First School of Fontainebleau (from 1531).

In 1531, the Florentine artist Rosso Fiorentino, having lost most of his possessions at the Sack of Rome in 1527, was invited by François I to come to France, where he began an extensive decorative program for the Château de Fontainebleau. In 1532 he was joined by another Italian artist, Francesco Primaticcio (from Bologna). Rosso died in France in 1540. On the advice of Primaticcio, Niccolò dell'Abbate (from Modena) was invited to France in 1552 by François's son Henri II. Although known for their work at Fontainebleau, these artists were also invited to create works of art for other noble families of the period and were much esteemed and well-paid.  The works of this "first school of Fontainebleau" are characterized by the extensive use of stucco (moldings and picture frames) and frescos, and an elaborate (and often mysterious) system of allegories and mythological iconography. Renaissance decorative motifs such as grotesques, strapwork and putti are common, as well as a certain degree of eroticism. The figures are elegant and show the influence of the techniques of the Italian Mannerism of Michelangelo, Raphael and especially Parmigianino. Primaticcio was also directed to make copies of antique Roman statues for the king, thus spreading the influence of classical statuary.  Many of the works of Rosso, Primaticcio and dell'Abate have not survived; parts of the Chateau were remodelled at various dates. The paintings of the group were reproduced in prints, mostly etchings, which were apparently produced initially at Fontainebleau itself, and later in Paris. These disseminated the style through France and beyond, and also record several paintings that have not survived.  The mannerist style of the Fontainebleau school influenced French artists (with whom the Italians worked) such as the painter Jean Cousin the Elder, the sculptors Jean Goujon and Germain Pilon, and, to a lesser degree, the painter and portraitist François Clouet the son of Jean Clouet.

Printmaking workshop.

Although there is no certain proof, most scholars have agreed that there was a printmaking workshop at the Palace of Fontainebleau itself, reproducing the designs of the artists for their works in the palace, as well as other compositions they produced. The most productive printmakers were Léon Davent, Antonio Fantuzzi, and Jean Mignon, followed by the "mysterious" artist known from his monogram as "Master I♀V" (♀ being the alchemical symbol for copper, from which the printing plates were made), and the workshop seems to have been active between about 1542 and 1548 at the latest; François I died in March 1547, after which funding for the palace ended, and the school dispersed. These were the first etchings made in France, and not far behind the first Italian uses of the technique, which originated in Germany. The earliest impressions of all the Fontainebleau prints are in brown ink, and their intention seems to have been essentially reproductive. The intention of the workshop was to disseminate the new style developing at the palace more widely, both to France and to the Italians' peers back in Italy. Whether the initiative to do this came from the king or another patron, or from the artists alone, is unclear. David Landau believes that Primaticcio was the driving force; he had stepped up to become the director of the work at Fontainebleau after the suicide of Rosso Fiorentino in 1540.  The enterprise seems to have been "just slightly premature" in terms of catching a market. The etched prints were often marked by signs of the workshop's inexperience and sometimes incompetence with the technique of etching, and according to Sue Welsh Reed: "Few impressions survive from these plates, and it is questionable whether many were pulled. The plates were often poorly executed and not well printed; they were often scratched or not well polished and did not wipe clean. Some may have been made of metals soft as copper, such as pewter." A broadening market for prints preferred the "highly finished textures" of Nicolas Beatrizet, and later "proficient but ultimately uninspired" engravers such as René Boyvin and Pierre Milan.

Second School of Fontainebleau (from 1594).

From 1584 to 1594, during the Wars of Religion the château of Fontainebleau was abandoned. Upon his accession to the throne, Henri IV undertook a renovation of the Fontainebleau buildings using a group of artists: the Flemish born Ambroise Dubois (from Antwerp) and the Parisians Toussaint Dubreuil and Martin Fréminet. They are sometimes referred to as the "second school of Fontainebleau". Their late mannerist works, many of which have been lost, continue in the use of elongated and undulating forms and crowded compositions. Many of their subjects include mythological scenes and scenes from works of fiction by the Italian Torquato Tasso and the ancient Greek novelist Heliodorus of Emesa.  Their style would continue to have an influence on artists through the first decades of the 17th century, but other artistic currents (Peter Paul Rubens, Caravaggio, the Dutch and Flemish naturalist schools) would soon eclipse them.

The School of Fontainbleau () (c.1530 – c.1610) refers to two periods of artistic production in France during the late Renaissance centered on the royal Palace of Fontainebleau that were crucial in forming the French version of Northern Mannerism.


Life.

Albert Cossery (Arabic: البرت قصيري) was born in Cairo to a Greek Orthodox family of Syrian descent. His parents were wealthy small-property owners that originally owned land in Damietta. In a conversation with Lebanese writer Abdallah Naaman in 1998, Cossery said, "We are the "Shawams" (Levantines, referring to the Bilad al-Sham) of Egypt. My father is a Greek Orthodox native of the village of al-Qusayr, near Homs, in Syria. Upon arriving in Cairo at the end of the 19th century, the family adopted "Cossery" (after al-Qusayr) as their family name due to its simplified pronunciation." The Cossery family, as well as all of the elites living in Egypt during this era, were well steeped in French culture. At the age of 17, inspired by reading Honoré de Balzac, he emigrated to Paris to continue studies that he never completed, writing and settled permanently in the French capital in 1945, where he lived until his death in 2008.  In 60 years he only wrote eight novels, in accordance with his philosophy of life in which "laziness" is not a vice but a form of contemplation and meditation. In his own words: "So much beauty in the world, so few eyes to see it." At the age of 27 he published his first book, "Les hommes oubliés de Dieu" ("Men God Forgot"). During his literary career he became close friend of other writers and artists such as Lawrence Durrell, Albert Camus, Jean Genet and Giacometti.  Cossery died on 22 June 2008, aged 94.  His books, which always take place in Egypt or other Arab countries, portray the contrast between poverty and wealth, the powerful and the powerless, in a witty although dramatic way. His writing mocks vanity and the narrowness of materialism and his principal characters are mainly vagrants, thieves or dandies that subvert the order of an unfair society. His novels often feature auto-biographical characters, like Teymour, the hero of the novel "Un complot de saltimbanques", a young man who forges a diploma in chemical engineering after a life of enjoyment and lust abroad instead of study and gets back to his home town and enters into an unexpected intringue against the authorities with his dandy friends. He is considered by some to be the last genuine "anarchist" or free thinking writer of western culture by his humorous and provocative although lucid and profound view of human relations and society. His writing style does not submit to an academic or experimental approach which makes him a vivid, catchy storyteller, without the boredom nor artificial ambiguity of some classical (which he is) or avantgarde writers. The sageness of his works are monuments to the freedom of being and thought against materialism, the contemporary obsession with consumption and productivity, the arrogance and abuse of authority, the vanity of social formalities and the injustice of the wealthy towards the poor.  In 1990 Cossery was awarded the Grand prix de la francophonie of the Académie française and in 2005 the Grand Prix Poncetton de la SGDL.  The first of his books translated in English are "Men God Forgot" (first translated by Harold Edwards of Faruk University, Alexandria, Egypt, not by Henry Miller, whose note on Cossery appeared on a later 1963 City Lights Books edition, and published in the United States in 1946 by George Leite's Circle Editions of Berkeley), "The House of Certain Death" (New Directions, 1949), "The Lazy Ones" (New Directions, 1952), and "Proud Beggars" (Black Sparrow Press, 1981).  Three more of Cossery's novels have since been published in English translation: Anna Moschovakis' "The Jokers" (NYRB Classics) and Alyson Waters' "A Splendid Conspiracy" and "The Colors of Infamy" (New Directions). As of 2014, "Une ambition dans le désert" remains untranslated into English.

Albert Cossery (3 November 1913 – 22 June 2008) was an Egyptian-born French writer of Levantine origin. Although Cossery lived most of his life in Paris and only wrote in the French language, all of his novels were either set in his home country of Egypt or in an imaginary Middle Eastern country. He was nicknamed "The Voltaire of the Nile". His writings pay tribute to the humble and to the misfits of his childhood in Cairo, as well as praise a form of laziness and simplicity very distant from our contemporary society.


Plot.

Four days after a Weiberfastnacht's eve party (Wed. 20 February 1974), where Katharina Blum met a man named Ludwig Götten, she calls on Oberkommissar Moeding and confesses to killing a journalist for the newspaper "Die Zeitung".  Katharina had met Götten at a friend's party and spent the night with him before helping him to escape from the police. The next morning, the police break into her house, arrest her and question her. The story is sensationally covered by "Die Zeitung", and in particular its journalist Tötges. Tötges investigates everything about her life, calling on Katharina's friends and family, including her ex-husband and hospitalized mother, who dies the day after Tötges visits her. He paints a picture of Katharina as a fervent accomplice of Götten, and as a communist run amok in Germany.  Katharina arranges an interview with Tötges. According to Katharina, upon his arrival he suggests that they have sex, whereupon she shoots him dead. She then wanders the city for a few hours before driving to police headquarters and confessing to murder.  The book also details the effects of the case on Katharina's employers and friends the Blornas; Mr Blorna is her lawyer, and Mrs Blorna one of the designers of the apartment block where Katharina resides. Their association with Katharina leads to their exclusion from society.

Style.

The story is written from a first-person plural perspective, as if the narrator were presenting a confidential report to the reader on the basis of sources. The technique is documentary, as with "Group Portrait with Lady", but with a much more disciplined focus on essentials. The reader is sometimes left to infer who the sources are for many of the reports, and even to wonder whether the narrator may not be one of the characters in the novel. This way, the narrator is dependent on characters and the information they impart, becoming a researcher and critic of his source material. This is implicitly contrasted with the journalists who irresponsibly distort their sources. The attack on vulgar journalism is thus mounted from the perspective of a narrator whose moral authority is enhanced by the use of the'regal' first-person plural form. In some parts of the story, the elaborate and detached manner is also used for comic effect when retelling violent, silly or emotionally conflicted incidents as more and more personal secrets of the characters are revealed.

Adaptations.

The book has been adapted into the following works:

The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, or: how violence develops and where it can lead (original German title: "Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum oder: Wie Gewalt entstehen und wohin sie führen kann") is a 1974 novel by Heinrich Böll.


