History.

The original Palace was built in years 1623-1630 by Albrecht von Wallenstein, Duke of Mecklenburg (1583-1634), who made his name and fortune as the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial forces in the Thirty Years War. Emperor Ferdinand II feared Albrecht von Wallenstein's calculating mind and had him assassinated in 1634 in the town of Eger (now Cheb). He lived in the palace for only a year before his death. His widow sold it to his nephew and it remained in the Wallenstein family until 1945. After the Second World War, the palace became Czechoslovak state property and was renovated to house government offices. Today, the Senate of the Czech Republic operates out of the main palace buildings. The Riding School is used as a branch of the National Gallery in Prague. The challenging restoration of the main building began in mid-1999. The most valuable parts of this building in historical and artistic terms are the Main Hall, the Knights' Hall, the Antechamber, the Audience Hall and the Mythological and Astronomical Corridors.  Albrecht of Wallenstein had traveled in Italy, and when the palace was built between 1623 and 1630, Italian architects and artisans were used including Andrea Spezza (likely the main architect), succeeded in 1628 by Niccolo Sebregondi. The interiors were decorated by the Florentine Baccio del Bianco (1604-1656), who completed the ceiling fresco in the Main Hall, figure paintings in St Wenceslas Chapel, and most important parts of the decoration of the Mythological Corridor during the first year of construction. The Florentine Giovanni de Galliano Pieroni (1586-1654), engineer and army colonel, played an important role in the construction. Pieroni's father Alessandro (1550-1607) had been an architect for the Medici. Pieroni studied the design of the new part to Wallenstein's Castle in Jičín and the church of St. Jacob there, and the garden, Sala Terrena, and Riding School are attributed to him. Pieroni also influences the astrological and astronomical decoration of the Mythological Corridor and other interiors. The total value of interior furnishings after his death was 70 000 gold pieces, while another 134 000 gold pieces was invested in jewels and tableware made from precious metals.  To make space for this palace, Wallenstein razed 26 houses, six gardens, and two brickworks at the site. Wallenstein Palace was built to rival Prague Castle. Four courtyards are created by the palace layout. Its complex includes period gardens, the Avenue of Sculptures, stables and the large Riding School. The monumental conception of the loggia with three arcades on doubled columns recalls the Baroque style. The Italian style garden includes an aviary, a grotto, and a fountain by Adrian de Vries (c.1545-1626). After years of neglect after the war, the gardens have been reconstructed. Wallenstein would have dined in the huge "sala terrena" (garden pavilion) that looks out over fountain and rows of bronze statues. The sala terrena and its rich stucco decoration were modeled after the portico of a Livornese church. Today, these are copies of the Netherlander sculptor Adriaen de Vries’ works. The originals were looted by the Swedish army in 1648, and they can be seen today at Drottningholm Palace. Immortal Beloved (film), a 1994 film about the life of Beethoven was filmed in the gardens.

Description.

Main wing.

The main wing of Wallenstein palace was largely a reconstruction of the Trcka residence that runs 60 meters along "Valdstejnske namesti". The façade has three rows of identical windows which stream light into the Main Hall. It incorporates both late renaissance and Nordic mannerism which is expressed in the portals and Netherlandish dormer-windows. Initially, in keeping with the architectural style, the Main Hall was decorated with tapestries and furniture ordered from Italy and the Netherlands. Much of the original furnishings were looted either in 1648 by the Swedes or 1742 by the French. The west wing of the complex hosts the Main Hall, that rises to the height of two stories. The Duke is depicted, in the middle ceiling fresco as the god of war, Mars, riding in a war chariot drawn by a team of horses. In the painting, the Duke is holding the reins of four horses while Mars is usually seen only holding three horses. This is another example of Albrecht von Wallenstein's vanity. The stucco work depicting weapons, war trophies and musical instruments were probably made by Santino Galli and Domenico Canevalle. These are references to The Duke's career in the military. When it was built, it was the second largest hall after the Spanish hall of Prague Castle with an area of 288 meters squared and a height of 10.5 meters. This is original façade was altered in the mid nineteenth century to include marble portals from the Cerninsky palace and the entire hall was rebuilt as a barracks.  A key feature of the palace is the system of corridors that connects all parts of the palace. In many palaces of the period it was necessary to go from room to room to move around, but it was possible for the Duke of Wallenstein to walk from the main Audience hall to his private study and then around the gardens to the stables at the north end of the palace complex via the corridors. Originally tile stoves placed in each room heated the palace. The tile in the Antechamber was used later to line the fireplace. Guests waited in the antechamber to be granted audience with the Duke. Due to an adaptation in the 19th century, it is a kind of Mirror Hall with two Venetian mirrors made in the 18th century on the Italian island of Murano. The only objects original to the room are a set of four chests used by the Duke to hold his wardrobe. They are Italian chests made around the turn of the 17th century.

Audience Chamber.

The Audience Chamber is a small circular room adjoining the Antechamber and the Mythological Corridor. A door leading from the Audience Chamber to a staircase was preserved from the Trèkovský dùm, one of the original properties on the site. Several other salvaged architectural pieces were incorporated into the palace. Stuccowork and paintings depict Ovid's "Four ages" and portraits of the "Four Periods of the Day". The Baroque stuccowork of the dome in the Audience Chamber is mirrored in the Mythological corridor. The mythological corridor also has murals depicting planet motifs and legends such as "Mercury & Argus", "Diana and Acteon", "Perseus killing Medusa", "Callisto metamorphosed into a bear", and the "Rape of Europa". Ovid's "Metamorphoses" inspired Baccio del Bianco's frescoes in this corridor.

Chapel.

The palace chapel is two stories high and richly decorated with scenes from the legend of St Wenceslas. Cabinet-maker and woodcarver constructed the chapel altar in 1630. Its construction marked the first Baroque monument of its kind in Prague and the beginning of the Baroque age in the Czech lands. Three oratories open on the western wall of the chapel. The Duke used the first floor for services while his wife sat on the second floor and servants were restricted to the third floor. Baccio del Bianco is responsible for the paintings in this chapel. St Eusebius's like a death is depicted in the first oratory. Following that, the Duchess's oratory was decorated with usual Marian iconography. Frescos of the Chapel were inspired by St Vitus cathedral in Prague Castle. Ernest Heidelberger is assumed to have created the sculpture work for the Chapel.

Wallenstein Palace () is a Baroque palace in Malá Strana, Prague, that served as a residence for Imperial Generalissimo Albrecht von Wallenstein and now houses the Senate of the Czech Republic.


Drainage patterns.

According to the configuration of the channels, drainage systems can fall into one of several categories known as drainage patterns. Drainage patterns depend on the topography and geology of the land.

Accordant drainage patterns.

A drainage system is described as accordant if its pattern correlates to the structure and relief of the landscape over which it flows.

Dendritic drainage pattern.

Dendritic drainage systems (from Greek, "dendrites", "of or parallel to a tree") are not straight and are the most common form of drainage system. In a dendritic system, there are many contributing streams (analogous to the twigs of a tree), which are then joined together into the tributaries of the main river (the branches and the trunk of the tree, respectively). They develop where the river channel follows the slope of the terrain. Dendritic systems form in V-shaped valleys; as a result, the rock types must be impervious and non-porous.

Parallel drainage pattern.

A parallel drainage system is a pattern of rivers caused by steep slopes with some relief. Because of the steep slopes, the streams are swift and straight, with very few tributaries, and all flow in the same direction. This system forms on uniformly sloping surfaces, for example, rivers flowing southeast from the Aberdare Mountains in Kenya.  Parallel drainage patterns form where there is a pronounced slope to the surface. A parallel pattern also develops in regions of parallel, elongate landforms like outcropping resistant rock bands. Tributary streams tend to stretch out in a parallel-like fashion following the slope of the surface. A parallel pattern sometimes indicates the presence of a major fault that cuts across an area of steeply folded bedrock. All forms of transitions can occur between parallel, dendritic, and trellis patterns.

Trellis drainage pattern.

The geometry of a trellis drainage system is similar to that of a common garden trellis along a strike valley, smaller tributaries feed into from the steep slopes on the sides of mountains. These tributaries enter the main river at approximately 90 degree angle, causing a trellis-like appearance of the drainage system. They form where hard and soft rocks exist parallel to each other. Trellis drainage is characteristic of folded mountains, such as the Appalachian Mountains in North America and in the north part of Trinidad.

Rectangular drainage pattern.

Rectangular drainage develops on rocks that are of approximately uniform resistance to erosion, but which have two directions of jointing at approximately right angles or 90 degrees. The joints are usually less resistant to erosion than the bulk rock so erosion tends to preferentially open the joints and streams eventually develop along the joints. The result is a stream system in which streams consist mainly of straight line segments with right angle bends and tributaries join larger streams at right angles. This pattern can be found with the Arun River in Nepal.

Radial drainage pattern.

In a radial drainage system, the streams radiate outwards from a central high point. Volcanos usually display excellent radial drainage. They can sometimes also be found on tops of mountains. Other geological features on which radial drainage commonly develops are domes and laccoliths. On these features the drainage may exhibit a combination of radial patterns. The radical pattern develops when streams flow in different directions from a central peak or dome like structure. In India the Amarkantak range and Ramgarh crater show the best example of radial drainage pattern. Dogu'a Tembien is an example from Ethiopia.

Centripetal drainage pattern.

The centripetal drainage system is similar to the radial drainage system, with the only exception is that they have streams ending into a lowland rather originating from it.

Deranged drainage pattern.

A deranged drainage system is a drainage system in drainage basins where there is no coherent pattern to the rivers and lakes. It happens in areas where there has been much geological disruption. The classic example is the Canadian Shield. During the last ice age, the topsoil was scraped off, leaving mostly bare rock. The melting of the glaciers left land with many irregularities of elevation and a great deal of water to collect in the low points, explaining the large number of lakes which are found in Canada. The drainage basins are young and are still sorting themselves out. Eventually the system will stabilize.

Annular drainage pattern.

In an annular drainage pattern streams follow a roughly circular or concentric path along a belt of weak rock, resembling in plan a ringlike pattern. It is best displayed by streams draining a maturely dissected structural dome or basin where erosion has exposed rimming sedimentary strata of greatly varying degrees of hardness, as in the Red Valley, which nearly encircles the domal structure of the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Angular drainage pattern.

