Early life.

Kováč was born in the village of Ľubiša in then Czechoslovakia in 1930. He graduated from the present-day University of Economics in Bratislava and was a bank employee of the Státní banka československá and of other banks. As such, he spent some years in London and in Cuba in the 1960s. During the Normalization he was subject to some persecution.

Political career.

During and after the Velvet Revolution, from 12 December 1989 to 17 May 1991 (when he resigned) Kováč was the Finance Minister of the Slovak (Socialist) Republic.  In early 1991, he was one of the founders and the vice-chairman of the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia. As such, he was elected as a deputy to the Federal Assembly of Czechoslovakia in 1990. After the 1992 election he served as the Chairman of the Federal Assembly from 25 June to 31 December 1992. He played an important role in the process of the preparation of the Dissolution of Czechoslovakia.

President (1993–98).

Kováč was elected president by the National Council of Slovakia in February 1993 (because he was a candidate of the biggest parliamentary party—the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia) and inaugurated on 2 March 1993. He soon became a strong opponent of Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar and by giving a critical presidential address to parliament in March 1994, Kováč significantly contributed to the deposition of the then Mečiar government and the creation of the Moravčík government (which only lasted until the next parliamentary election in the autumn of 1994).  In 1995 the Mečiar-Kováč conflict intensified and the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia cancelled Kováč's (formal) membership in the party. In August 1995 Kováč's son, who had been accused of financial crimes by German authorities (the accusation was later withdrawn), was apparently kidnapped and taken to Austria. The president, opposition parties and Austrian court accused the Slovak intelligence service (SIS) and the government of having organized this kidnapping. The investigation of new secret intelligence service director Mitro and Slovak police after collapse of Meciar's regime in the end of 1998 confirmed the participation of the SIS on this kidnap but the Slovak justice rejected the trial with its suspected actors because of an amnesty (also called self-amnesty) issued by Vladimir Meciar on 3 March 1998.  Kováč's term ended on 2 March 1998. His candidature in the first direct 1999 Slovak presidential election was unsuccessful. He was not very visible in Slovakian politics after this time and appeared only at a few symbolic events.

Health and death.

On 10 July 2008 the Slovak media reported that Kováč probably suffered from Parkinson's disease. The former president did not confirm this information but admitted that he had some health problems.  On 5 October 2016, Kováč died from complications of Parkinson's disease in Bratislava, aged 86.

Michal Kováč (5 August 1930 – 5 October 2016) was the first President of Slovakia, having served from 1993 through 1998.


History.

Based on the style of sculptural details, Domitian's favored architect Rabirius, sometimes credited with the Colosseum, may have executed the arch. Without contemporary documentation, however, attributions of Roman buildings on basis of style are considered shaky.  The medieval Latin travel guide "Mirabilia Urbis Romae" noted the monument, writing: "the arch of the Seven Lamps of Titus and Vespasian; [where Moses' candlestick is having seven branches, with the Ark, at the foot of the Cartulary Tower"].  During the Middle Ages, the Frangipani family added a second story to the vault, converting it into a fortified tower; beam holes from the construction remain in the panels. Pope Paul IV (papacy 1555–1559) made it the place of a yearly oath of submission.  It was one of the first buildings sustaining a modern restoration, starting with Raffaele Stern in 1817 and continued by Valadier under Pius VII in 1821, with new capitals and with travertine masonry, distinguishable from the original marble. The restoration was a model for the country side of Porta Pia.  At an unknown date, a local ban on Jews walking under the arch was placed on the monument by Rome's Chief Rabbinate; this was rescinded on the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948, and at a Hanukkah event in 1997 the change was made public. The arch was never mentioned in Rabbinic literature.

Description.

Architecture.

The arch is large with both fluted and unfluted columns, the latter being a result of 19th-century restoration.

Size.

The Arch of Titus measures: 15.4 meters (50 ft) in height, 13.5 meters (44 ft) in width, 4.75 meters (15.5 ft) in depth. The inner archway is 8.3 (27 ft) meters in height, and 5.36 (17.5 ft) in width.

Decorative sculpture.

The spandrels on the upper left and right of the arch contain personifications of victory as winged women. Between the spandrels is the keystone, on which there stands a female on the east side and a male on the west side.  The soffit of the axial archway is deeply coffered with a relief of the apotheosis of Titus at the center. The sculptural program also includes two panel reliefs lining the passageway within the arch. Both commemorate the joint triumph celebrated by Titus and his father Vespasian in the summer of 71.  The south inner panel depicts the spoils taken from the Temple in Jerusalem. The golden candelabrum or Menorah is the main focus and is carved in deep relief. Other sacred objects being carried in the triumphal procession are the Gold Trumpets, the fire pans for removing the ashes from the altar, and the Table of Shewbread. These spoils were likely originally colored gold, with the background in blue. In 2012 the Arch of Titus Digital Restoration Project discovered remains of yellow ochre paint on the menorah relief.  The north inner panel depicts Titus as "triumphator" attended by various "genii" and lictors, who carry fasces. A helmeted Amazonian, Valour, leads the quadriga or four horsed chariot, which carries Titus. Winged Victory crowns him with a laurel wreath. The juxtaposition is significant in that it is one of the first examples of divinities and humans being present in one scene together. This contrasts with the panels of the Ara Pacis, where humans and divinities are separated.  The sculpture of the outer faces of the two great piers was lost when the Arch of Titus was incorporated in medieval defensive walls. The attic of the arch was originally crowned by more statuary, perhaps of a gilded chariot. The main inscription used to be ornamented by letters made of perhaps silver, gold or some other metal.

Inscriptions.

Original inscription.

The original inscription is attached to the east side of the Arch. It is written in Roman square capitals and reads:  SENATVS
 POPVLVSQVE·ROMANVS
 DIVO·TITO·DIVI·VESPASIANI·F(ILIO)
 VESPASIANO·AVGVSTO (Senatus Populusque Romanus divo Tito divi Vespasiani filio Vespasiano Augusto), which means  "The Senate and the Roman people (dedicate this) to the deified Titus Vespasian Augustus, son of the deified Vespasian."

1821 inscription.

The opposite side of the Arch of Titus received new inscriptions after it was restored during the pontificate of Pope Pius VII by Giuseppe Valadier in 1821. The restoration was intentionally made in travertine to differentiate between the original and the restored portions.  The inscription reads:  INSIGNE · RELIGIONIS · ATQVE · ARTIS · MONVMENTVM
 VETVSTATE · FATISCENS
 PIVS · SEPTIMVS · PONTIFEX · MAX(IMVS)
 NOVIS · OPERIBVS · PRISCVM · EXEMPLAR · IMITANTIBVS
 FVLCIRI · SERVARIQVE · IVSSIT
 ANNO · SACRI · PRINCIPATVS · EIVS · XXIIII (Insigne religionis atque artis, monumentum, vetustate fatiscens: Pius Septimus, Pontifex Maximus, novis operibus priscum exemplar imitantibus fulciri servarique iussit. Anno sacri principatus eius XXIV), which means (This) monument, remarkable in terms of both religion and art,
 had weakened from age:
 Pius the Seventh, Supreme Pontiff,
 by new works on the model of the ancient exemplar
 ordered it reinforced and preserved.
 • In the 24th year of his sacred rulership. •

Architectural influence.

Works modelled on, or inspired by, the Arch of Titus include, chronologically:

The Arch of Titus (; ) is a 1st-century AD honorific arch, located on the Via Sacra, Rome, just to the south-east of the Roman Forum. It was constructed in 81 AD by the Emperor Domitian shortly after the death of his older brother Titus to commemorate Titus's official deification or "consecratio" and the victory of Titus together with their father, Vespasian, over the Jewish rebellion in Judaea. The arch contains panels depicting the triumphal procession celebrated in 71 AD after the Roman victory culminating in the fall of Jerusalem, and provides one of the few contemporary depictions of artifacts of Herod's Temple. It became a symbol of the Jewish diaspora, and the menorah depicted on the arch served as the model for the menorah used as the emblem of the state of Israel.


Etymology.

There are several hypotheses concerning the origin of the term. It may derive from the Spanish term, in turn derived from a Turkish low-rank military term Chiaus (), through Arabic which became broadly applied to any guard/watcher or aide. The first recorded use of the term dates to Argentine independence in 1816. Another scenario indicates the word may derive from the Portuguese, which was designated to the inhabitants of the vast regions of and in the 18th century or the Portuguese that points to an instrument used by the gauchos to trap and hamstring cattle. The 18th century chronicler speaks of when it mentions the gauchos or as poorly dressed men.  Another plausible origin is from a South American indigenous language, such as Mapudungun ("vagrant", "wanderer"), ("friend"), or Quechua ("vagabond", "poor person”) which means the state of being lonely in the wilderness.

Horsemanship.

An essential attribute of a gaucho was that he was a skilled horseman. "He has taken his first lessons in riding before he is well able to walk". Without a horse the gaucho himself felt unmanned. The naturalist William Henry Hudson (who was born on the Pampas of Buenos Aires province) recorded that the gauchos of his childhood used to say that a man without a horse was a man without legs. He described meeting a blind gaucho who was obliged to beg for his food yet behaved with dignity and went about on horseback. Richard W. Slatta, the author of a scholarly work about gauchos, notes that the gaucho used horses to collect, mark, drive or tame cattle, to draw fishing nets, to hunt ostriches, to snare partridges, to draw well water, and even − with the help of his friends − to ride to his own burial.  By reputation the quintessential gaucho caudillo Juan Manuel de Rosas could throw his hat on the ground and scoop it up while galloping his horse, without touching the saddle with his hand. For the gaucho, the horse was absolutely essential to his survival for, said Hudson: "he must every day traverse vast distances, see quickly, judge rapidly, be ready at all times to encounter hunger and fatigue, violent changes of temperature, great and sudden perils".  A popular "copla" was: It was the gaucho's passion to own all his steeds in matching colours. Hudson recalled: The gaucho, from the poorest worker on horseback to the largest owner of lands and cattle, has, or had in those days, a fancy for having all his riding-horses of one colour. Every man as a rule had his tropilla — his own half a dozen or a dozen or more saddle-horses, and he would have them all as nearly alike as possible, so that one man had chestnuts, another browns, bays, silver- or iron-greys, duns, fawns, cream-noses, or blacks, or whites, or piebalds.  The caudillo El Chacho Peñalosa described the low point of his life as "In Chile − and on foot!" ("En Chile y a pie".)