Distribution.

Its native range is obscure due to extensive cultivation, but includes most of Europe, from where Linnaeus described the species in 1753. Plants native in eastern Asia are included under "C. album", but often differ from European specimens. It is widely naturalised elsewhere, e.g. Africa, Australasia, North America, and Oceania, and now occurs almost everywhere (even, apparently in Antarctica) in soils rich in nitrogen, especially on wasteland.

Botany.

It tends to grow upright at first, reaching heights of 10–150 cm (rarely to 3 m), but typically becomes recumbent after flowering (due to the weight of the foliage and seeds) unless supported by other plants. The leaves are alternate and varied in appearance. The first leaves, near the base of the plant, are toothed and roughly diamond-shaped, 3–7 cm long and 3–6 cm broad. The leaves on the upper part of the flowering stems are entire and lanceolate-rhomboid, 1–5 cm long and 0.4–2 cm broad; they are waxy-coated, unwettable and mealy in appearance, with a whitish coat on the underside. The small flowers are radially symmetrical and grow in small cymes on a dense branched inflorescence 10–40 cm long. Further, the flowers are bisexual and female, with five tepals which are mealy on outer surface, and shortly united at the base. There are five stamens.

Taxonomy.

"Chenopodium album" has a very complex taxonomy and has been divided in numerous microspecies, subspecies and varieties, but it is difficult to differentiate between them. The following infraspecific taxa are accepted by the "Flora Europaea":  Published names and synonyms include "C. album" var. "microphyllum", "C. album" var. "stevensii", "C. acerifolium, C. centrorubrum, C. giganteum, C. jenissejense, C. lanceolatum, C. pedunculare" and "C. probstii".  It also hybridises readily with several other "Chenopodium" species, including "C. berlandieri, C. ficifolium, C. opulifolium, C. strictum" and "C. suecicum".

Cultivation.

Regions.

The species are cultivated as a grain or vegetable crop (such as in lieu of spinach), as well as animal feed in Asia and Africa, whereas in Europe and North America, it is commonly regarded as a weed in places such as potato fields, while in Australia it is naturalised in all states and regarded as an environmental weed in New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

Potential impact on conventional crops.

It is one of the more robust and competitive weeds, capable of producing crop losses of up to 13% in corn, 25% in soybeans, and 48% in sugar beets at an average plant distribution. It may be controlled by dark tillage, rotary hoeing, or flaming when the plants are small. Crop rotation of small grains will suppress an infestation. It is easily controlled with a number of pre-emergence herbicides. Its pollen may contribute to hay fever-like allergies.

Pest control.

"Chenopodium album" is vulnerable to leaf miners, making it a useful trap crop as a companion plant. Growing near other plants, it attracts leaf miners which might otherwise have attacked the crop to be protected. It is a host plant for the beet leafhopper, an insect which transmits curly top virus to beet crops.

Uses and consumption.

Food.

The leaves and young shoots may be eaten as a leaf vegetable, either steamed in its entirety, or cooked like spinach, but should be eaten in moderation due to high levels of oxalic acid. Each plant produces tens of thousands of black seeds. These are high in protein, vitamin A, calcium, phosphorus, and potassium. Quinoa, a closely related species, is grown specifically for its seeds. The Zuni people cook the young plants' greens. Bathua seeds also double up for rice and dal. Napoleon Bonaparte is said to have once relied on bathua seeds to feed his troops during lean times.  Archaeologists analysing carbonized plant remains found in storage pits and ovens at Iron Age, Viking Age, and Roman sites in Europe have found its seeds mixed with conventional grains and even inside the stomachs of Danish bog bodies.  In India, the plant is called "bathua" and found abundantly in the winter season. The leaves and young shoots of this plant are used in dishes such as soups, curries, and paratha-stuffed breads, common in North India. The seeds or grains are used in "phambra" or "laafi", gruel-type dishes in Himachal Pradesh, and in mildly alcoholic fermented beverages such as" soora" and "ghanti". In Haryana state, the ""bathue ka raita"" i.e. the raita (yogurt dip) made with bathua, is very popular in winters.

Animal feed.

As some of the common names suggest, it is also used as feed (both the leaves and the seeds) for chickens and other poultry.

Construction.

The juice of this plant is a potent ingredient for a mixture of wall plaster, according to the Samarāṅgaṇa Sūtradhāra, which is a Sanskrit treatise dealing with Śilpaśāstra (Hindu science of art and construction).

Ayurveda.

In Ayurveda traditional medicine, bathua is thought to be useful for treating various diseases, although there is no clinical evidence such uses are safe or effective.

Chenopodium album is a fast-growing weedy annual plant in the genus "Chenopodium". Though cultivated in some regions, the plant is elsewhere considered a weed. Common names include lamb's quarters, melde, goosefoot, manure weed, wild spinach and fat-hen, though the latter two are also applied to other species of the genus "Chenopodium", for which reason it is often distinguished as white goosefoot. "Chenopodium album" is extensively cultivated and consumed in Northern India as a food crop known as "bathua".


Description.

Eurasian watermilfoil has slender stems up to long. The submerged leaves (usually between 15–35 mm long) are borne in pinnate whorls of four, with numerous thread-like leaflets roughly 4–13 mm long. Plants are monoecious with flowers produced in the leaf axils (male above, female below) on a spike 5–15 cm long held vertically above the water surface, each flower is inconspicuous, orange-red, 4–6 mm long. Eurasian water milfoil has 12- 21 pairs of leaflets while northern watermilfoil "M. sibiricum" only has 5–9 pairs. The two can hybridize and the resulting hybrid plants can cause taxonomic confusion as leaf characters are intermediate and can overlap with parent species.

Distribution.

"Myriophyllum spicatum" is found in disperse regions of North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa.

Introduced areas.

"Myriophyllum spicatum" was likely first introduced to North America in the 1940s where it has become an invasive species in some areas. By the mid 1970s, watermilfoil had also covered thousands of hectares in British Columbia and Ontario, Canada, and spread some downstream via the Columbia River system into the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Eurasian watermilfoil is now found across most of Northern America where it is recognized as a noxious weed.

Impact.

In lakes or other aquatic areas where native aquatic plants are not well established, the Eurasian plant can spread quickly. It has been known to crowd out native plants and create dense mats that interfere with recreational activity. Dense growth of Eurasian milfoil can also have a negative impact on fisheries by creating microhabitats for juvenile fish and obstructing space for larger fish ultimately disrupting normal feeding patterns. Due to the Eurasian milfoil plant's inability to provide the same microhabitat for invertebrates as compared to native aquatic plant species, densely populated areas of Eurasian milfoil create an ecosystem with less food sources for the surrounding fish. Dense Eurasian milfoil growth can also create hypoxic zones by blocking out sun penetration to native aquatic vegetation preventing them from photosynthesizing. Eurasian watermilfoil grows primarily from broken off stems, known as shoot fragments, which increases the rate at which the plant can spread and grow. In some areas, the Eurasian Watermilfoil is an Aquatic Nuisance Species. Eurasian watermilfoil is known to hybridize with the native northern watermilfoil ("M. sibiricum") and the hybrid taxon has also become invasive in North America. This hybridization has been observed across the upper midwestern United States (Indiana, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin) and in the Northwest (Idaho, Washington).

Control.

The aquatic moth "Acentria ephemerella", the water veneer moth, feeds upon and damages this water milfoil. It has been used as an agent of biological pest control against the plant in North America. The milfoil weevil ("Euhrychiopsis lecontei") has also been used as biocontrol. Another method for biocontrol is Grass Carp, (one of the Asian Carp species) which have been bred as sterile, is sometimes released into affected areas, since these fish primarily feed on aquatic plants and have proven effective at controlling the spread. However, the carp prefer many native species to the milfoil and will usually decimate preferred species before eating the milfoil. In Washington State the success rate of Grass Carp has been less than expected. They were used in 98 lakes and 39 percent of them had no submerged plant life left after only a short time.  Since roughly 2000, hand-harvesting of invasive milfoils has shown much success as a management technique. Several organizations in the New England states have undertaken large scale, lake-wide hand-harvesting management programs with extremely successful results. Acknowledgment had to be made that it is impossible to completely eradicate the species once it is established. As a result, maintenance must be done once an infestation has been reduced to affordably controlled levels. Well trained divers with proper techniques have been able to effectively control and then maintain many lakes, especially in the Adirondack Park in Northern New York where chemicals, mechanical harvesters, and other disruptive and largely unsuccessful management techniques are banned. After only three years of hand harvesting in Saranac Lake the program was able to reduce the amount harvested from over 18 tons to just 800 pounds per year.

Management and spread prevention.

Trailering boats has proven to be a significant vector by which Eurasian milfoil is able to spread and proliferate across otherwise disconnected bodies of water. Effective methods for mitigating this spread, are visual inspections with subsequent hand removal or pressure washing upon boat removal. In the Okanagan River Basin of south-central British Columbia, a specially-adapted rototiller is used to dredge shallow water to damage or destroy the root system.

Chemistry.

"Myriophyllum spicatum" produces ellagic, gallic and pyrogallic acids and (+)-catechin, allelopathic polyphenols inhibiting the growth of blue-green alga "Microcystis aeruginosa".

Myriophyllum spicatum (Eurasian watermilfoil or spiked water-milfoil) is native to Europe, Asia, and north Africa, but has a wide geographic and climatic distribution among some 57 countries, extending from northern Canada to South Africa. It is a submerged aquatic plant, grows in still or slow-moving water, and is considered to be a highly invasive species.


Meaning.

