and one of the greatest music-related scandals of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, Pauline continued to spread the music of Wagner and other now-famous composers. Wagner later called her his most substantial support beside the Berlin socialite Marie von Schleinitz. One of her protégés was the leading Czech musician of that time, Bedřich Smetana, whom she introduced to the music circles of Vienna and Paris. Thanks to Pauline, Smetana's comic opera "The Bartered Bride" was produced in Vienna in 1892, to popular acclaim. She also organised salon performances of abridged versions of many famous operas, including Richard Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen", in which she took part both as a stage director and singer. The composer Karl Michael Ziehrer dedicated her one of his dances.  In her private life, however, Pauline suffered several crises and disasters. As a child, she was an eyewitness to the bloody Revolution of 1848 in Vienna. In 1870 she remained at the side of Empress Eugénie in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. Later she aided the Empress' escape from Paris to Great Britain by secretly sending Eugénie's jewels to London in a diplomatic bag. In Vienna, she was admired for her social engagement, but also feared for her gossiping. Her enmity with Empress Elisabeth of Austria was almost legendary and was enjoyed by the Habsburg court. After Elisabeth's death in 1898, Pauline together with Princess Eleonora Fugger von Babenhausen took the leading role of "grand dames" of the Vienna society.

Duel.

It is claimed that in August 1892, Pauline took part in a duel with Countess Anastasia von Kielmannsegg. However there are no primary sources for the story, only accounts from foreign newspapers; furthermore, a denial by the Princess was printed in a French newspaper not long after the first accounts were published in which she calls the story a "ridiculous invention by Italian journalists."

Legacy.

Princess Pauline died in Vienna in 1921. She lived through the glory and fall of the Austrian and French empires and was believed to be a living symbol of these two lost worlds. A portrait of her by French impressionist Edgar Degas, painted from a photograph, now hangs in the National Gallery, London.  She wrote two books of memoirs. The first, "Gesehenes, geschehenes, erlebtes", in German, honored her grandfather, Chancellor Metternich, and father, Count Moritz Sándor, and the second, "Éclairs du passé", in French, recalled her life and times in the court of Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie. Both were published posthumously in the 1920s.

Issue.

Richard and Pauline von Metternich had three children :  Since the marriage produced no sons, Richard's title of "Prince von Metternich" passed to his half-brother, Paul von Metternich.

Pauline Clémentine Marie Walburga, Princess of Metternich-Winneburg zu Beilstein ("née" Countess Pauline Sándor de Szlavnicza; 25 February 1836 – 28 September 1921) was a famous Austrian socialite, mainly active in Vienna and Paris. Known for her great charm and elegance as well as for her social commitment, she was an important promoter of the work of the German composer Richard Wagner and the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana. She was also instrumental to the creation of the haute couture industry.


Description.

The height of the plant is variable, from 5–20 cm, occasionally more where supported by other plants; the stems can reach up to 50 cm long. It is typically sprawling at the height of the surrounding grassland. It can survive fairly close grazing, trampling, and mowing. It is most often found in sandy soils. It flowers from June to September. The flowers develop into small pea-like pods or legumes.  The plant had many common English names in Britain, which are now mostly out of use. These names were often connected with the yellow and orange colour of the flowers, e.g. 'butter and eggs'. One name that is still used is eggs and bacon (or bacon and eggs).

Distribution and habitat.

"Lotus corniculatus" has a broad distribution worldwide. It is common everywhere in Britain. It is abundant in Ireland, and also in Northern Ireland, including County Londonderry, County Down, and County Antrim. Habitats include old fields, grassy places, and roadsides.

Uses.

It is used in agriculture as a forage plant, grown for pasture, hay, and silage. It is a high quality forage that does not cause bloat in ruminants. Taller-growing cultivars have been developed for this. It may be used as an alternative to alfalfa in poor soils.  A double-flowered variety is grown as an ornamental plant. It is regularly included as a component of wildflower mixes in Europe. It can also prevent soil erosion and provide a good habitat for wildlife.  Fresh bird's-foot trefoil contains cyanogenic glycosides, which release small amounts of hydrogen cyanide when macerated. This is not normally poisonous to humans, though, as the dose is very low, and the metabolization of cyanide is relatively quick. Condensed tannins are also present in "L. corniculatus", which has been known to increase the protein absorption of the small intestine. Used in an infusion to avoid the creation of hydrogen cyanide, this plant can be used as a sedative

Medicine uses.