Culture.

The gaucho plays an important symbolic role in the nationalist feelings of this region, especially that of Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The epic poem "Martín Fierro" by José Hernández (considered by some the national epic of Argentina) used the gaucho as a symbol against corruption and of Argentine national tradition, pitted against Europeanising tendencies. Martín Fierro, the hero of the poem, is drafted into the Argentine military for a border war, deserts, and becomes an outlaw and fugitive. The image of the free gaucho is often contrasted to the slaves who worked the northern Brazilian lands. Further literary descriptions are found in Ricardo Güiraldes' "Don Segundo Sombra". Like the North American cowboys, as discussed in Richard W. Slatta, "Cowboys of the Americas", gauchos were generally reputed to be strong, honest, silent types, but proud and capable of violence when provoked. The gaucho tendency to violence over petty matters is also recognized as a typical trait. Gauchos' use of the famous "facón" (large knife generally tucked into the rear of the gaucho sash) is legendary, often associated with considerable bloodletting. Historically, the facón was typically the only eating instrument that a gaucho carried.  Also like the cowboy, as shown in Richard W. Slatta, "Cowboys of the Americas", gauchos were and remain proud and great horseriders. Typically, a gaucho's horse constituted most of what he owned in the world. During the wars of the 19th century in the Southern Cone, the cavalries on all sides were composed almost entirely of gauchos. In Argentina, gaucho armies such as that of Martín Miguel de Güemes, slowed Spanish advances. Furthermore, many caudillos relied on gaucho armies to control the Argentine provinces.  The gaucho diet was composed almost entirely of beef while on the range, supplemented by "yerba mate" ("erva-mate" in Portuguese), an herbal infusion made from the leaves of a South American tree, a type of holly rich in caffeine and nutrients.  Gauchos dressed quite distinctly from North American cowboys, and used "bolas" or "boleadoras" - in Portuguese "boleadeiras" - (three leather bound rocks tied together with approximately three feet long leather straps) in addition to the familiar "North American" lariat or riata. The typical gaucho outfit would include a "poncho" (which doubled as a saddle blanket and as sleeping gear), a "facón" (large knife), a "rebenque" (leather whip), and loose-fitting trousers called "bombachas", belted with a "tirador", or a "chiripá", a loincloth. During winters, gauchos wore heavy wool ponchos to protect against cold.  Their tasks were basically to move the cattle between grazing fields, or to market sites such as the port of Buenos Aires. The "yerra" consists of branding the animal with the owner’s sign. The taming of animals was another of their usual activities. Taming was a trade especially appreciated throughout Argentina and competitions to domesticate wild foal remained in force at festivals. The majority of Gauchos were illiterate and considered as countrymen.  Gauchos also drank a typical drink called mate, traditionally prepared in a hollowed-out gourd and sipped through a mate metal straw called a bombilla. The water for mate was heated (without boiling) on a stove in a kettle.

Modern influences.

"Gauchito" (a boy in the Argentine colors and a gaucho hat) was the mascot for the 1978 FIFA World Cup.

A gaucho () or gaúcho () is a skilled horseman, reputed to be brave and unruly. The gaucho is a national symbol in Argentina and Uruguay, but is also a strong culture in Paraguay and southern Brazil. Gauchos became greatly admired and renowned in legends, folklore and literature and became an important part of their regional cultural tradition. Beginning late in the 19th century, after the heyday of the gauchos, they were celebrated by South American writers.


Description and biology.

Syngnathids are found in temperate and tropical seas across the world. Most species inhabit shallow, coastal waters, but a few are known from the open ocean, especially in association with sargassum mats. They are characterised by their elongated snouts, fused jaws, the absence of pelvic fins, and by thick plates of bony armour covering their bodies. The armour gives them a rigid body, so they swim by rapidly fanning their fins. As a result, they are relatively slow compared with other fishes, but are able to control their movements with great precision, including hovering in place for extended periods.  Uniquely, after syngnathid females lay their eggs, the male then fertilizes and carries the eggs during incubation, using one of several methods. Male seahorses have a specialized ventral pouch to carry the eggs, male sea dragons attach the eggs to their tails, and male pipefish may do either, depending on their species. The most fundamental difference between the different lineages of the family Syngnathidae is the location of male brood pouch. The two locations are on the tail (Urophori) and on the abdomen (Gastrophori). There is also variation in Syngnathid pouch complexity with brood pouches ranging from simple ventral gluing areas to fully enclosed pouches. In species with more developed, enclosed pouches it has been demonstrated that males directly provide their brood with not only nutrients but also immunity to pathogens. Syngnathids with more developed brood pouches are also known to be able to partially or completely abort a brood from a female with low fitness.  A wide variety of mate choice and mating competition has been observed in Syngnathidae. For example, "Hippocampus fuscus" exhibits conventional sex roles of males competing for female access while "Corythoichthys haematopterus" is completely sex role reversed. Most conventional sex role syngnathids are monogamous whereas sex role reversed species mostly exhibit polygamous behavior.  Seahorses and pipefish also have a unique feeding mechanism, known as elastic recoil feeding. Although the mechanism is not well understood, seahorses and pipefish appear to have the ability to store energy from contraction of their epaxial muscles (used in upward head rotation), which they then release, resulting in extremely fast head rotation to accelerate their mouths towards unsuspecting prey.

The Syngnathidae is a family of fish which includes seahorses, pipefishes, and seadragons. The name is derived from Greek, σύν ("syn"), meaning "together", and γνάθος ("gnathos"), meaning "jaw". This fused jaw trait is something the entire family has in common.


Beginnings.

Nipkow was born in Lauenburg (now Lębork) in the Prussian province of Pomerania, now part of Poland. While at school in neighbouring Neustadt (now Wejherowo), in the province of West Prussia, Nipkow experimented in telephony and the transmission of moving pictures. After graduation, he went to Berlin in order to study science. He studied physiological optics with Hermann von Helmholtz, and electro-physics with Adolf Slaby.

Nipkow disk.

While still a student he conceived an "electric telescope", mainly known for the idea of using a spiral-perforated disk (Nipkow disk), to divide a picture into a linear sequence of points. Accounts of its invention state that the idea came to him while sitting alone at home with an oil lamp on Christmas Eve, 1883. Alexander Bain had transmitted images telegraphically in the 1840s but the Nipkow disk improved the encoding process.  He applied to the imperial patent office in Berlin for a patent covering an "electric telescope" for the "electric reproduction of illuminating objects", in the category "electric apparatuses". This was granted on 15 January 1885, retroactive to January 6, 1884. It is not known whether Nipkow ever attempted a practical realization of this disk but one may assume that he himself never constructed one. The patent lapsed after 15 years owing to lack of interest. Nipkow took up a position as a designer at an institute in Berlin-Buchloh and did not continue work on the broadcasting of pictures.

First TV systems.

The first television broadcasts used an optical-mechanical picture scanning method, the method that Nipkow had helped create with his disk; he could claim credit for the invention. Nipkow recounted his first sight of television at a Berlin radio show in 1928: "The televisions stood in dark cells. Hundreds stood and waited patiently for the moment at which they would see television for the first time. I waited among them, growing ever more nervous. Now for the first time, I would see what I had devised 45 years ago. Finally, I reached the front row; a dark cloth was pushed to the side, and I saw before me a flickering image, not easy to discern." The system demonstrated was from the company Telefunken.  From the early 1930s, total electronic picture scanning, based on the work of Manfred von Ardenne, became increasingly prevalent and Nipkow's invention was no longer essential to further development of television.

"Paul Nipkow" Transmitter.

The world's first public television station, started in Berlin in 1935, was named Fernsehsender "Paul Nipkow" after Nipkow – the "spiritual father" of the core element of first-generation television technology. He became honorary president of the "television council" of the "Imperial Broadcasting Chamber". Nipkow's glory was used by Hitler the Nazi government as a tool of nationalist scientific propaganda. Nipkow died in Berlin in 1940 two days after his 80th birthday and had an official ceremony organised by the Nazi government.  In one of the last episodes of the British spy drama series "Secret Army", Nipkow is credited with being the sole inventor of television by as he unveils the closed-circuit TV surveillance cameras and monitors he has set up at Gestapo headquarters in Brussels.

Bibliography.

SCHMIDT, Claus-Dietrich, "Paul Nipkow. Erfinder des Fernsehens (1860–1940). Sein Leben in den technischen Fortschritt", Lebork Museum, 2009. The only detailed biography on Nipkow.

Paul Julius Gottlieb Nipkow (22 August 1860 – 24 August 1940) was a German technician and inventor. He invented the Nipkow disk, which laid the foundation of television, since his disk was a fundamental component in the first televisions. Hundreds of stations experimented with television broadcasting using his disk in the 1920s and 1930s, until it was superseded by all-electronic systems in the 1940s.


Origin.

A will of 1493 by the Milanese Sforza family mentions lace created with twelve bobbins.  Bobbin lace evolved from passementerie or braid-making in 16th-century Italy. Genoa was famous for its braids, hence it is not surprising to find bobbin lace developed in the city. It traveled along with the Spanish troops through Europe. Coarse "passements" of gold and silver-wrapped threads or colored silks gradually became finer, and later bleached linen yarn was used to make both braids and edgings.  The making of bobbin lace was easier to learn than the elaborate cutwork of the 16th century, and the tools and materials for making linen bobbin lace were inexpensive. There was a ready market for bobbin lace of all qualities, and women throughout Europe soon took up the craft which earned a better income than spinning, sewing, weaving or other home-based textile arts. Bobbin lace-making was established in charity schools, almshouses, and convents.  In the 17th century, the textile centers of Flanders and Normandy eclipsed Italy as the premiere sources for fine bobbin lace, but until the coming of mechanization hand-lacemaking continued to be practiced throughout Europe, suffering only in those periods of simplicity when lace itself fell out of fashion.