An ideal type is formed from characteristics and elements of the given phenomena, but it is not meant to correspond to all of the characteristics of any one particular case. It is not meant to refer to perfect things, moral ideals nor to statistical averages but rather to stress certain elements common to most cases of the given phenomenon. It is also important to pay attention that in using the word "ideal" Max Weber refers to the world of ideas (, "mental images") and not to perfection; these "ideal types" are idea-constructs that help put the seeming chaos of social reality in order.  Weber himself wrote: "An ideal type is formed by the one-sided accentuation of one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged according to those onesidedly emphasized viewpoints into a unified analytical construct..." It is a useful tool for comparative sociology in analyzing social or economic phenomena, having advantages over a very general, abstract idea and a specific historical example. It can be used to analyze both a general, suprahistorical phenomenon such as capitalism or historically unique occurrences such as in Weber's "Protestant Ethics" analysis.  To try to understand a particular phenomenon, one must not only describe the actions of its participants but "interpret" them as well. But interpretation poses a problem for the investigator who has to attempt to classify behavior as belonging to some prior "ideal type". Weber described four categories of "Ideal Types" of behavior: "zweckrational" (goal-rationality), "wertrational" (value-rationality), "affektual" (emotional-rationality) and "traditional" (custom, unconscious habit).  Weber, who is keenly aware of the fictional nature of the "ideal type", therefore states that it never seeks to claim its validity in terms of a reproduction of or correspondence with social reality. Its validity can be ascertained only in terms of adequacy, which is too conveniently ignored by the proponents of positivism. This does not mean, however, that objectivity, limited as it is, can be gained by "weighing the various evaluations against one another and making a'statesman-like' compromise among them", which is often proposed as a solution by those sharing Weber's kind of methodological perspectivism. Such a practice, which Weber calls "syncretism", is not only impossible but also unethical, for it avoids "the practical duty to stand up for our own ideals" [Weber 1904/1949, p. 58].

Scholarly reception.

It is commonly argued that idealization plays a key role in the methodology of other social sciences, especially of economics. For example, homo economicus is the result of a consistent abstraction-idealization process. One of the fundamental axioms of neoclassical economics, the law of diminishing marginal utility, followed from the highlighting of Weber-Fechner's law in psychophysics, which highlights that the growth of subjectively perceived intensity of recurrent stimuli with the same physical intensity is always decreasing. The same law emerges in the law of diminishing marginal returns. Homo economicus as presupposed by Neoclassicals is an idealized, abstract creature that can be characterized by an intention to exchange and whose only task is to take economic decisions. For homo economicus, there is no time or social and natural environment, he is ageless, he has no whims, and his decisions are not biased by occasional effects from the (social) environment. So, his behaviour only reflects the objective and consistently prevailing economic laws established by formal rationality. After all, human (and social) sciences, similarly to natural sciences, i.e. abstracting from everything subjective, constrained themselves to phrase only objective truths. However, the conceptualizing routine of neoclassical economics differs from the genuine approach of Max Weber in that Neoclassicals focused exactly on finding and deducing economic laws (in accordance with the efforts of natural sciences), while the ideal-types of the Weberian sociology only supported the interpretative understanding of past events with no references to causal laws. Even if the method and the strategy of creating ideal-typical concepts are common, these are two opposing scientific programs eventually. Weber offers an excellent description and a user's guide to the technique of abstraction and idealization that also directly applies to the conceptualizing strategy of mainstream economics that is on a completely different track with its law-seeking efforts.

Criticism.

Critics of ideal type include proponents of the normal type theory. Some sociologists argue that ideal type tends to focus on extreme phenomena and overlook the connections between them, and that it is difficult to show how the types and their elements fit into a theory of a total social system.

Ideal type (), also known as pure type, is a typological term most closely associated with sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920). For Weber, the conduct of social science depends upon the construction of abstract, hypothetical concepts. The "ideal type" is therefore a subjective element in social theory and research, and one of the subjective elements distinguishing sociology from natural science.


Biography.

Born in Bologna, he trained under Giulio Romano in Mantua and became a pupil of Innocenzo da Imola, executing decorations at the Palazzo Te before securing a position in the court of Francis I of France in 1532. Together with Rosso Fiorentino he was one of the leading artists to work at the Chateau Fontainebleau (where he is grouped with the so-called "First School of Fontainebleau") spending much of his life there. Following Rosso's death in 1540, Primaticcio took control of the artistic direction at Fontainebleau, furnishing the painters and stuccators of his team, such as Nicolò dell'Abate, with designs. He made cartoons for tapestry-weavers and, like all 16th-century court artists, was called upon to design elaborate ephemeral decorations for masques and fêtes, which survive only in preparatory drawings and, sometimes, engravings. Francis I trusted his eye and sent him back to Italy on buying trips in 1540 and again in 1545.  In Rome, part of Primaticcio's commission was to take casts of the best Roman sculptures in the papal collections, some of which were cast in bronze to decorate the parterres at Fontainebleau.  Primaticcio retained his position as court painter to Francis' heirs, Henry II and Francis II. His masterpiece, the "Salle d'Hercule" at Fontainebleau, occupied him and his team from the 1530s to 1559.  Primaticcio's crowded Mannerist compositions and his long-legged canon of beauty influenced French art for the rest of the century.  Primaticcio turned to architecture towards the end of his life, his greatest work being the Valois Chapel at the Abbey of Saint-Denis, although this was not completed until after his death and was destroyed in 1719.

References.

"The Oxford Dictionary of Art",

Francesco Primaticcio (April 30, 1504 – 1570) was an Italian Mannerist painter, architect and sculptor who spent most of his career in France.


Overview.

The document was not drafted before the council met, but arose from the floor of the council and was one of the last to be promulgated.  The previous Vatican Council in 1869–70 had tried to defend the role of the church in an increasingly secular world. Those who interpret the purpose of the Second Council as one of embracing this world use "Gaudium et spes" as the primary hermeneutic for all its documents. One of the cardinals, Leo Joseph Suenens of Belgium, urged the council to take on social responsibility for Third World suffering, International peace and war, and the poor, sentiments echoed by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini of Milan and Cardinal Lercaro of Bologna.  Thomas Rosica points out that the Council Fathers "... were men who had experienced two world wars, the horror of the Holocaust, the onset of the nuclear weaponry, the hostility of communism, the awesome and only partially understood impact of science and technology." In the Introduction it states, "... the Church has always had the duty of scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel." The mission of the Church needed to recognize the realities of secularization and pluralism. Bishop Christopher Butler points out that a key principle behind the "audacious change" in this and in several earlier outward-looking documents of the council was that the Church was Christ himself using us as his instruments to bring salvation to all, and in charity we must presume that those who differ from us are nevertheless people of good will.  Marie-Dominique Chenu, professor of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, "Angelicum" was influential in the composition of "Gaudium et spes", as was Louis-Joseph Lebret. "The problem of poverty and of overcoming it through a healthy economy, respectful of the primary value of the person, allows for a vast discussion on political ethics in Gaudium et Spes."  "Gaudium et Spes" was adopted after "Lumen Gentium", the Constitution on the Church, and it reflects the ecclesiological approach of that text. It also recognized and encouraged the role of the laity in the life of the Church in the world. The decree was debated at length and approved by much the largest and most international council in the history of the Church.  "This council exhorts Christians, as citizens of two cities, to strive to discharge their earthly duties conscientiously and in response to the Gospel spirit.". This was further expanded in "Apostolicam Actuositatem", Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, of 18 November 1965.

Contents.

The chief focus of Gaudium et Spes was on social teaching. "The numbers given correspond to section numbers within the text."

Gift of Self.

The "gift of self" from GS §24 was a phrase used often by Pope John Paul II and particularly in his Theology of the Body. This phrase has also been described as "the Law of the Gift"

Promotion of Peace.

The final chapter of the document is "The Fostering of Peace and the Promotion of a Community of Nations". This chapter echoed themes declared near the start of Vatican II by Pope John XXIII in 1963 in his well-regarded encyclical, Pacem in Terris.

Ecumenical impact.

The document contributed to the ecumenical movement of its time and has had a huge influence on the social teachings of the wider Christian churches and communities, especially the churches that belong to the World Council of Churches..

Gaudium et spes (, "Joy and Hope"), the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, was one of the four constitutions resulting from the Second Vatican Council. Together, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium (LG), and the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (GS) stand as the two pillars of the Second Vatican Council. The Dogmatic Constitution treats the nature of the church in itself; the Pastoral Constitution treats its mission in the world.


Club career.

Delvecchio was born in Milan, Italy, where he started his professional career with Inter (1992 and 1994–95). He went on to represent Venezia (1992–93) and Udinese (1993–94) before joining Roma in 1995. His career reached a high when he transferred to Roma, becoming a key player at the club. He notably won the "Scudetto" with Roma in 2001, followed by the 2001 Supercoppa Italiana, under manager Fabio Capello, alongside forwards Francesco Totti, Gabriel Batistuta, and Vincenzo Montella. He also reached the Coppa Italia Final with Roma during the 2002–03 season. He subsequently played one season for Brescia in 2004–05, and was then bought by Parma in 2005. In 2006, Parma released him and he went on to join Ascoli on a free transfer.  On 10 May 2007, Delvecchio and Ascoli mutually agreed to terminate his contract following a combination of a knee injury and Ascoli's relegation to Serie B, the latter following a 1–0 loss to Torino three days earlier. He scored twice in ten appearances for the club.  After one season of inactivity, Delvecchio decided to abandon professional football altogether and accept an offer from Eccellenza Lazio side Pescatori Ostia, where he scored 34 goals throughout the season.

International career.

Delvecchio was a member of the Italy under-21 teams that won the UEFA European Under-21 Championship in 1994 and 1996; in total, he scored 6 goals for the under-21 side in 24 appearances between 1992 and 1996. He also represented Italy at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, making three appearances and scoring once.  He made his international for the Italy senior side debut under manager Dino Zoff on 16 December 1998, in a friendly match in Rome against the FIFA World-Stars, commemorating the first century since the founding of the Italian Football Federation. He was subsequently called up by Zoff for the 22-man Italian squad that took part at Euro 2000, making three appearances throughout the tournament. His first international goal came against France in the Euro 2000 final, although Italy later conceded an equaliser in the final minute of stoppage time, and were defeated in extra-time from a golden goal. Delvecchio travelled to Korea with the 23-man Italian 2002 World Cup squad, but did not play during the tournament under manager Giovanni Trapattoni. After the World Cup, he scored a goal in a 2–0 friendly win over Northern Ireland, and on 18 February 2004, he made his final appearance for Italy against the Czech Republic, missing out on Trapattoni's Euro 2004 squad. Delvecchio scored 3 goals in 14 starts for the Italy senior team, scoring 4 goals in 22 total appearances for Italy between 1998 and 2004.