The flowers are used mainly as a sedative and for other aspects of the nervous and cardiac systems. They have an antispasmodic effect on the digestive tract. In the Sannio region, Italy, the diluted infusions were used to calm anxiety, insomnia and exhaustion.

Ecology.

The flowers are mostly visited by bumblebees. In the Chicago Region, mostly non-native bees have been observed visiting the flowers, including "Andrena wilkella", "Anthidium oblongatum", "Apis mellifera" and "Megachile rotundata". The native bees "Bombus impatiens" and "Megachile relativa" have also been observed visiting birdsfoot trefoil flowers, though the latter only rarely.  The plant is an important nectar source for many insects and is also used as a larval food plant by many species of Lepidoptera such as six-spot burnet and the silver-studded blue. It is a host plant for the wood white butterfly, "Leptidea sinapis".

Invasive species.

Birdsfoot trefoil is an invasive species in many parts of North America and Australia. It has been commonly planted along roadsides for erosion control or pastures for forage and then spreads into natural areas. Once it has established in an area, it can outcompete native species. The use of prescribed fire is not an effective management tool against "Lotus corniculatus" and herbicide is recommended to control it.

Lotus corniculatus is a flowering plant in the pea family Fabaceae, native to grasslands in temperate Eurasia and North Africa. Common names include common bird's-foot trefoil, eggs and bacon, birdsfoot deervetch, and just bird's-foot trefoil, though the latter name is often also applied to other members of the genus.


Early life.

Born in Karlsbad, Bohemia, in Austria-Hungary (present-day Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic), Frank was taught by his father (a proponent of Georg Ritter von Schönerer's policies) about nationalist agitation. Frank attempted to enlist in the Austro-Hungarian Army in World War I, but he was rejected due to blindness in his right eye. He spent a year at the law school of the German language Charles University in Prague and worked as a tutor to make money. An extreme advocate of the incorporation of the Sudetenland into Germany, Frank joined the German National Socialist Workers' Party ("Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei"; DNSAP) by 1923 and was involved in setting up several DNSAP chapters in northern Bohemia and Silesia. In 1925, Frank opened a book store which specialized in National-Socialist literature. Frank joined and helped organize the Sudeten-German Homeland Front (SdH) in 1933, which officially became the Sudeten German Party (SdP) in 1935. He then worked in the SdP public relations and propaganda department.  In 1935, Frank became deputy leader of the SdP and was elected a member of the Czechoslovak Parliament. Coming to represent the most radical National Socialists in the SdP, Frank was made Deputy "Gauleiter" of the Sudetenland when it became part of Germany in October 1938. Frank officially joined the Nazi Party and SS on 1 November 1938.

World War II.

In 1939, Frank was promoted to SS-"Gruppenführer" and appointed Secretary of State of the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia under Reich Protector Konstantin von Neurath. Himmler also named him the protectorate's Higher SS and Police Leader, making him its ranking SS officer. Although nominally under Neurath, Frank wielded great power in the protectorate. He controlled the Nazi police apparatus in the Protectorate, including the Gestapo, the SD, and the Kripo.  As Secretary of State and chief of police, Frank pursued a policy of harsh suppression of dissident Czechs and pushed for the arrest of Bohemia and Moravia's Prime Minister, Alois Eliáš. These actions by Frank were countered by Neurath's "soft approach" to the Czechs thereby encouraging anti-German resistance by strikes and sabotage. This frustrated Frank and led to him secretly working to discredit Neurath.  Hitler's decision to adopt a more radical approach in Bohemia and Moravia should have worked in Frank's favor. Hitler relieved Neurath of his active duties on 23 September 1941, though he still remained Reich Protector on paper. Frank hoped to be appointed as Deputy Protector and day-to-day head of the protectorate. Instead, Hitler chose Reinhard Heydrich, and gave him a mandate to enforce policy, fight resistance to the Nazi regime, and keep up production quotas of Czech motors and arms that were "extremely important to the German war effort". The working relationship between Frank and Heydrich was a good one as they both were ambitious and brutal. They launched a reign of terror in the protectorate, arresting and killing opponents and ramping up the deportation of Jews to concentration camps. According to Heydrich, between 4,000 and 5,000 people were arrested and between 400 and 500 were executed by February 1942.