Structure.

Bobbin lace may be made with coarse or fine threads. Traditionally it was made with linen, silk, wool, or, later, cotton threads, or with precious metals. Today it is made with a variety of natural and synthetic fibers and with wire and other filaments.  Elements of bobbin lace may include toile or "toilé" (clothwork), "réseau" (the net-like ground of continuous lace), fillings of part laces, tapes, gimp, picots, tallies, ribs and rolls. Not all styles of bobbin lace include all these elements.

Traditional types.

Many styles of lace were made in the heyday of lacemaking (approximately the 16th–18th centuries) before machine-made lace became available.

Contemporary laces.

The advent of machine-made lace at first pushed lace-makers into more complicated designs beyond the capabilities of early machines, then simpler designs so they could compete on price, and finally pushed them out of business almost entirely.  The resurgence of lace-making is a recent phenomenon and is mostly done as a hobby. Lacemaking groups still meet in regions as varied as Devonshire, England and Orange County, California. In the European towns where lace was once a major industry, especially in Belgium, England, Spain (Camariñas and Almagro), northern and centre Portugal, France and Slovenia lacemakers still demonstrate the craft and sell their wares, though their customer base has shifted from the wealthy nobility to the curious tourist.  Still new types of lace are being developed such as the 3D Rosalibre and a colored version of Milanese lace by borrowing rolls from Duchesse lace to store various shades and colors. Other artists are giving grounds a major role by distorting and varying stitches, pin distances and thread sizes or colours. The variations are explored by experimentation and mathematics and algorithms. The lace maintaining its shape without stiffening is no longer a requirement. Inspiring journals, guilds and foundations show that old techniques with a new twist can challenge young people to create works that can definitely classify as art. A Dutch design graduate in 2006 discovered bobbin lace was a technique to make a fancy fence. The first fences became museum pieces. The fences are now produced in Bangalore by concrete rebar plaiters.

Tools.

The major tools to make bobbin lace are a pillow, bobbins, pins and prickings. The part laces also require a crochet hook, very fine types of lace require very fine hooks. There are different types of pillows and bobbins linked to areas, eras and type of lace.

Bobbins.

Bobbins, which are traditionally made of wood or bone, are used to hold the thread. They come in different shapes, often associated with certain types of lace. The parts of a bobbin are the neck, which is where the thread is wound, a head, where thread is hitched to keep it from coming unwound, and the shank, which is used as a handle. Bobbins from England may also have a beaded spangle at the end of the shank, which makes the bobbin heavier and helps with tensioning the thread. Bobbins are usually 3 1/2 - 4 inches long, though they may be shorter or longer. Bobbins are wound and used in pairs.  There are many types of bobbins, including:

Types of pillow.

The pillows must be firm, or otherwise the pins will wobble. The pillows were traditionally stuffed with straw, but nowadays polystyrene (styrofoam) is generally used.  An early type of pillow can be seen in The Lace-Maker by Caspar Netscher. The pillow has a wooden frame, and is slightly sloping. The lace-maker rests it on her lap. The bolster or cylindrical pillow was much cheaper to make as it is just a fabric bag stuffed with straw. It was used in Bedfordshire lace. It needs a stand as it does not have a flat bottom. Usually the bolster had the pattern pinned round the cylinder, so by turning the pillow, the lace could be as long as was needed. However, Maltese lacemakers used the pillow the other way. They had a long thin pillow, which they rested against something. Then they worked the lace down the length of the pillow.  This problem (of the lace needing to be longer than the pillow) is solved in a different way by the roller pillow, which has a small roller, for working the lace, set into a larger area, where the bobbins are laid. This means that the pattern can be pinned round the roller, but the pillow has a flat bottom.  The cheapest modern pillow is domed and made of polystyrene (styrofoam). It is often called a cookie pillow, because of its shape. Another modern pillow is a block pillow, with a frame which holds covered polystyrene blocks. The blocks can be moved around as the lace progresses, to keep the lace being worked on at the centre of the pillow.

Lacemaking organizations.

Lacemaking is considered a folk art with technique and materials varying widely across the globe. Most lacemakers belong to regional guilds within their country of origin. Guilds can be devoted to one kind of lace, often that which developed locally, or may include makers of all kinds. In the United States, most guilds are organized within chapters of the International Organization of Lace, which also includes Canadian lace guilds. Internationally, the "Organisation Internationale de la Dentelle au Fuseau et à l'Aiguille" (International Bobbin and Needle Lace Organization) is the primary governing and networking body for lacemakers. OIDFA organizes annual global congresses, regional fairs, and local gatherings to promote the appreciation and knowledge of lacemaking.

Bobbin lace is a lace textile made by braiding and twisting lengths of thread, which are wound on bobbins to manage them. As the work progresses, the weaving is held in place with pins set in a lace pillow, the placement of the pins usually determined by a pattern or pricking pinned on the pillow.


Life.

Breker was born in Elberfeld, in the west of Germany, the son of stonemason Arnold Breker. He began to study architecture, along with stone-carving and anatomy. At age 20 he entered the Düsseldorf Academy of Arts where he concentrated on sculpture, studying under Hubert Netzer and Wilhelm Kreis. He first visited Paris in 1924, shortly before finishing his studies. There he met with Jean Cocteau, Jean Renoir, Pablo Picasso, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, and Alfred Flechtheim. In 1927 he moved to Paris, which he thereafter considered to be his home, in the same year he had an exhibition with Alf Bayrle. Breker was quickly accepted by the art dealer Alfred Flechtheim. He also established close relationships with important figures in the art world, including Charles Despiau, Isamu Noguchi, Maurice de Vlaminck and André Dunoyer de Segonzac, all of whom he later portrayed. He travelled to North Africa, producing lithographs which he published under the title "Tunisian Journey". He also visited Aristide Maillol, who was later to describe Breker as "Germany's Michelangelo".  In 1932, he was awarded a prize by the Prussian Ministry of Culture, which allowed him to stay in Rome for a year. In 1934 he returned to Germany on the advice of Max Liebermann. At this time Alfred Rosenberg, editor of the Nazi newspaper "Völkischer Beobachter", actually denounced some of Breker's work as degenerate art. However, Breker was supported by many Nazi leaders, especially Adolf Hitler. Even Rosenberg later hailed his sculptures as expressions of the "mighty momentum and will power” (“Wucht und Willenhaftigkeit”) of Nazi Germany. He took commissions from the Nazis from 1933 through 1942, for example participating in a show of his work in occupied Paris in 1942, where he met Jean Cocteau, who appreciated his work. He maintained personal relationships with Albert Speer and with Hitler. In 1936 he won the commission for two sculptures representing athletic prowess, intended for the 1936 Olympic games, one representing a Decathlete (“Zehnkämpfer”) and the other The Victress (“Die Siegerin”). In 1937 he married Demetra Messala (Δήμητρα Μεσσάλα), a Greek model. The same year, Breker joined the Nazi Party and was made "official state sculptor" by Hitler, given a large property and provided a studio with forty-three assistants. Hitler also exempted him from military service. His twin sculptures "The Party" and "The Army" held a prominent position at the entrance to Albert Speer's new Reich Chancellery.  The neoclassical nature of his work, with titles like "Comradeship", "Torchbearer", and "Sacrifice", typified Nazi ideals, and suited the characteristics of Nazi architecture. On closer inspection, though, the proportions of his figures, the highly colouristic treatment of his surfaces (the strong contrasts between dark and light accents), and the melodramatic tension of their musculatures perhaps invites comparison with the Italian Mannerist sculptors of the 16th century. This Mannerist tendency to Breker's neoclassicism may suggest closer affinities to concurrent expressionist tendencies in German Modernism than is acknowledged.  Until the fall of the Third Reich, Breker was a professor of visual arts in Berlin. While nearly all of his sculptures survived World War II, more than 90% of his public work was destroyed by the allies after the war. In 1946, Breker was offered a commission by Joseph Stalin but he refused and stated "One dictatorship is sufficient for me". In 1948 Breker was designated as a "fellow traveller" of the Nazis and fined, upon which he returned to Düsseldorf. The latter city remained his base, with periods of residence in Paris. During this time he worked as an architect. However, he continued to receive commissions for sculptures, producing a number of works in his familiar classical style, working for businesses and individual patrons. He also produced many portrait sculptures. In 1970 he was commissioned by the king of Morocco to produce work for the United Nations Building in Casablanca, but the work was destroyed. Many other works followed, including portraits of Anwar Sadat and Konrad Adenauer. Breker's rehabilitation continued, culminating in plans for the creation of a Breker museum, funded by the Bodenstein family, who set aside Schloss Nörvenich (between Aachen and Cologne) for the purpose. The Arno Breker Museum was inaugurated in 1985.  Breker's rehabilitation led to backlashes from anti-Nazi activists, including controversy in Paris when some of his works were exhibited at the Centre Georges Pompidou in 1981. In the same year anti-Breker demonstrations accompanied an exhibition in Berlin. Breker's admirers insisted that he had never been a supporter of Nazi ideology (despite being a member of the Nazi Party), but had simply accepted their patronage.  Breker's last major work was a monumental sculpture of Alexander the Great intended to be located in Greece.

Marriages and family.

Arno Breker was married twice. His first wife, Demetra Messala, was a Greek model. She died in 1956 in a car accident. He remarried in 1958 to Charlotte Kluge. They had two children, Gerhart (1959) and Carola (1962). Breker remained married to Kluge until his death in 1991.