Angular drainage patterns form where bedrock joints and faults intersect at more acute angles than rectangular drainage patterns. Angles are both more and less than 90 degrees.

Discordant drainage patterns.

A drainage pattern is described as discordant if it does not correlate to the topography and geology of the area. Discordant drainage patterns are classified into two main types: "antecedent" and "superimposed", while "anteposition" drainage patterns combine the two. In "antecedent" drainage, a river's vertical incision ability matches that of land uplift due to tectonic forces. "Superimposed" drainage develops differently: initially, a drainage system develops on a surface composed of 'younger' rocks, but due to denudative activities this surface of younger rocks is removed and the river continues to flow over a seemingly new surface, but one in fact made up of rocks of old geological formation.

In geomorphology, drainage systems, also known as river systems, are the patterns formed by the streams, rivers, and lakes in a particular drainage basin. They are governed by the topography of the land, whether a particular region is dominated by hard or soft rocks, and the gradient of the land. Geomorphologists and hydrologists often view streams as being part of drainage basins. A drainage basin is the topographic region from which a stream receives runoff, throughflow, and groundwater flow. The number, size, and shape of the drainage basins found in an area vary and the larger the topographic map, the more information on the drainage basin is available.


Events.

On September 27, 1993, separatist forces violated the ceasefire initiated by the United Nations and guaranteed by the Russian Federation, which barred both sides from performing military operations. As part of the ceasefire, Georgian forces had withdrawn their heavy artillery and tanks from Sukhumi. Abkhaz, Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus, Cossack and Russian militants stormed Sukhumi early in the morning. Confronted by large numbers of combatants, the Georgian army units that remained in the city were unable to prevent the separatist advance into the city. By noon, separatist militants and their allies had taken over television buildings and bridges. Georgian forces retreated to the Government building of the Abkhazian Autonomous Republic, where they intended to provide security for members of Abkhazian Autonomous Republic Government. By late afternoon, the city was overrun by separatists and their allies.  Placing their hopes on the ceasefire, a large number of civilians remained in the city. The separatists and their allies started to sweep through the streets of Sukhumi rounding up all civilians that they found. Men, women and children were executed in the streets, on the roads and inside their own apartments, houses and back yards. According to the witnesses, many people became objects of torture, and some were forced to watch as their own family members were killed—children in front of their parents, and parents in front of their children.  Women became targets of sadistic rape. Refugees recall people being burned to death, disembowelled and dismembered while still alive The massacres occurred in the city park, in front of the governmental building, in schools and hospitals. Almost all members of the Abkhaz government (those who refused to leave the city), Zhiuli Shartava, Guram Gabiskiria, Alexander Berulava, Mamia Alasania, and Raul Eshba were captured and executed.  The 1994 U.S. State Department Country Reports also describes scenes of massive human rights abuse:

Aftermath.

Eduard Shevardnadze fled the city only just before the arrival of separatist forces, having earlier committed to try to remain there as long as possible. Soon the forces overran the whole territory of Abkhazia, except a small region of the Kodori Gorge (which remained under the control of the Georgian warlord Emzar Kvitsiani until July 2006 and later the Tbilisi government until August 2008). The total defeat of the Georgian government forces was followed by the ethnic cleansing of the Georgian population. 200,000 - 250,000 refugees (mainly Georgians) were forced out of Abkhazia. Violence continued in 1994 despite an agreement between the Georgian and Abkhazian governments for the deployment of a peacekeeping force from the Commonwealth of Independent States. Chechen militants who had fought on the side of Abkhazia later took part in the First Chechen War.

Perpetrators.

There are a number of conflicting claims as to whether the massacre was conducted by Abkhaz militias or those of their Russian and North Caucasian allies. Allegedly, the commander of the separatist forces, partly responsible for the massacre was the deputy defence minister and "hero" of Abkhazia Shamil Basaev. According to witness testimonies, the militants spoke North Caucasian languages and Russian. However, some refugees who survived the massacre have claimed that they recognized their Abkhaz and Armenian neighbours collaborating with the militants during the massacres in various neighbourhoods. Many people recall the commands given by Russian officers: "Do not take prisoners alive!"  Houses and land owned by Georgians were ransacked and taken over by the Abkhaz, Russians, Cossacks and other newcomers. These allegations are currently being investigated by the International Criminal Court in the Hague. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has recently given its recognition to and condemned the ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia. Although many separatist militants have been accused of committing massacres none of them have yet been tried.

The Sukhumi massacre took place on September 27, 1993, during and after the fall of Sukhumi into separatist hands in the course of the War in Abkhazia. It was perpetrated against Georgian civilians of Sukhumi, mainly by militia forces of Abkhaz separatists, their North Caucasian and Russian allies. It became part of a violent ethnic cleansing campaign carried out by the separatists.


Biography.

Abraham (Avrom) Sutzkever was born on July 15, 1913, in Smorgon, Vilna Governorate, Russian Empire, now Smarhon’, Belarus. During World War I, his family moved to Omsk, Siberia, where his father, Hertz Sutzkever, died. In 1921, his mother, Rayne (née Fainberg), moved the family to Vilnius, where Sutzkever attended cheder.  Sutzkever attended the Polish Jewish high school Herzliah, audited university classes in Polish literature, and was introduced by a friend to Russian poetry. His earliest poems were written in Hebrew.  In 1930 Sutzkever joined the Jewish scouting organization, Bin ("Bee"), in whose magazine he published his first piece. There he also met with wife Freydke. In 1933, he became part of the writers’ and artists’ group Yung-Vilne, along with fellow poets Shmerke Kaczerginski, Chaim Grade, and Leyzer Volf.  He married Freydke in 1939, a day before the start of World War II.  In 1941, following the Nazi occupation of Vilnius, Sutzkever and his wife were sent to the Vilna Ghetto. Sutzkever and his friends hid a diary by Theodor Herzl, drawings by Marc Chagall and Alexander Bogen, and other treasured works behind plaster and brick walls in the ghetto. His mother and newborn son were murdered by the Nazis. On September 12, 1943, he and his wife escaped to the forests, and together with fellow Yiddish poet Shmerke Kaczerginski, he fought the occupying forces as a partisan. Sutzkever joined a Jewish unit and was smuggled into the Soviet Union.  Sutzkever's 1943 narrative poem, Kol Nidre, reached the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in Moscow, whose members included Ilya Ehrenburg and Solomon Mikhoels, as well as the exiled future president of Soviet Lithuania, Justas Paleckis. They implored the Kremlin to rescue him. So an aircraft located Sutzkever and Freydke in March 1944, and flew them to Moscow, where their daughter, Rina, was born.  In February 1946, he was called up as a witness at the Nuremberg trials, testifying against Franz Murer, the murderer of his mother and son. After a brief sojourn in Poland and Paris, he emigrated to Mandatory Palestine, arriving in Tel Aviv in 1947.  In 1947, his family arrived in Tel Aviv. Within two years Sutzkever founded Di Goldene Keyt (The Golden Chain)"  Sutzkever was a keen traveller, touring South American jungles and African savannahs, where the sight of elephants and the song of a Basotho chief inspired more Yiddish verse.  Belatedly, in 1985 Sutzkever became the first Yiddish writer to win the prestigious Israel Prize for his literature. An English compendium appeared in 1991.  Freydke died in 2003. Rina and another daughter, Mira, survive him, along with two grandchildren.  Abraham Sutzkever died on January 20, 2010, in Tel Aviv at the age of 96.

Literary career.

Sutzkever wrote poetry from an early age, initially in Hebrew. He published his first poem in "Bin", the Jewish scouts magazine. Sutzkever was among the Modernist writers and artists of the "Yung Vilne" ("Young Vilna") group in the early 1930s. In 1937, his first volume of Yiddish poetry, "Lider" (Songs), was published by the Yiddish PEN International Club; a second, "Valdiks" (Of the Forest; 1940), appeared after he moved from Warsaw, during the interval of Lithuanian autonomy.  In Moscow, he wrote a chronicle of his experiences in the Vilna ghetto ("Fun vilner geto",1946), a poetry collection "Lider fun geto" (1946; “Songs from the Ghetto”) and began "Geheymshtot" ("Secret City",1948), an epic poem about Jews hiding in the sewers of Vilna.

Works.

In 1949, Sutzkever founded the yiddish literary quarterly "Di goldene keyt" (The Golden Chain), Israel's only Yiddish literary quarterly, which he edited until its demise in 1995. Sutzkever resuscitated the careers of Yiddish writers from Europe, the Americas, the Soviet Union and Israel. Official Zionism, however, dismissed Yiddish as a defeatist diaspora argot. "They will not uproot my tongue," he retorted. "I shall wake all generations with my roar."  Sutzkever's poetry was translated into Hebrew by Nathan Alterman, Avraham Shlonsky and Leah Goldberg. In the 1930s, his work was translated into Russian by Boris Pasternak.

Abraham Sutzkever (Yiddish: אַבֿרהם סוצקעווער — "Avrom Sutskever"; ; July 15, 1913 – January 20, 2010) was an acclaimed Yiddish poet. "The New York Times" wrote that Sutzkever was "the greatest poet of the Holocaust."


Early life and education.

Robert Crippen was born September 11, 1937, in Beaumont, Texas. After graduating from New Caney High School in New Caney, Texas in 1955, Crippen received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 1960. He was selected as a member of the Texas Alpha chapter of Tau Beta Pi and Sigma Gamma Tau.

Military career.

Crippen was commissioned through the United States Navy's Aviation Officer Candidate School (AOCS) Program at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. He continued his flight training at Naval Air Station Whiting Field, Florida, and went from there to Naval Air Station Chase Field in Beeville, Texas, where he received his wings. As a Naval Aviator from June 1962 to November 1964, he made two deployments aboard the aircraft carrier USS "Independence", flying the A-4 Skyhawk in Attack Squadron 72 (VA-72). He later attended the U.S. Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California. Upon graduation he remained at Edwards as an instructor until he was picked for the USAF Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) spaceflight program in October 1966.  He has logged more than 6,500 hours flying time, which includes more than 5,500 hours in jet aircraft.

NASA career.

After the MOL program was cancelled, Crippen became a NASA astronaut in September 1969. He served on the astronaut support crew for the Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4 missions, and for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission.

STS-1.