Style of play.

Delvecchio was a versatile, powerful, determined, and hard-working forward, who was capable of playing anywhere along the front line, as well as in midfield, as either a winger or as an attacking midfielder, although he was primarily utilised as a central striker or as a supporting forward. Due to his height and strength, his main attributes were his aerial ability, as well as his finishing, and his positioning skills. Despite his large, slender frame, he was also a good passer and dribbler, which enabled him to link-up with other players, create chances, and provide teammates with assists.

Personal life and media.

Marco was a contestant on the Italian version of Dancing with the Stars, Ballando con le Stelle 2012, where he placed second alongside professional dancer Sara Di Vaira, with whom he later began a relationship.

Honours.

Player.

Club.

Roma

Marco Delvecchio (; born 7 April 1973) is a retired Italian footballer, who played as a forward. Although he played for several Italian clubs throughout his career, he spent most of it at A.S. Roma, where he is still remembered by the club's fans for his ease in scoring against rivals S.S. Lazio in the Derby della Capitale, and for the contributions he made to the club's league title victory in 2001. At international level, he represented Italy on 22 occasions between 1998 and 2004, scoring 4 goals, taking part at UEFA Euro 2000, reaching the final of the tournament, in which he scored, and at the 2002 FIFA World Cup.


History.

The dagger symbol originated from a variant of the obelus, originally depicted by a plain line or a line with one or two dots. It represented an iron roasting spit, a dart, or the sharp end of a javelin, symbolizing the skewering or cutting out of dubious matter. The obelus is believed to have been invented by the Homeric scholar Zenodotus as one of a system of editorial symbols. They marked questionable or corrupt words or passages in manuscripts of the Homeric epics. The system was further refined by his student Aristophanes of Byzantium, who first introduced the asterisk and used a symbol resembling a for an obelus; and finally by Aristophanes' student, in turn, Aristarchus, from whom they earned the name of "Aristarchian symbols".  While the asterisk ("asteriscus") was used for corrective additions, the obelus was used for corrective deletions of invalid reconstructions. It was used when non-attested words are reconstructed for the sake of argument only, implying that the author did not believe such a word or word form had ever existed. Some scholars used the obelus and various other critical symbols, in conjunction with a second symbol known as the "metobelos" ("end of obelus"), variously represented as two vertically arranged dots, a -like symbol, a mallet-like symbol, or a diagonal slash (with or without one or two dots). They indicated the end of a marked passage.  It was used much in the same way by later scholars to mark differences between various translations or versions of the Bible and other manuscripts. The early Christian Alexandrian scholar Origen (c. 184–253 AD) used it to indicate differences between different versions of the Old Testament in his "Hexapla". Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 310–320 – 403) used both a horizontal slash or hook (with or without dots) and an upright and slightly slanting dagger to represent an obelus. St. Jerome (c. 347–420) used a simple horizontal slash for an obelus, but only for passages in the Old Testament. He describes the use of the asterisk and the dagger as: "an asterisk makes a light shine, the obelisk cuts and pierces".  Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636) described the use of the symbol as follows: "The obelus is appended to words or phrases uselessly repeated, or else where the passage involves a false reading, so that, like the arrow, it lays low the superfluous and makes the errors disappear... The obelus accompanied by points is used when we do not know whether a passage should be suppressed or not."  Medieval scribes used the symbols extensively for critical markings of manuscripts. In addition to this, the dagger was also used in notations in early Christianity, to indicate a minor intermediate pause in the chanting of Psalms, equivalent to the quaver rest notation or the trope symbol in Hebrew cantillation. It also indicates a breath mark when reciting, along with the asterisk, and is thus frequently seen beside a comma.  In the 16th century, the printer and scholar Robert Estienne (also known as Stephanus in Latin and Stephens in English) used it to mark differences in the words or passages between different printed versions of the Greek New Testament ("Textus Receptus").  Due to the variations as to the different uses of the different forms of the obelus, there is some controversy as to which symbols can actually be considered an obelus. The symbol and its variant, the, is sometimes considered to be different from other obeli. The term 'obelus' may have referred strictly only to the horizontal slash and the dagger symbols.

Modern usage.

The dagger usually indicates a footnote if an asterisk has already been used. A third footnote employs the double dagger. Additional footnotes are somewhat inconsistent and represented by a variety of symbols, e.g., parallels ( ), section sign, and the pilcrow some of which were nonexistent in early modern typography. Partly because of this, superscript numerals have increasingly been used in modern literature in the place of these symbols, especially when several footnotes are required. Some texts use asterisks and daggers alongside superscripts, using the former for per-page footnotes and the latter for endnotes.  The dagger is also used to indicate death, extinction, or obsolescence. The asterisk and the dagger, when placed beside years, indicate year of birth and year of death respectively. This usage is particularly common in German. When placed immediately before or after a person's name, the dagger indicates that the person is deceased. In this usage, it is referred to as the "death dagger". In the "Oxford English Dictionary", the dagger symbol indicates an obsolete word.  The dagger should not be confused with the Unicode characters "Latin cross" (✝, U+271D), "box drawings light vertical and horizontal" (, U+253C), and other cross symbols. The double dagger should not be confused with the palatal click (, U+01C2), Canadian Syllabics Woods-Cree Final Th (, U+167E), the Cross of Lorraine (, U+2628), or the patriarchal cross (, U+2626).  While daggers are freely used in English-language texts, they are often avoided in other languages because of their similarity to the Christian cross. In German, for example, daggers are commonly employed only to indicate a person's death or the extinction of a word, language, species or the like.

A dagger, obelisk, or obelus is a typographical symbol that usually indicates a footnote if an asterisk has already been used. It is one of the modern descendants of the obelus, a mark used historically by scholars as a critical or highlighting indicator in manuscripts. (The term obelisk derives from the ('), which means "little obelus"; from (') meaning 'roasting spit).


History.

RIA Novosti's history dates back to 24 June 1941, when by a resolution of the USSR Council of People's Commissars and the Communist Party Central Committee, ""On the Establishment and Tasks of the Soviet Information Bureau"", the Soviet Information Bureau (Sovinformburo) was set up under the USSR Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee. Its main task was to oversee work to cover international, military events and the events of the country's domestic life in periodicals and on the radio (from 14 October 1941, to 3 March 1942, was based in Kuibyshev – modern-day Samara).  The bureau's main task was to compile reports on the situation on the frontline of the war, work on the home front, and the partisan movement for the radio, newspapers and magazines. Sovinformburo directed the activity of the All-Slavonic Committee, Anti-Nazi Committee of Soviet Women, Anti-Nazi Committee of the Soviet Youth, Anti-Nazi Committee of Soviet Scientists, and the Jewish Anti-Nazi Committee. In 1944, a special bureau on propaganda for foreign countries was set up as part of Sovinformburo.  Through 1,171 newspapers, 523 magazines and 18 radio stations in 23 countries, Soviet embassies abroad, friendship societies, trade unions, women's, youth and scientific organizations, Sovinformburo informed readers and listeners about the struggle of the Soviet people against Nazism and in the post-war years about the main areas of Soviet domestic and foreign policies.  Sovinformburo heads included A.S. Shcherbakov (1941–45), S. A. Lozovsky (1945–48) and Y.S. Khavinson, D.A. Polikarpov. In 1961, the Novosti Press Agency (APN) succeeded Sovinformburo. It became the leading information and press body of Soviet public organizations. The constituent conference was held on 21 February 1961. The conference of representatives of Soviet public organizations adopted a decision to create a press agency of public organizations named Novosti. The agency's guiding body was the Council of the Agency's Founders.  The APN founders were the USSR Journalists Union, USSR Writers Union, Union of Soviet Societies of Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, and the Znaniye Society. On 3 April 1961, the Agency charter was adopted. Under its charter, APN's aim was "to contribute to mutual understanding, trust and friendship among peoples in every possible way by broadly publishing accurate information about the USSR abroad and familiarizing the Soviet public with the life of the peoples of foreign countries." APN's motto was "Information for Peace, for the Friendship of Nations". APN had bureaus in over 120 countries. The Agency published 60 illustrated newspapers and magazines in 45 languages with a one-time circulation of 4.3 million copies. With the Union of Soviet Friendship Societies, APN published the newspaper, "Moscow News", which in September 1990 became an independent publication. APN Publishing House put out over 200 books and booklets with a total annual circulation of 20 million copies. In 1989, a TV center opened in APN. Later, it was transformed into the TV-Novosti TV company.  The APN heads included Boris Burkov (1961–70), Ivan Udaltsov (1970–75), Lev Tolkunov (1975–83), Pavel Naumov (1983–86), Valentin Falin (1986–88), Albert Vlasov (1988–90).  By a decree of USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev, "On the Establishment of the Information Agency Novosti," the Information Agency Novosti (IAN) succeeded APN on 27 July 1990. "To provide information support for the USSR's state domestic and foreign policies and proceeding from the interests of the democratization of the mass media," the Novosti Press Agency was renamed the Information Agency Novosti (IAN). IAN's tasks remained the same – preparing and publishing printed, TV and radio materials in the USSR and abroad; studying public opinion on Soviet foreign and domestic policies in the USSR and abroad." A computer databank was created in the Agency. Initially, it contained over 250,000 documents. In 1991, the Infonews hotline started operating in the Agency. IAN had bureaus in 120 countries. It published 13 illustrated magazines and newspapers. The chairman of the IAN Board was Albert Ivanovich Vlasov.

Russian Federation.