References.

Notes  Further reading

Arno Breker (19 July 1900 – 13 February 1991) was a German architect and sculptor who is best known for his public works in Nazi Germany, where they were endorsed by the authorities as the antithesis of degenerate art. One of his better known statues is "Die Partei", representing the spirit of the Nazi Party that flanked one side of the carriage entrance to Albert Speer's new Reich Chancellery.


Literary accounts.

According to Quintus Smyrnaeus, Odysseus thought of building a great wooden horse (the horse being the emblem of Troy), hiding an elite force inside, and fooling the Trojans into wheeling the horse into the city as a trophy. Under the leadership of Epeius, the Greeks built the wooden horse in three days. Odysseus's plan called for one man to remain outside the horse; he would act as though the Greeks had abandoned him, leaving the horse as a gift for the Trojans. An inscription was engraved on the horse reading: "For their return home, the Greeks dedicate this offering to Athena". Then they burned their tents and left to Tenedos by night. Greek soldier Sinon was "abandoned" and was to signal to the Greeks by lighting a beacon. In Virgil's poem, Sinon, the only volunteer for the role, successfully convinces the Trojans that he has been left behind and that the Greeks are gone. Sinon tells the Trojans that the Horse is an offering to the goddess Athena, meant to atone for the previous desecration of her temple at Troy by the Greeks and ensure a safe journey home for the Greek fleet. Sinon tells the Trojans that the Horse was built to be too large for them to take it into their city and gain the favor of Athena for themselves.  While questioning Sinon, the Trojan priest Laocoön guesses the plot and warns the Trojans, in Virgil's famous line "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes" ("I fear Greeks, even those bearing gifts"), Danai ( "Danaos") or Danaans (Homer's name for the Greeks) being the ones who had built the Trojan Horse. However, the god Poseidon sends two sea serpents to strangle him and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus before any Trojan heeds his warning. According to Apollodorus the two serpents were sent by Apollo, whom Laocoon had insulted by sleeping with his wife in front of the "divine image". In the "Odyssey", Homer says that Helen of Troy also guesses the plot and tries to trick and uncover the Greek soldiers inside the horse by imitating the voices of their wives, and Anticlus attempts to answer, but Odysseus shuts his mouth with his hand. King Priam's daughter Cassandra, the soothsayer of Troy, insists that the horse will be the downfall of the city and its royal family. She too is ignored, hence their doom and loss of the war. This incident is mentioned in the "Odyssey":  The most detailed and most familiar version is in Virgil's "Aeneid", Book II (trans. A. S. Kline).  Book II includes Laocoön saying: "" ("Do not trust the horse, Trojans! Whatever it is, I fear the Danaans [Greeks], even those bearing gifts.")  Well before Virgil, the story is also alluded to in Greek classical literature. In Euripides' play "Trojan Women", written in 415 BC, the god Poseidon proclaims: "For, from his home beneath Parnassus, Phocian Epeus, aided by the craft of Pallas, framed a horse to bear within its womb an armed host, and sent it within the battlements, fraught with death; whence in days to come men shall tell of 'the wooden horse,' with its hidden load of warriors."

Men in the horse.

Thirty of the Achaeans' best warriors hid in the Trojan horse's womb and two spies in its mouth. Other sources give different numbers: The "Bibliotheca" 50; Tzetzes 23; and Quintus Smyrnaeus gives the names of 30, but says there were more. In late tradition the number was standardized at 40. Their names follow:

Factual explanations.

There has been speculation that the Trojan Horse may have been a battering ram or other sort of siege engine resembling, to some extent, a horse, and that the description of the use of this device was then transformed into a myth by later oral historians who were not present at the battle and were unaware of that meaning of the name. Assyrians at the time used siege machines with animal names, often covered with dampened horse hides to protect against flaming arrows; it is possible that the Trojan Horse was such. Pausanias, who lived in the 2nd century AD, wrote in his book "Description of Greece" "That the work of Epeius was a contrivance to make a breach in the Trojan wall is known to everybody who does not attribute utter silliness to the Phrygians" where, by Phrygians, he means the Trojans.  Some authors have suggested that the gift might also have been a ship, with warriors hidden inside. It has been noted that the terms used to put men in the horse are those used by ancient Greek authors when describing the embarkation of men on a ship, and that there are analogies between the building of ships by Paris at the beginning of the Trojan saga and the building of the horse at the end; ships are called "sea-horses" once in the Odyssey. This view has recently gained support from naval archaeology: ancient text and images show that a Phoenician merchant ship type decorated with a horse head, called "hippos" ('horse') by Greeks, became very diffuse in the Levant area around the beginning of the first millennium BC, being used to trade precious metals, and sometimes to pay tribute after the end of a war; it is suggested therefore that the original story viewed the Greek soldiers hiding inside the hull of such a vessel, possibly disguised as a tribute, and that at some time this term was misunderstood in the oral transmission of the story, giving origin to the Trojan horse myth.  A more speculative theory, originally proposed by Fritz Schachermeyr, states that the Trojan Horse is a metaphor for a destructive earthquake that damaged the walls of Troy and allowed the Greeks in. In his theory, the horse represents Poseidon, who as well as being god of the sea was also god of horses and earthquakes. This theory is supported by the fact that archaeological digs have found that Troy VI was heavily damaged in an earthquake, but is hard to square with the mythological claim that Poseidon himself built the walls of Troy in the first place.

Ancient representations.

Pictorial representations of the Trojan Horse earlier than, or contemporary to, the first literary appearances of the episode can help clarify what was the meaning of the story as perceived by its contemporary audience. There are few ancient (before 480 BC) depictions of the Trojan Horse surviving. The earliest is on a Boeotian fibula dating from about 700 BC. Other early depictions are found on two relief pithoi from the Greek islands Mykonos and Tinos, both generally dated between 675 and 650 BC. The one from Mykonos (see figure) is known as the Mykonos vase. Historian Michael Wood dates the Mykonos vase to the eighth century BC, before the written accounts attributed by tradition to Homer, and posits this as evidence that the story of the Trojan Horse existed before those accounts were written. Other archaic representations of the Trojan horse are found on a Corinthian aryballos dating back to 560 BC (see figure), on a vase fragment to 540 BC (see figure), and on an Etruscan carnelian scarab.

Modern metaphorical use.

It is used metaphorically to mean any trick or strategy that causes a target to invite a foe into a securely protected place; or to deceive by appearance, hiding malevolent intent in an outwardly benign exterior; to subvert from within using deceptive means.

The Trojan Horse is a story from the Trojan War about the subterfuge that the Greeks used to enter the independent city of Troy and win the war. In the canonical version, after a fruitless 10-year siege, the Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse and hid a select force of men inside, including Odysseus. The Greeks pretended to sail away, and the Trojans pulled the horse into their city as a victory trophy. That night the Greek force crept out of the horse and opened the gates for the rest of the Greek army, which had sailed back under cover of night. The Greeks entered and destroyed the city of Troy, ending the war.


Background.

During the period of Mao Zedong's leadership in China, the birth rate fell from 37 per thousand to 20 per thousand. Infant mortality declined from 227 per thousand births in 1949 to 53 per thousand in 1981, and life expectancy dramatically increased from around 35 years in 1948 to 66 years in 1976. Until the 1960s, the government encouraged families to have as many children as possible because of Mao's belief that population growth empowered the country, preventing the emergence of family planning programs earlier in China's development. The population grew from around 540million in 1949 to 940million in 1976. Beginning in 1970, citizens were required to marry at later ages and many were limited to have only two children.  Although China's fertility rate plummeted faster than anywhere else in the world during the 1970s under these restrictions, the Chinese government thought that fertility was still too high, influenced by the global debate over a possible overpopulation crisis suggested by organizations such as the Club of Rome and the Sierra Club. In response, the authorities began encouraging one-child families in 1978, and in 1979 announced that they intended to advocate for one-child families. In 1980, the central government organized a meeting in Chengdu to discuss the speed and scope of one-child restrictions.

History.

The one-child policy was originally designed to be a "One-Generation Policy". It was enforced at the provincial level and enforcement varied; some provinces had more relaxed restrictions. The one-child limit was most strictly enforced in densely populated urban areas. When this policy was first introduced, 6.1 million families that had already given birth to a child were given the "One Child Honorary Certificates." This was a pledge they had to make to ensure they would not have more children.  Beginning in 1980, the official policy granted local officials the flexibility to make exceptions and allow second children in the case of "practical difficulties" (such as cases in which the father was a disabled serviceman) or when both parents were single children, and some provinces had other exemptions worked into their policies as well. In most areas, families were allowed to apply to have a second child if their first-born was a daughter. Furthermore, families with children with disabilities have different policies and families whose first child suffers from physical disability, mental illness, or intellectual disability were allowed to have more children. However, second children were sometimes subject to birth spacing (usually 3 or 4 years). Children born in overseas countries were not counted under the policy if they did not obtain Chinese citizenship. Chinese citizens returning from abroad were allowed to have a second child. Sichuan province allowed exemptions for couples of certain backgrounds. By one estimate there were at least 22 ways in which parents could qualify for exceptions to the law towards the end of the one-child policy's existence. As of 2007, only 36% of the population were subjected to a strict one-child limit. 53% were permitted to have a second child if their first was a daughter; 9.6% of Chinese couples were permitted two children regardless of their gender; and 1.6% – mainly Tibetans – had no limit at all.  Following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, a new exception to the regulations was announced in Sichuan for parents who had lost children in the earthquake. Similar exceptions had previously been made for parents of severely disabled or deceased children. People have also tried to evade the policy by giving birth to a second child in Hong Kong, but at least for Guangdong residents, the one-child policy was also enforced if the birth was given in Hong Kong or abroad.  In accordance with China's affirmative action policies towards ethnic minorities, all non-Han ethnic groups are subjected to different laws and were usually allowed to have two children in urban areas, and three or four in rural areas. Han Chinese living in rural towns were also permitted to have two children. Because of couples such as these, as well as those who simply paid a fine (or "social maintenance fee") to have more children, the overall fertility rate of mainland China was close to 1.4 children per woman.  On 6 January 2010, the former National Population and Family Planning Commission issued the "national population development" 12th five-year plan.