Crippen was the pilot on STS-1, the first orbital test flight of the Space Shuttle. It was also the first manned vehicle to be flown into orbit without previous unmanned orbital testing and the first winged manned vehicle to launch with solid rocket boosters. It was also the first winged reentry vehicle to return to a conventional runway landing. The mission lasted 54 hours, 20 minutes, 53 seconds.

STS-7.

Crippen served as the commander of STS-7, which was the second flight for the Orbiter "Challenger". This was also the first mission with a five-person crew. During the six-day flight, the crew deployed satellites for Canada (ANIK C-2) and Indonesia (PALAPA B-1); operated the Canadian-built Remote Manipulator System (RMS) to perform the first deployment and retrieval exercise with the Shuttle Pallet Satellite (SPAS-01); conducted the first formation flying of the orbiter with a free-flying satellite (SPAS-02); carried and operated the first U.S./German cooperative materials science payload (OSTA-2); and operated the Continuous Flow Electrophoresis System (CFES) and the Monodisperse Latex Reactor (MLR) experiments, in addition to activating seven Getaway Specials. The mission duration was 146 hours, 23 minutes, 59 seconds.

STS-41-C.

Crippen was the commander on STS-41-C, which was a seven-day mission during which the crew deployed the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF); retrieved the ailing Solar Maximum Satellite, repaired it aboard the orbiting "Challenger", and replaced it in orbit using the robot arm called the Remote Manipulator System (RMS); flight tested the Manned Maneuvering Units (MMU's) in two extravehicular activities (EVA); as well as operating the Cinema 360 and IMAX Camera Systems, and running a Bee Hive Honeycomb Structures student experiment. Mission duration was 167 hours, 40 minutes, 07 seconds.

STS-41-G.

On his final spaceflight, Crippen served as the commander of STS-41-G. During the eight-day flight, the crew deployed the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite, conducted scientific observations of the Earth with the OSTA-3 pallet and Large Format Camera, and demonstrated potential satellite refueling with an EVA and associated hydrazine transfer. Mission duration was 8 days, 5 hours, 23 minutes, 33 seconds and concluded with a landing at Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

Post-spaceflight career.

After STS-41-G, Crippen was named Commander of the STS-62-A mission which would have launched from the new SLC-6 facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. That mission was cancelled after the Space Shuttle "Challenger" disaster and SLC-6 was closed when the Air Force went back to launching satellites on the Titan III and Titan IV rockets.  Crippen was stationed at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, from July 1987 to December 1989, as Deputy Director, Shuttle Operations for NASA Headquarters. He was responsible for final Shuttle preparation, mission execution and return of the orbiter to KSC after landings at Edwards Air Force Base. From January 1990 to January 1992, he served as Director, Space Shuttle, at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. As such, he was responsible for the overall Shuttle program requirements, performance, and total program control, including budget, schedule and program content. He subsequently served as the Director of the Kennedy Space Center from January 1992 to January 1995.

Post-NASA career.

After leaving NASA, Crippen served as a Vice President with Lockheed Martin Information Systems in Orlando, Florida, from April 1995 to November 1996. From December 1996 to April 2001, Crippen was President of Thiokol Propulsion, which produced the Space Shuttle Reusable Solid Rocket Motors and other defense and commercial solid rocket motors.

Organizations.

He is a fellow in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, American Astronautical Society, and Society of Experimental Test Pilots. He served as President of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1999. He was selected to be a member of Naval Aviators Golden Eagles in 2009. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2012.

Awards and honors.

Crippen's accomplishments have earned him many notable awards, including the 1981 SETP Iven C. Kincheloe Award and the NASA Exceptional Service Medal in 1972. In 1981 after the inaugural Space Shuttle flight, he received the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Award, the American Astronautical Society's Flight Achievement Award, the National Geographic Society's Gardiner Greene Hubbard Medal, and the American Legion's Distinguished Service Medal. In 1982 he won the Federal Aviation Administration's Award for Distinguished Service, the Dr. Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy and the Harmon Trophy. In 1984 he received the Navy Distinguished Flying Cross and the Defense Meritorious Service Medal. In 1986, Crippen received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.  He also received NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal in 1988, four NASA Space Flight Medals in 1981, 1983 and twice in 1984, and three NASA Distinguished Service Medals in 1985, 1988, and 1993. In 1996, Crippen became the tenth individual to receive the Rotary National Award for Space Achievement's National Space Trophy. He was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1991 and the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2001. On April 6, 2006, he received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, the highest award for spaceflight achievement.  On November 18, 2015 at the National Business Aviation Association convention in Las Vegas, Crippen was announced as a 2016 Inductee into the National Aviation Hall of Fame.

Personal life.

Crippen's first marriage to Virginia Hill produced three daughters: Ellen Marie (born June 1962), Susan Lynn (born December 1964), and Linda Ruth (born May 1967). His second marriage is to Pandora Lee Puckett of Miami, Florida, NASA's first female lead Orbiter Project Engineer on the and at the Kennedy Space Center.

Robert Laurel Crippen (born September 11, 1937) is an American retired naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aerospace engineer, and retired astronaut. He traveled into space four times: as Pilot of STS-1 in April 1981, the first Space Shuttle mission; and as Commander of STS-7 in June 1983, STS-41-C in April 1984, and STS-41-G in October 1984. Crippen received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.


Adoption.

ext4 is the default file system for many Linux distributions including Debian and Ubuntu.

Limitations.

In 2008, the principal developer of the ext3 and ext4 file systems, Theodore Ts'o, stated that although ext4 has improved features, it is not a major advance, it uses old technology, and is a stop-gap. Ts'o believes that Btrfs is the better direction because "it offers improvements in scalability, reliability, and ease of management". Btrfs also has "a number of the same design ideas that reiser3/4 had". However, ext4 has continued to gain new features such as file encryption and metadata checksums.  The ext4 file system does not honor the "secure deletion" file attribute, which is supposed to cause overwriting of files upon deletion. A patch to implement secure deletion was proposed in 2011, but did not solve the problem of sensitive data ending up in the file-system journal.

Delayed allocation and potential data loss.

Because delayed allocation changes the behavior that programmers have been relying on with ext3, the feature poses some additional risk of data loss in cases where the system crashes or loses power before all of the data has been written to disk. Due to this, ext4 in kernel versions 2.6.30 and later automatically handles these cases as ext3 does.  The typical scenario in which this might occur is a program replacing the contents of a file without forcing a write to the disk with fsync. There are two common ways of replacing the contents of a file on Unix systems:  Using codice_14 more often to reduce the risk for ext4 could lead to performance penalties on ext3 filesystems mounted with the codice_15 flag (the default on most Linux distributions). Given that both file systems will be in use for some time, this complicates matters for end-user application developers. In response, ext4 in Linux kernels 2.6.30 and newer detect the occurrence of these common cases and force the files to be allocated immediately. For a small cost in performance, this provides semantics similar to ext3 ordered mode and increases the chance that either version of the file will survive the crash. This new behavior is enabled by default, but can be disabled with the "noauto_da_alloc" mount option.  The new patches have become part of the mainline kernel 2.6.30, but various distributions chose to backport them to 2.6.28 or 2.6.29.  These patches don't completely prevent potential data loss or help at all with new files. The only way to be safe is to write and use software that does codice_14 when it needs to. Performance problems can be minimized by limiting crucial disk writes that need codice_14 to occur less frequently.

Implementation.

Linux kernel Virtual File System is a subsystem or layer inside of the Linux kernel. It is the result of the very serious attempt to integrate multiple file systems into an orderly single structure. The key idea, which dates back to the pioneering work done by Sun Microsystems employees in 1986, is to abstract out that part of the file system that is common to all file systems and put that code in a separate layer that calls the underlying concrete file systems to actually manage the data.  All system calls related to files (or pseudo files) are directed to the Linux kernel Virtual File System for initial processing. These calls, coming from user processes, are the standard POSIX calls, such as codice_18, codice_19, codice_20, codice_21, etc.

Compatibility with Windows and Macintosh.

ext4 does not,, have as much support as ext2 and ext3 on non-Linux operating systems. ext2 and ext3 have stable drivers such as Ext2IFS, which are not yet available for ext4. It is possible to create compatible ext4 filesystems by disabling the extents feature, and sometimes specifying an inode size. Another option for using ext4 in Windows is to use Ext2Fsd, an open-source driver that supports writing in ext4 partitions with limited journaling. Viewing and copying files from ext4 to Windows, even with extents enabled, is also possible with the Ext2Read software. More recently Paragon released its commercial product ExtFS for Windows which allows read/write capabilities for ext2/3/4.  macOS has full ext2/3/4 read–write capability through the Paragon ExtFS software, which is a commercial product. Free software such as ext4fuse has read-only support with limited functionality.

The ext4 journaling file system or fourth extended filesystem is a journaling file system for Linux, developed as the successor to ext3.


Description.

The basilica is dedicated to the Christian martyrs, known and unknown. By a brief dated 27 July 1561, Pius IV ordered the church "built", to be dedicated to the "Beatissimae Virgini et omnium Angelorum et Martyrum" ("the Most Blessed Virgin and all the Angels and Martyrs"). Impetus for this dedication had been generated by the account of a vision of the Archangel Uriel experienced in the ruins of the Baths in 1541 by a Sicilian monk, Antonio del Duca, who had been lobbying for decades for papal authorization of a more formal veneration of the Angelic Princes. A story that these Martyrs were Christian slave labourers who had been set to constructing the Baths is modern. It was also a personal monument of Pope Pius IV, whose tomb is in the apsidal tribune.  The "thermae" of Diocletian dominated the Viminal Hill with their ruined mass. Michelangelo Buonarroti worked from 1563 to 1564 to adapt a section of the remaining structure of the baths to enclose a church. Some later construction was directed by Luigi Vanvitelli in 1749.  At Santa Maria degli Angeli, Michelangelo achieved a sequence of shaped architectural spaces, developed from a Greek cross, with a dominant transept, with cubical chapels at each end, and the effect of a transverse nave. There is no true facade; the simple entrance is set within one of the coved apses of a main space of the "thermae". The vestibule with canted corners and identical side chapels—one chapel has the tomb of Salvator Rosa, the other of Carlo Maratta—leads to a second vestibule, repeated on the far side of the transept, dominated by the over lifesize "Saint Bruno of Cologne" by Jean Antoine Houdon (1766). Of the "Saint Bruno", Pope Clement XIV said that he would speak, were it not for the vow of silence of the order he founded. The great vaulted transept emphasized the scale of the Roman constructions, 90.8 meters long, and with the floor that Michelangelo raised to bring it up to the 16th century street level, 28 meters high. Raising the floor truncated the red granite Roman columns that articulate the transept and its flanking spaces. Michelangelo made the transept 27 meters wide, thus providing vast cubical spaces at each end of the transept.  In 2006, Polish-born sculptor Igor Mitoraj created new bronze doors as well as a statue of John the Baptist for the basilica. In April 2010, a five-metre-high () bronze statue of Galileo Galilei Divine Man (designed by 1957 Nobel laureate Tsung-Dao Lee) was unveiled in a courtyard within the complex. The statue (a dedication to the 17th-century scientist and philosopher) was a donation from CCAST (China Center of Advanced Science and Technology) and WFS (World Federation of Scientists).  Santa Maria degli Angeli was the official state church of the Kingdom of Italy (1870–1946). More recently, national burials have been held in the church. The church hosts the tombs of General Armando Diaz and Admiral Paolo Thaon di Revel, who were successful commanders during World War I on the Italian front. Also today the Basilica is used for many ceremonies, including the funeral of soldiers killed abroad.