The Russian Information Agency Novosti was created in September 1991 on the basis of IAN and the Russian Information Agency. By a Presidential decree of the Russian president dated 22 August 1991, RIA Novosti was placed within the competence of the Press and Information Ministry. RIA Novosti had about 80 bureaus and news offices abroad, over 1,500 subscribers in CIS countries and about a hundred in non-CIS countries. A Presidential decree of the Russian president of 15 September 1993 ""On the Russian Information Agency Novosti"", transformed RIA Novosti to a state news-analytical agency. RIA Novosti's radio channel – RIA-Radio worked in 1996. In August 1997, the TV channel Kultura was set up on the basis of the RIA TV channel under the sponsorship of the VGTRK TV and radio broadcasting company. By a decree of the Russian president, "On Improving the Work of the State Electronic Media," the VGTRK information holding was created in May 1998, which RIA Novosti joined.  In May 1998, the agency was renamed the Russian Information Agency Vesti. As a mass media body, it retained the name of RIA Novosti. In 2005, RIA Novosti launched RT (originally Russia Today) a global multilingual television news network, which is a government-funded but autonomous, non-profit organization. RIA Novosti asserts that it "merely participated in establishing the channel" which retained "complete legal, editorial and operational independence."

Closing.

On 9 December 2013 Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the liquidation of RIA Novosti and merging it with the international radio service Voice of Russia to create Rossiya Segodnya. Dmitry Kiselyov, a former anchorman of the Channel One Russia is appointed as the president of the new information agency. According to her interview, the editor-in-chief of the TV network RT, Margarita Simonyan was completely unaware about the reorganization of the information agency and got the information from listening to competitor radio station Kommersant-FM. However, Rossiya Segodnya will not in any way be related to the television channel RT, which was known as Russia Today before its rebranding in 2009.

RIA Novosti (), sometimes RIA () for short, was a Russian state-controlled domestic news agency, which used to be one of Russia's international news agencies until 2013. Operating under the purview of the Russian Ministry of Communications and Mass Media, RIA Novosti is headquartered in Moscow and operated about 80 bureaus internationally. On 9 December 2013 President of Russia Vladimir Putin ordered RIA Novosti's liquidation and the creation of a Russian international news agency Rossiya Segodnya. Dmitry Kiselyov, an anchorman of the Russia-1 channel was appointed to be the first president of the new information agency. RIA Novosti was scheduled to be closed down in 2014; starting in March 2014, staff were informed that they had the option of transferring their contracts to Rossiya Segodnya or accepting voluntary redundancy. On 10 November 2014, Rossiya Segodnya launched the Sputnik multimedia platform as the international replacement of RIA Novosti and Voice of Russia. Within Russia itself, however, Rossiya Segodnya continues to operate its Russian language news service under the name RIA Novosti with its ria.ru website.


Geographic location.

Ukraine has a strategic position in Eastern Europe: lying on the northern shores of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, it borders a number of European countries - Poland, Slovakia and Hungary in the west, Belarus in the north, Moldova and Romania in the south-west and Russia in the east. The total geographic area of Ukraine is. Ukraine has an Exclusive Economic Zone of in the Black Sea.  The land border of Ukraine totals. The border lengths with each country are: Belarus, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania on the south and on the west, Russia, and Slovakia. Ukraine is also bordered by of coastline. The border with Russia is the country's longest border - it runs in part through the Sea of Azov.

Relief.

Most of its territory lies within the Great European Plain, while parts of western regions and southern regions lay within the Alpine system. In general Ukraine comprises two different biomes: mixed forest towards the middle of continent and steppe towards the Black Sea littoral. Major provinces include, Polesian Lowland, Dnieper Lowland, Volhynia-Podolie Plateau, Black Sea-Azov Lowland, Donets-Azov Plateau, Central Russian Upland, Carpathians, and Pannonian Basin.  The western regions feature alpine-like section of Carpathian Mountains, the Eastern Carpathians that stretches across Poland, Ukraine and Romania. The highest peak is Hoverla, which is tall. Mountains are limited to the west, the southern tip of Ukraine on the Sea of Azov. The western region has the Carpathian Mountains, and some eroded mountains from the Donets Ridge are in the east near the Sea of Azov. The highest elevation in Ukraine is located at the peak of Mount Hoverla which is above sea level.  Most of Ukraine's area is taken up by the steppe-like region just north of the Black Sea. Most of Ukraine consists of fertile plains (or steppes) and plateaus. In terms of land use, 58% of Ukraine is considered arable land; 2% is used for permanent crops, 13% for permanent pastures, 18% is forests and woodland, and 9% is other.

Physiographic division of Ukraine.

Most of Ukraine consists of regular plains with the average height above sea level being. It is surrounded by mountains to its west and extreme south. Wide spaces of the country's plains are located in the south-western part of the East European Plain. The plains have numerous highlands and lowlands caused by the uneven crystallized base of the East European craton. The highlands are characterized by Precambrian basement rocks from the Ukrainian Shield.  Plains are considered elevations of no more than among which there are recognized lowlands (plains) and uplands (plateaus, ridges, hill ridges).

Hydrography.

The territory of Ukraine is bordered by the waters of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. More than 95% of the rivers are part of those two seas' drainage basins. A few rivers are part of the Baltic Sea basin. There are seven major rivers in Ukraine: Desna, Dnipro, Dnister, Danube, Prypiat, Siverian Donets, and Southern Buh.

Climate.

Ukraine has a mostly temperate climate, with the exception of the southern coast of Crimea which has a subtropical climate. The climate is influenced by moderately warm, humid air coming from the Atlantic Ocean. Average annual temperatures range from in the north, to in the south. Precipitation is disproportionately distributed; it is highest in the west and north and lowest in the east and southeast. Western Ukraine, particularly in the Carpathian Mountains receive around of precipitation annually, while Crimea and the coastal areas of the Black Sea receive around.

Natural resources.

Significant natural resources in Ukraine include: iron ore, coal, manganese, natural gas, oil, salt, sulfur, graphite, titanium, magnesium, kaolin, nickel, mercury, and arable land.

Environmental issues.

Ukraine does have many environmental concerns. Some regions lack adequate supplies of potable water. Air and water pollution affects the country, as well as deforestation, and radiation contamination in the northeast stemming from the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

The geography of Ukraine varies greatly from one region of the country to another, with the majority of the country lying within the East European Plain. Ukraine is the second-largest country by area in Europe (after the Russian Federation). Its various regions have diverse geographic features ranging from highlands to lowlands, as well as climatic range and a wide variety in hydrography.


Early history.

A bridge was built by consul Gaius Claudius Nero in 206 BC after he had defeated the Carthaginian army in the Battle of the Metaurus. In 109 BC, censor Marcus Aemilius Scaurus built a new bridge of stone in the same position, demolishing the old one. In 63 BC, letters from the conspirators of the Catiline conspiracy were intercepted here, allowing Cicero to read them to the Roman Senate the next day. In AD 312, Constantine I defeated his stronger rival Maxentius between this bridge and Saxa Rubra, in the famous Battle of the Milvian Bridge.  During the Middle Ages, the bridge was renovated by a monk named Acuzio, and in 1429 Pope Martin V asked a famous architect, Francesco da Genazzano, to repair it because it was collapsing. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the bridge was modified by two architects, Giuseppe Valadier and Domenico Pigiani.  The bridge was badly damaged in 1849 by Garibaldi's troops, in an attempt to block a French invasion, and later repaired by Pope Pius IX in 1850.  In January 1873 the novelist Henry James, an unlikely yet adequate horseman, made the Ponte Milvio the first of many Roman destinations on horseback. He commented “I can stick on a horse better than I supposed.”

Problems.

Love locks.

Following the release of the popular book and movie "I Want You" ("Ho voglia di te" 2006) by author Federico Moccia, couples started - as a token of love - to attach padlocks to a lamppost on the bridge. After attaching the lock, they throw the key behind them into the Tiber. However, after the lamppost partially collapsed in 2007 because of the weight of the padlocks, all parts of the bridge including its balustrades, railings and garbage bins were used. It has continued despite Rome's city council introducing a €50 fine for anyone found attaching locks to the bridge. In 2012 city authorities removed all locks from the bridge. The love lock tradition has since spread around Italy, the rest of Europe and across the globe.

Football violence.

The bridge is known as a place where Italian football hooligans known as Ultras from A.S. Roma often attack fans from opposing teams on match days. The lightning attack or "puncicata", as it's known in Roman slang, is where a flash mob of Ultras quickly assault another group of fans stabbing them in the buttocks before running away. The bridge is used because its design and locations make it suitable for this type of ambush. In occasion of games played by the other local team S.S.Lazio, the A.S.Roma fans tend to avoid the area, as it is where Lazio Ultras usually gather.

The Milvian (or Mulvian) Bridge ( or ; or ) is a bridge over the Tiber in northern Rome, Italy. It was an economically and strategically important bridge in the era of the Roman Empire and was the site of the famous Battle of the Milvian Bridge.


Origin.

The group's name is derived from the Black September conflict which began on 16 September 1970, when King Hussein of Jordan declared military rule in response to "fedayeen" attempting to seize his kingdom – resulting in the deaths and expulsion of thousands of Palestinians fighters from Jordan. The BSO began as a small cell of Fatah men determined to take revenge upon King Hussein and the Jordanian Armed Forces. Recruits from the PFLP, as-Sa'iqa, and other groups also joined.  Initially, most of its members were dissidents within Fatah who had been close to Abu Ali Iyad, the commander of Fatah forces in northern Jordan who continued to fight the Jordanian Army after the PLO leadership withdrew. He was killed, allegedly through execution, by Jordanian forces on 23 July 1971. It was alleged by them that the Jordanian Prime Minister at the time, Wasfi Tal, was personally responsible for his torture and death.

Structure of the group.