Criticism.

The policy is controversial outside China for many reasons, including accusations of human rights abuses in the implementation of the policy, as well as concerns about negative social consequences.

Statement of the effect of the policy on birth reduction.

The Chinese government, quoting Zhai Zhenwu, director of Renmin University's School of Sociology and Population in Beijing, estimates that 400million births were prevented by the one-child policy as of 2011, while some demographers challenge that number, putting the figure at perhaps half that level, according to CNN. Zhai clarified that the 400million estimate referred not just to the one-child policy, but includes births prevented by predecessor policies implemented one decade before, stating that "there are many different numbers out there but it doesn't change the basic fact that the policy prevented a really large number of births".  This claim is disputed by Wang Feng, director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy, and Cai Yong from the Carolina Population Center at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Wang claims that "Thailand and China have had almost identical fertility trajectories since the mid 1980s", and "Thailand does not have a one-child policy." China's Health

Unequal enforcement.

Corrupted government officials and especially wealthy individuals have often been able to violate the policy in spite of fines. Filmmaker Zhang Yimou had three children and was subsequently fined 7.48million yuan ($1.2million). For example, between 2000 and 2005, as many as 1,968 officials in Hunan province were found to be violating the policy, according to the provincial family planning commission; also exposed

Human rights violations.

The one-child policy has been challenged for violating a human right to determine the size of one's own proper family. According to a 1968 proclamation of the International Conference on Human Rights, "Parents have a basic human right to determine freely and responsibly the number and the spacing of their children."  According to the UK newspaper "The Daily Telegraph", a quota of 20,000 abortions and sterilizations was set for Huaiji County, Guangdong in one year due to reported disregard

Effect on infanticide rates.

Sex-selected abortion, abandonment, and infanticide are illegal in China. Nevertheless, the US Department of State, the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and the human rights organization Amnesty International have all declared that infanticide still exists. A writer for the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs wrote, "The 'one-child' policy has also led to what

See also.

General:

The one-child policy was part of a birth planning program designed to control the size of the rapidly growing population of the People's Republic of China. Distinct from the family planning policies of most other countries, which focus on providing contraceptive options to help women have the number of children they want, it set a limit on the number of births parents could have, making it the world's most extreme example of population planning. It was introduced in 1979 (after a decade-long two-child policy), modified beginning in the mid 1980s to allow rural parents a second child if the first was a daughter, and then lasted three more decades before the government announced in late 2015 a reversion to a two-child limit. The policy also allowed exceptions for some other groups, including ethnic minorities. Thus, the term "one-child policy" has been called a "misnomer", because for nearly 30 of the 36 years that it existed (1979–2015), about half of all parents in China were allowed to have a second child.


Life.

Arrau was born in Chillán, Chile, the son of Carlos Arrau, an ophthalmologist who died when Claudio was only a year old, and Lucrecia León Bravo de Villalba, a piano teacher. He belonged to an old, prominent family of Southern Chile. His ancestor Lorenzo de Arrau, a Spanish engineer, was sent to Chile by King Carlos III of Spain. Through his great-grandmother, María del Carmen Daroch del Solar, Arrau was a descendant of the Campbells of Glenorchy, a Scottish noble family. Arrau was raised as a Catholic, but gave it up in his late teens. Arrau was a child prodigy and he could read music before he could read words, but unlike many virtuosos, there had never been a professional musician in his family. His mother was an amateur pianist and introduced him to the instrument. At the age of 4 he was reading Beethoven sonatas, and he gave his first concert a year later. When Arrau was 6 he auditioned in front of several congressmen and President Pedro Montt, who was so impressed that he began arrangements for Arrau's future education. At age 8, Arrau was sent on a ten-year-long grant from the Chilean government to study in Germany, travelling with his mother and sister Lucrecia. He was admitted to the Stern Conservatory of Berlin where he eventually became a pupil of Martin Krause, who had studied under Franz Liszt. At the age of 11 Arrau could play Liszt's "Transcendental Etudes", one of the most difficult works for piano, as well as Brahms's "Paganini Variations". Arrau's first recordings were made on Aeolian Duo-Art player piano music rolls. Krause died in his fifth year of teaching Arrau, leaving the 15-year-old student devastated by the loss of his mentor; Arrau did not continue formal study after that point.  In 1935, Arrau gave a celebrated rendition of the entire keyboard works of Johann Sebastian Bach over 12 recitals. In 1936, Arrau gave a complete Mozart keyboard works over 5 recitals, and followed with the complete Schubert and Weber cycles. In 1938, for the first time, Arrau gave the complete Beethoven piano sonatas and concertos in Mexico City. Arrau repeated this several times in his lifetime, including in New York and London. He became one of the leading authorities on Beethoven in the 20th century.  In 1937, Arrau married mezzo-soprano Ruth Schneider (1908–1989), a German national. They had three children: Carmen (1938–2006), Mario (1940–1988) and Christopher (1959). In 1941 the Arrau family emigrated from Germany to the United States, eventually settling in Douglaston, Queens, New York, where Arrau spent his remaining years. He became a dual U.S.-Chilean citizen in 1979.  Arrau died on June 9, 1991, at the age of 88, in Mürzzuschlag, Austria, from complications of emergency surgery performed on June 8 to correct an intestinal blockage. His remains were interred in his native city of Chillán, Chile.

Tone and approach to music.

Daniel Barenboim said that Claudio Arrau had a particular sound with two aspects: first a thickness, full-bodied and orchestral, and second an utterly disembodied timbre, quite spellbinding. Sir Colin Davis said: "His sound is amazing, and it is entirely his own... no one else has it exactly that way. His devotion to Liszt is extraordinary. He ennobles that music in a way no one else in the world can." According to American critic Harold C. Schonberg, Arrau always put "a decidedly romantic piano tone in his interpretations".  Arrau was an intellectual and a deeply reflective interpreter. He read widely while travelling, and he learned English, Italian, German, and French in addition to his native Spanish. He became familiar with Jung's psychology in his twenties.  Arrau's attitude toward music was very serious. He preached fidelity to the score, but also the use of imagination. Although he often played with slower and more deliberate tempi from his middle age onward, he had a reputation as a fabulous virtuoso earlier in his career, a reputation supported by recordings he made at this time, such as Balakirev's Islamey and Liszt's Paganini études. However, even late in his career, he often tended to play with less restraint in live concerts than in studio recordings.  Arrau was a man of remarkable fortitude; even towards the end of his life he invariably programmed very large, demanding concerts, including works such as Beethoven's Emperor Concerto and Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1.

Contributions.

Numerous pianists studied with Arrau, including Karlrobert Kreiten, Garrick Ohlsson, Roberto Szidon, Stephen Drury and Roberto Eyzaguirre among others.  He was a frequent recital performer: from age 40 to 60 he averaged 120 concerts a season, with a very large repertoire. At one time or another, he performed the complete keyboard works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin; but also programmed such off-the-beaten-path composers as Alkan and Busoni and illuminated obscure corners of the Liszt repertoire. It has been estimated that Arrau's total repertoire would carry him through 76 recital evenings, not counting the 60-odd works with orchestra which he also knew.  Arrau recorded a considerable part of the piano music of Schumann, Chopin and Liszt. He edited the complete Beethoven piano sonatas for the Peters Urtext edition and recorded all of them on the Philips label in 1962–1966. He recorded almost all of them once again in 1984-1990 along with Mozart's complete piano sonatas. He is also famous for his recordings of Schubert, Brahms and Debussy.  Notable recordings:  At the time of his death at age 88 in the midst of a European concert tour, Arrau was working on a recording of the complete works of Bach for keyboard, and was also preparing some pieces of Haydn, Mendelssohn, Reger and Busoni, and Boulez's third piano sonata.  The Robert Schumann Society established the Arrau Medal in 1991. It has been awarded to András Schiff, Martha Argerich and Murray Perahia.

Album prizes.

Brahms 2 Piano Concertos with Carlo Maria Giulini and Philharmonia Orchestra [EMI Recorded in 1960 & 1962]  Beethoven 5 Piano Concertos with Bernard Haitink and Concertgebouw Orchestra [Philips Recorded in 1964]  Schumann Sonate Op.11, Fantasiestücke Op.111 [Philips Recorded in 1967 & 1968]  Brahms 2 Piano Concertos with Bernard Haitink and Concertgebouw Orchestra [Philips Recorded in 1969]  Liszt Complete Concert Paraphrases on Operas by Verdi [Philips Recorded in 1971]  Liszt 12 Etudes d'exécution Transcendente [Philips Recorded in 1974 & 1976]  Liszt 2 Piano Concertos with Sir Colin Davis and London Symphony Orchestra [Philips Recorded in 1979]  Chopin Complete Nocturnes [Philips Recorded in 1977 & 1978]  Chopin Complete Etudes [EMI Recorded in 1956, Remastered in 1987]  Chopin Complete Etudes [EMI Recorded in 1956, Remastered in 1987]  Schumann Piano Concerto, Carnaval & Beethoven Sonata Op.111 [EMI Filmed in 1963, 1961 & 1970]  Liszt Solo Piano Works: Ballade No.2, Jeux d'eaux à la villa d'Este, Vallée d'Obermann... [Philips Recorded in 1969]  Schumann Comprehensive Solo Piano Works [Philips Recorded from 1966 to 1976]  Beethoven 5 Piano Concertos with Sir Colin Davis and Staatskapelle Dresden [Philips Recorded in 1984 & 1987]  Chopin Complete Etudes [EMI Recorded in 1956, Remastered in 1987]  Chopin Complete Etudes [EMI Recorded in 1956, Remastered in 1987]

Claudio Arrau León (; February 6, 1903June 9, 1991) was a Chilean pianist known for his interpretations of a vast repertoire spanning the baroque to 20th-century composers, especially Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Brahms. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century.