The meridian line.

At the beginning of the 18th century, Pope Clement XI commissioned the astronomer, mathematician, archaeologist, historian and philosopher Francesco Bianchini to build a meridian line, a sort of sundial, within the basilica. Completed in 1702, the object had a threefold purpose: the pope wanted to check the accuracy of the Gregorian reformation of the calendar, to produce a tool to predict Easter exactly, and, not least, to give Rome a meridian line as important as the one Giovanni Domenico Cassini had recently built in Bologna's cathedral, San Petronio. Alan Cook remarked, "The disposition, the stability and the precision are much better than those of the famous meridian... in Bologna".  This church was chosen for several reasons: (1) Like other baths in Rome, the building was already naturally southerly oriented, so as to receive unobstructed exposure to the sun; (2) the height of the walls allowed for a long line to measure the sun's progress through the year more precisely; (3) the ancient walls had long since stopped settling into the ground, ensuring that carefully calibrated observational instruments set in them would not move out of place; and (4) because it was set in the former baths of Diocletian, it would symbolically represent a victory of the Christian calendar over the earlier pagan calendar.  Bianchini's sundial was built along the meridian that crosses Rome, at longitude 12° 30' E. At solar noon, which varies according to the equation of time from around 10:54 a.m. UTC in late October to 11.24 a.m. UTC in February (11:54 to 12:24 CET), the sun shines through a small hole in the wall to cast its light on this line each day. At the summer solstice, the sun appears highest, and its ray hits the meridian line at the point closest to the wall. At the winter solstice, the ray crosses the line at the point furthest from the wall. At either equinox, the sun touches the line between these two extremes. The longer the meridian line, the more accurately the observer can calculate the length of the year. The meridian line built here is 45 meters long and is composed of bronze, enclosed in yellow-white marble.  In addition to using the line to measure the sun's meridian crossing, Bianchini also used the window behind the pope's coat of arms and a movable telescope to observe the passage of several stars such as Arcturus and Sirius to determine their right ascensions and declinations. The meridian line was restored in 2002 for the tricentenary of its construction, and it is still operational today.

Cardinal Protectors since 1687.

The Church of S. Maria degli Angeli was designated a titular church for a Cardinal Priest on 15 May 1565 by Pope Pius IV. Since 1687, the following prelates have served as cardinal protector of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri:

The Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels and the Martyrs (, ) is a basilica and titular church in Rome, Italy, built inside the ruined "frigidarium" of the Roman Baths of Diocletian in the Piazza della Repubblica.


History.

Foundation.

In 1998, SDK was created as coalition of five small centre-right and centre-left parties intending to contest the Slovak parliamentary elections that year. The initial agreement was to form a party with 150 members and dissolve it after elections in 1998. After successful 1998 elections, SDK formed government with KDH, SDĽ and SMK-MKP. This initial agreement was not successful, and Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda (KDH) announced formation of new party - Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ). Some SDK members joined the new party while others returned to their original parties. The new party was registered on 18 February 2000. On 17 November Constitution congress elected Mikuláš Dzurinda as chairman, vice chairmen being Edvard Kukan, Zuzana Martináková, Milan Kňažko and Ľubomír Harach. Gabriel Palacka became responsible for finances.

First time in government: 1998-2006.

After its creation, majority of ministers of Slovak government were members of SDKÚ. SDKÚ was considered to be most reform oriented party. Its coalition partners were Party of the Hungarian Coalition, Party of Civic Understanding and Party of the Democratic Left.  In the parliamentary election of 17 June 2006, the party won 18.4% of the popular vote and 31 out of 150 seats in the National Council. Despite losing a large number of votes, the party was still able to form coalition government with former partners such as the Christian Democratic Movement, Party of the Hungarian Coalition and new party Alliance of the New Citizen. However, the opposition centre-left populist Smer-SD could able to form coalition with Slovak National Party and

Second time in government: 2010-2012.

For the 2010 parliamentary election, Dzurinda yielded the number-one slot on the party's list to Iveta Radičová, though he remained party chairman. In this election, the party won 15.42% of popular vote corresponding to 28 seats in the National Council. Iveta Radičová become the first female prime minister in history of Slovakia, by forming a new centre-right coalition government consisted of SDKÚ-DS, SaS, MOST-HÍD and KDH. By custom, president Ivan Gašparovič first gave charge to form a new government to winning party SMER-SD and its leader Robert Fico, who was unable to do so due to Smer-SD and SNS only having 71 seats. The centre-right coalition Government collapsed on 11 October 2011 after lost confidence in parliament. Radičová subsequently decided not take candidacy in next elections and served as prime minister until a social democratic government took office on 4 April 2012.

2012 election.

Mikuláš Dzurinda led party to 2012 parliamentary election. The party was defeated badly, receiving just 6.09% of the votes and losing more than half of its seats. Dzurinda chose to resign from his position as the chairman of SKDU, and a party congress was held on 19 May 2012 so that a new leader could be chosen. Pavol Frešo, Lucia Žitňanská and Viliam Novotný were the candidates, Frešo finally won with 242 out of 404 votes. Lucia Žitňanská received 142 votes and announced she will not be a candidate for the position of vice-chairperson.  In the 2014 European elections, SDKÚ-DS came third place nationally, receiving 7.75% of the vote and electing 2 MEPs.  Out of 11 PMs elected in 2012 only 1 remained in the party as of 2015.

2016 election.

The party was led by Pavol Frešo. However, during the previous term SDKÚ-DS practically fell apart from inside, when its own members of parliament chose to leave the party. As a result, Frešo has a tough position and even if his campaign was led alongside with Slovak right-wing consensus against the SMER-SD party, it failed. While gaining only 0,27% of votes and losing 95% of its previous voters in the election of 5.3.2016, the party has received its worst result in history. SDKÚ-DS has won only in one village, Pavlovce in Rimavská Sobota District. Frešo has commented that SDKÚ-DS as the only party has defended openly pro-European ideas, opposing the building of fences against the immigrants in European migrant crisis. The chairman said that the situation was a big challenge for the presidium.

Decline and dissolution.

A party congress was held on 2 July 2016. Pavol Frešo stepped down from leadership of the party. New Vice-Chairmans were elected. The leader was expected to be elected later in 2016. It was reported in April 2018 that party de facto ceased to exist as it lacks membership and structure. The party was expelled from European People's Party as a result. Igor Rattaj btook over party's property and became owner of Party's trademark during September 2018. Rattaj stated that party is now only the Trademark and he will sell it if anyone expresses interest. Leader of the Party Milan Roman at the time ran for the position of Mayor in Skalice as an independent candidate.

Ideology.

SDKÚ-DS were a centre-right liberal conservative party, presenting itself as an alternative to the social-democratic and populist ideology of the Direction – Social Democracy (Smer-SD) party. After the general elections in 2010, SDKÚ-DS reached an agreement with other centre-right parties and formed the government of Slovakia. The party criticised the policies of Robert Fico's Smer-SD party, calling them irresponsible, unsustainable and populist. SDKÚ-DS was the fifth largest party in the National Council during years 2012–2016. Its policy included continuing in reforms that took place before 2006, including tax reform, welfare benefits cuts, pensions reform, healthcare reform etc. SDKÚ-DS was then organised into four sections:  The main partners of SDKÚ-DS were politically similar parties: Christian Democratic Movement, Freedom and Solidarity, and Most-Híd. Until 2012, these parties were in a coalition government with SDKÚ-DS.

The Slovak Democratic and Christian Union – Democratic Party (, SDKÚ-DS) was a liberal-conservative, Christian-democratic political party in Slovakia. The SDKÚ-DS was a member of the Centrist Democrat International and was a member of the European People's Party until 2018, when it was expelled.


Design and development.

The 690 had begun life in 1934 as Bréguet's response to the same strategic fighter aircraft specification as the eventual winner, the Potez 630. Both were twin-engine monoplanes with twin tailplanes, powered by Hispano-Suiza 14AB radial engines of contemporary design and performance. Bréguet considered the weight limits of the specification – requiring a twin-engine, three-man aircraft to be lighter than 3,000 kg/6,600 lb (later 3,500 kg/7,700 lb) – to be overly restrictive and ignored them. Instead, the design was advertised as particularly versatile, with reconnaissance, ground attack and level bombing derivatives proposed that required no structural changes. Unsurprisingly, Bréguet lost out in the competition to Potez, but confident in the 690's potential, nevertheless began building a prototype on its own funds.  Although it had kept informed about foreign developments with dive bombers in the early 1930s, the French Air Force did not decide to acquire modern ground-attack aircraft before 1937. Engineless for nearly a year, the 690-01 prototype finally flew on 23 March 1938, and displayed such promise that 100 two-seat attack bomber versions known as the Bréguet 691 AB2 were ordered in June 1938, an order which was eventually doubled. For ground-attack, the 691's equipment included a 20 mm cannon and a pair of 7.5 mm (.295 in) machine guns firing forward, as well as an internal bomb rack that could be used in a shallow dive attack and was typically loaded with eight 50 kg (110 lb) bombs. Rear defense was provided by one flexible 7.5 mm (.295 in) machine gun, while a fixed, rearward-firing weapon of the same type was fitted under the fuselage to discourage low-flying fighters or ground fire from behind. A set of armour plates protected the crew, and the fuel tanks had rudimentary self-sealing capacity, but this protection proved insufficient in combat.