There is disagreement among historians, journalists, and primary sources about the nature of the BSO and the extent to which it was controlled by Fatah, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) faction controlled at the time by Yasser Arafat.  In his book "Stateless", Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad), Arafat's chief of security and a founding member of Fatah, wrote that: "Black September was not a terrorist organization, but was rather an auxiliary unit of the resistance movement, at a time when the latter was unable to fully realize its military and political potential. The members of the organization always denied any ties between their organization and Fatah or the PLO."  The denial described in Abu Iyad's claim was mutual: according to a 1972 article in the Jordanian newspaper "Al-Dustur", Mohammed Daoud Oudeh, also known as Abu Daoud, a BSO operative and former senior PLO member, told Jordanian police: "There is no such organization as Black September. Fatah announces its own operations under this name so that Fatah will not appear as the direct executor of the operation." A March 1973 document released in 1981 by the U.S. State Department seemed to confirm that Fatah was Black September's parent organization.  According to American journalist John K. Cooley, the BSO represented a "total break with the old operational and organizational methods of the "fedayeen". Its members operated in air-tight cells of four or more men and women. Each cell's members were kept purposely ignorant of other cells. Leadership was exercised from outside by intermediaries and 'cut-offs' ", though there was no centralized leadership.  Cooley writes that many of the cells in Europe and around the world were made up of Palestinians and other Arabs who had lived in their countries of residence as students, teachers, businessmen, and diplomats for many years. Operating without a central leadership (see Leaderless resistance), it was a "true collegial direction". The cell structure and the need-to-know operational philosophy protected the operatives by ensuring that the apprehension or surveillance of one cell would not affect the others. The structure offered plausible deniability to the Fatah leadership, which was careful to distance itself from Black September operations.  Fatah needed Black September, according to historian Benny Morris. He writes that there was a "problem of internal PLO or Fatah cohesion, with extremists constantly demanding greater militancy. The moderates apparently acquiesced in the creation of Black September in order to survive". As a result of pressure from militants, writes Morris, a Fatah congress in Damascus in August–September 1971 agreed to establish Black September. The new organization was based on Fatah's existing special intelligence and security apparatus, and on the PLO offices and representatives in various European capitals, and from very early on, there was cooperation between Black September and the PFLP.  The PLO closed Black September down in September 1973, on the anniversary it was created by the "political calculation that no more good would come of terrorism abroad" according to Morris. In 1974 Arafat ordered the PLO to withdraw from acts of violence outside the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Munich massacre.

The group was responsible for the 1972 Munich massacre in which 11 Israeli Olympic athletes were murdered, nine of whom were first taken hostage, and the killing of a German police officer, during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany.  Following the attack, the Israeli government, headed by Prime Minister Golda Meir, launched Operation Wrath of God and ordered Mossad to assassinate those known to have been involved in the Munich massacre. By 1979, at least one Mossad unit had assassinated eight Black September and PLO members, including Ali Hassan Salameh, nicknamed the "Red Prince", the wealthy, flamboyant son of an upper-class family, and commander of Force 17, Yasser Arafat's personal security squad. Salameh was also behind the 1972 hijacking of Sabena Flight 572 from Vienna to Lod. He was killed by a car bomb in Beirut on 22 January 1979. In Operation Spring of Youth, in April 1973, Israeli commandos killed three senior members of Black September in Beirut, Lebanon. In July 1973, in what became known as the Lillehammer affair, Ahmed Bouchiki, an innocent Moroccan waiter who was mistaken for Ali Hassan Salameh was killed in Norway. Six Israeli operatives were arrested for the murder.  Recent remarks by Abu Daoud, the alleged mastermind of the Munich kidnappings, deny that any of the Palestinians assassinated by Mossad had any relation to the Munich operation, despite the fact that the list includes two of the three surviving members of the kidnap squad arrested at the airport.

Other attacks.

Other actions attributed to Black September include:  According to the University of Maryland, College Park's Global Terrorism Database, the group was last known to be active in 1988, when it was responsible for a bombing in Amman, Jordan.

Letter bomb attacks and the assassination of Ami Shachori.

Ami Shachori was the agricultural counsellor in the Israeli Embassy to the United Kingdom in Kensington, London. Shachori was assassinated in a letter bomb attack on 19 September 1972, perpetrated by Black September.  Eight bombs were addressed to embassy staffers. Four were intercepted at a post office sorting room in Earls Court, but the other four letters made it to the embassy. Three of the letters were detected in the consulate post room but Shachori opened his, believing it contained Dutch flower seeds he had ordered. The resulting blast tore a hole in the desk and fatally wounded Shachori in the stomach and chest.  In Shachori's memory an annual memorial lecture on agriculture in London was established.

The Black September Organization (BSO) (, "Munaẓẓamat Aylūl al-aswad") was a Palestinian militant organization founded in 1970. Besides other actions, the group was responsible for the assassination of the Jordanian Prime Minister Wasfi Tal, and the Munich massacre, in which eleven Israeli athletes and officials were kidnapped and killed, as well as a West German policeman losing his life, during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, their most publicized event. These attacks led to the creation or specialization of permanent counter-terrorism forces in many European countries. The group was last known to be active around 1988.


History.

The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia was formed in 1989 by the Congress of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, which decided to create a party for the territories of Bohemia and Moravia (including Czech Silesia), the areas that were to become the Czech Republic. The new party's organization was significantly more democratic and decentralized than the previous party and gave local district branches of the party significant autonomy.  In 1990, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was reorganized as a federation of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia and the Communist Party of Slovakia. Later, the Communist Party of Slovakia changed its name to the Party of the Democratic Left, and the federation dissolved in 1992.  During the party's first congress, held in Olomouc in October 1990, party leader Jiří Svoboda attempted to reform the party into a democratic socialist one, proposing a democratic socialist program and changing the name to the transitional "Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia: Party of Democratic Socialism." Svoboda had to balance the criticisms of older conservative communists, who made up a majority of the party's members, with the demands of an increasingly large and moderate bloc of members, led primarily by a group of young KSČM parliamentarians called the Democratic Left, who demanded the immediate social democratization of the party. Delegates approved the new program but rejected the name change.  During 1991 and 1992 factional tensions increased, with the party's conservative anti-revisionist wing increasingly vocal in criticizing Svoboda. There was an increase in popularity of the anti-revisionist Marxist–Leninist Clubs amongst rank and file party members. On the party's other wing, the Democratic Left became increasingly critical of the slow pace of the reforms and began demanding a referendum of members to change the name. In December 1991 the Democratic Left split off and formed the short-lived Party of Democratic Labour. The referendum on changing the name was held in 1992, with 75.94% voting not to change the name.  The party's second congress, held in Kladno in December 1992, showed the increasing popularity of the party's anti-revisionist wing. It passed resolutions reinterpreting the 1990 program as a "starting point" for the KSČM, rather than a definitive statement of a post-communist program. Svoboda, who was hospitalized due to an attack by an anti-communist, could not attend the congress but was nevertheless overwhelmingly re-elected. After the party's second congress in 1992, several groups split away. A group of post-communist delegates split off and merged with the Party of Democratic Labour to form the Party of the Democratic Left (SDL). Several independent left-wing members who had participated with the KSČM in the 1992 electoral pact called the Left Bloc left the party to form the Left Bloc Party (SLB). Both groups eventually merged into the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), which does some joint work, and co-operates with the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia.  In 1993, Svoboda attempted to expel the members of the 'For Socialism' platform, a group in the party that wanted a restoration of the pre-1989 communist regime. However, with only the lukewarm support of the KSČM's Central Committee, he briefly resigned. He withdrew his resignation after the Central Committee agreed to move the party's next congress forward to June 1993 to resolve the issues of its name and ideology.  At the 1993 congress, held in Prostějov, Svoboda's proposals were overwhelmingly rejected by two-thirds majorities. Svoboda did not seek re-election as chairman, and neocommunist Miroslav Grebeníček was elected chairman. Grebeníček and his supporters were critical of what they termed the "inadequacies" of the pre-1989 regime but supported the retention of the party's communist character and program. The members of the 'For Socialism' platform were expelled at the congress, with the existence of "platforms" in the party being banned altogether, on the grounds that they gave too much influence to minority groups. Svoboda left the party and eventually joined the ČSSD in 1997.  The expelled members of 'For Socialism' formed the 'Party of Czechoslovak Communists' (later renamed the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia), led by Miroslav Štěpán. The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia refuses to work with this group.  The party was left on the sidelines for most of the first decade of the Czech Republic's existence. Václav Havel suspected the KSČM was still an unreconstructed Stalinist party and prevented it from having any influence during his presidency. However, the party provided the one-vote margin that elected Havel's successor Václav Klaus as president.  After a long-running battle with the Ministry of the Interior, the Communist Youth Union (KSM), the KSCM youth section led by Milan Krajča, was dissolved in 2006, allegedly for endorsing in its program the replacement of private with collective ownership of the means of production. The decision met with international protests.  In November 2008, the Senate of the Czech Republic asked the Supreme Administrative Court to dissolve the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia because of its political program, which the Senate claimed contradicted the Constitution of the Czech Republic. 30 out of the 38 senators who were present agreed to this request and expressed the view that the program of KSČM did not reject violence as a means of attaining power and adopted "The Communist Manifesto" of Karl Marx. However, this was only a symbolic gesture, as according to the Constitution only the Cabinet may file a petition with the Supreme Administrative Court to dissolve a political party.  For the first two decades after the end of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia, the Communist Party was politically isolated. However, after the 2012 regional elections, the party started to participate in coalitions with the Social Democrats, forming part of the ruling coalition in 10 out of 13 regions. Since 2018, the Communists have been providing parliamentary support to Andrej Babiš' Second Cabinet.

Popular support and electoral results.

The KSČM's strongest bases of support are in the regions hit by deindustrialization, particularly in the Karlovy Vary and Ústí nad Labem Regions. In 2012 the party won a regional election for the first time, in Ústí nad Labem. Its regional leader Oldřich Bubeníček subsequently became the first communist regional governor in the history of Czech Republic. The party is stronger among older voters than younger voters, with the majority of the membership being over 60. The party is also stronger in small and medium-sized towns than in big cities, with Prague consistently being the party's weakest region.

Parliament of the Czech Republic.

Chamber of Deputies (Lower House).

Notes:

The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (, KSČM) is a communist party in the Czech Republic. It has a membership of 42,994 (2016) and is a member party of the European United Left–Nordic Green Left bloc in the European Parliament.


Short biography.