History.

Origins.

The word comes from Renaissance Latin "gnomus", which first appears in the "Ex Libro de Nymphis, Sylvanis, Pygmaeis, Salamandris et Gigantibus, etc" by Paracelsus, published posthumously in Nysa in 1566 (and again in the Johannes Huser edition of 1589–1591 from an autograph by Paracelsus).  The term may be an original invention of Paracelsus, possibly deriving the term from Latin "gēnomos" (itself representing a Greek, literally "earth-dweller"). In this case, the omission of the "ē" is, as the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) calls it, a blunder. Paracelsus uses "Gnomi" as a synonym of "Pygmæi" and classifies them as earth elementals. He describes them as two spans high, very reluctant to interact with humans, and able to move through solid earth as easily as humans move through air. The chthonic, or earth-dwelling, spirit has precedents in numerous ancient and medieval mythologies, often guarding mines and precious underground treasures, notably in the Germanic dwarfs and the Greek Chalybes, Telchines or Dactyls.

In Romanticism and modern fairy tales.

The English word is attested from the early 18th century. Gnomes are used in Alexander Pope's "The Rape of the Lock". The creatures from this mock-epic are small, celestial creatures which were prudish women in their past lives, and now spend all of eternity looking out for prudish women (in parallel to the guardian angels in Catholic belief). Other uses of the term "gnome" remain obscure until the early 19th century, when it is taken up by authors of Romanticist collections of fairy tales and becomes mostly synonymous with the older word "goblin".  Pope's stated source, the French satire (by Nicolas-Pierre-Henri de Montfaucon de Villars, the abbot of Villars) "Comte de Gabalis" (1670) describes gnomes as such: "The Earth is filled almost to the Center with "Gnomes" or "Pharyes", a People of small Stature, the Guardians of Treasures, of Mines, and of Precious Stones. They are Ingenious, Friends of Men, and easie to be commandded. They furnish the Children of the "Sages" with as much Money, as they have need of; and never ask any other Reward of their Services, than the Glory of being Commanded. The "Gnomides" or Wives of these "Gnomes" or "Pharyes", are Little, but very Handson; and their Habit marvellously Curious." Villars used the term "gnomide" to refer to female gnomes (often "gnomid" in English translations). Modern fiction instead uses the word "gnomess" to refer to female gnomes.  In 19th-century fiction, the chthonic gnome became a sort of antithesis to the more airy or luminous fairy. Nathaniel Hawthorne in "Twice-Told Tales" (1837) contrasts the two in "Small enough to be king of the fairies, and ugly enough to be king of the gnomes" (cited after OED). Similarly, gnomes are contrasted to elves, as in William Cullen Bryant's "Little People of the Snow" (1877), which has "let us have a tale of elves that ride by night, with jingling reins, or gnomes of the mine" (cited after OED).  One of the first movements in Mussorgsky's 1874 work "Pictures at an Exhibition", named "Gnomus" (Latin for "The Gnome"), is written to sound as if a gnome is moving about, his movements constantly changing in speed. Franz Hartmann in 1895 satirized materialism in an allegorical tale entitled "Unter den Gnomen im Untersberg". The English translation appeared in 1896 as "Among the Gnomes: An Occult Tale of Adventure in the Untersberg". In this story, the "Gnomes" are still clearly subterranean creatures, guarding treasures of gold within the Untersberg mountain.  As a figure of 19th-century fairy tales, the term gnome became largely synonymous with other terms for "little people" by the 20th century, such as "goblin", "brownie", "kobold", "leprechaun", "Heinzelmännchen" and other instances of the "domestic spirit" type, losing its strict association with earth or the underground world.

Derivative uses.

Garden gnomes.

After World War II (with early references, in ironic use, from the late 1930s) the diminutive figurines introduced as lawn ornaments during the 19th century came to be known as garden gnomes. The image of the gnome changed further during the 1960s to 1970s, when the first plastic garden gnomes were manufactured. These gnomes followed the style of the 1937 depiction of the seven dwarves in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" by Disney. This "Disneyfied" image of the gnome was built upon by the illustrated children's book classic "The Secret Book of Gnomes" (1976), in the original Dutch "Leven en werken van de Kabouter". Garden gnomes share a resemblance to the Scandinavian tomte and nisse, and the Swedish term "tomte" can be translated as "gnome" in English.

Gnome-themed parks.

Several gnome themed entertainment parks exist. Notable ones are:

Garden Gnome Liberationists.

Garden gnome liberationists such as the Gnome Liberation Front were introduced in France in 1997. They claim that Garden Gnomes deserve the same freedom that any other living creature would have. They are noted to have stolen hundreds of gnomes.

Gnome parades.

Gnome parades are held annually at Atlanta's Inman Park Festival. Numerous one-off gnome parades have been held, including in Savannah, Georgia (April 2012) and Cleveland, Ohio (May 2011).

A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characteristics have been reinterpreted to suit the needs of various story tellers, but it is typically said to be a small humanoid that lives underground.


Operation.

IDEA operates on 64-bit blocks using a 128-bit key and consists of a series of 8 identical transformations (a "round", see the illustration) and an output transformation (the "half-round"). The processes for encryption and decryption are similar. IDEA derives much of its security by interleaving operations from different groups — modular addition and multiplication, and bitwise eXclusive OR (XOR) — which are algebraically "incompatible" in some sense. In more detail, these operators, which all deal with 16-bit quantities, are:  After the 8 rounds comes a final “half-round”, the output transformation illustrated below (the swap of the middle two values cancels out the swap at the end of the last round, so that there is no net swap):

Structure.

The overall structure of IDEA follows the Lai–Massey scheme. XOR is used for both subtraction and addition. IDEA uses a key-dependent half-round function. To work with 16-bit words (meaning 4 inputs instead of 2 for the 64-bit block size), IDEA uses the Lai–Massey scheme twice in parallel, with the two parallel round functions being interwoven with each other. To ensure sufficient diffusion, two of the sub-blocks are swapped after each round.

Key schedule.

Each round uses 6 16-bit sub-keys, while the half-round uses 4, a total of 52 for 8.5 rounds. The first 8 sub-keys are extracted directly from the key, with K1 from the first round being the lower 16 bits; further groups of 8 keys are created by rotating the main key left 25 bits between each group of 8. This means that it is rotated less than once per round, on average, for a total of 6 rotations.

Decryption.

Decryption works like encryption, but the order of the round keys is inverted, and the subkeys for the odd rounds are inversed. For instance, the values of subkeys K1–K4 are replaced by the inverse of K49–K52 for the respective group operation, K5 and K6 of each group should be replaced by K47 and K48 for decryption.

Security.

The designers analysed IDEA to measure its strength against differential cryptanalysis and concluded that it is immune under certain assumptions. No successful linear or algebraic weaknesses have been reported., the best attack applied to all keys could break IDEA reduced to 6 rounds (the full IDEA cipher uses 8.5 rounds). Note that a "break" is any attack that requires less than 2 operations; the 6-round attack requires 2 known plaintexts and 2 operations.  Bruce Schneier thought highly of IDEA in 1996, writing: "In my opinion, it is the best and most secure block algorithm available to the public at this time." ("Applied Cryptography", 2nd ed.) However, by 1999 he was no longer recommending IDEA due to the availability of faster algorithms, some progress in its cryptanalysis, and the issue of patents.  In 2011 full 8.5-round IDEA was broken using a meet-in-the-middle attack. Independently in 2012, full 8.5-round IDEA was broken using a narrow-bicliques attack, with a reduction of cryptographic strength of about 2 bits, similar to the effect of the previous bicliques attack on AES; however, this attack does not threaten the security of IDEA in practice.

Weak keys.

The very simple key schedule makes IDEA subject to a class of weak keys; some keys containing a large number of 0 bits produce weak encryption. These are of little concern in practice, being sufficiently rare that they are unnecessary to avoid explicitly when generating keys randomly. A simple fix was proposed: XORing each subkey with a 16-bit constant, such as 0x0DAE.  Larger classes of weak keys were found in 2002.  This is still of negligible probability to be a concern to a randomly chosen key, and some of the problems are fixed by the constant XOR proposed earlier, but the paper is not certain if all of them are. A more comprehensive redesign of the IDEA key schedule may be desirable.

Availability.

A patent application for IDEA was first filed in Switzerland (CH A 1690/90) on May 18, 1990, then an international patent application was filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty on May 16, 1991. Patents were eventually granted in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, (, filed May 16, 1991, issued June 22, 1994 and expired May 16, 2011), the United States (, issued May 25, 1993 and expired January 7, 2012) and Japan (JP 3225440) (expired May 16, 2011).  MediaCrypt AG is now offering a successor to IDEA and focuses on its new cipher (official release on May 2005) IDEA NXT, which was previously called FOX.

In cryptography, the International Data Encryption Algorithm (IDEA), originally called Improved Proposed Encryption Standard (IPES), is a symmetric-key block cipher designed by James Massey of ETH Zurich and Xuejia Lai and was first described in 1991. The algorithm was intended as a replacement for the Data Encryption Standard (DES). IDEA is a minor revision of an earlier cipher Proposed Encryption Standard (PES).


Types.