Production.

Bréguet established an assembly line with remarkable speed: the first production aircraft flew less than a year after being ordered and was in service before the end of 1939. As with the Potez 630, the Bre 691 was beset with engine difficulties. Hispano-Suiza had decided to concentrate on its V12 liquid-cooled engines and the 14AB engine was unreliable. The French authorities decided to order a new version, the Bre 693 powered by Gnome-Rhône 14M radials. Apart from the changed engines, which were of slightly smaller diameter, the two types were virtually identical. Orders for the Bre 691 were switched to the new type and more than 200 of the latter had been completed by the time of France's defeat. Late production versions of the Bre 693 introduced propulsive exhaust pipes that improved top speed by a small margin as well as, according to some sources, a pair of additional machine guns in the rear of each engine nacelle. Belgium ordered 32 licence-built copies but none were completed before the Belgian collapse. French engine makers had even greater difficulties than airframe manufacturers in keeping up with the frantic demands from 1938, and in 1939 the French government decided that all combat aircraft had to be adapted for British and US engines. Fewer than 250 Bréguet 690 series aircraft were completed. The "Armée de l'air" received only 211 examples: 75 Bre.691s, 128 Bre.693s and eight Bre.695s but the Germans captured a few dozen complete or near-complete aircraft at the factories.

Operational history.

A small experimental unit had been experimenting with ground-attack tactics since 1937, initially in outdated biplanes such as the Potez 25, then in ANF Les Mureaux 115 monoplanes. Eventually, the "Armée de l’Air" concluded that low-altitude level-bombing was more suitable than dive-bombing for engaging enemy vehicles and artillery over the battlefield. The chosen tactic consisted in a nap-of-the-earth approach at maximum speed, followed by a strafing run or the delivery of time-delayed bombs directly over the target. French commanders widely considered this tactic as safe for the attackers, as anti-aircraft weapons then in service would be inefficient. The French Army was not using anti-aircraft autocannons at the time (the 25 mm Hotchkiss and 20 mm Oerlikon cannons were issued only later), relying instead on rifle-calibre machine guns and slow-firing 75 mm (2.95 in) guns.  In late 1939, two squadrons staffed with volunteers from level bomber units were gathered in the small airfield near Vinon-sur-Verdon, where they began their operational training. As Bréguet 691s were not available yet, the crews flew the Potez 633 light bomber. When they were eventually delivered, the little Bréguet were popular with their crews, although the unreliable engines in the Bre 691 affected aircraft availability rates, and undercarriage failures proved especially troublesome. Only in March 1940 were the first combat-worthy Bre. 693s delivered, and there were now five squadrons to equip: GBA I/51, GBA II/51, GBA I/54, GBA II/54, and GBA II/35 (GBA stood for "Groupe de bombardement d'assaut" – assault bomber squadron), with a theoretical complement of 13 aircraft each.  Because of this late delivery, crews were still working up their new machines and developing tactics when the Germans attacked. On 12 May, GBAs I/54 and II/54 performed the Bréguet's first operational sorties, against German motorized columns in the Maastricht-Tongeren-Bilsen area. German anti-aircraft fire was so devastating that only eight of the eighteen Bre.693s returned.  The disastrous results of this first engagement forced the French commanders to reconsider their tactics. Until 15 May, GBA crews performed shallow dive attacks from higher altitude, which resulted in reduced losses, but the attacks had clearly been inaccurate, as the Bréguet lacked a bombsight, and they increased vulnerability to German fighters. On subsequent missions, the GBAs re-introduced low-level attacks, but with smaller formations. As the position of the French and Allied armies grew steadily more desperate, the assault groups were engaged daily, still enduring losses to anti-aircraft fire, but also increasingly to German fighters.  In late June, the "Armée de l'Air" tried to evacuate its modern aircraft to North Africa, out of German reach, from where many hoped to continue the fight. However, the short-ranged Bréguets were not able to cross the Mediterranean. Unlike other modern French types, the Bréguet 690 family saw its combat career end with the Armistice.  By this time, 119 aircraft had been lost, including 68 to direct enemy action, and a further 14 were written off as too heavily damaged. The five GBAs had therefore endured a matériel loss rate of 63%, while crew casualties were nearly 50%.  After the Armistice, the Vichy authorities were allowed to maintain a small air force in mainland France, and its assault bomber pilots flew rare training flights in the Bre.693 and Bre.695. After the Germans occupied all of France in late 1942, some of the survivors were transferred to Italy for use as operational trainers.

The Bréguet 690 and its derivatives were a series of light twin-engine ground-attack aircraft that were used by the French Air Force in World War II.


History.

This latest Favorit eventually succeeded the ageing rear-engined, rear-wheel drive Škoda 105/120 "Estelle", and was a considerable move towards the modern mainstream in design terms thanks to its Bertone-designed hatchback body and front-wheel drive. However, the Favorit initially took a long time to get to market - Škoda's then owner, the communist government of Czechoslovakia approved the development of this new front-wheel drive car back in 1982, with actual development not starting until 1983. Disputes between the government’s brief, and Nuccio Bertone, the designer, meant that the car was not designed until mid-1985, and full production wouldn't commence until 1987. Probably the worst aspects of this dispute is that a four-door saloon was fully designed, but was never allowed to go into production.  The Favorit proved itself as one of Central Europe's most popular cars, and was also exported to a number of countries including Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Perú, Israel, Poland, Russia, Turkey and other countries.  The Favorit was replaced in 1994 by the Škoda Felicia, which was developed in conjunction with Volkswagen Group, who were by then the owners of Škoda Auto.  It is perhaps comparable to the Volkswagen Polo (fuel injected versions share the Bosch Mono-Motronic 1.2.3 engine management system with the Volkswagen Polo Mk2 and Volkswagen Golf Mk3) due to its large engine compartment, contributing to the possibility of easy repair. Parts are very universal with other Eastern European cars. Its general design and mechanical functionality is very practical, especially in comparison to a Western car which requires expensive parts, or maintenance for simple knobs, buttons or other simple mechanical and rudimentary apparatus.  Some 50,000 examples of the Favorit were sold in the UK from 1989 to 1995, although just 232 were still on the road by December 2016, and they were disappearing fast. A 1993-reg blue Favorit became famous after it drove from Anfield, Liverpool to the Wanda Metropolitano stadium in Madrid for the 2019 UEFA Champions League Final, before making the return journey to Anfield. The outbound journey was filmed by British YouTuber and Liverpool fan Simon Wilson. The car cost a total of £40, although recent MOT tests on 15 April 2019 showed that the car had a total of 85 faults.

Body styles.

The car body style of the Škoda Favorit was a five-door five-seater hatchback.  A five-door estate version named the Škoda Forman ("Type" 785) appeared in 1990. This was known as the Favorit Estate in the UK from its launch in June 1991, two years after British buyers were first able to buy the hatchback. The name originates from the Czech word "forman", which in English is "wagoneer", or someone who transports goods by wagon. It is a common misconception that the name is somehow related to famous Czech filmmaker Miloš Forman.  A two-door two-seat pick-up truck, called the Škoda Pick-up ("Type" 787), was introduced the following year.  Following the takeover of Škoda Auto in 1991 by the Volkswagen Group, new developments and upgrades were rapidly implemented on the Favorit. This included new fuel injected catalytic converter versions, marketed as the Li, GLi and the GLXi models were introduced. At the same time many cosmetic improvements were made to the Favorit, such as improved door hinges, Volkswagen seats and interiors, dashboards and instrumentation. Quality control improvements were also implemented, along with safety features such as strengthened beams in the doors, and a redesigned front.  During 1993, another range of modernisations took place, which included mechanical and electrical upgrades to the engine, a facelift of the bodywork, and bigger bumpers.  Luggage capacity in the hatchback was 251 litres with the rear seats in the upright position, and this increased to 1,038 litres with the rear seats folded. For more luggage, the back seat could be removed completely.  Special versions were made in limited numbers. "Black Line" was sold with a pop-up sunroof, Hella clear rear lighs, tinted windows all-around, power door locks, tachometer, digital clock in the centre overhead console, smart intermittent wipers, leather-wrapped steering wheel and gearchange knob, Hella headlight washer, and a Blaupunkt stereo with 4 speakers. The car is recognisable from the all-black paint, and the factory 13" Ronal F-Series alloy wheels. "Silver Line" was similar, only in metallic silver colour with a black fascia around the back window and the B pillars. These packages were available with both hatchback and estate body styles. "Solitaire" was very rare, including all of the above plus spoiler on the rear door, factory alarm system, power front windows and fuel injection. The other special versions came with either carburetted or fuel-injected engines.

Powertrain.

For all body styles, the powertrain of the Favorit used one internal combustion petrol engine,, inline-four-cylinder, four-stroke, liquid-cooled, overhead valve. This initially produced a rated motive power output of at 5,000 rpm. It originally used either a Pierburg 2E-E Ecotronic single-barrel carburettor, or a Pierburg Ecotronic dual-barrel carburettor. This engine had its combustion chambers redesigned by Ricardo Consulting Engineers in the UK, while German car maker Porsche helped engineer the engine mountings. Throughout its timescale in the Favorit, the engine was progressively upgraded with various iterations of emissions control systems, including two different types of catalytic converter, and also utilised improved fuelling and engine control by way of Bosch Mono-Motronic single-point fuel injection. These changes had minor effects on the rated power (50kW) and torque outputs. The engine requires the cam chain changed every 60,000 km, but it can last over 200,000 km (cases of engines working 400,000 km without the change of cam chain are known, although with serious degradation of performance, respectively). The chain is relatively short, but has no tensioner.  This engine was also used in Škoda Felicia with BMM and MPI injection, and until 2003 as a 1.4 MPI unit in the Škoda Fabia, and a 1.0 version in the Škoda Fabia, Seat Arosa and Volkswagen Lupo.  The only transmission available was a five-speed manual gearbox, which was of a transaxle design, and contained the differential and final drive units. Drive was through the front wheels.

Motorsport.