Thunberg began with speed skating rather late, at the age of 18, having led a somewhat rowdy life as a compulsive smoker and drinker before he concentrated fully on his sport. However, from the age of 28 – when he turned up at his first European Allround Championships – and for the following ten years, he was by far the most-winning skater.  Thunberg's greatest strengths were the shortest distances, the 500 through 5000 metres. He never won an international 10000 metre event, although he did win a silver medal on the 10000 metres at the 1924 Winter Olympics – beaten by three seconds by compatriot Julius Skutnabb. Thunberg won three gold medals at the 1924 Olympics – the allround event, the 1500 metres and the 5000 metres. He remains the only person to have won an Olympic gold medal in allround speed skating, as despite the status of allround as the premier skating event, at least up until the 1990s, the event was abolished in the Olympics from 1928 onwards.  Thunberg won five World Allround Championships titles from 1923 to 1931, and also four European Allround Championships titles. He also took two more gold medals at the 1928 Winter Olympics, to end with five, and these two medals made him the oldest Olympic Speed Skating Champion, at the age of 34. However, despite his amazing run, he was occasionally vulnerable on the long distances. If his 500 and 1,500 metre events did not go exactly according to plan, then he could be beaten – as shown in the 1927 season when the 22-year-old Bernt Evensen pipped him to both the World and European title. Evensen, however, could never string together the long run of victories that Thunberg ended up with.  Despite his amazing career record, Thunberg never reached the top of Adelskalender – a statistical invention which ranks skaters according to their personal bests and then converts them into allround performances, using a table. Oscar Mathisen's personal bests on the three longest distances were simply too good for Thunberg to match. However, Mathisen – who was born five years before Thunberg – turned professional during World War I, meaning that the two never met in an ISU-sanctioned event.

Record.

World records.

Over the course of his career, Thunberg skated four world records:

Personal records.

Note that Thunberg's personal record on the 3000 m was not recognised as an official world record.  Thunberg has an Adelskalender score of 192.633 points. His highest ranking on the Adelskalender was a second place.

Medals.

An overview of medals won by Thunberg at important championships he participated in, listing the years in which he won each:

Arnold Clas ("Classe") Robert Thunberg (5 April 1893 – 28 April 1973) was a Finnish speed skater who won five Olympic gold medals – three at the inaugural Winter Olympics held in Chamonix in 1924 (along with a silver and a bronze medal) and two at the 1928 Winter Olympics held in St. Moritz. He was the most successful athlete at both of these Winter Olympics, sharing the honour for 1928 Winter Olympics with Johan Grøttumsbraaten of Norway. No other athlete ever won such a high fraction of all Olympic events at a single Games. He was born and died in Helsinki.


Sub-species.

The eastern newt includes these four subspecies:

Life stages.

Eastern newts have three stages of life: (1) the aquatic larva or tadpole, (2) the red eft or terrestrial juvenile stage, and (3) the aquatic adult.

Larva.

The larva possesses gills and does not leave the pond environment where it was hatched. Larvae are brown-green, and shed their gills when they transform into the red eft.

Red eft.

The red eft (juvenile) stage is a bright orangish-red, with darker red spots outlined in black. An eastern newt can have as many as 21 of these spots. The pattern of these spots differs among the subspecies. An eastern newt's time to get from larva to eft is about three months. During this stage, the eft may travel far, acting as a dispersal stage from one pond to another, ensuring outcrossing in the population. The striking coloration of this stage is an example of aposematism — or "warning coloration" — which is a type of antipredator adaptation in which a "warning signal" is associated with the unprofitability of a prey item (i.e., its toxicity) to potential predators.

Adult.

After two or three years, the eft finds a pond and transforms into the aquatic adult. The adult's skin is a dull olive green dorsally, with a dull yellow belly, but retains the eft's characteristic black-rimmed red spots. It develops a larger, blade-like tail and characteristically slimy skin.  It is common for the peninsula newt ("N. v. piaropicola") to be neotenic, with a larva transforming directly into a sexually mature aquatic adult, never losing its external gills. The red eft stage is in these cases skipped.

Homing.

Eastern newts home using magnetic orientation. Their magnetoreception system seems to be a hybrid of polarity-based inclination and a sun-dependent compass. Shoreward-bound eastern newts will orient themselves quite differently under light with wavelengths around 400 nm than light with wavelengths around 600 nm, while homing newts will orient themselves the same way under both short and long wavelengths. Ferromagnetic material, probably biogenic magnetite, is likely present in the eastern newt's body.

Habitat and diet.

Eastern newts are at home in both coniferous and deciduous forests. They need a moist environment with either a temporary or permanent body of water, and thrive best in a muddy environment. During the eft stage, they may travel far from their original location. Red efts may often be seen in a forest after a rainstorm. Adults prefer a muddy aquatic habitat, but will move to land during a dry spell. Eastern newts have some amount of toxins in their skin, which is brightly colored to act as a warning. Even then, only 2% of larvae make it to the eft stage. Some larvae have been found in the pitchers of the carnivorous plant "Sarracenia purpurea".  Eastern newts eat a variety of prey, such as insects, small mollusks and crustaceans, young amphibians, worms, and frog eggs.

Conservation concerns.

Although eastern newts are widespread throughout North America, they, like many other species of amphibians, are increasingly threatened by several factors including habitat fragmentation, climate change, invasive species, over-exploitation, and emergent infectious diseases. Wild eastern newts are known hosts of "Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis" and "Ranavirus". They are also highly susceptible to the newly emergent chytrid fungus "Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans".

The eastern newt ("Notophthalmus viridescens") is a common newt of eastern North America. It frequents small lakes, ponds, and streams or nearby wet forests. The eastern newt produces tetrodotoxin, which makes the species unpalatable to predatory fish and crayfish. It has a lifespan of 12 to 15 years in the wild, and it may grow to in length. These animals are common aquarium pets, being either collected from the wild or sold commercially. The striking bright orange juvenile stage, which is land-dwelling, is known as a red eft. Some sources blend the general name of the species and that of the red-spotted newt subspecies into the eastern red-spotted newt (although there is no "western" one).


Carthusian Period.

The monastery was founded in the early 14th century, during the Hungarian Kingdom. Court documents from 1307 state that a man by the name of master Kokos from Brezovica (Berzevice), founded six monasteries as a punishment for murder. In 1319 he donated 62 sectors of his village, Lechnice to the Carthusian order. A wooden structure was built in 1330, which was later replaced by bricks and stones. The monastery gets the name "Red" from some brick, such as the cornices below the roofs and ribs of the vaults (unpaved in the chapter hall), and the red tiles that were used on the roofs.  The monastery suffered several quarrels with Czorsztyn lords, and was occupied by Hussites in 1431 and in 1433. It was adversely hit by the Battle of Mohács in 1515, and in 1545 Czorsztyn Knights from Niedzica Castle attacked the monastery, and the monks fled across the Dunajec River into Poland. The monastery was abolished during the Reformation in 1563, becoming a private residence for wealthy noblemen.

Post Carthusian period.

In 1699, Ladislav Maťašovský, a bishop in Nitra (Nyitra), purchased the monastery, and donated to the Camaldolese order, who settled down it this area in 1711. In 1782 it was secularized as part of Emperor Joseph II's campaign against monastic orders that in his view didn't pursue useful activities. The monastery’s library was sold to Budapest, and the church equipment to Muszyna, Poland.  In 1820 the Emperor Franz Joseph I donated the monastery to the newly founded Greek-Catholic diocese of Prešov.  The monastery suffered a fire in 1907 and was heavily damaged during the Second World War, but after being rebuilt in 1956–66 it was opened again and serves as a museum.

Museum.

Today, the monastery remains in the ownership of the state and is open to visitors as a history a museum.  The first museum exhibit covering topics such as the monastery's history, period monastic life and period monastic botany and pharmacy, was established in 1966 by the East Slovak Museum in Košice, as a regional exhibit. This served as the culmination of early conservation and restoration efforts at the monastery that took place during the late 1950s and early 1960s.  Following a further phase of conservation and restoration works on the monastery in the 1980s and early 1990s, an enlarged monastery museum was reopened in 1993. Between 1999 and 2007, the monastery was administered by the Ľubovňa Museum in Stará Ľubovňa. Since 2008, the monastery has been administered by the Monuments Board of the Slovak Republic, which refurbished and expanded the existing exhibits.

External links.

Červený Kláštor (; meaning "Red Monastery") is a medieval monastery located in Slovakia. It is located near the village of Červený Kláštor within the Pieniny Mountains, next to the Dunajec River.


Club career.

São Paulo, Lyon.

Born in Taquaritinga, São Paulo, Edmílson signed for São Paulo FC in 1995, winning two Campeonato Paulista titles during his spell. In 2000 he joined Olympique Lyonnais in France at the same time as compatriot Caçapa, also a stopper, both being important as the club won the League Cup in his first season.  In the ensuing off-season, Juninho Pernambucano also made the move to the Rhône-Alpes, and often partnered Edmílson in central midfield as they went on to win three consecutive Ligue 1 titles.

Barcelona.

In July 2004, Edmílson signed with FC Barcelona for a reported €10 million. He made his La Liga debut on 19 September in a 1–1 away draw against Atlético Madrid, and finished his debut campaign with only six matches as the Catalans won the national championship; on 3 October, after having come on as a substitute for Samuel Eto'o during a home fixture against CD Numancia, he himself had to be substituted after only five minutes on the pitch, going on to be sidelined for several months.  Edmílson recovered fully for 2005–06, playing an important part in Frank Rijkaard's team as they won the league and the season's UEFA Champions League. In the latter competition, he appeared in nine matches – six complete – including the first half of the final against Arsenal.  After a poor 2007–08 campaign, both individually and collectively, 32-year-old Edmílson left Barcelona as his contract was not renewed.

Later years.

On 23 May 2008, Edmílson signed for one year with Villarreal CF. After only a couple of months, however, he returned to his country, joining Sociedade Esportiva Palmeiras on a two-year deal and scoring his first goal in the first stage of the Copa Libertadores against Club Real Potosí, on 29 January 2009, just eight days after his arrival.  After not having appeared in the São Paulo championship in 2010, Edmílson cut ties with Palmeiras and, on 31 January, returned to Spain, agreeing to a five-month contract with struggling Real Zaragoza – at that time, he was already the bearer of an Italian passport, thus not counting as a foreign player. He appeared regularly during the remainder of the campaign, as the Aragonese managed to finish out of the relegation zone, and saw his link being extended for another year.  On 12 September 2010, Edmílson scored his first goal for Zaragoza, who lost 3–5 at home against Málaga CF. In June 2011, after having contributed with only 12 games to the club's final escape from relegation, he returned to his country and joined Ceará Sporting Club.