X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was developed by Kai Siegbahn starting in 1957 and is used to study the energy levels of atomic core electrons, primarily in solids. Siegbahn referred to the technique as "electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis" (ESCA), since the core levels have small chemical shifts depending on the chemical environment of the atom that is ionized, allowing chemical structure to be determined. Siegbahn was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1981 for this work. XPS is sometimes referred to as PESIS (photoelectron spectroscopy for inner shells), whereas the lower-energy radiation of UV light is referred to as PESOS (outer shells) because it cannot excite core electrons.  Ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS) is used to study valence energy levels and chemical bonding, especially the bonding character of molecular orbitals. The method was developed originally for gas-phase molecules in 1961 by Feodor I. Vilesov and in 1962 by David W. Turner, and other early workers included David C. Frost, J. H. D. Eland and K. Kimura. Later, Richard Smalley modified the technique and used a UV laser to excite the sample, in order to measure the binding energy of electrons in gaseous molecular clusters.  Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) has become the most prevalent electron spectroscopy in condensed matter physics after recent advances in energy and momentum resolution, and widespread availability of synchrotron light sources. The technique is used to map the band structure of crystalline solids, to study quasiparticle dynamics in highly correlated materials, and to measure electron spin polarization.  Two-photon photoelectron spectroscopy (2PPE) extends the technique to optically excited electronic states through the introduction of a pump-and-probe scheme.  Extreme-ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (EUPS) lies in between XPS and UPS. It is typically used to assess the valence band structure. Compared to XPS, it gives better energy resolution, and compared to UPS, the ejected electrons are faster, resulting in less space charge and mitigated final state effects.

Physical principle.

The physics behind the PES technique is an application of the photoelectric effect. The sample is exposed to a beam of UV or XUV light inducing photoelectric ionization. The energies of the emitted photoelectrons are characteristic of their original electronic states, and depend also on vibrational state and rotational level. For solids, photoelectrons can escape only from a depth on the order of nanometers, so that it is the surface layer which is analyzed.  Because of the high frequency of the light, and the substantial charge and energy of emitted electrons, photoemission is one of the most sensitive and accurate techniques for measuring the energies and shapes of electronic states and molecular and atomic orbitals. Photoemission is also among the most sensitive methods of detecting substances in trace concentrations, provided the sample is compatible with ultra-high vacuum and the analyte can be distinguished from background.  Typical PES (UPS) instruments use helium gas sources of UV light, with photon energy up to 52 eV (corresponding to wavelength 23.7 nm). The photoelectrons that actually escaped into the vacuum are collected, slightly retarded, energy resolved, and counted. This results in a spectrum of electron intensity as a function of the measured kinetic energy. Because binding energy values are more readily applied and understood, the kinetic energy values, which are source dependent, are converted into binding energy values, which are source independent. This is achieved by applying Einstein's relation formula_1. The formula_2 term of this equation is the energy of the UV light quanta that are used for photoexcitation. Photoemission spectra are also measured using tunable synchrotron radiation sources.  The binding energies of the measured electrons are characteristic of the chemical structure and molecular bonding of the material. By adding a source monochromator and increasing the energy resolution of the electron analyzer, peaks appear with full width at half maximum (FWHM) less than 5–8 meV.

Photoemission spectroscopy (PES), also known as photoelectron spectroscopy, refers to energy measurement of electrons emitted from solids, gases or liquids by the photoelectric effect, in order to determine the binding energies of electrons in the substance. The term refers to various techniques, depending on whether the ionization energy is provided by X-ray photons or ultraviolet photons. Regardless of the incident photon beam, however, all photoelectron spectroscopy revolves around the general theme of surface analysis by measuring the ejected electrons.


Wilhelmine of Prussia, Margravine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth

Early life.

Born in Berlin, Wilhelmine shared the unhappy childhood of her brother, Frederick the Great, whose friend and confidante she remained all her life, with the exception of one short interval. She was fiercely beaten and abused by her governess during her childhood. Wilhelmine later wrote: "Not a day passed that she [the governess] did not prove upon me the fearful power of her fists." The mistreatment continued until the prince's governess finally said to their mother, who had been oblivious to the abuse, that she would not be surprised if Wilhelmine was eventually beaten until she was crippled. After this, the governess was promptly replaced.  Being the eldest daughter in her family, she was early the target of discussions about political marriages. Her mother, Queen Sophia Dorothea, wished her to marry her nephew Frederick, Prince of Wales, but on the British side there was no inclination to make an offer of marriage except in exchange for substantial concessions that Wilhelmine's father would not accept. The fruitless intrigues carried on by Sophia Dorothea to bring about this match played a large part in Wilhelmine's early life. Her father, on the other hand, preferred a match with the House of Habsburg.

Marriage.

After much talk of other matches came to nothing, Wilhelmine was eventually married in 1731 to her Hohenzollern kinsman, Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth. Frederick had been engaged to Wilhelmine's younger sister, Sophie, but at the last moment King Frederick William I decided to replace her with Wilhelmine. The groom was not consulted in this decision.  This marriage was only accepted by Wilhelmine under threats from her father and with a view to lightening her brother's disgrace. It was initially a happy marriage, but was eventually clouded first by limited financial resources and then by a love affair of the future Margrave with Dorothea von Marwitz, whose rise as an official mistress at the court of Bayreuth was bitterly resented by her brother Frederick the Great and caused an estrangement of some three years between him and Wilhelmine.

Margravine.

When Wilhelmine's spouse came into his inheritance in 1735, the pair set about making Bayreuth a miniature Versailles. Their building projects included the rebuilding of their summer residence (now part of the Hermitage Museum); the rebuilding of the great Bayreuth opera house; the building of a second, new opera house; the building of a theater; and the reconstruction of the Bayreuth palace. The so-called "Bayreuth Rococo" style of architecture is renowned even today. The pair also founded the University of Erlangen. All of these ambitious undertakings pushed the court to the verge of bankruptcy.  The margravine made Bayreuth one of the chief intellectual centers of the Holy Roman Empire, surrounding herself with a court of wits and artists that accrued added prestige from the occasional visits of Voltaire and Frederick the Great.  Wilhelmine's brother Frederick granted her an allowance in exchange for troops, following the same procedure with her sisters. With the outbreak of the Seven Years' War, Wilhelmine's interests shifted from dilettantism to diplomacy. Austrian diplomats were trying to influence the court of Bayreuth to take their side against Prussia. In September 1745, during the Silesian war, Wilhelmine met with Maria Theresa of Austria. This almost destroyed her intimate relationship with her brother. In 1750 Wilhelmine visited the Prussian court for several weeks and met famous contemporaries such as Voltaire, Maupertuis and La Mettrie. In June 1754, the siblings met for the last time, after which Frederick swore her his eternal loyalty. She acted as eyes and ears for her brother in southern Germany until her death at Bayreuth on 14 October 1758, the day of Frederick's defeat by the Austrian forces of Leopold Josef Graf Daun at the Battle of Hochkirch. Although Frederick had lost many friends and family to death throughout his life, Wilhelmine's hit him the hardest. He suffered from severe illness for a week following news of Wilhelmine's death and fell into a depression from which he never fully recovered.  On the tenth anniversary of her death, her devastated brother had the Temple of Friendship built at Sanssouci in her memory.

Works.

The margravine's memoirs, "Memoires de ma vie", written or revised in French between 1748 and her death, are preserved in the Royal Library of Berlin. They were first printed in two forms in 1810: a German translation down to the year 1733 from the firm of Cotta of Tübingen; and a version in French published by Vieweg of Brunswick, and coming down to 1742. There were several subsequent editions, including a German one published at Leipzig in 1908. An English translation was published in Berlin in 1904. For the discussion on the authenticity of these entertaining, though not very trustworthy, memoirs, see G. H. Pertz, "Uber die Merkwürdigkeiten der Markgrafin" (1851). See also Arvede Barine, "Princesses et grandes dames" (Paris, 1890); E. E. Cuttell, "Wilhelmine, Margravine of Baireuth" (London, 2 vols., 1905);'and R. Fester, "Die Bayreuther Schwester Friedrichs des Grossen" (Berlin, 1902). Writer William Thackeray recommended the memoirs to "those who are curious about European Court history of the last age".  In addition to her other accomplishments, Wilhelmine was also a gifted composer and supporter of music. She was a lutenist, a student of Sylvius Leopold Weiss, and the employer of Bernhard Joachim Hagen.  Keyboard Concerto in G minor  The obbligato flute part could have been played either by her brother or her husband, as both were flautists (and pupils of Quantz). Each movement takes wing from solid and vigorous openings. There is a stubborn insistence about the first tutti's repeated octave jumps, offset by the buoyancy of its striding sequences. She has a Bach-like flair for phrase extensions, which is also evident in the final gavotte where the solo shadows the orchestra and emerges to take the lead. Some of the ideas in the 34 bar slow movement are more son-of-Bach in style; and in the D minor second gavotte, which serves as a central "trio" to the first, there is a delicate episode of rather French, languishing descents.  Argenore: opera c. 1740. SEven soloists (3 sop., 1 mezzo-sop., 2 alto, 1 baritone or mezzo-sop.), and orchestra (1 flute, 2 oboes, 2 trumpets, strings, continuo). Performed in 1740 for her husband's birthday.  Cavatinen: short songs; voice, strings, harpsichord.  Flute Sonata: flute & keyboard, c. 1730.  Some chamber music still survives.

Issue.

Wilhelmine's only child was Elisabeth Fredericka Sophie of Brandenburg-Bayreuth, born on August 30, 1732. Described by Casanova as the most beautiful princess in Germany, she was married to Karl Eugen, Duke of Württemberg, in 1748. She died on 6 April 1780 without surviving children.

Memoirs.

An earlier English translation from the French of her memoirs was published in a two volume edition in 1828 by Hunt and Clarke, York St., Covent Garden.  Scribner and Welford published Princess Helena of the United Kingdom's German-to-English translation of Wilhelmine's memoirs in 1887.

Princess Wilhelmine of Prussia (Friederike Sophie Wilhelmine; 3 July 170914 October 1758) was a princess of the German Kingdom of Prussia (the older sister of Frederick the Great) and composer. She was the eldest daughter of Frederick William I of Prussia and Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, and granddaughter of George I of Great Britain. In 1731, she married Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth. The baroque buildings and parks built during her reign shape much of the present appearance of the town of Bayreuth, Germany.


Host city selection.