Two Favorits finished first and second in the under-1300 cc class in the 1993 Monte Carlo Rally, coming in 18th and 23rd overall respectively.  The Škoda Motorsport-entered Favorit proceeded to win outright in the 2-litre Manufacturers Championship category of the 1994 FIA World Rally Championship with a total of 43 points, despite having only a 1.3-litre engine. It defeated rival cars from manufacturers such as Ford, Citroën (AX Sport), Peugeot (205 Rallye and 205 GTI), Fiat (Cinquecento), Renault, Rover (Mini Cooper), Suzuki (Swift GTI), Daihatsu (Charade 1.3i), Lada (Riva), and even Trabant P 601. It also competed against cars from other marques from its future parent Volkswagen Group, namely Volkswagen and SEAT (Marbella GL). Works driver Pavel Sibera managed to pilot the Favorit into the overall top ten classification on two occasions, which included the main World Rally Championship category, and his team-mate Emil Triner achieved the same feat, with a highest placing of 9th overall in the Acropolis Rally, and 8th in the Rallye de España.  There were also prototypes with Škoda's 1.6 OHC engine

Škoda Favorit is a model name that the Czechoslovak (and now Czech) car maker Škoda Auto has used for two series of car models.


Description.

The plant is a small deciduous tree or large shrub up to tall. It has smooth bark, dark green spreading branches and pendulous and pubescent twigs. The leaves are generally trifoliate and oval with long petioles, smooth on the upperside and hairy on the underside. It flowers during May and June.  "Laburnum anagyroides" blooms in late spring with pea-like, yellow flowers densely packed in pendulous racemes 10–25 cm (4–10 in) long. The flowers are golden yellow, sweet scented, and typically bloom in May.  The seeds are legumes with large numbers of black seeds that contain cytisine, an alkaloid somewhat poisonous to humans as well as goats and horses, especially when not ripe. However, some wild animals such as hares and deer can feed on them without any problems, and because of this the plant is believed to have magic properties in some regions.

Uses.

The wood is hard and heavy, of a yellow/brown colour, ideal for making posts, for woodturning and as fuel. In the past (and today on historic re-enactments) it was used for making bows.  The tree is also known as "false ebony" since the wood from very old specimens could be used in place of ebony.

Cultivation.

"Laburnum anagyroides" is cultivated as an ornamental tree. The most common ornamental plant in the genus is a hybrid between this species and "Laburnum alpinum" — "Laburnum × watereri".

In culture.

The English poet Francis Thompson described the "laburnum" in one of his poems:  The writer J. R. R. Tolkien was inspired by the "laburnum" for his creation of Laurelin, one of the two mythological trees in "The Silmarillion", and Tolkien's description of it is strongly influenced by Thompson's verses.

Laburnum anagyroides, the common laburnum, golden chain or golden rain, is a species in the subfamily Faboideae, and genus "Laburnum". "Laburnum alpinum" is closely related. It is native to Central and Southern Europe.


History.

The works at Marly were begun in the spring of 1679, on 22 May, before Louis had moved his court permanently to Versailles. The king was looking for a retreat on well-wooded royal lands between Versailles and Saint-Germain-en-Laye that were well-watered and provided a grand view. Marly was chosen.  Robert Berger has demonstrated that the design of Marly was a full collaboration between Jules Hardouin-Mansart and the "premier peintre" Charles Le Brun, who were concurrently working on the "Galerie des Glaces" at Versailles. Mansart's elevations for the pavilions were to be frescoed to designs adapted from a suite that Le Brun had recently drawn. The frescoed exteriors of the otherwise somewhat severe buildings created a richly Baroque ensemble of feigned sculptures against draperies and hangings, with vases on feigned sculptural therms against the piers— all in the somewhat eclectic Olympian symbolism that Le Brun and the King favoured everywhere at Versailles.  The decor of the pavillon du Roi featured Apollo, the Sun King's iconographic persona, and Thetis. Other pavilions were dedicated to other Olympians, but also to Hercules, and to Victory, Fame and Abundance. Construction was completed by 1684, though the overcharged painted programmes were simplified and restrained in the execution. The Sun King attended the opening of the completed hydraulic works in June 1684 and by 1686 development was sufficiently advanced for the King to stay there for the first time, with a selected entourage. The theme of Marly was that it was a simple hunting lodge, just enough to accommodate the Royal Hunt. In 1688 the "Grand Abreuvoir à chevaux" was installed on the terrace, a mere "horse trough."  Throughout the rest of his life, Louis continued to embellish the wooded park, with wide straight rides, in which ladies or the infirm might follow the hunt, at some distance, in a carriage, and with more profligate waterworks than waterless Versailles could provide: the "Rivière" or "Grande Cascade" dates to 1697–1698. Versailles was provided with water from Marly. The famous description of Marly in the memoirs of Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon were written in retrospect and, for the initiation of Marly, at second hand; when Saint-Simon wrote, in 1715, Marly's heyday was ending, with the death of Louis XIV that year. Louis' heirs found the north-facing slope made Marly damp and dreary, and rarely visited.  The "river" was filled in and grassed in 1728. During the Revolution the marble horses by Guillaume Coustou the Elder, the "Chevaux de Marly", were transported to Paris (1794), to flank the opening of the "Champs-Élysées" in the soon-to-be-renamed "Place de la Concorde". (They are now in the "Musée du Louvre", along with many other Marly sculptures.)  In 1799/1800, Marly was sold to an industrialist, M. Sagniel, who installed machinery to spin cotton thread. When the factory failed in 1806, the château was demolished and its building materials sold, including the lead from its roof. Napoleon bought back the estate the following year; the empty gardens and the surrounding woodland park still belong to the State.

Remains.

At the end of the 19th century several connoisseurs purchased leases on the individual "garçonnières", cleaned up the overgrowth, recovered some bruised and broken statuary and recreated small gardens among the ruins: Alexandre Dumas, fils and the playwright and collector of 18th-century furnishings Victorien Sardou.  The "Cour Marly" of the Louvre museum was inaugurated in 1993. It contains mostly works of art from Marly, displayed on three levels.

The Marly "machine".

Providing a sufficient water supply for the fountains at Versailles had been a problem from the outset. The construction of the Marly hydraulic "machine", actually located in Bougival (where its inventor Rennequin Sualem died in 1708), driven by the current of the Seine moving fourteen vast paddlewheels, was a miracle of modern hydraulic engineering, perhaps the largest integrated machine of the 17th century.  It pumped water to a head of 100 meters into reservoirs at Louveciennes (where Madame du Barry had her chateau in the 1760s). The water then flowed either to fill the cascade at Marly or drive the fountains at Versailles — the latter, after passing through an elaborate underground network of reservoirs and aqueducts. The machine could only deliver sufficient pressure to satisfy either Marly or Versailles, and invariably the King's demands received priority.  In the nineteenth century, various other pumps replaced the originals, and the last was taken out of service in 1967.

The Château de Marly was a French royal residence located in what is now Marly-le-Roi, the commune on the northern edge of the royal park. This was situated west of the palace and garden complex at Versailles. Marly-le-Roi is the town that developed to serve the château, which was demolished in 1806 after passing into private ownership and being used as a factory. The town is now a bedroom community for Paris.


Biography.

Early life, education, and army service.

Ferencz was born in Transylvania, which was part of Hungary at that time. A few months later, it was ceded to Romania under the Treaty of Trianon (1920), the result of World War I. When Ferencz was ten months old, his family emigrated to the United States which, according to his own account, was to avoid the persecution of Hungarian Jews by the Romanians after they had gained formal control of Transylvania. The family settled in New York City, where they lived on the Lower East Side in Manhattan.  Ferencz studied crime prevention at the City College of New York, and his criminal law exam result won him a scholarship to Harvard Law School. At Harvard, he studied under Roscoe Pound and also did research for Sheldon Glueck who, at that time, was writing a book on war crimes. Ferencz graduated from Harvard in 1943. After his studies, he joined the U.S. Army, where he served in the 115th AAA Gun Battalion, an anti-aircraft artillery unit. In 1945, he was transferred to the headquarters of General Patton's Third Army, where he was assigned to a team tasked with setting up a war crimes branch and collecting evidence for such crimes. In that role, he was sent to the concentration camps that had been liberated by the U.S. army.

Nuremberg trial prosecutor.

On Christmas 1945, Ferencz was honorably discharged from the Army with the rank of sergeant. He returned to New York, but was recruited only a few weeks later to participate as a prosecutor in the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials in the legal team of Telford Taylor. Taylor appointed him chief prosecutor in the Einsatzgruppen Case—Ferencz's first case. All of the 22 men on trial were convicted; 13 of them received death sentences, of which four were eventually carried out.  In a 2005 interview for "The Washington Post" he revealed some of his activities during his period in Germany by way of showing how different military legal norms were at the time:  Ferencz stayed in Germany after the Nuremberg Trials, together with his wife Gertrude, whom he had married in New York on March 31, 1946. Together with Kurt May and others, he participated in the setup of reparation and rehabilitation programs for the victims of persecutions by the Nazis, and also had a part in the negotiations that led to the Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany signed on September 10, 1952 and the first German Restitution Law in 1953. In 1956, the family—they had four children by then—returned to the U.S., where Ferencz entered private law practice as a partner of Telford Taylor.

Role in forming the International Criminal Court.

Experiences just after World War II left a defining impression on Ferencz. After 13 years, and under the impression of the events of the Vietnam War, Ferencz left the private law practice and henceforth worked for the institution of an International Criminal Court that would serve as a worldwide highest instance for issues of crimes against humanity and war crimes. He also published several books on this subject. Already in his first book published in 1975, entitled "Defining International Aggression-The Search for World Peace", he argued for the establishment of such an international court. From 1985 to 1996, Ferencz also worked as an adjunct professor of international law at Pace University at White Plains, New York.  An International Criminal Court was indeed established on July 1, 2002, when the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court came into force. Under the Bush administration, the U.S. signed the treaty, but didn't ratify it. The administration of George W. Bush concluded a large number of bilateral agreements with other states that would exclude U.S. citizens from being brought before the ICC.  Ferencz has repeatedly argued against this procedure and suggested that the U.S. join the ICC without reservations, as it was a long-established rule of law that "law must apply equally to everyone", also in an international context. In this vein, he has suggested in an interview given on August 25, 2006, that not only Saddam Hussein should be tried, but also George W. Bush because the Iraq War had been begun by the U.S. without permission by the UN Security Council. In 2013, Ferencz stated once more that the "use of armed force to obtain a political goal should be condemned as an international and a national crime."