International career.

Edmílson made his debut for the Brazil national team on 18 July 2000, against Paraguay. Selected to the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Japan and South Korea, he helped the "Seleção" win their fifth tournament, appearing in six out of seven games and scoring his first (and only) international goal in the 5–2 group stage win over Costa Rica.  Originally selected to the 2006 World Cup in Germany, Edmílson was forced to withdraw from the squad after sustaining a knee injury in training before the tournament.

Personal life.

Edmílson is a devout evangelical Christian, having converted when he was 16 years old.

Honours.

Club.

São Paulo  Lyon  Barcelona

International.

Brazil

José Edmílson Gomes de Moraes (born 10 July 1976), known simply as Edmílson, is a Brazilian former professional footballer. Either a defensive midfielder or a central defender, he played in three countries in his professional career, representing with team and individual success São Paulo, Lyon and Barcelona (four seasons each in the last two clubs).


Career.

Blue initially worked as a nude dancer and studied to be an emergency medical technician. During her dancing career, she met a fellow dancer who introduced her to fetish modeling. After that, at the suggestion of a different model, she started performing in porn movies. Her first appearance was in a film with Ed Powers. After a year, she took a three-year break, moving to Nebraska to be with her family, but came back to the industry in 2000.  She worked for Mercenary Pictures for several years and directed several of their series, one of which, "Black Reign", won the 2005 AVN Award for Best Ethnic-Themed Series. She was engaged to Mercenary's owner, Lexington Steele. In 2008, Steele and Blue filed federal lawsuits against each other over the ownership of numerous videos that first appeared under the Mercenary Pictures label. The suits were settled in March 2009 after meeting with an alternative dispute resolution jurist. She now distributes her movies through Justin Slayer International signing with them in April 2010.  Blue starred on Playboy TV and hosted "Private Calls" and "Night Calls" on Playboy Radio until 2008.  Vanessa briefly returned to doing scenes in 2011, and did a series of hardcore scenes for Brazzers.

Director.

Blue has also directed femdom genre of movies under the pseudonym Domina X, and has also been a contract director for DVSX and Adam & Eve.

Awards.

In 2008 Blue won an Urban X Award for Videography and was admitted to the Urban X Hall of Fame in 2009.  In 2013 she was inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame.

Vanessa Blue (born May 27, 1974) is an American pornographic actress and director. She was inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame in 2013.


Early life and service.

Loewenhardt was born in Breslau, Silesia, German Empire on 7 April 1897, the son of a doctor. He received his education at a military school in Lichterfelde. He was 17 when hostilities erupted in August 1914 and was assigned to the German Army's Infantry Regiment Nr. 141; he saw infantry action on the Eastern Front with them. Young Loewenhardt was wounded near Łódź but remained on duty as standard bearer for his regiment as it fought in the Battle of Tannenberg. As reward for his courage, on 2 October 1914 he was commissioned. On 30 October he was both wounded and decorated with the Iron Cross Second Class. After convalescing, he returned to his unit in the Carpathians. In early 1915 he received the Iron Cross 1st Class for saving the lives of five wounded men. Loewenhardt then transferred to the Alpine Corps on the Italian Front. However, he fell ill and was invalided from service as unfit for duty.

Aerial service.

After five months' recuperation, Loewenhardt volunteered for the Imperial German Army Air Service and qualified as an aerial observer. He then completed pilot training in 1916. Service in two-seaters with "Flieger-Abteilung (Artillerie)" (Flier Detachment (Artillery)) 265 followed. In January 1917, he underwent conversion training for fighters. He joined a fighter squadron, "Jagdstaffel 10" in March 1917. On 24 March 1917, Loewenhardt scored his first confirmed aerial victory, destroying an enemy observation balloon over Recicourt.  Loewenhardt was an aggressive, skilled fighter whose score grew steadily. During this period, he flew Albatros and Pfalz planes. By the end of September he was an ace. He survived a forced landing on 20 September with a minor wound; the next day, he shot down his fifth victim. He posted two more claims in October, one of which was confirmed. On 6 November, his aircraft's lower wing was damaged during combat over Winkel Saint Eloi at 0830 hours, a dud antiaircraft shell smashing his left wingtip without exploding. Loewenhardt pulled his craft out of the resulting spin at 15 meters altitude, wheels down, and bounced into a tumbling wreck. He exited the wreckage shaken but otherwise unharmed. On 30 November 1917, he closed out his year with his eighth confirmed victory; he was credited with four balloons and four airplanes.  Loewenhardt scored two more victims in January 1918: a balloon and a Bristol F.2 Fighter. In March, he added five more. On 1 April, just before his 21st birthday, he was appointed to command "Jasta 10". The next month, "Jasta 10" re-equipped with new Fokker D.VIIs. Loewenhardt continued to score; on 10 May, he destroyed an observation balloon for his 20th victory and became eligible for the "Pour le Merite". The next day, he was awarded the Knight's Cross with Swords of the House Order of Hohenzollern; he also received the Austro-Hungarian Empire's Military Merit Cross. The "Pour le Merite" (commonly called the Blue Max) came on 31 May 1918, when Loewenhardt's tally had reached 24.  By now, Loewenhardt was locked into an "ace race" with Ernst Udet and Lothar von Richthofen for the honor of being the top scoring ace in their fighter wing. The rivalry between Loewenhardt and the younger Richthofen was a friendly one, as they often flew as wingmen. "Jasta 10" belonged to "The Flying Circus", and when the wing commander's spot came open on 29 June 1918, "Oberleutnant" Loewenhardt was tapped for temporary command of it. By then, his tally stood at 27. When he surrendered the JG I command on 6 July, it had risen to 34. By the end of July 1918, Loewenhardt's total was 48: 9 balloons and 39 airplanes.

Death in action.

On 8 August, the Allied Forces launched the war's final offensive against the Germans. The British Royal Air Force led the assault, and Loewenhardt downed three of their airplanes. On the 9th, he shot down two more. On the 10th, flying despite a badly sprained ankle, Loewenhardt launched his yellow Fokker D.VII on a mid-day sortie leading a patrol heavily weighted with rookie pilots. He encountered No. 56 Squadron RAF and shot down a Royal Aircraft Factory SE.5a over Chaulnes, France at 1215 hours for his 54th victory. In the aftermath of the combat, he collided with another German pilot, "Leutnant" Alfred Wenz from "Jasta 11". Loewenhardt's Fokker's landing gear slammed the upper right wing on Wenz's D.VII. Both pilots' planes were equipped with parachutes and both pilots bailed out. Erich Loewenhardt's chute failed to open and he fell to his death.  Having scored 14 of his victories in the Pfalz D.III, he was the most successful pilot in the type.

Correct name spelling.

The correct spelling of Erich's last name is Loewenhardt. Lowenhardt and Löwenhardt have been used but are both incorrect. This is a common mistake as "ö" is regularly translated to "oe" or "o" in English. Many make the assumption that a change in spelling during translation has occurred and inadvertently misspell the name while trying to undo the translation. It is of Dutch-German heritage. The general public during his life up to the current day are highly liable to make this mistake in written media due to these incorrect assumptions. Both his grave stone and the street in Berlin named after him (loewenhardtdamm) are spelt in this way.

Erich Loewenhardt (7 April 189710 August 1918) was the 3rd highest German flying ace with 54 victories during the First World War, behind only Manfred von Richthofen and Ernst Udet.


Production.

Industrial production of propylene oxide starts from propylene.Two general approaches are employed, one involving hydrochlorination and the other involving oxidation. In 2005, about half of the world production was through chlorohydrin technology and one half via oxidation routes. The latter approach is growing in importance.

Hydrochlorination route.

The traditional route proceeds via the conversion of propene to propylene chlorohydrin according to the following simplified scheme:  The mixture of 1-chloro-2-propanol and 2-chloro-1-propanol is then dehydrochlorinated. For example:  Lime (calcium hydroxide) is often used to absorb the HCl.

Oxidation of propylene.

The other general route to propylene oxide involves oxidation of propylene with an organic peroxide. The reaction follows this stoichiometry:  The process is practiced with four hydroperoxides:  In principle, this process produces only water was a side product. In practice, some ring-opened derivatives of PO are generated.

Reactions.

Like other epoxides, PO undergoes ring-opening reactions. With water, propylene glycol is produced. With alcohols, reactions, called hydroxylpropylation, analogous to ethoxylation occur. Grignard reagents add to propylene oxide to give secondary alcohols.  Some other reactions of propylene oxide include:

Uses.

Between 60 and 70% of all propylene oxide is converted to polyether polyols by the process called alkoxylation. These polyols are building blocks in the production of polyurethane plastics. About 20% of propylene oxide is hydrolyzed into propylene glycol, via a process which is accelerated by acid or base catalysis. Other major products are polypropylene glycol, propylene glycol ethers, and propylene carbonate.

Niche uses.

Fumigant.

The United States Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of propylene oxide to pasteurize raw almonds beginning on September 1, 2007, in response to two incidents of contamination by "Salmonella" in commercial orchards, one incident occurring in Canada and one in the United States. Pistachio nuts can also be subjected to propylene oxide to control "Salmonella".

Microscopy.

Propylene oxide is commonly used in the preparation of biological samples for electron microscopy, to remove residual ethanol previously used for dehydration. In a typical procedure, the sample is first immersed in a mixture of equal volumes of ethanol and propylene oxide for 5 minutes, and then four times in pure oxide, 10 minutes each.

Safety.

It is a probable human carcinogen, and is included into the List of IARC Group 2B carcinogens.

Natural occurrence.

In 2016 it was reported that propylene oxide was detected in Sagittarius B2, a cloud of gas in the Milky Way weighing three million solar masses. It is the first chiral molecule to be detected in space.

Propylene oxide is an organic compound with the molecular formula CHCHCHO. This colourless volatile liquid with an odour resembling ether, is produced on a large scale industrially. Its major application is its use for the production of polyether polyols for use in making polyurethane plastics. It is a chiral epoxide, although it is commonly used as a racemic mixture.