Massacre of Lidice.

When Heydrich was assassinated in 1942, Frank was once again passed over for promotion to Deputy Protector; Kurt Daluege was chosen instead. Daluege and Frank were instrumental in initiating the destruction of the Czech villages of Lidice and Ležáky in order to take revenge on the Czech populace for Heydrich's death. When it came to the population of Lidice, Frank ordered Horst Böhme, the SiPo and SD chief in Prague, to shoot all the men, send all the women to concentration camps, and place those few children considered worthy of "Germanization" in the care of SS families in Germany, with the rest being murdered.  Under Daluege, Frank continued to consolidate his power, and by the time Wilhelm Frick was appointed Reich Protector in 1943, Frank was the most powerful official in Bohemia and Moravia. In August 1942, he was made a Minister of State as Reich Minister for Bohemia and Moravia. In June 1943, he was promoted to SS-"Obergruppenführer" and General of Police in Prague. Frank was also made a General of the Waffen-SS.

Anti-partisan operations.

In 1944, he personally conducted anti-partisan warfare in Moravia aimed at destroying the Jan Žižka partisan brigade. Despite the deployment of 13,000 soldiers and summary executions of civilians suspected of supporting the partisans, the Germans were unable to destroy the partisan brigade and falsely concluded that the threat had been eliminated.

Trial and execution.

Frank was arrested by U.S. Army troops in the area of Rokycany on 9 May 1945. He was extradited to the People's Court in Prague and tried in 1946. After being convicted of war crimes and the destruction of Lidice and Ležáky, Frank was sentenced to death. He was hanged on 22 May 1946 in the courtyard of the Pankrác Prison in Prague, before 5,000 onlookers. He was buried in an anonymous pit at Prague's Ďáblice cemetery.

Personal life.

Frank was married twice. On 21 January 1925 he married Anna Müller (born 5 January 1899 in Karlsbad). The couple had two sons Harald, born 20 January 1926, and Gerhard, born 22 April 1931. They divorced on 17 February 1940 and later that year, Müller married Karl-Hermann's successor as deputy Gauleiter of Sudetenland, SA-"Brigadeführer" Dr. Fritz Köllner. On 14 April 1940 Frank remarried a physician, Karola Blaschek (born 13 August 1913 in Brüx). The couple had three children together, two daughters Edda, (born 16 August 1941) and Holle-Sigrid (born 8 March 1944), and a son Wolf-Dietrich (born 20 August 1942).

Karl Hermann Frank (24 January 1898 – 22 May 1946) was a prominent Sudeten German Nazi official in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia prior to and during World War II. Attaining the rank of "Obergruppenführer", he was in command of the Nazi police apparatus in the Protectorate, including the Gestapo, the SD, and the Kripo. After the war, Frank was tried, convicted and executed by hanging for his role in organizing the massacres of the people of the Czech villages of Lidice and Ležáky.


Paintings.

He learned basic techniques from his father and from Cornelis Engelbrechtsz, but his precocious originality was paramount. Where he learnt engraving is unknown, but he took advantage of the works of Marcantonio Raimondi, whose motifs are reworked in Lucas' engravings and paintings, and became highly skilled in that art at a very early age: the earliest known print by him ("") dates from 1508, when he was perhaps only 14, yet reveals no trace of immaturity in inspiration or technique.  Seventeen paintings surely by Lucas survive, and a further twenty-seven are known from descriptions by Carel van Mander, from contemporary copies or from drawings of them made by Jan de Bisschop in the later 17th century. Max Friedländer descried no clear pattern of stylistic development, in large part because Lucas' oeuvre was swelled and obscured by attributions since found unsustainable.  Four broad stages in his artistic development are characterized by Elise Lawton Smith as his early half-length figures ("c" 1506-1512), the development of his landscapes ("c" 1512-1520), the influence of Antwerp paintings ("c" 1521-25) and the late works ("ca" 1525-1531), where multiple figures are deployed against wooded landscapes, as in the "Healing of blind man of Jericho" ("illustration").  Raimondi's studies of nudes inspired van Leyden in his later work, particularly his altarpieces, in which he is an early Dutch adopter of the Italian-style nude figure. Two further artistic influences were Albrecht Dürer and Jan Gossaert. Indeed, he was friends with both, and Dürer drew van Leyden's portrait when they met in 1521. Dürer's mastery of engraving and Gossaert's Romanist style both heavily influenced van Leyden's work.