Later years.

In 2009, Ferencz was awarded the Erasmus Prize, together with Antonio Cassese; the award is given to individuals or institutions that have made notable contributions to European culture, society, or social science.  On May 3, 2011, two days after the death of Osama bin Laden was reported, "The New York Times" published a Ferencz letter which argued that "illegal and unwarranted execution – even of suspected mass murderers – undermines democracy." Also that year he presented a closing statement in the trial of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo in Uganda.  On March 16, 2012, Ferencz, in another letter to the editor of the "New York Times", hailed the International Criminal Court's conviction of Thomas Lubanga as "a milestone in the evolution of international criminal law."  On May 7, 2017, Ferencz was interviewed on CBS's "60 Minutes".  In 2018, Ferencz was the subject of a documentary on his life, "Prosecuting Evil", by director Barry Avrich, which was made available on Netflix.  On January 16, 2020, the "New York Times" printed Ferencz's letter denouncing the assassination of the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, unnamed in the letter, as an "immoral action [and] a clear violation of national and international law."  He turned 100 in March 2020.

Naming of street in The Hague.

In April 2017, the municipality of The Hague announced that the city will honor Benjamin Ferencz by naming the footpath next to the Peace Palace after him as ""one of the figureheads of international justice"": the "Benjamin Ferenczpad" (Benjamin Ferenczpath). The city's Deputy Mayor Saskia Bruines (International Affairs) travelled to Washington to symbolically present the street sign to Ferencz.

Benjamin Berell Ferencz (born March 11, 1920) is a Hungarian-born American lawyer. He was an investigator of Nazi war crimes after World War II and the chief prosecutor for the United States Army at the Einsatzgruppen Trial, one of the 12 military trials held by the U.S. authorities at Nuremberg, Germany. Later, he became an advocate of the establishment of an international rule of law and of an International Criminal Court. From 1985 to 1996, he was adjunct professor of international law at Pace University.


Elizabeth of Vermandois, Countess of Leicester

Life.

Countess of Leicester.

In 1096, Robert de Beaumont, Count of Meulan reputed to be "the wisest man in his time between London and Jerusalem" insisted, in defiance of the laws of the church, on marrying a very young Elizabeth, he being over fifty at the time. In early 1096 Bishop Ivo, on hearing of the proposed marriage, wrote a letter banning the marriage and preventing its celebration on the grounds the two were related within prohibited degrees.  In April of the same year, Elizabeth's father count Hugh left on Crusade, his last act being to see his daughter married to count Robert. The crusader was able to convince Pope Urban to issue a dispensation for the marriage which then went forward.  Her husband was a nobleman of some significance in France, having inherited lands from his maternal uncle Henry, Count of Meulan. He gained renown fighting in his first battle, in command of the right wing, at the Battle of Hastings as a companion of William the Conqueror. He was rewarded with ninety manors in the counties of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire and Wiltshire. The count of Meulan was one of Henry I's "four wise counsellors and was one of the king's commanders at the Battle of Tinchebray" 28 September 1106. In 1107 Robert became Earl of Leicester.

Countess of Surrey.

Elizabeth, Countess of Meulan is reputed to have had an affair and left her husband when he was near death. The historian James Planché claimed (1874) that the Countess was seduced by or fell in love with a younger nobleman, William de Warenne.  There is no evidence that her second husband, William II de Warenne, second earl of Surrey, was that lover and only later rumors that she had a lover at all during her first marriage. William had sought a royal bride in 1093, but failed in his attempt to wed Matilda of Scotland also known as Edith, who later married Henry I. He obtained a bride of royal blood when he married Elizabeth in 1118, very soon after the death of Earl Robert. Elizabeth survived her second husband William to later die in 1131.

Family.

By her first husband, Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester, (d 5 June 1118), Elizabeth had three sons (including twin elder sons) and five or six daughters:  By her second husband, William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey, Elizabeth had three sons and two daughters:

Elizabeth of Vermandois, or Elisabeth or Isabel de Vermandois (c. 1085 – 1131), was the third daughter of Hugh Magnus and Adelaide of Vermandois, and as such represented both the Capetian line of her paternal grandfather Henry I of France, and the Carolingian ancestry of her maternal grandfather Herbert IV of Vermandois.


Playing career.

A good right winger, Vycpálek moved in 1946 to Juventus from Slavia Prague, and in 1947 to Palermo, in Serie B at the time, leading the team to an immediate promotion to the top division, and playing 143 times, with 23 goals, in five seasons for the "rosanero". In the season 1952–1953, Vycpálek then signed for Parma, where he played at Serie B and Serie C level. Vycpálek abandoned his playing career in 1958, at the age of 37.

Coaching career.

Before to enjoy some relevant success at the managing level, Vycpálek had several minor experiences, often not particularly lucky. He started his coaching career for Palermo, where he relocated with his family after Czechoslovakia was occupied by the Soviet Red Army after the Prague Spring. He then coached minor league teams such as Siracusa, Valdagno and Juve Bagheria.  In the early 1970s, however, after having been fired by Sicilian Serie D team Mazara, Vycpálek went back to Juventus, thanks also to his old friend Giampiero Boniperti, who was a board member in that times, and became coach for the youth team. But, in 1971, after the sudden death of Armando Picchi, Vycpálek was named new head coach of Juventus. It was the beginning of a successful period which led the team to two consecutive "scudetti", in 1972 and 1973, and to the final of European Cup lost against Ajax. The team was also runner-up in the intercontinental cup taking Ajax's place, due to a 1–0 defeat against sudamerican champions Independiente.After those results, Vycpálek left the club and finished his coaching career.

Death.

Vycpálek died on 5 May 2002 in Palermo, the same day of the Juventus' triumph in the 2001–02 Serie A, and exactly thirty years after the death of his son Cestino in the Alitalia Flight 112 crash that happened in 1972.

Čestmír Vycpálek (Prague, 15 May 1921 – Palermo, 5 May 2002) was a Czech football player and manager who played as a midfielder. He was an uncle of noted football manager Zdeněk Zeman.


Early life.

Aliza Herz was born in Prague, in the Kingdom of Bohemia (a part of Austria-Hungary), to Friedrich and Sofie "Gigi" Herz. Herz's family was part of the small German-speaking minority of assimilated Jews in Prague, although Herz stated that she also spoke Czech. Her father was a merchant and her mother was highly educated and moved in circles of well-known writers. She had two sisters, including a twin sister, Mariana, and two brothers. Her parents ran a cultural salon where Herz, as a child, met writers including Franz Kafka and Franz Werfel, composers including Gustav Mahler, philosophers, and intellectuals such as Sigmund Freud. Herz once noted that "Kafka was a slightly strange man. He used to come to our house, sit and talk with my mother, mainly about his writing. He did not talk a lot, but rather loved quiet and nature. We frequently went on trips together. I remember that Kafka took us to a very nice place outside Prague. We sat on a bench and he told us stories." Herz's sister Irma was married to Felix Weltsch, who was a prominent German-language Jewish philosopher, journalist, librarian, and Zionist who later worked as a librarian in Jerusalem after his emigration from Austria.  Herz's older sister Irma taught her how to play the piano, which she studied diligently, and the Austrian-Jewish pianist Artur Schnabel, a friend of the family, encouraged her to pursue a career as a classical musician, a choice she decided to make. She went on to study under the Czech pianist Václav Štěpán (1889-1944) and at the Prague German Conservatory of Music, where she was the youngest pupil. Herz married the businessman and amateur musician Leopold Sommer in 1931; the couple had a son, Stephan (later known as Raphael, 1937–2001). She began giving concerts and making a name for herself across Europe until the Nazis took over Prague, as they did not allow Jews to perform in public, join music competitions or teach non-Jewish pupils.

Second World War.

After the invasion of Czechoslovakia, most of Herz-Sommer's family and friends emigrated to Palestine via Romania, including Max Brod and brother-in-law Felix Weltsch, but Herz-Sommer stayed in Prague to care for her ill mother, Sofie, aged 72; both women were arrested and Sofie Herz was murdered in a concentration camp. In July 1943 Herz was sent to Theresienstadt, where she played in more than 100 concerts along with other musicians, for prisoners and guards. She commented of her performances in the camp:We had to play because the Red Cross came three times a year. The Germans wanted to show its representatives that the situation of the Jews in Theresienstadt was good. Whenever I knew that I had a concert, I was happy. Music is magic. We performed in the council hall before an audience of 150 old, hopeless, sick and hungry people. They lived for the music. It was like food to them. If they hadn't come [to hear us], they would have died long before. As we would have.  Herz-Sommer was billeted with her son during their time at the camp; he was one of only a few children to survive Theresienstadt. Her husband died of typhus in Dachau, six weeks before the camp was liberated.

Later life.

After the Soviet liberation of Theresienstadt in 1945, she and Raphael returned to Prague, and in March 1949 emigrated to Israel, to be reunited with some of her surviving family, including her twin sister, Mariana. Herz lived in Israel for almost 40 years, working as a music teacher at the Jerusalem Academy of Music, until emigrating to London in 1986.  In London Herz-Sommer lived close to her family in a one-room flat in Belsize Park, visited almost daily by her closest friends, her grandson Ariel Sommer, and daughter-in-law Genevieve Sommer. She practised playing the piano three hours a day until the end of her life. She stated that optimism was the key to her life:I look at the good. When you are relaxed, your body is always relaxed. When you are pessimistic, your body behaves in an unnatural way. It is up to us whether we look at the good or the bad. When you are nice to others, they are nice to you. When you give, you receive.She also declared a firm belief in the power of music: "Music saved my life and music saves me still... I am Jewish, but Beethoven is my religion."  Her son Raphael, an accomplished cellist and conductor, died in 2001, aged 64, of an aneurysm in Israel at the end of a concert tour. He was survived by his wife and two sons.  Alice Herz-Sommer died in hospital in London on 23 February 2014, aged 110, after being admitted two days previously. Her death was confirmed by her grandson, Ariel Sommer. She is buried at the St Pancras and Islington Cemetery in East Finchley, north London.

Media.