Sapporo first won the rights to host the 1940 Winter Olympics, but Japan resigned as the Games' host after its 1937 invasion of China. The 1940 Games were later cancelled. All the cities awarded Games that were cancelled due to war have since hosted the Games (London, Tokyo, Helsinki, Sapporo and Cortina d'Ampezzo).  Sapporo competed with Banff, Lahti, and Salt Lake City. The Games were awarded at the 64th IOC Session in Rome, Italy, on April 26, 1966.  In preparation, the Japanese constructed new largescale facilities at Sapporo and conducted a trial run a full year in advance of the Games. An international sport week was held in February, 1971, to assess the city's preparations as well as "to test its civic mettle and hospitality", and this effort was acclaimed by Olympic observers as "a complete success". The development of new infrastructure proved to be a huge boon for the Sapporo economy: by the time of the Games, the national government had invested some US$500 million in upgrades, including a new subway. The Games' organizers themselves turned a healthy profit in part because they arranged a record $8.47 million for broadcast rights.

Venues.

1 New facilities constructed in preparation for the Olympic Games. 2 Existing facilities modified or refurbished in preparation for the Olympic Games.

Sports.

There were 35 events contested in 6 sports (10 disciplines).

Participating nations.

35 nations participated in the 1972 Winter Olympics. The Republic of China (commonly known as Taiwan) and the Philippines participated in their first Winter Olympic Games.

Number of athletes by National Olympic Committees.

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Medal count.

These are the top eleven nations that won medals at these Games. The host nation Japan finished 11th.

The 1972 Winter Olympics, officially known as the (French: Les "XIes Jeux olympiques d'hiver"), were a winter multi-sport event which was held from February 3 to February 13, 1972, in Sapporo, Hokkaidō, Japan. It was the first Winter Olympics to be held outside Europe and North America.


Edict of Nantes.

The Edict of Nantes had been issued on 13 April 1598 by Henry IV of France. It had granted the Calvinist Protestants of France (also known as Huguenots) substantial rights in the predominantly Catholic state. Through the Edict, Henry had aimed to promote civil unity. The Edict treated some Protestants with tolerance and opened a path for secularism. It offered general freedom of conscience to individuals and many specific concessions to the Protestants, such as amnesty and the reinstatement of their civil rights, including the right to work in any field (including for the state), and to bring grievances directly to the king. It marked the end of the French Wars of Religion which had afflicted France during the second half of the 16th century.

Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

By the Edict of Fontainebleau, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes and ordered the destruction of Huguenot churches, as well as the closing of Protestant schools. This policy made official the persecution already enforced since the "dragonnades" created in 1681 by the king in order to intimidate Huguenots into converting to Catholicism. As a result of the officially sanctioned persecution by the "dragoons" who were billeted upon prominent Huguenots, many Protestants — estimates range from 210,000 to 900,000 — left France over the next two decades. They sought asylum in the United Provinces, Sweden, Switzerland, Brandenburg-Prussia, Denmark, Scotland, England, Protestant states of the Holy Roman Empire, the Cape Colony in Africa, and North America. On 17 January 1686, Louis XIV himself claimed that out of a Huguenot population of 800,000 to 900,000, only 1,000 to 1,500 had remained in France.  It has long been said that a strong advocate for persecution of the Protestants was Louis XIV's pious second wife Madame de Maintenon, who was thought to have urged Louis to revoke Henry IV's edict. There is no formal proof of this and these views have now been challenged. Madame de Maintenon was by birth a Catholic but also the grand-daughter of Agrippa d'Aubigné, an unrelenting calvinist. Protestants tried to turn her and any time she took the defence of Protestants she was suspected of relapsing into her family faith. Thus her position line was thin which led people to wrongly believe she advocated persecutions.  The revocation of the Edict of Nantes brought France into line with virtually every other European country of the period (with the brief exception of England, Scotland, Brandenburg-Prussia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth), where only the majority state religion was legally tolerated. The experiment of religious tolerance in Europe was effectively ended for the time being.

Effects of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

The Edict of Fontainebleau is compared by many historians with the 1492 Alhambra Decree, ordering the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain; and with the Expulsion of the Moriscos during 1609-1614. The three are similar both as outbursts of religious intolerance ending periods of relative tolerance, and in their social and economic effects. In practice, the revocation caused France to suffer a kind of early brain drain, as it lost many skilled craftsmen, including key designers such as Daniel Marot. Upon leaving France, Huguenots took with them knowledge of important techniques and styles — which had a significant effect on the quality of the silk, plate glass, silversmithing, watchmaking, and cabinet making industries of those regions to which they relocated. Some rulers, such as Frederick Wilhelm, Duke of Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg, who issued the Edict of Potsdam in late October 1685, encouraged the Protestants to seek refuge in their nations. Similarly in 1720 Frederick IV of Denmark invited the French Huguenots to seek refuge in Denmark, which they did in Fredericia and other locations.

End of the Edict of Fontainebleau.

In practice, the stringency of policies outlawing Protestants, opposed by the Jansenists, was relaxed during the reign of Louis XV, especially among discreet members of the upper classes. "The fact that a hundred years later, when Protestants were again tolerated, many of them were found to be both commercially prosperous and politically loyal indicates that they fared far better than the Catholic Irish", R.R. Palmer concluded.  By the end of the 18th century, numerous prominent French philosophers and literary men of the day, including Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, were arguing strongly for religious tolerance. Efforts by Guillaume-Chrétien de Malesherbes, minister to Louis XVI, and Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Etienne, a spokesman for the Protestant community, together with members of a provincial appellate court or "parlement" of the Ancien Régime, were particularly effective in persuading the king to open French society despite concerns expressed by some of his advisors. Thus, on 7 November 1787, Louis XVI signed the Edict of Versailles, known as the edict of tolerance registered in "parlement" two and a half months later, on 29 January 1788. This edict offered relief to the main alternative faiths of Calvinist Huguenots, Lutherans, and Jews by giving their followers civil and legal recognition as well as the right to openly form congregations after 102 years of prohibition.  Full religious freedom had to wait two more years, with enactment of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789. The 1787 edict was a pivotal step in eliminating religious strife, however, and it officially ended religious persecution in France. Moreover, when French Revolutionary armies invaded other European countries between 1789 and 1815, they followed a consistent policy of emancipating persecuted or circumscribed religious communities (Roman Catholic in some countries, Protestant in others, Jewish in most).

1985 apology.

In October 1985, French President François Mitterrand issued a public apology to the descendants of Huguenots around the world.

The Edict of Fontainebleau (22 October 1685) was an edict issued by Louis XIV of France, also known as the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Edict of Nantes (1598) had granted the Huguenots the right to practice their religion without persecution from the state. Though Protestants had lost their independence in places of refuge under Richelieu on account of their supposed insubordination, they continued to live in comparative security and political contentment. From the outset, religious toleration in France had been a royal, rather than a popular policy. The lack of universal adherence to his religion did not sit well with Louis XIV's vision of perfected autocracy: "Bending all else to his will, Louis XIV resented the presence of heretics among his subjects."


Biography.

Piccard and his twin brother Jean Felix Piccard were born in Basel, Switzerland on 28 January 1884.  Showing an intense interest in science as a child, he attended the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich, and became a professor of physics in Brussels at the Free University of Brussels in 1922, the same year his son Jacques Piccard was born. He was a member of the Solvay Congress of 1922, 1924, 1927, 1930 and 1933.  In 1930, an interest in ballooning, and a curiosity about the upper atmosphere led him to design a spherical, pressurized aluminum gondola that would allow ascent to a great altitude without requiring a pressure suit. Supported by the Belgian "Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique" (FNRS) Piccard constructed his gondola.  An important motivation for his research in the upper atmosphere were measurements of cosmic radiation, which were supposed to give experimental evidence for the theories of Albert Einstein, whom Piccard knew from the Solvay conferences and who was a fellow alumnus of ETH.  On 27 May 1931, Auguste Piccard and Paul Kipfer took off from Augsburg, Germany, and reached a record altitude of (9.8 miles). (FAI Record File Number 10634) During this flight, they became the first human beings to enter the stratosphere, and were able to gather substantial data on the upper atmosphere, as well as measure cosmic rays. Piccard and Kipfer are widely considered the first people to visually observe the curvature of the earth.  On 18 August 1932, launched from Dübendorf, Switzerland, Piccard and Max Cosyns made a second record-breaking ascent to. (FAI Record File Number 6590) He ultimately made a total of twenty-seven balloon flights, setting a final record of.  In the mid-1930s, Piccard's interests shifted when he realized that a modification of his high-altitude balloon cockpit would allow descent into the deep ocean. By 1937, he had designed the bathyscaphe, a small steel gondola built to withstand great external pressure. Construction began, but was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. Resuming work in 1945, he completed the bubble-shaped cockpit that maintained normal air pressure for a person inside the capsule even as the water pressure outside increased to over. Above the heavy steel capsule, a large flotation tank was attached and filled with a low density liquid for buoyancy. Liquids are relatively incompressible and can provide buoyancy that does not change as the pressure increases. And so, the huge tank was filled with gasoline, not as a fuel, but as flotation. To make the now floating craft sink, tons of iron were attached to the float with a release mechanism to allow resurfacing. This craft was named "FNRS-2" and made a number of unmanned dives in 1948 before being given to the French Navy in 1950. There, it was redesigned, and in 1954, it took a man safely down.  Piccard and his son, Jacques, built a second bathyscaphe and together they dove to a record-breaking depth of in 1953.  Auguste Piccard died on 24 March 1962 of a heart attack at his home in Lausanne, Switzerland; he was 78 years old.

Auguste Antoine Piccard (28 January 1884 – 24 March 1962) was a Swiss physicist, inventor and explorer, known for his record-breaking helium-filled balloon flights, with which he studied the Earth's upper atmosphere. Auguste was also known for his invention of the first bathyscaphe, "FNRS-2", with which he made a number of unmanned dives in 1948 to explore the ocean's depths.