Prints.

Lucas's print included secular subjects, and many depictions of famous Biblical scenes, including "Adoration of the Magi", "The Virgin and Child on the Crescent", and "The Holy Family".

The Power of Women Series.

From 1513 to 1517, Lucas created a series of woodcuts called “The Power of Women,” which consisted of two large and small sets of prints. The series is one of a number of representations of the Power of Women theme, which was extremely popular in Renaissance art and literature. Artworks in the genre depict the traditional roles of men and women in inverse, with women dominating over men in various situations. The subjects illustrated often consist of legendary historical women who were considered to be virtuous heroines as well as women who were considered cunning, seductive, and manipulative of men. The purpose of the "Power of Women" theme was to demonstrate that even the strongest and wisest of men were not resistant to the sexuality of women.

Large Power of Women (1513—).

"The Mouth of Truth": A woman kneels in front of the Emperor of Rome and places her hand in the mouth of a statue of a lion while a crowd observes in the background.  "The Fall of Man": In the foreground, Eve stands to the left of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, around which a serpent is wrapped, and hands an apple to Adam, who sits to the right of the tree. In the background to the right, an angel drives Adam and Eve out of Eden.  "Samson and Delilah:" Delilah sits a bed of rocks while Samson lies sleeping in her lap. She holds his hair in one hand and cuts it with a knife.  "Solomon’s Idolatry:" King Solomon kneels in front of an idol of Moloch in the center foreground while one of his mistresses and a crowd of men observe him from behind.  "Herod and Herodias": Herod and Herodias sit at a table while their daughter Salome approaches them, holding a plate bearing the head of St. John the Baptist.  "The Poet Virgil Suspended in a Basket:" Virgil is shown stranded in a basket hung on the side of a tower in the town square, with a jeering crowd below him.

Small Power of Women (1517—).

"The Fall of Man": In the foreground, Adam and Eve are around the tree of knowledge of good and evil, with the serpent wrapped around the trunk and holding an apple. In the background, an angel drives Adam and Eve out of paradise.  "Jael Killing Sisera": In the foreground, Jael hammers a tent peg into Sisera's ear as he lies on the ground. In the middle ground on the right, Jael points out the foreground scene to a group of armed Israelites. In the background on the left, Sisera drinks from a goblet given to him by Jael.  "Samson and Delilah": Same as woodcut of larger size. Delilah sits a bed of rocks while Samson lies sleeping in her lap. She holds his hair in one hand and cuts it with a knife.  "Solomon's Idolatry": Same as woodcut of larger size. King Solomon kneels in front of an idol of Moloch in the center foreground while one of his mistresses and a crowd of men observe him from behind.  "Jezebel Promising Naboth's Vineyards to King Ahab": Jezebel stands beside her husband King Ahab of Israel, who is lying on his bed in his room.  "Herod and Herodias": In the foreground, Salome holds a plate bearing the head of St. John the Baptist in front of Herod and Herodias, who are sitting at a table. Through a window on the back wall, St. John the Baptist is seen being beheaded.

Family.

In 1515 Lucas married Elisabeth van Boschhuysen, from a patrician Leiden family. The marriage remained childless. Lucas did have a daughter Marijtje, born in Leiden out of wedlock around 1512. This daughter Marijtje would later marry the painter Dammas Claesz de Hoij. In their offspring, the De Hoij family, one can find prominent artists throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Lucas van Leyden (1494 – 8 August 1533), also named either Lucas Hugensz or Lucas Jacobsz, was a Dutch painter and printmaker in engraving and woodcut. Lucas van Leyden was among the first Dutch exponents of genre painting and was a very accomplished engraver. Lucas was the son of the painter Huygh Jacobsz. He was born, died, and was mainly active in Leiden.