"A Century of Wisdom: Lessons From the Life of Alice Herz-Sommer the World's Oldest Living Holocaust Survivor" (2012), with an introduction by President Václav Havel, was written about her life and translated in 26 countries. Herz-Sommer was the subject of "A Garden of Eden in Hell", first published in German in 2005 (reprinted in English as "Alice's Piano").  The BBC TV documentary "Alice Sommer Herz at 106: Everything Is a Present", written and produced by Christopher Nupen, was first broadcast on BBC Four. She was featured on BBC Radio 4's "Woman's Hour" in 2004 and in "The Times", and "The Guardian". She was one of two subjects featured in the film "Refuge in Music".  "The Lady in Number 6", filmed when Herz was 109, documents her life and won an Academy Award for Best Short Documentary.  The song "Dancing Under the Gallows", by Chris While and Julie Matthews, from their 2014 album "Who We Are", celebrates the life of Alice Herz-Sommer.

Alice Herz-Sommer, also known as Alice Herz (26 November 1903 – 23 February 2014), was a Prague-born Jewish pianist, music teacher, and supercentenarian who survived Theresienstadt concentration camp. She lived for 40 years in Israel, before migrating to London in 1986, where she resided until her death, and at the age of 110 was the world's oldest known Holocaust survivor until Yisrael Kristal was recognized as such.


Buildup.

In November 1925 the government of Prime Minister Władysław Grabski was replaced by the government of Prime Minister Aleksander Skrzyński, which had received support from the National Democrats and the Polish Socialist Party (PPS). General Lucjan Żeligowski became the new government's minister of military affairs. However, after the PPS withdrew its support, this government also fell and was replaced by that of Prime Minister Wincenty Witos, formed by Polish People's Party "Piast" and Christian Union of National Unity ("Chjeno-Piast"). However, the new government had even less popular support than the previous ones, and pronouncements from Józef Piłsudski, who viewed the constant power shifts in the "Sejm" (Polish parliament) as chaotic and damaging, set the stage for a "coup d'état".  Apart from domestic turmoil, Polish politics had been shaken by a trade war with Germany, begun in June 1925, and by the signing of the Treaty of Locarno on October 16. Under the terms of the treaty, the World War I western European Allied powers and the new states of Central and Eastern Europe sought to secure a postwar territorial settlement in return for normalized relations with defeated Germany.

Coup d'état.

On 10 May 1926 a coalition government of Christian Democrats and Agrarians was formed, and that same day Józef Piłsudski, in an interview with "Kurier Poranny" (the Morning Courier), said that he was "ready to fight the evil" of "sejmocracy" and promised a "sanation" (restoration to health) of political life. The newspaper edition was confiscated by the authorities.  The night of 11 May to 12 May a state of alert was declared in the Warsaw military garrison, and some units marched to Rembertów, where they pledged their support to Piłsudski. On 12 May they marched on Warsaw and captured bridges over the Wisła River. Meanwhile, Wincenty Witos' government declared a state of emergency. At about 17:00 hours, Marshal Piłsudski met President Stanisław Wojciechowski on the Poniatowski Bridge. Piłsudski demanded the resignation of Witos' cabinet, while the President demanded Piłsudski's capitulation. With no result in this round of negotiations, fighting erupted about 19:00 hours.  Next day a new round of negotiations was begun, mediated by Archbishop Aleksander Kakowski and Marshal of the Sejm Maciej Rataj. These negotiations, however, brought no change to the stalemate. On 14 May the Polish Socialist Party declared its support for the rebels and called for a general strike, supported by the Railwaymen's Union ("Związek Zawodowy Kolejarzy"). The strike by socialist railwaymen paralyzed communications and prevented pro-government military reinforcements from reaching Warsaw.  Eventually, to prevent the Warsaw fighting from turning into a country-wide civil war, Wojciechowski and Witos resigned their offices.  During these events, 215 soldiers and 164 civilians were killed, and some 900 people were wounded.  A new government was formed under Prime Minister Kazimierz Bartel, with Piłsudski as minister of military affairs. On 31 May the National Assembly ("Zgromadzenie Narodowe") nominated Piłsudski to be president, but he declined. Eventually Ignacy Mościcki became the new president; Piłsudski, however, wielded much greater "de facto" power than his military ministry nominally gave him.

Consequences.

Piłsudski initiated a Sanation government (1926–39), directed at restoring moral "health" to public life. Although until his death in 1935 Piłsudski played a preponderant role in Poland's government, his formal offices – apart from two stints as prime minister, in 1926–28 and 1930 – were for the most part limited to those of minister of defense and inspector-general of the armed forces.  The adoption of a new Polish constitution in April 1935 (the April Constitution), tailored by Piłsudski's supporters to his specifications — providing for a strong presidency — came too late for Piłsudski to seek that office. But the April Constitution would serve Poland until the outbreak of World War II and would carry its Government in Exile through the war and beyond.

The May Coup ( or ) was a coup d'état carried out in Poland by Marshal Józef Piłsudski between 12 and 14 May 1926. The coup overthrew the democratically elected government of President Stanisław Wojciechowski and Prime Minister Wincenty Witos. A new government was installed, headed by Lwów Polytechnic Professor Kazimierz Bartel. The events were partly inspired by the need for extraordinary measures in the face of newly emerging threats to the stability of Poland's independence by Piłsudski's own assessment of the foreign treaties signed by Weimar Germany with France in 1925 (fundamentally abandoning Poland) and with the Soviet Union in April 1926, to which Poland's representatives had not been invited.


Background.

In late February 1942, Japanese amphibious forces were preparing to invade Java, in the Dutch East Indies. On 27 February, the main American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM) naval force, under Admiral Karel Doorman–a Dutch officer–steamed northeast from Surabaya to intercept an Imperial Japanese navy invasion fleet. This part of the ABDA force consisted of two heavy cruisers, including under the command of Captain Albert H. Rooks, three light cruisers, including under Captain Hector Waller, and nine destroyers. Only six out of nine of USS "Houston"s 8-inch (203-millimeter) heavy guns were operational because her aft gun turret had been knocked out in an earlier Japanese air raid. The ABDA force engaged the Japanese force in the Battle of the Java Sea. The Allied ships were all sunk or dispersed. "Houston" and "Perth" both retreated to Tanjung Priok, Java, the main port of Batavia, Dutch East Indies, where they arrived at 13:30 on 28 February.

Prelude.

In the early evening on 28 February, "Houston", "Perth" and the Dutch destroyer received orders to depart Tanjung Priok and head through Sunda Strait to Tjilatjap, on the south coast of Java. Waller, who had seniority, was "de facto" commander of this force. The only ships they expected to encounter were Australian corvettes on patrol, in and around the strait itself. While "Houston" and "Perth" left at 19:00, "Evertsen" was not ready and followed the cruisers two hours later.  By chance, just after 22:00, a Japanese invasion convoy bound for West Java — including the entire Sixteenth Army, under Lieutenant General Hitoshi Imamura, in over 50 transport ships — was entering Bantam Bay, near the north-west tip of Java. The Japanese troop transports were escorted by the 5th Destroyer Flotilla, led by Rear Admiral Kenzaburo Hara, and the 7th Cruiser Division, under Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita. Light cruiser (with Admiral Hara aboard), with the destroyers,,,,,,, and were closest to the convoy. Flanking the bay to the north were the heavy cruisers and, accompanied by the destroyer.  Slightly further north, though not involved in the action, was the aircraft carrier, with the heavy cruisers and (with Admiral Kurita aboard), along with the seaplane tender, and the destroyers and.  Some time around 23:15, the Allied ships were sighted by the patrolling "Fubuki", which followed them surreptitiously. At 23:06, when they were about halfway across the mouth of Bantam Bay, "Perth" sighted a ship about ahead, near Saint Nicolaas Point. It was thought at first that the ship was an Australian corvette, but when challenged, she made an unintelligible reply, with a lamp which was the wrong color, fired her nine Long Lance (Type 93) torpedoes from about and then turned away, making smoke. The ship was soon identified as a Japanese destroyer (probably "Harukaze"). Waller reported the contact and ordered his forward turrets to open fire.

Main action.

During a ferocious night action, the Allied cruisers were surrounded. Following severe damage from torpedo and shell impacts, "Perth" and "Houston" were abandoned after midnight and sank.  About four Japanese transports and a minesweeper were sunk by friendly torpedoes that had missed their target. (Two of these transports were later refloated.) One of the Japanese transports sunk was "Ryujo Maru", carrying Lt. Gen. Imamura, who had to jump overboard. He was later rescued by the crew of a small boat and taken ashore.

Destroyer action.

Meanwhile, as "Evertsen" was trying to catch up with "Houston" and "Perth", her crew spotted the tracers and intense shellfire of the main action. Her captain ordered a course northwest towards Pulau Mundu island, off the west coast of Sumatra, then hugged the Sumatran coast as "Evertsen" turned south to head through Sunda Strait.  However, "Evertsen" was spotted by "Murakumo" and "Shirakumo", looking for more escaping Allied ships. Both immediately illuminated "Evertsen" with their searchlights and took her under fire. "Evertsen" attempted to evade by turning west, but after turning southward again, the Dutch destroyer again encountered the Japanese destroyers. "Evertsen" was hit repeatedly, but temporarily disengaged under a smokescreen. By then, however, "Evertsen"'s stern was on fire. Still taking Japanese fire, the captain ordered his crew to ground "Evertsen" on a coastal reef. Firing all her torpedoes, the remaining crew escaped ashore before the fire reached the aft magazine, causing an explosion which blew off most of the stern.

Aftermath.

Officially the Allied personnel killed during the battle included 696 members of the crew of "Houston" and 375 from "Perth", including the captains of both vessels, Rooks and Waller. The survivors were picked up by Japanese vessels and taken prisoner, included 368 from "Houston" and 307 from "Perth". Rooks was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions. The majority of "Evertsen"s crew was taken prisoner on 9–10 March 1942 and were held by the Japanese for three and a half years.  The crew of the Japanese cruiser "Mikuma" suffered six killed and 11 wounded, as a result of damage caused by "Houston". A direct shell hit to the bridge of the destroyer "Shirayuki" killed one crew member and wounded 11; "Harukaze" suffered hits to her bridge, engine room and rudder, killing three and wounding more than 15 others.

The Battle of Sunda Strait was a naval battle which occurred during World War II in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java, and Sumatra. On the night of 28 February – 1 March 1942, the Australian light cruiser and the American heavy cruiser faced a major Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) task force. After a fierce battle of several hours' duration, both Allied ships were sunk. Five Japanese ships were sunk, three of them by friendly fire.